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soon as the backdrop was up and, after two regular, arm-in-arm photos, I reached down to sweep her off her feet and hold her the way she’d once held me when I was young. She was much lighter than I thought she’d be, and through laughter she screamed, “You goofball,” her standard response to all the nonsense I’ve imposed upon her over the decades. It was in that moment — her freckled arms wrapped around my neck, her smile at my shoulder — that I felt like I never wanted to put her down.
I feel embarrassed to admit that, following my initial shock, I quickly lulled myself into believing that my mother having cancer would be easy. There were optimistic doctors with a determined plan of attack, and there was my mom in good spirits, eating ice cream with a dulcet grin. But a few months after being diagnosed, following weeks of chemotherapy, my mother went in to see her oncologist, who told her that her condition was unchanged, the tumor was the same size. The new recommended course of action was a different type of chemotherapy, to be followed by a double mastectomy sometime in the fall. Even with the mastectomy, the oncologist stressed, triple-negative cancer has been known to recur in other organs, even years after it was thought to be gone.
My mother texted my brothers and me to break the news, and I called her immediately to get more information. Though she sounded exhausted and frustrated, she spoke matter-of-factly, as if she were detailing the hassles of a normal inconvenience—a flat tire, a missed dentist appointment. It was the same tone she’d used years before to scold me for swearing or sagging my pants, its meaning being I’m disappointed, but I’ll acknowledge that this isn’t the end of the world.
We hung up and I went back to my day. It was a hot one in late June, full of the routine indignities someone whose thoughts are consumed with tragedy can barely comprehend. If you’re ever interested in feeling as if you’re on the verge of losing your mind, you need complete only a two-step process:
Find a way to give someone you love deeply a life-threatening disease, and While your loved one is at home battling death, stand in a restaurant line behind a person complaining loudly that their burrito came with sour cream, even though they asked for no sour cream, and they guess they’ll just eat it with the sour cream, even though the calories, but maybe they should get a discount now, or, like, a soda?
I’d just returned home from a meeting when she called again. It had been only a few hours since we’d last talked and, as she stammered when I picked up, my heart sank with the anticipation of more bad news. “I didn’t tell you everything I wanted to earlier,” she said after gathering her tongue. “I wanted to say that I’m scared. I know you can’t do anything to change this, but it makes me feel better to let you know that I’m afraid.”
A few times a year, I’ll find myself gripped by the feeling that the spaces in which I live are inadequate arenas for the occasions when I feel most alive. My bedroom is a good place to shut off my brain and watch Netflix. The patio behind the Mexican restaurant down the street from my apartment is a nice venue to engage in small talk about work. But even the most familiar places feel like a jail cell when someone you love—the person who taught you how to love in the first place—is sharing with you that they’re worried the poison growing in their chest will eventually kill them. It seems like a kind of secular sin to absorb that moment within eyeshot of a stick of Old Spice deodorant or a pile of dry cleaning or a line of people snaking out of Starbucks; in other words, the mundanity with which we surround ourselves to forget that such moments exist. The day my mother called me to say that she was afraid, I hung up the phone and cried. It was less the weeping of a grief-stricken adult and more that of a baby exiting the womb, a thrashing while coming into a world colder and more blinding than the one that existed before. After that, I went to the beach.
I’m a bad Californian in that I almost never visit the ocean, though when I do I regret not going more. That day, the sun was low over the Pacific as joggers, tourists, surfers, and the homeless mingled on the boardwalk. The sky blurred from a soft blue at the horizon above the water into a cotton-candy pink, and the palm trees, their swaying fronds pressed against the neon atmosphere, looked like something out of Dr. Seuss. Everything was a reminder that it can be strange to receive bad news in Los Angeles, a city where one’s gloom is so often at odds with the climatic beauty all around.
I’d been there for only a few minutes before it dawned on me that I was within a frisbee’s toss of the beach where, two decades earlier, I’d seen that group of twentysomethings antagonize the drunk woman. Since becoming an adult, I’ve thought about that scene more than any other from my childhood. I remember the ugly smiles and the silver cans of beer glinting in the sun. I remember my failure to act, and I wonder whether speaking up could have changed anything. Would the cackling men have shooed me away, or would they have been ashamed at their callousness, so obviously hideous that even a child could see it was wrong? Most of all, I remember the conversation with my mother afterward, when I watched a woman who had come up against so much malice in her life attempt to make sense of it for someone else.
I have to think something most everyone with a sick loved one shares is a frustration over our inability to effect change in the situation. Life already offers up so many different ways to make you feel weak, and now you get to watch someone dear to you wither from a disease that confounds even scientists who have studied it their whole careers. You can offer an ill person support with words, food, or a hand on the shoulder, but ultimately you are little more than a spectator watching fate play out from seats even farther removed from the field than usual.
That day at the beach, with the brightness dulling to dark as the sun sank past the ocean, I realized that part of what I was struggling with in the wake of my mother’s diagnosis was a heavy sense of powerlessness. The same sort of powerlessness I’d felt years before on almost the same stretch of sand. If I’m being honest, the same sort of powerlessness I feel dozens of times a year. I then remembered that the only thing that’s made me feel consistently strong in my life is the recollection of my mother holding my hand, looking into my eyes, and entreating me to fight to stay kind in the face of the viciousness and grief existence likes to heap upon all of us.
When I think of my mother’s life up to this point, what I find most revealing is how much of the abuse hurled at her throughout the years came about solely because she showed care and love to the wrong kinds of people. Time and again, it was her openness to others that found her shut off from her friends, her church, her colleagues, even her own family. We seem to reserve a special rage in this world for those whose ability to be unafraid in pursuit of something new extends beyond our own. We begrudge them their strange friends and strange experiences under the guise that we find those things to be dangerous or unclean. But really we resent those people because their courage reminds us of how common and terrified we feel inside. Bravery is a virtue people revere in dead soldiers and then turn to disparage in someone extending her hand to a weirdo.
As a man who’s done it, I can say with certainty that it’s easy to roll down the window and call the person who cut you off on the freeway a “fucking asshole.” It’s easy to revere tradition over people’s feelings. It’s easy to respond to a broken heart with a devastating comment, one that cuts so deeply because you know everything about the person to whom you’re speaking, including the exact thing to say to crush them. It’s easy to be a racist. Tapping into the darker recesses of your lizard brain in order to live a life unencumbered by self-examination or regard for others is simple because it’s reflexive, like throwing a punch, like stealing Monopoly money from the bank when your little sister isn’t looking. Conversely, waking up each day and devoting yourself to being kind, even and especially to people who are not kind to you, is actually incredibly difficult. It is arduous and deliberate work, and the doing of it will at times make you feel small and foolish. What’s more, in the end, it will on its own merits almost never yield a person awards or honors or riches.
I am hopeful that my mother will be around to share many more years with us. But I’m now attempting to find some comfort in the idea that I can keep her close to me for as long as I live by struggling to remain decent, the pursuit that I’ve seen conjure up incredible power during the course of her life. The world takes from us relentlessly. It takes our friends and first loves. It takes our parents. It takes our faith. It takes our dignity. It takes our passion. It takes our health. It takes our honesty, and it takes our credulity. To lose so much and still hold onto yourself is perhaps the most complicated task human beings are asked to perform, which is why seeing it done with aplomb is as thrilling as looking at dinosaur bones or seeing a herd of elephants. It’s an honor to exist on Earth with these things.
One morning, after years of being scorned by her father, my mother got a phone call saying that he was gravely ill and would likely pass soon. She immediately made travel plans to fly back to Ohio and visit him on his deathbed. The day before she left, I found her sitting out on our back porch with my father, crying and looking into the thick snarl of desert that stretched out behind our home. I was still very young, and confused that I felt not even a twinge of grief upon finding out that my grandfather was dying. I was even more astonished that my mom, who had encountered so much cruelty from this man, was now weeping for him.
“Why are you so sad?” I finally asked after working up some gall. “Wasn’t he bad to you?” She grabbed my shoulder and pulled me into her, and for a few moments we embraced in silence, in awe of all the ways life can hurt you.
“Yes,” she said, after a while. “But I’d like to forgive him, and I hope one day you’ll understand.”
Follow Matter on Twitter | Like us on Facebook | Subscribe to our newsletterAdam Hilarie, seen with his daughter, Lajaya. (Facebook, with permission from the Hilarie family)
There was no reason for Adam Hilarie to believe anything but the obvious: He had just been on a promising first date with a pretty girl.
Hilarie had met Hailey Rose Bustos on PlentyOfFish, which bills itself as the largest dating site in the world. He’d picked her up and they went bowling in Winter Haven, Fla., at Cypress Lanes, which offers shoe and lane rentals for a quarter on Thursday nights, and specials on pizza and beer.
A few hours later, the pair ended up at his place, where they talked a bit more and met up with his roommate.
Hailey Bustos (Auburndale Police Department)
Then, Hilarie dropped his date off at home.
Bustos sent the single father a text afterward: She’d had a good time, she wrote to Hilarie, and wanted to meet up the following night at his place.
The next night, her real intentions became clear, police told The Washington Post.
Bustos, 18, brought three men with her to Hilarie’s place, including two career criminals on probation for violent felonies. At least one of the men, police said, had a gun.
When Hilarie, 27, responded to the knock on the door, the men overpowered him and dashed inside, police said.
The struggle ended in the kitchen.
[What is catfishing? A brief (and sordid) history.]
“Hilarie was begging for his life, he was not putting up any kind of fight, and was telling them that he had a 5-year-old daughter,” according to arrest reports obtained by the Orlando Sentinel.
Hilarie was shot in the head and collapsed on the kitchen floor, Auburndale’s Deputy Police Chief Andy Ray told The Washington Post.
With Hilarie on the floor in a pool of blood, Ray said, the suspects went downstairs, pulled their car to the front of the apartment and began stealing the dead man’s Xbox, iPhone and TVs — valuables Bustos had spotted the night before.
A witness told investigators that Bustos had been involved in at least one similar robbery before, Ray told The Post.
For her role in the deadly robbery of Adam Hilarie, Bustos was paid $50 in cash, police said.
Johnny Jackson told The Post that Hilarie, his brother, took Bustos to the same bowling alley the siblings used to go to as kids.
Jackson remembered his brother cracking jokes while wearing Florida State University colors, the school whose teams they cheered.
“When it came to sports, he was always the number one pick,” Jackson said. “He did a little amateur boxing, but he was one of the biggest Florida State fans. We was raised that way. We don’t wear the rival colors. We don’t put our kids in them.”
Nobody was more important to Hilarie than his daughter, Lajaya, he said. “He really loved his daughter,” Jackson said. “That was his world.”
Jackson said he didn’t know how long his brother and Bustos had been talking on PlentyOfFish. He estimated that Hilarie had been on the site less than two months, because that’s when Hilarie broke up with his last girlfriend. The brothers had talked about the site because Jackson is also a member.
“Half of the profiles, they don’t even put their real name,” Jackson said. “I see girls on there that their occupation is getting money. I stay way away from them.”
Ray, the deputy chief, said it’s unclear whether Bustos used her real name. At a news conference, he said he suspected that she was experienced with the scheme.
“Her comfort with the way this went, didn’t seem like it was her first time,” he said. “If she hasn’t done it before, then she has talked to people who have done it.”
It is unclear whether Bustos has hired an attorney, and her family members could not be reached for comment.
Memorial on fence at #Auburndale High School for Adam Hilarie nicknamed "boobie" @WFLA pic.twitter.com/FGYfkRdZkh — Melissa Marino (@WFLAMelissaM) August 22, 2016
‘You could come across a ‘Catfisher’ ‘
Using the lure of Internet love to get money from unsuspecting people is a scam as old as the Web itself. Experts say people are getting better at spotting many of the Internet’s longtime scams: They’re suspicious of unsolicited emails from the Nigerian royal family, and they ignore the romantic entreaties of beautiful lovestruck women who sound vaguely like badly programmed algorithms.
The Federal Trade Commission shows what people dating online need to look out for to avoid getting tricked into a money scam. (Federal Trade Commission)
But the criminals are getting smarter, too. And on dating sites, would-be scammers have a trump card: People are irrational when they’re looking for love.
“Romance is by definition quite irrational,” Jack Levin, co-director of Northeastern University’s Brudnick Center on Violence and Conflict, told The Post. “And the smartest person can be taken in during the early stages of the dating process. Except now it’s more sophisticated and easier for someone to lie and cheat and fabricate because they can pretty much change their identity to make it fit a new reality.”
Scammers, Levin said, “are experts at presentation of self. When you’re dealing with the Internet, you don’t need the resources that you might need in an interpersonal relationship, or face-to-face. But on the Internet all you need really is to be very skillful at presenting yourself as something that you aren’t. And it’s so much easier for someone to do that online.”
It’s unclear how many people across the United States have been caught up in so-called romance schemes, although the FBI and the FTC have both issued warnings against them.
“Millions of Americans visit online dating websites every year hoping to find a companion or even a soulmate,” the FBI said just before Valentine’s Day, adding that “the FBI wants to warn you that criminals use these sites, too, looking to turn the lonely and vulnerable into fast money through a variety of scams.”
[How well online dating works, according to someone who has been studying it for years]
Most victims walk away with lightened pockets and broken hearts. In rare instances, victims — like Hilarie — can lose their lives.
Still, stories exist across the country of people looking for love but finding violent criminals instead.
In June, robbery victims in Florida told police they had shown up at hotels in Oldmar and Clearwater expecting to meet a woman with the screen name “Curvy Cameron 93.” She never showed; instead, two men with guns held the victims up, according to NBC affiliate WFLA.
Detectives told WFLA that they feared that victims would be afraid to come forward because they would be embarrassed telling people how they got robbed.
That same month, a 36-year-old man was robbed in Ohio after getting together with a woman he met on PlentyOfFish, according to Cleveland.com. As the victim escorted the woman known as “Nikki” to his car, a man with a gun appeared and the pair robbed the victim of $300, then ran away.
In November, the Boston Police Department warned daters to be wary of people they met online after robbers targeted victims who thought they were meeting a romantic interest at a specific address.
“When the person arrives outside that location, they are approached by a male suspect armed with a handgun and robbed of their property,” Boston police said. “As of now, investigators believe there have been 6 such incidents in the past 5 weeks. …
“Members of the public are urged to take precautions when using social media or dating websites because it’s possible you could come across a ‘Catfisher.’ ”
[After Craigslist seller’s armed-robbery convictions, prosecutor warns: ‘Avoid becoming a victim’]
Criminals searching for real-world victims online haven’t just focused on dating sites. Robberies and other violent Craigslist-related crimes across the United States — including multiple slayings — have sparked wariness among some Internet bargain hunters, too, giving police department parking lots a second life as a place to buy stuff from strangers.
“To avoid becoming a victim of these crimes, we urge members of the public to arrange meetings with online vendors in public places, such as local police departments,” John Horn, the assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, said following the sentencing hearing of a Craigslist robber.
On the website’s personal safety page, Craigslist emphasizes that a tiny fraction of transactions conducted through the site end in crime.
“The overwhelming majority of craigslist users are trustworthy and well-meaning,” the site says. “With billions of human interactions, the incidence of violent crime related to craigslist is extremely low.
“Millions of violent crimes occur in the U.S. each year: 10,000+ homicides, 600,000+ robberies, 5 million assaults. Vanishingly few of these are craigslist-related.”
In the online dating space, finding a safe solution to scams has evaded law enforcement authorities and the sites themselves, according to David Evans, who has tracked the business of online dating since 2002.
A perfect tool doesn’t yet exist to vet the person at the other end of a match, Evans told The Post. Even if it did, users would be wary of putting sensitive information — a decade-old DUI, for example, or a teenage misdemeanor — on a site anyone could access.
“The dating industry doesn’t have enough usable tools to date to be able to provide additional levels of comfort or confidence in the other person,” Evans told The Post. “If they had done an ID verification, even a simple verification app, that scares people away.
“This is always going to happen. There are always going to be these sad stories.”
‘Do not go to someone’s home’
In a statement emailed to The Washington Post, a spokeswoman for PlentyOfFish said “the security and well-being of our users is a top priority at PlentyOfFish, and we were deeply saddened to hear of this senseless crime. Our thoughts are with the loved ones of the victim at this time.”
The statement added: “We aim to inform our millions of users of the necessary safety precautions when it comes to meeting someone new, whether it be online or offline. If you’re headed out on a date, always tell someone where you’re going, and ensure it’s in a public place. Do not go to someone’s home, invite them to yours, or meet at a hotel.”
The scheme that ended with Hilarie dead in his kitchen began to unravel days after the shooting.
Bustos, who has a lengthy criminal record, was being investigated for an unrelated burglary charge when she was approached Sunday by detectives. But she drove away and escaped, said Ray, the deputy police chief.
A witness to the burglary mentioned Bustos’s connection to Hilarie’s killing, Ray said, and police investigating his death began to focus their attention on the teen.
On Monday, police announced that four people in the Hillarie case had been charged with murder: Bustos; Andrew Maurice Warner, 26; Gary Terrell Gray, 31; and Joshua Ellington, 26.
Andrew Maurice Warner; Gary Terrell Gray; Joshua Ellington (Auburndale, Fla., Police Department)
Investigators say they believe Warner was the one who pulled the trigger. All four are also charged with conspiracy to commit robbery and robbery with a gun.
Ray said his police department is trying to determine whether Bustos and the other suspects have committed other, similar crimes in the area. He cautioned people on dating websites to be wary when they meet with matches in real life.
“You really shouldn’t take someone to the place that you live,” he told reporters at a news conference. “You should get to know them better than that so you can judge their character and also know their intentions. … Remember you have no idea who you’re talking to. They may present themselves as one thing and be something totally different.”
Read more:
This couple didn’t tip their Latina server. They left a hateful message instead.
White supremacist stabs interracial couple after seeing them kiss at bar, police say
After blaze at firefighter’s home, investigators arrest his neighbor — a former firefighter
‘The ice cream is as bitter and cold as the owner’: After tirade, Internet turns on woman’s businessMumblecore darling and acclaimed actor Greta Gerwig has just released her directorial debut to universal praise. The Sacramento-set story concerns Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson (Saoirse Ronan) and her senior year at a Catholic high school. The film is one of the most original films to be released this year, so we put together a reading list that will deepen your next viewing, when you drag your parents to see it.
Moods by Louisa May Alcott
One of the themes in Lady Bird is how romantic love can fail to provide a sense of validation. Gerwig wanted to tell a coming-of-age story for women where male affection is not the central goal of growth. In the same regard, Louisa May Alcott’s first novel approaches a similar conclusion: that men are not necessary accessories to the female inner self. Like Lady Bird, the protagonist, Sylvia Yule, bounces between two suitors who fail in every capacity to provide maturity or emotional satisfaction.
The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Jay Fowler
One of the most magnificent aspects of the film was the ability to dip into the private turmoil of every character. In just a few frames, Gerwig hinted at the depth and richness of everyone in the film. In the same manner, The Jane Austen Book Club takes plunges into the members of a Sacramento book club to examine their ambitions, desires, and failures with incredible empathy and drama.
Eve’s Hollywood by Eve Babitz
Gerwig was intent to film something in her hometown of Sacramento, to provide an artistic defense of the city. The production is akin to Eve Babitz’s semi-memoir where she opens with a bold artistic retort to east coast critics who thought California was a vapid place. She fills the city with stories of the creatives, ingénues, and heartbreaks that created a Hollywood of vivid sentimentality. While Lady Bird learned to love her city, Eve begins with an overwhelming affection for her California.
Delicious: The Art and Life of Wayne Thiebaud by Susan Goldman Rubin
If you’ve seen the poster for Lady Bird, you can already tell how a bright pastel palette comes to define the look of the film. The artist Wayne Thiebaud was the immediate influence to the film’s colouring. He transformed the beauty of Northern California into everyday objects (cakes mostly) and Gerwig did the same, even making a thrift store shine like a painting. This book is one of the most encompassing of his career and has the largest selection of his works in print.
The White Album by Joan Didion
In the same manner of Eve Babitz, Joan Didion also validated the intellectual geography of Sacramento. As Lady Bird begins to realize the class constraints of her world, she develops a new critical lens towards her hometown just as she’s leaving it. Didion went through a similar transition in examining her California as an artistic idealisation of Americana. When Gerwig found out she shared a hometown with the essayist, she described it as “spiritually seismic.” That might explain why she opens her film with a Didion quote.
The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy
Dundy’s novel is one of the most whirlwind coming-of-age stories to be published. Why it hasn’t displaced Catcher in the Rye as the go-to American wayward youth novel confuses every reader but give it time. The pink haired heroine shares many of the same impulses as Lady Bird and the novel comes at the recommendation of the director herself.
Hunger of Memory by Richard Rodriguez
Though Rodriguez’s memoir deals explicitly with the minority experience in America, there are shared themes between his book and Gerwig’s film: ambitious educational goals, Catholic school upbringing, the artistic restlessness of egotistical teens. The traumas Rodriguez later faces are vastly different from Lady Bird’s, but the echoes are there. And one of Gerwig’s beliefs is the ability to connect seemingly disparate stories by the ability to empathize. As she said in a 2015 interview: “…I think that humans have such a huge capacity for empathy, and it’s so weirdly underused in the cycle of building people up and tearing them down, but anything that taps into a sense of all of our brokenness is elevating, even though it feels like it’s showing something dark.”
(Honorable mentions to The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck and Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States for their hilarious placements in Lady Bird.)Timothy J. Sloan was named chief executive of Wells Fargo last week after nearly 30 years with the bank. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
For more than 100 years, Wells Fargo has been ubiquitous in San Francisco. The City by the Bay is the bank’s hometown and Wells Fargo is one of its largest employers. There is even a museum in the city dedicated to the stagecoach Wells Fargo once used to cross the Western Plains.
Next week, San Francisco officials are scheduled to vote on whether to cut off business with Wells Fargo, in perhaps one of the most personal rebukes the bank has faced since acknowledging that it fired 5,300 employees for setting up unauthorized accounts customers didn’t want to meet aggressive sales goals.
“It’s disheartening to see our hometown bank was engaged in this sort of reckless behavior,” said John Avalos, a member of the city’s Board of Supervisors.
And San Francisco is not alone. California, Illinois and Massachusetts have all taken steps to suspend ties with the bank, one of the largest in the world. Ohio Gov. John Kasich said “Wells Fargo’s culture was compromised by greed” when he announced the state would stop doing business with the bank for a year. “This company has lost the right to do business with the State of Ohio because its actions have cost it the public’s confidence,” Kasich said.
The bank also lost its Better Business Bureau accreditation. The 100-year old organization cited the sales scandal among the reasons for pulling its seal of approval from Wells Fargo after more than 35 years. But the bureau has also has received more than 4,000 complaints about the bank over the last three years and of 107 customer reviews it has received, all but four were negative.
“It means they no longer meet the standards of trust,” said Jarrod Wise, a spokesman for the Better Business Bureau in the San Francisco Bay area. “They no longer qualify for accreditation.”
It is just the last embarrassing episode for Wells Fargo. More than a month after it agreed to an $185 million fine and acknowledged that for at least five years thousands of employees set up sham accounts customers didn’t want, sometimes by moving money from an authorized account, Wells Fargo is still struggling to contain the damage.
Its’ long-time CEO, John G. Stumpf, has retired and the company says it is spending millions to improve its internal compliance process. A slump in its stock price has pushed Wells Fargo from its perch as the world’s largest bank by market value. (Earlier this week, Stumpf also resigned from the boards of Target and Chevron. He had already resigned from an advisory role with the Federal Reserve.)
“Our No. 1 priority is making things right with our customers and restoring public trust, and we are dedicated to ensuring that all aspects of the company’s business are conducted with integrity, transparency, and oversight,” the bank said in a statement.
“We have already taken important steps, and will continue to do so, to ensure that the sales culture in our retail banking business is 100 percent aligned with our customers’ interests, including ending product sales goals for everyone in the retail banking business to make certain nothing gets in the way of doing what’s right for customers.”
Our new CEO is a financial services veteran who keeps customers top of mind and is committed to rebuilding trust: https://t.co/kIb5VJWHds. pic.twitter.com/fKmjG7KPK4 — Wells Fargo News (@WellsFargoNews) October 17, 2016
But that process is being hamstrung by the nature of the scheme, a scandal that touched customers directly, industry officials say. “The relatability of this scandal will extend” its life, said Isaac Boltansky of Compass Point Research & Trading. “Ultimately, the public will move on … but Wells Fargo will be in the public relations penalty box for the foreseeable future.”
And it likely to get worse as lawmakers and regulators continue to investigate the case. “The byzantine regulatory infrastructure we have has allowed this death by a thousand cuts to occur,” said Edward Mills, financial policy analyst with FBR Capital Markets. “If this was pre-financial crisis, it would have received little attention.”
The House Financial Services Committee is conducting its own inquiry into the case and federal prosecutors are considering potential civil or criminal charges. On Thursday, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) sent a letter to the bank questioning whether its former CEO, Stumpf, will be forced to give up more of his compensation.
“If Mr. Stumpf is allowed to walk away with tens of millions of dollars in compensation that he received while bank employees were engaging in widespread fraudulent activity, then he has profited from the bank’s fraud,” the letter said.Over the years, people had suggested Drew McGinty should consider running for office but he’d never felt focused enough on politics to take the leap. While a leader in his community in areas such as green energy, it wasn’t until last November’s election of Donald Trump that the Pennsylvania native, growing tired of the extremism and polarization of the country’s politics, decided to put himself forward for the state’s 7th District.
“I figured I’ve always been a moderate and I've always found ways to work with different diverse groups of people. I said, ‘Enough is enough. I can go in there and I can work with pretty much everybody and I have the skills, the temperate, and the passion,’” McGinty told IrishCentral.
In a highly gerrymandered congressional district where Democrats have won only two of the last 15 elections for Congress, and where the incumbent representative, Republican and fellow Irish American Pat Meehan, has held the seat since 2011, McGinty believes his focus on economic security, his moderate views, and the fact that, like our President, he is not a career politician, will be enough to see him through.
“How many IT people are running for office who never ran for office before,” he asks.
“I started my own company. I started, with some others, a volunteer not-for-profit in 2006, the Ulster American society, with a focus on advocating continued American support of economic development and peace keeping in Northern Ireland.”
“There are many people I've come across who are first time politicians,” he continued.
“I think it's a competitive advantage. I think people are tired of what's going on and the election of Trump put it over the edge for many people. They can't take it anymore and they need to get out and, like myself, do something.
“I truly believe that there's a lot of value I can bring to the people of the district with my experience and skills in both professional and volunteer, charitable work over 30 plus years. I think we need more non-career politician who can help solve problems.”
We need a representative that will focus on the future and @RepMeehan is not the man for the job. #McGinty4Congresshttps://t.co/YldF1yilJc — McGinty For Congress (@DrewMcGinty) August 10, 2017
Having lived in Montgomery County all his life up until two years ago, McGinty has spent 21 of his 30 professional years working in the healthcare industry - 13 of these in health insurance companies, several years in pharmaceutical, and about 2 years in health/hospital systems - a career history that the Irish American, whose family hails from Ulster, believes to have shown him that the US can achieve universal health care for all.
“The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been a dramatic step forward in ensuring that all Americans have high-quality affordable health care throughout their lives and for the things they need it for,” he explains.
“We need to protect the ACA. It's critical that we protect it and we need to improve upon it. It's not perfect but it was a dramatic step in the right direction and we just need to protect and improve. Those are the two things I tell people: Protect it and then improve it.
While universal healthcare is a critical pillar in his campaign, it’s economic security for all Americans that is the lynch pin to McGinty’s run for office, a vital issue he believes will lead to improved education, better jobs, and improved healthcare, in turn, if properly addressed.
“I think back to the time with my first wife when she was a homemaker, we had two young children, I was at a full-time job and I was going to study my master's degree at night,” McGinty reflects.
“I was worried about which bill I was going to pay; how am I going to pay this bill, how am I going to pay that bill, I've got to feed my wife and children, I've got to have a roof over their heads.
“I wasn't thinking about the environment or many social issues. When you're just surviving, which more and more people do now, they’re just surviving, you get caught in survival mode and you can't break out and have the freedom to really explore what you want to do with your lives and with the lives of your children and your family and that's horrible.
“When we focus on economic security, other things will come.”
In particular, McGinty feels that America needs to place the same weight on trade skills as they do on getting to college, no longer measuring the success of the country on the number of people we manage to send to university but on the number of people we prepare for employment, measuring prospective employees on different metrics depending on where their skills lie.
Representing the @IrishDems at a meet-and-greet with Secretary @madeleine Albright and Philly ethnic community leaders yesterday morning. pic.twitter.com/tT5PcLFU6Z — McGinty For Congress (@DrewMcGinty) October 16, 2016
“The skilled trades are vital to the success of our young people and the nation,” he enforces.
“We have metrics about the nation and about how many people go to college but I think that these metrics should be gone.
“We have people go to college and university now, they get these degrees, they come out and they're highly in debt. It’s, first of all, tough to get a job and then when they do, they're minimum wage jobs.
“They can't realize the American Dream being weighed down with the horrible burden of debt and making barely living wages... The country is shifting away. We should be focusing as much on the skilled trades and different paths.
“It's just not for young people, too,” McGinty concludes.
“I think we need to look at when one industry starts into decline, like coal mining, those jobs aren't coming back and so we should have programs for older people to be retrained in skilled trades so they can go on and find other jobs.
“People don't like change but sometimes we’re forced to. We need to look at other skilled trades that they could possibly go into.”
Drew McGinty is a Democratic candidate running in Pennsylvania’s 7th district. You can find more information on him here.My son Jordan Davis was killed after playing loud music in the parking lot of a convenience store in Florida, a state with a discriminatory “stand your ground” law, by a man who decided to shoot first and ask questions later.
It’s been three years now since Jordan was killed — but as his mother, the pain never subsides. And sadly, I’m far from the only mom feeling it. Every year more than 33,000 people |
comeback before enlistment. The excitement only heightened when it was revealed that besides stops in Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia, tour dates for the US, Canada, and Australia were also included, making this upcoming world tour the first time G-Dragon will tour these countries sans his group members. European fans were left disappointed, however, with no forthcoming dates listed anywhere in Europe and the UK, making this the latest in a long line of highly anticipated world tours where Europe was skipped as a touring destination.
Their complaints are frequent and quite vocal but in spite of this, why do K-pop concert tours skip Europe so frequently?
Well, before explanations are offered, it is important to understand the purpose of organising world tours for K-pop artists. An obvious reason is the revenue generated — concerts are a large source of revenue with money generated from tickets and official group merchandise sold. To give a local example of how much artists and agencies can make from touring alone, Chicago-based artist, Chance the Rapper, famously releases his music and mixtapes for free online, generating all of his sizable revenue from touring and merchandise alone. Also, world tours are likely to increase recognition of artists overseas, satisfying their international fans in the process.
For many, seeing their idols perform for them up close is a dream come true; casual fans who attend the concert are more likely to legitimately support them afterwards by buying their albums, streaming their music online and buying official merchandise, increasing fandom strength and revenue in the future.
So taking all of these reasons into consideration, why don’t major entertainment agencies organise concerts in Europe? Actually, there’s a bit of a common misconception there. Contrary to popular belief, entertainment agencies don’t play a part in the arrangements for their artists’ tours. Indeed, outside of Korea it is up to promoters like MyMusicTaste, MoonRok, IME, and NOIX Productions to arrange for the artist to come to their country. These promoters are required to:
Coordinate with the agency regarding the proposed set list.
Pay a hefty fixed fee to the agency for the artists’ performance — it goes without saying that the more popular an artist, the more exorbitant the fixed fee.
Book a venue — same as above, the larger the venue the more expensive the booking fee.
Plan a tech rider — a one-page document that gives the venue and sound engineer an understanding of what the concert’s technical requirements are and how to set up the stage before the artists arrive.
Plan a hospitality rider — a list of requests for the comfort of the artists. This includes planning their hotels, transportation, security personnel, and meals.
And as if this workload wasn’t enough, the possibility of not breaking even lurks at the back of the promoter’s mind. Concerts, after all, require large amounts of money to even get started. Promoters and producers fully assume the financial risks of a tour, meaning if the promoters don’t sell enough tickets for a particular concert, they could end up losing tens of thousands of dollars after paying the fixed fee to the artist’s agency. Some of the initial fees can be paid for by finding sponsors willing to foot a portion of the bill in exchange for advertising, but the hard truth is that concerts are an expensive business.
On one hand, in Asia, where K-pop is significantly more popular, concerts of a larger scale are successfully held more often over the years. Thanks to strong local demand, local promoters specializing in bringing K-pop to their own countries have blossomed and grown within their respective countries over the years. At each concert, the promoters successfully organize help in building their local reputation, gaining a better understanding of how to promote upcoming concerts towards the target demographic as well as amassing their contacts with potential sponsors and advertisers, making future larger-in-scale arena concerts (such as SM Entertainment’s SMTOWN and EXOPLANET VOL. 2: The Exoluxion potentially easier to organize.
On the other hand, the fact that it is up to promoters to promote and organize concerts outside of Korea explains why smaller scale concerts from less popular groups are held in the US and Europe more often, in theatres that can hold approximately 2100 – 2900 people at maximum capacity. Groups that are less popular will require a lower fixed fee to be paid upfront; a lower fixed fee means that less tickets need to be sold for the promoters to break even and profit; less tickets needing to be sold means that a smaller venue for the concert will suffice (such as Block B‘s Blockbuster Tour in the US and Europe), lowering the venue’s rental and preparation costs.
Another issue is the technical rider. While typically K-pop concerts rely very little on props due to their inherent reliance on dance, the more popular groups can afford to splurge with elaborate stage design and effects. Unless the budget allows for the transportation of specific props, it may be difficult for the performances and the concert set list to be fully unchanged from the original. For example, in the case of Exo’s North American leg of the Exoluxion Tour, certain props had to be recreated from scratch (Chanyeol’s diamond-shaped DJ booth for “Drop That”), and performances entirely reliant on certain props (“El Dorado” and the lightsaber platform) were either axed or had to be replaced at a moment’s notice.
In short, smaller concerts featuring less popular artists, especially in countries where K-pop isn’t as popular (such as the US and Europe) are easier to organize and poses less of a financial risk than larger concerts from more popular groups. This explains why highly anticipated acts such as Big Bang, Exo and BTS do not tour in the West as often as they do in Asia — the costs are too much and the risks are greater than most promoters are confident in handling. In BTS’ case, it’s worth noting that the only time they came to Europe was for their fanmeet in 2014, ‘RWeL8?’, before their popularity — and consequentially their fixed fee — skyrocketed in 2015 following “I Need U“.In dramatic turnaround on previous decision, Vizhnitz yeshiva students told to enlist all together on a special day after long negotiations.
In a dramatic move the haredi Vizhnitz Hassidic stream has reversed a two-year old decision to have its young men refuse to enlist in the IDF, and in a new announcement called on its youth to join the army.
Vizhnitz leaders originally decided against IDF service due to issues of modesty concerning proximity to female soldiers, along with the storm around the Enlistment Law that sparked fury in the haredi world by trying to press haredim into enlistment on the threat of criminal sanctions.
But the Rebbe of Vizhnitz last Friday issued a new order having Vizhnitz yeshiva students enlist, according to the haredi site Kikar Hashabbat.
The announcement last Friday noted that the change comes as a result of long negotiations between Deputy Health Minister Ya'akov Litzman (United Torah Judaism), who represented Vizhnitz, together with senior IDF sources.
Students of army age will be led in a special day of enlistment supervised by heads of the Vizhnitz yeshivas, according to the announcement.
"Students who have not yet reported for their first draft notice according to the order of the (Rebbe of Vizhnitz - ed.)...as well as youths who were born up to the date January 16, 1999 (even if they have not yet receive a first draft notice) will appear together on a special enlistment day (and not on other days!)," read the notice.
The agreement is seen as being partly the result of United Torah Judaism's coalition agreements with Likud, as well as the spirit of unity that gripped the nation during last summer's war against Hamas terrorists, all of which pushed the negotiations forward.News • Sunday, December 17th, 2017
Can I buy beer to go?
YES!!
We get this question multiple times a day in our tasting room and we can finally answer Yes!
It’s been a long journey to get to this point but we’ll keep it short and sweet. If you want a lengthier story about this journey check out www.hopsandjosh.com.
Starting this Thursday, December 21st we’ll begin selling beer to go from our tap room. We recently completed a license swithcharoo and converted our TABC permit from a Brewers permit to a Brewpub permit. While quite a bit will be changing in our tap room there will be absolutely no changes to the way that we distribute our beer or our plans for growth and expansion for 2018. But it does mean that we can now offer anyone who visits our tap room the complete brewery experience by being able to visit, take a tour, sample beers, order a flight, pint, pitcher, etc. and then when you’re ready to leave, grab a can, 6 pack, crowler or growler to take home with you!
Now we’re not quite ready to open the floodgates just yet so below are a few dates and details for how this new process is going to work and the beers that’ll be available.
Thursday December 21st- Beginning when we open at 10am you’ll be able to purchase fresh cans of The One They Call Zoe, A Pale Mosaic or River Beer to take home. No limit on the number of 6 packs you can buy. All 3 of these beers will be canned on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this coming week so you’ll be buying some super fresh beer straight from the source! We also have a limited availability of our Volumes of Oak Belgian Style Saison that will also be available Thursday. This beer was aged in one of our oak foeders for 12 months with a mixed culture of brettanomyces and belgian saison yeast and then bottle conditioned for natural carbonation. There will be a limit of 2 bottles per customer per day. You can also fill a growler of any of the 16 beers that we have on tap in our tasting room with no limit on growler fills.
January 2018- At the beginning of the new year we’ll be installing our Crowler machine and will begin offering all of the beers available in our tap room in these 32 oz take home aluminum vessels. We will also begin releasing new can offerings weekly sold by the can and available for mix and match cases of everything available. These releases will be announced each Monday and cans will be available on the Thursday of that same week and will be available until they run out. Depending on availability we may limit the amount each person can purchase per day but for now the plan is to leave the amount per customer as unlimited. Earlier this year we began distributing a limited amount of our Dispensary Series Pale Ale and IPA as well as Pellets & Powder IPA and Lupulin Rodeo IPA in 6 packs of 12 oz cans. These will continue to be produced but will be available as singles in the tasting room. We’ll also begin canning our Double Dry-hopped Pale Mosaic as well as a new Pale Ale called Terpene Tango APA. From there the sky is the limit on what we’ll start canning and selling to go from our tasting room. Thanks to the upcoming installation of a new labeling machine that will allow us to efficiently fill and label blank silver cans with labels. This enables us to run very small batches of one off beers through our canning line without having to purchase large amounts of printed cans. Even our Volumes of Oak series of barrel aged beers will start to become available next year in cans!
Exciting stuff for us here at H&G and we look forward to expanding the experience for everyone who visits our tasting room. As with everything we do at the brewery, time is important and crucial for a quality product and experience. We’ve learned a ton over the past 6 years of making beer in east Austin and I can only imagine that we’ll learn quite a bit more as we move forward with this exciting new phase of our business.
Cheers friends, we couldn’t do any of this without you!Transportation cybersecurity to go under the microscope
With help from Eric Geller, Cristiano Lima, Jordyn Hermani, Mary Lee, Mike Farrell, Laurens Cerulus and Daniel Lippman
Editor's Note: This edition of Morning Cybersecurity is published weekdays at 10 a.m. POLITICO Pro Cybersecurity subscribers hold exclusive early access to the newsletter each morning at 6 a.m. To learn more about POLITICO Pro's comprehensive policy intelligence coverage, policy tools and services, click here.
QUICK FIX
Story Continued Below
— Two House Homeland Security subcommittees gavel in to examine cyber threats to transportation infrastructure. Lawmakers are especially worried about railroads and highways.
— Former House Intel chairman Mike Rogers said penalties against Huawei shouldn’t be mixed with trade talks. National security and trade should be kept apart, he argued.
— New research finds investment in cyber remains high, with nearly $5.3 billion in deals last year. That almost double the amount from 2016.
HAPPY TUESDAY and welcome to Morning Cybersecurity! Send your thoughts, feedback and especially tips to tstarks@politico.com, and be sure to follow @POLITICOPro and @MorningCybersec. Full team info below.
Driving the Day
CYBER IN THE HOUSE — The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee will sound the alarm about the growing digital threat to surface infrastructure, such as railroads and highways, at a joint hearing today. "Given the level of risk to surface transportation, I am concerned that we have not sufficiently protected this sector against cyber threats," Rep. Bennie Thompson will say in his opening statement. "Small-scale attacks have shown that a relatively simple intrusion could upend surface transportation services, causing significant harm and disruption."
His comments will be echoed by the top Republican on the Transportation and Maritime Security subpanel. “As cyber actors become more sophisticated and surface transportation systems become increasingly reliant on computer systems,” Debbie Lesko will say, "the vulnerability of this critical sector grows, along with the risk posed by nefarious actors who may seek to exploit cybersecurity vulnerabilities to cause service disruptions or conduct economic espionage.”
Despite visceral fears about trains flying off the tracks, foreign operatives are more interested in undermining confidence in U.S. institutions than killing people, John Hultquist, director of intelligence analysis at FireEye, plans to tell the committee. “Our adversaries are not necessarily preparing for a doomsday situation or any lasting blow, but an asymmetric scenario where they can project power within our shores,” Hultquist will say in his opening remarks, provided in advance to POLITICO. “Ultimately, their aim may be to sow chaos rather than achieve some complex military objective.”
Lawmakers on the House Energy and Commerce consumer protection subcommittee today will weigh the merits of federal privacy legislation, a session that comes amid a groundswell of calls for regulation. No draft privacy proposals are expected to be unveiled at the session, according to two Democratic staffers. But the hearing could signal how close or far apart lawmakers are on striking a deal to extend additional data protections to consumers.
Expect officials to broach whether federal privacy standards should override state laws. Both E&C ranking member Greg Walden and subcommittee ranking member Cathy McMorris Rodgers will call for establishing a single federal standard on privacy, according to spokespeople. “One state should not set the standards for the rest of the country,” says Walden in his remarks. But House Democrats have resisted those efforts.
STEP BACK, DOORS CLOSING — Five House Democrats from the D.C. region want the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority to prevent foreign adversaries such as Russia or China from compromising the security of its new 8000-series railcars. In a letter sent Monday, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton and Reps. Gerry Connolly, Jamie Raskin, David Trone and Anthony Brown told Metro General Manager Paul Wiedefeld that they had “pressing concerns” about the transit agency’s plans to protect the railcars from hackers, given that the largest and most successful railcar manufacturers are foreign companies, some of them based in China.
The lawmakers asked Wiedefeld if Metro had consulted with DHS about “attempts by foreign adversaries to infiltrate our critical infrastructure, including through participation in the procurement process,” and whether Metro would factor in “a company’s ties to foreign governments with a record of industrial and cyber espionage into account when evaluating bids.” It also requested details about the recent cybersecurity addendum to Metro’s request for proposals.
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CHINA
MIXING CHINA TRADE DEAL WITH HUAWEI A ‘MISTAKE’ — Former House Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers said it would be a “serious mistake” if the Trump administration blends China trade talks with penalties on Huawei, and he championed a long-delayed telecom security executive order. “I do support an EO,” he said during a Monday panel discussion hosted by the American Security Project. The White House is expected to release a directive that would effectively ban Huawei from selling advanced telecommunications equipment in the U.S. “We obviously haven’t seen it, but there’s speculation about what’s in it,” Rogers said.
Although the Trump White House has repeatedly slammed China over economic espionage, the president appeared to backpedal in a Feb. 21 tweet that he prefers the U.S. to win through “competition, not blocking out currently more advanced technologies.” “I hope they drop this like a hot potato,” Rogers said on the president’s efforts to tie the two issues together. This is a “national security issue,” not a trade issue, he said.
POSTCARD FROM BARCELONA — PIECE OF THE PAI: The telecom fest that is the Mobile World Congress kicks off Day 2 this morning. Some have dubbed it "the-U.S.-vs.-Huawei conference," but today we'll also look at privacy and how 5G will change economics and policy.
On Monday, Huawei's president of the western European region, Vincent Pang, showed off a prototype of the Mate X foldable phone at a press briefing. But the main questions were more about the company's position in Europe's and the world's supply chain. "We want to be more open, more transparent," Pang said. Asked whether Huawei is considering building more security centers, like the one opening in Brussels soon, he said: "If local operators or governments don't have any interest in working with you, it doesn't make any sense.... It depends on the joint interests." That's you, America.
RESEARCH CORNER
WAIT, DON’T CLICK THAT — Research from the data security firm Bromium out today suggests hackers are using fake advertisements and infected plug-ins to install keyloggers, steal data, unleash ransomware or even hide for future attacks. According to the report, more than 1.3 billion social media users have had their data compromised in the past five years due to online cyber scams, helping to fuel a more than $3 billion global industry of social media-related cybercrimes. By using chain exploitation, hackers can reach the greatest number of users with malware across multiple platforms.
Cryptomining and other digital currency scams also saw an increase of between 400 percent and 600 percent since 2017, the report said, with many users falling victim to faked celebrity accounts asking for fans to wire them money or by clicking on malware-infested YouTube advertisements.
MONEY TREES — Some of the biggest publicly traded cyber companies are flush with cash, leading to speculation they’re eager to buy up young firms to fill out product portfolios, according to research out today from Strategic Cyber Ventures, a Washington venture capital firm. It found that Juniper Networks ended 2018 with $3.56 billion in cash and with Palo Alto Networks banked $3.2 billion. Overall, investment in cyber is still booming, with nearly $5.3 billion in deals last year (about double 2016 totals). The West Coast led the way with $2.5 billion flowing into firms there. Venture capitalists are also fueling the growth of foreign cyber startups, spending about $450 million in Israel last year.
THREATENING CLOUDS — A vulnerability in various cloud services allows attackers to implant malicious backdoors and code into the firmware of a server or the cloud itself with minimal effort, according to research from cybersecurity firm Eclypsium. The vulnerability, dubbed CloudBourne, allows attackers to cause serious damage to the most sensitive applications and services in the cloud and can be passed from one customer to the next, the company found.
On Monday, IBM acknowledged a cloud vulnerability but said the company "has found no indication that this vulnerability has been exploited for malicious purposes." The company said it had reset the firmware and passwords for the systems involved — although an Eclypsium researcher said that an IBM system he worked on earlier this month showed no changes.
People on the Move
— Todd Carroll, who led the FBI’s cyber investigations in Chicago and then served as the No. 2 official at the Chicago field office, has joined CyberAngel as vice president of cyber operations.
— David Smentek is now director of business development for Armored Things, a Boston-based cybersecurity startup. Smentek was a long-time House GOP Conference staffer and legislative director for McMorris Rodgers.
TWEET OF THE DAY — Today in unexpected cheers …
— One of Australia's senior military officials is losing sleep over cyberattacks. Australian Broadcasting Corporation
— Researchers are exploring if electric car charging stations increase disruptions to the electric grid. CyberScoop
— Singapore is trying to boost its digital defenses. The Diplomat
— Sen. Mark Warner asked health care sector leaders what they want in a cyber strategy. NextGov
— The head of Britain's cybersecurity agency warned the internet will become “less governed” unless norms are adopted. Sky News
That’s all for today.
Stay in touch with the whole team: Mike Farrell (mfarrell@politico.com, @mikebfarrell); Eric Geller (egeller@politico.com, @ericgeller); Martin Matishak (mmatishak@politico.com, @martinmatishak) and Tim Starks (tstarks@politico.com, @timstarks).Get the biggest celebs 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
Coldplay frontman Chris Martin is being lined up as a judge on pop talent show American Idol.
Show bosses are keen to sign the singer up, say sources.
Negotiations are said to be in full swing and it is hoped Chris will be confirmed over the coming weeks.
A source said: “ABC bosses were keen to get Chris on board as soon as the new series was given the green light.
"Chris is a great performer and they think he would make the perfect judge.
(Image: Getty Images North America)
“He’s had some massive hits and his music is known universally so would bring some credibility.”
Chris, 40, is no stranger to talent shows. He has performed on The X Factor twice with Coldplay, at the finals in 2011 and 2015.
He said it gave the band a platform to perform that other shows wouldn’t offer.
Chris, ex-husband of actress Gwyneth Paltrow, was also an adviser on the US version of The Voice in 2014.
American Idol is being revived by ABC after its original broadcaster Fox axed it last year after 15 years.
Original winner Kelly Clarkson, 35, is said to be part of the show’s revival which will be screened next year.
But it’s a no from past judge Simon Cowell, 57, who says he was approached about the reboot and he turned it down.It’s that time of year again when shamrockery, Guinness and “Kiss me I’m Irish” hats come to the fore in presenting a particular image of “Irishness” to the world.
When the sons and daughters of the diaspora will celebrate “Patty’s Day” by eating corned beef and cabbage, downing green beer and jumping around to the House of Pain.
It’s all harmless fun, of course. Though some may not approve of the version of Ireland it portrays, our politicians and tourism agencies will wring the very last drop of green from St Patrick’s Day for maximum fiscal effect.
There is another Ireland that has been making its way in the world for centuries, however, making a positive impact around the globe and what better time to celebrate some of those real Irish achievements.
Splitting the atom
Ernest Walton: an Irish physicist and Nobel laureate who became the first person to artificially split the atom, thus ushering the nuclear age. Photograph: Jack McManus
The son of a Methodist minister and born in Dungarvan, Co Waterford, Ernest Walton was a research scholar at Cambridge where under the guidance of Sir Ernest Rutherford with John Cockcroft he successfully managed to split the nuclei of lithium atoms by bombarding them with a stream of protons. It was the first time an atom had been split and it was for this achievement that Walton and Cockcroft were awarded the Nobel Prize for physics in 1951.
Modernism
One of the most influential figures in the Modern movement in design and architecture was an Irishwoman from Co Wexford. Eileen Gray was little-known in her homeland during her long lifetime but in recent times she has been recognised as one of the most important and influential contributors to Modernism.
A cure for leprosy
The Leprosy Mission commissioned a portrait of Dr Vincent Barry to mark his discovery of the cure for leprosy. From left, Síle DeValera, Prof Hugh Brady, president of UCD, artist Sarah Tynan and Ken Gibson of the Leprosy Mission
Cork doctor Vincent Barry played a vital role in developing a cure for leprosy one of the most feared and misunderstood of diseases. He led a small team at Trinity College working on the related disease tuberculosis. In 1954 Barry was able to synthesise the compound Clofazimine which would become a crucial part of the multi-drug treatment now used for leprosy around the world.
The Angel of the Delta
Margaret Haughery: an orphan herself, she opened many orphanages in New Orleans becoming known locally as “The Angel of the Delta”
Margaret Haughery emigrated to the United States as child to escape the ravages of the famine in south Leitrim and once in America was orphaned when her parents were killed in a yellow fever outbreak. Her life was further blighted by tragedy when her own husband and only child also succumbed to disease. Despite her personal tragedies she successfully managed and opened many orphanages in New Orleans becoming known locally as “The Angel of the Delta”. When she died in 1882 her funeral was one of the largest the city has ever seen such was her standing in the community.
The steam turbine
Charles Parsons, son of Anglo-Irish astronomer William Parsons of Parsonstown (now Birr, Co Offaly), invented the steam turbine. Photograph: Corbis via Getty Images
Developed by Charles Parsons, son of Anglo-Irish astronomer William Parsons of Parsonstown (now Birr, Co Offaly) the steam turbine was a major advance in steam engine technology. It enabled the direct generation of electricity from steam power and was installed at power stations around the world as well as transforming marine propulsion.
Righteous Among the Nations
Corkwoman Mary Elmes helped Jewish children escape the Nazis, becoming the only Irish citizen to be honoured as Righteous Among the Nations by Israel
Mary Elmes, a Cork woman became the only Irish citizen to be honoured as Righteous Among the Nations by the State of Israel. She joined the University of London Ambulance Unit in Spain to help the innocent victims of the vicious ongoing Spanish Civil War and later worked in refugee camps in southern France following the outbreak of the second World War. At great personal risk she saved the lived of hundreds of Jewish children by smuggling them to safety, often in the boot of her car.
Modern economics
Richard Cantillon
He was a banker, speculator and economic opportunist and a man of great intellectual ability, Kerryman Richard Cantillon is often cited as one of the founders of modern economics. In 1730 Cantillon wrote the work that he is now remembered for, Essai Sur La Nature Du Commerce En Général (Essay on the Nature of Trade in General), inspired by his experiences during the Mississippi bubble. In Essai, as it is commonly abbreviated, Cantillon outlines a systematic modern economic theory covering a range of now core economic ideas including cause and effect, monetary theory, entrepreneur theory and spatial economics. Cantillon’s Essai is now regarded as having huge significance in the development of modern economic theory and influenced many of those who followed including Adam Smith, who cited it in his Wealth of Nations.
Mother Jones
Irish-born American labour organiser Mother Jones (Mary Harris Jones) poses with a five-tiered cake in celebration of her 100th birthday in 1930. Photograph: FPG/Getty Images
Mary Harris, better known as “Mother Jones”, rose from humble beginnings in Cork city to become one of the most effective labour activists in the United States. Once described as “the most dangerous woman in America”, she was a tireless campaigner for the rights of the poor and the working class particularly women and children. She once led a march of women and children from Pennsylvania to the home of President Theodore Roosevelt on Long Island to demand an end to child labour.
Conservatism
Edmund Burke: the political philosopher is one of the founding fathers of modern conservatism. Photograph: Brenda Fitzsimons
Dubliner Edmund Burke was one of the most influential political thinkers of his time. His ideas have had a lasting impact on political discourse in both Britain and America and he is often regarded as one of the founding fathers of modern conservatism. Burke was a vocal critic of British policy towards the American colonies, a policy that would eventually lead to the creation of the United States. He was also a critic of the “mob rule” of the French Revolution and a staunch defender of parliamentary independence.
The Royal Ballet
Ninette De Valois, stage-name of Edris Stannus, founded what would become the Royal Ballet in London
Dame Ninette de Valois was born as Edris Stannus in 1898 in Blessington, Co Wicklow. When she turned 10 she began attending ballet lessons and became a successful dancer in London with the Ballets Russes under the renowned impresario Sergei Diaghilev. She later founded her own ballet school, the Academy of Choreographic Art, in London in 1926 and established the Abbey Theatre School of Ballet in Dublin. In London she set about defining a new English ballet with its own independent style and approach, founding the Sadlers Wells Ballet School and the Vic-Wells Ballet company that would become the Royal Ballet. She lived most of her life in an unassuming house in Barnes, London with her husband, surgeon Arthur Connell. She passed away in 2001 at the age of 102.
These stories and many more are featured in the new book, What Have the Irish ever done for us? by David Forsythe available now from AmazonI’ve tried for a few days now to come up with the right word for my reaction to this piece, by Sarah Pulliam Bailey, on Rob Bell. So far the best I can do is: strange. So much of Bell’s new life in California comes off as strange, from his casual rejection of church attendance to his remark that Oprah Winfrey, his new professional partner, has taught him “more about Jesus than anyone.” Without intending malice or slander, I have to suggest that Bell is sounding less like a preacher of Christianity (even a liberal one) and more like the newest member of an affluent, West Coast cult.
The author of the article, Bailey, tries to remain objective as a reporter, but even she seems to acknowledge that Bell’s message seems to be radically changing. Take the following for example:
Now, the man who built a church of an estimated 10,000 people isn’t even attending an organized church. Instead, he surfs the waves near Hollywood and has teamed up with the goddess of pop theology, Oprah Winfrey. Exchanging his evangelical bona fides for the blessing of Oprah may yet prove to be his most unforgivable sin, at least in some circles. Which is not to say that Bell cares very much what anyone says these days. “I never spent a minute wondering whether I’m in or out.” Does he still consider himself an evangelical? “If we mean Jesus’ message of God’s revolutionary love for every person, and we can surrender and give our life to acts to loving kindness, then man, sign me up,” said Bell, 44.
It’s hard to imagine the architects of the Emergent movement approving such a vanilla, say-nothing summary of evangelical faith. You don’t have to believe in Calvinism or substitutionary atonement to think that Christianity might say more than “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.” In fact, Bell seems to put forth a creed that would comport more comfortably with the voices inside the so-called “Prosperity Gospel” wing of Pentecostalism–which, of course, ends up making sense, since that’s exactly the kind of preaching that Oprah Winfrey seems partial to.
The most devastating part of the article, though, is this:
“The Rob Bell Show” will premiere Dec. 21 on the Oprah Winfrey Network, a one-hour show that features Bell and is co-produced by him. He also recently toured the country with Winfrey on a “Life You Want Weekend.” In many ways, some elements of typical evangelicalism are a good fit for Oprah’s lineup of public confession and personal transformation, said Kathryn Lofton, author of “Oprah: The Gospel of an Icon.” The difference, however, is that The Church of Oprah incorporates as many religious concepts as possible, while evangelicalism commits to exclusivity. “I think an interesting way to think about Bell and Oprah here is to observe how easily she incorporates him into her pantheon of spiritual advisers. She remains, as ever, the determining corporate deity,” said Lofton, a professor of religious studies at Yale. “One way of looking at this is less a merger of two equal powers than it is the acquisition by one large corporation of another small business.”
This would not be nearly as embarrassing if Bell were another mainstream evangelical megachurch pastor, peddling non-theology Sunday after Sunday to comfortable, upper-middle class parishioners. He’s not. Bell has profited enormously from the patronage of the Emergent movement, who relished his appeals to fundamentalist exiles and those dissatisfied with evangelicalism’s marriage to American nationalism and comfortable Western lifestyles. Yet Bell seems to have embraced the role of “life-coach” for one of American culture’s most famous institutions of vapidity and materialism. In other words, Bell has now become the very thing he once decried. He has become a prophet of American “moralistic therapeutic deism.”
Remember: This isn’t a hit piece by a conservative Calvinist blog. It’s a reporter who is allowing Bell to speak and others to talk about what he said. For Kathryn Lofton to characterize Bell as simply an addition to Oprah’s “pantheon” is significant.
Even defenses of Bell have sprung up that end up proving how much the game has changed for him. Consider Danielle Shroyer’s piece, “Why Rob Bell Is a Better Evangelical Than Evangelicals.” Listen to the naked opportunism of this paragraph:
If Oprah calls you up and invites you to share your thoughts on your faith, what kind of a moron would you have to be to say no? Would evangelicals really rather someone NOT be talking about God? Is it really that dire? Is Rob Bell so bad, so different from you, that silence is the better option? Because that’s what evangelicals currently have with broader culture: silence. Crickets. The vast majority of America has tuned them out. What kind of special prize do evangelicals think they are getting by not connecting with the very people they say they want to reach?
This should be included in some sort of American religious encyclopedia as the entry for “seeker-sensitive.” The author is insisting that the size of Oprah’s platform justifies anything you might say on there. This is a full-fledged retreat from the values of authenticity and community that Emergent championed for years.
Yet it is clearly the only kind of defense that can be made for Bell’s transformation. His rejection of church and embrace of the hilarious-sounding “quasi-intentional spiritual community” bespeaks a man who probably could not write Velvet Elvis over again. For all its theological flaws, that book was at least the product of a pastor who was tuned into the words and realities that define Christianity. I’m not convinced at all that Bell thinks in those terms anymore.
Those who most benefited from Bell’s Mars Hill ministry are not the people who instinctively turn to Oprah Winfrey and Joel Osteen for spiritual guidance. I feel a measure of sadness for those people; they have to feel a bit betrayed right now. Even if he was wrong in crucial ways, there was a time when Bell had something to say. I don’t think that’s the case right now.The Naval Operations in the Dardanelles Campaign (17 February 1915 – 9 January 1916) took place against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. Ships of the Royal Navy, French Marine nationale, Imperial Russian Navy (Российский императорский флот) and the Royal Australian Navy, attempted to force the defences of the Dardanelles Straits. The straits are a narrow waterway connecting the Mediterranean Sea with the Black Sea, via the Aegean, Sea of Marmara and the Bosphorus. The Dardanelles Campaign began as a naval operation but the success of the Ottoman defence led to the Gallipoli Campaign, an attempt to occupy the Gallipoli peninsula with land forces supported by the navies, to open the sea route to Constantinople. The Allies also tried to pass submarines through the Dardanelles to attack Ottoman shipping in the Sea of Marmara.
Background [ edit ]
Dardanelles Strait [ edit ]
The mouth of the strait is 2.3 mi (3.7 km) wide with a rapid current emptying from the Black Sea into the Aegean. The distance from Cape Helles to the Sea of Marmora is about 41 mi (66 km), overlooked by the heights on the Gallipoli peninsula and lower hills on the Asiatic shore. The passage widens for 5 mi (8.0 km) to Eren Keui Bay, the widest point of the strait at 4.5 mi (7.2 km), then narrows for 11 mi (18 km) to Kephez Point, where the waterway is 1.75 mi (2.82 km) wide and then broadens as far as Sari Sighlar Bay. The narrowest part of the strait is 14 mi (23 km) upstream, from Chanak to Kilid Bahr at 1,600 yd (1,500 m), where the channel turns north and widens for 4 mi (6.4 km) to Nagara Point. From the point, the |
females than it did for males. However, the regression shows much stronger regional associations for females, indicating that the effect of region may be stronger for them than for males. These findings emphasize the need for further research, such as that called for by the National Rural Health Association, 33 to explore geographic patterns in health disparities and identify the possible importance of cultural, political, or religious factors not measured in this study.
Our finding that many counties experienced no mortality reductions, particularly for females, during the study period should be of great concern to policy makers in the public and private sectors. Given the length of time that many of the factors, such as level of education and percentage of children living in poverty, take to affect health, the nation cannot afford to wait before investing in ways to improve those factors. Not only do these poor outcomes reduce the length and quality of life for individuals, but they also contribute to growing health expenditures that the United States cannot afford.
Indeed, our results underline the lack of value obtained from ever-increasing health care expenditures. Poor outcomes also lower the productivity of the workforce and reduce private-sector competitiveness.
According to the “epidemiology of politics,” 34 evidence of poor health outcomes alone will not produce policy change. However, the large number of counties with no reduction in mortality rates demands that policy makers create a broad investment strategy across all health determinants.
Many national reports have called for such action, including the recent series of reports from the Institute of Medicine that addressed public health policy and investment strategies. 35,36 In addition, the National Prevention Strategy Action Plan 37 recently released by the surgeon general highlighted a broad array of health-promoting policies and programs across most federal departments.
One useful development is the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that nonprofit hospitals work in partnership with public health agencies to develop a community health needs assessment every three years, as a condition of the hospitals’ maintaining their tax-exempt status. New business and governance models are urgently needed to support the joint efforts of all sectors—including health care, public health, business, and social service agencies—if population health is to be improved.
Conclusion
To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the socioeconomic and behavioral correlates of mortality change at the county level in recent years. Our findings support and strengthen the existing evidence from person-level studies that focused on demographic and clinical correlates of recent mortality change. The findings also reinforce the large volume of evidence stressing the importance of socioeconomic and behavioral factors as determinants of population health.
Mortality rates are falling in most US counties, but we found a large number of counties with no reductions in female mortality rates during the study period. We identified a number of factors most strongly associated with mortality change, including education levels, the region the county was located in, and smoking rates. Our results underscore the complicated policy reality that there is no single silver bullet for population health improvement. Investments in all determinants of health—including health care, public health, health behaviors, and residents’ social and physical environments—will be required.
Every county is different. Each one needs to examine its outcomes and data on the determinants of health to determine what set of cross-sectoral policies would address its own situation most effectively and quickly. 38
For some counties, the most glaring deficiencies will be in the areas of access to and the quality of medical care. Other counties may conclude that it is most important to address smoking and obesity rates. Still others will need to tackle poverty reduction, job creation, and school quality in the near term.
Additional information on the relative cost-effectiveness of different policies and programs is needed so that decisions about where to focus limited government and private-sector dollars can be made with more confidence. 39 In addition, more information regarding the utility and impact of public health reporting mechanisms, such as health rankings of counties and states, is needed to determine what dissemination methods might be most useful for local policy makers.
Although better causal evidence is needed, existing theory and evidence argue for prompt action on a balanced population health investment strategy by public and private policy makers, who have a moral and economic interest in reversing these worsening mortality rates.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research was supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Mobilizing Action toward Community Health grant to the University of Wisconsin’s Population Health Institute. The authors acknowledge the advice and helpful comments from two anonymous reviewers and Ron Gangnon, Pat Remington, Bridget B. Catlin, Paul Peppard, Alberto Palloni, Jenna Nobles, David Vanness, James Broesch, Hyojun Park, and Anne Roubal.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS: DAVID A. KINDIG & ERIKA R. CHENG In this month’s Health Affairs, David Kindig and Erika Cheng report on their analysis of trends in male and female mortality rates from 1992 to 2006 in 3,140 counties in the United States. Although mortality rates for men and women fell in most counties, female mortality nonetheless increased in 42.8 percent of counties, while male mortality increased in only 3.4 percent. Noting that factors such as smoking, education, and region of the country played a role, the authors argue that increased public and private investment in the social and environmental determinants of health will be needed to turn the tide. Kindig is a professor emeritus of population health sciences, vice chancellor emeritus for health sciences, and founder of the Population Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Medicine and Public Health. He codirects the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Society and Health Scholars Program at the university and is the editor of the Improving Population Health blog ( http://improvingpopulationhealth.org ). He was co–principal investigator of RWJF’s Mobilizing Action toward Community Health grant. Kindig was elected to the Institute of Medicine in 1996 and served as president of the Association for Health Services Research (now AcademyHealth) in 1997–98. He earned a medical degree and a doctorate in experimental pathology from the University of Chicago. Cheng is a doctoral candidate and research assistant in the Department of Population Health Sciences, School of Medicine and Public Health, at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She has worked as a project assistant in the County Health Rankings and Roadmaps project at the university’s Population Health Institute and is a member of the Lifecourse Epidemiology and Family Health Lab in the Department of Population Health Sciences. Cheng has received numerous honors, including a Science and Medicine Graduate Research Scholars Advanced Opportunity Fellowship, from the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences and School of Medicine and Public Health at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and the American Public Health Association’s 2012 Disability Section Annual Meeting Scholarship Award. She earned a master’s degree in public affairs from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
NOTESFloppy disks terminated after Sony stops production
No comparison: CDs and USB sticks hold far more data than floppy disks
Floppy disks, which once littered home offices around the country are finally heading to the great electronics scrapyard in the sky.
Sony, the largest manufacturer of the 3.5" storage devices, have announced they will stop making them in March next year - 30 years after they started selling them.
They made the decision after domestic disk sales in Japan crashed from 47million in 2002 to 12 million in 2009. Sony had already withdrawn them from many international markets.
First launched by IBM in 1971, floppy disks were an unwieldy eight inches across and could only hold 80KB of information - a tiny fraction of one megabyte.
They developed alongside the burgeoning home computer market. By the early eighties they had reduced in size to 5.25 inches and held 720KB. Sony claims to have sold the first 3.5inch floppy in 1981.
The popularity of USB flash drives, CDs and other storage devices have now made the floppy disk obsolete. The maximum storage of a floppy is two megabytes, which is 4,000 times less than the eight gigabytes customers can buy on a USB stick.
It has been a long drawn out death for the home office friend. In 2003, Dell stopped including floppy drives on their standard home computers. By 2007 PC World had also stopped selling the disks.
Evolution: Despite evolving to a more manageable size, floppy disks have reached the end of the roadEffective altruism is a growing movement, and a number of organizations (mostly foundations and nonprofits) have been started in the domain. One of the very first of these organizations, and arguably the most successful and influential, has been charity evaluator GiveWell. In this blog post, I examine the early history of GiveWell and see what factors in this early history helped foster its success.
My main information source is GiveWell's original business plan (PDF, 86 pages). I'll simply refer to this as the "GiveWell business plan" later in the post and will not link to the source each time. If you're interested in what the GiveWell website looked like at the time, you can browse the website as of early May 2007 here.
To provide more context to GiveWell's business plan, I will look at it in light of Paul Graham's pathbreaking article How to Get Startup Ideas. The advice here is targeted at early stage startups. GiveWell doesn't quite fit the "for-profit startup" mold, but GiveWell in its early stages was a nonprofit startup of sorts. Thus, it would be illustrative to see just how closely GiveWell's choices were in line with Paul Graham's advice.
There's one obvious way that this analysis is flawed and inconclusive: I do not systematically compare GiveWell with other organizations. There is no "control group" and no possibility of isolating individual aspects that predicted success. I intend to write additional posts later on the origins of other effective altruist organizations, after which a more fruitful comparison can be attempted. I think it's still useful to start with one organization and understand it thoroughly. But keep this limitation in mind before drawing any firm conclusions, or believing that I have drawn firm conclusions.
The idea: working on a real problem that one faces at a personal level, is acutely familiar with, is of deep interest to a (small) set of people right now, and could eventually be of interest to many people
Graham writes (emphasis mine):
The very best startup ideas tend to have three things in common: they're something the founders themselves want, that they themselves can build, and that few others realize are worth doing. Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, Google, and Facebook all began this way. Why is it so important to work on a problem you have? Among other things, it ensures the problem really exists. It sounds obvious to say you should only work on problems that exist. And yet by far the most common mistake startups make is to solve problems no one has. [...] When a startup launches, there have to be at least some users who really need what they're making—not just people who could see themselves using it one day, but who want it urgently. Usually this initial group of users is small, for the simple reason that if there were something that large numbers of people urgently needed and that could be built with the amount of effort a startup usually puts into a version one, it would probably already exist. Which means you have to compromise on one dimension: you can either build something a large number of people want a small amount, or something a small number of people want a large amount. Choose the latter. Not all ideas of that type are good startup ideas, but nearly all good startup ideas are of that type.
Imagine a graph whose x axis represents all the people who might want what you're making and whose y axis represents how much they want it. If you invert the scale on the y axis, you can envision companies as holes. Google is an immense crater: hundreds of millions of people use it, and they need it a lot. A startup just starting out can't expect to excavate that much volume. So you have two choices about the shape of hole you start with. You can either dig a hole that's broad but shallow, or one that's narrow and deep, like a well.
Made-up startup ideas are usually of the first type. Lots of people are mildly interested in a social network for pet owners.
Nearly all good startup ideas are of the second type. Microsoft was a well when they made Altair Basic. There were only a couple thousand Altair owners, but without this software they were programming in machine language. Thirty years later Facebook had the same shape. Their first site was exclusively for Harvard students, of which there are only a few thousand, but those few thousand users wanted it a lot.
When you have an idea for a startup, ask yourself: who wants this right now? Who wants this so much that they'll use it even when it's a crappy version one made by a two-person startup they've never heard of? If you can't answer that, the idea is probably bad. [3]
You don't need the narrowness of the well per se. It's depth you need; you get narrowness as a byproduct of optimizing for depth (and speed). But you almost always do get it. In practice the link between depth and narrowness is so strong that it's a good sign when you know that an idea will appeal strongly to a specific group or type of user.
But while demand shaped like a well is almost a necessary condition for a good startup idea, it's not a sufficient one. If Mark Zuckerberg had built something that could only ever have appealed to Harvard students, it would not have been a good startup idea. Facebook was a good idea because it started with a small market there was a fast path out of. Colleges are similar enough that if you build a facebook that works at Harvard, it will work at any college. So you spread rapidly through all the colleges. Once you have all the college students, you get everyone else simply by letting them in.
GiveWell in its early history seems like a perfect example of this:
Real problem experienced personally : The problem of figuring out how and where to donate money was a personal problem that the founders experienced firsthand as customers, so they knew there was a demand for something like GiveWell.
: The problem of figuring out how and where to donate money was a personal problem that the founders experienced firsthand as customers, so they knew there was a demand for something like GiveWell. Of deep interest to some people : The people who started GiveWell had a few friends who were in a similar situation: they wanted to know where best to donate money, but did not have enough resources to do a full-fledged investigation. The number of such people may have been small, but since these people were intending to donate money in the thousands of dollars, there were enough of them who had deep interest in GiveWell's offerings.
: The people who started GiveWell had a few friends who were in a similar situation: they wanted to know where best to donate money, but did not have enough resources to do a full-fledged investigation. The number of such people may have been small, but since these people were intending to donate money in the thousands of dollars, there were enough of them who had deep interest in GiveWell's offerings. Could eventually be of interest to many people: Norms around evidence and effectiveness could change gradually as more people started identifying as effective altruists. So, there was a plausible story for how GiveWell might eventually influence a large number of donors across the range from small donors to billionaires.
Quoting from the GiveWell business plan (pp. 3-7, footnotes removed; bold face in original):
GiveWell started with a simple question: where should I donate? We wanted to give. We could afford to give. And we had no prior commitments to any particular charity; we were just looking for the channel through which our donations could help people (reduce suffering; increase opportunity) as much as possible. The first step was to survey our options. We found that we had more than we could reasonably explore comprehensively. There are 2,625 public charities in the U.S. with annual budgets over $100 million, 88,812 with annual budgets over $1 million. Restricting ourselves to the areas of health, education (excluding universities), and human services, there are 480 with annual budgets over $100 million, 50,505 with annual budgets over $1 million. We couldn’t explore them all, but we wanted to find as many as possible that fit our broad goal of helping people, and ask two simple questions: what they do with donors’ money, and what evidence exists that their activities help people? Existing online donor resources, such as Charity Navigator, give only basic financial data and short, broad mission statements (provided by the charities and unedited). To the extent they provide metrics, they are generally based on extremely simplified, problematic assumptions, most notably the assumption that the less a charity spends on administrative expenses, the better. These resources could not begin to help us with our questions, and they weren’t even very useful in narrowing the field (for example, even if we assumed Charity Navigator’s metrics to be viable, there are 1,277 total charities with the highest possible rating, 562 in the areas of health, education and human services). We scoured the Internet, but couldn’t find the answers to our questions either through charities’ own websites or through the foundations that fund them. It became clear to us that answering these questions was going to be a lot of work. We formed GiveWell as a formal commitment to doing this work, and to putting everything we found on a public website so other donors wouldn’t have to repeat what we did. Each of the eight of us chose a problem of interest (malaria, microfinance, diarrheal disease, etc.) – this was necessary in order to narrow our scope – and started to evaluate charities that addressed the problem. [...] We immediately found that there are enormous opportunities to help people, but no consensus whatsoever on how to do it best. [...] Realizing that we were trying to make complex decisions, we called charities and questioned them thoroughly. We wanted to see what our money was literally being spent on, and for charities with multiple programs and regions of focus we wanted to know how much of their budget was devoted to each. We wanted to see statistics – or failing that, stories – about people
who’d benefited from these programs, so we could begin to figure out what charities were pursuing the best strategies. But when we pushed for these things, charities could not provide them. They responded with surprise (telling us they rarely get questions as detailed as ours, even from multi-million dollar donors) and even suspicion (one executive from a large organization accused Holden of running a scam, though he wouldn’t explain what sort of scam can be run using information about a charity’s budget and activities). See Appendix A for details of these exchanges. What we saw led us to conclude that charities were neither accustomed to nor capable of answering our basic questions: what do you do, and what is the evidence that it works? This is why we are starting the Clear Fund, the world’s first completely transparent charitable grantmaker. It’s not because we were looking for a venture to start; everyone involved with this project likes his/her current job. Rather, the Clear Fund comes simply from a need for a resource that doesn’t exist: an information source to help donors direct their money to where it will accomplish the most good. We feel that the questions necessary to decide between charities aren’t being answered or, largely, asked. Foundations often focus on new projects and innovations, as opposed to scaling up proven ways of helping people; and even when they do evaluate the latter, they do not make what they find available to foster dialogue or help other donors (see Appendix D for more on this). Meanwhile, charities compete for individual contributions in many ways, from marketing campaigns to personal connections, but not through comparison of their answers to our two basic questions. Public scrutiny, transparency, and competition of charities’ actual abilities to improve the world is thus practically nonexistent. That makes us worry about the quality of their operations – as we would for any set of businesses that doesn’t compete on quality – and without good operations, a charity is just throwing money at a problem. [...] With money and persistence, we believe we can get the answers to our questions – or at least establish the extent to which different charities are capable of answering them. If we succeed, the tremendous amount of money available for solving the world’s problems will become better spent, and the world will reap enormous benefits. We believe our project will accomplish the following:
1. Help individual donors find the best charities to give to. [...] 2. Foster competition to find the best ways of improving the world. [...] 3. Foster global dialogue between everyone interested – both amateur and professional –
in the best tactics for improving the world. [...] 4. Increase engagement and participation in charitable causes. [...] All of the benefits above fall under the same general principle. The Clear Fund will put a new focus on the strategies – as opposed to the funds – being used to attack the world’s problems.
How do you know if the idea is scalable? You just gotta be the right person
We already quoted above GiveWell's reasons for believing that their idea could eventually influence a large volume of donations. But how could we know at the time whether their beliefs were reasonable? Graham writes (emphasis mine):
How do you tell whether there's a path out of an idea? How do you tell whether something is the germ of a giant company, or just a niche product? Often you can't. The founders of Airbnb didn't realize at first how big a market they were tapping. Initially they had a much narrower idea. They were going to let hosts rent out space on their floors during conventions. They didn't foresee the expansion of this idea; it forced itself upon them gradually. All they knew at first is that they were onto something. That's probably as much as Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg knew at first.
Occasionally it's obvious from the beginning when there's a path out of the initial niche. And sometimes I can see a path that's not immediately obvious; that's one of our specialties at YC. But there are limits to how well this can be done, no matter how much experience you have. The most important thing to understand about paths out of the initial idea is the meta-fact that these are hard to see.
So if you can't predict whether there's a path out of an idea, how do you choose between ideas? The truth is disappointing but interesting: if you're the right sort of person, you have the right sort of hunches. If you're at the leading edge of a field that's changing fast, when you have a hunch that something is worth doing, you're more likely to be right.
How well does GiveWell fare in terms of the potential of the people involved? Were the people who founded GiveWell (specifically Holden Karnofsky and Elie Hassenfeld) the "right sort of person" to found GiveWell? It's hard to give an honest answer that's not clouded by information available in hindsight. But let's try. On the one hand, neither of the co-founders had direct experience working with nonprofits. However, they had both worked in finance and the analytical skills they employed in the financial industry may have been helpful when they switched to analyzing evidence and organizations in the nonprofit sector (see the "Our qualifications" section of the GiveWell business plan). Arguably, this was more relevant to what they wanted to do with GiveWell than direct experience with the nonprofit world. Overall, it's hard to say (without the benefits of hindsight or inside information about the founders) that the founders were uniquely positioned, but the outside view indicators seem generally favorable.
Post facto, there seems to be some evidence that GiveWell's founders exhibited good aesthetic discernment. But this is based on GiveWell's success, so invoking that as a reason is a circular argument.
Schlep blindness?
In a different essay titled Schlep Blindness, Graham writes:
There are great startup ideas lying around unexploited right under our noses. One reason we don't see them is a phenomenon I call schlep blindness. Schlep was originally a Yiddish word but has passed into general use in the US. It means a tedious, unpleasant task. [...] One of the many things we do at Y Combinator is teach hackers about the inevitability of schleps. No, you can't start a startup by just writing code. I remember going through this realization myself. There was a point in 1995 when I was still trying to convince myself I could start a company by just writing code. But I soon learned from experience that schleps are not merely inevitable, but pretty much what business consists of. A company is defined by the schleps it will undertake. And schleps should be dealt with the same way you'd deal with a cold swimming pool: just jump in. Which is not to say you should seek out unpleasant work per se, but that you should never shrink from it if it's on the path to something great. [...] How do you overcome schlep blindness? Frankly, the most valuable antidote to schlep blindness is probably ignorance. Most successful founders would probably say that if they'd known when they were starting their company about the obstacles they'd have to overcome, they might never have started it. Maybe that's one reason the most successful startups of all so often have young founders. In practice the founders grow with the problems. But no one seems able to foresee that, not even older, more experienced founders. So the reason younger founders have an advantage is that they make two mistakes that cancel each other out. They don't know how much they can grow, but they also don't know how much they'll need to. Older founders only make the first mistake.
It could be argued that schlep blindness was the reason nobody else had started GiveWell before GiveWell. Most people weren't even thinking of doing something like this because the idea seemed like so much work that nobody went near it. Why then did GiveWell's founders select the idea? There's no evidence to suggest that Graham's "ignorance" remedy was the reason. Rather, the GiveWell business plan explicitly embraces complexity. In fact, one of their early section titles is Big Problems with Complex Solutions. It seems like the GiveWell founders found challenge more exciting than deterring. Lack of intimate knowledge with the nonprofit sector might have been a factor, but it probably wasn't a driving one.
Competition
Graham writes:
Because a good idea should seem obvious, when you have one you'll tend to feel that you're late. Don't let that deter you. Worrying that you're late is one of the signs of a good idea. Ten minutes of searching the web will usually settle the question. Even if you find someone else working on the same thing, you're probably not too late. It's exceptionally rare for startups to be killed by competitors—so rare that you can almost discount the possibility. So unless you discover a competitor with the sort of lock-in that would prevent users from choosing you, don't discard the idea.
If you're uncertain, ask users. The question of whether you're too late is subsumed by the question of whether anyone urgently needs what you plan to make. If you have something that no competitor does and that some subset of users urgently need, you have a beachhead. [...] You don't need to worry about entering a "crowded market" so long as you have a thesis about what everyone else in it is overlooking. In fact that's a very promising starting point. Google was that type of idea. Your thesis has to be more precise than "we're going to make an x that doesn't suck" though. You have to be able to phrase it in terms of something the incumbents are overlooking. Best of all is when you can say that they didn't have the courage of their convictions, and that your plan is what they'd have done if they'd followed through on their own insights. Google was that type of idea too. The search engines that preceded them shied away from the most radical implications of what they were doing—particularly that the better a job they did, the faster users would leave.
A crowded market is actually a good sign, because it means both that there's demand and that none of the existing solutions are good enough. A startup can't hope to enter a market that's obviously big and yet in which they have no competitors. So any startup that succeeds is either going to be entering a market with existing competitors, but armed with some secret weapon that will get them all the users (like Google), or entering a market that looks small but which will turn out to be big (like Microsoft).
Did GiveWell enter a crowded market? As Graham suggests above, it depends heavily on how you define the market. Charity Navigator existed at the time, and GiveWell and Charity Navigator compete to serve certain donor needs. But they are also sufficiently different. Here's what GiveWell said about Charity Navigator in the GiveWell business plan:
Existing online donor resources, such as Charity Navigator, give only basic financial data and short, broad mission statements (provided by the charities and unedited). To the extent they provide metrics, they are generally based on extremely simplified, problematic assumptions, most notably the assumption that the less a charity spends on administrative expenses, the better. These resources could not begin to help us with our questions, and they weren’t even very useful in narrowing the field (for example, even if we assumed Charity Navigator’s metrics to be viable, there are 1,277 total charities with the highest possible rating, 562 in the areas of health, education and human services)
In other words, GiveWell did enter a market with existing players, indicating that there was a need for things in the broad domain that GiveWell was offering. At the same time, what GiveWell offered was sufficiently different that it was not bogged down by the competition.
Incidentally, in recent times, people from Charity Navigator have been critical of GiveWell and other "effective altruism" proponents. Their critique has itself come for some criticism, and some people have argued that this may be a response to GiveWell's growth leading to it moving the same order of magnitude of money as Charity Navigator (see the discussion here for more). Indeed, in 2013, GiveWell surpassed Charity Navigator in money moved through the website, though we don't have clear evidence of whether GiveWell is cutting into Charity Navigator's growth.
Other precursors (of sorts) to GiveWell, mentioned by William MacAskill in a Facebook comment, are the Poverty Action Lab, Copenhagen Consensus.
How prescient was GiveWell?
With the benefit of hindsight, how impressive do we find GiveWell's early plans in predicting its later trajectory? Note that prescience in predicting the later trajectory could also be interpreted as rigidity of plan and unwillingness to change. But since GiveWell appears to have been quite a success, there is a prior in favor of prescience being good (what I mean is that if GiveWell had failed, the fact that they predicted all the things they'd do would be the opposite of impressive, but given their success, the fact that they predicted things in advance also indicates that they chose good strategy from the outset).
Note that I'm certainly not claiming that a startup's failure to predict the future should be a big strike against it. As long as the organization can adapt to and learn from new information, it's fine. But of course, getting more things right from the start is better to the extent it's feasible.
By and large, both the vision and the specific goals outlined in the plan were quite prescient. I noted the following differences between the plan then and the reality as it transpired:
In the plan, GiveWell said it would try to identify top charities in a few select areas (they listed seven areas) and refrain from comparing very different domains. Over the years, they have moved more in the direction of directly comparing different domains and offering a few top charities culled across all domains. Even though they seem to have been off in their plan, they were directionally correct compared to what existed. They were already consolidating different causes within the same broad category. For instance, they write (GiveWell business plan, p. 21): A charity that focuses on fighting malaria and a charity that focuses on fighting tuberculosis are largely aiming for the same end goal – preventing death – and if one were clearly better at preventing death than the other, it would be reasonable to declare it a better use of funds. By contrast, a charity that focuses on creating economic opportunity has a fundamentally different end goal. It may be theoretically possible to put jobs created and lives saved in the same terms (and there have been some attempts to create metrics that do so), but ultimately different donors are going to have very different perspectives on whether it’s more worthwhile to create a certain number of jobs or prevent a certain number of deaths.
GiveWell doesn't predict clearly enough that it will evolve into a more "foundation"-like entity. Note that at the time of the business plan, they were envisionining themselves as deriving their negotiating power with nonprofits through their role as grantmakers. They then transformed into deriving their power largely from their role as recommenders of top charities. Then, around 2012, following the collaboration with Good Ventures, they switched back to grantmaker mode, but in a far grander way than they'd originally envisaged.
At the time of the GiveWell business plan, they see their main source of money moved being small donors. In recent years, as they moved to more "foundation"-like behavior, they seem to have started shifting attention to influencing the giving decisions of larger donors. This might be purely due to the unpredictable fact that they joined hands with the Good Ventures foundation, rather than due to any systemic or predictable reasons. It remains to be seen whether they influence more donations by very large donors in the future. Another aspect of this is that GiveWell's original business plan was more ambitious about influencing the large number of small donors out there than (I think) GiveWell is now.
GiveWell seems to have moved away from a focus on examining individual charities to understanding the landscape sufficiently well to directly identify the best opportunities, and then to comparing broad causes. The GiveWell business plan, on the other hand, repeatedly talked about "pitting charities against each other" (p. 11) as their main focal activity. In recent years, however, GiveWell has started stepping back and concentrating more on using their big picture understanding of the realm to more efficiently identify the very best opportunities rather than evaluating all relevant charities and causes. This is reflected in their conversation notes as well as the GiveWell Labs initiative. After creating GiveWell Labs, they have shifted more in the direction of thinking at the level of causes rather than individual interventions.
The role of other factors in GiveWell's success
Was GiveWell destined to succeed, or did it get lucky? I believe a mix of both: GiveWell was bound to succeed in some measure, but a number of chance factors played a role in its achieving success to its current level. A recent blog post by GiveWell titled Our work on outreach contains some relevant evidence. The one single person who may have been key to GiveWell's success is the ethicist and philosopher Peter Singer. Singer is a passionate advocate of the idea that people are morally obligated to donate money to help the world's poorest people. Singer played a major role in GiveWell's success in the following ways:
The connection of GiveWell to the LessWrong community might also have been important, though less so than Peter Singer. It could have been due to the efforts of a few people interested in GiveWell who discussed it on LessWrong. Jonah Sinick's LessWrong posts about GiveWell (mentioned in GiveWell's post about their work on outreach) are an example (full disclosure: Jonah Sinick is collaborating with me on Cognito Mentoring). Note that although only about 3% of donations made through GiveWell are explicitly attributable to LessWrong, GiveWell has received a lot of intellectual engagement from the LessWrong community and other organizations and individuals connected with the community.
How should the above considerations modify our view of GiveWell's success? I think the key thing GiveWell did correctly was become a canonical go-to reference for where to direct donors on making good giving decisions. By staking out that space early on, they were able to capitalize on Peter Singer. Also, it's not just GiveWell that benefited from Peter Singer — we can also argue that Singer's arguments were made more effective by the existence of GiveWell. The first line of counterargument to Singer's claim is that most charities aren't cost-effective. Singer's being able to point to a resource to help identify good charities make people take his argument more seriously.
I think that GiveWell's success at making itself the canonical source was more important than the specifics of their research. But the specifics may have been important in convincing a sufficiently large critical mass of influential people to recommend GiveWell as a canonical source, so the factors are hard to disentangle.
Would something like GiveWell have existed if GiveWell hadn't existed? How would the effective altruism movement be different?
These questions are difficult to explore, and discussing them would take us too far afield. This post on the Effective Altruists Facebook thread offers an interesting discussion. The upshot is that, although Giving What We Can was started two years after GiveWell, people involved with its early history say that the core ideas of looking at cost-effectiveness and recommending the very best places to donate money was mooted before its formal inception, some time around 2006 (when GiveWell had not been formally created). At the time, the people involved were unaware of GiveWell. William MacAskill says that GWWC may have done more work on the cost-effectiveness side if GiveWell wasn't already doing it.
I ran this post by Jonah Sinick and also emailed a draft to the GiveWell staff. I implemented some of their suggestions, and am grateful to them for taking the time to comment on my draft. Any responsibility for errors, omissions, and misrepresentations is solely mine.NEW YORK, NY — President-elect Donald J. Trump has been raising eyebrows with his cabinet and adviser selections.
Trump tapped Jeff Sessions as his attorney general; Sessions was deemed too racist for a federal judgeship back in the 1980s. Trump asked Steve Bannon, an executive for Breitbart News, which frequently publishes white nationalist and white supremacist news under the banner of the “alt-right” movement, to be his chief strategist. He announced South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley will be his U.N. ambassador despite having no experience in the State Department, and he has reportedly asked Dr. Ben Carson — a chief rival during the Republican primaries — to be his secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
At a press conference Monday, Trump gave some insight into his thinking process in inviting Carson into the role of HUD secretary.
“You know, his people are into jazz and they have an extra muscle that makes them good at sports.”
“Well, I mean, you know, he’s, um, one of them, isn’t he?” Trump asked rhetorically.
Reporters asked Trump what he meant by “one of them.” The president-elect first just winked back at the reporters. When they didn’t understand what he meant, he tried touching his nose. Exasperated, Trump finally answered the question in his trademark way.
“Look, he’s one of them; you know what I mean,” Trump said. “You know, his people are into jazz and they have an extra muscle that makes them good at sports.”
The press pool was still not quite sure what he meant |
why Depp was cast, executive producer David Heyman told EW’s sister publication PEOPLE, “Because he’s iconic. He’s an iconic actor and we needed an iconic actor to play this part. Johnny’s created two or three iconic people, people who are unforgettable. He makes choices, and that was really, really important … [we] wanted somebody who could, in the one hand, seduce, but, on the other hand, be really scary. Johnny can do that. He was an absolute pleasure to work with.”
While director David Yates asked fans for patience. “You have to trust us and see what he does in this movie. You won’t see very much in this movie because he appears in it very fleetingly. He appears much more in the second movie. What you have to remember about Johnny is that extraordinary talent and that talent never goes away. Hollywood is such a fickle place. People go up and go down. He’s a huge Potter fan. He loves the world. He was beyond excited about working on this material. In fact he didn’t even want to see a script, he just said ‘I’m in.'”
And writer J.K. Rowling said she was “delighted” by the casting and noted, “he’s done incredible things with the character.”
The team was also asked about Depp’s volatile divorce from Amber Heard, who earlier this year accused the actor of domestic abuse (fans on Twitter are pushing back on Depp for this reason as well). “Here’s the thing: Misogyny, abuse, maltreatment of people is unacceptable — but none of us know what happened in that room,” Heyman said. “So I think it would be unfair for me to be judge and jury, or for any of us to be judge and jury.”
Ultimately, given the brevity of Depp’s cameo, it’s really only fair to wait until next November to judge the actor’s take on Dumbledore’s friend and foe. One wouldn’t be surprised if filmmakers took the reaction of fans to heart and pushed Depp for a more grounded and serious take. It’s far from an unsolvable problem for an actor of Depp’s talent. As a certain famous pirate captain once said: “The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem.”U.S. Sen. Luther Strange released a new ad on Wednesday touting the endorsement he received less than 24 hours before from President Trump.
The 20-second spot, posted on Strange's You Tube channel, is a straightforward presentation of Trump's backing with no voice over. The ad contains the text of Trump's endorsement tweet and twice reminds viewers to vote Aug. 15 in the Senate Republican primary.
Meanwhile, before the Trump endorsement on Tuesday night, Strange challengers Mo Brooks and Roy Moore announced new ads themselves on Tuesday afternoon in emails sent just four minutes apart.
And the similarities only grew stronger from there.
With the nearly mirror-image 30-second spots launched one week before the Aug. 15 Senate Republican primary, the ads might arouse plagiarism concerns were two classmates in school to submit them to their teacher.
The gist of both ads are that the Washington establishment is relentlessly pushing Strange and how both Brooks and Moore are independent of that arena, so to speak.
But as Moore seeks to protect what's believed to be a safe spot in the expected GOP runoff and as Brooks, according to polls, is in a virtual tie with Strange for the final runoff spot, the challengers hit on the same themes:
Both ads open with visuals of the U.S. Capitol.
Both ads hammer Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is backing Strange.
Both ads used the phrase "spending millions" of dollars to slam the financial support Strange has received from the McConnell-controlled Senate Leadership Fund.
Both ads hit McConnell on the Senate's failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
Brooks' ad dubs McConnell the "swamp king" while Moore's ad says McConnell is controlling the "slime machine."
Brooks' ad tells voters to "send D.C. a message" while Moore's ad instructs to "send them all a message."
As for differences in the ads, Moore does not mention Trump while six seconds in Brooks' ad tells of his 93 percent voting record with Trump and includes a photo of Brooks and Trump together in the Oval Office.
And Moore does not mention Strange in the ad, firing the barbs instead at McConnell for "bearing false witness" in an attack ad.
"Why?," the ad asks. "We know why. We all know why."
Brooks' ad said McConnell is helping his "lapdog, Luther Strange, hijack our Alabama primary."
Brooks' ad also scrolls the names of high-profile endorsements while Moore's makes no mention of endorsements.Guinness Nitro IPA is a beer with a major identity crisis and that is a great thing. When you look at Guinness Nitro IPA and their original Stout from 1759 the similarities are striking, but it is the differences that set this IPA in a league of its own. They both use the same malted barley grown not far from St. James Gate in Ireland, the same yeast strain that has been preserved for over 250 years, and they both use the same method of Nitrogen carbonation. Even though the Stout and IPA share similar traditions, this new IPA is very much its beast of its own. The distinguishing facet of the Nitro IPA is that it features 5 hop varieties; Admiral and Celeia are used in the boil for bitterness, then Challenger, Cascade, and Topaz are dry hopped for aroma. This beer proves that Guinness’s roots and traditions are as strong as ever and they still have the capacity to surprise and innovate.
Upon pouring the Nitro IPA from the can to a Guinness glass the beer surges in the traditional fashion and builds that recognizable head that is very thick, pure white, and about a quarter inch deep. The appearance is characterized by a beautiful golden color with a rich hue that refracts light brilliantly and cleanly. The nose is underwhelming but pleasant with slight citrus notes from the aroma hops used in the dry hopping process and a faint malty character from the malted barley. In taste this is in no way a hop-forward beer, but the hop profile works very well in that it adds depth to the crystal grains taste and expands the flavor in complex and unique ways. The hop notes are noticeable and extremely pleasant on first taste, and they do not linger in aftertaste whatsoever. This beer is astonishingly balanced with the Nitrogen carbonation balancing the hop flavor perfectly.
Guinness Nitro IPA is a bold move, and it pays off. The surge, head, and balance due to Nitrogen are all classic Guinness but the hoppy notes and golden color are pure India Pale Ale. Everything in this beer is in perfect balance and I would recommend Guinness Nitro IPA to stout fans, IPA fans, and those looking to cautiously expand their palate into hoppy beers.
Let’s pour another.It's Spring!...and time for our annual springtime product release.
We will be launching on Sunday at 12 noon (GMT London Time). We have some favourites this year and some new additions, which include the full catalogue of whipped soaps, and coming later some Ltd edition bar soaps. We'll keep you updated on those.
So without further ado, let's get straight into with the scent descriptions.
Clotted Peach Cream: Fresh, sweet Peach pulp cloaked in Cornish Clotted Cream with a scattering of winter Honeysuckle blooms.
(available as Whipped Soap, Bubbling Bathing Grains, Bubbling Sugar Buff, Body Whip, Conditioning Hair Rinse & Aromatic oil).
Ethereal Seas: A cool British Seaside breeze laced with flora. Hints of spicy Basil leaf, freshly-grated Lime Zest, sea-washed driftwood and scented Cranesbill leaves.
(available as Handmade soap, Whipped Soap, Bubbling Bathing Grains, Bubbling Sugar Buff, Body Whip, Conditioning Hair Rinse & Aromatic oil).
Gossamer Ghost: A whisper of Victorian cologne dabbed onto the neck of a broken hearted girl. Neroli accord entwined with yellow Grapefruit zest & sweet Coriander seed.
(available as Handmade soap, Whipped Soap, Bubbling Bathing Grains, Bubbling Sugar Buff, Body Whip, Conditioning Hair Rinse & Aromatic oil).
The Ancients: A circle of stones rests upon a hill in deepest Oxfordshire. Handkerchief wishes hang from a Cananga tree, dried Mandarin peelings from spells cast long ago sit inside the King stone, and Patchouli leaf softly smoulders in an earthenware bowl casting a trail of aromatic smoke across the countryside.
(available as Handmade soap, Whipped Soap, Bubbling Bathing Grains, Bubbling Sugar Buff, Body Whip, Conditioning Hair Rinse & Aromatic oil).
Towanda: Inspired by our love of the film 'Fried Green Tomatoes', Towanda is a word used by Idgie Threadgoode throughout the film to express excitement when doing something a little crazy. The word occurs a number of times, some of which include the following:
Frank Bennett: Well, hello there, miss. And who might you be?
Idgie Threadgoode: Towanda, to you. Who're you?
Frank Bennett: Oh, ah, Frank Bennett's the name, Miss... ah, Towanda.
Idgie Threadgoode: Hmm.
Frank Bennett: I must say, you are looking mighty fine today.
Idgie Threadgoode: You a politician, or does lying just run in your family?
Evelyn Couch: If you won't listen to reason, there's always Towanda.
Evelyn Couch: Towanda! Righter of wrongs, Queen beyond compare!
The word is also used when jumping from trains, when purposely bashing into a car in a car park and several other moments in the film.
If you've not seen this movie, may we suggest you do....ASAP!
The Scent: A warm southern breeze, rainy summer days, fresh picked herbs, Tomato flesh, Bergamot leaf & Moss covered tree stumps.
(available as Handmade soap, Whipped Soap, Bubbling Bathing Grains, Bubbling Sugar Buff, Body Whip, Conditioning Hair Rinse & Aromatic oil).
We will be working on some bar soaps inspired by Fried Green Tomatoes, some of which we have added to the line before. You will see the return of Idgie Threadgoode, Smokey Lonesome, Miss Ruth, Sipsey & Whistle Stop and we may include some new characters as well. These will come a little later and we'll again be in touch to let you know when they're live on the site to purchase.
Other news....we will be rolling out a brand new website shortly. We feel it's time to move on from our current provider as we would like to offer a better service for shipping and we would also like to be able to offer loyalty discounts for you, our customers. The new site will enable us to do this plus so much more. We will keep you updated on the launch date. It involves a lot of work so please bear with us whilst we quietly work on that behind the scenes.
This Friday (tomorrow) marks the Spring Equinox, a Solar Eclipse (uk) and also a Super Moon!
It will be a rare day so please enjoy this very special time of renewal. After what feels like the longest winter sleep, we are so ready for pastures new!
To keep up with us via Facebook, click here
To follow us on Instagram, click here
Ok loves!
We will see you Sunday at 12 noon sharp.
Thanks as always for your support! xx
www.futureprimitivesoap.co.ukUFC today announced another incredible match-up set to appear at the upcoming event UFC FIGHT NIGHT: JEDRZEJCZYK V PENNE in Berlin, Germany. Sergio ‘The Panther’ Moraes will meet Peter Sobotta in the Octagon in a welterweight matchup at the o2 World, Berlin on June 20.
With a (9-3-0) record, Moraes will be looking to build on his victory over Mikael Lebout in Poland on April 11. Sobotta (14-1-1) last fought and defeated Pawel Pawlak in Berlin last year. Both will be looking to secure back-to-back victories to help them to continue to climb the welterweight rankings.
Tickets to the highly anticipated UFC FIGHT NIGHT: JEDRZEJCZYK V PENNE go on sale to UFC Fight Club on May 6, Newsletter subscribers on May 7 and general public on May 8. Fans can purchase tickets here:www.o2world.de/UFC2015
Fans are advised to stay tuned for further bout announcements and to follow @UFC_UK on twitter for all the latest news and updates.Hamas on Tuesday night released the names of the five operatives who guarded IDF soldier Gilad Shalit during his five-year captivity by the Palestinian terror group in the Gaza Strip.
The five Hamas members — named as Sami al-Hamaidah, Abdallah Labad, Khaled Abu Bachrah, Mahmoud Rashid Daoud, and Abd al-Rahman al-Mubashar — were involved in the abduction of Shalit and have all since been killed, according to Arabic reports. The last of the Hamas kidnappers, al-Mubashar, died last week in a tunnel collapse.
Shalit was captured in 2006 in a cross-border attack and held hostage by the Gaza-based group until October 2011, when Israel freed 1,027 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for his release.
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A year after Shalit was freed, Hamas released a video dramatizing and documenting the abduction and the killing of two other IDF soldiers in its June 25, 2006, terrorist raid into Israel.
The 45-minute propaganda film broadcast by the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades showed the planning, preparation, and kidnapping of Shalit on the Israeli side of the Israel-Gaza border. The film concluded with previously unseen footage of Shalit handed to Egypt by Hamas strongman Ahmed Ja’abari.
According to the Hamas men’s testimonies, seven of the 10 terrorists assigned to the kidnapping were informed of their mission at the last moment. The kidnappers claimed that all of the explosives, weapons and communications devices used in the mission were produced by the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. A tunnel reputed to be the one employed in the kidnapping was shown to viewers.
The kidnapping team was instructed to wait in the tunnel until daybreak, when it was felt soldiers would be tired and inattentive, and the number of army personnel in the area would be at its minimum.
Upon emerging, they were surprised to find that the tunnel brought them 300 meters shy of the base and one of the commanders decided that the Hamas squad would crawl to a thicket near the Israeli position.
“If the mujaheddin had been caught when we were crawling towards the thicket, the mission would have failed,” a kidnapper identified as Abu Saleh said.
At the moment of the terrorists’ assault, their comrades in Gaza began firing rockets and mortar shells at the Kerem Shalom army base. One squad placed an explosive charge at the base of a Merkava tank’s turret, then fired an anti-tank missile at it after detonating the charge. The second squad charged a guard tower and fired at it. A third squad attacked a nearby armored personnel carrier.
Israeli soldiers Hanan Barak and Pavel Slutzker were both killed in the attack, which also lightly injured Shalit.MP Craig Baumann
A 10th NSW Liberal MP is now sitting on the cross bench after admitting he hid donations from developers, which were used to fund his election campaign.
Port Stephens MP Craig Baumann appeared before the Independent Commission Against Corruption during the final day of public hearings on Friday, and admitted he took secret donations from developers during the 2007 election. He then issued fake invoices to hide them, making false declarations on his electoral returns.
Developer donations were not illegal at the time, but Baumann claimed nearly $80,000 from developers Hilton Grugeon and Jeff McCloy came from his own company.
“I inadvertently made a dishonest declaration and I apologise,” he told the ICAC.
Baumann was on Port Stephens Council and supported a development by the pair in Maitland, but denied donations influenced his decisions.
“I don’t see how a recipient of a donation can be corrupted,” he said.
The ICAC also heard that the MP’s accountant, Vince Heufel, donated $100,000 owed to Baumann’s company for his 2011 election campaign in what appears to be a case of tax evasion.
But outside the ICAC, Baumann told the media he didn’t believe he needed to stand aside from the Liberal Party, but within hours NSW Premier Mike Baird said he had accepted the MPs decision to join the cross bench.
He is the 10th state Liberal MP forced to stand aside over developer donations. All up, 12 state and federal MPs have moved to the cross bench or resigned during the ICAC investigation into illegal donations from developers.
Federal senator Arthur Sinodinos also appeared before the ICAC today. He was chairman of the NSW Liberal Party’s finance committee in the lead up to the 2011 election.
During an occasionally testy exchange with counsel assisting Geoffrey Watson, SC, the senator said he did was not aware that property developers were donating to the campaign and that he did not accept responsibility for it occurring.
“I don’t accept any responsibility for money being raised by prohibited donors,” Sinodinos said.
A Canberra-based company called the Free Enterprise Foundation is under scrutiny for channelling funds from NSW in a bid to get around the 2010 ban on developer donations. The Foundation gave $700,000 to the campaign.
Watson asked whether senator Sinodinos not knowing who the party’s biggest donor was would pass “a pub test”.
After giving evidence, Sinodinos said he was looking forward to returning to Canberra as part of the government.
The report into the ICAC’s investigation is due in 2015.
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Two years later, Jackson is adjusting to a new but similar position on the right side of center Rodney Hudson. It wasn't performance that brought about the change -- far from it -- but instead it was the addition of stud free agent Kelechi Osemele, who has also been a left guard for the majority of his career.
That forced the Raiders coaching staff to make a decision on how to align the two massive maulers, and so far head coach Jack Del Rio feels good about the choice that was made.
“From our standpoint, we’re looking for the best combination," Del Rio said after the fourth practice of OTAs Tuesday, via the team website. "We feel like (Jackson) has got the power that’s really a covet for a right guard, in particular. Both of those guys are really talented. That was the decision we made, to try that way first with Gabe.
"I’ve seen nothing that would suggest anything other than he’s going to be just fine and we’ll be a much stronger unit with that group that’ll end up being in there and we’ll be stout.”
Jackson (mostly) seamlessly moving to right guard should be no surprise, as he's proven to be one of the best young players in the league at the guard spot. Same goes for Osemele, who signed a five-year, $58.5 million deal in March and turns 26 years old later this month.
Together, the 6-foot-5, 330-pound Osemele and and 6-foot-3, 336-pound Jackson should give the Raiders a leg up in the run game this season and beyond, regardless of which side of the center each player is lined up.
"I mean, it's a learning process and there are growing pains, but it's also fun, too," Jackson said of the switch, via the Bay Area News Group's Jerry McDonald. "This is a good time of year to do it. You can't overthink it. You've just got to be a football player."Despite some delays due to weather, the Regina Bypass project has been moving along over the winter and is almost halfway complete.
“We are well underway,” said Darrell Trapp, Area 2 manager.
The bypass, now 43 per cent complete, is the largest transportation project in the province’s history. The scope of the project consists of 12 overpasses, 38 bridges, 45 kilometres of new four-lane highway, 21.4 kilometres of resurfaced four-lane highway and 54.4 kilometres of new service roads.
The first phase, which extends from Highway 33 to Balgonie, will open in the fall. Phase 2, which runs from Highway 11 in the north to Highway 33 in the south, will open in 2019.
“At the end of the year, we will see that whole east side substantially done,” said David Stearns, executive director of major projects for the Ministry of Highways. “The interchanges will open up at Balgonie and White City. There will be part of the interchange opened up at Pilot Butt and Tower Road.”
The opening of the interchanges will alleviate some of the congestion on Victoria Avenue East, but divert more to Arcola Avenue for the next two years.
“That will sort out once the rest of the bypass project is done in 2019,” Stearns said.
Once the entire bypass is complete in 2019, it is estimated that 70 per cent of traffic, mostly trucks, will be diverted south of the city rather than along Victoria Avenue East.
“It will not only improve the overall safety of the road, but from a congestion relief point of view, there will be a safety improvement overall,” Stearns said. “We have a very good handle on for what we anticipate for traffic and what this bypass will do to alleviate congestion.”
The project has been hit with several challenges from Mother Nature over the past six months.
“The winter weather has impacted us a bit. We are dealing with mud and it is tougher to get around,” Trapp said. “We (also) found that the ground around the area is very unpredictable. There is water and Regina clay is a challenge to work and deal with. We are very much experiencing that.”
Construction on the stretch from the Trans-Canada Highway interchange to the Highway 6 interchange is 50 per cent complete and work is ramping up at the Highway 6 interchange to build two new bridges.
“We are just getting started on the two bridges here. Highway 6 will also be twinned from Regina to the south here,” Trapp said. “The goal is to get at least one of the bridges open for the summer or this fall so we can stage and get the twinning construction completed.”
Construction is also moving along at the Highway 11, 9th Avenue North and Dewdney Avenue interchanges, which involves 13 bridges.
“We have started on the bridge works and we have constructed the sub-structure (at the Highway 11 interchange),” said Dave Callander, Area 1 project manager for structures. “Later this year, there will be girders and bridge decks at this bridge and other bridges in area 1.”
Area 1, like the other areas of the bypass construction, has not been immune to the challenges of the weather.
“It has been a cold winter which is good for us in terms of earth moving, but not so favourable for bridges,” Callander said.
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A D.C. Superior Court judge on Friday approved a plea bargain agreement expected to result in the dismissal of a charge of simple assault against the second of two women accused of dragging a gay male drag performer by the hair at a D.C. carry-out pizzeria in June that was captured on video.
Under the agreement offered by the U.S. Attorney’s office, Raymone Harding, 28, of Gaithersburg, Md., pleaded guilty to the assault charge in exchange for being allowed to withdraw the plea and have the charge dismissed if she successfully completes 48 hours of community service over a period of six months.
The agreement also requires her to stay out of trouble, stay away from the man she was charged with assaulting — Miles Denaro, 24 — and undergo a drug test as directed by the court’s Pre-Trial Services Agency.
Judge Juliet J. McKenna approved the agreement for Harding one week after she approved an identical plea agreement for co-defendant Rachel M. Sahle, 22, also from Gaithersburg.
“This is essentially less than a slap on the wrist,” Denaro told the Blade when informed of the outcome of Friday’s court proceeding.
He said one of the prosecutors, Assistant U.S. Attorney David Missler, called him a little over a week ago to inform him of plans for the plea bargain offer and to get his thoughts on the matter. Denaro said Missler told him the two women would be required to perform community service work rather than jail time.
“He said allegedly the judge they are seeing is lenient so he was leaning toward doing this so that way they get community service no matter what,” said Denaro.
In a development that had not been previously disclosed, Denaro told the Blade on Friday that he was called to testify before a grand jury convened by prosecutors in July in connection with the assault charges pending against Harding and Sahle.
According to court records, the grand jury did not hand down an indictment in the case, an outcome that court observers consider unusual because grand juries usually follow the recommendation of prosecutors by approving an indictment.
The decision by prosecutors to offer the two women the plea agreement is likely to surprise LGBT activists because it came shortly after the U.S. Attorney’s office told the court it was looking into the possibility of upgrading the assault charge with a “bias” or hate crime designation.
“The government is not seeking a bias enhancement based on the results of a thorough investigation and review of the case,” William Miller, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office, told the Blade.
Miller said he could not comment on whether a grand jury is convened on a specific case but said that in general grand juries are sometimes called to assist in an investigation rather than for the purpose of an indictment.
“It is used to get people to testify under oath as an investigative tool,” he said.
D.C. attorney Dale Edwin Sanders, who practices criminal law in D.C. and Virginia, said the fact that the assault against Denaro was captured on video provided prosecutors with a strong case with a good chance of obtaining a conviction against the two women had the case gone to trial.
He said Denaro’s statements that the two women made anti-transgender and anti-gay remarks toward him during and immediately after the attack made a strong case for designating the incident as a hate crime.
“I think this is ridiculously lenient for what happened,” said Sanders in referring to the plea agreement. “To me this sounds like a total whitewash.”
The June 23 incident at Manny & Olga’s pizzeria at 1841 14th St., N.W., created an uproar in the LGBT community after a customer used his cell phone to record the altercation on video and posted the video on a popular hip-hop music website, resulting in it being viewed by thousands in D.C. and across the country.
According to police and court records, the video taken by the customer and a separate video taken by security cameras at the restaurant show Denaro being punched, kicked and dragged across the floor by the hair after being knocked down by the two women. The video posted online also shows that many of the bystanders screamed and laughed as the altercation unfolded. Denaro said no one, including employees at the restaurant, intervened to stop the assault.
He said one or both of the women shouted that he was a man and a “tranny” as they hit him. According to his account of what happened, one of the women called him a “faggot” after the altercation ended when they saw him walk past them on the sidewalk outside.
Miller of the U.S. Attorney’s Office said the plea agreements offered to the two women are part of a widely used court “diversion/deferred sentencing” program that’s limited to misdemeanor cases involving defendants with no prior criminal record.
“Where a defendant is charged with an offense that is potentially diversion eligible, we look at the facts and circumstances surrounding the event and make a determination as to whether diversion is appropriate,” he said.
“A supervisor has to approve a simple assault case for diversion, adding another layer of scrutiny,” he added.
Hassan Naveed, co-chair of the D.C.-based Gays and Lesbians Opposing Violence (GLOV), said the group is assessing the plea bargain agreement offered in the Denaro assault case and would issue a statement on the development shortly.
D.C. transgender activist Jeri Hughes said she was troubled over the outcome of the case, which she said appears to her as a hate crime.
“You’ve got people like trans women in jail because they are poor and turn to prostitution,” Hughes said. “And here are two people who commit a violent attack and they are going to walk. This is unacceptable.”For generations now, the colorfully costumed heroes and heroines of DC and Marvel Comics have been competing for readers’ attentions on newsstands and in comic-book stores. In recent decades, their never-ending battle has spilled over onto the big screen as well. DC struck first with a pair of landmark blockbusters—Richard Donner’s super-sized Superman epic in 1978, followed by Tim Burton’s Gothic noir version of Batman in 1989. Meanwhile, Marvel floundered, offering up such underwhelming outings as the infamous George Lucas-produced bomb Howard the Duck, a never-officially-released Fantastic Four movie made on the cheap by Roger Corman, and a justly forgotten Captain American feature starring Matt Salinger—the son of reclusive Catcher in the Rye novelist J.D. Salinger—in the title role.
For a long while, it seemed as though DC had cornered the market on comic-book movies. But the tide started to turn in 1998 with the well-received vampire action picture Blade, based on a semi-obscure ’70s Marvel character. Two years later, director Bryan Singer introduced moviegoers to one of the company’s signature titles, the X-Men. That film became Marvel’s first honest-to-God blockbuster and was quickly followed by vehicles for such iconic heroes as Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk and The Punisher. All told, the period between 2000 and 2010 saw a whopping 18 theatrical features made from major Marvel properties. In the same time frame, their Distinguished Competition mustered roughly half that number. (Although, to be fair, one of those features was Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, the most acclaimed and commercially successful comic-book movie made to date.)
After initially licensing its characters to Hollywood, Marvel took a big step toward filmmaking independence in 2005, acquiring the funds to produce its own slate of movies though its film arm, Marvel Studios. Two years later, Marvel tapped Kevin Feige to be the studio’s president of production just as shooting was about to commence on its first feature, Iron Man.
Feige is by no means a newcomer to the Marvel universe; in fact, he has been part of the company since its cinematic (re)birth, serving as an associate producer on the first X-Men and working in various capacities on most of their subsequent productions, from Sam Raimi’s wildly popular Spider-Man trilogy to 2005’s Fantastic Four (not to be confused with the Corman version) and its sequel.
Under Feige’s watch, Marvel Studios has produced two Iron Man adventures that together grossed over $1.2 billion worldwide and kicked off the 2011 summer movie season with the Paramount release of Thor, which just passed the $400 million mark. July brings the studio’s next big Paramount release, Captain America: The First Avenger, directed by Joe Johnston (see our sidebar) and starring Chris Evans as the super-serum-enhanced freedom fighter who goes up against a cackling villain known as The Red Skull (Hugo Weaving) in the midst of World War II.
As their past successes attest, Feige and his team have apparently found the right recipe for making comic-book movies that please the genre’s core fanboy crowd while also appealing to a wider audience. Asked to describe what makes a Marvel Studios joint special, Feige replies: “Our movies surprise people who think they’re just coming to see a lot of special effects. We always look to find the balance of the epic and the intimate, whether we’re focusing on a scientist on the run because his affliction turns him big and green or a billionaire weapons designer who wouldn’t seem to be very relatable at all. The best compliment we can get on all of our movies is, ‘You know, I don’t usually like these kinds of movies, but I really responded to this.’”
By Feige’s own admission, both of Marvel Studios’ 2011 offerings represent a significant risk for the still-young outfit in that they test the mass audience’s appetite for stories and characters that depart from the usual comic-book movie fare. With its mixture of gods and monsters, Thor is almost a full-fledged fantasy, while Captain America is a period piece that takes place in the early ’40s—long before the majority of the movie’s target audience was born.
“Frankly, that’s what always excited me about these films,” Feige says, on the phone from his Los Angeles office. “I liked the idea of putting two different kinds of comic-book movies into the marketplace this summer. We wanted to see if film audiences would embrace the unique nature of these particular heroes. Neither of these movies is your typical tale of a contemporary person who finds himself with extraordinary powers.”
Certainly in the case of Thor—a hammer-wielding Norse God (played by next-big-thing Aussie actor Chris Hemsworth) from the mystical realm of Asgard—fantasy is an integral part of the character. (And the film’s grosses indicate that moviegoers didn’t mind the fantastical flourishes, which Feige describes as a “huge relief.”) But Captain America’s comic-book counterpart has been part of the contemporary Marvel universe ever since the character was revived in the 1960s, which means the studio could have opted to place the movie in a more modern setting.
According to Feige, initial drafts of the screenplay did indeed take place both in World War II and the present day. Early on in the development process, though, he realized that approach wasn’t working. “The problem was that you didn’t have enough time to get to know the character,” he explains. “All of a sudden, people were calling him an icon and treating him as a costume as opposed to a character. Plus, his origin story takes place in World War II—that’s when he was created and when he was first brought into comics. So I decided that we needed to go full period; not only does Joe [Johnston] love that era, but it also allows us to do a whole first act with Steve Rogers [Captain America’s alter ego] as a scrawny, 98-pound weakling who just wants a chance to prove himself. It was always my hope that viewers would fall in love with Steve before he even puts on the costume and gets the muscles. And in the test screenings we’ve done up to this point, that seems to be the case.”
Naturally, winning the audience’s affection also hinged on finding the right actor to fill Captain America’s star-spangled uniform. Feige says that the casting process stretched on for quite some time and included what he describes as “elaborate screen tests” with between five to ten contenders, none of whom ultimately measured up. “We just weren’t getting that gut feeling and that’s always worrisome. So we went back to the master list and I saw Chris’ name. I hadn’t thought about him because he had been Johnny Storm [a.k.a. The Human Torch] in our Fantastic Four movies and I think I was holding onto some internal bias because of that. Since we weren’t finding what we wanted, this time his name really popped for me. So we had him come in and within ten minutes of reconnecting with him, I was convinced he was right for the part, not only physically, but also just in his attitude. He’d grown so much in the years since the first Fantastic Four film. I also appreciated that he hesitated about accepting the role because he knew how important it was. He didn’t want to just sign on as a lark; he took a week or two and spoke with his mother and his best friends and then he was willing to dive into it. I’m incredibly impressed with how he’s brought this character to life.”
Committing to the idea of a period Captain America adventure—and casting an actor who had previously played another prominent Marvel hero—are just some of the ways Marvel Studios has been taking chances with its parent company’s properties. Feige says that his experiences making Marvel movies at other studios have informed many of the creative decisions he’s made as president. “We had a pretty incredible run of films before we became our own studio. Most of the films we made with our studio partners were great and we probably wouldn’t have done much differently. But some of them were frustrating in terms of things being changed on the whims of certain executives’ tastes. So we’ve learned not to move away from the source material without good reason.
“For example,” he continues, “in the original comics, Captain America had a sidekick named Bucky Barnes, who was this 12-year-old camp mascot. These days, it wouldn’t make a lot of sense to have a 12-year-old running around in battle. So in the film, we’ve made them contemporaries and best friends. We’ve also learned to take chances on casting and not think that there has to be a marquee name playing every character, because retrofitting the character to fit whatever flavor of the month has been cast never works. I’m not saying that happened a lot on the other movies, but it happened occasionally and it didn’t help. It’s funny, when we were beginning to make Iron Man, we found ourselves willing to take chances with our own characters that other studios weren’t willing to take. It comes down to confidence in our source material and confidence that the broader audience will respond the same way comic-book fans have responded all these years if we just do the characters justice.”
It was also during the shooting of the first Iron Man that Feige made one of his boldest decisions—to set all of the Marvel Studios films in the same universe, which he calls the Marvel Cinematic Universe or MCU. That idea took shape following a casual conversation he had with Samuel L. |
restaurant space, several stories of low-income housing and expanded social services. The renovation also would connect the market with the Seattle Aquarium for easy pedestrian access.
It will be the Market's most significant change in decades. The design is crisp, clean and new. And that doesn't sit well with some merchants.
"I think people come here because it's funky and old, said Linda Gilbert of Sosio's Produce. It's going to go on for a long time so I think it's going to effect our business. But in the long run, 10 years from now, it's going to be beneficial to the market, though I love the old market. I don't want it to be fancy and nice."
The plan is the final step in the development of the market's historical district and relies on the removal of the Alaskan Way Viaduct and development of the central waterfront as key factors in the project.
Ben Franz-Knight, executive director of the Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority, said the renovation will remain true to the market's historical roots while at the same time responding to changing times.
"It's critically important when you're doing anything in the market to pay attention to history, and this project is rooted in the goals established in the mid-'70s when the market was saved," he said.
"At the same time everybody realizes this is going to be new," he added. "We want to carry the character of the market into this space and create that great connection to the new waterfront and the aquarium."
Funding for the $65 million project will come from the Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority, the state Department of Transportation, the city of Seattle and low-income housing grants.
Key features of the project will include 15,000 square feet of retail space, more than 30,000 square feet of open public space including a plaza and viewing deck, room for farm or craft stalls on the new roof terrace, 40 low-income housing units for seniors, 300 covered parking spaces and multiple public art installations.
Singer songwriter Brandi Carlile joined the Pike Place Market Foundation for a luncheon downtown Thursday. She got her start as a busker at the Market.
"Really what Pike Place taught me and what I wanted to learn by busking at Pike Place was how to be an entertainer. You know what it takes to make people stop when they're doing something, and listen to you," Carlile said.
She said when she started touring, she would look for someplace like Pike Place Market in other cities, but she couldn't ever find it. She called preserving and renovating imperative. "We have the best public market in the country," she said. "It's authentic. It's the weirdest. And it needs to stay as quirky as it is, but it also needs to expand. We need to serve people for generations to come, like we have the past generations."
In addition to the food, flower and craft vendors, the Market Foundation runs a food bank, health clinic, pre-school and housing for low income neighbors. The expansion includes additions to those services.Artur Debat /Getty
You won’t breathe easy after reading this: a few of the nanoparticles in the air you are inhaling are entering your bloodstream and building up in the diseased areas of your arteries.
This finding could help explain why air pollution raises the risk of heart disease and strokes. But what’s really worrying is that it suggests that current laws and efforts to regulate air pollution are focusing on the wrong particles.
“We are potentially looking in the wrong place,” says David Newby at the University of Edinburgh, UK.
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Numerous studies have shown that air pollution leads to millions of premature deaths worldwide each year. Even in Europe, with its relatively clean air, air pollution is blamed for 400,000 premature deaths a year.
Most of these deaths are due to the raised risk of cardiovascular disease: simply being exposed to high pollution for short periods can trigger heart attacks and strokes, while long-term exposure causes vascular damage. The big question is why.
It has long been suspected that some of the nanoparticles we breathe in could get into the bloodstream and damage blood vessels, but until now, this had never been shown. These nanoparticles are mostly carbon compounds, and finding them inside carbon-based lifeforms like ourselves is extremely difficult.
Artery plaques
So the team instead got volunteers to breathe air filled with harmless gold nanoparticles. Within 15 minutes the nanoparticles began to show up in the volunteer’s blood – and they could still be found in blood and urine three months later.
“We were really surprised that levels were so high three months afterwards,” says team leader Mark Miller, also at Edinburgh.
Next the team got a few people who were due to undergo surgery to breathe in the gold nanoparticles. They found that when nanoparticles get into the body, they accumulate in the fatty plaques that can grow inside arteries, causing heart attacks and strokes.
While gold nanoparticles are inert, the reactive compounds found in air pollution could have all sorts of harmful effects, from impairing the contraction of blood vessels to promote clotting, Miller says.
The study goes a long way towards explaining how air pollution causes vascular injury and disease, says Frank Kelly at King’s College London. “If these findings with gold particles reflect the movement of exhaust-generated carbon particles, then the increased production of very small particles by modern engines is a cause for further concern,” he said in a statement.
Next the team will investigate whether gold nanoparticles get into the brain. Air pollution seems to increase the risk of brain disorders such as dementia, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, and one recent study found tiny iron particles in people’s brains that may have come from vehicle exhausts.
Difficult to measure
Air quality laws in the European Union and elsewhere set a limit on particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometres – so-called PM2.5. However the limit is on the total mass of these particles in a cubic metre of air, rather than the total number.
The thing is, thousands of ultrafine particles can weigh far less in total than a few relatively large ones. Over the past few decades the mass of PM2.5 per cubic metre has fallen in most wealthy countries, suggesting air pollution is improving. But because of the increasing numbers of diesel vehicles on European roads, Newby thinks the number of ultrafine particles has risen over this time.
So should the laws be changed? The trouble is that measuring the numbers of ultrafine particles is very difficult and cannot be done using the roadside devices widely used to monitor air pollution.
“Ideally we would measure numbers,” says Miller. “But the technology is not there.”
The UK government is currently seeking to delay releasing its latest plan for tackling air pollution – a plan it was ordered to produce after losing a series of lawsuits brought by environment group ClientEarth.
The ClientEarth cases revolve around wild violations of the EU limits for the gas nitrogen dioxide rather than particulates. However, some of the measures needed to reduce nitrogen dioxide levels – such as getting diesel vehicles off the roads – should also help reduce particulate levels.
Journal reference: ACS Nano, DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.6b08551Football Soccer - England v Russia - EURO 2016 - Group B - Stade V?lodrome, Marseille, France - 11/6/16 Fans clash in the stadium after the game REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach Livepic
PARIS (Reuters) - French police re-arrested Russian soccer fan leader Alexander Shprygin in the southwestern city of Toulouse on Monday, two days after deporting him in connection with violence that marred the beginning of the Euro 2016 tournament.
It was not immediately clear how Shprygin re-entered France. A message on his Twitter handle said that he had taken an unconventional route and included a photo of a jet belonging to Spanish low-cost carrier Vueling Airlines.
“He was arrested this evening in Toulouse,” a spokesman for the Interior Ministry said.
Also posted on the Twitter feed of Shprygin, who is president of the Russian Supporters Union, was a short video filmed inside the stadium ahead of Russia’s match against Wales.
Shprygin was among 20 Russian fans expelled from France after violence flared before and during the England-Russia match in Marseille.The Pentagon urged caution over news reports saying that President Obama is "close" to considering sending 1,000 additional troops to Iraq to speed the training of forces to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
Having the extra manpower is one of several options under consideration, as the administration tries to figure out how to significantly improve Iraq's capability to defend itself against gains by the Islamic State.
Other options include having the U.S. train Sunni tribes directly and a new approach to directly distribute thousands of weapons in Iraq.
Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren said Tuesday that internal discussions were ongoing at the Pentagon and have come to the conclusion that "it is better to train more Iraqi security forces. And we are now working through a strategy on how to to do that," Warren said. "Here at the Pentagon we are developing courses of action that will produce those results."
Asked earlier Tuesday whether one of the new options is sending more troops to Iraq, Warren said "we have to complete the plan. I am not going to reveal the plan before it is done. "
A defense official cautioned that the 1,000 additional forces reported by CNN may not be accurate.
During the G-7 summit on Monday, Obama said the U.S. was concerned about the numbers of Iraqi recruits who are able to be trained at the sites.
"One of the things that we have to improve is the speed with which we're training Iraqi forces, and I think the president also spoke to that," said State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke. "We're reviewing a range of plans for how that could be done."
Warren told reporters at the daily briefing that the Department of Defense is hitting its initial goal of getting 9,000 Iraqi security forces trained a year. In the first 10 months since a force of 3,000 U.S. military personnel returned to Iraq to stand up training sites, more than 8,000 Iraqi have graduated from the six-week basic training course and another 3,000 are in the pipeline.
Warren said the Pentagon's desire to increase the numbers of Iraqis being trained reflects the quality of the forces coming out of the program. However none of the Iraqis who the U.S. and coalition have trained have been sent to any of the significant battles in Iraq. For months, Iraqi officials have complained that those forces did not leave the training sites with adequate weapons or equipment.
Until recently, the Iraqi government took the lead in distributing weapons directly to the trained forces.Seymour Hersh, the Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter, has re-opened the discussion on who was behind the Chemical Weapons attack in Syria. Hersh argues that Turkey supplied the rebels with these deadly weapons in a ‘false flag operation’ designed to create the legitimisation for military intervention.
At first sight, this looks like exciting investigative reporting by an icon of free journalism. A closer look, however, reveals the work of a twentieth century reporter whose methodology has become heavily outdated and perhaps even unreliable. Hersh’s story is based on a single anonymous source – rumoured to be F. Michael Maloof, a former George W. Bush Defence staffer.
On the other side of the debate we find the likes of Eliot Higgins who runs the Brown Moses Blog. Higgins has no qualifications in Journalism or Foreign Policy and has never set foot in Syria. But he understands the Internet’s defining characteristics and turns it into a strategic advantage to gather information and, as such, is able to successfully challenge the grand master of investigative journalism.
By cleverly utilising the network characteristic of Twitter and by gathering the infinite images emerging from the deadly conflict via YouTube and Facebook, he manages to document the dynamics of the conflict in detail. This methodology has turned his blog into a credible source of information referenced by traditional media outlets like BBC, Reuters and CNN.
Higgins represents two distinct features of the information age: Open Source intelligence gathering and unfamiliar networked solutions. Developments that Hersh has ignored but which are radically changing the field of Intelligence and Journalism.
Both intelligence analysts and journalists heavily relied on a handful of sources to create stories. Verifying for reliability of the source and keeping the identity anonymous was part of best practices in both fields.
The emergence of the digital age has fundamentally changed this. As social media are datafying social life, relationships, behaviour, thoughts, locations, and networks, a vast amount of messy data is suddenly available to be harvested. Most of this data is Open Source and can be accessed by individuals such as ‘Brown Moses’.
In the aftermath of the Ghouta attack on the 21st of August last year, the Leicester-based blogger started analysing the videos on YouTube and information on other social networks. Much of the data was in Arabic, a language Higgins does not understand, and thus had to rely on Google Translate and support from his followers.
It took Higgins several months to reconstruct that the type of rocket (‘Volcano’) used in the attack has indeed been used before and, moreover, that the Syrian Arab Army and the Syrian National Defence Force has this specific type of weapons in their arsenal. Furthermore, his work revealed how the missiles were fired from regime-controlled areas.
Seymour Hersh on the other hand chose to ignore this publically available information that was contradicting his argument and instead relied solely on a single source. His methodology certainly proved useful in the Cold War as evident from his work on revealing the My Lai massacre, for instance.
‘The Internet’ has rendered the work of one of the world’s most famous reporters severely outdated and even unreliable. A social media-savvy nobody from a medium-sized English town with a good online network is beating the grand master in his own game.
Hersh’s article is a welcome addition for those seeking to uncover who was behind the attack that killed over a 1,000 civilians and nearly caused US-led military intervention in Syria – if only for putting it back on the agenda. But moreover, it signifies a fundamental change for the Intelligence community and news media that times have changed and innovative, networked, and Open Sourced approaches are vital for reliable information gathering and analysis.
This article was also published by openDemocracyOne morning, a Mennonite farmer in the Cayo district of western Belize got up like he always did to feed his chickens and milk his cows. Later in the day, like the unmechanized Maya who lived here some 1,200 years ago, he worked up a pretty good sweat tending his winter crops. At the end of his hard day’s work, he headed in for dinner before shuffling off to bed, where he was quickly transported to Mennonite dreamland.
“You have to look at whether there was a trade network, essentially a human-trafficking network, in children.”
Suddenly, sometime before midnight, the farmer was roused from his slumber by a commotion outside. It seems a Maya-antiquities looter had tumbled into an unexplored cave near his village—the looter’s frightened friend was begging for help. So the farmer and a few of his fellow Mennonites rushed to the scene via horse and buggy, where they lowered the farmer by rope 30 or more feet into the inky darkness. There, he found the unfortunate opportunist, whose numerous injuries included the loss of several teeth, which were dislodged by the impact of his jaw upon the cave’s limestone floor. As he gathered up the bloodied criminal, the farmer noticed human skulls leering in the darkness, skeletal hands groping at the dank air, femurs scattered about. When he finally made it back to the surface and deposited the hapless thief into his buggy before taking him to the nearest hospital, the farmer named this place “Mitnacht Schreknis Heel,” which is Plautdietsch—the Dutch-German dialect of Belizean Mennonites—for “Midnight Terror Cave.”
That was in December of 2006. Meanwhile, more than 2,000 miles to the northwest, Dr. James Brady, a professor of anthropology at California State University, Los Angeles, was doing what he always does—studying Maya cave sites. Brady has been researching Maya caves for more than three decades, pioneering the little-known field of Mesoamerican cave archaeology. He knows as much about Maya caves from the Classic Period (roughly 250 to 900 AD) as it’s possible to know—from the rituals that were conducted in them, including human sacrifices, to the ways in which natural caves were altered to create wide, level plazas where people could congregate in the gloom. Which is why in the spring of 2007, when his colleague Dr. Jaime Awe, then the director of the Institute of Archaeology in Belize, told him about a new Maya cave and invited him to research and study the site, Brady leaped like a looter at the chance.
“I had no idea we were going to run into such an enormous quantity of human bones,” Brady told me recently, referring to the remains from those aforementioned human sacrifices. Coming from a guy who’s seen a lot of bones in a lot of Maya caves, that’s saying something. “When I started out in 1981, most people thought the caves were used for habitation,” he adds. “I threw out the possibility of ritual, but no one knew. Even though I’ve been at this for 30 years, this branch of archaeology is still rather new.”
Significantly, Brady, his colleagues, and the Cal State L.A. students who helped him investigate the site also found a lot of teeth amid the 10,000 bones and 29,000 pottery sherds they cataloged from 2008 through 2010. Being thorough scientists, they also located the injured looter’s teeth, but they were more interested in the 100-plus ancient molars, bicuspids, canines, and incisors they discovered. Of these, many showed little evidence of use, a good indication they came from the skulls of children.
“We encounter bones frequently in caves,” Brady continues. “But the issues that haven’t been resolved are: who were these people and how did they get there.”
Until now: In just the past few months, Brady and his team may have received an answer to a third question—where did the people whose flesh once encased all those bones come from, which may eventually help answer the other two—thanks to the work of Dr. Naomi Marks, who’s a scientist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in northern California, and just so happens to be my sister (Naomi has come to my editorial rescue before). At the request of one of Brady’s students, Samantha Lorenz, who’s writing her master’s thesis on the teeth, Naomi tested a number of teeth from the Midnight Terror Cave for their strontium isotopic signature, a common practice used to geolocate formerly living “humans” before they became “remains.”
Though the data is still being crunched (the full report will be published when Lorenz presents her thesis later this year), initial analysis indicates that the children whose bones littered the Midnight Terror Cave did not come from the surrounding Upper Roaring River Valley, where the cave is located, or even from Belize. In fact, the young victims appear to have been brought to this spot from as far as 200 miles away (an enormous distance in the 9th century), before being taken deep into the earth to have their beating hearts cut from their chests to appease any number of angry gods.
Before you say, “Hey, I saw that movie!” (“Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” has a similar plot), this is the work of scientific fact rather than Hollywood fiction. And unlike a sensationalist blockbuster, the story behind the Midnight Terror Cave is grounded in years of painstaking research, from high-tech bio-archaeology techniques like checking the strontium isotopes in teeth, to traditional anthropology, which in this case includes studying the ceremonies and practices of the present-day inhabitants of what’s known as the Central Maya Lowlands in order to learn how their ancestors may have lived and died.
Though a controversial practice in some circles, observing the contemporary Maya to glean clues about the lives of their ancient forebears has been an important part of Brady and Awe’s work. For the Maya never completely died out. To be sure, their temples and cities of the Classic Period, some of which had populations of 50,000 to 100,000, were abandoned, and their polities collapsed. But the people themselves lived on, despite the diseases that were brought to their lands by their European conquerors, to say nothing of the conquest itself.
“One of the centerpieces of my studies,” Brady says, “is talking to the living Maya, which I can use as a guide for what life was probably like back then.”
“Those of us who do research in the Maya area,” says Jaime Awe, who now teaches anthropology at Northern Arizona University, “have the advantage of meeting the descendants of the people who utilized these places, be they cave sites or surface sites. They still live in and around some of the ancient Mayan cities, and many of their traditions have continued. By talking with contemporary Maya about their contemporary rituals, we can extrapolate into the past.”
That includes what happened in caves such as Midnight Terror. “The Maya no longer sacrifice people in caves; it’s against the law,” Awe dryly notes, “but I have observed the sacrifice of chickens, sometimes even turkeys. So we can still witness rituals within the cave context, although the practices have changed.”
On a purely intuitive level, that sort of extrapolation sounds right, but for Dr. James Doyle, who’s an assistant curator in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, there’s a better reason to reach out to contemporary Maya. “Engaging with contemporary Maya speakers in Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize is important for archaeologists and art historians because the contemporary Maya are obviously very important stakeholders in the interpretation of their past. It’s just best practices when you are working in these countries, especially if you are a foreigner. But it’s problematic to interpret ancient data by looking at contemporary practices,” he says.
Experts agree, however, on the principle of reciprocity. According to Awe, sacrifices and offerings, then as now, are based on a belief in this idea, which he describes as “sympathetic magic.” “If you feed the gods corn tamales and corn tortillas,” he says, “then the gods will reciprocate and provide you with corn by making your crops grow. Many of the rituals in caves had to do with agricultural fertility. In some caves, we can still find the plants and food that were taken into these caves as offerings—corncobs, cacao, annatto seeds.”
Okay, reciprocity, I think can get my head around the logic of that, even if I don’t happen to believe in it. But why spill the blood of humans—and children, no less? “The ancient Maya and even the recorded Maya (the Colonial Spanish priests reported this) believed humans were made from corn,” says Awe. “And so, when you offered a human, you were essentially feeding corn to the gods.” Since maize was the most important staple of the Maya, human sacrifice was not seen as taking the principle of reciprocity too far. Indeed, it may well have been viewed as the least a grateful populace could do to ensure its survival.
“The life cycle was very important to the Classic Maya,” agrees Doyle, “and it all, I think, goes back to the concept that people are made from maize. For example, the title ‘Ch’ok’ is used for royal Mayan youths, but in the Colonial-era dictionary, it’s also used as the word for maize sprout, the beginning of the maize plant. So there’s clearly an association of life cycles with agricultural cycles. Not only was agricultural fertility very important for the Maya’s day-to-day subsistence, but it was also part of the creation of the Maya people.”
Naturally, two of the most frequently beseeched gods were the god of maize, who does not have a formal name as far as anthropologists can tell, and the god of rain, whose name is variously spelled “Chac,” “Chaak,” or “Chahk.” “The Maya hieroglyph decipherment folks are very much involved in these debates of pronunciation,” Doyle says. “But we can’t know exactly for sure how the ancient Maya would have said it. Would they have said ‘Cha-ak’ with a long ‘a’ or ‘Chahk’ with a glottal ‘h.’ It depends on who you talk to.”
The reason for Chaak’s popularity (we’ll use Brady’s preferred spelling) relates directly to the abandonment of caves such as Midnight Terror by the Maya sometime in the 9th century, as well as the proliferation children’s bones within. According to a paper by B.L. Turner and Jeremy Sabloff in the August 2012 issue of the “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,” the Terminal Classic Period of the Maya, roughly 800-1000 AD, saw eight droughts lasting 3-18 years long.
No doubt the lack of rainfall during that period increased the number of times local Maya would have gone to the Midnight Terror Cave to offer Chaak food, material goods such as pottery, and human blood. And since, according to Jim Brady, children were the sacrifice victims of choice when calling on the rain god, the droughts probably help account for the large quantities of children’s bones in Midnight Terror.
It would be convenient to view the climate change that helped upend Maya society at the end of the Classic Period as an event beyond the Maya’s—and Chaak’s—control. But Turner and Sabloff argue that it wasn’t just drought that undid the 9th-century inhabitants of the Central Maya Lowlands. The overall reduction in rainfall during the period, they point out, was only 40 percent of normal, or less. In fact, the farming practices of the Classic Period Maya’s ancestors may have been the real reason why so many Maya children were sacrificed.
“There’s evidence to show that the farming practices of the Preclassic Period were perhaps even more deleterious than the ones of the Classic Period, when the Maya were managing water resources with terracing, reservoirs, and these type of things,” says Doyle. “From about 300 BC to 100 AD, we see a build up of what’s called Maya clay, an anthropogenic [caused by humans] soil that is basically runoff as a result of deforestation. And so, during the late Preclassic Period, which is a peak of population in the Maya Lowlands before the Classic period, you have some farming practices that perhaps contributed to the need for better water management via reservoirs, canals, and the things you see in Classic Period agriculture.”
The paleontological data support this view. They reveal steep drops in forest pollen (losses of up to 90 percent), which is evidence of large-scale deforestation, presumably for fuel and farmland. Forests hold more soil moisture than open land, which means less moisture is released into the atmosphere to fall locally as precipitation. Combined with the common practice of slashing-and-burning, which promoted the proliferation of an invasive species of bracken fern, and you get a picture of an infertile landscape, “millennia in the making,” as Turner and Sabloff put it, ill-suited for even a 40 percent overall rainfall reduction. We’ll probably never know if there was an ancient-Maya equivalent of Al Gore running around, warning of the harm that the Maya were doing to their Mesoamerican environment. What we do know is that a lot of caves in that part of the world are filled with a lot of bones.
By now, you may be wondering what role the famous stepped Mayan temples at Tikal, Palenque, Chichen Itza, and other sites might have played in the Maya’s quest for rain. Wasn’t that what the temples were for? Weren’t they essentially ladders to the heavens, platforms to permit the local shamans to mount their steps so they could make their public offerings of maize (be they corn cobs or human beings) that much closer to the gods?
“If you’re sacrificing people on a large scale and you’re only drawing from within your own society, that could cause some real social unrest.”
In fact, in Mayan cosmology, caves are every bit as important as temples, if not more so. “Many aboveground Mayan sites are located directly over caves,” explains Awe. Although Awe stops short of claiming that all Mayan temples are paired with caves (scientists have not actually looked under every single temple to verify that this is true, he points out), he acknowledges the relationship between the two. “In some cases, some Maya even went so far as to construct caves beneath some of their sites,” he says of those aboveground sites that lacked natural forms below. “And we know there’s a strong ideological connection for the Maya between the underworld/Earth and the heavens. It creates the perfect ancient-Maya cosmology of the universe.”
Like the cosmology that was prevalent in the Christian world prior to Galileo’s heliocentric heresies of the early 17th century, the Maya believed the Earth was the center of the universe. Such cosmologies are usually described as geocentric—in a heliocentric cosmology, the Earth revolves around the sun. Throughout ancient and recorded history, many of the world’s greatest civilizations were geocentric, too, so the ancient Maya were not unusual in this respect. But the Maya went several steps further, believing the Earth was something of a deity, and that caves were the sources of everything from life-giving rain to death-spreading disease. The Earth giveth, the Earth taketh away, and it was only by entering into the Earth—to let its very breath fill one’s lungs—that one could commune with the gods who did their business there. Chaak was one of the most important gods the Maya summoned in caves because without rainfall, how are people to live?
Or, in the case of all those children in the Midnight Terror Cave, to die. And that’s definitely one reason why the scientists are here—to unravel the bloody mysteries of this ancient place. But the bones in the Midnight Terror Cave, as well as the colorful name of the cave itself, have lured intellectual looters, too, who descended on the place in search of scandal almost before the injuries of the original looter, who brought the site to the archaeological world’s attention, had healed.
The first scandal-hunters arrived at Jaime Awe’s doorstep in 2007 in the form of a television crew for the Discovery Channel. Seduced, perhaps, by the network’s veneer of respectability, Awe gave them permission to shoot an episode for a short-lived “reality” show called “Bone Detectives.” The episode eventually aired on January 21, 2008, as “Cave of the Headless Corpse,” and it was breathlessly described as follows:
“Scotty travels to Belize where a cave has been discovered deep in the jungle containing thousands of human bones. As Scotty ventures down more than ten stories into the cave, he discovers a skeleton in a hidden chamber — but the head is missing! Scotty embarks on a search for the missing skull. If he can find the skull, he might be able to identify this victim, and solve the mystery of the cave known as ‘Midnight Terror.’ Was this man buried in the cave to honor his life? Or was he the victim of a violent ritual sacrifice deep inside the ancient Mayan underworld?”
“I learned a good lesson from that experience,” Awe says now with a sigh. “These guys were trying to force the information we were getting to fit the storyline they had in mind. They would ask a question like, ‘Do you think that this skull belongs to that skeleton?’ And I would answer, ‘Well, you know, it’s possible that this skull belongs to that skeleton, however, the information we’ve gathered strongly suggests otherwise.’ Well, they would just keep the part that said ‘it’s possible that this skull belongs to that skeleton.’ It was that kind of crap that made me lose all respect for them—they were misrepresenting the data. I remember writing to the producer, saying, you should probably call your program ‘Bonehead Detectives.’”
To make matters worse, Awe says, the show shined an unwelcome spotlight on the then-little-known site, luring even more antiquities thieves to the remote area. “By the time Jim had started his work at the site in the spring of 2008,” Awe says, “we were seeing increased activity in the area by looters.”
Still, enough was left undisturbed to keep Brady and his teams busy for several years. Which brings us back to the teeth, Samantha Lorenz’s master’s thesis, and my sister, who tested one of the teeth for its strontium isotopic signature when I visited her recently.
By then, Lorenz had already delivered a handful of human molars, plus one tooth from a cave rodent as a control, to Naomi. “She was funny when I showed up with all these vials of teeth in them,” remembers Lorenz. “I think it creeped her out a little bit.” I confess that I was less creeped out, and even recall being a bit giddy as I excitedly asked my sister if we’d get to choose the tooth she’d be testing that day. Her response was the sort of look that all big brothers experience when they have much smarter younger sisters. “The teeth are no longer teeth,” she explained, like she was talking to a 4-year-old. “Samantha has already ground them up.”
Crestfallen, I followed her into a lab, where she ran one of the teeth, or what was left of it, through a mass spectrometer to gauge its strontium isotopic signature.
Strontium (Sr) is number 38 in the periodic table of elements, making it a good deal heavier than carbon (number 8) and a whole lot lighter than lead (number 82). Like calcium, strontium builds up in our bones and teeth via the consumption of food and water. Once our first permanent molars come in, the strontium content in a tooth’s enamel is fixed, which is why first molars are the teeth of choice for scientists like Lorenz. Like a lot of other elements, strontium has a number of stable isotopes, which are basically variations of a main element, except with more neutrons than protons. So it’s not just strontium that accumulates in the enamel of our teeth but trace amounts of each of its four stable isotopes.
For those of us who live in the developed world and drink bottled water and eat imported foods, strontium testing won’t tell a scientist much since the strontium that has lodged in the enamel of our teeth while they were forming is from all over the planet. But for populations that rarely traveled far from where they were born, like the Maya of Mesoamerica, strontium testing can pinpoint, with surprising accuracy, where a person grew up.
As it turns out, the amounts of 84Sr, 86Sr, 87Sr, and 88Sr, the element’s four stable isotopes, vary from place to place, except near any ocean, where the ratios between the amounts of those four strontium isotopes are exactly the same, whether you live in a fishing village in Polynesia or Alaska. But go a few miles inland, and those ratios act like geolocation pins on a Google map.
The ground up rodent tooth will tell Naomi what the ratios are in the Midnight Terror Cave, since it’s a reasonable assumption that the rodent had only consumed food and water from the area in and around the cave. If the ratios for the other teeth are not the same, Lorenz will know that those teeth, and hence the children who were sacrificed to Chaak, came from somewhere else. Lorenz will not have to capture rodents from across Mesoamerica to figure out where—that work has already been completed by David Hodell and a few other colleagues, although instead of using rodent teeth, they mapped the strontium ratios of water, rock, soil, and plants throughout the Central Maya Lowlands and up into the Yucatan Peninsula for precisely this purpose.
Turning teeth into samples takes several days, not counting all the time it takes to find the teeth, catalog them, and then choose the ones you are going to grind into powder in the name of science. “For the purposes of the strontium testing,” Lorenz says, “I pulled any of the first lower molars we had that were in a good enough condition where I would be able to make molds of them so they could still be studied later. The first molar that comes in, the first permanent molar that erupts, happens around 6 years of age.” All of the samples that were eventually tested are believed to have come from children estimated to be between the ages of 6 and 14.
After the teeth have been ground into a fine powder, they are dissolved in nitric acid. It takes another day or so to remove as much non-strontium elements, particularly rubidium, which is very close in its molecular structure and weight to strontium, as you can. Once the samples are purified, someone (Naomi) has to place a drop of each sample onto a short, slender, and fragile rhenium filament with a micropipetter (basically, an eyedropper), after which the filaments are briefly heated to about 700 degrees centigrade to bind the sample to the rhenium. Then, the better part of another day is spent loading the filaments onto the wheels (called turrets) that will be placed inside a machine called a Thermal Ionization Mass Spectrometer, which Naomi and everyone else at Lawrence Livermore called the TIMS.
It all sounds complicated and high tech, and it is, but on another level, the TIMS is a fairly simple machine. It’s basically a vacuum tube that is electrically charged positive at one end and negative at the other. The tube bends at roughly 90 degrees to get from its positive to negative ends, and where it makes that turn, it runs through a huge magnet, about the size of a kitchen sink.
As Naomi slowly increases the current flowing through the rhenium filament, heating it to 1,400 or so degrees Celsius (the machine features a peep hole you can look through to confirm that the filament is glowing red), those four stable strontium isotopes ionize, which is rather like the process of water evaporating into a gas. In the case of the strontium, the solid material on the hot filament ionizes, sending ions from the various strontium isotopes that were present in one of the Maya sacrifice victim’s teeth into the vacuum. Because the filament is positively charged at this end, and because there is a negatively charged element at the vacuum tube’s other end, the ions immediately head toward the negatively charged end, coalescing into a single stream. But before they get there, though, they must make a sharp right-hand turn through that kitchen-sink-size magnet |
your house from halfway around the world for a visitor, or use GPS to have your heater turn on when you're a certain distance from home. The possibilities are endless.
How does something as low-tech as a light connect to your smartphone? Typically, the "dumb" end devices (light switch, electrical outlet, thermostat) are outfitted with wireless modules. They communicate using Wi-Fi or other wireless technology with an Internet-connected hub device, which collects the data and bounces it to the cloud. That information is then accessible from a computer or smartphone app, the light controllable with the tap of a finger from anywhere in the world.
Unfortunately, with the excited rush to get out new products and try new things, most devices or systems don't yet play well with others. Consider the Philips Hue, a cool, color-changing smart light bulb that's sold in Apple Stores. The bulbs connect to a Philips Hue hub, and you change their colors with the Philips Hue stand-alone app.
You can't add a third-party pet door opener or radio controller to the Philips hub, or control them from the Philips Hue app. That means you can't program the kitchen lighting to turn blood red and set the stereo to play "Eye of the Tiger" every time your tabby saunters in for dinner.
"Theoretically, they should all work together," said Daniel Moneta, chief executive of MMB Networks, a company that helps equipment manufacturers transform their analog products into smart devices. "But innovation tends to happen at a faster pace than standards."
The trend of individual devices and sensors having their own smartphone apps and cloud infrastructure is unsustainable. Imagine having to sort through 50 apps to find the right lock, or opening each app one at a time to set up vacation settings before a trip to Death Valley.
Big companies such as Comcast, Time Warner and Lowe's have taken a stab at consolidating smart home technology with their own connected home solutions. They have convenient pre-packaged systems that include the central hub, the smartphone app, and starter devices like security cameras or energy monitors.
These systems have their drawbacks. Many charge a monthly fee. They will sell approved additional devices to add on to the network, so it's expandable, but you are still locked into their ecosystem.
Then there are the standalone devices that pack the computing power into the object itself, such as the popular Nest programmable thermostat. There's no hub, it just uses Wi-Fi and the Nest app, and it can't connect to other home management systems.
"At the end of the day, putting the intelligence into a single device misses the bigger picture," said Jeff Hagins, chief technology officer of SmartThings, a startup working on its own platform for smart homes. For Hagins, who has 95 smart devices connected in his own house, the real power of connected devices is in the apps and writing programs that link objects together. The air conditioner that doesn't turn on because it knows a window is open.
To complicate things further, current smart devices don't all speak the same language. There are competing short-range wireless technologies for connecting smart object. In addition to Wi-Fi there's ZigBee and Z-wave, which use less power and are easier to connect. Unlike Wi-Fi, they can be used to create a network of devices that communicate with each other, passing on signals from objects in far off areas of the home.
SmartThings will release its own starter kits this Spring, $299 boxes that include a hub and five or six devices that connect to SmartThings app. But the company is planning an open platform that supports all three wireless standards, doesn't charge monthly fees and allows any third-party device to jump on the system and app. Developers can write smaller apps that work inside the main mobile application, coming up with creative ways to link objects together. The startup raised $1.2 million on Kickstarter last year and is backed by some big-name venture capitalists.
Whatever the future of smart homes looks like, it will need to be dead simple, affordable and easy to use. There are still potential security and privacy issues that have to be worked out. But the options will narrow down, the technology will become more consistent and a smaller number of remote control apps will crowd your smartphone. Next up, flying cars.Thank you for supporting the journalism that our community needs!
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The mayor and EPC are required to prepare a draft budget every year for council's consideration. Bowman has promised to open up the process to include other councillors, but that hasn't happened yet.
Dobson is one of seven councillors not sitting on executive policy committee, Mayor Brian Bowman's inner political circle.
“Enough... enough," Shawn Dobson (St. Charles) told council during deliberations in advance of a vote on the 2017 budget. "This secrecy crap has got to stop.”
A Winnipeg councillor lashed out Tuesday at the politics of exclusion that keep him — and the people who elected him — out of the loop at city hall.
Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/12/2016 (805 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/12/2016 (805 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
A Winnipeg councillor lashed out Tuesday at the politics of exclusion that keep him — and the people who elected him — out of the loop at city hall.
"Enough... enough," Shawn Dobson (St. Charles) told council during deliberations in advance of a vote on the 2017 budget. "This secrecy crap has got to stop."
WAYNE GLOWACKI /WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Coun. Shawn Dobson (St. Charles)
Dobson is one of seven councillors not sitting on executive policy committee, Mayor Brian Bowman's inner political circle.
The mayor and EPC are required to prepare a draft budget every year for council's consideration. Bowman has promised to open up the process to include other councillors, but that hasn't happened yet.
Dobson said that as a result of Bowman’s shuffle of EPC in early November, only four councillors had a hand in drafting the 2017 budget until its release Nov. 22. As a result, a majority of Winnipeggers did not have their elected representatives looking after their interests when the select group was determining the city's priorities in the coming year.
"You are either part of the problem or part of the solution," he said. "And until all of council is allowed to participate in the draft budget from the start, then the mayor and EPC are the problem."
Compounding the problem, he said, is that EPC won't share the information, and civic administration refuses to provide documents on the grounds that councillors who don't sit on the committee can't be trusted to keep matters confidential. In the end, the process excludes more than half of council from having any input.
"I am more than just a little insulted and I’ve got news for you — I don’t trust the administration," Dobson said.
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"I don’t trust EPC members. And I certainly don’t trust the mayor."
Dobson singled out the secret transit report that revealed opening Portage and Main to pedestrians would require the purchase of 11 new buses and increase operating expenses by $1 million. The information was suppressed and became public only after former EPC member Jeff Browaty released it, he said, wondering aloud about other information that has been withheld.
"I don’t trust you because of all the secrets and reports you hide from us regular councillors," he told Bowman. "This draft budget —so many decisions were made based on reports that I will never see. How many secrets are in there that will come to light next year?
"Many councillors in this room have been spouting the virtues of openness and transparency. Why? Because it makes good press. For those councillors, I think it’s time to take the blinders off and have a good look at this budget process. Open and transparent it’s not, but if you feel otherwise, be my guest. Keep your blinders on and support it. I for one, in a spirit of openness and transparency, will not support this budget."
aldo.santin@freepress.mb.caMany in the 20-driver All-Star Race field believe the biggest issue facing the current rules package is clean air. (Photo11: Randy Sartin, USA TODAY Sports)
CONCORD, N.C. — Saturday night's dud of a Sprint All-Star Race was the embodiment of everything that's wrong with NASCAR's current rules package.
It can be summed up with two words: clean air.
Denny Hamlin, whose Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota team has been a step behind all season on intermediate tracks such as Charlotte Motor Speedway, was magically able to hold off the two fastest cars all year — Kevin Harvick and Kurt Busch.
Harvick had several shots at Hamlin in the 10-lap shootout, but could never break through the clean air bubble.
"Aero means so much with these cars nowadays that the person out front has such a huge advantage," Hamlin said.
That was exactly what Brad Keselowski anticipated would happen on the final pit stop, which he claimed was the reason behind him speeding to the timing line — and getting slapped with a race-ending penalty.
"Whoever gets the clean air with this format and this rules package is gonna drive away," Keselowski said matter-of-factly after the race. "We've seen that for the last three years and with this particular car it's probably even more so.
"(Busch and Harvick) were probably two- or three-tenths faster than everybody without clean air and it doesn't matter. I knew when I came out of my pit stall and (Hamlin) was pulling out with me that I either beat him to that line or lose the race."
That's not surprising with this year's rules package, which has raced fairly similar to last year. Keselowski estimated clean air is worth 0.2-0.3 second with the current rules.
But what's discouraging is NASCAR's recent indications that it could stand pat on making big changes for 2016 after it once seemed like a dramatic adjustment was in store.
NASCAR chairman Brian France told Sirius XM Radio this week that officials want to find a package that "gives us much closer competition, more lead changes, more drivers that have an opportunity to get up and mix it up."
But France also said NASCAR hadn't been satisfied with the progress of finding something better for next year — and they weren't keen on making changes just for the sake of making them.
"If we don't have choices or options that don't achieve our goals, then we're certainly not just going to try something that hasn't tested well or that we don't think can make an improvement in the areas that I just talked about," he said.
That doesn't offer much hope for those who weren't satisfied with the show Saturday night. It was an event that was billed as drivers putting it all on the line, but there were no cautions and there was lots of single-file racing — aside from the restarts, of course.
Quite frankly, that wasn't a surprise.
That's not the All-Star Race's fault. It's not the track's fault, either — just look at the thrilling race Friday night with the Camping World Truck Series at the same venue (a side-by-side finish decided by 0.005 second).
Saturday night's result was an indication of a bigger problem in the sport right now.
"It's hard to pass," Joey Logano said. "There's no other way to put it. All the cars are so close that you get in the dirty air and this race track is just a tough place to race at."
Unfortunately, it doesn't sound like there's any end in sight to clean air, the two dirtiest words in NASCAR.
Follow Gluck on Twitter @jeff_gluck
PHOTOS: Key moments from the 2015 NASCAR seasonAs a general principle, serious nations don’t embrace surprise and bafflement as elements of their foreign policy. Canada’s overnight liquidation of all relations with Iran on Friday would suggest an astonishing exception.
It’s not just the speed of that decision but the cluster of official explanations that set off so much head-scratching at home and abroad.
Predictably, the Harper government’s actions won immediate praise from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who called it "bold leadership… a clear message to Iran and the entire world."
But elsewhere, the reaction was more a mystified "What’s up? Why now?"
Why did Canada seemingly break away from the general line of allied and friendly nations supporting tough, U.S.- led sanctions on Iran to elbow its way into a position of all-out diplomatic confrontation?
I believe there’s another story yet to emerge, which I’ll come to shortly.
Old complaints
The only relatively new complaint cited by foreign affairs minister John Baird involved Iran’s support for Syria’s oppressive Assad regime. The other grievances have been around for years, including threats against Israel, anti-Semitism in general, Iran’s nuclear program, its funding of terrorist organizations and notorious disregard for diplomatic rules.
A nasty package, for sure, and a nasty regime.
Yet does this not suggest Canada should remain firm alongside other nations in trying to keep as many diplomatic eyes and ears as possible functioning inside Iran?
I believe Harper acted on new intelligence. But the warnings were likely more about the Iranian embassy activities in Canada than they were about the safety of our personnel abroad.
That’s a point made by Canada’s former ambassador to Iran, John Mundy, who called the recent severing of diplomatic ties a "grave step" not easily repaired.
Canada no longer has any dialogue with Iran, Mundy told the Globe and Mail, and is unable to provide consular services to Canadians in distress or even gather analysis of what’s happening there.
"I really can’t see the rationale of this move," said Kenneth Taylor, the former ambassador famed for his role in helping U.S. officials escape a hostile Iran in the famous "Canadian Caper" in 1980. "It’s a very bold stroke to sever diplomatic relations and close the embassy within five days."
After all, Canada didn’t bail out of Moscow even during the most dangerous era of the cold war, and prided itself on its China mission while human rights abuses were monstrous in the 70’s and ‘80’s. The Harper government even maintained relations with Libya’s gruesome Gadhafi dictatorship right up to the point we decided to bomb it (alongside our NATO allies).
Inevitably, Canada’s abrupt move with Iran stoked fears that something very dangerous was afoot in the Middle East. Hasty diplomatic departures will do that.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, has praised Prime Minister Stephen Harper for his tough stance on Iran. (CP)
Theory about Israeli attack
One theory is that Ottawa has intelligence that an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites, with or without U.S. help, is imminent – dangerous news given our close ties with Israel. Many analysts, however, doubt such an attack is likely in this U.S. election year.
There were even suggestions in some foreign media that Canada bailed out of Tehran because Iranian security suspected our mission there had been collecting intelligence for the U.S., Britain and perhaps Israel — and that we were on the verge of expulsion, or even worse.
However, there seem to be no grounds to believe Canadian officials did more than collect and trade the normal open-source intel and street chatter all embassies pick up.
So we’re still puzzled. Perhaps because we’re looking in the wrong direction.
I believe Harper acted on new intelligence. But the warnings were likely more about the Iranian embassy activities in Canada than they were about the safety of our personnel abroad.
Indeed, the sheer number of reasons given for the diplomatic break may mask the true one: Iran’s aggressive use of diplomatic cover to prepare guerrilla cells to attack in the west should Iran itself be attacked.
Western intelligence has been ringing top-secret alarm bells for governments for over a year, warning of an extraordinary build-up of Iranian personnel in Europe, Africa and particularly in Latin America, many of them believed to be linked to Iran’s notorious Quds Force. That’s the elite arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, tasked with "extraterritorial operations."
Iran has powered up its diplomatic arm in the Americas, from a handful of embassies a dozen years ago to 10 today, along with 17 "cultural centres" in various countries. Most posts are staffed with far more officials than required for normal duties – 150 in Nicaragua alone.
Iran's 'extraterritorial operations'
In January, America’s top intelligence official, James Clapper, publicly stated that Iranian diplomats abroad were setting up sleeper cells designed to attack U.S. and allied interests around the world in the event of war.
Members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, seen here during military exercises, are tasked with “extraterritorial operations” -- which means actions beyond Iran's borders. (Vahid Salemi/Associated Press)
Tehran has made no secret of the fact it has elaborate plans to wreak as much havoc as possible among nations supporting the U.S. and Israel should it come under attack.
In fact, just days before Canada hastily broke off relations, the head of the Iranian army’s joint chiefs of staff boasted to the Fars News Agency that if Iran was attacked, America and its allies should expect major terror attacks in their homeland. The deputy chief commander of the Revolutionary Guard echoed this, vowing "Any aggression against Iran will expand the war into the borders of the enemies. They know our power…"
Intelligence officials give credence to these threats because it makes grim strategic sense for Iran to hit back in this way, as its conventional forces are no match for Israel and the U.S. It also has ruthless allies to call on for joint operations, including Hezbollah, which is deemed a terrorist organization by Canada.
Canada’s intelligence service believes Canada’s increasing identification with Israel inevitably leave us a target for bombings, kidnappings or assassinations in an armed conflict. For years it has warned of the Iranian embassy’s efforts to threaten and blackmail some of the more than 100,000 Iranians living here into "cooperation." That’s why Canada has refused Iran’s repeated requests for consuls outside Ottawa.
Some type of new intelligence seems to have seriously shaken Harper’s government. Former CSIS assistant director Ray Boisvert told CBC such an unprecedented move "usually only happens in very serious conditions."
Boisvert insisted the Iranian embassy was "running some kind of threatening operation aimed at the Iranian community in Canada that absolutely poses a security threat in Canada."
Expect more of this story to come out in the next few weeks, when MPs return to Parliament, anxious to move beyond the current state of surprise and bafflement.Some of the homeless people who live under the bridge and along the riverbank in St. Boniface will now have a place to call home.
Street Links St. Boniface, a grassroots non-profit organization, is set to officially open Morberg House at 311 Provencher Blvd. on Wednesday morning.
A plaque over the front door reads, "In memory of our homeless hero Faron Hall."
Morberg House, which will be officially opened Wednesday, pays tribute to Faron Hall, a homeless man who saved a teen from the Red River in 2009, whose own body was also pulled from the river in 2014. (Brad Lillies/CBC)
It's a vision realized for the head of Street Links St. Boniface, Marion Willis.
"This has been a huge journey for us, getting to know the homeless, who they are, where they come from, and how they got here. And it was Faron Hall, also known as Winnipeg's homeless hero, who put a face on who is living on the street," said Willis, who had cared for Hall and got to know him.
Hall rescued a teen from the Red River in 2009 and was hailed a hero.
In 2014, Hall's body was pulled from the same river.
Willis says the home is made possible by Winnipeg philanthropist Gail Morberg.
"We are so so grateful to her," she said.
"She has done a lot of work in Winnipeg to support organizations that are trying to end homelessness. She has provided the funding in full to purchase the house, $550,000. The house is memorialized after Faron Hall. The house itself is called Morberg House."
Homeless move in
Willis says the three-storey house already has three residents. Three others will be taken in and eventually up to 12 people will live there.
Funding for room and board is being provided through the province's employment and income assistance program. The entire Street Links organization which up to now has also been without a home, will also move its office into the house.
Faron Hall is shown here in 2009 when he was honoured by the Royal Lifesaving Society. He used the occasion to donate $1,000 to the Main Street Project, a Winnipeg homeless shelter. (CBC) The model, Willis says, will be different from shelters or rooming houses.
"We are taking a family, a community of people living for years on the riverbank, and putting them together in a house situation," said Willis.
"Wrap-around services such as getting into treatment for addiction, life skills, and support, will be provided in-house. They will have to plan meals, help cook, do laundry, and cut the lawn. They won't be living isolated in separate quarters. They will be living together as a family."
Volunteers lining up
Willis adds that it is fitting the homeless will now live in a house once owned by the Franciscan Sisters, one of the many religious orders in St. Boniface dedicated to helping the poor and the vulnerable for decades.
She said despite the aging population in their communities, many are already offering to volunteer at Morberg House.
The rest of the community is also stepping up. Willis said she has been contacted by local businesses and organizations to find out how they can help.
It is sheer coincidence that the date set for the official opening is the same day that Faron Hall died. Willis said that was not planned.
"It kind of makes my hair stand on end. There is something very divine around all of this," she said.
"I really believe a lot of this work has been guided. We have had our struggles but at times everything seems to align. It is just amazing to me."The six-week mark in the season is right around the corner, which means it will soon be time for the A’s to evaluate the team and its chances to compete for the rest of the year. The placeholders that the A’s went out and signed this offseason have been a bit of a mixed bag, and the time to start wondering if some of those struggling veterans are on the hot seat is now. Jed Lowrie and especially Yonder Alonso have exceeded even the most optimistic expectations fans had of them, while guys like Matt Joyce and Trevor Plouffe have been either unlucky or just plain bad in the early going. Bruce Maxwell may have already worked himself onto the roster for good after Phegley’s injury created an opening, and the Franklin Barreto’s and Matt Chapman’s of the Sounds won’t be needing all too much longer before its time to see what they can offer at the big league level.
Even after taking two of three from Detroit, the standings in the division have not changed:
· Houston: 21-11
· Anaheim: 16-17
· Seattle: 15-17
· Oakland: 14-17
· Texas: 13-19
In this upcoming three game series, the A’s have a shot to leapfrog two teams in the standings and re-establish their second place spot in the division. After two straight exhilarating walk-off wins off of Francisco Rodriguez, the A’s will seek to sustain their momentum against the team that brought K-Rod unto the big leagues, the Angels. Since the Angels last swept the A’s in Anaheim, the team went back to its usual self, going 4-5 in the week-plus since. The Trout-aided offense has been about average in the month of May, allowing the Angels to score enough each game to keep things competitive while still not overwhelming to its opposition, but the injury riddled pitching staff is finally showing its cracks as the Angels have the worst team-ERA in the American League over the last couple weeks.
Who’s Hot/Not
Andrelton Simmons isn’t just the best defensive player in all of baseball anymore. After five seasons of slightly below average offense, which could always easily be forgiven thanks to his elite glove work, Simmons has been changing his approach at the plate. Due to the fact that there were just some strikes that he could never square up and would get himself out on, Simmons is swinging less than ever before, and is focusing more on making better contact on pitches he knows he can drive. He now rarely chases after offspeed pitches and almost appears to be looking fastball each pitch. In the last week, a bit of a lull has sent his wRC+ back down to league average at 100, but an Andrelton Simmons with even a league average bat is an impact player.
Danny Espinosa ruined a quarter of the opening weekend of baseball for the A’s, and has since been mired in awfulness. The second baseman has an OPS of just.486 and has had just six total hits go for extra bases despite being in the lineup almost every day. Hitting was never supposed to be Espinosa’s calling card, and he still plays just fine defense up the middle, but Espinosa currently couldn’t hit water from the side of a boat.
The Matchups
Monday, 5/8 @ 7:05: Graveman (2-2) vs Nolasco (2-2) on NBSCSA, MLB.tv
Tuesday, 5/9 @ 7:05: Cotton (3-3) vs Meyer (0-1) on NBSCSA, MLB.tv
Wednesday, 5/10 @ 12:35: Triggs (4-2) vs Chavez (2-4) on NBSCSA, MLB.tv
How the A’s Win the Series
When the A’s and Angels play each other, both teams rightfully expect to win and it can be quite frustrating to lose, since the teams are rather evenly matched, even if the two teams took entirely opposite paths to get where they are today. Like for so many baseball games throughout the year, success in this series will come down to pitching, pitching, pitching. Monday night’s game will be a rematch of the opening night matchup, a matchup that saw Kendall Graveman emerge as the victor over Nolasco after throwing six innings of two run ball to go along with seven strikeouts. If Graveman can continue his evolution from "Fourth Starter at best" to his showing as a #2 or #3 man this year, he should have the better stuff and the A’s should have the advantage.
Tuesday’s game will be a battle of young starters with lots of potential who have also struggled in the early going. After Cotton lit up the A’s minors and dazzled in the majors last year, he has struggled more with his control this year and has had some pretty underwhelming starts. Alex Meyer is a tall, lanky lefty with top-half of the rotation potential but atrocious control issues and problems staying on the field have led to the former top prospect only making about ten starts by the time he turned 27 years old with an ugly ERA over six at the top level. Both starters will be looking to prove themselves on Tuesday. If the A’s lineup practices patience and Cotton continues to find his control that made him so dominant in the second half of last year, the A’s will be able to win this game, too.
The final game of this three game series will be between two former journeyman relievers who were given shots to start with the A’s and then thrived in their new roles. However, since leaving Oakland, Chavez has struggled to find the same success and has underwhelmed in his non-green uniforms, whereas one could argue that Triggs has been punching above his weight unsustainably while taking over Chavez’s former role on the A’s. Sustainable or not, though, Triggs has been the A’s best starting pitcher on the year so far, and Chavez has been the Angels worst starting pitcher on the year so far, and so the advantage in this final matchup should also go to the A’s.
All the games are winnable, but baseball cares little for odds, and so, as per usual when playing the Angels, anything can happen. At the same time, not coming away from this series without at least two out of three games won would be a disappointment.
If the A’s sweep the series, they would be back at.500 and very well could be in second place once more.
Link to Halos Heaven
Andrelton Simmons’ New Approach
Angels’ Swap Minor League Pitchers
Mike Trout Day-to-Day
(Trout expects to play in Oakland)
Tyler Skaggs Out for 10-12 WeeksCode: #include "std_disclaimer.h" /* * Your warranty is now void. * * I am not responsible for bricked devices, dead SD cards, * thermonuclear war, or you getting fired because the alarm app failed. Please * do some research if you have any concerns about features included in this ROM * before flashing it! YOU are choosing to make these modifications, and if * you point the finger at me for messing up your device, I will laugh at you. */
Installation
Read the official Wiki page ( there isn't one yet)
Unlock your bootloader if you haven't done so already
Flash a custom recovery via Fastboot
Push GApps (arm) and the LineageOS zip to your device
Boot into Recovery
Perform factory reset
Flash the LineageOS zip from SD card
Flash GApps from SD card
Reboot
Push the new LineageOS zip to your SD card
Boot into Recovery
Flash the LineageOS zip from SD card
Flash the most recent GApps for 8.x if you are upgrading from earlier android version
Reboot
Downloads
Reporting bugs
DO NOT report bugs if you're running a custom kernel
DO NOT report bugs if you've modifies system files
DO NOT report bugs if you've installed xposed and/or other mods
Grab a logcat right after the problem has occurred. (Please include at least a few pages of the log, not just the last few lines, unless you know what you're doing.)
Code: adb logcat > logcat.txt Code: adb shell dmesg > dmesg.txt
If it is a random reboot, grab kmsg. (Do not bother getting a logcat unless you can get it just before the reboot. A logcat after a reboot is useless)
Code: adb shell cat /sys/fs/pstore/console-ramoops
If the problem disappears after running "setenforce 0" from a root shell, grab /data/misc/audit/audit.log
Code: Phone Informations * LineageOS version * Gapps version What you did: * Wipe data: y/n * Upgrade from previous official cm build: y/n * Restore with titanium backup: y/n You're using (if yes write which one) : * Task killer * Phone cleaner / Battery enhancer apps * Non-stock kernel * Modified kernel settings * Other mods Bug info: * Last version it worked on * Repro steps
F.A.Q.
ROOT! ROOT! Give me root or i'll die!!! Where root is???
Flash the latest stable Magisk available.
Flash the latest stable Magisk available. Why no nightly today?
Build failed. Check again tomorrow
Build failed. Check again tomorrow When do I have to wipe data?
You must wipe data only when you're switching from another rom or migrating to Snapshot branch from Nightly and vice versa. You don't need to wipe data when you update in the same release channel (this applies to 13.0 -> 14.1 upgrades too)
You must wipe data only when you're switching from another rom or migrating to Snapshot branch from Nightly and vice versa. You don't need to wipe data when you update in the same release channel (this applies to 13.0 -> 14.1 upgrades too) Will you add <insert awesome feature here>?
I won't. If you write it, submit a commit to gerrit, where it will be reviewed.
Our initial developers
XDA:DevDB Information
LineageOS, ROM for the Moto G4 Plus
Version Information
LIneageOS is a free, community built, aftermarket firmware distribution of Android re-branded CyanogeMod, which is designed to increase performance and reliability over stock Android for your device. For official lineage builds and support please make use of this thread.LineageOS is based on the Android Open Source Project and CyanogenMod with extra contributions from many people within the Android community. All the source code for LineageOS is available in the LineageOS Github repo. And if you would like to contribute to LineageOS please visit Gerrit Code Review - ROM :- Current Unofficial Builds: Sourceforge - Official Builds (old) : Weeklies - Google Apps (arm) : GApps Remember to provide as much info as possible. The more info you provide, the more likely that the bug will be solved. Please also do not report known issues or bugs reported in the lastest 5 pages of this thread.The LineageOS team would like to thank everyone involved in helping with testing, coding, debugging & documenting! Enjoy!My sources available here: https://github.com/rajatgupta1998 7.x NougatLinux 3.10.xStock N 7.0LineageOSStable2016-12-192017-09-16In order to work well, markets need a basic level of trust. As Alan Greenspan said, in 1999, “In virtually all transactions we rely on the word of those with whom we do business.” So what happens to a market in which the most fundamental assumptions turn out to be lies? That is the question in a scandal that has roiled the banking industry all summer. The LIBOR (London Inter-bank Offered Rate) index is the most important set of numbers in the global financial system. Used as a benchmark for interest rates around the world, it’s assembled by asking a panel of big banks to estimate what it would cost them to borrow money today, if they had to. Hundreds of trillions of dollars in derivatives, corporate loans, and mortgages are pegged to these rates. Yet we now know that for years LIBOR rates were rigged. Barclays has agreed to pay nearly half a billion dollars to regulators for its manipulations, and a host of other big banks are under investigation for similar misdeeds.
Rigging LIBOR was shockingly easy. The estimates aren’t audited. They’re not compared with market prices. And LIBOR is put together by a trade group, without any real supervision from government regulators. In other words, manipulating LIBOR didn’t require any complicated financial hoodoo. The banks just had to tell some simple lies.
They had plenty of reasons to do so. At Barclays, for instance, traders were making big bets on derivatives whose value depended on LIBOR; changing rates by even a tiny bit could be exceptionally lucrative. In the years leading up to the financial crisis, these manipulations were, in the words of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, “common and pervasive.” And, once the crisis hit, banks had a new incentive to distort LIBOR: if their estimates were higher than their peers’ (meaning that it would be expensive for them to borrow money), investors, creditors, and regulators would worry that they were about to go under. So the banks sent LIBOR downward in order to make themselves look stronger than they were. The result was that, instead of reflecting what was real, LIBOR reflected what the banks wanted us to believe was real.
The most striking thing about this scandal is that it was predictable—the way LIBOR was designed practically invited corruption—yet no one did anything to stop it. That’s because, for decades, regulators and people in the financial industry assumed that banks’ desire to protect their reputations would keep them honest. If banks submitted false LIBOR estimates, the argument went, the market would inevitably find out, and people would stop trusting them, with dire consequences for their businesses. LIBOR was supposedly a great example of self-regulation, evidence that the market could look after itself better than regulators could.
But, if recent history has taught us anything, it’s that self-regulation doesn’t work in finance, and that worries about reputation are a weak deterrent to corporate malfeasance. To begin with, traders at a bank are typically rewarded according to how much money their trades make, not on whether |
might change.
That is what happens with many species, some more dramatically than others. The songs of indigo buntings change so much, for example, that songs that are five years apart are almost completely different.
Photo
But with other species, the songs are more stable. Now, thanks to some old audio recordings, researchers have determined just how stable some songbirds’ songs can be.
The songbird in question is not just any old bird, but a member of a famous group of finches that Charles Darwin studied in the Galápagos Islands. Using recordings of Geospiza fortis, the medium ground finch, made 38 years apart, Jeffrey Podos of the University of Massachusetts and Eben Goodale, who is now at the University of California, San Diego, found that some songs have persisted over four decades.
The researchers conducted a statistical analysis of songs, using elements like number of notes, note duration and trill rate. As they report in Biology Letters, in each year’s recordings there is a lot of variability in the songs. But from one period to another, there are some songs that match quite closely.
“Seemingly random songs are maintained over time,” Dr. Goodale noted. “There must be some force maintaining these songs.” As to what that might be, there is no clear answer as yet. But he said one potential clue is that, unlike many songbirds, Darwin’s finches learn their songs not from a neighbor but from their fathers.Thank you to Zoocchini for providing me with product, free of charge, in exchange for an honest blog review. All opinions are 100% my own.
From newborn on, kids get wet. Whether in a bath tub, pool, lake, or even sprinkler, kids will get wet and then need a towel to help them dry or keep warm. With our first, we bought some hooded towels from a store and they were so thin that they were basically useless. Our newborn was shivering cold within seconds of wrapping her in it and because it was so thin, it hardly even held the water to completely dry her off. So we ended up resorting to using regular bath towels because, while they didn’t have a nice hood, at least those were thick enough to keep her a little warm while drying her off. I just recently discovered Zoocchini, a fun company that has a handful of neat products but their Children’s Hooded Towel line especially caught my eye. So they are the next stop for our Baby Shower Gift Guide.
We received the Jaime the Giraffe Hooded Towel for review. Upon opening, I was immediately happy with the thickness and size of our Jaime Hooded Towel. Measuring in at 50″ by 22″, the generous size makes it perfect for infants, toddlers, and even older children. I love being able to wrap our 10 month old in this towel after a bath because it keeps her head warm and there’s plenty of towel left over to get her dry in no time.
The fact that these towels are fun animal designs makes them great for all ages! All five of our kiddos love Jaime the Giraffe and love having a turn with him. He’s perfect for taking with to the local beach as the design really turns heads. The kids like that the ends have a little “mitt” for their hands so they can stay wrapped up easier. Overall, a great towel with a well thought-out design. Be sure to head over to Zoocchini to shop because this would definitely be a hit at any baby shower!
Buy It: Head over to Zoocchini to see for yourself the great selection of products they offer.
Connect: Don’t forget to like Zoocchini on Facebook, follow them on Twitter, and subscribe to their You Tube Channel for all the latest news and promotions.
Win It: Zoocchini is generously offering one of our lucky readers their very own Hooded Towel. The winner may chose towel character, based on availability. This giveaway is open to the US and Canada and will end August 11th, 2015. For your chance to win, enter the Giveaway Tools below. Good luck!
I’m a city girl turned country by my awesome husband and we have three busy boys and two darling daughters. I love spending time with my family, reading Karen Kingsbury novels, and catching up with friends while our kiddos have play dates. I’m blessed beyond measure and can’t wait to see what God has in store.
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Related posts we've written:Recently, we reported that Facebook will be bringing its new Messenger app for Windows 10 to Mobile devices soon. Well, it’s finally available and Windows 10 Mobile users can download the new Messenger app from the Store right now. As the new Messenger app is ported from iOS, the app includes almost all the features that are available in the iOS app. This means, the app supports GIFs, stickers, nicknames, and other basic features such as push notifications, groups, live tile support, ability to edit group info and much more.
Here is the full feature list:
Get notifications so you never miss a message
See when you have messages waiting for you with a live tile
Send photos, videos, GIFs and more
Bring your conversations to life with stickers
Know when people have seen your messages
Create groups for the people you message most—name them and set group photos
Forward messages or photos to people who weren’t in the conversation
Search for people and groups to quickly get back to them
As you can see, the new Messenger app for Windows 10 Mobile includes quite a lot of features which is definitely a good news. Keep in mind that the app is still in beta, and bugs are expected at the moment. If you want to download Messenger on your Windows 10 Mobile, you can get it from the link below.
Note: The app is still rolling out, so if it isn’t available on your phone at the moment, just check again in a few hours.click to enlarge Photo by Bob Calhoun
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On Sunday, real estate agent Cheryl Bower stood in the sunlit living room of the Queen Anne Victorian at 152 4th Avenue in the Richmond District, greeting potential buyers with a well-rehearsed cheeriness."You do know the history of the house?" she asked as my wife Rosie and I inspected a shallow, "decorative" fireplace that was no longer suitable for burning things, if it ever was. We told her we were. Bower let us know that a "disclosure packet was available."The words "disclosure packet" was an oft-repeated refrain during Sunday's open house. Phrases like "mummified corpse" or "dead body" were never uttered by Bower or any of the wannabe buyers with dreams of scooping up the property for anything close to its $928,000 asking price. Almost everyone there had seen theand SFist stories about how cleanup crews and firemen had pulled 300 jars of urine and a long-dead body out of the house — almost everyone, anyway."Who lived here? Who lived here?" a girl of about seven with sandy blond hair asked repeatedly as she and her parents wended through the row house's claustrophobic rooms."A lady lived here, and now we've answered your question," her exasperated mother replied.An older woman with long, gray hair beat a speedy retreat when she found out she had strayed into the infamous "hoarder house.""Oh my God," she gasped before scrambling down front steps that bowed almost to the breaking point with even the lightest footfall. But she was the only one deterred from pressing onward. Several brave real estate speculators wanted to see the attic even though it was only accessible through a rectangular opening in the ceiling of one of the closets. Fortunately for the safety of all concerned, the home stagers employed by Zephyr Real Estate didn't leave a stepladder behind.Built in 1904, this little house in the avenues not only withstood years of neglect but also the great earthquake and conflagration of 1906 that leveled the San Francisco of the Gold Rush and Barbary Coast. Archibald and Anna Mae Ragin bought the place on June 29, 1954, after securing a loan for just $7,500. If people still put down 20 percent back then, it means the home's asking price was under $10,000. After Archibald died in 2000, Anna lived in the house with the couple's daughter, Carolyn Ragin, a retired Pac Bell worker. The Ragins stopped paying their county property tax in 2006.Some time after that, the neighbors stopped seeing Anna around the house. When Anna Mae died, Carolyn either didn't notice or just couldn't bear to let go. Carolyn continued living in the house with what was left of her mother as liens piled up for unpaid garbage bills and property taxes. Eventually, the County Assessor’s Office filed a notice to sell the property to claim $1,651.28 in back taxes. The home was foreclosed on. The city cleanup crews were summoned, whereupon they found a true house of horrors."The police captains I've spoken with tell me this is the worst case of hoarding they have ever seen," Supervisor Eric Mar told thein April when Anna Mae's worldly remains were discovered in rooms filled with rat-infested trash piled up to the ceiling. According to several news reports, Carolyn was taken to a hospital to undergo psychiatric evaluation.Meanwhile, professional cleaners continued to excavate detritus from the Ragin family home.A fresh coat of paint on the walls and scrubbed floors couldn't quite chase away the smell of toxic mold and urine from the corners of the bedroom and kitchen. In the bedroom, a large square about the size of a bed was cut away from the top floor, revealing boards even more worn and ancient underneath. Bower claimed not to know why the floor had been removed, but we could all take a wild guess."I'd start brand new," Bower advised. "Take it down to the studs."In the backyard, another real estate agent named Adam directed foot traffic, which included a well-to-do looking white couple wearing pullover shirts with the logos of Northeastern colleges; a young, beardy dad hauling his baby around in one of those detachable car-seat carriers; and a pair of elderly Chinese men."This is going to be a pretty popular house," Adam said, "so I'm just helping out."The middle-aged man in a Middlebury sweatshirt congratulated Adam like he was the CEO of a company that had just launched an IPO on the NASDAQ."It's going to do real well," the Middlebury alum said. "It's a real diamond in the rough."The two men agreed that the 2-bedroom, 2-bathroom house that originally sold for something like $9,375 could fetch as much as $2.5 million after being rehabbed.As we started to leave, I prodded my wife to ask if there had been any paranormal activity in the house."The house doesn't feel creepy," Bower chirped, adding, "If there were ghost stories, we could probably charge more for it."But it’s only been a couple of months. There will be ghost stories. Just give it time.Father John Misty has a lot to say about a lot of things. His great sophomore album I Love You, Honeybear was both a strikingly personal work and one that took on all of the bullshit of modern society, and he’s the kind of guy who will happily hold forth on all sorts of big subjects. “I am kind of a chronic over-explainer,” as he says. Josh Tillman performed at Pitchfork Fest in Paris last night, and he took the time to sit down with Billboard’s Emily Zemler to talk about the cynicism of pop music, the duality between mainstream and indie, and other weighty topics.
Tillman recently had his own brush with the mainstream and the media’s “Eye of Sauron” when he jokingly covered Ryan Adams’ Taylor Swift covers in the style of the Velvet Underground and the story blew up online. He’s already discussed that episode at great length, but he touches on it again in this interview. “I’ll say as basically as I can that I wanted to test the limits of how far you could get people to play along if this one person’s name was involved. Thats all that mattered. It had nothing to do with me, it had nothing to do with Ryan Adams. It just had to do with this person’s name being involved. And that was good for clicks,” he says. “So I wanted to test, ‘If I put something out here that is associated with this thing that is just barely clinging to the fringes of what could be considered relevant will it get printed in wide circulation?’ And it did.”
From there, he moves on to discussing the idea of the mainstream and his relationship with it more broadly:
I’m a person who upholds certain dualities that I think a lot of musicians now view as being quaint. I’m very suspicious of the mainstream, which is definitely the height of quaint. I think that the lines have blurred in superficial ways, I think certain dualities still exist and that there’s value in judging something as objectively as you can based on its sophistication or its beauty or its dignity. … There are certain pop stars that I think are poster children for cynicism. But it would be a hard sell since they, in such a superficial way, represent the mandate of the age, like being yourself and being different and being quirky. But being a certain type of different and being a certain type of quirky. There’s a huge difference between permissible transgression and impermissible transgression. Permission transgression is to be different and to be yourself and whatever, and then impermissible transgression is to not like that person or that person’s music or what that person represents. And if you dare do that then that person’s fans will turn on you and they will destroy you…I just think that pop music is a touchstone for so much of what’s going on in the collective psyche right now. That’s what that song “The Memo” that I put [in September] is about: The ways in which we chose to entertain ourselves say a lot about who we are. … This is like the most pretentious way of framing it, the only role I can really live with is to be an outsider. I don’t aspire to crossing over. It’s very important to me that I maintain my ability to say certain things. You don’t move into that other realm without making concessions — that’s the price of admission for moving into wider exposure. I don’t think I really have to worry about it too much because the things that I’m interested in talking about and the ways in which I’m interesting in addressing those things will always prevent me from doing that…In my mind it’s just important for me to maintain these dualities and to stay on one side — and to stay on the side where I belong.
Billboard notes that Tillman dislikes “the media’s desire to intellectualize pop music”; he says “these 700-word Sasha Frere Jones Katy Perry reviews in The New Yorker make me feel like I’m living in a crazy world.”
Perhaps the most exciting line in the whole article is kind of a throwaway, though: “Tillman, who has enough material for a new album ready to record (but won’t confirm specifically when he plans to do so), wants to exist on the fringes, even if his songs translate to a larger audience,” Billboard writes. That means that a new album is still a while away, because he hasn’t recorded anything yet, but it’s definitely coming, which is good news.A Portrait of the Negro as College Student
The university, that quintessentially European institution, was established during the Middle Ages as an expression of European mankind’s quest for knowledge and as a means to lift and refine society to ever higher levels of greatness. When Europeans began to colonize new lands in the Age of Exploration, it would not be long before these men would erect new universities to cultivate the new colonies’ elites, the first universities in America being established in the 17th century, long before independence. Today, as with most European-derived institutions, they have tragically decayed into a monstrous bureaucratic machine more concerned with sentimentalism and coddling minorities than with the pursuit of noble truths. Simultaneously acting as a vast government-subsidized enterprise based on the business model of trawling for increased numbers of government-facilitated debt peons and as an incubator of conformist automata bent on cultural destruction, the modern university is at the vanguard of America’s rush toward the cliff.
The downward trajectory of the university accelerated after the federal government mandated integration at gunpoint in the South in the 1960s. The first Negro to enter the University of Mississippi, under the protection of 500 federalized marshals, was James Meredith in 1962, touching off riots in which hundreds were injured and two were killed. Meredith attended for only two semesters but was accompanied by federal marshals around the clock. The federal government had proven that they would go to incredible lengths to ensure that Blacks’ empowerment meant sitting at the feet of their White betters rather than leading and organizing their own peoples’ progress through HBCUs (historically black colleges and universities). Incidentally, Meredith, perhaps coming to the light as it were as he progressed in years, would later support former Klansman (!) David Duke in his bid for governor of Louisiana.
Since the days of Meredith and the seemingly constant memorialization of that violently undemocratic episode in our society since then – from Jew-run media’s favorite faux-working-class-Jew-hero Bob Dylan’s “Oxford Town” to History Channel documentaries highlighting Mississippi good-ol’-boys run amok – the Negro has come a long way. In fact, more Black high school graduates today enter college than Whites (70.9% versus 67.3% respectively).
Colleges and universities go out of their way to get their hands on image-enhancing Blacks. ACT and SAT score standards are lowered and Blacks are given preference in the name of the god Diversity (or simply to put Whitey in his place). A small number of states have banned “affirmative action” (WA, TX, MI, CA, and FL) but I suspect they still may find ways to clandestinely increase their numbers of highly sought-after Blacks. After all, when your goal is “social justice” the modus operandi is by any means necessary.
Since 2000, Black enrollment has skyrocketed, going from 693,044 in 2001 to 1,445,194 in 2011, a 108.5% jump. So then, let us take a look at the “Black experience” during the college years.
The Negro on campus is often the recipient of a scholarship, athletic or otherwise. A host of liberal, globalist do-gooders such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provide millions in race-based scholarships and financial aid packages (no Whites need apply). Because there is less competition for Blacks-only scholarships and also because of the relative abundance of these, the Negro enjoys a privilege that the average White is simply not privy to. Athletic scholarships are tilted wildly in favor of the Negro – all one has to do is take a look at any college basketball or football team to see this in stark evidence. Indeed, the obsession with college sports and its lucrative nature so warp and degrade admissions standards that campuses see themselves inundated with entitled Negro thugs straight from the ghetto that expect to be worshipped (and usually are by a sports-obsessed country) and partake of the fruit of fawning White victims of jungle fever. Generally these “student-athletes” major in such trivial subjects as “Communications” or “Black Studies” and take remedial courses to supposedly get them up to the level of college coursework.
(MLK + corruption + depravity = giddy jungle fever delirium)
At the Univerity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, athlete tutor Mary Willingham became an outspoken whistleblower on university corruption. Many of the Black athletes were simply not attending their “Black Studies” courses and were being passed by professors eager to please the administration that coveted a winning basketball and football team. Some of the “classes” were complete shams and only existed on paper. Episodes like this are certainly emblematic of a widespread practice, due to an academic curriculum that is far beyond their native capacities, particularly the athletes. After being trashed by the media and university administration – naturally with the insinuation she was “racist” – Willingham reproduced a Negro athlete’s absolute joke-for-a-term-paper (146 words!) on none other than Rosa Parks, which approximated the literacy level of a third-grader. Willingham later conducted research on 183 UNC “student-athletes” and found that 60 percent read at a fourth- to eighth-grade level and roughly 10 % below a third-grade level.
Conceptual ode/deconstruction of the Rosa Parks Apotheosis by Negro student-athlete:
The Negro scholar on the other hand possesses enough competence and wherewithal to perform without such egregious cheating. However, once again, the lightweight “Black Studies” is his most popular choice. At the integrated school, he doesn’t seek diversity, but rather seeks companionship among his own people. He joins a Black fraternity and permanently brands himself in some sort of symbolic recasting of a practice to which his slave ancestors were once subjected by their masters.
The Negro scholar frequently betrays a psychologically bruised ego and is prone to lashing out at the very system that has helped elevate him. He interprets the privileged treatment and pandering as hostility and seeks to strike back. The following scenario will illuminate this condition: entitled and enraged Blacks gathered at the “Afro House” at the University of California at Berkeley and made a list of demands that were presented to the administration with a “deadline” for responding. The demands included hiring more diversity bureaucrats, an African American Resource Center (with grape soda vending machines?), a building presumably named after an old White Supremacist renamed after a Black Panther terrorist, and hiring nine Blacks – two of them psychologists to help the ever sensitive Negroes cope with the allegedly seething anti-Black animus on campus.
Wife of the president, Michelle Obama, while a student at Princeton and Harvard Law, reflected the same attitude. She was involved with the Marxist Third World Center and consistently decried the White “racists” on campus. She sought to maintain the no-Whites policy of the TWC board as well, again indicative of the natural Black inclination to be around other Blacks yet hypocritically attacking Whites for not facilitating their meritless ease-of-access into White institutions. Her thesis was on the racial resentment held by Princeton Blacks for their fellow “racist” White students.
Finally, an abundance of Blacks will certainly lead to a spike in the university’s crime levels, a lot of this coming from the fresh-from-the-ghetto “student-athletes”. Ranging from domestic assaults to rape to theft, the high levels of crime have even occasioned an official announcement recently from the corrupt NCAA. The propensity towards violent mob activity is another risk, as seen in this university’s cafeteria, presumably after they ran out of fried chicken.
So we come to the point where we must ask the college Negro: quo vadis? Black solidarity is championed concomitantly with a sharp elbow to Whites to move aside. White liberal elites’ coddling and sentimentalizing of the sainted Blacks only encourages resentment. Some states have abandoned discriminatory “affirmative action” but it is still practiced overwhelmingly by public and private colleges alike. It must be said that most Blacks do not graduate college. And if they do, in most cases it’s due to systemic lowering of standards by professors. But why not? If standards were lowered for entry, why not lower standards once seated inside the classroom and surrounded by “racists”?
Truth be told, integration is an ongoing nightmare in our public institutions, but none more so than in our schools, fraught with tension and hatred as they are. The formerly revered Western university has become a Negro nursery. Excellence and meritocracy were buried with the White man’s dignity when federal troops marched on campuses to carry out a foolhardy, trans-generational campaign to uplift the Negro and turn him White, which, as muddled as his positions may seem to be, he clearly does not want.
Don LoganThe US Gross National Debt, that monster that keeps ballooning so much faster than our infamously slo-mo economy, just jumped by $340 billion in one day.
The debt ceiling was hit in March, and from that point forward, the Gross National Debt was stuck at about $18.15 trillion, give or take a couple of billion. But the government continued spending the money that Congress had told it to spend, though Congress also told the government not to issue more debt to pay for this spending. If this sort of debt-ceiling fight looks like a Congressional charade to the world outside the Beltway, it’s because it is a charade.
So instead of issuing new debt, the Treasury relied on “extraordinary measures,” taking the money it needed from other government accounts, robbing Peter to pay Paul so to speak, and ended Fiscal 2015, on September 30, with a total Treasury debt outstanding of, well, the same $18.15 trillion.
That remained the Gross National Debt until just now. In late October, Congress agreed to raise the debt ceiling and end the charade, days before the out-of-money date, as everyone knew it would. The Treasury then embarked on a flurry of activity, undoing these “extraordinary measures” and going on a debt-sales binge. Now it made the accounting entry – adding $340 billion in one day to the Gross National Debt, bringing it to the new phenomenal level of $18.492 trillion.
Over fiscal 2015 plus October, the Gross National Debt rose by $668 billion, up 3.7% over the period, growing nearly twice as fast as GDP, which edged up from Q3 2014 to Q3 2015 a measly 1.95%.
This leaves the Gross National Debt at 107% of 2014 GDP and 105% of estimated 2015 GDP.
This chart shows the peculiar fiscal condition of America over the years: Since 2002, the government has borrowed $12.7 trillion, or two-thirds of the total debt! Since 2008, it has borrowed $9.5 trillion, or about half of the total debt, the biggest “stimulus” package of all times:
But here’s the thing: the official government “deficit” for fiscal 2015, based on government accounting, was “only” $439 billion. In other words, it took $668 billion of real hard debt to pay for $439 billion in government-accounting deficits.
This isn’t a one-time discrepancy but an ongoing pattern. In fiscal 2014, with an official deficit of $485 billion, the Gross National Debt soared by $1.1 trillion. Both, fiscal 2014 and 2015 combined, sported an official “deficit” of $924 billion. And it took $1.75 trillion in new debt – almost twice as much – to pay for it!
And look: the US, had four years of official “surpluses” between 1998 and 2001 that at one point exceeded 2% of GDP. They should have brought down the Gross National Debt by the amounts of the surpluses. But not these “surpluses!” Instead, the debt increased in every one of those four years, in total by $394 billion. That’s how much real debt it took to cover these government accounting “surpluses.”
So when we lament corporate accounting games, financial engineering, and balance-sheet strip-mining that companies use to pull a bag over all-too-willing investors’ heads, we should remember that there’s something even shadier: government accounting.
Cheap debt makes everything possible. Until it snaps back. And now even the Comptroller of the Currency begins to fret: “Reminds me of what happened in mortgage-backed securities in the run up to the crisis.” Read… “Bank Failures and Systemic Breakdowns”: Regulator Warns on Autos, Subprime, Commercial Real-Estate…
Enjoy reading WOLF STREET and want to support it? Using ad blockers – I totally get why – but want to support the site? You can donate “beer money.” I appreciate it immensely. Click on the beer mug to find out how:
Would you like to be notified via email when WOLF STREET publishes a new article? Sign up here.If you’d like to take a look at the data referenced in this post and the script I wrote to gather them, feel free to head over to my Github.
I’ll admit it: I take stock in video game reviews. I don’t read them religiously, nor am I insulted when a site rates a favorite of mine a bit too low. I read reviews to find out which games I might like. With so many games and so little time, reviews and ratings are, for me, a much-needed filtering process.
But video game ratings come with problems. On a 10 point scale, what’s the difference between a 7.3 and a 7.5? Even a 7 and an 8? And why does it seem like reviewers hardly dish out scores from the bottom half of their scales? How can reviewers package their opinions, highly subjective and finicky things that they are, into definitive scores? Numbers feel a lot more objective than words. It might be this perceived objectivity that makes people protest the seemingly arbitrary scores that reviewers select. (I wouldn’t call these ratings arbitrary — they’re backed by opinion. Subjective? Yes.)
Present-day game rating aggregators add to these problems. Averaging across multiple sites, each with their own distributions, makes things messy. A score of 7 from one site very likely might be equivalent to a 5 from another. And what about those troublesome letter-grade ratings? Metacritic converts Cs to 50s — but last time I checked, a C mapped to a 70 percent or so in school. Metacritic claims that they generate their aggregate scores after running their data through a weighted, proprietary algorithm, and I’m sure they do. But I question their algorithm’s efficacy. Pick a few games on their website and do an old-fashioned average of the scores they list. The score you come out with will likely closely resemble their aggregate score.
But I digress.
I decided to do some investigation into the nature of game ratings. I’m currently in the process of building a dataset of game ratings from different sites. I started with IGN. After a bit of web scraping, I collected review data on the 75,005 games that IGN kept track of as of July 13, 2013. Of those, only 17,027 had ratings in IGN’s index (others were not rated, marked as “NR”). I coded a python script to collect the data and used BeautifulSoup for HTML parsing. I analyzed the data with an evaluation copy of Wizard, a suite of statistical tools.
Without further ado, here are some summary statistics of IGN’s rating distribution, peppered with some tidbits of information that I found interesting.
Summary statistics
Data retrieval date: July 13, 2013
Population size: 17,027 rated games
Mean score: Approximately 6.9
Standard deviation: Approximately 1.7
Skew: left
Interquartile range: 2.1
Lower quartile: 6.0
Median score: 7.2
Upper quartile 8.1
IGN’s index erroneously assigns a number of games 0s in their index (at least one game, though, actually did manage to earn a zero). I didn’t manually prune these entries from my data, so the above summary statistics are slightly off.
The highs and the lows
Only 314 games, or about two percent of rated games, received a score of 9.5 or above. IGN decorated 38 games with 10s. Classic games (the Zelda, Mario, and Pokemon franchises) dominated here. Some newer games did manage to break into the Hall of 10s, notably Naughty Dog’s third Uncharted entry and their recent The Last of Us. Rockstar’s GTA games and Red Dead DLC also carved out spots for themselves, as did a couple of Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid games. Some 10s you might not have heard of include Checkered Flag, Joust, and Shanghai (all Atari Lynx games), and Tornado Mania, a mobile game. Infinity Blade II was the sole representer of the iPhone.
2,913 games managed to be bad enough to nab a score of 5 or less, accounting for about 17 percent of total games. With a zero, Olympic Hockey Nagano ’98 boasts the lowest score of all games. Looney Tunes: Back in Action: Zany Race followed closely with a 0.5. Two other games, Extreme PaintBrawl and Action Girlz Racing, joined the less-than-one ranks.
Of the major modern consoles, the Nintendo Wii had the lowest median rating (a 6.8). The Wii U, Xbox 360, PS3, and PC have median scores of 7.5.
A closing remark
With a median of 7.2 and an IQR of 2.1 (i.e., 50 percent of scores lie between 6.0 and 8.1), it does look like IGN awards higher scores more often than not. This does not mean that they’re doing anything illicit (this might seem obvious, but you’d be surprised at some of the shoddy “journalism” out there that sensationally misinterprets data). Perhaps IGN thinks that most games just aren’t that bad.
I’ve got a hunch that other review sites’ distributions won’t match IGN’s, just as they likely won’t match each other. So I’ll gather more data — maybe I’ll be able to do something with them.
Update, July 23, 2013: Previously, this article linked to a website that I believed had misinterpreted ratings data. This post no longer links to that site.
Update, July 28, 2013: This post now links to my Github repository containing the source code and data referenced here.(CNN) House Speaker Paul Ryan spent the past two years drawing lines in the sand regarding President Donald Trump -- and then erasing them when Trump, inevitably, overstepped.
In May 2016, Ryan said he couldn't endorse Trump -- even though the businessman was the presumptive nominee -- because he needed to show he could unify the party. Trump didn't.
The most prominent "break" was in early October 2016 in the wake of the "Access Hollywood" tape that showed Trump bragging about sexually assaulting women. Ryan pledged that he would no longer defend Trump or advocate for his election. "The speaker is going to spend the next month focused entirely on protecting our congressional majorities," a Ryan spokeswoman said at the time
You know how that one ended. Trump won. Republicans -- including Ryan -- celebrated their newfound control of both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. "This is the most incredible political feat I've seen in my lifetime," Ryan said shortly after the election.
Which brings us to Sunday and Ryan's latest line in the sand for Trump: Don't fire special counsel Robert Mueller.
"We need to let these career professionals do their jobs, see it through," Ryan said on "Fox News Sunday. "So, no, I don't think he should be stepping down, and I don't think he should be fired. And the President has made it clear, he's not going to do that."
The message is clear: Firing Mueller would be too much, a stepping beyond the bounds by Trump. And, if the President did take that course of action, Ryan -- and presumably the Republicans loyal to him in Congress -- would have no choice but to disavow Trump for good.
Now, Ryan is generally right that Trump has said of late that he has no plans to remove Mueller from his job -- even as one former Trump adviser had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his interactions with foreign officials close to the Russian government and two others have been indicted for alleged money laundering.
"Well, I hope he's treating everything fairly," Trump told journalist Sharyl Attkisson in an interview over the weekend. "And if he is, I'm going to be very happy, because when you talk about innocent, I am truly not involved in any collusion with Russia."
Obviously, there is plenty of wiggle room in that statement -- "fairly" is in the eye of the beholder -- but all of the reporting coming out of the White House suggests that Trump has rejected -- for now -- the hardline approach to Mueller advocated by, among others, former chief strategist Steve Bannon
The truth is that no matter what Trump does with Mueller, the history of Ryan's line-drawing should make anyone paying attention skeptical that this time he really means it.
In raw political terms, that means there is still considerable peril in openly breaking with Trump. One needs only look as far as Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, a Republican whose polling numbers collapsed after he wrote a book earlier this year taking Trump -- and the GOP -- to task. Flake decided to retire last month, a decision he all but acknowledged was forced upon him.
Which means that Ryan breaking with Trump even if Trump fires Mueller would be politically perilous for the speaker. And politicians -- especially in this day and age -- very rarely do things that they know could cost them their jobs.More than 1 million in US scheduled to lose unemployment benefits
By Andre Damon
4 December 2013
More than 1 million people in the US are slated to lose unemployment insurance benefits the week after Christmas, when the federal Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) program is scheduled to expire.
The EUC benefits program provides unemployment insurance payments to the long-term unemployed who have exhausted state unemployment assistance, which usually lasts for only 26 weeks.
The program has been extended by Congress 11 times since it was first introduced in 2008. Recent extensions have included cuts in eligibility, bringing the total number of people receiving these benefits down from over 5 million to 1 million, according to George Wentworth, Senior Staff Attorney at the National Employment Law Project.
While the White House has nominally called on Congress to prevent the program’s expiration, it put forward no specific proposals to renew it. In fact, according to a review of the White House website, the administration has officially mentioned the issue only once in the past month: in response to a reporter’s question during a press briefing by White House spokesman Jay Carney on November 15.
Democratic officials have hinted that any extension of federal jobless benefits would be tied to a broader agreement on the budget. However, with the conference committee tasked with working out a budget deal by December 13 deadlocked, any such agreement is looking increasingly unlikely.
The expiration of extended job |
in Australia and Germany, where it reached #14. The music video for "Rumors" was nominated for "Best Pop Video" at the 2005 MTV Video Music Awards. Both songs received heavy airplay on MTV's Total Request Live. The final single, "First," was released to help promote Lohan's film, Herbie: Fully Loaded. The song earned small success in Australia and Germany. Lohan promoted the album by performing the songs in a number of live appearances. A tour in Taiwan was planned, but later scrapped.[150]
A Little More Personal (Raw)
Lohan in February 2006
Lohan's second album, A Little More Personal (Raw), was released in December 2005. It peaked at number 20 on the Billboard 200 chart, and was eventually certified Gold.[151][152] Lohan co-wrote most of the songs on the album, which received a mixed critical response.[153][154] Slant Magazine called it "contrived... for all the so-called weighty subject matter, there's not much meat on these bones."[154] Lohan herself directed the music video for the album's only single, "Confessions of a Broken Heart (Daughter to Father)," which features her sister Ali Lohan.[155] The video is a dramatization of the pain Lohan said her family suffered at the hands of her father.[155] It was her first song to chart on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 57.[citation needed]
Other works
Emilio Estefan and his wife, Gloria Estefan, signed Lohan to a five-album production deal in September 2002.[156] Lohan landed the role as the daughter in Disney's remake, Freaky Friday, also that month, which required her to learn how to play the guitar and to sing. Lohan recorded a song for the film, "Ultimate," which was released to Radio Disney to help promote the film. The song peaked at #18 on Radio Disney's Top 30. Lohan announced that the song was separate from her singing career since many teen idols such as Hilary Duff and Raven-Symoné were expanding their careers from acting to singing. In 2003, Lohan recorded four songs that were released for the soundtrack to Lohan's film, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, including a Radio Disney hit, "Drama Queen (That Girl).
She had begun working with Diane Warren and Randy Jackson, who were going to help write and produce her album. Diane Warren wrote the song, "I Decide," for Lohan which was originally going to be on her album.[157] When Lohan decided not to collaborate with Warren and Jackson, "I Decide" was instead released on the soundtrack to the film The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement and on to Radio Disney.
Following a switch to Universal Motown, Lohan began working on a third album, tentatively titled Spirit in the Dark, in late 2007.[158][159][160] In May 2008, the single "Bossy" was released onto digital outlets, which reached number one on the US Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart.[161][162] The single was meant to serve as the lead single from the album. Later that year, Lohan said that work on the album had stalled and that she wanted to avoid the stress of working on movies and music at the same time.[163]
In 2015, the English band Duran Duran announced that Lohan had been featured on the song "Danceophobia" from their upcoming fourteenth studio album, Paper Gods.
Other ventures
Fashion
Lohan has been the face of Jill Stuart, Miu Miu, and, as well as the 2008 Visa Swap British fashion campaign.[164][165] She was also the face of Italian clothing company Fornarina for its Spring–Summer 2009 campaign.[164] Lohan has a long-lasting fascination with Marilyn Monroe going back to when she saw Niagara during The Parent Trap shoot.[166] In the 2008 Spring Fashion edition of New York magazine, Lohan re-created Monroe's final photo shoot, known as The Last Sitting, including nudity, saying that the photo shoot was "an honor."[166] The New York Times critic Ginia Bellafante found it disturbing, saying "the pictures ask viewers to engage in a kind of mock necrophilia.... [and] the photographs bear none of Monroe's fragility."[167]
In 2008, Lohan launched a clothes line, whose name 6126 was designed to represent Monroe's birth date (June 1, 1926). The line started with leggings, before expanding to a full collection, covering 280 pieces as of April 2010.[168][169][170] In January 2009, Lohan appeared as a guest judge on Project Runway. In September 2009, Lohan became an artistic adviser for the French fashion house Emanuel Ungaro.[171] A collection by designer Estrella Archs with Lohan as adviser was presented in October, receiving a "disastrous" reception, according to Entertainment Weekly and New York.[172][173] Lohan left the company in March 2010.[174] Lohan appeared in the January–February 2012 issue of Playboy magazine, in a shoot inspired by a nude pictorial of Marilyn Monroe from the first issue of the magazine.[175][176] Editor Hugh Hefner said Lohan's issue was "breaking sales records."[177]
In early 2018, Lohan announced plans on developing a makeup brand separate from her fashion brand and stated that it was still in its early stages of development.[178]
Apps
In December 2014, the free-to-play video game app Lindsay Lohan's The Price of Fame was released for the iOS and Android operating systems.[179][180] Polygon said it was "funny, trashy and surprisingly self-aware" while Vulture called it "a crappy knockoff of Kim Kardashian: Hollywood".[180][181]
In June 2017, Lohan announced she was starting a lifestyle site called Preemium, which subscribers could access for $2.99 a month.[182]
Clubs
In October 2016, Lohan opened her first nightclub, in collaboration with her ex-business partner Dennis Papageorgiou, named "Lohan Nightclub", in Athens, Greece.[183] In May 2018, she opened a resort on the Greek island Mykonos called "Lohan Beach House Mykonos" and later her second resort in Ialisos Beach, Rhodes, called "Lohan Beach House Rhodes".[184][185] In July 2018, People magazine revealed that Lohan had signed on to star in an MTV reality series, Lindsay Lohan's Beach Club focusing on the Mykonos Beach House and her future career and business ventures.[186] The series premiered on January 8, 2019 on MTV.[187]
Personal life
Following Mean Girls, Lohan spent several years living out of hotels in Los Angeles, of which two years were spent at the Chateau Marmont. In late 2007, after settling down in a more permanent residence, she explained that she "didn't want to be alone" but that "it wasn't a way of life... not very consistent."[188][189][190] She had a series of car accidents that were widely reported, in August 2004, October 2005, and November 2006, when she suffered minor injuries because a paparazzo who was following her for a photograph hit her car.[191][192][193]
In July 2007, Lohan's home was burgled by the Bling Ring, a group of fashion-motivated burglars whose ringleader considered Lohan to be their ultimate conquest. Video surveillance of the burglary recorded at Lohan's home played a large role in breaking the case.[194]
Speaking about her sexual orientation, Lohan said that she was not a lesbian. When asked if she was bisexual in 2008, she responded "Maybe. Yeah," adding, "I don't want to classify myself."[195] However, in a 2013 interview, she said, "I know I'm straight. I have made out with girls before, and I had a relationship with a girl.... I think I was looking for something different."[196]
In April 2016, Lohan was studying Islam and considered converting.[197][198]
In October 2017, Lohan received scrutiny for defending Harvey Weinstein, whom she worked with on several films, on Instagram and saying that his wife Georgina Chapman should stay with him.[199] Weinstein had been accused of sexual harassment and sexual assault. Lohan later clarified stating, "I am saddened to hear about the allegations against my former colleague Harvey Weinstein. As someone who has lived their life in the public eye, I feel that allegations should always be made to the authorities and not played out in the media."[200]
In September 2018, Lohan garnered controversy and scrutiny after she livestreamed herself attempting to lead away a homeless woman's children on Instagram Live. In the video, she accuses the woman of child trafficking and dubs the family 'Syrian refugee[s]'. The situation has been regarded as an attempted kidnapping, and suspicions have arisen that Lohan was intoxicated.[201]
Relationships and family
Lohan began dating actor Wilmer Valderrama in 2004. She also guest-starred in an episode of That '70s Show, where Valderrama was a regular. After their break-up, Lohan wrote her second single, "Over", about the experience. Lohan dated Hard Rock Cafe heir Harry Morton in 2006. Lohan dated DJ Samantha Ronson in 2008 and 2009.[195][202] She co-hosted club events with Ronson and accompanied her when she was DJ-ing.[203][204] In April 2009, following her breakup with Ronson, Lohan appeared in a dating video spoof on the comedy website Funny or Die.[205] It was viewed 2.7 million times in the first week and received favorable comments from the media.[206][207] As of 2016, her love interest and fiancé was London based Russian millionaire Egor Tarabasov, owner of the real estate agency Home House Estates and son of Dmitry Tarabasov.[208][209][210][211] They reportedly broke up in mid 2017 with Lindsay accusing Egor of abuse and him accusing her of stealing £24,000 worth of his belongings.[212][213]
Lohan spoke about her turbulent childhood in 2007, the same year her parents finalized their divorce: "I feel like a second parent in the sense that I helped raise my family...I was put between my mother and father a lot."[15][214] Despite the conflicts, Lohan spoke very fondly of her family.[215][216] However, in 2007, 2008, and 2009 she admitted that she had cut off contact with her father, describing his behavior as unpredictable and hard to deal with.[217][218][219][220]
Political interests
During the 2008 US presidential campaign, Lohan offered her services to Barack Obama's Democratic election effort, but was declined.[221] In a blog post, Lohan criticized the media and then Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin for not focusing on policy, and attacked Palin's positions on homosexuality, birth control and abortion.[222][223] Lohan had previously expressed an interest in going to Iraq, during the Iraq War in 2006, on a USO tour with Hillary Clinton.[51] In the 2012 presidential election, Lohan supported Republican candidate Mitt Romney, something that prompted ABC News to call her a "political turncoat".[224][225] Only weeks later, she tweeted words supportive of Obama.[226]
Substance abuse
By the age of 21, Lohan started to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and had become a prominent fixture of the Los Angeles late-night scene, where alcohol and other drugs were often present and on hand for her.[227] By 2007, her lifestyle had "caught up" with her, she once noted, as she started to receive more attention for her late-night persona than for her film work, and faced the beginning of what would be a long series of run-ins with the law.[228] She described herself as an "addict" in her 2014 interview with Oprah, stating that alcohol was a gateway drug to other things for her. She also admitted to using cocaine "10 to 15 times", explaining that it "allowed [her] to drink more".[229][230][231]
Her January 2007 admittance into a rehab center marked the first of six court-ordered rehab stints in a span of six years; she had spent over 250 days in rehabilitation by 2014.[232] In January 2007, Lohan admitted herself to the Wonderland Center rehabilitation facility for a 30-day stay.[233][234] In May, she entered the Promises Treatment Center rehabilitation facility where she stayed for 45 days.[235][236] In July, she entered the Cirque Lodge Treatment Center in Sundance, Utah for a third stint at rehabilitation in the year, staying for three months until her discharge in October.[237] In August 2010, Lohan entered an inpatient rehabilitation facility, from where she was released after only 23 days,[238][239][240][241] and in October, she entered the Betty Ford Center, a drug and alcohol treatment center, where she remained on court order for three months until early January 2011.[103][242][243][244][245] Between May and July 2013, Lohan spent 90 days in rehabilitation.[246][247]
Legal issues
In May 2007, Lohan was arrested on a charge of driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI).[248] In July, less than two weeks out of rehab, Lohan was arrested a second time on charges of possession of cocaine, driving under the influence and driving with a suspended license.[249][250][251][252] In August, Lohan pleaded guilty to misdemeanor cocaine use and driving under the influence and was sentenced to an alcohol education program, community service, one day in jail, and was given three years probation. Lohan released a statement in which she said "it is clear to me that my life has become completely unmanageable because I am addicted to alcohol and drugs."[253] In November, Lohan served 84 minutes in jail. A sheriff spokesman cited overcrowding and the nonviolent nature of the crime as reasons for the reduced sentence.[254]
In October 2009, Lohan's DUI probation was extended by an additional year, following several instances in which she failed to attend the court-ordered substance abuse treatment classes.[255] In May 2010, Lohan traveled to the Cannes Film Festival to promote the biographical drama Inferno. She was set to star as the lead, adult-film performer Linda Lovelace, but was later replaced while in court mandated rehab.[256][257] Because she was in Cannes, Lohan missed a mandatory DUI progress hearing. A bench warrant was issued for her arrest which was rescinded after she posted bail.[258][259] A judge determined that Lohan had violated the terms of her probation by missing several mandatory classes and meetings. She was sentenced to 90 days in jail, followed by 90 days of inpatient rehab treatment.[260][261] However, Lohan served only 14 days of the jail sentence, due to overcrowding.[262][263][238][264]
In September 2010, Lohan's probation was revoked following a failed drug test.[265][266][267] She spent part of the day in jail before being released on bail.[267][268][269][270] In February 2011, Lohan was charged with the theft of a necklace reported stolen from a jewelry store the month before.[271][272][273] She was sentenced to community service and 120 days in jail for misdemeanor theft and probation violation, to which she pleaded no contest.[274][275][276][277][278] Due to jail overcrowding, Lohan served the sentence under house confinement, wearing a tracking ankle monitor for 35 days.[279][280][281] In November, Lohan was found to have violated the terms of her probation by failing to perform the required community service.[282][283] She was sentenced to additional community service and 30 days in jail, of which she served less than 5 hours due to overcrowding.[284][285][286][287][288]
On way to the Liz & Dick set in June 2012, Lohan was in a car accident, where she sustained minor injuries and which caused a delay in production.[289][290] In March 2013, Lohan pleaded no contest to misdemeanor charges stemming from the June 2012 car accident; reckless driving and providing false information to a police officer. She was sentenced to community service, psychotherapy and lockdown rehabilitation. Her probation was also extended[291][292] until May 2015, when a judge ended it after she completed the community service making it the first time in nearly 8 years that she was probation free.[293][294]
Filmography
After beginning her acting career as a child actor in the early 1990s, Lohan, at age 11, made her film debut in Disney's successful remake of The Parent Trap (1998). Freaky Friday (2003) remains her highest-grossing film, while Mean Girls (2004), both a critical and commercial success, became a cult classic. Her career faced many interruptions from legal and personal troubles during the late 2000s and early 2010s, but she has still been able to appear in 26 films (including 6 as a personality), 12 television appearances, 1 play and 5 music videos. Her most notable films include:[295][296]
See also
ReferencesA Jelly Donut is a yummy mid-afternoon energy boost.
Two Jelly Donuts are an indulgent breakfast.
Three Jelly Donuts may induce a tummy ache.
Six Jelly Donuts -- that's an eating disorder.
Twelve Jelly Donuts is fraternity pledge hazing.
My point is that you can have too much of a good thing and overdoses are destructive. Chairman Bernanke is presently force-feeding us what seems like the 36th Jelly Donut of easy money and wondering why it isn't giving us energy or making us feel better. Instead of a robust recovery, the economy continues to be sluggish. Last year, when asked why his measures weren't working, he suggested it was "bad luck."
I don't think luck has anything to do with it. The blame lies in his misunderstanding of human nature. The textbooks presume that easier money will always result in a stronger economy, but that's a bad assumption. Here is a good example of how a real family responds to monetary policy.
Consider my neighbors, Homer, Marge, and their three adult children, Bart, Lisa and Maggie. Homer has retired from the nuclear plant, and he and Marge live off savings and Homer's pension. Bart is in a bit of trouble with too much credit card debt and an underwater mortgage. Lisa has been putting away her salary and has enough for a downpayment on her first home. Maggie owns her own business and is ready to expand.
When interest rates are high, Homer and Marge park their savings in CDs or Money Market accounts and get a decent return. There is no incentive for them to take much risk with their money. Bart gets into trouble very quickly and defaults on his loans. Lisa decides she can't afford a mortgage until rates fall. And Maggie, who's been helping out Bart with some of his expenses, believes that she'd make money if she grew the business, but possibly not enough to service the debt she'd be undertaking.
When interest rates are low, everything changes. Homer and Marge are getting only a little interest on their savings, and are struggling to live off Homer's pension. They need to rethink their finances. Bart can manage to keep up the minimum payments on his credit cards and stay in his house. Lisa can get a cheap mortgage, and Maggie doesn't need to make such optimistic assumptions in order to expand her business.
Everyone agrees that low interest rates are a good way to stimulate a stalled economy. The Fed takes this logic a step further. It believes that if low interest rates are good, then zero-interest rates must be even better. As a brief emergency measure, such drastic behavior is reasonable and can even be necessary. In 2008, Chairman Bernanke had near unanimous support for his decision to drop rates to near zero. At the peak of the crisis, it made sense. But that was four long years and many jelly donuts ago. In the 2012 economy, a zero rate policy not only adds no benefit, it's actually harmful. Just ask the Simpsons.
When Homer was approaching 65, he and Marge met with a financial planner to figure out if they had enough money saved for retirement. They assumed they'd live to be 90, and could count on receiving a fixed amount from Homer's pension and social security checks. Marge, the cautious one, has not forgotten that stock market meltdown better known as the bursting of the tech bubble. She didn't want to take any investment risk and was content to have just enough for regular haircuts for herself, a bowling and beer budget for Homer, and visits with the children. They were told that, with nominal interest rates at 3%, they could safely retire with $200,000.
"What happens if interest rates go to zero and stay there?" Marge asked the advisor.
"You mean indefinitely? If you weren't willing to start taking investment risk, you'd need 50% more in savings, or $300,000. But why would you ask such a silly question?" asked the advisor.
To which Marge replied, "Well, we were thinking about moving to Japan..."
Homer and Marge aren't the only ones doing this sort of math. Every single day for the next 19 years, more than 10,000 Baby Boomers will turn 65. Those who started saving for retirement 15 years ago are suddenly finding themselves with insufficient savings to do so.
Some will stay in the work force longer, some will drastically reduce their spending, and some will do both. In a recent survey, 20% of U.S. workers say they have postponed their planned retirement age at least once during the last year. And those who have already retired have fewer options. Returning to the workforce could be challenging. David Rosenberg points out that the workforce for those 55 and older has expanded by 4 million since the start of the recession, and they are returning to the workforce at lower wages. Even more challenging is trying to find safe investments that generate a decent yield.
Zero-rate policy makes traditional riskless investments, such as CDs and Money Markets, unattractive to savers. Rather than view this as an unfortunate consequence of policy, Chairman Bernanke sees this as a benefit. He subscribes to the philosophy that rising stock prices will contribute to a 'virtuous cycle' of economic growth. He's hoping that those approaching retirement, and even the retired, will abandon the idea of making safe returns, and put their savings into equities instead.
In a similar vein, the Fed believes that by lowering interest rates, it makes bonds unattractive compared to stocks. Using logic worthy of Montgomery Burns, Homer's old boss at the Springfield Nuclear Plant, the Chairman is hoping to create a Wealth Effect. I can almost hear Mr. Burns and his sycophantic aide Smithers now:
Smithers: "Sir, you're saying we need the stock market to go up?"
Burns: "Yes, that's the fix we're looking for."
Smithers: "And why would that be, sir?"
Burns: "Don't you get it? A rising stock market allows people to feel wealthy. And a seemingly wealthy person is a profligate person."
Smithers: "Profligate, sir?"
Burns: “Profligate. <pause> It means they spend money they don’t have on things they don’t need.”
Smithers: "So instead of enabling people to actually have more disposable income, we'll get them to spend more by simply making them feel rich?"
Burns: "Exactly! Now how can we do that?"
Smithers: "Well, we can always encourage them to sell their bonds and buy stocks."
Burns: "Now how would we ever convince them to do something as foolish as that?"
Smithers: "Just set interest rates to zero indefinitely. Then no one can afford not to invest in the market."
Burns: "Why, Smithers, that's brilliant! This is exactly the kind of counter-intuitive thinking we've been needing around here!"
Only it's not counter-intuitive; it is simply misguided thinking that persists among the Fed Chairman and other government ivory tower thinkers. They do not understand or relate to the prime component of capitalism and a free market: greed. And because they do not understand greed, they also do not understand fear, which presents a double whammy for making bad policy decisions.
****
Let's think about it from an investor's perspective: For about 30 years, bonds have mostly risen in value. By directly intervening in the bond market and by promising zero percent short-term interest rates through 2014, the Fed has all but guaranteed that it will do what it takes to keep bond prices from falling. Right now, Homer and Marge own bonds that yield 2%, practically risk-free. What rational investor will sell when there is no downside?
For years, people have talked about the 'Greenspan put' or the 'Bernanke put' on the stock market. Some question whether such a put is deliberate, others question its effectiveness, and some even question whether or not it exists at all. The Fed has always explicitly denied using monetary policy to create a floor on the markets, and its inability to do so should have been settled when the NASDAQ fell 78%. As for whether or not the Fed puts are a myth, I think it depends on where you look.
It isn't where you think: The real Fed put is under the bond market.
If the Fed's hope is to drive investors into equities, propping up the bond market is counter-productive. While there are many parts of the cycle where higher bond prices fuel higher stock prices, at this point in the cycle the relationship has reversed. In recent months, stocks and bonds have developed a strong negative correlation -- what is bad for bonds, is good for stocks. The Fed does not understand investor psychology: If you want to get people to sell bonds and buy stocks, the best way to do that is to show them that bond prices can, and do, fall.
Another flaw in the Fed's logic is that many savers aren't willing to participate in the virtuous cycle experiment. Some might be convinced to take on this risk. But others who, like Marge, have seen the market get cut in half twice in the last dozen years, will resist. They don't believe it is prudent to gamble their nest egg in the market.
Those who have given up on earning more will have to save more and spend less. This is the antithesis of a wealth effect, and their reduced spending is a drag on the economy.
This reduced spending has unintended consequences for the Simpson kids as well. Chairman Bernanke is unwilling to raise rates, even by a modest amount. He's hoping that his zero-rate interest policy will encourage Lisa to buy that house and persuade Maggie to start expanding the business. He worries that a rate hike will discourage them from doing so. What he cannot seem to acknowledge is that it's been three years of ZIRP, yet credit-worthy borrowers still are not looking for loans.
Interest rates are only one consideration when looking to invest. If it makes sense to build a factory in a 2% ten-year note environment, it probably still makes sense to build it with long rates at 4%. Long duration investments of that nature have so many other risks that, once rates are low enough, further reductions in the marginal cost of money no longer make much difference.
The corollary is that if it doesn't make sense at 2%, it isn't going to make sense at 1% or even at zero, because there must be some other reason not to build. The cost of money has long since passed the point where it is a constraint on otherwise sensible economic behavior in the real economy. Incrementally lower rates no longer trigger large refinancing, let alone construction booms, in the mortgage and housing markets.
Putting money back into the hands of savers would stimulate the economy and might be just the push that Maggie needs to go ahead with that business expansion.
Another blob of jelly that we are still working to digest is the Fed's promise to keep rates at zero for a long time. Chairman Bernanke hopes this will encourage borrowing and investment, but it may have the opposite effect because it undermines any sense of urgency. By setting the time value of money to zero, the Fed devalues time.
Retailers know that to create short-term demand for a promoted special, you have to create a reason to Buy Now! -- "One day Bonanza," "First 1,000 customers through the door," and even the softer, "Good while supplies last," incite action. The promise to keep rates low invites procrastination. Why should anyone make a marginal decision to borrow and spend or build today, knowing that low-cost financing will still be available through the end of 2014?
Chairman Bernanke's strategy of bringing Walmart's Every Day Low Pricing to central banking has not worked. If the Fed Chairman wants to light a fire under Lisa and Maggie, announcing a small rate increase with the possibility of more to come could provide the incentive they need to buy or build rather than risk missing out.
****
Some will argue that if the Fed raises rates, it will cause deflation. Just the word 'deflation' makes Chairman Bernanke break into a cold sweat and reach for the Jelly Donuts. Fear of deflation should depend on what, exactly, is deflating.
The sort of deflation that puts pressure on wages is a clear negative, as it leads to a lower standard of living. On the other hand, lower prices caused by scientific progress and higher efficiency are unambiguously positive.
Apple's newest iPhone has twice the memory, a better camera, and other small improvements and carries the same price as the prior version. Government statisticians see an improved product at the same price and count it as a price cut, or deflation.
There is no reason for the Fed to conduct monetary policy to offset advances that improve our standard of living, in particular when it results in driving up the price of something else, like oil.
Yet, while the Fed seems compelled to respond to innovation as if it were a bad thing, it throws up its hands when confronted with rising oil prices. Unfortunately, when the Fed sets policy with a goal of driving prices higher, it doesn't get to choose which prices are most affected.
When asked about the rising oil price, Chairman Bernanke concedes that it is a negative for consumers. He then disclaims any responsibility, and states it is beyond the power of the Fed to affect it. He blames oil prices on emerging markets, political turmoil and speculators. If we take him at his word that speculators are causing the problem, it's worth considering what might be causing the speculation.
From the 2010 Jackson Hole speech that kicked off the QE2 frenzy, spot oil went from $73 to $114 a barrel in eight months. The price of food and most other commodities went up even faster.
While Chairman Bernanke hopes that flooding the market with dollars will get people to buy stocks, he appears less willing to accept that many respond by scrambling for hard assets in fear of dollar debasement. The rush into commodities is further exacerbated by cheap money that enables the inexpensive financing of speculative, levered positions. Again we see the two drivers -- fear and greed -- at work. The consequences of this speculation are reflected in the prices of food and energy.
Worse is that, even if Chairman Bernanke believed his policies were influencing oil prices, it's not clear that it would change his behavior. He seems to believe that inflation is a necessary by-product of growth, and that as long as it is kept under some control, accommodative monetary policy will help the economy.
In the current economic cycle, I do not believe this is true. There is nothing that slows the economy faster than rising oil prices, and most recessions have been preceded by rising or even spiking oil prices. Money spent at the gas pump is not available to be spent at the Kwik-E-Mart on other items.
Inflation has ceased to be an unfortunate by-product of growth. Rather, it is a direct hindrance to growth. We see the evidence in the disappointing growth during the first half of 2011. When the Fed finally signaled that there would be no QE3, commodity inflation stopped, oil prices retreated, and the economy began to improve. Oil prices again rose with the serving of the "Operation Twist" Jelly Donut, putting 2012 growth estimates at risk.
Tighter monetary policy would limit inflation and in all likelihood trigger a pronounced reduction in oil and food prices, which would provide a substantial boost to the real economy. While this thought runs contrary to Fed groupthink, it is consistent with recent experience. In light of this, I cannot understand why we are even discussing, let alone hoping, for QE3.
****
Chairman Bernanke recently gave a series of speeches outlining his view of the role of the Fed and its performance during the financial crisis.
To summarize his version: The crisis wasn't the Fed's fault; the Fed did a heroic job in reacting to the crisis; and the Fed isn't going to repeat perceived mistakes from 80 years ago.
Chairman Bernanke made a number of comments that while historically questionable, reveal his point of view and lend credence to the theory that he has and is likely to continue to under-price the cost of money:
He points out that to encourage stability central banks are supposed to mitigate financial panics or crises, but pays no similar thought to the idea that they should encourage stability by preventing bubbles.
He said, "Tightening of monetary policy in 1928 and 1929 to stem stock market speculation" was a "policy error."
In discussing the causes of the Great Inflation of the 1970s, he said "monetary policymakers responded too slowly" but made no mention of abandoning the gold standard as one of the causes.
He said that the housing bubble was created by deteriorating underwriting standards and downplays the role of the overly accommodative monetary policy.
Taken together, the message is that when monetary policy proves inadequate, the Bernanke Fed's response has been, and will be, even more aggressive intervention.
So, where are we now? Real GDP is growing between 2-3% and reported inflation is running at between 2 and 3%. Excluding the calculated deflation from technological progress would add about another 1% to inflation. On that basis, nominal growth is probably about 5-7%.
In the face of this, we have a policy of near zero cost money with promises to keep it that way for years, and an open debate as to whether we need more quantitative easing. When this monetary policy is combined with a large fiscal deficit, it leaves policy makers very little flexibility should we enter another recession or encounter another crisis.
I know this isn't conventional thinking, and it certainly isn't the way the Fed looks at it, but I believe that raising short rates -- not to a high level, but to a still low level of 2 or 3% -- would be much more conducive to both growth and stability.
The household sector balance sheet has a negative duration gap, meaning that it holds proportionately more short-term floating assets like bank deposits and money markets compared to its liabilities, which are disproportionately long-term fixed obligations including mortgages.
Raising rates would directly transmit income to families, enabling them to spend more freely and boost the economy -- a stimulus so to speak.
Unfortunately, it appears that Chairman Bernanke is more focused on financial institution balance sheets. While the Fed recently declared most of the largest banks to be healthy, and approved programs to reduce bank capital, continuing with zero rates several years into the recovery reveals a focus to support banks rather than households.
Zero rates allow the banks to carry non-performing and other questionable assets indefinitely. When the cost of money is nearly zero, dead beat borrowers can appear current by making nominal payments. When banks can finance their non-performers for free, they have little incentive to work them out. This lengthening of the work-out process supports banking profits and defers needed pain for some underwater borrowers. But, it also prevents the markets -- particularly the real estate market -- from clearing. This in turn delays the economic recovery and postpones job creation.
Income inequality remains a headline issue. Democrats argue for higher taxes for top earners, and increased transfer payments to those on the other end of the spectrum. Republicans remain opposed to any redistributive policies. Ending the Jelly Donut monetary policy would do more to alleviate income inequality than any of the widely debated changes in the tax code.
For the super wealthy, zero rates supported by a Bernanke put on the bond market encourage outsized income through leveraged speculation. For everyone else, zero rates reduce the standard of living because greater food and energy costs soak up income. Ironically, it is some Republicans that are beginning to question the Jelly Donut monetary policy, while Democrats generally support it. Democrats who sincerely care about income inequality should speak out against the Fed's policies.
It is a reasonable concern that a sudden change in rate policy would be destabilizing to current leveraged investment positions. The market for interest rate derivatives is the largest in the world. Many institutions continue to manage interest rate derivative risk through Value-at-Risk, a flawed concept that I warned about the last time I was here in early 2008. Given the crisis that ensued later that year, and the now-understood meaning of VaR to be 'value of some risks in a normal environment,' it is a remarkable testament to our lack of true reform that the measure is nearly as widely used today as it was then.
As a result, it is important that any policy shift has to be delivered through considered messaging and preparation, as a shift in policy could cause problems for some institutions that are very deeply positioned in the zero-rates-forever camp.
If you haven't exercised in a while, going for that first run is indeed a painful experience. So, yes, policy makers should pay attention to possible disruption, but this is not reason enough to forgo the needed change in rate policy. After jogging for a few days, exercising becomes easier, and as exercising gets easier, the desire for more exercise goes up and the desire for Jelly Donuts goes down.
****
It's time for Chairman Bernanke to begin restoring the markets to their natural balance. Provide the proper incentives for Lisa and Maggie to start investing in the economy again. Let Bart possibly default on his unsustainable debts so that the banks can start getting those loans off the books. Stop giving Mr. Burns access to free money that he can use to speculate in bonds and commodities at the |
30 September of that year, baby Daniel made his first appearance at just 14 weeks old and made regular appearances over the next two years. 41. Presenters who had babies during the time they worked on the programme were Tina Heath, who had Jemma, and Liz Barker who had Dexter. In 1987, presenter Janet Ellis was the focus of national scrutiny when she had baby Jack out of wedlock. Incontinent Elephants and Beautiful Knockers 42. Peter Purves attributes the blame for Lulu the incontinent elephant to editor Biddy Baxter, who allegedly asked Lulu's keeper to do without the stick he used to keep her under control. The ensuing chaos saw Lulu pee, poo and generally misbehave around the studio, dragging her gamekeeper through the mess. 43. Other memorable moments include Simon Groom's innuendo-laden: "What a beautiful pair of knockers", when commenting on a replacement for Durham Cathedral's historic door knocker; Mark Curry knocking the head off a LEGO model; and Diane-Louise Jordan falling flat on her face whilst covering John Leslie's run in the London Marathon. The Competitions 44. A competition to design a frock for presenter Caron Keating solicited responses from 69,928 debut dressmakers. In 1981 a competition to design a Christmas stamp generated 74,000 responses, and a contest to design a character for Aardman Animations in 2006 attracted 47,268 budding Nick Parks. Miscellaneous 45. Children who appeared on the show and have gone on to be famous include: Formula 1 ace Lewis Hamilton and popstar James Blunt (then James Blount). Konnie Huq also appeared in 1989 with the National Youth Theatre before she went on to become the programme's longest-serving presenter. Richard Deverell, the current Controller of BBC Children's, appeared on the show in 1976 as part of a troupe of knitting scouts. 46. Blue Peter has many Royal friends. A young Prince Edward visited Blue Peter in 1969 and, in 1970, Valerie Singleton and HRH Princess Anne filmed their Royal Safari in Kenya. Her Majesty The Queen visited the studio in 2001 and was given a gold badge. Blue Peter's current presenters and a specially selected number of former presenters and production staff have been invited to The Palace to meet Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to celebrate the 50th anniversary. 47. There have been four Blue Peter time capsules. The first was buried at BBC Television Centre in 1971 and the second in 1984, when the first box had to be moved because of development at Television Centre. Another was buried in 2000, which will be opened in 2029. There is also one hidden under the Millennium Dome/02 Centre which will be opened in 2050. 48. Blue Peter is the longest-running children's TV series in the world and the programme and its presenters have earned themselves countless records. John Noakes's Long Fall gave him a place in the Guinness Book of Records for the longest delayed drop by a civilian; Janet Ellis jumped 20,000 feet – a European record for a civilian woman; and Matt Baker's tandem hang-gliding also made the record books. 49. Blue Peter has won 40 awards, including two Baftas, a National Television Award and an RTS Award. 50. If you sat down and watched every episode of Blue Peter ever made, back to back, it would take around two and a half months – about the same amount of time needed to drive four times round the world.San Francisco Giants ace Madison Bumgarner is mainly known for what he does on the mound, but he can really swing the bat as well.
Last week against the Atlanta Braves, Bumgarner — who bats right-handed despite throwing left-handed — hit a 411-foot bomb at Turner Field:
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That was MadBum’s second homer of the year, and his 11th dinger over the last three seasons. This tweet to puts his home run production into perspective:
#Nationals Bryce Harper
Last 190 PA: 11 HR#Angels Mike Trout
Last 190 PA: 11 HR#SFGiants Madison Bumgarner
Last 190 PA: 11 HR — Ace of MLB Stats (@theaceofspaeder) June 2, 2016
Fangraphs’ Jeff Sullivan digs much more into Bumgarner’s power surge over the last three seasons, and here’s an excerpt from the article:
Bumgarner apparently figured out hitting in 2014. Maybe he got bored because he’d already mastered pitching. Since then, over just shy of 200 trips to the plate, Bumgarner has batted.234/.265/.451, good for a 101 wRC+. The next-best offensive pitcher has been Zack Greinke, with a wRC+ of 65. On the mound, Madison Bumgarner is Madison Bumgarner, and at the plate, Madison Bumgarner is Jonathan Schoop. The Giants’ advantage is that no other pitcher hits like a powerful second baseman.
Well, after Bumgarner launched homers in St. Louis’ “Big Mac Land” during batting practice on Sunday, he told ESPN’s Buster Olney that he’d like to participate in the Home Run Derby at Petco Park in July:
“I want to do it,” Bumgarner told Olney prior to ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball matchup between the Giants and St. Louis Cardinals. It’s hard to blame Bumgarner for wanting to see how he’d stack up against the game’s best hitters. After all, his 13 homers top all active pitchers. “I want to be in it,” Bumgarner said. “I’m going to be in it — don’t let me be in it.” During batting practice Sunday, Bumgarner sent more than a dozen balls over the fence in left. Two balls reached the third deck, above the “Big Mac Land” sign. His final cut reached the fourth deck, a feat rarely accomplished at Busch Stadium.
However, Giants manager Bruce Bochy sounds against his star pitcher participating in the event:
“No, to be serious, I couldn’t let him do it,” Bochy said. “We couldn’t let him do it.” Bochy, however, said he’d love to see what Bumgarner could do if he competed in the derby. “And Bum, he’s convinced he could win it,” Bochy said. “I think he would wear himself down in the first round, he’d try to hit it so hard.”
So, even if Bumgarner wants to be in the contest, it seems the Giants wouldn’t let that happen. That’s probably the smart move for the Giants, but it’s disappointing for those of us that would like to watch a pitcher compete with star hitters in a home run contest.
[ESPN]Minh ‘Gooseman’ Le, one of the co-creators of the original Counter-Strike, has let slip that both Half-Life 3 and Left 4 Dead 3 are in development.
Speaking in an interview live on Twitch TV, Le confirmed what everyone has been hoping for, that both Half-Life 3 and Left 4 Dead 3 are being worked on by Valve and he has personally seen the new Left 4 Dead in action…
Le's comments mean there is still hope for those clamouring for Half-Life 3
crimsonheadGCN over on NeoGAF spotted the interview earlier today, in which Le says he’s seen some concept art of now-almost-mythical Half-Life 3.
"I think it's kinda public knowledge, that people know that it is being worked on,” said Le. “And so if I were to say that yeah, I've seen some images, like some concept art of it, that wouldn't be big news to be honest. But yeah, I mean like I guess I could say that I did see something that looked kinda like in the Half-Life universe. And I mean it wouldn't surprise anyone if I said they're doing it, they're working on it, yeah. So to go on a limb I'd say I did see some concept art for Half-Life 3."
No doubt Valve's trained team of assassins are hunting him down as we speak, but Le was keen to also to point out the existence of Left 4 Dead 3 which, up until now, Valve has neither confirmed nor denied.
"You know, the one thing I'm really excited about is Left 4 Dead, the new Left 4 Dead. I saw it, it looks great. I was really excited when I saw that, I was like "wow, this looks great". Cos I really enjoyed Left 4 Dead, it was just one of those games that really just changed the industry. I think at the time there wasn't many good co-op games, so yeah, this is a great co-op game."
There’s hope then for those still optimistic that Valve is working on an eventual Left 4 Dead 3 and Half-Life 3, although if Gooseman’s info is correct then it sounds like both projects may still be some way off.
When do you think this pair of highly-anticipated titles will finally see the light of day?
Which of these two heavyweights are you looking forward to most?
Let us know!Getty Images
After months of delay, Boys Scouts of America (BSA) is finally voting today to overturn its ban on “openly gay” scouts (though not scout leaders—those are still verboten.) The BSA has defended its discriminatory policy on the grounds that homosexuality is incompatible with the Scout Law, especially with the values expressed in its commitment to ‘morally straight’ and ‘clean’ living. But instead of twisting themselves into moral knots that encourage bigotry, the Boy Scouts would have saved themselves a lot of angst and controversy (and also done better by American boys) if they were more like…the Girl Scouts.
(MORE: The Boy Scouts Latest P.R. Move is a Misfire)
In their statement of purpose called “What we stand for,” the Girl Scouts explicitly reject discrimination of any kind and consider sexual orientation, “a private matter for girls and their families to address.” Noting their affirmation of freedom of religion, a founding principle of American life, the Girl Scouts “do not attempt to dictate the form or style of a member’s worship” and urge “flexibility” in reciting the Girl Scout Promise. (They are encouraged to substitute the word “God” for something that’s more in line with their own spiritual practice.) It’s an arresting contrast to the Boy Scouts of America, who in addition to excluding gays also refuse to hire non-believers. While the BSA employment application states unequivocally that atheists, agnostics and “known or avowed homosexuals” are in all cases barred from becoming Scout leaders, convicted criminals can rest easy that their record “is not an automatic bar to employment.”
But there’s more than discrimination at stake. The BSA’s clannish practices may harm heterosexual boys too. That’s because a body of research suggests that excluding people from groups who are different impairs creative problem-solving and critical thinking. The studies, ranging from financial trading and management practices to jury deliberations, have confirmed what most of us know intuitively: our decision-making is enhanced by a wide variety of perspectives, even from those with whom we may disagree.
Some will argue – and many have – that the Boy Scouts aren’t practicing discrimination, merely asserting, as a private institution, constitutionally protected values that have been upheld by the supreme court. And that’s correct, as far as it goes.
(MORE: Gay Boy Scouts Employee: “I Can’t Live A Lie Any Longer”)
The problem is that these values reflect a constricted vision of moral development based on outdated stereotypes of masculinity that can keep young men from reaching their full potential as human beings, while the values of the Girl Scouts enhance moral and intellectual development. According to an article in the Atlantic, the two organizations started with similar aims but quickly diverged as the Boy Scouts affiliated with church sponsors and other elite power structures while the Girl Scouts went their own way. Girl Scouts started racially desegregating their troops back in the 1950’s (Martin Luther King Jr. was a vocal fan) and have long espoused a culture of inclusion, dialogue, and strongly independent thinking. In 2011, Kathleen E. Denny, a sociologist at the University of Maryland, analyzed the Boy Scout and Girl Scout handbooks and concluded:
The girls’ handbook conveys messages about approaching activities with autonomous and critical thinking, whereas the boys’ handbook facilitates intellectual passivity through a reliance on organizational scripts. Taken together, girls’ messages promote an “up-to-date traditional woman” consistent with the Girl Scouts’ organizational roots; boys’ messages promote an assertive heteronormative masculinity that is offset by facilitating boys’ intellectual passivity.
Contemporary life demands an increasingly elastic and collaborative mind, and the unfortunate truth is that American women, generally speaking, are finding it easier to adapt to a country of diverse people and ideas. One study found that female politicians make more effective legislators because they are better collaborators and less prone to show-boating (or going off on an Appalachian trail of personal exploration). They sponsor and co-sponsor more bills (an average of 26 more per congressional session) and they also bring more money to their districts compared to their male counterparts. (And we’re talking “real money” here: an average of $50 million dollars more per legislator.) The reason seems to be that women politicians are more skilled at the “deal-making” activities that result in legislative action.
Nearly all the essential academic skills identified by the Partnership for 21st Century Learning, such as creativity and innovation, problem-solving, communication and collaboration and civic literacy, are areas in which girls arguably have an advantage. However, there is no reason boys can’t excel in them too.
(MORE: Do Teachers Really Discriminate Against Boys?)
Many indicators are telling us that we have to do a better job of helping young men navigate early adulthood. The Boy Scouts have an admirable tradition of teaching boys to become men. But as men and women work, go to war, and raise families interchangeably, it no longer makes sense to idealize a stereotypic brand of masculinity, one that is ‘physically strong,’ and ‘clean’… whatever that means. The morally “straight” thing to do seems obvious: help all boys and girls become their better selves.
PHOTOS: Life with the Boy Scouts in an Era of ChangeThe Best and the Worst of the 2011 Napa Cabs
In PA Wine and Spirits Stores
2011 was a crazy year for Napa Cabs.
California is in the grip of a [link id=”109481″ text=” massive drought”], but that wasn’t the case in 2011. At least in Napa Valley, where rain pummelled vineyards from September to October. By harvest time, the grapes were bloated and rot was endemic. Many winemakers called it a very bad vintage. The wine critic Robert Parker of Wine Advocate rated it 84 points, the lowest in two decades.
All is not lost, though. Anyone who has taken a wine class with me knows the secret sauce: there is no such thing as a bad vintage. There are only poor choices. Some of those poor choices are made by a winemaker who doesn’t adjust to the necessities of the vintage. The rest of the poor choices are made by people buying those wines.
To find these wines near you: [link id=”21405″ text=”PLCB Wine Finder“]
Buying Guide for Napa Cab, 2011 Edition
A rainy cool vintage doesn’t equal bad wine, it just means the wines are going to be Bordelais in style, not the monster fruit bomb that Napa made famous. Most importantly, wineries need to change how they make wine in a cool wet year. Not all could make the change, and that means there will be some mediocre wines in stores, especially at the high end of the market. Wines that focus largely on high levels of oak will falter in a vintage like 2011. Those are the wines in Napa that often go for over $100 a bottle. In fact, most of the best 2011 cabernets in the PA Wine and Spirits Stores are currently less than $40
Top 2011 Napa Cabs under $50
Von Strasser 2011 Cabernet Sauvignon, Diamond Mountain
Lovely cassis and red berry on the nose with a palate of espresso and oyster shells. There are taught layers of tannins here with classical varietal notes of with pencil shaving and cedar, wrapped in a jacket of granite dust and cocoa. 91 points $29.99
Robert Craig 2011 “Affinity” Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley
Classic currant notes intermixed with chocolate and baking spices. Supple tannins deliver black fruits accented with eucalyptus and a bewitching finish of vetiver and jasmine. 93 points $29.99
Brandlin 2011 Cabernet Sauvignon Mt Veeder Estate
A great balancing act of flavors and components, this wine sports great elegance and energy. There is a dance between the drying tannin and juicy acids here. The wine stays fresh and compelling throughout, introducing notes of cedar and graphite in the mid-palate. Red fruit and cassis wind down into with rosemary and tobacco on the finish. 91 points $29.99
Whitehall Lane Winery 2011 Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley
A bordelais nose of graphite and pepper makes way for a dense and compact version of Napa Cabernet with savory notes along with the classic cassis and cherry flavors moving into notes of burnt wood and Earl Grey tea. Tannins are complex and gritty. 90 Points $29.99
Hall Vineyards 2011 Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley
The calling card of cool weather cabernet, black currant, is in the first scent and the final taste in the finish. This wine offers layers of berry coulis, roasted coffee, toasted herbs, and chocolate. Densely packed with enough bravado to appeal to any Napa Cab lover. Just with much more balance than usual, the calling card of the 2011 vintage. 90 points $49.99
The best Under $100 Bottle of 2011 Napa Cab
This bottle isn’t on the shelves in PA, but can be found in DE, NY, and NJ. The Beau Vigne 2011 “Romeo” Cabernet Sauvignon is more delicious than the distilled tears of a thousand pomeranians. Don’t ask me why that sounds good. I obviously need therapy. 95 points $60-$80
The jury is still out.
These two may turn out to be good bottles, but they aren’t showing well yet. Thin and weedy, the fruit is thin and the oak is disproportionate to the body of the wines. That can be a phase in a young cabernet, and if the oak integrates, these wines could turn out great. However, that may not be the case. Buyer beware.
Flora Springs 2011 Trilogy Limited Edition $39.99
Clos Du Val 2011 Cabernet Sauvignon Stags Leap District $39.99
Buy the 2012 Instead
The PCLB current has both the Edict 2011 Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley and the 2012 vintage. The former is ghastly. The later is amazing. Both are priced at $29.99. I’ll buy both to show vintage variation, but I’m an uber-geek.
PLCB Wine Finder | PLCB Wine Jobs | Top 10 Philly Wine Shops | PA Wine and Spirit Shops
“Keith Wallace is a controversial figure around here” Mark Squires, Wine Advocate Magazine.As results day looms, students complain that changes were rushed in, with errors in papers and inadequate revision materials available
Students awaiting their A-level results next week have described the stress of sitting new, untested qualifications this summer for which many felt ill prepared, with no past papers, no mark schemes and no clarity about grade boundaries.
Many complained that the changes, introduced by the Tories, had been “rushed in”, with teachers and students struggling to master demanding new syllabuses, aided by few revision materials. The pressure was compounded by the fact that the new qualifications are solely assessed on end-of-year exams, rather than coursework and AS-levels halfway through.
“I feel like I’m a lab rat being tested on,” said one student, who sat economics, geography and biology this summer. “No past papers. No examiner reports. Misleading specimen papers. No mark schemes. No practice. It’s been awful. So much relies upon these results, and I’m terrified.”
Responding to a Guardian call-out to readers, students who got in touch said a number of errors and alleged leaks of papers during the exam season had added to the stress of the ordeal. There was also concern about having to sit a mixture of old and new A-levels as the amended qualifications are gradually rolled out. New A-levels in 13 subjects were examined this summer. The rest have remained the same.
Beyond results day on Thursday, many students expressed fears about the cost of going to university, with increasing tuition fees and student debt. “Grades are one thing, but frankly it’s student loans I’m worried about,” said one A-level candidate from Manchester. “I wish I didn’t have to bother, but I need a degree. I feel like the punchline of a very cruel joke.”
The exams watchdog Ofqual has reassured this year’s A-level cohort they will not be disadvantaged by the new qualifications. Even if performance drops, the principle of comparable outcomes will be used to ensure that this year’s national results are similar to last year’s.
Julie Swan, Ofqual’s executive director for general qualifications, explained: “While the subject content has been updated to support students’ progression to higher education, the level of demand of the content and its volume have not changed.
“The exam boards will use statistical predictions when setting grade boundaries, making sure this year’s students are not disadvantaged because they are the first to take the qualifications. So a student who might have expected to get a grade B last year, for example, should expect to get a grade B this year.”
But many who contacted the Guardian remained anxious. “The level of uncertainty is huge, which makes the stress and pressure immense,” said one student who sat history, physics and maths this summer. “Support from the exam boards has been laughably non-existent.”
She said she had suffered a panic attack during a maths paper (which was not among the amended A-levels) on one of the hottest days of the year in a packed hall with no air conditioning. “Since the paper was possibly leaked, we are also all afraid that the exam boards will hike up the grade boundaries and we will be collectively punished.
“For physics [which is among the new, amended A-levels], we had two specimen papers, released very close to exam time, with no grade boundaries, so we had no idea how well we had done. It’s a complete scandal that exam boards can release a specification with absolutely no preparation or guidance.
“A-levels were, without exaggeration, the worst month of my life,” she went on. “ I have frequent dreams about results day and get stress headaches even more than a month after, and this is really common in all my friends. I’m terrified.”
Daniel Molland from Arundel, West Sussex, sat biology, chemistry and English language. His papers for both biology and chemistry contained errors, but this worried him less than the lack of revision materials.
“Any student will tell you that exam practice using old papers is so important, but with the new specification there were hardly any resources aside from one or two sets of practice papers,” said Molland.
“This made exam practice for everyone much harder, especially seeing as the exam boards really changed the style in which they ask their questions now, with a lot more emphasis on understanding than blind recall.”
Molland, who is hoping to go to King’s College London, said there was “massive confusion” over grade boundaries. “Being the first year we don’t really know what the grade boundaries will be. Our teachers can mark our work, but they don’t have a clue what grade to give it without any data on these boundaries.”
On the errors in some papers, he said the exam boards’ apparent inability to check exam papers properly “has just further decreased our trust and respect for them. Which is sad, because these new A-levels do offer some really good and interesting content.”
Lorcan Canavan, of Woodford Green, north-east London, sat new, linear qualifications for English literature and history, but the old modular syllabus for politics. “The main issue has been a lack of communication between exam boards and schools,” he said. “We really feel like guinea pigs for these new, linear specifications.
“Another issue has been the fact that our year has been a transitional year. Some qualifications are linear, but some are modular. This has made it very difficult for subject departments to coordinate, especially with regard to mock exams.”
Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said it had been an unprecedented year of qualification reform. “We always knew that this would be a volatile year for examinations – a result of hasty reform that has put huge pressure on students, teachers and school and college leaders.
“But we also know that the overall level of exam errors – for example, misprints in papers – doesn’t appear greater than in previous years. Young people are bound to worry about results, especially in the midst of so much change, and in an age when social media can make it easier for individual cases to gain disproportionate attention.”
Nevertheless, he said there were lessons to be learned and there would be a serious examination postmortem with Ofqual’s chief regulator, Sally Collier.
Some students who got in touch were worried about the impact of the exams on their mental health. One student, who sat biology, chemistry and English literature and is hoping to study medicine, said: “I have put most of what I had into these exams. I was racked with anxiety and insomnia which meant I was battling with keeping my sanity during exam season. With these reformed subjects you walk in blind – you have no cash-ins from AS. You have virtually nothing.”
Ellie Dixon-Coyte from Kent, who took history, classics and fine art and is hoping to study classical civilisation at Durham University, said the reforms had particularly affected her history studies. “So much was crammed into the specifcation that my teachers struggled to fit it all in,” she said.
Her teachers had to mark papers “with no context for how examiners will mark them, and we students have had to write essays in the dark. Since there are no grade boundaries, figuring out what grade I am likely to get is like throwing a dart at a revolving board – completely unpredictable.”
One student who is applying to study medicine was thrown by an error in the OCR biology paper. “They say it was only one question which had a mistake. But that one question affects your entire mind during the exam, altering your stress levels during an already high pressure period of time.”
He was also affected by alleged leaks of papers. “The leaks make you more worried about your results, as students with the means to cheat have an advantage in what was already an extremely difficult exam.
“A-levels were not a level playing field this year compared with last year. We had to learn everything in the two years of sixth form, followed by a new questioning style. We didn’t have enough past papers and had to rely solely on our instincts during our exams.”
Another student from Bristol is hoping to go to university, but is worried about the toll GCSEs and A-levels have already taken on her mental health. “A-levels are not about learning – they are about grasping techniques to pass exams. By the end of the year, we were all walking zombie-robots, conditioned to succeed in exam conditions but exhausted, drowning in stress.”
One London student said: “I am grateful I only had one reformed subject (history) as it really is very hard to learn that volume of content. Unreformed A-levels are by no means easy, but the government obviously didn’t listen to students and teachers when passing the reforms.
“I also don’t think it was clever to change the grading system of GCSEs [from A* to G to 9 to 1] at the same time as the A-levels, as teachers are obviously incredibly stressed about having to deal with changes to both key exam years.”
While A-level results are expected to be broadly stable despite the upheaval for those taking them, GCSE results on 24 August are likely to be far more problematic because of the new grades.
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We’ve reformed A-levels to keep pace with universities’ and employers’ demands, so students are as well prepared as possible for work and further study.
“We would always want exams to be error-free, but occasional errors do happen. Ofqual is working closely with the exam boards to mitigate the impact of errors and leaks this year and ensure that results are fair to all students.”Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Tuesday dodged addressing whether contract workers for on-demand services such as Uber and Lyft should be classified as employees, but did note that the "1099" IRS designation is being used in ways for which it was not intended.
Speaking at Re/code's Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, Warren addressed a host of issues related to the changing economy and workforce in a wide-ranging interview with Re/code's Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg. But in a follow-up question-and-answer session, the Democratic senator declined to directly address a BuzzFeed News reporter's question on how 1099 workers for on-demand services should be classified.
"I think there is evidence that increasingly employers use independent contractors not in ways that were originally intended, but in ways that let them treat employment laws differently than they otherwise would be responsible for," Warren said to BuzzFeed News. "I think that's a real problem and I think the Department of Labor is looking into this and I think they're right to do that."
The "1099 workers" are so named because of the IRS tax form they fill out for contract work at places like Uber and Lyft, as opposed to the traditional W-2 form for full-time employment.
Last week, a Florida agency ruled that an Uber driver should be classified as an employee and therefore be eligible for unemployment and other benefits. Meanwhile, Uber and Lyft are facing class-action lawsuits in California from drivers seeking classification as employees.
Given both the current lawsuits, and the rapid rise of the so-called 1099 economy to power on-demand services, the question promises to be a hot issue in an election year.Fred Rogers peacefully presided over PBS’s Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood for 33 years, until his retirement in 2000 – the beloved Fred Rogers died in 2003, at 74 – and now, finally, someone is getting ready to take his place in the neighborhhod.
Meet Daniel Striped Tiger, a brightly animated character described by The New York Times as “the fictional young offspring of Rogers s original puppet characters.”
Cuddly, wide-eyed Daniel, who is seen in some depictions sporting a trademark Rogers cardigan (Mr. Rogers’s favorite color, too: red), will start presiding over the old neighborhood as of this Monday. He will be joined, The Times reports, by O the Owl (whose uncle was the original X the Owl), and Katerina Kittycat, the progeny of Henrietta Pussycat and a usually absent father.
Aimed at the 2-to-4-year-old set, the new show will run half an hour weekdays (twice a day in many markets) and be called – what else? – Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood.
Just like Fred Rogers used to dish out, there will be life lessons to be learned and new songs to be delivered. But can a cool little cat really replace the towering figure of the gentle Mr. Rogers?
A Long Search
Fred’s widow Joanne Rogers tells The Times that her late husband had quietly searched for a successor to take over his show, but that he could never find one – and she figured that if he couldn’t, no one else could, either.
Still, she and the focus groups who’ve seen the new episodes have, even to their own surprise, reportedly been won over by the new format.
“I must say I spent a very nervous time thinking about what Daniel would be like,” said Joanne Rogers. “I’m in my 80s now, and I grew up with cartoons, the slapstick kind of things that went on, and I never much cared for it.”
Only Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood is nothing like that. According to Mrs. Rogers, “I like that little Daniel is so dear, but he’s also very, very human, and he has his feelings.”
More to the point, she says, “The subjects being dealt with are Fred’s philosophy.”
Let a wonderful new day in the neighborhood begin.Last year on the day after the election, I had stayed up all night, numb and in a bit of a stupor, rewriting my column for Salon about the unexpected results, trying to find some way to explain the inexplicable. It wasn't my best work, but I stand behind my analysis of what happened as a backlash among conservative white people who told pollsters that they felt the United States "had lost its identity" and they were "under attack." The funny thing is that for some reason nobody believed them, and all the analysts and pundits insisted that they were actually upset about their economic status.
Donald Trump understood them, though. He called them "the forgotten people" and said he was "their voice." He made them a grand promise:
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Politicians have used you and stolen your votes. They have given you nothing. I will give you everything. I will give you what you’ve been looking for for 50 years. I’m the only one.
That was music to their ears but sounded like the shocking words of a narcissistic demagogue to everyone else. It seemed unthinkable that this person could actually become president. And then he won.
I think for a lot of us that day will be etched in our memories the same way we recall where we were when we found out about 9/11 or, for an older generation, when we heard about the assassination of John F. Kennedy. It was, in short, a national trauma for millions of people. Frankly, every day since has triggered the same feeling of alarm and disbelief, whether from President Trump's obnoxious tweets, his casual corruption or his enduring ignorance. It's not getting any better.
But despite the fact that Trump is certainly not growing in the job, and, if anything, is becoming more authoritarian by the day, there has been a sense recently that people are psychologically adjusting to the loss of the rules and processes by which we have traditionally tried to govern ourselves.
Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times captured the feeling well in her column on Tuesday called "The Anniversary of the Apocalypse," where she laid out a frightening record of the degraded norms that have piled one on top of the other over the past year until if feels as though the "American carnage" Trump talked about in his dystopian inaugural address has become reality. Her piece concluded this way:
In moments of optimism I think that this is just a hideous interregnum, and that in a brighter future we’ll watch prestige dramas about the time we almost lost America while members of the current regime grow old in prison. But in my head I hear the song that closed out Trump rallies like a satanic taunt or an epitaph for democracy: “You can’t always get what you want.”
I don't know for a fact that we have a brighter future, or if today is just a brief moment of sunshine before the clouds gather again, but Tuesday night's election results from around the country offered a reason to hope. The Democrats swept, and they did it at all levels, from mayoral races to county executives to state houses and governorships, from the East Coast to the West. In the hotly contested Virginia governor's race, Democratic Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam won by nine points, a feat that hasn't been accomplished by a Democratic candidate for that office in over 30 years, and a much larger margin than anybody expected.
It's going to take a few days to thoroughly digest the numbers and figure out exactly who voted and why. A thorough analysis of what happened will surely be helpful to Democrats running for office in 2018. But there are experts in Virginia politics who have a very good idea of what happened there, and it's not complicated:
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It's fair to assume that this was the most salient "issue" driving Democratic wins across the country as well. It isn't anything an election observer wouldn't expect. Off-year and midterm elections are almost always referendums on the president and his party. This president is the most unpopular president, at this point in his term, of any president in history. He lost the popular vote in 2016 by nearly 3 million votes and has spent his first year in office stoking the resentments of his base with the same cultural and racial divisiveness that brought him into power.
Trump has never made the slightest attempt to bring the country together or to behave as if he has any responsibility to represent anyone but the slice of the American electorate who voted for him. Rural white conservatives aren't the only ones who can create a backlash, and Trump seems to have created a doozy of one, comprising pretty much everyone else.
One might have assumed that no matter how unpopular Trump is, voters would not necessarily hold him against other Republicans running for office. But the GOP has shown itself to be invertebrate in the face of Trump. With a few rare exceptions -- notably a few senators who are leaving political life soon -- officials have either laughed off his ignorance, ignored his unfitness or actively joined him in order to enact their unpopular agenda through sheer partisan power. The Republican Party is the party of Donald Trump now, and may well reap the whirlwind.
I concluded my piece a year ago with this:
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I've been writing about Donald Trump nonstop for the past 17 months. I thought I had written my last words about him yesterday. But it looks like I've got another four years to go. I suspect there is going to be a lot to write about. He is a unique figure, a media creation and the product of an ossified party, a rising movement and a polarized country that has been swinging wildly between two incompatible visions of America. Yesterday we went careening off into uncharted territory. It's going to be a bumpy ride.
A year later, I've written tens of thousands of words about our president and the ride has been far crazier than I ever could have predicted. Last night the Resistance put its foot on the brake and showed that it has the strength to slow this Trump train down. If we manage to get to next November without a major catastrophe, there might |
come around making trouble, Meowth meets this kitten and instantly sees her mother in her face and shining coin. Then she tells him it's creepy how he acts like he's a human. Oh heartbreak. Mewtwo seems quite human-like, but his psychic powers make that easy. In Pokémon Adventures, he actually has Blaine's DNA and is thus a Half-Human Hybrid.
In Studio Ghibli's Porco Rosso (The Crimson Pig) the main protagonist is a pig, or more exactly a "pig-headed" human as he has the complete anatomy of a stout person except for the head. He is the only one of his type and lives among a human society who, while aware of his difference, don't find it bizarre and sometimes openly point it out. It's stated that he somehow became a Baleful Polymorph, given that there are pictures (and a flashback) showing him in human form.
Princess Tutu's Mr. Cat looks exactly as his name implies, and occasionally meows and cleans himself with his paws, but is otherwise a marriage-obsessed ballet instructor. While he is the most prominent one and has the most screen time, there are other guest characters that also fall under this trope.
Shirokuma Cafe is pretty much about this, as well as their interactions with humans. Inverted with Mr. Shoebill from Episode 8. He does not talk or act anthropomorphosized, but he is still sentient as the Funny Animal characters and is the editor in chief of a local food magazine. Is lampshaded in one episode where a nameless human (Nicknamed Mr. Necktie) visits from out of town. And is bewildered that animals can walk and talk and tries to study them. (Despite it's been shown that Funny Animals are everywhere in that universe)
Many of the other characters in Suzy's Zoo: Daisuki! Witzy.
Comic Books
Films — Animation
The chickens in Chicken Run are difficult to categorise—the humans treat them just like any other chickens, but most of them wear at least one article of clothing and the stupidest one is capable of knitting.
The cast of The Great Mouse Detective could be replaced by humans and it wouldn't make any difference at all. Well, except for Toby who is a dog.
The penguins in Happy Feet are an odd case; at times they uncomfortably straddle the line between penguins who can talk and penguin-people.
The cast of Kung Fu Panda. In particular, the characters use their animal attributes in their fighting styles, like Crane's wings or Po's body fat. Tigress and Tai Lung come the closest to crossing over into Petting Zoo People, but they are still distinctly feline.
Disney's Robin Hood is the story of Robin Hood but with anthropomorphic animal characters.
In Zootopia the basic premise is that human beings never existed and mammals evolved to develop sapience, bipedal locomotion, opposable thumbs, and the ability to speak, ending up as civilized animals with very human-like lifestyles and society but still drawing much more heavily on their animalistic traits than is usually seen with this trope.
Films — Live-Action
Guardians of the Galaxy: Deconstructed by Rocket Raccoon. He's a walking, talking raccoon that can stand on two legs and hold heavy weaponry because he had multiple painful experiments performed on him. Also Howard the Duck
Literature
Live-Action TV
Music
With the exception of vocalist Ranko, every BUTAOTOME member has an anthropomorphic animal persona: Paprika is a cat, Comp is a polar bear and Ranko no Ane is a pink rabbit.
Kids Praise: Charity Churchmouse is simultaneously a mouse and a gospel singer. She lampshades this at one point: Psalty : My dog is flying the plane?! Charity : I'm a mouse. What's the difference? Risky Rat, the go-to villain for the series, also appears to be this. In his visual appearances, he's covered in fur and has a tail.
Myths & Religion
Older Than Dirt: The Ancient Egyptians apparently liked funny animals. The story of The Mouse As Vizier features talking animals who have a very human political system, and several papyri depict animals such as mice, cats, hyenas, antelope, crocodiles, donkeys, monkeys, and lions playing board games, using weapons, drinking out of goblets, and playing musical instruments. Except for standing on their hind legs, they aren't anthropomorphic at all. And they completely ignore natural predator-prey relationships. They even herd livestock and ride chariots pulled by normal animals.
A fancy Sumerian lyre, dated to c. 2600 BCE, features inlay scenes that depict funny animals. A bear, jackal, and donkey play music, while a lion and an antelope serve beverages. Except for standing on their hind legs and having hands, they look like normal animals.
Pinballs
In Police Force, almost everyone is a Funny Animal, wearing little to no clothing and exhibiting natural body proportions. The only exceptions are the police officers, who are Petting Zoo People.
Podcasts
Interstitial Actual Play has the party visit a Sonic the Hedgehog world and thus change form accordingly. Marche becomes a Cockatiel, Edith becomes a mouse, and Criss Angel becomes a bat. Subverted with Roxanne, who is already an anthropomorphic dog-person. She becomes human.
Print Media
The Onion published an excellent article based on this trope in the editorial section, titled "Stop Anthropomorphizing Me", written by Gerald the Dog.
Puppet Shows
Topo Gigio is an Italian franchise very popular in the Latin World about a funny mouse who uses different kind of clothes (including pajamas and a sleeping hat), lives in a house with proportionally made furniture and even has a miniature pet cat.
Toys
Fabuland, a LEGO theme from the 80s.
Certain characters from GoGo's Crazy Bones are this trope. Case in point: Lucky Rab, an anthropomorphic rabbit.
Video Games
Visual Novels
Squeaker in Fleuret Blanc, a dog who acts exactly like a human except for the occasional bark. Le Neuvieme even says he is a "perfect French gentleman". Nobody except Kant finds this odd.
Web Animation
Chicken and Moose are these, though they also appear to be made of metal.
Webcomics
Web Original
Western Animation9k SHARES Facebook Twitter Google Whatsapp Pinterest Print Mail Flipboard
An analysis of Trump’s Twitter account revealed that his racism is no accident. Donald Trump has retweeted white supremacists 75 times since his campaign began.
Fortune reported:
The Little Bird software analyzed Twitter content to generate a ranked list of just under 2,000 #WhiteGenocide “influencers” as of February 8. The more impactful, the higher up on the list (which, understandably, ebbs and flows a bit over time). Since the start of his campaign, Donald Trump has retweeted at least 75 users who follow at least three of the top 50 #WhiteGenocide influencers. Moreover, a majority of these retweeted accounts are themselves followed by more than 100 #WhiteGenocide influencers.
Judging from the reaction of neo-Nazis to his latest tweet, Trump’s racism is hitting its intended target:
You should be aware that this is how neo-Nazis view Donald Trump. pic.twitter.com/acdES3K431 — Matt Pearce (@mattdpearce) July 3, 2016
Donald Trump’s campaign is courting racists, and members of the Republican Party who think that they are being good party loyalists by supporting Trump are enabling his racist campaign.
Trump’s retweets of white supremacists are no accident. There have been too many retweets for the pattern to be a mistake. This is a strategy by Trump to mobilize the racists to vote for him.
The excuses are wearing thin from Trump’s media enablers. Grumbling about political correctness can’t obscure the fact that the presumptive presidential nominee for the Republican Party has a taste for racism.
Republicans have selected a racist to lead their party, and those who support Trump shall be tainted by his racism.
If you’re ready to read more from the unbossed and unbought Politicus team, sign up for our newsletter here! Email address: Leave this field empty if you're human:As it turns out, St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman isn’t all that averse to interfering with ongoing talks between Minneapolis and a group hoping to building a soccer-specific stadium near Target Field.
Last month, in response to a question about any discussions between St. Paul and the prospective owners of the Major League Soccer franchise, Coleman’s spokeswoman Tonya Tennessen said that the mayor is “not interested in interfering with conversations currently underway in Minneapolis.”
And in response to a follow-up question as to whether anyone had approached the city about exploring a St. Paul location for the stadium, Tennessen said: “We’re not commenting on soccer.”
Monday, however, the city’s intentions toward soccer became a bit more clear: Coleman, it seems, does not want to interfere … for now. Tennessen confirmed that Coleman and his deputy mayor Kristin Beckman had, in fact, met with Bill McGuire, the current owner of the lower-level Minnesota United and the leader of the MLS ownership group, on May 21. She termed that meeting as informal and broad, ending with an understanding that if talks fail in Minneapolis, they would talk again.
The city does not want to do anything to interfere with talks in Minneapolis and realizes those are ongoing, Tennessen said, in reference to the creation Friday of a work group of city staff and elected officials in Minneapolis to study stadium issues. “If a deal is not struck,” she continued, “the mayor would be open to having soccer remain in the region and would be open to discussions about having them in St. Paul, including the bus barn site.”
The former bus barn site is near the intersection of the University and Snelling that is served by the Snelling Avenue station on the Green Line. It is currently owned by the Metropolitan Council.
Rumors began circulating last month
Rumors about locating a soccer stadium in St. Paul instead of Minneapolis were fueled last month by comments that Minnesota United President Nick Rogers made at a Minneapolis community meeting.
“Minneapolis might say to us, ‘We don’t want you here.’ And then we’ll have to assess our options and figure out where is there a community that wants us,” Rogers said near the end of a forum on the soccer stadium hosted by City Council Member Alondra Cano. “That’s important. It’s important that the community wants us to be there.”
MinnPost photo by Peter Callaghan Nick Rogers
At the time, Rogers wouldn’t elaborate and Coleman no-commented. But the prospective owners seem increasingly frustrated with the lack of support among elected officials for what they consider a small request — no sales tax on stadium construction and no property tax assessed on the estimated $125 million value of the proposed stadium. At a Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal forum of sports team owners May 10 — held in St. Paul — McGuire said “there are challenges in terms of getting the legislative community on board to do much of anything right now.”
St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce President Matt Kramer attended that breakfast forum, and said Monday he is supportive of regionalism and complimented groups such as Greater MSP that try to assure that cities within the region don’t compete with each other for economic development. While Minneapolis wouldn’t be his first choice for the soccer stadium, it would still be a win for the region if it brings MLS to the Twin Cities.
“But it would be horrible for the region if Minnesota can’t meet the necessary infrastructure needs for MLS” and the franchise is given to cities like Sacramento that have been pushing hard for one. To avoid that, St. Paul should be ready to step in and try to put together a stadium deal, Kramer said. Of the bus barn site, he said it is currently exempt from property taxes, so not collecting taxes if a stadium is built there is not a loss of revenue for the city.
‘Time is running out’
An interview Kramer gave over the weekend with KSTP may have caused the mayor’s office to be more expansive in acknowledging its activities. On Monday, Kramer said he has spoken with city leaders and they have expressed interest, but also that he hasn’t been involved in any formal or official talks with city officials related to soccer. “St. Paul is a big small city,” he said. “I run into them in the skyway. I’m at events the mayor and council are at. It would be silly for us not to talk about it because time is running out.”
St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce President Matt Kramer
During the Business Journal forum, McGuire was dismissive of reports about a league-imposed deadline of July 1 for a stadium deal, advising against getting “too caught up about hard deadlines.” MLS Deputy Commissioner Mark Abbott — the league’s No. 2 administrator — however, gave a conflicting statement to the Star Tribune a few days later, saying the deadline was, in fact, hard.
When asked about the impact of that statement, especially given that the Legislature had just adjourned and isn’t expected back in session until March of next year, league spokesman Dan Courtemanche said only: “We do not have any additional comment beyond what was stated in the Star Tribune article.”
It was after that that the Minneapolis council created the work group to report back to the city council, first in September and then again at the end of 2015. Some city elected officials, including Council Member Jacob Frey, have been meeting with team officials to talk about way to overcome objections to some details of the proposal. Any agreement would likely require legislative authority next year.There are numerous saints to whom the ability to fly or levitate has been attributed. Most of these "flying saints" are mentioned as such in literature and sources associated with them.
Christianity [ edit ]
The ability to levitate was attributed to figures in Early Christianity. The apocryphal Acts of Peter gives a legendary tale of Simon Magus' death. Simon is performing magic in the Roman Forum, and in order to prove himself to be a god, he flies up into the air. The apostle Peter prays to God to stop his flying, and he stops mid-air and falls, breaking his legs, whereupon the crowd, previously non-hostile, stones him to death.[1]
The church of Santa Francesca Romana claims to have been built on the spot in question (thus accepting the claim that Simon Magus could indeed fly), claims that Saint Paul was also present, and that a dented slab of marble that it contains bears the imprints of the knees of Peter and Paul during their prayer.
Saint Francis of Assisi is recorded as having been "suspended above the earth, often to a height of three, and often to a height of four cubits" (around 1.3 to 1.8 m). St. Alphonsus Liguori, when preaching at Foggia, was lifted before the eyes of the whole congregation several feet from the ground.[2] Liguori is also said to have had the power of bilocation.
In the Orthodox tradition St. John the Wonderworker (1896-1966) was said to be levitating while in prayer, an individual witnessed this while checking in on him while the Saint was in prayer.
Flying or levitation was also associated with witchcraft. When it came to female saints, there was a certain ambivalence expressed by theologians, canon lawyers, inquisitors, and hagiographers towards the powers that they were purported to have. By 1500, the image of the female saint in popular imagination had become similar to that of the witch. Both witches and female saints were suspected of flying through the air, whether in saintly levitation or bilocation, or in a Witches' Sabbath.[3]
Hinduism [ edit ]
Levitation has also been cited outside of Christianity. In his book Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramahamsa Yogananda discusses Nagendranath Bhaduri, a saint said to levitate in India. The saint had mastered Astanga Yoga and several Yogic techniques including various pranayamas or breathing techniques as mentioned in Patanjali's Yoga Sutra. Yogananda wrote that Nagendranath Bhaduri had performed bhastrika pranayama so strongly that he felt like he was in the middle of a storm and after performing the pranayama, Bhaduri Mahasaya entered into a state of ecstatic calm. The chapter which describes Bhaduri Mahasaya is titled "The Levitating Saint".
Notes [ edit ]SOMETIMES you meet a young player and you just know they’re gonna make it in the game.
It’s their attitude. A quiet confidence but also a fear that drives them. A fear of not making it, not reaching their potential.
That’s Luke Keary.
I first met Luke several years ago. Michael Maguire, who I had coached with at Melbourne, brought over a small group of playmakers to my home after he took over Souths.
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John Sutton was the most experienced playmaker and was naturally the most self-assured.
Nathan Peats was brash, funny and made comments that he didn’t travel as far as the Northern Beaches for a holiday, let alone a training session.
media_camera Luke Keary of Souths and Jamie Lyon of Manly get into a fight.
Adam Reynolds was about to crack it in the NRL and looked very much the first grader.
Dylan Walker, as the rugby league world well knows now, was a bundle of speed, power and energy.
And then there was Keary. The youngest, the smallest, the quietest …. never said a word.
Michael Maguire, after the session, summed him up by saying “there’s something special about Luke.”
Something special is right.
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While Sutton had the poise, Peats confidence and Dylan athleticism, with Keary it was harder to work out exactly what it was which made him impressive.
Over the next 12 months, Keary and Reynolds continued to come over for some sessions and I got to know them a lot more.
I learnt he was an Ipswich boy. And that told me he was tough, and a good bloke.
I’ve never met a footballer from Ipswich which wasn’t both. Alfie Langer and the Walters brothers being the shining examples.
But he was talented as well. He had incredible speed off the mark and was so quick over the short distance that his ball runners simply couldn’t keep pace. Since then it’s clear he’s learnt a more even tempo in his ball playing.
media_camera Luke Keary celebrates winning a sprint drill.
A clue to why the Reynolds/Keary combination is presently gelling so well, is how famously they got on together.
It surprised me, given the fact Sutton was entrenched in the 6 jersey, it appeared as though Reynolds and Keary would be competing for the 7.
In these instances, competitive spirit usually wins out over comradarie.
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For instance, in his early years in grade football, my brother Andrew would openly admit he had nothing but utter disdain for all the other number 7s at the Knights, whether they were ahead of him in the pecking order or a youngster behind him coming through the grades.
Still after all these years, when the Knights junior Brett Kimmorley and Joey come together, it’s a picture of awkwardness.
Seeing the two Novocastrian number 7s even to this day trying to make conversation together is one of the true delights of my life.
No such dramas for Adam and Luke, the two Bunnies playmakers get on like a house on fire.
In 2013, when Keary got his chance toward the back end of the season, his partnership with Reynolds showed none of the fluency and understanding it shows presently.
Reynolds missed the stability and familiarity of Sutton in the 6, and with Sutton in the backrow, it was like there was one ball player too many in the team. Souths started to play too sideways and lost much of their direct power game which got them into title contention.
media_camera Luke Keary down injured after a tackle.
At the end of the 2013 season, Keary knuckled down, learnt from his taste of NRL and was set for a career launching 2014.
He went to the trouble of travelling to Arizona to train at altitude, which he paid for himself and the word out of the Burrow was that he was ready to explode onto the scene.
All that changed when he flung an arm out in defence during the Auckland Nines. He felt a small pinch and looked down to see the sight of his pectoral muscle displaced in the middle of his chest, having torn off the bone.
The early prognosis was his season was over …. plenty of tears that night.
I called him a few days later and he was surprisingly upbeat, he’d just been given the news by the Rabbitohs doctor that with a little bit of luck, he might be back in Round 20.
I suggested that when he got the all-clear to start to use the muscle, he should come over to my place, do a session and have a chat.
media_camera Luke Keary of the Rabbitohs celebrates scoring a try.
A couple of months later he arrived at my house and it was on this day I realised what it was that made Keary special and he had me in no doubts that he was going to be an NRL star.
After sitting and having a chat, we headed down to the park with a couple of footballs and some marker cones.
Keary was talking about Souths and about how the team was playing, chatting about little plays they had been working on, when suddenly he stopped in his tracks, looked straight at me with a look of desperation and determination and said “Matty I can’t tell you how much I just want to make it in the NRL.”
Desire …. that’s what makes Luke Keary special.
I passed this story onto my brother Andrew. “That’s the best statement I’ve ever heard from a young player” was his reply.
Keary’s return to football has sparked Souths Sydney and given their attack more thrust and variation.
He has pushed Reynolds out of his comfort zone and Reynolds is now running the football, rather than be left behind by his halves partner.
Luke Keary deserves his success.Illustration by Shannon May
Overview | What is an allusion? How often do you spot them, whether in your reading, in pop culture, in advertising or anywhere else? In this lesson, students read a Book Review essay about allusions in literature, take a quiz in which they identify allusions made in New York Times articles and headlines, then choose from a variety of activities to go deeper.
Materials | Computers with Internet access and printing capability.
Warm-Up | Ask students to define “allusion.” Check that they understand it as a “brief, usually indirect reference to another place, event” or to words spoken by or that depict a person or fictional character. Give a few common examples, like someone being described as a “Romeo,” an allusion to Shakespeare’s romantic but doomed tragic hero, or a person saying, “I never thought I’d move back to my hometown, but I guess deep down, I’m a Dorothy,” alluding to the “Wizard of Oz” character who learns “there’s no place like home.” You can also ask what is meant by calling a group of women “the real housewives of (name of your city or town)” and asking the source (wealthy, drama-prone women who have a similar look to those seen on the “Real Housewives” franchise). Ask, what would you expect if I called a certain boy an Edward? What about a Jacob? (main characters of the “Twilight” book and movie series). Have students name more allusions, explaining their meanings and sources.
Then, lead a discussion about the pros and cons of making allusions. Pros might include conveying much information in a single word or two or bonding over a shared interest in the source. Cons include allusions only making sense to those who know the source material or, in the case of pop culture phenomena, losing their meaning as time passes. To prove this, ask students to describe a “Jeannie Bueller,” or an “Eddie Haskell.” Then ask colleagues in their 40’s or 50’s the same question to share the answers: a jealous sister who has a wildly popular brother (from “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”), and a sycophant who is overly polite to adults for his own gain (“Leave It to Beaver”).
End by turning the tables on yourself and your colleagues, having students ask you to explain allusions to things that most in their peer group will understand immediately but might not be so clear to those being asked. Or, have them brainstorm allusions today that most would understand (“Brangelina,” for example), but that may be impenetrable twenty-five years from now.
Related | In the essay “Grand Allusion,” Elizabeth D. Samet writes about the pleasures and perils of this literary device:
Allusion can feel like something of a parlor game even in the best of times. In the 1940s, in a discussion of T. S. Eliot’s densely allusive poem “The Waste Land,” the formalist critics William K. Wimsatt and Monroe C. Beardsley questioned prevailing assumptions about the value of allusion-hunting. Eschewing the role of literary detective, they rejected the notion that we “do not know what a poet means unless we have traced him in his reading.” “Eliot’s allusions work,” they argued in “The Intentional Fallacy,” “when we know them — and to a great extent even when we do not know them, through their suggestive power.... It would not much matter if Eliot invented his sources,” as Walter Scott and Coleridge had done. Wimsatt and Beardsley’s warning that identifying an allusion does not amount to the same thing as understanding its significance has renewed urgency in the current age of allusion-automation, for if the Web makes it that much easier for the allusion-hunter to bag his quarry, it does not necessarily tell him how to dress it.
Read the entire article with your class, using the questions below.
Questions | For discussion and reading comprehension:
Why do allusions that fail to convey their intended meaning or are not understood by the audience “leave us all exposed,” as Ms. Samet contends? How is the “Vronsky’s horse” anecdote an example of this? Why does the classroom have “its own special dangers” when it comes to allusions? How, according to the essay, has the Internet affected people’s abilities to use and verify allusions? How does your experiences with allusions support or challenge the author’s statement that “In trying to illuminate an allusion in class, I sometimes feel as if I’m opening one nesting doll after another until there’s nothing left at all.”
Related resources:
Activity | Begin by having students reread the article, finding the unexplained allusions it contains. Have them identify the sources, marking “K” for those they already knew and therefore recognized immediately, “I” for those they found via Internet searching, and “O” for other, meaning that they found the source in some other way, whether asking other people, looking in books, or even just guessing.
The allusions include:
“I was reminded that each unhappy allusion is unhappy in its own way.” –Leo Tolstoy, “Anna Karenina”
“Don’t make it sad, Cricket, I don’t feel that way.” — Ernest Hemingway, “To Have and Have Not” and the 1944 film adaptation
“Gimme a whiskey.... And don’t be stingy, baby.” — Eugene O’Neill’s play “Anna Christie”
“Bastard Normans, Norman bastards.” — William Shakespeare, “The Life of King Henry the Fifth”
“Scylla of the swindle to the Charybdis of condescension” — Greek mythology: Scylla is a sea creature who devours sailors and Charybdis is a whirlpool opposite Scylla’s cave
“… several keyboarding Natty Bumppos of my acquaintance” — James Fenimore Cooper’s The Leatherstocking Tales
The title of the essay “Grand Allusion” — a play on “Grand Illusion,” a 1937 French war film directed by Jean Renoir
Lead a discussion about the experience of identifying the above allusions. Compare the pride of knowing, or at least being being familiar with, one or more, versus the experience of searching for the phrase online. Ask: What is the difference between relying on Google versus your own memory of favorite books, movies or plays? Is this distinction relevant today for most people, do you think?
Next, ask students to discuss this idea from today’s essay:
Wimsatt and Beardsley’s warning that identifying an allusion does not amount to the same thing as understanding its significance has renewed urgency in the current age of allusion-automation, for if the Web makes it that much easier for the allusion-hunter to bag his quarry, it does not necessarily tell him how to dress it.
Ask for examples that illustrate the point. You might begin by asking students if they share a love of a certain sports team or musician with a parent or other older person, and the difference, if there is any, between, say, watching live as a famous game unfolded (or listening just as a seminal album was released) versus watching highlights online or downloading an entire music catalog in a single sitting.
Then use the Scylla and Charybdis allusion from the essay as an example. Ask: Is it enough to know it’s a reference to a Greek myth? Or to truly “get” the allusion, do you have to know the story it comes from and what it means?
Next, have students take the New York Times Literary Allusions Quiz, below, alone, in partners or in small groups.
New York Times Literary Allusions Quiz
Fill in the blanks in the lines below taken from New York Times articles or headlines. Each refers to an often-taught work of literature. For extra points, identify that work and give more context to explain its meaning and usage here. (For answers, scroll to the very bottom of this lesson.)
1. “I left Dickens World after a couple of days. As a literary experience, it had been pretty thin gruel. But like _________, I wanted more.”
2. “More Than Kin, and Less Than _________”
3. “In his previous books the journalist Ron Rosenbaum has tackled big topics — Hitler’s evil, Shakespeare’s genius — with acuity and irreverence, believing, correctly, that some things are too important to leave to the experts. He’s proud of his gonzo amateur status, so much so that you half suspect he has a scarlet ‘_________’ tattooed across his chest, where Superman wore his ‘S.'”
4. “Without a Bang or a _________, The School Board Fades Away”
5. “… I’ve come to think something is _________ in the state of economics. The dismal science, as Thomas Carlyle called it, has been ravaged by the same virus that has corrupted the rest of our national discourse.”
6. “Qaddafi might have maneuvered himself into a gilded overseer’s role and gifted power to his bespectacled son Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, the nice, educated boy who lost it when he realized — The horror! The _________! — that he might have to give up all his toys”
7. “To paraphrase William Carlos Williams, so much _________ upon a Chicago bank.”
8. “Decentralizing the Internet So Big _________ Can’t Find You”
9. “Destruction, thy _________ is Bieber.”
10. “The Kushner Flap: Much Ado About _________”
11. “Call me, _________” (Please note: In the original, there is no comma; in the Times essay we are quoting here, there is. Read it to see why.)
12. “It was the best of times, it was the _________ of times. O.K., maybe not literally the worst, but definitely bad.”
Have students share their findings and check their answers, then discuss the meaning and source, including, again, whether they knew it or looked it up. Students might then look up the original and explain its context, then relate it to the allusion. This can be done independently or in groups.
Going Further | There are several options to extend this lesson:
Allusion Hunting Every edition of The New York Times is full of allusions. Challenge teams to find and list as many as they possibly can as they read articles that interest them. Then, have them read the After Deadline column “Allusions We Love Too Much” on the line between allusion and cliché. Which, if any, of the allusions they found do they believe have been overused enough to become clichés? Why?
Digital Remix Culture and Allusion Though this lesson has mostly dealt with literary allusions, students will likely bring up the dizzying ways in which artists across categories remix, reuse, update and mash-up material today, from musicians who “sample” bits of other music in their pieces to new versions of Jane Austen and Shakespeare to advertising that references or remakes cultural touchstones. Have them do a version of the Allusion Hunting activity above, but with the whole world as fair game: how many “allusions” can they spot in one day? (Use our lesson plan Remix, Reuse, Recombine: Holding a Seminar on Mash-Up Culture for more help.)
Build Your Own Allusion Ask students to write an original essay on a topic unrelated to allusions, planting as many allusions as they can. Or, they can retrofit an old essay, sewing in references. Have them read one another’s work, identifying and discussing the allusions and weighing in on whether each one “works” or seems tacked on for the sake of the assignment. Have them incorporate a response to this sentence from today’s article: “Unlike most tricks, the allusion triumphs only when people know precisely how it is done.”
Frank O’Hara’s World and Ours Have students read the Frank O’Hara poem “The Day Lady Died,” which is mentioned in the article. Have them identify the references and then address Ms. Samet’s description of her students’ responses to it. They can write a reaction essay or write a poem of their own in the style of O’Hara’s.
Standards | This lesson is correlated to McREL’s national standards (it can also be aligned to the new Common Core State Standards):
Art Connections
1. Understands connections among the various art forms and other disciplines.
Theater
5. Understands how informal and formal theater, film, television, and electronic media productions create and communicate meaning.
6. Understands the context in which theater, film, television and electronic media are performed today as well as in the past.
Historical Understanding
1. Understands and knows how to analyze chronological relationships and patterns.
2. Understands the historical perspective.
Language Arts
1. Uses the general skills and strategies of the writing process.
2. Uses the stylistic and rhetorical aspects of writing.
3. Uses grammatical and mechanical conventions in written compositions.
4. Gathers and uses information for research purposes.
5. Uses the general skills and strategies of the reading process.
6. Uses skills and strategies to read a variety of literary texts.
7. Uses skills and strategies to read a variety of informational texts.
8. Uses listening and speaking strategies for different purposes.
9. Uses viewing skills and strategies to understand and interpret visual media.
New York Times Literary Allusion Quiz answers:
1. Oliver Twist, alluding to the character in Charles Dickens’s novel of the same name (from a 2012 article, “The World of Charles Dickens, Complete With Pizza Hut”).
2. Kind, alluding to a line in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” (The headline was for a 2011 Opinon piece about the News of the World scandal.)
3. “A,” alluding to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter” (from “Thinking the Unthinkable Again in a Nuclear Age,” a 2011 book review).
4. Whimper, alluding to T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men” (from this 2002 article).
5. rotten, alluding to Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” again (from “The Politics of Economics in the Age of Shouting,” a 2011 Op-Ed).
6. horror, alluding to Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” (from a 2011 Op-Ed, “The Price of Delusion”).
7. depends, alluding to Williams’s poem, “The Red Wheel Barrow” (from a 2007 Business article, “Chicago Is Major Battleground for ABN Amro Bid War”).
8. Brother, alluding to George Orwell’s “1984” (from a 2011 New York Region article).
9. name, alluding to “Frailty, thy name is woman,” from, yep, Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” again (from a 2009 piece, “20-Year-Old Fogy Cedes Audience to 15-Year-Old”).
10. Nothing, alluding to the Shakespearean play of the same name (from a 2011 Opinion piece by Stanley Fish).
11. Ishmael, alluding to the first line of Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick” (the headline of a 2007 Book Review essay).
12. worst, alluding to the first line of Charles Dickens’s “Tale of Two Cities” (from “The Banks Are Not All Right,” a 2009 Op-Ed).We're curious: did you ride your bike to work today? Does your office provide safe bike parking or a shower for freshening up after your ride? Does your boss support employees who choose to pedal to work?
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Afghanistan were felt by Tajiks as their own. Ubaidulloev asked for help in getting Tajik students admitted to Harvard University, but effectively declined to help find a new location for an American Corner in Dushanbe. He asserted the existence of life on other planets, caveating this by noting that we should focus on solving our problems on Earth.
“I have said in passing there is information about UFOs in Cablegate. And that is true, but these are only small passing references. Most of the material concerns UFO cults, and their behavior in recruiting people. For instance, there is quite a large cable, which we’ll try and release in the next few days, concerning the Raelians, a UFO cult which has a strong presence in Canada and was of concern to the U.S. ambassador in Canada.”
– Julian Assange
A statement given by Julian Assange himself raises the need for further inquiry. The audio on this video may be delayed, but we can still tell it’s real through a number of means. The voice is clearly Julian’s, for instance, and lip reading will show that the text matches the audio. Also, multiple mainstream media outlets (Telegraph, CBS news, and more) published the original version of the video, which was taken down immediately. One of the mainstream media outlets was Forbes (read the article here), where access to the video has been cut off, but the original version had perfect audio and was in the same setting.
It’s not surprising that the U.S. ambassador in Canada was concerned with this group. High level agencies are also concerned with abductees and ET contactees. Their mail is stamped in a special way, they are constantly surveyed by army intelligence, and their phones are tapped. Agencies that are active in the UFO phenomenon keep close tabs on UFO/extraterrestrial activity outside of their sphere of influence. That being said, it’s no surprise that the U.S. ambassador had an interest in this ‘UFO cult.’ Anything extraterrestrial would be a concern to the elite, as they are the ones actively covering it up.
We are living in a unique time. Our world has become much more transparent than ever before, and not just about the UFO/extraterrestrial phenomenon. Our perception of life on other planets largely comes from external sources like television programming. As a result, many find this subject frightening, but hopefully, as we move through the shift in consciousness the planet is currently experiencing, fear will dissipate, as it will no longer serve the human race. This is undoubtedly one of the largest realizations in human history. The only thing that goes beyond it, in my opinion, is the realization of our infinite potential to create a new experience from a place of peace, love, cooperation and understanding.
“There is abundant evidence that we are being contacted, that civilizations have been visiting us for a very long time, that their appearance is bizarre from any kind of traditional materialistic western point of view, that these visitors use the technologies of consciousness, they use toroids, they use co-rotating magnetic disks for their propulsion systems, that seems to be a common denominator of the UFO phenomenon.”
– Dr Brian O’Leary, former NASA Astronaut and Princeton Physics Professor (source)
“Yes there have been crashed craft, and bodies recovered. We are not alone in the universe, they have been coming here for a long time”
– Apollo 14 Astronaut (source # 1) (source # 2)
“It is ironic that the U.S. would begin a devastating war, allegedly in search of weapons of mass destruction, when the most worrisome developments in this field are occurring in your own backyard. It is ironic that the U.S. should be fighting monstrously expensive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, allegedly to bring democracy to those countries, when it itself can no longer claim to be called a democracy, when trillions, and I mean thousands of billions of dollars have been spent on projects about which both the Congress and the Commander in Chief have been kept deliberately in the dark.”
– Paul Hellyer, Former Canadian Defence Minister (source)
There is nothing to be afraid of.
Much Love
Sources:
http://wikileaks.org/cable/2010/01/10DUSHANBE82.html
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2011/02/07/wikileaks-ufo-cables-more-about-raelian-cult-than-alien-life/
http://ufos.nationalarchives.gov.ukThis step is for making the chassis parts which form the base of the robot. As I mentioned earlier I have not used the acrylic sheet but a Hylam Sheet. The base consists of two strips to which the motor is mounted and a rectangular base on which these strips are mounted in perpendicular. To prepare the Body follow these instructions.
Step 1:
In this Step, I cut the strips that support the motors. I've cut them with dimensions of 2cm by 8cm. This material is much stronger than the acrylic sheet.
Step 2:
When the sketch has been drawn, cut the pieces out using a Hacksaw or a Jigsaw cutter. The cutting process will produce a lot of dust. Cut the sheet in a well ventilated room.
Step 3:
Next comes the base which supports the two strips. Draw a Rectangle of about 14cm in width and 18cm in length. Then draw the mid-line for the base along the width as shown in the diagram. This line will serve as a guide line for fitting the strips.
Step 4:
Cut out this drawn part using the Hacksaw or the Jigsaw cutter as shown. Use a marker for reference and clean the board later to remove the marker lines.
Step 5:
Next draw two vertical lines as shown in the diagram. These lines are used for aligning the clamps of the motor. With this step we have finally completed the chassis components. The next step deals with the motor and wheel assembly.Highland Park is getting another exciting concert venue. And the decked-out Lodge Room, with a capacity of 500 concert-goers, might just be one of the prettiest places to see live music east of downtown.
The building, rich in vintage details from ceiling to floor, all lovingly updated by the Lodge Room team, was built in 1923 to serve as an actual Masonic Lodge. And while Freemasonry has kind of become less of a thing, the buildings they left behind have been turned into some pretty cool cultural spaces like the Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, now used to host concerts and events, and the lodge which recently became the home of the Marciano Art Foundation.
There is also a hidden trap door, because Masons.
Photograph courtesy of Lodge Room
On stage, you’ll find music curated by Sid the Cat, the local concert-throwing duo of Kyle Wilkerson and Brandon Gonzalez who’ve heretofore been without a permanent room. If you’ve caught a show at the Highland Park Ebell or seen their name on a listing at Teragram Ballroom, you’ll have a sense of the eclectic taste at play. Wilkerson also oversees talent buying at the Bootleg Theater. An initial schedule of shows includes Bedouine on December 9, The Album Leaf on December 15, and Black Marble on January 12, though a representative for the venue says they may open as early as November.
In addition to the concert space, the building will also feature a full-service New American restaurant, Checker Hall, described as a space for “fun, tasty neighborhood eats, draft beers, and cocktails.”
Lodge Room is located at 104 North Avenue 56 in Highland Park. Keep an eye on the venue’s website for updates on an official opening date and other details.
RELATED: This Immersive Mansion Party Has New Musical Experiences Behind Every DoorEarlier this week, Google removed an app called “Disconnect Mobile” from the Google Play app store.
Disconnect Mobile is a privacy tool that stops other apps from collecting data on users. In the five days it was available in Google’s store, it was downloaded more than 5,000 times, reports the Wall Street Journal, which broke the news on the banned app.
The startup makes a similar app for iOS and a popular desktop version used by 2 million people.
Google sent Disconnect an email telling the startup that the app violated a rule. Google doesn’t allow any app in its store that “interferes with” other apps.
Cofounder Casey Oppenheim thinks Google categorized the app as an ad blocker and that’s why it was banned.
Google, which gives Android away for free and relies on advertising for the bulk of its income, has famously removed other ad-blocking apps from its app store.
But Oppenheim says his app is not a classic ad blocker and was carefully constructed not to violate any of Google’s rules. In a blog post, he writes:
“Disconnect focuses on protecting people from invisible tracking and sources of malware, and all too often these threats come in the form of advertising. … The fact is, we are not opposed to advertising and think advertising plays a critical role in the Internet economy. But we are 100% opposed to advertising that invisibly tracks people and compromises their security.”
Disconnect Disconnect cofounder Casey Oppenheim
The company wouldn’t comment to the Wall Street Journal on the specifics of this case but it did offer this statement: “Our policies are designed to provide a great experience for users and developers. That’s why we remove apps from Google Play that violate those policies.”
We also reached out to Google and will update when we hear back.
Traffic has been so overwhelming since news of the blocked app broke, that Disconnect’s blog website keeps going down.
The startup’s cofounder, Casey Oppenheim, sent Business Insider a copy of the email:
From: Google Play Support <googleplay-developer- [email protected]> Date: Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 1:46 PM Subject: Notification from Google Play To: [email protected] This is a notification that your application, Disconnect Mobile, with package ID me.disconnect.mobile, has been removed from the Google Play Store. REASON FOR REMOVAL: Violation of section 4.4 of the Developer Distribution Agreement. After a regular review we have determined that your app interferes with or accesses another service or product in an unauthorised manner. This violates the provision of your agreement with Google referred to above. This particular app has been disabled as a policy strike. If your developer account is still in good standing, (and the nature of your app allows for it), you may revise and upload a policy compliant version of this application as a new package name. This notification also serves as notice for remaining, unsuspended violations in your catalogue, and you may avoid further app suspensions by immediately unpublishing any apps in violation of (but not limited to) the above policy. Once you have resolved any existing violations, you may republish the app(s) at will. Before publishing applications, please ensure your apps’ compliance with the Developer Distribution Agreement and Content Policy. All violations are tracked. Serious or repeated violations of any nature will result in the termination of your developer account, and investigation and possible termination of related Google accounts. If your account is terminated, payments will cease and Google may recover the proceeds of any past sales and/or the cost of any associated fees (such as chargebacks and transaction fees) from you. If you feel we have made this determination in error, you can visit this Google Play Help Center article for additional information regarding this removal. The Google Play Team
And he also sent us a copy of the blog post:
Google just banned our new Mobile Android app before it even launched Another example privacy friendly alternatives for Android app distribution are critically important This post is about more than our new app, Disconnect Mobile, being arbitrarily removed by Google from the Play Store Tuesday, five days after it went live and prior to doing any PR announcement. This post is really about Google’s disregard for user privacy and security, their ability to arbitrarily and unilaterally ban any app from the world’s dominant mobile operating system (78% of total smartphones run Android), and the importance of alternative Android distribution platforms that support privacy and security. Our part in this story began two days ago. As our small team excitedly prepared for the imminent PR launch of our mobile privacy apps for iOS and Android, our CTO Patrick Jackson received this email from Google, notifying us that they’d removed the application from the Play Store after only five days: The term our app allegedly violated, 4.4, and the very brief description of the reason was so vague and overly broad that every app in the Play Store, even Google’s own applications, could be alleged to be in violation! With terms like this, Google can ban any app for no good reason at all. This isn’t the first time that we’ve been blocked from launching a privacy app in the Play Store. In early 2013, after nine months of development on a previously conceived version of our Android product, Google announced that they were pulling the ability to automatically set a localhost proxy, which our product and other privacy apps relied on. Because of that experience, we took every precaution with our new app (like with our existing Android apps) not to utilise any technology that wasn’t clearly documented and actively supported by Google. The banned app utilizes the VpnService API that has been made publicly available by Google since at least 2011. Thousands of other applications utilise the same API. So why were we targeted and why didn’t Google provide an explanation? Although we may never know Google’s true motivation for removing our app, it seems likely that they determined it threatened their tracking and advertising based business model, which accounts for over 90% of Google’s $US66 billion in estimated 2014 annual revenue. Put another way, we think Google mistook us for an adblocker. But our mobile product (like our Desktop product) is not an adblocker. Instead Disconnect focuses on protecting people from invisible tracking and sources of malware, and all too often these threats come in the form of advertising. In fact, some of the most privacy invasive data collection online happens through ads, which see you even if you don’t see or interact with them. And worse, ad networks (including Google) are increasingly being used by “advertisers” to spread malware. This increasingly popular tactic, called malvertising, is currently being investigated by the US Senate, and Disconnect Mobile is the first app to directly address it. The fact is, we are not opposed to advertising and think advertising plays a critical role in the Internet economy. But we are 100% opposed to advertising that invisibly tracks people and compromises their security. Our FAQ for Disconnect Mobile states our position further: “Rather than block all advertisements, we only block the privacyinvasive ads that invisibly track you and may be responsible for distributing malware (malvertising) and other security threats. We also generally unblock ad tracking websites that commit to respect users’ Do Not Track (DNT) preferences and agree to comply with DNT as defined by the Electronic Frontier Foundation: https://www.eff.org/dntpolicy. We’re not alone in wanting privacy and security protections from online advertising, and we have every reason to believe that there is huge pentup demand for the banned product. Over 2 million people actively use our desktop products and the most common customer request by far is to bring similar products to mobile. Indeed, we had quietly launched the identical iOS version of the banned Android app a few weeks back and this past weekend it became the #1 grossing Utility app on iTunes! Even more indicative of market demand is the fact that we have lined up several distribution partnerships that could have reached over 100 million people over the next few months. We are determined to oppose Google’s decision and hope our app will be available in the Play Store again soon. But at the same time, this experience has effectively wiped out months of hard work and has highlighted a serious and increasingly dangerous problem: Google has way too much power over distribution of applications on Android and can kill applications at will without justification. This is why efforts to create alternative Android based platforms that respect user privacy like Blackphone’s PrivatOS (on which Disconnect is the default search provider and a preinstalled application) and CyanogenMod (a more open aftermarket firmware distribution for Android devices) are so important for the future of the increasingly Androidbased Internet. In addition to promoting alternatives, we will be challenging Google to reinstate our app in the Play Store, and to update its policies to respect developer rights and an individual’s right to protect their privacy and security. Further, we will continue to work with and support the efforts of proprivacy groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Center for Democracy and Technology and Fight for the Future.
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Follow Business Insider Australia on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.I’ve been getting asked the question, “So how would I get started with embedded development?” more and more often lately.
This is actually a really tricky question. It’s not like, “How would I get started with Haskell?” or “How would I get started with Rust?” Embedded development is such a weird and diverse thing that it’s almost like asking, “How do I get started with programming?” except in an alternate universe where 128k is still a lot of RAM. I’m not sure where to even begin.
I think the people asking have one of two goals:
“I want to make my software affect physical things.” “I want to learn what’s actually happening way down there at the bottom.”
If you’re mostly interested in the first goal, then I would recommend you check out the many good hobbyist embedded platforms available now (Arduino, Raspberry Pi, Particle, etc…). They have lots of great communities to participate in and learn from.
However, if you’re more interested in the second goal, your task is a bit harder.
1. Learn C
For a variety of reasons, the vast majority of embedded toolchains are designed to support C as the primary language. If you want to write embedded software for more than just a few hobbyist platforms, your going to need to learn C (and hopefully maybe eventually Rust).
2. Learn Some Basic Electronics
Don’t worry, you don’t need to take a class or anything. You just need a basic understanding of voltage, current, power, resistance, ohms law. You probably can get by with just a few online tutorials and some experimenting with online simulators and/or real circuits.
3. Get the Basic Equipment
Since this is embedded software and you’ll actually be interacting with the physical world, you’ll eventually need some physical equipment. You’ll at least need:
Soldering iron
Digital Multi-Meter (DMM)
A hardware debugger/ JTAG adapter (such as an ST-Link, or OLMEX adapter)
I also highly recommend getting a Logic Analyzer. My favorite is from Saleae, but they are many other cheaper ones.
4. Choose a Microcontroller and Toolchain
Okay, so now that we have the fundamentals, can we get to coding already?!
Almost. To actually get your programs running, you’ll need a microcontroller to run them, a compiler that can compile your programs for your target microcontroller, and other tools to load your programs onto your hardware and debug them.
I personally like the STM32 family of microcontrollers. They are well supported by my favorite embedded toolchain: arm-gcc along with openOCD. This combination is not as user friendly as an Arduino, but it’s also suitable for many more real-world applications.
One good starter option is to get an STM discovery kit; they are cheap, relatively accessible, and easy to get started with.
ARM is by far the most common architecture for embedded micros (especially 32bit micros), and arm-gcc can target pretty much all of them.
openOCD is an open source piece of software what will communicate with a hardware debugger and provide a gdb debugger server so you can load a program and step through your code running on target with gdb. You don’t even need to run openOCD on the computer you’re developing and running gdb on.
5. Pick Components & Dig into Their Datasheets
Now you have enough to actually get started on something. All you have to do is pick out some components and then put them together! Some good places to look for components are sparkfun and adafruit. And for broader and cheaper selection, also digikey and mouser.
Once you’ve found a few components that you think will do what you want, you’ll have to dig into their datasheets. Datasheets are essentially the manuals for electronic components. They are the key to figuring out how to use a component and to make sure it will, in fact, work for you application. Most of the questions you have about a component can be answered by its datasheets. But datasheets can be tricky. Tricky enough that I have my own 3 rules of embedded programming:
1st rule of embedded programming: Read the datasheet.
2nd rule of embedded programming: Read the datasheet.
3rd rule of embedded programming: Don’t trust the datasheet.
Datasheets are the source of all knowledge, but also not entirely intuitive or even accurate. I recommend reading how to read a datasheet and Sparkfun’s datasheet tutorial to help get started.
Whew, that’s quite a lot to go through, but will give you a pretty solid basis when you actually get through it. :)Delegates from 191 countries and the European Union opened UN-sponsored talks Monday in Durban, South Africa, amid deeply divisive questions over when and how to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol with an agreement that is legally binding on all major greenhouse-gas emitters, not just developed countries.
The talks are taking place against a backdrop of grim news concerning Earth’s climate, including rising concentrations of heat-trapping carbon dioxide gases and a recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that highlights the increased risks emerging from extreme-weather events.
Adding to pressure on the Durban delegates, a recent analysis from the UN Environment Program found that pledges some 80 countries made over the past two years to reduce emissions or slow emissions' growth rates fall far short of what's needed by 2020 to put the world on a path to holding the increase in global average temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.
Veterans note that when the talks open, delegations tend to lay out their toughest bargaining positions. But after modest progress on several issues at last year's talks in Cancun, Mexico, positions that parties – particularly the US – are staking out heading into the next two weeks paint a picture that's "pretty discouraging," says Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists.
For countries that have ratified the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the key issue to be resolved is whether or not to adopt a second five-year enforcement period. The current period expires at the end of next year. Japan, Russia, and Canada have formally stated they will not accept new emission-reduction targets. The US withdrew from the Kyoto process in 2001.
The European Union's delegation has said it is willing to commit to a second enforcement period, but only if countries not part of the agreement put together a road map at Durban that leads to a legally binding agreement in 2015 covering all major emitters, including China, India, and the US. The EU’s aim is to have the new pact ultimately replace the Kyoto Protocol and take force in 2020, when the voluntary commitments countries formally adopted in Cancun expire.
Small-island nations threatened by sea-level rise and least-developed countries also back the EU's approach, says Mr. Meyer.
Yet the US appears reluctant to support a road map toward a legally binding, post-2020 pact without knowing more about what it's likely to contain – provisions that presumably could be informed by the next set of periodic IPCC reports on climate change, due out in 2014.
"Our thinking is that putting the form of the action before the substance doesn't make a great deal of sense," said the lead US negotiator, Jonathan Pershing, at a briefing Monday in Durban.
In the end, the US has expressed a willingness to negotiate a legally binding treaty, but with preconditions that are nonstarters with developing countries, Meyer adds.
Among them: Some mechanisms for bumping developing countries into developed status as their economies progress, which would then require them to take on legally-binding commitments; and ensuring that when such commitments are made, they don't hinge on receiving aid either for adaptation to climate change or to buy the technology they would need to meet those commitments.
Such a quid-pro-quo was part of the agreement that came out of climate talks in Bali in 2007, Meyer explains.
Asked about the challenges facing negotiators over the next two weeks, the meeting's president Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, South Africa's minister of international relations and cooperation, acknowledged Monday that "we're under no illusion that this is an easy process.”The U.S. government has invested $1.4 billion in HIV prevention programs that promote sexual abstinence and marital fidelity, but there is no evidence that these programs have been effective at changing sexual behavior and reducing HIV risk, according to a new Stanford University School of Medicine study.
Since 2004, the U.S. President's Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief, known as PEPFAR, has supported local initiatives that encourage men and women to limit their number of sexual partners and delay their first sexual experience and, in the process, help to reduce the number of teen pregnancies. However, in a study of nearly 500,000 individuals in 22 countries, the researchers could not find any evidence that these initiatives had an impact on changing individual behavior.
Although PEPFAR has been gradually reducing its support for abstinence and fidelity programs, the researchers suggest that the remaining $50 million or so in annual funding for such programs could have greater health benefits if spent on effective HIV prevention methods. Their findings will be published online May 2 and in the May issue of Health Affairs.
"Overall we were not able to detect any population-level benefit from this program," said Nathan Lo, a Stanford MD/PhD student and lead author of the study. "We did not detect any effect of PEPFAR funding on the number of sexual partners or upon the age of sexual intercourse. And we did not detect any effect on the proportion of teen pregnancy.
"We believe funding should be considered for programs that have a stronger evidence basis," he added.
A human cost
Senior author Eran Bendavid, MD, said the ineffective use of these funds has a human cost because it diverts money away from other valuable, risk-reduction efforts, such as male circumcision and methods to prevent transmission from mothers to their children.
"Spending money and having no effect is a pretty costly thing because the money could be used elsewhere to save lives," said Bendavid, an assistant professor of medicine at Stanford.
PEPFAR was launched in 2004 by President George W. Bush with a five-year, $15 million investment in global AIDS treatment and prevention in 15 countries. The program has had some demonstrated success: A 2012 study by Bendavid showed that it had reduced mortality rates and saved 740,000 lives in nine of the targeted countries between 2004 and 2008.
However, the program's initial requirement that one-third of the prevention funds be dedicated to abstinence and "be faithful" programs has been highly controversial. Critics questioned whether this approach could work and argued that focusing only on these methods would deprive people of information on other potentially lifesaving options, such as condom use, male circumcision and ways to prevent mother-to-child transmission, and divert resources from these and other proven prevention measures.
Abstinence, faithfulness funding continues
In 2008, when President Barack Obama came into office, the one-third requirement was eliminated, but U.S. funds continued to flow to abstinence and "be faithful" programs, albeit at lower levels. In 2008, $260 million was committed to these programs, but by 2013 by that figure had fallen to $45 million.
Although PEPFAR continues to fund abstinence and faithfulness programs as part of its broader behavior-based prevention efforts, there is no routine evaluation of the success of these programs. "We hope our work will emphasize the difficulty in changing sexual behavior and the need to measure the impact of these programs if they are going to continue to be funded," Lo said.
While many in the medical community were critical of the abstinence-fidelity component, no one had ever analyzed its real-world impact, Lo said. When he presented the results of the study in February at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infection, he received rousing applause from the scientists in the audience, some of whom came to the microphone to congratulate him on the work.
To measure the program's effectiveness, Lo and his colleagues used data from the Demographic and Health Surveys, a detailed database with individual and household statistics related to population, health, HIV and nutrition. The scientists reviewed the records of nearly 500,000 men and women in 14 of the PEPFAR-targeted countries in sub-Saharan Africa that received funds for abstinence-fidelity programs and eight non-PEPFAR nations in the region. They compared changes in risk behaviors between individuals who were living in countries with U.S.-funded programs and those who were not.
The scientists included data from 1998 through 2013 so they could measure changes before and after the program began. They also controlled for country differences, including gross domestic product, HIV prevalence and contraceptive prevalence, and for individuals' ages, education, whether they lived in an urban or rural environment, and wealth. All of the individuals in the study were younger than 30.
Number of sexual partners
In one measure, the scientists looked at the number of sexual partners reported by individuals in the previous year. Among the 345,000 women studied, they found essentially no difference in the number of sexual partners among those living in PEPFAR-supported countries compared with those living in areas not reached by PEPFAR programs. The same was true for the more than 132,000 men in the study.
The researchers also looked at the age of first sexual intercourse among 178,000 women and more than 71,000 men. Among women, they found a slightly later age of intercourse among women living in PEPFAR countries versus those in non-PEPFAR countries, but the difference was slight -- fewer than four months -- and not statistically significant. Again, no difference was found among the men.
Finally, they examined teenage pregnancy rates among a total of 27,000 women in both PEPFAR-funded and nonfunded countries and found no difference in rates between the two.
Bendavid noted that, in any setting, it is difficult to change sexual behavior. For instance, a 2012 federal Centers for Disease Control analysis of U.S.-based abstinence programs found they had little impact in altering high-risk sexual practices in this country.
"Changing sexual behavior is not an easy thing," Bendavid said. "These are very personal decisions. When individuals make decisions about sex, they are not typically thinking about the billboard they may have seen or the guy who came by the village and said they should wait until marriage. Behavioral change is much more complicated than that."
Level of education
The one factor that the researchers found to be clearly related to sexual behavior, particularly in women, was education level. Women with at least a primary school education had much lower rates of high-risk sexual behavior than those with no formal education, they found.
"One would expect that women who are educated have more agency and the means to know what behaviors are high-risk," Bendavid said. "We found a pretty strong association."
The researchers concluded that the "study contributes to the growing body of evidence that abstinence and faithfulness campaigns may not reduce high-risk sexual behaviors and supports the importance of investing in alternative evidence-based programs for HIV prevention in the developing world."
The authors noted that PEPFAR representatives have been open to discussing these findings and the implications for funding decisions regarding HIV prevention programs.
###
Stanford medical student Anita Lowe was also a co-author of the study.
The study was funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and Stanford's Center on the Demography and Economics of Health and Aging.
Stanford's Department of Medicine also supported the work.
The Stanford University School of Medicine consistently ranks among the nation's top medical schools, integrating research, medical education, patient care and community service. For more news about the school, please visit http://med. stanford. edu/ school. html. The medical school is part of Stanford Medicine, which includes Stanford Health Care and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford. For information about all three, please visit http://med. stanford. edu.
Print media contact: Ruthann Richter at (650) 725-8047 (richter1@stanford.edu)
Broadcast media contact: Margarita Gallardo at (650) 723-7897 (mjgallardo@stanford.edu)Players with little or no ODI experience who have been picked by Full Member countries for their 2015 World Cup squads
Come the World Cup, will the cricket world be saluting Sheldon Cottrell? © WICB
Sheldon Cottrell
West Indies, fast bowler
ODIs: 0*
West Indies have left some high-profile names out of their World Cup squad, named a young captain, and brought in a couple of players who had not played a single ODI at the time of selection. One of them is Cottrell. Pacy and aggressive, if he gets into the playing XI, Cottrell will be hoping to get off to a better start in one-day international cricket than he did in Tests; he has played two Tests, both of which West Indies lost by an innings, in which he picked up two wickets at 98. His T20 credentials are stronger, though - he averages 22.87 in the six games he has got for West Indies. Oh, and watch out for the salutes the military man produces to celebrate his successes.
Jonathan Carter's two List A hundreds till date have come at rapid rates © BCCI
Jonathan Carter
West Indies, batsman
ODIs: 0
Carter is the other newcomer to the West Indies squad. Unlike Cottrell, he was picked in West Indies' World Cup 15 without having played a single international game at the time. A regular in the A team of late, Carter got his maiden call-up to the one-day side for West Indies' ongoing series in South Africa. He came with a List A average of 32.85 in 42 games, and two brisk hundreds: 133 off 132 balls for West Indies A against India A in September 2013, and 109 off 111 balls for Barbados against Trinidad & Tobago in February 2014.
Yasir Shah's sole ODI appearance so far came 40 months ago © AFP
Yasir Shah
Pakistan, legspinner
ODIs: 1
Twenty-eight-year-old Shah debuted in first-class cricket at 16. Nine years later he played his first international, an ODI against Zimbabwe. Three and a half years after that, he was picked in Pakistan's World Cup squad, before he had turned out a second time in 50-overs cricket. His ability to outsmart international batsmen cannot be questioned, given his 12 wickets at 17.25 against Australia in the UAE in late 2014. Pakistan will be hoping for more of the same, especially given Saeed Ajmal and Mohammad Hafeez's bowling suspensions.
Bangladesh will be hoping Taijul Islam's ability to start with a bang extends to his first World Cup © AFP
Taijul Islam
Bangladesh, left-arm spinner
ODIs: 1
Taijul was only one ODI old at the time of his World Cup selection, but what a memorable ODI that was for Bangladesh. He snipped Zimbabwe's tail with three wickets in three balls to ensure they were routed for 128, and Bangladesh completed a 5-0 series sweep. That was the very first hat-trick by an ODI debutant. Taijul, it seemed, was making a habit of setting records early in his career: just a month earlier he had taken 8 for 38 in only his third Test, against Zimbabwe, to register the best Test innings figures ever for Bangladesh. What will he do at his first World Cup?
If 21-year-old Soumya Sarkar gets a game at the World Cup, Bangladesh will be expecting him to pitch in with both bat and ball © ICC/Getty
Soumya Sarkar
Bangladesh, allrounder
ODIs: 1
Sarkar will be Bangladesh's other greenhorn at the World Cup. He too was picked with just one ODI to his name, and he will have the added pressure of having to fill a dual role if called upon in the playing XI - he is one in a rare breed of Bangladesh allrounder who bowls medium pace instead of spin, which might bump him into the XI despite his inexperience in Australian and New Zealand conditions.
Honourable mention: Ireland fast bowler Peter Chase was the only other player picked for the World Cup without having as yet debuted in ODIs.
*The numbers are based on the players' stats at the time of team selection.
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.It is Christmas break and I’m immobile. I am in immense pain because of a flare-up of an old back injury. This sounds slightly worse than it is, only because I’m completely addicted to the SolForge demo. The eye-popping graphics are crystal clear. Game play is smooth. The strategy is deep. I know, I said my dirty word: strategy. The thing with me and Magic is that I have fun playing Angels. Just Angels. I want the most amount of Angel power in my deck possible while remaining… somewhat competitive. We might not win regularly (I miss you Baneslayer Angel), but when we are victorious, the little girl inside of me that loves rainbows, cupcakes and Lisa Frank rejoices. I’m not a spike. It’s just for funsies. That’s me.
Something about SolForge is different. Something about SolForge makes me want to send my dragon right at your face, and once he’s demolished you, do a 360 and head directly to your village for some more fun. SolForge seems simple at first. You may play any two cards every turn. Your creature battles the other player’s creature in the same lane. You are dealt five new cards every turn. Easy. Except that it’s not. As I was confined to my bed for several days, playing game after game, I did something “funsies” never do: I went full-on tilt.
@Revisedangel @mtgmedina I think it’s easier to win with the “zombie” deck (the one with Echowisps, etc) — Joey Pasco, Knight of Autumn (@AffinityForBlue) December 22, 2012
The rough part about this tilt was that I couldn’t call @Justin_DZ to vent and get advice because he doesn’t have an iPad and hasn’t played yet. I couldn’t read through the latest “strategy |
days ESPN 2:30 pm
The Fantasy Show, Weekdays ESPN2 5 pm
Monday Night Football; ESPN 8:30 pm
Week 1, September 11: Saints at Vikings
Week 1, September 11: Chargers at Broncos
Week 2, September 18: Lions at Giants
Week 3, September 25: Cowboys at Cardinals
Week 4, October 2: Redskins at Chiefs
Week 5, October 9: Vikings at Bears
Week 6, October 16: Colts at Titans
Week 7, October 23: Redskins at Eagles
Week 8, October 30: Broncos at Chiefs
Week 9, November 6: Lions at Packers
Week 10, November 13: Dolphins at Panthers
Week 11, November 20: Falcons at Seahawks
Week 12, November 27: Texans at Ravens
Week 13, December 4: Steelers at Bengals
Week 14, December 11: Patriots at Dolphins
Week 15, December 18: Falcons at Buccaneers
Week 16, December 25*: Raiders at Eagles
* Christmas Day
Playoffs, Jan 6-7: NFL Wild Card Game
NFL NETWORK
NFL Network will air 18 national games, all produced by CBS or NBC. The league network will simulcast 11 of those games on national TV, all streamed on Amazon. All TNF games will be called by CBS’s new lead broadcast team of Jim Nantz and Tony Romo, or NBC’s team of Mike Tirico and Cris Collinsworth.
NFL Network’s GameDay talent will be led by host Rich Eisen for their Sunday pregame show, as well as the pre-show for TNF’s pregame show. He will be joined by Marshall Faulk, Michael Irvin, Steve Mariucci, and Kurt Warner
NFL GameDay Schedule
GameDay Morning, 7 am
GameDay Morning, 9 am
GameDay Live, 1 pm
GameDay Highlights, 7:30 pm
GameDay Prime, 11:30 pm
NFL Fantasy Live: Cable/DirectTV 11:30 am
NFL RedZone: Cable/DirectTV 1 pm: Scott Hansen (Cable); Andrew Siciliano (DirectTV)
Talent
GameDay Morning
Main Show: Rich Eisen, Marshall Faulk, Michael Irvin, Steve Mariucci, Kurt Warner; Insider: Ian Rapoport; Analytics Expert: Cynthia Frelund
Early: Colleen Wolfe, Mike Garafalo, Michael Robinson, Steve Smith
Reporters: Tiffany Blackmon, Stacey Dales, Kim Jones, Aditi Kinkhabwala, Randy Moss, James Palmer, Jane Slater
GameDay Live: Rhett Lewis, Terrell Davis, Heath Evans, Patrick Claybon, Daniel Jeremiah, Bucky Brooks
GameDay Highlights: Cole Wright, Steve Mariucci
GD Prime: Deion Sanders, LaDainian Tomlinson, Chris Rose
Thursday Night Football
TNF Gameday; NFL Network 6 pm – Eisen, Faulk, Irvin, Mariucci; Melissa Stark
Thursday Night Kickoff; NFL Network 7:30 pm*
Thursday Night Football; NFL Network 8:25 pm*
* Select broadcasts simulcast on CBS or NBC and streamed on Amazon
CBS Broadcasts: Jim Nantz, Tony Romo & Tracy Wolfson
Pregame: James Brown, Bill Cowher, Deion Sanders
NBC Broadcasts: Mike Tirico, Cris Collinsworth & Heather Cox; Kurt Warner (select games)
Pregame: Bob Costas, Tony Dungy, Rodney Harrison
Thursday Night Football Schedule – Thursday 8:25 pm
Week 2, September 14: Texans at Bengals
Week 3, September 21: Rams at 49ers
Week 4, September 28: Bears at Packers (CBS|Amazon)
Week 5, October 5: Patriots at Buccaneers (CBS|Amazon)
Week 6, October 12: Eagles at Panthers (CBS|Amazon)
Week 7, October 19: Chiefs at Raiders (CBS|Amazon)
Week 8, October 26: Dolphins at Ravens (CBS|Amazon)
Week 8, October 29: Vikings vs Browns at London (Sun 9:30 am)
Week 9, November 2: Bills at Jets
Week 10, November 9: Seahawks at Cardinals (NBC|Amazon)
Week 11, November 16: Titans at Steelers (NBC|Amazon)
Week 13, November 30: Redskins at Cowboys (NBC|Amazon)
Week 14, December 7: Saints at Falcons (NBC|Amazon)
Week 15, December 14: Broncos at Colts (NBC|Amazon)
Week 15, December 16: Bears at Lions (Sat 4:30 pm)
Week 15, December 16: Chargers at Chiefs (Sat 8:25 pm)
Week 16, December 23: Colts at Ravens (Sat 4:30 pm)
Week 16, December 25*: Steelers at Texans (NBC|Amazon; Mon 4:30 pm)
* Christmas Day
Daily Programming- NFL Network Fall Schedule
Good Morning Football, Weekdays 7 am
NFL Up to the Minute, Tuesday-Wednesday, Friday 4 pm
NFL Fantasy Live, Weekdays 5 pm
NFL Total Access, Weekdays 6 or 7 pm (except Thursday)
National Radio
Westwood One Radio: Radio Broadcasts all NFL prime time games and weekly Sunday doubleheaders. Westwood One is the exclusive broadcaster for the entire NFL Playoffs, including Super Bowl LII. Kevin Harlan teams with Boomer Esiason for Monday Night Football and the Super Bowl.
Talent
MNF: Kevin Harlan, Boomer Esiason or Kurt Warner
SNF: Kevin Kugler, Jason Taylor; TNF – Ian Eagle, Tony Boselli
Sunday Afternoon: Tom McCarthy, John Sadak, Brandon Gaudin, Ross Tucker, Mike Mayock
Studio: Scott Graham; Jim Gray (MNF only)
NFL on Westwood One Sunday Afternoon Radio Schedule
Week 1, September 10: Steelers at Browns, 1 pm; Seahawks at Packers, 4 pm
Week 2, September 17: Cardinals at Colts, 1 pm
Week 3, September 24: Ravens at Jaguars, 9 am; Texans at Patriots, 1 pm; Raiders at Redskins, 4 pm
Week 4, October 1: Saints at Dolphins, 9 am; Titans at Texas, 1 pm; Eagles at Chargers, 4 pm
ESPN Radio: Broadcast select Sunday afternoon games throughout the NFL season.
Talent: Marc Kestecher, Adam Amin; Chris Canty, Herm Edwards, Brock Huard, Shaun O’Hara, Bill Polian
NFL on ESPN Radio Schedule
Week 1, September 10: Eagles at Redskins, Noon; Colts at Rams 4 pm
Week 2, September 17: Vikings at Steelers, Noon; 49ers at Seahawks, 4 pm
Week 3, September 24: Dolphins at Jets, Noon; Seahawks at Titans, 4 pm
Week 4, October 1: Panthers at Patriots, Noon; Giants at Buccaneers 4 pm
Week 5, October 8: Chargers at Giants, Noon
Compass Media: Broadcast select games throughout the season. They are the broadcast home of the Dallas Cowboys and Oakland Raiders.
Sports USA Radio: Broadcast select Sunday afternoon doubleheaders throughout the NFL season.
Once again, thanks to Sammy for all of his help in compiling this information.WASHINGTON — The Netherlands awarded BAE Systems a contract last month to test and verify the Iron Fist active protection system (APS) on its CV90 Infantry Fighting Vehicles.
IMI Systems' Iron Fist uses a radar to detect, track and intercept incoming rocket-propelled grenades and anti-tank missiles among other threats to the vehicle and its crew. IMI Systems was formerly Israeli Military Industries.
The US Army is also in the process of assessing Iron Fist for possible incorporation on combat vehicles, partly spurred by the possibility that Russia is ahead of the US when it comes to armor protection.
BAE did not disclose in a company statement the contract amount to integrate Iron Fist onto the BAE Systems-made vehicles.
The test phase will pre-qualify the APS against threat specifications determined by the Netherlands' Defence Ministry, which will tee up a decision on the next phase of the program in early 2018, Hans de Goeij, project manager at the Dutch Defence Materiel Organisation, said in the BAE statement.
Should the Dutch government decide to proceed with Iron Fist, it would be the first NATO country with an APS "of its kind" on combat vehicles, according to BAE Systems.
The US Army is expected to make key decisions on a way forward to integrate APS onto a variety of combat vehicles next summer. The service will start characterizing APS offerings on Bradley Fighting Vehicles and Stryker combat vehicles starting this month. The Army has already worked on characterization testing on the M1 Abrams tank.
Said to be in the running along with Iron Fist is another Israeli offering — Rafael Advanced Defense Systems’ Trophy — as well as Rheinmetall Defence’s Active Defense System of Germany and Artis Corporation’s Iron Curtain of the United States.
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While Trophy has been fielded on approximately 100 vehicles in Israel and has been used in combat extensively since 2009, Iron Fist was being developed head-to-head with Trophy to be fielded by the Israeli government, but was never integrated.Now is the time for Roman to back his man at the Bridge
It seems like a genuine crisis.
The team have slumped to four defeats in seven games, the defence is shipping goals and everyone questioning the credibility of the manager.
But then that was Arsene Wenger just two months ago. Coincidentally, Andre Villas-Boas’s Chelsea team had the same record before Saturday’s win against Wolves.
Say a little prayer for me: Chelsea's Andre Villas-Boas has been under pressure
And amid the frenzy about the Chelsea manager’s future, one or two people want to go back and review what they wrote about Wenger two months ago.
It was then that I said Wenger was still the man for the job and had to be given time to sort out a very difficult start to the season. And the same applies now to Villas-Boas.
When I look at his Chelsea team and the task he has, it strikes me that it’s not that different to that of Sir Alex Ferguson when he arrived at Old Trafford from Aberdeen back in 1986. There was then a group of senior players that the manager had to confront. It was a battle he had to win and he was given time by the board to do that.
Now, when you look at the Chelsea team, which has for so long relied on the backbone of Petr Cech, John Terry, Ashley Cole, Frank Lampard, Michael Essien, Didier Drogba and Nicolas Anelka, it’s obvious to anyone that things have to change.
Not much has in terms of the core of the team in six or seven years at that club and whoever had taken this job would have had to deal with that.
Villas-Boas wants to play in a different style, pressing the ball aggressively with a high defensive line. And he wants to pass the ball out and play in between the lines of midfield and attack more. He has to be given the opportunity to impose that style — even when some of the older players are clearly finding it difficult to adapt.
It is a battle Villas-Boas must be allowed to win, and if the players don’t change, then maybe it’s time to change the players.
Recovery: Arsene Wenger's Arsenal side have improved after a bad start
Against Wolves, there was a sign that the process is beginning. The Chelsea manager fielded a young team and, of his front six players, only Drogba was an established veteran of Chelsea’s battles over the past years.
In midfield, Ramires, Raul Meireles and Oriol Romeu have all arrived at the club in the last 18 months. Up front there was new signing Juan Mata, with Daniel Sturridge alongside Drogba, and though Sturridge arrived two years ago, it’s only this season he has been used on a regular basis. That has the look of an emerging young side.
We have heard a lot about the Chelsea academy in recent years and they won the FA Youth Cup in 2010. Maybe now is the time to see some more of those players coming through and to see just how good they are, especially Josh McEachran, who hasn’t really featured this season.
Don’t get me wrong. There will still be a role for some of those players over the next two years. But gradually, slowly, they will be phased out, just as Sir Alex manages to shed older players from a team and replaces them with younger ones.
Star: Juan Mata shone against Wolves
Because you cannot judge a manager on four months when he hasn’t even had the chance to impart his beliefs. Just a few weeks ago at Old Trafford, people were quite enthused by what they saw from Chelsea and the chances they created.
It’s clear Villas-Boas is trying to play a progressive style of football that is more entertaining. The problem is that matches against United, QPR, Arsenal and Liverpool have been brilliant to watch, but they have lost them all. Of course, that has to stop.
But a change of style of this magnitude is not going to happen without problems along the way. If Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich has any sense, he will back his man. He brought him in to do a job and now he has to let him finish it. You need calm heads and sensible analysis.
December is going to be a massive month for them, starting with Liverpool in the Carling Cup on Tuesday, followed by Premier League games at Newcastle and Tottenham and at home to Manchester City, as well as that crucial Champions League tie against Valencia, which could see them go out of the tournament.
But whatever happens, there should be some patience shown. Now is the time for strength of mind on all sides. Villas-Boas should stick to his guns and not compromise his style.
He described the last few weeks as a ‘negative moment’, but as long as he
has the support of his board then he can get through it. Who is to say he
can’t do what Arsenal and Wenger have done over the last two months?
Getting there: Chelsea got back to winning ways against Wolves
He may only be 34 and it may be his first major job in football, but I’ve seen at close quarters what happens when you back a young manager with talent and let him follow through his vision for a club.
Twenty five years on, Sir Alex Ferguson’s battle to be established is a distant memory. I’m not sure Villas-Boas can hope to be at Chelsea in 2036 — but he should at least be given the chance to see out the next few years.
United’s task just got harder after letting City off the hook
Manchester City players will have gone to bed on Saturday night breathing a huge sigh of relief.
And they will go into the Liverpool game at Anfield that little bit more relaxed. Manchester United missed a big chance to apply a bit of pressure on Saturday.
Playing a day before your title rivals is always an opportunity. They could have hauled City’s lead at the top back to two points and given them
the feeling that United were breathing down their necks again, which would have sent them into Sunday’s game with a little bit of negative feeling about them.
Shock: Newcastle put a dent in Manchester United's title challenge
Instead, they will approach the game at Anfield in a positive mood. That was certainly the case for me as a player if our title rivals had slipped up or dropped points. Now City will know that even a draw maintains their five-point lead and a victory extends it to seven points — a significant gap.
Of course there’s plenty of time to haul back the deficit. But at the end of
season if you have failed you always look back at key moments and games you should have won.
They are the games that haunt you over the summer.Playing against 10 men for the last 10 minutes at home to Newcastle could become
one of those. You can survive one or two of those moments through a season. But if they start to add up; if you have five or six of those results, that’s what leaves you with regrets.A new voting bloc, released felons, are getting a chance to have their voices heard in this month's primary. Roughly 40,000 people statewide with past felony convictions get voting rights this year after Gov. Larry Hogan's veto was overridden by the General Assembly.
Advertisement Ex-felons prepare to vote thanks to new Maryland law Early voting in state runs through April 21 Share Shares Copy Link Copy
A new voting bloc, released felons, are getting a chance to have their voices heard in this month's primary.Download the WBAL app. Roughly 40,000 people statewide with past felony convictions get voting rights this year after Gov. Larry Hogan's veto was overridden by the General Assembly.Some of these people may cast their ballot as soon as early as Thursday as early voting gets underway.Voters' Guide: Where the candidates stand on the issues"(Voting is) like eating an apple pie, man," released felon Thomas Dargan said. "It's an American thing everybody should want to do."Dargan is one of the thousands of ex-felons in Maryland who are now eligible to vote right out of prison."I paid my debt to society, so the only thing I'm looking forward to now is getting back into society," Dargan said.Before, ex-felons couldn't vote until they completed parole or probation in Maryland.The new law and Baltimore's mayoral race prompted Deanna Curtis, out after serving time for attempted murder, to register to vote for the first time."Our opinion, our voice is just as important as everyone else's," Curtis said.Community groups put together a candidate forum Wednesday to educate ex-felons on the race. Those groups have tried to spread the word about the new law to bolster voter rolls."All of us will be working very hard over the next couple of years to register more and advertise it," Baltimore NAACP president Tessa Hill-Aston said.Ex-felon or not, another new law allows people to register during early voting, which starts Thursday and ends on April 21."It's just the quiet before the storm," City Elections Direction Armstead Jones said.Jones is hoping for calm because early voting will also be the start of the state's new paper ballot system."And they bubble in like a standardized test would be," Jones said "And we just encourage them to come out, be patient it is new."For former felons, the change provides them a new opportunity to participate in democracy.For Dargan and Curtis, they both said they would vote for Sheila Dixon for mayor.They said they could relate to Dixon after she resigned from office in 2010 after part of her plea deal after being found guilty of a misdemeanor embezzlement charge relating to her use of gift cards that were intended to be distributed to the poor."So, the same way I expect society to forgive me, I'm asking them to forgive her, too," Dargan said.This offer has now ended.
There’s nothing better than an Original Glazed doughnut… except for maybe a FREE* Original Glazed doughnut!
Friday 2nd of June 2017 is National Doughnut Day and we’re having our biggest ever Original Glazed doughnut giveaway. Ever!
You really doughnut want to miss this! Simply head into a Krispy Kreme store for a FREE* Original Glazed doughnut.
Set your alarms, plan your outfit the night before and call your friends to make it a real celebration, to be one of the first in-store for a free doughnut. Find your nearest store to get your route planned out.
*Some things you need to know
One free Original Glazed per person
Available at Krispy Kreme stores in NSW, QLD, VIC and WA. Scroll down for a full list of stores
Not available at 7-Eleven, Jesters and BP Service Stations
Available while stocks last
Click here for full Terms and conditions.
Participating stores:
Krispy Kreme NSW: Central Lee St (Sydney CBD), Auburn, Liverpool, Mascot, Penrith, Sydney Domestic Airport T2 and T3.
Krispy Kreme VIC: Collins St (Melbourne CBD), Swanston St (Melbourne CBD), Fountain Gate, Tullamarine Airport Qantas T1, Virgin T3 and T4.
Krispy Kreme QLD: Myer Centre, Pacific Fair, Shell Nudgee and Brisbane Airport Qantas Terminal.
Krispy Kreme WA: Myaree and Whitford City.This article first appeared on The Huffington Post.
The movement to connect more people to high-speed Internet services scored a win in Georgia last Thursday. It’s a victory that should resonate in every U.S. community that is struggling to give people better Internet access.
A coalition of Georgia mayors, counties and local activists overcame an industry-backed bill that would have prohibited municipalities from building their own broadband networks.
The bill, HB 282, was defeated in a decisive bipartisan vote. The 94-70 tally marked the end of a string of legislative victories for those who seek to limit Internet choice to a few powerful companies.
Municipal broadband networks have been gaining traction across the country. It’s easy to see why: In many rural and low-income communities, privately offered broadband services are nonexistent. In its 2012 Broadband Progress Report the Federal Communications Commission counted nearly 20 million Americans (the vast majority living in rural areas) beyond the reach of broadband.
The rise of homegrown Internet infrastructure has prompted the corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to introduce state-level legislation designed to limit services to a handful of corporate network providers.
ALEC, which receives financial support from AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Verizon, has helped pass bills that hamper or outright ban municipal broadband networks in 19 states.
The legislators who sponsored the Georgia bill are major recipients of ALEC “scholarships.” Rep. Don Parsons is an active member of the ALEC Telecommunications and Information Technology Task Force. He has received $5,735.48 during his first three three years in the role. Bill sponsor Rep. Mark Hamilton received $3,527.80 in ALEC scholarships in 2008 alone, according to the Center for Media and Democracy.
In the last cycle, Hamilton was on the receiving end of thousands in campaign contributions from AT&T, Charter Communications, Comcast and Verizon.
“To me this is a philosophical situation,” Hamilton said from the floor on Thursday as he tried to rally members to pass his legislation. “A vote ‘yes’ for this bill means that you support free markets and free enterprise,” he said.
A ‘no’ vote means that you want more federal dollars to prop up cities, Hamilton said.
Hamilton’s private-enterprise argument is a common refrain among those opposing municipal networks. At its core is the belief that phone and cable companies do business without the assistance of U.S. taxpayers.
But other state legislators wondered whether these massive corporations are truly byproducts of a free market. “I do believe in the free market. I do believe in free enterprise, and I do believe in local control,” said Rep. Debbie Buckner, who opposed Hamilton’s bill.
“They talk about [the companies] as if they are totally free market and free enterprise, but doesn’t AT&T get some tax breaks?” she asked. “Didn’t Windstream get some stimulus money? Isn’t that government money?”
Indeed, phone and cable companies have been on federal welfare since their inception. A 2011 Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy study shows AT&T and Verizon receiving more than $26 billion in tax subsidies from 2008 through 2010. The FCC’s 2012 report on Universal Service Fund subsidies shows nearly $3 billion in federal payments to AT&T, Verizon and Windstream.
In 2010, Windstream, Corp. — a telecommunications company with services across the South — applied for $238 million in federal stimulus grants to improve its service in 16 states. More than 16 million taxpayer dollars went to upgrade the company’s services in Georgia.
“Phone and cable companies would not be recording the soaring profit margins that they do, if there were truly a free market,'” said Free Press Research Director S. Derek Turner. “They have created an unlevel playing field that gives them massive first-mover advantages. The real-dollar benefits of that can’t be quantified.”
“The private companies have not been there for us,” said Rep. Buckner, who represents rural parts of Talbot and Meriwether Counties. “And if they say they’re going to come and be there for us, we don’t know how long it will take them to find us.”
The reality is that these companies have no interest in building out to rural areas. Instead they’ll continue trying to legislate away any local option. Unless more states follow Georgia’s lead, these companies will continue to push ALEC legislation that takes away such homegrown control.
The more people learn about these state bills, the more they’re willing to fight them. In the days before last week’s vote, both Free Press and ColorofChange.org rallied people in Georgia to call their state legislators and protest HB 282.
With more support both inside and outside government municipal broadband can provide better service at lower prices, especially in the many places that are ignored by the phone and cable giants.Health Canada is considering a major change to the rules on labelling food products as gluten-free and the idea has some manufacturers questioning whether it’s wise to stray from the status quo. Photograph by: File photo, National Post
OTTAWA — Health Canada is considering a major change to the rules on labelling food products as gluten-free and the idea has some manufacturers questioning whether it's wise to stray from the status quo.
Under existing legislation, a product can only be labelled gluten-free if it contains no wheat, barley, rye or oats.
Knowing whether foods contain these ingredients is imperative for people with a gluten intolerance or with celiac disease, a condition that affects an estimated one in 133 Canadians. They can't consume gluten, a protein that is found in those grains, because it damages the small intestine. The only treatment for celiac disease is to follow a strict gluten-free diet which means avoiding a wide range of breads, pastas and processed foods, and having to scrutinize the list of ingredients on every food package.
In 2007, Health Canada conducted a review of available scientific literature to determine if oats could safely be consumed by people with celiac disease, given the advances in knowledge about the condition over the last few decades. It concluded that the majority of people with celiac disease can tolerate a moderate amount of pure oats — oats that have been specially made to ensure they haven't been mixed with other grains during the production process. As a result of this review, Health Canada is seeking to update its gluten-free labelling policy. Doing so, according to the department, will help "maximize the choice of gluten-free foods for consumers following a gluten-free diet."
One might think that gluten-free foodmakers would be pleased with the prospect of expanding their number of products, but instead, some are steadfastly against the idea being pursued by Health Canada.
"We are unequivocally opposed to the inclusion of oats as a gluten-free product," Jerry Bigam, head of Kinnikinnick Foods Inc., an Edmonton-based company, said in a recent interview. "I think it's just a terrible idea."
What is prompting concern about revising the policy is that pure oats are not safe for all people with celiac disease, and there is still a minority who cannot tolerate them at all.
"To me it's a little like Health Canada saying a little arsenic doesn't hurt most people," said Bigam, whose wife and son both have celiac disease. "I don't believe that for a minute it's a positive step in the gluten-free industry. We have a gluten-free industry for a specific purpose, which is to protect the health of people who have no ability to do it themselves."
Bigam said the labelling program is good the way it is now, and that changing it could cause confusion, especially among people newly diagnosed with celiac disease, and could potentially jeopardize their health.
The Canadian Celiac Association says the safety of oats has been extensively investigated and the evidence confirms that pure oats can be eaten in limited quantities. It also notes that the studies involved a small number of subjects, however, and that people should consult a physician if they want to try introducing oats into their diet.San Bernardino County will make its first foray into toll lanes.
A 33-mile corridor will be built on the 10 Freeway and span much of the county, transportation officials decided Wednesday, July 12.
The $1.8-billion project would add two toll lanes from the Los Angeles County line at Montclair east to Redlands. An auxiliary lane for traffic to weave in and out at ramps also will be added at various points along the general-purpose lanes.
Construction, which would be split into two stages, is expected to start in late 2018. The first segment, from the county line to the 15 Freeway, is expected to be finished by 2022. The rest would begin in 2021 and take three years to complete.
Expanding the 10 Freeway corridor, which is heavily used by commuters and trucks hauling cargo to the rest of the country, has long been a top priority of the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority.
The decision to use toll lanes has been controversial with some residents and members of the governing board. The board — made up of elected officials from the county and its cities — voted 16 to 2 Wednesday, July 12, to approve an environmental report and to create the toll lanes.
Transportation officials say the project will bring a faster alternative for commuters who choose to pay the new tolls. And, by diverting that traffic onto two new lanes, it would also ease congestion on the general lanes, said Ontario Councilman Alan Wapner, president of the transportation board.
“The only way to increase the (freeway) capacity is through express lanes,” he said, noting the project will be paid for by future toll proceeds.
Most other Southern California counties have added toll lanes to their freeways. Wapner said that not doing so in San Bernardino County could create bottlenecks when the lanes narrow as vehicles enter the county.
Chino City Councilwoman Eunice Ulloa and County Supervisor Josie Gonzales were the two no votes. Each cited their opposition to asking motorists to pay tolls.
“I do not have a high-wage-earning population,” Gonzales said of her district, which includes San Bernardino, Rialto and Colton. “I cannot in good conscience impose on my residents something I feel they will not be able to afford to enjoy without further economic impacts.”
San Bernardino County Supervisor Robert Lovingood called it a hard decision but said that if they don’t go forward, the result would be “gridlock” on the freeway.
About a dozen residents spoke against toll lanes. Some held signs and called the board a “shadow government” and its members traitors.
Tressy Capps, a Fontana resident who filed a lawsuit seeking to block the project, accused the agency of rushing the process. She said the agency did not do enough to inform residents. As an example, she cited a public notice that made no mention of “toll” or “express” lanes. The flier describes it as the “Interstate 10 corridor project” with new freeway lanes, though public reports on the project do include the words.
“The San Bernardino County taxpayers deserve better,” Capps said.
Paula Beauchamp, project delivery director for the agency, said it has done an extensive public outreach program with more than 140 meetings informing residents of the toll lanes proposal.
Others, including representatives of a laborers union and business associations, spoke in favor of the project and said it’s badly needed to ease congestion.
“I think you’re going to find that people out there are going to be delighted to have the option to move their businesses and goods more efficiently,” said Carole Beswick, president of Inland Action, a nonprofit group made up of business and community leaders.
The route is one of the region’s most widely used, with about 263,000 vehicles and more than 20,000 commercial trucks a day, the agency reports. By 2045, the number of vehicles is expected to grow to 350,000 a day.
The agency’s next steps will be to begin buying property along the freeway needed for its widening and to choose a contractor to handle final design and construction. The agency expects to rebuild or modify several ramps, bridges and interchanges along the route.
The project encompasses the 10 Freeway from the Monte Vista Avenue exit in Montclair to Ford Street in Redlands. A small portion — from California Street to Ford Street in Redlands — would only have one toll lane in each direction, though the majority of the project would have two.What possible connection could there have been between George H.W. Bush and the assassination of John F. Kennedy? Or between the C.I.A. and the assassination? Or between Bush and the C.I.A.? For some people, apparently, making such connections was as dangerous as letting one live wire touch another. Here, in anticipation of the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination in November, is the third part of a ten-part series of excerpts from WhoWhatWhy editor Russ Baker’s bestseller, Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America’s Invisible Government and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years. The story is a real-life thriller.
Note: Although these excerpts do not contain footnotes, the book itself is heavily footnoted and exhaustively sourced. (The excerpts in Part 3 come from Chapter 4 of the book, and the titles and subtitles have been changed for this publication.)
For Part 1, please go here, for Part 2, go here.
“Somewhere in Texas”
George H. W. Bush may be one of the few Americans of his generation who cannot recall exactly where he was when John F. Kennedy was shot in Dallas on November 22, 1963.
At times he has said that he was “somewhere in Texas.” Bush was indeed “somewhere” in Texas. And he had every reason to remember. At the time Bush was the thirty-nine-year-old chairman of the Harris County (Houston) Republican Party and an outspoken critic of the president. He was also actively campaigning for a seat in the U.S. Senate at exactly the time Kennedy was assassinated right in Bush’s own state. The story behind Bush’s apparent evasiveness is complicated. Yet it is crucial to an understanding not just of the Bush family, but also of a tragic chapter in the nation’s history.
Who Wanted Kennedy Dead?
The two and a half years leading up to November 22, 1963, had been tumultuous ones. The Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961, designed to dislodge Fidel Castro and his Cuban revolution from its headquarters ninety miles off the Florida Keys, was an embarrassing foreign policy failure. Certainly in terms of lives lost and men captured, it was also a human disaster. But within the ruling American elite it was seen primarily as a jolt to the old boys’ network – a humiliating debacle, and a rebuke of the supposedly infallible CIA. For John Kennedy it also presented an opportunity. He had been impressed with the CIA at first, and depended on its counterinsurgency against Communists and nationalists in the third world. But the Bay of Pigs disaster gave him pause. Whatever Kennedy’s own role in the invasion fiasco, it had been planned on Dwight Eisenhower’s watch. Kennedy had been asked to green-light it shortly after taking office, and in retrospect he felt the agency had deceived him in several key respects.
The most critical involved Cubans’ true feelings toward Castro. The CIA had predicted that the island population would rise up to support the invaders. When this did not happen, the agency, Air Force, Army, and Navy all put pressure on the young president to authorize the open use of U.S. armed forces. In effect they wanted to turn a supposed effort of armed Cuban “exiles” to reclaim their homeland into a full-fledged U.S. invasion. But Kennedy would not go along. The success of the operation had been predicated on something – a popular uprising – that hadn’t happened, and Kennedy concluded it would be foolish to get in deeper.
Following the disaster, CIA director Allen Dulles mounted a counteroffensive against criticism of the agency. Dulles denied that the plan had been dependent on a popular insurrection. Just weeks after the calamity, he offered this account on Meet the Press: “I wouldn’t say we expected a popular uprising. We were expecting something else to happen in Cuba... something that didn’t materialize.” For his part Kennedy was furious at Dulles for this self-serving explanation. He also was deeply frustrated about the CIA’s poor intelligence and suspected that the CIA had sought to force him into an invasion from the very beginning.
The president told his advisers he wanted “to splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.” Within weeks of the invasion disaster, Washington was speculating on Dulles’s departure. By autumn, he was gone, along with his lieutenants Charles Cabell and Richard Bissell. But in the end, it was not the CIA but rather John F. Kennedy who was destroyed.
The assassination of JFK has fathered a thousand theories, and nearly as many books and studies. Through it all, no consensus has emerged. Most “respectable” academics, journalists, and news organizations don’t want to get near the matter, lest they be labeled conspiracy nuts. Most Americans harbor an overwhelming psychic resistance to what retired UC Berkeley professor and author Peter Dale Scott has called the “deep politics” surrounding the assassination. Few of us care to contemplate the awful prospect that the forces we depend upon for security and order could themselves be subverted.
When the Kennedy assassination is mentioned, the inquiry tends to focus on the almost impossible task of determining who fired how many shots and from where. This obsession with the gun or guns bypasses the more basic – and therefore more dangerous questions: Who wanted Kennedy dead, and why? And what did they hope to gain?
Earl Warren to LBJ: “I’ll just do whatever you say.”
The years since the first assassination investigation was hastily concluded in September 1964 have not been kind to the Warren Commission. Subsequent inquiries have found the commission’s process, and the resulting report, horrendously flawed. And there are lingering questions about the very origins of the commission |
accompanying disasters, beginning in the 1970s.
The year The Population Bomb appeared was also the same year that humans first got far enough away from Earth to turn around and take its picture. A photograph by Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders of the Earth rising over the moon’s horizon, so vividly alive compared to the surrounding black void, helped ignite a popular environmental movement that had been smoldering since Silent Spring, Rachel Carson’s seminal book on pesticides 16 years earlier. The following year, the United Nations declared the first Earth Day. By 1970, Earth Day was a worldwide movement.
With the Ehrlich book, population joined pesticides and pollution as a headliner on the environmental agenda. The Population Bomb sold millions of copies. In the United States, Paul Ehrlich became a celebrity, appearing on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson more than 20 times. Like Malthus’ name, his book’s title entered and remains in the popular vernacular in many languages—even after its most urgent argument apparently proved wrong. The famines that it predicted would leave hundreds of millions of Asians dead within a decade never happened. The Ehrlichs had not foreseen Norman Borlaug’s astonishing Green Revolutionary boost to the world’s food supply.
In the decades that followed, Ehrlich’s and Borlaug’s names became routinely linked, usually by the former’s detractors. “Ehrlich was sure that ‘the battle to feed humanity is over.’ He insisted that India would be unable to provide sustenance for the 200-million-person growth in its population by 1980,” wrote Duke University engineering professor Daniel Vallero in a 2007 textbook titled Biomedical Ethics for Engineers. “He was wrong—thanks to biotechnologists like Norman Borlaug.” This was a typical jeer: While the doomsayer Ehrlich prophesized starvation in India and Pakistan, Borlaug was bringing both countries to self-sufficiency in wheat production by the mid-1970s.
Through “technical optimism,” Vallero added, “engineers ‘mess up’ the Malthusian curve by finding ways to accomplish this (e.g., Borlaug spoiling Ehrlich’s predictions).” This was a typical conclusion: by enabling millions more to eat and live, Norman Borlaug had refuted Ehrlich and Malthus’ panic-mongering about overpopulation.
That conclusion, however, was not shared by Borlaug himself. His Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech ended not in triumph, but with a warning:
... we are dealing with two opposing forces, the scientific power of food production and the biologic power of human reproduction. Man has made amazing progress recently in his potential mastery of these two contending powers. Science, invention, and technology have given him materials and methods for increasing his food supplies substantially and sometimes spectacularly.... Man also has acquired the means to reduce the rate of human reproduction effectively and humanely. He is using his powers for increasing the rate and amount of food production. But he is not yet using adequately his potential for decreasing the rate of human reproduction. There can be no permanent progress in the battle against hunger until the agencies that fight for increased food production and those that fight for population control unite in a common effort.
The Green Revolution, Borlaug often said, essentially bought the world another generation or so to resolve the population problem. For the rest of his life, he served on the boards of population organizations, even as he continued crop research to feed the multiplying millions his work had added to the global census.
Alan Weisman is the author of several books, including The World Without Us, an international bestseller translated into 34 languages. Excerpted from his latest book Countdown (Little, Brown), which vividly details the burgeoning effects of our cumulative presence on the planet, and reveals how we can regain balance.Everything’s bigger in Paul Bunyan country. Including the storm that swept one 6,000-pound blue ox off his feet Thursday morning.
Heavy rains and winds that gusted over 50 miles per hour raked through central Minnesota and the metro. Up North in Brainerd, one mighty gust of wind slammed into the 60-year-old Babe the Blue Ox statue that stands watch over Paul Bunyan Land and sent it tumbling across the parking lot.
“It was kind of heartbreaking to see him like that,” said Lois Moon, co-owner of the Brainerd amusement park, which was battered by straight-line winds that felled trees, ruffled a merry-go-round and shifted a few houses in the park’s historic village off their foundations.
“It was probably the first time he’s ever laid down.”
The park was able to open on schedule Thursday while work crews tackled the Code Blue in the parking lot.
“Babe is going to be just fine,” Moon said. “We very carefully set him back on his feet.”
The storm that tipped Blue over also felled trees and shifted houses off their foundations in the park’s historic village.
Photos on the park’s Facebook page show a rumpled Babe — one horn askew and a hole in his flank from where he’d bounced across rocks and sign posts — being hoisted back on his hoofs again. The fiberglass statue, 18 feet tall and 24 feet wide, was impaled by a sign in the parking lot that left a hole in its side, said Adam Rademacher, son of the owner of the famed Minnesota attraction.
In folklore, it was a storm that brought Babe and Paul Bunyan together. The legendary lumberjack fished the baby ox out of a Minnesota snowdrift, blue with cold.
Thursday’s storm may have temporarily blown them apart — the park’s iconic talking Bunyan statue was safely behind closed doors when the wind kicked up — but a fork lift, a front end loader and “a little surgery” soon put Babe back where he belonged, Rademacher said.
Minnesota has weathered its share of storms this summer. The past several months have seen tornadoes, flash floods, massive power outages, downed trees, baseball-sized hail, and now ox tipping.
There were no reported injuries across central Minnesota from Thursday’s storm, although there were reports of felled trees in Nisswa and McLeod County and winds blew a semitrailer off Hwy. 15 just south of Hutchinson, the National Weather Service reported.
The storm caused scattered flooding around the state, delayed flights at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and knocked out power to about 5,000 people in the metro area and points west.
Staff Writers Tim Harlow and Paul Walsh contributed to this report.The creator of one of the most popular Android software mod programs is now an employee of one of the largest Android smartphone manufacturers in the world.
Samsung Mobile has recruited Steve Kondik, creator of the highly popular CyanogenMod software, to work as a software engineer for the company.
"I will be working on making Android more awesome," Kondik wrote to tech blog AndroidandMe.
A Samsung spokesman confirmed Kondik's new employee status, but could not provide further details on the modder's position or duties.
Kondik refused a request for further comment. According to a screenshot of Kondik's Facebook page, however, his CyanogenMod software side project won't be a part of his new gig at Samsung.
For phone geeks, one of the biggest draws to Google's platform is Android's customizability. As Android emerged as the true competitor to Apple's iPhone over the past two years, the platform's "openness" became one of Google's main selling points. Unlike iOS, Android is available under an open-source software license, which means anyone who wishes to see the code behind the software can do so.
Kondik's CyanogenMod software was a perfect fit for Android. Essentially, CyanogenMod replaces the stock Android software with a custom build, allowing for adjustments to your phone that you wouldn't be able to make otherwise. From custom wallpaper to wireless tethering to even CPU overclocking, CyanogenMod became the official program for phone hackers since it was first released in 2009.
While Kondik says CyanogenMod and Samsung won't have anything to do with one another, it's easy to think his background in user interface tweaking and phone customization will influence Samsung's software design. Especially after the company sent Kondik and a number of other CyanogenMod hackers free Galaxy S2 handsets well before the wide release of the phone.
And Samsung has proved willing to experiment with its own Android software interface. The company's TouchWiz UI is also a custom version of Android, markedly different than the stock versions that come on other phones. In hiring Kondik, the company may go further with tricking out its own flavor of Google's mobile platform.
See Also:- Modders Make Android Work the Way You WantFor more than 30 years, Greece has been working, through diplomacy and public relations offensives, to regain the Elgin Marbles, sections of a decorative frieze that adorned the Parthenon until Lord Elgin ordered them removed in the early 19th century, during his tenure as British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. Years later, bankrupt, he sold them to the British Museum, where they have been a major attraction since 1816.
Today, almost two centuries on, many Greeks hope the opening of the museum will focus international attention on their country’s claim to the so-called Elgin Marbles, and put an end to Britain’s longtime argument that it is in a better position to look after those 2,500-year-old panels. Last week the Greek government turned down an offer from the British Museum for a three-month loan of the collection, because it came with the condition that the Greeks formally acknowledge British ownership.
“This is a nonstarter for any discussion,” Mr. Samaras said. “No Greek can sign up to that.”
The new museum, 226,000 square feet of glass and concrete designed by the New York architect Bernard Tschumi, replaces the old Acropolis Museum, a small 1874 building tucked into the rock of the Acropolis next to the Parthenon. The design, introduced in 2001, was meant to be completed in time for the 2004 Olympics, but dozens of legal battles — many having to do with some 25 buildings that were demolished to make room for it — delayed the process for years.
Even now, not all Athenians are happy with the building, wedged in as it is among apartment buildings in a middle-class residential district. “It is as if a titanic U.F.O. landed in the neighborhood, obliterating all of its surrounding structures,” said Nikos Dimou, a prominent Greek author.
Photo
The museum has five floors (including two basement levels that will not be open at first), which provide space for 4,000 artifacts, 10 times the number displayed in the old building. On the first level a glass floor offers visitors close-up views of an early Christian settlement, dating from the 7th to 12th centuries, that was discovered under part of the future building’s footprint during excavations in 2002.
The second floor, reached by a glass ramp, features a rich trove of free-standing objects from the archaic and classical periods. But it’s really the third and top floor — a glassy gallery — that Mr. Samaras and other Greeks hope will advance their country’s cause with Britain and the rest of the world.
Rotated 23 degrees off the axis of the lower floors to parallel the Parthenon itself, this rectangular glass enclosure feels dramatically different from the rest of the museum. Like a 21st-century surrogate of the monument looming above, it displays what remains in Greece of the original Parthenon sculptures and frieze, alongside plaster casts of the works in London. The contrast between the glaring whiteness of the copies and the ancient, honey-colored marbles makes for a powerful, and calculated, statement.
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“We wanted it this way,” said Dimitris Pandermalis, the museum’s director. “Who will fail to notice that a torso is here and a head in England?”
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Greece retains only 36 of the 115 original panels from the Parthenon frieze, which depicts a procession in honor of the goddess Athena. Britain has long asserted that when Lord Elgin chiseled off the sculptures some 200 years ago, he was acting legally, since he had permission from Greece’s Ottoman rulers. That legality, however, has been challenged by Greek scholars in recent years, with the government in Athens spurning it altogether.
“The claim is bogus,” said George Voulgarakis, a former Greek culture minister. “It’s like saying the Nazis were justified in plundering priceless works of art during the Second World War.”
In recent years Greece has tried to build international support for its repatriation campaign by going beyond mere demands, for example joining forces with Italy in 2007 to crack down on antiquities theft and nefarious art dealers who trade in looted works. At least 25 artifacts have lately come back to Greece, including fragments from the Parthenon frieze that were displayed for decades at museums in Italy, Germany and the Vatican.
So far the British Museum trustees have not seemed to be swayed, beyond the offer of the three-month loan.
Late on Friday, about 50 Greek demonstrators marched at the base of the Acropolis to protest the British Museum’s defiance.
“Enough with the excuses,” said Alexis Mantheakis, the protest organizer. “The Parthenon Marbles now have a new Greek home.”On earth, nuclear reactors are under attack because of concerns over damage caused by natural disasters. In space, however, nuclear technology may get a new lease on life.
Plans for the first nuclear power plant for the production of electricity for manned or unmanned bases on the Moon, Mars and other planets were unveiled today at the 242nd National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS).
James E. Werner, the project leader at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), said that innovative fission technology for surface power applications is far different from the familiar terrestrial nuclear power stations, which sprawl over huge tracts of land and have cooling towers and other large structures.
An artistâ??s concept of a fission surface power system on the surface of the Moon. Credit: Galaxy Wire
A fission reactor itself is about 1.5 feet wide by 2.5 feet high, roughly the size of a carry-on suitcase, according to Werner. And there are no cooling towers.
"A fission power system is a compact, reliable, safe system that may be critical to the establishment of outposts or habitats on other planets. Fission power technology can be applied on Earth's Moon, on Mars, or wherever NASA sees the need for continuous power," said Werner.
Nuclear fission power in space is actually old news. In 1965, the U.S. launched SNAP-10A, which was a 45 kWt thermal nuclear fission reactor that produced 650 watts using a thermoelectric converter. (It operated for 43 days before it was shut down due to a satellite malfunction--but remains in orbit today.)
Nuclear fission works by splitting uranium atoms to generate heat that is then converted into electric power. A fission power system contains components that are similar to those found in the commercial reactors currently in use: a heat source, power conversion, heat rejection and power conditioning and distribution. For space applications, however, nuclear fission features a number of differences compared with commercial reactors.
"While the physics are the same, the low power levels, control of the reactor and the material used for neutron reflection back into the core are completely different," Werner said. "Weight is also a significant factor that must be minimized in a space reactor that is not considered in a commercial reactor."
Sunlight and fuel cells were traditionally the mainstays for generating electricity for space missions, but engineers realized that solar energy has limitations. Solar cells do a great job supplying electricity in near-Earth orbits and for satellite-borne equipment, but nuclear power offers some unique capabilities that could support manned outposts on other planets or moons.
Werner explains:
The biggest difference between solar and nuclear reactors is that nuclear reactors can produce power in any environment. Fission power technology doesn't rely on sunlight, making it able to produce large, steady amounts of power at night or in harsh environments like those found on the Moon or Mars. A fission power system on the Moon could generate 40 kilowatts or more of electric power, approximately the same amount of energy needed to power eight houses on Earth. Nuclear power has the ability to provide a power-rich environment to the astronauts or science packages anywhere in our solar system and that this technology is mature, affordable and safe to use.
Werner contends that once the technology is developed and validated, it may prove to be one of the most affordable and versatile options for providing long-term base power for the space exploration programs.
The team is scheduled to build a technology demonstration unit in 2012.
The project is a collaboration between NASA and DOE.
Source: American Chemical Society
Related:
LCD screen harvests light to power devices Wireless power from space: energy salvation? Acts of space warfare likely by 2025Except for the areas in and around Silicon Valley and San Francisco, Orange County is enjoying the best jobs picture in the state. The latest numbers pegged unemployment at just 4 percent in March, less than half the rate as recently as 2011.
The O.C. rate also is 1.4 percentage points below the 5.4 percent statewide level. That continues a decades-long trend of our county being 1 percentage point or more below California’s joblessness. It pays to have a local tax and regulatory climate that’s less burdensome than in most of the rest of the state. Although, admittedly, Silicon Valley and San Francisco are on such a different plane technologically than the rest of the world, they can tolerate more liberal policies, albeit with median home prices of more than $1 million.
“The Orange County jobs growth will continue,” with 8,800 new jobs created in March, Anil Puri told us; he’s dean of Cal State Fullerton’s Mihaylo College of Business and Economics. “All sectors are growing. Construction has finally started to rev up and is the sector with the largest growth this year. We expect unemployment to keep going down slowly.” Historically, he said, it was 3.4 percent in 2006 and 3.9 percent in 2007, just before the economic card table collapsed. “But we’re not saying it will go all the way down to that level this time.”
The downside to the growth is housing affordability also is going down because even the new construction is not meeting the “huge demand,” Mr. Puri said. “Income is not going up at the same pace” as housing prices.
Slow income growth isn’t the only problem. On Saturday, Sports Chalet announced it was shuttering all its 47 stores, 40 of them in California and seven in Orange County. Online competition hurt. But the state’s business climate, including a 50 percent boost in the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2022, didn’t help. Not everyone can get a high-paying job in the technology and government sectors.
So it’s time to cheer the ongoing recovery – and time to remove the constraints on needed housing construction.Structured Logging for Python¶
Release v19.2.0.dev0 (What’s new?).
structlog makes logging in Python less painful and more powerful by adding structure to your log entries.
It’s up to you whether you want structlog to take care about the output of your log entries or whether you prefer to forward them to an existing logging system like the standard library’s logging module.
First steps:
If you’re not sure whether structlog is for you, have a look at Why….
is for you, have a look at. If you can’t wait to log your first entry, start at Getting Started and then work yourself through the basic docs.
and then work yourself through the basic docs. Once you have basic grasp of how structlog works, acquaint yourself with the integrations structlog is shipping with.CLOSE Outside Po's Bookstore in York, you can find three chess boards ready to play. Chris Dunn, York Daily Record
Kevin "Po" Bertram said nearly 200 people have signed up to play
Buy Photo Serenity Bey, 4, of York, eyes a chess move made by Mopreme Billingsley, 3, of York, outside Po's Bookstore in York. (Photo: Chris Dunn, York Daily Record)Buy Photo Story Highlights Players range in age from 3 to 84.
Some people sit outside the store playing for hours.
If you don't know how to play chess, you're welcome to come and learn.
You can kill, murder and kidnap, and it's all legal in a game of chess, Eric Leonard says from a downtown York sidewalk.
Leonard, 33, speaks passionately and, at times, romantically about chess from outside Po's Bookstore. It's an equal game, he says, and there's no luck involved.
Three games of chess were unfolding beside Leonard along South George Street as foot traffic picked up during a recent First Friday afternoon. Leonard had just finished playing some chess of his own.
The strategic board game can help take kids off the streets, Leonard suggests. If they want to be aggressive, they can be aggressive right here. "Put your mind to use on this jawn," he says, as if to challenge urban youth.
"All day chess" started a couple weeks ago, when bookstore owner Kevin "Po" Bertram set up a table outside his store, at 25 S. George St., inviting people to play. They played, and then they came back.
There are now nearly 200 members signed up — from ages 3 to 84 — and several games going on in a given day. If you don't know how to play, Po invites you to come and learn. There's usually someone there offering tutelage to beginners.
Police officers and sheriffs will walk by on their lunch breaks, Po says, and tell him they wish they could stop and play. He says he's received support from city officials and lawyers, people who like the way it looks for the city.
He wanted to do something positive and constructive for adults and children. Chess, he says, transcends cultures.
Tyrone Anderson, known as P-Zilla, tries to play at Po's twice a day. He stops by before and after working at McDonald's just down the street. Anderson, 42, grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and learned to play chess at Washington Square Park, in Lower Manhattan. He's grateful to be able to play chess in York.
Leonard grew up playing his neighbor, Emmanuel Brown, who was engaged in two games at once outside the bookstore last week. Brown, a 2002 William Penn graduate, says art is being integrated into York. "This is an opportunity to bring chess," he says.
Leonard says he got better at chess in prison. That's because in prison, you either read, play chess or do workouts.
"This is the Bible to some people," Leonard says. And the pieces are like family members.
He's the king, and his girlfriend is the queen. Rooks are like grandparents, Leonard explains. He compares knights and bishops to cousins, aunts and uncles. Pawns are like distant friends you haven't seen in a while. But when you call them up, they're there for you, he says.
Contact Mark Walters at 717-771-2032 or follow him on Twitter at @walt_walters.
Read or Share this story: http://on-ydr.co/29tXUa6The John Batchelor Show, November 21
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Nation contributing editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fourth year, are at TheNation.com. This installment is posted a few days later than usual because of the Thanksgiving holiday.) Ad Policy
In the 1990s, the Clinton administration embraced post-Soviet Russia as America’s “strategic partner and friend.” Twenty years later, the US policy establishment, from liberals to conservatives, insists that Russia under Vladimir Putin is the number-one threat to American national security. The primary explanation for this transformed perception, which began under President George W. Bush, became more insistent during the Obama administration, and is now a virtual bipartisan axiom, lies in Washington, not in Moscow. But whatever the full explanation, it is gravely endangering US national security by diminishing real threats and preventing the partnership with Russia needed to cope with them.
Pointing out that threats can be real, uninformed misperceptions, or manufactured by vested interests, Cohen argues that Russia is not even among the top five threats to the United States today. He lists the five he sees and explains why.
1. Russiagate. Since the late 1940s, when both the United States and the Soviet Union acquired atomic and then nuclear weapons, the first existential duty of an American president has been to avoid the possibility of war with Russia, a conflagration that could result in the end of modern civilization. Every American president has been politically empowered to discharge that duty, even during the most perilous crises, until now. The still unverified but ever-more-persistent allegations that President Trump has somehow been compromised by the Kremlin and may even be its agent are the number-one threat to America because they hinder, if not cripple, his ability to carry out that existential duty. Most recently, for example, his necessary negotiations with Putin to reduce US-Russian conflicts in Syria, and instead to cooperate in that country, were treated as “treasonous”—not by a successor publication of the John Birch Society but in the pages of The New York Times and elsewhere in the mainstream media. Thus, in a way somewhat less crude but no less uninformed or detrimental to US security interests, Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin accused Trump of “playing into Russia’s hands on Syria.” Still more, the foundational allegation of Russiagate is that “we were attacked by Russia” during the 2016 presidential election, an act likened to a “political Pearl Harbor.” What could be more reckless than to insist that we are already at war with the other nuclear superpower? Lest there is any doubt about the gravity of the real national-security threat represented by Russiagate, imagine President John F. Kennedy so burdened by such allegations during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. It is unlikely he could have negotiated its peaceful resolution as he did. And understand also that the new Cold War is fraught with such potential crises from the Baltic region and Ukraine to Syria.
2. The demonization of Putin. This too is unprecedented. No Soviet or post-Soviet leader was ever so wildly, baselessly vilified as Putin has increasingly been for more than a decade—and even more since a few selected members of a few US intelligence agencies claimed in January 2017, without making known any evidence whatsoever, that he personally ordered the “attack on America” in 2016. Demonizing Putin has become so maniacal that leading “opinion-makers” seem to think he is a Communist. Joy Reid of MSNBC actually said so, but more telling is the breathless warning of another Washington Post columnist, Dana Milbank, about “the red menace of Vladimir Putin’s Russia.” Milbank adds: “We were attacked by Russia—about this there is no doubt.” Consumers of the mainstream media may be excused for thinking that somehow the Soviet Communist “menace” has been reborn in Moscow, and indeed as an even more fearsome threat given the evil of its present-day leader. Even Trump’s own CIA Director, Mike Pompeo, evidently believes this utterly uninformed nonsense, or wishes us to do so. Warning that “we still face a threat from the Russians,” he explains: “They’re Russians, they’re Soviets.… pick a name.” Demonizing Putin is a ramifying threat. It is hard to imagine even the meager plausibility of Russiagate without such a master villain in the Kremlin. And it all but excludes, in effect delegitimizes, the national-security partner most needed by Washington—whoever sits in the Kremlin. This too is unprecedented in the nuclear age.
3. ISIS and other international terrorist organizations in pursuit of radioactive material to lace with their explosives. This actual threat would be number one if the US political-media establishment had not conjured up the preceding ones. Little more needs be said about this looming danger. Simply imagine even small quantities of radioactive material aboard the planes of 9/11, mixed with the bombs of Paris, Boston, and so many other cities, spewed in the air by the fiery explosions and borne by the wind—and wonder if those areas would be inhabitable today. This threat looms very large over Russia, the victim of so many terrorist acts since the 1990s. Now consider the value and willingness of Moscow as a security partner in this regard given its experiences, vast presence between East and West, and exceptional intelligence capabilities. This existential threat is verifiable. Russiagate and the demonization of Putin, which thwart such a partnership, are not. (P.S. In this context, the real significance of the purported scandal called “Uranium One” is whether any of that material is missing and, if so, where it is.)
4. The proliferation of states with nuclear weapons. In 1949, there were two. Today there are nine. And this in a new era of transnational ethnic and religious hatreds and wars, fanaticisms that could easily overwhelm the taboo against using such weapons. Iran and North Korea are not the only states capable eventually of acquiring nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. (Every time the United States militarily attacks a non-nuclear state, others feel the imperative to acquire them.) And, experts have long warned, the high-alert/hair-trigger status of American and Russian nuclear weapons is an accident waiting to happen. The best and most immediate national-security step President Trump could take today is to negotiate with Putin an end to that perilous status. Putin has indicated a willingness to do so. But would threats number one and two prevent President Trump from doing so?
5. Climate change—the science is sound and evident—and global income inequality, which breeds misery, resentments, fanaticism, and thus terrorism around the world. (According to recent studies, “The richest 1 percent of the world’s population now owns more than half of global wealth, and the top 10 percent owns about 90 percent.”) Cohen ranks these growing threats below the others because he is focused on what a US-Russian bilateral partnership could achieve. These two require a much larger international alliance and considerably more time.
Cohen ends by explaining why neither Russia nor China are on his list. Russia—because it represents no threat to the United States at all (apart from a nuclear accident or miscalculation), except those Washington and NATO have themselves created. China—because its historical moment as a very great power has come. It may be an economic and regional rival to the United States, but an actual threat (at least thus far) only if Washington also makes it one. The expanding alliance between Russia and China, itself significantly a result of unwise Washington policymaking, is a separate subject.A man has been arrested after a “gay-bashing” attack on Brighton seafront that left his victim with a broken jaw.
Sussex Police said that a 21-year-old man from London was held on suspicion of assault and causing grievous bodily harm (GBH) with intent.
The victim, Aaron Woods, 26, was taken to the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton after being attacked just before 5am on Sunday (8 May).
The former model was outside Legends, the seafront bar and hotel, when his attacker shouted homophobic abuse at him and punched him in the face.
Sussex Police said: “Police have arrested a man following a serious assault on another man in Madeira Drive, Brighton, which happened shortly before 5am on Sunday (8 May).
“The victim, a 26-year-old from Eastbourne, was approached by a man who used homophobic language before being punched in the face and suffering a broken jaw.
“A 21-year-old man from London was arrested on suspicion of assault and GBH with intent. He has been bailed until (Monday) 13 June.
“It follows an assault on Monday 2 May in which two men were attacked in King’s Road, Brighton, suffering head and facial injuries.
“Two 18-year-old men from Crawley were arrested on suspicion of GBH, ABH (actual bodily harm) and assault on police and have been bailed until (Tuesday) 5 July.
“Police are not linking the two incidents.”
Sergeant Peter Allan, the force’s hate crime officer said: “I am saddened to hear of the homophobic assaults in Brighton over the last two weekends.
“I am pleased, however, that the victims are recovering from their physical injuries and that prompt arrests were made in both cases.
“While we have not seen an increase in homophobic hate crimes, I would like to take this opportunity to encourage those who have been victims of hate crime to report them to us by phoning 101 or, in an emergency, 999.
“Reports can also be made online by completing the short form on the force website www.sussex.police.uk.”
Brighton LGBT liaison officer Rory Smith said: “Incidents of this nature are very concerning for the local LGBT community and to visitors to the city.
“While alarming, these recent incidents are thankfully not related and violent crime of this nature is relatively uncommon.
“We encourage everyone to remain vigilant to anti-gay sentiments by reporting incidents to police and our partners.
“If you don’t feel comfortable reporting hate incidents to police directly, organisations like the LGBT Community Safety Forum (01273 855620) and LGBT Switchboard (01273 204050) can make a report on your behalf.
“The LGBT police team in Brighton are on hand to support people to report hate crime and provide reassurance.”
A friend of the victim, Brian Markintosh, said that Mr Woods was 6ft 6in tall but said: “He’s such a gentle giant. He’s the kindest person you could imagine.
“This geezer broke his jaw with a knuckleduster. He was filming the young gay guys.
“And when he was attacking him he was shouting all this Muslim stuff but no one wants to hear that.”
Sussex Police said that it was not aware of any racial or religious element to the assault.
Mr Markintosh also said that the man who carried out the attack seemed to be drunk. He added: “Aaron was in so much pain. He was really screaming.”A new Oklahoma law that forces women who have had abortions to post details of the procedure online is being sharply criticized by women’s rights groups, and is now being challenged in court by two Oklahoma women.
As of November 1, doctors in Oklahoma will be compelled — under penalty of criminal prosecution — to post the details of each abortion they perform online. Among the details to be posted for every abortion is the patient’s age, marital status and race; her financial condition; her education; and the total number of her previous pregnancies.
In all, 37 personal questions will have to be asked and answered, and posted publicly for the world to see, under the new law.
“A friend said it best: It’s like undressing women in public, exposing their most personal issues on the Internet,” Lora Joyce Davis, one of the plaintiffs suing to prevent the law from coming into effect, told ABC News.
While the abortion patient’s name will not be published, “critics say the first eight questions alone could easily lead to the identification of a woman who lives in one of the state’s many small communities,” ABC reports.
Davis is convinced the lives of Oklahoma women who receive abortions will be threatened by the law, which is known as the Statistical Reporting of Abortions Act.
“Women who have abortions are considered murderers by many people, and you are going to put the name of a town of 200 and the fact that the girl is 17 and it’s her first pregnancy and she in the 10th grade. People are going to know who it is,” Davis said.
Davis, along with former state Rep. Wanda Jo Stapleton, filed the lawsuit with the help of the Center for Reproductive Rights. The lawsuit seeks to have the law declared unconstitutional under the Oklahoma Constitution because it covers more than one subject.
Jennifer Mondino, a lawyer for CRR, told the UK Guardian that the law is designed to “make women more nervous about going to [abortion] doctors.”
“The intent of this law is to further restrict access to abortions in Oklahoma,” she said. “There are a number of states that have a reporting requirement but not as broad and detailed as in Oklahoma. It’s very unusual to consider putting such detail about patients on a Web site.”
The law has come under extreme criticism from social activists. The Feminists for Choice blog declares the law invalid under the 1996 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
“A major goal of the Privacy Rule is to assure that individuals’ health information is properly protected while allowing the flow of health information needed to provide and promote high quality health care and to protect the public’s health and well being,” blogger Reyna writes. “This law does quite the opposite. Instead of protecting patients, this law puts these [women] in danger.”
“ |
and waved it like a flag to the delight of fans.
Sharon looked cutting in a black suit, and Louis already beamed for cameras and fans as they arrived to film the new series.
Even Simon managed to crack a small smile as he paraded in front of the screaming fans.
PA:Press Association 7 Sharon looked happy to be back on the panel, and even took a pay cut from US show The Talk in order to do so
He adopted his trademark uniform of jeans, white shirt and aviator sunglasses for the big launch event today.
The reunion comes after The Sun exclusively revealed the exit of judge Cheryl, who followed Radio One DJ Nick Grimshaw and singer Rita Ora to leave the panel bare.
Hundreds of fans gathered to welcome back the team to the helm.
PA:Press Association 7 Louis poses for the camera as he searches for someone with the X Factor
When Sharon and Louis were last on the panel together, they became famed for their cutting remarks to one another, with Sharon at one point chucking a glass of water over Louis during a live final.
Rex Features 7 Even Simon managed to crack a smile as he attended the first round of auditions
It was a move that was replicated by Britain’s Got Talent judge Amanda Holden last year after one too many jibes from David Walliams.
Got a story? email digishowbiz@the-sun.co.uk or call us direct on 02077824220Apple Earnings Highlights
Apple reached its goal of selling 10 million iPhones in 2008
Apple sold more iPhones this quarter than RIM did Blackberry’s
Apple sold more Macs this quarter (2.6 million) than they did in any other previous quarter
Apple set a record for most iPods sold in a non-holiday quarter
Apple will sell its 200 millionth app from the iPhone app store tomorrow
Apple today reported its Q4 earnings and posted revenue of $7.9 billion and earnings of $1.26 a share. Analysts were expecting revenue above $8 billion, but Apple was able to post an impressive profit of $1.14 billion on slightly lower than expected revenue, representing a 26% increase from Q4 of last year. Apple also reported that it sold over 2.6 million Mac’s, which represents a 17% increase over the same quarter a year ago. Apple Mac sales came in just below what analysts were expecting, with some predicting Apple would have a blowout quarter with Mac sales over 2.8 million. iPod sales were more or less in line with what analysts were expecting, coming in at just over 11 million iPods sold.
With respect to the all-important guidance that analysts look for, Apple noted that with today’s tough economic market, it’s difficult for them to predict what to expect in the future. As such, Apple didn’t provide specific guidance, but rather provided a range of guidance for the next quarter, informing investors to expect earnings anywhere between $1.06 to $1.35 per diluted share on revenue somewhere between 9 and 10 billion dollars.
In an Apple press release, Steve Jobs noted:
“Apple just reported one of the best quarters in its history, with a spectacular performance by the iPhone—we sold more phones than RIM. We don’t yet know how this economic downturn will affect Apple. But we’re armed with the strongest product line in our history, the most talented employees and the best customers in our industry. And $25 billion of cash safely in the bank with zero debt.”
Though Mac sales came in slightly lower than what some bullish analysts were expecting, 2.6 million Macs represents the most number of Macs Apple has ever sold in any quarter in its history. Moreover, Apple sold more iPhone’s in the past quarter than it had in all previous quarters combined. It was noted during the conference call that if Apple didn’t defer its iPhone revenue over a period of 24 months, then the iPhone would account for 39% of Apple’s revenue this quarter.
Points of interest from the conference call, with Steve Jobs making a surprise appearance:
Apple has already succeeded in selling more than 10 million iPhones during the 2008 calendar year, and there are still 2 months more to go.
11 million iPods is a record for a non-holiday quarter
The iPod continues to gain mp3 player market share
Over half of all Macs sold in retail stores were to customers new to Apple
Tax rate was lower than expected due to better than anticipated international sales
Over 65 million iTunes accounts
Steve Jobs notes that Apple will soon sell its 200 millionth app from the iPhone app store tomorrow
Apple has 25 billion dollars in the bank and no debt
Shipped iPhones to 51 countries this quarter
Apple doesn’t want to create a price umbrella under the iPhone
Margins this quarter were much better than expected
Sales to K-12 schools were down 7% year over year, and California school sales in particular were down 28% due to local economic conditions.
Shipments of Macs were lower, Apple believes, due to consumers waiting for product refresh. Saw considerable rebound in sales after new MacBook models were released last week.
Steve Jobs also noted that Apple outsold RIM this quarter (6.9 million iPhones vs. 6.1 million BlackBerrys), and he was pretty excited about it. “They’re a great company and they make great products.” Wow, you don’t hear Jobs giving props to other companies too often. He also noted that on revenue, Apple is the third largest handset manufacturer, “not bad for being in the market for only 15 months”.
There’s a question regarding Apple stock re-purchase, and what Apple is going to do with all its cash in the bank. Jobs mentions that now is a good time to be a company with money in the bank, doesn’t mention stock re-purchase, and is comfortable with Apple’s cash situation.
Steve Jobs is asked if he’ll be returning for future conference calls? “Not likely.” He says Tim and Peter do a great job.
Question regarding what percentage of iPhone sales were to new users vs. customers who were upgrading from first gen iPhones. Apparently that’s confidential information between Apple and AT&T
Apple will continue to expand iPhone expansion in other countries, with plans to be in over 70 by years end.
Another question about Apple’s cash and if it might acquire other companies – Jobs: “There will be significant opportunities”
In response to a question about cheaper Macs, Jobs noted “We don’t know how to make a $500 dollar computer that’s not a piece of junk” and that Apple focuses on delivering increased value in its products, not less.
Jobs: “We don’t try to be every thing to everybody”
Jobs: Apple TV is still a hobby, experimenting with it has slowed down. Believes it will continue to be a ‘hobby’ in 2009.
Steve Jobs, in response to a question about iPhone innovation and the potential for different models: “As software becomes the differentiating technology of this product category, people will find that 100 variations presented to a software developer isn’t very enticing.. We’re extremely comfortable with our product strategy, and we approach it as a software platform”
With respect to Netbooks, Jobs noted that it’s a nascent category, but Apple has some interesting ideas should it evolve
With respect to tablets and touchscreens, the response was, you guessed it, “We can’t talk about future products.”
And with that, the conference call is over!
After hours, Apple’s stock is up 12 points and is trading at 103.
2008
7.9 billion in revenue, or $1.26 per diluted share
2007
6.22 billion in revenue or $1.01 per diluted share
2006
4.84 billion in revenue or $.62 per diluted shareWest Ham have warned fans against racist behaviour when the Hammers play Tottenham on Monday.
The match, where the 20th anniversary of Bobby Moore's death will be marked, comes three months after anti-Semitic chanting marred the reverse fixture.
Hammers chairmen David Gold and David Sullivan issued a statement on Friday.
"We must be clear that we will pursue the harshest sanctions against any individual who goes against what we stand for as a club," they said.
Two West Ham fans accepted a police caution, and one of them was given a lifetime ban from matches for gestures made at the 25 November match which Spurs won 3-1.
The two cautioned supporters are understood to have made Nazi-style salutes aimed at Tottenham supporters, who traditionally have strong ties with London's Jewish community.
Hammers manager Sam Allardyce said: "I hope there's nothing untoward that happens in terms of chanting.
Reporting racism West Ham say fans can report any incidents to the nearest steward at the ground or use a phone number - 07860 404 069 - where calls will be treated in strict confidence
"Like everybody else we want to try to reduce it to its bare minimum. We'd like to cut it out completely but I don't think that's ever going to be the case when people get involved in emotional situations.
"But if we spot it, we've got to deal with it and hopefully there won't be any."
Jewish co-chairman Gold said after the match at White Hart Lane that West Ham would have a "zero tolerance" policy, in conjunction with the Metropolitan Police, towards racist behaviour.
The club say they have taken part in several initiatives aimed at tackling discrimination on the grounds of disability, race, sex, sexual orientation and religion.
"Any fan found to be acting inappropriately - including racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic behaviour - will be punished to the full extent of the law and banned from attending matches," said the statement.
At Monday's Premier League match, former team-mates will attend to pay tribute to ex-West Ham captain Moore, who led England to their 1966 World Cup win.
A minute's applause will be held before kick-off and supporters will display a mosaic depicting his old No.6 shirt.Revelation Online Open Beta Giveaway
Thanks to the generosity of My.com, we are giving out 10x Butterfly Wings, 15x Golden War Horses, and 20x Exuberant Growth Services.
Items
We are giving out three different items. You enter one contest for them, which one you win will depends on the draw but each person can only get one of the three items.
10x Butterfly Wings – Daytime White
15x Golden War Horses
20x Exuberant Growth Services (30 Days)
Daytime White Buttefly Wings
Golden War Horse
Exuberant Growth Services (Premium)
Contest
This contest is running from Wednesday March 8, 2017 from Noon Eastern to Wednesday March 15, 2017 Noon Eastern.
How to Enter
Use the Giveaway interface below to enter the giveaway. There are a couple of actions you can do to increase your chances as well so read all the entry options carefully.
Use this link to read about details about the game and make accounts: https://goo.gl/kq7e3U
Check here and your email on March 15/16 to see if you have won.
Contest Rules
One reward per person.
I reserve the right to cancel, terminate, modify or invalid contest entries if I suspect security, fairness or proper conduct has been compromised
Any person found to be tampering with the entry process will be disqualified
Winners will be notified by email so make sure to provide a valid email address.
Contest Winners
10x Buttefly Wings
Cory Leuck
Amanda White
Mazznight69
Albi
Thomas Zamblauskas
Jason Piasecki
Karl Wahrenberg
Blackmint
Kissxaku
Herdcalf
15x Golden War Horse
Mostafa Champion
Kirsten Banham
Andrew Crawford
whowhere whatwhen
Medeniya Bobby
Dalton Hollins
Tal On
Hmmwhatwh
Nierpotao
Yukilydia
Jason Parker
Chavez Mooney
war_cipher
Stephanie H
Dehvi Blint
20x Exuberant Growth Services (30 Days)Foraging for wild edibles has been a part of being human since prehistory, and is vital for the survival of many people to this day. While foraging has been a basic human action, being traditionally taught in many indigenous communities, many civilized individuals do not know where to begin, especially if currently residing in an urban area.
Why forage? The natural human diet is to eat what is around you, for obvious purposes. Foraging reduces the pollution required in the manufacturing and use of vehicles used for transportation of plants, especially overseas. Wild edibles, depending on how industrial your area is, are typically healthier, cleaner, and organic. For those of you who like to know the origins of your food, it is much easier when you are finding it yourself rather than relying on another party. Other benefits include that foraging for local, wild edibles does not require destruction of the habitat, as you are not uprooting native species in order to plant and harvest non-native species and therefore preserves the diversity of an ecosystem, due to enjoying what is already there around you. Depending on who you are as an individual, foraging can also be a quite spiritual experience as you connect with nature,the plant as a fellow organism, “god’s creation,” your ancestors (as you emulate their natural behaviors), a theriotype or animal energy to be channeled, etc.
Before wandering off into your backyard and eating your lawn, you first need some basic knowledge of botany. This can be acquired most optimally by a combination of reading, hands-on experience with plants, and guidance by an experienced local who already has the necessary knowledge. Any gardening clubs, local landscaping organizations,native plant conservation centers, etc would also be useful.
Here is a basic outline of things to keep in mind when foraging.
Toxicity and Allergies: If you have come across a plant that closely resembles one you know to be edible, but the plant in question has many look-alikes that might be toxic, it is important to perform an edibility test. This is done by first crushing the plant and rubbing it on a small patch of skin on your inner arm or back of hand for 10-15 minutes. After this, wait a few hours to see if any reaction has occurred (rash, swelling, itching, etc). Next, if there has been no negative reaction, place the plant to your closed lips for 3-5 minutes. If there is any tingling, itching, or otherwise unusual sensation, discard the plant. If there has been no reaction thus far, you may chew the plant. Hold the chewed plant in your mouth, without swallowing, for about 10 minutes and wait for any reaction. After this, you may swallow the plant and wait a few hours for a reaction. If none occurs, eat 1/4 of the plant and wait a few hours. If you have no suffered from any ill effects thus far, the plant is probably the edible one which you have thought to have identified.
If you have come across a plant that closely resembles one you know to be edible, but the plant in question has many look-alikes that might be toxic, it is important to perform an edibility test. This is done by first crushing the plant and rubbing it on a small patch of skin on your inner arm or back of hand for 10-15 minutes. After this, wait a few hours to see if any reaction has occurred (rash, swelling, itching, etc). Next, if there has been no negative reaction, place the plant to your closed lips for 3-5 minutes. If there is any tingling, itching, or otherwise unusual sensation, discard the plant. If there has been no reaction thus far, you may chew the plant. Hold the chewed plant in your mouth, without swallowing, for about 10 minutes and wait for any reaction. After this, you may swallow the plant and wait a few hours for a reaction. If none occurs, eat 1/4 of the plant and wait a few hours. If you have no suffered from any ill effects thus far, the plant is probably the edible one which you have thought to have identified. Trespassing and Location: When foraging, it is safest to keep it to public areas like parks, or your own property. It is also best to avoid heavily industrialized areas, the roadside, or places that might be contaminated with chemicals (including insect repellents or herbicides).
When foraging, it is to keep it to public areas like parks, or your own property. It is also best to avoid heavily industrialized areas, the roadside, or places that might be contaminated with chemicals (including insect repellents or herbicides). Dosage or Quantity: Many plants are edible, and healthy…but only in the right amount. Too much of a good thing can be a dangerous thing, so keep your diet of wild edibles varied, only consuming small amounts of a greater variety of plants (if possible.)
Many plants are edible, and healthy…but only in the right amount. Too much of a good thing can be a dangerous thing, so keep your diet of wild edibles varied, only consuming small amounts of a greater variety of plants (if possible.) Warning Signs : If you have already started a basic study of botany, this should be knowledge you already have. If not, I can assure you that you will learn it again soon. But all in all, plants that have a milky sap, spines or fine hairs, glossy leaves, or an “almond-like” scent are best to be avoided, especially if you cannot or are unsure of how to identify them. If you are new to foraging, it is best to avoid mushrooms and fungi altogether.
: If you have already started a basic study of botany, this should be knowledge you already have. If not, I can assure you that you will learn it again soon. But all in all, plants that have a milky sap, spines or fine hairs, glossy leaves, or an “almond-like” scent are best to be avoided, especially if you cannot or are unsure of how to identify them. If you are new to foraging, it is best to avoid mushrooms and fungi altogether. Age : Some plants, or parts of a plant, are only safe to eat when they are at a certain level of maturity. This is most often when it is only safe to consume young leaves, sprouts, or an otherwise young plant. Most wild edibles tend to become more bitter with age.
: Some plants, or parts of a plant, are only safe to eat when they are at a certain level of maturity. This is most often when it is only safe to consume young leaves, sprouts, or an otherwise young plant. Most wild edibles tend to become more bitter with age. Preparation: Different plants require different means of preparation before they can be safely consumed. I personally prefer putting a higher priority on those that can be consumed raw, as in times of desperation, I will know where to turn first and it is generally convenient. Some plants need a different mode of preperation for different parts of it, as well.
AdvertisementsIn early April, news that Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey would be evaluated at season's end along with interim coach J.B. Bickerstaff opened the door for opponents of analytics to be critical of the situation in Houston.
Morey has been vocal in his belief that analytics help teams make smarter basketball decisions. With the Rockets struggling to make the playoffs this season and putting up little fight against a Warriors team dealing with Stephen Curry's injury situation, it's to be expected that vultures would strike. The Charles Barkleys of the world can continue arguing that Morey’s lack of a championship during his tenure is proof that analytics do not work in basketball. But those sentiments aren't worth worrying about anymore. (Note: I know Daryl and he has always been very generous to me, so I do have personal concern for him and his family.)
It is not that the vultures won’t be out -- they will be out in force. But using analytics in NBA front offices and on the benches is essentially a settled matter. Those who are not comfortable with analytics or who dislike Morey personally will say the same uninformed things, but the truth is that analytics, as part of how basketball operations work in the NBA, are here to stay.
While Morey was an early adopter of analytics, he is no longer the only GM incorporating advanced data into decision-making. Far from it.
Consider the following:
Ten years ago, four or five teams had either one full-time or one part-time consultant. Today, all 30 NBA teams have at least one full-time staffer whose primary responsibility is analytics, and most teams have an analytics staff that consist of at least three full-timers.
Ten years ago, most analysts were either part-time consultants or had titles such as basketball operations analyst; now, teams have VPs and directors of analytics who manage a staff.
The San Antonio Spurs, who have been a leader in the NBA in using analytics, recently added to their robust analytics staff by hiring Kirk Goldsberry at the VP level.
Of the five teams given the best chance to win the championship this year by ESPN's Basketball Power Index, all have made significant investments into analytics and utilize them in front office and coaching decisions.
Salaries for analytic personnel are growing significantly. While teams previously demanded analytics specialists work for peanuts, recent hirings have demonstrated that salaries have increased significantly.
Ten years ago, players were mostly discussed in terms of points, rebounds and assists per game; now, efficiency numbers are used commonly in NBA offices and by fans.
The most glaring data point that illustrates the impact of analytics on the NBA is 3-point attempts. Three-point shots were identified early by analysts as an underutilized tool because they were far more efficient than midrange 2-point shots. Since the 1999-2000 season, 3-point attempts have increased by 55 percent. Even after subtracting all of the Warriors' attempts this season, the NBA set a single-season record for 3-point attempts in 2015-16.
The anti-analytics crowd will argue that you can’t make basketball decisions by data alone. That is a false argument. No proponent of analytics -- Morey included -- would suggest that using only data is any way to build a team. Coaches, scouts, and general managers have a wealth of vital information and expertise that is not reflected in the data.
At its core, good analytics provide another piece of information, and most hyper-competitive front office personnel and coaches have learned that having more information than your opponent can provide a competitive advantage.
The state of analytics in the NBA is strong, with no small credit belonging to Morey himself.I've played both of these games. They both have some pretty spectacular songs. Now, I'm a pretty big nut when it comes to songs in games. I like listening to them in game and then out of the game to see how it sounds both ways. This is just a personal labor of love, but I'm going to break the songs into categories and then describe/rate them. I will link the songs to their respective youtube pages, but I hope it doesn't count as youtube spam if I describe what I do/don't like about them after the fact. I will also pick personal winners from each category followed by an overall best OST at the end. (I don't really rate the lyrics, because they are kind of all over the place)
Feel free to choose your own if you like!
Best Opening Theme Song
Burn My Dread (P3) - This song is really catchy and sets up the tone to a point. It's really just a kick-ass song, and also sets a tone of desperation and despair.
Persona 3 FES Opening Theme - ***SOME SPOILERS*** This song starts off setting a better mood than the first one. It then gets pretty wild in JPOP fashion, but still keeps that jazzy feel. I feel that the beginning sets the moody tone in a game that focuses on capturing a dark tone centered around death.
Persona 4 Opening Theme - This song hooked me from the very beginning. It has a seriously catchy jingle, but then goes into a smooth pop song that's really easy to listen to. It manages to keep themes of mellow, relaxing times and mystery/noire.
WINNER - Persona 3 FES Opening Theme.
This was the hardest category for me, because each of the songs were so damn good. It's hard, because the tone difference in Persona 3 to Persona 3 is a big one. But I feel that the FES Theme starts capturing the desperation felt all throughout the game, then introduces the need to fight back with the Japanese tough guy rap, and then leads to some jazzy music which goes well with the high school music throughout the game. It also manages to capture it all in under two minutes.
Best Battle Music
Mass Destruction (P3) - The jazz intro to this song is extremely well done and a nice primer for battle. The Japanese tough guy rapping (pokemon show style) is okay, but the part after that, "oooh yeah, baby baby" is probably the best and catchiest part. It doesn't really say straight out "Okay you're fighting now", but still pumps you up in the same way.
Reach out to the Truth (P4) - This song straight out, unlike the previous, says "Okay, fighting time!". The electric guitars evoke that tone, but the melodic fun tunes in the background, as well as the silly Japanese school girl rapping, still make it fun.
WINNER - TIE
This is also a hard category, because each song does its job but in different ways. Both are great and silly in their own ways. Sorry if this category felt like a waste of time, but I just can't make a decision on this one.
Best Suspicious Theme
The Voice Someone Calls (P3) - This is a very moody, somewhat melodramatic song that evokes mystery and suspense.
Who's There (P4) - This song is a prime example of doing exactly what the name suggests. It really does make you ask, "Who's There?". The little piano part ends at just the right time before it can get irritating. The later part is a great follow up to the piano jingle that seems right out of a mystery cartoon.
WINNER - Who's There
This one was tough, because while I'd like to listen to "The Voice Someone Calls" more than Who's There outside of the game, "Who's There" better exemplifies mystery and asks more of a question. The other song tends to evoke more sorrow than mystery at times.
Best Dungeon Music
Tartarus Block 4 (P3) - Persona 3 is an interesting case when it comes to the dungeon music. Each floor of the huge dungeon that you go through in the entire game adds a little bit more to the overall song. Floor 1 will start slow and by Floor 4 it starts feeling like it will by the end. It's cool, but I didn't really notice the changes as much as I did when I listened to the songs outside of the game.
Castle (P4) - This is the song to the first dungeon you go through in the game. It mixes the romantic tones that the castle stands for, but also hits the "hey, let's finish this" feeling that you get while exploring it.
Sauna (P4) - This song sounds nothing like how I'd imagine a sauna would sound like. However, it matches the exact sounds I'd think of if I and a group of people were invading a shady-looking sauna killing shadow monsters and trying to rescue someone. A kickass song!
WINNER - Sauna
This song is just a blast. It makes you want to kick down each door and kill every shadow in the joint! It also has that shady feel that matches the weird nature of actually going in there in the first place. Plus, it reminds me of Streets of Rage 2, and you can't really top that.
Best Fun Song (Huge Category!)
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During the Test (P3) - I believe this song actually does play when you're taking midterms. It is definitely pretty easy going and great test taking music. I don't know, I just really like this song. Bring on the Jazz!
Iwatodai Station (P3) - This song actually plays when you enter the dorm. It's so damn catchy and oozes that jazzy style that is Persona 3. "Dance! While I put you in a Trance!". Done.
Joy (P3) - This song, I think, plays right when you're walking to school listening to the gossiping students. It's either this one or Afternoon Break, but they are both great, jazzy contrasts to the drearier music and tones found in the rest of the game.
Polonian Mall (P3) - This song plays when you're shopping for items. It's, again, another catchy song, but it really does feel like the kind of song you'd hear in a department store.
Want to be Close (P3) - Oh...my...God this category is so damn big. Damn you Persona 3 for your catchy-ass music...and thank you.
New Days (P4) - FINALLY a Persona 4 song. This one is catchy, but simple. It has that department store sound. Maybe even an elevator song. Still, it's a nice, relaxing song.
Your Affection (P4) - This song get's great when the singing starts. It's mellow but has a nice beat that makes you bob your head. I wish there were more songs like this in Persona 4.
Heartbeat, Heartbreak (P4) - Another catchy song that has a nice'singing to the beat' style. Again, need more songs like this!
WINNER - Persona 3...wins...everything in this category...ugh.
ECLIPSES! Persona 4 definitely had some catchy songs, but Persona 3 just has too many! I had to go back and delete some, because the list was huge. They are all amazing and lovable, and I just can't get over how many there are! WOW. In the end, we're all winners, because both games have some terrific, fun songs.
Best Slow Song
Living with Determination (P3) - This is a nice piano song. It has that sad tone, but also a touch of happiness and the ability to overcome. A nice piece this one is - Yoda?
Memories of the School (P3) - This is a nice song to reminisce with. It really does match the title.
Tranquility (P3) - A great slow version of a song already on the OST. It's a little faster than most, but I still like it and it's still relaxing.
Traumerei (P4) - This is an amazing song that everyone should listen to. I'm a huge fan of the piano. Persona 4 definitely doesn't have as many good slow songs as Persona 3, but it really doesn't need them after this song. So much heart.
EDITED IN: Maiya (P3) - Thanks to the person who posted asking why this wasn't in there. It probably should be, it's great.
WINNER - Traumerei
Just listen to the song. It's amazing. Category. Over.
Best End Boss Music
The Battle for Everyone's Souls (P3) - A really hard hitting song. It's, well, it's just hardcore. Rock out and save the world! That's pretty much what it's evoking.
The Almighty (P4) - Persona 4 also has songs like The Genesis and others, but this one fits well as a final boss battle as well. I like it.
WINNER - The Battle for Everyone's Souls
It's an epic song that matches the proportions and what's at stake in the last fight. The game has so much emotion and dread throughout that the hard rock sounds are perfect for finally facing the last boss.
Best Ending Song
Memories of You (P3) - A great way of saying, "Hey you did it. You saved everyone". Also allows the player to reminisce on everything that's happened.
Never More (P4) - A feel good song that matches how the game ends. It definitely matches the tone of the game.
WINNER - TIE
Both songs are representative of how the games played out. They both had drastically different tones and themes, and both songs matched them.
The End
Thanks for reading through if you did. I spent a lot of time picking out and listening to the very best songs from each game over and over again. I love the soundtracks to both games as well as the games themselves. This was mainly for myself as a reflection of both games, but feel free to listen to or give your favorite Persona songs. Again, thanks for spending the time on this, because I spent a long time on this as well. (If there are any mistakes made, please contact me via PM. Thank You.)Just so much news this week that is right in the Co-Main Event Podcast’s wheelhouse, you guys. Seriously, sometimes it seems like the MMA Gods are scripting this shit just so Ben and Chad can poke fun of it on their weekly podcast. From Jose Aldo’s broken, not broken ribs to Yoel Romero maybe, possibly warning people not to go with “Gay Jesus,” this week was a doozy. But the MMA world’s depressingly unbelievable weirdness is your gain. On this episode, your dudes talk up all that stuff, plus wonder about the future of the 37-year-old Lyoto Machida, who dropped to 1-3 in his last four at the hands of Romero last Saturday.
All that, plus AYFKM and Just Sayin’ Stuff.
Direct downloaders can choke a strength coach with an elastic workout band right here.Toxic people are found all around us. They are at work the like colleague who has it in for you and hates seeing you succeed. They at your kids school those moms who always try to outshine the other the mom that pushes their kids to the breaking point just, so they can get all the attention. The family member that always has some form of drama that they want to involve you in that completely wears you out every time you interact with them. All these people can easily be compared to energy vampires depleting us of our attention and energy. What all these individuals have in common is toxicity, and it’s unbearable to spend time with them.
Their primary goal is to cause havoc and drama in our lives for they feed off it. They add no value to your live neither do they inspire or enrich. Toxic people are highly destructive. Unfortunately, toxic people don’t come with a label, and it takes time to recognize them. It’s vital to protect yourself against them and learn how to deal with them successfully. To be able to note of a Toxic person you will have to familiarize yourself with their toxic traits.
Luckily there are several easy-to-spot signs that, when you’re aware of them, enable you to pick them out a mile off.
Toxic people always need to be right.
There need to be right surpasses any form of truth or common sense. They hate being proven wrong and will fight you tooth and nail to prove there point until you finally agree with them. Your opinion does not matter to them at all; It’s all about them all the time. The only time they will agree with you or take your side if it’s to their benefit. They hate if good luck passes your way, everything should be about them. It kills them if you get noticed, and they don’t.
Toxic people love playing the card.
They never take ownership of their problems and always blame others for mistakes and things going wrong in their lives. They love having your attention and will do anything to keep it even creating problems for you to solve as that gives them validation. Their problems never get solved it only escalates to more drama. They live off your sympathy and support and don’t mind lying or manipulation situations, people and events to retain it.
Toxic people never say anything good about anyone.
They have no idea what the word loyalty means and will gossip about everyone to everyone who is willing to lend an ear. We all have our faults, but they thrive of letting others know exactly what yours are and if it’s not bad enough they don’t mind adding a tale to make it more exciting or to make them look good or portray them as the victim. Running others down comes naturally to them, and they are doing the same to you behind your back.
Toxic people are evasive.
They will lie at the drop of a hat and find strength in breaking others down. They have entirely no backbone and will avoid questions that implicate them to such a level that the truth gets twisted until no one is sure what going on anymore. They use control tactics to cover up inadequacy. They are master manipulators and will sabotage anyone who gets in their way. They will never give you a straight answer and will overcomplicate any situation or project if they are not in the spotlight or if someone else is better at it than them.
Toxic people are bad listeners and continuously interrupt others.
They can make every conversation about them and when something terrible has happened to someone be sure that something similar or worse happened to them. Toxic people will talk over anyone and will not give people a chance to talk about anything that does not include them. Intellectual conversations will bore them, and they will find a way to turn the conversation or act to know better even if they have no knowledge about the topic and when they do get called out for talking hogwash they will be evasive and leave or play the victim card again.
Toxic people are abusive.
They can justify their abusive action to make you feel that you deserved it. The truth, however, is no person who is abusive is a good person regardless if its verbal abuse, mental abuse or physical abuse and nothing you do or say can ever justify that full stop. They are unable to take responsibility for there actions and will even go as far as blaming a childhood trauma or a mental blackout to justify the situation or abusive act. If you are in an abusive relationship with a toxic person you need to get out of the situation as fast as possible cause it will only escalate over time.
How to deal with a toxic person.
Control your emotions – do not get overwhelmed by a toxic person and don’t let them get under your skin or get any reaction out of you. Detach yourself the situation and focus on your own goal. This will help you to distance yourself from the toxic storm.
Know when to fight back- impulsiveness and aggression are fights to stay away from. Don’t try and beat them at their own game; they will pull you down to their level and then beat you with” experience.”
Set boundaries- This means absolutely nothing to a toxic person, but by being consistent and true to yourself they will soon notice that they do not affect you. Even when they do never show weakness as it will only empower them, you can’t kick a lying dog. They will move on and a new victim
Reduce your exposure to toxic people– they easiest way to |
ANDRA (Selectia Nationala 2016).
The complete list looks like this:
This weekend (Friday-Sunday) the live auditions will take place at TVR studios in Bucharest. All the auditions will be broadcasted in a show starting February 5th until February 11th on TVR 2, TVR HD, TVR Moldova and TVR International from 20.00 local time.
Sunday February 12 during a LIVE show the jury will reveal all 15 semifinalists from Selectia Nationala 2017. The show will be braodcasted from 20.00 local time on TVR2, TVR HD, TVR Moldova and TVR International.
Luminiţa Anghel, Ovi Jacobsen, Paula Seling, Adrian Romcescu and Andrei Tudor will be the jury to select the semifinalists.
(Paula Seling & Ovi – from ESC 2014)
Not all the songs have been yet revealed but we can give you a little taste from Selectia Nationala. Enjoy!
Are you looking forward to hear all the songs? Could Romania come back as a strong contender this year?
Author: Bogdan Stefan
Source: TVR, Eurovision IrelandZombie: A deceased human being who has partially returned to life due to undeterminable causes.
I don’t know about you, but I have had about enough of our undead friends to last me a lifetime. Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge fan of zombie movies. It’s just that because of overexposure and a constant tweaking to the mythos to keep it “fresh”, I have become a little jaded. They don’t make them like Romero used to, before he went all independent and deeply disappointing.
In the 1980s, the zombie onslaught was everywhere: on our televisions, adverts and music videos, which led to an eventual lack of interest from the public and a whole lot of “meh”. Once there were dancing zombies in Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’, being scared by them ever again seemed liked a hard task.
Zombies almost completely disappeared from our media until 2004 when the both excellent Shaun of the Dead and Dawn of the Dead were released, with the latter doing a lot to introduce “fast” zombies to a new modern audience. Replacing shuffling, sometimes laughable slow zombies with sprinting lunatics did a lot to revitalise the perception of the undead as legitimate monsters once again.
However, fastforward ten years and the perception of zombies feels like it’s shifting again. An abundance of zombie-related media has meant that what exactly makes a reanimated cadaver is now more debatable than ever: some of them can talk, use tools, retain some of their humanity, not to mention their “rules” regarding what they can and cannot eat. Some of them aren’t even dead to begin with. It’s a creative free-for-all.
That’s not to say that there hasn’t been some truly innovative and original ways of showing brain-eating and marrow gnawing on our screens lately. It just so happens that for every Land of the Dead, we get fifty Volcano Zombies. With the surely imminent death knell of the modern zombie craze not too far away, I decided to take a look at some of the best zombie movies of the 21st century — whether they feature slow zombies, fast zombies, or questionably even zombies at all — so far.
The Best Zombie Movies
33. Warm Bodies (2013)
WATCH: BR | DVD | Rent
I was in two minds whether or not two include Warm Bodies on this list of the best zombie movies, purely because it’s so “Disney-fied”. Compared to other undead offerings, it’s incredibly tame and marketed towards a teenage audience — it’s like a better version of Twilight but with zombies. Still, it has some great moments and Nicholas Hoult’s zombie friend is a standout. If you’re looking for something to watch with a squeamish partner, Warm Bodies is a safe pick.
32. World War Z (2013)
WATCH: BR | DVD | Rent
World War Z is a movie that gets dramatically worse with every watch. At the cinema, I thought it was quite the ridiculous but fun spectacle. After watching it a few times since, how out of touch it is with its source combined with the troubled production coming through at some points sent it down in my estimations. Plus, that Pepsi scene was gross. Watch it once when you’re drunk, maybe, and pray to God that Fincher steps in for the sequel.
31. Bong of the Living Dead (2017)
Yeah, it’s dumb. You should kind of get that almost immediately from its name. But Bong of the Living Dead is still a lot of fun. A low-budget zombie movie, what Bong lacks in terms of technical quality, it makes up for it in terms of laughs and unexpected scares. When a group of stoners light one up and start discussing the zombie outbreak, exactly that happens. Don’t go into it expecting the second coming of Romero and you will have a lot of fun.
30. The Cured (2017)
As derivative of the BBC’s criminally under-watched In The Flesh and the actually just bad The Returned as The Cured may be, it’s still a tense and emotional time that tries its best to create parallels with modern times and terrorism. When a cure is found to return zombies to their human state and back into society, it’s not all smooth sailing as one of “the cured” returns to his family home harbouring a dark secret. Featuring some great performances, particularly from Ellen Page, The Cured asks some potent questions but just labours under the weight of it being too similar to what preceded it. A worthwhile watch all the same.
29. Here Alone (2016)
WATCH: DVD | Rent
Here Alone starts off strongly with plenty of intrigue as a lone woman makes a simple living for herself in the woods. The tension is always bubbling and threatening to boil over in the post-apocalypse, leading to plenty of anticipation for the reveal of the zombies, who are…terrible. As soon as their weak designs appear on-screen for the first time, the whole thing bottoms out. It’s all downhill from that, featuring some terrible plot advancement and some very ropey sequences, but if you could bottle the first half an hour of Here Alone, you might have a small zombie movie gem on your hands.
28. The Rezort (2015)
WATCH: DVD | Rent
Is The Rezort a good movie? Not particularly. Does it do anything different to what we’ve seen a hundred times already? Well, it’s Jurassic Park with zombies. When you boil down its premise to just that succinct little tagline, it’s clear that this isn’t a movie you should take too seriously. Sure, it looks cheap at the worst of times and some of the acting veers into melodrama, but as a zombie movie, it’s effective escapism that might take you by surprise.
27. Maggie (2015)
WATCH: BR | DVD | Rent
A popularly conflicting movie, Henry Hobson’s Maggie is a fascinating look into the deterioration of a young girl’s humanity as she gradually becomes one of the undead. Her father, played spectacularly by Arnold Schwarzenegger, does everything in his power to keep her safe and away from the inevitable. Not one for action fans, Maggie is instead an introspective look at love and what it means to be human.
26. Resident Evil (2002)
WATCH: BR | DVD | Rent
This movie could have been so much better – if it had stuck closer to the games it was based upon, that would have been a start. Despite dispatching of most of its cast in the feeblest way possible instead of making them undead chow, Resident Evil has a few good moments of zombie action. Shame the rest of its is such a bizarre hodge-podge of nu-metal music videos and slow-motion, then.
25. Diary of the Dead (2007)
WATCH: BR | DVD | Rent
Just before the found footage subgenre reached its peak, the late, great George A. Romero released his spin on things with Diary of the Dead, which, somehow took place in the same timeframe as Night of the Living Dead. Featuring plenty of memorable moments (Amish farmer, anyone? but a lack of consistent quality, Diary of the Dead is certainly watchable but nowhere near the top of Romero’s zombie filmography.
24. Dance of the Dead (2008)
WATCH: BR | DVD | Rent
One of the zombie movies that is dumber than Harry and Lloyd rolling around in nuclear waste talking about creationism. That’s not necessarily a bad thing as Dance of the Dead doesn’t make the mistake of taking itself seriously for even a second. A light-hearted effort centred around a zombie outbreak during a high school prom and you can fill in the blanks about what happens next.
23. The Dead (2010)
WATCH: BR | DVD | Rent
The Ford brothers’ 2010 African adventure is a movie that I staved off watching for the longest time. It’s been polarisingly received by zombie movie fans, who might not have appreciated its slower tempo and more hesitant approach to a world filled with the undead. If you can deal with not having action sequences every five minutes, The Dead takes a leaf out of the Romero guidebook and it works wonders for it. The sequel ain’t so hot, though.
22. Land of the Dead (2005)
WATCH: BR | DVD | Rent
George A. Romero’s long-awaited return to his classic zombie series might not rank as his best, but it still has a strong political undercurrent which sets it apart from similar fare. America’s War on Terror is a big inspiration for events here and contributes towards a smarter, more accessible effort than 1985’s Day of the Dead that still ends up as an arguably inferior but great watch nonetheless.There are a lot of moving parts in the nearly 500-page tax bill making its way to President Donald Trump's desk for signature. But there are a few major provisions — from where you live to how much you make — that will go a long way to determining how much you'll have to pay.
To better show the impact of these factors, analysts at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy crunched the numbers and came up with an estimate of how individual households may fare under the new rules.
These estimates aren't definitive; the new rules are so complex that two taxpayers in the same neighborhood with the same household income could see very different tax bills. But numbers provide a broad look at where the burden of the tax changes will fall.
The average of any collection of data often masks the range of impact on individuals. If the average temperature in the United States is 55 degrees, for example, that offers little comfort to someone in Minneapolis in February or Miami in August.
In the same way, the tax effect on households will be as unique as their personal finances. With dozens of changes in tax rates, credits, exemptions and exclusions, the only way to know for sure is to check with an accountant, once the final bill is written.
Still, there are some major variables that will have a big impact in determining how tax reform hits your household budget. If you're paying a lot of state and local income and property taxes, for example, you could owe a lot more if those popular deductions go away.
A lot also depends on where you fall on the income ladder; in general, the more you make, the more you'll save on taxes if the Republican tax plan becomes law.
The plan covers a 10-year span, with the biggest cuts coming in the early years. That's why some people who may see a tax cut in 2019 could see their taxes rise again by 2027.After all of the hooting and hollering in North Carolina over the Charlotte “transgender bathroom issue” and the state response with HB2, was it all for nothing? Was this just a stunt by the Democrats which they were willing to abandon as soon as the election was over and their candidate had won the governorship? They’re saying it’s not, but the evidence seems to be pointing in the other direction. While everyone else was focused on the Electoral College, Charlotte turned around and repealed the ordinance with the state legislature saying that they would, in turn, repeal HB2. Let’s all smash our heads into our desks in unison, shall we? (Charlotte Observer)
Following a surprise move by the Charlotte City Council, Gov. Pat McCrory said Monday he would call a special session to consider repeal of House Bill 2… Earlier, Gov.-elect Roy Cooper said legislative leaders have promised to call a special session Tuesday. “Senate Leader Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore assured me that as a result of Charlotte’s vote, a special session will be called for Tuesday to repeal HB 2 in full,” Cooper said in a statement. “I hope they will keep their word to me and with the help of Democrats in the legislature, HB2 will be repealed in full. Cooper’s statement followed the Charlotte City Council’s 10-0 vote Monday morning to rescind the LGBT ordinance that prompted HB 2.
There have been so many iterations of the court challenges surrounding this brouhaha that it’s easy to lose track. There was an injunction granted earlier this year, but another judge stepped in to reverse part of that decision. A court date was set for next year, but everyone was waiting to see what would happen with a separate case in Virginia which is supposed to be heard before the Supreme Court.
So with all of this hot courtroom action going on, how did everyone in the state suddenly decide to go all Emily Litella on us and just say, never mind? If the Democrats in Charlotte were so bound and determined that this was the hill they were going to die on and that there would be no transgender left behind, how did they unanimously vote to repeal the original ordinance?
From the GOP side I suppose the HB2 decision is a bit more understandable on two fronts. First of all, there’s no real reason to have that on the books with the Charlotte ordinance gone because it actually only existed in response to Charlotte’s actions in the first place. Plus, they’ve been under enormous economic pressure from the national progressive community who have been forcing all manner of boycotts and other expensive measures in an attempt to force the state to bend to their will. (Brilliant moves which wind up hurting everyone in the state, including the people they are supposedly looking to “protect.”)
Well, I suppose it’s up to the state’s residents in the end. But this can not and should not be the end of the debate. There are a number of other cases making their way through the court system and the Supremes are on track to weigh in on it in 2017. (Hopefully with a fresh, new Donald Trump appointee on the court.) Even if there is no longer an Obama run Department of Education pushing this issue in the schools and federal buildings, a resolution is required for the rest of the country. Either the government is going to be allowed to declare that your biological gender as determined by your chromosomal structure is irrelevant, anyone can be whichever sex they feel like and traditional standards of privacy are out the window or some semblance of sanity will be restored. This debate should not go by the wayside simply because an election season ended.Ram
The first tank designed and built in Canada, the Tank, Cruiser, Ram was created to help solve the insufficient production of tanks in the United Kingdom.
The Ram was based on the American Medium Tank M3 rather than a British tank. This allowed for a more consistent supply of imported parts, which proved critical in the production of the vehicle. Canadian engineers, inexperienced with tank production, were also reliant on the engineering skills of their more experienced American allies.
More than 2,000 Rams were produced by Montreal Locomotive Works (MLW), but the standardization of the Sherman tank resulted in the Ram never being used outside of training exercises.
Ram tanks at the Montreal Locomotive Works plant. — Harry Rowed / National Film Board of Canada.
Grizzly
This Canadian-built version of the M4A1 Sherman was unique compared to its American variant in three major ways. It had thicker armour, a longer range, and utilized Canadian Dry Pin tracks, a system that did not require rubber, a scarce resource at the time.
MLW produced 188 Grizzly I tanks before it was determined that production of the Sherman by the United States would be sufficient, allowing MLW to focus its efforts on producing other armour, such as the Sexton self-propelled artillery vehicle.
A number of Grizzly I tanks were sold to Portugal as part of the NATO Military Assistance Program before being retired in the 1980s.
Grizzly M4A1 Sherman tank at Base Borden Military Museum. — Wikipedia
Sexton
Building on the design of the Ram and Grizzly, the 25pdr SP, tracked, Sexton self-propelled artillery vehicle was created to replace other British armour that struggled in the desert warfare of the North African Campaign.
The Americans were unable to produce a vehicle solely for British use so they sought Canada’s help. The Sexton weighed just under 26 tonnes and required a six man crew, consisting of a commander, driver, gunner, gun-layer, loader and wireless operator. The Sexton Mark I used the hull of the Ram tank; the Sexton Mark II used the Grizzly hull.
More than 2,000 were produced during the Second World War, helping both Britain and Canada provide indirect supporting fire on the battlefield. Like the Grizzly, the remaining Sextons were sold to Portugal after the war and remained in service until the 1980s.
Sexton 25 PDR SP. — Library and Archives Canada
Otter
The Otter Light Reconnaissance Car was an armoured car produced for Commonwealth nations by General Motors Canada in Oshawa, Ont.
The Otter was based on the Chevrolet C15 Canadian Military Pattern truck and used many standard GM components. The vehicle had a Boys anti-tank rifle mounted on the hull and a Bren light machine gun in an open-topped turret.
During the Second World War, 1,761 Otters were produced, and were used by Canadian, British and South African units. After the war, the vehicle was used in the Indonesian Revolution by the Dutch and Jordanian armies.
Armoured renaissance car, “The Otter”, used in conflict in Tunisia, driving over rocky terrain. — National Film Board of Canada
Canadian Military Pattern (CMP) Truck
Before the Second World War, the U.K. and Canada both recognized the growing threat of the Nazi Party in Germany. This led to an agreement that in any future conflict, Canadian-manufactured equipment would be compatible with British standards and specifications, allowing for the nations to more easily integrate their forces.
After the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940, Britain was forced to abandon the majority of its military vehicles in France, sparking the need for Canada to produce vehicles en masse to make up for the losses.
More than a half-million CMP trucks were produced during the war, mainly by General Motors Canada and the Ford Motor Company of Canada, a number that exceeded the total military truck production of Nazi Germany.
In Britain’s official History of the Second World War, Canada’s large-scale production of CMP trucks is described as the country’s greatest contribution to the eventual Allied victory.Local Measures Measure D Changing Requirements for Sales or Disposals of City Parks -- City of Alameda (Charter Amendment - Majority Approval Required)
Pass: 23260 / 79.17% Yes votes...... 6118 / 20.83% No votes Shall the Charter of the City of Alameda be amended by amending Section 22-12 to eliminate language that allows the City Council to sell or dispose of public parks or any portion thereof if a new public park is designated, which means the sale or disposal of public parks must be approved by the electors? Measure F Transactions and Use Tax -- City of Albany (Ordinance - Majority Approval Required)
Pass: 6237 / 79.88% Yes votes...... 1571 / 20.12% No votes To maintain and provide city services and facilities, including: Fire and Police protection, safety, and emergency response
recreational programs, parks, playgrounds, and open space
senior and youth programs and facilities
community development and environmental preservation
and other general city services and facilities, shall the City of Albany enact a 1/2-cent sales tax, with annual independent audits, to end after eight years, with all funds spent only in Albany? Measure I Special Parcel Tax Measure -- Chabot-Las Positas Community College District (2/3 Approval Required)
Fail: 130106 / 62.51% Yes votes...... 78033 / 37.49% No votes To provide Chabot and Las Positas Community Colleges funds that cannot be'taken by the state, ensure affordable quality education, prepare students for university transfer, maintain job training in healthcare, technology, public safety, and other areas, uphold core academics, and preserve student support services, shall Chabot-Las Positas Community College District levy $28 per parcel annually for six years with Citizens' Oversight, no money for permanent salaries, and all funds spent on local colleges?" Measure J Improve Quality of Oakland Schools & School Facilities -- Oakland Unified School District (Bond Measure - 55% Approval Required)
Pass: 122695 / 84.39% Yes votes...... 22687 / 15.61% No votes To improve the quality of Oakland schools and school facilities to better prepare students for college and jobs, to upgrade science labs, classrooms, computers and technology, improve student safety and security, repair bathrooms, electrical systems, plumbing and sewer lines, improve energy efficiency and earthquake safety, shall the Oakland Unified School District beauthorized to issue $475 million in bonds, with an independent citizens oversight committee and annual audits to guarantee funds are spent properlyto benefit Oakland children? Measure K Election of Trustees by Area Voters -- Ohlone Community College District (Majority Approval Required)
Pass: 53343 / 73.32% Yes votes...... 19406 / 26.68% No votes "For the election of governing board members of the Ohlone CommunityCollege District, shall members residing in each trustee area be elected by the registered voters in that trustee area? YES NO Measure L Special Parcel Tax Measure -- San Leandro Unified School District (2/3 Approval Required)
Pass: 14556 / 66.75% Yes votes...... 7252 / 33.25% No votes To offset severe State budget cuts with emergency funding that cannot be taken by Sacramento; protect core academic math/science/reading programs and student safety; keep libraries open; retain quality teachers; maintain classroom computers, instructional technology, PE, art, music and class size; shall San leandro Unified School District levy $39/year on single family homes and rates on commercial/other types of parcels, for five years, with annual audits, citizens oversight, senior exemptions, and no money for administrator salaries? Measure M Streets and Watersheds Bonds -- City of Berkeley (General Obligation Bond - 2/3 Approval Required)
Pass: 37998 / 73.29% Yes votes...... 13847 / 26.71% No votes Shall the City of Berkeley issue general obligation bonds not exceeding $30,000,000 for street improvements and integrated Green Infrastructure such as rain gardens, swales, bioretention cells, and permeable paving, to improve roads, reduce flooding, and improve water quality in the creeks and Bay? Measure N Swimming Pool Facilities Bonds -- City of Berkeley (General Obligation Bonds - 2/3 Approval Required)
Fail: 31671 / 62.37% Yes votes...... 19112 / 37.63% No votes Shall the City of Berkeley issue general obligation bonds not exceeding $19,400,000 to fund construction of replacement Warm Water and Willard pools, and renovation or replacement of associated facilities, as well as repair, renovation, or replacement of locker rooms and associated facilities at the existing West Campus and King pools? Measure O Special Tax for Pool Maintenance and Operation -- City of Berkeley (Special Property Tax - 2/3 Approval Required)
Fail: 30191 / 60.00% Yes votes...... 20129 / 40.00% No votes Shall a special tax of $0.00779 per square foot of improvements on land in Berkeley be authorized to fund maintenance and operation of the replacement Warm Water and Willard pools, if a bond measure funding construction of those pools is adopted? Measure P Increase Appropriation Limit -- City of Berkeley (Gann Limit Adjustment - Majority Approval Required)
Pass: 45318 / 89.08% Yes votes...... 5555 / 10.92% No votes Shall the appropriation limit under Article XIIIB of the California Constitution (which limits city expenditures) be increased to allow for the expenditure of taxes previously approved by the voters for parks maintenance; libraries; emergency medical services; emergency services for severely disabled persons; and fire protection and emergency response and preparedness, for fiscal years 2013 through 2016? Measure Q Utility Users Tax Update -- City of Berkeley (City Ordinance - Majority Approval Required)
Pass: 42382 / 85.36% Yes votes...... 7266 / 14.64% No votes Without increasing the rate, shall an ordinance be adopted to update Berkeley's existing utility users tax, which funds Police, Fire, and other essential City services, to keep current with changes in technology and Federal and State laws while maintaining exemptions for nonprofit educational organizations and hospitals, adding an exemption for low-income taxpayers, and requiring an annual verification and public report as to collection and expenditure of the tax? Measure R Council District Redistricting -- City of Berkeley (City Charter Amendment - Majority Approval Required)
Pass: 31852 / 65.92% Yes votes...... 16464 / 34.08% No votes Shall the Charter of the City of Berkeley be amended to provide that council district redistricting shall be adopted by ordinance and to require that districts be as equal in population as feasible taking into consideration topography, geography, cohesiveness, contiguity, integrity, compactness of territory, and communities of interest, and have easily understood boundaries such as major traffic arteries and geographic boundaries? Measure S Sitting on Sidewalks -- City of Berkeley (City Ordinance - Majority Approval Required)
Fail: 25523 / 47.70% Yes votes...... 27981 / 52.30% No votes Shall an ordinance prohibiting sitting on sidewalks in commercial districts from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., with exceptions for (a) medical emergencies; (b) wheelchairs and similar mobility devices; (c) bus benches; (d) street events; (e) other furniture placed on the sidewalk pursuant to a permit; requiring the City to ensure that it is applied in a constitutional manner and requiring a warning prior to citation, be approved? Measure T Amendment to West Berkeley Plan -- City of Berkeley (Zoning and Development Plan Amendment and Ordinance - Majority Approval Required)
Fail: 24779 / 49.49% Yes votes...... 25291 / 50.51% No votes Shall the West Berkeley Plan and the Zoning Ordinance be amended to allow development flexibility on up to 6 large sites, each under the same ownership, during the next 10 years, allowing a maximum height of 75 feet with a site-wide average height of 50 feet, and only if community and environmental benefits are provided to West Berkeley? Measure U "Sunshine" Initiative -- City of Berkeley (City Initiative Ordinance - Majority Approval Required)
Fail: 10509 / 23.27% Yes votes...... 34651 / 76.73% No votes Shall an ordinance be adopted: establishing new agenda and meeting requirements for the City's legislative bodies (Council, Rent Stabilization Board, and all 36 commissions), including earlier agenda deadlines; increased disclosure requirements for public records; and creating a new commission with authority to take enforcement action against the City in case of violations? Measure V "FACTS" Initiative -- City of Berkeley (City Initiative Ordinance - Majority Approval Required)
Fail: 17292 / 38.60% Yes votes...... 27511 / 61.40% No votes Shall an ordinance requiring the City to publish certified biennial reports of its 20-year financial obligations for employee/retiree expenses, capital assets, and "productive capacity of City services," the present value of those obligations, and the annual expenses needed to meet them, and prohibiting any new or increased debt financing, property-related fee, assessment, or tax absent certification of the report by the City Manager or other, independent professional, be adopted? Measure W City Council Election Dates -- City of Livermore (Majority Approval Required)
Pass: 25452 / 77.92% Yes votes...... 7214 / 22.08% No votes Shall the City change its general municipal election date from odd-numbered years to even-numbered years and add an extra year to the term of the existing Council members and Mayor to make that change? Fiscal Impact: Saves approximately $250,000 per election starting with the next election in 2014. The City of Livermore holds Council and Mayoral elections in November of odd-numbered years. This schedule means that Livermore voters elect their Council members and Mayor in years when elections for Statewide and National offices typically are not held. The City Council placed this measure on the ballot to match Council member and Mayoral elections to Statewide and National elections in even-numbered years. This measure also would add one year to the terms of the incumbent Councilmembers and Mayor, to allow for the transition of elections to even-numbered years. If this measure passes, an alternative measure the City Council placed on the ballot to add the extra year instead to the incoming elected Councilmembers and Mayor will be moot, as this measure will control. Measure X City Council Election Dates - Alternative -- City of Livermore (Majority Approval Required)
Fail: 14476 / 46.84% Yes votes...... 16431 / 53.16% No votes If the City's voters do not approve of an immediate change in Livermore's general municipal election date, shall the City change to even-numbered election years by adding a year to the terms of the incoming Council members and Mayor at the general municipal elections in 2013 and 2015? Fiscal Impact: Costs approximately $750,000 for transition elections, then saves approximately $250,000 per election, starting in 2018. Measure Y Renew Existing Municipal Services Tax -- City of Piedmont (Parcel Tax - 2/3 Approval Required)
Pass: 4549 / 68.33% Yes votes...... 2108 / 31.67% No votes To maintain essential police, fire, and paramedic service, to prevent the reduction in maintenance in City parks, greenspaces and other public areas, and to prevent the loss of youth, family, and senior recreational and safety services, shall the City of Piedmont continue to authorize a parcel tax, replacing the existing Municipal Services Tax, as is more specifically set forth in Or. 707 N.S. which is on file with the Piedmont City Clerk? Measure Z Rapid Lifesaving Emergency Care -- Washington Township Health Care District (Bond measure - 2/3 Approval Required)
Pass: 70568 / 73.38% Yes votes...... 25596 / 26.62% No votes To provide rapid, lifesaving emergency medical care to our local community by expanding Emergency/Intensive Care units and other facilities, provide the latest lifesaving medical technologies and facilities for treating heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer and other diseases, reduce overcrowding and wait times and to enable Washington Hospital to become a designated Trauma Center, shall Washington Township Health Care District issue $186,000,000 of bonds with an independent citizens' oversight committee, annual audits, and no proceeds going towards administrative salaries?
- YES NO Measure A1 Oakland Zoo Humane Animal Care/Education Protection Measure -- Alameda County (2/3 Approval Required)
Fail: 340933 / 62.99% Yes votes...... 200333 / 37.01% No votes To maintain/upgrade humane animal care and basic needs (food, medical, heating, cooling, safe enclosures); retain veterinarians/animal specialists; care for wounded/endangered animals; support wildlife conservation; maintain children's educational, nature/science programs, field trips; and keep entrance fees affordable; shall Alameda County levy a tax of $12/parcel annually for residential parcels and comparable commercial/industrial rates, with low-income senior exemptions, mandatory audits, and citizens' oversight? Measure B1 Transportation Commission Sales Tax Measure -- Alameda County (2/3 Approval Required)
Fail: 350899 / 66.53% Yes votes...... 176504 / 33.47% No votes Shall a new Transportation Expenditure Plan be implemented to address current and future transportation needs that: * Improves transit access to jobs and schools; * Fixes roads, improves highways and increases bicycle and pedestrian safety; * Reduces traffic congestion and improves air quality; * Keeps senior, youth, and disabled fares affordable. Approval extends the existing County sales tax and increases it by 1/2 cent, with independent oversight, local job creation programs. No money can be taken by the state.US retail giant Amazon could launch in Australia within the next 60 days if feedback from suppliers proves correct, according to Citi analysts, upping the pressure on struggling retailers in the all-important lead-up to Christmas.
Amazon confirmed in April its plans to bring a retail offering to Australia and has since signed a lease on a 24,387 square metre former Bunnings warehouse on the outskirts of Melbourne and appointed one of its top German executives to run its local operations.
While the exact timing of its launch remains uncertain, Citi analysts said on Thursday they expected Amazon's local website to go live sometime next month, ahead of Black Friday on November 24, which is regarded as the start of Christmas shopping season in the US and is fast catching on here.
Amazon had set buying terms with suppliers and placed first orders in recent weeks, Citi said in a note to clients.I visited Carrie there last summer, one evening when a work dinner kept her in the city unusually late in the day. White boards were marked with colorful, enthusiastic-looking flourishes, and the young, ethnically diverse, heavily female, earnest and friendly staff members were heading home for the night. Irvin, in a crisp summer dress, her light brown hair falling neatly at her shoulders, showed me around. She was excited, revitalized, virtually glowing, like a person in love. “I’m so energized by our success,” she told me. “I feel like I’m fulfilling the professional potential that I never did before. I feel smart. I feel successful. I feel like I escaped a whole slog level of my career. I got to stay home with my kids and yet I got to come back to a leadership position. And I’m earning a living.”
She was doing it all without dropping any of her maternal duties — not school pickup, not homework, not dinner, not party planning, not even those photo books for the grandparents. She had a housekeeper now for the heavy cleaning. But she still pushed herself to provide the special little touches at home, like making sure her kitchen counter always had a bowl of “seasonably appropriate” candy — even if that candy, to her great annoyance, was now perpetually buried under a pile of unsorted junk.
She acknowledged that what she was trying to do was impossible. “The pace at which I’m living right now is unsustainable,” she told me. She tried her absolute best to cut things that weren’t strictly essential. She almost never saw friends, rarely exercised and was trying to trick her body into running faster on fewer hours of sleep. Something had to give — and, unfortunately, that something was shaping up to be time with her husband.
When I visited her one morning this winter after her children and husband had left for the day, she told me that in their early years, she and Stuart traveled to Japan, shared books, interests and ideas. Even after their daughters came along, they had been sure to find ways to spend time together as a couple. They watched TV for a precious hour or so of decompression each night, after the girls went to bed. They talked together late, digesting their days. By this winter, however, they spent their evenings on separate floors, she downstairs in the kitchen, on her computer, catching up on the work she missed during her hours of caring for the children; he, upstairs, watching TV alone.
Carrie said the situation was in many ways unfair: she had been able, twice, to live her dreams, with her husband’s encouragement, first as an at-home mother, then as a start-up visionary, while Stuart’s steady job made it all possible. And he had to adjust to the loss of her attention when she first shifted it to their daughters and then to her new job.
Their situation was common enough among middle-aged, overtaxed, professional working parents. Stuart was hardly the first man to find himself sidelined either by his wife’s devotion to her children or her dedication to work or both. But knowing that their story was playing out in households all around them didn’t make their readjustment to life as a working couple any easier. “I think a big issue is that we both want to be taken care of at the end of the day, and neither of us has any energy to take care of the other,” Carrie said. “It’s the proverbial ‘meet me at the door with a martini and slippers.’ Don’t we all want that? A clean house and someone at the door? I think when I wasn’t working I had some guilt that that wasn’t me, but now I want to be that other person.... When you’re absolutely exhausted, it’s hard to be emotionally generous.”
At a time when having a “good” job means working 50-plus hours a week, in addition to weekends and tech-tethered evenings, it’s not surprising that, if both spouses work, it can often feel as if neither is ever truly home. And that desire to be emotionally present at home, Pamela Stone, the sociologist, told me, became more pressing over time for the women she interviewed, reshaping their ambitions when they decided to go back to work.VOL. 131 | NO. 198 | Tuesday, October 4, 2016
Some of you will remember the late George Lapides, whom I worked with for a time at WREC, had a policy about pre-season baseball games or what he called the “Grapefruit League.” It was that they didn’t exist. He wouldn’t acknowledge the games much less the scores.
So the Grizz first pre-season game Monday was an occasion more for watching for signs than watching the score – which by the way was Grizz 102 Orlando Magic 97.
The pre-season game saw no protest or demonstration action by players on either team at the Forum Monday evening. Zach Randolph had talked last month of some kind of demonstration on his part and possibly by other players in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. Stay tuned.
Center stage during Tuesday’s council day |
or high gun ownership, which correlate with higher suicide rates. If Utah’s gun ownership rate was as low as New York’s, maybe the suicide rate would be extremely low. Or maybe religious communities are alienating to non-members: Non-Mormons in Utah have a very high suicide rate, even though their LDS counterparts are slightly less likely to commit suicide than the national average.
Regardless of the explanation, it is hardly clear that traditional communities with nuclear families and high church attendance reduce the risk of suicide. That’s relevant to the question raised by Douthat’s piece: whether the decline of traditional communities and social relationships ensures that suicide rates will continue to increase. Moreover, if we’re interested in what types of communities—and what type of country—reduces suicide, then the geography is quite relevant, perhaps even more relevant than recent trends. After all, there’s a 30 percent difference between suicide rates among middle-aged men today and a decade ago, but there’s a 300 percent difference in suicide rates between Wyoming and New York.So awhile back I was thinking, “You know what would be funny? A screensaver that fakes a kernel panic!”
For those of you who might never have seen one, a kernel panic is basically the most shocking crash that you can get on a Mac. It’s Apple’s equivalent to the famed Blue Screen of Death.
What a great way to play a prank on someone, or frighten yourself.
So here is the end result, a harmless screensaver that faithfully emulates the horrifying experience of a kernel panic. It comes complete with a misleading Quartz Composer Preview so that the effect is all the more terrifying.
Update: KPSaver is now 64-bit and compatible with Mac OS X 10.6 and above. Legacy users can download the old version here.
If you enjoy KPSaver, please consider supporting it with a PayPal donation.
Download KPSaverDisclosures of NSA and related global espionage
Ongoing news reports in the international media have revealed operational details about the United States National Security Agency (NSA) and its international partners' global surveillance[1] of foreign nationals and U.S. citizens. The reports mostly emanate from a cache of top secret documents leaked by ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden, which he obtained whilst working for Booz Allen Hamilton, one of the largest contractors for defense and intelligence in the United States.[2] In addition to a trove of U.S. federal documents, Snowden's cache reportedly contains thousands of Australian, British and Canadian intelligence files that he had accessed via the exclusive "Five Eyes" network.[2] In June 2013, the first of Snowden's documents were published simultaneously by The Washington Post and The Guardian, attracting considerable public attention.[3] The disclosure continued throughout 2013, and a small portion of the estimated full cache of documents was later published by other media outlets worldwide, most notably The New York Times (United States), the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Der Spiegel (Germany), O Globo (Brazil), Le Monde (France), L'espresso (Italy), NRC Handelsblad (the Netherlands), Dagbladet (Norway), El País (Spain), and Sveriges Television (Sweden).[4]
These media reports have shed light on the implications of several secret treaties signed by members of the UKUSA community in their efforts to implement global surveillance. For example, Der Spiegel revealed how the German Foreign Intelligence Service (German: Bundesnachrichtendienst; BND) transfers "massive amounts of intercepted data to the NSA",[5] while Swedish Television revealed the National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA) provided the NSA with data from its cable collection, under a secret treaty signed in 1954 for bilateral cooperation on surveillance.[6] Other security and intelligence agencies involved in the practice of global surveillance include those in Australia (ASD), Britain (GCHQ), Canada (CSEC), Denmark (PET), France (DGSE), Germany (BND), Italy (AISE), the Netherlands (AIVD), Norway (NIS), Spain (CNI), Switzerland (NDB), Singapore (SID) as well as Israel (ISNU), which receives raw, unfiltered data of U.S. citizens that is shared by the NSA.[7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]
On June 14, 2013, United States prosecutors charged Edward Snowden with espionage and theft of government property.[15] In late July 2013, he was granted a one-year temporary asylum by the Russian government,[16] contributing to a deterioration of Russia–United States relations.[17][18] On August 6, 2013, U.S. President Barack Obama made a public appearance on national television where he told Americans that "We don't have a domestic spying program" and that "There is no spying on Americans".[19] Towards the end of October 2013, the British Prime Minister David Cameron warned The Guardian not to publish any more leaks, or it will receive a DA-Notice.[20] In November 2013, a criminal investigation of the disclosure was being undertaken by Britain's Metropolitan Police Service.[21] In December 2013, The Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger said: "We have published I think 26 documents so far out of the 58,000 we've seen."[22]
The extent to which the media reports have responsibly informed the public is disputed. In January 2014, Obama said that "the sensational way in which these disclosures have come out has often shed more heat than light"[23] and critics such as Sean Wilentz have noted that many of the Snowden documents released do not concern domestic surveillance.[24] The US & UK Defense establishment weigh the strategic harm in the period following the disclosures more heavily than their civic public benefit. In its first assessment of these disclosures, the Pentagon concluded that Snowden committed the biggest "theft" of U.S. secrets in the history of the United States.[25] Sir David Omand, a former director of GCHQ, described Snowden's disclosure as the "most catastrophic loss to British intelligence ever".[26]
Background [ edit ]
Barton Gellman, a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who led The Washington Post's coverage of Snowden's disclosures, summarized the leaks as follows:
Taken together, the revelations have brought to light a global surveillance system that cast off many of its historical restraints after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Secret legal authorities empowered the NSA to sweep in the telephone, Internet and location records of whole populations. The Washington Post[27]
The disclosure revealed specific details of the NSA's close cooperation with U.S. federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)[28][29] and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)[30][31] in addition to the agency's previously undisclosed financial payments to numerous commercial partners and telecommunications companies,[32][33][34] as well as its previously undisclosed relationships with international partners such as Britain,[35][36] France[12][37] Germany,[5][38] and its secret treaties with foreign governments that were recently established for sharing intercepted data of each other's citizens.[7][39][40][41] The disclosures were made public over the course of several months since June 2013, by the press in several nations from the trove leaked by the former NSA contractor Edward J. Snowden,[42] who obtained the trove while working for Booz Allen Hamilton.[2]
George Brandis, the Attorney-General of Australia, asserted that Snowden's disclosure is the "most serious setback for Western intelligence since the Second World War."[43]
Global surveillance [ edit ]
As of December 2013, global surveillance programs include:
The NSA was also getting data directly from telecommunications companies codenamed Artifice, Lithium, Serenade, SteelKnight, and X. The real identities of the companies behind these codenames were not included in the Snowden document dump because they were protected as Exceptionally Controlled Information which prevents wide circulation even to those (like Snowden) who otherwise have the necessary security clearance.[65][66]
Disclosures [ edit ]
Although the exact size of Snowden's disclosure remains unknown, the following estimates have been put up by various government officials:
As a contractor of the NSA, Snowden was granted access to U.S. government documents along with top secret documents of several allied governments, via the exclusive Five Eyes network.[69] Snowden claims that he is currently not in physical possession of any of these documents, after having surrendered all copies to the journalists he met in Hong Kong.[70]
According to his lawyer, Snowden has pledged not to release any documents while in Russia, leaving the responsibility for further disclosures solely to journalists.[71] As of 2014, the following news outlets have accessed some of the documents provided by Snowden: Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Channel 4, Der Spiegel, El Pais, El Mundo, L'espresso, Le Monde, NBC, NRC Handelsblad, Dagbladet, O Globo, South China Morning Post, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Sveriges Television, The Guardian, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.
Historical context [ edit ]
In the 1970s, NSA analyst Perry Fellwock (under the pseudonym "Winslow Peck") revealed the existence of the UKUSA Agreement, which forms the basis of the ECHELON network, whose existence was revealed in 1988 by Lockheed employee Margaret Newsham.[72][73] Months before the September 11 attacks and during its aftermath, further details of the global surveillance apparatus were provided by various individuals such as the former MI5 official David Shayler and the journalist James Bamford,[74][75] who were followed by:
In the aftermath of Snowden's revelations, The Pentagon concluded that Snowden committed the biggest theft of U.S. secrets in the history of the United States.[25] In Australia, the coalition government described the leaks as the most damaging blow dealt to Australian intelligence in history.[43] Sir David Omand, a former director of GCHQ, described Snowden's disclosure as the "most catastrophic loss to British intelligence ever".[26]
Timeline [ edit ]
In April 2012, NSA contractor Edward Snowden began downloading documents.[87] That year, Snowden had made his first contact with journalist Glenn Greenwald, then employed by The Guardian, and he contacted documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras in January 2013.[88][89]
2013 [ edit ]
May [ edit ]
In May 2013, Snowden went on temporary leave from his position at the NSA, citing the pretext of receiving treatment for his epilepsy. Towards the end of May, he traveled to Hong Kong.[90][91] Greenwald, Poitras and the Guardian's defence and intelligence correspondent Ewen MacAskill flew to Hong Kong to meet Snowden.
June [ edit ]
After the U.S.-based editor of The Guardian, Janine Gibson, held several meetings in New York City, it was decided that Greenwald, Poitras and the Guardian's defence and intelligence correspondent Ewen MacAskill would fly to Hong Kong to meet Snowden. On June 5, in the first media report based on the leaked material,[92] The Guardian exposed a top secret court order showing that the NSA had collected phone records from over 120 million Verizon subscribers.[93] Under the order, the numbers of both parties on a call, as well as the location data, unique identifiers, time of call, and duration of call were handed over to the FBI, which turned over the records to the NSA.[93] According to The Wall Street Journal, the Verizon order is part of a controversial data program, which seeks to stockpile records on all calls made in the U.S., but does not collect information directly from T-Mobile US and Verizon Wireless, in part because of their foreign ownership ties.[94]
On June 6, 2013, the second media disclosure, the revelation of the PRISM surveillance program (which collects the e-mail, voice, text and video chats of foreigners and an unknown number of Americans from Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Apple and other tech giants),[95][96][97][98] was published simultaneously by The Guardian and The Washington Post.[86][99]
Slide from a 2008 NSA presentation about XKeyscore, showing a worldmap with the locations of XKeyscore servers
Der Spiegel revealed NSA spying on multiple diplomatic missions of the European Union (EU) and the United Nations Headquarters in New York.[100][101] During specific episodes within a four-year period, the NSA hacked several Chinese mobile-phone companies,[102] the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Tsinghua University in Beijing,[103] and the Asian fiber-optic network operator Pacnet.[104] Only Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK are explicitly exempted from NSA attacks, whose main target in the EU is Germany.[105] A method of bugging encrypted fax machines used at an EU embassy is codenamed Dropmire.[106]
During the 2009 G-20 London summit, the British intelligence agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) intercepted the communications of foreign diplomats.[107] In addition, GCHQ has been intercepting and storing mass quantities of fiber-optic traffic via Tempora.[108] Two principal components of Tempora are called "Mastering the Internet" (MTI) and "Global Telecoms Exploitation".[109] The data is preserved for three days while metadata is kept for thirty days.[110] Data collected by GCHQ under Tempora is shared with the National Security Agency (NSA) of the United States.[109]
From 2001 to 2011, the NSA collected vast amounts of metadata records detailing the email and internet usage of Americans via Stellar Wind,[111] which was later terminated due to operational and resource constraints. It was subsequently replaced by newer surveillance programs such as ShellTrumpet, which "processed its one trillionth metadata record" by the end of December 2012.[112]
The NSA follows specific procedures to target non-U.S. persons[113] and to minimize data collection from U.S. persons.[114] These court-approved policies allow the NSA to:[115][116]
keep data that could potentially contain details of U.S. persons for up to five years;
retain and make use of "inadvertently acquired" domestic communications if they contain usable intelligence, information on criminal activity, threat of harm to people or property, are encrypted, or are believed to contain any information relevant to cybersecurity;
preserve "foreign intelligence information" contained within attorney–client communications; and
access the content of communications gathered from "U.S. based machine[s]" or phone numbers in order to establish if targets are located in the U.S., for the purposes of ceasing further surveillance.
According to Boundless Informant, over 97 billion pieces of intelligence were collected over a 30-day period ending in March 2013. Out of all 97 billion sets of information, about 3 billion data sets originated from U.S. computer networks[117] and around 500 million metadata records were collected from German networks.[118]
In August 2013, it was revealed that the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) of Germany transfers massive amounts of metadata records to the NSA.[119]
Der Spiegel disclosed that Germany is the most targeted country of the 27 members of the European Union due to the NSA systematic monitoring and storage of Germany's telephone and Internet connection data. According to the magazine the NSA stores data from around half a billion communications connections in Germany each month. This data includes telephone calls, emails, mobile-phone text messages and chat transcripts.[120]
The Guardian published a snapshot of the NSA's global map of electronic data collection for the month of March 2013. Known as the On June 11, 2013,published a snapshot of the NSA's global map of electronic data collection for the month of March 2013. Known as the Boundless Informant, the program is used by the NSA to track the amount of data being analyzed over a specific period of time. The color scheme ranges from green (least subjected to surveillance) through yellow and orange to red (most surveillance). Outside the Middle East, only China, Germany, India, Kenya, Colombia, the United Kingdom, and the United States are colored orange or yellow
July [ edit ]
The NSA gained massive amounts of information captured from the monitored data traffic in Europe. For example, in December 2013, the NSA gathered on an average day metadata from some 15 million telephone connections and 10 million Internet datasets. The NSA also monitored the European Commission in Brussels and monitored EU diplomatic Facilities in Washington and at the United Nations by placing bugs in offices as well as infiltrating computer networks.[121]
The U.S. government made as part of its UPSTREAM data collection program deals with companies to ensure that it had access to and hence the capability to surveil undersea fiber-optic cables which deliver e-mails, Web pages, other electronic communications and phone calls from one continent to another at the speed of light.[122][123]
According to the Brazilian newspaper O Globo, the NSA spied on millions of emails and calls of Brazilian citizens,[124][125] while Australia and New Zealand have been involved in the joint operation of the NSA's global analytical system XKeyscore.[126][127] Among the numerous allied facilities contributing to XKeyscore are four installations in Australia and one in New Zealand:
O Globo released an NSA document titled "Primary FORNSAT Collection Operations", which revealed the specific locations and codenames of the FORNSAT intercept stations in 2002.[128]
According to Edward Snowden, the NSA has established secret intelligence partnerships with many Western governments.[127] The Foreign Affairs Directorate (FAD) of the NSA is responsible for these partnerships, which, according to Snowden, are organized such that foreign governments can "insulate their political leaders" from public outrage in the event that these global surveillance partnerships are leaked.[129]
In an interview published by Der Spiegel, Snowden accused the NSA of being "in bed together with the Germans".[130] The NSA granted the German intelligence agencies BND (foreign intelligence) and BfV (domestic intelligence) access to its controversial XKeyscore system.[131] In return, the BND turned over copies of two systems named Mira4 and Veras, reported to exceed the NSA's SIGINT capabilities in certain areas.[5] Every day, massive amounts of metadata records are collected by the BND and transferred to the NSA via the Bad Aibling Station near Munich, Germany.[5] In December 2012 alone, the BND handed over 500 million metadata records to the NSA.[132][133]
In a document dated January 2013, the NSA acknowledged the efforts of the BND to undermine privacy laws:
The BND has been working to influence the German government to relax interpretation of the privacy laws to provide greater opportunities of intelligence sharing.[133]
According to an NSA document dated April 2013, Germany has now become the NSA's "most prolific partner".[133] Under a section of a separate document leaked by Snowden titled "Success Stories", the NSA acknowledged the efforts of the German government to expand the BND's international data sharing with partners:
The German government modifies its interpretation of the G-10 privacy law … to afford the BND more flexibility in sharing protected information with foreign partners.[50]
In addition, the German government was well aware of the PRISM surveillance program long before Edward Snowden made details public. According to Angela Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert, there are two separate PRISM programs – one is used by the NSA and the other is used by NATO forces in Afghanistan.[134] The two programs are "not identical".[134]
The Guardian revealed further details of the NSA's XKeyscore tool, which allows government analysts to search through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals without prior authorization.[135][136][137] Microsoft "developed a surveillance capability to deal" with the interception of encrypted chats on Outlook.com, within five months after the service went into testing. NSA had access to Outlook.com emails because "Prism collects this data prior to encryption."[47]
In addition, Microsoft worked with the FBI to enable the NSA to gain access to its cloud storage service SkyDrive. An internal NSA document dating from August 3, 2012 described the PRISM surveillance program as a "team sport".[47]
Even if there is no reason to suspect U.S. citizens of wrongdoing, the CIA's National Counterterrorism Center is allowed to examine federal government files for possible criminal behavior. Previously the NTC was barred to do so, unless a person was a terror suspect or related to an investigation.[138]
Snowden also confirmed that Stuxnet was cooperatively developed by the United States and Israel.[139] In a report unrelated to Edward Snowden, the French newspaper Le Monde revealed that France's DGSE was also undertaking mass surveillance, which it described as "illegal and outside any serious control".[140][141]
August [ edit ]
Documents leaked by Edward Snowden that were seen by Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) and Norddeutscher Rundfunk revealed that several telecom operators have played a key role in helping the British intelligence agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) tap into worldwide fiber-optic communications. The telecom operators are:
Each of them were assigned a particular area of the international fiber-optic network for which they were individually responsible. The following networks have been infiltrated by GCHQ: TAT-14 (Europe-USA), Atlantic Crossing 1 (Europe-USA), Circe South (France-UK), Circe North (The Netherlands-UK), Flag Atlantic-1, Flag Europa-Asia, SEA-ME-WE 3 (Southeast Asia-Middle East-Western Europe), SEA-ME-WE 4 (Southeast Asia-Middle East-Western Europe), Solas (Ireland-UK), UK-France 3, UK-Netherlands 14, ULYSSES (Europe-UK), Yellow (UK-USA) and Pan European Crossing.[143]
Telecommunication companies who participated were "forced" to do so and had "no choice in the matter".[143] Some of the companies were subsequently paid by GCHQ for their participation in the infiltration of the cables.[143] According to the SZ, GCHQ has access to the majority of internet and telephone communications flowing throughout Europe, can listen to phone calls, read emails and text messages, see which websites internet users from all around the world are visiting. It can also retain and analyse nearly the entire European internet traffic.[143]
GCHQ is collecting all data transmitted to and from the United Kingdom and Northern Europe via the undersea fibre optic telecommunications cable SEA-ME-WE 3. The Security and Intelligence Division (SID) of Singapore co-operates with Australia in accessing and sharing communications carried by the SEA-ME-WE-3 cable. The Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) is also in a partnership with British, American and Singaporean intelligence agencies to tap undersea fibre optic telecommunications cables that link Asia, the Middle East and Europe and carry much of Australia's international phone and internet traffic.[144]
The U.S. runs a top-secret surveillance program known as the Special Collection Service (SCS), which is based in over 80 U.S. consulates and embassies worldwide.[145][146] The NSA hacked the United Nations' video conferencing system in Summer 2012 in violation of a UN agreement.[145][146]
The NSA is not just intercepting the communications of Americans who are in direct contact with foreigners targeted overseas, but also searching the contents of vast amounts of e-mail and text communications into and out of the country by Americans who mention information about foreigners under surveillance.[147] It also spied on the Al Jazeera and gained access to its internal communications systems.[148]
The NSA has built a surveillance network that has the capacity to reach roughly 75% of all U.S. Internet traffic.[149][150][151] U.S. Law-enforcement agencies use tools used by computer hackers to gather information on suspects.[152][153] An internal NSA audit from May 2012 identified 2776 incidents i.e. violations of the rules or court orders for surveillance of Americans and foreign targets in the U.S. in the period from April 2011 through March 2012, while U.S. officials stressed that any mistakes are not intentional.[154][155][156][157][158][159][160]
The FISA Court that is supposed to provide critical oversight of the U.S. government's vast spying programs has limited ability to do so and it must trust the government to report when it improperly spies on Americans.[161] A legal opinion declassified on August 21, 2013, revealed that the NSA intercepted for three years as many as 56,000 electronic communications a year of Americans not suspected of having links to terrorism, before FISA court that oversees surveillance found the operation unconstitutional in 2011.[162][163][164][165][166] Under the Corporate Partner Access project, major U.S. telecommunications providers receive hundreds of millions of dollars each year from the NSA.[167] Voluntary cooperation between the NSA and the providers of global communications took off during the 1970s under the cover name BLARNEY.[167]
A letter drafted by the Obama administration specifically to inform Congress of the government's mass collection of Americans' telephone communications data was withheld from lawmakers by leaders of the House Intelligence Committee in the months before a key vote affecting the future of the program.[168][169]
The NSA paid GCHQ over £100 Million between 2009 and 2012, in exchange for these funds GCHQ "must pull its weight and be seen to pull its weight." Documents referenced in the article explain that the weaker British laws regarding spying are "a selling point" for the NSA. GCHQ is also developing the technology to "exploit any mobile phone at any time."[170] The NSA has under a legal authority a secret backdoor into its databases gathered from large Internet companies enabling it to search for U.S. citizens' email and phone calls without a warrant.[171][172]
The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board urged the U.S. intelligence chiefs to draft stronger US surveillance guidelines on domestic spying after finding that several of those guidelines have not been updated up to 30 years.[173][174] U.S. intelligence analysts have deliberately broken rules designed to prevent them from spying on Americans by choosing to ignore so-called "minimisation procedures" aimed at protecting privacy[175][176] and used the NSA's agency's enormous eavesdropping power to spy on love interests.[177]
After the U.S. Foreign Secret Intelligence Court ruled in October 2011 that some of the NSA's activities were unconstitutional, the agency paid millions of dollars to major internet companies to cover extra costs incurred in their involvement with the PRISM surveillance program.[178]
"Mastering the Internet" (MTI) is part of the Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP) of the British government that involves the insertion of thousands of DPI (deep packet inspection) "black boxes" at various internet service providers, as revealed by the British media in 2009.[179]
In 2013, it was further revealed that the NSA had made a £17.2 million financial contribution to the project, which is capable of vacuuming signals from up to 200 fibre-optic cables at all physical points of entry into Great Britain.[180]
September [ edit ]
The Guardian and The New York Times reported on secret documents leaked by Snowden showing that the NSA has been in "collaboration with technology companies" as part of "an aggressive, multipronged effort" to weaken the encryption used in commercial software, and GCHQ has a team dedicated to cracking "Hotmail, Google, Yahoo and Facebook" traffic.[181][182][183][184][185][186]
Germany's domestic security agency Bundesverfassungsschutz (BfV) systematically transfers the personal data of German residents to the NSA, CIA and seven other members of the United States Intelligence Community, in exchange for information and espionage software.[187][188][189] Israel, Sweden and Italy are also cooperating with American and British intelligence agencies. Under a secret treaty codenamed "Lustre", French intelligence agencies transferred millions of metadata records to the NSA.[63][64][190][191]
The Obama Administration secretly won permission from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in 2011 to reverse restrictions on the National Security Agency's use of intercepted phone calls and e-mails, permitting the agency to search deliberately for Americans' communications in its massive databases. The searches take place under a surveillance program Congress authorized in 2008 under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Under that law, the target must be a foreigner "reasonably believed" to be outside the United States, and the court must approve the targeting procedures in an order good for one year. But a warrant for each target would thus no longer be required. That means that communications with Americans could be picked up without a court first determining that there is probable cause that the people they were talking to were terrorists, spies or "foreign powers." The FISC extended the length of time that the NSA is allowed to retain intercepted U.S. communications from five years to six years with an extension possible for foreign intelligence or counterintelligence purposes. Both measures were done without public debate or any specific authority from Congress.[192]
A special branch of the NSA called "Follow the Money" (FTM) monitors international payments, banking and credit card transactions and later stores the collected data in the NSA's own financial databank "Tracfin".[193] The NSA monitored the communications of Brazil's president Dilma Rousseff and her top aides.[194] The agency also spied on Brazil's oil firm Petrobras as well as French diplomats, and gained access to the private network of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France and the SWIFT network.[195]
In the United States, the NSA uses the analysis of phone call and e-mail logs of American citizens to create sophisticated graphs of their social connections that can identify their associates, their locations at certain times, their traveling companions and other personal information.[196] The NSA routinely shares raw intelligence data with Israel without first sifting it to remove information about U.S. citizens.[7][197]
In an effort codenamed GENIE, computer specialists can control foreign computer networks using "covert implants," a form of remotely transmitted malware on tens of thousands of devices annually.[198][199][200][201] As worldwide sales of smartphones began exceeding those of feature phones, the NSA decided to take advantage of the smartphone boom. This is particularly advantageous because the smartphone combines a myriad of data that would interest an intelligence agency, such as social contacts, user behavior, interests, location, photos and credit card numbers and passwords.[202]
An internal NSA report from 2010 stated that the spread of the smartphone has been occurring "extremely rapidly"—developments that "certainly complicate traditional target analysis."[202] According to the document, the NSA has set up task forces assigned to several smartphone manufacturers and operating systems, including Apple Inc.'s iPhone and iOS operating system, as well as Google's Android mobile operating system.[202] Similarly, Britain's GCHQ assigned a team to study and crack the BlackBerry.[202]
An NSA presentation called "Your target is using a BlackBerry? Now what?" shows an intercepted Mexican government e-mail.
Under the heading "iPhone capability", the document notes that there are smaller NSA programs, known as "scripts", that can perform surveillance on 38 different features of the iOS 3 and iOS 4 operating systems. These include the mapping feature, voicemail and photos, as well as Google Earth, Facebook and Yahoo! Messenger.[202]
On September 9, 2013, an internal NSA presentation on iPhone Location Services was published by Der Spiegel. One slide shows scenes from Apple's 1984-themed television commercial alongside the words "Who knew in 1984..."; another shows Steve Jobs holding an iPhone, with the text "...that this would be big brother..."; and a third shows happy consumers with their iPhones, completing the question with "...and the zombies would be paying customers?"[203]
October [ edit ]
On October 4, 2013, The Washington Post and The Guardian jointly reported that the NSA and GCHQ had made repeated attempts to spy on anonymous Internet users who have been communicating in secret via the anonymity network Tor. Several of these surveillance operations involved the implantation of malicious code into the computers of Tor users who visit particular websites. The NSA and GCHQ had partly succeeded in blocking access to the anonymous network, diverting Tor users to insecure channels. The government agencies were also able to uncover the identity of some anonymous Internet users.[204][205][206][207][208][209][210][211][212]
The Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) has been using a program called Olympia to map the communications of Brazil's Mines and Energy Ministry by targeting the metadata of phone calls and emails to and from the ministry.[213][214]
The Australian Federal Government knew about the PRISM surveillance program months before Edward Snowden made details public.[215][216]
The NSA gathered hundreds of millions of contact lists from personal e-mail and instant messaging accounts around the world. The agency did not target individuals. Instead it collected contact lists in large numbers that amount to a sizable fraction of the world's e-mail and instant messaging accounts. Analysis of that data enables the agency to search for hidden connections and to map relationships within a much smaller universe of foreign intelligence targets.[217][218][219][220]
The NSA monitored the public email account of former Mexican president Felipe Calderón (thus gaining access to the communications of high-ranking cabinet members), the emails of several high-ranking members of Mexico's security forces and text and the mobile phone communication of current Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto.[221][222] The NSA tries to gather cellular and landline phone numbers—often obtained from American diplomats—for as many foreign officials as possible. The contents of the phone calls are stored in computer databases that can regularly be searched using keywords.[223][224]
The NSA has been monitoring telephone conversations of 35 world leaders.[225] The U.S. government's first public acknowledgment that it tapped the phones of world leaders was reported on October 28, 2013, by the Wall Street Journal after an internal U.S. government review turned up NSA monitoring of some 35 world leaders.[226] GCHQ has tried to keep its mass surveillance program a secret because it feared a "damaging public debate" on the scale of its activities which could lead to legal challenges against them.[227]
The Guardian revealed that the NSA had been monitoring telephone conversations of 35 world leaders after being given the numbers by an official in another U.S. government department. A confidential memo revealed that the NSA encouraged senior officials in such Departments as the White House, State and The Pentagon, to share their "Rolodexes" so the agency could add the telephone numbers of leading foreign politicians to their surveillance systems. Reacting to the news, German leader Angela Merkel, arriving in Brussels for an EU summit, accused the U.S. of a breach of trust, saying: "We need to have trust in our allies and partners, and this must now be established once again. I repeat that spying among friends is not at all acceptable against anyone, and that goes for every citizen in Germany."[225] The NSA collected in 2010 data on ordinary Americans' cellphone locations, but later discontinued it because it had no "operational value."[228]
Under Britain's MUSCULAR programme, the NSA and GCHQ have secretly broken into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centers around the world and thereby gained the ability to collect metadata and content at will from hundreds of millions of user accounts.[229][230][231][232][233]
The mobile phone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel might have been tapped by U.S. intelligence.[234][235][236][237][238][239][240] According to the Spiegel this monitoring goes back to 2002[241][242][243] and ended in the summer of 2013,[226] while The New York Times reported that Germany has evidence that the NSA's surveillance of Merkel began during George W. Bush's tenure.[244] After learning from Der Spiegel magazine that the NSA has been listening in to her personal mobile phone, Merkel compared the snooping practices of the NSA with those of the Stasi.[245] It was reported in March 2014, by Der Spiegel that Merkel had also been placed on an NSA surveillance list alongside 122 other world leaders.[246]
On October 31, 2013, Hans-Christian Ströbele, a member of the German Bundestag, met Snowden in Moscow and revealed the former intelligence contractor's readiness to brief the German government on NSA spying.[247]
A highly sensitive signals intelligence collection program known as Stateroom involves the interception of radio, telecommunications and internet traffic. It is operated out of the diplomatic missions of the Five Eyes (Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, United States) in numerous locations around the world. The program conducted at U.S. diplomatic missions is run in concert by the U.S. intelligence agencies NSA and CIA in a joint venture group called "Special Collection Service" (SCS), whose members work undercover in shielded areas of the American Embassies and Consulates, where they are officially accredited as diplomats and as such enjoy special privileges. Under diplomatic protection, they are able to look and listen unhindered. The SCS for example used the American Embassy near the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin to monitor communications in Germany's government district with its parliament and the seat of the government.[240][248][249][250]
Under the Stateroom surveillance programme, Australia operates clandestine surveillance facilities to intercept phone calls and data across much of Asia.[249][251]
In France, the NSA targeted people belonging to the worlds of business, politics or French state administration. The NSA monitored and recorded the content of telephone communications and the history of the connections of each target i.e. the metadata.[252][253] The actual surveillance operation was performed by French intelligence agencies on behalf of the NSA.[63][254] The cooperation between France and the NSA was confirmed by the Director of the NSA, Keith B. Alexander, who asserted that foreign intelligence services collected phone records in "war zones" and "other areas outside their borders" and provided them to the NSA.[255]
The French newspaper Le Monde also disclosed new PRISM and Upstream slides (See Page 4, 7 and 8) coming from the "PRISM/US-984XN Overview" presentation.[256]
In Spain, the NSA intercepted the telephone conversations, text messages and emails of millions of Spaniards, and spied on members of the Spanish government.[257] Between December 10, 2012 and January 8, 2013, the NSA collected metadata on 60 million telephone calls in Spain.[258]
According to documents leaked by Snowden, the surveillance of Spanish citizens was jointly conducted by the NSA and the intelligence agencies of Spain.[259][260]
The Washington Post published a On October 4, 2013,published a PowerPoint presentation leaked by Snowden, showing how the NSA had compromised the Tor encrypted network that is being employed by hundreds of thousands of people to circumvent "nation state internet policies". By secretly exploiting a JavaScript plug-in, the NSA was able to uncover the identities of various |
ANCHISE.
Kyle: Actually, someone sent us a track from Myspace last month. Anyway, I guess is breakfast-themed hardcore, which is not a terrible concept for a band.
Eric: Breakfast fucking rules, and I like how this sounds like someone squealing because they are very, very hungry.
Duru tha King - “Salt Burn”
Drew: Who is this dude? He seems chill, and he’s from North Carolina and makes the kind of lush ass songs on the cheap that can only be made in the age of computers. Yes, he kinda sounds like a Kendrick Lamar ripoff, but who doesn’t sound like a Kendrick Lamar ripoff these days?
Kyle: North Carolina! Can someone make me a loop of this guy just sing-rapping "I am the reeealest" over and over? This beat is kind of nice even if it sounds like it was made on an iPad. Like Drew said, it sounds like bootleg Kendrick Lamar, but I like it.
Eric: Hey guys, did you know both Drew and Kyle are from North Carolina? Anyway, this is the best thing I’ve heard so far—which honestly isn’t saying much but it is catchy.
Presidencee x Coffee Black - "Ms. Purple"
Drew: Oh good, it’s a rapper casting the casual, clumsy misogyny spell! Effects include: no hype, suckiness, everyone ignoring this bozo until he dies alone and unloved.
Kyle: I feel like I'm stuck in an elevator with that shitty guy from high school who was always making "make me a sandwich" jokes and wore Livestrong bands.
Eric: This dude sounds like if someone called him “real hip-hop” he’d be fucking amped.
Déve Project - “Never Enough”
Drew: Jeez, can’t people just let the 80s die already? This sounds like if you gave one of Gary Wilson’s Hawaiian shirts a Pro Tools tutorial.
Kyle: This would be a pretty good song to use if someone wanted to bring back Rick Rolling and use something more obnoxious.
Eric: Man, the 80s were cool and I support trying to make music influenced by that era but this guy sounds like he found a copy of the Wedding Singer on VHS and an old vocoder in his parents’ basement.
Carletta Sue Kay - “Cruel, Cruel Man”
Drew: Carletta Sue Kay is Randy Walker, who used to work at Amoeba Records in San Francisco, sings like cabaret Satan, and had a New York Times article written about him that I took all of this information from.
Kyle: Dude, I don't even know. I feel like I'm trapped at a bad musical, but at least the guy can sing.
Eric: This feels like something that, if we make fun of it, a commenter will be like, “Hey fuck you guys you don’t know anything because you don’t like this and you like Yung Lean!” On that note though, I do enjoy this. Dude reminds me of Meat Loaf. Wait—is that Meat Loaf?
The Accident - “Fun Never Starts”
Kyle: My skull is caving in on itself. Good message about self-image or something, I guess. Bleep. Bloop. Okay, this is kind of growing on me.
Eric: I hate this.
Drew: PEACHES???
Jean Jacket - “Super Party Cups”
Drew: If you’re calling yourself “Jean Jacket” and making a song called “Super Party Cups,” it better be really fucking good, because even if this song was so good it gave me a boner I’d still be annoyed by it. Sure enough, I like this song in spite of its name, the music video, the overall vibe, the guy’s voice, and pretty much everything else about it. Oh wait, I fucking hate this.
Kyle: This needs like 4000 times more guitars and 4000 times less of everything that is in it. This band's first language clearly isn't English because there is no indication they have any idea what a party is.
Eric: My internet is kind of sketchy right now and I’ve been trying to play this song for about ten minutes and still can’t stream it so I’m going to go ahead and trust Kyle and Drew and assume this song blows and I’ve already wasted too much time trying to listen to it.
Wake Up - “Forever Home”
Kyle: Guitars are so chill.
Eric: I like this. There are probably a thousand bands that sound exactly like it. But I still like it.
Drew: Why would you ever listen to music that was boring on purpose.
Gravel Kings - “More Alive”
Drew: Ah, yes, a more fuckboyishly-rendered Mumford & Sons. It’s not what the world wanted, IT’S WHAT THE WORLD DEMANDED.
Kyle: Gahhhh I hope those woods burn down.
Eric: Don’t Let Gravel Kings Trick You Into Liking Them
Lil B - “Hoop Life”
Drew: Yo, seriously, somebody—probably Golden State—should sign Lil B to a one-day contract and let him play like the last minute of the first quarter. They would make a million dollars.
Kyle: Fuck Kevin Durant.
Eric: Drew, that would make sense if Golden State were still in the playoffs.
Penetrate My Memory - “Andillusion”
Drew: Man, this sounded fuckin dope until the vocals kicked in. Jesus invented the Vocoder so this dude could discover it and have his songs not suck dick.
Kyle: It's cool how technology has democratized the production of music so that anyone who wants to fart around and pretend to be Morrissey can make a song like this and tag it #Darkwave and make me want to move somewhere where there are no computers or recorded sound.
Eric: The bio of this: “Wrote this entirely using texts from the one I adore -we write poetry for ourselves.” I hope they break up and he trips and falls down some stairs.
The Sly Persuaders - “Hey Faustus! / Rachel”
Drew: I can’t tell if this is smart people making dumb music on purpose, or dumb people trying to make smart music and failing. Either way, I hate the fact that I even have to wonder about this.
Kyle: That's a pretty cool riff. I think if you are the kind of person who buys cassettes this might be a decent investment for £1.
Eric: It sounds like these guys like lifting weights.
DLF - “Dusting off the Cobwebs”
Drew: I don’t really have the critical base to judge super old-school sounding techno, but this seems fine I guess.
Kyle: I like that these guys look like a cheesy wedding band but are in fact a cheesy analog techno group. That's pretty dope. I would let them play my wedding for sure, especially if it was in some weird warehouse.
Eric: I watched the new Star Trek over the weekend and it was pretty cool.
Wednesday - “Make Shift”
Drew: This is the part of this exercise in ramming your head against a wall where everything that doesn’t overtly suck goats tends to sound amazing. But even still, I think this might actually be sort of an amazing, progressive song.
Kyle: I suspect this secretly took like 30 seconds to make, but it sounds kind of awesome, and I bet that low end rips on good speakers.
Eric: Weed.
Spillway - "As Astronauts or Atoms"
Drew: Why do man get guitar.
Kyle: The emo revival is real.
Eric: How many times will bands use a drawing of a robot and think it will make them seem like they have a cool indie rock aesthetic?
Royale - “Take a Minute”
Drew: Pro tip: If your band sounds like a hybrid of 311, the String Cheese Incident, and Minus the Bear, no good can possibly come from you going out of your way to let us know you exist. Were these guys too busy copying Bradley Nowell’s diary by hand when they were teenagers to develop the capacity for thought?
Kyle: #same
Eric: Drew and Kyle have done such a good job at destroying this piece of musical trash that anything I write will only take away from their brilliance.
Ephixa - “Lost Woods (Dubstep Remix)”
Drew: THIS. IS. A. DUBSTEP. REMIX. OF. THE. LEGEND. OF. ZELDA. CAN. IT. STOP. 20 million YouTube views can’t be wrong, except when they’re extremely wrong.
Kyle: I never really understood the appeal of the Zelda games, but I 100 percent understand the appeal of this, which is that all of you people are fucking nerds.
Eric: I was a PlayStation guy.
Drew: No comment.
Kyle: New Kanye.
Eric: New Drugazi.
AllanKingdom - “mediocre”
Drew: Wow, this guy didn’t do the whole self-fulfilling prophecy thing by calling his song “mediocre.” In order to do that, he’d have had to call it “Total Fuckshit.”
Kyle: Did this guy learn how to sing from a Furby?
Eric: Music is dope.
@drewmillard
@kylekramer
@ericsundy
--
WANT MORE?
We Reviewed Every Band Playing Bonnarro
Dhananjay the First Is Here to Steal Your GirlThe God gene hypothesis proposes that human spirituality is influenced by heredity and that a specific gene, called vesicular monoamine transporter 2 (VMAT2), predisposes humans towards spiritual or mystic experiences.[1] The idea has been proposed by geneticist Dean Hamer in the 2004 book called The God Gene: How Faith is Hardwired into our Genes.
The God gene hypothesis is based on a combination of behavioral genetic, neurobiological and psychological studies.[2] The major arguments of the hypothesis are: (1) spirituality can be quantified by psychometric measurements; (2) the underlying tendency to spirituality is partially heritable; (3) part of this heritability can be attributed to the gene VMAT2; (4) this gene acts by altering monoamine levels; and (5) spirituality provides an evolutionary advantage by providing individuals with an innate sense of optimism.
Proposal [ edit ]
According to the God Gene hypothesis, spirituality has a genetic component, of which (VMAT2) comprises one component by contributing to sensations associated with mystic experiences, including the presence of God and feelings of connection to a larger universe.
The research uses the self-transcendence scale developed by psychologist Robert Cloninger to quantify spirituality using three sub-scales: "self-forgetfulness" (as in the tendency to become totally absorbed in some activity, such as reading); "transpersonal identification" (a feeling of connectedness to a larger universe); and "mysticism" (an openness to believe things that remain unproven, such as ESP). Cloninger suggests that taken together, these measurements are a reasonable way to quantify (make measurable) an individual's propensity to spiritual.
The self-transcendence measure was shown to be heritable by classical twin studies conducted by Lindon Eaves and Nicholas Martin. Their work demonstrated that approximately 40% of the variation in self-transcendence was due to genes. By contrast, specific religious beliefs (such as belief in a particular deity) were found to have no genetic basis and are instead cultural units or memes. Similar conclusions were drawn from studies of identical twins reared apart.
In order to identify some of the specific genes involved in self-transcendence, Hamer analyzed DNA and personality score data from over 1,000 individuals and identified one particular locus, VMAT2, with a significant correlation. VMAT2 codes for a vesicular monoamine transporter that plays a key role in regulating the levels of the brain chemicals serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine. These monoamine transmitters are in turn postulated to play an important role in regulating the brain activities associated with mystic beliefs.
Hamer hypothesized that self-transcendence might provide an evolutionary advantage by providing human beings with an innate sense of optimism that gives people the will to keep on living and procreating, despite the inevitability of death, and promoting better health and recovery from diseases.
Scientific response [ edit ]
In the brain, VMAT2 proteins are located on synaptic vesicles. VMAT2 transports monoamine neurotransmitters from the cytosol of monoamine neurons into vesicles. PZ Myers argues: "It's a pump. A teeny-tiny pump responsible for packaging a neurotransmitter for export during brain activity. Yes, it's important, and it may even be active and necessary during higher order processing, like religious thought. But one thing it isn't is a 'god gene.'"[3]
Carl Zimmer claimed that VMAT2 can be characterized as a gene that accounts for less than one percent of the variance of self-transcendence scores. These, Zimmer says, can signify anything from belonging to the Green Party to believing in ESP. Zimmer also points out that the God Gene theory is based on only one unpublished, unreplicated study.[4] However Hamer notes that the importance of the VMAT2 finding is not that it explains all spiritual or religious feelings, but rather that it points the way toward one neurobiological pathway that may be important.
Religious response [ edit ]
John Polkinghorne, an Anglican priest, member of the Royal Society and Canon Theologian at Liverpool Cathedral, was asked for a comment on Hamer's theory by the British national daily newspaper, The Daily Telegraph. He replied: "The idea of a God gene goes against all my personal theological convictions. You can't cut faith down to the lowest common denominator of genetic survival. It shows the poverty of reductionist thinking." [5][6]
Walter Houston, the chaplain of Mansfield College, Oxford, and a fellow in theology, told the Telegraph: "Religious belief is not just related to a person's constitution; it's related to society, tradition, character—everything's involved. Having a gene that could do all that seems pretty unlikely to me."
Hamer responded that the existence of such a gene would not be incompatible with the existence of a personal God: "Religious believers can point to the existence of God genes as one more sign of the creator's ingenuity—a clever way to help humans acknowledge and embrace a divine presence."[6] He repeatedly notes in his book that, "This book is about whether God genes exist, not about whether there is a God."[7]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]A commanding general has introduced charges for two Marine drill instructors accused of hazing recruits at Parris Island, including a senior enlisted member who allegedly threw a Muslim recruit in a dryer and turned it on and who later was alleged to have likely provided the impetus for another Muslim recruit's suicide.
The senior drill instructor, Gunnery Sgt. Joseph Felix, will face an Article 32 investigative hearing March 16 on charges of failure to obey a lawful general order, cruelty and maltreatment, false official statement, drunk and disorderly conduct and obstruction of justice, officials said.
Officials with Marine Corps Training and Education Command announced the charges on Friday, but didn't release the name of the accused because the legal actions haven't yet been finalized. Even so, multiple sources confirmed his identity to Military.com.
Felix is the former senior drill instructor alleged to have hazed two Muslim recruits in separate incidents, one of which occurred moments before the suicide death of 20-year-old Pakistani-American recruit Raheel Siddiqui last March at the South Carolina base, sources said.
While investigations substantiated that Felix as the drill instructor was involved in both incidents, it's unclear which events are detailed in his charges.
Attempts to reach his military attorney, Capt. Richard Korges, were unsuccessful.
Another drill instructor, a sergeant, will have an Article 32 hearing March 17 on charges of failure to obey a lawful general order, cruelty and maltreatment, false official statement, and drunk and disorderly conduct.
An attorney for the sergeant, who has not been identified, spoke to his successful career on the drill field in a statement provided to Military.com.
"My client completed a successful tour on the drill field during which he trained hundreds of recruits," said Brian Magee, a defense attorney with Military Justice Attorneys in South Carolina. "He has endured well over a year of investigations that reveal nothing except baseless allegations by a few individuals with questionable and selfish motives. We look forward to our first opportunity to confront them under oath."
Both hearings are set to take place at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, officials with the command said. In the military justice system, service members are not formally charged and trial dates set until after the Article 32 process.
The alleged hazing was uncovered in a wide-ranging trio of investigations launched after the death of Siddiqui.
Siddiqui took his own life by jumping from the third story of a barracks building, moments after being slapped and berated by the senior drill instructor identified by sources as Felix. Felix was also the purported primary instigator in a 2015 incident in which a Muslim recruit was allegedly hazed in the middle of the night using an industrial clothes dryer, causing burns to his neck and shoulders, and forced to shout "Allah Akbar" loud enough to wake the other recruits.
Investigators stopped short of substantiating that drill instructors found culpable in the investigations were motivated by specific racial bias or Islamophobia. They pointed out that recruits of all races were routinely singled out by drill instructors within the scope of the investigations on account of their backgrounds and ethnicity, citing one incident in which a Russian recruit was allegedly asked if he was a communist spy.
Also Friday, command officials detailed charges or trial dates for four other Marine drill instructors who have previously faced investigative hearings in other incidents of alleged hazing at Parris Island.
Staff Sgt. Antonio B. Burke, has been charged with disobeying a noncommissioned officer, failure to obey a lawful order, cruelty and maltreatment, false official statement, wrongful appropriation, and general misconduct, and is pending date and time for arraignment, officials said.
Staff Sgt. Matthew Bacchus, charged with failure to obey a lawful general order, cruelty and maltreatment, and false official statement, will face trial April 10-14 at Quantico, officials said.
Staff Sgt. Jose Lucena-Martinez, charged with failure to obey a lawful general order, will face trial May 15-19 at Quantico.
Sgt. Riley Gress, charged with failure to obey a lawful general order, cruelty and maltreatment, and false official statement, will begin his trial May 22 at Quantico.
Bacchus, Lucena-Martinez and Gress have had dates set for special court-martial proceedings. Special courts-martial, an intermediate-level military trial, are reserved for troops facing no more than 12 months' confinement.
"Referral and preferral of charges are accusations," a command spokesman, Capt. Joshua Pena, said in a release. "All Marines are presumed innocent until proven guilty."
The Marines' top officer said when the hazing allegations were made public last year that all the alleged incidents, which took place within Parris Island's 3rd Recruit Training Battalion, were not indicative of the larger culture within Marine Corps boot camp or the Corps in general.
"When America's men and women commit to becoming Marines, we make a promise to them. We pledge to train them with firmness, fairness, dignity and compassion," Gen. Robert Neller said in a statement released in September.
He added, "Simply stated, the manner in which we make Marines is as important as the finished product. Recruit training is, and will remain, physically and mentally challenging so that we can produce disciplined, ethical, basically trained Marines."
Editor's note: This story was updated to correct the charge for Staff Sgt. Jose Lucena-Martinez in the 17th paragraph.
-- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @HopeSeck.WASHINGTON — The Trump administration, which is looking to slash the National Park Service’s budget by nearly 13 percent and eliminate 1,200 full-time staff, proposed Tuesday to drastically hike entrance fees at 17 of America’s most popular national parks, including Yellowstone, Yosemite and Glacier.
The move “would generate badly needed revenue for improvements to the aging infrastructure of national parks,” including roads, campgrounds and visitor centers, NPS said in a release Tuesday.
The planned increases are steep. If implemented, the cost of private vehicles would more than double to $70, while fees for a motorcycle would hit $50. Visitors entering by bicycle or on foot would pay $30.
Currently, at Yellowstone and Zion national parks, rates are $30 per vehicle, $25 per motorcycle and $15 for individuals on foot. Arches and Canyonlands national parks cost $25 per vehicle, $15 per motorcycle and $10 per individual.
The new fee structure would be limited to each park’s peak season, its busiest five months.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said in a statement that the price bump “will help ensure that [the parks] are protected and preserved in perpetuity and that visitors enjoy a world-class experience that mirrors the amazing destinations they are visiting.”
“We need to have the vision to look at the future of our parks and take action in order to ensure that our grandkids’ grandkids will have the same if not better experience than we have today,” Zinke said. “Shoring up our parks’ aging infrastructure will do that.”
Zinke ― whose job it is to manage about 500 million acres of federal land, including the 59 national parks — has repeatedly stressed the need to address America’s aging infrastructure and vowed to address the estimated $12.5 billion maintenance backlog at national parks. In April, President Donald Trump donated $78,333.32, a portion of his salary, to the National Park Service, which Zinke said at the time would go toward improving maintenance of the nation’s battlefields.
Democratic lawmakers were quick to slam the park fee proposal. Rep. Raúl Grijalva (Ariz.), the ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, said in a statement, “We should be encouraging more people to get outdoors and enjoy our great natural wonders instead of discouraging them by raising park entrance fees.”
Sen. Maria Cantwell (Wash.) pointed to Zinke’s use of private planes for government business — a controversy Zinke has dismissed as “a little B.S.”
“While Secretary Zinke flies around on private jets using our taxpayer dollars, he is hiking up the fees all American families pay to enjoy our National Parks,” Cantwell said in a statement.
Theresa Pierno, president and CEO of National Parks Conservation Association, said the fee hikes would make these popular parks “unaffordable for some families.”
“The solution to our parks’ repair needs cannot and should not be largely shouldered by its visitors,” she said, adding that the administration should work with Congress to address the maintenance backlog.Aaron Ramsey says Arsenal could have beaten Everton if the game had gone on slightly longer due to the momentum they had generated.
Trailing 2-0 after 83 minutes, the midfielder tapped home his third goal of the season before Oliver Giroud's header snatched a point for Arsene Wenger's side right at the end.
Ramsey believes the result will give Arsenal a real boost ahead of Wednesday's decisive Champions League qualifier against Besiktas.
"We showed great character in getting back into the game"
"We've been saying to the press all week that we needed to start the game well and keep ourselves in the game," Ramsey told Arsenal Player.
"Unfortunately we didn't do that but we showed great spirit and kept going. We scored two goals in the last 10 minutes and if anything it looked like we could go on to win it.
"We pressed higher up in the second half. The gaps weren't as big between [the midfield] and the defence so that was important for us to get on the front foot again.
"The only disappointing thing is that we conceded two early goals again which we did a couple of times last season. But this time we showed great character in getting back into the game.
“Besiktas is going to be big. It's an important game for us as we want to qualify for the group stage. All the lads will have the right rest and hopefully go into the game really positively and come away with a win.JAMMU: Expressing concern over reported Chinese incursions into Indian territories, BJP on Friday charged that it is an outcome of the policy failures of successive Congress governments at the Centre."This is an outcome of India's failure to perceive China's well-planned policy to exploit ambiguity over the LAC which has been perpetuated by successive Congress governments in New Delhi", BJP J&K chief spokesperson, Jitendra Singh said here on Friday.He alleged that it started from the first Congress government headed by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and unfortunately even today, despite frequent recent incursions by Chinese, the present UPA government led by Congress is making no determined effort to redeem this ambiguity.He expressed concern over reports that China has incrementally occupied nearly 640 square km of area on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh and the National Security Advisory Board member Shyam Saran having confirmed that China has also stopped Indian troops from patrolling at the LAC in Ladakh.Singh went on to explain that the LAC, also known as the MacCartney-MacDonald Line, is an assumed border between India and the People's Republic of China.Alleging that there were no lessons learnt even after 1962, Jitendra Singh said the term "LAC" was allowed to gain legal recognition through Sino-Indian agreements signed in 1993 and 1996.He quoted the 1996 agreement which stated, "No activities of either side shall overstep the Line of Actual Control".In spite of all these agreements, Singh said the Chinese continue to revel in ambiguity over LAC and even after the three week standoff between Indian and Chinese troops earlier this year, the Chinese troops are regularly intruding into Indian territory and also committing human rights violation by causing fear among the local population on Indian side.BJP spokesman called upon the UPA government to come out with a policy document on China.On Government Funding of Think Tanks
The New York Times ran an investigative article over the weekend examining foreign government funding of U.S. think tanks. The article found that
More than a dozen prominent Washington research groups have received tens of millions of dollars from foreign governments in recent years while pushing United States government officials to adopt policies that often reflect the donors’ priorities, an investigation by The New York Times has found. The money is increasingly transforming the once-staid think-tank world into a muscular arm of foreign governments’ lobbying in Washington. And it has set off troubling questions about intellectual freedom: Some scholars say they have been pressured to reach conclusions friendly to the government financing the research.
The article was a good example of investigative journalism. However, it did miss one point that is perhaps most important for majority of U.S. citizens and residents, who are generally opposed to much of our government’s foreign policy, especially e.g., wars of choice. This is that the foreign governments funding the think tanks in question are all allies of the United States, and often share U.S. foreign policy goals. In that sense they may reinforce the U.S. government’s influence over media and ideas. This paid influence in “the marketplace of ideas” help perpetuate the process by which the media that reaches most Americans does not recognize an independent civil society on foreign policy issues. Practically all of the experts that Americans see on major TV on foreign policy issues are either government officials, former government officials, or are getting money from the government – or from its foreign allies.
Writing about the investigation, the Non-Profit Quarterly noted that sometimes think tanks are not overly transparent regarding their foreign funding:
There are several very disturbing elements to this story that should be a concern for all nonprofits. First, because these think tanks are 501(c) organizations, the public disclosure of their funding relationships with foreign governments may be difficult to spot in formal documents such as Form 990s. For example, on the CSIS website, there is a list of foreign governments that have provided funding to the organization, but without funding amounts, dates, or the specific projects or initiatives they may have supported. There is nothing in the latest CSIS Form 990 posted on the GuideStar website identifying or describing any foreign government funding of the organization. One would think that funding from other sovereign nations might be something that should be a matter of public disclosure.
There are some clear examples of where foreign government funding represents a conflict of interest in regards to policy positions adopted by Washington think tanks. As the NYT noted, the Government of Japan has funded the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) as Japan works to promote the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) “free trade” deal with the U.S. and a dozen other countries:
The center will not say how much money the [Japanese] government has given — or for what exactly — but an examination of its relationship with a state-funded entity called the Japan External Trade Organization provides a glimpse. In the past four years, the organization has given the center at least $1.1 million for “research and consulting” to promote trade and direct investment between Japan and the United States. The center also houses visiting scholars from within the Japanese government, including Hiroshi Waguri, an executive in the Ministry of Defense, as well as Shinichi Isobe, an executive from the trade organization.
In an interview with Democracy Now, Brooke Williams, one of the authors of the NYT investigation, described how a CSIS expert had testified before Congress in favor of the TPP:
…there’s an organization called the Japan External Trade Organization. And we found, in filings with the Department of Justice, that they had been paying the Center for Strategic and International Studies, as well as other think tanks, for research and consulting. And then we also documented that the product of these seminars and groups that they held was to promote the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Now, a member, a scholar there, ended up testifying before Congress, promoting the Trans-Pacific Partnership. And what this comes down to is: Do lawmakers know? When someone from a research organization approaches them with a policy recommendation, do they know that a foreign government has funded that organization or, in some cases, even the policy paper itself?
But CSIS is not alone; the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) also receives support from the Japanese government, for example. PIIE has also strongly promoted trade deals like the TPP and NAFTA (see our critique of PIIE’s misleading claims regarding Latin American countries’ growth and NAFTA).
Among the think tanks with significant foreign funding examined in an accompanying NYT graphic is the Inter-American Dialogue, the most-cited think tank on Latin America in the U.S. media, and the key foreign policy establishment think tank on Latin America and the Caribbean in Washington. Among the governments that the NYT notes have donated to the Dialogue are those of Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico and Panama. According to the Dialogue’s own site, Canada is another. Each, it is worth noting, have “free trade” agreements with the United States. Yet, as The Intercept and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting have noted, the press does not see any possible conflict of interest or need to notify its readers of funding sources.
Writing at the Washington Post, scholar and Brookings fellow Daniel Drezner noted that “think tanks have to get their funding from somewhere,” and funds from foreign governments are not the only ones that can have strings attached. Funding from “the U.S. government, foundations, large corporations, or really wealthy individuals” can also be problematic.
Drezner is right – and the U.S. government and corporate funding going to groups such as CSIS, PIIE and the Dialogue is perhaps even more troubling. With support from USAID, and a revolving door between its leadership and the U.S. government (and related groups such as the congressionally-funded National Endowment for Democracy), it should perhaps be little surprise that the Dialogue’s policy positions are so often closely aligned with the U.S. State Department’s, or with their many corporate donors.
PIIE’s list of supporters consists mostly of large corporations, some based in the U.S., some not. Among these are Elliott Management, a principle vulture fund seeking to get top dollar for their holdings of Argentine debt. They also include corporate heavyweights such as Caterpillar, Cargill and major automobile manufacturers – all of which have supported FTA’s with various Latin American countries.
The Boston Globe has previously reported on the hawkish CSIS’ significant funding from weapons manufacturers:
CSIS is building a new 15,000-square foot, $100 million headquarters in Washington with money raised by a high-powered collection of former senior government officials and titans of industry representing defense giants Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Raytheon, along with pharmaceutical conglomerate Procter & Gamble, oil giant Chevron, and a top adviser to the Sultan of Oman, according to CSIS officers and documents.
Much of the response to the NYT article has been in defense of the think tanks’ funding, suggesting that these experts can remain above the influence of their funders’ various agendas. But support from these donors is inherently problematic -- as are revolving doors between organizations and governments -- if we are to have an independent civil society.
Disclosure: CEPR receives no funding from corporations or governments, with one exception of a grant from Washington State several years ago. More information about our funding is available here, and through Guidestar here.Fooch's Update: The 49ers announced Patrick Willis to injured reserve as the corresponding move.
Late last night, Hall of Fame Player Representatives tweeted that Alfonso Smith had re-signed with the San Francisco 49ers. Matt Maiocco was the first to notice it, and there have been no other reports on the news since.
Bruce Ellington suffered a sprained ankle on Sunday, and had to be replaced in the return game. Perrish Cox handled punt returns, and Carlos Hyde handled kick returns. If Ellington is going to miss this weekend's game, that would mean more return work for Hyde. One possibility with this move is that, if the team decided using Hyde in the return game could tire him enough, or provides enough injury risk, they want to have an extra body available at running back. That is purely speculation on my part.
The 49ers already have to clear one spot to bring back Aldon Smith off the suspended list, and the signing of Smith would mean they need another addition. Smith would seemingly be a special teams guy, who could also fill in if there was an emergency at running back. That would seem to mean he would fill the space of a special teams player.
The 49ers inactives this past weekend included cornerback Leon McFadden, safety L.J. McCray and quarterback Josh Johnson. With the 49ers expecting Aldon Smith back this week, along with Alfonso Smith, and then Glenn Dorsey this week or next week, all three of those inactive players could find themselves out of a job soon.national
Thane Police claim Rs 1 crore was transferred from the account of corporator Najib Mulla, an accused in the builder's suicide case, to NCP leader Jitendra Awhad; the latter says a loan was returned with interest to him
Another Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader seems to be in trouble after Chhagan Bhujbal and Ajit Pawar. The Thane police have told the Bombay High Court in the Suraj Parmar case that around Rs 1 crore was transferred from an accused corporator’s account to Thane NCP leader Jitendra Awhad’s account.
The Bombay High Court was hearing the interim relief application of the four accused corporators, Najib Mulla, Vikrant Chavan, Hanumant Jagdale and Sudhakar Chavan yesterday. They had been named by builder Parmar, in his suicide note.
NCP leader Jitendra Awhad
Public Prosecutor Raja Thakare, who appeared for the Thane police told the court, that around R1 crore was transferred from accused NCP corporator Najib Mulla’s account to Awhad’s account, which needs to be investigated.
When asked about this, Awhad told mid-day, “I and Najib Mulla are business partners. We have formed a company and I had given a loan of R75 lakh to them (him and other partners) in 2011 and they returned it with interest now.”
Thakare also told the court that Vikrant Chavan had declared his property at the time of elections, to be that of a few lakhs and today his properties run into a few crores. He told the court that this needs to be investigated, as Parmar had written in his suicide note that he was tired of paying money to the corporators, who used to find some issue in his projects.
“Our counsel has made a representation,” confirmed V V Laxminarayana, Joint Commissioner of Police, Thane.
The police told the court that properties of corporators had increased and the source needs to be investigated. The cops asked the court to cancel the corporators’ interim relief and grant permission to arrest them.Logitech recently unveiled the versatile Circle 2 -- its second-generation home surveillance camera. Unlike the first version of the cam, the newer variant can be used both indoors and outside. Plus, thanks to the many mounting options, you can position it in many different ways. It looks like a great product.
Today, the Circle 2 gets even more attractive thanks to an upcoming new feature. You see, the internet-connected camera is getting integration with the upcoming Echo Show -- Amazon's assistant device that features a display. This actually makes a lot of sense, as it transforms Amazon's screen-having device into a voice-controlled surveillance monitor.
"This new integration with Amazon Echo Show is in addition to the Amazon Alexa custom skill announced previously with our Circle 2 cameras. Simply setup the Logi Circle -- Live skill in your Amazon Alexa app with your Logi Circle account and you’re all set! Check on packages delivered to the front door or another part of your home from your Amazon Echo Show. Just ask Alexa and view your designated Circle 2 camera live stream quickly and hands-free," says Logitech.
ALSO READ: Logitech unveils 2017 Doodle Collection mobile wireless mice
Vincent Borel, director of new ventures at Logitech, explains, "Logitech Circle 2 helps you secure your entire home both indoors and outdoors. Adding Amazon Echo Show support enhances your home security experience by letting you quickly check in on what's happening with just a simple command."
Neither the Circle 2 nor the Echo Show are currently available, but both can be had soon. Amazon's product launches on June 28, while Logitech's offering arrives in July. If you own the first-generation Logitech Circle and feel left out, don't -- it too will be compatible with the Echo Show.Utah and Arizona State are fighting to achieve dramatically different goals when they clash on Thursday night.
For the No. 15 Utes, a victory over the Sun Devils means another step forward to claiming the Pac-12 South |
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I’ll say this knowing full well some of the people reading this article may have been the ones booing, but if you did, saying “I have the right to boo”, is up there with the I have the right to teach my kids to hate foreigners school of idiocy and you should seriously consider staying at home and screaming at the match on the telly.
Mourinho brings a lot of his treatment on himself in that he refuses to play the media’s game and his teams haven’t always put entertainment above pragmatism, but did we really expect anything else?
If we want to try and convince ourselves Mourinho will start setting his team out to attack with no consideration of their defensive duties, or that he’ll become a loving father figure to all his players, or perhaps even spend the next two decades at Old Trafford, then maybe we should take another look at Moyes while we’re at it and see if he’s willing to come back to United, who knows maybe now he’s finally up to the job.A few weeks ago, Cincinnati Reds general manager Dick Williams was one of several executives to weigh in on the question: “How necessary is it for an MLB front office to pick a direction and stay the course?”
Williams gave an expansive answer, addressing the fact that he leads a small-market team in full rebuild mode. But while he covered a lot in his four-paragraph contribution, much was left unsaid. A lot has changed since he replaced Walt Jocketty as the Reds’ general manager 15 months ago. Many of the particulars have flown well below the radar, so I followed up with the former investment banker to get a deeper look at what’s been happening behind the scenes in Cincinnati.
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Williams on rebuilding in a small market: “Rebuilding in a smaller market has its challenges. Because of that, we’re being extremely prudent with our investment dollars. When some of the bigger-market teams are going through a rebuilding phase, they can do a one-year signing of a guy making $8-10 million. He’ll be a good contributor to that club, then be a flip candidate to bring back prospects at the trade deadline. Smaller-market teams can’t go out and do a bunch of those deals when they’re in a rebuilding phase.
“Attendance tends to drop off more quickly for small-market teams in a rebuild period and that can have a big effect on revenues. Bigger-market teams… usually have a higher and more solid attendance base, so they can sort of weather the down times a little better.
“A lot of times, when you come out of a rebuild, you’ll start with what you might call ‘go-for-it signings.’ Smaller-market teams have less leeway in terms of hitting or missing on one of those. It’s more painful on a relative basis for us to miss on a big-dollar contract.
“Over the last two years, we obviously haven’t been in a position to go for it, but that’s going to change. In another couple of seasons, we expect to be competing again for some of the higher-dollar free agents. We’ll have to be really careful about that, because of our relative payroll size.”
On allocating money to infrastructure and amateur talent: “Last year, we went through a thorough analysis of our business. We met with each department head and effectively examined where we thought dollars would have a better return on investment than at the major league payroll level. Then we went back to ownership and said, ‘This is our next couple of years, this is what we’d like them to look like, and this is where we’d like to take money out of major-league payroll and put it to use in other areas.’
“The highest dollar amount was allocated to amateur-talent acquisition. That’s not infrastructure — I’ll hit on that next — but it’s something we felt strongly about. It was by far — I think it was three times — our largest annual investment. We had a high first-round pick [second overall], we had our biggest draft pool, and the money we spent in the domestic draft was our most ever. With [TJ] Freidl as an undrafted sign, we ended up exceeding our domestic draft pool. Internationally, we also exceeded our pool. When you add up our bonuses and penalties in the domestic and international markets, we went further than we’d ever gone. Add all of that together, and you get the highest amateur talent expenditure we’ve had in any year.”
On growing a Pacific Rim presence: “In the scouting world, we went around the horn and evaluated what we needed to do to grow infrastructure. For the first time, we have a Pacific Rim presence. We have a coordinator who is based on the west coast — he’s in Seattle — and we’ve added an area scout based in Asia. We’re looking to add one more.
“Our Pacific Rim coordinator is Rob Fidler, who came over from the Cardinals. Then we hired Jamey Storvick, who is based in Taiwan. When we do add another area scout, he’ll likely be stationed in Japan. This will give us a lot more information than we have had. Historically, it was mostly about the posting fees and the profiles of the players coming out, and it wasn’t an area we felt we needed to be spending a lot of money on for a scouting infrastructure, because we couldn’t afford the few players who did come over. Now, with more players coming out, and the acquisition costs coming down — and the fact that there’s a secondary market for players — there are more opportunities for us. We want to have a lot more information on these players.”
On Latin American and domestic scouting: “We have a plan in place to expand our scouting in Latin America. Like everybody, we’re working on how to be reactive to the situations in Cuba and Venezuela, and what opportunities are going to presented in each. Both have been made difficult, but that could change.
“We’ve made facility improvements – a new weight room, training room, classrooms, housing, and training facilities — in our Dominican program.
“Domestically, we’ve added two national crosscheckers. We’ve also added a second area scout in Texas, where we were one of the few teams that had only one. Part of that had to do with where our crosscheckers were set up, but now we have two dedicated to Texas. Another thing we’ve been adding is entry-level scouts on the pro side. With that, we’ve kind of been beefing up the bottom end of the pyramid. Independent-league and rookie-league coverage are also being increased.”
On advances in player development: “Player development is another area where we’ve made significant investments. One thing we’re doing is adding a fourth coach at every level. Big-leagues staffs are up to eight or nine coaches, depending on how you assign responsibilities, and in the minor leagues, where guys have their biggest development curve, it’s been a fraction of that. Historically, it was a manager — he was also the trainer, the bus driver, the clubbie — and then we got to a point where there was a hitting coach and a pitching coach.
“Some teams — like we’re doing — have added a fourth coach. Maybe it’s to serve as a third-base coach, so the manager can stay in the dugout instead of having to go out and coach the bases. Or if [the manager] does coach third, you still have someone in the dugout working with the players. The hitting coach is occupied with the hitters, and the pitching coach might be down in the bullpen, so now you have more of a game-strategy presence in the dugout — a game-awareness coach.
“We’re doing a few other things, as well. We’ve added front-office staff to deal with the increasing information. We’ve added additional full-time strength coaches, and we’ve improved our trainer and physical therapist-to-player ratios. We’ve invested in continuing education for our training and strength staffs. We’ve sent selected players to leadership training.”
On nutrition, rest and recovery, and optimizing performance through technology: “It’s obviously a different environment in the minor leagues, where you can effectively tell guys what you want them to do. In the major leagues, it’s typically more of a voluntary exercise – although we prefer when they opt in. For example, this year, when we opened camp, on the very first day we talked to them about sleeping, and the different products we can make available to them to monitor their sleeping. We can evaluate ways to help them improve it, if it’s an area of concern. That’s something we’ll implement in the minor leagues. We’re tracking their sleeping, especially when it comes to the bus rides and the scheduling, trying to optimize performance based on rest-and-recovery principles.
“We’ve put a lot of money into nutrition. This something we’ve done more and more of in recent years, but this year was kind of a quantum leap with the amount of money we’re spending on pre- and post-game meals at all of our minor-league affiliates.
“I think most teams would tell you they’re active in these spaces. It’s certainly become an increased focus for us. There is some wonderful new technology available, and everybody is trying to figure out which ones work and take advantage of it. Which ones the players will gravitate to is part of that.”
On analytics and sports science: “We’re continuing to grow our investment in analytics and sports science. In the analytics world, we have a growing staff — we’re up to 10 people who fall under that umbrella now. That includes a couple of, basically, full-time contractors we use on some of the back-end programming.
“Sam Grossman, who started with us in 2007, runs our analytics department. He had been our lone wolf, but over time we’ve given him a lot more resources to work with. We were up to about five or six by the time I [became GM in December 2016], and with my urging, we’ve hired a few more full-timers just this spring.
“We created a new sports-science department, led by a guy named Charles Leddon, who used to be at the Andrews Institute [for Orthopedics and Sports Medicine]. He was working as a baseball trainer in our minor-league system, and we felt he had a good background, both on the field in a practical baseball environment, and the deep research-and-development. He’s tasked with a lot of the… we get called on every day by people who have biomechanical-measurement devices, biometric wearable technology, new products in virtual reality, vision training — we get a lot of different products pushed our way, and Charles is helping to weed through them to get us affiliated with the right technology partners to implement some practical solutions.
“This has been a year of significant change for us in terms of dedicating resources to those types of initiatives. Fortunately, we’ve had the support of ownership to undergo these projects. We presented the alternatives, and the vast majority were approved and implemented. We’re going to continue to go forward with them.”
On changing the culture in Cincinnati: “I spent most of [Thursday] in a seminar by a Harvard Business School professor who was discussing organizational behavior and culture — things like building organizations and on-boarding people. That was interesting, because while I didn’t consciously start out in this job and say, ‘Hey, I’m going to overhaul a culture,’ I certainly haven’t been shy about proposing things. That’s probably a little bit of a product of me coming into baseball in an atypical way.
“My first job in the game came when I was 35. My jobs before baseball were in investment banking, politics, and finance, so I kind of started fresh with no preconceived notions about how things should be done. I was able to ask a lot of questions and challenge people. I think that’s been a good ingredient to the soup, so to speak. You can’t build a baseball front office with all people who come from outside the sport, but having someone come in who is willing to challenge the status quo can be a positive. It can help free people up to think outside the box.”
On rebuilding allowing for more innovation: “We were in a radically different place in 2012 than we are now. We had an established core in place, both position players and pitchers, and we had a seasoned manager in Dusty Baker. Coming into that spring, it was 95% determined how we were going to break camp. There were very few open topics.
“We have a lot more opportunistic view right now. We’re in a position to be much more creative with the players we have. For lack of a better term, this is a flatter roster. By that I mean the difference between the established everyday player and the new young rookie. Back in 2012, it was kind of the haves and have-nots.
“Looking at where we are now, across the 40-man roster, we’re much closer-grouped in age and service time. There are more guys who are open to different things and will do whatever it takes to get to the big leagues, as opposed to a veteran core that is maybe set in their ways. They’re a young, impressionable group, and we’re exposing them to data, analytics, new technologies, new ways of doing things.
“Some things are only crazy if you approach them from the perspective of, ‘What was done before was totally sane.’ That makes the new stuff sound crazy, but maybe we should challenge the notion that everything we were doing before was sane. Maybe there are better ways to do certain things.”In this April 11, 2017 photo courtesy of Cate Luther shows her 12-year-old daughter, Charlotte Luther riding her found adaptive tricycle in Antioch, Calif. A Northern California police officer's dogged determination has reunited a special needs girl with her specially built tricycle. Antioch Police officer Dan Fachner recently arrested a 24-year-old man discovered riding the $4,000 tricycle late Tuesday. Fachner returned the trike to the family soon after arresting the suspect for theft. Antioch is 45 miles east of San Francisco. (Cate Luther via AP) The Associated Press
ANTIOCH, Calif. (AP) — A Northern California police officer's dogged determination has reunited a special needs girl with her specially built tricycle.
The East Bay Times reported Thursday (https://tinyurl.com/kqos5ea) that an Antioch Police officer arrested a 24-year-old man discovered riding the $4,000 tricycle late Tuesday.
It started Monday morning when Charlotte Luther's father saw a woman steal the tricycle from his yard in Antioch, which is 45 miles (72 kilometers) east of San Francisco. He was unable to catch the thief.
The tricycle was specially built for Charlotte, who has a brain tumor and limited use of her right side. The trike includes a back rest, steering assist bar and pedal pulley system and was obtained through the Great Bike Giveaway, a national campaign to raise money for adaptive bikes for kids with special needs.
"Even before the brain tumor, she wasn't really stable," said Cate Luther, Charlotte's mother. "This was the first bike she's ever had where she could actually ride it. She had this smile on her face, a sense of independence. She was just loving it."
Charlotte was also returning home Monday afternoon after a brief hospital stay to treat her tumor.
After Officer Dan Fachner took the family's report Monday, he went to work finding the trike.
Working the graveyard shift Tuesday, Fachner searched the neighborhood, interviewing as many people as he could. A transient woman told the officer she saw the tricycle in a nearby neighborhood. The tip panned out. The officer arrested Matthew Jefferson on suspicion of stealing the trike. Fachner said Jefferson told him he found the trike.
Jefferson remain in jail Thursday. It's not clear if he's obtained a lawyer.Speaking at the New York Times Energy Conference in Paris last week, Nissan-Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn told reporters he has plans to offer an all electric car in the Chinese market that will sell for no more than $8,000 after all incentives. Ultimately, he wants to build an electric car that costs as little as $7,000 without incentives. Those are ambitious goals. “If we are able to make this kind of breakthrough, it’s going to change the game,” Ghosn said.
Nissan’s efforts to sell a rebadged version of the LEAF in China have met with little success. Ghosn says the LEAF, known as the Venucia e30 in China, just costs too much money for mainstream Chinese buyers, most of whom are not tech company billionaires. The Venucia e30 sells for around $37,000 in China. “What we want to do is bring a $7,000-8,000 electric car without incentives,” he said.
At the present time, the government of China offers buyers of so-called “new energy vehicles” substantial incentives that go beyond just rebates and credits. A person who buys an electric car is entitled to register it immediately. Those who purchase a conventional car must wait to get permision to register it through a lottery, a process that can take up to 5 years.
China has set a goal of 5,000,000 electric and plug-in cars on the road by 2020, but all those incentives are expensive. The government has indicated that it cannot afford to offer such generous provisions indefinitely. That’s what makes Ghosn’s target of under $8,000 without incentives so important. He is already planning for the time when all the help from the government will disappear.
Nissan’s chief executive offered no guidance on how he plans to accomplish his objective. Obviously he is expecting battery prices to continue falling but there has to be more to the equation than that. The cars themselves will be basic transportation with few frills, similar to American cars like the Ford Falcon that came standard with crank windows and rubber floor mats in the 60’s. That may be good enough for many Chinese shoppers who just want to be able to get from Point A to Point B and back again without walking.
Source: Economic Times of India“Heritage, not hate” — it's a phrase that has become all too common to those who grew up in the South, and increasingly elsewhere, when talking about the Confederate flag. The argument goes something like this:
The Civil War was fought over state's rights, not slavery. My ancestors fought for their families, their homes, and for the constitutional right of states to govern within their own borders, not for the right to own slaves. The Confederate Army was made up overwhelmingly of poor farmers and my ancestors and the vast majority of those fighting for the Confederacy never owned slaves. The flag under which they fought was not, and therefore is not, a symbol of racism but of the struggle for state rights. And the first amendment guarantees my right to freedom of speech, so I have a right to display the Confederate flag in whatever manner I choose. It's heritage, not hate.
Can you imagine one of the white supremacists in Charlottesville, Va., making this same argument for the swastika, somehow trying to suggest that it isn't a display of hate but of the heritage of the ancient Hindu principle of "making of goodness"?
For my friends and family who might truly believe that the Confederate flag is merely a symbol of heritage and history, the images on display in Charlottesville show that for many — on both sides — the flag is the ultimate symbol of hate in this country. You can no longer defend a symbol that cannot be separated from white supremacy and racism.
As Christians we are well aware of the importance of symbols: the ichthys for earlier Christians in hiding; the empty cross on Easter Sunday; symbols of the dove, the anchor, the shepherds crook.
Symbols are important because they hold meaning and significance.
As Christians we we have to start confronting those who choose to display a symbol of hate.Europe can hardly act independently when it comes to relations with Russia, while US policy is reminiscent of the worst legacy of the previous administration, according to Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov.
“I do not believe in present-day Europe as an independent player, especially when it comes to Russia,” Ryabkov said in an interview to the “International Affairs” journal posted Monday. “They have created such a mess there and such a ballast in relations with Russia, that it will be difficult for them to get rid of it.”
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While the deputy minister acknowledged that some European politicians show their eagerness to maintain normal bilateral relations, those intentions should be cemented with actions.
“We see statements reflecting the sentiments of a large part of the European population, especially those who are more interested in normal relations with Russia, including the economic ones,” Ryabkov said. He also recalled that once Europe had a tough position against the US sanctions on Cuba imposed by the Helms–Burton Act of 1996, when the EU resorted to legal instruments to protect its business from the outcome of the restrictive measures.
Ryabkov believes that the newly introduced US sanctions against Russia leave little room for maneuver for current and future American leaders.
The anti-Russian measures limit the opportunities of the US executive authorities to pursue an independent policy, the official believes, adding that “no matter what the name of the president is, now [the executive authorities have] minimal room for maneuver and for [their] own actions."
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At the same time, it would be difficult to ease the sanctions as it would require the approval of both houses of Congress, Rybakov said, citing the current anti-Russian sentiments of the American establishment.
The actions of the American lawmakers heavily affected relations between Moscow and Washington and will have “long-term consequences,” the diplomat believes.
“It is hard to predict how much time it will take to at least work out a more or less normal ‘modus operandi’ with the United States. We will try to achieve it,” he added.
President Trump signed into law a bill imposing new economic sanctions on Russia last Wednesday, saying the law contains “clearly unconstitutional provisions.” Despite Trump’s disapproval of the law, he is maintaining an even tougher foreign policy than his predecessor, Barack Obama, the deputy minister said.
“With regard to foreign policy, I'm disappointed to admit that in many ways it is a continuation of the worst legacy of [Barack] Obama, even a slight tightening in some aspects and directions,” Ryabkov said, adding that certain slogans and ideas on foreign policy and Russia that were voiced during Trump’s presidential campaign are currently faltering.Collection Twiddle
Twiddle Live On 2015-02-13
At The Space Land Ballroom
In Hamden Ct.
Luvafunk.
With Wiley Griffin
Source: Church Audio ca-14 omni NOS> UGLY 2 & ca-14 card DIN>zoom H4n>HDSD card @ 44.1 kHz/16 Bit Wav. Mics Suspended in middle of the room. 9' up. DFC FOB.
Lineage: Zoom>pc>audacity,adjust gain,mix and rendered tracks, track,name,fades>flac 16 @ level 8.
Setlist: Set 1: Brown Chicken Brown Cow, Earth Mama, Polluted Beauty, Carter Candlestick, Happy Birthday
Set 2: Invisible Ink, Every Soul, Dyer Maker>BBQ>Psycho Killer Tease>Mamunes, Zazus,karma Police>Big Country>Divided Sky>Fluffhead>Big Country>Gatsby Reprise.
Runtime: 02:32:44
Recorded And Transferred By Taper Chris
Notes
A Special Thank You to Suzy Greenburg for hosting such a Ducky Party!!
Identifier Twiddle2015-02-13.tcca-14flac16 Lineage Zoom>pc>audacity,adjust gain,mix and rendered tracks, track,name,fades>flac 16 @ level 8 Location Hamden Ct Run time 02:32:44 Source Church Audio ca-14 omni NOS> UGLY 2 & ca-14 card DIN>zoom H4n>HDSD card @ 44.1 kHz/16 Bit Wav. Mics Suspended in middle of the room. 9' up. DFC FOB Taped by taperchris Transferred by taperchris Type sound Venue The Outer Space Ballroom Year 2015Cops foil gun-shop break-in next to South Bay police station
4 burglary suspects in Milpitas we arrested after they attempted to hold up a gun store next to the police departmen. 4 burglary suspects in Milpitas we arrested after they attempted to hold up a gun store next to the police departmen. Photo: File Photo Photo: File Photo Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Cops foil gun-shop break-in next to South Bay police station 1 / 1 Back to Gallery
Four burglary suspects were arrested in Milpitas on Wednesday morning after an ill-advised attempted heist at a gun store next to the police department, authorities said.
Around 2 a.m., a sergeant was leaving the station on North Milpitas Boulevard when he heard an alarm coming from the Target Masters West gun store and shooting range on Minnis Circle, which shares a fence with the police station parking lot, said Lt. Raj Maharaj, a police spokesman.
The sergeant went to take a look and saw a man jump from the roof of the gun store and hop into a waiting car, Maharaj said. The sergeant called for backup and the getaway car was pulled over a few blocks away, and two of the four suspects were taken into custody without incident.
Meanwhile, back at the gun store, officers spotted a third suspect inside the business through the glass doors holding a gun. He was ordered to drop the weapon, which he did, but because he had broken into the store through the roof, police were unable to take him into custody for more than two hours while they figured out how to unlock the doors.
Investigators learned that a fourth suspect had also fled from the scene, and officials called for backup from the San Jose Police Department and the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office, Maharaj said.
A perimeter was set up and the fourth suspect was spotted hopping a fence onto nearby railroad tracks. After a brief pursuit, he was taken into custody without incident, Maharaj said.
Investigators were working with employees from the shop to make sure all the inventory was accounted for and no weapons were missing. Officers also did a thorough sweep of the surrounding area to make sure no guns were tossed as the suspects fled.
As for why the would-be burglars would target a gun store so close to police headquarters, Maharaj said they likely weren’t aware of the proximity of the station, but he wouldn’t speculate further as he hadn’t interviewed any of the suspects.
Kale Williams is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kwilliams@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @sfkaleThis is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Nearly two months into Occupy Wall Street, New York City police have carried out a major crackdown on the protesters’ Lower Manhattan encampment, dismantling tents, confiscating belongings, arresting more than 70 people. At around 1:00 in the morning local time, police officers in riot gear encircled Zuccotti Park, renamed by the protesters Liberty Square, ordering them to leave. Although most demonstrators complied, a group of around 200 or 300 people refused, locking their arms together in the middle of the park. They were eventually detained after a tense standoff that saw police use pepper spray and hit protesters with batons.
Police meanwhile took to dismantling the protesters’ encampment, tearing down tents, tossing the sea of belongings, clothing and equipment into large dump trucks. Hundreds of sanitation workers participated in the trashing of the private belongings. More people were arrested in the surrounding streets as police sought to clear demonstrators as far as possible from Zuccotti square.
In a statement, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he was acting to protect public safety, saying, quote, “Unfortunately, the park was becoming a place where people came not to protest, but rather to break laws, and in some cases, to harm others.” Bloomberg added, protesters will be allowed to return to Zuccotti Park, but without their camping gear.
Hundreds of Occupy Wall Street supporters are now gathering in nearby Foley Square to plan the movement’s next step. Clergy and labor are expected to join them.
As we went to air just now, a judge issued a restraining order prohibiting New York City and police from evicting the protesters from the Occupy Wall Street encampment.
We turn right now to Danny Alterman, longtime civil rights attorney, helped file the injunction to prevent the city from evicting the protesters. He’s part of Liberty Park Legal Working Group. He’s joining us by Democracy Now! video stream.
Danny Alterman, can you explain what the judge just ruled and how you reached her so early in the morning?
DANIEL ALTERMAN: About 2:00, we heard from our colleagues that the police were doing what you said that they were doing in Liberty Square and evicting the protesters. We were—we then had a massive phone call with all the lawyers and legal support groups that were supporting, legally, the protesters. We put together a set of papers on the fly, working nonstop throughout the night, and around 3:00 in the morning contacted Judge Lucy Billings of the New York State Supreme Court, who agreed to meet us between 5:00 at 6:00 a.m. to review our request for a temporary restraining order, restraining the police from evicting the protesters at Liberty Park, exclusive of lawful arrests for criminal offenses, and, most importantly, enforcing the rules published after the occupation began almost two months ago—or otherwise preventing protesters from re-entering Liberty Park with tents and other property utilized therein. So between 2:00 a.m. and 6:30 a.m., when Judge Billings signed the order, a temporary restraining order was granted by the court.
We’re having a court hearing today at 11:30 at 71 Thomas Street, in front of Judge Billings, we think. And we believe that the health and safety issues articulated by Mayor Bloomberg are pretextural. They had months and months to deal with this stuff. They are doing this, I think, because of the self-proclaimed and very vocal determination of the people that represent 99 percent of this country and who are scheduling a big Wall Street demonstration for Thursday.
AMY GOODMAN: Danny Alterman, we just came in from the protests through the night, covering them, and one of the things that I got from one of the protesters inside was the notice of requirement to remove property from Zuccotti Park. It ends by saying, “If you fail to immediately remove your property, we will do so and transport it to the Department of Sanitation parking garage at 650 West 57th Street, where you’ll be able to recover it as of noon today with proper identification.” What is so confusing about this is we were there watching as the sanitation workers trashed almost every physical item in the park, dumping them into dump trucks. And when we asked them where they were taking the property that had been completely trashed and was put into garbage trucks, they said, “To the dump.”
DANIEL ALTERMAN: That’s absolutely true, Amy. It seems—it seems like the Department of Sanitation, with Mayor Bloomberg and the Police Department’s help, are conducting an illegal eviction of the park protesters. They are not preserving property. There has been no due process. And they’re simply doing this on the fly without lawful process. And if you can imagine a family being evicted from their home by a city marshal without ever going to court or getting evicted—and that’s similarly what convinced, I believe, Judge Billings to issue the restraining order, putting the people back to where they were before this unprecedented and, in my view, unconstitutional violation occurred at 1:00 a.m.
AMY GOODMAN: Among the more than 70 people arrested was Ydanis Rodriguez, a New York City Council member. Can you tell us what it means? Although you consider this a big victory to get a temporary restraining order, the people have already been moved out.
DANIEL ALTERMAN: The people have been already moved out. We hope to get them back in. We hope to have, as Judge Billings has ruled, at least temporarily, with the property, including the tents that utilize the occupation. With regard to the council member, I saw a little of the clip of his arrest. He clearly was there advocating for his constituents, as well as other council members. And it seems that Mayor Bloomberg took upon this in the dead of night to surprise and evict the protesters, who had been there and were there peaceably. And as far as the health and safety issues that were generally alluded to by the Mayor, we don’t know of any. We believe that they’re pretextural. There was no notice. There was no attempt to do even what the Fire Department did with the generators. And as far as we’re concerned, this is like Alice in Wonderland, where the—where Alice—where the jury comes back guilty before the individuals have a chance to assert their innocence.
AMY GOODMAN: We also got word that City Council Member Jumaane Williams tweeted that Ydanis, the city council—fellow city council member, was—Ydanis Rodriguez, was hit by police, as well as arrested, as of 7:30 this morning, still in central booking.
DANIEL ALTERMAN: Yes, I met—
AMY GOODMAN: Danny Alterman?
DANIEL ALTERMAN: I met Mr. Williams around—I guess around 3:30, 4:00 in the morning, and he prepared and supported very courageously the illegal arrest of his colleague. And his affidavit was contained in the moving papers that convinced Judge Billings, at least temporarily, to grant us this release.
AMY GOODMAN: So where is this hearing for the permanent restraining order before Judge Billings today at 11:30?
DANIEL ALTERMAN: It’s at 71 Thomas Street, which is at the corner of West Broadway and Thomas, one block south of Worth Street. And the hearing has been scheduled for 11:30 a.m.
AMY GOODMAN: Danny Alterman, longtime civil rights attorney, helped file the injunction to prevent police from evicting protesters with Occupy Wall Street, part of the Liberty Park Legal Working Group. Again, Judge Billings, a local judge here in New York, has issued a temporary restraining order. We’ll see what happens and keep you updated at our website at democracynow.org. But when we come back from break, we’ll go out to the streets to bring you what happened through the night here in New York. Stay with us.The Senate yesterday proposed a three-year extension of the PATRIOT Act, a move that would not have allowed for any hearings, amendments, or debate. I objected to this deal. I realize that I might not have the votes to stop this bill, but we should at least discuss this in public as adults.
We should have the opportunity to explain why the Constitution is being violated. We should talk about how we do not have to give up who we are in order to fight terrorism. It is not acceptable to willfully ignore the most basic provisions of our Constitution—in this case—the Fourth and First Amendments—in the name of "security."
As Senators, we should be able to have debate and offer amendments to try to fix the egregious problems with the PATRIOT Act. And Senate leaders have agreed to this. Within 90 days there will be an open debate and amendments on the PATRIOT Act. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, publicly committed on the Senate floor this afternoon to a week of examination including amendments and debate. While I oppose any extension of the PATRIOT Act, and will vote no, I do welcome the chance to actually talk about this subject over the next few months.
This victory for discussion was only possible because we stood firm when they pressed for the three-year extension. It is only possible because liberty-loving Americans are standing up. For us to prevail in 90 days, more will need to do so.
I will stand and fight. I will offer amendments to address the problems with the bill, and I will attempt to convince my colleagues that our oath to uphold the Constitution should always be our first priority as Senators of the United States.ARGUMENTS about money are always tiresome, particularly when the sums are meagre. Take the European Union budget, a monstrous carbuncle apparently designed to sap the life force of anyone who comes near it. It accounts for just 2% of European public spending, but at least half the hot air that is blown during summits. So it proved recently, when a recalculation of national statistics led to unexpectedly large bills for Britain, the Netherlands and others, with a demand for payment by December 1st.
Although some countries faced higher surcharges per person, Britain’s overall bill, at €2.1 billion ($2.6 billion), was the biggest—and the reaction of its prime minister, David Cameron, the stormiest. At a press conference in Brussels on October 24th he hammered the lectern and vowed not to pay on time. Lo and behold, last week the British chancellor, George Osborne, won agreement from fellow finance ministers to change the rules on late payments. Under the proposal, which must still work its way through the EU’s legislative machinery, Britain and others will not have to settle their bills until September 2015, with no interest due. A classic victory for hard-nosed British diplomacy.
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A pity, then, that Mr Osborne felt obliged to strut out of the meeting declaring that he had “halved” the bill. This claim was based on the rebate that Britain automatically receives on its contributions to the EU budget, which next year may reduce the new charge by €1 billion or so. Mr Osborne says it was not clear that the new bill would be covered. But for 30 years the rebate has applied to all British payments; there was no reason to think this would be an exception, and EU officials have said as much. Not all Mr Osborne’s colleagues disguised their irritation at his triumphalism. A bigger problem is that other budgetary hawks, such as Germany and Sweden, feel betrayed, since reopening the rules may let the European Parliament restart its argument that the budget should be much bigger.
The affair sums up much of what is wrong with British EU diplomacy. In some ways Britain could be likened to a petulant teenager unable to understand that other people have problems, too. Old friends, such as the Germans, Nordics and Dutch, are increasingly exasperated. Britain used to understand the distinction between feeding the press pack and conducting diplomacy, sighs a representative of one ally. But “now the spin has moved inside the negotiating room.” At a euro-zone summit immediately after Mr Cameron’s outburst, say sources, heads of government indulged in a sustained bout of “Cameron-bashing”.
Sympathy for Mr Cameron is running out. Many EU leaders face populist insurgencies similar to that of the UK Independence Party. Should he remain in office after next year’s election, Mr Cameron has promised a renegotiation of Britain’s EU membership, with the results |
Sensitivity to Orientals or Whatever. It became quite a thing, with a billion online articles and cable news segments, and enough nasty Twitter arguments that it almost made you want to go outside and sit in a park by yourself.
But I want to highlight one article in particular, in the Wall Street Journal. This is Jeff Yang, writing about two of the organizers of the anti-Colbert movement, Suey Park and Eunsong Kim.
Meanwhile, references to the Washington Redskins and its owner Dan Snyder have essentially faded from view. There is not a single mention of either in Park and Kim’s Time.com piece, which is focused on the plague of racism among white liberals. Conservative firebrands like Michelle Malkin (famous for her outrageous book, “In Defense of Internment,” scurrilously asserting that the government’s World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans was warranted) seized the opportunity to publicly cosign the reframed narrative, without comment from the hashtag’s initiators. Billionaire Republican Snyder couldn’t have asked for a better outcome — or paid for one.
Now look, the future of the Redskins name won’t be determined by Comedy Central segments or Twitter hashtag campaigns. But, to the extent that it matters, I think Yang is completely wrong. As long as the Redskins are mentioned in mass-market stories about racial offense that are consumed by a wide swath of casual fans and decision makers, I think that’s a bad deal for the local team.
(Via Comedy Central)
And to my point, Colbert began his Monday night show — his first chance to respond to the outrage — on a therapist’s coach. Wearing an RGIII jersey, a Redskins hat and a burgundy blanket, and being counseled by actor BD Wong. (Watch it here.) This, remember, is in the guise of his oblivious and insensitive Colbert Report host. I just don’t see how that helps the team.
After the intro, and after many minutes of faux outrage and discussion of the controversy, Colbert closed the segment like this. (Watch it here.)
“But I am back, and Nation, I want to apologize,” he said. “For caring enough to try to bridge a cultural divide with my foundation. I thought we were ready. If I have a fault, it’s that I believed in the American people too much. Was I wrong to do that? But the people have called for canceling Colbert, and I am willing to meet them halfway. Effective immediately – and I cannot believe I am saying this – I am shutting down the worldwide operations of the Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation For Sensitivity to Orientals or Whatever. I have to. The saddest part is, because of all the attention, we raised a lot of money over the weekend. Money that will now be donated to Dan Snyder’s Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation. Which Twitter seems to be fine with, because I haven’t seen [expletive] about that.”
(Image via @Truth_About_It. Thanks, @Alex_Keck)According to the prices at Mt. Gox, the price of Bitcoin finally broke above $100 this morning between 6 and 9 a.m. Eastern time in the U.S. The volume reached a high of 5,429 Bitcoin traded in the 8 a.m. hour during the breakout– that was a somewhat elevated level although 18,897 were traded at 14:00 on Sunday**– and it eventually reached a high of $102.85 in the next hours before pulling back the rest of the day to $100.65.
However, the price differential between exchanges is now even higher than during the April 2013 bubble, according to the analysis of Jonathan Stacke at the Genesis Block. The differential reached a 16-month high this week, which was surpassed most recently in March 2012 when Bitcoin traded for $4.50. This represents a shift in regime, since prior to May 1, Bitcoin trading volume and the price differential across exchanges were more highly correlated with one another.
With continuing tight bid/ask spreads, the higher price would imply that Bitcoin at Mt. Gox right now are actually considered to be more valuable than BTC elsewhere, which makes no sense, unless it is price-shading, i.e. a hidden fee to a buy-heavy market. There has also been some speculation that Mt. Gox customers might be bidding extra simply to get BTC in order to transfer their account funds more easily, but that argument wouldn’t hold if the withdrawals have indeed been re-instated. This is something to look into further as the price differential continues.
Stacke speculates that the micro events surrounded the recently dissipating withdrawal concerns at Mt. Gox might have had an outsized influence on the widening of the price differential since May. Due to that concern, and the fact that Mt. Gox’s prices are now so consistently higher than they are at other exchanges, he highlights the fact that two new venture capital-backed exchanges are slated to open this year.
Nonetheless, a number of existing alternatives to Mt. Gox have continued to gain market share. He cites Bitstamp and BTC-E as having lower rates for Bitcoin currently. However, Coinbase, a California-based company, is also an attractive alternative for customers who are looking an easy method to buy Bitcoin without requiring many extra day-trading tools and indicators.
Another exchange, albeit a small one, has suspended operations as the Bank of Thailand advised that buying or selling Bitcoin, or sending it or receiving from abroad, were not permissible under current laws.
*Due to the price differential highlighted in the article, it should be further noted that the Bitcoin breakout above $100 occurred at the Mt. Gox exchange alone, as other exchanges still appear to have lower rates on offer in the low to mid 90’s.
**Correction: On the one-month chart, this spike in volume in not apparent, so it may have been erroneous data.Dependency Walker
Deploying dynamically linked Qt application without plugins
CONFIG += network
application.exe QtCore4.dll QtGui4.dll QtNetwork4.dll
Deploying Qt applications with plugins
imageformats/qgif4.dll //<< QtWebKit depends on this imageformats/qjpeg4.dll //<< QtWebKit depends on this application.exe QtCore4.dll QtWebKit4.dll QtNetwork4.dll //<< QtWebKit depends on this QtScript4.dll //<< QtWebKit depends on this QtScriptTools.dll //<< QtWebKit depends on this phonon4.dll //<< QtWebKit depends on this
Deploying Qt Quick applications with plugins
plugin qmlwebkitplugin
Summary
imageformats/qgif4.dll imageformats/qjpeg4.dll sceneformats/qsceneai4.dll QtWebKit/qmldir QtWebKit/qmlwebkitplugin.dll application.exe Qt3D.dll Qt3DQuick.dll QtCore4.dll QtDeclarative.dll QtGui4.dll QtNetwork4.dll QtOpenGL4.dll QtScript4.dll QtScriptTools4.dll QtWebKit4.dll QtXml4.dll QtXmlPatterns4.dll
I recently had to deploy a Qt Quick application on a Windows machine that did not have Qt installed explicitly on it. I think this is a pretty common use case that can cause quite some headache. You basically have two options if you want to deploy (or install) your Qt or Qt Quick based application to Windows. Either you can use the Windows Installer service directly or use some free or commercial utility to create a MSI based installer application that will deploy your application on Windows. Alternatively or at least as a first step you can package your application into a ZIP, or some other, package together with the necessary libraries that the application depends on. This is what I did and what I am going to explain here. When the package is extracted on the target machine, your Qt or Qt Quick application can be run from that directory just by launching the.exe file. Pretty neat. Below I will explain some important points on how you want to create the package that you want to distribute your Qt application in. In my case I deployed a Qt Quick application that used Qt/3D and QtWebKit.I first recommend you to install a great tool for figuring out the required.dll files that you need to include in your package: Windows Dependency Walker. It's a neat free utility that will create a hierarchical tree of the.dll dependencies that an application uses. When you run your application, in the machine that has Qt installed on it, through Dependency Walker you can easily see which Qt.dll files it uses and you need to package with your application.If you are curious, you'll find that Dependency Walker will show you a lot more information about what methods the application used and from which.dll file, which methods are available in the.dll but were not used andmore detailed information about each.dll that the application loaded. When you run your application through Dependency Walker on the machine that does not have Qt installed on it and when it did not run as expected, you can then see which.dll files your app failed to find. This is really a life saver when it comes to application deployment for Windows. A word on warning, though. Dependency Walker is really good at finding libraries that your application is dynamically linked against. But it will not spot issues when it comes to Qt plugins. If a plugin is not found, there will not be any trace of it in Dependency Walker since Qt will just inform the app that this plugin is not available. So it is important to understand which plugins Qt will need and Dependency Walker cannot help you here.This is the easiest type of application to deploy. It's basically a Qt application that only uses one or more Qt modules (the.dll files) that do not depend on plugins. Such an application could for example be a QWidget based application, but one that is not showing images. You can already guess which Qt.dll files your application needs: each of the Qt modules is one Windows.dll file. So when you type in your.pro file for exampleto do network programming, you know you have to include QtNetwork4.dll in your package. Where do I find this file you ask? Well - it's in the Qt installation directory on your machine and in the bin/ directory under it. Go there and copy the required.dll files to your deployment folder that you intend to package. If you have an application does not use Qt plugins on your hands and you want to deploy on Windows, then it's enough to package the.exe file together with all the dependent.dll files in the same root folder. When you extract the package in a directory and launch your application, Windows will first look for the required.dll files in the same folder as where the application was launched. Since this application does not use any plugins it will find all the required Qt.dll files it depends on in the same folder as the application was launched in (the rest of the.dll files should already be installed on the target machine). As an example I could deploy a QWidget based application that reads something of the network by creating a package that contains the following files:Even if you didn't utilize a plug-in based architecture for your application Qt uses internally plugins. When you deploy your application you need to make sure the plugins are included in the package. Plug-ins are essentially just.dll files that are loaded at runtime. When Qt is looking for plug-ins to load, it will look in specific folders for the plug-ins. Each plug-in is categorized based on its function and plug-ins that provide similar functionality will be in the same folder. For example all SQL implementation (driver plugins) are in a folder called sqldrivers so when Qt wants to load a SQL driver it will look into that folder. But Qt must have a way to find the plug-in category folders. Qt has two ways to do this. First, it will look into a folder called plugins that is part of the Qt installation. More important to you, secondly it will use the current directory where the application was launched.This is why, when you deploy your application, remember to put the plugins into their respective category folder and the category folder on the root level in your package. So if I want to use QtWebKit to show a webpage in my application, I would need to include the.dll files that QtWebKit depends on and also the runtime plugins that it depends on to show GIF and JPEG images. I would create the following hierarchy in my deployment package:First I must say that if you deploy and application that doesn't use Qt Quick plugins you can deploy it as the example above shows. But if your application uses Qt Quick plugins (you know, for example the import QtWebKit 1.0 line in your QML file if you use WebView) then you need to be aware how Qt loads Qt Quick plugins. Qt has some good documentation on Qt Quick modules and import paths so I try to be brief about it. But what you need to know is that when you write import in your QML file, Qt will always look for a runtime module. So when you write import QtWebKit 1.0, what Qt is actually doing is looking for a folder named QtWebKit. Important for deployment is that Qt will do so in the directory where you launched your application. In this folder, Qt Quick will look for a file called qmldir. It's a file containing meta-information such as available plugins that represent the component I want to import. If I wanted to use the WebView element in Qt Quick, I would then create a qmldir file and put in a folder called QtWebKit in the root folder of my package. The content of the file would be as follows:This will tell Qt Quick that the QtQuick 1.0 plugin (that you specified on the import line) is available in a plugin file (a.dll file) called qmlwebkitplugin. Qt will now look for a suitable plugin with the name qmlwebkitplugin - on Windows that plugin is in a file called, unsurprisingly, qmlwebkitplugin.dll in the same folder as the qmldir file.As I stated in the beginning, I used Qt/3D, Qt Quick and QtWebkit components in my application. To be able to use all of these components and to satisfy the dependencies, my deployment package looks something like this (directory with QML files omitted):I can run my application on any machine even without Qt installed when the package is extracted and the application.exe is launched. On the downside the deployment package is rather big because of all the dependencies. QtWebKit module alone is a huge package: almost 17 megabytes. My application doesn't do much fancy and it does not include any images or other multimedia files. Still my deployment package is 52 megabytes big when it's extracted. Qt is actively working on splitting the modules into smaller pieces and Qt5 will deliver an even more plug-in based architecture that will cut down the size of individual modules and eventually your deployment package.In this artist's drawing, Ahmad Khan Rahimi appears in a New York courtroom to face federal terrorism charges on Nov. 10. (Elizabeth Williams/Associated Press)
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan on Wednesday indicted Ahmad Khan Rahimi, the man accused of planting two pressure-cooker bombs in New York City in September, one of which exploded and injured more than 30 people.
Rahimi, 28, of Elizabeth, N.J., could face a mandatory life sentence.
Rahimi was also charged in September by federal prosecutors in New Jersey with setting off a bomb along the course of a Marine Corps charity race in Seaside Park. Investigators also found explosive devices in a backpack left by Rahimi at a New Jersey train station.
The weekend bombings launched the biggest domestic terrorism investigation in the metropolitan area in years.
[Who is bombing suspect Ahmad Khan Rahimi?]
The Justice Department decided to allow prosecutors in the Southern District of New York to proceed with their case first. Rahimi, who was transferred to Manhattan from a New Jersey detention facility, is scheduled to be arraigned on Thursday. He is expected to plead not guilty.
Rahimi, a naturalized U.S. citizen and Afghanistan native, was charged with eight counts. They include bombing a place of public use, destroying property by means of explosive, interstate transport of explosives, using and attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction, and two counts of using a destructive device in furtherance of a crime of violence. The last two counts carry mandatory life terms, if he is convicted of both.
Rahimi was captured in New Jersey in a dramatic shootout with police two days after the first bomb went off. He fired multiple shots at police, injuring several police officers, before he was himself shot and placed under arrest, authorities said. He suffered serious injuries that kept him hospitalized for weeks and made interviews with investigators difficult. He was also charged in state court.
Rahimi made his first federal court appearance last week in Manhattan to face the federal terrorism charges. His lawyer, David E. Patton, expressed concerns that the Metropolitan Correctional Center, where Rahimi is being held, would not be able to provide adequate care for his wounds.
According to Patton, Rahimi was shot about a half-dozen times and has undergone eight to 10 surgeries since his arrest. His injuries included liver damage and infections, he said. And he has lost the use of his left hand.
Federal authorities have not said whether they believe Rahimi worked with others overseas or received training abroad. Rahimi had made trips to Afghanistan and Pakistan between 2011 and 2014.
When he was arrested, authorities found on him a handwritten journal that included, among other things, laudatory references to Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki, a former senior leader of an al-Qaeda affiliate in Yemen, as well as to Nidal Malik Hasan, who shot and killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Tex., in 2009.
In the journal, Rahimi also fretted that he would be captured before being able to carry out a suicide attack. In one line, he wrote that, God willing, “the sounds of the bombs will be heard in the streets.”
According to the FBI complaint filed in September, Rahimi had planned the attacks in New York and New Jersey for months and conducted a dry run shortly before executing them.Aliens Underground |Are we alone in the universe? This question has long fascinated mankind, and cinema and literature have fueled our imagination. Beyond the extraterrestrials who would come to help us or destroy us, not many are the ones who think the aliens are already among us.The followers of this theory claim there would be at least 4,000 underground bases of aliens on Terra. Here are the most important 10.
The intelligence services, together with various groups that would lead the world out of the shadow, are the only organizational entities that know the truth about the UFO phenomenon, with all its implications in the past, present, and especially the future of mankind.
This is a hypothesis often invoked by the followers of conspiracy theory.
The theory of alleged secret collaborations between the US government and the aliens was supported, especially in the 1980s, by Milton William (Bill) Cooper, a sub-officer in the Air Force.
He said that during 1970-1973, while working for the Pacific Military Fleet Command, he had access to two materials: Report No. 13 of the Grudge / Blue Book project and a summary of Operation Majority – which would have been linked By an ultra-secret official MJ-12 group, for dealing with aliens.
In “Report 13,” data on UFO crashes, recovered corpses, live aliens, photographs, kidnappings, UFO analyses could be found.
Area 51 is one of the most subtle bases of the American Army located near Salom Lake Groom Lake, Nye County, Nevada, United States.
Area 51, located about 133 km (or 83 miles) north-west of the famous Las Vegas centre, is an American military base that is a distant outpost of the Edwards Air Force Base. Located in the centre of a large federal land area, on the southern shore of the Groom Lake salty lake, Area 51 is a considerable military air base.
The primary purpose of the base is to initiate and continue experimenting with different types of aircraft, carrier vectors, and weapon systems.
It is also said that UFOs can be seen in this area, but there is no evidence that UFOs are coming from space or are testing models of the new US Army aircraft in Area 51.
On a beautiful day in the summer of 2003, a special Zero Department team (SRI) made a monumental discovery, the existence of an extraterrestrial base in these mountains.
Wishing to disclose what they saw, the Romanians were hindered by the American secret services and numerous representatives of the Illuminati, who went to our country to cover up the whole situation.
Mountain satellite scanning has revealed the existence of two large energy barriers made by mysterious entities with advanced technology.
The first barrier is like an impenetrable wall blocking the mouth of a tunnel, while the second energy block is manifested as a dome and is located at the other end of the tunnel.
Both the mysterious tunnel and the energy blocks have been aligned with the outside formations, the Sphinx, and the Babels.
Aliens Underground | Amazonia (South America)
The fact that the Amazon forest has lots of places that are sufficiently busy to make it difficult to explore, serves miraculously to followers of conspiracy theory and ufologists.
Thus, two researchers whose identity is unknown, discovered in 1974 two deep craters of several hundred meters, connected through a network of tunnels.
In this labyrinth, they are supposed to have found the remains of some missing animals for a long time, but also of unknown species.
The same researchers claimed that there are high aliens with white skin and multi-coloured hair.
Los Angeles (California, United States)
This is a submarine base of extraterrestrials located near the coast of California.
The place was built by the government to shelter the locals in case of disasters, but the house would, in fact, be an alien colony.
This was revealed in 1995 by Phil Schneider, an architect who worked on the project, and after publishing the information he died under mysterious conditions.
He said he knew 131 underground military bases with a depth of about 500 meters built for the plans of the New World Order.
My job was to get into the holes and check the rock samples, recommending the explosive for each type of rock. We were at a time in a large cave full of aliens known as the Little Ashes. I shot two of them. We were about 30 people and suddenly there were about 40 aliens who were all killed.I saw a whole underground base full of aliens. Later I learned that they had been living on this planet for a long time … That explains a lot about the theory of the ancient astronauts, he said in a lecture.He also claimed that the location of Los Angeles was selected because it is above the reptile-Nephilim subterranean tunnel and cave systems and / or important vortex points.
The US State of New Mexico may be said to be the place where the alien embassy is located on Earth.
It’s a place that has fed up with fantasies since the late 1940s when an alleged alien ship collapsed to Roswell.
Sweet is a small town of about 2,500 inhabitants, located in Apache Jicarilla Reserve, at an altitude of 2.066 meters.
From here, there have been many reports of UFO take-offs and landings, “extraterrestrial” kidnappings, human and animal mutilation.
The same base is the place of the so-called “Dulce Wars,” where reptilians and soils are said to have fought humanitarian and civilian personnel.
Thomas Castello, a security officer at Dulce, has roughly estimated the number of “ashes” from Dulce to over 18,000 but has also seen numerous humanoid high reptiles.
He knew of the existence of seven levels of the base, although he admits there could be more, and aliens were at the last three levels.
Also, the security level increases with the level.
Antarctic Base
People who had some satellite imagery could see under a thick ice of Antarctica a new, completely unknown structure.
Although the discovery remains shrouded in mystery, it seems to be an extraterrestrial base of impressive size.
Moreover, scientists working at the South Pole IceCube Neutrino Observatory have announced that they have discovered various alien particles in the Antarctic ice.
According to researchers, these particles, which they called neutrinos, come from outside our solar system.
Recently, a mysterious scale has been photographed from the satellite in Antarctica, which may hide a long lost pyramid or temple.
References:VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - March 16, 2017) - Vinergy Resources Ltd. ("Vinergy" or the "Company")(CSE:VIN)(OTCQB:VNNYF) in conjunction with its proposed acquisition of MJ Biopharma (announced December 14, 2016) is pleased to announce it has developed a disruptive solvent based extraction system.
The project currently underway for an existing customer, utilizes an ethanol / CO2 co-solvent blend and specialized equipment to achieve medicinal products with significantly increased purity. The current iteration of the machine has the physical footprint of a standard shipping skid and incorporates safety and process control systems in one easy to use platform.
Mr. Kent Deuters, CEO on MJ BioPharma said, "This system can produce greater yields and higher quality end product results with less solvent and less time. The process is safe and can be tailored to fit local safety, electrical and workplace laws. The system has been tested to work with other solvent blends and may potentially be capable of producing other useful end products such as terpenes - an area which can add immediate value for the Company."
The Company will provide more information on the system in the coming weeks. Industry participants are invited to contact the company for further technical data.
This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities in the United States. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"), or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. Persons unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available.
The CSE does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Vinergy Resources Ltd.
Glen Macdonald, Director
Cautionary Statement Regarding "Forward-Looking" Information
The forward-looking information contained in this press release is made as of the date of this press release and, except as required by applicable law, the Company does not undertake any obligation to update publicly or to revise any of the included forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required by law. By its very nature, such forward-looking information requires the Company to make assumptions that may not materialize or that may not be accurate. This forward-looking information is subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties and other factors, which may cause actual results, levels of activity and achievements to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such information.To the Editor:
I am an 84-year-old senior citizen. I'm writing this to get something off of my chest.
I own my home and live on a small pension and Social Security. I was getting $1,250 in homestead rebate.
When Governor Christie was elected, the first year he took it away from us. In the second year, he was nice enough to give me back $200, which made it $1,050 that I lost.
This year he gave me back $300, which made it $950 I lost. In other words my taxes were raised $3,250 in three years. Governor Christie said he would not raise taxes. What does he think this is?
I am sure there are thousands of other people who feel the same way. Did Governor Christie sacrifice anything such as a pay cut or cut his expenses? This also applies to all politicians, Democrats or Republicans. Governor Christie will probably call me an idiot. I hope so, that way I know that he reads this!
One other thing I have to say. Whether you are a Democrat or Republican, back what the New Jersey legislators are doing and put a tax on millionaires. Governor Christie said he will veto it. If he does, let it be put on the ballot and let the people decide! I have talked enough.
Dick Watkins
Hopewell TownshipIf you’re not familiar with Google Cardboard, it’s one of the most affordable and portable VR headsets to date. It’s a very simple creation in terms of design and functionality, but provides a solid look into the future of technology without breaking the bank. Why? Because it’s made almost entirely of cardboard.
Google unveiled Cardboard at I/O 2014, but unfortunately, it was designed with Android devices in mind. The official Cardboard app is nowhere to be found on the App Store, but that doesn’t mean all hope is lost. Google may not care much about iOS as a platform, but stereoscopic 3D is nothing new. In fact, there is a good handful of apps available for iOS that are also compatible with Google Cardboard…
Recently, I came across an article on CNET that showcased a group of iOS apps that are compatible with Cardboard. These apps weren’t actually designed with Cardboard in mind, but they were made to work with VR headsets (stereoscopic content), specifically the Durovis Dive, which is essentially a premium version of Cardboard that was announced back in January at CES 2014. All of this hardware is aimed at developers, but as more start creating new apps, consumers will be able to benefit from VR hardware (or “cardware” as I like to call it) as well.
For a closer look at using Cardboard with iOS/iPhone, check out the video below:
Virtually any iOS app that was designed to work with the Durovis Dive will work with Google Cardboard. There are only about five apps worth checking out at this point, but as the demand rises I’m sure other developers will jump on board and craft better VR experience apps. The best way to find compatible apps at the moment is by searching for “Durovis” or “Durovis Dive” on the App Store. Either of those terms will pull up a variety of apps that were designed to work with VR headsets.
If you have Cardboard and an iPhone (or 5th gen iPod touch), you should download any of the free apps below and give it a shot:
Unfortunately, Google doesn’t actually sell Cardboard. There are official instructions to build your own Cardboard headset, but if you don’t feel like going that route, there are plenty of unofficial Cardboard kits available on Amazon starting at $19.99. It’s also important to note that this will work best when using an iPhone/iPod touch with 4-inch (or larger?) display.
Because of the size difference between the iPhone 5/5s and most Android devices (hopefully this will change soon), the iPhone will slip and slide around inside of Cardboard unless you use a case, but that’s not a big deal in my opinion. Other than that, I found the iPhone and Cardboard virtual reality experience to be very comparable to an Android device. The only thing you’re really missing out on is Google’s official Cardboard app, but that’s really just a collection of stereoscopic demos thrown together.
Do you need this? Not really, but it sure is a fun experience. It also gives Facebook’s Oculus Rift a run for its money, though Cardboard isn’t quite at that level of gaming just yet. Even so, with VR technology on the rise, do you think it would be important for Apple to make a move in this area? It’s obvious that developers have a slight interest in virtual reality on iOS, but until Apple makes a move (if they ever do), Google Cardboard is the best and most affordable way to experience this on an iOS device.The price of bitcoins rose above $300 for the first time ever Friday, sparking renewed media attention and fresh claims that the high price represents nothing more than a speculative bubble. Unfortunately, the debate over the currency's future has generated more heat than light, with both sides making arguments that don't stand up to scrutiny. To help cut through the clutter, here's a comprehensive guide to the debate over Bitcoin's future.
Is there a Bitcoin bubble?
No one knows. The value of Bitcoins has soared by a factor of 1,000 since the beginning of 2011. Today, the value of all outstanding bitcoins is now around $4 billion. So far, the volume of Bitcoin-based commerce isn't close to being large enough to justify that high valuation.
But people who are buying bitcoins today aren't doing so based on today's Bitcoin-based commerce. They're making a bet that the demand for bitcoins will go up dramatically in the coming years. The supply of Bitcoins is fixed. So if Bitcoin becomes an important part of the global financial system, its value would need to go a lot higher to accommodate the millions or billions of Bitcoin-based transactions that might occur in the future.
So the question is whether someone will develop a "killer app" that will push Bitcoin into the mainstream. If that happens, the value of Bitcoin could go even higher. If it doesn't, then sooner or later the currency's value will plummet.
What's the case for Bitcoin optimism?
A comparison with the Internet can help illustrate why people are excited about Bitcoin. In the late 1980s, the Internet wasn't a very impressive online service. It was expensive to join, complicated to use, and it featured text-based applications like e-mail and message boards that weren't obviously better than commercial online services like Compuserve, Prodigy and AOL.
But the Internet had an advantage that commercial online services did not: Its open architecture meant that anyone was free to create new online services. In 1990, a programmer named Tim Berners-Lee created a new Internet application called the World Wide Web that offered advanced features like graphics and hyperlinks. And within a few years, thousands of people had begun building Web sites on top of this new platform. Startups like Yahoo, eBay and Hotmail began to build sophisticated Web-based services. Within a few years, the Internet had vastly more content and services than the companies that ran AOL or Prodigy could hope to produce.
Bitcoin is the world's first completely open payment network, and it could spark the same type of bottom-up innovation. Mainstream electronic payment networks like Visa and Mastercard are managed by incumbent banks. If you want to interoperate with them — to become a merchant, open a bank of your own or develop a new payment technology — you have to convince these banks that you're credit-worthy, that your business plan makes sense, and that you will comply with their policies and procedures. That limits who can innovate and what kinds of business models they can try. In contrast, the Bitcoin network works like the Internet: There are no restrictions on who can join or what kinds of applications they can build.
Wait, you're talking about Bitcoin as a payment network, but I thought the point of Bitcoin was as an alternative to the Federal Reserve and its inflationary fiat money.
Some Bitcoin enthusiasts think that, but they're wrong. Allegedly, the problem with the dollar is that it loses value over time. Bitcoin supporters sometimes point out that the dollar has lost more than 90 percent of its value over the last century.
But that seems silly when we remember that Bitcoin has been known to lose more than 90 percent of its value in a matter of weeks. Whatever virtues Bitcoin has, stability of value is clearly not one of them.
You say that anyone is free to build new services using the Bitcoin network. But what specifically are you talking about? The only significant applications I've seen are gambling, drug deals and speculation on the future price of Bitcoin. That's hardly a promising start for a new financial system.
There's no good data on how people are using Bitcoin, but anecdotally it does seem like gambling, speculation and drug deals account for a sizable fraction of Bitcoin transactions. But other applications are possible, and we're starting to see some of them appear already.
For example, in September, the Bitcoin startup Bitpay announced that it had signed up 10,000 customers, up from just 1,000 a year before. Bitpay makes it easy for merchants to accept Bitcoins by automatically converting Bitcoin payments into dollars and depositing them into vendors' conventional bank accounts. And merchants like accepting Bitcoins because the Bitcoin network doesn't have "chargebacks," the process whereby credit card users dispute transactions to demand their money back.
Other applications for Bitcoin are more speculative, but they could wind up being big markets. An obvious one is international payments. Right now, to transfer cash from one country to another, you generally have to use an expensive wire transfer service like Western Union. Startups could use Bitcoin to build a decentralized, global system for international money transfers that is both cheaper and more convenient than what's available today.
Also, it's important to remember that one country's illicit application can be another country's civil liberties. Imagine a political dissident in Iran or China who wants to sign up for VPN service to help them evade domestic censorship or to sign up for Western Web hosting service to create an uncensored blog. Doing that kind of transaction with a conventional credit card is too risky, since the authorities can trace the transaction back to its source. It may be much safer to trade cash for Bitcoins in the local underground market, and then use bitcoins to pay for online services. There are already lots of VPN services that accept bitcoins.
But the most important applications may be ones that are hard to predict today. For example, conventional payment apps like Square have to comply with rules established by established credit card networks. A Bitcoin-based payments app could offer security, convenience or cost advantages that the rules of the conventional banking system prevent Square from offering. It's hard to predict the specifics, just as it would have been hard to predict YouTube or Facebook in 1990. But it's not crazy to think that someone will figure out how to use the Bitcoin network to build services that might not work on conventional payment networks.
That sounds great in theory, but Bitcoin is not user-friendly at all. You have to run weird software, and if you screw up, your money is gone forever. Even if people come up with innovative uses for Bitcoin, are ordinary consumers really going to go through the hassle?
It's true that Bitcoin could be more user-friendly. But the Internet analogy suggests that this might not be as big of a problem as it seems.
The Internet of the 1980s was every bit as intimidating to use as Bitcoin is today. But over time, people built more sophisticated and user-friendly services on top of the basic infrastructure provided by the Internet. Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, allowing people to browse the Internet using a familiar point and click interface. PC makers like Apple built PCs with built-in modems and user-friendly software to help them get online more easily. Technology companies built user-friendly Web applications like Facebook and Gmail. Most recently, smart phones and tablets have made the Internet accessible to millions of users who found PC computing too complicated.
Bitcoin is likely to go through a similar process. Originally, Bitcoin was exclusively a sandbox for tech-savvy nerds. Today, using Bitcoin is still a lot less convenient than conventional financial networks, but startups like Bitpay (which helps merchants accept bitcoins) and Coinbase (which helps users acquire and spend them |
General Motors. Here are some factors driving its growth.
The Rise Of The Single-Page App
As browsers and devices have become more powerful, consumers are demanding increasingly sophisticated user experiences. AngularJS enables a new breed of complex single-page applications (SPA) that act more like desktop or mobile apps. These next-generation SPAs are easy to spot: When you click on links and buttons, the page doesn't reload. This fluid user experience is a clearly superior design, but without a framework like AngularJS, it can be incredibly time consuming to create. Luckily, there's a lot of expertise being poured into AngularJS to make developers' lives better.
Showing Love To Legal
One thing that often holds up corporate adoption is the license of an open source project. Given the previous list of companies, it should come as no surprise that AngularJS is doing something right in this area.
AngularJS uses the MIT license, an extremely permissive and popular proprietary software license. This license allows reuse within proprietary software, and is GPL-compatible, meaning developers have a lot of freedom with the code. This makes AngularJS a friendly choice for businesses. If your company already approves the use of jQuery, Node.JS, Ruby on Rails, Socket.io, Foundation, Backbone, Symfony, Express, or Node.js, you're already using the MIT license.
The Next Level Of Design Integration
In 2009, a group of engineers got together and realized the development process could be improved if designers could place UI elements on a page and engineers added the logic later. This is how AngularJS was born. AngularJS lets designers define a UI element (for example, <calendar>) and developers add logic to it once it's laid out. This key evolution from 2009 is still of paramount importance today.
The ability to componentize the design and development processes is incredibly useful and popular. For example, an extension to AngularJS, the Ionic Framework, lets Web developers write native iOS or Android applications without worrying about the UI/UX of each platform. Another example is Material, a library built on AngularJS that lets developers easily integrate the Google Material Design ("paper") specification into their applications.
Passing The Test
AngularJS was written with testing in mind, and even comes with built-in testing libraries. Using these libraries, your developers can mimic user behaviors in automated tasks (such as clicking buttons). This results in finding bugs before your users do. It is no coincidence that financial institutions such as Capital One, ADP, and Intuit have software engineer job openings with "Angular" in the official title.
Make The Web Native
AngularJS is leading the charge for sophisticated browser-based applications that behave more like native apps. It is undeniably popular and ready for mainstream adoption. Your search engine, bank, payroll, video streaming service, airline, apparel line, space agency, and automaker have all bet on AngularJS. This is a trend worth betting on.
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Michi is currently the CTO at Monsoon, a product development firm that touts clients such as HP, CapitalOne, Cisco, Zazzle, and Yammer. In the past, he was the VP of Engineering at Payvment, a venture-backed provider of Facebook e-commerce solutions (acquired by Intuit). He... View Full Bio
We welcome your comments on this topic on our social media channels, or [contact us directly] with questions about the site.Anon writes:
Incredible must-watch clip.
This is a clip of a borrower calling the show questioning why he should continue to pay for a home for which he owes so much more than it is worth. The guy bought the home for $600k and put a 50% down payment on it. Now he owes $350k due to neg-am but the value has dropped from $600k to $270k. This guy has been destroyed losing $300k cash. He wants to stop the pain. The loan adjusts soon and his payments will double.
The hosts gang up on this guy relentlessly essentially blaming him saying a) you made a contract that you must repay b) even if you have to give up your kids education you made a commitment c) you will drag down all your neighbors value d) you will not be able to ever buy or rent d) you are getting ‘value’ by staying in the home because its a place to live e) you have to take responsibility for your action f) you likely lived beyond your means and now you have to sacrifice g) pay extra to principal to make it up. etc
The homeowners do not stand a chance against thinking like this. As we exit the ‘Subprime Implosion’ and into enter the Alt-A, Pay Option, Jumbo Prime and Prime implosions presently happening simultaneously in various degrees, this will be the primary reason people default. I am afraid this is just a little taste of the type of attacks we should be prepared for.
The fact is — with $300k down this is one of the good guys. He was duped into buying a $250k home for $600k because of the high-leverage, risk taking of the financial insti’s that allowed people with zero money down, terrible credit and no jobs to bid up this neighborhood making it appear the home he bought was really worth $600k. He likely is not saving much money because the lion’s share is going out to this massively depreciating asset. In all likelihood it is a good financial decision for him to walk and rent the home down the street without all of the other ‘joy’ of homeownership expenses that come along with owning. If we walked now the pain goes away. His credit is hurt for a while but if he keeps everything else current if won’t hurt him for long. His credit will recover quicker than the house will recover in value. His loan is a purchase money loan so there is no recourse if he exercises his right to foreclosure. Suggesting that the he dips into his kids college education to make up the difference is a crime. This man has already paid with his life’s savings.The specification of the new Porsche 911 GT3 RS has been known for some time, but for those of you who struggle to retain numbers, here are the basics once more.
Using the wider, heavier body from the turbo, the RS still manages to be 10kg lighter than the narrower, much smaller-wheeled 991 GT3. It manages this by way of a magnesium roof (first seen in the 997 Hybrid racer of 2010) and carbonfibre front wings, bonnet and rear deck lid. Owners can go lighter still by deleting the hi-fi, buying a lithium battery and taking the fixed-back carbon seats. Optional carbon ceramic brakes will shave weight too. How many of these options are needed to hit the claimed 1,420kg I do not know, but I can tell you that not since the 1967 911 R has a road going Porsche been treated to such extreme weight-saving measures.
The new engine displaces four litres and produces 500hp at 8,250rpm and 339lb ft at 6,250. A new crankshaft and intake system make it a quite different motor to the 3.8 in the ‘normal’ GT3. Claimed performance is very brisk and delivered through a standard dual-clutch transmission, which has slightly different ratios to accommodate the huge 21-inch rear wheels. Zero to 60mph takes 3.1sec, 100 is dispatched in 7.1sec and 125mph flashes by in 10.9sec. Like me, you probably never thought a normally aspirated 911 could produce such numbers. Top speed is 193mph, which is impressive given how much wing the RS presents.
The aero package is extreme; it’s the single biggest area of performance improvement over the 997 machines, and it has been achieved through good old wings ‘n splitters. That big chin works in conjunction with the front wing vents to produce 30 percent more front axle downforce, and the rear wing is simply huge for a production machine. Porsche claims it has twice the downforce of the old RS, which is one of those throwaway claims I’m loathed to repeat here, but I tend to judge such things on how be-winged a car looks, and the RS does appear to have taken a wrong turn from a Blancpain race.
And then you drive it on the road and realise that Porsche no longer makes cars that cannot behave on the public highway. For the first few minutes the RS’s good manners serve as a profound disappointment because you’ve read about the 500hp and the lightweight everything and you’ve seen the preposterous wings and, well, it doesn’t seem much more hardcore than the 991 GTS I left at the airport. In fact – that at least had three pedals.
The first time you give the car space it makes you feel very guilty for ever doubting it. People familiar with this type of machine will come away with two immediate impressions – the first is the level of grip across both axles. The 911 GT3 RS uses a 265 section front tyre, so wide it actually caused several headaches during approval, and that, coupled with the 991’s longer wheelbase, means it both turns and maintains front axle grip in a way no 911 has before. The front Michelin Cup 2 rubber has a field day. At the rear there’s a 325 section, 21 inch equivalent – it is so sticky that on the road, dare I say it, the car feels almost over-tyred. In the dry you can ping from quite tight second gear turns using full throttle.
The motor is so good that that it slightly defies description. This is the epitome of the normally aspirated flat-six. It works from 2,500rpm to 8,500rpm, it pulls way harder in the mid-range than the 3.8 and it does so with the full panoply of wail, warble and pizazz you would expect. You find yourself snicking up and down the paddles just to hear it make a slightly different noise each time. Making it lug in higher gears from low revs is especially pleasing. Paddles only? Suppose I’ll just have to get over myself. This is the best dual-clutch I’ve driven for speed and response, the paddle clicks are a little shorter than on the GT3 too, but I’d still rather have a manual.
The main downside to the GT3 RS’s superb road manners – it even rides pretty well – is its width. The Turbo body allows for a much more efficient intake set-up, but it also makes the car very wide even on German roads. Back in the UK, this car will make you wince on fast B-roads. And that’s taking into account the big increase in agility afforded by the rear-axle steering it shares with the base GT3. Without that system, the car would feel huge.
It will come as no surprise to learn that it feels even better on track. It’s the front axle that makes you giggle – here at last is a fast 911 that doesn’t want to push the moment you suggest turning into a corner. It simply goes. Entry speeds are way higher than on a 997 generation car. In fact, Porsche claims a sub 7 min 20sec lap of the Nurburgring in this car, which isn’t much quicker than the last 4.0 GT3 RS, but on a conventional circuit I think it would be miles faster.
You can ride up against all the front grip and hold the line, then use those enormous rear tyres, taken without change from the 918, and carry even more speed away from the exit. The bit in between is entirely at the driver’s disposal – with the systems on you can be neat and tidy, with them off you can use that rearward mass to rotate the GT3 RS and pull big, smokey slides. I have driven every fast 911 of note, and the GT3 RS is the most predictable of all on a trailing throttle. You find yourself switching all the electronics off and letting it back itself into second gear turns – and it has a 325 rear!
The GT3 RS test car was running the optional 410/390mm carbon ceramic brakes and they were immense. Pedal feel was strong and it never lengthened – I just couldn’t fathom some of the braking distances from high speed. And the downforce? I was at Weissach, Porsche’s test track, and there just aren’t enough fast turns to give you any real idea of high speed cornering. What I can say is that on the Autobahn the car hit 185mph with some ease, but the next 5 mph were a struggle, and this is a sure sign of real downforce.
Furthermore, it leaves me with a little gap in my knowledge of the new GT3 RS, which means I will be forced to reacquaint myself with it very soon. All in the name of research.
Some people will detest everything this car stands for. Some will dwell on the lack of a manual gearshift. But the unavoidable truth is that; for people who have the resources and inclination to want a car that is equally happy crossing continents as it is lapping at very high speed, the 991 GT3 RS sets new standards.
Photography by GF Williams.END OF AN ERA: Murdoch Family Fires Bill O’Reilly – Promotes Bob Beckel and Juan Williams
The Murdoch family fired Bill O’Reilly today – the top personality on cable news for the past 15 years.
James and Lachlan Murdoch, two committed leftists, have a much different vision than their father for the FOX News channel.
The new FOX News will not include Bill O’Reilly. In fact, the Murdoch family did not even allow Bill to say good-bye to his friends and millions of fans.
They wiped Bill O’Reilly’s name from “The Factor” on Wednesday night.
Bill made them billions. The Murdoch family did not even let him say goodbye.
Many conservatives are hoping O’Reilly will join with Roger Ailes and start a new network to compete with FOX News.
In another sign of the direction of the new FOX News the Murdoch family not only dumped Bill, but promoted far left hacks Bob Beckel and Juan Williams.
Tucker Carlson is moving to the 8 PM slot. Sean Hannity will keep his 10 PM slot. And FOX will move “The Five” to the 9 PM slot. “The Five” a panel show with six co-hosts: Kimberly Guilfoyle, Dana Perino, Bob Beckel, Greg Gutfeld, Jesse Watters and Juan Williams.
The Murdochs believe the FOX viewers want to see more of far left hacks Williams of Beckel.
Seriously?
This will not end well.Title : Hardening the Linux Kernel
Author : daemon9
---[ Phrack Magazine Volume 8, Issue 52 January 26, 1998, article 06 of 20 -------------------------[ Hardening the Linux Kernel (series 2.0.x) --------[ route|daemon9 <route@infonexus.com> ----[ Introduction and Impetus Linux. The cutest Unix-like O/S alive today. Everyone knows at least *one* person who has at least *one* Linux machine. Linux, whatever your opinion of it, is out there, and is being used by more and more people. Many of the people using Linux are using it in multi-user environments. All of a sudden they find security to be a big issue. This article is for those people. This article covers a few areas of potential insecurity in the Linux O/S and attempts to improve upon them. It contains several security related kernel patches for the 2.0.x kernels (each has been tested successfully on the 2.0.3x kernels and most should work on older 2.0.x kernels; see each subsection for more info). These are kernel patches. They do nothing for user-land security. If you can not set permissions and configure services correctly, you should not be running a Unix machine. These patches are not bugfixes. They are preventative security fixes. They are intended to prevent possible problems and breaches of security from occurring. In some cases they can remove (or at least severely complicate) the threat of many of today's most popular methods of attack. These patches are not really useful on a single-user machine. They are really intended for a multi-user box. This article is for those of you who want better security out of your Linux O/S. If you want to go a bit further, look into the POSIX.1e (POSIX 6) stuff. POSIX.1e is a security model that basically separates identity and privilege. Effectively, it splits superuser privileges into different `capabilities`. Additionally, the Linux POSIX.1e (linux-privs) implementation offers a bitmapped securelevel, kernel-based auditing (userland audit hooks are being developed), and ACLs. See: http://parc.power.net/morgan/Orange-Linux/linux-privs/index.html To sum it up, in this article, we explore a few ways to make the multi-user Linux machine a bit more secure and resilient to attack. ----[ The Patches procfs patch ------------ Tested on: 2.0.0 + Author: route Why should we allow anyone to be able to view info on any process? Normally, /bin/ps can show process listing for every process in the kernel's process table, regardless of ownership. A non-privileged user can see all the running processes on a system. This can include information that could be used in some forms of known / guessed PID-based attacks, not to mention the obvious lack of privacy. /bin/ps gets this process information by reading the /proc filesystem. The /proc filesystem is a virtual filesystem interface into the O/S which provides all kinds of good information including the status of various portions of the running kernel and a list of currently running processes. It has a filesystem interface, which means it has file-system-like access controls. As such, we can change the default access permissions on the inode from 555 to 500. And that's the patch. We just change the permissions on the inode from S_IFDIR | S_IRUGO | S_IXUGO to S_IFDIR | S_IRUSR | S_IXUSR. trusted path execution patch ---------------------------- Tested on: 2.0.0 + Author: route (2.0.x version, original 1.x patch by merc) Why should we allow arbitrary programs execution rights? Consider this scenario: You are the administrator of a multi-user Linux machine. All of a sudden there is a new bug in the Pentium(tm) processor! As it happens, this bug causes the CPU to lock up entirely, requiring a cold reboot. This bug is also exploitable by any user regardless of privilege. All it necessitates is for the malevolent user to 1) get the source, 2) compile the exploit, and 3) execute the program. Whelp... 1) has happened. You cannot prevent anyone from getting it. It's out there. You could remove permissions from the compiler on your machine or remove the binary entirely, but this does not stop the user from compiling the exploit elsewhere, and getting the binary on your machine somehow. You cannot prevent 2) either. However, if you only allow binaries to be executed from a trusted path, you can prevent 3) from happening. A trusted path is one that is inside is a root owned directory that is not group or world writable. /bin, /usr/bin, /usr/local/bin, are (under normal circumstances) considered trusted. Any non-root users home directory is not trusted, nor is /tmp. Be warned: This patch is a major annoyance to users who like to execute code and scripts from their home directories! It will make you extremely un-popular as far as these people are concerned. It will also let you sleep easier at night knowing that no unscrupulous persons will be executing malicious bits of code on your machine. Before any call to exec is allowed to run, we open the inode of the directory that the executable lives in and check ownership and permissions. If the directory is not owned by root, or is writable to group or other, we consider that untrusted. securelevel patch ----------------- Tested on: 2.0.26 + Author: route Damnit, if I set the immutable and append only bits, I did it for a reason. This patch isn't really much of a patch. It simply bumps the securelevel up, to 1 from 0. This freezes the immutable and append-only bits on files, keeping anyone from changing them (from the normal chattr interface). Before turning this on, you should of course make certain key files immutable, and logfiles append-only. It is still possible to open the raw disk device, however. Your average cut and paste hacker will probably not know how to do this. stack execution disabling patch and symlink patch ------------------------------- Tested on: 2.0.30 + Author: solar designer From the documentation accompanying SD's patch: This patch is intended to add protection against two classes of security holes: buffer overflows and symlinks in /tmp. Most buffer overflow exploits are based on overwriting a function's return address on the stack to point to some arbitrary code, which is also put onto the stack. If the stack area is non-executable, buffer overflow vulnerabilities become harder to exploit. Another way to exploit a buffer overflow is to point the return address to a function in libc, usually system(). This patch also changes the default address that shared libraries are mmap()ed at to make it always contain a zero byte. This makes it impossible to specify any more data (parameters to the function, or more copies of the return address when filling with a pattern) in an exploit that has to do with ASCIIZ strings (this is the case for most overflow vulnerabilities). However, note that this patch is by no means a complete solution, it just adds an extra layer of security. Some buffer overflow vulnerabilities will still remain exploitable a more complicated way. The reason for using such a patch is to protect against some of the buffer overflow vulnerabilities that are yet unknown. In this version of my patch I also added a symlink security fix, originally by Andrew Tridgell. I changed it to prevent from using hard links too, by simply not allowing non-root users to create hard links to files they don't own, in +t directories. This seems to be the desired behavior anyway, since otherwise users couldn't remove such links they just created. I also added exploit attempt logging, this code is shared with the non-executable stack stuff, and was the reason to make it a single patch instead of two separate ones. You can enable them separately anyway. GID split privilege patch ------------------------------- Tested on: 2.0.30 + Author: Original version DaveG, updated for 2.0.33 by route From the documentation accompanying Dave's original patch: This is a simple kernel patch that allows you to perform certain privileged operations with out requiring root access. With this patch three groups become privileged groups allowed to do different operations within the kernel. GID 16 : a program running with group 16 privileges can bind to a < 1024. This allows programs like: rlogin, rcp, rsh, and ssh to run setgid 16 instead of setuid 0(root). This also allows servers that need to run as root to bind to a privileged port like named, to also run setgid 16. GID 17 : any program running under GID 17 privileges will be able to create a raw socket. Programs like ping and traceroute can now be made to run setgid 17 instead of setuid 0(root). GID 18 : This group is for SOCK_PACKET. This isn't useful for most people, so if you don't know what it is, don't worry about it. Limitations ----------- Since this is a simple patch, it is VERY limited. First of all, there is no support for supplementary groups. This means that you can't stack these privileges. If you need GID 16 and 17, there isn't much you can do about it. ----[ Installation This patchfile has been tested and verified to work against the latest stable release of the linux kernel (as of this writing, 2.0.33). It should work against other 2.0.x releases as well with little or no modification. THIS IS NOT A GUARANTEE! Please do not send me your failed patch logs from older kernels. Take this as a perfect opportunity to upgrade your kernel to the latest release. Note that several of these patches are for X86-Linux only. Sorry. 1. Create the symlink: `cd /usr/src` `ln -s linux-KERNEL_VERSION linux-stock` 2. Apply the kernel patch: `patch < slinux.patch >& patch.err` 2a. Examine the error file for any failed hunks. Figure where you went wrong in life: `grep fail patch.err` 3. Configure your kernel: `make config` OR `make menu-config` OR `make xconfig` 4. You will need to enable prompting for experimental code in your kernel and turn on the patches individually. 5. To configure the split GID privilege patch, add the follow to your /etc/group file: `cat >> /etc/group` priv_port::16:user1, user2, user3 raw_sock::17:user1, user2 sock_pak::18:user2, user3 ^D Where `userx` are the usernames of the users you wish to give these permissions to. Next, fix the corresponding group and permissions on the binaries you wish to strip root privileges from: `chgrp raw_sock /bin/ping` `chmod 2755 /bin/ping` ----[ The patchfile This patchfile should be extracted with the Phrack Magazine Extraction Utility included in this (and every) issue. <++> slinux.patch diff -ru linux-stock/Documentation/Configure.help linux-patched/Documentation/Configure.help --- linux-stock/Documentation/Configure.help Fri Sep 5 20:43:58 1997 +++ linux-patched/Documentation/Configure.help Mon Nov 10 22:02:36 1997 @@ -720,6 +720,77 @@ later load the module when you install the JDK or find an interesting Java program that you can't live without. +Non-executable user stack area (EXPERIMENTAL) +CONFIG_STACKEXEC + Most buffer overflow exploits are based on overwriting a function's + return address on the stack to point to some arbitrary code, which is + also put onto the stack. If the stack area is non-executable, buffer + overflow vulnerabilities become harder to exploit. However, a few + programs depend on the stack being executable, and might stop working + unless you also enable GCC trampolines autodetection below, or enable + the stack area execution permission for every such program separately + using chstk.c. If you don't know what all this is about, or don't care + about security that much, say N. + +Autodetect GCC trampolines +CONFIG_STACKEXEC_AUTOENABLE + GCC generates trampolines on the stack to correctly pass control to + nested functions when calling from outside. This requires the stack + being executable. When this option is enabled, programs containing + trampolines will automatically get their stack area executable when + a trampoline is found. However, in some cases this autodetection can + be fooled in a buffer overflow exploit, so it is more secure to + disable this option and use chstk.c to enable the stack area execution + permission for every such program separately. If you're too lazy, + answer Y. + +Log buffer overflow exploit attempts +CONFIG_STACKEXEC_LOG + This option enables logging of buffer overflow exploit attempts. No + more than one attempt per minute is logged, so this is safe. Say Y. + +Process table viewing restriction (EXPERIMENTAL) +CONFIG_PROC_RESTRICT + This option enables process table viewing restriction. Users will only + be able to get status of processes they own, with the exception the + root user, who can get an entire process table listing. This patch + should not cause any problems with other programs but it is not fully + tested under every possible contingency. You must enable the /proc + filesystem for this option to be of any use. If you run a multi-user + system and are reasonably concerned with privacy and/or security, say Y. + +Trusted path execution (EXPERIMENTAL) +CONFIG_TPE + This option enables trusted path execution. Binaries are considered + `trusted` if they live in a root owned directory that is not group or + world writable. If an attempt is made to execute a program from a non + trusted directory, it will simply not be allowed to run. This is + quite useful on a multi-user system where security is an issue. Users + will not be able to compile and execute arbitrary programs (read: evil) + from their home directories, as these directories are not trusted. + This option is useless on a single user machine. + +Trusted path execution (EXPERIMENTAL) +CONFIG_TPE_LOG + This option enables logging of execution attempts from non-trusted + paths. + +Secure mode (EXPERIMENTAL) +CONFIG_SECURE_ON + This bumps up the securelevel from 0 to 1. When the securelevel is `on`, + immutable and append-only bits cannot be set or cleared. If you are not + concerned with security, you can say `N`. + +Split Network Groups (EXPERIMENTAL) +CONFIG_SPLIT_GID + This is a simple kernel patch that allows you to perform certain + privileged operations with out requiring root access. With this patch + three groups become privileged groups allowed to do different operations + within the kernel. + GID 16 allows programs to bind to privledged ports. + GID 17 allows programs to open raw sockets. + GID 18 allows programs to open sock packets. + Processor type CONFIG_M386 This is the processor type of your CPU. It is used for optimizing @@ -2951,6 +3020,27 @@ netatalk, new mars-nwe and other file servers. At the time of writing none of these are available. So it's safest to say N here unless you really know that you need this feature. + +Symlink security fix (EXPERIMENTAL) +CONFIG_SYMLINK_FIX + A very common class of security hole on UNIX-like systems involves + a malicious user creating a symbolic link in /tmp pointing at + another user's file. When the victim then writes to that file they + inadvertently write to the wrong file. Enabling this option fixes + this class of hole by preventing a process from following a link + which is in a +t directory unless they own the link. However, this + fix does not affect links owned by root, since these could only be + created by someone having root access already. To prevent someone + from using a hard link instead, this fix does not allow non-root + users to create hard links in a +t directory to files they don't + own. Note that this fix might break things. Only say Y if security + is more important. + +Log symlink exploit attempts +CONFIG_SYMLINK_LOG + This option enables logging of symlink (and hard link) exploit + attempts. No more than one attempt per minute is logged, so this is + safe. Say Y. Minix fs support CONFIG_MINIX_FS diff -ru linux-stock/arch/i386/config.in linux-patched/arch/i386/config.in --- linux-stock/arch/i386/config.in Sun May 12 21:17:23 1996 +++ linux-patched/arch/i386/config.in Sun Nov 9 12:38:27 1997 @@ -35,6 +35,15 @@ tristate 'Kernel support for ELF binaries' CONFIG_BINFMT_ELF if [ "$CONFIG_EXPERIMENTAL" = "y" ]; then tristate 'Kernel support for JAVA binaries' CONFIG_BINFMT_JAVA + bool 'Non-executable user stack area (EXPERIMENTAL)' CONFIG_STACKEXEC + if [ "$CONFIG_STACKEXEC" = "y" ]; then + bool'Autodetect GCC trampolines' CONFIG_STACKEXEC_AUTOENABLE + bool'Log buffer overflow exploit attempts' CONFIG_STACKEXEC_LOG + fi + bool'Restrict process table viewing (EXPERIMENTAL)' CONFIG_PROC_RESTRICT + bool'Trusted path execution (EXPERIMENTAL)' CONFIG_TPE + bool'Log untrusted path execution attempts (EXPERIMENTAL)' CONFIG_TPE_LOG + bool'Split Network GIDs (EXPERIMENTAL)' CONFIG_SPLIT_GID fi bool 'Compile kernel as ELF - if your GCC is ELF-GCC' CONFIG_KERNEL_ELF diff -ru linux-stock/arch/i386/defconfig linux-patched/arch/i386/defconfig --- linux-stock/arch/i386/defconfig Mon Sep 22 13:44:01 1997 +++ linux-patched/arch/i386/defconfig Sun Nov 9 12:38:23 1997 @@ -24,6 +24,10 @@ CONFIG_SYSVIPC=y CONFIG_BINFMT_AOUT=y CONFIG_BINFMT_ELF=y +# CONFIG_STACKEXEC is not set +CONFIG_STACKEXEC_AUTOENABLE=y +CONFIG_STACKEXEC_LOG=y +CONFIG_SPLIT_GID=y CONFIG_KERNEL_ELF=y # CONFIG_M386 is not set # CONFIG_M486 is not set @@ -134,6 +138,8 @@ # Filesystems # # CONFIG_QUOTA is not set +# CONFIG_SYMLINK_FIX is not set +CONFIG_SYMLINK_LOG=y CONFIG_MINIX_FS=y # CONFIG_EXT_FS is not set CONFIG_EXT2_FS=y @@ -143,6 +149,9 @@ # CONFIG_VFAT_FS is not set # CONFIG_UMSDOS_FS is not set CONFIG_PROC_FS=y +CONFIG_PROC_RESTRICT=y +CONFIG_TPE=y +CONFIG_TPE_LOG=y CONFIG_NFS_FS=y # CONFIG_ROOT_NFS is not set # CONFIG_SMB_FS is not set diff -ru linux-stock/arch/i386/kernel/head.S linux-patched/arch/i386/kernel/head.S --- linux-stock/arch/i386/kernel/head.S Tue Aug 5 09:19:53 1997 +++ linux-patched/arch/i386/kernel/head.S Sun Nov 9 00:55:50 1997 @@ -400,10 +400,17 @@.quad 0x0000000000000000 /* not used */.quad 0xc0c39a000000ffff /* 0x10 kernel 1GB code at 0xC0000000 */.quad 0xc0c392000000ffff /* 0x18 kernel 1GB data at 0xC0000000 */ +#ifdef CONFIG_STACKEXEC +.quad 0x00cafa000000ffff /* 0x23 user 2.75GB code at 0 */ +.quad 0x00cbf2000000ffff /* 0x2b user 3GB data at 0 */ +.quad 0x00cbda000000ffff /* 0x32 user 3GB code at 0, DPL=2 */ +.quad 0x00cbd2000000ffff /* 0x3a user 3GB stack at 0, DPL=2 */ +#else.quad 0x00cbfa000000ffff /* 0x23 user 3GB code at 0x00000000 */.quad 0x00cbf2000000ffff /* 0x2b user 3GB data at 0x00000000 */.quad 0x0000000000000000 /* not used */.quad 0x0000000000000000 /* not used */ +#endif.fill 2*NR_TASKS,8,0 /* space for LDT's and TSS's etc */ #ifdef CONFIG_APM.quad 0x00c09a0000000000 /* APM CS code */ diff -ru linux-stock/arch/i386/kernel/ptrace.c linux-patched/arch/i386/kernel/ptrace.c --- linux-stock/arch/i386/kernel/ptrace.c Mon Aug 4 12:12:22 1997 +++ linux-patched/arch/i386/kernel/ptrace.c Sun Nov 9 00:55:50 1997 @@ -413,7 +413,7 @@ addr == FS || addr == GS || addr == CS || addr == SS) { data &= 0xffff; - if (data && (data & 3)!= 3) + if (data && (data & 3) < 2) return -EIO; } if (addr == EFL) { /* flags. */ @@ -423,6 +423,10 @@ /* Do not allow the user to set the debug register for kernel address space */ if(addr < 17){ + if (addr == EIP && (data & 0xF0000000) == 0xB0000000) + if (put_stack_long(child, CS*sizeof(long)-MAGICNUMBER, USER_HUGE_CS) || + put_stack_long(child, SS*sizeof(long)-MAGICNUMBER, USER_HUGE_SS)) + return -EIO; if (put_stack_long(child, sizeof(long)*addr-MAGICNUMBER, data)) return -EIO; return 0; diff -ru linux-stock/arch/i386/kernel/signal.c linux-patched/arch/i386/kernel/signal.c --- linux-stock/arch/i386/kernel/signal.c Mon Aug 4 12:12:51 1997 +++ linux-patched/arch/i386/kernel/signal.c Sun Nov 9 00:55:50 1997 @@ -83,10 +83,10 @@ #define COPY_SEG(x) \ if ( (context.x & 0xfffc) /* not a NULL selectors */ \ && (context.x & 0x4)!= 0x4 /* not a LDT selector */ \ - && (context.x & 3)!= 3 /* not a RPL3 GDT selector */ \ + && (context.x & 3) < 2 /* not a RPL3 or RPL2 GDT selector */ \ ) goto badframe; COPY(x); #define COPY_SEG_STRICT(x) \ -if (!(context.x & 0xfffc) || (context.x & 3)!= 3) goto badframe; COPY(x); +if (!(context.x & 0xfffc) || (context.x & 3) < 2) goto badframe; COPY(x); struct sigcontext_struct context; struct pt_regs * regs; @@ -167,16 +167,20 @@ unsigned long * frame; frame = (unsigned long *) regs->esp; - if (regs->ss!= USER_DS && sa->sa_restorer) + if (regs |
you look closely at the inside of a seminiferous tubule, you can see the sperm assembly line in action. Between every pair of Sertoli cells, all along each tubule, developing spermatocytes are stacked from the edge of the wall to the start of the lumen. And millions of spermatids getting ready to move on their own wait at the very end of the line.
[van Tienhoven 1983 | Silverthorn 2013]
Top image GreenFlames09 via Flickr | CC BY 2.0
Contact the author at diane@io9.com.Tehran says Washington is in no position to comment on the issue of human rights after the US imposed sanctions on an Iranian individual and an organization for what it called their “rights abuses.”
The United States on Thursday added Sohrab Soleimani, the supervisor of Security and Law Enforcement Deputyship at Iran’s Prisons Organization, and the Tehran Prisons Organization to its “human rights-related” sanctions list.
"The US government, due to its failed domestic and international record, is not in a position to comment or act on the human rights situation in other countries," Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said Friday.
"Nor has any international authority trusted such responsibility with the US administration to assess on its own the human rights situation in other countries and to make decisions for them," he added.
Sohrab Soleimani is the younger brother of Major General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps whose occasional sojourn among the Iraqi forces on the anti-Daesh battleground has drawn international attention.
Baghdad has hailed Soleimani as being among the “trustworthy” commanders for the Iraqi government.
This is the second time since US President Donald Trump’s January inauguration that Washington targets Iranian individuals and institutions with sanctions.
Qassemi said “unilateral and coercive sanctions" by the US are an "illegitimate measure which has negative effects on the enjoyment of human rights of individuals."
"Such repetitive measures in line with specific political objectives of the American government, declaring unilateral sanctions under baseless allegation of human rights violations against individuals or entities of independent states, breach the tenets of international law and international human rights law and are illegitimate and illegal," he said.
Read more:
In March, the US State Department said Washington had sanctioned 30 foreign companies or individuals for transferring sensitive technology to Iran for its missile program or violating export controls on Iran, North Korea and Syria.
The move prompted Iran to announce retaliatory sanctions on 15 American companies over their support for Israeli crimes and terrorism.
"The American government's interventionist measures, more than anything, are aimed at covering up the problems of human rights in that country and diverting world opinion from its crimes and its support for systematic and gross violations of human rights by some of its allies in the region, in particular the Zionist regime, which have dark human rights records," Qassemi said on Friday.ARLINGTON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The following statement is attributed to Gary Shapiro, president and CEO, Consumer Technology Association (CTA), regarding the House Energy and Commerce Committee today approving the Food Drug Administration (FDA) user fee legislation with over-the-counter hearing aid provision:
"We applaud Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Reps. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Joe Kennedy III (D-MA) for shepherding the over-the-counter provision in the broader FDA user fee legislation. We are pleased that the provisions of the Over the Counter Hearing Aid Act are included in both the House and Senate versions of the FDA user fee legislation. Getting over the counter hearing aids on the same shelf as over-the-counter eyeglasses would be a major win for consumers with mild-to-moderate hearing loss. The high cost of hearing aids, the inconvenience and the cost of doctor appointments means nearly half of online U.S. adults – 98 million Americans – have some degree of hearing loss and don't get the hearing assistance they need. We urge expeditious consideration of these bills on the House and Senate floor.
“While both hearing aids and non-prescription devices can improve hearing, a pair of hearing aids can range in price from $1,000 to $6,000. Non-prescription devices such as PSAPs are one-tenth that cost, ranging from $100 to $600. According to the CTA's Personal Sound Amplification Products: A Study of Consumer Attitudes and Behavior study, price is a significant barrier to seeking help for a hearing deficiency.
“The over-the-counter provision will change lives for the better by directing the FDA to create a new regulatory class of hearing aids that could be sold over the counter. This new regulatory class will address the needs of adults with mild to moderate hearing loss, a population that desperately warrants attention.”
About Consumer Technology Association:
Consumer Technology Association (CTA)TM is the trade association representing the $292 billion U.S. consumer technology industry, which supports more than 15 million U.S. jobs. More than 2,200 companies – 80 percent are small businesses and startups; others are among the world’s best known brands – enjoy the benefits of CTA membership including policy advocacy, market research, technical education, industry promotion, standards development and the fostering of business and strategic relationships. CTA also owns and produces CES® – the world’s gathering place for all who thrive on the business of consumer technologies. Profits from CES are reinvested into CTA’s industry services.
UPCOMING EVENTSSally Ride, here in San Diego in February 2003, taught male NASA engineers a little something about tampons. Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images
In this unprecedented era of menstrual activism, invention, and public discourse, it was only a matter of time before period talk reached outer space. Last week, in a report published in Npj Microgravity, researchers made one of the first scientifically backed recommendations for astronauts who menstruate.
Hormonal contraception makes it possible for women to halt their periods, but with the prospect of yearslong space missions looming, the authors of the paper advise against taking birth control pills. The bulk of hundreds or thousands of days’ worth of oral contraception and their packaging would create unnecessary weight and waste on the ship, and scientists have not studied the long-term effects of deep-space radiation on hormonal pills. Thus, the researchers recommend long-acting reversible contraception like an intrauterine device or arm implant—preferably the former, since the latter might catch on or otherwise interfere with space garments.
The male-dominated astronautics community has touched on the issue of menstruation in spaceflight before, but discussions often relied on sexist assumptions and unchallenged misconceptions. Some officials wondered why women needed to be considered for space missions in the first place. In 1971, as NPR reported last year, a NASA paper about psychological issues for astronauts suggested women be used as stress-relief tools:
The question of direct sexual release on a long-duration space mission must be considered. Practical considerations (such as weight and expense) preclude men taking their wives on the first space flights. It is possible that a woman, qualified from a scientific viewpoint, might be persuaded to donate her time and energies for the sake of improving crew morale; however, such a situation might create interpersonal tensions far more dynamic than the sexual tensions it would release.
In this climate, menstruation was pegged more as an emotional liability than a physical one. According to Cecil Adams at the Straight Dope, “several plane crashes in the 1930s had involved menstruating female pilots, and experts—male experts, of course—suggested that putting a woman with ‘menstrual disturbances’ in the cockpit was an invitation to disaster.” Once women did make it to the top of the U.S. astronaut program, scientists worried that menstruating in microgravity might cause menstrual fluid to flow upwards, from the uterus into the Fallopian tubes and out into the abdomen. They predicted that this phenomenon, called retrograde menstruation, could cause endometriosis, a painful syndrome wherein uterine tissue grows outside the uterus.
Astronaut Rhea Seddon, who flew in the ’80s and ’90s, says no one commissioned a study to prove or disprove this theory, which she and her fellow female astronauts found absurd. “We said, ‘How about we just consider it a non-problem until it becomes a problem?’ ” she recounted in an oral history. They continued: “‘If anybody gets sick in space you can bring us home. Then we’ll deal with it as a problem, but let’s consider it a non-problem.’”
There is no evidence that retrograde menstruation could occur in microgravity, nor that, if it did, it would cause endometriosis. Women who’ve menstruated in space have all reported that everything went fine, just like menstruating on the ground. That makes sense: No doctor has ever suggested that women should not do cartwheels, lie down with their hips raised, or perform yoga inversions during their periods, which would exert a greater negative force on the contents of the uterus than zero-gravity would.
Still, for purposes of travel weight, waste disposal, and astronaut comfort, suppressing menstruation as recommended by last week’s report seems to be the best option. But there is one major downside: It might deprive the men of NASA of a significant learning opportunity. Just before Sally Ride became the first U.S. woman in space, the mission’s male engineers, who took it upon themselves to design a makeup kit for her, asked her how many tampons she’d need for a one-week mission. “Is 100 the right number?” they asked. “No,” Ride answered. “That would not be the right number.”
One IUD can last for up to five years, thankfully making candy-jar guesses from clueless scientists a thing of the past.*
Correction, Apr. 26, 2016: The post originally misstated the length of time a hormonal IUD can last.SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- A pickup truck struck a Centro bus in Syracuse just over a week ago, lodging itself in the bus and injuring multiple people.
Videos from cameras on the bus show the truck crashing through the side of the bus and throwing a passenger forward. Centro released the surveillance footage after Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard filed a Freedom of Information Law request.
Neil Brownell, the driver of the pickup, was driving off Interstate 81 north at Park Street around 2 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 19 when the accident happened, said the Syracuse Police Department.
Brownell swerved into the left lane to avoid traffic near the end of the ramp, police said. The truck went off the road and crashed into a Centro bus that was stopped on Park Street at the Farmers Market Place traffic light. The truck was stuck in the bus several feet above the ground.
Police said several passengers were treated for minor injuries. The bus driver, Daphne Ross-Powell, 54, of Syracuse, was treated at Crouse Hospital for chest pain.
The pickup driver, Brownell, 82, of West Monroe, was not injured, police said. His wife, Jerrie Brownell, 75, of West Monroe, a passenger in his truck, was taken to St. Joseph's Hospital Health Center for chest pain.
No tickets were immediately issued after the crash.
Were you involved in this crash? Are you in this video? Syracuse.com would like to hear your story. Please reach out to Samantha House at shouse@syracuse.com or (315) 466-4160.
Centro bus passengers, others go to hospital after truck crashes into bus, gets stuckBan on election polls coming, pollster fears
OTTAWA - A spate of spectacularly inaccurate polls in several provincial elections and Monday's federal byelections has one of Canada's leading pollsters worried that the day is fast approaching when public opinion surveys will be banned during campaigns.
John Wright, senior vice-president of Ipsos Global Public Affairs, said in his view shoddy polling methods by some companies and the media's undiscerning appetite for horse race numbers — no matter how dubious — are dragging the industry's reputation through the mud.
He wants the market research industry to crack down on pollsters who don't meet minimum standards. And he wants media outlets to be far more selective about the polls they publish, rejecting surveys from companies that refuse to fully disclose all their weighted and unweighted data.
If that doesn't happen soon, he predicted there'll be a move to ban the publication of polls during campaigns.
"I think at some point, if this continues, there'll be a real question raised whether these sort of things should even be contemplated being done during campaigns," Wright said in an interview Tuesday.
Most polls were significantly off the mark in recent provincial elections in Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia.
Then on the eve of Monday's four byelections, a Forum Research automated phone survey was published giving the Liberals in Manitoba's Brandon-Souris a 29-point lead. In the end, the Conservatives eked out a win with 44.1 per cent of the vote to 42.7 for the Liberals.
The Winnipeg Free Press questioned the poll's reliability, reporting that a number of constituents had been called as many as six times by Forum. It also carried the results, as did other media outlets.
If voters were in fact called repeatedly for the Forum poll, Wright said the survey sample would not be representative of the riding’s population.
In close contests like Brandon Souris, where less than 400 votes separated the Conservatives and Liberals, Wright said it’s especially important to ensure polls are accurate and properly conducted.
"If one vote was influenced by a bogus piece of work, that's one vote too many,” he said.
Forum denies anyone was called more than once for the same survey.
In 1998, Wright said the Supreme Court ruled there's no need to ban polls during campaigns because the industry and the media would police themselves sufficiently to ensure voters were not being misled by bad surveys.
"I think that's a system that's completely broken now," he said, adding that he's no longer sure the top court would rule the same way, given recent experience.
"Will there be banning of polls? Who knows," Wright said.
"But certainly when you get enough of these things where you can't tell whether there's any merit or science or believability to it all and you get players who seem to disregard the very fundamentals of doing it the right way, then you wonder how far off it can really be."
Forum's Lorne Bozinoff defended his company's record, noting that it accurately pegged the results in two other byelections Monday: Toronto Centre, Bourassa in Montreal.
"We know (automated phone polls) can work, there's just no question about that. The question is why were they off in Brandon?" he said in an interview.
Bozinoff said "there's no way" anyone was called more than once per survey, although some people may have been called for each of the three separate polls the company conducted on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday before the vote.
He speculated that the difference between the final Brandon poll and the actual byelection outcome may have been that the Conservatives had a better "get out the vote" ground game than the Liberals. As well, he said some constituents who were angry about the perception of a fixed Tory nomination may have found they just couldn't bring themselves to vote Liberal once they got into the ballot box.
Whatever the reason, the Liberals' supposed 29-point lead didn't materialize — a point used by Conservatives to deflect attention from their party's disappointing byelection results.
"The pundits were saying that we were some 30 points behind in Brandon-Souris... but our candidate did very well and we came out with a victory," said Paul Calandra, parliamentary secretary to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
The Tories hung on to Brandon and another Manitoba riding, Provencher — both long-time Conservative bastions. But their share of the vote plunged as much as 20 points in Manitoba and almost disappeared entirely in the Toronto and Montreal ridings.
The NDP gained strength slightly only in Toronto Centre, lost a bit of ground in Bourassa and sank into a distant third in the Manitoba ridings, after coming a respectable second in 2011.
The Liberal party alone increased its vote share in all four ridings, hanging on to the traditional Grit seats of Toronto Centre and Bourassa, despite an all-out challenge from the NDP, and making huge gains in the two Manitoba ridings.
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau credited his positive approach to politics for his party's momentum. But he faced criticism for going negative himself in his Bourassa victory speech, in which he used the words of late NDP leader Jack Layton to denounce what he called the negative campaign conducted by New Democrats in Toronto Centre and Bourassa.
"Make no mistake, the NDP is no longer the hopeful, optimistic party of Jack Layton. It is the negative, divisive party of Thomas Mulcair. It is the Liberal party tonight that proved hope is stronger than fear," Trudeau said Monday night.
Mulcair retorted Tuesday: "That Justin Trudeau would use Jack Layton's dying words as a political tool says everything that needs to be said about Justin Trudeau's judgment and character."
Layton's widow, Olivia Chow, said she was "surprised and disappointed" to hear Trudeau appropriating her late husband's words. While she insisted the NDP remains "the party of love, hope and optimism," she said New Democrats should keep their sights trained on Harper's Conservatives — which would seem at odds with the party's targeting of the Liberals.
For his part, Trudeau was unapologetic for the Layton reference.
"The point that I made and I'm continuing to make is that this is no longer Jack Layton's NDP. It's very much Thomas Mulcair's"I love me some classic games. The problem is, the older they get, the trickier they are to get working. Over the years I’ve gone through many different cleaning processes, but the video above illustrates my favorite of all the cleaning methods. This method is easily the most costly, timely, and messy one, but it really does wonders for games that are otherwise on the fritz. I have performed miracles with this stuff, getting games that I’ve otherwise thought had no chance of surviving into great working condition.
If you’ve watched the video and you’re ready to jump in there, here is a handy list of everything you’ll need to get cleaning.
Required:
Mother’s Mag & Aluminum Polish
3.8MM gamebit
Some sort of cloth (anything will do, from an old t-shirt, microfiber cloth, or in the case of the above video, an old burp cloth)
Optional:
Mr. Clean Magic Eraser
Windex
Q-Tips
All Purpose Cleaner
Most of this stuff you probably already have around the house, so the only hurdle should be the gamebit and the polish (which you can pick up at automotive stores if you don’t want to grab it online).
I have written more in-depth articles in the past about cleaning games, restoring entire consoles like the N64 and the NES respectively, but I decided to make this video after buying Kabuki Quantum Fighter at MAGFest and it needing just a bit of care in order for me to get it working perfectly. As I said before, it takes some time, but it’s well worth it.
Have fun.NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) Detroit Red Wings fans have their octopi. The Panthers' faithful in Florida had the ''rat trick.''
Nashville? The Predators have catfish, the Southern staple that has become a beloved badge of honor fans delight in throwing onto the ice for good luck.
Who started Music City's slippery tradition? This fish tale stretches from the home of one of the Original Six NHL franchises to what once was one of Nashville's seediest neighborhoods a generation ago, following the long and twisting path of a man who has been a country music drummer, disc jockey, chef and restaurant owner. And, as he tells it, Nashville's original catfish chucker.
That man is Bob Wolf, and he feels his need for secrecy finally is at an end.
''It's been 20 years almost, and it's time,'' Wolf said.
Indeed it is. The Predators are about to host their first Stanley Cup Final game, on Saturday night. Pittsburgh leads the best-of-seven series 2-0, but that's another story.
Nashville's catfish tradition is well known around here, but it became national news earlier this week thanks to Jacob Waddell, 36.
After an extraordinary effort to conceal a flattened catfish on his person, Waddell threw it onto the ice - in Pittsburgh - on Monday night. The Predators then scored three goals before Pittsburgh pulled out a 5-3 win in the opener. Waddell was charged with disorderly conduct, possessing instruments of crime and disrupting meetings or processions before they were withdrawn.
Wolf, of course, watched all this from afar with some measure of satisfaction.
He says the idea to toss a catfish grew out a discussion at Wolfy's during the Predators' inaugural season, back in 1998-99. Wolf is a Rangers' fan born in Brooklyn who had played drums for Johnny Paycheck and others before going into the restaurant business in Nashville. He helped open the restaurant bearing his name across from renowned honky-tonk Tootsie's Orchid Lounge. He also lobbied Nashville to build an arena on the other corner to spur redevelopment of what then was a neighborhood down on its luck.
Back then, he served burgers to construction workers and the Predators' new owner, Craig Leipold. Once Nashville landed an NHL expansion franchise, Wolfy's became a go-to stop for fans and players. There were also a fair number of Red Wings fans in the area, thanks to General Motors' nearby Saturn plant and the automaker's close ties to Detroit.
The Red Wings immediately became Nashville's biggest foe.
A couple days before Detroit's visit in January 1999, Wolf said, he sat with friends looking for a uniquely Tennessee answer to the Red Wings' storied octopus tradition. Jack Daniel's whiskey was too precious. Guitar picks way too small. Wolf's inspiration came when he walked outside and looked down Broadway to the Cumberland River.
Catfish!
Wolf bought a nine-pound catfish and wrapped it in newspaper and plastic wrap. On Jan. 26, 1999, Wolf tucked the catfish underneath his Predators' jersey, walked in and waited for Nashville's first goal. The stench started wafting around him until the Preds' lone goal in what ended up a 4-1 loss.
Wolf said he tossed the catfish, then ran up the aisle. Friends around the arena provided cover and a distraction by running as well.
''The first time I saw the catfish flop on the ice, we were playing Detroit so I thought it was an octopus,'' Leipold, now owner of the Minnesota Wild, wrote in an email to The Associated Press. ''I was pleasantly surprised when I realized it was a catfish. I figured that it had to be one of our fans mocking the Red Wings. I was not disappointed.''
Wolf said Leipold, still a close friend, did not know about the catfish. With a small bar inside the arena, Wolf said he knew where to hide from security, too.
''It wasn't meant to be anything but fun and answer Detroit's call to their octopus,'' said Wolf, now semi-retired and living in Saint Paul, Minnesota. ''`Hey, we're the new Southern team on the ice, and we're going to throw a catfish on the ice.' That was kind of the attitude that day.''
Nashville was hooked. The catfish caught on. The tradition became so popular that officials started handing out delay of game penalties against the Predators, which put things on ice for a while.
With the Predators' in the playoffs for the 10th time in 13 years, there has been a catfish comeback. Dead fish have never been so popular.
Five hit the ice one night early in the playoffs. The offensive linemen of the NFL's Tennessee Titans held up catfish while revving up fans before another game. Country star Keith Urban even held up a catfish, and the linemen had more catfish for Game 6 of the Western Conference finals. When Colton Sissons finished a hat trick, left tackle Taylor Lewan celebrated by throwing a catfish instead of a hat.
Little Fish Market in Nashville was offering a free catfish to fans with a ticket to Game 3 or Game 4 - that's $1.95 a pound, including head, skin and guts.
The Predators don't discuss security procedures, and it's not clear how many catfish will be in attendance - in secret or otherwise - at Games 3 and 4. No etiquette exists for the best time to throw a catfish, though fans have largely avoided throwing them on the ice during play this season. It essentially gives the other team a free timeout, after all, and there's that threat of putting the other team on a power play.
Tossing catfish during pregame festivities appears to work best for fans, with one caveat: Don't hit the anthem singer.
Pete Weber, the Predators' radio play-by-play man, loves explaining to outsiders why Nashville fans toss a catfish.
''I really tend to get tickled when I see a catfish go over the glass,'' Weber said. ''I absolutely love that.''
Wolf marvels at the Predators' success and the tradition that started with a single fish.
''The idea was to keep it a secret, and obviously we did a good job until the Pittsburgh fish,'' Wolf said. ''And this story has to get out. It's a fun story, and it sets the record straight.''
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AP Sports Writers Dave Campbell in Minnesota and Will Graves in Pittsburgh contributed to this report.
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More AP NHL: https://apnews.com/tag/NHLhockey
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Follow Teresa M. Walker at www.twitter.com/teresamwalkerBUENOS AIRES — A thick slab of grass-fed sirloin dripping in its own juices: so many Argentines consider such a feast a birthright to be enjoyed regularly that one president in the 1990s quipped to an American magazine, “Tell your readers, ‘Don’t come to my country if they’re vegetarian.’ ”
But tastes change, even here.
Beef consumption in this red-meat colossus has decreased so much over the decades that the nation recently fell from its perch as the world’s top per capita consumer of beef, a title Argentine ranchers are fighting to regain from their tiny neighbor, Uruguay. In another jolt, a study warned that pizzerias could soon outnumber steakhouses in this city.
As if that were not enough to rattle the national psyche, Argentina slipped into 11th place, behind countries like New Zealand and Mexico, in the global ranking of beef exporters this year, prompting solemn reactions like one in a major newspaper that declared it “the end of a reign.”
“We live, at this moment, immersed in shame,” the writer Diego Vecino said in a recent 4,000-plus-word magazine article that explored declining beef consumption. “In the last few years, our Argentine national identity has been roughed up as never before,” he lamented, in a slightly tongue-in-cheek fashion. “The ritual of the barbecue persists, but in many cases under the kitsch glow of a retro experience.”KY: Ah, right. Yeah, there are a lot of games with in-game cutscenes where the mic is slavishly tied to the camera, and the cuts are criminal - it really jars. But I suppose you have the flexibility to place the mic wherever you want.
PK: Yes. I’ve got to give a shoutout to Neil on this, because he - and this kicked me in the shins at the time, because I just wanted to be done - but he actually would not approve the final mixes until the camera metadata was done and the correct backgrounds were playing through the cinematics properly. Because he wanted to make sure that his scene played out the way he wanted his scene to play. And, you know what? That’s frickin’ awesome. Because when you’re in the thick of it and you have 5000 other things to think about, you don’t want something else piled on to you but, at the same time, it’s so important to have all the pieces of the puzzle in place before you sign off on it.
KY: Man, I’m so glad I asked you about that because that answer was a lot more interesting than I was expecting! OK, so, going back to the pillars of the mix in The Last of Us, because we kinda went off on one there...
PK: [laughs] OK, so... just as with any Naughty Dog game, dialogue is king. So we wanted to make sure that we could hear the dialogue and understand what was going on, but it had to do so within the constraints of the environmental audio technology that we were trying to create.
KY: Could you talk a bit more about that - what were the challenges you faced here?
PK: There were a couple of things we did a bit differently for dialogue in The Last of Us. Early on we decided that we were going to create a more natural fall-off model. We didn’t have a curve editor tool, so it was all numbers in a text file, but we had the ability to change the fall-off curve for each individual sound at will. We worked for a long time on the fall-off curves for dialogue, taking in to account the size of the maps, the different setups in each area, whether it was interior or exterior, all these different considerations, so that you could really hear the human enemies in the mix. But then once we started working with Neil Druckmann, the creative director, on the sound of the infected and how scary they were going to be we found that the kind of falloff curves we’d been applying to the human enemy dialogue didn’t work on the infected’s vocalizations - it just wasn’t very scary to be able to hear the infected from far away. It communicated that there were infected present but that there was nothing to worry about, and that really diminished the power and meaning of those sounds. The infected are at their scariest when they are on your ass - with a character like the clicker, it’s just one bite and you’re done, it’s a one hit kill - so what we wanted was for the player to associate the sound of the infected with an immediate threat. So, they said to us “yeah, everything we told you about the dialogue for the game - that doesn’t work for the infected. Figure it out.” So, Jonathan and I had to go back to the drawing board and talk about how we were going to make the dialogue not behave like dialogue!
JL: Yeah, we couldn’t just split them out on different fall-off curves. If we’d done that then you’d get weird situations like hearing your buddy reacting to getting attacked but not hearing the infected doing the attacking! So we knew we had to make the falloff curves match up when you are interacting with the infected. But we couldn’t just drop the buddy dialogue to match the infected vocalizations because the buddy dialogue had to be loud and audible to make sure any exposition was coming across. And we didn’t want any mix inconsistencies as a result of abrupt changes in state, like your buddy sounds loud and then all of a sudden they sound quiet as soon as you’ve wiped out all the infected. So that was where the whole parametric dynamic range technique came in to play, because what we decided to do instead was split the curves out but we would blend them over time to match each other when you were interacting and then unblend them back when the infected were gone. That way we could tune the two curves separately, and the blend would happen slow enough for it not to be noticeable. Even when you know it’s there it’s very hard to hear because it’s very subtle.The congress started by paying tribute to Comrade Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela as a giant in our struggle for liberation. His passing marks the end of a political era in our journey towards full freedom. The congress agreed that, if we are to truthfully and fully honour Mandela and his comrades, his passing must herald the birth of our renewed commitment to intensify the struggle for full economic sovereignty, for complete economic freedom of the working class and the rural poor. His passing must spur us to fight even harder for the attainment of all the ideals he stood for: liberty, freedom, dignity, democracy and full social and economic equality of all human beings. Not to do so will be to betray him and his comrades. The congress remembered vividly the words Madiba offered to the COSATU Special National Congress in 1993, when he said:
NUMSA’s Special National Congress convened from December 17 to December 20, 2013. It was attended by 1200 delegates representing 338,000 metalworkers from 50 Locals throughout the provinces of South Africa. NUMSA was proud to announce in the congress that it is the biggest union in the history of the African continent. In the last 17 months, since our 9th Congress in Durban, we have grown from 300,000 members to 338,000 members. We are ahead of schedule in our goal to organise 400,000 workers by the time of our 10th Congress in 2016.
You must be vigilant! How many times has a labour movement supported a liberation movement, only to find itself betrayed on the day of liberation? There are many examples of this in Africa. If the ANC does not deliver the goods you must do to it what you did to the apartheid regime.
3. Unity
There was a lot of talk, in the build-up to our Special National Congress, about how divided NUMSA is. Much was made of the resignation of our former president, Cedric Gina. Stories were spread of a union dominated by a single individual. There were even stories, which became the subject of much humour in the congress, of NUMSA’s leadership comprising business people who were simply firing up the militancy of the union for personal gain. In the last five days NUMSA has shown those stories to contain not one atom of truth. The most notable feature of the congress has been its unity. Even independent analysts and media commentators have confirmed the remarkable unity of the membership and the leadership in the congress. The delegates have been solidly united in their approach to the current crisis of the working class. There has been vigorous debate on detail, but absolute agreement on the key decisions that the congress faced. NUMSA emerges from the congress in the same condition as we went in – united in our militant determination to use our strength to win fundamental change in the policies and strategies of government as the only way to solve the triple crisis of poverty, unemployment and inequality.
4. Origins of the congress and its democratic process
In the view of the NUMSA National Office Bearers and the Central Committee, the situation in the Alliance [which comprises the African National Congress, the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party] and in COSATU had reached a point which required the leadership to consult our members. The decisions of our 9th Congress were no longer enough to guide us. The situation had changed to a point where we needed a new mandate from the membership. The NUMSA Central Committee therefore called this Special National Congress and NUMSA’s democratic process swung into gear. Discussions were held in all 50 locals and all 9 regions. The debate was consolidated at national level and sent back for further discussion. By the time we arrived at this Special National Congress on Monday evening, the delegates were all well aware of the issues on which there was agreement and the issues on which there was a need for more debate. The congress was founded on a solid base of discussion and debate throughout the structures of the union.
5. The crisis of deindustrialisation and unemployment
Both the NUMSA president and the general secretary set out very clearly and at length the context for the deliberations of the congress. The global crisis of capitalism continues and offers a bleak future for any emerging economy that fails to build its own manufacturing industry. South Africa is not only failing to increase industrialisation. The ANC government, including its component from the leadership of the SACP, has presided over a dramatic decrease in the levels of industrialisation in the country.
This is not an accident; it does not come from incompetence or inefficiency on the part of the ANC and SACP leadership. It comes from the fact that the leadership of the ANC and SACP is protecting the interests of white monopoly capital and imperialism against the interests of the working class. The ANC and SACP leadership defends the ownership and control of the mines, banks and monopoly industries in the hands of white monopoly capital and imperialism. The manipulation of the resolution by the ANC branches on nationalisation by the leadership, the deputy president of the ANC (and others), exploit the black working class in alliance with white monopoly capitalism and imperialism.
That is why South Africa has been steadily deindustrialising. It is not in the interests of mining and finance capital to invest in manufacturing industry, especially that part which does not affect the MEFC. That is why South Africa has such high levels of unemployment. It is in manufacturing industry that large numbers of jobs can be created. That is why our comrades died as they did at Marikana and de Doorns. It was not incompetence on the part of the police. It was the conscious, deliberate support, by the armed forces of the state, for the interests of shareholders and against the interests of workers.
6. Four key developments since NUMSA’s 9th Congress
Many things have happened since NUMSA’s 9th congress. We will highlight four of them in this declaration: The ANC has adopted a strategic programme – the National Development Plan (NDP). The fault of the NDP is not that it is technically flawed or in need of adjustment and editing.
On the contrary, it is a very competent and detailed document. Its fault is that it is the programme of our class enemy. It is a programme to continue to feed profit at the expense of the working class and the poor. It is a strategic plan that will benefit white monopoly capital, imperialism and the comprador black capitalist class, not us. In the order of priorities of the ANC, the NDP has replaced the Freedom Charter. A militant, popular programme which challenged property relations in South Africa has been replaced by a neoliberal programme which entrenches existing property relations and attacks the working class and the poor in the interests of mining and finance capital.
The ANC leadership has clarified that it will not tolerate any challenge. The ANC leadership has demonstrated without doubt, at Mangaung, that they will not allow anybody else to challenge their direction. The National General Council of 2010, and Policy Conference which preceded the Mangaung Conference, had a clear majority in favour of nationalisation. That majority was transformed by the ANC leadership into majority support for a fundamentally opposed position in which the National Development Plan focuses on reducing the role of the state rather than increasing it. COSATU has experienced a sustained, vicious attack on its militancy and independence COSATU has become consumed by internal battles between forces which |
, the better. Writing code is only one aspect of this.
All your programs should come with adequate documentation. This should include a description of what the program does and how to use it. Write an actual manual page -- it's not very difficult, but it helps you define your program.
(I actually start out by writing the manual page for any of the tools I write, because that helps me figure out how I anticipate the tool to be used, what the user interface is like, what users want to do with the tool etc.)
Manual pages are written in one of the 'roff' dialects. This is just another markup language. The easiest way to write a manual page is to copy an existing one and change it.
I mentioned that you should simplify your code such that each program, tool, function does one thing and one thing only. This also allows you to test your code in an automated fashion. For every bit of new functionality, you begin by thinking about how you can test the code to verify it actually does what you think it should do. Then you write the test. Only after you have a test do you begin writing code that performs the functionality.
By following this method, you are accumulating an increasingly complete test suite, which allows you to verify that after you have added new functionality that you didn't break anything else. This can then later be included in more sophisticated frameworks to assert correctness of code in larger projects.
There is no need to write "Success." after your tool did what it was asked to do. Similarly, there is no good use in saying "Error!" when you encountered a problem. Just saying "Error!" does not help the user.
Instead, you should make sure to provide precise, meaningful error messages. Most programming languages provide you with library functions to do that for you (see perror(3)/strerror(3) ). Be descriptive in what went wrong and what the cause of the error was.
Having your programs generate meaningful error messages helps in debugging them. It helps others debug them, which then allows them to write a bug report.
Bug reports are great, when you're a developer, because they tell you about a problem in your software that you can fix for your users. Unfortunately, it can be really difficult to reproduce a given problem. Developers usually spend more time trying to reproduce the problem than they are in fixing the actual bug.
A good bug report includes all the relevant information (such as software version, OS, libraries), what the user tried to do, what they expected to happen, what actually happened, and what the exact error was.
When generating an error report, do not handwavingly say "and then my internet broke", or "then it said something about not being able to read some file somewhere", but be specific. Copy the exact error from the command. Tell the developers what you tried to do to fix the problem.
The best part about writing a thorough and accurate bug report is that you most likely find that you did something wrong, or you find out what the problem was. You end up better understanding what you're doing, which is, generally speaking, a good thing.
When you write code, it's all too easy to search on the internet for a solution, to find some code on StackOverflow or elsewhere and to just copy and paste it. When you do that, make sure that you actually understand what the code in question does, why it works and why it was written the way it was written.
Don't fix bugs and ship a new version without actually understanding why the bug fix works, what was wrong before, and what possible edge conditions the new code may or may not account for.
Remember also that most of the answers given on StackOverflow or the Internet in general are likely given by people like you. Your impostor syndrome makes you think everybody else knows what they're talking about; their Dunning-Kruger makes them think they're experts. So be careful about what you copy and paste.
Now lazy cheating -- such as copying things from StackOverflow -- is terrible, and will get your professor upset and annoyed. (And upset and/or annoyed professors do not give good grades.) So if you plan on cheating, you better do it well. Just googling and handing in somebody else's code is dumb; you don't learn anything, and if you're able to find the code on the internet to hand in, so will your professor.
Now if, on the other hand, you find the code you want, and you rewrite it such that it fits in nicely with your framework, uses your coding style, naming convention, includes your own comments etc., then you'll likely have actually (accidentally) learned something.
Contrary to the common stereotype, software development is an intensely social activity. You very rarely are hacking away all by yourself to produce a final product. You almost always work in a team, together with several other individuals and interacting with dozens or hundreds of people throughout the development cycle.
This requires you to be able to communicate efficiently with all your colleagues. One method of communicating is via code -- I covered that above, with regards to producing clear, readable code; by providing good documentation; by writing high quality bug reports.
But you need to discuss your code more immediately with your peers. You need to be able to write pull requests, or to provide code reviews and design feedback. You need to understand the expectations of your users and communicate with them about your release cycle and bug fixes.
A lot of this happens not in synchronous face-to-face encounters, which may make it more difficult for some people to communicate effectively. You need to learn how to:
communicate in synchronous online chat (IRC, Hipchat, Slack,...)
communicate via video conferencing (Skype, Google Hangouts,...) even with poor connections
communicate asynchronously via email
Seriously, it appears that students do not know how to write an email.
An email should:
contain a greeting, unless you reply to a previous mail
contain full, grammatically correct sentences using proper spelling
be plain text; "my replies are in blue" does not work
be well-formatted and readable
use paragraph and line breaks
only quote what is needed
You should be aware that emails that you write to one person are forwarded or quoted in mails to somebody else. Messages on your online chat platform are likely logged (and may be read back in a future court case). Websites and comments on forums are archived and available even after the site in question has long gone belly-up.
When you are communicating with other people, it's easy to forget the most obvious thing about other people: namely, that they are, in fact, people. You should treat them as such.
Contrary to what it may seem to you, nobody gets up in the morning and plans on making other people's lives miserable. Nobody. Well, except for Donald Trump. Fuck that guy. What a dick.
Don't be a dick. People generally mean well.
When you get into arguments with your users, your peers, other programmers, and people you've never met in real life; when you begin to exchange arguments via email, or you begin the passive-aggressive ticket closing-re-opening game, remind yourself that other people probably have their own reasons for how they act, and that those reasons may well make sense to them.
You are likely missing some information and you do not fully understand what their priorities are. Everybody else's job is more complicated than you think.
This is especially difficult when you are dealing with mistakes -- your own, and other people's.
You should always stand by your mistakes. They're one of the most effective (although not necessarily most efficient) ways to really learn something. Do not try to deflect blame if a mistake was yours. Take responsibility, seek to understand the decision making process that lead you to the mistake you made, and learn from it.
People will respect you more, not less, if you own your mistakes. Everybody makes them! Becoming defensive and trying to blame the library, the process, other people, or the universe at large is not going to play out well in your favor.
Plus, spectacular errors give you some interesting stories to tell years later.
One part of owning your mistakes is that if you break something, you have to fix it, right? If you issue a pull request to add a feature or to fix one thing, but that happens to break something else, then yes, it's your responsibility to fix that.
Now here's an interesting corollary I've observed:
Every organization has heaps and heaps of stale, broken, legacy code. Code that nobody wants to touch, nobody wants to maintain, or sometimes even just code that is no longer interesting, "exciting" to the developers (see above re being boring!).
Now you come along and you find a problem. You discover a bug. You dig in, you find the cause, you fix it. "Pull requests welcome!" they said.
Well, guess what? You are now the proud new owner of the entire code base. Any future issues will be brought to you, because "you touched it last", or because you're the only one who still understands it, or you're the only one who cared enough to fix it.
No, the lesson here is not "don't fix other people's stuff". There is no real lesson here. Just something you should be aware of.
Studies have shown that 75% of the total cost of ownership of a given piece of software is not the initial development, but the ongoing maintenance. Your code isn't finished when you release your product. That's when it begins its life!
And you're not done there. You need to make sure you understand how your product is deployed, configured, monitored, upgraded, etc.
Which is why it's so important that your code is simple, readable, and has good documentation...
This is important in helping you learn all of the above: You should practice programming as much as you can, but it's not useful to just sit and hack all by yourself. Software development is a social process, and you need to learn to collaborate. You need to be able to collaborate with different people from different backgrounds with different capabilities.
Participating in Open Source helps you learn all that. And you don't need to be a top-notch programmer to help and have an impact: almost all open source projects need people to help with documentation, with testing, with infrastructure maintenance, website administration,...
Join a community of a product you use a lot. Join their mailing lists, hang out on their IRC channels, write bug reports, submit patches.
Open Source projects are communities. Different communities have different styles of communication, different values. Pick your communities carefully. The people you surround yourself with influence you, especially when you agree on everything!
This is perhaps more important nowadays than it was even a few years ago. Social media allows you to interact entirely with people who agree with you. And every signal you get reinforces your own opinions. All of a sudden, you only see content that confirms what you already believe, which makes it impossible for you to build diverse and balanced opinions.
This effect is called the 'filter bubble'. You should carefully be aware of this effect and actively seek out opposing opinions and articles on things that are not already within your own area of interest.
Filter bubbles exist on social media, but also in real life. People tend to get together based on their interests, but if the groups you're joining are too homogeneous, then it's maybe time to seek out diversity.
If you're in a particularly homogeneous community -- say, a Computer Science club at a college or university -- ask yourself why it is so homogeneous. Are there fewer women because the subject matter is simply something that women don't understand or have no interest in? Are there few people of color because even though they might be interested, they might not feel comfortable as the only outsider in a homogeneous community?
Does your open source project welcome people from all backgrounds or do they buy into the meritocracy myth while simultaneously disparaging or dismissing contributions from people who are not just like them?
Who here is a feminist? (Two, three hands go up, timidly.)
Wait, let me ask another way around: who here thinks that all people, regardless of gender, have the same rights and should be treated equally? (All hands go up.)
Congratulations, you are all feminists.
Again, open source projects can teach you valuable lessons and expose you to a lot of diversity, but it can also tighten your filter bubble. Be aware of these factors. And remember: the internet doesn't forget. How you engage others here is strictly "on the record".
Open Source participation is an important part of your resume. Employers are looking at your contributions, your participation in the Open Source world, too! GitHub may not replace your resume (there are a number of fallacies here), but if you have code you've written, patches you've submitted or any other contribution in the open, we will look at that. It helps us a lot more than knowing that you took Data Structures and Algorithms I in your Spring semester.
Having contributed to a large open source project, being an active member of a thriving community speaks volumes about your ability to communicate with others, and it will be looked upon favorably when interviewing.
Talking about interviewing, here's something that's useful to know:
The skills to pass an interview are not the same skills as those needed to do the job. Nobody knows how to do it well. Most of the time it's just a needlessly adversarial face-off where the interview panel shows you how much more they know about computering than you do.
Many people have tried to fix the interview process, but you still see meaningless brain teasers, and ad-hoc white board programming and questions about algorithmic complexity, and then you get passed over for not being a "culture fit".
(Yes, there's another, much longer rant brewing here.)
There's plenty of good advice out there on how to perform better in interviews, but I think one of the most important aspects is to make a good first impression. People -- consciously or subconsciously -- will make a hire/no-hire decision within the first ten minutes of your conversation. The remainder is a waste; if they don't like you, they won't get persuaded otherwise just because you wrote a reasonable implementation of Huffman compression on the whiteboard.
So be sure to make a positive, enthusiastic, friendly, polite, competent first impression. Back up your resume with the Open Source experience you have.
Ok, so let's suppose you passed the test and get a job offer. Here comes the next wave of bullshit: salary negotiations.
The company will ask you for your salary history when making an offer. Now as a new graduate, you may not have a salary history, but they will still ask you to come up with a number. That's bullshit. Resists, push back. Let them name a number first.
In order to understand what salary you can negotiate, you need to know what you're worth. Glassdoor can help, to some degree, but you also should get feedback from your peers, colleagues, mentors, your open source buddies to know the average salary for somebody in your position with your experience and skills in the given job.
This is difficult -- especially for new graduates -- because often times people are not comfortable sharing how much they make. Especially once you're in a job, people like you to not talk about this with your colleagues, but that just fosters the imbalance between employer and employee. Salary transparency empowers employers and leads to fairer wages, especially for minorities.
There are plenty of articles everywhere on how to better negotiate your salary, but keep in mind:
As long as you reveal your salary history in future job interviews, that is. The next company will offer you $currentSalary + 10% if you're lucky.
On the other hand, your career path need not be written in stone:
One of the great things in this field is that you can switch careers fairly easily. You can be a frontend developer becoming a backend developer becoming a systems architect turning information security professional turning project manager turning CTO and anything in between.
But every job you pick along the way will pigeon-hole you. The better you get at one thing, the easier it will be to continue doing that one thing. This is a bit of the same effect as the filter bubble I mentioned earlier. Switching career paths is difficult, but certainly possible. The broader your interests and expertise, the easier that is for you. Seek diversity.
Don't fool yourself into thinking you can multitask. You can't listen to a talk, or watch a TV program, and get meaningful work done.
Anything that requires concentration requires your full attention.
Sure, there are some things that don't require your full attention, but ideally you'd try to eliminate most of those.
You want to get work done? Disable your email, log out of Facebook and Twitter. Turn off the internet altogether. (Some of my most productive hours are on a plane, when nobody bothers me, I don't have any distractions, and there's no internet.)
Working more hours does not mean more work gets done.
On a good day, you get about 3 to 4 hours of actual work done. If you're lucky. The rest of the time is spent "doing email" or attending meetings. Those are distractions. Cut them down as much as you can.
Don't write a single line of code that you don't need. You're likely just adding new bugs, unneeded complexity. Simplify.
The majority of security problems in your applications stem from not properly validated input. See 'Little Bobby Tables'.
Never accept or pass input from the user (including other programs) without asserting that it's well-formatted and valid.
Input validation cannot be done by creating a list of things that you do not want to accept -- you will never catch all the edge cases. You need to explicitly whitelist the patterns you want to accept, reject anything else.
All your programs need to have security added in the beginning. Include your security team in the planning phase, when you begin to figure out what you want to do.
You cannot ship a product and then later on rub some crypto on it to make it "secure". Regularly talk to your security team. (If you're on the security team: regularly talk to your developers.)
Time is an illusion. Sometimes an hour doesn't exist (two nights ago), sometimes an hour repeats. Sometimes a minute has 61 seconds. Timezones shift. Days disappear.
At any but the most minimal scale will you operate across multiple timezones, most likely across different countries. Event correlation and understanding what happened when becomes a mess when some events are logged in Pacific Time, some in GMT, and some in Indian time, but you are sitting in New York.
Times are represented differently in different languages. Use the W3CDTF format, use a 24 hour clock.
Know how to use revision control. Nobody knows how git works. That's ok. But you need to know enough to be able to work with other people, with different teams, to understand the basics of branching and merging code. These concepts apply to more than just git.
(See also: Notes on Distributed Systems for Young Bloods)
Understand how IP addresses are allocated, how top-level domains are created and maintained, how peering points work, as well as the limitations imposed by physical laws.
(If you're interested, you can join us tonight for my lecture on networking in my SysAdmin class, where we cover a fair bit of how the internet works.)
When things break down and nothing seems to make sense, the core problem almost always is hidden somewhere in the DNS. You need to really understand how this works. And please don't monkey around with /etc/hosts -- you're just going to make your life miserable and incur hours of troubleshooting and debugging when you forget what you added there.
You can troubleshoot applications and debug code all you like -- sometimes, you need to be able to observe exactly what's going on on the network. Wireshark and other tools are nice, but you should be able to read a pcap(3) file without those.
You should understand the OSI stack and know which layer you're operating on.
The internet is awesome. It doesn't have a central controlling body, but there is the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), which oversees and steers the development of the standards and protocols.
Just like the various Open Source projects, this is an open community and you can be part of it. You can help keep the internet open and you can help make it awesomer. You can join the open mailing lists of some of the working groups and just observe how policy is made, how standards are developed, and you can then partake and help move the Internet forward.
You are privileged. You are fortunate enough to be able to afford this education, to learn how the internet works, to learn how to write software, and you are in a privileged position compared to the overwhelming majority of people.
With this privilege comes the responsibility to ensure that the data of your users is kept safe, that secure standards are developed for the betterment of society, to ensure our community acts in the public interest.
By the way, there are two more layers to the OSI stack which most schools do not (adequately) cover:
This is important to understand. No matter what you do, your work is political. There are inter-office politics, politics between industry competitors, between governments and industry, between governments and governments, and no matter how much you tell yourself that you're just here to solve a technical problem, it will impact your work.
For this reason, you should also have an interest in and follow regional, national, and international politics. You cannot stick your head in the sand and pretend it doesn't affect you. Especially not today.
And finally, some common sense. Wash your hands.
Don't do drugs.
Use an ad-blocker.
Stay in school.
Disable Flash.
Anonymity is important. (Speak up!)
Yes means yes.
Don't get phished.
Black lives matter.
Use a password manager. (I happen to like 1Password.)
Wear sunscreen.
Also: don't upload your passwords or ssh keys to GitHub, please.
Thanks!
March 14th, 2016
Related:Religious fervor among Star Wars fans is no rarity. Take the International Church of Jediism, for instance. Patrick King's Star Wars artwork exhibits a similar level of piety melding some traditional Christian symbolism with recognizable costumed characters from the Empire's ranks. King even goes as far as to make them saints.
There probably aren't many galactic citizens under Imperial control who would vote to canonize Darth Vader, but in the print you'll find on King's website (and his Etsy page ) that's precisely what the man formerly known as Anakin Skywalker is depicted as. He's got a halo of light behind his head and a lightsaber in his hand.
Of course, his TIE Fighter pilots and Scout Troopers seems to be equally beatified, so all of these sainthoods being passed around could confuse the Imperial military hierarchy. Then again, the Sith probably don't recognize Catholic saints anyway. Judge for yourself below.Mar 5, 2015; Sunrise, FL, USA; Dallas Stars left wing Curtis McKenzie (11) scores a goal against Florida Panthers goalie Dan Ellis (39) in the first period at BB&T Center. Mandatory Credit: Robert Mayer-USA TODAY Sports 03062015xSPORTS
Patrick Eaves suffered a lower body injury Tuesday. The Stars have called up Curtis McKenzie to fill his spot. Here is the press release:
FRISCO, Texas - Dallas Stars General Manager Jim Nill announced today that the team has recalled forward Curtis McKenzie from the Texas Stars, Dallas' top development affiliate in the American Hockey League (AHL).
McKenzie, 24, leads Texas with three points (0-3=3) through the first game of the 2015-16 AHL season. The forward recorded four goals and five points (4-1=5) in 36 regular-season NHL contests with Dallas last season. The 6-foot-2, 205-pound native of Golden, B.C. was selected by Dallas in the sixth round (159th overall) of the 2009 NHL Draft.
Dallas has also placed forward Patrick Eaves on Injured Reserve with a lower body injury.Dignity Returns Factory
The Solidarity Factory was created as a workers’ cooperative by ex-employees of Bed and Bath. They were made redundant without being paid any compensation as required by Thai law. This company produced brand named clothing for export. The company produced for Nike, Adidas, Gap, Reebok and UMBRO, brands which are supposed to be covered by a Code of Conduct in employment. Yet, the company never complied with any Code of Conduct and treated its staff like slaves. Working hours were often as long as 60 hours of continuous work. Employees were given addictive drugs to keep them awake. Deductions were made from earnings without due cause. Employees found eating lemons were fined 2000 baht. Those caught yawning were fined 500 baht. Often workers were physically abused and they were not allowed to form a union. In the end the factory was closed without paying owed wages or compensation.
Background
During the months of protest, the workers supported themselves by selling flowers and making cotton clothes for sale. With 7 sewing machines, they started a small “factory” in front of the Ministry of Labor, where they produced banners, shirts, and bags. The workers carried out all of the steps in the process themselves – from product design, to choosing and purchasing fabric, to sewing and embroidering patterns on the garments, In addition, they silk-screened shirts with images of themselves marching in protest, along with the motto “Dignity is not for sale.” The workers made all of these products under the label “Made in Unity” – a brand they created.
The demonstrations ended on January 31, 2003 – a day that will be remembered for the workers’ success in persuading the Employees Welfare Fund Committee to change its regulations regarding emergency assistant pay. Previously, workers had been entitled 30 times the minimum wage; after the protest, emergency assistant pay increased to 60 days of minimum wage to workers over six years of work. The workers also won back pay for those who had not yet received it.
October 2002 – January 2003 : for 3 months and 10 days, 350 workers had protested in front of the Ministry [of Labor]. They represented 800 workers from Bed and Bath factory who were laid off without paying or severance when the factory had been closed and its manager fled the country. Gathering at the Ministry of Labor, these workers demanded the rights guaranteed to them by law.
In the end, the former Bed and Bath workers each received approximately 14,800 baht from the Employees Welfare Fund and 2,000 baht from the the Department of Social Development and Welfare.
A Dream Factory
After the demonstrations, a number of the workers looked for work in a new factories. Many others felt that they no longer wanted to subject themselves to the condition they had experienced in the past – both in the factory and the capital city in general – and returned to their homes in the countryside.
At the same time, 40 of the former Bed and Bath workers got together to form “Solidarity Group” and a small factory of their own. Together, they borrowed 700,000 baht from the Government Savings Bank and received additional support from friends and sponsoring organizations. With this money, they bought equipment and started the factory. The factory would produce products under the group’s label: “Dignity Returns” They opened on February 27, 2003.
“The Solidarity Group” and their factory were established as a result of the experiences of workers who did not want to return to the exploitative conditions they had faced in the past. The establishment of the this new factory fulfilled the group’s dream to create a working space owned and run by workers. A Factory that free from oppression, exploitation, and the threats of bosses. The group hopes that one day they will have their own brand, financial security and enough income to support projects that benefits other workers, particularly those in need.
“I know it will be difficult, but we’re trying with all our hearts to make it a reality. we will prove ourselves.”
As the factory is still in its infancy, it has not gained much exposure and therefor has only a small number of order coming in. Although the factory has coordinated with workers unions and other organizations to make banners, headbands, bags, and other items used in protests and seminars, the income from this work does not fully cover the factory’s expenses. These expenses include rent, water, electricity, and loan payments of several 100,000 baht a month.
Another difficulty is the fact of being a small factory with little capital; the group cannot take advantage of economies of scale by buying in bulk. As a result, they cannot compete with large factories with regards to pricing. These issues remain obstacles, despite the group’s confidence in their abilities and products.
Today, the Solidarity Group still has to cut, sew, iron and pack clothes for other factories rather than working directly with the end client. In some case, there is a chain of middleman between the Solidarity Group and the client, each taking a cut of the revenue.
“Each piece of clothing that we take from other factories requires 20-30 steps to complete. However, we receive only 16 baht per piece – a very low sum. If we can work directly with the client, our situation should be improved.”
It is friendship that holds this factory together – friendship among people who have struggled together since their days at Bed and bath, through 3 months of protests at Ministry of Labor, to their on going work to create a viable factory of their own. Their desire to make this factory a reality gives them the energy to go on and to avoid discouragement – even when some say that the work in their own factory is as hard as that any other factory. However, the members of Solidarity Group realize that work in this factory is different because it is not only the work toward their own dream but also the goal of benefit of workers in general.
“Sometimes people outside say that we still to work hard – it’s no different than working in the old factory. but we know that it is different. In this place, there is no boss hanging over or taking advantage of us. There is no threat and insult. Most importantly, we are in a factory of our own.”
Since February 27, 2003 a number of the workers in The Solidarity Group have had to leave the factory for personal reasons or economic difficulties. At this time there are 16 members of the initial group remaining.
The reward for the group’s hard work and saving is that they have paid off their bank loan and interest a total 875,280 baht. In addition, they have almost paid off the remaining debts to other lenders.
The primary obstacle facing the group now is getting their work out to where it can be seen and appreciated by many.
The Solidarity Group’s “dream factory” for workers is becoming more and more of reality everyday. They have worked through obstacles that once seemed overwhelming through hard work and perseverance. The main issue today is the extent to which this small factory can make its known.
A plan for stability and survival
Aims
To allow the Solidarity Factory and its members to survive in a climate of economic crisis. During this crisis the factory has faced many challenges including the variation in energy prices, inflation and the effects of the global financial crisis. Small factories like the Solidarity Factory cannot avoid such economic effects. The Solidarity Factory has attempted to review and make changes to the organization and management in order to survive this crisis. But we cannot do everything on our own and need help from those organizations which are willing to aid us. We hope that with such assistance we can weather the economic storm.
The workforce finally rose in protest to demand their rights according to the law. But the government refused to force the company to obey the law. After 3 months, the workers stopped fighting. Many did not want to go and work for another boss in another factory ever again. So the Solidarity Factory was born. Our slogan is “A Factory by workers, for workers”.
What The Solidarity Factory hopes to achieve
In order to provide a living wage for members in accordance with the present economic situation. To reduce working hours to 8 hours per day. To make the Solidarity Factory a place of refuge for sacked workers, the unemployed and victimised trade unionists. To allow workers time to take part in political and social activities which are beneficial to workers. To turn the Solidarity Factory into a learning and help centre for Thai and migrant workers. To provide an example to other workers who wish to set up cooperatives.UPDATE 9/30: Diesel is being re-investigated as a possible cause of the breakdowns, according to the Baltimore Sun.
UPDATE 9/28: A Baltimore Sun blog is reporting that the gasoline supplier, IsoBunkers, conducted its own tests and found that the fuel included the proper amount of ethanol — 10 percent. However, it does not know what caused the police vehicle breakdown. The investigation continues.
Baltimore officials are blaming an unusually high amount of ethanol in gasoline for breakdowns in the city’s police fleet last weekend.
According to The Baltimore Sun, over 200 police cars experienced engine problems after fueling up at a city-run pump, and more than 70 had to be “sidelined.”
Officials cited by The Sun said that laboratory results showed that ethanol – not diesel, as was initially suspected — was the problem.
Frank O’Donnell of Clean Air Watch said in an e-mail message that Baltimore’s troubles provided a “great example of why the E.P.A. should not be forced to permit higher concentrations of ethanol in gasoline.”
Mr. O’Donnell was referring to the Environmental Protection Agency’s current consideration of whether to raise the amount of ethanol that is allowed to be blended into the nation’s gasoline. The current limit, for the vast majority of automobiles, is 10 percent ethanol, but the ethanol community is pushing to raise the permitted blend to 15 percent.
“This isn’t so much an issue about the efficacy of ethanol as it is improper blending,” Matt Hartwig, a spokesman for the Renewable Fuels Association, an ethanol industry group, said in an e-mail message. “Any blend of ethanol currently exceeding 10 percent should be labeled for use in flexible fuel vehicles only.”
The blend amount that hobbled the Baltimore fleet is unclear, and an investigation is continuing. Most of the cars have now been fixed.“InfoWars” host Alex Jones insisted today that the demonstrations in Ferguson, Missouri, and elsewhere are all part of a grand plot to bring about racial violence and another civil war in America.
Jones warned that the Ferguson protests will lead to a government attack on the Tea Party and “the attempted takedown of the Republic,” adding that there will be an “attempt to start a civil war, playing the people off against the police and people off against each other racially.”
“Minorities, who are really the majority now in most areas, will see the Democratic Party as their Kapo in the prison,” Jones continued. “The UN’s the warden and they’ve got us all in racial gangs and we’re all in a prison together like a bunch of chumps.”TIME magazine recently reported on a study done in the U.K. that could connect children with higher IQs to drug use. The study was based on research of over 7,500 U.K. children born in early April 1970. Their IQs were tested at ages 5 and 10, and followed up with a questionnaire at ages 16 and 30.
By age 30, the study found that 35% of men and 16% of women said they had smoked marijuana at least once in the previous year, with a smaller percentage reporting cocaine use. Surprisingly, those who had reported previous drug use had a higher IQ than non-users.
Perhaps equally as surprising, women who had tested higher at age 5 for IQ were more than twice as likely to have used drugs by age 30 than women who had ranked in the lower IQ percentile. Men who tested higher only had a 50% increase in likelihood of drug use.
Before you start carting your little ones off to have their IQ tested, let’s examine why perhaps the smartest individuals choose to use drugs.
Lead author of the Center for the Development and Evaluation of Complex Interventions for Public Health Improvement at Cardiff University in Wales, James White, believes that the answer lies in the experience threshold.
Typically, those with higher IQs seek out more experiences, which mean that drug use is more likely to be a one-time use as opposed to a developing addiction. Even a single dose of marijuana or cocaine can prove to be addicting. Neurologists in Oklahoma City and pediatric centers recommend that you never try the addicting drug.
Contrary to the reports on drug use, children who demonstrated higher IQs were also more likely to make healthy decisions. They are less likely to smoke cigarettes and more likely to be active with a good, balanced diet.
Likewise, since children with higher IQs tend to use drugs once and only for the experience, they aren’t likely to associate with peers who may use drugs daily. They don’t see drugs as harmful, a gateway, or anything other than a simple, pure experience they would not otherwise be able to attain. This flippant attitude lends to the idea that children with higher IQs aren’t actually addicted to drugs, although they may occasionally use them.
Instead, children with higher IQs are more susceptible to boredom and social isolation due to their increased intelligence over their peers. This loneliness may also contribute to occasional drug use, without condoning an overall habit.
The stereotype for drug users is typically underprivileged children living in poverty, struggling to make ends meet by pushing illegal substances on the streets. However, the reality might be that the smartest children are actually the ones smoking marijuana in their mother’s basement, right before heading to their job as CEO.Members of the public had been warned not to approach the Elvis impersonator
Police hunting for a 60-year-old Elvis impersonator who was believed to have access to guns have detained a man, they said early on Saturday.
Derrel Weaver was being sought after a domestic-related incident at his home, Higher Widlake Farm in Widegates, Cornwall, on Thursday evening.
Members of the public had been warned not to approach the motorcycle enthusiast if they spotted him and to call 999 immediately.
Devon and Cornwall police said they had detained a 60-year-old man. A spokesman said: "The man was located on land in Widegates by police officers shortly before 9.30pm on Friday. Two firearms were seized nearby.
"He was arrested on suspicion of firearms offences and will be taken into custody at Launceston police station.
"He has first been taken to a local hospital for a medical assessment as a precaution.
"Police are not seeking anyone else in connection with the enquiry at this time."
Officers were called to a farm in the village around 9.30pm on Thursday following a domestic incident.
A large police presence, including firearms and local officers, remained in the Widegates area while a man was sought in connection with the incident.
Trenode Church of England Primary School was closed yesterday as a precaution following consultation with the head teacher.
Andy Bickley, an assistant chief constable, said: "We would like to thank the public for its support and assistance with this matter. We would particularly like to praise the local community in Widegates |
. He is pictured in 2004 as a Senate candidate, delivering the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention
Obama (pictured on Christmas Eve in Kailua, Hawaii, with his daughter Malia) has indicated he intends to make partisan politics a bigger piece of his post-presidential life
The defeats have all but wiped out a generation of young Democrats, leaving the party with limited power in statehouses and a thin bench to challenge an ascendant GOP majority eager to undo many of the president's policies.
To be sure, the president's party almost always loses seats in midterm elections. But, according to experts, Obama's tenure has marked the greatest number of losses under any president in decades.
'Obama just figured his important actions on policies like immigration and health care would solidify support, but that hasn't really materialized,' said Daniel Galvin, a political science professor at Northwestern University and the author of a book on presidential party building.
'He's done basically the minimal amount of party building, and it's been insufficient to help the party.'
The president (pictured making Christmas Eve calls to US troops overseas) currently has his highest approval rate since 2009
Obama has acknowledged this publicly only after his party's devastating November losses. He's admitted he failed to create 'a sustaining organization' around the political force that twice elected him to office.
'That's something I would have liked to have done more of, but it's kind of hard to do when you're also dealing with a whole bunch of issues here in the White House,' he said at his year-end press conference.
It is perhaps not surprising that Obama — a politician who promised a post-party era — turned out not to be a party stalwart.
Obama and his aides came into office neither beholden to his party's establishment, nor particularly interested in reinforcing his party's weak spots.
He electrified the 2004 Democratic National Convention with a speech seeking common cause over party differences. Four years later, he defeated Hillary Clinton, the pick of the party insiders, to win the Democratic presidential nomination.
In the White House, Obama's failure to do the typical Washington schmoozing was a constant source of complaint among congressional Democrats. The same was true for his reluctance to endorse down-ballot candidates and inability to parlay Organizing for Action, his grassroots organization, into a significant force.
Aides say Obama (pictured in 2008 as president-elect with his wife in two daughters) will be closely involved in an effort to focus on drawing district lines more in the favor of Democrats
Toward the end of his presidency, Obama (pictured in 2009 signing an executive order closing Guantanamo) stepped in to assist more than 150 state legislative candidates in October and campaigned across the country for Clinton
State parties languished and the Democratic National Committee struggled with dysfunction and debt.
'We built this beautiful house, but the foundation is rotten,' said South Carolina Democratic Chairman Jaime Harrison, a candidate to lead the Democratic National Committee. 'In hindsight we should have looked at this and said, 'Maybe the state parties should be strong.''
Toward the end of his presidency, Obama began doing more, stepping in to assist more than 150 state legislative candidates in October and campaigning across the country for Clinton.
He's indicated he intends to make partisan politics a bigger piece of his post-presidential life. Aides say Obama will be closely involved in an effort to focus on drawing district lines more in the favor of Democrats.
The president's advisers blame the losses on such structural trends. They point to a flood of Republican super PAC dollars and a resurgence of Republican political power in statehouses. That state-level dominance has given Republicans the ability to redraw district lines and created voting rules that could benefit their party for years to come.
Obama's tenure has marked the greatest number of losses under any president in decades, according to experts. He is pictured in 2004 with his wife and two daughters after delivering his acceptance speech as Illinois senator
The Democratic Party has languished in Obama's shadow for years and is now searching for itself. He is pictured in 2009 after addressing business leaders at the White House
The refusal by many Democrats to accept help from Obama in the 2010 and 2014 midterms was also a strategic mistake, they argue.
'Frankly, when people have asked, the president has been more than willing to engage,' Obama's political director David Simas said.
Some Democrats blame Obama for an executive agenda that highlighted social issues — such as transgender rights and access to birth control — over the economic anxiety still felt by many voters.
'The backlash to the Obama presidency was perhaps bigger than any of us really realized,' said Simon Rosenberg, president of the New Democratic Network, a Democratic think tank.
'A lot of the story of this election was people feeling like the culture was evolving in a way that made it feel like they were no longer living in the country they grew up in.'
Others are focusing on the one clear truth of the November defeats: what worked for Obama just did not work for this party.Get the biggest celebs 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
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Doctor Who star Matt Smith has insisted the show is not sex-obsessed – but admitted it keeps hiring “hot” female actresses.
The 31-year-old will be starring alongside Jenna Coleman and Billie Piper in the film The Day of The Doctor to mark the show’s 50th anniversary.
Waris Hussein, who directed the first ever Dr Who episode, has recently said the show has become too sexualised.
But Matt hit back, telling the Mirror: “I strongly disagree. Dr Who is just rollocking good fun with the odd snog here and there.
“For sure, Karen (Gillan) is hot, so too Billie and Jenna but is that a bad thing? I don’t think so.
“What’s he want us to do, put everyone in straitjackets?
"Look at the history of the show, there were women in Tarzanian outfits, were there not, back in the early days?”
(Image: BBC)
The new film, which will also be shown in 3D, has David Tennant returning as another version of the Doctor, as well as John Hurt also playing a third incarnation of the Time Lord.
Billie, 31, stars again as Rose Tyler and Jenna is Matt’s sidekick Clara Oswald, but Karen - who was at the LA Baftas at the weekend with her hair growing back - is not involved.
Matt said it was “brilliant” to work with David and explained: “There aren’t many of us who have played the doctor and it is a unique experience which I’ve been reluctant to share with other people because it sounds as if I am bragging when I talk about all the amazing things it entails.
"I can talk to David about it, about all the line-learning, the way in which you get thrust into the limelight. We’ve had lots of chats together.”
(Image: BBC)
Doctors Matt and David will work together in a storyline in 2012 when something terrible is awakening in London’s National Gallery and in 1562, a murderous plot is afoot in Elizabethan England.
Elsewhere, somewhere in space an “ancient battle reaches its devastating conclusion.”
Matt will leave the show in the Christmas episode, when the Time Lord regenerates into a new Doctor played by Peter Capaldi.
He said because of the role. he was spotted all around the world on holiday and people even approached him in toilets to try to talk to him, which was a little uncomfortable.
“This guy followed me and asked me if I would speak to his wife on the phone - as I was making use of the facilities.
“I said: ‘this isn’t the best time, dude.’ But when I’d finished doing what I was doing, I did speak to his wife!”
Asked if he had any advice for Capaldi, Matt said: “Enjoy it, man. And be prepared to learn an awful lot of lines.
“The best thing about the show is pretty much everything! The storylines, the guest stars, just the honour of playing the doctor.
"The worst is all those lines! Sorry to hark on about it but it really is extraordinary how much you have to learn.”
* The Day Of The Doctor will be show on BBC One on 23 November and in selected cinemas nationwideDearest Player,
Let me start by thanking you for the overwhelming support and affection you have bestowed upon me during my brief tenure as a champion of the Fold. Due to my high skill cap, I was concerned my arrival would be met with apprehension and even disdain. In a wonderful surprise, you have embraced my precision mechanics and have taken me to places I never thought I’d see, like the darkest corners of the jungle, professional tournaments and especially Korea. It has been humbling and I couldn’t be more thankful for not being treated like Petal.
Unfortunately, I’m writing you today because I cannot hold my silence any longer. You, fine Player of Vainglory, have clamored, shouted and retweeted endlessly for the reveal of my skin. Whether it be in the chat room of a developer stream or even in the comments of another character, you howl to be shown my secret. Your stubborn persistence in light of my subtle decline is akin to Taka thinking maybe this time he’ll be able to 1v3 his opponents.
I feel in light of this I need to remind you, gentle Player, that my mother was killed in front of me by a woman that may end up being both on my and the opponent’s team simultaneously. Try to wrap your Apple or Android riddled mind around the idea of seeing double the face of your “half-orphaner” both save and stun your porcelain perfectness while you jockey with the idea of tearing your four foot braids out and running for the nearest easy paycheck that requires neither depth nor talent. That event alone is enough that it should have broken me, (my brother won’t remove his orange hood, even in the shower) but I have retained my composure only to be hounded for some showing as a Sexy Ninja Turtle or Disco Cigar Roller or whatever you freaks want to see.
Gross.
Yeah, you know what? I’m done with the fancy sentence structure, your behavior makes me shiver and I have to steel myself against it. Have you ever thought I’m holding out on purpose? Maybe I don’t want to be drooled over or mentally dressed but rather given the same amount of respect as all the others? (except Petal) I might bring a new skin out for 1.9 and I might not, deal with it, noobs. I am out there dropping hot gas bombs on all those bush hiding fools on a daily basis and that should be enough. Either this stops now or my Solar Storm may accidentally miss that cross map Kraken steal next time you really need it. Next thing you know, I’m building weapon power. Either this ends here or I’ll nerf myself down into nothing but a useless pile of pixie sitting on a flower with a couple of drones chewing a turret.
Chill out weirdos,
Celeste
P.S. My dad has sent this picture of his fist so you know what’s coming if you don’t pump the brakes.
*NOTE*– I love Petal and can’t be happier with where she’s at in 1.8. If you disagree ILL 1V1 YOU SO HARD BRO!RALEIGH, N.C.— Andrei Loktionov was happy playing for the Devils, but the 23-year-old Russian still prepared himself for the possibility of a deadline day trade.
“Nobody is safe. You have to be ready for that and I was ready,” Loktionov said Saturday morning at PNC Arena. “It’s part of the business.”
The Devils received Tuomo Ruutu in the March 5 trade with the Carolina Hurricanes for Loktionov and a conditional third-round draft pick in 2017.
“It wasn’t so much with Ruuts. It was what we needed here,” Hurricanes coach Kirk Muller explained. “It was just more fitting the puzzle.
“We needed a guy who could run our power play. Some of our people here saw Lokti in junior and in L.A. They said if he gets a little freedom… He’s played in New Jersey and L.A. so he has great structure in the five-on-five game. It’s his playmaking. We needed a couple playmaking forwards and he’s been great on the power play. He’s been great five-on-five He’s been steady.”
In fact, Loktionov has been a regular on the power play for the Hurricanes. In 15 games for Carolina, he has eight points (three goals, five assists). With the Devils this season he had 12 points (four goals, eight assists) in 48 games.
The trade has been good for Loktionov.
“I guess so. More points than I had in New Jersey for 48 games,“ he said. “It’s nice to play here. The coaches trust me. Everything is good. The last 10 games have been good.
“All the time I play on the power play. Sometimes the first unit, sometimes the second unit.”
In 14 games for the Devils, Ruutu has seven points (three goals, four assists).
“(Loktionov) has been great,” Muller said. “He was brought in for a couple of reasons. I think thew trade worked well for both teams. What we needed was a guy that could be a playmaker on our power play and play the half wall. If you look at our stats on the power play since he’s been here, its really increased.
“He’s been given the opportunity and he's taken full advantage. He’s pretty close to a point a game type player. He’s basically done what we were hoping he’d do when he came here.”
* * *
After a taxing victory over the Capitals Friday night, no Devils players skated Saturday in Raleigh.
Even Martin Brodeur did not go to the rink to face shots, an indication that Cory Schneider will again be in net.
There was no injury update regarding Patrik Elias, Adam Henrique or Jacob Josefson.
* * *
Muller suggested his team has had trouble handling the pressure of the Eastern Conference playoff race. Instead, the Hurricanes play better when they aren’t reminded of the standings.
“I find with a lot of young guys here we actually play better just loose,” Muller explained. “We’re not at that level yet. We can’t put the board up and go: ‘Here’s a five-game segment and we need X amount of points.’ We tried it and we’re not there yet.
“We’re better not even talking about it. Just play. It backfires on us all the time.”
Jeff Skinner has again reached the 30-goal plateau and Muller thinks he could be a 40-goal scorer in the future.
“He’s a natural goal-scorer. I think he can. He’s at 30 now and he’s had a few stretches without the production,” Muller said. “I think because he’s young, it affects a guy who scores goals. Through maturity you learn that when you don’t score you work on other things in your game. You don’t get so wrapped up about a few games when you don’t score. You stay level-headed. When he does that he’s a little more consistent.”
* * *
Several Devils logged some heavy ice time in the 2-1 win over Washington.
Some of the numbers:
Andy Greene 28:35
Jaromir Jagr 25:28
TravisZajac 23:36In December 1997, I was invited to film the enthronement of the Yangsi, the reincarnation of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, in Boudhanath, Nepal. Khyentse Rinpoche was a pre-eminent Tibetan Buddhist Lama of the 20th century, "a master of masters." He was a teacher of my teacher, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, and someone with whom I had felt a very close connection. If there is such a thing as a truly enlightened being in this world, then to my mind Dilgo Khyentse was it. The word Khyen-tse combines words for "wisdom" and "compassion," both of which Khyentse Rinpoche embodied in every fibre of his being. In the West, we would say, he was a "great saint."
When I started making this film, I had no particular concept in mind. As John Houston once said, "the best documentaries are made up as they go along." Nonetheless, I did have certain questions. The theme of a previous film I had made on Tibetan Buddhism, "The Lion's Roar," was impermanence. Even the Buddha passed away. As I began this filming project, I found myself interested in exploring continuity (rgyud in Tibetan), continuity within the obvious truth of impermanence. In other words, if there is enlightened mind, and enlightened mind is the only thing not subject to impermanence, according to the Tibetan tradition, how does it manifest within this world of constant change? In the world of Tibetan Buddhism, one answer to this conundrum is the "tulku system." It is said that an enlightened being can choose the circumstances for his next rebirth, so that his activity can continue lifetime to lifetime, until all beings have been freed from suffering. A tulku, the epitome of a bodhisattva, is one who reincarnates, who embodies and brings into this time, the compassionate and wakeful energy from a previous life.
Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche lived the life of a yogi in the medieval world of Tibet, spending more than 20 years in mountain retreat, before he was forced into exile in Bhutan by the Chinese Communist occupation of his homeland. His tulku, the Yangsi, "the one who has come again into existence," faces a radically different set of circumstances. His enthronement took place in front of 10,000 people, including great lamas of all schools of Tibetan Buddhism, Hollywood luminaries, and disciples of his predecessor from all over the world. He was just 4 years old, with big shoes to fill. And there I was, pointing a camera at him.
When I started this film I had quite a lot of skepticism about the tulku system (a skepticism even shared by some tulkus that I know). I did not see how all that is claimed was possible. And I still cannot claim to understand it. I also had thoughts about its relevance to the western Buddhist world I inhabited. Perhaps it was just an outmoded relic of a vanishing Tibetan worldview, just part and parcel of an antiquated and obsolete belief system? Nonetheless, I wanted to approach it with an open mind.CLOSE Only 1% of China’s 220 million seniors have drawn up inheritance plans, according to the best estimates. The lack of wills has stirred up legal issues for many families throughout the country. USA TODAY NETWORK
People exercise at Ritan Park in Beijing on Dec. 22, 2016. The world's most populous nation has the second-largest economy, one of the highest savings rates and mushrooming wealth. Yet virtually no one has a will to pass on an estate. (Photo: Andy Wong, AP)
BEIJING — The world's most populous nation has the second-largest economy, one of the highest savings rates and mushrooming wealth. Yet virtually no one has a will to pass on an estate. And now it's become a huge problem.
Thirty years after communist China embarked on a course that allowed individuals to accumulate wealth, members of the first generation to benefit are starting to die, creating a spike in inheritance disputes that are clogging up the courts and turning families against each other.
The problem has gotten so bad that even the ruling Communist Party — previously no fan of inherited wealth — is concerned.
“When people die without a will their children scramble for their property, damaging family ties and having a negative effect on society,” the state-run Xinhua News Agency has warned.
Only 1% of China’s 220 million seniors have drawn up inheritance plans, according to the best estimates. The reason is cultural: talking about death is taboo and writing a will is akin to putting a curse on yourself.
A group of senior citizens write their wills at a free legal center in Beijing. (Photo: Hannah Gardner)
Even the rich and educated often don’t write them. Consider the publicized case of Yan Jiying, a coal baron from the northern province of Shanxi. He died in 2015 at the age of 71, leaving his estranged wife, long-term mistress and six children to fight over his assets.
At one point the conflict was so bad that his company, Sanjia, stopped paying wages. Local officials tried to broker a peace but to no avail.
“China is entering a crucial period. If we don’t find a way to transfer wealth responsibly it will affect social stability,” said Hu Xingdou, an economist at the Beijing Institute of Technology.
To remedy the problem, the government is calling on local authorities around the country to establish free legal centers for those over 60. One charity doing that since 2013 is the China Will Registration Center, founded by Chen Kai, a young lawyer with a passion to protect seniors. His offices in Beijing, Tianjin, Guangzhou and Nanjing have processed 40,000 wills at no charge since it was established and is the largest provider of probate services in China.
The waiting list for appointments at his first Beijing center now stretches into September, proof that people will write a will if they can find support they trust, Chen said. “We want to teach old people that they are the masters of their fortune, that they have the right to decide what happens to their hard-earned money, ” he said.
On a recent morning around a dozen seniors were squeezed around a communal table at the center, diligently transcribing the final copy of their will. They begin by dictating their wishes to a lawyer, who types up a draft. The clients are then evaluated by a visiting psychiatrist to establish clarity of mind, they record video testimony of their wishes in the presence of two independent witnesses, and finally copy the final document by hand.
People walk past motorists stuck on a traffic jam during the morning rush hour in Beijing, Dec. 15, 2016. (Photo: Andy Wong, AP)
For many, the last step is the hardest. Most are over 70 and have shaky hands or poor eyesight. Transcribing a page of formal Chinese characters mistake-free is no easy task. But Chen is adamant that they do it this way, saying he has seen too many badly written wills challenged. He wants his clients to be sure their wishes will be respected even if some family members do not like them.
According to a recent article in the People’s Daily, 70% of inheritance cases in Beijing courts stem from the lack of a will. In the cases where a will is challenged, 60% are found to be invalid.
Chinese television is highlighting the issue in shows like Third Mediation Room, China’s answer to Jerry Springer, and Family Property, a drama about three brothers who fight over the family business after their father dies without a will.
At the will registration center in Beijing, many said they had come after discussing their wishes with family members. Liu Maolin, 74, said he had decided to write a will because he wanted to be sure his daughter, who cares for him, gets his apartment, not his son, a businessman who lives in Japan.
His family agreed this was a fair arrangement, but he conceded there is always a risk of a later dispute. "I didn’t want them to end up like the people on television. This way they can’t argue after I am gone.”
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2iWY5dvToddler hit by car while standing in road, officers say
A toddler was hit by a car Tuesday night while the child was standing in the middle of the road, police said.Officers said the incident happened around 8:45 p.m. Tuesday on North Pleasntburg Drive near Mallory Street.The toddler was taken to Greenville Memorial Hospital and suffered a broken arm and leg and possible internal injuries, officers said.Investigators interviewed the toddler's family. Officers said at the time no charges or arrest have been made but the investigation continues.According to relatives, the toddler's mother was watching him and an older sibling, who is almost 2 years old, as they played outside. The younger child somehow managed to get away, according to family members.The driver who hit the child told officers that the child was standing in the lane he was driving in and he tried to swerve to miss the child, but couldn't. Police said the driver was not at fault.
A toddler was hit by a car Tuesday night while the child was standing in the middle of the road, police said.
Officers said the incident happened around 8:45 p.m. Tuesday on North Pleasntburg Drive near Mallory Street.
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The toddler was taken to Greenville Memorial Hospital and suffered a broken arm and leg and possible internal injuries, officers said.
Investigators interviewed the toddler's family. Officers said at the time no charges or arrest have been made but the investigation continues.
According to relatives, the toddler's mother was watching him and an older sibling, who is almost 2 years old, as they played outside. The younger child somehow managed to get away, according to family members.
The driver who hit the child told officers that the child was standing in the lane he was driving in and he tried to swerve to miss the child, but couldn't. Police said the driver was not at fault.
AlertMeMedia playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The attackers wore suicide vests and dressed in burkas
Afghan security forces have killed four militants who attacked a UN compound in the western city of Herat, officials say.
A fifth attacker blew himself up at the gates, before the others, wearing suicide vests got inside, triggering a gun battle with police.
A UN guard and a policeman were lightly hurt.
The assault is reminiscent of an attack on a USAID office in July in Kunduz province, which left four people dead.
In the latest incident, the four attackers, dressed in burkas worn by women, ambushed the compound just before midday.
Police and security forces surrounded the base, which houses a number of UN offices, and fought a 15-minute gun battle with the militants.
All the attackers were killed, a spokesman for the provincial governor said.
A Taliban spokesman said the group was behind the attack, AFP news agency reported.
The BBC's Quentin Sommerville in Kabul says Herat is one of the safer places in Afghanistan, although insurgent attacks in the area have increased lately.
It was the largest attack against a UN target in Afghanistan since last year.
In October 2009, 12 people, including six UN workers were killed, when insurgents raided a guesthouse in the capital, Kabul.Liverpool's Sadio Mane has revealed how close he came to joining Borussia Dortmund during Jurgen Klopp's time in charge of the club.
The Senegal international joined the Reds in the summer and, as a result, finally achieved one of his dreams of playing for a manager who had been tracking him since the 2012 Olympic Games in London.
In an exclusive interview with Goal, Mane explained how excited he was to hold talks with Klopp during the pair's time at Red Bull Salzburg and Dortmund respectively back in 2014 - despite the move eventually falling through due to Salzburg's difficult negotiating position.
Mane said: “I was so excited. I couldn’t believe it - that he wanted to meet and thought I could help his team, who were so good. I used to watch them all the time.”
Despite the setback, another opportunity - this time with then manager Ronald Koeman's Southampton - presented itself with Mane moving to St. Mary's stadium that very same summer and, after two seasons with the Saints on the South coast, the 24-year-old got his wish to work alongside Klopp when he completed a £30m move to Anfield in July.
Mane admitted that it had been annoying to see a chance to play under the German at Dortmund extinguished two years earlier, but he said that hard work, determination and a never-say-die attitude was what kept him going with the hope of one day working under the 49-year-old.
Sadio Mane’s story: How I went from torn boots and shorts on Senegal's streets to a Liverpool sensation https://t.co/2ZX3W9qEnZ — Goal (@goal) November 8, 2016
He continued: “Things didn’t work out back then and it was frustrating, but that’s life - nothing just comes easy.
“I told myself to just carry on working hard, push myself and something big would come. I did that. I went to Southampton, I played well and then, Klopp wanted me again.
“Now I’m lucky enough to be working with one of the best managers in football. It was meant to happen and I am very happy to be learning all the time from him.”
Mane has now helped Liverpool climb to the top of the Premier League table just three months into his maiden campaign with the Reds after plundering six goals in his opening 11 matches, and the Sedhiou-born footballer credits his ability to focus solely on his football - and not regrets - as the reason why he eventually earned a move to a club helmed by Klopp.
He added: “A good thing for footballers is not to think too much, especially when you’ve got to move to a big team like Liverpool, because that’s when you start to confuse your mind. In my head, I knew I was coming to a team that wanted me, to a manager who knew me well, and I was coming to work hard and to help.
“That is all I focused on, not how things would go or what could happen - good or bad. I left my mind open and was ready for anything. I’m very happy to be part of a team with big, big talent with everyone working for each other. It makes it easy for a player when you’ve got really good teammates and when everyone wants the same thing.”
Read more from Tom Power by following him on twitter!A 62-year-old AIADMK functionary died of a stroke after hearing news of Jayalalithaa's critical condition on Sunday night.
Palaniyammal, the general secretary of AIADMK for NGO Colony in Coimbatore, enquired about Jayalalithaa's condition last night. When she heard the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister had suffered a cardiac arrest, she died of a shock-induced stroke.
Palaniyammal is the second AIADMK member to die of shock from news on Jayalalithaa's cardiac arrest. Nelagandan, an AIADMK member from Cuddalore district, also died of shock on Sunday night while he was watching news of Jayalalithaa's health.
Read: AIADMK worker from Cuddalore dies after seeing news reports
Another similar incident was reported in October when a 47-year-old AIADMK worker had died of heart attack in Coimbatore, after hearing rumours about Jayalalithaa's health.
Amma, as Jayalalithaa is popularly known, has been in Chennai's Apollo Hospital since September 22, when she was admitted for fever and dehydration.
A large number of emotional supporters have thronged the hospital and police have been deployed in large numbers in case they react strongly to further developments.
Jaya's devoted supporters have been known to commit suicide in the past in reaction to any bad news about her.
A 62-year-old AIADMK functionary died of a stroke after hearing news of Jayalalithaa's critical condition on Sunday night.
Palaniyammal, the general secretary of AIADMK for NGO Colony in Coimbatore, enquired about Jayalalithaa's condition last night. When she heard the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister had suffered a cardiac arrest, she died of a shock-induced stroke.
Palaniyammal is the second AIADMK member to die of shock from news on Jayalalithaa's cardiac arrest. Nelagandan, an AIADMK member from Cuddalore district, also died of shock on Sunday night while he was watching news of Jayalalithaa's health.
Read: AIADMK worker from Cuddalore dies after seeing news reports
Another similar incident was reported in October when a 47-year-old AIADMK worker had died of heart attack in Coimbatore, after hearing rumours about Jayalalithaa's health.
Amma, as Jayalalithaa is popularly known, has been in Chennai's Apollo Hospital since September 22, when she was admitted for fever and dehydration.
A large number of emotional supporters have thronged the hospital and police have been deployed in large numbers in case they react strongly to further developments.
Jaya's devoted supporters have been known to commit suicide in the past in reaction to any bad news about her.
LATEST UPDATES | Jayalalithaa.Jayalalithaa continues to be very critical, says Apollo Hospital
Click here to watch the video.Translated by Ryan Bloom.
PART ONE
A.
A small painter’s studio. Three walls, one of which is, perhaps, made of glass. These panels must be mobile. The studio is shabby but contains some attractive objects: an antique, a beautiful pitcher, some drawings, an old copper vase, two or three pieces of old furniture with dirty, but handsomely made, wood. Above all, the light.
As the curtain rises, the painter and his wife. He paints, she poses. They are shabbily, but tastefully, dressed. She shivers. He looks at her. He stops painting, goes to load up the stove. While he’s doing this, she gets up and goes over to hug him. He keeps her against him a moment, then takes her back to the pedestal on which she poses. She makes angry faces. They laugh. She returns to posing. He works.
Behind the painter, a friend enters. He waves to the wife, showing her the bottle of wine and the pâté he brings. She stands and hurries over to him. The painter gets angry, but notices his friend and laughs. The friend lays the food out on the table and the three of them surround it. Clearly, they are hungry and they laugh. But as they are about to sit the painter stops them, runs to grab a piece of heavy paper, and begins to sketch still-lifes of the food. The others protest and grab the pâté. They clink glasses and begin to eat. The painter, glass in hand, goes off to gaze at the picture in progress and to mull it over. The others look at him, smiling. He puts down his glass and returns to the painting, no longer concerned with them. Quietly, the painter’s wife settles back onto the pedestal without him even noticing. When he raises his eyes and sees her, he stares at her in silence, then, suddenly, goes to hug her.
Blackout.
B.
There are a lot more canvases in the studio, another piece of furniture, and a small rug. The wife folds laundry in a corner of the studio. A crib can be seen. The painter works. The friend enters with a dealer, who has an air of contemptuous self-importance about him. He looks at a canvas, turns it in all directions, ruminates, blows his nose, and offers two coins. The painter is about to accept when the friend signals to him. He refuses and then receives three coins. The dealer is led out. The door closed, the painter does a few jubilant somersaults and turns on the rug, while the friend juggles the coins, and the wife sings without being heard.
Blackout.
C.
Sequence of blackouts punctuated by a spotlight on the painter working, each time on a new canvas. Light. He is surrounded by canvases. Two or three dealers are discussing. Some gaze at the canvases on the other side of the easel. On the table, a variety of food has been brought: fine fruit, elegant flasks. Slowly, the wall panels begin to move. The studio gets larger. Furniture is brought in. Dealers empty their pockets into some sort of purse near the easel and begin to gather up the canvases. One discusses the price of a picture with the painter, pays him, immediately sells it to a second dealer, who resells it, for a nice profit, to a third. The painter stretches, sits down, and laughs. His wife hurries over with a little boy, who is already getting big, and places a clearly opulent bathrobe over her husband’s shoulders.
Blackout.
D.
Blackouts and lights on the painter at work. Light. The studio has gotten even bigger. Furniture, rugs, crystals, and other refined provisions continue to be brought. He works but his canvas already has a frame. His wife is in a corner with a young man and a little girl. Some benefactors enter, one an aesthete with two Afghan hounds. They look at the paintings with a lorgnette. Some colleagues come to talk to the painter, interrupting him. They bring him art books, prints, etc., which he leafs through with one hand while he paints with the other. An elegant woman enters and asks to have her portrait done. He interrupts his work, poses her, and begins to paint her. Another woman, exactly the same as the first, enters. Same game. He paints her. Then a third, and he is working on three pictures at the same time.
Some students and disciples arrive, set up their easels as in a workshop, and, from time to time, come over to place their sketches between the painter and his painting. He advises them, having to hold one of his students’ hands while he erases part of his own picture. His wife brings him a third child, who sits between his legs.
Enter suppliers, some men and women, academics, military personnel, boxers, actors. Tea is served. The painter is constantly bothered. A fashionable designer also enters. She adorns the wife and daughter with yards of fabric, which the painter tangles his feet in while the dogs get mixed up in everything. A jeweller brings jewelry boxes. As the painter is about to make a brushstroke, someone hands him a cup of tea. A woman slips her hand between the painting and him so that he may kiss it. He kisses, drinks his tea, paints, speaks to the models, to the students, praises his wife, waves, from afar, to his friend, who is kept away by the masses, and who remains alone, in a corner, pushed more and more toward the door through which he eventually disappears. Two characters come by, calmly prattling in the painter’s ears.1
He smiles, smiles again; the studio, which has been enlarged as much as possible, is |
I felt there was more flavor and strength in the final third, overall, this cigar was medium in strength and flavor. Smoke time was around 1 hour 20 minutes, though I could’ve stretched that another 10-15 minutes.
Would I Buy It Again?
Buy it? No. Smoke it again? Yes.
Is It An Everyday Smoke?
Not for me.
Would I Buy a Box?
No.
Conclusion
While I recognize that part of the issue with this Rocky Patel Royale Torpedo could have been the initial cut on the cap, I don’t think that all the unpleasantness of it can be blamed on that. With the Royale having an appealing appearance, I was expecting a more flavorful cigar, but was disappointed. The tight draw and reoccurring tar build up were big turn offs for me.
Having said all of that, I do think this cigar has potential and I would want to try it in a toro or robusto. I just don’t see paying over $10 to do so. Maybe I can get someone else to give me one!Rugby registration numbers have been a hot topic among rugby tragics.
That was highlighted by Brett McKay’s popular article slamming Roy Morgan’s ‘fake news’ earlier this year which generated almost 200 comments.
The good news is that the number of people lacing up their boots – in New South Wales at least – is trending up.
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The regional part of the state is putting the grass back in grassroots, seeing a handy 4% growth for boys aged between 4 and 18.
The city-slickers did their part with senior 15s participation spiking 5% in the metro region.
It’s a positive sign following a cracking season of Shute Shield rugby with the Grand Final once again drawing a bumper crowd at North Sydney Oval.
The success of the Aussie Women’s Sevens in Rio continued to aid in growing the short-form game with the Sydney Junior Rugby Unions Girls’ Sevens team numbers up from 17 in 2016 to 48 in 2017.
7,896 players have been in action this year in Club Sevens tournaments, a further 11,317 youngsters had a run in schools sevens events.
Overall, there were 37,987 registered NSW club rugby players in 2017 compared to 37,379 in 2016.
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That may not seem like a huge spike, but put that overall figure in context with Roy Morgan’s supposed estimate of 55,000 registered players Australia-wide and it paints a far rosier picture.
However, it wasn’t all good news for rugby fans in New South Wales.
There was a worrying 5% drop in the number of registered 15s women’s players in the metro region, alongside a 3% drop in junior participants.
Women’s participation is a key growth area that Rugby Australia outlined in their 2016-2020 strategic plan.
In the bush, there was a 2% drop in the number of registered senior players.
Here are the statistics:
Metro Junior Competition 2017 Players Growth / Decline Sydney Juniors 11382 -3%
*Note that this decline was anticipated due to the change in the reporting system / Team numbers were higher in 2017 than 2016.
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Country Junior Competition 2017 Players Growth / Decline Central Coast Juniors 1154 -3% Central North Juniors 955 -17% Far North Coast Juniors 1069 21% Illawarra Juniors 1177 4% Mid North Coast Juniors 707 -3% New England Juniors 156 56% Newcastle Hunter Juniors 1780 6% Western Plains Juniors 98 92% Central West Juniors 1703 12%
Metro Senior Competitions 2017 Players Growth / Decline Premiership & Subbies 8713 5% Sydney Women’s 258 -5%
Country Senior Competitions 2017 Players Growth / Decline Country Women’s 216 3% Central Coast Seniors 989 -10% Central North Seniors 765 9% Far North Coast Seniors 831 7% Illawarra Seniors 1066 4% Mid North Coast Seniors 886 16% New England Seniors 415 -21% Newcastle Seniors 1655 -9% Western Plains Seniors 375 -2% Central West Seniors 1606 -6%
Statement from NSW Rugby General Manager of Development, Andrew Hill:
“It is important for us to grow our established club and school competitions while at the same time, attracting new players through our programmes and other formats of the game. Ultimately we have to retain and grow our current competitions, while expanding into non-traditional areas and schools.” “It is no secret that rugby has had a tough year across the country at the professional end of the game. At the community level, people are still loving rugby and there are a number of vibrant, growing clubs and schools. This is mainly due to the incredible work of the volunteers in the Clubs and schools, as well the support from the NSW Rugby Development Officers across the State.” “NSW Rugby contributed $2.06M direct to community rugby this year, $1.16M of which came from the NSW Waratahs and this amount is over and above the contribution of Rugby Australia. Community rugby is at heart of what we do and we are committed to growing the game,” Hill said. In reference to the decline in participation in certain key areas, Hill said: “If we are going to grow the game in all areas, we need to follow the lead of some of our successful clubs and competitions, who are providing opportunities for men and women, girls and boys and juniors and seniors. If we provide these opportunities, the next challenge for us is to retain not only our players but also our coaches, managers, volunteers, administrators and all the people who make rugby great,” Hill said.
So Roarers, what do you think about these results?Kyrgyzstan’s much-anticipated October 4 election looks set to usher in a new parliament with six parties (out of 14 on the ballot) earning enough votes to enter the 120-member body. Official preliminary results will be announced at 11 a.m. local time on October 5.
As reported by 24.kg as of 10:30 p.m. local time the Social Democratic Party (SDPK) captured 27.47 percent of the vote, followed by Respublika-Ata Zhurt with 20.13 percent, Kyrgyzstan with 12.81 percent, Onuguu-Progress with 9.29, Bir Bol with 8.44 percent and Ata Meken with 7.74 percent. In order to enter parliament a party needed to obtain at least 7 percent of the nation-wide vote and at least 0.7 percent of the votes in each of Kyrgyzstan’s 7 regions, plus its two largest cities–Bishkek and Osh.
Based on preliminary results, Kloop, a Kyrgyz news source, reported that SDPK would get 38 seats, Respublika-Ata Jurt 28 seats, Kyrgyzstan 18 seats, Onuguu-Progress 13 seats, Bir Bol 12 seats and Ata Meken 11 seats.
SDPK was anticipated by many to come out on top in the election. Although when he assumed the presidency, Almazbek Atambayev, by law had to leave the SDPK–he is widely associated with the party regardless. Still, a coalition will need to be forged in order to form a government–none of the parties achieved a majority. It isn’t clear at this time how exactly that coalition will be shaped. The parties are not, as noted in previous reports, quite distinct with regard to their policy platforms.
Eurasianet reported that elections officials recorded turnout at 4 p.m. local time at 37.9 percent, markedly low. But 24.kg’s 10:30 p.m. report cites the Central Elections Commission saying that final turnout was closer to 60 percent.
For comparison, Kyrgyzstan’s last parliamentary election had a turnout of 56.59 percent of eligible voters and brought five parties into the parliament. SDPK (26 seats), Ar Namys (25), and Ata Meken (18) made up the latest ruling coalition, while Ata Zhurt (28) and Respublika (23) formed the opposition.
The opposition parties merged ahead of the election and several members of various parties defected, sometimes oddly in an ideological sense, as well. IWPR reported in mid-September that two prominent members of Ata Meken, seen as “pro-Western” defected to Ar Namys, viewed as leaning toward Moscow.
RFE/RL’s Bruce Pannier said it was a surprise that six parties passed the threshold, “There was a thought that certainly one or two of the new parties might get in, but it is kind of unexpected that while the two top parties on the list are parties that are currently in the government, it is surprising that Ata-Meken (Fatherland), which is also in the government, has done so poorly.”
Another party that appears to have done poorly is Ar Namys, which despite holding 25 seats in the previous parliament did not earn more than 1 percent of the nationwide vote, according to 24.kg’s preliminary numbers.
The election, according to most accounts, went procedurally well. RFE/RL reported that according to the CEC “automatic ballot boxes didn’t work in 52 out of the country’s 2,374 polling stations.” While some (including myself) worried that technical issues with the biometric registration system would cause problems on election day, mercifully it seems the technology worked (largely) as intended.Image caption Directors still benefit from pension arrangements they have closed to their staff, the TUC says
Directors of big companies have been accused of continuing to accrue hugely generous pensions while cutting the pension entitlements of their workers.
The accusation comes in the TUC's eighth annual Pensions Watch survey.
It says more than half of top directors are still in final salary schemes, which are far more generous than those for their staff.
The average annual pension now accrued by a top director is worth £227,726 a year.
"Employers often tell us that decent staff pension schemes are no longer affordable," said the TUC's general secretary, Brendan Barber.
"Directors' representatives are in the vanguard of those attacking public sector pensions.
"Yet greed is still good in the nation's top boardrooms, where directors continue to reward themselves with seven-figure pension pots," he said.
Better deals
The TUC looked at the pension arrangements of 329 directors at 102 top firms.
Special arrangements like lower retirement ages and higher contribution rates need to be explained Joanne Segars, NAPF
It found that:
The average director's pension pot (transfer value) has risen by £400,000 in the past year to £3.8m
The average accrued pension of nearly £228,000 is worth 26 times the average occupational pension of £8,736
54% of top directors are still in final salary schemes
Most directors' pensions schemes build up pensions at least twice as fast as those of their staff - usually at a rate of 1/30th a year compared to 1/60th or 1/80th for ordinary staff
Directors in defined contribution schemes received average contributions from their employers of £134,760 a year, worth 19% of their salaries - three times the average contribution rate made for employees.
The National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) said it was logical that higher paid staff would accrue bigger pensions.
But it supported the TUC's demand for much greater disclosure of directors' pension arrangements.
"Special arrangements like lower retirement ages and higher contribution rates need to be explained," Joanne Segars, the NAPF's chief executive.
"It is also worrying that directors' pensions are not usually linked to performance.
"This could mean bosses are rewarded in their retirement despite failure in the job," she said.Rangers say they need to raise £30m by 2017, including a new share issue, in order to compete in Scottish football.
Staff redundancies are also expected to be announced by the Ibrox club who, in a newly published review, said Rangers' financial position was "precarious".
The Scottish League One champions warn they will be "unable to trade in the short term" if there is "a substantial decrease in season ticket income".
Rangers have extended the deadline for season ticket sales until 16 May.
Continued negative external comment and campaigns have created significant operating difficulties and have been threatening the club's orderly and progressive recovery Rangers statement
Chief executive Graham Wallace's 120-day business review sets out the club's intention to raise fresh equity in the autumn, win promotion from the Championship to the Premiership at the first attempt next season, before adding a Scottish title and being competitive in Europe by 2017.
The club's interim accounts revealed losses of £3.5m for the six months to 31 December and "going concern" status was only granted on the basis of predicted rises in season-ticket prices and sales. The board have had to seek emergency funding in recent months.
Former Ibrox director Dave King has urged fans not to buy season tickets and, along with former Rangers captain Richard Gough, has pledged to act as a custodian to a bank account set up for fans to pay their season ticket cash into.
King's hope is that this will force the board to give supporters security over Ibrox Stadium and the Murray Park training facility.
In a statement released to the stock exchange, Rangers admitted the £70.7m raised though season ticket sales, commercial revenues and a 2012 share issue had been spent "relatively quickly, and in some areas liberally".
Rangers' review: Key points Business needs to raise up to £30m over three years
New share issue planned for autumn 2014
Cuts of £2m have already been made with other savings likely
Plan to make the business sustainable by season 2015/16
Aim to make team Scottish Premiership winners by 2017
"The board considers that the perfect opportunity to rebuild Rangers immediately post administration in a progressive, stable manner with a solid financial base has been completely missed," the statement continued.
"Annualised savings in operating costs of £2m have already been achieved with more savings identified and in progress. These savings have not reduced the available budget for the playing squad.
"Continued negative external comment and campaigns have created significant operating difficulties and have been threatening the club's orderly and progressive recovery."
Though season ticket renewals are crucial to Rangers' financial position, the facility for fans to pay for them with credit or debit cards has been removed and supporters are instead being asked to pay the club directly.
Rangers say this has come as a consequence of the merchant acquirer's stance that it would need "extensive security" over property assets.
One caveat to the new payment arrangement will be that customers' money will not be protected in the event of the business going bust.
Rangers clinched the League One title in March and are still unbeaten in the division
"The board believes that one of the major factors influencing the merchant acquirer to change its terms was the extensive negative coverage of calls in some quarters for supporters to refrain or delay purchasing season tickets," Rangers explained.
"As previously stated, the board has no intention of granting security over Ibrox.
"Any supporters who are on the automatic renewal scheme will not have their tickets renewed automatically and will also require to renew their seats individually."
The Union of Fans - a collective of Rangers supporters groups - said they were "dismayed and hugely disappointed with the content of Graham Wallace's review".
The group added that they would not be adding further comment until next week out of respect for former Rangers player Sandy Jardine, who died on Thursday evening.Image caption Some 60,000 people are believed to have been displaced by months of violence
Gunmen have killed at least 51 people - mostly women and children - in the latest clashes in South Sudan's troubled Jonglei state, regional governor Kuol Manyang has said.
At least 22 others were injured after attackers raided and burned the village of Duk Padiet, he added.
The wounded have been evacuated to Juba, the capital, he said.
A series of retaliatory attacks between ethnic groups in the region has displaced tens of thousands of people.
"We are expecting more to be injured because they ran to the villages last night," Mr Manyang said.
Officials told AFP news agency the killings were carried out by the Murle group on ethnic Dinkas, as revenge for a deadly raid last month on the town of Pibor.
It is understood that some Dinkas accompanied some 6,000 Lou Nuer warriors who attacked Pibor.
The cycle of violence has lasted months and killed hundreds of people. It began as cattle raids but has spiralled out of control.
BBC East Africa correspondent Will Ross says the attacks are getting increasingly violent and neither the government nor the United Nations peacekeepers seem capable of stopping them.
Officials point out that Jonglei is the size of Bangladesh and that it is impossible to protect every village.
Some of the reinforcements sent to the region have been deployed in Murle areas around Pibor but the revenge attacks are now happening in Dinka and Lou Nuer communities.
South Sudan, which gained independence last year, has declared Jonglei a national "disaster area", while the UN has launched an emergency operation to help those affected by the fighting.I can think of a lot of things that I would prefer not to bump into on a dark night… a gang of vicious thugs, a dead body, an escaped mental patient who ran out of anti-psychotic meds… the list goes on and on, but there’s one thing in particular that fills me with more dread than all the rest. It’s a strange and enigmatic entity that just a handful of folks have claimed to have encountered; a terrifying being that has shown up in many places and who is known by many names, but needs only one… “The Grinning Man.”
So why does this “thing” freak me out so much? Honestly, I’m not really sure. Aside from a few unsubstantiated rumors involving this entity chasing or “brutally beating” people, there are no official accounts of it attacking anyone. It’s just sort of, well… creepy… like seriously creepy. Before we delve any deeper, let me describe this not-so gentle giant for you:
Eyewitnesses claim that the Grinning Man is a looming figure who stands well over 6-feet tall. His head is said to be devoid of any hair and his dark, beady eyes are nestled unnaturally far apart in his domed skull. Some observers are so perturbed that they are later unable to recall whether he even had a nose or ears, but — as disturbing as that may be — far and away his most disconcerting characteristic is the wide, hideous, shark-like grin that is perpetually plastered across his face.
Renowned paranormal investigator and “Mothman Prophecies” author, John Keel, is considered to be the first researcher to mention the creature (or, more likely than not, creatures) that have collectively come to be known as the Grinning Man. In his seminal tome on unnatural entities, “The Complete Guide to Mysterious Beings,” Keel discusses what is believed to be the first modern run-in with this peculiar entity.
The encounter occurred in Elizabeth, New Jersey, at approximately 9:45 pm. on the night of October 11th, 1966. Two boys — Martin “Mouse” Munov and James “Jimmy” Yanchitis — were walking home along New Jersey and 4th Street when they turned onto a road that ran adjacent to the elevated New Jersey Turnpike.
There was a treacherously steep 30-foot slant running from the hectic turnpike above them all the way down to the tall wire fence that ran parallel to the route that Munov and Yanchitis were walking. The decline on the other side of the fence was so steep that the boys had never even seen anyone attempt to scale it, nor had they ever seen anyone on the opposite side of the rusted fence… but this night would prove to be an exception to the rule.
Both Munov and Yanchitis were nervous as they slipped in and out of the pools of light cast by the streetlamps above, as they had heard that a neighborhood woman had been chased by a “tall, green man” earlier that evening in the same area. Little could the boys predict when they stopped to catch their breath a few moments later that their date with the unknown would be about to begin.
It was Yanchitis who first noticed the ominous humanoid figure standing in the thick scrub brush behind Munov on the opposite side of the fence. He appeared to be ignoring the boys and staring at a house across the road. Yanchitis would later describe the smirking brute for both the police and Keel:
“He was strangest guy we’ve ever seen… He was standing behind that fence. I don’t know how he got there. He was the biggest man I ever saw.”
The anxious Yanchitis wasted no time in alerting his unwary pal about the scary silhouette that was stationed behind him. Munov slowly turned and saw a huge figure clad in a green, one-piece suit that seemed to be reflecting the streetlight above. Munov’s account is in his report to the police:
“Jimmy nudged me and said, ‘Who’s that guy standing behind you?’ I looked around and there he was… behind that fence. Just standing there. He pivoted around and looked right at us… then he grinned a big old grin.”
The two young men — evidently wise beyond their years — listened to their fight or flight instinct and wasted no time in exiting the scene before the eerie emerald apparition could scale the fence and take pursuit.
Just three days after their unusual encounter, Keel arrived at the scene with UFO investigator James Moseley and (oddly enough) famed actor and paranormal enthusiast, Chuck McCann. The boys were interviewed individually — in the home of one George Smythe — and, according to Keel, gave identical accounts of the event. Keel described what Yanchitis and Munov had told him, Moseley and McCann:
“The man was over six feet tall, they agreed, and was dressed in a sparkling green coverall costume that shimmered and seemed to reflect the street lights. There was a wide black belt around his waist… He had a very dark complexion, and little round eyes… real beady… set far apart. They could not remember seeing any hair, ears, or nose on this figure.”
McCann was a solidly built actor who stood 6’2 and both boys insisted that the Grinning Man was not only taller than the TV star, but much broader as well. This would make him an imposing figure indeed.
Keel and his fellow investigators went to the site of the encounter, wondering whether or not the menacing man behind the fence might actually have been a stranded motorist. Upon inspection of the scene, however, Keel and his crew concluded that the incline was not only too sharp to easily traverse, especially at night, but that any sane person with car troubles stuck behind a high fence would have called out for help rather than leer maniacally.
It wasn’t long before the boys’ bizarre tale spread throughout the neighborhood and folks began to speculate that this so-called Grinning Man might be associated with a UFO sighting that had occurred at exactly the same time just 40-miles north of Elizabeth, near a DuPont explosives factory outside of Pompton Lakes. The initial eyewitnesses to this event were a police officer and his wife.
The officer and his spouse watched in amazement as the object — which they described as resembling a “blazing white light as big as a car” — nearly hit an almost 600-foot tall television tower, before vanishing over nearby hills at a leisurely pace. As if they weren’t credible enough witnesses, on the opposite side of the hills two additional police officers would also catch more than a glimpse of this incredible airborne anomaly.
The officers in question were Patrolman Edward Wester and Sergeant Benjamin Thompson of the Wanaque Reservoir Police. The pair watched as the luminous UFO soared over the reservoir at a low altitude. Sergeant Thompson was later quoted as stating:
“The light was brilliantly white. It lit up the whole area for about three hundred yards. In fact, it blinded me when I got out of the patrol car to look at it, and I couldn’t see for about twenty minutes afterwards.”
It would be due to this — possibly coincidental — incident that the Grinning Man phenomenon would become forever associated with UFOs and extraterrestrial entities. While this might be the first incident that helped solidify this creature’s connection to the realm of ufology, it would not be the last.
The second series of incidents that Keel credits as being part of the Grinning Man phenomenon also occurred in 1966; this time during the infamous Mothman’s reign of terror in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. While the Grinning Man often gets lost in furor surrounding this infamous winged beast, for researchers who have studied this astounding series of events one figure looms almost as tall as the Mothman itself… that figure is the Grinning Man who called himself “Indrid Cold.”
On November 2nd, 1966 — less than a month after Munov and Yanchitis had their disturbing encounter — sewing machine salesman, Woodrow Derenberger, was driving home on the hilly Interstate 77 after a long day of work when he suddenly a bizarre vehicle dropped down from the dark sky and landed in the road in front of him with a tremendous crashing sound.
The vehicle was unlike anything that Derenberger had ever seen before. He described it as looking like: “an old fashioned kerosene lamp chimney, flaring at both ends, narrowing down to a small neck and then enlarging in a great bulge in the center.”
The startled Derenberger slammed on the brakes of his old panel truck and screeched to a halt. That’s when things started to get really weird… A hatch slid open on the side of the mystery vehicle before him and a tall, dark skinned man climbed out. The salesman later described him as having “slightly elongated” eyes, but his most notable attribute was the wide, creepy grin, which Derenberger claimed he could see glinting in his truck’s headlights
In fact, the one of the few disparities between the frightening Grinning Man described by Munov and Yanchitis and the one seen by Derenberger is that the latter described the humanoid’s clothes as blue instead of green, but — much like the New Jersey Grinning Man — his clothes were reflective and made of a material that the appliance salesman noted was: “quite shiny and had a glistening effect.”
Derenberger then claimed that this Grinning Man telepathically communicate with him, asking him a series of odd questions. Following this abnormal interlude, the entity simply stated that: “My name is Cold… I will be visiting you again.”
Cold then returned to his unusual vehicle, which — as incomprehensibly as it arrived — launched from the interstate and soared up into the sky. Following this wild encounter, both Derenberger and several other Point Pleasant residents would claim to have additional run-ins with the infamous Indrid Cold.
Eventually Derenberger would reveal that Cold informed him that he was an alien from the planet Lanulos, which was nestled in the galaxy of Genemedes. He would further claim that Cold had taken him to his home planet where he saw people wearing “colorful shorts” and all the words on the signs appeared to be in a “squiggly, oriental-like writing.”
Cold was soon followed by two other Grinning Men named Demo Hassan and Karl Ardo. Derenberger’s wife even met them and believed that their agenda was an “evil” one. Sadly, it wasn’t long after these events that his wife divorced him. Derenberger would go on to co-author a book about his experiences titled: “Visitors froim Lanulos” with Harold W. Hubbard.
Another — even more unnerving — encounter with what Keel speculated might be a Grinning Man also occurred in Point Pleasant during that same period. The terrifying event transpired at the rural home of the Lilly family.
The Lillys were dealing with frightening poltergeist-like activity as well as seeing peculiar lights in the skies above their home on a nightly basis. According to Mrs. Lilly:
“We’ve seen all kinds of strange things… blue lights, green ones, red ones, things that change color. Some have been so low that we thought we could see diamond-shaped windows in them. And none of them make any noise at all.”
The incident involving the Grinning Man, however, did not happen to the entire family, but focused on the Lilly’s daughter, Linda. The young lady confided in Keel — who was at the scene chronicling the entire Mothman uproar — that she had woken up one night to see a hulking figure leering down at her while she was in bed. In Linda’s own words:
“It was a man, a big man. Very broad. I couldn’t see his face very well, but I could see that he was grinning at me. He walked around the bed and stood right over me. I screamed again and hid under the covers, when I looked again he was gone.”
Linda then ran into her mother’s room shrieking hysterically: “There is a man in my room! There is!” She refused to sleep alone for months following the encounter.
Whether the figure looming above Linda on that fateful eve was Indrid Cold, another Grinning Man, a ghostly phantasm or just a figment of her imagination is hard to say, but it’s difficult not to speculate that — much like in the Elizabeth New Jersey incident — the strange lights soaring above the Lilly home might have something to do with the appearance of this seemingly sinister, smiling fiend.
This leads us to a wild and utterly fascinating theory that I stumbled across, which implies that Indrid Cold in particular (and Grinning Men in general) may be delegates of a sort of paranormal — or possibly intergalactic — police force that spontaneously appear in the area of anomalous events in order to keep the peace or simply to observe the proceedings as they unfold.
Another hypothesis speculates that Cold might have been a representative of the notoriously secretive group known as the Men In Black, many of which were allegedly encountered throughout the region during the Mothman flap.
To insure that New Jersey and West Virginia wouldn’t have all the fun, in 1966 and 1967, there was a short wave of encounters with beady-eyed, wide mouthed “giant prowler” with a “fixed grin” in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
Understandably, there are some who believe that the entire Grinning Man phenomenon ought to be dismissed due to the fact that all of the cases were presented by Keel, who — as all writers do — applied his own biases while connecting dots that were, at times, only loosely associated. While this may be true, there is at least one case involving a Grinning Man and a UFO abductee that, as far as I know, Keel never chronicled.
In December of 1978, a 26 year-old night watchman, Pier Zanfretta, was on a routine patrol in the village of Torriglia, Italy, when he claims he was abducted by a trio of gigantic, yellow-eyed, semi-reptilian aliens. Following this incident would be a series of terrifying abductions that would continue for years, but one of his creepiest encounters was ot with an “alien,” but with — you guessed it — a Grinning Man.
On December 3rd, 1979, at approximately 9:30 pm., Zanfretta got out of his patrol car at a self-service gas station near downtown Genoa. He claimed that he heard someone calling out to him from the shadows outside the station.
Zanfretta described entity that was speaking to him as a tall, humanoid figure with a bald, “egg-shaped” head, who was dressed in a checkered suit that included a chest plate made of “steel.” He was also grinning from ear to ear.
Like Cold before him, this lanky creature spoke to the security guard without moving his lips and ordered him to drive his vehicle into a small cloud that was hovering just above the ground nearby. Zanfretta swore that the sound of the Grinning Man’s voice physically compelled him to obey the request.
The young guard did as he was instructed and claimed that he and his patrol car were levitated within the cloud and deposited onto a colossal spacecraft. This ship, according to the watchman, was filled not only with the reptilian aliens that had been abducting him, but large, transparent cylinders filled with a weird blue liquid. One of the cylinders was said to have contained a “frog-shaped” body, which the aliens explained was: “An enemy of ours from another planet.” Strange stuff indeed.
In the years since 1978, there have only been a few sporadic — and unconfirmed — reports of the Grinning Man and his ilk. The first is from April 23rd, 2009, when a blogger known only as H. R. Zapruder posted a very brief encounter with he believed to be a Grinning Man while driving near Roswell, New Mexico:
“Soon afterwards, I drove past a man standing in the brush, I thought he was hitchhiking so I sped past, you know, hitchhikers = bad news. Anyway, I didn’t think much of it at first but as I sped by, I noticed a green glistening so I inspected the rear view mirror. I saw the man from behind, he was bald and over 6-feet tall, wearing a sparkling green jacket, the rest was obscured by the brush. When I arrived in town I was told by some locals I’d just missed a UFO.”
Another strange report hails from author A.J. DiChiara, who told of his sister’s harrowing experience with a Grinning Man in the late 1980s. The unnamed woman was driving to her rural home in Connecticut on a dark autumn eve, when she claimed that an “entity” drove up next to her in what she described as a “phantom car with an eerie glow.”
She looked over and saw what she described as a “hideous creature,” staring at her with glowing yellow eyes and a toothy grin, which terrified her. As quickly and mysteriously as it appeared, the strange vehicle vanished. This incident served as inspiration for her brothers fictional novel “The Grinning Man.”
So what should we make of all of the above encounters? Assuming that they’re honest accounts of events as they happened; do they confirm that the Grinning Man’s origins are from out of this world or, at least, another dimension? If not, then why are these beings so often seen near so many alleged UFO sightings and what — if any — are their connections to the Mothman and these huge, lizard-like intergalactic visitors?
Are they the aliens’ lackeys or, perhaps, human-alien hybrid liasons? Are they phantoms or demons or creatures from another plane of existence who erroneously assume that wearing a smile will put their human counterparts at ease? These are just a few of the perplexing questions that continue to surround this mystifying enigma.
And what an enigma it is. Even in the already bizarre worlds of ufology, cryptozoology and the plain ol’ paranormal, the Grinning Man remains one of the most confounding, obscure and outright terrifying legends in all the annals of the supernatural… but whatever these beings may turn out to be… I hope like hell I never run into one.A large, public research university in Detroit has done away with its graduation requirement that all students must take a math class to earn a diploma. Meanwhile, its faculty have called for the creation of a new “diversity” course.
Wayne State, which enrolls some 27,000 students, is now “leaving it up to the individual departments to decide whether math will be a required part of a degree’s curriculum,” the Detroit Free Press reports.
“We felt the math requirement was better left to the various programs and majors to decide and to decide what levels of mathematics would be needed,” Monica Brockmeyer, associate provost for student success, told the Free Press. “We still continue to support mathematics at Wayne State.”
Campus officials have said in an email to students that dropping the general education math requirement remains in effect until fall 2018 “or until a new general education program is adopted by the university,” the Free Press reports.
As the university works to revise its general ed curriculum, a process expected to continue this fall, a memo outlining proposed changes calls for a new 3-credit “diversity course” for all students.
MORE: UCLA approves new diversity requirement
In explaining that priority, the university’s General Education Reform Committee wrote in a May 2016 memo that “a clear message our committee received from the university community (faculty, students, staff, alumni, and employers) was that diversity is central to the nature of WSU, i.e., ‘Distinctively Wayne State.’ Thus we have placed the values and goals of diversity as a central component of the University Core program.”
To that end, the committee called for mandatory “signature courses” to address diversity-learning outcomes such as “intercultural knowledge and competence, global learning, or ethical reasoning.”
“Finally, we are proposing the creation of specific ‘Diversity’ courses, with students required to take one course in this designation,” the memo states. “These courses will provide opportunities for students to explore diversity at the domestic level and consider the ways in which it intersects with real world challenges at the local, national and/or global level.”
MORE: The truth about diversity courses
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IMAGE: ShutterstockAnother richly textured week in the crazy, crazy life of Mr Tony Blair draws to its close... and as so often when that ineradicable fungal infection in the national armpit flares up, the head is sent spinning by the man, his works and his genius for self-delusion.
It isn’t so much that you don’t know where to start with him, though I confess that on this occasion, beset by so much choice, it’s a struggle; more that you could go mad – droolingly, screechingly doolally – trying to fathom what goes on in his head.
Start somehow we must, and a brief chronological recap of recent Blairworld highlights seems as useful a launch pad as any. On Tuesday, we belatedly learnt of his attendance last year, on the banks of the Jordan, at the christening of god-daughter Grace, now nine-year-old girl child of Rupert and Wendi Murdoch. On Thursday, though only a Blair super-nerd will have noticed, it emerged that he has received a “peace award” – |
201 W Broadway ST, Red Lion, PA – 7 pm
Sat, Apr 15 – Montreal Wrestling Federation – Centre du Nouvelle Envol, 115 rue St-Charles, Salaberry-De-Valleyfield, QC – 7:30 pm – facebook.com/lutte.mwf
Sat, Apr 15 – Northern Championship Wrestling – Centre Culturel Et Communautaire, 120 Blvd Du Seminaire, Sainte-Therese, QC – 7:30 pm – ncw.qc.ca
Sat, Apr 15 – American Pro Wrestling – 122 Builders CT, Boiling Springs, SC – 8 pm – facebook.com/ americanprowrestlingboilingspr ings
Sat, Apr 15 – CWA – SC National Guard Armory, Orangeburg, SC – 7:30 pm – cwaprowrestling.com
Sat, Apr 15 – All Star Wrestling – 2224 Mooresville Hwy, Lewisburg, TN – 8 pm – facebook.com/aswwrestling
Sat, Apr 15 – AIWF Total Wrestling Experience – 4825 Dayton Blvd, Chattanooga, TN – 8 pm – facebook.com/TWEofChattanooga/
Sat, Apr 15 – Evolution Championship Wrestling – Evolution Sports Gym, 103 Smoky Mountain PL, Elizabethton, TN – 7:30 pm – facebook.com/Evolution- Championship-Wrestling- 533639516803398
Sat, Apr 15 – New Breed Pro – New Breed Arena, 232 W Main ST, Humboldt, TN – newbreedpro.webs.com
Sat, Apr 15 – Real South Wrestling Federation – 3715 S Perkins, Suite 21, Memphis, TN – 8 pm – facebook.com/RSWF. RealSouthWrestlingFederation
Sat, Apr 15 – Ultimate Extreme Wrestling – UEW Arena, 410 Scruggs RD, East Ridge, TN – 8 pm – facebook.com/UEW15
Sat, Apr 15 – Zone Sports – Carson-Newman Athletics, 2130 Branner Ave, Jefferson City, TN – 6 pm – facebook.com/ zonesportsathletics
Sat, Apr 15 – Central Texas Championship Wrestling – Boys and Girls Club, 1904 Antonio M Garcia, Eagle Pass, TX – 7 pm
Sat, Apr 15 – Heart of Texas Wrestling – Walkabout RV Park, 219 Rice RD, Riesel, TX – 7 pm – facebook.com/hotprowrestling
Sat, Apr 15 – Hurricane Pro – Beaumont Civic Center, 701 Main ST, Beaumont, TX – 7 pm – facebook.com/hurricane.pro
Sat, Apr 15 – League of Lions Wrestling – Downtown Gladewater – Gusher Days, Gladewater, TX – 12 pm – facebook.com/ leagueoflionswrestling
Sat, Apr 15 – NWA Top of Texas – 2650 Dumas Highway, Amarillo, TX – 7 pm – facebook.com/NWATOT
Sat, Apr 15 – Old School Wrestling – Ector County Coliseum, 4201 Andrews Hey, Odessa, TX – 6 pm – facebook.com/OSW.Wrestling
Sat, Apr 15 – Texas All-Star Wrestling – Crazy Girl Saloon, 444 FM 1960 RD E, Humble, TX – 7 pm – taswwrestling.com
Sat, Apr 15 – Texas Wrestling Federation – Texas National Guard Armory, 106 E. Mockingbird LN, Victoria, TX – 7 pm – facebook.com/TWFONLINE
Sat, Apr 15 – International Pro Wrestling: UK – Selsdon Community Centre, 132 Addington RD, Selsdon, CR2 8LA Surrey, UK – 6:30 pm – ipwuk.com
Sat, Apr 15 – Pro Wrestling 4 U – Bradwell Workinbg Men’s Club, ST5 8 Stoke-on-Trent, UK – 2 pm – facebook.com/prowrestling4u
Sat, Apr 15 – WAW – Aylsham Town Hall, Market Place, Aylsham, NR11 6 Norwich, Norfolk, UK – 6:30 pm – facebook.com/WAWTVPAGE
Sat, Apr 15 – Welsh Wrestling – Chipping Norton Town Hall, OX7 5 Chipping Norton, UK – 7:30 pm – facebook.com/welshwrestling
Sat, Apr 15 – Fusion – Body B D Gym, Yorktown, VA – M&G 5 pm, Event 6:30 pm – facebook.com/ fusionwrestlingonline
Sat, Apr 15 – Wisconsin Professional Wrestling – Holiday Inn Hotel and Convention Center, 1001 Amber Ave, Stevens Point, WI – 6 pm – facebook.com/ wisconsinprowrestling
Sun, Apr 16 – Pure Wrestling Alliance – Lake Cowichan Centennial Hall, 309 S Shore RD, Lake Cowichan, BC – 2 pm – facebook.com/ pwacanadawrestling
Sun, Apr 16 – Kentuckiana Diehard Wrestling – Jefferson Arena, 1416 Spring ST, Jeffersonville, IN – 5 pm – kdwrestling.com
Sun, Apr 16 – Southern Championship Wrestling – Rack and Roll Pool Hall, 17351 MS-603, Kiln, MS – 6 pm – facebook.com/SCWmississippi
Sun, Apr 16 – NWA Blue Collar – North Portland Eagles Hall, 7611 N Exeter, Portland, OR – 6 pm – facebook.com/ NWABLUECOLLARWRESTLING
Sun, Apr 16 – Insane Championship Wrestling – Barrowland Ballroom, 244 Gallowgate, Glasgow, Scotland – 7 pm – facebook.com/InsaneWrestling
Sun, Apr 16 – Absolute Wrestling – Linskill Centre, Linskill Terrace, NE20 2AY North Shields, UK – 5 pm – facebook.com/AbsoluteWrestling
Sun, Apr 16 – WAW – RetroSkate, Marine Parade, Great Yarmouth, NR30 2ER, UK – 7 pm – facebook.com/WAWTVPAGE
Like this: Like Loading...How long should a game be? It's an impossible conundrum, like asking the length of the proverbial string. But therein lies our problem; we keep hearing sob stories from developers who claim their publisher overlords, blinded by statistics and spreadsheets, force them to implement extra modes and levels to artificially inflate a game's length. Worse still, this attitude seems to have filtered down to many gamers, who feel short-changed if their newest acquisition isn't large enough to span three time zones.
Above: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
The root cause is obvious - games cost a heck of a lot more than CDs or films. Hence, consumers are right to expect value for money from their games - the problem is determining what that means, exactly. So when Shigeru Miyamoto comes out to reiterate his - and in his eyes, your - desire for shorter games, as he did by claiming "there are fewer people who are interested in playing a big role-playing game like Zelda," it's only natural that it furrows the brow of disconcerted gamers who can only see game prices going up, up and away. But the thing is, Miyamoto is dead on - it's just that his message is muddled.
The problem "epic" titles such as Zelda have is with pacing. It's not that people don't want to play Zelda; it's that they don't want to play Zelda for a second time. Only the strongest of RPG storylines merit a second play-through (we're looking at select Final Fantasy titles here), and even then, it's a small proportion of the fan base than can bring themselves to do it. For most people, the prospect of starting up a second Golden Sun save file is enough to bring them out in a cold sweat.Last month, on the big island of Hawaii, I swam with giant, beautiful aliens. Or at least that’s what it felt like. I went night snorkeling with manta rays and had the privilege of seeing 10 or 11 graceful behemoths. Some had a wingspan of over 10 feet long. Before our group got in the water, to prepare us for what we were about to see, our guide reassured us that manta rays are like sharks, but only the good parts, none of the scary parts. They don’t have teeth, they only eat plankton, and they have no stinger like their sting ray counterparts.
In addition to these unique characteristics, they also have a special mechanism to allow for a big brain to function deep in the ocean. Manta rays have the largest brain-to-body ratio of all the elasmobranchii (sharks, rays, and skates).
~
References:
Alexander, R. “Evidence of Brain-warming in the Mobulid Rays,Mobula TarapacanaandManta Birostris(Chondrichthyes: Elasmobranchii: Batoidea: Myliobatiformes).” Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 118.2 (1996): 151-64.
Ari, Csilla. “Encephalization and brain organization of mobulid rays (Myliobatiformes, Elasmobranchii) with ecological perspectives.” The Open Anatomy Journal 3.1 (2011).
Thys, Tierney “Why are sharks so awesome?” TED Ed
Todos Santos Eco Adventure. “Manta Rays: The Ocean’s Kings of Charisma”
Thorrold, Simon R., et al. “Extreme diving behaviour in devil rays links surface waters and the deep ocean.” Nature communications 5 (2014).
Like this: Like Loading...Radio Active, the station that championed the Wellington sound for almost 40 years, faced closure early in 2017.
Radio Active, the station that championed the Wellington sound for almost 40 years, is facing closure.
Unless someone stepped in to take the reins of the money-losing station by March 15, the dial would go quiet at 88.6FM, company director Nicholas Bagnall said.
Active began as a Victoria University station in 1977 before, in the early 1990s, being bought out by shareholders.
ANDREW GORRIE Radio Active station manager Dave Gibbons promotes a Christchurch quake benefit gig with San Fran's Ziggy Ziya.
It would go on to champion the early careers of some of Wellington's most-successful bands including Fat Freddy's Drop, Phoenix Foundation, and Trinity Roots. John Campbell's early broadcasting was there when it was still a student station.
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While it had never been a money-making station, Bagnall said the past few years had seen him having to prop the station up with his own money as online advertising cut into the station's ability to make money.
FAIRFAX NZ Radio Active DJs, left to right, Phil Reed, Liam Ryan and Lucy von Sturmer in the studio in 2010.
"I have decided I didn't want to keep doing that.
"It would certainly be a liquidation [eventually] but in the short-term... it just won't be trading."
Staff, all who would be made redundant, were being told on Monday morning.
JEFF McEWAN Radio Active 89FM One Love Concert draws the crowds in 2006.
The station would be turning 40 this year.
"It is sad. I'm hoping that someone else will keep it alive. But if no-one steps up it will be the end of Radio Active."
But Radio Active station manager Dave Gibbons was adamant the station was not going to close.
ROBERT KITCHIN/FAIRFAX NZ Radio Active DJ Liam Luff in the Victoria St studios in 2007.
"All we are doing is winding up the limited liability [company]," he said.
The station did, though, need money to stay afloat and asked if it had investors putting their hands up, Gibbons said, "potentially, yes".
Phoenix Foundation's Samuel Flynn Scott said the station's championing of new music had lasted decades and staff were approachable and encouraging even as a young band turning up with a burnt CD of their latest track.
If it hadn't been for Active "I don't know how we would have got our music out at all", Scott said.
Broadcaster John Campbell said "there is no doubt in my mind" that his career started as a result of Active, which was still a student station at Victoria University when he was involved.
"It was the most glorious fun - it was just sheer joy being part of Radio Active."
As a result of being heard doing an alternative rugby commentary on Active he was offered a cadetship as a business reporter at Radio NZ.
He remembered the former general manager Mark Cubey "introducing a lot of white folk in Wellington to hip-hop".
Now-Government Minister Maggie Barry was an announcer at Active in 1977 when news came through that Elvis Presley had died.
"I remember going on air and saying, 'the King is dead' - it was very emotional," she recalled in 2007.
Wellington publicist Sarah Hunter - who has worked for the likes of Taki Rua, Roots Foundation, Fat Freddy's, The Nudge, and Trinity Roots - said the station's heyday was in the late 1990s to early 2000s, when thousands flocked to its annual One Love public concerts on Waitangi Day.
"To make a gig happen you just had to have Radio Active support it," she said.
The landscape for radio was changing but there was a "whole raft" of independent stations - such as Sweet Sounz which ran out of Berhampore, Wellington - now operating on small budgets and streaming online without big overhead costs.
Phil Reed, now lead press secretary for the Labour Party, DJed on Active and fondly recalled the events it put on, such as One Love.
"We did it all by the seat of our pants, fuelled by the love of the staff and its DJs," he said.
Bagnall said he would provide the company with funds to pay staff a small redundancy, honour all undisputed trade debts, and meet Radio Active's obligations to its bank and Inland Revenue.Thomas “Mene” Callieux is the main assassin player for Team Dignitas. He specializes in Mage heroes, having gained the utmost respect in Europe as the region’s top Mage player. Mage heroes are often very squishy and vulnerable, but to make up for those downsides they dish out a bunch of burst damage. Positioning and timing are very important for proper Mage play, as well as knowing the limits of each Mage hero.
“What I like in all video games is to be
able to surprise my opponent with huge burst damage
over a short amount of time.” Mene on why he plays Mages.
While Mene has been known to play the second support or other flex heroes for Team Dignitas, Mage heroes are where he truly shines. For Mene, Mage heroes will always be his primary specialization, “I will never change role, I love Mages.” For the best advice on how to be an effective Mage player, we sat down with Mene to talk about his top tips for those looking to improve in this role.
1. Know when to pick one Mage over another
In situations where you have a lot of communication with the rest of your team while drafting, it’s important to know the overall plan of the game and what role you need to fill with your Mage pick.
Mene says, “if your plan is to win the rotation, you will need a Mage who can waveclear fast without using a lot of your CDs.”
Jaina, for example, can clear waves quickly, but the cooldown on her W (Blizzard) is quite long and is a valuable asset in teamfights.
Mene points out the better hero in this situation: “Gul’dan only needs to use three Q (Fel Flame) on the wave and the wave is cleared and this spell is instant.” A hero like Li-Ming offers a lot of value overall. Mene explains, “She has good wave clear, she has good damage in teamfights, and she has an escape with her E (Teleport).”
Another important factor in deciding what Mage hero to pick is to think about the enemy composition. Mene explains the importance of analyzing the enemy draft,
“If they have dive, which Mages will you be safer on? Do you need an escape? Do you need the shield from Kael’thas’ Level 1 talent (Mana Addict)? If you think you are free, and you can do anything and they cannot dive you, then you can pick Jaina or Chromie.”
Jaina and Chromie can dish out a lot of damage in teamfights, so they need to be extra cautious of the enemy team. Mage heroes in general, especially Jaina and Chromie, rely on the peel from teammates if a situation goes bad. Be sure that the Mage you pick will be effective in their role, whether it’s quick waveclear, utility, or straight up teamfight damage, and that you can be safe while playing it.
2. Some Mages perform exceptionally well on certain battlegrounds
The battleground you play on should help you decide what Mage will be most effective. Again, think about the plan of the draft and if you are required for waveclear, burst damage, stun follow up, or objective disruption. As an example, a battleground like Tomb of the Spider Queen has great potential for a Mage like Kael’thas.
Mene explains, “You will most likely win the rotation with the waveclear because with Kael’thas you waveclear super quick. You will also get the globes from mid and top lane, helping you finish your Level 1 quest (Mana Addict) super early. The shield from that quest will let you play a bit more aggressive without risking anything.”
Kael’thas also has great control with his stun ability, Gravity Lapse. So, on a small battleground like Tomb, rotations are important for waveclear, but also for getting picks on the enemy team.
“If your frontline is E.T.C, Muradin, or Stitches, you will be able to follow-up with a stun,” Mene says, “You can play aggressive and deny their rotations, so Kael’thas is the strongest Mage on this battleground.”
Other battlegrounds where you need poke to interrupt objectives or push enemies off of an objective, Chromie can work well if she is safe and Gul’dan can also be effective by applying constant damage.
3. Think about your synergy with other heroes
The Mage you pick in draft should not only be appropriate for the battleground and the enemy’s draft, but compliment other heroes in your own draft. Look for synergies between other heroes on your team and the Mage you want to pick. A very common and strong synergy in the current meta is the combination of Li-Ming and Genji.
Mene says, “As soon as you get one kill, both of the heroes get resets. Genji will have the E (Swift Strike) reset so he can connect instantly on any enemy, and Li-Ming will get the reset for all of her spells.” With those resets, the pair can easily snowball the teamfight, as more kills mean more resets which means more kills.
Another important synergy is with the other ranged on your team. Are you making space for them, or are they making space for you?
Mene explains, “If you make too much pressure with your Jaina, the enemy team will have to engage on you because they can’t let you get free damage and kill everyone. This way, you give space for another hero to do damage.”
Keep in mind how you and your teammates switch between doing consistent damage or creating space for each other.
4. Hitting skillshots and predicting dodge patterns
For a Mage, the majority of your damage comes from landing your skillshots. In most cases, you provide the burst damage for your team, or in cases like Gul’dan, the sustained damage. You must be able to hit the enemy team. So take into consideration what the enemy hero wants to do. Are they moving forward to fully engage on you or will they move backwards once you start applying counter pressure on them?
Mene explains, “It’s about knowing what the enemy hero you are focusing on can do to you. If you are attacking someone who can counter-engage on you, you will probably just hit your skillshots on them.”
When someone on the enemy team is disengaging from the teamfight or their health is low, this is where predicting movement is very important.
Mene says “If the enemy hero wants to back or get away, they will be moving to the side to dodge spells, so you can try to predict their movement. Prediction is 50/50. So knowing what the enemy hero can do will help with prediction.”
Can the enemy hero blink away, increase their movement speed, use a shield, or anything else that will throw off your combo? Keep in mind the possibilities each enemy hero has at their disposal when they are trying to disengage.
Chromie is a Mage hero that can be difficult for many people, as her spells and skillshots can be hard to time correctly. Also, being able to accurately predict the enemy hero’s movements can make it even harder to land her combo.
Mene offers some help with landing Chromie’s spells, “With the W (Dragon Breath), if the enemy is not stunned or rooted, he will dodge it and probably dodge to the side since that’s what most people do right now. So you can send a spell directly to their left, and hope they dodge this way. Again it’s 50/50, because they may dodge right.”
You can try to pick up on the dodge patterns of the enemy heroes because they will often dodge in the same direction multiple times. With Chromie’s Q ability (Sand Blast), it’s best to try to hit enemy heroes at max range.
Mene explains, “Sometimes enemy heroes can’t dodge spells if they want to keep doing what they are doing, like wave clearing. Or when a Tank hero is blocking for their backline. Abuse being able to hit the Tank or other close heroes to get your stacks.” It can be difficult, but with many things, practice will go a long way to help improve your Mage play.
5. Know when to stay safe and when to go in and do a lot of damage
Patience is very important to excellent Mage play, and positioning is even more important. A combination of keeping yourself safe and waiting for the right moment to step out and throw your abilities at the enemy can decide the teamfight. Through practice, you will learn what you can and can’t do with certain Mages.
As Mene explains, “If you are fighting a straight 5v5, and you are just staying behind your frontline, you may not get anything because the enemy team has more sustain. So you will never win this teamfight in this position. So you need to change your engage, maybe you need to try and flank the enemy team instead.”
In situations where your communication with the rest of your team is limited, like Hero League, it’s better to stay safe and poke. A flank that seems obvious to you might not be for the rest of your team and might turn from an advantage to a disadvantage very quickly if your team is not there to peel for you.
And now, here are the Top 3 Mage heroes, according to Mene:
1. Gul’dan - The top Mage, especially in competitive. He has great waveclear so you can rotate easily and quickly, you have damage in teamfights, and you have the playmaking ability with his ultimate, Horrify. It can be super scary to play against a Gul’dan, because Horrify kind of acts like a Mosh Pit, you never know when it will happen and when it happens, if you’re in a bad position it’s completely over.
In most scenarios, Gul'dan is one of the strongest Mage picks. Even when being dived by enemy heroes, Gul'dan can sustain himself with self-healing (Drain Life) until his teammates can help him.
2. Li-Ming - Li-Ming also has great waveclear (if done correctly) and teamfight damage. She can act independently from the rest of the team. She has the ability to one-shot low health and squishy heroes on her own with her combo of spells. This makes her great for flanking the enemy backline, and she has an escape if things don’t work out.
Li-Ming can be a strong hero in a Hero League setting. With the minimal communication in Hero League, she can play on her own, clearing waves and pushing them out, poking objectives, or one-shotting enemy heroes.
3. Kael’thas - Kael’thas is like a weaker version of Gul’dan. While Gul’dan has more sustained damage, Kael’thas has the potential for huge burst damage with his combo. He also has a much better follow-up, because of his high burst damage and ability to stun enemy heroes with Gravity Lapse.
He has a bit more protection than Gul’dan but does not have the same playmaking ability as Gul’dan does with Horrify.BSP general secretary and party’s Muslim face Naseemuddin Siddiqui on Friday said the Samajwadi Party has been “using” Muslims the way ‘tejpatta’ (spice) is used in the biryani for aroma but is removed as soon as the dish gets ready to be served. Addressing a BSP Bhaichara Sammelan, aimed at wooing the minority community, in Muslim-majority Khadra locality of Lucknow North assembly segment, Siddiqui said the SP had promised to provide Muslims reservation in proportion to their population and release of Muslim youths implicated in terror cases before 2012 assembly elections but has not done anything in last five years.
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“Muslims have been voting for the SP for last 25 years. Our women are very good at cooking. They will know that when biryani is cooked, tejpatta is used to give it aroma and taste. But once it is brought to be served, you remove the tejpatta first because it has served its purpose. Similarly the SP uses Muslims for aroma at the time of elections but once the polls are over, it abandons them,” he claimed. Lucknow North was won by SP’s Abhishek Mishra in 2012.
Siddiqui claimed the Dalits and Muslims have been watching each other get “beaten up” in the name of cow protection or beef, but are not coming together. “If Dalits and Muslims united, they will become a formidable force in politics and no one will dare commit any atrocity on them,” he said.
Claiming that 400 communal riots took place during Akhilesh Yadav government, Siddiqui said the riots “don’t occur, they are orchestrated”. “If riots happened on their own, there would have been riots during five-year rule of BSP. The riots are being triggered by the BJP and SP. You have to be cautious as they may cause more riots before elections,” he said.
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Exhorting the Muslims to unite behind the BSP, Siddiqui said India has the largest population of Muslims in the world after Indonesia. “Those people who have smaller populations are getting their work done and we are 30 to 40 crore but we are only whining,” he said.SDF Press Center
Images released by Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a US-backed rebel group, reveal the latest tactic from ISIS militants as they start losing territory.
Realizing that the SDF was gaining momentum after 10 weeks of intense fighting in Manbij, a major ISIS-held city, ISIS militants began their retreat to Jarabulus, a city on the Turkish border.
But even their retreat appeared to have gutless motivation. After confiscating the vehicles belonging to the city's residents, they forced at least one out of the 2,000 kidnapped civilians into each of them as they fled — preventing SDF and US-led coalition forces from targeting the convoy with airstrikes for fear of harming the "human shield."
So far, it seems that ISIS forces had good reason to flee from Manbij. Except for the few sleeper cells that remained, coalition forces announced last Friday that the city had been liberated from ISIS control.
Here's what ISIS's retreat looked like:
SDF Press CenterDAKAR (Reuters) - A World Heritage site in central Mali that features elaborate pre-Islamic mud houses is in danger of deteriorating because it cannot be protected adequately in the face of insecurity, UNESCO said on Wednesday.
Boys recite Quranic verses handwritten on pieces of wood during a religious class in front of the Grand Mosque of Djenne, Mali September 1, 2012. REUTERS/Joe Penney
The Old Towns of Djenné includes four archeological sites with nearly 2,000 houses whose decorative facades have remained intact since the 3rd century B.C. The buildings are among the most famous in Mali, a country that also boasts the ancient town of Timbuktu.
The World Heritage Committee said insecurity was preventing measures to safeguard the site against the deterioration of construction materials, urbanization and erosion.
Mali faces a threat from Islamist militants, as well as volatile separatist politics in the north.
“The Malian government is coping with a lot of challenges,” said Edmond Moukala, head of UNESCO World Heritage in Africa, adding concerns were raised when a team visiting the site this year found signs of deterioration.
“What is needed right now is to ensure that institutions are in place and receive financial support,” he said.
A force led by French troops intervened in 2013 to drive back militants who had hijacked an ethnic Tuareg uprising and seized Timbuktu and other towns in the north.
In 2012, militants linked to al Qaeda destroyed ancient shrines and tombs in the World Heritage site at Timbuktu.
Violence flared this week as the army opened fire on protesters in the northern city of Gao who opposed an interim authority intended to maintain stability in the desert region.
Djenné, a market center and link in the trans-Saharan gold trade, were added to the World Heritage List in 1988.
Timbuktu and an ancient tomb in Gao have been on the list of sites in danger since 2012. The 49 properties on the list include archeological sites in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.A woman was found dead and a man critically injured inside a Mountain View apartment Saturday night.
The Anchorage Police Department has not released the names of the people, or any official information about what is believed to have happened.
But the victims' next-door neighbors said there were signs of trouble in the apartment long before violence erupted Saturday night.
Mai Vang had just gotten out of the shower on Saturday night when she heard two loud bangs through the thin wall of her apartment, where she lives with her husband, four children and other family members.
Gunshots were coming from the next-door apartment, where a man and woman who often fought lived with a teenage boy.
Vang's mother ran outside first to see what was happening, she said. Vang followed.
The door to the Apartment No. 2 was open.
A woman was on the floor near the doorway, bleeding from what looked like a wound in her chest, Vang said. A teenage boy was kneeling near the wounded woman.
"I thought at first they were both dead," Vang said. "The woman started moving. The man raised his hand, like telling me to help."
Vang was shaking.
"There was blood all over," Vang said. "That's when the son — 13 or 14 — he's like, 'Mom, wake up! Call 911!"
She did.
Police were called to the apartment on Richmond Avenue at 10:29 p.m. on Saturday, according to APD spokeswoman Renee Oistad.
The woman was declared dead at the scene. The man was taken to a local hospital with injuries police described as "life threatening."
Police have not said whether they believe the shootings were an attempted murder and suicide or whether someone else was involved.
But police say they aren't seeking any other suspects, and "believe they have made contact with all involved parties."
It's also not clear whether there was anyone else inside the apartment at the time.
Reid Hayes, who lives in a house next door to the complex, heard the shots and watched police arrive. One officer carried a boy who looked like a young teenager on his back, Hayes said. The boy was shoeless and in pajamas in the rain, he said.
Vang and her family, including four children, have lived in their basement apartment at the McKay Villa complex for about two years. Their next-door neighbors, like most of the families who lived there, were Hmong.
Vang and her husband Xeng Lee slept a wall away from their neighbors. Sometimes, early in the morning, they would hear the two arguing about money in Hmong. The man would sometimes sleep in his car.
"I kind of knew one of these days something was going to happen," Lee said. "I didn't know it would be this."
On Saturday night, Lee had an uneasy encounter with the male neighbor who his wife would see bleeding on the floor of the apartment a few hours later.
Lee was working at Mountain View's Red Apple grocery store a few blocks away from Richmond Avenue. He recognized his next-door neighbor in his checkout lane. He can't remember what the guy was buying, but it was a single item. The man seemed enraged, Lee said.
After the man paid, Lee took a cigarette break.
Standing outside, Lee said he saw the man jump into a car and swerve off.
"I thought, that guy is up to something," Lee said.
It wasn't until morning when police were combing through the crime scene that an officer pointed out that a bullet had come through the wall of their kitchen.
At the time the shooting happened, their 13-year-old daughter, Phoebe Lee, had been preparing a bottle for the baby, 4-month-old Kim Lee, in the kitchen. Neither were hurt.
A small bullet hole remained on Sunday afternoon. Police recovered the bullet underneath the refrigerator, Vang said.
On Sunday afternoon, people were moving things out of the apartment where the shooting happened. They didn't want to talk to news media.
Vang and Lee wonder who will move in. Traditional Hmong beliefs hold that malevolent spirits might persist in a place where a violent death has occurred.A leader of President Trump’s controversial voter fraud commission on Wednesday blasted what he described as “baffling” calls for his resignation, saying Democrats’ charge that the investigation could lead to voter suppression “doesn’t even make sense.”
“How in the world can a commission in Washington, D.C. … studying a problem cause someone in some far-flung state like California not to go to the polls?” Kris Kobach said on “Fox & Friends.”
He spoke as Vice President Pence later Wednesday morning was set to chair the first meeting of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity.
Kobach, who serves as vice chairman, sparked controversy several weeks ago when he sent letters to state officials seeking extensive voter information – which dozens of states resisted turning over, claiming the request was too broad.
Kobach, the secretary of state in Kansas, defended the requests Wednesday and also responded to a new demand by congressional Democrats that Pence seek his resignation.
“I think they want me removed because I’ve been fighting voter fraud in my state of Kansas for over six years now and I’ve been very specific about what we need to do and what other states have been doing,” he said. “I guess they just don’t want someone heading the commission as vice chair who knows this issue and knows how to get at the problem.”
The call for his ouster was made in a letter to Pence sent by Reps. Elijah Cummings, D-Md.; John Conyers, Jr., D-Mich.; Bennie Thompson, D-Miss.; and Robert Brady, D-Pa. They also alleged Kobach is using the commission to help himself politically.
“Mr. Kobach has repeatedly claimed, falsely, that widespread voter fraud exists and advertises his work on the Commission to promote his own campaign for governor of Kansas,” they wrote. “These actions undermine the integrity of the Commission and raise significant concerns that the Commission will be used as a tool for voter suppression.”FAQ
Can I still use BBC iPlayer on my Windows Phone now the app has closed?
Yes, you can still access the BBC iPlayer website through the Edge browser providing you have Windows 10 Mobile installed.
Why did you close the app?
When the BBC iPlayer app was originally created it was not technically possible to play BBC programmes via the browser. As it’s now possible to play via the browser it is no longer cost effective for the BBC to maintain a BBC iPlayer app for Windows mobile devices. And by using the website version of BBC iPlayer, Windows phone users will get the benefits of this version as it evolves.
How can I use BBC iPlayer on a Windows Phone?
Your phone will need to be running Windows 10 Mobile. Many phones running Windows Phone 8.1 are able to update to Windows 10 Mobile. Microsoft have created the Windows 10 Mobile Upgrade Advisor app which can check whether your device can be upgraded: click here to find out more about the app on the Microsoft Store website.
If you do upgrade to Windows 10 Mobile, you’ll be able to play content from the BBC iPlayer website.
How to pin BBC iPlayer to the start screen
For quick access, you can pin a shortcut tile on your Windows 10 Mobile phone’s start screen to BBC iPlayer. Here’s how:
Navigate to www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer in your Edge browser
browser Tap the ‘more options’ (... ) button at the top left of the screen
( ) button at the top left of the screen Select ‘Pin to start’ for the list of optionsIt all started with a poem.
Santa's watching closely, friend, For Santa's making progress. A letter, then a gift, he'll send To your defined address.
This is a lengthy process, though, Don't get your hopes up yet. For all you know, my gift might suck... (Or maybe it's a jet).
Then another poem
Hello again, my Christmas friend, I hope you're doing well, I'm sure you're anxious for your gift, For now, you'll have to dwell.
You will receive two more updates, Although, I must regret, To tell you that I'm not Bill Gates, But you WILL get a jet.
If you like hints, then be prepared For stanzas four through six |
women’s chances of long-lasting marriages.
For men, the patterns are slightly different. In this case, it matters whether men are engaged to a partner they lived with before getting married. Men who lived with their future spouse without being engaged had a slightly lower chance of having a long-term marriage (49%) than those who were engaged first (57%). Men who didn’t live with their partner before getting married had a 60% chance of celebrating their 20th anniversary.
Topics: Educational Attainment, Marriage and Divorce, Race and EthnicityHarry Gruyaert/Magnum Photos
Could a brain stimulation device change our sex drive? The first study of this approach suggests that people’s libido can be turned up or down, depending on the device’s setting.
The study didn’t measure how much sex people had in real life, instead it measured participant’s sexual responsiveness. Unusually, this was done by fixing customised vibrators to people’s genitals and gauging how their brainwaves changed when they expected a stimulating buzz.
“You want to see if they want what you’re offering,” says Nicole Prause at the University of California, Los Angeles. “This is a good model for sexual desire.”
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The technique involves transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), where a paddle held above the head uses a strong magnetic field to alter brain activity. It can be used to treat depression and migraines, and is being investigated for other uses, including preventing bed-wetting, and helping those with dyslexia.
Reward circuit
The part of the head targeted in this study – called the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, roughly above the left temple – is involved in the brain’s reward circuitry.
Prause’s team wondered if stimulating this area might affect how people feel about sex. One problem is that standard methods of assessing desire are too subjective, says Prause. “The only way is to ask someone, ‘How much do you want to have sex right now?’ People might not be willing or able to tell you, or be using the scales differently.”
To get around this, a vibrator was either connected to a sheath that the penis goes in or a small hood that fits over the clitoris. Electrodes on each participant’s head measured the strength of their brain’s alpha waves, which are weaker when people are more sexually aroused.
During the experiment, 20 people were given TMS for about two minutes, designed to either excite or inhibit the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Next, each volunteer was taken to a room where the EEG electrodes were placed on their head. They were then left to attach the vibrator themselves.
Finally, each participant carried out a task that involved pressing a button as fast as possible when shapes appeared on a screen. Depending on how quick they were, they were given a genital buzz lasting between half a second and five seconds – but only after a pause.
Desire in the lab
Their brainwaves were recorded during this waiting period. “They know they’re about to be sexually stimulated, but it hasn’t actually happened yet,” says Prause. It is the closest analogue for measuring desire in the lab, she adds.
As predicted, after excitatory TMS, participants’ alpha waves were weaker – suggesting they were more sexually aroused – than after inhibitory TMS. The team couldn’t measure any changes to people’s sex lives, as the effects of a single session of TMS are short-lived. To treat depression, for instance, people get several sessions a week, and it is supposed to induce gradual changes to the brain over several weeks.
But people’s overall sexual responsiveness in the study, as gauged by their brainwaves, did correlate with the number of orgasms they had over the next three days, either through sex or masturbation. Prause says it would be interesting to know if people having TMS for depression report any changes in their sex lives. “But no one asks them.”
Cicely Marston at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine points out that sex is an extremely complicated social phenomenon. “To think you can fix a problem by fixing the physiological components is overly simplistic,” she says. “But if it works there would be a huge market for it.”
Journal reference: PLoS One, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0165646The video game world shook on Tuesday afternoon after Sony announced (along with a new Internet-based television service in the US) a streaming service called PlayStation Now at the Consumer Electronics Show. Video game retailer GameStop shares sank immediately following the news, as gamers considered a future without physical CDs and visits to their local store.
As Forbes contributor Erik Kain explained today, PlayStation Now is a cloud-based project that brings original PlayStation, PS2, and PS3 games to the PS4 console and handheld PS Vita, as well as other Internet-connected devices like HDTVs, tablets, and smartphones.
PlayStation Now likely builds off technology Sony acquired when it purchased streaming company Gaikai in 2012. It begins testing at the end of January and Sony expects to release it completely by mid-2014. According to the company, there will be both subscription and rental plans.
Where that leaves a brick-and-mortar retailer like GameStop is a good question. The company's stock is up nearly 78% in the last year and it posts annual revenue over $8 billion. But with video games increasingly moving online to streaming models, GameStop could find itself as the Blockbuster of the video game industry, doomed to watch as their lucrative console game business is swallowed up by online services.
Meanwhile, analysts at Stifel Nicholas downgraded GameStop stock to "hold." At Tuesday's close, the shares had fallen 8.37%.
Follow Brian on Facebook and Twitter.Enduro SWorks 29 gets synchronised to different wheel sizes, dampers and tyres – 29”/650b/650b+
During a period when its difficult to decide on which wheel size to ride its comforting to know that one bike can potentially cover all bases – the Specialized Enduro 29, a bike we have tested in many environments world wide.
In standard trim its not perfect in a couple of respects notably the head angle and bottom bracket. But whilst its slightly too steep and slightly too tall the bike is a real bruiser, and at 150mm travel simply the hardest charging, fastest, toughest and one of the longest travel 29” wheel bikes on the market.
Out of the box it’s a very good bike, an awesome all-rounder. Given some love and some butchering it can be made very good, in fact an all-time great. One that can tackle anything you wish it to encounter.
The current chit chat from manufacturers is that 650 is all about the lively ride and 29 is all about speed. It’s a sales/marketing strategy that’s simply there to keep everyone happy when in truth most of the product managers all ride the faster bigger wheels. But what if one bike can do both? Or maybe three wheel sizes?
Just how right does this bike look?! 650 link with Zelvy/Chris King wheelset and 2.8 Schwalbe Nobby Nic
Here’s a few ways of making your Enduro a bike for all occasions, we know its not for everyone – due to frame restrictions in small and medium the Ohlins damper (we visited the factory in Sweden last year) will not fit as it said to hit the seat tube and they don’t recommend the 650 shock linkage.
Here’s our guide to tuning up the Enduro to make her fly in six different set-ups.
THE SIX WAYS FEATURING TWO SHOCK LINKAGES, AN OFFSET AND SOME WHEEL/TYRE COMBOS
29” LINK GEOMETRY:-
SET UP ONE – 29” WHEELS/STANDARDGEOMETRY
Bottom bracket: 351mm Head angle: 67.5
SET UP TWO – 29” WHEELS/STANDARD LINK, MONARCH DAMPER AND OFFSET
Bottom bracket: 348mm Head angle: 66.5
650B SHOCK LINK GEOMETRY:-
SET UP THREE – 29“ WHEEL FRONT AND REAR – OHLINS DAMPER
Bottom bracket: 338mm Head angle: 67
SET UP FOUR – 650B REAR 29” FRONT – OHLINS DAMPER
Bottom bracket: 332mm Head angle: 65
SET UP FIVE – 650×2.4 Rear 650×2.8 front 650 Link Ohlins damper
Bottom Bracket: 325mm Head angle: 65.5
SET UP SIX – 650+ Front 650+ Rear 650 Link Ohlins damper
Bottom bracket: 329mm Head angle: 66It’s time for a change of pace.
I have been a full-time professional teacher of historical swordsmanship since March 17th 2001. By which I mean it was my one and only job, source of income, and so on. This has had all sorts of benefits, not least that I have accumulated a huge amount of experience in teaching and researching the art of arms. These days, most students who come to one of my seminars for the first time, or have their first private lesson, find it an eye-opening experience. But I realised in 2014 that I do not want to end up being the little old man still teaching day-in-day-out after 50 years; the archetype of the old martial arts teacher. There is nothing wrong with that, of course; it just isn’t me. And that came as a surprise, because it is exactly how I had imagined my life would go.
Up until 2013, about 90% of my income came from the Helsinki branch of the School, with 10% coming from seminars in other branches or for other schools. Then I started self-publishing my books, starting with Veni Vadi Vici. That went well enough that I had the bright idea of re-issuing the out-of-print The Swordsman’s Companion, and The Duellist’s Companion. This turned out to be a game-changer; by the end of 2014, with The Medieval Longsword also out, they were bringing in enough money every month to pay the mortgage, and accounted for about 50% of my disposable income. This is the financial background that has made it possible for me to wind down my regular teaching at the Helsinki branch (I taught my last class to date (NOT my last class ever, of course!) on my 42nd birthday: November 30th 2015).
I had been a swordsmanship instructor who also wrote books; now it’s fair to say I’m a writer who teaches swordsmanship. And to be honest, while I do miss my students, I don’t miss having so much of my waking time taken up with class. It’s given me much more freedom to write, and play around with training routines, and play with my kids. And I will be taking advantage of that freedom to take my family to the UK in June this year, for at least a year. We are still not decided exactly where, but that question should be settled by the end of this month. I have no intention of starting another branch of my school there; I have my hands full with the branches I already have. Besides, I’ve been there and done that; I feel no need to do it again. But I may well be looking for training partners, and of course I’m reasonably available for seminars. There is a thriving HEMA scene in the UK, and I look forward to taking some part in it.
For most people in my life, students, friends and family, these changes will make no difference at all. For a few senior students it will come as something of a change, and for me it will make all the difference in the world. Here’s why:
When I started my School back in 2001, a strict and clear hierarchy was necessary. I was responsible for the safety of a whole bunch of absolute beginners; they had to do as I said, or someone would get hurt and it would be my fault. As the School developed, and a culture of safe training was firmly established, my iron grip relaxed and classes became much more organic; students had more input, and there was no need for the strict discipline that we had had before. I think people learn better in a relaxed and friendly environment. But at the same time, a hierarchy was established, the sort that is common to most martial arts. Teacher at the top, senior students outranking juniors, and so on. We have skill-levels, but actual rank is not tied directly to them; we have Free Scholars (literally students who have the freedom of the school; they can open the salle for training at any time, that sort of thing), Class Leaders, who are Free Scholars that have been examined and passed for leading basic classes, and Provosts, who are the senior student responsible for a branch. The problem is that all rank promotions come from me directly. Senior students can recommend their peers, and I wouldn’t appoint a Free Scholar without consulting with the existing cohort, but ultimately, it’s down to me.
This means that I have to be super-careful not to play favourites. For promotions to have meaning and value, they must be based on transparently applied objective criteria. This leads to me being quite isolated from the students; I have to be really careful not to like any of them more than any other. But as a human being, of course I happen to gel with some more easily than others.
One of the legacies of my boarding school experience is that I find it far too easy to detach. In fact, problems of proper attachment are pretty much the hallmark of institutionalised children. So there is a switch in my head, which is either on the “student” position or the “friend” position. And there are no grades in between. It ought to be a rheostat, but instead it’s binary. Over the course of the last 15 years, some of my students have been adept at flicking that switch back and forth, and some have never allowed it to swing into the “student” position.
So what? You might reasonably ask. So, the people I have spent most of my time with, and with whom I have the most in common, have to be kept at arm’s length.
Sure, in any profession, you need a certain level of detachment. A beginner in their first class, or a senior student working hard on a difficult problem, need a teacher that is able to see them in full “student” mode. But even after a decade in class, most of my students have never seen the inside of my home. That’s just plain weird.
This is one of the reasons that I enjoy going to events and teaching seminars outside of my School; I’m not holding the keys to their next diploma; I’m not their judge. So I can interact with them on a much more natural level. And it’s ok to make friends.
I have been feeling this way for a long time. Years in fact. But it’s been a slow-growing realisation of what the problem is. I have always disliked rank exams, because I’ve always disliked the feeling of judging my students. Where you happen to be on the path is far less interesting and relevant to me than how far you have come.
I stopped wearing my all black training uniform, familiar to you all from my books, in favour of a much less forbidding combination of blue t-shirt and white-ish trousers in November 2014. The first time I wore the new threads in class, there were some raised eyebrows, but the world did not end, and the students were taught properly. My blacks had become an armoured carapace for keeping me separate, so I took them off.
Now to my main point for students of The School of European Swordsmanship: Students, my lovely students, if you want ranks and skill-levels, here is what you must do: set up a grading committee, organise panels of examiners, and do it yourselves. I will advise if asked, I’ll sign certificates; I’ll even sit on examining boards. But I will not ever run another exam solo. And if I happen to feel like I have some kind of history with the student being examined, I’ll recuse myself from sitting on their exam board.
As one long-term student of mine put it: “you’re divorcing the School to marry your students”.
If Sherlock Holmes can be a consulting detective, and Moriarty a consulting villain, then dammit, I can be a consulting swordsman. I am delighted to help you with any sword problem you may have, but I am done being in charge. It is not and never has been my nature to command and control. Within the context of a class, of course it is sometimes necessary to exhort students to greater efforts; to tell them what to do. But every class I’ve run for ages now has begun by asking the students what they need from me that day. This often surprises students having their first seminar with me; most teachers just get up and teach their class plan. I co-create the class plan with the students in the first 5-10 minutes of the seminar. On my last teaching trip to the USA, the organiser called this “a very adult way to run a class”. Because it assumes a certain level of competence in the teacher, and a certain level of interest and engagement from the students.
When Salvatore Fabris was fencing master to the King of Denmark, who was in charge? Which is more likely: “drop and give me 50, your kinginess!” or “Your Majesty, I would strongly advise a few push-ups at this juncture. 50 would be an excellent choice.”
Or as I put it to my students: If I’m Fiore dei Liberi, that makes you Niccolo d’Este, Marquis of Ferrara.
So, my Lords and Ladies, how can I be of service?
(Visited 188 times, 1 visits today)Mark Shuttleworth is the founder and former CEO of Canonical, the commercial company behind the Ubuntu Linux distribution. Today he holds the position “Lead Product Design”, a role in which he shapes desktop and cloud product strategy. I spoke with him recently by phone about the increasing role of Linux in the enterprise, and the shift from traditional enterprise computing to cloud computing.
Canonical and Ubuntu made a big splash early on by intensely focusing on a usable Linux desktop experience. They pared down the dizzying number of packages available in Debian and selected a few best-of-breed applications to install by default. The installation process was streamlined to be as easy and as intuitive as possible. Ubuntu was a huge success and quickly gained a passionate following.
Since its debut in 2004, Ubuntu has gone beyond just being an easy-to-install variant of Debian, and Canonical has worked to extend Ubuntu’s reach beyond the traditional desktop. Most recently Canonical has been pronouncing Ubuntu as the most popular OS for cloud computing environments; and they’ve also been trying to establish success in the enterprise data center.
Shuttleworth opened our conversation with a quick overview of what Canonical and Ubuntu have been doing of late. He articulates clearly that Canonical’s focus on quality is the same in desktop and enterprise markets. Just as consumer-oriented businesses are extremely sensitive to product flaws and issues that lead to customer dissatisfaction, so too are enterprise oriented businesses who focus on mission critical operations.
Canonical employs many practices that build a quality baseline that are good for both consumers and enterprises, asserts Shuttleworth. More specifically, any efforts Canonical might apply toward enterprise customers are not done at a cost to desktop success.
We’re in scale-out deployments
Ubuntu is now available as a supported operating system from Dell, HP, and other OEMs, which makes it much more viable for enterprise customers. But desktop and server certification is only part of the story: SAN systems, database servers and more all need to be fully supported before they can be used in an enterprise. I asked Shuttleworth whether Ubuntu was pursuing certifications from the likes of Oracle in order to gain more enterprise traction. “I wouldn’t use anything other than Oracle Linux if I was running an Oracle database,” was his response.
He told me that Oracle has made it clear to them that Ubuntu will not be a certified platform for Oracle databases. This didn’t bother Shuttleworth at all. “We’re in scale-out deployments, like Hadoop, OpenStack, nginx, Condor, etc,” he said. Shuttleworth believes that all of these technologies should be on every CIO’s roadmap for the next five to ten years, and that Oracle really isn’t relevant to this market.
Shuttleworth went on to say that virtualizing computing power is getting to middle age. In his opinion, there are good proprietary and open source solutions for compute virtualization. “That scene is settling down,” he said. But, according to him, storage and network virtualization are just getting going. Cloud solutions don’t often rely on SAN storage, but rather use Hadoop, Swift, Ceph, and the like. The commodity hardware underneath open source infrastructure — compute, storage, and network — is going to be key topic in next 5 years, and Ubuntu is right in the middle of this.
Ubuntu is the best place to consume these resources, thinks Shuttleworth — it offers frequent stable releases of these and other new technologies. Red Hat, Shuttleworth concedes, is still relevant for mission critical single server solutions. But he believes that Ubuntu is better for scale-out deployments. Similarly, in Shuttleworth’s estimation SUSE has a strong mainframe and POWER architecture relationship with IBM, and they remain relevant in those sorts of environments “but we don’t see them in cloud or scale-out conversations much.”
As popular as “the cloud” is, the reality is that many organizations aren’t yet embracing it fully (if at all). With this in mind, I was curious about Shuttleworth’s opinion of the value proposition for Ubuntu versus other, more established enterprise Linux distributions like Red Hat and SUSE. He acknowledged that traditional workloads were more likely to be deployed on those other distributions, but insisted that companies building internal cloud infrastructure are more likely to do so on Ubuntu.
And Ubuntu is still extremely popular for traditional web server roles, as well as a platform for handling big data and quick scalability. Shuttleworth mentioned Instagram’s use of Ubuntu with obvious pride.
One of the reasons Ubuntu is so popular as a cloud guest is that it is completely free. Red Hat doesn’t provide a free distribution, and CentOS doesn’t provide any support for their compiled version of the Red Hat sources. As such, Ubuntu offers the best of both worlds: free to deploy en masse, but with a paid support option available when it’s needed. This begs the question: if Ubuntu “wins” the cloud guest OS competition, how does that affect Canonical’s revenue stream?
Shuttleworth claims that as deployments grow, so too do paid support subscriptions. Without offering hard numbers, he said that Canonical has seen a very satisfying acceleration of paid customers. This is completely typical — first Linux gets deployed for internal development purposes, then it sneaks into skunkworks applications, and is finally recognized as a first class offering. At that time, support becomes necessary.
Ubuntu sits at the intersection of free software and users
My day job uses mostly Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and as such I track a number of upstream projects in which Red Hat participates and which might land in future versions of that distribution. I don’t track as closely the things that Canonical is doing. With that caveat, it seemed to me that a number of recent Ubuntu initiatives — Juju, Metal-as-a-Service, and AWESOME — had a decidedly Ubuntu-only feel to them.
I asked Shuttleworth about this, and what I perceived as the contrast between Red Hat’s upstream-first development policy. The Canonical founder got fired up in his response. I clearly struck a nerve with Shuttleworth. “There’s nothing Ubuntu-specific in any of these,” he told me somewhat curtly.
He went on to articulate that Ubuntu sits at the intersection of free software and users, and that they act on what they see — whether that’s fixing bugs or building new tools. Shuttleworth highlighted Canonical’s long-running support for GNOME, KDE, and XFCE, and observed that several patches were landed in Unity to specifically benefit other Linux distributions.
“I respect Red Hat, they’ve played an important role bringing commercial software to the mainstream,” Shuttleworth told me. But he took exception with the notion that Red Hat was somehow more “upstream first” than Ubuntu. He pointed out that Juju has been ported to Mac OSX, there’s nothing Ubuntu-specific in MaaS, and that AWESOME is simply a Python daemon not tied to any particular platform or distribution. Saying that any of these projects are Ubuntu specific is “like saying ‘DeltaCloud is Red Hat specific’,” Shuttleworth said.
He expanded on the issue of “contribution” by pointing out that it involves a lot more than just lines of code. Indeed, that alone is a poor metric for measuring contributions. There’s also design, quality, ease of use, leadership and other harder-to-track but vitally important contributions, all of which Ubuntu provides to different projects in different ways.
We are strengthened by diversity
I next asked what Canonical is doing, if anything, to encourage diversity in open source communities? Shuttleworth told me that Ubuntu had just recently updated their community Code of Conduct. Ubuntu, according to Shuttleworth, has led the use of codes of conduct in open source communities. This was an intentional decision based upon founding members experiences with vitriol, personal skirmishing in mailing lists, and other less-than-welcoming behaviour.
The Ubunutu community decided collectively to take a strong stand against this kind of behaviour. They wanted a community that was pleasant and focused on a shared view of bringing goodness to people, rather than one based solely on personal interests. “We are strengthed by diversity,” Shuttleworth said.
“Because we explicitly frown on flaming and hostility,” Shuttleworth said, “we have retained good people for a longer period of time.” According to him, it’s hard to participate long term in any open source project because of so much change: it’s hard to keep up. “If people are unpleasant to one another, the motivation to stick around diminishes greatly.”
He railed against what he called the “bad culture of ‘bro-gramers’,” where participants insult one another. Worse yet, according to him, was hostility between competing open source projects and companies. “If Microsoft said some of what Red Hat says about Ubuntu, the community would be outraged!” Shuttleworth exclaimed.
Society is not benefitted by software patents
I switched topics in our conversation, and next asked Shuttleworth how he felt about software patents, and how Canonical as a company felt about them? This was another topic about which he got fired up. He told me that he’s long been interested in the intersection of society, technology, and economics. The history of patents, he said, is grounded in the question “what will accelerate human progress?”
Patents were designed to get people to talk about their secrets, Shuttleworth opined. Industrial progress used to be all about keeping secrets — sometimes for generations at a time — but in Shuttleworth’s opinion science and society move faster if we can encourage disclosure. When one inventor talks about her insights, another inventor can build upon those insights in novel ways for the betterment of everyone. “You should only be able to patent those things you could keep secret,” Shuttleworth said.
“People have become confused,” Shuttleworth lamented, “and think that a patent is incentive to create at all.” No one invents just to get a patent, though — people invent in order to solve problems. According to him, patents should incentivize disclosure. Software is not something you can really keep secret, and as such Shuttleworth’s determination is that “society is not benefited by software patents at all.”
Software patents, he said, are a bad deal for society. The remedy is to shorten the duration of patents, and reduce the areas people are allowed to patent. “We’re entering a third world war of patents,” Shuttleworth said emphatically. “You can’t do anything without tripping over a patent!” One cannot possibly check all possible patents for your invention, and the patent arms race is not about creation at all.
“The challenge,” Shuttleworth continued, “is how to open up a legislative discussion not dominated by companies that have been successful in the past.” It’s no secret that the majority of funding and lobbying comes from people with a strong interest in blocking new entrants. The voice of the people — and the voice of the individual inventor — is simply not heard.
Canonical, Shuttleworth told me, is a paid-up member of Open Invention Network, but according to him this is “really quite distasteful.” “It’s like saying ‘I have friends with big guns’,” he remarked. According to Shuttleworth, Canonical does not file patents defensively or offensively; and although it would be straightforward for them to patent their work they don’t. They feel it would be actively harmful to what consumers want: ever improving products at ever lower prices.
I pressed the issue and asked about the Google vs Oracle lawsuit. I was specifically curious about the question of whether APIs were copyrightable. “As far as we’re concerned, this is a settled matter,” Shuttleworth stated. He said there are prior cases of people trying to copyright some kind of interface — mechanical, software, etc — and that these had all been resolved. “To countenance that would be to throw a spanner in the works of progress in general!” Shuttleworth exclaimed. “Technology should be easy to consume, and widely available. Innovation should respond to what customers what and need,” not to what established businesses feel they need to protect.
It’s fantastic up there!
No interview with Shuttleworth could be complete without the obligatory question: Would you like to return to outer space? His emphatic response: “Of course! It’s fantastic up there!” He proceeded to tell me how it was the experience of a lifetime. According to him, it wasn’t just the trip, but the entire experience of being immersed in an industry dedicated to exploration. “The folks I met were all wonderful, amazing people.” Despite his enthusiasm, he has no specific plans to leave the planet again any time soon.In recent years, television has slowly stretched its beautiful, large wings. It’s successfully been proving itself as the new medium for filmmakers to use as their easel. Its “seasons” of episodes generally give writers a more flexible time schedule for character development. A character can be developed over numerous episodes and audiences can see the process take place gradually – something that is difficult to accomplish with a film, which usually borders only on the 1 ½ hour to 2 hour mark.
Breaking Bad – the king of television shows. Mad Men – the revolutionary peak into the 60’s in America. The Wire – a gritty, critically-praised look at the drug underworld. Hannibal – a relatively new, but refreshing production with gloriously delectable visuals. Luther – Britain’s finest detective drama …House of Cards, The Sopranos, Sherlock, Boardwalk Empire, Game of Thrones, The Newsroom, Dexter, Deadwood.
There’s an excruciatingly long list of shows (some weren’t even listed, as the list is just too long) that have shaped television in the past decade. We would be blind not to recognize this as a Golden Age of TV – a new era of televised drama. And now, during this peak of beautifully produced shows, lies perhaps the best of them all – certainly the best mini-series ever produced – HBO’s dark and brooding True Detective.
Presented here are 10 reasons that back that claim.
10. Villains Galore
This is a dark show, with a dark storyline, dark cinematography, and dark characters. Even our protagonists, Marty and Rust, are dark men – Marty with his “marital issues” and PTSD-ridden Rust with his constant pessimism. But when we catch flashes of the numerous villains that lurk just around the corners in True Detective, it is then that we realize we don’t know what dark even is.
Reggie Ledoux – the tattooed, whacked-out, methcreep who “sees people in the stars”. His brother, Jimmy, an equally creepy nutball of a character. Errol, the disturbing, delusional monster of a man. The list goes on with creepy, nasty-looking, Louisiana homeboys. Each villain is demented. Each villain is a killer. Each villain is flat out scary. There’s certainly no shortage of them in the show – thanks to the 17-year-long spanning story.
9. The Commentary on Women
True Detective has recently been under some scrutiny about how the show treats its women characters. For one, the show comes nowhere close to passing what many call the “Bechdel Test,” which humorously asks whether a piece of fiction features two female characters discussing something other than a male character.
In True Detective, many women are presented as either sluts, drug addicts, psychos, or all of the above. Many of the victims of the occult murders in the show are women (if not all the victims). Even our protagonists are prone to giving out steady doses of misogyny – especially Marty. Marty is often upset (sometimes to the point of physical violence) when a woman tries to control his situation. That said, though, Marty’s discontent with women, along with the show’s display of violence towards women, is simply acting as a commentary on society’s general disregard of females.
The show itself is not sexist in the least – but with presenting itself as so, intentionally, it sets the social commentary on a high scale. The fact is, this is a man’s show, set in a man’s world where many men ignore their female counterparts – no matter what the price. Shown in the world of True Detective, ignoring women is one of the causes of much of the horror that occurs. It’s not sexist – it’s the exact opposite.
8. The Guessing Game
If True Detective is anything, it’s a mystery, wrapped in a puzzle, wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in endless riddles. The story, which spans from 1995 to 2012, presents us with such a vast quantity of conundrums that it’s sometimes difficult not to pull out a notepad and start taking extensive notes.
As the story develops, we begin to see the bigger questions in the case that Rust and Marty attempt to unravel: Who is this “Yellow King” mentioned in several interviews the duo has conducted? (Which, with a quick google search of “yellow king,” only prompts us to read “The King in Yellow” by Richard Chambers – which takes us further into the depths of weird-horror fiction.) What is this place, “Carcosa,” we keep hearing about? (Again, a quick google search of “Carcosa” will lead you to a short story by Ambrose Bierce. You’ll also discover that “Carcosa” is mentioned many times in Chambers’ “The King in Yellow”.)
As the episodes continue, we’re confronted with more and more questions – many times prompting us to do a little research of our own if we want to even begin trying to understand all these terms (a truly brilliant ploy by writer NicPizzolatto to get some audience participation in a discreet, indirect manner). In many cases (no pun intended), True Detective is a very disturbing show, but the guessing it leads the audience on with only makes it a more captivating and interactive experience. Viewing a show this unpredictable is actually quite fun – if you’re into guessing games.
7. The Relevance to the Internet Age
True Detective probably wouldn’t be as big of a guessing game as it is had it been released before this “Internet Age” we are currently living in. The show has exploited people’s use of the internet with near-perfect success.When the first episode premiered in January, it presented us with many open-ended questions about Rust and Marty’s case. Such a huge case could involve conspiracy of any kind – and if there’s anything the internet loves, it’s a good conspiracy.
From the premiere of the show, the internet boomed with countless numbers of threads about who the “Yellow King” could be, what “Carcosa” meant, and how it would all tie together. There are literally thousands of threads with theories about the show on the internet right now – and they’re still being used, even after the show is over (and that’s primarily due to how many questions the finale left us with – more on that in a minute).
In a sense, for those who scan sites like Reddit, or even IMDB’s message boards, the show wouldn’t have been as enthralling had it not been for the many, many theories proposed. The internet enhanced the show’s guessing game by a mile.
6. The Finale (Spoiler-Free)
When True Detective’s finale aired it was received with rather mixed reviews. Many positive reviews were from the show’s more die-hard, heavy-thinker fans. Most of the negative counter-arguments were presented by people who appeared to be just flat-out confused by how the whole thing concluded.
The most common complaint seen within the negative reception was that the show left the audience with more questions than answers. That, however, was the show’s point. Leaving the audience with more questions and loose ends makes us go back, retrace our steps in the investigation, and look more carefully into the story. Again, doing a little research on our own. The finale also poses us with a big theme in the show’s barrage of realism: Doesn’t life leave us with more questions than answers all the time?
True Detective’s season finale was an intelligent, realistic ending to a truly brilliant television show. Even if we are left with more questions, we still received a beautiful twinge of optimism – and optimism in the midst of a dark, pessimistic show like True Detective is satisfying enough.At school, we are often told that history is the story of humanity, a grand chronicle of events leading us to where we are now. Our minds place narrative over complex situations in an attempt to grasp a sense of order. This view of history has fed into how game worlds have been built. The ever pervasive concept of a static ‘lore’ being a tome of knowledge that can be accessed and referenced, adding context and depth to a world. And in games we love a rich lore. A big chunky block of information we can wrap around and lose ourselves in.
We originally published this piece in October, 2017 but, with Bioware at last confirming they’re hard at work on a new Dragon Age, we’ve decided to republish this feature on why the series storytelling is so good.
We are often spoilt when it comes to explaining why things are the way they are in a game world. Codices, wikis, clumsy environmental storytelling; we are given a range of resources in order to understand the virtual world in which we roam. A game’s lore inspires fans to dedicate hours to writing explanations or debating the tiniest details online, figuring out how it all pieces together. When we think of a game world’s history we think of it as a single narrative, a collection of events and characters, with little room for new branches once a sequence has been established.
But history is not an unchanging tome of information. History is constantly privy to the shifting perspectives of society, our unreliable |
00 pm, a call came in to the 911 center about a fight in the 23000 block of North Umpqua Hwy.
Aythorities say Alexander Houston Richardson, 52, of Idleyld Park, was involved in a physical fight with a neighbor, before going across the street to his trailer and grabbing a 30-30 rifle.
Officials say Richardson fired a shot across the highway toward the male victim and several houses.
After going back inside his trailer, officials say several deputies arrived and took Richardson into custody without further incident.
Richardson was lodged in the Douglas County Jail and charged by deputies with Attempted Second Degree Assault, Pointing a Firearm at Another Person, Unlawful Use of a Weapon, Disorderly Conduct, Menacing and Recklessly Endangering.I’m a huge fan of Roland Sands custom motorcycle builds. His designs are unconventional and each build is performance proven by the man himself when he gives them a ceremonial thrashing. This particular build was completed for Yamaha Motorcycles as part of their Hyper Modified campaign. The bike used to be a brand new 2012 500cc TMAX ‘maxi-scooter’ but you’d be hard pressed recognising it now.
For the Hyper Modified campaign Yamaha approached three well known custom builders and gave them a straight to the point brief of “make it even better”. Ludovic Lazareth, Marcus Walz and Roland Sands each took a stock 2012 Yamaha TMAX and did their best to better Yamaha’s original design. Ludovic added a supercharger and aircraft influenced styling, Walz focused on reducing weight and refining lines and Sands did what he does best and customised the hell out of it.
After viewing the TMAX without it’s bulky bodywork and liking what he saw Sands decided to embrace the basic form of the TMAX frame. With all that bodywork thrown in the bin he tucked away exposed wiring and running gear behind custom made paneling. The frame didn’t go untouched though, custom foot wells with guard rails were welded on each side and a new rear loop was added to fit the wasps tail with integrated filler cap.
“People think I’m into cruisers but I’m more driven by dirt bikes and racers, but there is no way I’m letting the Hyper Modified TMAX go. I’ve got a scooter in my garage now – I didn’t think that would happen! ”
Sands also added paneling to the front and under the rear to protect the internals from road debris and used mesh in areas where airflow was required for cooling. Engine covers were also carved open to expose the bikes belt drives and shave off even more weight. The pipes are race bred giving the bike a throaty roar that’d you’d never expect to hear from a scooter, even if it is a “maxi” one and a set of off road style Renthal bars set the rider up for good old elbows out fun.
Finally everything went off for powder coating and in satin black before the tail and headlight panel received custom race number graphics. Last of all the custom tan leather seat made by Bitchin Rich that stretches from the just below the handlebars all the way along the frame to the tail was locked in to place.
And how did it go during Sand’s test thrash? Check out the video below…who ever said scooters aren’t cool can eat their words.Costco Wholesale Corp. shares rose more than 3% Thursday after the company posted surprisingly strong sales numbers for November, drawing applause from analysts.
The biggest warehouse club in the U.S. “turned in a month for the ages in the current retail environment,” said Ken Perkins, analyst at data firm Retail Metrics.
Costco COST, +0.26% said same-store sales rose 10.8% in November, its biggest monthly gain in more than six years going back to September 2011, when it posted a 12% gains, said Perkins.
Net sales climbed 13% to $11.26 billion from $9.95 billion in the same period a year ago. E-commerce sales alone rose 39% in the month, and were up 44% in the 12-week period through Nov. 26.
Growth was spread across most categories, with hard-line comparables up in the low teens, midteens gains in appliances, tablets and computers, and strength in auto, tires, sporting goods and office.
Read also: Retailers are using your mobile phone to entice you to shop this holiday season
Softlines gained in the high single digits led by jewelry, clothing and home products. Food and sundries rose in the mid-to-high single digits, led by cooler, candy & tobacco. In the fresh food category, bakery, deli and meat were strong performers.
See also: 10 ‘unexpected’ bargains at Costco
Related: Costco and Amazon even have deals on caskets
Susquehanna analyst Bill Dreher raised his 2018 estimates on the news and said it looks as if margins held up even in the face of hurricanes and higher gasoline prices.
“Admittedly, gross margin can be a bit of a wild card for Costco, depending on how management is investing in the long-term health and competitive positioning of the business,” he wrote in a note. “Our model only looks for a 1 bp expansion in gross margin for the first quarter of fiscal 2018, on top of the +29 bp last year, so we pretty feel good about our seemingly conservative estimate.”
UBS analysts led by Michael Lasser said the company has now reported six straight months of more than 4% growth in traffic in the U.S., its largest market, even after it raised membership fees on June 1.
That shows “that there’s still room for bricks and mortar retailers to succeed in today’s environment, provided they have the right differentiated model,’ he wrote.
See: Here’s how Costco drove down grocery prices in Australia
“In Costco’s case, mid to high single digit core same-store sales growth should help it increase its buying power, which it can then use to pass along savings to its member base. This should keep Costco’s virtuous circle spinning, and support its shares.”
In other positive news for Costco, a recent survey by LendEDU found that the average price increase when shopping for 38 identical items on Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, +0.21% versus Costco is about 56%. The online marketplace for student loan refinancing found that the total price increase when shopping on Amazon instead of Costco is 12%.
Costco shares have gained 14% in 2017, while the S&P 500 SPX, -0.08% has gained 17% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.13% has gained 22%.
Read: 7 reasons some shoppers hate CostcoThe NDA government is preparing to fix portion sizes of dishes served by star hotels and restaurants, a fortnight after Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed concern about wastage of food in his monthly Mann Ki Baat radio programme.
“If a person can eat only two prawns, why should he or she be served six? If a person eats two idlis, why serve four! It’s wastage of food and also money people pay for something that they don’t eat,” said Ram Vilas Paswan, minister of consumer affairs, food and public distribution.
The ministry is drafting a questionnaire for hotels and restaurants to explain what dish sizes they should serve to a customer.
Read more: As India prepares to fix portion sizes in restaurants, here’s how the world curbs food wastage
“They are the experts. They should tell us the maximum amount of a dish a person can eat. You go to a Chinese restaurant; they give you so much (of food). We are going to call them (stakeholders) for a meeting. The PM is concerned about food wastage and so we are going to issue instructions to these hotels (about the amount of food to be served),” Paswan told HT on Monday.
He, however, clarified the instructions would be applicable to “standard hotels” and not dhabas that “usually serve thalis”.
In his Mann Ki Baat last month, Modi had flagged the issue of food wastage at feasts and termed it as injustice to the poor.
Paswan’s latest move comes in addition to a slew of consumer-centric proposals that the ministry has incorporated in a new draft bill to amend Consumer Protection Act.
The draft bill is at present under law ministry’s consideration. In the new bill, the government has dropped the provision for imprisonment of celebrities for misleading advertisements; instead, a jail term has been proposed for producers or manufacturers.
“We dropped it (jail term for celebrities) after the group of ministers (GoM) decided to look at how other countries dealt with them. They either imposed a fine or ban (on celebrities) and so we decided to go for the same,” said Paswan.
As per the new proposal, if the producer is found responsible for misleading ads, the punishment would range from a fine to cancellation of license to a jail term, depending on the frequency of the offence.
Read: Food India wastes can feed all of Bihar for a year, shows govt study
Speaking on the controversy over cow vigilantism, Paswan said the PM has been clear from the beginning that there can’t be “goonda raj” in the name of cow protection. “What happened in Alwar (where a man was killed by cow vigilantes last week) was goonda-gardi (criminal act). Even an organisation like the RSS had to say this,” said the Lok Janshakti Party leader.
Amid speculation about the ruling NDA’s likely presidential candidate, Paswan said that there should be “one switch board” and in today’s context, it’s the PM. “He (Modi) knows the direction the country should take. He hasn’t said anything about Ram janmabhoomi or Babri Masjid or Article 370 (that gave special status to J&K),” said Paswan, referring to what once defined BJP’s ideological and political agenda.
First Published: Apr 11, 2017 07:13 ISTAhmadinejad visited one of Iraq's most powerful Shia Muslim leaders
He also called on Washington to change its standpoint towards Iran and said it had to understand that the Iraqi people did not like America.
A BBC correspondent says many Iraqis see the visit as the culmination of a process of normalisation in ties.
The two countries fought a war when Saddam Hussein invaded Iran in 1980.
The BBC's Jim Muir adds that Mr Ahmadinejad has not been welcomed by all Iraqis, since some agree with the Americans' view that Iran supports extremist militias in Iraq and is to blame for much of the trouble there.
US weapons call
Mr Ahmadinejad, who arrived in Baghdad on Sunday, made his remark about the US and terrorism after US accusations that Iran was supporting militants.
"Six years ago, there were no terrorists in our region," he said after talks with Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, head of Iraq's largest Shia Muslim political bloc, the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri).
"As soon as the others landed in this country and the region, we witnessed their arrival and presence."
Earlier, at a news conference with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, the Iranian president said it was not Tehran's fault that Iraq "does not want the US".
On Saturday, US President George W Bush, speaking at his ranch in Texas, called on Iran to "quit sending in sophisticated equipment that's killing our citizens".
The Iranian leader is due to end his visit on Monday. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has said a number of agreements will be signed.
'New page'
HAVE YOUR SAY The president's visit will bring benefit neither to the Iranians nor to the Iraqi people Farhad, Tehran
Iraqi leaders extended a warm welcome to the Iranian president, who flew into Baghdad airport and travelled into the city centre by car.
US forces are not involved in security for the visit and did not provide helicopters.
After talks with President Talabani, Mr Ahmadinejad said the visit had opened a "new page" in Iran-Iraq relations.
Prime Minister Maliki said his talks with Mr Ahmadinejad had been "friendly, positive and full of trust".
Despite the reconciliation between Baghdad and Tehran, many analysts believe that in the long term, the two countries are destined to be rivals for regional power.
During the long war between them in the 1980s, many of the prominent Shia now in positions of power in Iraq fled to Iran as Saddam Hussein cracked down on internal dissent.
The US-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime allowed them to return from exile.
Trade is now growing between the two countries and tourism, in the form of Iranian pilgrims visiting major Shia shrines in Iraq, is booming.Chinese, Russian naval forces conduct actual-troop exercise with actual weaponry
（People's Daily Online） 08:08, July 12, 2013
Chinese and Russian warships participating in the China-Russia "Joint Sea-2013" joint naval drill conduct actual-troop exercise using actual weaponry at Peter the Great Bay in Russia, July 10, 2013.
The subject of use of actual weaponry on sea primarily includes the firing of main guns, firing of auxiliary guns and salvo of rocket depth charges.
During the stage of actual-troop exercise, the participating troops of the two sides will conduct the exercise on many subjects, such as anchorage defense, joint air-defense, joint escort, maritime supply, breaking through areas with submarine threat and shooting the targets on the sea and in the air with actual weaponry. The subjects implemented on July 10 included joint search and rescue, actual use of weaponry on sea, maritime parade and withdrawal of forces.
Chinese Navy's main warships are from the North Sea Fleet and the South Sea Fleet of the Navy of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLAN).
The ships are the Shenyang, Shijiazhuang, Wuhan and Lanzhou guided missile destroyers, the Yancheng and Yantai guided missile frigates, as well as the Hongze Lake comprehensive supply ship. Three new-type ship-borne helicopters and a special operation detachment also participated in the joint naval drills.
In 2012, the two navies conducted a joint drill in the Yellow Sea.
（Editor：YanMeng、Zhang Qian）For years now the battle has raged on — do I buy canned beer, or bottled beer? We’ve touched on this in our Beer Myths page, but, like anything in life, there are always two sides to the story. Today, we want to hear your thoughts. Below, you will find both sides to the Cans vs. Bottles battle that has polarized the beer world, so read on, and take the poll in our winner-take-all smackdown of Cans and Bottles.
The Case for Cans:
Lighter, cheaper to buy, handle, and ship, and 100% opaque allowing no light to spoil your beer — these are the main arguments for canning beer. In terms of freshness, nothing will keep your craft beer tasting better for longer than putting it in a can. It’s a fully sealed container that allows for no oxygen to enter, meaning that there is very little risk for your beer to become oxidized and spoil. But let’s not even focus on the obvious scientific factors, those are too easy to point out. Let’s look at the social side of life in a can.
I have many passions in life, but two of them are sports and craft beer. For years, the only brews you could get at a sports game were domestic light lagers, or, if you were lucky, your stadium would have a small stand with some better beers on tap. The main reason? Bottles. For years now, sporting stadiums have disallowed glass beer bottles because they break too easily, and can be dangerous in the hands of drunken, irate, fans (I’m looking at you fellow Browns Fans!). The problem is, that most craft breweries opt for bottles, and don’t have the means to get the sanctioned plastic bottles for stadiums. The solution? You guessed it: Cans! More and more craft breweries are looking at the can as a viable alternative to bottles, and, with more cans in circulation we will have more craft beer at football games. Huzzah!
Another passion of mine is boating. I live on the shores of Lake Erie, and in the summer time you will find me cruising the open water. I’ll ask this question. Have you ever tried to pack a cooler with bottles of beer? Their odd shape and length doesn’t allow for maximum spatial utilization. If I could pack cans, I’d have more beer for my boat, and that’s more fun for me. Also, what about those pesky tops? If you’ve ever forgotten to bring a bottle opener somewhere, you’ll know my pain. With cans, you don’t even need a tool to start enjoying your brew. Just crack it open and enjoy.
I don’t think I’m alone here with my love of cans, here are two glaring examples of forward thinkers moving towards cans. The first, is our friend Bell’s Brewery. Bell’s gave us a tour of their facility and explained their plan for expansion. Included is their first ever canning line. If you’re anything like me, you’ll look like a Beiber-fan-girl when you first see these on the shelves.
Example number two: Heady Topper. If you know your craft beer, then you know that The Alchemist’s Heady Topper is consistently rated as one of the best IPA’s, hell, one of the best BEERS in the US. Not only does The Alchemist serve their highly regarded beer in a can, they actually tell you to drink it directly from the can. This ensures that no flavor is lost while pouring it into the glass. If cans were so bad, would you see these in circulation? I rest my case!
The Case for Bottles:
Ok, ok, cans are trendy and all, but when you think of beer, do you really think of a small, feeble, aluminum can? I mean, just do a Google image search of “Beer” and you’ll notice one thing — bottles are king. If you’ve ever had a bottled version of a beer that also comes in a can, you may notice something else — bottled versions taste better. Here’s why.
When you crack open a can of beer, you normally do so with the intention of drinking straight from that can. When you drink from a can you assuredly will touch your tongue to the can. That simple, yet fatal, action ruins the entire experience of drinking from a can. Instead of having beer delivered cleanly to your palate, you’re actually tasting metal and beer. You might as well be drinking a beer while sucking on a quarter, it tastes about the same. Breweries and manufacturers want to tell you that with the technology today you won’t taste the metal, but, psychologically, you taste it. In fact, the advances have come from the can lining, not the can itself, meaning that the beer won’t pick up metallic tastes, but your tongue licking the outer rim of the can still will.
Another thing about bottles is the class factor. I hate to bring our arch-nemesis wine into this, but craft beer is still fighting an uphill battle of perception among wine drinkers. You, as a craft beer fan, know that beer is amazing and wonderful and complex, but wine snobs still stick their nose in the air at drinking such a “lowly beverage”. Can you imagine going to your wine-loving in-law’s house with a can of beer? Let me save you the humiliation and give you a good, old-fashioned, bottle of craft beer.
Maybe the best part of beer bottles is that I can reuse them. Yes, cans are recyclable, but I can’t use a can as easily as I can use a bottle. See, I’m a home-brewer, and bottles can get costly. If I can drink a beer and save the bottle, I’ve just doubled my happiness. All I have to do is wash off the labels, give the inside a good cleaning and sanitizing, and they’re ready for use. If I buy a can of beer, I have to throw away the can, that’s just a waste!
Your Turn:
Voice in on our poll below. Do you prefer cans, bottles, or does it not matter as long as you have a glass?
[yop_poll id=”2″]Deadline TV contributor Diane Haithman files this report:
While some comedy series producers are still finalizing their selection of episodes to submit for Emmy nomination consideration, most have already chosen their best. Each series may submit 6 episodes for the Outstanding Comedy Series, as well as the same or other episodes in multiple different categories. So we asked series producers and/or studio executives to pick one of their submitted episodes and give Deadline readers insight into why this one might impress Emmy voters. In no particular order:
MODERN FAMILY (ABC): Episode title: “Someone To Watch Over Lily”
Story Line: Mitchell and Cameron are deciding who should be named legal guardian for their daughter Lily if something should happen to them — and, observing family members as they interact with th kids, aren’t too impressed with what they see. The “Lily” episode features multiple stories: Jay forms an unexpected bond with chubby stepson Manny in a sporting goods store while shopping to equip Manny for a school trip that Manny is reluctant to take. Meanwhile, Claire secretly takes son Luke to a child psychiatrist, fearing that Luke has a diagnosable problem.
Christopher Lloyd, co-executive producer and co-showrunner with Steven Levitan of last year’s winner for Outstanding Comedy Series, checks off his episode selection criteria: “A show that’s really funny, that showcases the actors’ best skills, but has an element of surprising emotion and heart to it.” This particular episode “had some surprising emotion to it,” Lloyd says. “We found out that Manny was concerned about being seen in the shower by other boys. Jay says: ‘I’m proud of you no matter what — you are way braver than I ever was at your age.’ Just hearing all that became enough for Manny to gather up the courage to go. But we weren’t telegraphing that moment at all; it came out of left field.” The same thing happened when the story of Claire taking Luke to a psychiatrist became a comment on Claire’s marriage as Claire blurts out she’s worried that Luke is becoming too much like his nerdy and obsessive Dad who reassures Claire: “Somewhere out there is a little girl making lists and labeling bins who will find him just like I found you.” Says Lloyd: “It’s one of those true emotional moments that just sneaks up on you. We have the craziness in the psychiatrist’s office: Phil is being distracted by a dinosaur, which is ridiculous, and Cameron being pulled up a rock climbing wall [in the sporting goods store] and ultimately being dropped, which is a big outrageous sight gag. But there are also these resonant and true moments.”
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THE BIG BANG THEORY (CBS): Episode title: “The Justice League Recombination”
Story line: The brainiac guys ask Penny’s none-too-bright boyfriend Zack to dress up and be part of their team when they enter a costume contest as The Justice League. The guys make fun of Zack, until they’re made to realize they’re bullying him just like they were/are bullied.
Says Big Bang showrunner Bill Prady: “There are a lot of voices when it comes to picking episodes to submit. In the case of this episode, fan reaction played a big part. Fans let us know that they thought this episode was “classic Big Bang.” It’s interesting to note that other episodes were chosen because they were atypical, while this one was chosen because it’s “highly typical” of the series.
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THE BIG C (Showtime): Episode title: “Taking the Plunge” (season finale)
Story line: Cathy reconsiders a risky cancer treatment and decides to go for it. Cathy’s son Adam, usually withdrawn and diffident about his mother’s grim prognosis, steals a storage locker key from her purse and finds the locker filled with wrapped gifts from his mom for his birthdays and holidays far into the future. Adam’s hard veneer cracks and he dissolves into tears.
Says Big C showrunner Jenny Bicks: “It was important that people see the highly comedic nature of the show, but also what we consider to be our most successful dramatic moments. Our finale really touched people. It is a bit of a game, because you want to pick the thing that people already remember, that will remind them that they liked the series. Does it have the highest comedy in it? Not necessarily. That was hard, because I do understand that we are asking people to vote for a comedy.” To that end, The Big C creative team also included in their package the more comic episode “Playing the Cancer Car” – in which Cathy, faced with death, drains her 401K and buys herself a red convertible. This is based on cancer survivor Bicks’ own decision to buy herself a Porsche when she learned she had the Big C.
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GLEE (FOX): Episode title: “The Substitute”
Story line: Gwyneth Paltrow guest stars as a substitute teacher who takes over Mr. Schuester’s Spanish class as well as the Glee Club.
Says a 20th TV studio spokesman: “Academy award winner Gwyneth Paltrow turned in a triple threat scene-stealing performance as substitute teacher Holly Holliday in this classic episode which features Paltrow’s take on Cee Lo’s Forget You, a brilliant tour de force rendition of Make ‘Em Laugh by stars Matthew Morrison and Harry Shum Jr, and a fanciful mash-up of Singin’ In The Rain with Rihanna’s Umbrella that had the cast singing, dancing, and splashing their way across a rain-soaked auditorium stage.”
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HOT IN CLEVELAND (TV Land): Episode: “Pilot”
Story line: The pilot introduces a group of middle-aged single Los Angeles gal pals who relocate to Cleveland to find love and a new life away from age and beauty-obsessed Los Angeles.
This first-season series picked this episode in the hope that red-hot cast member Betty White might be a contender for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, focusing some attention on this comedy. It was felt the pilot would introduce Emmy voters to a show they may not have seen. “We really wanted to showcase the writing,” says TV Land EVP of development Keith Cox. “I’d say the pilot sold the characters, but it also had a great premise: the starting of a new chapter for these women. They are fish out of water. It celebrated Cleveland. And it really set up Betty’s character.”
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COMMUNITY (NBC): Episode title: “Cooperative Calligraphy” (also known as “The Bottle Episode”)
Story line: The characters take a self-imposed lockdown in order to solve the mysterious disappearance of Annie’s pen. Meanwhile, Troy and Abed are, according to the official PR, “itching to get out of the study room to make it to the Greendale Puppy Parade taking place on the quad”.
Showrunner Dan Harmon says the producers selected this episode to illustrate the serious side of this comedy in the sense that it’s got structured writing, realistic story, and believable character development to belie the show’s reputation for being “a little bit crazy” and intellectually off the grid. “This was certainly a demonstration of the show’s range,” Harmon says. “I put myself in the shoes of an Emmy voter, popping [a DVD] in having never seen the show. I want to see character, I want to see story, I want to see television taken seriously. It’s grounded in character. Nobody is wearing a weird costume; no one is acting like they’re in The Matrix.”
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FAMILY GUY (Fox): Episode title: “Road to the North Pole”
Story line: When baby Stewie gets the brush-off from a mall Santa Claus, Stewie and Brian the family dog travel to the North Pole to teach Santa the meaning of Christmas.
Family Guy is known for its “Road to…’’ episodes, inspired by the Bing Crosby/Bob Hope movies. Says a 20th TV studio spokesman: “It’s a twisted take on the obligatory Christmas episode as only Family Guy could do it.” The episode also features musical numbers described as “both timeless and wickedly current”.
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NURSE JACKIE (Showtime): Episode title: “Orchids and Salami”
Story line: Multiple stories include Jackie at odds with a new nurse and stealing drugs from the oncology ward. Then her husband finds her secret stash.
Showrunners Liz Brixius and Linda Wallem included this episode in part because of the nifty way it links Season One with Season Two and highlights Jackie’s dirty little secret – drug addiction. “In Season Two, you watched Jackie lose her pills in the car in a dental floss container. And in this Season Three episode, her husband finds them. So they come back to haunt her,” says Brixius.
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RAISING HOPE (Fox): Episode title: “Don’t Vote for this Episode” (season finale)
Story line: The 20th TV PR describes how The Chances reminisce about the year Jimmy turned 18 — when Maw Maw kicked them out of the house, when a Goth Jimmy (aka “Drakkar Noir”) took up residence in the grocery store, and when Burt and Virginia finally figured out how to be adults.
Obviously the creative team had Emmy in mind when selecting the episode’s title. According to a studio spokesman, the season finale which uses “tender flashbacks” to tell the history of the Chance family from five years ago was selected because it embodies “the brassy humor mixed with heart that have become the show’s trademark”.
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30 ROCK (NBC): Episode title: “100”
Story line: This much ballyhooed hour-long special episode — 45 minutes of actual running time – marked both the 100th episode of 30 Rock and its show-within-a-show, “GTS” which is threatened with cancellation. But the powers-that-be convince the network to give Liz (Tina Fey) and company the chance to do their 100th episode,
The episode was loaded with guest stars including Rachel Dratch and Michael Keaton (although the New York Post reported that Fey’s request for a guest appearance by Bill Clinton was denied by his staff “without even asking him”). The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences allows an extended-length program to be entered for Emmy as one episode provided it does not exceed twice the show’s usual running time. 30 Rock usually runs 22 minutes, so 45 minutes hit the mark close enough.Schor is the lead organizer for the Summer Institute in New Economics, which debuted last year at Boston College and will have its second session Aug. 12-18 in Wisconsin. She will be among a diverse group of faculty members and graduate students — as well as practitioners and entrepreneurs of new economy projects — that will discuss new economics-related research and educational opportunities.
The new economics movement is grounded in principles of ecological sustainability, democratization of wealth, community empowerment and social and digital connection, says Schor, and is a response to continuing unemployment, worsening distributions of income and wealth, and a lack of action on climate change, among other factors.
“While there is a groundswell of interest in new economics in the private and public sectors, research and teaching has lagged behind, especially in graduate education,” says Schor. “Through this institute, we hope to begin developing an academic infrastructure, and train young scholars to bring an interdisciplinary perspective to their work on new economics.”
In addition to Schor, the BC contingent at this year’s institute will be History Professor Prasannan Parthasarathi, doctoral students Jeremiah Morelock, Will Attwood-Charles and Katy Olson and master’s degree student Elizabeth Brennan, joining attendees from Australia, Canada, Colombia, England and The Netherlands as well as the US. Also on hand will be new economy figures such as Erika Allen from Growing Power, an urban agriculture nonprofit; Steve Dubb from the Democracy Collaborative, which promotes broad-based community development and Diego Angarita from Massachusetts-based Co-op Power, a consumer-owned renewable energy cooperative.
For Morelock, who holds degrees from Goddard College and Antioch New England Graduate School, new economics represents a creative step beyond old paradigms and developing economic arrangements that better reflect social realities and needs.
“People often talk about ‘the economy’ as if it is an intrinsic force that we are largely helpless before, that possibilities for economic systems lie on a continuum between an unfettered competitive market and a centralized, top down, planned economy,” he explained. “In reality, all economic relationships are social relationships first, and economies are much more complex than the issue of competition vs. control.”
Morelock sees the emerging field of new economics as a good fit for his academic interests, which revolve around power and bureaucracy in organizations. ”I expect for these to continue to be some of my main areas of focus as a researcher and teacher. What draws me to new economics most is investigating the social aspects of various economic arrangements that are designed with dedicated attention to equality, democracy, and sustainability.”
The institute is sponsored by the Johnson Foundation — which is hosting the event at its retreat center, a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home in Wind Point, Wisc. — the Garfield Foundation and the Compton Foundation.Raw Milk is Most Widely Consumed Illegal Commodity Besides Drugs
Do you drink raw milk? If you live in one of the states where raw milk is illegal, you may be part of underground movement that is second in size only to illegal drugs. It’s legal to consume raw milk in all 50 states if you own your own dairy cow, but it is not legal to sell it if you live in one of the 46 states that have adopted the Pasteurized Milk Ordinance (PMO). The PMO states that only Grade “A” pasteurized, ultra-pasteurized or aseptically processed milk and milk products can be sold to the final consumer, and federal law makes it illegal to transport raw milk across state lines. Such laws make raw milk drinkers underground consumers like illegal drug users.
In the United States, between 500,000 to 1,000,000 people drink raw milk (remember, it’s hard to get statistics on an underground market). Raw milk has long been touted for its health benefits, and recently Chelsea Green and MSN have reported on the black market for raw milk.
After illegal drugs, raw milk — milk that’s unpasteurized and unhomogenized, just as it comes out of the cow — may be the most briskly traded underground commodity in America.
To get raw milk, consumers jump through a variety of hoops. From belonging to a herdshare (similar to a CSA) to meeting vans in the early morning, raw milk drinkers are finding ways around federal and state laws. Some consumers buy raw milk in neighboring states where it is is legal and transport it home themselves. Other people drive several hours to a raw milk pick up site as part of a raw milk club. MSN reports:
There’s good reason for these clubs to be cautious. While state authorities rarely go after raw milk buyers, distributors have gotten in trouble — late last year an Ohio raw milk co-op was raided at gunpoint by sheriffs’ deputies. And state officials regularly try to shut down dairies that sell raw milk. The Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, which defends farmers’ right to sell raw milk, has a dozen cases on its docket right now. “People have the legal right to drink it,” says Pete Kennedy, interim president. “The problem is finding ways to enable them to exercise their right.”
Ron Paul wants to make drinking raw milk a personal choice and remove federal regulation. There is no doubt pasteurization has prevented illnesses, but when consumers are locavores that know the sources of their dairy products, the risk is minimized. Personally, I have never experienced negative consequences of consuming raw milk or raw milk products.
RelatedMercedes driver Lewis Hamilton has another gear to hit this season and will be "almost impossible to beat", says former world champion Damon Hill.
Hamilton won his fourth consecutive race of the season on Sunday to take the championship lead from team-mate Nico Rosberg.
Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes car has dominated Formula 1 so far this season
"Up until this season, it always looked like Lewis's focus could go at any time," said Hill, 53.
"He now seems to have the demeanour of someone who is totally content."
London-born Hill, who won the world title in 1996, added: "I do wonder if he is just cruising. I think he has another gear. He is so focused on the job, I think he will be almost impossible to beat."
Hamilton's season started badly when the 29-year-old retired from the season-opening Australian Grand Prix with an engine issue.
But he bounced back with an impressive win in Malaysia and then held off a fast-charging Rosberg to take a thrilling victory in Bahrain.
A third triumph followed in China and then in Spain at the weekend.
He was beaten by Rosberg in the sessions leading up to qualifying at the Circuit de Catalunya but took pole from his German team-mate.
"Nico had two opportunities to beat Lewis - in Bahrain and Spain - but he let them slip through his fingers," said Hill. "That might already be too much to recover from."
Hamilton's results this season Australia: retired
retired Malaysia: 1st
1st Bahrain: 1st
1st China: 1st
1st Spain: 1st
Former British F1 driver Derek Warwick, 59, agreed with Hill that there is more to come from Hamilton this season.
"I think there is another gear and I think you'll see it at Silverstone for the British Grand Prix in July, in front of his home fans," said Warwick, who is president of the British Racing Drivers' Club president.
"Great drivers find a level and are able to raise their game to reach it. Just think of Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and now Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton."
Despite beating Rosberg to victory in Bahrain and Spain, Hamilton insisted the German, who won the opening race in Australia. was faster.
Jenson Button suggested Hamilton, his former team-mate at McLaren, was playing "mind games", a sentiment agreed with by Warwick.
"Of course it's mind games," he said. "Drivers are competitive animals. The first thing you do is try to get into the mind of your team-mate."
The next race of the season takes place in Monaco between 22-25 May.Sequels are set for release in late 2014 and 2015.
UPDATED 4:50 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2010
James Cameron has committed to making two sequels to his record-breaking 3D epic "Avatar" for Fox. The movies are scheduled for release in late 2014 and 2015, which means he won't direct other features for the next three or four years.
The writer-director had conversations with Columbia about directing "Cleopatra," starring Angelina Jolie, but |
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[ 592.806936] Purging GPU memory, 0 bytes freed, 4767744 bytes still pinned. [ 592.807330] Purging GPU memory, 0 bytes freed, 4767744 bytes still pinned. [ 592.807668] Purging GPU memory, 0 bytes freed, 4767744 bytes still pinned. [ 592.807981] Purging GPU memory, 0 bytes freed, 4767744 bytes still pinned. [ 592.808256] Purging GPU memory, 0 bytes freed, 4767744 bytes still pinned. [ 592.808544] Purging GPU memory, 0 bytes freed, 4767744 bytes still pinned. [ 592.808832] Purging GPU memory, 0 bytes freed, 4767744 bytes still pinned. [ 592.809139] Purging GPU memory, 0 bytes freed, 4767744 bytes still pinned. [ 592.811443] Purging GPU memory, 0 bytes freed, 4767744 bytes still pinned. [ 592.811790] Purging GPU memory, 0 bytes freed, 4767744 bytes still pinned. [ 592.812116] Purging GPU memory, 0 bytes freed, 4767744 bytes still pinned. [ 592.812394] Purging GPU memory, 0 bytes freed, 4767744 bytes still pinned. 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[ 592.816426] Purging GPU memory, 0 bytes freed, 4767744 bytes still pinned. [ 592.816769] Purging GPU memory, 0 bytes freed, 4767744 bytes still pinned. [ 592.817187] Purging GPU memory, 0 bytes freed, 4767744 bytes still pinned. [ 592.817571] Purging GPU memory, 0 bytes freed, 4767744 bytes still pinned. [ 592.817859] Purging GPU memory, 0 bytes freed, 4767744 bytes still pinned. [ 592.818174] Purging GPU memory, 0 bytes freed, 4767744 bytes still pinned.With Donald Trump’s inauguration impending, an empowered GOP is gearing up to enact their policy goals at every level of the government. While all eyes are on the Republicans in Congress and their rapid-fire repeal of crucial components of the Affordable Care Act, Republicans on a local level are taking the first steps towards removing long-standing policy and injecting their own, ideologically-driven laws without much resistance. One such policymaker is Arizona Rep. Bob Thorpe.
Bob Thorpe, a Republican representing Arizona’s 6th Legislative District in Flagstaff and rural Northern Arizona, has been a representative in the Arizona State House of Reps since 2013. Thorpe has recently made national news for the introduction of HB2120, a bill that sought to bar primary, secondary, and university curriculum from including anything that “advocates solidarity…based on ethnicity, race, religion, gender or social class”, among other conditions which effectively ban social justice, ethnic studies, or gender studies at all educational levels at Arizona public schools.
The bill immediately received scorn from Arizona students on Twitter and other social media accounts, and late from national news outlets, including an article penned by Shaun King for the New York Daily Caller. Despite this, the bill received its first read from Speaker J.D. Mesnard and was assigned to the House Education committee, only to be shut down by the committee’s chairman, Rep. Paul Boyer.
Despite HB2120 being dead for the moment, Thorpe’s agenda is representative of the empowered Tea Party and Trumpist wing of the Republican Party. Thorpe also recently introduced HB2260, which seeks to ban college students from voting from their university residential addresses. This move is in-line with national GOP policy, which has sought to systematically curtail the right to vote across all local and state boundaries under their legislative control.
Looking further back at his legislative history, Thorpe has consistently towed the extremist right-wing line in the party, calling for an end to the Endangered Species Act in 2014. Thorpe also introduced a bill to stop Arizona’s participation in new EPA standards that same year. Looking at the Representative’s campaign website, he lists “State’s Rights”, “Sovereignty”, and “Limited Government” as three of his top concerns as a legislator. These “issues”, however, are just thinly-coded language to expand his party’s neoliberal agenda at the expense of the people of Arizona. Thorpe received an F from the Sierra Club’s Grand Canyon chapter for environmental policy, and voted yes on SB1318 last year, limiting a woman’s right to choose and earning him scorn from local Planned Parenthood chapters.
However, Thorpe’s anti-student and anti-Arizonan antics may serve as a boon to local resistance against the wave of extremist conservative politics in the state. At Arizona State University, political and student power organizations like Rebuild the Hope, Students for a Democratic Society, and United Students Against Sweatshops immediately responded to Thorpe’s new bills, organizing protests, call-in’s to Thorpe’s office, and a vast social media campaign. These actions served to catalyze the opposition to Thorpe, and were instrumental towards Rep. Boyer’s rejection of the bill.
The fight against Thorpe serves as a model for anti-GOP activism across the country, showing the power of quick local organizing against extreme conservative propositions. Attention must be paid to the GOP’s goals at every level of government, and responses must be swift in order to protect the people who would be harmed under their policies.It was hardly the obvious place for Jose Mourinho to have an epiphany about his best Manchester United line-up, but that September night at Sixfields in Northampton may have saved their season.
After three damaging defeats on the bounce, the last thing Mourinho and United needed was a tricky EFL Cup draw against a voracious League One side rarely beaten in their own backyard.
To safeguard against an upset, Mourinho decided to partner Ander Herrera and Michael Carrick in midfield and in so doing stumbled upon a winning formula that continues to serve him well.
Ander Herrera scores in the EFL Cup at Northampton, the match that persuaded Jose Mourinho to offer him more regular football in the Manchester United team
Herrera celebrates with Marcus Rashford after United secured safe passage at Northampton
Since then, Herrera has been a regular fixture in Jose Mourinho's United team
When he started on the bench for four of United's first Premier League matches, Herrera must have thought Mourinho was going to be just as unappreciative of his talents as his predecessor Louis van Gaal.
In two seasons at Old Trafford, the quiet and unassuming Spaniard had only been afforded occasional opportunities to let his feet do the talking and this campaign just promised more sitting on his backside in the dug-out.
But a Herrera goal and assist steered United past Northampton and when he started and helped United to a 4-1 victory over defending champions Leicester City the following Saturday, it was clear things had changed.
Since then, Herrera has been an indispensable part of Mourinho's team. In tandem with Carrick, he has enabled £89million signing Paul Pogba to be liberated and brought greater balance to United's midfield.
Louis van Gaal never fully appreciated Herrera's talents during his two years in charge
Mourinho has been more willing to play Herrera on a regular basis this season
ANDER HERRERA STATS IN THE PREMIER LEAGUE 2014-15 2015-16 2016-17 Appearances 26 27 15 Minutes played 1868 1532 1187 Average minutes per app. 72 57 79 Goals 6 3 0 Total shots 37 24 20 Assists 4 2 2 Chances created 26 21 16 Passes 1554 1097 1016 Successful passes 1386 922 888 Passing accuracy % 89.2 84.1 87.4 Tackles 73 56 40 Interceptions 51 24 47 Yellow cards 6 4 2 Red cards 0 0 1 Average shots per game 1.8 1.4 1.5 Average passes per game 74.9 64.4 77 Successful passes per game 66.8 54.2 67.3 Minutes per chance created 71.8 73 74.2 Tackles per game 3.5 3.3 3 Interceptions per game 2.5 1.4 3.6 Source: Opta
This heat map from United's 1-1 draw at Everton shows how Herrera covers the whole field
The midfielder put in another all-action performance against Sunderland on Boxing Day
In almost every facet of his game, Herrera has shown improvement this season and all that was required was the consistent faith of a manager.
One stat in particular illustrates the work ethic of Herrera that is often overlooked - he has made more interceptions this season (47) than any other midfielder in the Premier League.
His tally is one more than Chelsea's famously inexhaustible midfielder N'Golo Kante and all the more noteworthy when you consider that Herrera has reached his total in just 1,189 minutes of league football as opposed to Kante's 1,530.
The increased game time naturally gives a more positive slant to Herrera's numbers, but the average number of successful passes has risen from 54.2 per game last season to 67.3 this.
Herrera has registered more interceptions this season than Chelsea workhorse N'Golo Kante
Herrera makes a slide challenge on Sunderland striker Fabio Borini on Boxing Day
The United midfielder steers the ball away from Sunderland's Patrick van Aanholt
Herrera leaps to beat Everton's Idrissa Gueye to a header in the match at Goodison Park
The Spanish midfielder beats Tottenham's Heung-min Son to the ball at Old Trafford
Most interceptions in the Premier League 66 - Curtis Davies 54 - Winston Reid; Nacho Monreal 51 - Laurent Koscielny 47 - Papy Djilobodji; Ander Herrera 46 - Virgil van Dijk; N'Golo Kante 45 - Antonio Barragan; Ben Mee
And despite a deep midfield role, Herrera has already contributed two Premier League assists - the same as in the whole of last season - and created 16 chances. In 2015-16, he created 21 chances in the whole campaign.
It cannot be a coincidence either that Herrera's regular presence in the United side has resulted in an unbeaten run of nine Premier League matches dating back to their 4-0 loss at Chelsea back on October 23.
Having rediscovered the knack of converting draws into victories, United have also won their last four in the league and will be strong favourites to make that five when they host Middlesbrough on New Year's Eve.
It has contributed to a feel-good factor at Old Trafford, particularly from Mourinho, as their early season troubles are left behind.In Washington, the highest of the high country can be snowed in deep from October to June. And that’s true even in a warm winter like this one. But no matter where the mercury falls, there’s a place to lace up your boots—whether you’re craving a quadburner or a riverside ramble, a quick morning jaunt or an all-day, road-tripping adventure.
Here, our suggestions for five great winter hikes in Seattle.
1. Baker Lake Trail
Mount Baker, Baker Lake —the views of one from the other are spectacular, and with a low trailhead elevation of around 1,000 feet, the route stays snow-free almost all year round. This hike is a Northwest grab bag: old-growth Douglas fir draped with lichen, cedar |
akistani army surrenders at Dhaka and its army of more than 90,000 become Indian prisoners of war
East Pakistan becomes the independent country of Bangladesh on 16 December 1971
Exact number of people killed is unclear - Bangladesh says it is three million but independent researchers say it is up to 500,000 fatalities Watershed moment Key defendants Article that changed history
News of the death sentence on Sayeedi was met with jubilation by some demonstrators on the streets.
Sayeedi is the third person to be convicted by the tribunal so far, and the most senior. It is trying a total of nine Jamaat leaders and two members of the BNP.
Sayeedi was accused of working with the al-Badr group during the independence struggle and carrying out numerous atrocities, including forcibly converting Hindus to Islam.
His critics say that during the war, he formed a small group to loot and seize the property of Bengali Hindus and those who supported independence.
Earlier this month, another Jamaat leader, Abdul Kader Mullah, was sentenced to life for crimes against humanity.
In January, former party leader Abul Kalam Azad was found guilty in absentia of eight charges of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death.
The special court was set up in 2010 by the current Bangladeshi government to deal with those accused of collaborating with Pakistani forces who attempted to stop East Pakistan (as Bangladesh was then) from becoming an independent country.
But human rights groups have said the tribunal falls short of international standards.Born in Seville, and a first-team player at Sevilla until his switch to Anfield in summer 2014, left-back Alberto Moreno knows Liverpool's final opponents better than anyone at his club. The 23-year-old ponders what it will take to beat the Hispalenses in the final.
On making it to the final…
It's fantastic. Playing in a final is a wonderful thing for any footballer, and especially in our case. It's been a very tough Europa League campaign. We've had to play some very strong opponents like Manchester United, Borussia [Dortmund], and Villarreal, and we deserve to be in Basel. We made quite a slow start to this competition – we drew a lot of matches – but everything changed when Klopp came in. He wanted to win the Europa League so badly and through taking it step by step, we've managed to reach the final.
On Jürgen Klopp's influence…
Since Klopp's arrival, everything's been different. All the players have been performing at 100%. We've all been convinced that we can achieve something big in the Europa League, and you can see that in every Europa League match; they've all been like finals for us. He is very close to the players and talks to everybody. He transmits a lot of confidence and a lot of passion, and it's great for the players that the coach is always motivated; that certainly helps you when you take to the pitch. So we've really felt a change, and we've managed to reach the final in Basel thanks to him.
Log in for free to watch the highlights Moreno discusses his bond with Sevilla
On facing hometown side Sevilla…
It will be a strange final. I was born in Seville, I'm from Seville and I'm a Sevilla fan. I was at Sevilla for ten years – from a young age – but now I'm a Liverpool player; I'm happy here and I’m developing further. A year and a half ago I was sharing the dressing room with my friends at Sevilla, and now I'll be facing them in a European final. It will be fantastic, and I can't wait for the day of the final. Winning the 2014 final with Sevilla is a wonderful memory. Winning a trophy is amazing – it was my first year as a professional, and winning the Europa League straight away was brilliant. Would I love to win it again? Of course. Everybody wants to win every possible trophy.
Log in for free to watch the highlights Basel awaits final showdown
On what Liverpool need to do to beat Sevilla…
Sevilla have a very good team, and as everybody knows they've reached three consecutive Europa League finals. They're a tough team with some great players, but we've also had a fantastic Europa League campaign, and we've become stronger and stronger. We have to be ourselves – we have to believe in ourselves, and do what we know how to do. Belief is the most important thing. You should never let your head drop, and knowing that – with the support of all our fans and all our families who will be there to cheer us on – we will try to give everything to win that final.
Log in for free to watch the highlights Watch how Liverpool made the final
On what it would mean to win it again…
Since I got here I've wanted to win trophies with Liverpool. We lost to Manchester City in the League Cup final, so it would be just fantastic to win the Europa League. The club and the fans need a trophy. They deserve it, because they're always there to support us and have managed to push the team forward. They deserve a trophy even more than we do.(Health.com) -- Biking for as little as five minutes a day can help women minimize weight gain as they enter middle age, especially if they're overweight to begin with, a new study suggests.
The study followed more than 18,000 premenopausal women between the ages of 25 and 42 for 16 years. During that time, the women gained an average of about 20.5 pounds.
Women who started biking for just five minutes a day gained about 1.5 fewer pounds over the course of the study than similar women who didn't take up biking, the researchers found. Women who increased their daily biking by 30 minutes during the study kept even more weight off, gaining about 3.5 fewer pounds than those whose biking habits stayed the same.
Health.com: 30-minute workout, no gym required
"Bicycling is an answer to weight control," says the lead author of the study, Dr. Anne Lusk, Ph.D., a research fellow in nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, in Boston. "Walking is not necessarily an answer, unless the person is walking briskly."
Indeed, Lusk and her colleagues found that women who increased the time they spent walking briskly by 30 minutes per day during the study gained about four pounds less than their peers who didn't increase their walking. (A "brisk" pace is three miles per hour or more.) On the other hand, women who only walked slowly did not manage to prevent any weight gain.
Health.com: How carbs can help you lose weight
Women who were overweight or obese at the start of the study experienced even better results than normal-weight women when they increased their daily physical activity. Overweight women who biked for 30 extra minutes per day over the course of the study gained about seven pounds less than those who didn't, for instance.
The findings should encourage overweight women to not give up on exercise, says Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum, D.O., director of Women and Heart Disease at Lenox Hill Hospital, in New York City. "People tend to say, 'I'm too fat. I can't do it. It's too difficult.' A study like this reminds them not to give up. Do something."
Health.com: 25 diet-busting foods you should never eat
The study appears this week in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Previous research has shown the weight benefits of daily walking, but few studies have focused specifically on biking and none have compared walking with biking.
"A lot of information on physical activity provided to women is very general, encouraging daily activity, but not specifically what kind," says Keri Gans, a spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association. "This study encourages an activity that is not expensive and that almost all women can easily engage in. And if a woman is presently a walker, it's good to know that she must pick up her pace."
Biking and walking are easier than many other forms of exercise to incorporate into everyday life, Lusk points out. "[They] can be a routine part of the day, so you can get your physical activity as a normal part of the day," she says.
The study participants were all nurses and are part of a larger, national study on health and lifestyle that began in 1989. Women with physical problems that make regular exercise difficult were excluded from the current study, as were women who reported chronic health conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, or cancer.
Health.com: 7 foods that fight fat
At the start of the study, half of the participants reported walking slowly, 39 percent said they walked briskly, and 48 percent said they biked (including working out on a stationary bike).
By 2005, the average physical activity had increased slightly but remained very low overall. Participants walked briskly for just one hour per week, on average, and biked for only about 18 minutes per week. Meanwhile they sat around the house for about 2.5 hours a day.
Current guidelines recommend that adults get at least 30 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise on most days of the week, a goal that many women in the study appear to be well below.
Health.com: What's your workout personality?
Individuals can't bear all of the blame for that inactivity, Lusk and her colleagues suggest. Their physical surroundings may also be partly responsible.
Although some cities and towns have encouraged walking and biking (by adding sidewalks and bike lanes, for instance), the U.S. remains a "car-centric nation," they write.
Nine percent of commuters in the U.S. walk to work and just 0.5 percent bike, according to data cited in the study. By contrast, in the Netherlands, where the roads are more bike-friendly, 22 percent of commuters walk to work and 27 percent bike.
"We need to provide the infrastructure or facilities so that more people could comfortably bicycle," Lusk says. "In the U.S., the emphasis has been on the walking environment and not on the bicycling environment."
Copyright Health Magazine 2011Walter Benjamin Lantz (April 27, 1899 – March 22, 1994)[1] was an American cartoonist, animator, film producer, director and actor best known for founding Walter Lantz Productions and creating Woody Woodpecker.[2][3]
Biography [ edit ]
Early years and start in animation [ edit ]
Lantz was born in New Rochelle, New York, to Italian immigrant parents, Francesco Paolo Lantz (formerly Lanza) and Maria Gervasi from Calitri.[4] According to Joe Adamson's biography, The Walter Lantz Story, Lantz's father was given his new surname by an immigration official who anglicized it. Walter Lantz was always interested in art, completing a mail-order drawing class at age 12. He was inspired when he saw Winsor McCay's animated short, "Gertie the Dinosaur".
While working as an auto mechanic, Lantz got his first break. Wealthy customer Fred Kafka liked his drawings on the garage's bulletin board and financed Lantz's studies at the Art Students League of New York. Kafka also helped him land a job as a copy boy at the New York American, owned by William Randolph Hearst. Lantz worked at the newspaper and attended art school at night.
By the age of 16, Lantz was working in the animation department under director Gregory La Cava. Lantz then worked at the John R. Bray Studios on the Jerry On The Job series. In 1924, Lantz directed, animated, and even starred in his first cartoon series, "Dinky Doodle", which included the popular fairy tale animated shorts Cinderella (1925) and Little Red Riding Hood (1925)[5]. Lantz soon replaced George "Vernon" Stallings as head of production at Bray. (In the 1920s, Bray began to concentrate on competing with Hal Roach, the "king of two-reelers"). Lantz moved to Hollywood, California, after Bray switched to a publicity film studio in 1927, where he attempted to set up his own cartoon studio with Pinto Colvig, but their sound cartoons never got produced. In the meantime, he worked briefly for director Frank Capra and was a gag writer for Mack Sennett comedies.[6] He also resorted to odd jobs, one of them being the chauffeur for one of Hollywood's most important moguls.
The Oswald era [ edit ]
In 1928, Lantz was hired by Charles B. Mintz as director on the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon series for Universal Pictures. Earlier that year, Mintz and his brother-in-law George Winkler had succeeded in snatching Oswald from the character's creator, Walt Disney. Universal president Carl Laemmle grew dissatisfied with the Mintz-Winkler product and fired them, deciding instead to produce the Oswalds on the Universal lot. While schmoozing with Laemmle, Lantz wagered that if he could beat Laemmle in a game of poker, the character would be his. As fate would have it, Lantz won the bet, and Oswald was now his character.
Lantz inherited many of his initial staff, including animator Tom Palmer and musician Bert Fiske from the Winkler studio, but importantly he chose fellow New York animator, Bill Nolan, to help develop the series. Nolan's previous credentials included inventing the panorama background and developing a new, streamlined "Felix the Cat". Nolan was (and still is) best known for perfecting the "rubber hose" style of animation. In September 1929, Lantz released his first cartoon, "Race Riot".
By 1935, he parted company with Nolan. Lantz became an independent producer, supplying cartoons to Universal instead of merely overseeing the animation department. By 1940, he was negotiating ownership for the characters with whom he had been working.
The Woody Woodpecker era [ edit ]
When Oswald had worn out his welcome, Lantz needed a new character. Meany, Miny, and Moe (three ne'er-do-well chimps), Baby-Face Mouse, Snuffy Skunk, Doxie (a comic dachshund), and Jock and Jill (monkeys that resembled Warner Brothers' Bosko) were some personalities Lantz and his staff came up with. However, one character, Andy Panda, stood out and soon became Lantz's headline star for the 1939–1940 production season.
In 1940, Lantz married actress Grace Stafford. During their honeymoon, the couple kept hearing a woodpecker incessantly pecking on their roof. Grace suggested that Walter use the bird for inspiration as a cartoon character. Taking her advice, though a bit skeptical, Lantz debuted Woody Woodpecker in an Andy Panda short, Knock Knock. The brash woodpecker character was similar to the early Daffy Duck, and Lantz liked the results enough to build a series around it.
Mel Blanc supplied Woody's voice for the first three cartoons. When Blanc accepted a full-time contract with Warner Bros. and left the Lantz studio, Woody's voice was taken over by Danny Webb, who would only voice the character in the next two shorts before being replaced by Kent Rogers. After Rogers went into the service due to World War II, gagman Ben Hardaway, the man who was the main force behind Knock Knock, became the bird's voice. Despite this, Blanc's distinctive laugh was still used throughout the cartoons until 1951.
In 1948, the Lantz studio created a hit Academy Award-nominated song titled "The Woody Woodpecker Song", featuring Blanc's laugh. Mel Blanc sued Lantz for half a million dollars, claiming that Lantz had used his voice in later cartoons without permission. The judge, however, ruled for Lantz, saying that Blanc had failed to copyright his voice or his contributions. Though Lantz won the case, he paid Blanc in an out-of-court settlement when Blanc filed an appeal, and Lantz went in search for a new voice for Woody Woodpecker.
In 1950, Lantz held anonymous auditions. Grace, Lantz's wife, offered to do Woody's voice; however, Lantz turned her down because Woody was a male character. Not discouraged in the least, Grace made her own anonymous audition tape, and submitted it to the studio. Not knowing who was behind the voice he heard, Lantz picked Grace's voice for Woody Woodpecker. Grace supplied Woody's voice until the end of production in 1972, and also performed in non-Woody cartoons. At first, Grace voiced Woody without screen credit, thinking that it would disappoint child viewers to know that Woody Woodpecker was voiced by a woman. However, she soon came to enjoy being known as the voice of Woody Woodpecker, and, starting with 1958's Misguided Missile, allowed her name to be credited on the screen. Her version of Woody was cuter and friendlier than the manic Woody of the 1940s, and Lantz's artists redesigned the character to suit the new personality.
Lantz's harmonious relationship with Universal, the studio releasing his cartoons, was jarred when new ownership transformed the company into Universal-International and did away with many of Universal's company policies. The new management insisted on owning licensing and merchandising rights to Lantz's characters. Lantz refused and withdrew from the parent company by the end of 1947, releasing 12 cartoons independently through United Artists in 1948, into the beginning of 1949. Financial difficulties forced Lantz to shut down his studio in 1949. Universal-International re-released Lantz's UA (and several earlier) cartoons during the shutdown and eventually came to terms with Lantz, who resumed production in 1951. From this point forward, Lantz worked faster and cheaper, no longer using the lush, artistic backgrounds and stylings that had distinguished his 1940s work.
Lantz used his TV appearances on The Woody Woodpecker Show (which began in 1957) to demonstrate the animation process. Later, Lantz entertained the troops during the Vietnam War and visited hospitalized veterans. Walter Lantz was a good friend of movie innovator George Pal.
Retirement and death [ edit ]
By the 1960s, other movie studios had discontinued their animation departments, leaving Walter Lantz as one of two producers still making cartoons for theaters (the other studio was DePatie-Freleng Enterprises). Lantz finally closed up shop in 1972 (by then, he explained, it was economically impossible to continue producing them and stay in business as rising inflation had strained his profits), and Universal serviced the remaining demand with reissues of his older cartoons.
In retirement, Lantz continued to manage his properties by licensing them to media. He continued to draw and paint, selling his paintings of Woody Woodpecker rapidly. On top of that, he worked with Little League and other youth groups in his area. In 1982, Lantz donated 17 artifacts to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History, among them a wooden model of Woody Woodpecker from the cartoon character's debut in 1941. The Lantzes also made time to visit hospitals and other institutions where Walter would draw Woody and Grace would do the Woody laugh for patients.
During the 1980s and 1990s Lantz served on the advisory board of the National Student Film Institute.[7][8]
In 1990, Woody Woodpecker was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 1993, Lantz established a $10,000 scholarship and prize for animators in his name at California Institute of the Arts in Valencia. Walter Lantz died at St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, California from heart failure on March 22, 1994, aged 94.
Characters [ edit ]
Some characters in the Lantz universe (both cartoons and comics) are Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (formerly), Andy Panda, Space Mouse, Woody Woodpecker, Inspector Willoughby, Homer Pigeon, Chilly Willy, Lil' Eightball, Charlie Chicken, Wally Walrus, and many more.
Awards [ edit ]
In 1959, Lantz was honored by the Los Angeles City Council as "one of America's most outstanding animated film cartoonists".
In 1973, the international animation society, ASIFA/Hollywood, presented him with its Annie Award.
In 1979, he was given a special Academy Award "for bringing joy and laughter to every part of the world through his unique animated motion pictures", being the second animator to receive this award (the first was Walt Disney, who received it three times, while Chuck Jones was in 1995 the third to receive the merit).
In 1986, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.[9][10]
See also [ edit ]A Stig lookalike made an impromptu pit stop for a curry last week.
A lookalike of the Top Gear stunt driver, whose real identity remains a secret, pulled-in to India Dining restaurant in Warlingham.
Other diners sat speechless as he tried to push a selection of Indian dishes through his visor.
He sat alone and in silence for almost 45 minutes during his visit on February 11.
But fellow diners said he did manage a grumble when he was presented with the bill.
Restaurant owner Asad Khan said lookalike was in the region to launch the new BMW 3 Series and had stopped-by for lunch.
He said: "We were delighted to have him dine with us."
Tony Lewis, from BMW Croydon, said: “What more could we have asked for?”
The lookalike – known for his inability to talk – was unable to comment.The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation will increase the number of trains from 227 to 328 next year. This increase will be more than 45 per cent than the current scenario.
The number of coaches will also rise to 2,158 from 1,468.
At the same time, Phase 3 of the Delhi Metro will also be completed, expanding the metro network frpm 218 km to 348 km.
The expansion works of the Magenta Line (Janakpuri West-Botanical Garden) and Pink Line (Majlis Park-Shiv Vihar) will be completed by March 2018.
Out of 690 new coaches, 504 will be used for the Magenta and Pink Lines. To tackle the ever-increasing rush of the passengers, the existing corridors will also be increased from 227 to 244 — most of them eight-coach ones.
DMRC will also convert six-coach trains into eight-coach ones, rising the number of such coaches from 56 to 65.
The Pink and Magenta Lines, along with the newly opened Violet Line (Kashmere Gate-Escorts Mujesar), for the time being, will have only six-coach trains.This morning I was looking at my home page and I realized that there is a lot of orange sweet potato and pumpkin going on. Considering the time of year I think it is very fitting. Maybe I should go red and green when Christmas comes around? Got any green and red recipes that I can try out for Christmas? In keeping with the autumn orange theme I got the idea to try a sweet potato gnocchi covered in gouda cheese sauce. The idea was to do it in a stovetop mac and cheese kind of style.
I have never made a potato gnocchi before. Many moons ago I did a quick and easy ricotta gnocchi but I had never done a potato gnocchi. I have always been a little skittish to try to make gnocchi. I have always heard it is so temperamental. They can easily turn out gummy or too heavy. I didn’t have either problem with this recipe.
First and most important you need 1 pound of sweet potato. Wash and scrub the potatoes.
In the photos I as preparing a double recipe so that is why you see so many potatoes.
Pierce the potatoes with a fork. This is an opportunity to relieve some aggression or stress.
Microwave the potato for 5-6 minutes on each side, until tender.
Slice the potatoes in half and let cool.
Scoop out the flesh of the potatoes and mash, you need 1 1/2 cups of mashed potato. Add the ricotta cheese and mix together.
Add Parmesan cheese, brown sugar, 1 teaspoons salt, and nutmeg; mash to blend.
Mix in flour, about 1/2 cup at a time, until soft dough forms.
Turn the dough out on a lightly floured surface, knead a few times and shape into a rectangle. Cut into 3 equal portions.
Here I divided the dough into 6 equal portions because, like I said, I was doing a double recipe.
Roll each section into a 1 inch diameter rope, flouring as needed.
Cut rope in half, and in half again. Cut the four ropes into 5 sections, finishing with 20 dumplings.
Roll each dumpling over tines of fork to indent.
Place the dumplings on baking sheet.
Bring a pot of salted water to boil. Working in batches, drop in the dumplings. Cook for 5-6 minutes, until tender. Drain and set aside on clean baking sheet. Let cool completely.
Time for the sinful cheese sauce. CHEEEEESE!
In a saucepan combine milk, garlic, onion and sage leaves. Place over a medium heat and heat until tiny bubbles begin to form along the edges. Do not bring to a boil. Remove from heat and let stand for 10 minutes. Remove and discard onion, garlic and sage leaves.
In another sauce pan, melt butter and add flour.
Cook and stir until blended, 1 minute.
You have made a roux!
Gradually add the milk, whisking constantly.
Reduce the heat to low and continue to whisk until the sauce is smooth and slightly thickened, 4 to 5 minutes. Dip a wooden spoon in the sauce to coat it. Pass your finger through the sauce on the back of the spoon, it should leave a clean track.
Now lick your finger. Very important step, don’t skip it.
Strain the sauce into an clean saucepan. Whisk in 1 cup of shredded Gouda cheese. Cook over low heat, whisking constantly, until the cheese is melted and the sauce is smooth. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Serve gnocchi drizzled with Gouda cheese sauce. Sprinkle with minced sage leaves and fresh ground nutmeg.
This was delicious and a little goes a long way. They may look small but they are very filling.
The cheese sauce was incredible, smooth with just a touch of smokiness from the Gouda. The gnocchi turned out light and tender. The one this I think I may do next time is pan fry them up a bit in a tiny bit of butter or olive oil to warm and crisp them up a bit. Otherwise I loved this dish. It was also a dish I managed to get by Obed without any meat. Granted his plate was doused in cheese sauce. In fact I am not sure if I saw gnocchi on his plate. Although I am sure it was there.
Get yourself some Gouda cheese sauce with gnocchi or gnocchi with cheese sauce, it’s up to you.
Print Recipe
Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Gouda Cheese Sauce (serves 4) (Bon Appetit Dec 2005)
Gnocchi
1-pound red-skinned sweet potatoes (yams), rinsed, patted dry, pierced all over with fork
6-ounces fresh ricotta cheese
1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese
1 tablespoons (packed) golden brown sugar
1 teaspoons plus 1 tablespoons salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
1 3/4 cups (about) all purpose flour
Sauce (makes 2 cups)
2 cups milk, heated,
1/4 onion
2 cloves garlic
3 sage leaves
Salt and freshly ground white pepper, to taste
3 Tbs. unsalted butter
3 Tbs. all-purpose flour
1 cup Gouda cheese, shredded
Gnocchi
Line large baking sheet with parchment paper. Place sweet potatoes on plate; microwave on high until tender, about 5-6 minutes per side. Cut in half and cool. Scrape sweet potato flesh into medium bowl and mash; transfer 1 1/2 cup to large bowl. Add ricotta cheese; blend well. Add Parmesan cheese, brown sugar, 1 teaspoons salt, and nutmeg; mash to blend. Mix in flour, about 1/2 cup at a time, until soft dough forms.
Turn dough out onto floured surface; divide into 3 equal pieces. Rolling between palms and floured work surface, form each piece into 20-inch-long rope (about 1 inch in diameter), sprinkling with flour as needed if sticky. Cut each rope into 20 pieces. Roll each piece over tines of fork to indent. Transfer to baking sheet.
Bring large pot of water to boil; add 1 tablespoons salt and return to boil. Working in batches, boil gnocchi until tender, 5 to 6 minutes. Transfer gnocchi to clean rimmed baking sheet. Cool completely. (Can be made 4 hours ahead. Let stand at room temperature.)
Sauce
In a small sauce pot combine milk, onion, garlic and sage. Place over medium heat and heat tiny bubbles appear around the edges of the pan, about 5 minutes. Do not boil. Remove pan from heat and let stand for 10 minutes. Remove and discard onion, garlic and sage leaves. Cover to keep warm.
In a saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter. Stir in the flour and cook, stirring, until blended, 1 minute.
Gradually add the milk, whisking constantly. Reduce the heat to low and continue to whisk until the sauce is smooth and slightly thickened, 4 to 5 minutes. Dip a wooden spoon in the sauce to coat it. Pass your finger through the sauce on the back of the spoon, it should leave a clean track.
Strain the sauce into an clean saucepan. Whisk in 1 cup of shredded Gouda cheese. Cook over low heat, whisking constantly, until the cheese is melted and the sauce is smooth. Season with salt and pepper to taste.It’s predictable: a progressive gets elected, and the traditional media immediately tries to undermine them. In New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s case, the media is challenging the mayor’s ability to fund pre-kindergarten, require rent payments for charter schools, raise the minimum wage, and effectively manage the city.
The results are in, and, according to the traditional media, Bill de Blasio has failed. He’s been in office two months and has not implemented his entire campaign agenda. The media now defines de Blasio as a well-meaning, idealistic good doer whose lack of acumen has put him at the mercy of Governor Cuomo and others who know how hardball politics are played.
This silliness accurately reflects New York media coverage of the city’s new mayor. And while such nonsense is expected from the New York Post and other conservative media, the narrative of Mayor de Blasio being in over his head is promoted almost daily in the local and national editions of the New York Times.
Cuomo over de Blasio
According to the March 6, 2014 New York Times, de Blasio has already “lost control of his narrative.” His first two months in office have “been marked by frustration and disillusion among centrist Democrats who are quick to criticize him, and by anxiety among certain progressives who have seen their worries that he would be a weak manager confirmed.”
Which progressives? It doesn’t matter. What matters is that de Blasio is already facing criticism from his base.
The hero in the “de Blasio has lost the narrative” storyline is New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. According to the Times, “Mr. de Blasio was unable to anticipate the intensity of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s commitment to education reform or to offer his own, more enlightened version.”
Or to put it another way, de Blasio did not anticipate that a Democratic Party Governor of a solid blue state would put cutting taxes for the rich ahead of funding universal pre-K in New York City. Instead of bashing Cuomo for ignoring his Party’s base and the needs of the voters who put him in office, he becomes a “Realpolitik” alternative to the “naïve” de Blasio.
Nor should de Blasio have anticipated that Cuomo would stand “shoulder to shoulder” in Albany with the charter school industry against the traditional public schools of New York City. The Mayor campaigned on charging rent for “well-resourced” charter schools, and now was seeking to fulfill this pledge.
Cuomo’s alignment with de Blasio’s opponents on charter schools, like his earlier opposition to the new mayor’s funding plan for pre-K, is said to be a political fight where “a centrist accustomed to governing by the art of the possible, is confronting a new challenge in the form of Mr. de Blasio, a staunch liberal who has channeled the impatience of a national left fed up with leaders who trade ideology for compromise.”
But the media’s framing is wrong. Funding pre-K through tax increases on the rich and charging rent for well-resourced charter schools are both politically possible. Governor Cuomo’s lack of support is the problem here, not Bill de Blasio’s lack of political realism.
The Minimum Wage
Even normally solid NY Times reporters like Rachel Swarns are promoting the narrative that de Blasio is taking too long to fulfill campaign promises. Her March 10 story, “Among de Blasio’s Priorities, Minimum Wage Waits Behind Pre-K,” describes low-wage worker Roberto Guzman who was excited about de Blasio’s commitment to raise the city’s minimum wage. But now this proposal is “on the back burner,” halted, like other of de Blasio’s initiatives, by the New York legislature’s refusal to approve a wage hike.
Once again, Governor Cuomo’s responsibility for not actively pushing to help workers like Mr. Guzman is ignored. Republican legislative opposition is also overlooked.
Instead, it is the Mayor who has done the most to put a minimum wage hike on the table that the media then blames for its delay.
Reason for Optimism
Despite media claims that de Blasio’s agenda is too bold and that he is having trouble managing New York City, three factors give reason for optimism.
First, Bill de Blasio is a seasoned politician who understands the media’s agenda. He will not allow the media to push him off course, or reduce his confidence in his abilities.
Second, de Blasio’s core base does not trust the traditional media. It will not be influenced by its critical narrative. Most probably expected the media to undermine a progressive mayor after spending years in glowing praise for billionaire Mayor Bloomberg (whose own failures to get Albany’s support for local measures like congestion pricing were blamed on the State Legislature’s lack of leadership, not the mayor’s).
Third, thanks to the Internet and social media, traditional news outlets are less politically influential today. This is true even for the NY Times on issues like a mayor’s performance in which most residents are likely to be making up their own minds.
It’s telling that Mr.Guzman in the Swarns’ article above says that he “remains hopeful” for a minimum wage hike next year, and that “I think it’s going to happen.” The city’s lower income workers who will benefit from de Blasio’s policies are strong supporters of the mayor.
They understand that he, not the media, is looking out for their interests.
Randy Shaw
Beyond ChronSudhir Chaudhary (born 1981 in Muzaffarpur, Bihar),[2][3] also called Sudhir Kumar Gautam,[3] is a fan of the Indian cricket team and Sachin Tendulkar.[4][5][6][7][8] He is widely recognised for attending every home match the Indian team has played since 2003.[9] For some overseas tours, he also collects funds from the cricket loving public.[3] He is usually seen with his body painted in the national colours of India, waving the national flag in the live telecast of the matches.[10][11]
Cricket fan [ edit ]
Since 2003, Sudhir Chaudhary's passion has been to watch cricket matches played by India and to support the team. By April 2010, he had attended approximately 150 matches, often traveling by bicycle to reach the venue of match.[12] He sometimes pedals his cycle to cricket playing venues, as he did to Bangladesh to witness a cricket match in 2007 [3] and to Lahore, Pakistan in 2006.[11] To save money, he sometimes braves ticketless travel in trains to reach venues.[12][13] When attending cricket matches, he paints his body with the tri- colour, the colours of India flag, and he usually paints the name of Tendulkar on his chest.[14] He carries a conch with him and blows the conch to announce the arrival of the India cricket team.[14] Sudhir Chaudhary paints his body on the previous day of a match and skips sleep that night to preserve the paint on his body.[14] He cycled for 21 days from Muzaffarpur, Bihar to Mumbai to watch Sachin play for India against Australia on 28 October 2003[8] and this was the first tri-series match where he started supporting India by waving Indian tri-colour.[15]
Attack by Bangladesh Cricket fans [ edit ]
In 2015, during India - Bangladesh series in Mirpur, he was attacked and harassed by Bangladesh fans booing against India, when he was trying to leave the stadium. He feared his life but was eventually rescued by Bangladesh Police. [16]
2011 ICC Cricket World Cup [ edit ]
During the World Cup, Sudhir sported a kooky crown - a replica World Cup trophy. Sudhir's crowning moment came on April 2, 2011, the day India defeated Sri Lanka in the Final at Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai, to become the World Champions. Sachin Tendulkar himself signaled Sudhir who was sitting among the cheering Indian fans, to come to the Indian dressing room and join the team's celebrations.[14] Tendulkar asked Zaheer Khan to bring the World Cup over. Tendulkar shook hands with Sudhir Chaudhary, hugged him and finally let him lift the cup from Zaheer’s hands. Tendulkar allowed Sudhir to hold the World Cup along with him and Sudhir celebrated the occasion by posing for photographs.[17] Sudhir chanted "India" as he lifted the ICC World Cup 2011 trophy.[18][19]
Apology by the police [ edit ]
In March 2009, a Senior Police officer intercepted and thrashed Sudhir Kumar in Kanpur, when he tried to shake hands with Sachin Tendulkar during a practice session. Later, after Tendulkar's intervention and request he was let off, and the police officer tendered an apology to Sudhir Kumar, repenting |
4A1-S penetration can be seen. At only 30m it takes the M4A4 7 shots to get a kill for 105 damage, while the M4A1-S only takes 6 to deal 102 damage. This makes the M4A1-S 8% faster at killing from 30m for wallbangs, and 5% faster from 50m.
But looking at the data, one can notice that sometimes the DPS is lower than the TTK. How is this possible? The DPS was taken from the amount of shots needed to kill, the damage dealt, and the ROF of the gun. The TTK was taken from the bullets needed for a kill, and the rate of fire. This means that the TTK is a more real-world comparison between the two, and the DPS is a more analytical, and should only be used for data analysis like this.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, both rifles have their own strong and weak points. The M4A4 is better as a close range weapon, while the M4A1-S is better at further ranges. At ranges over 50m, the M4A1-S will kill faster than the M4A4. For wallbangs, the distance is lowered to 30m for the M4A1-S to be more effective than its counterpart. The M4A1-S will not suffer a damage drop off for wallbangs until 50m, while the M4A4’s damage will start to drop off after only 30m.
A general rule of thumb:
- For chest shots: After 50m the M4A1-S will take 1 less bullet to kill
- For wallbangs: After 30m the M4A1-S will take 1 less bullet to kill
But just how far is 50m? Let’s look at some in-game examples on a familiar map like Dust 2:
(left) CT-Mid to Cat is 50m. (right) Mid to T-Spawn is 50m
(left) Back of Plat B-Site to Upper is 50m. (right) Cross to the front of Pit is 35m; back of Pit is 50m
From Back of A to Long is 60m
From the person having to solo B-Site, to the Mid player, each person's role varries for their team, and so should their weapon of choice. Hopefully this guide gave you a general idea of what range each rifle excels at, and helps make you make the correct choice between the two for your playstyle.A protester holding a rainbow flag, approaches South Korea's presidential candidate Moon Jae-in from the Democratic Party, left, at National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, April 26, 2017. South Korean presidential front-runner Moon Jae-in has outraged persecuted sexual minority groups by saying during a television debate that he opposes homosexuality. (Ahn Jung-won/Yonhap via AP)
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean presidential front-runner Moon Jae-in outraged persecuted sexual minority groups by saying during a television debate that he opposes homosexuality, something his supporters say he had to do to win office in the deeply conservative country.
Moon, a liberal candidate and former human rights lawyer, made the comments Tuesday night while responding to a conservative presidential candidate who argued gay soldiers were weakening the country’s military.
Gay rights advocates, some of whom who were dragged away after approaching Moon following a speech at the National Assembly in Seoul on Wednesday, see Moon’s words as hate speech. Police said 13 activists were detained at the scene of Moon’s speech on suspicion of violating laws that ban protests inside the gates of the legislature.
Moon’s supporters defended his comments as in line with many South Koreans’ views. Moon’s camp didn’t immediately respond to the criticism by gay rights activists.
Sexual minorities are harshly stigmatized in South Korea and struggle with political visibility because a powerful Christian lobby keeps politicians from passing anti-discrimination laws. Among the five candidates who participated in the debate, only Sim Sang-jung, representing the minor Justice Party, openly advocates gay rights.
After the conservative candidate, Hong Joon-pyo, argued that gay soldiers were weakening the country’s military, Moon said he agreed.
Hong then asked Moon whether he opposed homosexuality, to which Moon replied, “I oppose.” When Hong double-checked, Moon said, “Of course.”
Hong represents the party of ousted President Park Geun-hye, who was arrested last month and now faces the prospect of a prison term over corruption charges.
He recently angered female voters over revelations in a 2005 memoir that he assisted a friend in a failed date rape attempt as a teen. The incident involved mixing the woman’s drink with a livestock stimulant, Hong wrote.
A watchdog has recently accused South Korea’s military of hunting down and prosecuting gay servicemen. That raised worries of more discrimination and hate crimes against sexual minorities.
Moon later in the debate said that he opposed “discrimination based on homosexuality,” but was also against legalizing same-sex marriage.
“Moon needs to offer an apology and a correction of his comments made on live television,” said Jung Yol, a gay rights activist. “What he said was clearly hate speech, and since he is the candidate favored to win the election, his words can influence how people think.”
Lawyers for a Democratic Society, a group of South Korean human rights lawyers to which Moon once belonged, issued a statement denouncing the comments by Moon and Hong, saying the candidates revealed their ignorance on human and constitutional rights.
“We cannot look away from the issue as the candidates’ comments could encourage hate speech and discrimination against social minorities across the society,” the statement said.
South Korea’s Constitutional Court formally removed Park from office on March 10. That triggered a 60-day presidential race. Opinion surveys favor Moon to win the May 9 election.The never ending Winamp story continues. AOL, the then-owner of Winamp announced back in 2013 that it would shut down the platform and software but changed those plans in early 2014 by selling its stake in Winamp to Radionomy instead.
While that was a positive development, things went quite shortly after the acquisition. Winamp is still available for download on the official project website but a new version has yet to be released by the new owner.
In fact, the last version released dates back to the end of 2013 when Winamp was still part of AOL.
It seems that Radionomy is still working on the application but development is slow considering that no new version has been released in nearly two years.
News broke on December 17, 2015 that Vivendi acquired a majority stake in Radionomy and thus also Winamp. The French multinational media company owns or has stakes in companies such as Dailymotion, Activision Blizzard, Ubisoft, Universal Music Group or the music streaming service Deezer.
Vivendi acquired 64.4% of the share capital of Radionomy Group for an undisclosed sum. The company mentions Winamp and Shoutcast explicitly in the press release as well as Radionomy's core service and TargetSpot, a digital audio advertising network.
Radionomy is best known as an Internet platform that allows digital radios to broadcast and monetize their programs on a global scale. The platform also offers FM radio stations unique tools to develop and monetize their digital presence. Today, over 57,000 radio stations are using these tools. Radionomy Group owns the streaming technology SHOUTcast as well as the iconic Winamp audio player. It also controls TargetSpot, the first digital audio advertising network in the United States and in France.
Vivendi plans collaborations between the company's existing audio offerings and Radionomy's digital audio platform.
Vivendi’s capital investment in Radionomy Group will provide an impetus for its commercial development, supported by the promising outlooks for the advertising and digital audio markets all over the world. Radionomy is also very well positioned to capitalize on the expected evolution of the digital audio market towards targeted advertising, thanks to its technical tools and its partnerships.
It is unclear what this means for Winamp or Shoutcast, and whether the move will hinder or improve development of the services or their operation.
While Winamp is still a popular music player choice, music players such as AIMP have filled the gap for the most part that the player's hiatus has caused.
Now You: Do you think the development is good or bad for Winamp and Shoutcast?
Summary Article Name Winamp: Vivendi becomes major Radionomy Stakeholder Description Vivendi acquired a majority stake in Radionomy recently which owns Winamp and Shoutcast. Author Martin Brinkmann
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Muslims who are 11.5% of state’s population have a literacy rate of 83.6%, whereas Hindus who are 79.8% have 81.8% literates
Muslims in Maharashtra have raced past their Hindu counterparts in literacy rate.
The report also states that Jains have the highest literacy rate of 95.3% in Maharashtra. Pic for representation
The state’s economic survey report for the year 2015-16 has religion wise information available on this. The report was tabled in the legislature a day before the budget for 2016-17 is presented today.
It says that the Muslims who are 11.5% of Maharashtra’s total population have a literacy rate of 83.6%, whereas Hindus who are 79.8% have 81.8% literates among them. However, Muslims’ national literacy average is much less (68.5%) than what they have in Maharashtra.
The adult literacy rate of the state increased to 82.3 per cent in 2011 from 76.9 per cent in 2001. Jains have the highest literacy rate of 95.3%.
As per the 2011 census, the state’s population is 11.24 crore which is 9.3% of the country’s population and it ranks second after Uttar Pradesh in terms of population. The proportion of urban population is 45.2% in 2011 as against 42.4 % in 2001.
Sex ratio improved
The state has observed overall improvement in sex ratio from 922 (922 women per 1,000 men) in 2001 to 929 in 2011. Sex ratio in rural areas of the state has decreased from 960 in 2001 to 952 in 2011, whereas, it has increased in urban areas from 873 to 903 during the same period.
The Christian population has the highest sex ratio (1031) in 2011, whereas Sikh population has the lowest (891).
8% economic growth forecast
The Maharashtra economy is expected to grow at 8% in the coming financial year, which is higher than the national forecast (7.5%). The state has always been a major contributor to the national economy.
As the agricultural economy is largely governed by monsoon, growth in this sector has plummeted this year. However, Industry and Services sectors have managed to drive the state economy to a fairly decent growth this year, says the economic survey report.
In the services sector, repairs, hotels & restaurants, transport, storage, communication and services related to broadcasting sector are expected to grow at 9.0%.Your Robot Car Should Ignore You Some research suggests that cars would be safer with no involvement from humans at all. By Hod Lipson and Melba Kurman
In 2014, Google fired a shot heard all the way to Detroit. Google’s newest driverless car prototype had no steering wheel and no brakes. The message was clear: Cars of the future will be born fully autonomous, with no human driver needed or desired. Even more jarring, rather than retrofit a Prius or a Lexus as Google did to build its previous two generations of driverless cars, the company custom-built the body of its youngest driverless car with a team of subcontracted automotive suppliers. Best of all, the car emerged from the womb already an expert driver, with roughly 700,000 miles of experience culled from the brains of previous prototypes. Now that Google’s self-driving cars have had another few more years of practice, the fleet’s collective drive-time equals more than 1.3 million miles, the equivalent of a human logging 15,000 miles a year behind the wheel for 90 years.
In response, car companies are pouring billions of dollars into software development and the epicenter of automotive innovation has moved from Detroit to Silicon Valley. If the car companies had the power to define the transition to driverless cars, they’d favor a very gradual process. Stage 1 would involve refining driver-assist technologies. Stage 2 would involve implementing a few high-end models with limited autonomous capability in specific situations, most likely on highways. In stage 3, limited autonomous capacity would trickle down to cheaper car models.
Humans and robots should not take turns at the wheel.
Consulting firm Deloitte describes such a gradual approach as one that’s incremental, “in which automakers invest in new technologies—e.g., antilock brakes, electronic stability control, backup cameras, and telematics—across higher-end vehicle lines and then move down market as scale economics take hold.” Such a cautious approach, although appealing to an industry incumbent, may actually be unwise. For car companies, inching closer toward autonomy by gradually adding computer-guided safety technologies to help human drivers steer, brake, and accelerate could prove to be an unsafe strategy in the long run, both in terms of human life and for car industry bottom lines.
One reason car companies favor an incremental approach is that it prolongs their control over the automotive industry. Driverless cars need an intelligent on-board operating system that can perceive the car’s surroundings, make sense of the data that’s flowing in, and then act appropriately. Software capable of artificial intelligence—especially artificial perception—requires skilled personnel and a certain depth of intellectual capital to create. Car companies, while extraordinarily adept at creating complex mechanical systems, lack the staff, culture, and operational experience to effectively delve into the thorny thickets of artificial-intelligence research. Google, on the other hand, is already there.
Grendelkhan / Wikimedia
Driverless cars introduce uncertainty into the automotive industry. For the past century, selling cars directly to consumers has been a good business. However, if driverless cars enable consumers to pay per ride rather than buy their own car, the business of selling generic car bodies to transportation companies that lease out driverless taxis might not be as lucrative. If car companies are someday forced to partner with a software company to build driverless cars, such a partnership could result in car companies taking home a smaller slice of the final profits.
Like a growing kitty in the middle of an all-night poker game, there’s a lot of money sitting on the table. Former University of Michigan professor and GM executive Larry Burns explains that there’s a gold mine tucked into the 3 trillion miles a year that people drive each year (in the United States). He said, “If a first-mover captures a 10 percent share of the 3 trillion miles per year and makes 10 cents per mile, then the annual profit is $30 billion, which is on par with Apple and ExxonMobil in good years.”
Car companies and Google are like gigantic tankers on a collision course, both slowly cruising toward a common destination: to wring the most profits from the next generation of automated cars. Car companies favor an evolutionary approach, to develop driver-assist modules to the point where they can take over the wheel for extended periods of time. In contrast, Google’s strategy aims to dive directly into full autonomy.
Car companies aren’t the only ones that prefer a gradual approach. The U.S. Department of Transportation and the Society of Automotive Engineers have each sketched out their own maps of the road to full autonomy. While their stages differ slightly, what they have in common is the assumption that the best way forward is via a series of gradual and linear stages in which the car’s “driver assist” software temporarily takes over the driving, but quickly gives control of the car back to the human driver should a sticky situation occur.
We disagree with the notion that a gradual transition is the best way to proceed. For many reasons, humans and robots should not take turns at the wheel. Many experts, however, believe that the optimal model is to have human and software share control of the wheel, that the human driver should remain the master and the software the servant. Software that’s based on a paradigm in which humans and machines are partners is known to engineers as human in the loop software. In many situations, pairing up a human and a computer does indeed yield excellent results. Skilled human surgeons use robotic arms to achieve inhuman precision during surgery. Today commercial airplanes use human in the loop software, as do many industrial and military applications.
Arguments in favor of keeping humans in the loop have their appeal. It’s an enticing thought experiment to dream of meticulously wiring together the best of human ability with the best of machine ability, similar to the intoxicating optimization puzzle of hand-picking professional football players for a fantasy football team. Machines are precise, tireless, and analytical. Machines excel at detecting patterns, performing calculations, and taking measurements. In contrast, humans excel at drawing conclusions, making associations between apparently random objects or events, and learning from past experience.
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In theory, at least, if you combine a human with an intelligent machine, the result should be an alert, responsive, and extremely skilled driver. After all, the advantage of human in the loop approaches to automation is that it’s possible to harvest the strengths of what humans and machines do best.
In reality, human in the loop software could work in the case of a driverless car only if each party (human and software) maintained a clear and consistent set of responsibilities. Unfortunately, maintaining clear and consistent sets of responsibilities between human and software is not the model that’s being proposed by the automotive industry and federal transportation officials. Instead, their proposed approach keeps the human in the loop, but with unclear and shifting responsibilities.
At the core of this strategy of gradual transition is the assumption that should something unexpected occur, a beep or vibration will signal the human driver that she needs to hastily climb back into the driver’s seat to deal with the situation. A gradual and linear path toward full automation may sound sensible and safe. In practice, however, a staged transition from partial to full autonomous driving would be unsafe.
People trust technology very quickly once they see it works.
Machines and humans can work together well in some situations, but driving is not one of them. Driving is not an activity suitable for a human in the loop approach for one major reason: Driving is tedious. When an activity is tedious, humans are all too happy to let machines take over, so they eagerly cede responsibility.
When I was in officer training in the navy, I learned that one of the core tenets of good management was to never divide a mission-critical task between two people, a classic management blunder known as split responsibility. The problem with split responsibility is that, ultimately, both people involved in completing the task may feel it’s safe to drop the ball, assuming the other person will pick up the slack. If neither party dives in to the rescue, the result is mission failure. If humans and machines are given split responsibility for driving, the results could be disastrous.
A harrowing example of split responsibility between man and machine was the plight of Air France Flight 447, which, in 2009, plunged into the Atlantic Ocean, tragically killing all 228 people on board. Later analysis of the plane’s black box revealed that the cause of the crash was not terrorism or a mechanical malfunction. What went wrong was the handoff from automated flight mode to the team of human pilots.
While in flight, the plane’s autopilot software became covered in ice and unexpectedly shut down. The team of human pilots, befuddled and out of practice, were suddenly called to the controls on what they expected would be a routine flight. When thrust into an unexpected position of responsibility, the human pilots made a series of disastrous errors that caused the plane to nosedive into the sea.
In the fall of 2012, several Google employees were allowed to use one of the autonomous Lexuses for the freeway portion of their commute to work. The idea was that the human driver would guide the Lexus to the freeway, merge, and, once settled into a single lane, turn on the self-driving feature. Every employee was warned that this was early stage technology and they should be paying attention to the driving 100 percent of the time. Each car was equipped with a video camera inside that would film the passenger and car for the entire journey.
Employee response to the self-driving car was overwhelmingly positive. All described the benefits of not having to tussle with freeway rush-hour traffic, of arriving home refreshed to spend quality time with their families. Problems arose, however, when the engineering team watched the videos from these drives home. One employee turned completely away from the driver’s seat to search his back seat for a cell-phone charger. Other people took their attention away from the wheel and simply relaxed, relieved to have a few peaceful moments of free time.
The Google report described the situation of split responsibility, or what engineers call automation bias. “We saw human nature at work: People trust technology very quickly once they see it works. As a result, it’s difficult for them to dip in and out of the task of driving when they are encouraged to switch off and relax.”
Paul Oka / Flickr
Google’s conviction that there’s no middle ground—that humans and machines should not share the wheel—sounds risky, but is actually the most prudent path forward when it comes to consumer safety. Automation can impair a driver in two ways: first, by inviting him to engage in secondary task engagements, activities such as reading or watching a video that directly distract him from watching the road; second, by disrupting his situational awareness, or his ability to perceive critical factors in the driving environment and to react rapidly and appropriately. Put the two together—a distracted driver who has no idea of what’s happening outside the car—and it’s clear why splitting the responsibility for driving is such a dangerous idea.
Research at Virginia Tech University sponsored by GM and the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration put some numbers around the temptation humans face when a capable technology offers to unload a tedious task. Virginia Tech researchers evaluated 12 human drivers on a test track. Each test vehicle was equipped with two forms of driver-assist software: one that managed lane centering, and another that handled the car’s braking and steering, called adaptive cruise control. The goal of the study was to measure how humans reacted when presented with driving technologies that took over the car’s lane keeping, maintained the car’s speed, and handled its braking. To measure the human driver’s activities during the study, each vehicle was equipped with data collection and recording devices.
Researchers recruited 12 individuals, 25 to 34 years old, from the general population of Detroit and offered $80 for their participation. Recruited drivers were asked to pretend they were taking a long trip and were not only encouraged to bring their cell phones with them on their test drive, but were provided with ready access to reading material, food, drinks, and entertainment media. As participants showed up for the study, researchers explained to them that someone from the research team would be joining them inside the vehicle. Each driver was told that their fellow passenger had a homework assignment he needed to complete during the trip, so he would be watching a DVD on his laptop for most of the drive.
The best way to avoid collisions will be to teach driverless cars to drive more like people, carelessly and illegally.
The 12 human subjects were placed into common freeway driving scenarios on the test track and their responses and activities were measured and recorded. The researcher’s goal was twofold: one, to gauge the temptation to engage in secondary tasks such as eating, reading, or watching a video; two, to measure the degree to which driver attention would wander if software were to handle most of the driving. In other words, researchers were testing whether automated driving technologies would encourage humans to engage in unsafe misbehaviors such as mentally tuning out, engaging in inappropriate behavior while behind the wheel, or losing their situational awareness, including their ability to perceive critical factors in the driving environment.
It turned out that most human drivers, when presented with technology that will drive for them, eagerly become guilty of all three bad driving behaviors. The “fake homework” strategy of the researcher, combined with the competence of the adaptive cruise control and lane centering software, lulled the participants into feeling secure enough to stop paying attention behind the wheel. Over the course of approximately three hours of test driving time, during which different automated driving technologies were used, most drivers engaged in some form of secondary task, most frequently eating, reaching for an item in the back seat, talking on the cell phone and texting, and sending emails.
The lane-keeping software especially invited the human drivers to engage in secondary activities. When the lane-keeping software was switched on, a whopping 58 percent of the drivers watched a DVD for some time during the trip. Twenty-five percent of the drivers enjoyed the free time to get some reading done, increasing their risk of a car crash by 3.4 times.
The human drivers’ visual attention was not much better. Once again, when the lane-centering software took the wheel, driver attention wandered. Overall, drivers were estimated to be looking away from the road about 33 percent of the time during the course of the three-hour trip. More dangerously, the drivers engaged in long and potentially dangerous “off-road glances” lasting more than two seconds an estimated 3,325 times over the course of the study. The good news, however, was that these deadly long off-road looks occurred only 8 percent of the time.
Clearly, this particular study is just a starting point. Twelve people is a fairly small control group and more research on driver inattention is needed. One interesting finding that emerged was that although most drivers were eager to read, eat, watch movies, or send email while at the wheel, some were able to resist the temptation to tune out. For reasons that deserve additional research, the study revealed that not all human drivers were so quick to give up their responsibilities at the wheel. As researchers concluded, “this study found large individual differences in regard to the nature and frequency of secondary task interactions suggesting that the impact of an autonomous system is not likely to be uniformly applied across all drivers.”
There’s a tipping point at which autonomous driving technologies will actually create more danger for human drivers rather than less. Imagine if the 12 human drivers in Virginia Tech’s research project were given a seat in a fully autonomous vehicle for a three-hour drive. It is highly likely that the intensity of their secondary activities would increase to the point where the human driver would fall asleep or become deeply absorbed in sending email. Full autonomy would make it nearly impossible for a deeply distracted or sleepy human driver to effectively take over the wheel in a challenging situation if control were abruptly handed over.
In another study, at the University of Pennsylvania, researchers sat down with 30 teens for a frank discussion of teen drivers’ cell-phone usage while at the wheel. Two central points emerged. While teens said they understood the dangers of texting while driving, they still did it. Even teens who initially claimed they did not use their cell phones while driving, revealed reluctantly when pressed that they would wait until they were at a red light to send a text. Also, teens used their own classification system to define what constituted “texting while driving” and what didn’t. For example, they said that checking Twitter while driving did not constitute texting; nor did taking a passenger’s picture.
Wandering human attention is one risk. Another risk of having humans and software share the wheel lies in the fact that if not used regularly, human skills will degrade. Like the pilots of Flight 447, human drivers, if offered the chance to relax behind the wheel, will take it. If a human hasn’t driven in weeks, months, or years, and then is suddenly asked to take the wheel in an emergency situation, not only will the human not know what’s going on outside the car, but her driving skills may have gotten rusty as well.
The temptation to engage in secondary tasks and the so-called handoff problem of split responsibility between human and machine are such significant dangers in human/machine interactions that Google has opted to skip the notion of a gradual transition to autonomy. Google’s October 2015 monthly activity report for its driverless-car project concludes with a bombshell: Based on early experiments with partial autonomy, the company’s strategy path forward will focus on achieving only full automation. The report states, “In the end, our tests led us to our decision to develop vehicles that could drive themselves from point A to B, with no human intervention. … Everyone thinks getting a car to drive itself is hard. It is. But we suspect it’s probably just as hard to get people to pay attention when they’re bored or tired and the technology is saying ‘don’t worry, I’ve got this... for now.’ ”
At the time this was written, Google’s driverless cars had a total of 17 minor fender benders and one low-speed collision with a bus. In the 17 fender benders, the culprit was not the driverless car, but the other human drivers. On Feb. 14, 2016, however, Google’s car had its first significant accident when it “made contact” with the side of a city bus. Unlike the previous 17 minor collisions, this accident was the fault of the car’s software because it erroneously predicted that if the car rolled forward, the bus would stop.
With the exception of the run-in with the bus, the rest of Google’s accidents have happened because, ironically, Google’s cars drive too well. A well-programmed autonomous vehicle follows driving rules to the letter, confusing human drivers who tend to be less meticulous behind the wheel, and not always so law-abiding. The typical accident scenario involves one of Google’s obedient driverless cars trying to merge onto a highway or turn right at a busy intersection on a red light. Impatient human drivers, not understanding the car’s precise adherence to speed limits or lane-keeping laws, accidentally run into the driverless car.
So far, fortunately, none of Google’s accidents have resulted in any injuries. In the near-term future, the best way to avoid collisions will be to teach driverless cars to drive more like people, carelessly and illegally. In the longer term future, the best way to solve the problem of human drivers will be to replace them with patient software that never stops paying attention to the road.
As car and tech companies gather at the table to play their high-stakes, global game of automotive poker, it remains to be seen who will have the winning hand. If federal officials pass laws that mandate a “human in the loop” approach, the winner will be car companies, who will retain control over the automotive industry. On the other hand, if eventually the law permits, or—for safety reasons—even requires full autonomy for driverless cars, then software companies will take the lead.
Google retains some major advantages as the undisputed industry leader in digital maps and deep-learning software. From the perspective of business strategy, Google’s lack of a toehold in the automotive industry could actually be one of its key strengths. Analyst Kevin Root writes that “Unlike OEMs, they [Google] are not encumbered by … lost revenue from bypassing the new feature trickle down approach, they are developing for the end state of fully autonomous driverless cars and appear to have a sizeable lead.” Add to that Google’s eagerness to create a new revenue stream that’s not reliant on selling Internet ads, currently its primary source of revenue.
One thing is clear: Regardless of how the transition to driverless cars unfolds, the automotive industry will be forced to develop new core competencies. In order to remain a player in the new industry of selling driverless cars, car companies will have to master the difficult art of building artificial-intelligence software, a challenge that has eluded the world’s best roboticists for decades.Before Cory Joseph was an NBA Champion with the San Antonio Spurs, or even a standout point guard at the University of Texas, he was a 10th grader standing at the foul line in a packed gym in Hamilton, staring down two crucial free throws. Joseph’s Pickering High School Trojans clung to a two-point edge over Rexdale’s Father Henry Carr Crusaders, and his team’s hopes of winning the 2007 provincial title depended on Joseph stretching their lead. At 15, Joseph was three years younger than most other players on the court, and the stakes were the highest he had ever faced, with four seconds remaining in an OFSAA semifinal.
Pickering native Cory Joseph was one of the first local high schoolers to go to prep school south of the border to get ready for college and NBA careers. ( Ryan Pfeiffer / Metroland )
Pickering basketball coach Michael Gordensky can’t decide which is more impressive, the perfect form Joseph showed as he sunk both free throws or the focus required for such a young player to do it under such intense pressure. Either way the play gave Pickering the cushion it needed in a game they would win by a single point, helped propel them to the first of two consecutive provincial titles, and added to a Cory Joseph legend that will only grow now that he has agreed to join the Toronto Raptors. The upcoming NBA season will mark the first time since 2008 that Joseph has performed regularly in front of local fans, and Gordensky says the 23-year-old is still the same player he was at Pickering.
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Except now he’s better, and with a bigger platform. “He’s always been a team-first guy. He wants to distribute and chooses his spots to score,” Gordensky says. “Now people are going to see him every night on TV, and he’s going to be getting some serious minutes.” NBA rules mandate the free-agent deal won’t become official until Thursday but Joseph tweeted Sunday night that he was joining his hometown team. According to media reports, he will earn $30 million over four years in Toronto. After four seasons as Tony Parker’s understudy with the Spurs, Joseph is set to become the most important homegrown contributor in Raptors history. Scarborough’s Jamaal Magloire spent the final season of his career with the Raptors, playing 34 games in 2011-2012. But Joseph joins the club as he enters his prime.
After averaging 9.0 minutes and 2.0 points per game as a rookie, Joseph appeared in 79 games last season, starting 14 and recording 6.8 points and 2.4 assists per game. With health and playing time, his production and influence figure to increase in Toronto.
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Centennial College men’s coach Jim Barclay says Joseph has already established an important basketball legacy in the GTA. A family friend who coached Cory and his older brother Devoe at Pickering, Barclay says Joseph changed Canadian basketball by enrolling at Findlay Prep near Las Vegas to finish his high school career. These days Canadian hoops stars routinely move to the U.S. to play high school ball, but Barclay says Joseph and Cleveland Cavaliers standout Tristan Thompson were pioneers. “I’m convinced Cory and Tristan where the guys who broke the dam,” Barclay says. “All the good players started going to prep school.” Twelve Canadians opened last season on NBA rosters, but former national junior team teammate Rob Gagliardi says a GTA native playing a key role on Canada’s only NBA team will nudge basketball’s popularity even higher. “He can have a Vince Carter effect. Maybe even bigger,” Gagliardi says. “All these kids are going to be watching and saying, ‘Why can’t I be Cory Joseph.’ ” Joseph, who hosts basketball clinics in the GTA each summer, isn’t necessarily a product of the Carter-inspired basketball boom. Both his parents are former college players and older brother Devoe currently plays pro ball in France. Barclay says that pedigree would have led Joseph to basketball even if Carter had never played here. And former Pickering teammate Jonathan Tull says Joseph’s background fostered the hoops IQ that helped him stand out even as the youngest player on a roster loaded with future CIS and NCAA players. “It surprised a lot of folks but it didn’t surprise me,” says Tull, who plays at the University of Regina. “I knew his skill level. He thrived under the pressure of playing with older kids.”During the 2008 Beijing Olympics there were more than 12 million cyber attacks a day and since then sports events have been a common target.
In the London 2012 Olympics, the team of cyber professionals assembled for the Games defended 11,000 malicious requests per second and blocked 212 million malicious connection attempts and in 2016 the number of attempted attacks are likely to be even higher.
Major cyber threats to foreigners in Rio include mobile point-of-sale (mPOS) scams wherein criminals use malware-infected mPOS devices to skim credit card information and Olympic-themed mobile phishing or malware applications, which offer Olympic-related services. These will aggressively push ads that redirect users to phishing sites where criminals will overlay fake screens to demand ransom from the users, or install malware on the device to ultimately steal credentials and personal data from the victims.
IBM's X-Force special report on Brazil found that the cost of cyber attacks was increasing, with Brazil losing more than $US8 billion to internet crime in 2014 and in 2015 bank fraud cost the country's top institutions more than $US615 million.
Zeus Panda threat
A new threat has also recently hit the country known as Zeus Panda, a trojan virus that targets banks and online payments.
Zeus Panda first appeared in Brazil in July and was set to infect users of 10 Brazilian banks, as well as stealing the credentials of those using Bitcoin exchange platforms, payment card services and online payments providers.
Ms Kessem said it was no coincidence that Zeus Panda had arrived in Brazil just in time for the Olympics.
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"Zeus Panda is a step-up in sophistication too. In Brazil, it's often the same types of malware the appear that aren't very considered or sophisticated but Zeus Panda is not typically what we see in this geography."
"It can affect anyone because malware is able to get into anyone's inbox, or it can be downloaded from poisonous websites, but for the most part it's targeting Brazilian entities."
Ms Kessem said it was not surprising that Brazil, which has a high crime rate, was a target for cyber criminals, because most cyber crime was now orchestrated by organised crime groups.
"If we look at the world today, cyber crime has turned into a 21st century mafia. Eighty per cent of it these days is organised crime," she said.
The volume of cyber threats in Brazil has spiked in the lead-up to the Olympics, with a study from Fortinet also finding that in June the country's percentage growth in malicious URLs was 83 per cent, in contrast to 16 per cent globally.
Fortinet Australia |
traditional Tajik dresses. At the same time, there is also fear of the growing attractiveness of ISIS: In May, Tajikistan’s security chief defected to ISIS, raising alarm over his future motives back home. The government says several hundred Tajiks have joined the terrorist group as well.
Miriam Berger Students learn Farsi and about Iran at the American Councils program in Dushanbe.
Still, Americans continue to travel freely in Dushanbe, unlike in Tehran and Kabul, and it doesn’t look like Tajikistan will lose its status as America’s “Little Iran” any time soon. Both Niesluchowski and Enferadi are the recipients of the Boren Awards, a prestigious grant supported by the Department of Defense, to fund a year of language study in exchange for a period of work with the U.S. government. They are studying with five others at the American Councils Eurasian Regional Language Program, funded in part by the U.S. State Department and the Department of Education. These programs, along with others like the Fulbright and Critical Language Scholarships, are among America’s core initiatives to encourage U.S. citizens to study abroad — and try to bolster American interests while doing so. Such government connections have made these programs grounds for suspicion among Iranians and other international hosts. Students who spoke to BuzzFeed News said they feel safe in Tajikistan, but they said some educators have warned them to remain wary of Iranian spies because Iran’s embassy in Dushanbe is known to keep tabs on Americans studying Persian, weary of U.S. government ties. That is one of the realities of studying Persian here — there aren’t many ways to interact with actual Iranians and their politics or culture. Dushanbe’s Iranian community is a small and largely transient mix of spies and diplomats, students at Tajik universities, and businessmen — including those looking to avoid Western sanctions in Iran — along with a few Iranian restaurants and supermarkets.
"If you are interested in Iran, you don’t need to come here."
Nonetheless, Britton Tremain, a West Point student from New Jersey who rarely travels abroad, found Tajikistan defied his expectation of what a Muslim-majority country could be like. “It’s like a mix of Soviet and Russian influence and then Islamic influence and they still have a good view of America,” Tremain said. Enferadi, however, conceded that language-wise, an immersion program he did at a U.S. university was better for his Persian. “If you are interested in Iran, you don’t need to come here,” he said.
Miriam Berger Tajik newspaper written in Cyrillic letters for sale on the streets of Dushanbe.Image copyright AFP Image caption Protesters waved both Polish and EU flags as they walked through central Warsaw
Thousands of people have marched in Warsaw, protesting against Poland's conservative government, 27 years since the fall of communism.
Opposition leaders, including two former presidents, led the rally against what they describe as the government's anti-democratic policies.
The ruling Law and Justice party has been criticised by the European Union over its reforms of the judiciary, surveillance, and media laws.
The party rejects the accusations.
Saturday's demonstration in the Polish capital was organised by Committee for the Defence of Democracy (KOD).
People blew horns and waved both Polish and EU flags as they walked through central Warsaw.
The opposition said about 50,000 people took part in the protest. Police estimated about 10,000 people were on the streets.
Former Presidents Aleksander Kwasniewski and Bronislaw Komorowski were among the protesters.
The participants wanted to celebrate the end of communism after 4 June 1989 elections.
But they also wanted to voice their opposition to what they see as the government's backsliding on democracy, the BBC's Adam Easton in Warsaw reports.
The Polish government passed legal amendments late last year which change the way the Constitutional Court operates.
The changes require a two-thirds majority of the 15 judges to support a ruling for it to be valid, and also stipulate a quorum of 13 judges for rulings to be valid.
Critics have said the changes mean the court is now unable to examine government legislation.
The European Commission and the Council of Europe say the changes undermine the rule of law.
Recently approved media laws have also placed public radio and TV under a new national media council and have given the treasury minister the right to hire and fire management.
Despite the criticism, the government is trouncing the opposition in the polls thanks to a sharp hike in child benefit payments, a plan to build cheap housing and its outright refusal to take in Muslim migrants, our correspondent says.For the second consecutive season, ticket prices stayed relatively flat in Major League Baseball, according to a new survey by Team Marketing Report.
The average ticket price across all 30 teams is $26.91, which is only a 1.2 percent increase from last season.
That percentage represents the lowest year over year increase since the company's Fan Cost Index debuted in 1991.
Here are some of the other highlights from the report:
The highest non-premium ticket prices are the Boston Red Sox ($53.38), the New York Yankees ($51.83), the Chicago Cubs ($46.90 and the Chicago White Sox ($40.67).
are the Boston Red Sox ($53.38), the New York Yankees ($51.83), the Chicago Cubs ($46.90 and the Chicago White Sox ($40.67). The lowest non-premium ticket prices are the Pittsburgh Pirates ($15.30), San Diego Padres ($15.45), Arizona Diamondbacks ($15.74) and the Los Angeles Angels ($17.13).
are the Pittsburgh Pirates ($15.30), San Diego Padres ($15.45), Arizona Diamondbacks ($15.74) and the Los Angeles Angels ($17.13). The highest raises on non-premium ticket prices as compared to last year are the San Francisco Giants (14.1%), Detroit Tigers (10.3%), Philadelphia Phillies (10%) and the Arizona Diamondbacks (10%).
as compared to last year are the San Francisco Giants (14.1%), Detroit Tigers (10.3%), Philadelphia Phillies (10%) and the Arizona Diamondbacks (10%). The lowest raises on non-premium ticket prices are the San Diego Padres (-17%), Cleveland Indians (-16.4%), Texas Rangers (-10.2%) and the Los Angeles Angels (-9.5%).
are the San Diego Padres (-17%), Cleveland Indians (-16.4%), Texas Rangers (-10.2%) and the Los Angeles Angels (-9.5%). The highest average premium tickets are the New York Yankees ($312.11), Los Angeles Dodgers ($222.38), Boston Red Sox ($172.51) and the Washington Nationals ($166.25).
are the New York Yankees ($312.11), Los Angeles Dodgers ($222.38), Boston Red Sox ($172.51) and the Washington Nationals ($166.25). The lowest average premium tickets are the San Diego Padres ($36.01), Colorado Rockies ($36.50), Milwaukee Brewers ($39.59) and the Pittsburgh Pirates ($42.67).
are the San Diego Padres ($36.01), Colorado Rockies ($36.50), Milwaukee Brewers ($39.59) and the Pittsburgh Pirates ($42.67). The most expensive beers are sold by the Boston Red Sox (60.4 cents an oz.), New York Yankees (50 cents an ounce) and the St. Louis Cardinals (54.1 cents an oz.)
are sold by the Boston Red Sox (60.4 cents an oz.), New York Yankees (50 cents an ounce) and the St. Louis Cardinals (54.1 cents an oz.) The cheapest beers are sold by the Arizona Diamondbacks (28.6 cents an oz.), Pittsburgh Pirates (31.2 cents an oz.), Texas Rangers (31.2 cents an oz.), Philadelphia Phillies (32.1 cents an oz.) and Los Angeles Angels (32.1 cents an oz.)
are sold by the Arizona Diamondbacks (28.6 cents an oz.), Pittsburgh Pirates (31.2 cents an oz.), Texas Rangers (31.2 cents an oz.), Philadelphia Phillies (32.1 cents an oz.) and Los Angeles Angels (32.1 cents an oz.) The most expensive hot dogs are sold by the New York Mets ($5.50), Toronto Blue Jays ($5.11).
are sold by the New York Mets ($5.50), Toronto Blue Jays ($5.11). The cheapest hot dogs are sold by the Cincinnati Reds ($1), Baltimore Orioles ($2).
are sold by the Cincinnati Reds ($1), Baltimore Orioles ($2). The most expensive parking is the New York Yankees ($35), Boston Red Sox ($27), Chicago Cubs ($25) and the Chicago White Sox ($23).
is the New York Yankees ($35), Boston Red Sox ($27), Chicago Cubs ($25) and the Chicago White Sox ($23). The cheapest parking is the Tampa Bay Rays ($0), Washington Nationals ($5), Detroit Tigers ($5), Minnesota Twins ($6) and the Kansas City Royals ($6).
Questions? Comments? SportsBiz@cnbc.comChina: The real problem is nominal By Scott Sumner
Here’s a report on China in the Financial Times:
Before the release of Wednesday’s second-quarter gross domestic product estimate, China’s nominal GDP growth rate had plummeted from almost 20 per cent to 5.8 per cent since 2011, a much sharper decline than the inflation-adjusted figures that have trended downwards from 9.5 per cent to 7 per cent over the same period. The difference between this year’s first-quarter nominal and real growth figures implied that the so-called GDP deflator — a broad measure of inflation that covers all types of goods and services — was negative, at -1.2 per cent, for only the third time in nearly two decades. That transformed the government’s 5.8 nominal growth figure into 7 per cent real growth — bang on Beijing’s growth target of “about 7 per cent” for the full year. But it also implied that China suffered from nearly unprecedented deflation in the first quarter.
A few comments:
1. China’s GDP numbers are viewed with some suspicion, but the broad trends are considered fairly accurate, in a qualitative sense.
2. The current slowdown in NGDP growth is very similar to the late 1990s and early 2000s. In both cases RGDP growth slowed, and NGDP growth slowed even more sharply. That suggests a negative aggregate demand shock. In both cases the NGDP slowdown created a debt problem, or perhaps intensified a pre-existing debt problem. This is consistent with the market monetarist approach—sharp slowdowns in NGDP growth reduce RGDP growth and put stress on debtors. Of course China has many other problems, some more severe, but if you are trying to explain cyclical changes in China, then the real problem is nominal.
3. There is nothing wrong with 5.8% NGDP growth. If China kept growth at that pace for the next 20 years, their business cycle would become more stable. The problem now, and in the late 1990s, is the sharp deceleration in NGDP growth.
4. China is not at the zero bound, so there is no doubt that monetary policy explains the sharp slowdown in NGDP. “Debt deflation” is a misleading term, as monetary policy is the causal factor, and debt distress in the symptom. The same was true in the US in the 1930s, and in late 2008, in Argentina in 1998-2001, and in Europe over the past 7 years.
5. But why would the PBoC want to reduce growth in NGDP? There are two possibilities. One is that they wanted to pop the debt bubble, by tightening monetary policy. This would be an indirect method of trying to reform the economy, move it away from debt-fueled growth in possibly wasteful investment spending. But there is a simpler explanation, which applies equally to the episode of the late 1990s. Both then and today, the yuan was linked to a strongly appreciating US dollar. As other countries depreciated their currencies against the dollar, China held fast. The simplest explanation for the Chinese business cycle is to simply look at the strength of the dollar. When the dollar is weak, as in 2007, Chinese growth is really strong, and vice versa.
China should now ease monetary policy, which would mean letting the yuan depreciate against the U.S. dollar. The U.S. would loudly complain, but we are a paper tiger, which (fortunately) has no intention of becoming highly protectionist.Steampunk Comics: A Reading List
by Chriss Cornish,
Steampunk Comics Recommended Reading List
presented for your amusement & edification by moreVikings
The Amazing Screw-On Head by Mike Mignola
When Mike Mignola tires (however briefly) of a steady diet of Hellboy, he turns to diversions such as creating The Amazing Screw-On Head.
When Emperor Zombie threatens the safety of all life on Earth, President Abraham Lincoln enlists the aid of a mechanical head. With Screw-On Head and Mr. Groin on the job, you just know there will be flying machines to be piloted, tombs to be robbed, and weird alien menaces to be thwarted -- all that and talking dogs, too! It's pure mayhem -- and pure Mignola!
Review at Comic Vine
Author(s): Mike Mignola Publisher(s): Dark Horse Copyright: 2002
The Adventures of Luther Arkwright by Bryan Talbot
Across a multitude of parallel universes, dark forces operate in the shadows, manipulating mankind's histories throughout countless timelines. The agents of these Disruptors all work with a single purpose - the recovery and activation of Firefrost, a long-hidden doomsday device whose unspeakable power is capable of consuming the galaxy in all its incarnations.
Standing in the way of the Disruptors is Luther Arkwright, a human anomaly who exists only in a single universe, a man of vast psychic powers and capable of traveling between the parallel realities to counter the Disruptor's influence.
Review at Grovel.org.uk
Author(s): Bryan Talbot Publisher(s): Dark Horse ISBN#: 9781593077259 Copyright: 2007, 1997, 1982
Calamity Jack by Shannon & Dean Hale w/Nathan Hale (illustrator)
This YA graphic novel is a steampunk western re-telling of Jack and the Beanstalk, with assistance from heroine Rapunzel who uses her hair as a lasso and whip.
One day, Jack chooses a target a little more...'giant' than the usual, and as one little bean turns into a great big building-destroying beanstalk, his troubles really begin. But with help from Rapunzel and other eccentric friends, Jack just might out-swindle the evil giants and put his beloved city back in the hands of the people who live there...
Review at Graphic Novel Reporter
Author(s): Shannon & Dean Hale with Nathan Hale (illustrator) Publisher(s): Bloomsbury Publishing PLC ISBN#: 9781599900766 Copyright: 2010
Captain Swing & the Electrical Pirates of Cindery Island by Warren Ellis & Raulo Caceres (illustrator)
This comic book is set in London, 1830, where newly-minted copper Charlie Gravel keeps seeing things he's not supposed to. A crooked Bow Street Runner with a flintlock revolver, flying things that are not supposed to fly, and the violent Scientific Phantasmagoria that is christened Spring-Heeled Jack, but is known by other names.
It is the time of Captain Swing and his Electrical Pirates, and history will never be the same.
Review at Jimmy in the Garden
Jimmy in the Garden Author(s): Warren Ellis & Raulo Caceres (illustrator) Publisher(s): Avatar Copyright: 2008 Daisy Kutter: The Last Train by Kazu Kibuishi Daisy Kutter's bandit days are behind her. She and partner Tom have gone legit, and now she is a respectable small-town citizen, owner of the local general store--and bored out of her mind. Frustration with the tedium of normal life and her own discontents gets her into trouble after she loses the store in a poker game. Mr. Winters, the security mogul who won it, offers a proposition she can't refuse: to test the new security robots on his train. He is willing to pay. This trade paperback collects all four issues of the steampunky sci-fi western comic book Daisy Kutter Review at Comics Bulletin
Comics Bulletin Author(s): Kazu Kibuishi Publisher(s): Viper Comics ISBN#: 9780975419328 Copyright: 2005 Doctor Grordbort's Contrapulatronic Dingus Directory by Greg Broadmore By jingo, by crikey, and by all that's good in this world, he's done it! Dr. Grordbort has released his directory of scientific splendor. A catalogue of wondrous contraptions and wave weapons of unprecedented power, this book makes available a myriad of destructive and beneficial devices to any intergalactic explorer: Rayguns, Metal Men, Ironclads, and Rocketships are all presented. Also included is a sequential pictographic essay (also known as a "comic") on the exploits of world-famous naturalist and adventurer Lord Cockswain. See him uncover the natural mysteries of Venus with several big guns! Satirical steampunk graphic novel done up like a Victorian contraption catalog. The book is inspired by a WETA Limited brochure put out in 2007 that presented their ray gun'statues' as the catalog of Doctor Grordbort. Book Trailer from WetaNZ
Review at Geek Anthem
Geek Anthem Author(s): Greg Broadmore Publisher(s): Dark Horse ISBN#: 9781593078768 Copyright: 2008 The Five Fists Of Science by Matt Fraction & Steven Sanders (illustrator) True story: in 1899, Mark Twain and Nikola Tesla decided to end war forever. With Twain's connections and Tesla's inventions, they went into business selling world peace. So, what happened? Only now can the tale be told - in which Twain and Tesla collided with Edison and Morgan, an evil science cabal merging the Black Arts and the Industrial Age. Turn of the century New York City sets the stage for a titanic battle over the very fate of mankind. A generally highly reviewed steampunk graphic novel, however, some people, including myself, have a difficult time with the artwork. Review at Velcrocity Tourist Board
Velcrocity Tourist Board Author(s): Matt Fraction & Steven Sanders (illustrator) Publisher(s): Image Comics ISBN#: 9781582406053 Copyright: 2006 Girl Genius by Phil & Kaja Foglio In a time when the Industrial Revolution has become an all-out war, Mad Science rules the World... with mixed success. At Transylvania Polygnostic University, Agatha Clay is a student with trouble concentrating and rotten luck. Dedicated to her studies but unable to build anything that actually works, she seems destined for a lackluster career as a minor lab assistant. But when the University is overthrown, a strange "clank" stalks the streets and it begins to look like Agatha might carry a spark of Mad Science after all. Collections of this steampunk webcomic are sold in volumes at many comic shops and bookstores. Review at Comics Worth Reading
Comics Worth Reading Webcomic URL: Girl Genius Author(s): Phil & Kaja Foglio Publisher(s): Studio Foglio ISBN#: 9781890856199 Copyright: 2002 Grandville: A Detective LeBrock Scientific Romance Thriller by Bryan Talbot Two hundred years ago, Britain lost the Napoleonic War and fell under the thumb of French domination. Gaining independence after decades, the Socialist Republic of Britain is now a small, unimportant backwater connected by steam-powered dirigible and mutual suspicion of France. When a British diplomat is murdered to look like suicide, ferocious Detective-Inspector LeBrock of Scotland Yard stalks a ruthless murder squad through the heart of a Belle Epoque Paris, the center of the greatest empire in a world of steam-driven hansom cabs, automatons, and flying machines. Anthropomorphic steampunk police noir from the creator of The Adventures of Luther Arkwright and One Bad Rat. Review at downthetubes.net
downthetubes.net
Author(s): Bryan Talbot
Bryan Talbot
ISBN#: 9781595823977
9781595823977
Publisher(s): Dark Horse
Dark Horse
Copyright: 2009
2009 Iron West by Doug TenNapel Preston Struck is an incompetent outlaw with a heart of fool's gold. He discovers an army of metal men bent on destroying central California. While Struck avoids any form of heroism, he gets a little help from a magical old shaman and his sidekick Sasquatch. Struck is going to need all the help he can get because he's deputized just as the mechanical men have taken over the railroad and are mutating the train into a giant demonic iron monster. This graphic novel is a steampunk western from Image Comics. Review at Numbmonkey
Numbmonkey Author(s): Doug TenNapel Publisher(s): Image Comics ISBN#: 9780575600294 Copyright: 1990, 1996 Lady Mechanika by Joe Benitez The tabloids dubbed her "Lady Mechanika", the sole survivor of a psychotic serial killer's three-year rampage through London. Authorities found her locked in an abandoned laboratory amidst an undeterminable number of corpses and body parts, her own limbs having been amputated and replaced with mechanical components. With no memory of her captivity or her former life, Mechanika eventually built a new life for herself as a private detective, using her unique abilities to solve cases the police couldn't or wouldn't handle. But she never stopped searching for the answers to her own past. Set in turn of the century England, a time when magic and superstition clashed with new scientific discoveries and inventions. This steampunk comic book comes out November 2010 (and I've been on tenterhooks since Comic-Con) Preview at Comic Vine
Author(s): Joe Benitez Publisher(s): Aspen Comics Copyright: November 2010 The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore & O'Neill (illustrator) In this amazingly imaginative tale, literary figures from throughout time and various bodies of work are brought together to face any and all threats to Britain; Allan Quartermain, Mina Murray, Captain Nemo, Dr. Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde and Hawley Griffin, the Invisible Man, form a remarkable legion of intellectual aptitude and physical prowess. WARNING: The actual comics are more graphic than the family friendly movie based on this series. For instance, the Invisible Man is anally raped in volume 2. When we call this a graphic novel, we're NOT just talking about a story told in pictures. Just a heads up. This adventure mashup comic stars some of the most famous characters from Victorian literature and is one of the most commonly mentioned steampunk graphic novels after Girl Genius. It also features a lot of little literary easter eggs for the readers. Review at Comics Bulletin
Comics Bulletin Author(s): Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neill (illustrator) Publisher(s): Wildstorm / DC comics ISBN#: 9781563898587 Copyright: 2002 Lovelace & Babbage by Sydney Padua Adda Lovelace: mathematician extraordinaire and only legitimate child of poet Lord Byron. Charles Babbage: inventor of the difference engine and hater of street music. Together they build the first computer in the mid 1830s, giving humanity the technology to repel the alien invasion of 1898. They use their combined powers to fight crime and have adventures in this exciting webcomic. This fun and witty steampunk webcomic stars real historical figures Adda Byron (a.k.a Lady Lovelace) and Charles Babbage, inventors and programmers of the first mechanical computer. In this much more exciting world the alien invasion of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds novel actually did happen and it led to the difference engine actually being built. Review at The Steampunk Workshop
The Steampunk Workshop Author(s): Sydney Padua Webcomic URL: 2D-Goggles: The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage Monster Commute by Daniel Davis A free steampunk webcomic about the endless daily commute of a robot and a beast, stuck on a monster highway in a world ruled by The Authority; Lincolnstein (Abraham Lincoln's living head preserved in a etherpunky contraption) and his gestapo of giant steam-powered crowbot minions. Collections of this steampunk webcomic are available in books from the Steam Crow store Review at Geek Girls Network
Geek Girls Network Author(s): Daniel Davis Webcomic URL: Steam Crow Monster Commute Robotika by Alex Sheikman Niko, the Steampunk Samurai, is in her Majesty's service. But is he a faithful royal bodyguard, or a for-hire yojimbo? A perfect warrior, or a soulless weapon? Follow Niko on his journey of self-discovery with Uri Bronski and Cherokee Geisha, as the Three Yojimbo discover a world populated by silent samurai, fast talking geisha, deadly mechabetsushikime, digital djihits and morphing butterflies. I LOVE this far future etherpunk western. This trade paperback (TPB) volume is the first of, so far, two books collecting the retro-futurist comic book Robotika Review at my blog, moreVikings
my blog, moreVikings Author(s): Alex Sheikman Publisher(s): Archaia ISBN#: 1932386211 Copyright: 2006 Scarlet Traces by Ian Edginton & D'Israeli (illustrator) A decade after the Martians' abortive assault on Earth & their attempt to establish a bridgehead in Britain, the Victorians have assimilated the Martian technologies into everyday life. Hansom cabs now scuttle along on multi-limbed crab legs & the Martian heat-ray has assured the dominance of the British Empire over two thirds of the Earth's surface. However, there is something rotten at the heart of empire. When the bodies of several young women are found washed up on the Thames, drained of blood, enter Captain Robert Autumn (retired soldier turned gentleman-adventurer) and his former Sergeant Major-now manservant Archie Currie. Together they're drawn into the mystery, which leads them to Whitehall's corridor's of power and the very Hall of the Martian King! This steampunk comic is a murder mystery sequel to H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds. TPB is one of two volumes collecting the comic book Scarlet Traces into graphic novel form. Review at War of The Worlds Author(s): Ian Edginton & D'Israeli (illustrator) Publisher(s): Dark Horse ISBN#: 9781569719404 Copyright: 2003 "Stars" by Donna Pesani This charming tale follows a little girl who lives in the sky in a city full of steampunker 'angels'. Her parents have a very important job; every night they hang the stars in the sky. Tonight, after years of asking and waiting, our little heroine is finally big enough to go to work with her parents. Very sweet and cute. This steampunk comic is a short story and appears in the first volume of UK mangaka comics anthology Leek & Sushi's Manga Show. The other European manga in this book feature a range of stories, however this is the only one that is steampunk in theme. Author(s): Donna Pesani Publisher(s): Itch Publishing Copyright: 2008? Steampunk by Joe Kelly, Chris Bachalo (Illustrator), & Richard Friend (Illustrator) Comatose for over a century, Cole Blaquesmith is awakened in a time he does not recognize, with a bizarre mechanical apparatus for an arm that he does not remember, in a world he does not know. Suddenly living in a high-tech Victorian-age London, Cole is thrust into the role of hero as he leads the London Underdwellers in a revolt against the evil despot, Lord Absinthe. Yes, this steampunk comic book has the least imaginative title possible. The story is non-linear, ends on a cliffhanger, and has great artwork. The full run is collected in one volume; Steampunk: Manimatron
Author(s): Joe Kelly, Chris Bachalo (Illustrator), & Richard Friend (Illustrator) Publisher(s): Cliffhanger ISBN#: 9781563897627 Copyright: 2001
Time Lincoln
by Fred Perry
In his last hour, he lived a lifetime!
What happens when the Great Emancipator is suddenly freed from the bonds of time to right wrongs throughout history? On the night of his assassination, Abraham Lincoln's life is threatened not by an angry actor, but by Void Stalin, the man who is literally the greatest villain of all time!
Somehow, Lincoln is destined to wage war upon Void Stalin's forces of evil in the past, present and future, and the time-traveling tyrant is determined to make sure that never comes to pass!
Review at Manga Life
Author(s): Fred Perry Publisher(s): Antarctic Press (AP Entertainment) Copyright: 2010
Trigun
by Yasuhiro Nightow
Vash the Stampede is the most infamous outlaw on the planet Gunsmoke and with a 60 billion double dollar price on his head the gun slinging pacifist can't seem to get away from money grabbing, itchy-trigger-finger citizenry.
And then there are the two insurance ladies dogging his steps to make sure he doesn't cause their company any further financial hardship.
Find out why Vash is worth so much dead!
Review at Manga Life
Author(s): Yasuhiro Nightow Publisher(s): Dark Horse ISBN#: 9781593070526 Copyright: 2003 (that's for DH's English translation)
Virtuoso
by Jon Munger & Krista Brennan (illustrator)
Alternate history webcomic about an Africa that never existed, one run by steel and springs, commanded by vast matriarchies and past the height of its culture.
Virtuoso is the story of Jnembi Osse, a professional weapons manufacturer for the most powerful empire in the world, and how her private rebellion becomes a full scale international incident.
No reviews, per se, for Virtuoso but everyone from Warren Ellis to Steampunk Costume and The Steampunk Workshop have blogged about it.
Author(s): Jon Munger & Krista Brennan (illustrator) URL: Virtuoso
Conclusion
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Does your comic book reading need a hefty does of retro-futurism? Could your graphic novel collection use a dash of far future etherpunk western? Are your webcomic choices woefully bereft of Victorian scientists toting ray guns and having adventures?Boy-howdy are you in luck, then!There's quite a bit of steampunk fiction available in the good 'ol sequential media these days (as I found when last I assembled a steampunk reading list ); from webcomics full of moody engineers in goggles to steampunk manga westerns set on alien planets.Here find a list of 20 highly recommended comics of various and sundry sort all disporting in that delightful retro-furturist speculative fiction genre we like to call...STEAMPUNK.Amazing Screw-on Head was briefly an animated TV show and is now available on DVD.Ever wanted to see the Bayeux Tapestry destroyed by ray guns? Are you in luck, than!This dark science fiction, published in 1982, is a forerunner of what we call steampunk today. I first discovered this great British comic through an audio book Big Finish made of it in the '90s.NOTE: Warren Ellis doesn't call this comic steampunk, I DO (as do others). So, while Mr. Ellis may not be writing Victorian fantasy, Captain Swing IS solid retro-futurism (if you're puzzling over the distinction, see my steampunk intro.)This etherpunk comic book stars everyone's favorite stove-pipe hat wearing United States President.A great weird-west steampunk manga (graphic novel from Japan). It has that perfect blend of silly and serious that the Japanese do so well.There's also a great anime based on this series.I love that this steampunk webcomic is based in a non-European culture setting.When the subject of good steampunk reads comes up comics rarely, if ever, get mentioned at all. So sad. *sniff*There are many more titles out there in the world of steampunk comic books, graphic novels, manga, and webcomics; this brief list just highlighted a few that I've winnowed out as the best that 2010 has to offer.I hope you now feel inclined to run out and add one of these books and webcomics to your to-read or buy lists.Even more than that, though, I encourage you to start bringing up these great titles when next the subject of good steampunk books comes up.You Might Also Like:By Robert D. Kaplan
"NATO's Article 5 offers little protection against Vladimir Putin's Russia," Iulian Fota, Romania's presidential national security adviser, told me on a recent visit to Bucharest. "Article 5 protects Romania and other Eastern European countries against a military invasion. But it does not protect them against subversion," that is, intelligence activities, the running of criminal networks, the buying-up of banks and other strategic assets, and indirect control of media organs to undermine public opinion. Moreover, Article 5 does not protect Eastern Europe against reliance on Russian energy. As Romanian President Traian Basescu told me, Romania is a somewhat energy-rich island surrounded by a Gazprom empire. The president ran his finger over a map showing how Romania's neighbors such as Bulgaria and Hungary were almost completely dependent on Russian natural gas, while Romania — because of its own hydrocarbon reserves — still has a significant measure of independence. In the 21st century, the president explained, Gazprom is more dangerous than the Russian army. The national security adviser then added: "Putin is not an apparatchik; he is a former intelligence officer," implying that Putin will act subtly. Putin's Russia will not fight conventionally for territory in the former satellite states, but unconventionally for hearts and minds, Fota went on. "Putin knows that the flaw of the Soviet Union was that it did not have soft power."
Thus, Moscow's strategy is about taking over countries from within. In this battle, it is precisely during the quiet periods, when an issue like Ukraine drifts off the front pages because of the Middle East, for example, that we should be worried. And remember that weak democracies can be more useful to Russia than strong dictatorships. A ruthless communist autocrat such as Josip Broz Tito in Yugoslavia was able to keep the Soviets out of his country during the Cold War. But a feeble polity, however democratic, such as Romania's neighbor Moldova, offers the Russians many local politicians to bribe.
With this in mind I traveled to Iasi on Romania's northeastern frontier with Moldova. There I met Iasi's county council president, Cristian Mihai Adomnitei, who reflected on how a relatively small group of Bolshevik conspirators had taken the great cities of Moscow and Saint Petersburg in November 1917. "Putin is heir to this tradition," Adomnitei said. "In his heart, he is a Bolshevik. He knows that you can conquer vast territories without big armies." Adomnitei took me inside Iasi's 19th-century National Theater, a little jewel dripping in gold leaf in celebration of the Rococo and Baroque styles, where Verdi's Traviata was to be performed in a few days. Alone with me in the empty theater, Adomnitei declared, "Here is Europe, here is its history and culture, its artistic values, and maybe soon its political values. Here is the borderland of the Habsburg Empire. We need your help to defend us."
From Iasi I crossed the Prut River into Moldova — historic Bessarabia, a territory that has been traded back and forth through the centuries between Romania and Russia but that, since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, has been independent. Immediately the quality of the road deteriorated and the houses became marked by rust, scrap iron and undressed concrete — like the Romania I had known from a generation before. I noticed that the houses along the road were connected to a natural gas pipeline network coming from Siberia, so that the quality of life was dependent upon Russia. Men and women in dusty fedoras and kerchiefs rolled by in leiterwagens, or wooden wagons. In the first town through which I passed, Ungheni, the park and sidewalks were devoured by weeds.
Almost a quarter century after the Soviet Empire's collapse, its legacy lives on not only through underdevelopment but also through corruption — which in Moldova is the overwhelming fact of political life that dares not speak its name, so that nationality questions receive all the prominence. Because of strong ethnic Russian, ethnic Ukrainian, ethnic Bulgarian and ethnic Turkic elements, and an ethnic Romanian majority that until the end of the Cold War had used the Cyrillic alphabet to read and write, Moldova's very identity is still somewhat an issue, the prime minister, Iurie Leanca, admitted to me in a long interview.
Witness Balti, a city in northern Moldova, heralded by Soviet-era apartment buildings that resemble yellowing teeth. Here I met a local politician, Cecilia Graur, who told me that, "everyone is afraid. The situation in eastern Ukraine could happen here. We all know this because of our own divisions," political, ethnic and linguistic. "People talk about it all the time." Balti, with its pro-Russian sentiment, could become a Moldovan Donetsk, a Western diplomat warned me. While Graur was pro-European and spoke Romanian, Alexander Nesterovskii, another politician I met in Balti, was pro-Russian and spoke Russian. He said that local support for Putin represented a rational choice. "People could never afford to have Russia slow down natural gas deliveries or cease buying the region's agricultural products." Communism no longer meant Communism per se, but an advantageous economic relationship with Russia.
Comrat, in southern Moldova, is home to the Christian Orthodox and Russian-speaking Turkic Gagauz — a potential fifth column that Putin could use to undermine Moldova. Vitaliy Kyurkchu, a local Gagauz politician, told me that with 160,000 Gagauz in Moldova and 40,000 over the border in Ukraine, "we have ongoing kitchen discussions — discussions mainly among ourselves, I mean — about the creation of a Greater Gagauzia" should Moldova and Ukraine weaken |
value of an asset or of an individual’s wealth is measured at a particular time there is no guarantee that the asset value or the individual’s wealth will remain at that level or increase from that point. This would make it difficult to predict the potential yield from a wealth tax and would have to be borne in mind in terms of its consistency as a source of revenue.
Minister Noonan pointed to the Domicile Levy introduced in Budget 2010 which targets individuals who earn more than €1 million per year, who have property worth more than €5 million in Ireland, and whose liability to Irish income tax is less than €200,000 in a given year.
The amount of the levy is €200,000. A total of 11 people paid the levy in 2011, bringing in €1.67 million, while 10 people paid it in 2012, bringing in €1.64 million.
Minister Noonan said the levy was expanded in last year’s Budget which should see an increase in the amount of money it brings in this year when the figures are announced in October.
Originally published at 7.15amPankaj Advani wins 14th World title at the 2015 IBSF World Billiards Championship
Abhishek Jain FOLLOW SENIOR ANALYST News 1.69K // 27 Sep 2015, 16:48 IST SHARE Share Options × Facebook Twitter Flipboard Reddit Google+ Email
Pankaj Advani poses with the IBSF World Billiards Championship trophy
India’s most successful cue master Pankaj Advani added another title to his tally by winning the IBSF World Billiards Championship held in Adelaide, Australia. He beat his opponent from Singapore, Peter Gilchrist, in the final by a mammoth difference of 1168 points, after the match ended after the maximum allotted time – 300 minutes.
The 30-year-old Advani started the match on the front foot by smashing a break of 127 in his opening shot and took the game beyond his opponent in the next two shots by scoring two triple century breaks(360 and 301).
This victory also came as a revenge for Pankaj as he lost the final of the point format Championship to the same opponent in the last week.
“I was determined to get even with Peter”: Pankaj Advani
On winning his 14th title, Advani said, “I was determined to get even with Peter (Gilchrist) after losing the point format final to him. A productive chat with my sports psychologist brother Shree and a good night's sleep did the trick. We discussed my strategies and mental approach the night before the big final and it all panned out perfectly,” as TOI reported.
With a comfortable 700-point lead, The 2015 6-red snooker world champion continued to punish his opponent’s missed chances with breaks of 284, 119, 101 and 106 in quick succession to extend his lead to 1100 points at the halfway mark of the 5-hour final.
Advani continued his fine aggressive scoring in the second half of the 5-hour match and put the last nail in the coffin with a fluent and flawless 430 points break that was unfinished as the match reached the end of its 300 minutes duration.
He added, “I've been on the move last couple of months competing in many tournaments back to back, in both snooker and billiards. The stint started with winning the world 6-red snooker championship and ended with this world title in billiards making it a very satisfying phase of the year for me."
Final score:
Pankaj Advani (India) defeated Peter Gilchrist (Singapore) 2408 - 1240 (final of Time format)
Breaks: Pankaj Advani (127, 360, 301, 284, 124, 101, 106, 171, 114, 430*), Peter Gilchrist (102, 156, 249, 107, 198).
.@PankajAdvani247 bags his 14th World title by winning the IBSF World Billiards Championship pic.twitter.com/YdR3fgPFXf — Sportskeeda (@Sportskeeda) September 27, 2015
AdvertisementAhmed Elmohamady
Hull scored six second-half goals to thrash Fulham and go seven points clear of the Premier League relegation zone.
It was the Tigers' biggest-ever victory in the Premier League.
Ahmed Elmohamady started the rout with a 15-yard shot before Robert Koren swept in from Yannick Sagbo's cross and George Boyd drove in a third.
Tom Huddlestone thumped in his first goal since April 2011, Matty Fryatt tapped in a fifth and Koren prodded in the sixth from close range.
Tigers among the goals Hull had scored seven goals in eight home games before Christmas but have now managed eight in their last two matches at the KC Stadium.
Huddlestone had promised not to cut his hair until he ended his goal drought. His long-delayed trim started within seconds of him scoring as he ran to the touchline so a member of Hull's backroom staff could snip off a lock of the midfielder's hair.
It was only the fourth occasion this season that Steve Bruce's side have managed more than one goal in a game and it doubled their previous best Premier League win, a 3-0 victory over West Brom in October 2008.
After a five-match winless run, and with games against Liverpool and Chelsea to follow, it could be a pivotal result for the buoyant Tigers.
Fulham prepare for key matches against West Ham and Sunderland in an altogether different mood after a fourth defeat in six matches under new manager Rene Meulensteen.
Media playback is not supported on this device 'Unbelievable day' for Hull - Bruce
Any optimism derived from their 2-1 win at Norwich on Thursday was extinguished in a hapless second 45 minutes at the KC Stadium and they have now conceded 15 goals in their last four games and 41 this season.
Meulensteen made six changes and Fulham were actually the first to threaten when a sweeping passing move ended with Ashkan Dejagah feeding John Arne Riise for the Norwegian to force a save from Allan McGregor, who had been passed fit after a scan on a knee injury.
But the Tigers quickly began to dominate and Huddlestone had one free-kick from a tight angle pushed away by Fulham keeper David Stockdale, who was on loan at Hull during their run to promotion last season, and was then denied by the post from a similar effort.
Huddlestone breaks drought The Hull midfielder had not managed to find the net since scoring in Tottenham's 3-3 draw at Arsenal in April 2011.
As the Tigers pressed, Stockdale pushed over the bar after Boyd met Elmohamady's cross with a stab at goal before Sagbo just missed with a curling shot.
After the interval Stockdale was forced into action again when he pushed away a powerful effort from Sagbo and blocked Koren's follow-up, but four minutes after the break the pressure finally told.
Huddlestone's corner was only cleared to the edge of the area by Bryan Ruiz and Elmohamady took a touch before finding the top corner.
Media playback is not supported on this device Meulensteen'shocked' by thrashing
Just before the hour Sagbo clipped a cross behind Aaron Hughes for Koren to guide in a second and the hosts added a third when Jake Livermore slipped a pass through for Boyd, the Fulham defenders backed away and the winger found the net from the edge of the area.
Stockdale saved from Figueroa but Huddlestone thumped in to the bottom corner from 25 yards to make it four and when the Cottagers goalkeeper pushed Huddlestone's free-kick on to the bar, Fryatt reacted first to touch in from a couple of yards.
The sixth came when Stockdale, who impressed despite conceding half a dozen goals, produced a scrambled save to deny Danny Graham only for Koren to poke the rebound into an empty net.(KUTV) The police effort to flood the troubled Rio Grande area with three times as many officers, in the wake of several recent murders, has ended.
But Wednesday night, police kept their mobile command center in the middle of 500 West, just south of 200 South, as a visible sign of their presence.
No murders were reported in the area since Friday, when extra officers were assigned.
Still, some felt little change over the weekend and early this week.
"It seems like the same old, same old in the area," said Sydney Rich, a young professional who is unafraid of living in the Rio Grande neighborhood, even after what she's heard and seen. "We have a business over here that had its windows smashed just a few months ago."
Maribel Villanueva said she did not sense more officers.
"To be honest, I did not notice the increase in cops," said Villanueva, who works are a local restaurant. "But we still had the homeless people over here, bothering the customers."
She and others also reported finding a trail of blood on a staircase, in a converted warehouse, just north of Pioneer Park. What became of the bleeding individual is unknown.
The Pioneer Park Coalition, which has long pushes for moving the homeless shelter, said over the last several days feces were smeared outside another business.
"This is nothing against the Salt Lake City Police Department," said Dave Kelly, spokesman for the coalition, made up largely of business interests. "Without police being down there consistently, it's not going to move the needle."
Police said they are still there, and the mobile command center may allow officers to respond more forcefully to emergencies.
In addition, more eyes maybe watching the area.
The Road Home Shelter said it has installed "24/7 security" to monitor inside and outside the building, to help police with their investigations.The eternal debate over religion and a German shepherd. These are the factors that led aptly named Michael Brewer to name his prospective business, Dogma Brewing Company. The homebrewer of more than ten years is infatuated with religious study and likes to engage in discussions about them. But clearly, he has greater affection for Crixus, the canine he and his wife rescued, named after Spartacus’ second in command, and have used as the likeness for Dogma’s logo.
While still in its infancy, Brewer hopes to convert his nanobrewery dreams to brick and mortar in the Clairemont area. Like his business’ moniker, there are two reasons for his neighborhood preference — he lives close by and also wants to provide a brewery option within walking distance of the community’s residence to prevent DUIs. His hope is to set up a brewery in an existing industrial space outfitted with a small tasting room, then establish a satellite tasting room elsewhere a la Belching Beaver Brewery, which is based in Vista and has a sampling venue in North Park.
At present, Brewer is doing what he’s done for the past decade-plus: crafting Belgian beer styles on a custom-made one-barrel system. Such modest equipment isn’t all that far of a cry from his homebrewing beginnings, making beer using a hot pot while deployed in the Iraq War. Once established (he hopes to break ground on a location this summer), he plans to hit the ground brewing and foresees a tripel dubbed The Trinity as his debut product. But for now, he’s taking things slow, biding his time with his wife and, of course, good ol’ Crixus.With the door seemingly closed at Force India, Adrian Sutil has confirmed he has entered into talks with other teams, including Williams…
With the door seemingly closed at Force India, Adrian Sutil has confirmed he has entered into talks with other teams, including Williams.
Force India have yet to confirm their driver line-up for 2012 but it is widely expected that Paul di Resta will be joined by Nico Hulkenberg, leaving Sutil without a drive.
Having seen Renault on Friday confirm Romain Grosjean as their second driver, one of the few spots left on the grid is at Williams.
“Yes, certainly there have been talks with several teams, but nothing is signed yet,” Sutil told Speed-Magazin.
“Williams is certainly one of the teams that still have a place. Unfortunately, I can’t say anything about the discussions. But we hope to have a decision by mid-December.”
To go without a drive next year would be a massive blow for Sutil, particularly as he feels he enjoyed a strong season.
“It was my best season in F1 and I reached my goal of establishing myself in the top ten,” he said.
“When I sit down and make my goals for 2012, the objective must of course be to finish better than ninth. But unfortunately that also depends on the car. ”
Despite outscoring team-mate Paul di Resta – who admittedly was in his debut season – by fifteen points, the 28-year-old admits that it was hard work topping the Briton.
“Yes, in the end I beat Paul in all areas, but it was hard work. He did a great job and challenged me throughout the year. Whether he is set to stay (at Force India) or not, I cannot say because I don’t know about Paul’s contract.”At times, Shinzo Abe and Park Geun-hye bring to mind a couple whose marriage has hit the rocks.
The leaders of Japan and South Korea appeared unwilling to reconcile their differences, preferring to withdraw into an uncomfortable silence that has lasted for more than a year. The schism led many observers to wonder when, or if, either party would ever swallow its pride.
In the end, it took an intervention by a mutual friend, Barack Obama, to break the deadlock. On Tuesday, Mr. Abe and Ms. Park's 15-month estrangement ended when they met, along with the US president, on the sidelines of a nuclear security summit in The Hague. The trilateral summit was the first face-to-face official talks between Japanese and South Korean leaders for almost two years.
The row over territory and history between two conservative, hereditary politicians with a shared nemesis in the form of a nuclear-armed North Korea has caused growing anxiety in the United States, just as Washington attempts to re-pivot its defense policy toward the Asia-Pacific in response to Pyongyang's development of weapons of mass destruction and Chinese naval aggression.
"Despite defense budget cuts, the US is trying to develop a new policy in Asia," says Kim Hyun-wook, a professor at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security in Seoul. "So it wants its allies, Japan and South Korea, to be big supporters of that, and to 'blend' so that the relationship between Washington and its allies isn't just bilateral, but more blended and networked."
'Shared concern'
At the meeting, the three leaders spoke with one voice about the need to coordinate on how to address North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
Obama, who sat with Park to his right and Abe to his left, stated that the US, Japan, and South Korea were united by "our shared concern about North Korea and its nuclear program."
Park urged North Korea to change course on its nuclear program, stating that "should North Korea embark on a path toward denuclearization on the basis of sincerity, then there will be away forward to address the difficulties confronting the North Korean people."
Abe, for his part, affirmed the need for the three countries to cooperate on North Korea. He also said that he was "so very happy to be able to see" Park, and anticipated a "future oriented relationship" with South Korea.
But according to official statements, the meeting was not to touch on any of the sensitive issues that have soured Abe and Park's relationship since they took office in December 2012 and February last year, respectively.
Abe prompted anger in Seoul – and a rare public show of irritation in Washington – at the end of last year with a visit to Yasukuni, a controversial shrine in Tokyo that honors 2.5 million Japanese war dead, including 14 class A war criminals.
Earlier this year, Abe threatened to reopen another historical wound when he announced plans to re-examine an official apology to women, mostly from the Korean peninsula, who were forced to work in Japanese military brothels before and during World War II.
The countries are also involved in a long-running dispute over a group of islets in the Japan Sea – known by Japanese as Takeshima and Koreans as Dokdo – that are administered by Seoul but claimed by Tokyo.
Mr. Obama's visit to Tokyo and Seoul next month lent greater urgency to the need to lift Abe and Park's relationship out of the deep freeze.
US attempts to end the deadlock reportedly included a phone call from Obama to Abe earlier this month in which the US president stressed the need for Japan and South Korea to cooperate on regional security. That message was reinforced during a subsequent lunch that the US ambassador to Tokyo, Caroline Kennedy, held for Abe.
"South Korea was reluctant to agree to the talks until the very last minute, but relented under US pressure," says Tetsuo Kotani, a fellow at the Japan Institute of International Affairs in Tokyo. "Japan was always willing to meet, so South Korea didn't want to look like it was the main obstacle to talks."
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Reconciliation ahead of visit
"The talks in The Hague are connected to Obama's visit to Japan and South Korea in April. He wanted some movement toward reconciliation before he visited both countries, and failure to bring the leaders together would have meant the continuation of an abnormal situation and called into question US leadership and its ability to influence its closest allies in the region.”
For now, Abe appears willing to resist pressure from right-wingers in his Liberal Democratic Party, whose support helped him secure the party leadership in 2012, and instead accommodate US desire for better ties between its two main allies in the region.
The chances that today's talks will bring about a sea change in relations between Japan and South Korea are slim, however, says Mr. Kim at the foreign affairs institute in Seoul.
"It all depends upon Abe's behavior," he says. "Park is very principled and stubborn, so if Japan wants her to shift her thinking, it needs to do something substantial. There won't be any change in their relationship unless Park witnesses significant changes in Abe's attitude."
An opportunity to put Japan-South Korea ties on a firmer footing could come next year, when the countries mark the 50th anniversary of the resumption of diplomatic ties.
"In around the summer of this year [Abe and Park] are both going to have to think about what their countries' relationship really means, because this is an important anniversary," says Mr. Izumi at Shizuoka University.
"I don't know how that will happen, exactly, but at the very least they need to create a better mood and escape from the stalemate over historical issues."Chris Floyd, Published: 27 March 2010 Hits: 25771
Well, John the Baptist after torturing a thief
Looks up at his hero the Commander-in-Chief
Saying, “Tell me great hero, but please make it brief
Is there a hole for me to get sick in?
-- Bob Dylan, "Tombstone Blues"
One can only assume that the regular editors of the New York Times were all out at a party, or left early for a weekend in the Hamptons, or something -- but somehow, the paper published a front webpage story that stated -- without the usual thousand excuses and extenuations -- that American troops are routinely slaughtering Afghan civilians at checkpoints. What's more, the story unequivocally ties the civilian killings to the "surge" ordered by the noble Nobel Peace laureate, Barack Obama.
Here's what the Times says:
American and NATO troops firing from passing convoys and military checkpoints have killed 30 Afghans and wounded 80 others since last summer, but in no instance did the victims prove to be a danger to troops, according to military officials in Kabul.
And what is the paper's authority for this astounding admission of atrocity? Not the usual "unnamed sources" or "senior official in a position to have knowledge of the situation," but none other than Obama's hand-picked commander on the Af-Pak front, General Stanley "Black Ops" McChrystal his own self:
“We have shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has ever proven to be a threat,” said Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who became the senior American and NATO commander in Afghanistan last year. His comments came during a recent videoconference to answer questions from troops in the field about civilian casualties.
Let's repeat the much-media-lauded general's statement again: “We have shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has ever proven to be a threat." Now, what would the authorities say if you or I shot "an amazing number of people who have never proven to be a threat?" Why, they would call us murderers -- even mass murderers. Yet this is precisely what "the senior American and NATO commander in Afghanistan" has just declared, on videotape.
The story goes on to make the extraordinarily straight -- and indisputable -- point that these wanton killings of civilians who have never even "proven to be a threat" is fanning the very "insurgency" (which is the Beltway term of art for any resistance to American military presence") whose quelling is the ostensible reason for the Laureate's "surge" in the first place:
Failure to reduce checkpoint and convoy shootings, known in the military as “escalation of force” episodes, has emerged as a major frustration for military commanders who believe that civilian casualties deeply undermine the American and NATO campaign in Afghanistan.
Many of the detainees at the military prison at Bagram Air Base joined the insurgency after the shootings of people they knew, said the senior NATO enlisted man in Afghanistan, Command Sgt. Maj. Michael Hall.
“There are stories after stories about how these people are turned into insurgents,” Sergeant Major Hall told troops during the videoconference. “Every time there is an escalation of force we are finding that innocents are being killed,” he said.
The story even states plainly that the official figures of admitted killing of unthreatening civilians -- already unconscionably high -- might not be the true extent of these atrocities:
Shootings from convoys and checkpoints involving American, NATO and Afghan forces accounted for 36 civilian deaths last year, down from 41 in 2008, according to the United Nations. With at least 30 Afghans killed since last June in 95 such shootings, according to military statistics, the rate shows no signs of abating.
And those numbers do not include shooting deaths caused by convoys guarded by private security contractors. Some tallies have put the total number of escalation of force deaths far higher.
A spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry, Zemary Bashary, said private security contractors sometimes killed civilians during escalation of force episodes, but he said he did not know the number of instances.
The story also presents an example of one slaughter of civilians, and shows how it leads directly to the rise of resistance against the American military presence:
One such case was the death of Mohammed Yonus, a 36-year-old imam and a respected religious authority, who was killed two months ago in eastern Kabul while commuting to a madrasa where he taught 150 students.
A passing military convoy raked his car with bullets, ripping open his chest as his two sons sat in the car. The shooting inflamed residents and turned his neighborhood against the occupation, elders there say.
“The people are tired of all these cruel actions by the foreigners, and we can’t suffer it anymore,” said Naqibullah Samim, a village elder from Hodkail, where Mr. Yonus lived. “The people do not have any other choice, they will rise against the government and fight them and the foreigners. There are a lot of cases of killing of innocent people.”
Finally, the story depicts McChrystal -- again, the handpicked commander of the commander-in-chief -- stating flatly when it comes to the widely ballyhooed "counterinsurgency doctrine" that is supposedly now governing the military occupation of Afghanistan, the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing. In other words, it's a full-scale, four-star FUBAR:
More recently, General McChrystal moved to bring nearly all Special Operations forces in Afghanistan under his control. NATO officials said concern about civilian casualties caused by these forces was partly behind the decision, along with the need to better coordinate units and ensure that local commanders were aware of what was happening.
One unit could be doing counterinsurgency, while another carried out “a raid that might in fact upset progress,” General McChrystal explained during the videoconference.Posted on September 5, 2012
Krauthammer Scorches Clinton's Speech: "A Giant Swing And A Miss"
Charles Krauthammer reacts to former President Bill Clinton's address to the 2012 Democratic National Convention:
KRAUTHAMMER: Well, I think I’m going respectfully dissent from the panel. I think it was a giant swing and a miss. Mighty Casey and Bill Clinton is a natural, he struck out on this. I don't think it would move a needle whatsoever. Look, it had all the classic Clinton elements; it was engaging, it was humorous. In some cases, it was generous and there are more mentions of the Bushes than I heard in three days in Tampa, but on the other hand it was also vintage Clinton. In that it was sprawling, undisciplined and truly self-indulgent.
This is one of the strangest nomination speeches I think ever given; it was kind of an amalgam between a State of the Union address, a policy wonk seminar and what sounded to me like a campaign speech for a third Clinton term. Obama was sort of incidental. He’d be shoved in every once in a while in the speech as a way to say, well, he thinks as I do.
Megyn, you raised a point about Clinton saying, “I believe that no other president could have done this or done any better than this, or quicker.” But, remember, the slogan of Obama in 2008 was Yes We Can. And as was mentioned earlier, you heard the Elizabeth Warren speech. It was a kind of denunciation of the miserable conditions in America today. And that is the kind of speech you would have expected four years ago, running against the Republicans. There is no recognition whatsoever that the current conditions are the result of, and they're on the watch of, the Obama administration.
And one last point, it is true that he made a lot of detailed rebuttals - that he is sort of the rebuttler in chief of the stuff heard in Tampa - but Paul Ryan can handle all of that in 10 minutes in his debate. So, I think it was a wasted opportunity of what could have been a great, stirring rousing endorsement of Obama…
KRAUTHAMMER: That is precisely right, and it's precisely the one thing Clinton could not admit. That when he lost the house, in the Gingrich revolution in 1994, he actually changed course. First two years, he was a sort of left wing, trying to take over health care with HillaryCare, raising taxes and all of that, as Obama was. But he made a very decisive shift, which for Obama was natural, because he is by instinct a centrist. And Obama is instinctually, a far more left Democrat. And it's because of that shift to the center that Clinton succeeded, that he passed welfare and ended up with a balanced budget. And it is because he did not shift, that Obama is where he is with a fairly wrecked economy, little support, and just hanging on in a race that he could very well lose...
KRAUTHAMMER: I think there is a value in the hall and among the believers that this was an important event. It’s the laying on of hands of the grand old man. Clinton is to Democrats what Reagan, after his presidency, was to Republicans. You know? An icon, and I think there is a kind of symbolism in Clinton saying, in particular because he was centrist, Obama is not, he's okay, support him, etc. But, I don't think it has any resonance beyond the hall. And that is why I think it was a missed opportunity. It could have been a tight speech. It could have been an Obama oriented speech.
And there’s one big irony here. Think about how long Obama was hiding behind the curtain waiting for Clinton to finish. In some ways, it was the Clinton revenge for 2008. I’m sure he was sort of tapping his watch the whole time in disbelief about how long it was going on, and in a way it was Clinton keeping people waiting, as he always does, except this time, it was a man he was supposedly endorsing and promoting.The rough stuff shouldn’t obscure what was a nail-biter of a game, a 4-2 win to the Bears. The Ice Dogs had won their previous two meetings this season, setting the stage for the fourth and final derby of the year.
The Australian Ice Hockey League, or AIHL, is entering the last month of the regular season. The two Sydney teams remain in the hunt for a top-four spot and a postseason berth in what many describe as the tightest the AIHL has ever been.
Similar to the A-League, each team in the AIHL is allowed to sign four international marquee professionals. The Ice Dogs have two players from the NHL prospect system in the Detroit Red Wings’ Stephen Johnston and the New York Rangers’ Rory Rawlyk.
The Ice Dogs and Bears meet this Friday at Macquarie Ice Rink. Doors open at 7.30pm, with the puck dropping at 8pm. Tickets to the game can be purchased at www.icedogsshop.com.au
(Header image courtesy of AIHL.)Changes were at hand for the Kansas City Wizards in 2011. Changes which started with their name - from Wizards to Sporting Kansas City - and included a new stadium, new colors, and - most importantly - new players.
"We needed to change the culture and unfortunately, when you're changing culture you have to change people," manger Peter Vermes said. "The mechanisms to achieve that aren't the easiest."
Newly removed from an interim tag, Vermes was placed in charge of all soccer operations for Sporting. He faced the daunting task of taking years of mediocrity and replacing it with the same type of quality that won an MLS Cup in 2000, when a younger Vermes anchored the Kansas City defense.
"I knew going into this, it was going to take some time and what we have now is a very strong core group of players," Vermes said. "We've laid out our expectations and this group meets that standard daily. That's the crux of our success."
Success that Vermes' team realized almost immediately. Sporting posted a 13-9-12 record and reached the eastern conference finals in 2011. It was the farthest Sporting had gone in the playoffs in eight years. Following that success this year with a trip to MLS Cup is an attainable achievement, but Vermes is focused on the path, not the destination.
"We have small goals that we are trying to achieve right now, in the short term," Vermes said. "That will lead to big goals and one of the biggest is consistency. If we're consistent, we will put ourselves in a position to compete for those big goals."
No longer a punching bag in the eastern conference, Sporting is in an unusual position. They're favored. But with a roster of an average age of 22, Sporting is also one of the youngest teams in MLS. It's the coveted combination of youth and talent that makes Sporting a force to be reckoned with. Just ask second-year striker C.J. Sapong.
Sapong's rookie season left little to be wanted. With five goals and five assists, the 2011 Rookie of the Year put the rest of MLS on notice. But after a year of facing Sapong's 6-foot-1 frame, there were doubts of whether he could match his output for a second year.
"I didn't listen to the talk and focused on the things that I can get better at and I've found myself in good positions," Sapong said. "I'm definitely hungrier when I have something to prove, whatever position I'm in, I'm going to provide an impact for the team."
He's tallied two goals, including the game-winner against D.C. United, a club he played for at the youth level as a teen. Paired with Kei Kamara, Sapong has flourished and Kamara is enjoying the best soccer of his MLS career.
"I call C.J. my little brother because that's been our relationship," Kamara said. "I saw his potential and saw a lot of myself in him and have just tried to pass on what I've learned over the years and he's listened."
Under Vermes, Kamara has led Sporting in scoring the last two years with 19 goals total. In his previous six years in MLS, Kamara scored 15 times.
"I have to give Peter a lot of credit, and at the same time I've also grown and I read the game much better now than when I first came to the league," Kamara said. "Peter saw something different in me and put me in a place where I see the game better."
Finding a winning combination of youth and experience has rewarded Vermes. He's instilled a belief and desire into his team that is on the cusp of realizing huge returns. For Sapong, the environment continues to reward his development.
"The attacking style we have, the coaches we have, and the players that are here have made all the difference for me," Sapong said. "I come in and learn every day."
It's an attitude echoed by his veteran strike-partner Kamara.
"I'm pushing myself and have stayed hungry," Kamara said. "When you get older and years go by, you have to continue growing and finding success in new ways."
Like any good general manager, Vermes has kept an eye to future success while managing the present.
"In the beginning it was difficult, when you're trying to rebuild a culture, every little problem is a big one because things are magnified when you're not successful," Vermes said. "What we have now is a core of very good players and that can be around for a long time. We can bring in a player and it isn't the team adjusting to that guy, rather it's that person adjusting to the team, culture, and expectations."In the past few weeks the British parliament passed legislation to move forward in allowing same sex couples to marry in England and Wales. The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill for England and Wales received its first reading on 24 January 2013. On 5 February 2013, the House of Commons debated the bill, and later approved the legislation on second reading in a 400–175 vote. Hitherto, civil unions were allowed between same sex couples under the law since 2005. This is very welcome news indeed. Certainly English society has come a long way from when homosexual sex between consenting adults were decriminalized in 1967. Still, there is determined opposition to amending the law to allow same sex marriage, most notably from religious institutions. The Catholic Church in England and Wales together with the Church of England are campaigning against this legislation. The Muslim Council of Britain and the Rabbinical Council of the United Synagogue are also opposed. The more things change, the more they stay the same it seems.
The shift in public attitudes towards gay people that has allowed for tolerance and increasingly acceptance across the Western world is largely attributed to the Stonewall riots which took place in Greenwich Village in New York City in 1969. Following a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, three days of rioting by gay people, fed up with police harassment, erupted. In the aftermath a more determined drive for gay liberation was born. While this is true, it is worth noting that there had been a campaign for the civil rights of gay people years before the Stonewall riots. For example, in the United States, the Mattachine Society, the first national gay rights organization, was founded by Harry Hay in 1950. The Daughters of Bilitis, a lesbian civil rights organization, was founded in San Francisco in 1955. These and other homophile societies as they called themselves worked toward effecting a change in public attitudes with the desired goal of the decriminalization of homosexuality. Religious opposition to homosexuality was as pronounced, if not more so, during the 1950s and 1960s, but then as now, there were exceptions. For example, the Council on Religion and the Homosexual was founded in 1964 by the Glide Memorial Methodist Church and representatives of Methodist, Episcopal, Lutheran and the United Church of Christ. Its mandate was to educate the church going public and to advocate for rights of gay people.
The Challenge and Progress of Homosexual Law Reform was published by the Council on Religion and the Homosexual in 1968 with contributions from other groups representing gay and lesbian people. It is a collection of essays which survey the history of attitudes and laws concerning homosexuality in England and the United States, noting the decriminalization of homosexual sex acts in England in 1967. At the time of publication, Illinois had become the first state to decriminalize homosexual sex in 1961. New York State attempted a revision of its laws concerning homosexuality in 1965, but this failed to pass. Pennsylvania, Delaware and Michigan had finished reports of revision commissions recommending decriminalization and California, Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Montana, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas and Washington had set up reform commissions to review the laws concerning homosexuality. It concludes, optimistically, that “the homosexual minority will reap concrete benefits from changed laws and changing attitudes.” While this has largely come to pass, as evidenced by the recent legislation in England and Wales, the struggle gay people face for their civil rights continues in the present as does the vehement religious opposition.
Posted by Geoffrey
AdvertisementsThe Senate Intelligence Committee has recently expanded its ongoing Russia investigation to include the campaign of former Green Party presidential candidate, Jill Stein. Dr. Stein has said that she will comply with the committee’s request for documents pertinent to their investigation of possible Russian tampering with the 2016 presidential election. The Kansas Green Party stands with Dr. Stein and wishes to temper the premature if not impertinent allegations that she has colluded with Russia.
In such a discussion of possible Russian collusion and the claim that Jill Stein had a part to play in the alleged scheme, it would be appropriate to examine a few relevant facts.
First, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has not produced any evidence of Jill Stein’s campaign having colluded with Russia or the Trump campaign. No such evidence has been produced by any intelligence agency either.
Russia collusion allegations directed toward Jill Stein prior to the official inclusion of her campaign in |
surveilling, discipling and firing employees suspected of union activities; and presenting lectures on the “evils of unionism” at stores with organizing activity.
Can The Waltons Afford To Pay Employees More?
At the same time Walmart workers are fighting for economic rights and dignity, the Walton family is the richest family in the country. Together, the Walmart heirs possess more wealth than the bottom 41.5% of American families combined, a stat verified by Politifact.
The bottom-line: Wal-Mart won’t change its anti-worker ways until shoppers demand that it do so.
Please stand with the 99% this holiday season. Don’t shop at Walmart if you can avoid it – and DON’T CROSS PICKET LINES WHILE WALMART WORKERS ARE STRIKING ON THANKSGIVING AND BLACK FRIDAY.
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View Liberal Lamp’s archive on this site or Contact the author of this postImage copyright CNH Industrial Image caption Driverless autonomous tractors can work equally well at night
In the not-too-distant future, our fields could be tilled, sown, tended and harvested entirely by fleets of co-operating autonomous machines by land and air.
And they'll be working both day and night.
Driverless tractors that can follow pre-programmed routes are already being deployed at large farms around the world.
Drones are buzzing over fields assessing crop health and soil conditions. Ground sensors are monitoring the amount of water and nutrients in the soil, triggering irrigation and fertiliser applications.
And in Japan, the world's first entirely automated lettuce farm is due for launch next year.
The future of farming is automated.
Food shortages, big business
The World Bank says we'll need to produce 50% more food by 2050 if the global population continues to rise at its current pace.
But the effects of climate change could see crop yields falling by more than a quarter.
So autonomous tractors, ground-based sensors, flying drones and enclosed hydroponic farms could all help farmers produce more food, more sustainably at lower cost.
No wonder the agricultural robotics sector is growing so fast.
Image copyright CNH Industrial Image caption Autonomous tractors may become a common sight in our fields
One report, by US firm WinterGreen Research, forecasts that the market will grow from $817m (£655m) in 2013 to $16.3bn (£13bn) by 2020.
But investment bank Goldman Sachs is far more bullish, predicting a $240bn market over the next five years. Manufacturers including John Deere, CNH Industrial and AGCO are all fighting to corner the market in driverless tractors.
As well as big kit, small kit is giving farmers up-to-the-second data on the state of their fields and produce - what Dr Roland Leidenfrost of Deepfield Robotics calls the "internet of plants and fields".
Bosch start-up Deepfield, based in Germany, is working to automate the growing and testing of seed crops, tracking the susceptibility to weeds and drought of different genetic varieties.
Meanwhile, engineers in Shropshire, England, are trying to show it is now possible to farm a field without a human setting foot in it at all.
The Hands Free Hectare project will use flying drones and automated tractors in the coming year to grow and harvest a cereal crop.
Image copyright Harper Adams University Image caption The Hands Free Hectare project aims to cultivate a field without humans setting foot on it
Engineers from Harper Adams University - together with a North Yorkshire farming technology company called Precision Decisions - are testing prototype machines now, and aim to plant their crop in March for harvest in September.
Precision pruning
It's hard to imagine the most traditional of agricultural sectors - wine making - as needing more than natural sunshine and soil. But even here automation is encroaching.
Wine makers have used drones to inspect their vineyards for several years, with high-definition cameras and sensors assessing crop and soil health.
But in France's Burgundy region, a shortage of farm labour has led inventor Christophe Millot to develop a vine-pruning robot called Wall-Ye.
Image copyright Wall-Ye Image caption This automated vine pruner can make a cut every five seconds
The latest generation of this trundling four-wheeled robot can make a cut every five seconds. It has six cameras - some with infrared sensors - and two arms, and is controlled by a tablet computer inside.
The machine learns as it goes and can trim the grass around each vine. An onboard solar-powered battery gives 10-12 hours of charge, so with a change of battery, it can work day and night.
Visual recognition is the biggest challenge, says Mr Millot - knowing where to make the cut. This is actually easier at night, because the robot's lights can illuminate the plant, but not its background.
Next year, he plans to go to California - another major wine-producing area - to market his range of winery robots there.
Robo lettuce
But some people think farming land is old hat.
Japanese firm Spread's automated vegetable factory in Kyoto, due to launch next year, could produce 30,000 lettuces a day, the company says.
It stretches up, instead of across undulating fields, because "in countries like Japan, where land is actually a very scarce resource, it makes more sense to stack your production, just like a skyscraper," says JJ Price, Spread's global marketing manager.
Everything after seeding will be done by machines - watering, trimming, harvesting - on shelves stacked from floor to ceiling. It's a bit like the solitary drone farmers in the 1972 film Silent Running.
Image copyright Spread Image caption Spread's fully automated lettuce factory is due to open next year
Automation has reduced labour costs by 50%, says Mr Price. And LED lighting developed specifically for plant cultivation reduces energy costs by 30%.
"It doesn't matter what the weather or climate is outside," he says.
And growing vegetables in vertical farms means you can recycle 98% of the water, says Mr Price, and produce food much closer to where people consume it, cutting down on transport costs and emissions.
Drone monitors
Back outside, drones are monitoring crop growth rates, spotting disease, and even spraying crops with pesticides and herbicides.
Now researchers are also trying to make them co-operate and work in swarms.
If they are mapping weeds in a field, say, "the drones will recruit each other to converge on those areas where the weed presence is higher," says Dr Vito Trianni of the Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies in Rome.
Image copyright HSE Image caption Drones are being used for precision crop spraying
Although GPS signals are generally strong in agricultural areas, one challenge for drones and other farmland robots is coping with patchy internet and mobile connectivity.
So Dr Trianni's team is using ultra-wideband radio for his drones to communicate without relying on rural 3G or 4G mobile connections.
Of course, automation might promise more efficient food production, but it also threatens agricultural jobs.
From 1950 to 2010, according to the International Labour Organization (ILO), agricultural labourers as a percentage of the workforce declined from 81% to 48.2% in developing countries, and from 35% to 4.2% in developed ones.
Robots will surely accelerate this decline.
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Click here for more Technology of Business featuresFilms and books on Sikh religion may soon have to pass the test of the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabhandak Committee (SGPC), which is planning to set up a 'censor board' for "moral policing" of the scripts.
The move comes against the backdrop of the controversy surrounding Dera Sacha Sauda chief's movie 'MSG' and many Bollywood movies in which actors have donned the turban like Ajay Devgn starrer 'Son of Sardar' and Akshay Kumar starrer 'Singh is King'.
"We will soon set up Sikh Censor Board comprising historians and intelligentsia so that someone keen to make any film or write a book concerning Sikh religion first gets the script cleared to avoid consequences later," Amritsar-based SGPC head Avtar Singh Makkar told PTI.
Terming it as "moral policing" on part of SGPC, Makkar said the board members will clear the script of films or books based on Sikh religion and community members.
"Our idea is that Sikh religion is projected and exhibited in public domain in consonance with the spirit of code of conduct of the community," he said. Though Makkar knows that there is no legal sanctity of such a board as already a body with the name of Censor Board for giving film certification is in the place in the country, he is confident that such a body will help prevent controversies.
The past has been witness to controversies by certain films prior to their release like 'Jo Bole So Nihal' of Punjab's "macho man" Sunny Deol. A lot of heat was also generated over 'Kaum De Heere' and 'Sadda Haq', Punjabi films which were banned for being not in sync with 'Rehat Maryada' (code of conduct). A Hindi TV serial 'Gurbani Ishq Da Kalma' was is thick of controversy with Sikh bodies objecting to it.
SGPC had intervened and the name was changed to 'Bani Ishq Da Kalma' before being telecast on a private channel. The proposed board wants to ensure that the movies made in the future are in accordance with the Sikh'rehat maryada' (code of conduct), said Makkar.
The board will have members including Sikh intellectuals and experts from various fields, including Sikh historians, film experts and lawyers, he said. Punjabi movie 'Chaar Sahibzade', an animated film depicting life of Sikh Gurus, has been a major success in the past.
"The entire film was made under the direct supervision of SGPC...so there was no controversy...the results are before you," Makkar said.Uber’s public downfall began in February, when Susan Fowler, a former engineer at the company, wrote about enduring sexual harassment and discrimination there. Other employees came forward with stories. One involved a manager groping employees’ breasts. Mr. Kalanick’s own bro-hood became part of the story when a video surfaced showing him berating a Uber driver who complained that Uber’s price cuts had driven him into bankruptcy. Mr. Kalanick said the driver needed to take responsibility for his own life.
As this was happening, Google’s self-driving car unit sued Uber, alleging it had stolen its ideas. Then word leaked that Uber had been using a sneaky software tool to deceive regulators in cities around the world. All this is as much a part of “bro culture” as the poor treatment of women; the point is to get away with as much as you can.
Hoping to right the ship, Uber appointed one of its board members, Arianna Huffington, to join former attorney general Eric Holder and others to investigate the sexual harassment claims. Mr. Kalanick has apologized and vowed to “grow up.” (He’s 40.) Most important, Uber has announced that it is planning to hire a chief operating officer, ideally a steady hand like Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook. It’s a great idea, but it should have happened years ago. Now it may be too late.
Ms. Huffington insists the board has full confidence in Mr. Kalanick. But should it? He’s a college dropout with a spotty track record and a reputation for pugnacity. His record at Uber includes racking up enormous losses — reportedly $5 billion over the last two years. Despite this, the bluest blue-chip investors (including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley) have invested a total of $16 billion in Uber.
Bro C.E.O.s are better at raising money than making money. So why do venture capitalists keep investing in them? It may be because many of the venture capitalists are bros as well.
Venture capitalists used to be tech engineers who had made a bundle, retired early and took up investing in start-ups as a kind of white-shoe hobby. The new breed are competitive alpha males who previously might have gone to work as bond traders. At the same time, there are fewer women. In 1999, 10 percent of investing partners at venture capital companies were women. By 2014 the number had declined to 6 percent, according to the Diana Project at Babson College. This is probably one reason that, despite many studies showing that women run companies better than men, none of the 15 biggest tech “unicorns” — start-ups worth more than $1 billion — has a female chief executive.
Uber’s collapse should not come as a surprise but it does offer a lesson: Toxic workplace culture and rotten financial performance go hand-in-hand. It’s possible for a boorish jerk to run a successful company, but jerks do best when surrounded by non-jerks, and bros do best when they hire seasoned executives to help them. Without “adult supervision” and institutional restraints, the C.E.-Bro’s vices end up infecting the culture of the workplaces they control.
This poisonous state of affairs will get fixed only when investors start getting hurt. A crash at Uber, the most high profile tech start-up in the world, could provide the jolt that finally brings the tech industry back to its senses.President Trump’s dismal poll numbers continue to be one of the few sources of joy and mirth in the bleak political hellscape his presidency has created. From a low of 35% a week ago in the daily Gallup Approval tracking poll, his approval number perked back up to 40%, only to fall back this weekend to 38%. Sad!, as they say.
What I hadn’t looked at in a while was the Rasmussen daily tracking poll which had had Trump at a wildly improbable 55% approval rating as recently as mid-February. Even Rasmussen now has Trump down at 43% approval, his lowest rating yet in that poll.
For years Rasmussen has specialized in various synthetic or questionable metrics, most of which have the effect of bolstering favored candidates. One of the less strained is to focus on “strong” approval and disapproval, as opposed to mere “approval.” But here too the numbers for Trump are bad. The most recent Rasmussen number puts Trump’s “strongly approve” number at 28%, down from 44% at his inauguration. Perhaps even more notable, “strongly disapprove” is at 47%. Almost half of Rasmussen’s already skewed sample “strongly disapproves” of President Trump.
These numbers are notable and entertaining. But the most interesting data in the latest batch of polls comes from the McClatchy/Marist poll. In this poll, released on the 31st, Trump has an approval number at 38%, down from 41% in February, broadly in line with other polls. Lee Miringoff, who runs the Marist poll, discusses the various details of the poll here. Really every number is dismal. But this, I think, is the most significant. From the Marist write-up …
There has been a profound shift in public opinion about whether or not President Trump is fulfilling campaign promises. 57% of Americans either strongly agree, 18%, or agree, 39%, that Trump is making good on the promises he made on the campaign trail. This is down from 71% in February. Regardless of party, fewer voters think he is keeping his word. Of note, 83% of Trump’s Republican base, down from 96% previously, believe Trump is fulfilling campaign promises. “President Trump needs a major legislative win to get on track,” says Dr. Lee M. Miringoff, Director of The Marist College Institute for Public Opinion. “No doubt the GOP in Congress will be closely watching the president’s standing among Republican voters.”
Those are steep drops and this is the big danger for Trump – likely a much greater danger, in the short term at least, than the scandal investigations most politicos are focusing on. Trump’s inability to repeal Obamacare is, I suspect, most of what is showing up in this drop. He simply failed to do something that, at least in numerical congressional majority terms, should have been simple. That made him look weak and ineffectual – frankly, silly. That and not corruption or ties with Russia is what will eventually sink Trump with his base.
It’s worth noting that many Trump voters actually would have been hurt by the repeal of Obamacare. But political perceptions are never that linear or straightforward. Especially for the kind of politics Trump appeals to, strength and the ability to compel action is central to support, even when the object of support is trying to do things individual supporters might not entirely agree with. Beyond the Obamacare repeal debacle, I suspect the reality is starting to sink in that Trump doesn’t have any clue what he’s doing as President and his top staffers and advisors show an almost unprecedented level of infighting and disorganization.
Trump simply hasn’t been able to get much of anything done. He continues to treat executive orders as a kind of proxy for legislation, even though the great majority of his EOs have pretty minimal effect. A new president whose party controls Congress should pass a mass of legislation in his first months in office. That’s been true of Trump’s last three predecessors – each of whom had total or near total control of Congress. Trump is well into his first hundred days, has passed no substantial legislation and looks unlikely to do so any time soon.TransCanada Corp. says its Keystone pipeline has leaked an estimated 795,000 litres of oil in Marshall County, S.D.
The company says its crews shut down part of the pipeline early Thursday morning after detecting a drop in pressure and are assessing the situation.
WATCH: Trudeau peacekeeping announcement interrupted by pipeline protesters
The leak comes only days before Nebraska’s Public Service Commission is set to vote on whether to allow the company to proceed with its Keystone XL pipeline for the last major regulatory hurdle for the $8 billion project. TransCanada has not given a reason for the incident.
READ MORE: Trudeau interrupted by pipeline protesters: ‘It is going to poison our water’
Opponents of Keystone XL say the pipeline would pass through the Sandhills, an ecologically fragile region of grass-covered sand dunes, and would cross the land of farmers and ranchers who don’t want it.
The pipeline from Hardisty, Alberta, to Cushing, Oklahoma, and to Wood River and Patoka in Illinois, has been shut, while the southern leg of the system to the Gulf Coast remains operational, the company said.
WATCH: Alberta premier set to hit the road to push for pipeline projects
The existing Keystone pipeline system that has leaked about 5,000 barrels of oil runs 4,324 kilometres between Hardisty, Alta., and the U.S. Mideast and Gulf Coast.Anyone who’s ever watched golf knows that the fans who shout “get in the hole” the moment a tee shot has been taken are the worst people in the world.
So it was a joy to see one such person brilliantly shot down when he made himself heard during Rory McIlroy’s win at the Irish Open.
"Get in the hole!"
"Get off the course"
😂 pic.twitter.com/GiduEwxBaF — Kevin Mc Gillicuddy (@KMcGillicuddy86) May 22, 2016
It was slightly unclear whether the voice shooting down the over-enthusiastic fan was McIlroy’s caddie JP Fitzgerald or just another spectator who knew better.
Either way, it met with firm approval.
"Get in the hole!"
different guy: "get off the course"
God bless Ireland — Mike Zaccardi, CFA, CMT (@MikeZaccardi) May 22, 2016
'Get in the hole!' said the clueless Irish Open spectator. 'GET OFF THE COURSE!', came the reply. 😂 — Steve Power (@ibleedgolf1) May 22, 2016
"Get in the hole" shouts some clown after Rory's tee-shot on 3. "Get off the course" comes the wonderful response #DDFIrishOpen — Phil Casey (@pcaseysafc) May 22, 2016
The punishment for shouting “get in the hole” really ought to be a lifetime ban – - we reckon most golf fans would thoroughly approve.Introduction
DAN Cases is back on Kickstarter! This time with an optimized version 2 of the A4-SFX and an optional Window Kit.
The A4-SFX is a project with the goal of creating the smallest PC case possible while still using high-end standardized components, such as Core i7 or Ryzen processors, and powerful full-length GPUs, such as the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti.
The result is a unique product that is much smaller than all other competing cases. This case is perfect for SFF (Small Form Factor) enthusiasts, those who need a highly portable system, developers who require a case with a smaller footprint due to limited desk space, and gamers who want a high-end PC experience in their living room.
What's new?
With the ambition to make our products as perfect as possible, we analyzed every review that was made with the A4-SFX and all feedback received from the first campaign. We improved six features for the next A4-SFX evolution:
How It Works
This case uses what we refer to as a sandwich hardware layout. Using a PCIe extender allows for the most prominent design feature of this case, which is the location of the GPU behind the motherboard. The A4-SFX comes with the highest quality PCIe extender on the market, made by 3M, which allows for PCIe Gen3 and Gen4 support.
The case allows for easy mounting of either SFX or SFX-L power supplies. The PSU is located in the front of the chassis.
Depending on the size of the PSU, up to two 2.5” HDDs or SSDs can be mounted in the drive bay. The drive bay is mounted with rubber spacers to reduce vibration and noise. A third 2.5" drive can be mounted behind the front cover.
Every component cools itself by getting fresh air directly from the outside. Hot air in the case will move to the top and then outside without the need of an extra fan. This principle works perfectly and results in amazing cooling efficiency compared to other cases.
GPUs without a protective backplate can safely be used in the case. A thin plastic film is installed to prevent electrical short with the aluminum chassis or the PSU.
With the new version of the A4-SFX you will be able to mount a 92mm fan or a 92mm All-In-One water cooling solution in place of the drive bay.
Case Specifications
Case Dimensions : 200 x 112 x 317mm (H x W x D), 7.25L
200 x 112 x 317mm (H x W x D), 7.25L Overall Dimensions: 205 x 112 x 327mm (including feet and rear protrusions)
205 x 112 x 327mm (including feet and rear protrusions) Weight: 1.25 Kg
Graphics Card: Dual-Slot up to 295mm length
Dual-Slot up to 295mm length Motherboard: Mini-ITX
Mini-ITX Power Supply: SFX, SFX-L
SFX, SFX-L Drives: Up to 3 x 2.5" HDD/SSD
Up to 3 x 2.5" HDD/SSD Fan: 1 x 92mm fan in place of drive bay
Front ports: 1 x USB 3.0 (internal 20-pin plug)
1 x USB 3.0 (internal 20-pin plug) Power button: Premium-grade button
Material: 1.5mm aluminum brushed exterior
1.5mm aluminum brushed exterior Side Panels: Easily clippable with sturdy Lian Li Push Pin technology
Easily clippable with sturdy Lian Li Push Pin technology Colors: Anodized black or silver exterior, matte black painted interior
Anodized black or silver exterior, matte black painted interior PCIe Extender: Includes the 3M Twin Axial 300mm PCIe Gen3+ extender, Link: 3M product page
The A4-SFX is fully CE certified. It was tested by a certified CE Laboratory against all European standards.
With the RoHS logo, DAN Cases UG (haftungsbeschränkt) guarantees that no materials that are harmful to human health or the environment were used in the making of this product.
The crossed-out waste bin signifies that DAN Cases UG (haftungsbeschränkt) complies with all European WEEE laws. Please only dispose of this product at designated electronic waste collection points, or return it to DAN Cases UG (haftungsbeschränkt).
Window Kit Specifications
The new A4-SFX Window Kit will give you the best view inside the A4-SFX. The design is a compromise between effective cooling and aesthetics. The cutout and the opening between the side panel and acrylic glass let the hardware breathe. The Window Kit includes a panel for both sides. It is fully-compatible with the old and new version of the A4-SFX.
Parts: Includes left and right window panel
Includes left and right window panel Dimensions: 200 x 9.5 x 317mm (H x W x D)
200 x 9.5 x 317mm (H x W x D) Weight: 0.5 Kg
Ventilation: 5mm opening between frame and acrylic glass + DAN logo cutout
5mm opening between frame and acrylic glass + DAN logo cutout Mounting: Easily clippable with Lian Li Push Pin technology
Material: 1.5mm brushed aluminum frame and 3mm acrylic glass
1.5mm brushed aluminum frame and 3mm acrylic glass Colors: Anodized black or silver frame and gray glass
Anodized black or silver frame and gray glass Compatibility: A4-SFX v1 & v2
Note: Temperatures on CPU and GPU will be higher
Gallery
For 2500x1667 resultion versions, click on the images.
Compatibility
CPU Coolers
Max. height 48mm
Max. height with Window Kit 54.5mm
Note: Some heatsinks will also fit if used with a thinner fan
Water Cooling
92mm Water Cooling support - Asetek 545LC
Note: You have to remove the front USB port
Hard Disk Drives
2 x 2.5" HDD/SSD in drive bay: max. height 15mm
1 x 2.5" HDD/SSD in front-area: max. height 9mm
Note: With SFX-L you are limited to one drive in the drive bay
Graphics Card
Max. height from bottom of PCIe slot to top: 144mm
Max. width without backplate: 40mm; including backplate: 45mm
Max. length without bracket: 295mm; including bracket: 306mm
Motherboard Mini-ITX
Power Supply SFX and SFX-L
Memory
Max. height: 52mm
Max. height with Window Kit 58.5mm
Note: For more details visit the compatibility page!
Assembly
Please refer to the A4-SFX User Manual for step-by-step assembly instructions. Each case comes with a paper manual in English and German. Click on the below link for a PDF version.
Note: We will update the Manual to v2.0 in the next weeks.
Reviews
The A4-SFX was reviewed by the following tech sites. If you would like to take a deeper look into the tests, please visit DAN Cases for the links.
Partners
DAN Cases UG (haftungsbeschränkt) has partnered with the best in the industry for the A4-SFX. The all-aluminum body and the Window Kit will be manufactured by Lian Li in Taiwan per their highest quality standards. The PCIe extender will be supplied by 3M. The extender uses 3M's patented Twin Axial technology, and is widely recognized as the most reliable PCIe extender on the market. A commitment to quality lies at the core of our business philosophy.
Cost Breakdown and Volume
In the name of transparency, we offer a cost breakdown graphic.
The Kickstarter campaign for the second version of the A4-SFX will have no quantity limits, but we don't have unlimited storage space so every charge will have a maximum quantity of 2000 cases. If the first 2000 rewards are sold we will add more rewards.
Every A4-SFX v2 will feature a sticker with a production number. It will not be possible to reserve a number.
Shipment, Warranty & VAT
DAN Cases UG (haftungsbeschränkt) will ship to the countries highlighted below. If your country is not on the map, please contact us trough the Kickstarter message system.
As a special thank you to all Kickstarter backers, the A4-SFX v2 will come with a 2-year warranty! We will ship through DHL from Germany. Third-party country orders will be shipped with DHL Premium this time (60% faster). Shipments will be insured and feature live tracking.
EU-based customers are required to pay the German 19% VAT tax. The tax is included in the overall case price and will not incur an additional increase.
Customers outside of the EU will not pay the 19% German VAT, but may have to cover local taxes. To make reward tiers handling easier, the VAT will be cleared with shipping costs for those customers. Therefore, they have to pay much less in shipping charges in ratio to EU customers.
Timeline
We've come a long way since the inception of the A4-SFX. See our past milestones below, as well as what the future holds should the project be funded.
Note: Maybe shipment will start erlier but we can't guarantee it.
Rewards & the Campaign Process
Orders will be limited to one reward. Only a second Kickstarter account will give you the option to gain further rewards. We will provide three reward tiers: For 60€ you can order the black or silver version of the Window Kit; For 230€ you can order the black or silver version of the A4-SFX; For 290€ you can order the black or silver version of the A4-SFX bundled with the Window Kit.
First select a reward.
If the Kickstarter campaign is successful, Kickstarter will charge the money from you. Please make sure your credit card is valid. German backers can also pay via SEPA direct debit. In some cases, you may need to contact your credit institute to authorize the charge.
Before we place the order with Lian Li, you will get a special Kickstarter form. With this form, we collect your address data and your choice of color for the product.
After the production is done, we will start shipping.
Future AvailbilityAn image from one of the seven early childhood education centers in East Harlem run by Union Settlement. The organization along with roughly 45 others wrote a letter to Mayor de Blasio recently asking for higher wages for its workers. View Full Caption Union Settlement
BROOKLYN — After nearly three decades on the job, Debra Johnson, an assistant Pre-K teacher at a city-funded early learning center, earns an annual income of $27,000 — or $13.94 an hour — about $3,000 less than assistant teachers with the same degree would earn in a public school in their first year.
Johnson, 50, pays nearly half her take-home in rent for her East New York studio and is currently more than $2,000 in debt on credit card bills, since she often is forced to charge other needs like phone, food and transit.
Both she and the teacher’s aide in her class — who earns $11.79 an hour and is on food stamps to support her children — earn less than the $15 per hour wage guidelines established for the fast food industry that Mayor Bill de Blasio supported, and far less than their Education Department pre-K counterparts.
“They’re making so much more money, and we’re doing the same work, going to the same workshops,” said Johnson, who teaches at Bushwick’s Life Audrey Johnson Learning Center, who has not seen a raise in a decade, yet has been forced to pay more for health care.
A growing number of early childhood educators are being forced to go on public assistance to make ends meet — even as de Blasio touts his administration's prioritizing of universal pre-K for the city.
"Everyone knows my one true love is pre-K," de Blasio told reporters during a roundtable event Dec. 21. "I care about a lot of issues, but this is the one that I really wanted to make sure we did right."
But the mayor's "tale of two cities" income inequality hasn't lifted up many of the early childhood staffers who have come looking for help paying their rent or getting onto public assistance, according to Michelle Paige, director of seven centers and a network of home based providers for East Harlem’s Union Settlement Association — the city’s 10th largest early childhood education provider.
“All of the staff is feeling defeated and overlooked,” Paige said. “They’re swallowing their pride and having to apply for food stamps or rent subsidies.”
Page said she’s seen an increased number of her educators and support staff forced to apply for the services her organization provides.
“As a director, it’s important to address the equity and parity issue. But from my perspective, it goes deeper," she said. "It’s about respect. You have staff coming to work every day working hard. But they’re getting the same salary as 10 years ago.”
Educators at these city-funded community-based organizations work longer days and don’t have summers off. Yet, their starting salaries are between 9 to 38 percent lower than DOE teachers. They've been without a raise in 10 years as they wait for a new contract.
Many earn poverty-level wages and rely on public assistance to stay afloat, program directors said.
Some of their workers walk long distances because they can’t afford MetroCards. Some run out of money for food at the end of their pay period. And some can’t keep up with rent and end up temporarily homeless, advocates say.
“The low pay scale prevents us from attracting the best teachers, increases staff turnover, creates low employee morale, and as a consequence harms the children we are all dedicated to serve,” wrote a coalition of 45 of these EarlyLearn providers in a recent letter to the mayor.
Advocates tried to repair the damage by asking de Blasio to pay their workers fairly, citing some stark facts from a survey of their workforce: roughly 61 percent of the staffers at these centers have incomes below 200 percent of the federal poverty level; 17 percent receive food stamps; and 55 percent of them or their children receive Medicaid.
READ MORE:
► Mayor's Pre-K Push Takes Qualified Teachers From Needy Students: Critics
► City Pays Preschool Workers 'Poverty Level' Wages
► Directors at City Funded Pre-K Programs Earn Less Money Than Their Teachers
The coalition asked de Blasio for a lump sum retroactive payment for lost wages; salaries and benefits on par with those of similarly-situated public school employees, including step increases based on tenure; and full funding for employee health insurance.
De Blasio hasn't responded.
Their demands came on the heels of another letter, signed by more than 100 advocacy groups, urging the mayor to address the salary disparity of workers at the early childhood education centers.
De Blasio spokesman Wiley Norvell released a statement saying the mayor's office looks "forward to continue working with providers and educators to make sure parents continue to have strong, high-quality options for their children."
Some pre-K teachers did get raises, he noted.
But Johnson said that raise — which was awarded to her head teacher but not to her — was "another slap in the face."
“I felt horrible. I couldn’t believe it,” Johnson said of de Blasio's bonus to head teachers at early childhood center Pre-K classes for 4-year-olds.
“Once again, they’re not giving us a break when we’re in the same classroom," she continued. "We’re doing everything we can for these children.”Disclosure: Just to let you know, if you buy products we feature in this post, MomsWhoSave might earn an affiliate commission (at no additional cost to you).
Thanks to Bubble Town, we have a new giveaway. It’s an easy-to-enter giveaway for $50 in PayPal cash or a $50 Amazon gift card! Who couldn’t use an extra $50? Take yourself to dinner, buy yourself a nice treat or treat a friend. Or you can choose $50 to spend on Amazon.
Bubble Town is a fun and educational YouTube channel for babies and toddlers. The videos are engaging, colorful, and tailored to a child’s mind. Bubble Town teaches things such as colors, numbers, shapes, animals, food, and more. Their goal is to continue to be a positive influence in shaping and developing the youngest minds. Visit them on YouTube with your child today!
Enter the giveaway below, and be sure to come back every day to get your daily free entry on the form below. There are lots of optional extra entries too. This giveaway is open to U.S. residents, 18 years and older.
Good luck!
*See all terms and conditions at the link on the entry form.
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________________________________________________________ You can also find MomsWhoSave on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Join us for updates! Don’t miss a thing! Subscribe to MomsWhoSave’s blog posts below! Then be sure to confirm your subscription when you get the confirmation email.Outsiders stereotype Los Angeles as car-addicted, polluted and lacking in public transit. But the City of Angels has undergone major changes over the past few decades.
LA is moving toward a greener future, friendlier to pedestrians, metro users and bicyclists. There are various development projects planned, particularly in downtown and Hollywood, which are becoming more dense and vertically-built. These projects preserve historic architecture while adding apartments, parks, retail and entertainment.
These 20 architectural renderings give us a glimpse into a stunning Los Angeles of the future...
1. Park 101
Park 101 would cover a portion of the 101 freeway in downtown with a park. As it's currently envisioned, Park 101 would connect the Civic Center (south of the freeway) with Olvera Street, Chinatown and Union Station (north of the freeway). In August, the LA City Council unanimously approved a motion to seek funding for the proposal. There are also proposed plans for parks built on top of freeways -- called cap parks -- in Santa Monica, Hollywood, Glendale and Ventura.
Before:
After:
2. Greenway 2020
The Greenway 2020 project aims to create a continuous 51-mile corridor that will run along a restored LA River by 2020. "Instead of crowded streets and honking horns on your morning commute, imagine chirping birds, flowing water and numerous coffee shops along the way to work," the project site reads. The river will also become a recreational destination for kayaking, fishing, picn |
pardon her" -- even though Clinton has not been convicted of any crime.
Giuliani was coy when asked if he'd accept if offered the office of the US attorney general.
"I certainly have the energy, and there's probably nobody that knows the Justice Department better than me," he told CNN.
In the early 1980s, under president Ronald Reagan, Giuliani had a senior position in the US Justice Department. He was later US attorney for the southern district of New York, where among other things he prosecuted cases against the mafia.
Giuliani was New York mayor from 1994-2001, leading the city in the aftermath of the September 11 terror attacks.
Related:
For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available now on iOS.Atlanta United today announced Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta (Children’s) as the club’s official pediatric healthcare system and the naming partner of its new training ground.
Find announcement video package and renderings here.
“We are very excited to announce the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Training Ground,” said club president Darren Eales. “Children’s is a well-known and respected organization that shares many of Atlanta United’s core values, especially involving community support. Children’s will be an invaluable asset for our club with the expertise to care for our academy teams as well as our younger first team players.”
Children’s will be the official pediatric healthcare system of Atlanta United and the official pediatric sports medicine program of Atlanta United. One of the nation’s largest pediatric healthcare systems, Children’s is home to a nationally ranked sports medicine program that uses leading-edge research to keep athletes, from pre-teens to adolescents, in top physical shape. As the largest health care provider for young people in Georgia, Children’s offers access to more than 60 pediatric specialties and programs and is ranked among the top children’s hospitals in the country.
“We are excited about this relationship with Atlanta United and to be a part of a new experience for young athletes in Atlanta,” said Donna Hyland, President and CEO, Children’s. “Children's and Atlanta United want to make a difference in the lives of families and make sure kids get to stay where they belong – on the playing field.”
The $60 million, state-of-the-art training center, due for completion in the spring of 2017, will be home to the Atlanta United first team and academy teams and will also house Atlanta United front office and technical staff. The club will utilize the facility for training, performance analysis, nutrition, fitness, rehabilitation and elite youth development.
The Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Training Ground will not only serve as a primary recruiting tool for prospective professional players, but will provide academy players with an aspirational environment to learn and train with the first team. Launched in August 2016, the Atlanta United Academy has achieved immediate success with the U18 and U16 squads ranked No. 1 and No. 2 in the country respectively and twenty academy players having been called up internationally.
“We have an elite academy program that has already seen two players move up to the first team with Andrew Carleton and Chris Goslin,” said Atlanta United Technical Director Carlos Bocanegra. “The relationship with Children’s and the ability for our young players to train at a world-class facility like the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Training Ground will take our academy programs to the next level.”
In addition to serving as headquarters for Atlanta United, the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Training Ground will host national and international soccer clubs visiting Atlanta for tournaments to be held at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. It will also be used as a base for grass roots soccer initiatives including coach education and referee training.
On Thursday, March 2, Atlanta United will partner with Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Scottish Rite for a fun-filled day of soccer as part of Atlanta United’s March to Soccer Week leading up to the club’s first match. Atlanta United players will participate in activities including FIFA play, foosball, inflatables, crafts and giveaways.Faction Generation Number of Factions: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Genre: Science Fiction Fantasy
Note: Results are intended as jumping-off points for brainstorming, and may be interpreted in various ways. For instance: a "subliminal" tactic might suggest subliminal advertising, misdirection or mind control, or perhaps a way of moving without being seen, or it might simply mean "under the radar". Let the context guide you, and go with whatever interpretation works in your world.
A IXEXCIAMOR
Gang or Clan
Their motivation involves Pride. TACTICS: logistical.
SECRET: a secret uneasily shared in common with Faction C.
WEAKNESS: financial danger or hardship.
Lead NPC wants to communicate with someone.
B INTDEL
Lone Wolf or Cult Leader
Their motivation involves Revenge. TACTICS: logistical.
SECRET: a secret about Faction A, with tactical or blackmail value.
WEAKNESS: hyper-aggression.
Wants to convince someone.
C REALTEK
Colony, Arcology or Space Station
Their motivation involves Survival. TACTICS: nonphysical.
SECRET: a secret location known among group members.
WEAKNESS: financial danger or hardship.
Lead NPC wants to create something.1975 studio album by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention
One Size Fits All is a rock album by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, released in June 1975. It is the tenth and last studio album of the band. A special four-channel quadraphonic version of the album was advertised but not released.[4]
Band [ edit ]
The album features the summer/fall 1974 lineup of the Mothers of Invention, with George Duke, Chester Thompson, Ruth Underwood, Tom Fowler and Napoleon Murphy Brock. One track features bassist James "Birdlegs" Youman, who stood in for Fowler when the bassist broke his hand while on tour.
Album content [ edit ]
The album features one of Zappa's most complex tracks, "Inca Roads". One of Zappa's heroes, Johnny "Guitar" Watson, guests on two tracks (flambe vocals on the out-choruses of "San Ber'dino" and "Andy").[5] Captain Beefheart also appears under a pseudonym.
Zappa stated in the liner notes that the album was recorded simultaneously with their next album, but this "next album" would be replaced by Bongo Fury, consisting mostly of live recordings with Beefheart from May 1975. From comments Zappa made in radio interviews in April 1975, it seems likely that the unreleased next album would have included "Greggery Peccary," which first appeared three years later on Studio Tan.
Releases [ edit ]
Early U.S. LP pressings of One Size Fits All are notable in that they have the catalog number "BS 2879" inscribed - and crossed out - in the runoff matrix, indicating that at one point One Size Fits All was (perhaps mistakenly) planned to be released on Warner Bros. Records, whose Reprise Records subsidiary distributed Zappa's DiscReet Records label. The album was ultimately released on DiscReet with a catalog number in Reprise's sequence, DS 2216. Warner Bros. did not reassign the number BS 2879 to another album.
One Size Fits All was first released on CD by Rykodisc in 1988. It was reissued by Rykodisc in 1995 with restored cover art, but with identical sound quality. In 1996 a 24-karat gold Au20 edition was released with significantly improved sound quality. In 2012 it was remastered and reissued yet again by the Universal Music Group under the Zappa Records imprint.
Track listing [ edit ]
All tracks written by Frank Zappa.
Side one No. Title Length 1. "Inca Roads" 8:45 2. "Can't Afford No Shoes" 2:38 3. "Sofa No. 1" 2:39 4. "Po-Jama People" 7:39
Side two No. Title Length 5. "Florentine Pogen" 5:27 6. "Evelyn, A Modified Dog" 1:04 7. "San Ber'dino" 5:57 8. "Andy" 6:04 9. "Sofa No. 2" 2:42
Personnel [ edit ]
Musicians [ edit ]
Production [ edit ]
Kerry McNabb – engineer, remixing
Cal Schenkel – design, illustrations, paintings
Mike D. Stone of the Record Plant – engineer
Michael Braunstein – engineer
Unity – assistant engineer
Dick Barber – assistant engineer, assistant
Gary O. – engineer
Ferenc Dobronyi – design
J.E. Tully – design
Coy Featherstone – assistant engineer
Paul Hof – assistant engineer, assistant
Matti Laipio – voices, assistant engineer
Bill Romero – voices, assistant engineer
Richard "Tex" Abel – assistant engineer, assistant
Jukka – engineer
Charts [ edit ]
Album
Year Chart Peak 1975 Billboard 200 26[6]DALY CITY, California — Human rights advocates in the San Francisco Bay Area gathered in a local Methodist church to hear the spokesperson of a human rights coalition in the Philippines talk about the continued extrajudicial killing (EJK) of suspected addicts and pushers in the Duterte administration’s war against illegal drugs.
Concerned Filipino community leaders and members of the Filipino Americans Human Rights Alliance (FAHRA) listened intently as Ellecer Carlos, spokesperson of In Defense of Human Rights and Dignity Movement (iDEFEND), relate what his coalition says is a “human rights crisis” triggered by the government’s war on drugs.
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iDefend is the largest human rights coalition in the Philippines made up of over 70 organization. Carlos is on international speaking tour. His stop at the Daly United Methodist Church came after speaking engagements in Europe. He will make his way to Southern California and other parts of the United States, speaking on “what’s happening on the ground” as the tally of assassinated drug war victims, mainly in poor communities, continue to increase.
“This tour is part of our mission to reach out to different Filipino communities abroad to dispel the myths, the misperceptions that this administration has actually sown,” Carlos explains.
Strong support base
“This President still is able to operate on a very strong support base so it is important that we are able to reach out to Filipinos abroad because international solidarity is important in terms of countering the human rights crisis. This president is waiting for the right pretext to actually extend Martial Law nationwide,” Carlos warns.
Carlos added that their other objective is to reach important institutions like the United Nations, various missions in Geneva as well as the European Parliament, the European Commission for the purpose of garnering support to put a stop to the violence in the Philippines.
“Here in the U.S., we are trying to engage with the U.S. Congress as well as reach out to Filipino community leaders so that we can organize, educate Filipinos here on what is happening to surface the truth so that we can again reclaim democracy and collective humanity in the Philippines. It is very concerning because basically a collective sociopathy is worsening as days go by that dehumanize us all. It has made human life cheap, very cheap in the Philippines,” decried Carlos.
US human rights body
Carlos revealed that the there is a planned investigation by the US Congress’ human rights commission, a special body that investigates human rights violations in various context all around the world, and that he was requested to testify on July 20, 2017.
“They are hoping that we can manage to actually transport families of victims of extrajudicial killings and key witnesses to help provide a clearer picture and evidence on what is happening in the Philippines. Of course, there is a proposed legislation SB 1055 of Senators Benjamin Cardin (D-Maryland) and Marco Rubio (R-Florida) filed at the U.S. Senate that will actually push for the respect, protection and fulfillment of human rights in the Philippines in response to the human rights crisis,” Carlos reported.
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“There is also SB 659 of Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican, that seeks to address the issue of China’s alleged abuses in the South China Sea. China is being courted by President Duterte and has vested interest in the Philippines that threaten our sovereignty and the security of the entire region,” Carlos stated.
On alleged extrajudicial killings, Carlos said the number of killings of “the most impoverished beaten-down individuals in society” keeps increasing. The de facto social cleansing policy of EJK has allegedly led to the deaths of from 8,000 to 12,000 individuals.”
“The administration of President Duterte instead should be making available the requirements of a life of dignity — the democratization of essential services, opportunities, the equitable redistribution of the nation’s wealth as well as the radical social reforms that was promised by the EDSA revolution — essentially what the previous administrations were not able to deliver.
For rule of law, due process
“It is really we fighting for the rule of law, due process. If this continues, we feel that it will, threaten the mindsets of the entire Philippine National Police, transforming even the most decent law-abiding officers into butchers,” Carlos warned.
Carlos also clarified that it does not necessarily follow that if one is for human rights then he must be anti-Duterte, adding that the widespread myth in the Philippines is that human rights are being fought only for the criminals, a false belief that the president has actually effectively exploited.
“We are not against Duterte and not against the response to the issue of drugs and crime per se. We have not asked for his resignation. But we critique the violent method to which this president has chosen to respond to these issues. Essentially, human rights values, ideals and principles are very important in the democratic society. They are the highest tenets and ideals, which should be respected at all times. These are inalienable rights. And this president has actually consciously vilified human rights defenders, our commission on human rights, and effectively distorted these values by taking advantage of a disoriented Philippine public,” Carlos maintains.
“We have been in the forefront in pushing this government to stop the killing since day one. We criticize the death policies this president is pushing, including the forceful re-imposition of capital punishment as well as lowering of the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 15 to 9.”
Why not call for resignation?
Human rights lawyer Ted Laguatan urged Carlos and his group to reconsider their position and call for resignation to get Duterte out of power. Carlos explained that only a collective decision of the members of the iDefend coalition could change that position.
Laguatan was the one who earlier called for Duterte’s resignation on TV barely two months after Duterte assumed the presidency. He also predicted that Duterte would take the Davao Death squad on a national level and that Duterte will be using terrorism as an excuse to kill people.
“Duterte will never give up power because he knows that if he does, he would likely be indicted and tried in the United Nations International Criminal Court for his extrajudicial serial killings and other crimes against humanity,” Laguatan argued.
“He will likely look for more inexcusable justifications to declare martial law for the whole Philippines and eventually do away with presidential elections. Duterte using fear to intimidate and coerce people to consolidate and retain power is nothing new. Mussolini, Khadafy, Marcos, Stalin, Idi Amin and so many other murderous tyrants have done this.”
After the forum Ruby Flores said that Filipinos should be asking if President Duterte is sincerely looking after the welfare of his countrymen or if is he favoring China for his own selfish interest.
“Does he find joy in killing his own people who are victims of Chinese drug lords whom he sets free?” she inquired. “Duterte has lied on many occasions, he said things he denies having said later or makes a joke out of it. These actions are signs of an unfit leader. He sets a bad example to the younger generation.”
Rene Flores was sad to know that the war on drugs campaign has killed thousands of people without due process.
“It is even more frightening to learn that the poorest of the poor are being targeted. Never did we hear a drug lord has been killed, only apprehended and sent to jail for trial. The question is bakit pag drug lord binubuhay pero pag victim ng drugs pinapatay. Nasaan ang justice?” wondered Rene. (The question is why are drug lords allowed to live while the drug victims are killed? Where is justice?”)
Rene Flores’ wife, Joy, thinks that Duterte should focus more on solving corruption than killing drug victims. “Obviously, his anti-drug tactic is not solving the drug problem. He promised in six months, the Philippines will be drug free, but instead, we ended up with thousands of dead victims and drug lords are free. I believe corruption is far most the biggest problem in the country. He should put more efforts in eliminating corruption and than eliminating his poor countrymen,” stressed Joy.
Read NextDrama set in a repressed, deeply religious community in the north of Scotland, where a naive young woman named Bess McNeil meets and falls in love with Danish oil-rig worker Jan. Bess and Jan are deeply in love but, when Jan returns to his rig, Bess prays to God that he returns for good. Jan does return, his neck broken in an accident aboard the rig. Because of his condition, Jan and Bess are now unable to enjoy a sexual relationship and Jan urges Bess to take another lover and tell him the details. As Bess becomes more and more deviant in her sexual behavior, the more she comes to believe that her actions are guided by God and are helping Jan recover. Written by Jonathan Broxton <j.w.broxton@sheffield.ac.uk>Press Release
Daily HIV medications now proven to prevent HIV among all groups at high risk
A daily dose of a medication used to treat HIV infection reduced the risk of HIV acquisition among people who inject drugs by 49 percent. Those who took the medication most consistently had even higher levels of protection, according to a new study announced today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – in collaboration with the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) and the Thailand Ministry of Public Health (MOPH).
This is the first evidence that pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) offers significant protection to individuals exposed to HIV through injection drug use. The findings were published online today in the Lancet.
“This is a significant step forward for HIV prevention. We now know that PrEP can work for all populations at increased risk for HIV,” said Jonathan Mermin, M.D., director of CDC’s Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention. “Injection drug use accounts for a substantial portion of the HIV epidemic around the world, and we are hopeful that PrEP can play a role in reducing the continued toll of HIV infection in this population.”
The findings are from the Bangkok Tenofovir Study, a clinical trial launched in 2005 involving more than 2,400 men and women at Bangkok city-run drug treatment clinics. Injection drug use accounts for eight percent of new HIV infections in the United States and approximately ten percent of new HIV infections worldwide. In some regions of the world, such as Eastern Europe and Central Asia, this route of transmission accounts for up to 80 percent of new infections.
Daily PrEP with tenofovir – alone or in combination with emtricitabine – has been proven to reduce the risk of sexual transmission of HIV among heterosexuals and men who have sex with men. This trial is the first to examine efficacy among people who inject drugs.
Study Findings
A total of 2,413 men and women were enrolled in the study and randomly assigned to take a daily dose of tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF) or placebo. Two participants were determined to have been HIV-infected before enrollment and were excluded from analysis, which included the remaining 2,411 HIV-negative participants. All participants in the study were provided HIV prevention counseling, a risk reduction package for both sexual and drug-related risks, and monthly HIV testing.
In the primary analysis, among the 1,204 participants taking TDF, there were 17 HIV infections, compared with 33 infections among the 1,207 participants taking placebo. This translates into a statistically significant 49 percent reduction in risk of HIV acquisition overall.
The researchers also conducted a separate analysis to better understand the level of protection for those who adhered most closely to the daily regimen. This analysis was among participants who chose to be on directly observed therapy, met pre-established criteria for high adherence (taking TDF at least 71 percent of days and not missing more than two consecutive days) and had detectable levels of TDF in their blood. In this adherent population, HIV acquisition risk was reduced by 74 percent.
“These findings add to the mounting scientific evidence that high adherence to PrEP is essential to achieve the greatest benefit,” said Mermin. “When used consistently and in conjunction with other proven prevention measures, PrEP can provide important additional protection for many people who remain at high risk for HIV, including those who inject drugs.”
Consistent with prior studies, the Bangkok trial did not identify any significant safety concerns associated with PrEP use, although participants assigned to the TDF group were more likely than those in the placebo group to report nausea, which typically resolved after two months.
Risk behaviors, including injecting drugs, sharing needles, and having sex with more than one partner, decreased substantially during the course of the trial in both the TDF and placebo arms of the study. No tenofovir resistance was detected among participants who become infected with HIV during the trial.
“We are grateful for the extraordinary dedication of our Thai trial volunteers over many years and salute Thailand’s leadership in HIV prevention research,” said Michael Martin, M.D., Chief of HIV Clinical Research for the Thailand MOPH – U.S. CDC Collaboration, and the lead CDC investigator on the study. “Their efforts have provided hope that many HIV infections can be prevented, saving lives here in Bangkok and around the world.”
Implementation Next Steps
Many important questions remain about how best to implement PrEP in conjunction with other proven prevention measures for people who inject drugs. The best way for people who inject drugs to reduce their risk for HIV is to stop using injection drugs. However, for people who will not or cannot stop injecting, PrEP may complement other available tools, including access to new sterile needles and syringes and regular HIV testing. Key implementation questions that CDC and its partners will examine for the United States include acceptability, strategies to support adherence in less controlled settings than a clinical trial, and the best settings for delivery of PrEP for this population.
Tomorrow, CDC will publish initial guidance in the weekly Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, recommending that providers who wish to prescribe PrEP to people who inject drugs follow the same cautions and procedures in CDC’s existing interim clinical guidance on the use of PrEP to prevent sexual transmission and deliver PrEP in combination with other proven prevention services to reduce both sexual and drug-related transmission risks. CDC is currently working to finalize full Public Health Service clinical guidelines on PrEP use, which the agency anticipates publishing later this year.
In Thailand, trial participants will now be offered access to TDF for HIV prevention for one year as part of a follow-on study which will provide additional data to help assess use and effectiveness outside of a trial setting. CDC will also support BMA and MOPH as they work to determine how to best incorporate PrEP into HIV prevention efforts locally.
###
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICESExternalUPDATE: Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Dallas/Fort Worth, as well as other theaters that planned similar screenings, cancelled plans to show Team America. While the company has yet to comment on the move, Paramount Pictures reportedly pulled the film from theatrical distribution.
"Due to to circumstances beyond our control, the TEAM AMERICA 12/27 screening has been cancelled," Alamo Drafthouse Cinema tweeted. "We apologize & will provide refunds today."
The original story continues below.
Only in Texas. A movie theater in the Dallas/Fort Worth area has found quite the solution for showtimes that were recently vacated by Sony's choice to pull The Interview.
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Dallas/Fort Worth will show the hit 2004 flick Team America: World Police in The Interview's place, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The famously raunchy flick used supermarionettes to spoof terrorism, the entertainment industry, and U.S. conflicts and politics. The main villain of the film is late North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il, the father of current dictator Kim Jong-un, who is the villain of the boundary-pushing The Interview.
PHOTOS: Best and Worst Movie Remakes
"We're just trying to make the best of an unfortunate situation," the theater's creative manager and programmer James Wallace told THR.
Sony Pictures Entertainment announced on Wednesday, Dec. 17, that the company will not be releasing the controversial dark comedy The Interview. The decision was made after a widespread hack of the company went down in retaliation to the film's plot and terrorism threats were made for the showing of the film about the assassination of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.
PHOTOS: Celebrities Who've Lost or Gained Weight for Movie Roles
"In light of the decision by the majority of our exhibitors not to show the film The Interview, we have decided not to move forward with the planned December 25 theatrical release," Sony said in a release, noting the choice that several major theater chains made not to show the seemingly risky flick. "We respect and understand our partners' decision and, of course, completely share their paramount interest in the safety of employees and theater-goers."
With the last-minute scrapping of The Interview, which was set for a Dec. 25 release, Alamo Drafthouse Cinema has found its solution in another America-celebrating feature. The screening of Team America will reportedly come free of charge, and will include patriotic swag such as American flags and red, white, and blue streamers and balloons.
PHOTOS: Celebrities' Political Affiliations
"FOR THE RECORD: We were still going to show #TheInterviewMovie…" the theater tweeted on Wednesday, "…but now we'll be showing TEAM AMERICA in it's place…for FREE(DOM). Because AMERICA, F YEAH."
Sign up now for the Us Weekly newsletter to get breaking celebrity news, hot pics and more delivered straight to your inbox!
Want stories like these delivered straight to your phone? Download the Us Weekly iPhone app now!Meltzer's Musings: On Giroux, the 2015-16 Season and the Off-Season April 25, 2016, 11:38 AM ET [488 Comments] Bill Meltzer
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • Archive • CONTACT Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • RSS
The 2015-16 Philadelphia Flyers were unable to upset the President's Trophy winning Washington Capitals in the first round of the playoffs but came within a 1-0 score in Game 6 from forcing a seventh game after trailing the series three games to zero. They had no margin for error, as witnessed by the outcomes of Games 1 and 6 in particular.
Special team was the Flyers' undoing in the series: the power play in every game but Game 4, and the penalty kill in Games 1 (despite a 5-for-6 that night), 2, and 3.
In upcoming blogs, I will discuss various observations from the season just past as well as starting to look ahead to next season. Today, I will start with Flyers' captain Claude Giroux.
Unfortunately, there is often a tendency among sports fans to need a scapegoat or two to blame. Giroux and goaltender Steve Mason are the easy designated whipping boys despite the fact that both players were instrumental in why the team made the playoffs in the first place.
Today on social media and newspaper columns, there's a lot of Giroux bashing and people who suddenly want the player -- still a point-per-game career player in the playoffs, just two seasons removed from being a Hart Trophy finalist, and still in the prime years of his career -- traded.
Trading Giroux would be a great idea; that is, if the Flyers wanted to scrap Ron Hextall's thus-far-successful retooling plan and instead tear everything down and do a half-decade-or-more rebuild.
It would be a fine plan; if the reward for making sure there was team-wide buy-in to a rookie coach's system and staying positive through some pretty rough patches of the season was to turn around and remove the central figure of a still-maturing leadership group.
Teams win or lose as a whole. Giroux by far did not have his "A" game in the Capitals' series. Washington deserves a big share of the credit for shutting him down but Giroux himself needed to be more effective in battling through the checking. Hockey is a bottom-line, no-excuses sport and the captain and goalie are always going to get excessive credit or excessive blame. However, anyone who truly thinks Giroux's rough series was due to lack of effort, heart or leadership ability is way off base.
Giroux was clearly not himself in the series or, really, for much of the latter part of the stretch drive. He denied having any significant injuries but there still seemed to be something more than just the Caps' often-airtight checking going on. He took a higher-than-usual number of maintenance days off from practices and morning skates in recent months.
Normally dominant on faceoffs, he still won more than he lost (50.6 percent) in the series but he seemed to be laboring at the dot. His shots, when he wasn't pulling up or electing to pass, didn't have much on them. Normally a wizard on offensive zone entries, he was contained much more easily than is usually the case even against top defensive clubs.
Giroux's offensive stats were down this season but I thought he had a better overall campaign this year than in 2014-15. He showed growth and maturity as a captain. There were any number of times the team could have gone off the rails, yet they always seemed to right their ship and start moving forward again. Giroux owned up to frustration at times, including during the Caps series, but there wasn't panic in his play.
Leadership is not just one player, but it starts with a team's best players. As regular readers know, I detest the term "desperation" because it is actually a negative word that implies panic and lack of organization. What teams actually strive for is "focused urgency," and Giroux more often than not set a good tone.
Is there still room for team-wide improvement in that area? Yes. Far too many games against teams beneath the Flyers in the standings lacked focused urgency until, trailing, the Flyers scrambled late in games (a few times successfully) to rescue points. The team often overrelied on their goalies in those game and, overall, too often failed to close out games in the way legitimate contenders tend to play with a late late.
That's not on Giroux specifically but it is the responsibility of the leadership group to correct an issue like that -- it can't come just from the coaches -- and is a carryover challenge for next season. That's why I used the term "still-maturing leadership group" rather than "matured." There's still room for further growth.
This season, Giroux set an example by buying into Dave Hakstol's system and showing a lot of attention to detail. He worked hard away from the puck, did not cheat out of the zone early, blocked shots and killed penalties. He took Gostisbehere under his wing and pushed the rookie to maximize his offensive gifts (almost too a fault, because other teams started to adjust to the pass out to the point).
One periodically heard grumbling of the second season of the Craig Berube tenure was that the Flyers top players would often overstay their shifts. That was largely addressed this season in Hakstol's first year. There were times where Giroux's line had to get right back out there or took long shifts but that was usually dictate by the time and score of the game.
Defensively, I thought Giroux had a good season and, in fact, sacrificed some points to play a responsible two-way game.
That sort of thing does not always show in plus-minus rating (which is an area where some mainstream beat writers sometimes still bark up the wrong tree). Giroux has generally been a pretty good two-way player during his career but is considerably savvier defensively at age 28 (despite the "disappointing minus-eight regular season rating and minus-two in the playoffs one columnist cited) than he was in going plus-20 in 2010-11 when the team still had Chris Pronger and Kimmo Timonen anchoring the top two blueline pairs.
In the playoffs, the Flyers had to work with what they had. Shayne Gostisbehere was their only high-end puck-mover from the back end, although Andrew MacDonald made some good first passes. Mark Streit was stoic about it but clearly laboring physically (he only had a brief period all season in which he ever looked like himself). Hakstol pulled the plug on Evgeny Medvedev before the stretch drive and never went back to him except when injuries or other absences dictated it.
The core of defensive defensemen -- Radko Gudas and Nick Schultz especially, but with Brandon Manning also competing his tail off -- did their jobs well in terms of blocked shots and getting involved physically. They did yeoman work in the trenches when the Flyers got hemmed in, as did the other starting defensemen, but the Caps usually had little to fear in terms of Philly breakouts or defensemen joining the attack.
With the exception of Game 4, when both goals came from the point, Washington was usually able to neutralize Gostisbehere and prevent Philly from doing much of anything off the rush and especially in generating breakout with speed. That absolutely hampered the ability of Giroux and company to create offense.
In terms of the Flyers' power play failures, it was one big, collective problem. Giroux was part of it but to pin it all on his is inaccurate and unfair.
Unlike 2014-15, Jakub Voracek wasn't himself pretty much all year on the power play -- his one power play goal for the season was a dismaying total considering how many plays get set up for him to one-time or sweep across the slot moving to his left. Gostisbehere was well-scouted. Only on a few occasions was he either wide open or able to create room for himself.
Simmonds is a player who largely depends on teammates getting him deflection, or rebound opportunities in front of the net or cross-ice slam-dunks from near the left post. His swing-out play from the left of the goal line has rarely worked over the last three seasons, and the Caps were happy to concede that particular puck rotation as often as the Flyers wanted it. As soon as Simmonds would get the puck along the goal line, Holtby would seal off the short side and the penalty killers would seal off all passing lanes.
As the series progressed, the Flyers tried moving Brayden Schenn around the offensive zone (rotating to the right side up high rather than in his usual spot near the left hash marks and over the middle). It was a good idea in theory to open the ice a little bit more but the Flyers had so much trouble with entries and retrievals that they never really got set up well enough to see if Schenn as a right-side option would work.
I will say, though, that even though the pucks were not going in at all for Giroux or Wayne Simmonds or Schenn or Voracek (save for his Game 2 goal where he turned a broken rush into a goal with a little help from a Schenn pick) that they did not fall into panic mode and go off-system, which was no doubt noticed by Hakstol.
The Flyers needed to be more creative in finding space and time to make plays, and that happened very rarely. But on the flip side, everyone paid the price to apply back pressure and there wasn't a ton of low-percentage risk-taking that created excessive odd-man rushes for the Capitals. One that did bite the Flyers was Voracek getting burned in the third period of Game 1, on what turned into a late insurance goal for the Caps off an odd-man rush.
Overall, at five-on-five, with the exception of Game 5, play was generally pretty even. The Flyers deserve some collective credit for that, including Giroux. They weren't creating much but they also weren't giving up much against a very dangerous and deep Caps team.
Over the balance of the series, Barry Trotz was very comfortable with having Nicklas Bäckström's line go head-to-head with Giroux's as much as possible. It must be said that Bäckström by far had a better series than Giroux did.
However, the loss of Sean Couturier for the series very much had a ripple effect throughout the Flyers' lineup, including on Giroux's line. The Flyers really don't have another player who can do the things that Couturier does. He can change a game for the positive without putting up a point (not to mention the fact that he was nearly a point-per-game player when healthy over the latter portion of the regular season).
The mistake that many fans make -- as do far too many of my journalist colleagues, especially ones who don't watch a lot of hockey -- is to view the sport like a preschool puzzle (i.e. comprised solely of a few giant pieces that easily fit in a molded frame) rather than a jigsaw puzzle with many, many small pieces that have to interlock to build the picture.
The 2015-16 Flyers were a team that fit together much better by the end of the year than when they started. The head coach and the leadership group deserve credit, because there were no significant roster additions all year apart from minor league recalls who did a good job.
The Flyers ultimately weren't complete enough yet to beat a deeper Washington Capitals team because they had very little margin for error even before the opening faceoff of Game 1 was dropped. Could Giroux and the other big names have done more throughout the series? Could Giroux or other big-name players apart from Michal Neuvirth or the Game 1 version of Mason have carried the team through at least one game? The answer to both questions is yes.
That does not, however, mean that Giroux had a bad season or that he's "not a leader", "not an elite player" (check the NHL scoring leader board for the 2010s) or any other supposed shortcoming based on a small sample size of games against a top-notch opponent.
I will close today's Musings with this: If the 2016-17 season started with all NHL rosters frozen as is, the Flyers would still be a playoff bubble team over an 82-game schedule. Thankfully, it will not. For Ron Hextall, the next stages of his long-term team-building plan are going to be crucial.
It is |
to £175. 834 tickets. They now want to call these 'hospitality'. pic.twitter.com/gsFN92AhQp — Jay McKenna (@JayMcKenna87) February 2, 2016
And if they are now hospitality, that's nearly 1,000 less tickets for general admission supporters. New Main Stand mainly hospitality too. — Jay McKenna (@JayMcKenna87) February 2, 2016
The price increases see season tickets priced above the £1,000 mark for the first time.
Existing Main Stand season ticket holders will be paying around 15% more for the same view next season.
https://twitter.com/HendosArse/status/694538201550229504
Thanks #LFC for a 15% increase in my season ticket for next year. Same seat same view! #disgrace and unjustifiable pic.twitter.com/uzXiJef9No — Jonathan Wall (@jonathanwall) February 2, 2016
The price rises appear to have been the decision of Liverpool’s American owners – who implemented similarly expensive ticket prices at Boston Red Sox’s Fenway Park.
.@John_W_Henry, Tom Werner and Mike Gordon didn't have the decency to say no to our proposals, let alone meet to discuss them #LFC — Jay McKenna (@JayMcKenna87) February 2, 2016
"One issue is cost of getting into [Anfield]. Tickets at Fenway Park are among most expensive in the Major League" https://t.co/5zaxJtAJGK — Sachin Nakrani (@SachinNakrani) February 2, 2016
Away end: "Is this a library?" No, it's a congregation of thousands of rich people who don't know the words or understand the game, lads. — Garstonite (@bririley70) February 1, 2016
With the new TV deal and increased seats the opportunity was there to give back but they've greedily gone for more. https://t.co/LOXN2HRple — Daniel Nicolson (@danielnicolson) February 1, 2016
Easy to fall into trap of saying ticket rises price out local fans – it prices out all fans on normal wages. Football's greed all consuming. — Stephen Davies (@stevedaviesseo) February 1, 2016
“The club stands on the threshold of unprecedented revenue streams. The new TV deals and increases in commercial sponsorship and merchandising receipts gave the club a real opportunity to give something back. “It is an opportunity they have spurned and their decision is incredibly short-sighted. “The atmosphere has been improving lately, but this decision threatens to kill it stone dead. ”
— Jeff Goulding, writing on The Liverpool Way
More reaction:
https://twitter.com/TheKop/status/694537639651864576
Anyone know how Peter is? He's just been robbed by #LFC to pay for Paul… https://t.co/UPTWhfFe1J — Kop Magazine (@TheKopMagazine) February 2, 2016
£77 tickets not the main issue, that you're looking at an average price of about £50 for the vast majority of games is more concerning. #LFC — Sam Drury (@SamDrury11) February 2, 2016
#lfc's cheapest & now reduced adult Kop ST for 16-17, still more expensive than all bar 3 clubs' "cheapest" for 15-16 (#afc, #cfc, #thfc). — Dave Phillips (@lovefutebol) February 2, 2016
With clubs about to receive more money than ever from tv deals next year and increased capacity they should he reducing prices. Pure greed. — Stephen Evans (@StephenEvans75) February 1, 2016
If LFC charge the prices they intend and supporters accept it then it's game over for the idea of price reductions, forever. #LFC — Jay McKenna (@JayMcKenna87) February 1, 2016
@John_W_Henry remember when you said you cared about fans? Raising ticket prices on the back of a huge TV deal? What are you smoking? — Ste O'Reilly (@superdog1984) February 1, 2016
https://twitter.com/atwinny/status/694241467666153472
If your one of the lucky ones who's prices won't be going up. Don't have an attitude of "I'm ok mate" support the ones who will get fleeced. — Chris Hudson (@christwinny) February 1, 2016
If the headline £70 max ticket price at Anfield is indicative of wide scale increases its a very poor & short term decision by #LFC. — Si Steers (@sisteers) February 2, 2016
https://twitter.com/Cazza_Est1981/status/694544419064827904Character meshes in our game Academia are always the hardest to optimize. There are many of them and they hardly batch even if I had combined all character sprites in one single texture. A character in the game has two quads, the body and the head. I had given up on batching multiple characters but what frustrated me is that these two meshes are always rendered in separate draw calls. This is because the head sprite has transparency and it should be rendered on top of the body sprite. The two can’t be batched. What’s a motivated guy got to do? I combined them into a single mesh.
It’s easy to combine meshes. There are already existing tools out there for this purpose. However, I wanted something different. I want to be able to change the UV coordinates of some parts of the combined mesh during runtime. For example, when the character blinks, I want to change the UV coordinates of the face quad. I also wanted it to be lightweight. There are asset products like Mesh Baker that I find too bloated for my needs.
Time for some code! Here’s the MeshPartHandle. It handles the minimal data to represent a “part” of the combined mesh. It just contains a starting index and the vertex count of the mesh part. I’ll show the usage later.
public class MeshPartHandle { private int startIndex; private readonly int vertexCount; public MeshPartHandle(int vertexCount) { this.vertexCount = vertexCount; } public int VertexCount { get { return vertexCount; } } public int StartIndex { get { return startIndex; } set { startIndex = value; } } }
The following is the mesh combiner itself:
[RequireComponent(typeof(MeshFilter))] [RequireComponent(typeof(MeshRenderer))] public class CombinedMesh : MonoBehaviour { private Mesh mesh; private MeshFilter meshFilter; private MeshRenderer meshRenderer; private readonly Dictionary<Transform, Mesh> meshMap = new Dictionary<Transform, Mesh>(); private readonly Dictionary<Transform, MeshPartHandle> handleMap = new Dictionary<Transform, MeshPartHandle>(); private Transform selfTransform; public void Clear() { this.meshMap.Clear(); this.handleMap.Clear(); } public MeshPartHandle Add(Transform owner, Mesh mesh) { Assertion.Assert(!this.meshMap.ContainsKey(owner)); // Should not contain the specified owner yet this.meshMap[owner] = mesh; MeshPartHandle handle = new MeshPartHandle(mesh.vertices.Length); this.handleMap[owner] = handle; return handle; } private List<Vector3> vertices = new List<Vector3>(); private List<Color> colors = new List<Color>(); private List<Vector3> normals = new List<Vector3>(); private List<Vector2> uvs = new List<Vector2>(); private List<Vector2> uvs2 = new List<Vector2>(); private List<int> triangles = new List<int>(); // Cache array so we could easily set new UV values private Vector2[] uvArray; private Vector2[] uv2Array; public void Build() { this.vertices.Clear(); this.colors.Clear(); this.normals.Clear(); this.uvs.Clear(); this.uvs2.Clear(); this.triangles.Clear(); foreach (KeyValuePair<Transform, Mesh> entry in this.meshMap) { AddToBuild(entry.Key, entry.Value); } this.mesh = new Mesh(); this.mesh.vertices = this.vertices.ToArray(); this.mesh.colors = this.colors.ToArray(); this.mesh.triangles = this.triangles.ToArray(); this.mesh.normals = this.normals.ToArray(); this.uvArray = this.uvs.ToArray(); this.mesh.uv = this.uvArray; this.uv2Array = this.uvs2.ToArray(); this.mesh.uv2 = this.uv2Array; this.meshFilter = GetComponent<MeshFilter>(); Assertion.AssertNotNull(this.meshFilter); this.meshFilter.mesh = this.mesh; this.meshRenderer = GetComponent<MeshRenderer>(); Assertion.AssertNotNull(this.meshRenderer); } private void AddToBuild(Transform owner, Mesh mesh) { MeshPartHandle handle = this.handleMap[owner]; handle.StartIndex = this.vertices.Count; this.colors.AddRange(mesh.colors); this.normals.AddRange(mesh.normals); this.uvs.AddRange(mesh.uv); // Special case for UV2 // Other meshes don't have it so we use zeroes if(mesh.uv2.Length == 0) { for(int i = 0; i < mesh.vertices.Length; ++i) { this.uvs2.Add(VectorUtils.ZERO_2D); } } else { Assertion.Assert(mesh.uv.Length == mesh.uv2.Length); this.uvs2.AddRange(mesh.uv2); } // Adjust the triangle indeces for(int i = 0; i < mesh.triangles.Length; ++i) { this.triangles.Add(mesh.triangles[i] + handle.StartIndex); } if(this.selfTransform == null) { this.selfTransform = this.transform; // Cache } // Transform the vertices from its owner for(int i = 0; i < mesh.vertices.Length; ++i) { Vector3 transformedVertex = this.selfTransform.InverseTransformPoint(owner.TransformPoint(mesh.vertices[i])); this.vertices.Add(transformedVertex); } } public void SetMaterial(Material material) { this.meshRenderer.material = material; } public void SetSortingLayer(string sortingLayerName) { this.meshRenderer.sortingLayerName = sortingLayerName; } public void SetUvs(MeshPartHandle handle, Vector2[] uvs) { for(int i = 0; i < handle.VertexCount; ++i) { this.uvArray[handle.StartIndex + i] = uvs[i]; } this.meshFilter.mesh.uv = this.uvArray; } public void SetUvs2(MeshPartHandle handle, Vector2[] uvs) { for (int i = 0; i < handle.VertexCount; ++i) { this.uv2Array[handle.StartIndex + i] = uvs[i]; } this.meshFilter.mesh.uv2 = this.uv2Array; } public Transform SelfTransform { get { if(this.selfTransform == null) { this.selfTransform = this.transform; } return selfTransform; } } }
This is then how it is used:
CombinedMesh combinedMesh = GetComponent<CombinedMesh>(); // Or any other way of getting this instance MeshPartHandle headHandle = combinedMesh.Add(this.transform, this.headMesh); MeshPartHandle bodyHandle = combinedMesh.Add(this.transform, this.bodyMesh); combinedMesh.Build(); // Builds the combined mesh // During gameplay, say we want the character to use the sprite that's facing left Vector2[] leftHeadUvs = GetUvs("Head", Orientation.LEFT); combinedMesh.SetUvs(headHandle, leftHeadUvs); Vector2[] leftBodyUvs = GetUvs("Body", Orientation.LEFT); combinedMesh.SetUvs(bodyHandle, leftBodyUvs);
The combiner class is very straightforward. It just maintains a list of mesh data like vertices, colors, triangle indeces, normals, and UVs. Whenever a mesh is added through CombinedMesh.Add(), we also add the data of that mesh to the locally maintained lists. Each MeshPartHandle remembers how many vertices it has and where its starting index is. The handles are then used to change the parts of the mesh it represents. For now, it can only change UVs. It’s certainly possible to allow changes to colors, or normals, etc.
By using this, Unity now renders a character in a single draw call. An added effect to this is that batching multiple characters is now possible in certain conditions. For example, characters that lie in the same horizontal line can now be batched.
This is just one use. I think I’m going to use this to combine other objects. Our rendering is still terrible. Here’s hoping that I can improve it by using this simple mesh combiner.
AdvertisementsStar Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy is a 2003 first- and third-person shooter action video game set in the Star Wars universe. It was developed by Raven Software and published by LucasArts in North America and by Activision in all other territories worldwide. The game was released for Microsoft Windows and OS X (published by Aspyr) in September 2003 and for Xbox (developed by Vicarious Visions) in November 2003, and received positive reviews.
Jedi Academy is powered by the id Tech 3 game engine, the same engine used by Jedi Academy's predecessor, Jedi Outcast. In a new feature to the series, the player can modify the character's gender and appearance, and can construct a lightsaber by choosing the hilt style and blade color.
In single-player mode, the player takes control of the character Jaden Korr, a student at the Jedi Academy under the tutelage of Kyle Katarn. The player must complete various missions assigned to them by Katarn and Luke Skywalker. There is also a multiplayer mode that allows players to play against other people over the internet or via a LAN.
Gameplay [ edit ]
As a first and third-person shooter set in the Star Wars expanded universe, Jedi Academy puts the player into combat wielding a variety of firearms from that universe, as well as lightsabers and Force powers. The player can choose perspective for every weapon except for the lightsaber, which must be wielded in a third person view. The shooter aspects of the game are standard, including a variety of projectile and energy weapons and explosives. Players have a health meter and a shield meter, which are replenished separately.
In both single-player and multiplayer, the player character is a Force-user, who has access to a variety of Force powers in addition to their lightsaber(s). Powers include Push, Pull, Jump, Heal, Lightning, and other abilities from the Star Wars universe. Force powers are categorized into core, Light (defensive) and Dark (offensive), and each Force power has three ranks, with the power increasing in effectiveness with each rank. In both single-player and multiplayer, players choose how to rank up their powers, adding a layer of customization. During gameplay, the player has a "Force meter" which is depleted when powers are used, and recharges when no powers are in use.
Jedi Academy places a heavy emphasis on lightsaber combat. The player can create a custom lightsaber by selecting a hilt and one of five blade colors.[5] Later in the game, the player can choose to wield a single saber, one saber in each hand, or a "saber staff" similar to the double ended lightsaber Darth Maul used in The Phantom Menace[6] which also adds a kicking ability unavailable with any other lightsaber. The different sabers each have unique styles and special moves. When using a single saber, the player can choose between three stances which affect the speed and power of attacks; if using dual sabers, the player can switch off the second saber and use the "Fast"-style single-saber stance, or if using a saber staff, the player can switch the staff into a single-bladed saber that uses the "Medium"-style saber stance.
The player initially chooses the character's species and gender, and begins the game with a single lightsaber. Midway through the game, the player can choose to use dual sabers or a saber staff if desired. The campaign alternates between linear plot driven missions and user-selected missions. For user-selected missions, the player is given a list of five missions, and chooses the order in which to complete them. The player is only required to complete four of the missions before advancing, although the option is available to complete all five.[7] Between missions the player can choose one of their Force skills to upgrade. This will increase the impact of that Force power, so making the character more powerful as the game progresses.[8] The game also introduces player-controllable vehicles and vehicle-based levels.[9]
Multiplayer [ edit ]
A multiplayer game where a flag carrier redirects a rocket using the Force
In multiplayer mode, one can play online or via a local area network (LAN) with other players, as well as computer-controlled bots. The player can create their avatar using a series of options, similar to the character creation in single-player. Alternatively the player can choose to play as one of almost all of the characters from Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy. Before a match begins, the server specifies the Force ranking to be used; this controls how many points the players have to invest in different Force powers. Players can then customize their powers for the match. The server can also disable normal weapons to create a lightsaber-only game. There are different multiplayer modes such as "Capture the flag", "Power Duel" and "Siege". Depending on the mode, players can play on their own or as part of a team. There are six multiplayer modes in total.[10][11]
Plot [ edit ]
The player takes the role of Jaden Korr (voiced by Philip Tanzini if male, and by Jennifer Hale if female). Jaden is a new student arriving at the Jedi Academy on Yavin IV, along with fellow student Rosh Penin (Jason Marsden). On their way to the Academy, the students' shuttle is shot down by an unknown enemy. As Jaden and Rosh make their way to the Academy on foot, they encounter two stormtroopers and a Dark Jedi, whom Jaden defeats. Jaden then sees a woman using a staff to drain energy from the Jedi Temple, but he is detected and knocked unconscious by the beam. Awakening, Jaden is met by Jedi Masters Kyle Katarn (Jeff Bennett) and Luke Skywalker (Bob Bergen), who both express concern about the incident. Jaden and Rosh become apprenticed to Kyle; however, in their first training session, Rosh's over-competitiveness endangers Jaden. Jaden is then dispatched on various peace-keeping missions across the galaxy.
After completing several missions Jaden returns to the temple and overhears Rosh talking to another student, saying that he feels like the Jedi masters are trying to hold them back. Luke tells the assembled students that the Dark Jedi who attacked the Temple are members of a Sith cult called the Disciples of Ragnos. A member of the cult, a Twi'lek named Alora (Grey DeLisle), was able to infiltrate the Academy during the attack and stole Luke's journal. This allowed the cult to find numerous places strong with the Force and drain the energy there. The students are sent out to investigate the locations in Luke's journal. Jaden is sent to Hoth to investigate Echo Base, where he encounters Imperials and Alora. Jaden defeats her, and she flees. Returning to the Academy, Jaden finds that Rosh did not return from his mission to Byss.
After completing several more missions, Jaden accompanies Kyle in an investigation of Darth Vader's fortress on Vjun. There, Jaden discovers that Rosh has joined the Disciples of Ragnos, having fallen to the dark side to avoid being killed. Jaden defeats Rosh (who is accompanied by two surviving Reborn Dark Jedi from Jedi Outcast) as Kyle arrives. At this point, the leader of the cult, who is revealed to be Tavion Axmis (Kath Soucie) arrives. She was the former apprentice of Kyle's nemesis Desann from Jedi Outcast. Tavion has recovered the "Scepter of Ragnos", which has the power to drain and release Force energy. Tavion disables Jaden and Kyle, causing the room to cave-in as she escapes with Rosh, destroying Jaden's lightsaber in the process. Kyle and Jaden narrowly escape and return to the Academy. Jaden is promoted to Jedi Knight, and constructs a new lightsaber. Luke comes to the conclusion that Tavion plans to restore the Sith to power by using the stolen Force energy to resurrect the ancient Sith Lord, Marka Ragnos (Peter Lurie).[12] As the Jedi prepare to battle Tavion and her followers on Korriban, Kyle informs Jaden that he has received a call for help from Rosh. Though skeptical, Jaden agrees to help. Fighting through a mining facility on Taspir III, Jaden is again confronted by Alora, who continues to taunt him as he chases her through the complex. Eventually, Jaden finds Rosh, who asks for help and claims to have seen the error of his ways. Gripped by anger, Jaden is goaded by Alora to kill Rosh and join Tavion, while Kyle telepathically tries to dissuade him. At this point, the player can choose to either let him live and thus stay on the light side or kill Rosh and turn to the dark side.
On the light path, Jaden spares Rosh and saves him from Alora, who cuts off Rosh's left arm. Jaden kills Alora and heads to the Tomb of Ragnos to confront Tavion, fighting his way through her followers alongside his fellow students. Jaden defeats her; however, she uses the scepter to invoke Ragnos's spirit, who possesses her body. Jaden defeats Ragnos and destroys the Scepter, banishing Ragnos' spirit back into its tomb and killing Tavion.[13] Back at the Academy Jaden reunites with Rosh, who has recovered, and is honored by Luke, Kyle and the rest of the order.
On the dark path, Jaden kills Rosh but refuses to join the Sith or help resurrect Marka Ragnos, instead killing Alora and heading to Korriban. Jaden leaves a trail of destruction behind him, killing Jedi and Sith alike before he confronts Tavion. Killing her, Jaden steals the Scepter only to be confronted by Kyle. Jaden defeats Kyle and escapes with the scepter. Kyle is rescued by Luke, and laments losing both Rosh and Jaden, vowing to hunt Jaden down. Luke wishes Kyle good luck, and notes that although Jaden has turned to the dark side, there is always hope and Jaden may not be beyond redemption. Jaden is then seen on the bridge of a Star Destroyer beginning a campaign of conquest.
History [ edit ]
Development [ edit ]
After Jedi Outcast was completed, LucasArts immediately approached Raven Software to develop a sequel. Production began and Raven was given a one-year development cycle.[14] Like Jedi Outcast, Jedi Academy uses a heavily modified Quake III: Team Arena game engine, and the development team was made up of people who worked on Jedi Outcast, as well as Star Trek: Voyager – Elite Force.[15]
At the start of the game the player chooses the gender, race and clothing of their character.
An early decision made during development was whether or not to have Kyle Katarn as the playable character. This was due to the character already being a powerful Jedi Knight, and, as such, starting off with the Force skills would affect the gameplay.[14] To resolve this issue, Raven chose to make the playable character a student in the Jedi Academy. By using a completely new character, the developers were able to insert features that allowed the player to customize the character, including race and gender, as well as the lightsaber color, hilt, and type. The Kyle Katarn character was then made an instructor in the academy so as to remain integral to the plot, to ensure Jedi Academy built upon the existing Jedi Knight series storyline.[14] Raven extended the customization further as the game progresses by allowing the player to choose specific Force powers to train upon completion of missions. This was done with the intention of giving freedom to choose the way and style the game is played.[16]
Another decision made early on was to include locations and aspects from the Star Wars movies. The designers wanted to use locations such as Tatooine (seen in The Prequel Trilogy, A New Hope and Return of the Jedi) and Hoth (seen in The Empire Strikes Back), as well as the Rancor creature.[14] To develop the map for Hoth, the designers obtained as much source material from The Empire Strikes Back as possible so to create an authentic reproduction. Level Designer Justin Negrete says that Hoth was one of the most challenging areas to design.[17] The general level design process started by planning out the level on paper. These ideas were then "fleshed out" to get the size and flow of the level. Once this had been done, features of the Quake III engine were used to add more detail such as lighting effects. The final stage of level design was adding aspects that improved the gameplay and fun of the level.[18]
The mission based format of Jedi Academy was used by Raven to reduce the linearity of the game, allowing the player to progress through levels mostly in the order they desire. The reduction in linearity was also achieved by requiring 80% of levels to be completed before the plot can move on.[7] Raven provided modding tools with Jedi Academy, but the company specified that such tools are unsupported by customer support, so to avoid receiving calls on the subject. Brett Tosti, a producer for LucasArts, stated that the customization of the player that is provided by the game out of the box will mean that people are less likely to need to create their own "skins".[16]
Release [ edit ]
The game was published and distributed within North America by LucasArts. Activision took control of publishing and distributing the game in all other territories worldwide.[19] The game was released for Microsoft Windows and OS X (published by Aspyr) on September 17, 2003 and for Xbox (developed by Vicarious Visions) in November 2003, and received positive reviews.
In September 2009, the game was re-released with the other Star Wars: Jedi Knight games (Star Wars: Dark Forces, Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II, Star Wars Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith and Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast) through the digital distributor Steam and Direct2Drive.[20][21]
On January 29th, 2019, Major Nelson announced[22] that Jedi Academy would be released on February 16th, as part of Xbox's Games with Gold program.
Source-code release [ edit ]
Following Disney's decision to close LucasArts on April 3, 2013, the developers at Raven Software released the source code for the game on SourceForge under GNU GPLv2 licensing.[23][24] A few days after release, the source code disappeared from SourceForge without explanation. SourceForge later explained to media outlet Kotaku that Raven Software had requested its removal. Kotaku speculated this was due to the presence of licensed code, such as for the Bink Video format from Rad Game Tools, that was not intended to be made public.[25] Based on the source release from Raven, Jedi Academy is maintained by the JACoders group as OpenJK.[26]
Critical reception [ edit ]
Both the PC and Xbox versions of the game were well received. The PC version holds an aggregate score of 81 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on thirty-five reviews,[29] and 80.18% on GameRankings, based on fifty-one reviews.[27] The Xbox version holds aggregate scores of 76 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on thirty reviews,[30] and 75.22% on GameRankings, based on forty-five reviews.[28]
PC [ edit ]
Positive reviews praised the fact that, unlike in Dark Forces II and Jedi Outcast, players could use a lightsaber from the beginning. Game Over Online scored the game 92% and commented that "You start instantly with your lightsaber, rather than wading through six painfully bland FPS levels to get your lightsaber as you did in Jedi Outcast".[42] Critics lauded the lightsaber interface and player customization options. Ernie Halal of Gaming Age gave the game an A-, writing, "You choose not only the gender and race of your character, but also which powers and fighting styles to develop [...] Third person adventure games rarely offer that much customization."[43]
Critics noted that, despite its age, the Quake III engine was used well.[37] PC Gamer UK, who scored the game 70 out of 100, wrote "the engine, which although hardly groundbreaking any more, perfectly evokes the glow of the lightsaber and the grimy, metallic backgrounds of the films."[41] Some critics did, however, note that the engine was starting to look dated.[37][42][43]
The multiplayer, in particular the objective-based Siege mode, was well received.[12][39] The music,[41] sound effects,[39] and voice acting[37] also received acclaim, although some critics found it odd that all aliens spoke English.[38][39]
The story and level design received mixed reactions. Some critics commended the levels as varied (both in terms of length and content). GameZone scored the game 9 out of 10, writing "Some are a fast blast that can be beat in ten or so minutes. Others [...] can take as long as hours [...] The change of pace is very refreshing."[37][43] The story was described as "great" by GameZone[38] and as "strong" by Gaming Age.[43] IGN's Steve Butts, however, disliked the plot, feeling that "Jedi Outcast was more satisfying in terms of involvement with the story. Jedi Academy dishes out more action sooner but fails to put it in as solid a context as the previous game."[39]
Game Over Online was critical of the mission structure, writing "This kind of free-form mission assignment [...] only serves to weaken the plotline. It also leads to a disjointedness to the missions [...] it seems more like roaming than any actual story advancement."[42] GameSpot's Craig Beers, however, praised the mission structure; "Jedi Academy does an excellent job of balancing its missions."[12] IGN also defended the system; "It's nice that the game offers a series of fairly short, relatively unconnected missions at the start. It's a great way to get your feet wet and ease you in to the environments and the saber fighting before the challenge level ramps up."[39]
The AI was criticized by PC Gamer UK as "laughable"; "Every encounter you have is filled with people too stupid to realise that running away or taking some sort of cover would be the best option. [Jedi Academy] requires little to no skill to play through."[41] This opinion was echoed by GameSpot: "Stormtroopers usually just stand there shooting away at you [...] Dark Jedi rush at you, even after watching four of their brethren plummet to a horrible death. Occasionally, you'll see an enemy accidentally commit suicide by falling off a cliff or falling into lava, enemies will not even dive for cover or try and throw it back if you throw an uncooked thermal detonator at them."[12]
Despite his criticism of the AI, GameSpot's Craig Beers scored the game 8.4 out of 10, writing "It manages to take all the fun parts from its predecessor and greatly expands them to create an engaging, new action game in its own right."[12] IGN's Steve Butts scored the game 8.8 out of 10, giving it an "Editor's Choice Award" and writing "If you like Star Wars and think flipping around chopping up Stormtroopers and flinging Dark Jedi off of conveniently placed precipices is fun, then this game is definitely for you."[39] Eurogamer's Kristan Reed was less impressed, scoring the game 7 out of 10, writing "The harsh reality is, for all the plentiful additions, there's much work to be done before LucasArts can boast it has created the ultimate Star Wars FPS. Sure, it's the best one yet, but with some often laughable AI and creaking tech underpinning it, the flaws are there for all to see."[32]
Xbox [ edit ]
Kevin Gifford of 1UP.com scored the Xbox version a B-. He lauded the addition of Xbox Live support and the ability to use a lightsaber from the opening, two of biggest criticisms of Jedi Outcast. However, he called the graphics "worryingly out of date by current Xbox standards", saying that when playing in first-person mode "the game looks more like a two-year-old PC shooter than a modern Star Wars game." He concluded that "The Xbox Live games make Jedi Academy worth at least a rental to online players, but otherwise, this game's worth it to Star Wars fans only."[31] Eurogamer's Kristan Reed was also somewhat unimpressed, scoring the game 6 out of 10 and criticizing the controls; "In common with the PC version, you still find yourself going into battle and fumbling furiously through cyclical menus while numerous baddies are busy blasting seven shades out of you." She was also critical of the AI and the graphics, concluding that "It's good to see Live make the package this time around, but we're disappointed that after all these years LucasArts is still scratching around abusing the Star Wars brand in this way. There are some good ideas here that haven't been realised, and we're once again left waiting for the definitive Star Wars FPS to appear."[33]
IGN were more impressed, scoring the game 8 out of 10. Although they were critical of the graphics and frame rate, and found the game to be inferior to Jedi Outcast, reviewer Steve Butts concluded "For the 15 or so hours that it lasted, I enjoyed Jedi Academy."[40] GameSpot's Craig Beers scored the game 8.1 out of 10. He praised the mapping of the PC version's controls to the Xbox Controller and the implementation of Xbox Live, but like IGN, he was critical of the frame rates. He concluded that "The game may not look great, but it translates well to the Xbox--for those who would prefer to play it on a console. It even caters to those who aren't familiar with the Star Wars universe and just want pure action. In general, Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy is highly recommendable."[36] GameZone's Nick Valentino scored the game 8.2 out of 10 and was especially impressed with the use of Xbox live; "the biggest draw--and the one that has me playing this one very often--is the fact that the multiplayer modes can also be played online using the Xbox Live service. That's right, you read it correctly. You can duel against other Xbox gamers out there using any of the seven multiplayer modes and even talk trash using your Xbox Communicator. Here's your chance to see if you're truly good with the lightsaber."[38]
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
References [ edit ]Mobile shower van for homeless hits Brisbane streets thanks to Orange Sky pair
Updated
The Brisbane duo famous for launching the world's first free mobile laundry for the homeless are trialling a shower van as their latest charitable venture.
Nic Marchesi and Lucas Patchett were honoured as 2016 Young Australians of the Year for their efforts — which have now spread nationwide — to help Brisbane's homeless.
Known collectively as Orange Sky, they turned on the shower tap for the first time this morning, having built the van from scratch thanks to $100,000 from the Shine On Foundation and $50,000 from Queensland Urban Utilities.
It means homeless people in Brisbane now have access to a free hot shower every day.
The van is being rolled out alongside Orange Sky's free laundry van, which was stationed in Ivory Street, Fortitude Valley this morning.
"Twenty-two months ago we had a crazy idea to put two washing machines and two dryers in a van and wash and dry clothes for free," Mr Marchesi said.
"So we then had an even crazier idea of putting two showers in the back of a van. We have water tanks on board, we have heating on board, we also collect our grey water."
Mr Marchesi said while some charities offered showers at their drop-in centres, they were always "chockers".
"We want to complement the amazing work they are doing with a portable service," he said.
There was no stopping Dave 'Bushie' Brum from trialling the free shower yesterday.
"It was bloody awesome. It is so great to have a real shower," he said.
Mr Brum, 60, has been living on the streets in Brisbane for more than 20 years.
He calls himself the swagman and said it was not uncommon for him to go unwashed for more than a week.
"I walk everywhere and I often feel dirty. I can smell myself," he said.
Sometimes he even used a fire hose at a local real estate agency to wash himself down.
He said he would not be doing that anymore.
"They are awesome fellas to do this. It is like heaven being clean — it's amazing," Mr Brum said.
The Brisbane-born duo now has 11 laundry vans working across Australia and hope to expand the shower concept if the trial proves successful.
Orange Sky washes 7.2 tonnes of laundry each week with the help of more than 600 volunteers.
"It costs us $6 to wash and dry someone's clothes and it will cost us the same to give someone a shower," Mr Marchesi said.
He said the mobile shower van was challenging because they had to find a cheap way to keep the water hot.
They discovered a way to use the thermal heat from the van's engine.
The pair are about to take their laundry concept overseas, with a rollout planned for the US next year.
"Our dream is really basic: to treat people how they want to be treated and to connect them in the community," Mr Marchesi said.
"Everyone deserves the basic human right of having clean clothes and being clean themselves."
Topics: charities-and-community-organisations, homelessness, community-organisations, brisbane-4000
First postedKANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - The Afghan Taliban attacked more than a dozen checkpoints over six hours in the southern province of Kandahar, killing 22 police and wounding 15, officials said on Tuesday, as militants killed eight soldiers in the west in a growing insurgency.
Government forces killed 45 insurgents and wounded 35 and none of the police checkpoints was captured in the overnight attacks, officials said.
“Our forces resisted until they received reinforcements and air support,” said Zia Durrani, spokesman for Kandahar’s police chief. “The Taliban were defeated.”
The Taliban told reporters by WhatsApp that they killed 43 police and members of a militia and destroyed 13 armored vehicles.
The insurgents often exaggerate battlefield casualties.
The Taliban, fighting to restore Islamic rule after their |
One of my favorite MacOS command line utilities is pbcopy / pbpaste. I like them so much that I created the aliases for my linux machines using xclip (shared below). These two commands use your system clipboard (also called the pasteboard, hence the names). You can pipe data to pbcopy to copy something to your system clipboard or you can pipe pbpaste to another command to paste from your clipboard. Here are some examples that I use:
# copy my public ssh key to system clipboard for pasting into Github pbcopy < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub # paste something I've copied from the internet to a file pbpaste > main.go # append something I've copied from the internet to the END a file pbpaste >> main.go # copy my public IP address to clipboard curl -Ss icanhazip.com | pbcopy # copy my private IP address to clipboard # it's probably a good idea to alias this ip addr show en0 | grep -inet\ | awk '{ print $3 }' | awk -F/ '{print $1}' | pbcopy # replace what is in my clipboard with the base64 encoded version of itself pbpaste | base64 | pbcopy
In linux, I put the following in my ~/.bashrc to create the same effect.
alias pbcopy='xclip -selection clipboard' alias pbpaste='xclip -selection clipboard -o'
Changing Directories
cd is one of my most used commands according to my bash history. One thing I find myself doing a lot is changing between two directories or briefly changing from directory a to directory b and then back to a. Depending on the reason I'm changing directories I will use either cd - or a combination of pushd and popd. If you type cd - and press enter, you will change to your previous working directory.
cd ~/go/ cd ~/tmp/ cd - # <- this puts you back to ~/go/ cd - # <- this puts you back to ~/tmp/
On the other hand, sometimes I know that I want to go to some directory in a different place, but I might cd a few times to get there, but I want to mark my place so that I can get back quicker. In this case, you would use pushd like this.
cd ~/go/ pushd ~/tmp/ # mark your current directory and cd to ~/tmp/ cd ssl cd certificates # cd - <- this would take you back to ~/tmp/ssl because it is the previous working directory popd # <- this takes you back to ~/go/
You can pushd multiple times to build a stack. I don't find myself doing this much, but it's there if you need it.
Background Processes
One of my pet peves about working with other software developers is that they almost always have ten or more terminal windows open at all times. Usually, they will have one terminal per directory they are working with (this can be avoided by using pushd, popd, and cd tricks mentioned above). But often they will have a few windows open that are running processes which have locked the window. This is difficult to work with because it requires flipping back and forth and knowing where everything is. For executing processes I like to use a mixture of some commands.
If you need to run a command indefinitely you can send it to the background by first running it and then pressing ctrl-z. This will suspend or pause the process. After it has been suspended, type bg and press enter. This will move it to a running state, but it will no longer have control of your terminal window. However, if you close the terminal that job will terminate. To avoid this, you disown the process by typing disown and pressing enter. At this point the process is no longer a child of your current terminal process. I often use this to run kubectl proxy or python -m SimpleHTTPServer.
ctrl-z - move the current process to the background in a suspended state. jobs -l - list the current background processes for the current tty session. bg - tell the most recent background process to continue running in the background fg - bring the most recent background process back to the foreground disown -h - disown the most recent background job. This will remove it from your current tty session. It will not be able to be brought back to the foreground. You will have to control it either with kill or something else.
bg, fg, and disown can be used with the job number found in jobs -l. If you run jobs -l you will see the job number at the beginning of the line. If you want to bring the 2nd job to the foreground you run fg %2. If you want to disown the fourth job then you run disown -h %4, and so on. The plus sign (or minus sign) at the bigging of the line has meaning as well. A plus sign indicates that the job is the most recently used, or the one that will be targeted if you type any of the commands without a job ID. The minus sign is the second most recently used.
I use ctrl-z a lot because I use a single terminal window for vim and as my command line interface. When I'm writing code in vim and I need to get back to my shell prompt I use ctrl-z to suspend vim. NOTE this will still print stdout and stderr to your command window. If you want to change that then you can redirect to files
I modified my PS1 to show my current background job count.
function jobs_count { cnt=$(jobs -l | wc -l) if [ $cnt -gt 0 ]; then echo -ne " \e[93m${cnt}\e[m" fi } # then you can add \`jobs_count\` to the end of your PS1 like this export PS1="\[\e[32m\]\u\[\e[m\]@\[\e[32m\]\h\[\e[m\]:\[\e[34m\]\w\[\e[m\]\`git_branch\`\`jobs_count\`
\$ "
Working With Files
Several times throughout the day I want to view the contents of a file. Before, I would cat the file or open it in vim. cat was annoying because it flooded my terminal history. This is when I learned to use less to open files with pagination. When you open a file with less the contents of the file become paginated and you start at page one. What's great about less is that many of my favorite key combinations work. You can use ctrl-u to page up, ctrl-d to page down, ctrl-p to scroll up one line, ctrl-n to scroll down one line, g goes to the top of the file, G goes to the bottom of the file, and / searches the file.
While less is great for opening files, I may not know where the file is in the first place. Say I have a file named "auth.py" but I don't remember exactly where I put it. I could cd back and forth until I find it, or do what some people do and run start. and browse for it in a UI window (terrible workflow). Instead, I use either find, ag (silver searcher), or tree. find is great for searching by file name. You can run find. -type f -name auth.py to search the current directory for a file named "auth.py". tree is great for listing a directory in a tree format (much like how you see it in a UI). ag is an applciation called "the silver searcher." It is essentially a modernized version of grep and I find myself using it quite often. It's better than grep in that it automatically ignores commonly ignored files such as the.git directory, virtualenv, and anything listed in your.gitignore. I like silver searcher because the command line arguments are very similar to grep so my flags are generally transferrable. Note It's best to combine these commands with less because they will likely flood your terminal history.
Choose a Few to Start With
I did not use all of these when I first started using bash, nor did I memorize them all at once. I picked up one or two here and there over the years. It's difficult to memorize key combinations, especially when there are so many of them. Pick one or two shortcuts and focus on using them. I find myself using these commands by muscle memory, not by memorizing each keyboard shortcut. In fact, once I started to write this I had to open up the terminal and work around to remember which shortcuts I use. I hope these help you work with bash and terminal more effectively. It is easy to learn one new trick and force yourself to use it for a few days until you get used to it. Once you are comfortable with that command, pick up another one.T.J. Miller Tells Us All About His Mystery Role in Steven Spielberg's 'Ready Player One'
The next year of T.J. Miller's life is going to be very, very interesting. The Silicon Valley favorite will be making his debut as the lead voice of an animated movie with this summer's The Emoji Movie, and then next year he's got Deadpool 2 and Steven Spielberg's highly anticipated Ready Player One.
We recently chatted with Miller about The Emoji Movie (it sounds very different than what you're probably expecting), but we also couldn't help but ask about his role in Ready Player One. If you've read Ernie Cline's book, you can imagine why we're so excited to see what Spielberg does with it. If you haven't, just know that it's a very fun sci-fi story about an adventure that takes place in a virtual reality video game.
Miller revealed to us that he's actually playing the only character that was created just for the movie. And the only thing more surprising than that is the story behind how the Office Christmas Party actor ended up in a Steven Spielberg movie in the first place.
On His Chance Encounters with Steven Spielberg
"So, I have a really weird life. Steven Spielberg and I kind of know each other because I was on a DreamWorks television show really early on in my career. For some reason, he thought I was funny. His wife is a big fan, and her name is Kate also, and both she and my wife Kate are mixed-media artists, so there’s all these weird things where I’d run into him in New York or see him at things.
"And so Spielberg himself was like, ‘Let’s put T.J. in Office Christmas Party. Let’s see if he can be at the center of a film.’ It was almost like a movie-star screen test. It was really weird. And I thought that script was good and the cast was awesome. People love that movie. It’s great. It’s like She’s Out of My League. People f***ing love that movie. It’s a great holiday movie and a great hangover movie to turn on television and just start watching. So once the dailies started coming in for Office Christmas Party it was almost like he was like, ‘Bring him to me!’ He’s the king of Hollywood, so he can say ‘Bring him to me! I want to see him in person and work with him and see for myself if he’s the real deal.’
"So, he brought me to England and they wrote this part."
On the New Character Created Just for Him
"I’m not in the book. Some plot points are different, but I’m the only new character. I play i-R0k and basically I am a funny, or at least mildly amusing, Boba Fett. In the OASIS, I am a better player than Aech or Daito or any of those guys. I am sort of unequivocally the best bounty hunter, but I work freelance. While all the Sixers work for IOI and Sorrento, he has to commission me and I get an incredibly high fee to either find people and kill them or make them starve in the game.
"My character in the movie wants to be Boba Fett. Like that’s his hero, his idol, which isn’t far off for many Star Wars fans, myself included."
On Getting His Boba Fett Right
"I actually mimicked Boba Fett’s voice. And in the original Star Wars he only ever speaks four or five times in the movies, so I could only learn from ‘What about me? He’s no good to me dead.’ And then ‘As you wish.’ And I used the British actor’s voice instead of the f***ing Australian’s from the prequels – Lucas, you son of a bitch! – and so, I think it’s actually a really fun character."
On the Coolest Thing About Ready Player One
"While I’m positive that acting will be good and I like all the people he got – even though they’re younger kids – nothing in the world will have ever looked like this. Basically, it looks like a video game when not in the real world. And because it’s Steven Spielberg, it looks better than any video game on the market. Because of his access and resources, Gears of War and f***ing Call of Duty can’t even touch it. I think they’re inventing new technology for it. So, yeah, I’m excited for 2018."
On Marveling at the Way Steven Spielberg Works
"He’s just the most positive, childlike, excitable, brilliant person. And he never says anything negative, ever. He never goes, ‘I don’t think it should be like this.’ He never says that. He only says positive things, using words like, ‘A little more color to the voice.’ Just suggestions, and the second you get it right, he’s like ‘Yes! Print that one! That was great! Let’s do another for safety, and we can do one more for you if you’d like, but I think we’ve got that.’
"What that does for actors is make them feel like they’re not doing anything wrong, and suddenly you can get them to do everything right. And I’m not really an actor, so I feel like I’m sort of in a strange land, so watching him work with the other actors I was like, ‘Holy f***ing s**t.’ Because I’m there to do the comedy, right? I just did this movie with Vincent Cassel and Kristen Stewart called Underwater, and it’s a real deal thriller, and I’m just there to do jokes, folks."
On Hoping You Like The Emoji Movie
"I hope you like The Emoji Movie. And if you don’t, I don’t give a s**t because it’s not for you, it’s for children."
Ready Player One hits theaters on March 30, 2018. The Emoji Movie hits theaters on August 4, 2017.Theresa May has explained her backing for a controversial new generation of grammar schools, insisting England already has “selection by house price”.
Quizzed by the 1922 Committee of backbench Tories, the prime minister broke her silence on the policy – confirming her plans for expansion in areas where there is a demand for them.
The idea is opposed by some Conservative MPs but, according to sources at the meeting, she answered them by saying: “We have already got selection haven't we - it's called'selection by house price.”
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 prime minister was also said to have reassured doubting Tories that she was not advocating new grammar schools everywhere, or imposing them where they were not wanted.
But, today, her own social mobility adviser branded the plans a “social mobility disaster” in the making”.
Alan Milburn, the former Labour Cabinet minister appointed to the position by David Cameron, said ending the ban on building new selective schools risked creating an “us and them” divide within the education system.
He said pupils at England's remaining 163 selective state schools were four or five times more likely to have come from independent prep schools, rather than from the most disadvantaged backgrounds.
“This is not selection educationally, it is selection socially. If that is what is being talked about, it will not provide a social mobility dividend, it will be a social mobility disaster.” Mr Milburn told The Guardian.
Kent, the county with the highest proportion of pupils in selective education, epitomised the problems it created.
“Only 27% of kids in Kent schools on free school meals get five good GCSEs. The national average is 33%, and in London, where most areas are purely comprehensive, it is 45%,” Mr Milburn said.
Instead he called on Mrs May to implement a far more wide-ranging action plan to close the gap between the wealthiest and the poorest and tackle a “festering sense of social resentment” across Britain.
He pointed out that, of the 65 areas of the country highlighted by his Social Mobility Commission as the worst for education and employment prospects, only three voted to remain in the EU.
On Tuesday, a memo written by the Department for Education's permanent secretary, Jonathan Slater accidentally confirmed the plans for new grammars.
The document said the policy would be presented as an option in a consultation paper expected within weeks.
Shape Created with Sketch. The 6 most important issues Theresa May needs to address Show all 6 left Created with Sketch. right Created with Sketch. Shape Created with Sketch. The 6 most important issues Theresa May needs to address 1/6 Brexit The big one. Theresa May has spoken publicly three times since declaring her intent to stand in the Tory Leadership race, and each time she has said, ‘Brexit means Brexit.’ It sounds resolute, but it is helpful to her that Brexit is a made up word with no real meaning. She has said there will be ‘no second referendum’ and no re-entry in to the EU via the back door. But she, like the Leave campaign of which she was not a member, has pointedly not said with any precision what she thinks Brexit means Reuters 2/6 General election This is very much one to keep off the to do list. She said last week there would be ‘no general election’ at this time of great instability. But there have already been calls for one from opposition parties. The Fixed Term Parliaments Act of 2010 makes it far more difficult to call a snap general election, a difficulty she will be in no rush to overcome. In the event of a victory for Leadsom, who was not popular with her own parliamentary colleagues, an election might have been required, but May has the overwhelming backing of the parliamentary party Getty 3/6 HS2 Macbeth has been quoted far too much in recent weeks, but it will be up to May to decide whether, with regard to the new high speed train link between London, Birmingham, the East Midlands and the north, ‘returning were as tedious as go o’er.’ Billions have already been spent. But the £55bn it will cost, at a bare minimum, must now be considered against the grim reality of significantly diminished public finances in the short to medium term at least. It is not scheduled to be completed until 2033, by which point it is not completely unreasonable to imagine a massive, driverless car-led transport revolution having rendered it redundant EPA 4/6 Heathrow expansion Or indeed Gatwick expansion. Or Boris Island, though that option is seems as finished as the man himself. The decision on where to expand aviation capacity in the south east has been delayed to the point of becoming a national embarrassment. A final decision was due in autumn. Whatever is decided, there will be vast opprobrium PA 5/6 Trident renewal David Cameron indicated two days ago that there will be a Commons vote on renewing Britain’s nuclear deterrent on July 18th, by which point we now know, Ms May will be Prime Minister. The Labour Party is, to put it mildly, divided on the issue. This will be an early opportunity to maximise their embarrassment, and return to Tory business as usual EPA 6/6 Scottish Independence Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP are in no doubt that the Brexit vote provides the opportunity for a second independence referendum, in which they can emerge victorious. The Scottish Parliament at Holyrood has the authority to call a second referendum, but Ms May and the British Parliament are by no means automatically compelled to accept the result. She could argue it was settled in 2014 AFP/Getty 1/6 Brexit The big one. Theresa May has spoken publicly three times since declaring her intent to stand in the Tory Leadership race, and each time she has said, ‘Brexit means Brexit.’ It sounds resolute, but it is helpful to her that Brexit is a made up word with no real meaning. She has said there will be ‘no second referendum’ and no re-entry in to the EU via the back door. But she, like the Leave campaign of which she was not a member, has pointedly not said with any precision what she thinks Brexit means Reuters 2/6 General election This is very much one to keep off the to do list. She said last week there would be ‘no general election’ at this time of great instability. But there have already been calls for one from opposition parties. The Fixed Term Parliaments Act of 2010 makes it far more difficult to call a snap general election, a difficulty she will be in no rush to overcome. In the event of a victory for Leadsom, who was not popular with her own parliamentary colleagues, an election might have been required, but May has the overwhelming backing of the parliamentary party Getty 3/6 HS2 Macbeth has been quoted far too much in recent weeks, but it will be up to May to decide whether, with regard to the new high speed train link between London, Birmingham, the East Midlands and the north, ‘returning were as tedious as go o’er.’ Billions have already been spent. But the £55bn it will cost, at a bare minimum, must now be considered against the grim reality of significantly diminished public finances in the short to medium term at least. It is not scheduled to be completed until 2033, by which point it is not completely unreasonable to imagine a massive, driverless car-led transport revolution having rendered it redundant EPA 4/6 Heathrow expansion Or indeed Gatwick expansion. Or Boris Island, though that option is seems as finished as the man himself. The decision on where to expand aviation capacity in the south east has been delayed to the point of becoming a national embarrassment. A final decision was due in autumn. Whatever is decided, there will be vast opprobrium PA 5/6 Trident renewal David Cameron indicated two days ago that there will be a Commons vote on renewing Britain’s nuclear deterrent on July 18th, by which point we now know, Ms May will be Prime Minister. The Labour Party is, to put it mildly, divided on the issue. This will be an early opportunity to maximise their embarrassment, and return to Tory business as usual EPA 6/6 Scottish Independence Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP are in no doubt that the Brexit vote provides the opportunity for a second independence referendum, in which they can emerge victorious. The Scottish Parliament at Holyrood has the authority to call a second referendum, but Ms May and the British Parliament are by no means automatically compelled to accept the result. She could argue it was settled in 2014 AFP/Getty
However, it also revealed the unease of Justine Greening, the Education Secretary, who wanted it to be pursued only once existing grammars had been forced to open their doors to more pupils from poorer homes.
Sir Michael Wilshaw, the outgoing chief inspector of schools, also warned the idea that poor children would benefit from a return of grammar schools was “tosh” and “nonsense”.
At last night’s 1922 meeting, the Prime Minister said she wanted to create a “21st century education system” with an “element of selection” – rather than simply return to the past.
One option is expected to be allowing new ‘free schools’ to embrace selection – but any such move will face fierce opposition and possible defeat in the House of Lords.
We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view.
At The Independent, no one tells us what to write. That’s why, in an era of political lies and Brexit bias, more readers are turning to an independent source. Subscribe from just 15p a day for extra exclusives, events and ebooks – all with no ads.
Subscribe now.DCS
The Bo-105 for DCS is one of the most awaited modules for the helicopter flight simulation fans out there. We got to get a peek at Miltech-5's work.
Before we move on, I have to make a HUGE disclaimer, folks. Pay attention now: THIS IS NOT THE FINAL PRODUCT. In fact, this is not even CLOSE to the final product. If the final product came by and glanced at this, it wouldn't recognize it. It would think this is an alien. There's absolutely no resemblance between this and the final product.
Miltech-5 was absolutely, extremely, awesomely (is that a word?) cool for allowing us access to the BO-105. but we need to look at it for what it is: a pre-alpha. Perhaps not even that.
What does this mean? Well, it means that I will not talk about the flight model and how it handles. I will not talk about the systems, the guns the ins and outs of this module.
Notice the "(Quick)" before "preview" up there on the title? That's what this is all about. A quick look at Miltech-5's work. And, right now, all we can talk about is the 3D model itself. All the other stuff is still pretty much a work in progress. The project is about 60% done so there's a lot ahead for the team.
When we enter the BO-105 we are presented with a simple cockpit, brilliantly modeled by Miltech-5's Oliver Michel. In fact, the whole helicopter is very well modeled and Oliver keeps on showing us his amazing skills.
The pilot reminds me of someone (hey Oli!) and I love the detail on the helmet of his partner. The whole environment reminds me of a high-tech, military environment.
The BO-105 cockpit is not very big but you won't feel claustrophobic as there's glass pretty much all around you (except on your back). There's a lot going on in the cabin as you can see in the screenshots above, something you should expect from a military aircraft. And Miltech-5 decided to show it all in its full glory.
The module will come with 2 versions, both from the German army: the PAH-1H1, which is the anti-tank version and the VBH, which is the light transport and surveillance.
The one we took for a spin was the PAH1H1. The model looks awesome and, although I have no way of comparing it with the real aircraft, the sound feels very solid.
Like I said, the BO-105 is still in a very early stage but it sure is impressive to see it in the sim already -- and very cool to be able to try it. There are exciting times ahead for us, helicopter fans.
But does it loop???
Hell, yes! But not for the right reasons. The flight model is pretty much botched as the team's working on it and all the systems. Right now it's just something that flies, rather than a BO-105. In fact it doesn't resemble any of the helicopters in DCS. It's a whole beast, working only for us to see it working.
Hopefully, it will loop soon, but because it's supposed to!
Are you as excited as we are to get your hands on the BO-105?Premier Kathleen Wynne is slamming the brakes on Toronto Mayor John Tory’s plan to toll the Don Valley Parkway and the Gardiner Expressway by pledging additional transit funding, the Star has learned. Wynne is to announce Friday at a Richmond Hill bus yard that the provincial government will not give Toronto council permission to impose the levies on the two city-owned highways.
Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne will not approve Toronto's plan to toll the Gardiner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway. Instead the province will provide more funding for transit. ( NATHAN DENETTE / THE CANADIAN PRESS )
At the same time the premier will outline “hundreds of millions of dollars” in new money annually for municipalities with public transit systems. “We’re trying to help people get ahead and stay ahead — even a toll of $20 more a week is not affordable for Ontario families,” an official confided. “The province is indicating that there can’t be a conversation about tolling while other options (for commuters) are unavailable,” the insider said Thursday.
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That effectively means tolling Toronto highways is off the table until Tory’s “SmartTrack” regional express rail expansion is up and running around 2023. While the mayor’s toll plan forced Wynne to fork over more money, he will not attend the premier’s announcement. “Toronto city council sent a very clear message: We have a plan to make much-needed investments in transit that will help fix traffic congestion in Toronto and throughout the region,” Tory’s office said in a statement Thursday night. “If the Ontario government has decided to deny a regulatory change requested by the overwhelming majority of city council, the mayor would expect the provincial government to take serious and immediate action to address the city’s transit, transportation, childcare and housing needs.” With Finance Minister Charles Sousa set to finally balance the books this spring, Queen’s Park is flush and can afford more for transit – over and above the $31.5 billion Wynne has promised provincewide over 10 years.
The cash infusion to the treasury is enabling the province to double the share of gasoline tax revenue for municipalities. Last month, Toronto council overwhelmingly backed Tory’s move to impose road tolls on the Gardiner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway, two of the region’s busiest arteries, and use the proceeds for transit.
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While Wynne and Tory are close political allies, the province will not be able to come up with the $300 million annually that tolls of $2 or more per trip would have brought in. Toronto is expected to get just $170 million annually. While Wynne had publicly backed Tory’s plan, many Liberals are anxious about it with an election looming on June 7, 2018. “If Mayor Tory and his council determine that they would like to embark on a tolling of certain roads — local roads in the city of Toronto — then we will work with them,” the premier said Dec. 7. “Because I think that it’s important that they have the ability to raise the money to augment (provincial funding), because we’re investing billions of dollars in Toronto,” she said at the time. “If there’s more that they need to do, they need to find resources to do that and we need to co-operate with them as they make those decisions.” But both Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown and NDP Leader Andrea Horwath are opposed to Toronto being allowed to toll its highways, meaning Wynne might have paid for it politically next year. Inside the Liberal caucus it has been as explosive an issue as the rising hydro bills that the government, which trails the Tories in public opinion polls, is moving to address. “The fastest way for us to lose next year’s election is to let Tory put a toll on the Gardiner — he’ll get the money, we’ll get the blame,” warned one MPP, who represents a riding in the 905 region. Another MPP from elsewhere in Ontario complained that if Toronto is able to impose a toll on its roads, his local municipal council may demand to do the same thing. “This will not sell in my riding. People are already pissed off enough about hydro,” said the MPP. Both spoke on condition of anonymity in order to freely discuss internal party talks. While Tory has a lot of support for tolling at city hall, he faced criticism from suburban councillors, worried that their constituents would be collateral damage. Mayors from outside Toronto have also derided city council’s proposal. Mississauga’s Bonnie Crombie has said tolls would target people who commute to work downtown, which could harm the regional economy. “(Tory) has chosen to implement road tolls that will not only affect residents in his city, but those in the 905 as well,” Crombie said in November. “It’s important that Mayor Tory understand the ramifications of his actions on business and tourism. As Toronto owns the Gardiner and DVP, he is free to impose these tolls without input from his neighbours in the 905.” Durham Region chair Roger Anderson blasted the proposal as “a short-sighted solution to Toronto’s problems.” “They’re literally taxing the 905 to pay for Toronto’s problems,” Anderson noted last fall. Oshawa Mayor John Henry has also voiced his opposition. “There’s just no more money that people have left anymore. I use the DVP to get to Toronto. I think this will ricochet. For the folks that would have gone to the Eaton Centre, they will stay and shop in Oshawa.”
Read more about:Aging affects nearly all organisms, but how aging evolves is still unclear []. The central prediction of classic theory is that high extrinsic mortality leads to accelerated aging and shorter intrinsic life span []. However, this prediction considers mortality as a random process, whereas mortality in nature is likely to be condition dependent. Therefore, the novel theory maintains that condition dependence may dramatically alter, and even reverse, the classic pattern []. We present experimental evidence for the evolution of longer life span under high condition-dependent mortality. We employed an experimental evolution design, using a nematode, Caenorhabditis remanei, that allowed us to disentangle the effects of mortality rate (high versus low) and mortality source (random versus condition dependent). We observed the evolution of shorter life span under high random mortality, confirming the classic prediction. In contrast, high condition-dependent mortality led to the evolution of longer life span, supporting a key role of condition dependence in the evolution of aging. This life-span extension was not the result of a trade-off with reproduction. By simultaneously corroborating the classic results [] and providing the first experimental evidence for the novel theory [], our study resolves apparent contradictions in the study of aging and challenges the traditional paradigm by demonstrating that condition-environment interactions dictate the evolutionary trajectory of aging.
Another set of responses and correlated responses to selection on age at reproduction in Drosophila melanogaster.
Effect of extrinsic mortality on the evolution of senescence in guppies.
Results and Discussion
We provide experimental evidence for the theory that aging evolves via condition-environment interactions. We show that when selection is condition dependent, high mortality rate leads to the evolution of increased longevity, defined here as mean adult life span in the absence of extrinsic mortality hazard. In order to test the evolutionary theories of aging, one must separate the effects of mortality rate (i.e., high versus low) and mortality source (random versus condition dependent). To achieve this, we quantified the evolutionary response in life span to selection under different rates of extrinsic mortality that were imposed either haphazardly or in a condition-dependent manner in replicate populations of a nematode worm, Caenorhabditis remanei. We anticipated that the evolution of life span would proceed according to classic prediction when extrinsic mortality rates were imposed at random. In contrast, we expected this pattern to be altered when high extrinsic mortality was imposed in a condition-dependent manner. Thus, our experiment aimed to simultaneously evaluate the relative strength of two opposing evolutionary forces that shape life span and aging: (1) combined effects of antagonistic pleiotropy and mutation accumulation due to reduction in the force of selection in late-life versus (2) positive pleiotropy due to condition dependence of mortality.
1, 12.01 = 13.33; p = 0.003). When the extrinsic mortality was applied at random, populations exposed to high mortality regimes had reduced life span compared to populations exposed to low mortality regimes, supporting the prediction of classical aging theories that high mortality leads to faster aging ( 1, 12.20 = 5.75; p = 0.033). However, the response to selection was reversed when the extrinsic mortality was condition dependent, such that high mortality rate resulted in increased life span ( 1, 11.82, = 7.66; p = 0.017). Populations evolving under high condition-dependent mortality (HC-d) lived ∼20% longer than their counterparts from high random mortality regimes (HR) despite experiencing the same level of extrinsic mortality (HC-d = 13.9 days, HR = 11.5 days; F 1, 11.82, = 33.20; p < 0.0001). We also note that the shape of the mortality curves (see Figure 1 Evolution of Life Span under Differential Life Histories Show full caption 1, 12.13, = 51.12; p < 0.0001), but there were no significant interactions between sex and experimental treatments ( Mean life span of worms maintained in normally reproducing subpopulations in days ± SE derived from high and low mortality rate regimes when the mortality source was either condition dependent (filled circles) or random (empty circles). There was a significant effect of sex (F, = 51.12; p < 0.0001), but there were no significant interactions between sex and experimental treatments ( Table S1 ). Therefore, the data presented here are pooled across sexes. High mortality rate resulted in significant decrease in life span compared to low mortality rate when mortality was random, but the pattern was reversed when mortality was condition dependent (see text for statistical evaluation). Figure 2 Evolution of Reproductive Performance under Differential Life Histories Show full caption Mean estimates of female lifetime fecundity index (number of eggs per vial ± SE) maintained in normally reproducing subpopulations derived from high and low mortality rate regimes when the mortality source was either condition dependent (filled circles) or random (empty circles). High mortality rate resulted in evolution of higher fecundity (F 1, 11.41, = 8.05; p = 0.016) irrespective of mortality source (main effect: F 1, 11.41, = 0.01; p = 0.914; interaction: F 1, 11.41, = 0.84; p = 0.377). Mortality source significantly modified the evolution of life span under different mortality rates, resulting in source × rate interaction ( Figure 1 ; F= 13.33; p = 0.003). When the extrinsic mortality was applied at random, populations exposed to high mortality regimes had reduced life span compared to populations exposed to low mortality regimes, supporting the prediction of classical aging theories that high mortality leads to faster aging ( Figure 1 ; within-model contrast: F= 5.75; p = 0.033). However, the response to selection was reversed when the extrinsic mortality was condition dependent, such that high mortality rate resulted in increased life span ( Figure 1 ; within-model contrast: F= 7.66; p = 0.017). Populations evolving under high condition-dependent mortality (HC-d) lived ∼20% |
Taiwan, Maylasia and Japan. Final assembly of the product is in Mexico.
[/tab]
[tab title=”Press & Reviews”]
“Possibly the most eye-catching and awe-inducing bike accessory I’ve ever seen. Most bike lights focus on making sure the rider is seen, but these make sure you’re seen, cheered at, flagged down, and followed (in a good, fun way).”
– Christian Science Monitor (Boston) 2008-10-23
“Colorful LEDs transform bikes into art”
– Wired Gadget Lab 2008-05-03
“une véritable culture écolo-disco émerge autour de cet accessoire”
– LeMonde.fr (Paris) 2009-06-12
“I can attest to the durability of the Monkey Light. I commute every day in NYC and the Monkey Light has indured temperature extremes, snow, rain, wind, salt on the roads and has performed like an absolute champ.”
– Bikehacks.com (New York City) Full product review 2010-12-13
“Top 100 Christmas Presents 2008”
– Tech Digest (UK) 2008-11-26
“Un’idea luminosa”
– Il Sole 24 Ore (Milan) 2008-11-19
“c’est véritablement une innovation. Personnellement j’adore.”
– Weelz.fr (France) 2009-01-20
“love this inspired piece of bike art”
– Colorado Springs Gazette 2009-05-06
“Yeah, this thing is fun… I do feel safer and more visible. The light spreads nicely and reflects off the pavement as I ride, and from the side, the whirling lights on my wheel are unmissable.”
– Urban Cyclist (Full product review 2009-09-15)
“a car pulled up and then stayed just behind me for about 3/4 mile. They slowly pulled up alongside and this girl yells out the window – and this is a direct quote “we love the lightshow- you should just park it and charge admission!”
– BikeRubbish.com (Seattle) 2008-9-18
“I guarantee this thing will stand out like a road flare”
– examiner.com (Boston) 2009-02-19
“one of the sweetest products we’ve ever seen … anyone who looks your way will be treated to a digital light show”
– Cleveland.com / Cleveland Plain Dealer (Cleveland) 2009-03-13
“They say they’re waterproof and they’re right. the first night I put them on there was a HUGE storm and I rode in some super heavy rain. at one point there was a puddle so deep cars couldn’t go through and there was a cab stalled in the middle. I was on a three-wheel bike so I went for it. I’m talking half my wheel under water and the lights were fine. … I even got asked by a cop at stoplight were I got them. you know they’re cool when a Chicago cop asks about them instead of yelling at you!!!”
– One Less Car (Chicago) 2008-10-15
“If you are concerned about cars not seeing you at intersections, the MonkeyLectric m132s is a remarkably bright wheel-based light set.”
– Bits and Bikes (Boston) 2008-05-24
“Get them wheels a spinning, round and round with some House music”
– Bike Hugger (Seattle) 2008-05-28
“These guys do a fantastic job lighting up the ground around you.”
– Cycleicious (San Francisco) 2008-05-23
“really bright and it really attracts attention”
– BikeCommuters.com (Los Angeles) 2008-07-29
“Visibility with these lights is quite astonishing, and the light is visible from the front and back as well as the sides.”
– BikeCommuters.com (Florida) 2008-10-2
“It made me giddy. I remember thinking to myself that this was a real gadget. It didn’t just temporarily fill a consumeristically produced void in my ego; it caused a genuine emotional reaction, like a pretty girl or a puppy, and that made my heart to quiver with fondness. I got all giggly. I wanted to share it with someone. So I ran upstairs, knocked on my neighbor’s door, and asked him if he’d bring his three-year old son outside. I spun the wheel for him: he sighed, giggled, then started wildly laughing and jumping up and down. His pupils glowed like plasma globes. I knew exactly how he felt: I was sharing the MonkeyLectric with the peer of my own inner child.”
– Boing Boing Gadgets (Berlin) 2008-07-29
“improve your chances of survival at night in the urban jungle”
– gearfuse 2008-05-19
2008-09-25: Live interview and short demo at Interbike 2008 with Bike Hugger.
2008-05-21: Tech Digest (UK) release news. 2008-05-08: ABC News photo coverage of our Maker Faire 2008 premier.
2008-05-08: Stern (german) covered our Maker Faire 2008 appearance (english translation).
2008-04-15: OhGizmo covered our Yuri’s Night performance (m464q footage only).
2008-04-13: Our Yuri’s Night performance was carried live nationwide on NASA TV, you can catch the (low quality) replay starting at 6:37:15. (m464q footage only)
2008-03-09: One of our prototypes is featured in a documentary by Brian Boyko – forward to 3:52 into the film to see it. [/tab]
[tab title=”Artists”]
NOAH VAWTER – Noah creates sonic spaces, using his skills in electronic music instrument design. Noah explores, conceptually and aesthetically, the landscape between acoustic order and disorder. Noah?s work has been featured in the New York Times, the Sundance Film Festival, Wired magazine, IEEE Spectrum, and Discovery TV, and shown in Rio de Janeiro, New York City, and Los Angeles. He teaches workshops on music synthesizer design and audio art around the world. Noah is a Doctoral student at the MIT Media Lab.
XANDER HUDSON – After several years working in engineering and networking, Xander is now pursuing full time his mission of “making cool stuff”. Xander embodies the hacker artist and we’re glad he’s making cool stuff with us. His other works have been seen in Make and Instructables.com.
DAN GOLDWATER – Dan is the founder of MonkeyLectric, and he’s also one of our artists! Dan built the first MonkeyLectric prototype as an artwork long before there was any thought of selling it. Dan is an engineer by day, but at night he conspires in a variety of artistic media. His Rope & Sound interactive technology sculpture was featured at the Smithsonian and he has published several DIY art projects on Instructables.com. Previously, Dan was a scientist at the MIT Media Lab, and a founder of Squid Labs and Instructables.com. [/tab] [/tabs]Members of the House of Commons returned to Ottawa last week, and as many observers have noted, this marks the beginning of the run up to the 2015 federal election. This also marks the beginning of a discussion among Canadian progressives about how to defeat Stephen Harper and elect a government that will implement progressive change.
With two national parties trying to court progressives, the scheme of so-called "strategic voting" to defeat the Conservatives has become the battle cry of some. However, putting aside one's principles and trying to vote strategically often has an outcome far different than what one intends.
The 2011 federal election surely is proof that strategic voting is misguided and counterproductive.
At the beginning of that campaign (38 days before the election) no one would have predicted the New Democrats would win three times as many seats as the Liberals. Nor would anyone have predicted the NDP would be the party to come in second to the Conservatives in an additional 107 races. This could not have been predicted from any of the polls.
In fact, if you were using the "most likely to win" criteria, you would have worked against the vast majority of the NDP candidates who got elected, let alone those who came closest to defeating a Conservative.
Elections matter. Polls are increasingly unpredictable. And candidates or parties who argue that you should "hold your nose" and vote based on some calculation of what is "strategic," are both factually misguided and are asking you to use elections as cynical tools devoid of principles. Both of these aspects are bad for democracy and establishing good government.
In an election where on the one hand the NDP has 97 incumbents (as opposed to 37 Liberals) and came second to the Conservatives in 107 ridings (as opposed to 56 Liberals), and on the other the Liberals have a lead in the opinion polls, there are two national parties who can reasonably make the case that they will unseat the current government.
However, all this is besides the key question for Canadian progressives: what kind of government do we want to replace the current regime?
I believe most progressives would agree that if we are going to replace Stephen Harper, we need to elect a government that will truly take the country in a new direction.
And yet if we look at Justin Trudeau and the Liberals on stated policy, we find that there is precious little difference between them and the Conservatives on most key issues. Justin's difference is mostly in rhetoric and style.
Trudeau has yet to even articulate a progressive vision of substance. On trade, the Liberals are just as committed to free trade agreements as the Conservatives, even endorsing the CETA before the final text of the agreement is released. On foreign policy, the Liberals seem to run in lockstep with the Harper government, supporting foreign intervention in Iraq without seeing the facts around such a mission. On the environment, Trudeau has endorsed the Keystone XL pipeline and has yet to propose any meaningful plan to address climate change. On economic issues, the Liberals, having overseen the a huge increase in inequality in this country when they were in power during the 1990s, have continued to vote against progressive labour law reform and have not said where they stand on a federal minimum wage.
The suggestion that we should strategically count on the Liberals to produce progressive change is immensely problematic. As we all know, the Liberals' history has been to promise and posture progressively before the election, and govern conservatively when elected.
I have no doubt the Liberals, like with the Red Book of 1993, will eventually propose progressive campaign promises. But like the Red Book promises, there's ample reason to believe Trudeau's vows, too, would remain unfulfilled 13 years and many Liberal budgets later.
I profoundly believe that elections should be about what we are for rather than what we are against. So, when someone suggests to me that I should "vote strategically," I will tell them the strategic thing to do is vote for who you believe will actually take this country in a different direction after getting elected.
Voting for your principles is strategic voting.
Ken Neumann is National Director of the United Steelworkers.
This article originally appeared on the Toronto Star and is reprinted with permission from the author.
Photo: flickr/tsaiprojectImage copyright Police video via Sam Cammack Image caption The dashcam video shows Ms Corley (R) handcuffed while her car is searched
The lawyer for a black woman in the US state of Texas has released a police video which he says shows that she was subjected to an invasive search that amounts to "rape by cop".
In 2015, Charnesia Corley, then 20 years old, had her vagina forcibly searched for drugs after being stopped by police, lawyer Samuel Cammack said.
Charges against two officers have been dropped. A federal lawsuit is ongoing.
The lawyer wants an independent prosecutor to investigate the case.
Police officers had accused Ms Corley, then a college student who had been stopped for allegedly driving through a stop sign, of carrying marijuana. The incident happened at night on 20 June 2015 in a Texaco car park in Houston.
The dashcam footage - released by Mr Cammack after the charges against two Harris County deputies were dropped earlier this month - shows her handcuffed while two officers look inside the vehicle.
She is then searched, but the view of the camera is obstructed by the open rear-passenger door.
Ms Corley is put on the ground, with no clothes below the waist, while a female officer shines a flashlight in her pubic area, in an operation that lasts 11 minutes. The footage does not show the alleged penetration.
Ms Corley is then allowed to stand and cover her body.
"One of the officers on the tape, he was talking to a passenger who was already in custody in the officer's car and you could hear him telling that individual 'Oh we are going to find something, even if we have to put our hands on her'," Mr Cammack was quoted by local broadcaster Fox 26 as saying.
"This same officer body slammed Ms Corley, stuck her head underneath the vehicle and completely pulled her pants off, leaving her naked and exposed in that Texaco parking lot," he added, saying that her treatment amounted to "rape by cop".
"They then took Ms Corley and placed both ankles behind her ears spread eagle position and started to search for something in Ms Corley's cavity in her vaginal area."
Ms Corley was charged with possession of 0.02 ounces (0.5g) of marijuana and resisting arrest, both misdemeanours. But Mr Cammack said the officers never found marijuana on her, and the charges were later dropped by Harris County District Attorney's Office.
Two deputies involved in the incident, Ronaldine Pierre and William Strong, were charged with official oppression, but these were later dropped.
Robin McIlhenny, who represents one of the two deputies, said the footage cleared them of any wrongdoing.
"Deputies can't pick and choose what laws to enforce. And they don't know what end of situation going to be when first get into a situation," Mr McIlhenny was quoted by local Chron website as saying.
"She was never penetrated, she was never violated in that way or inappropriately handled."
Harris County prosecutor Natasha Sinclair told Fox 26: "No-one in this office stands by the search the way it was conducted. No-one condones that. No-one thinks it's appropriate. It should not have happened.
"However bad decisions, bad judgment may not rise the level of a criminal offense."
Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said in a statement quoted by Chron: "Harris County Sheriff's Office policy prohibits deputies from conducting strip searches without a warrant. In cases in which a warrant is obtained, strip searches must be conducted in a private, sanitary, and appropriate facility."When then-Senator Obama began his campaign in 2008, we hailed his promise to shut down the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. President Obama, of course, has yet to do so.
Instead, we got what Salon.com dubbed "kinder, gentler" military commissions.
Instead, we got President Obama's signature of the National Defense Authorization Act, which included provisions permitting the indefinite detention of American citizens and their rendition to military authorities. (In fairness, Obama did issue a "signing statement" essentially promising not to use these provisions. However, these is no legal mechanism to hold him to that promise, nor is there any assurance that future presidents will do the same.)
Instead of a president dedicated to the preservation and even restoration of civil liberties we had thought we voted in, we got a president who is now being criticized for not protecting our civil liberties by the lawyer responsible for justifying the Bush administration's authorization of torture. The Los Angeles Times ran an op-ed titled, "Obama: A disaster for civil liberties."
Yet for some reason, American liberals have fallen deafeningly silent about President Obama's failures when it comes to civil liberties. Most of my left-leaning friends will concede that this administration has been disappointing on civil liberties -- it is hard to argue otherwise. But while some may grudgingly concede the president's failures on protecting civil liberties, few do so with the passion and urgency they once did under our previous president.
Why? Certainly part of it has to do with the fact that the current president is a Democrat, and there is a degree of partisan loyalty at work -- just as, under President Bush, many Republicans remained close-mouthed about his violations of civil liberties (which were not few). But there is something else at work here. That is, many liberals are loathe to criticize President Obama for any failure, out of a fear that, if they do, we will have someone much, much worse come January 2013. The Obama administration has learned from this, and has realized that it can get away with nearly anything without worrying about still having to court the left. Jonathan Turley observed in the Los Angeles Times:
Yet the Obama administration long ago made a cynical calculation that it already had such voters [civil libertarians] in the bag and tacked to the right on this issue to show Obama was not "soft" on terror. He assumed that, yet again, civil libertarians might grumble and gripe but, come election day, they would not dare stay home.
This is a routine problem that liberals have. When I venture observations of failures of this administration among liberal friends, the response is more often than not, "Well, it could be worse." The president's failure to follow through on his 2008 campaign promise to ban discrimination against LGBT people among federal contractors, his nearly two-year "evolution" on marriage equality (now supported by a clear majority of Americans), his constant concessions to the radical right-wing Republicans in Congress, and the final product of his healthcare reform -- which was merely a Republican proposal repackaged a decade later -- are all met with the stirring observations that "at least he's not a Republican" and "this would be so much worse if Mitt Romney/Rick Santorum/New Gingrich wins."
This unwillingness to defect from a party or a president that fails to adhere to basic liberal principles is, I would argue, in part responsible for the gradual destruction of the social safety net -- which is being sold off piece by piece -- and what seems like the Democratic Party's eternal shift rightward. Charles Pierce of Esquire wrote, more eloquently than I could, that:
[The Democrats] became gifted at defense, surrendering bits of what was once fundamental to their party's identity as a bulwark against losing it all. This created a perennially discontented, but not mutinous, base because, at bottom, that base had nowhere else to go to exert its power. That is not the case with the Republican base, as we have seen. Armed with the power of its extraparty institutions, there is a strong element within the Republican base that does not care if the party loses one, two, or three elections as long as their ideology remains pure. There is nobody so powerful in politics as influential people who don't care if they lose. The Republicans have these in abundance. The Democrats don't have them at all.
If civil liberties mean anything to liberals, we need to start criticizing violations of those civil liberties regardless of who perpetrates them -- and that criticism must be done with the same urgency as always. We must be willing to sometimes accept the defeat of a liberal Democrat over the victory of a conservative Democrat. Some might argue that if this approach is taken, we may ultimately pave the way to the White House for a Republican. But, I would argue, if we do not take this approach there will be no motivation for Democrats to stand by liberal principles; it will always be easier to move to the right. The election of Democrats is not, and should not be, an end in and of itself. Rather, the implementation of the liberal program -- protecting civil liberties, funding comprehensive sexuality education, achieving marriage equality, securing the social safety net -- should be the goal; the Democratic Party should be only a vehicle to achieve that goal.Descending is a skill that’s better learned on the bike than by reading a blog. However, two-time Olympian Rob Crowe does a fantastic job of breaking down the art of riding downhill.
Descending is obviously full of risks but when done correctly with good technique it will make your ride downhill much more safe. Remember out on the open road there are many variables that you have no control over and I’ve seen far too many serious accidents on descents that should never have occurred.
Descending Tips
The thing with high speed skills is that the art is usually best learned at lower speeds first and then transferred to high-speed situations. However, while it’s a given that highly skilled riders can surely teach us cool maneuvers, their actions are not always functional or even observable at lower speeds (i.e. these tips work best when you’re going fast). What this means is that until you progress to somewhat upper-level descending speeds (over 50kph), you may not see the full benefit of all these tips.
1. Get Low on the Bike
Getting down in the drops and making yourself aero is only part of the exercise of keeping a high-speed up on descents. It’s more about getting a low centre of gravity. The lower you can get, the better stabilised the rider-bike system is for getting better traction and control. When cornering through a turn, dropping the inside shoulder to get that center of gravity even lower is often a good technique.
2. Set Visual Gaze Far Ahead
You will go to where you focus your view-point. Look much farther ahead than the wheel, rider or bend in the road immediately in front of you. It’s a common thing that first-time riders in the bigger packs will head straight into a crash scene they are witnessing from way off in the other side of the group!
When descending, set your gaze on the point where you wish to end up – after the bend. Peripheral vision can take care guiding you around gravel patches or other riders coming up into the cornering line. Believe me, you don’t want to learn how true this is when you’re going 80kph for the first time, so, pretty please – focus past the bend!
3. Lean the Bike NOT Your Body
The traction of your tires on the road works best when the heaviest part of the rider-bike system is pressing vertically down upon the tire contact points with the roadway. Put more practically, it’s best if you lean the bike out from under you and you stay above the tire contact points with the road – for maximum control. For motorbikes, this does not apply (because the bike is the heavier object) as much as when applied for a cyclist (where the rider is the heavier object).
4. Outside Leg Takes the Weight
Riders lose most momentum and time through the corners through lack of rigidity, like when flexing in a bike-frame washes off your precious power as you push it through the frame to the wheels. By keeping the outside leg straight and with most of the body-weight concentrated downwards through the outside pedal, not only do you get more rigidity during the cornering moment, but you can cut tighter lines & keep the bike on the shortest course through the corners more easily.
5. Don’t Sit On The Seat
For various reasons, it’s a good habit to sit slightly off the seat. Sit off to the side, off to the front, off to the back – whatever gets your weight centered over the wheels – but just in a way that essentially allows the bike to bounce around under your thighs if you hit bumps, cat-eyes or bitumen ripples, rather than bouncing you and your visuals around up above. This natural suspension technique might come and go as you descend different sections of road, but when its needed, it’s a critical safety and control factor to ensure you go more cleanly without having to brake through rougher surfaces.
6. Breathe Out Through the Apex
There is a concentration and muscular-contraction benefit as you exhale, so, while you apply yourself to the most important part of a fast descent (the apex of corners) and try to stay low, lean the bike, sit off to the side of the seat, change line, focus ahead, get ready to keep pedaling, push down on your outside leg and leave the brakes alone – you should also breathe out!
Keep the Motor Running
Keep pedaling as the descent progresses. The idea is to stay fluid with movement on the bike and use higher cadences to keep your heart rate from plummeting. Good descending is an exercise as well as some respite. Stay warm.
7. Smooth Out Your Line
Draw a line on an aerial map of the descent course that has the shortest route & least bend in the line of your curves – THIS is the line to take on the road-lane that you have for the descent. Simple.
8. Maintain A Safety Cushion
Things happen much faster at high speed. It’s physics 101. If you go faster, then changes come up quicker on the road (potholes, car doors, slower riders), but your brain still has the same reaction time it had at lower speeds. The most critical thing to adjust as you get quicker is how much time you allow for decision-making and adjustments to your position on the road. Look further ahead. Brake sooner. Sit further back from others. Pass other objects with more of a berth. For this reason, it’s not worth the risk to have a look back at the gap you’ve got to others. It translatea into more time wasted and more momentum is lost, and the time it takes for you to head-check back may be the same time you just had to avoid a new situation arriving…
9. Double-Braking Habits Work Best
Use more rear? Use more front? Stay off the brakes!?! None of these work too well when you really need to pull up properly. There are 2 brakes partly because there are 2 wheels, but also because you need to spread the pressure of controlling your mass at high speed over as much surface area as possible. It’s good to brake earlier into corners and less during the turn itself as the bike goes through leaning angles, but when it comes to actually washing off some speed because you’re going too fast, use all brake levers possible together!!
Important Note…
Ironically, after reading these top nine tips, perhaps the most important tip of all will not be found in any tips list, but is uncanny in the way it often remedies the skill barriers for many riders. And it is this. Don’t think about these tips. Feel them. Like surfing a wave or catching your kite in a breeze, descending and cornering at high speed requires more sensing and experiencing the actual situation than thinking it into perfection. Just go and try it. You’ll ‘feel’ exactly what I mean.DIRECTV NOW Users in More Markets Can Watch the Best of ABC, NBC and FOX beginning in July
With more ABC, NBC and FOX affiliates rolling out beginning next week, DIRECTV NOW will more than double its number of supported local stations since the service launched in November 2016. With this expansion, DIRECTV NOW has live local coverage in almost 70% of U.S. TV households.
Visit www.directvnow.com for a list of local channel availability with updates like:
Expansion of ABC to more than 30 new markets, including Atlanta, Dallas-Fort Worth and Boston.
Expansion of NBC to 4 new markets, including Kansas City, MO., Salt Lake City, Milwaukee and West Palm Beach, FL.
Expansion of FOX to Juneau, AK.
“We are pleased to add additional content to the DIRECTV NOW offering by more than doubling our live local channels lineup today,” said Daniel York, Chief Content Officer for AT&T. “We will keep the momentum going, and have plans to keep the number of local channels growing on DIRECTV NOW.”
By the end of August, DIRECTV NOW plans to triple the number of local live channels available since launch. Users in more markets will see live local ABC, NBC and FOX channels.
DIRECTV NOW offers users nationwide access to more than 120 channels, including live sports, more than 20,000 on demand titles, premium channels, popular shows and hit movies. Within minutes of signing up you have the power to stream premium live content over a U.S. wired or wireless internet connection on a variety of devices, all without the limits of boxes, annual contracts or credit checks.Israel has condemned Palestinian plans to inaugurate a controversial new government this week.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called on the international community not to recognize the new Palestinian unity government that is due to be formed on Monday.
The new government includes the secular Palestinian Authority that controls much of the West Bank and the rival Islamic militant group Hamas that rules the Gaza Strip.
Speaking at the weekly Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said the world must not embrace this government.
“Hamas is a terrorist organization that seeks Israel’s destruction,” he said.
Such a government “would not bolster peace,” Netanyahu said, “it would strengthen terror.”
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas decided to end a seven-year rift with Hamas after peace talks with Israel collapsed a month ago. Hamas opposes peace negotiations and does not recognize Israel’s right to exist. But Abbas says his peace policies will remain the official position of the government.
Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat says it is a golden opportunity to bring Hamas into the peace process.
“You have an opportunity to have one authority, one gun, the rule of law, a government with a program of two states recognizing Israel, renouncing violence,” he said.
President Abbas says Israel has already informed him it will boycott the new Palestinian government.
Like Israel, the United States considers Hamas to be a terrorist organization. But America is taking a wait-and-see approach. The State Department says it will study the composition of the new government and then determine if it is one the United States can work with, or not.
Israel froze U.S.-brokered peace talks with Abbas when the unity deal was announced on April 23 after numerous unsuccessful attempts at Palestinian reconciliation since Hamas seized the Gaza Strip from Fatah forces in fighting in 2007.
Some information for this report provided by Reuters.The political crisis in Brazil over economic mismanagement and high-level corruption, likely to come to a head next week, has reinforced the fashionable view, popular among western governments and businesses, that the Brics bubble has burst.
Members of the exclusive Brics club of leading developing countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – are failing to justify predictions that, separately and together, they will dominate the 21st century world, or so the argument goes.
The Brics concept, plus acronym, was dreamed up in 2001 by Jim O’Neill, chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management. He highlighted the combined potential of non-western powers controlling one quarter of the world’s land mass and accounting for more than 40% of its population.
O’Neill’s idea morphed into a formal association, with South Africa joining the original Bric group in 2011. The five nations, with a joint estimated GDP of $16tn, set up their own development bank in parallel to the US-dominated IMF and World Bank and hold summits rivalling the G7 forum. Their next meeting will be in Goa, India, in October.
But ambitious plans to create an alternative reserve currency to the US dollar and challenge American dominance in IT and global security surveillance have come to little. Meanwhile, adverse economic conditions compounded by falling global demand and lower oil and commodity prices are taking their toll.
Last November, Goldman Sachs, where the idea originated, closed its Bric investment fund after assets reportedly declined in value by 88% from a 2010 peak. The bank told the US securities and exchange commission it did not expect “significant asset growth in the foreseeable future”.
“The promise of Bric’s rapid and sustainable growth has been challenged very much for the last five years or so,” Jorge Mariscal, the chief investment officer of emerging markets at UBS Wealth Management, told Bloomberg Business. “The Bric concept was popular. But nothing is eternal.”
The problems facing Brics members are remarkably similar, even though each country is different. Russia and Brazil have both fallen into recession, while China, the principal engine of world growth, has seen a sharp contraction in overall economic activity.
Brazil’s economic woes have been compounded by scandals that could yet force the resignation or impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, the country’s president, and the trial of her predecessor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula). With about a quarter of members of Brazil’s congress facing some form of criminal investigation, the crisis has become structural and existential in scope, raising worries about the durability of Brazil’s young democracy.
Identical concerns have arisen in South Africa where Jacob Zuma, the country’s president, and the ruling African National Congress government are beset by allegations of corruption and malfeasance. Big questions surround the influence wielded by private individuals and businesses over government appointments and policies. The backdrop is under-performing state-owned companies, a depreciating currency, falling exports and rising inflation.
If this sounds familiar, look at Russia, where the value of the rouble has plummeted due to lower oil exports – on which the economy is unhealthily dependent. Oil revenues are said to be down about $30bn in five years. State-condoned or tolerated corruption is a big issue for Moscow, too.
Cost considerations may have been a factor in the recent, surprise decision by Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, to pull most of his forces out of Syria. Russia’s economy also continues to suffer as a result of western sanctions imposed following Putin’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.
A common factor for all Brics countries as they struggle economically is institutional weakness, in particular a lack (or in some cases, a total absence) of democratic accountability, transparency in public life, and independent media scrutiny of official behaviour. This holds especially true in China, where a fearful ruling Communist party has cracked down on public debate, labour activists, independent lawyers, and civil society organisations as economic woes triggered by falling exports and market instability have mounted.
As in Brazil and Russia, the Chinese authorities’ unspoken worry is spreading social unrest. This risk is increasing as Beijing seeks to restructure unprofitable state-owned industries, such as coal and steel, with the potential loss of millions of jobs. Meanwhile growth targets of 6.5-7% in the 2016-20 13th five-year plan look optimistic.
Nor does the Brics group lack internal challenges. Efforts at closer political cooperation have foundered over differences about who is in charge, how best to achieve UN security council reform and, for example, territorial disputes between India and China.
But not all the Brics are floundering. As the analyst George Magnus noted in Prospect magazine, India currently presents a model of relative progress which the others might study to their advantage.
“India is certainly no paragon of virtue when it comes to corruption, nor is its economic infrastructure efficient, but it is endeavouring to accelerate economic reform, and competitiveness,” Magnus wrote.
“India’s economy is relatively closed and so it is not as vulnerable to the slowdown in world trade; lower oil prices have unequivocally benefited the country; and inflation, interest rates, and deficits are falling. The government is trying to open up to more infrastructure spending, foreign investment and an array of improvement measures that should help the economy sustain growth rates of above 7%.”
Given their sheer size, their vast resources, and their youthful populations, it would plainly be foolish to write off the Brics, especially as a declining US grows more introspective and Europe’s confidence falters. But economic performance cannot be the only measure of success or failure.
To take their rightful place in the 21st century, the Brics countries must create more open, accountable, and trustworthy systems of governance. This is a challenge of leadership, not profit and loss.It's time to grade Missouri's first season in the SEC:
OFFENSE: The Tigers entered their first season in the SEC with one of the nation's most balanced offenses in 2011, and with most of the personnel returning, the Tigers weren't expected to have too much drop-off in 2012. However, injuries crippled this team from the start. Freshman Evan Boehm was the only offensive lineman who made it through the entire season. With seven offensive linemen suffering some sort of injury during either preseason or the regular season, the line never had very good continuity. Quarterback James Franklin dealt with two separate shoulder injuries and a knee injury that pretty much kept him hobbled all season. The Tigers ranked 11th in the SEC in total offense (356.4 yards per game) and averaged just 4.9 yards per play. Mizzou averaged 20 yards less in SEC play and scored just under 22 points per game in conference play. The Tigers ranked 11th or worse in the SEC in total offense, rushing offense and scoring offense and were no higher than 77th (passing offense) nationally in any of the four major offensive categories. Franklin, who threw for 2,800 yards and ran for another 981 in 2011, threw for just 1,562 yards and 10 touchdowns, adding 122 rushing yards (1.4 yards per carry) and zero rushing touchdowns. Marcus Lucas was Mizzou's top receiving weapon, catching 46 passes for 509 yards and three touchdowns. Freshman Dorial Green-Beckham came on toward the end of the year and finished with 28 catches for 395 yards and a team-high five touchdowns. Running back Kendial Lawrence was Mizzou's best offensive weapon, as he ranked seventh in the SEC with 1,025 rushing yards and 12 touchdowns. GRADE: D
DEFENSE: Missouri's defense also had its own issues in its new league. In conference play, the Tigers ranked 11th in scoring defense (33) and total defense (408.2), ninth in rushing defense (171.1) and passing defense (237.1). Mizzou also surrendered a league-high 22 rushing touchdowns. The Tigers allowed 30-plus points in six games, including the last three games of the year. The defense gave up 500-plus yards four times, including the last three games of the season. Mizzou forced 21 fumbles on the year and placed second in the SEC with 16 recoveries. While the defense as a whole struggled for the most part, there were some bright individual spots. Defensive tackle Sheldon Richardson played himself into the first round of this year's NFL draft. He was one of the most disruptive defensive linemen in the SEC and tied for second on the team with 75 tackles (39 solo) and four sacks. He tied for first with 10.5 tackles for loss and led the Tigers with seven quarterback hurries. He also forced three fumbles. Cornerback E.J. Gaines was one of the top cover corners, defending 11 passes and recording a team-high 58 solo tackles. Grade: D
OVERALL: Injuries really, really hurt the Tigers, but there was never any real creativity from the offense after the Georgia game in Week 2, and the defense found itself on the field for far too long. You could tell |
anthem. We love it!
1984 - Los Angeles becomes the first city in America with two telephone area codes, as the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys are designated as 818.
1984 - A new international terminal opens at LAX, named for Mayor Tom Bradley. Today, some 30 airlines operate out of this terminal.
1984 - Los Angeles becomes the only American city to host the Summer Olympic games twice.
1984 - The Mazda Miata is designed in Los Angeles. In addition to Mazda, Honda, Nissan, Toyota, Volkswagen, Volvo and the "Big Three" U.S. automobile manufacturers all have design centers in LA.
1986 - Running on Olympic fever, the first City of Los Angeles Marathon takes place. It is the largest first-time marathon, at nearly 11,000 people.
1987 - Pope John Paul II visits Los Angeles. His activities include meeting with communications industry leaders and celebrating two outdoor masses.
1987 - James Ellroy’s The Black Dahlia is published, the first of his series of Los Angeles novels, which also includes L.A. Confidential.
1988 - The Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum opens.
1988 - Dodgers outfielder Kirk Gibson hits his legendary World Series home run, widely considered the greatest sports moment in L.A. history.
1990 - US Bank Tower opens. At 73 stories, it is the tallest building on the West Coast.
1990 - When the Metro Blue Line connects Downtown to Long Beach, light-rail for commuters returns to the Los Angeles area. It will be joined by four other subway/rail lines and busways.
1991 - Lakers star Magic Johnson retires, announcing that he is HIV-positive, giving HIV/AIDS a new platform and making it clear that this disease can affect anyone.
1991 - The 310 area code comes into use for western, southern and eastern Los Angeles.
1992 - Esa-Pekka Salonen takes the baton as conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
1992 - Opening of the Japanese-American National Museum in Little Tokyo, the only museum in the United States telling the story of Japanese Americans.
1992 - Jay Leno takes over as host of The Tonight Show. "Jaywalking" begins.
1993 - The Museum of Tolerance opens in West LA. Although focused on the Nazi Holocaust, it also examines general issues of tolerance and racism.
1994 - The Petersen Automotive Museum opens on Museum Row.
1994 - The eyes of the world are focused on LA as football great O.J. Simpson is arrested for the murder of his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ronald Goldman, following a spectacular slow-speed car chase. “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit” soon enters the American lexicon.
1994 - The FIFA World Cup is held at venues throughout the United States. The final match, won by Brazil, takes place at Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena.
1996 - The first Los Angeles Times Festival of Books is held. It is now the largest book fair in America, with over 13,000 attendees and 370 writers in attendance.
1996 - The Skirball Cultural Center opens in Brentwood as a museum of Jewish history and culture.
1997 - The hilltop Getty Center opens with views of the entire Los Angeles Basin. Architect Richard Meier designed the buildings, with a façade of travertine marble, while the garden by Robert Irwin draws equal praise.
1998 - The area surrounding LA’s Downtown core is given the area code 323.
1999 - STAPLES Center opens, the new home for basketball and hockey teams and the beginning of a renaissance in Downtown Los Angeles.
2000 - A section of East Hollywood is designated as America’s first and only Thai Town. So many ethnic Thais live in Los Angeles (roughly 80,000), that the city is sometimes referred to as Thailand’s 77th province.
2001 - The Kodak Theatre opens as the new venue for the Academy Awards ceremony (it will later be renamed the Dolby Theatre in 2012). Hollywood & Highland, a futuristic shopping mall that also has an eye toward Hollywood’s past, opens next door.
2002 - The 11-story Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels opens in the heart of Downtown, replacing St. Vibiana’s as the main center of worship for the archdiocese. The contemporary design by José Rafael Moneo has virtually no right angles and a plaza that evokes cathedrals of the Old World.
2003 - Walt Disney Concert Hall, designed by Los Angeles-based architect Frank Gehry, becomes a new architectural emblem for the city, and the acoustically perfect home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
2005 - Antonio Villaraigosa becomes mayor of Los Angeles, the city’s first mayor of Hispanic descent since 1872. After his election, Newsweek features him on the cover with the headline “Latino Power.”
2006 - The Getty Museum in Pacific Palisades reopens after years of renovation as the Getty Villa, housing the foundation’s significant collection of Greek, Roman and Etruscan antiquities.
2006 - The Griffith Observatory reopens after extensive renovations, including the Leonard Nimoy Event Horizon Theater, named for the actor who played Mr. Spock on the original Star Trek series.
2006 - City population is 3,976,071. Los Angeles County population is 10,245,572, by far the nation’s largest county.
2008 - L.A. LIVE opens in Downtown Los Angeles and the Broad Contemporary Art Museum opens at LACMA.
2009 - Madame Tussauds opens in Hollywood; the Annenberg Space for Photography opens in Century City.
2010 - Angels Flight reopens, connecting the historic and financial districts of Bunker Hill.
2011 - In Downtown L.A., La Plaza de Cultura y Artes opens across from the Olvera Street marketplace, and Dinosaur Hall opens at the Natural History Museum in Exposition Park.
2011 - The Los Angeles Philharmonic extends acclaimed music director Gustavo Dudamel's contract through the end of the 2018-2019 season, the orchestra's 100th year anniversary.
2012 - Transformers: The Ride-3D launches at Universal Studios Hollywood, and the Space Shuttle Endeavour goes on public display at the California Science Center.
2012 - The Los Angeles Kings win the first Stanley Cup in franchise history.
2013 - Eric Garcetti becomes L.A.'s first elected Jewish mayor and its youngest in more than a century.
2013 - Several of L.A.'s cultural landmarks celebrate milestone anniversaries: Walt Disney Concert Hall (10th), Fowler Museum (50th), Hollywood Sign (90th), Natural History Museum (100th).
2014 - Hotel openings include The Ace Hotel Downtown Los Angeles and The Line Hotel in Koreatown. Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem opens at Universal Studios Hollywood. Cultural milestones include the Music Center's 50th anniversary and the opening of The Broad museum.
2015 - Fast & Furious - Supercharged and The Simpsons Ride open at Universal Studios Hollywood. Los Angeles hosts the Special Olympics World Games, the largest sports and humanitarian event in the world in 2015.
2016 - The Rams return to Los Angeles after a 22-year hiatus. The Wizarding World of Harry Potter opens at Universal Studios Hollywood, OUE Skyspace opens at the US Bank Tower, and the Metro Expo Line connects Downtown L.A. and the Santa Monica Pier.
2017 - Angels Flight reopens in Downtown L.A. Grand Central Market celebrates its centennial. The Marciano Foundation, backed by Guess Jeans brothers Maurice and Paul Marciano, opens a free contemporary art museum in Koreatown.
2018 - Banc of California Stadium, home of the Los Angeles Football Club, opens at Exposition Park. The Los Angeles Philharmonic celebrates its centennial season.The Porsche Boxster and Cayman have been shining beacons of sports-car excellence for the better part of two decades, and together with the 911 they’ve reassured the faithful as Porsche ventured off into different product categories. With each succeeding generation, the Boxster has managed to get better looking (a rarity in automotive design), quicker, and more capable. The latest version is all those things, and it not only gains a 718 prefix to its name but also scraps the model’s sublime naturally aspirated flat-six engines for turbocharged four-cylinders—a move that threatens the idyllic formula. We tested the latest Boxster S with the PDK automatic, which is the quickest configuration but also the one most jarring to purists.
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New Market Position Can Mean Only One Thing
We’ll admit to being more than a little jarred by the number at the bottom of our test car’s window sticker: $93,420. That figure is reflective of the Boxster’s new market position above the Cayman in the Porsche hierarchy. If you thought that switch meant the Cayman would see its price drop, then you don’t know Porsche.
View Photos MICHAEL SIMARI
The Boxster S starts at $69,450, with the seven-speed PDK dual-clutch automatic transmission tacking on $3200. The PDK was only one of several four-figure options padding our example’s sticker, however; the others included a sport exhaust system with silver tailpipes ($2540), a leather interior ($2520), the Sport Chrono package ($2440), PASM sport suspension ($2070), navigation ($1730), 20-inch Carrera S wheels ($1580), torque vectoring ($1320), and Porsche Connect Plus ($1300).
Although pricey, several of the above items might be considered essentials, in that they imbue the Boxster’s chassis with even greater athleticism. PASM (Porsche Active Suspension Management) brings adaptive damping, while the sport suspension includes a 0.9-inch-lower ride height and a firmer Sport mode. Porsche claims to have expanded the range of the PASM’s damper settings, and we found a compliant ride even on the optional 20-inch wheels, married with fantastic responsiveness. The latter might also have been aided by the optional torque vectoring, which can brake an inside rear wheel during cornering. That technology works in sync with the Boxster’s improved steering. Already among the most communicative electrically assisted systems out there and also perfectly weighted, it’s now 10 percent quicker off-center, thanks in part to a new rack swiped from the 911. Add tenacious brakes (capable of stopping the car from 70 mph in 143 feet) and you have an amazingly agile and easy-to-drive sports car.
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View Photos MICHAEL SIMARI
More, and Less
But frankly, that’s not what’s significant here—it’s just the expected generation-to-generation improvement on the Boxster’s traditional strengths. What’s different is that the 3.4-liter naturally aspirated flat-six is gone, and in its place is a 2.5-liter turbocharged flat-four. Surprisingly, fuel economy—presumably the force driving this change—is no better, despite the addition of an automatic stop/start function. The EPA city number is unchanged, and the highway figure drops by 1 mpg. But horsepower increases from 325 to 350, while torque is up from 272 lb-ft to 309. And where the naturally aspirated six needed to be revved to deliver the goods—a rather pleasant trait, mind you—the turbo four delivers peak power sooner, at 6500 rpm rather than 6700, while max torque is available from as early as 1900 rpm all the way to 4500 rpm.
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And yet something has been lost. The flat-six engine note wasn’t just spine-tinglingly great, it was characterful and contributed to the whole Porsche-ness of the driving experience. The turbo four doesn’t sound bad, but it’s just kind of generic sporty car—and while the sport exhaust can make it louder, it can’t enhance what isn’t there.
View Photos MICHAEL SIMARI
Shiftless Superiority
Thematically, and also in practice, the automatic transmission makes the perfect partner for the new turbocharged engine, succeeding on logic and performance. First off, it’s quicker than the standard six-speed manual—significantly so. Compared with the manual-equipped Boxster S, the PDK version cuts 0.8 second off the zero-to-60-mph time, bringing it down to an astounding 3.6 seconds. (We measured 3.4 seconds for the 911 PDK.) Part of that quickness is due to launch control, which comes with the Sport Chrono package. But in our rolling 5-to-60-mph test, the difference between automatic and manual is a full second, with the latter at 5.3 seconds from 5 to 60 mph versus the PDK’s 4.3 (that number tying the 911). The automatic chops more than a second from the sprint to 100 mph, getting there in 8.5 seconds to the stick shift’s 9.8. And the PDK hustles through the quarter-mile in 11.9 seconds at 117 mph (matching the 911’s elapsed time) to the manual’s 12.6 at 113 mph.
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Are the machines really that much better than we are? Probably, but this one also has the benefit of an extra gear and uninterrupted torque flow during gearchanges. The PDK’s seven forward speeds also help explain why it gets better gas mileage than the manual: 21 mpg city and 28 highway, according to the EPA, versus 20/26 for the stick. That advantage was born out in our experience, where the PDK returned 20 mpg in our enthusiastic hands, besting the manual by 2 mpg.
As much as the Boxster’s manual gearbox is a delight to use, we have to admit that Porsche’s PDK is an exceptionally pleasing automatic. In Normal mode, the transmission upshifts eagerly—like many automatics rushing to get into a higher gear in order to aid fuel economy—but it’s equally willing to downshift when asked. Normal mode also enables the auto stop/start system, although that can be switched off. Sport and Sport Plus modes will let the engine hold higher revs, with Sport Plus effectively locking out sixth and seventh gears, although they still can be selected via the shift paddles on the steering wheel. Sport may be the best compromise, since it’s more aggressive than Normal but still uses all the gears. Both Sport and Sport Plus also trigger the sport exhaust system’s more vocal mode and PASM’s stiffer damping; here again, though, those changes can be unselected if desired, via buttons on the center console. Or you’re free to create your own combination of attributes with the Individual mode. With the Sport Chrono package, drive-mode selection is via a dial attached to the steering wheel, and in the center position is an S button; no matter the mode you’re currently in, pressing it calls up Sport Response mode, which is like a shot of adrenaline for the powertrain, made easily and instantly accessible.
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View Photos MICHAEL SIMARI
Excellent, Again
Outside of the powertrain, the 718 Boxster merely goes from strength to strength. Seat comfort is outstanding, and the driver’s perch places you ideally for a good working relationship with the controls. It’s also nice not to be buried up to your ears in bodywork, as is the case in so many performance cars with ultrahigh beltlines. Porsche’s ramplike center console makes no allowance for interior stowage, which is the only real downside to the otherwise well-turned-out cabin. The fabric top can be raised or lowered while driving at speeds up to 43 mph, and wind buffeting is minimal. And the Boxster’s front and rear trunks combine to easily swallow a weekend’s worth of luggage for two.
The Boxster remains a benchmark among open-top sports cars, and the S version with the PDK transmission, when bolstered by the options fitted to our test car, is its highest-achieving form. The left-brain types who look at the new turbocharged four-cylinder and see only bigger horsepower and torque numbers will be completely satisfied here (although they might find the Cayman S an even more compelling proposition), and they’ll similarly gravitate to the PDK automatic. The manual will be the way to go for right-brain types more keyed in to the intangibles, but even then, the brilliance of the Boxster S shines a little less brightly than before.
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*UPDATE: This story originally reported that this car reached 60 mph in 3.5 seconds and went through the quarter-mile in 11.9 seconds at 118 mph. We since discovered an error in our data reduction, which resulted in times of 3.6 seconds and 11.9 seconds at 117 mph. These figures have been updated in the specifications panel.Which way after Paris Agreement?
La Via Campesina’s agro-ecology and food sovereignty offers one possible path toward climate justice, writes Marienna Pope-Weidemann in part one of this two part series.
In 2007, a man named Keno was killed with two bullets to the chest at point blank range near the Iguagu National Park in Brazil. He was one of many farmers peacefully occupying a GMO research plant to protest the imposition of an industrial agricultural system that had no place for them. The men who murdered him were part of a private militia working for the Syngenta biotech corporation. They perpetrated what the courts would later describe as an attempted ‘massacre’ to, in Syngenta’s chilling words: ‘propagate the idea that every action results in a reaction.’
As any physicist (or farmer) can tell you, this is a basic law of the universe. But it also applies the actions of big agribusiness, whose land grabs, pollution and exploitation have reaped their own reactions from peasant farmers across the world. They are organizing, across communities, sectors and borders, and now they made themselves heard here in Paris.
‘They are destroying our homes, our livelihoods and poisoning the food in people’s mouths.’ Maria, another Brazilian farmer and spokesperson for La Via Campesina, had tears in her eyes as she finished telling me about the relentless destruction of indigenous and farming communities back home. But she held her microphone tight like a weapon. ‘This pollution is worse than death. If we have to give our lives to fight these transnationals, then that is what we should do.’
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The Peasant’s Way
The essence of ‘the peasant’s way’ is agro-ecology and food sovereignty: simply put, protecting our farms and our farmers. It was La Via Campesina that first coined the term ‘food sovereignty’. For frontline communities in the South, this idea deeply rooted not only in an ecological culture, but also a deep consciousness of colonial history; an unwillingness forged by history, to rely on this government or that trade treaty to keep feeding you.
As one African famer – and mother – explained: ‘We were told our way of farming, natural farming, was wrong. We have to use the machines. Now, we are starving.’ She raised her fist. ‘Food security is not enough. It only talks about the food on the table. It doesn’t care who produces that food and how. Food sovereignty and agro-ecology is the only way.’
La Via Campesina means ‘the peasant’s way.’ Founded in 1993, this coalition of 150 organizations represents more than 200 million small-scale, indigenous and migrant farmers. Active in more than 70 countries, it campaigns to defend farmer’s rights and our food system.
For Via Campesina spokesperson Adam Payne, this means a constant struggle against industrial agriculture. Far from being a nation removed from the impact of a changing climate, he described how British farmers have been affected by hotter summers, wetter winters, droughts and floods.
‘The industrial food system’s failed us in every way,’ he said. ‘It’s brought more hunger, more obesity, land grabs forcing small farmers off the land, forcing us to compete in markets dominated by free trade agreements, and all while producing 50 per cent of global emissions.
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Food Sovereignty
In a report produced with GRAIN, winner of the 2011 Right Livelihood Award (the ‘alternative Nobel Prize’), La Via Campesina break food sovereignty down into five steps. First, taking care of the soil. They estimate that in just 50 years, restoring the practices of small-scale organic farmers could regenerate soil nutrients to pre-industrial levels. This would offset as much as 30 per cent of global Co2 emissions. Second, farming without the agro-toxic chemicals. Instead, traditional farming methods such as crop integration and diversification would improve soil fertility and protect biodiversity without threatening our health and our ecosystems.
The global food trade accounts for most of agriculture’s excess emissions. So, step three is the localization of production and consumption. While strengthening local economies, this would take a big bite out of global emissions. Industrial agriculture’s drive to maximize profit by exploiting cheap labour has super-charged the food market. Crops may be grown in Argentina to feed chickens in Chile which are exported all the way to China for processing and then shipped all the way back to the US for sale. These practices account for up to 6 per cent of all greenhouse emissions and serve no rational purpose. Organic, local produce would also mean more fresh food and fewer preservatives, so it’s healthier for us as well as the planet, which would cool and renew itself.
Next is a radical and vital demand: give the land back to the people who farm it. Because small-scale farms work more efficiently and more ecologically, and because it is their inalienable human right, La Via Campesina calls for a worldwide redistribution of land to rural family and indigenous farmers. Along with policies to support local markets, this could half global greenhouse emissions ‘within a few decades.’
Peasants in Paris
The final step is one that must start now, in the wake of COP21, because every day we do not take it the restraints our farmers grow tighter and the precious resources left to us are squandered and destroyed. It is the rejection of false solutions, the free-market fixes championed by big agribusiness and the politicians whose interests they represent.
Indigenous and rural farming communities are on the frontline in this fight. Despite having lost 70 per cent their farmland to big agribusiness over the past 50 years or so, small-scale farmers still manage to grow 70 per cent of the world’s food. But for nearly five decades they have been under attack from big agribusiness. Water systems are polluted and land grabbed from beneath their feet as indigenous families are forced from their homes.
On Tuesday, La Via Campesina activists in Paris held a flash-action in defiance of the protest ban. They painted the entrance of Danone’s headquarters red to protest the lives lost by the corporation’s water privatization and land grabs in Asia, and the lives threatened by Danone’s promotion of so-called ‘climate smart agriculture’.
The following day, activists celebrated their Peasant Agriculture and Food Sovereignty day with a series of public events, welcoming speakers from across Europe, North America and the global South. The final forum, co-hosted with Confederation Paysanne, was flooded with hundreds of guests and had to spill out into the main space. The atmosphere was electric.
Farmers from across the world shared stories of exploitation and dispossession matched only by the solidarity they showed one another. A fisherman from South Africa re-counted their long fight against the criminalization of small-scale fisheries. For him, no law passed by a corrupt government in the interest of foreign corporations is legitimate. Yet even after an arduous and successful legal battle won over many years, his colleagues are still being arrested for trying to feed their families from their own ancestral waters.
‘We have decided we will be arrested again and again until they change the laws.’ His pledge was met with heartfelt applause. ‘When the government brings the army the women form a human chain around us and they protect us with their solidarity and their bodies.’
Listening to their stories, three things became very clear. First, a deep love for their way of life, their commitment to the fight for it and the great pride they took in this most essential of professions: feeding people. ‘It is noble,’ one said with dignity, ‘the first noble profession.’
Second, this is so much more than an environmental campaign or a section of the labour force organizing for its interests: it’s an independence movement, in the truest sense of the word. I was reminded of Mandela’s Freedom Charter. One of its most significant and indeed radical demands was that ‘land be given to all the landless people’. Really, it was the moral and economic heart of the anti-apartheid movement; one that was ultimately sacrificed by the African National Congress in exchange for a far less tangible and ultimately limited form of freedom for black South Africans. In exchange for national independence they sacrificed economic autonomy: a contradiction in terms, as South Africa – with the rest of the global South – would come to learn. But in this movement, the reclamation of the land takes on such enormous significance, and the environmental case for it is made with such clarity, it is hard to imagine it being sacrificed a second time.
Finally, we all heard loud and clear the necessity – and an embryonic culture of – a very deep internationalism. You could see it on people’s faces as they listened to a farmer from Mali speak: ‘[The agribusiness corporations] destroyed billions of hectares that are being occupied. They chase people from the villages. We are victims of mass evictions. And the governments are accomplices to the global corporations, they are protected even by police we pay for with our taxes… People are beaten up, peasants are in jail in their thousands, how can we resist this? There is a strong movement of resistance but at all times we will be too small. So we need to converge and fight together.’
As one fisherwoman put it: ‘We need more than solidarity. We must put our anchors deep.’ This kind of sentiment is more than a political strategy; more than the assertion that the more of us unite, the more we can win. It’s an old and intuitive recognition of the absolutely scientific interconnectedness of all life. And that’s a very strong foundation for the building of a better world, as well as an excellent reason to fight for it.Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Win McNamee/Getty Images
President George W. Bush's top ethics lawyer told Business Insider on Thursday that while it was "debatable" whether Attorney General Jeff Sessions perjured himself during his Senate confirmation hearing, he should still resign.
Richard Painter, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School who was the chief White House ethics lawyer from 2005 to 2007, added that the latest Russia-related White House firestorm could leave Sessions open to the risk of "blackmailing."
"The thing with Sessions is that the Russians almost certainly have a recording of these conversations or detailed notes about the conversations," he said.
Painter continued: "And so, they've got something over Sessions. Sessions will be asked what was said in these conversations. And if that doesn't match what the Russians have in their records... then they've got him, and they have this over him for the rest of his term. We have no idea of knowing whether we're in that situation, but it's just way too high a risk."
With what is now known about Sessions' conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, Painter said he didn't think the attorney general "could effectively run that department."
Wednesday-night reports about two conversations between Sessions and Kislyak sparked an uproar, with numerous Democratic politicians calling for the attorney general to resign, while others, including prominent Republicans, called for him to recuse himself from any investigation involving President Donald Trump's ties to Russia or the country's influence in the 2016 presidential election. In a Thursday press conference, Sessions announced he would recuse himself from any investigation that involved the Trump campaign.
Sessions told the Senate Judiciary Committee in his confirmation hearing that he had no contact with Russian officials during the campaign. He said that during an exchange with Democratic Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota.
"If there is any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government in the course of this campaign, what will you do?" Franken asked.
"Sen. Franken, I'm not aware of any of those activities," Sessions responded. "I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians, and I'm unable to comment on it."
Franken did not ask Sessions whether he specifically spoke with Russian operatives, but Sessions, in answering an unrelated question, said he did not have any communications with "the Russians."
Sessions' allies have insisted he did not mislead the committee and did not believe that those conversations, held in his capacity, they said, as a senior Armed Services Committee member, were relevant to the question. Opponents say Sessions may have perjured himself by not mentioning those two conversations with Kislyak.
Painter, who backed Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in the general election, said Sessions "certainly misled Congress" with that answer.
"You expose yourself to criminal prosecution by doing that," Painter said.
Painter on Wednesday night tweeted that "misleading the Senate in sworn testimony about one['s] own contacts with the Russians is a good way to go to jail."
He compared it to the circumstances that played out around Richard Kleindienst, an attorney general for President Richard Nixon. In 1972, Kleindienst, then acting attorney general, appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee for a confirmation hearing. He was asked about White House interference in an antitrust suit against International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation and whether he ever spoke with anyone in the administration about the case.
He said he did not, which was not true, as Painter outlined in a New York Times op-ed article. When it was uncovered that Kleindienst, after being confirmed as attorney general, was not truthful, he said he believed the questions asked during his hearing were limited to a particular time period.
REUTERS/Yuri Gripas
But that argument didn't pass muster with the special prosecutor who was investigating the Watergate scandal, and Kleindienst was forced to resign. He later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of failing to provide accurate information to Congress.
Another situation that provided some parallels surrounded Bush's attorney general Alberto Gonzales, who resigned from office following a controversy over the firings of several federal prosecutors. Democratic lawmakers believed he made misleading statements about the firings before Congress, leading him to resign.
"We've already had Flynn get sacked over misleading the vice president of the United States about his contacts with the Russians," Painter told Business Insider of Michael Flynn, Trump's former national security adviser. "So this is a pretty serious situation. Whether it amounts to perjury or not, I think it's much more debatable."
"You know, I think in terms of the truth-telling involved, it falls within the same category as the Kleindienst example I discussed in the NYT op-ed," he continued, adding of President Bill Clinton: "And that you know the Clinton lying about his sex life — the difference between this and Clinton is that it's obviously so much more important than whether the president had sex with an intern, because we're talking about the Russians and spying activities within the United States, much more important. So, you know that's a factor as to whether he's fit to serve as attorney general."
During his Thursday press conference, Sessions tried to clear up some questions about his contacts with Kislyak.
In describing the meeting, of which he said he recalled little, Sessions said he discussed terrorism and Ukraine, adding that the discussion surrounding the country "got to be a little bit of a testy conversation."
On why he didn't mention the conversations during his answer in the confirmation hearing, Sessions said he was "taken aback" by the new information Franken had presented in his question.
"This allegation that a surrogate — and I had been called a surrogate for Donald Trump — had been meeting continuously with Russian officials, and that's what I — it struck me very hard, and that's what I focused my answer on," he said. "And in retrospect, I should have slowed down and said, 'But I did meet one Russian official a couple of times, and that would be the ambassador.'"
The explanation that the conversations were under the scope of Sessions' role on the Armed Services Committee, and not as a top Trump adviser, seemed off to Painter. The Washington Post reported none of the other 25 members of the committee met with Kislyak.
"I don't think it's routine to have members of the Armed Services Committee talking to the Russian ambassador," Painter said. "If I were the chairman of the committee, I wouldn't want individual senators talking to the Russian ambassador about committee business."LONDON (Reuters) - European Union voters in France, Germany, Italy and Greece think their countries are heading in the wrong direction but there is not yet any Europe-wide inclination to follow Britain towards exiting the bloc, according to a poll published on Thursday.
FILE PHOTO: A cyclist wears a pro-Brexit badge on her Union flag themed helmet outside the Supreme Court on the first day of the challenge against a court ruling that Theresa May's government requires parliamentary approval to start the process of leaving the European Union, in Parliament Square, central London, Britain December 5, 2016. REUTERS/Toby Melville/File Photo
Britain’s shock June 23 Brexit vote, which was praised at the time by then U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump as a “miracle”, has raised questions about the future of post-World War Two attempts at European integration.
After Brexit and Trump’s victory in the United States, investors are watching for any sign that popular discontent is on the rise ahead of 2017 elections in France and Germany, and a likely vote in Italy.
A WIN/Gallup International online survey of 14,969 people showed voters were unhappy across the European Union but that support for the EU remained above 60 percent in most of the biggest member states.
The poll showed 89 percent of voters in Greece thought their country was heading in the wrong direction. In France the figure was 82 percent, Italy 79 percent and Germany 62 percent.
While EU voters are clearly discontented, there was only a small rise in the number of people who would vote for an exit: 36 percent from 33 percent across the 15 European countries including Britain that were surveyed.
The percentage of people in Germany, France and Belgium who would vote to leave fell from a year ago. Finland and Greece saw an increase in support for leaving, up to 40 percent from 29 percent and to 46 percent from 38 percent respectfully.
“2016 saw the EU foundations severely shaken,” said Johnny Heald, managing director of ORB International, who did the UK polling.
“What stands out is the overwhelming view from EU citizens that their countries are heading in the wrong direction - most noticeable in France and Greece - which makes fertile ground for right-wing populist parties.”
Across Europe, 60 percent said they would like to have fewer migrants and refugees. In Greece, 86 percent wanted fewer while in Italy the figure was 75 percent and in Germany 64 percent.
The survey was carried out Nov. 25 to Dec. 7, before the Dec. 19 truck attack on a crowded Christmas market in Berlin.
The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which was created three years ago in opposition to euro zone bailouts, laid the blame on German Chancellor Angela Merkel.Greg Cwik has not, apparently, watched any of the Marvel movies. "Hey look," he says, "Marvel is set to become a victim of their own success, because as they expand, it will become almost impossible for newbs to get into it." And yes, that is a danger with the comics, where even longtime fans – like me – have a hard time keeping up.
But his logic falls apart once you read this:
If you miss one movie — say, Iron Man 3 – then you can't watch The Avengers, and then you can't watch S.H.I.E.L.D., and then you can't watch The Winter Soldier, and then you can't watch Agent Carter.
Anyone who has, y'know, actually watched the movies (particularly the sequels), knows how deftly Marvel has created franchises that have a Voltron-like ability to exist (and flourish) independently, while seamlessly snapping together when circumstances (or plot) requires.
I'd say the only way they can really become a victim of their success is to over-reach. Too much, too fast, and average people might get tired of it. For now, though, Marvel's got the golden goose.
Edited to add link to original:TAMPA — Beware the Wolfpack.
That’s where catching leaders are formed and a team-first atmosphere is fostered. They even have their own flag — a combination wolf/dragon.
This is a big part of how the Yankees are moving forward as an organization with a strong group of young catchers, highlighted by Gary Sanchez.
The Wolfpack was created by Yankees catching coordinator Josh Paul, who caught nine years in the majors. He was a manager and scout in the Yankees system, and Gary Denbo, the Yankees vice president of player development, smartly named Paul to this position several years ago.
Over at the Yankees minor league complex, the Wolfpack has its own field (Field 4), their own catching drill area the players maintain themselves, their own gear bags with the insignia and even T-shirts.
There is a sense of pride and togetherness that is setting the tone for the coming generation of Yankees.
“Our motto is the lone wolf dies alone,’’ Paul told The Post on Thursday at Steinbrenner Field. “It’s not something you can just teach. It’s an idea that they have to live. In spring training we come out as a group. We do our work in groups. At the end of the day we sweep our dojo. And then we all walk in as a group.
“If you don’t live it, you don’t understand it. At first guys were like this is kind of corny, but by the end of spring training this is a really, really tight-knit group. We don’t let anybody who is not a catcher in the dojo.’’
As you walk into the catching “dojo’’ there is this sign: Cuidado con los Lobos Locos!
“Beware of the crazy wolves,’’ Paul explained. “We have a lot of fun with it. We basically instill selflessness. When guys try to be separate, I don’t say anything, the coaches don’t say anything, but all the other catchers, they bring him back in. The bottom line is we are looking to raise catchers that are willing to endure a lot of stuff, physically, mentally, emotionally. At the end of the day they are putting their team first.
“The three guys we have in [major league] camp all came from there,’’ he said of Sanchez, Austin Romine and Kyle Higashioka.
“Josh makes you think,’’ Romine said. “ |
The latest position paper, released yesterday, has placed the protection of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement as one of four top priorities regarding Northern Ireland. Under the agreement, people in Northern Ireland are allowed to choose either or both British and Irish citizenship. In the Government’s position paper on Northern Ireland, it states: “As long as Ireland remains a member of the EU, Irish citizenship also confers EU citizenship, with all the rights that go with this. “This is as true for the people of Northern Ireland who are Irish citizens — or who hold both British and Irish citizenship — as it is for Irish citizens in Ireland.”
As long as Ireland remains a member of the EU, Irish citizenship also confers EU citizenship UK position paper
The European Commission had previously demanded those living in Northern Ireland continue to have EU rights after Brexit. By allowing Northern Irish people to continue to be able to obtain Irish - and therefore EU - citizenship after Brexit, the issue of the border between the two countries will be made easier for both the EU and the UK. Britain’s proposal to keep the Good Friday Agreement is sure to anger Scotland where the majority of the electorate voted to stay in the EU. Since the referendum last June Scottish politicians, especially First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, have been fighting to remain in the bloc while the rest of the UK leaves.
Brexit debate in pictures Mon, April 17, 2017 The debate in the European Parliament in Strasbourg will focus on key issues of the Brexit talks including reciprocal rights for EU citizens, the peace process in Northern Ireland and trade Play slideshow AFP/Getty Images 1 of 23 Former leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) Nigel Farage (L) gestures as he speaks with EU Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker (R) prior to a debate on the conclusions of the last European Council, at the European Parliament in Strasbourg
The question of residency and work rights for EU citizens who are not Irish will be addressed later in the Brexit negotiations, the British Government said. Brexit Secretary David Davis said the UK also wanted to protect the Common Travel Area for those travelling between the two Irelands. He said the UK did not want any physical infrastructure on the border, with Whitehall confirming this means no CCTV cameras or number plate recognition systems.
When it comes to the movement of goods across the border, the paper proposed a customs partnership with the EU so there would be no tariff implications on the border at all. If, as many expect, a less fulsome agreement is reached, the Government still wants 80 per cent of Irish businesses to avoid tariffs. It proposes small to medium-sized operations which criss-cross the border as part of localising daily trade should continue to do so unfettered.
Getty Irish leader Leo Varadkar welcomed the proposal
Getty Northern Ireland leader Arlene Foster also approved with the proposalsIndian Bollywood actor Salman Khan waves to fans at his residence in Mumbai on July 18, 2015. / Getty Images
The 14-year agonizing search for the family of an Indian woman stranded in Pakistan has in recent days found fresh support on social media and from a Bollywood star. And it's even spurred the government into action.
The renewed energy for the campaign to trace the woman's family in India is a rare example of bonhomie between India and Pakistan, two frequently sparring and nuclear-armed neighbors. And it's come from the success of a new Bollywood movie with a similar plotline.
Geeta, now 23 years old, accidentally crossed over into Pakistan 14 years ago. The Pakistani Rangers didn't send her to prison, but instead brought her to the non-profit social welfare group, the Edhi Foundation, where she has spent the last few years.
But Geeta, who is both hearing and speech-impaired, has not been able to communicate any information about her home to her caretakers. The foundation staff gave her the Indian name, Geeta, when they noticed that she prayed like a Hindu.
“For years, we have been trying to locate her family or her hometown so that she can return,” Faisal Edhi, who works with the foundation, said. Geeta does recognize the map of India, however, and points to the eastern state of Jharkhand.
Pakistan’s renowned human rights lawyer Ansar Burney even came to India three years ago with Geeta’s photographs and videos to find her family, but did not make any progress.
Now, Geeta’s case has found new supporters on both sides of the border, though, after a new blockbuster movie, Bajrangi Bhaijaan, depicted the story of a little Pakistani girl with a speech disability stranded in India. The movie stars the popular actor, Salman Khan, who plays a man who reunites the girl with her family in Pakistan.
On Monday, Khan asked the director of his film to help attorney Burney find Geeta’s home in India.
Salman Khan offers to help Geeta. Asks director Kabir Khan to find out how he can help Geeta meet her family @SushmaSwaraj@MehrTarar — Ansar Burney (@AnsarBurney) August 4, 2015 India’s external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj also tweeted on Monday that she has directed the Indian envoy in Pakistan to meet Geeta and help her.
Indian High Commissioner in Pakistan Dr.TCA Raghavan is reaching Karachi and will meet Geeta today. — Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) August 4, 2015 Burney thanked Swaraj in his tweet.
Thanks @SushmaSwaraj jee for asking Indian High Commissioner Dr TCA Raghavan to go to Karachi and meet Geeta alias Guddy — Ansar Burney (@AnsarBurney) August 4, 2015 Meanwhile, Indian television news channels aired special shows about the search campaign with Geeta sitting in a TV studio in Pakistan. Her head covered with a red scarf, she communicated in sign language that her lost Indian home was very good. Media reports say that the foundation in Pakistan has created a small Hindu shrine for her to offer prayers. Her caretakers say that she also offers Islamic prayers. Indian television anchor Barkha Dutt on NDTV 24x7 described the manner in which Geeta was being cared for in Pakistan as the “ultimate affirmation of humanity.” Geeta also keeps a diary in Hindi script, said Ehdi, but they can find no conclusive clues about her family there because it is a dialect they do not understand. On Monday, some pages from her diary were tweeted with the hashtag #SendGeetaHome Can somebody translate these diaries of an indian girl who accidently crossed the border - 1 Max RT's #SendGeetaHome pic.twitter.com/s1mLa90f0h
— Mehdi (@SyedRezaMehdi) August 4, 2015Apple’s diversity chief is stepping down after only six months on the job — after causing an outcry by saying that being a minority or a woman are not the only criteria for diversity, according to reports.
Denise Young Smith, who was named vice president of diversity and inclusion in May, made controversial comments last month during a One Young World Summit in Bogotá, Colombia.
“There can be 12 white, blue-eyed, blond men in a room and they’re going to be diverse too because they’re going to bring a different life experience and life perspective to the conversation,” the inaugural diversity chief said.
“Diversity is the human experience,” she said, according to Quartz. “I get a little bit frustrated when diversity or the term diversity is tagged to the people of color, or the women, or the LGBT.”
Her comments appeared to defend Apple’s overwhelmingly white and male leadership at a time when the company’s makeup is markedly uneven.
The 20-year Apple veteran, who previously served as the company’s head of worldwide human resources, later apologized for her remarks, telling the staff that they “were not representative of how I think about diversity or how Apple sees it.”
“For that, I’m sorry,” she said in an email. “More importantly, I want to assure you Apple’s view and our dedication to diversity has not changed.”
Smith will leave the company at the end of the year, TechCrunch reported. Taking over as VP of inclusion and diversity will be Christie Smith, who spent 17 years as a principal at Deloitte.
“We deeply believe that diversity drives innovation,” an Apple spokesman told TechCrunch in a statement. “We’re thrilled to welcome an accomplished leader like Christie Smith to help us continue the progress we’ve made toward a more diverse workplace.”
Unlike her predecessor, Christie Smith will not report directly to CEO Tim Cook, but rather to human resources chief Deirdre O’Brien, according to Fortune.
In 2017, only 3 percent of Apple’s leaders were black, and women held just 23 percent of tech jobs, according to Fortune. Female leadership stood at 29 percent, Apple said.
“Meaningful change takes time,” the company said in its diversity report. “We’re proud of our accomplishments, but we have much more work to do.”Publishers all over Africa are finding exciting new voices from all over the continent, writing in a wide variety of styles and genres. Here are five authors to look out for
The South African writer Mike Nicol once told me that when he started writing back in the 80s, he had read most of the books published in his country. I knew what he meant. Every time I walk into any city – whether it's Accra, Algiers, Johannesburg or Nairobi – the first place I want to find is a bookstore, and the first section I seek is the tiny little section labelled Africana/African Literature/African writers. Nine times out of 10 I used to find that I had read every book on the shelf. That is not the case any more. African bookstores continent-wide may prefer stocking Grisham, Picoult, Steel and self-help galore, but these days I always find something new from an African writer.
Here's a personal selection of some authors beyond the two or three African writers whose names come up every time African writers are discussed. They cover a broad range of subjects and genres, but they are all writers who challenge themselves and go the next step with each story.
1. Leonora Miano
Miano's 2005 novel L'intérieur de la nuit (translated by Tamsin Black as In the Dark Heart of the Night) tells the story of a a woman who returns from France to her fictional African village to visit her ill mother. Ostracised by the villagers as a "foreigner" and for failing to bring presents, she decides to leave, but on the eve of her departure a guerrilla group raids her village and uses some twisted form of Pan-Africanism as a way of subjugating the villagers. Miano disliked this English translation, as did many of my French-speaking friends who had read the original novel, and their disapproval compelled me to buy it. I was curious to know just how bad the translation was – and as it turned out, I enjoyed it. If In the Dark Heart of the Night is a bad translation, I would like to read the good translations of all her other work because this Cameroon-born Afro-pean writer, now based in France, is brilliant!
2. HJ Golakai
Two years ago, my South African publisher sent me a manuscript from a Liberian writer. It wasn't perfect, but The Lazarus Effect had a lot going for it. I not only gave my response to the publisher but also searched for HJ's number, called her, and like a groupie told her how much I liked what I had read. Earlier this year, HJ's book was shortlisted for South Africa's premier literary prize, The Alan Paton Award. Crime fiction doesn't often make it on to this list, but the beauty of HJ's writing is that she achieves the rare feat of balancing the book as pop and literary fiction. This may be HJ's first book but if the unpublished prose that I have read is any indication, she is going far.
3. Ondjaki
This Angolan writer, who studied in Lisbon and now lives in Rio de Janeiro, is one of the most prolific writers I know. Good Morning, Comrades tells the story of a young boy growing up in post-civil war Luanda. When his aunt comes to visit from Portugal, he learns that there is a world beyond his home city, one in which people are unafraid and ration cards don't exist. In The Whistler, a traveller walks into a village, visits the church, and soon impresses everyone with his whistling skills. Ondjaki's writing and storylines are deceptively simple but highly entertaining.
4. Chika Unigwe
Before Alastair Campbell tweeted "the best novel so far read this summer", I had read Unigwe's On Black Sisters' Street and loved it. It's the story of four very different women who have all left Africa for Europe in pursuit of wealth and happiness, but whose dreams have collided with the nightmare of Belgium's red light districts, forcing them to reforge their identities by retelling the stories of who they are.
5. Thando Mgqolozana
A few years ago when Mgqolozana's first book, A Man Who's Not a Man, was published, a South African traditional leader suggested that it should be burnt. That would be a good reason in itself to read Mgqolozana's books, but an even better one is that his prose is as captivating as his plots are controversial. For all the difficult subjects that he explores in his fiction (circumcision in A Man Who's Not a Man, and the virgin birth in the more recent novel Hear Me Alone) he never seems to preach but rather asks the reader to question her or his truth.http://youtu.be/B-Y_EGGj918
In this video I share with you how to take control of your mind and unleash your potential. You are not your mind and you should control it rather than being controlled by it.
Your thoughts are the result of your belief system. Your belief system was consciously but also largely unconsciously created by the way you’ve interpreted your environment as well as what your family, your friends, the society or the media have been telling you. If you don’t like your current belief system who said you shouldn’t change it?
For the new year that is coming why not take the empowering resolution to create a new belief system that really helps you getting the life you desire. There is no need for you to buy into other people’s reality. It’s only there subjective reality, not your reality. Nobody should tell you what is possible and what is not. Choose your reality right now and start taking action!
see also: First Step: Everything Starts With Your Mindset
Second Step: Identify Your Limiting Beliefs – How To Overcome Limiting BeliefsPhiladelphia police have released the name of the man they say sexually assaulted, beat and strangled a recent Drexel University graduate inside her West Philadelphia apartment.56-year-old James Harris of West Philadelphia is now facing murder, rape, robbery, burglary and related charges.Police say fingerprints and DNA evidence connected Harris to the crime.The body of 27-year-old Jasmine Wright was found last Thursday in the rear bedroom of her third floor apartment in the 200 block of South 50th Street.Harris had been held for days on burglary charges. Police say he is a career criminal who had been hired to do maintenance work in her West Philadelphia building.Police say Harris has a long and violent history, including the murder of his father and the sexual assault of a 15-year-old girl.A week prior to the murder, Harris had been banned from the building after being evicted from his own apartment, just three doors away from where Wright had been living.Police say Harris had kept his keys and was seen entering the building 30 minutes prior to when Wright arrived home, and then broke into her apartment.With this information, police initially arrested Harris on burglary and criminal trespass charges.Police say they later learned that when Wright arrived home she was on her cell phone talking to her mother, and it was then that Harris attacked her. Wright's mother told police she heard a struggle before the phone went dead.Investigators believe Wright was beaten and strangled next to the bed, but she was placed on the bed after the attack.Harris then allegedly tried to clean the crime scene using bleach.Wright graduated just four weeks ago from Drexel with a Masters in Environmental and Occupational health.Police believe she had been dead for 24 hours when her body was discovered by the property manager.Her father, who lives in the Bronx, had asked the manager to check on her because he hadn't heard from her.As for a motive in the crime, police say that remains unclear.Philadelphia Police Captain James Clark described Harris' violent past by saying, "He's 56 years of age, he has 31 priors. Back in '82 he was arrested for killing his own father. He's been arrested several times for sexual assault, several robberies, several burglaries. I mean, he's a monster. We're very happy to get him off of the streets."Why Harris was out on the streets in the first place befuddles police."It's a hard pill for us to swallow, so hopefully now we got it right. Hopefully he'll spend the rest of his life in jail like he should have been a long time ago," said Capt. Clark.Capt. Clark couldn't say enough about the people who worked so hard on this case."Homicide Detectives Burke and Joyce worked around the clock. Give kudos to the crime scene unit and the chem lab - they worked on their days off to expedite the DNA," he said.Capt. Clark says he hopes this time that Harris gets the death penalty upon conviction, but that's something the Philadelphia District Attorney will have to consider later down the road.Margaret Jusinski first got to know her investment broker through the breakfasts he provided when he visited her public school in the leafy suburbs of New Jersey, where she teaches middle-school children computer coding and how to build robots made of Legos.
After the bagels, muffins and coffee, the broker made his sales pitch — and Ms. Jusinski bought it. So did many of her colleagues.
The teachers only recently learned how much those meals actually cost them.
Had she been able to choose a simpler, less expensive plan instead of the broker’s costly offering, Ms. Jusinski would have approximately 20 percent more in savings, according to an analysis performed for The New York Times. One colleague would have a balance 50 percent fatter. The list goes on.
“It is a heartbreaking situation for everyone,” said Ms. Jusinski, a mother of two girls who turns 50 on Sunday. “Especially for the staff members who were looking to retire within the next few years.”In Charleston, the wind picked up as the storm’s eye wall — with the most damaging winds and rain — rolled through. Water filled many downtown streets, and flowed over the sea wall along East Battery Street, along the southeastern edge of this peninsular city.
Pools of standing water remained around the city into the afternoon, and black pipes snaked out of first floors, carrying water back to the street.
“We knew that a flood was coming,” said Darlene Kelly, who rode out the storm at a friend’s bed-and-breakfast in the city’s southernmost neighborhood, parts of which had been transformed by the standing water into a kind of lagoon. “Just a matter of dealing with it now.”
Still, some residents insisted they had not been too worried.
“My house has been here for 150 years or so,” said John Michael Flynn, 70. Nevertheless, he found water under his bed during the storm after his house began to leak.
The hurricane brought the highest tidal surge — more than nine feet — since Hurricane Hugo, the catastrophic 1989 storm etched deeply into this city’s consciousness. Officials urged people to say inside during the day on Saturday, although a few took to the city’s temporary canals with kayaks and even tried to ride through on bicycles.
“Now is when the frustration sets in, because the anxiousness is when the storm is coming,” said Gov. Nikki R. Haley of South Carolina, during a news conference. She added: “What I am going to ask for you is patience. Most injuries, most fatalities occur after a storm because people attempt to move in too soon.”
Parrish Rowland, a resident of a public housing complex on Charleston’s King Street, was among many in the city who did not heed that advice, and waded through waist-deep water, hoping to find something to eat.
“I just figured I’d make it my way,” said Mr. Rowland, who spoke casually, even though the water was so deep it reached halfway up the gas pumps nearby. “I like to make it my way.”This article is about the island in Louisiana, United States. For the island in British Columbia, Canada, see Avery Island (British Columbia)
Place
Avery Island (historically French: Île Petite Anse) is a salt dome best known as the source of Tabasco sauce. Located in Iberia Parish, Louisiana, United States, it is approximately three miles (4.8 km) inland from Vermilion Bay, which in turn opens onto the Gulf of Mexico. A small human population lives on the island. The island is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
History [ edit ]
Salt mining, Avery Island, Louisiana
The island was named after the Avery family, who settled there in the 1830s, but long before that, Native Americans had found that Avery Island's verdant flora covered a precious natural resource—a massive salt dome. There, Native Americans boiled the Island's briny spring water to extract salt, which they traded to other tribes as far away as central Texas, Arkansas, and Ohio.[1]
According to records maintained prior to 1999 in the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,[2] Petite Anse Island, renamed Avery Island in the late 19th century, was purchased by John Craig Marsh of New Jersey in 1818. Marsh operated a sugar plantation on the island's fertile soil. His daughter, Sarah Craig Marsh, married Daniel Dudley Avery in 1837, thus uniting the Marsh and Avery families. Daniel Dudley Avery hailed from Baton Rouge, and was a jurist. In 1849, Daniel became co-owner of his in-law's sugar plantation, and in 1855 he became sole owner.
During the American Civil War, a mine of pure rock salt was founded on Avery Island in May 1861, which subsequently produced more than 22 million pounds (10,000 metric tons) of salt for the Confederacy. According to the historian John D. Winters in his The Civil War in Louisiana (1963), the rock salt mine had been well-protected, until Union General Nathaniel P. Banks began a push up Bayou Teche. After an all-night march, Union Colonel W.K. Kimball, in Winters' words, "advanced to the beautiful little island and, without opposition, burned eighteen buildings, smashed the steam engines and mining equipment, scattered six hundred barrels of salt awaiting shipping, and brought away a ton of gunpowder left behind by [Confederate General] Taylor's men."[3]
Before the Civil War, Edmund McIlhenny joined the Avery family, by marrying Mary Eliza Avery, daughter of Daniel Dudley Avery and Sarah Marsh Avery. In 1868, McIlhenny founded McIlhenny Company, and began manufacturing Tabasco brand pepper sauce. In 1870, he received letters patent for his sauce processing formula. That same basic process is still used today.[4]
In 1938, E.A. McIlhenny established a nutria farm on Avery Island, Louisiana, within shouting distance of the factory where the company that bears his family name makes Tabasco sauce. According to company history, McIlhenny bought his stock of nutrias from a farm in New Orleans, so he was not the first to introduce the creature, a native of southern Brazil, Argentina, and Chile, to North America. That dubious honor belongs to another. What is certain, though, is that McIlhenny, for reasons unknown, released an unknown but probably large number of nutrias into the wild from the confines of Avery Island, and from there they fanned out and proliferated.
Avery Island was hit hard in September 2005 by Hurricane Rita.[5] According to The New York Times, the family spent $5 million on constructing a 17-foot (5.2 m)-high levee, pumps, and back-up generators to ensure that future hurricanes will not disrupt Tabasco sauce production.
Bird sanctuary [ edit ]
Under the Avery/McIlhenny family's management, Avery Island has remained a natural paradise, inhabited by many animal species, as well as by exotic plants from throughout the world. Edward Avery McIlhenny, or "Mr. Ned" as he was affectionately known, founded this bird colony—later called Bird City—around 1895 after plume hunters had slaughtered egrets by the thousands to provide feathers for ladies' hats. Edward gathered eight young egrets, raised them in captivity on the Island, and released them in the fall to migrate across the Gulf of Mexico. The following spring the birds returned to the Island with others of their species, a migration that continues today.
Exotic plants [ edit ]
Edward McIlhenny introduced numerous varieties of azaleas, Japanese camellias, Egyptian papyrus sedge, and other rare plants to the Island's natural landscape. When oil was discovered on the Island in 1942, he ensured that production crews bypassed live oak trees and buried pipelines (or painted them green) to preserve the Island's beauty, wildlife, and utility as a wildlife refuge.
Today Jungle Gardens and Bird City are open to the public.[6]
Geography [ edit ]
Avery Island is surrounded on all sides by bayous (slow-moving, muddy rivers), salt marsh, and swampland; it sits about 130 miles (210 km) west of New Orleans.[6] The island was a sugar plantation formerly known as Petite Anse Island.[2] (Petite Anse means "Little Cove" in Cajun French.) Access to the island is via toll road (technically, a very low toll bridge, which charges only on inbound traffic).
At its highest point, the island is 163 feet (50 m) above mean sea level.[6] It covers about 2,200 acres (8.9 km2) and is about 2.5 miles (4.0 km) across at its widest point.
Geology [ edit ]
Avery Island is actually a huge dome of rock salt, three miles (4.8 km) long and two and a half miles (4.0 km) wide.[1] It was created by the upwelling of ancient evaporite (salt) deposits that exist beneath the Mississippi River Delta region. These upwellings are known as "salt domes." Avery Island is one of five salt dome islands that rise above the flat Louisiana Gulf coast.[6] The Five Islands from northwest to southeast are Jefferson Island, Avery Island, Weeks Island, Cote Blanche Island and Belle Isle.
Government and infrastructure [ edit ]
The United States Postal Service operates the Avery Island Post Office.[7]
Education [ edit ]
The Iberia Parish School System operates the public schools in the area.
Students attend schools in New Iberia. Students are zoned to Center Street Elementary School,[8] Iberia Middle School, and New Iberia Senior High School.[9]
Avery Island Elementary School (K-6) formerly served the community.[10] After the 2007-2008 school year, students from Avery Island Elementary were moved to Center Street Elementary School. At the time, 118 children attended Avery Island Elementary.[8] While Avery Island Elementary operated, it fed into the same middle and high schools that Center Street feeds into.[11]
References and notes [ edit ]
Coordinates:The Forza series is a tale of two different racing games. On the one hand, you have Forza Motorsport, the serious and sterile racing simulator. On the other, you have its Ecstasy-gobbling, Burning Man-attending hip racing cousin Forza Horizon. Apparently, Motorsport convinced Horizon to share some of its drugs, and the two have joined forces to give us Forza Horizon 2: a sprawling open-world racer that can be as arcadey or as sim-y as you want it to be, and is an excellent addition to the series.
The Horizon Festival is a massive, summer-long music and automobile festival, and it's back again--this time it's hitting the French and Italian coasts before spilling into the sun-baked countryside. Thousands of hipsters with fancy cars and far too much disposable income have gathered here for a summer of concerts and racing competition; think Coachella meets Le Mans, and you're halfway there. It's a completely ludicrous set up that makes no sense under any form of scrutiny. Seriously, who would give these people free reign to terrorize not one, but two European countries with high-powered sports cars? I can't tell you how many private vineyards I must have demolished on my race to be Horizon champion, and it kills me a little inside every single time. Still, it at least gives you some context as to why you're driving around the Mediterranean coast like a bat out of hell.
As contrived as the whole premise is, Forza Horizon 2's, well, horizons are gorgeous. Whether you're racing down the winding streets of Nice or zipping through the bounding hills of Montellino, each location in Forza Horizon is both distinct and breathtaking. While there aren't as many cars here as there are in a typical Forza game, each one is painstakingly detailed, right down to the individual gauges and windshield wipers. The dynamic weather system ensures those wipers get fair use, too. One minute it's nice and sunny; the next, it's raining like the end of days, and how you tackle each course changes dramatically. It also looks fantastic, too, as rain bubbles and pools on the surfaces of roads and cars. Other than a few frame hiccups and some minor bouts of shadow pop-in, Forza Horizon 2's vistas are a joy to drive through, whether you're doing it in a classic Ferrari GTO or a not-so-classic 1981 Volkswagen Scirocco.
You won't need to know a lot about about cars (other than that they look cool and go fast) to enjoy Forza Horizon 2, as it trades realism for pure, high-speed thrills. Cars may dent and windshields may shatter, but they ride just as well as if they were just driven off the lot, and each one is miraculously restored after each race. Driving on dirt or grassy fields will cause your vehicle to slide around more than it would on the road, but honestly, that just makes things even more fun, as you drift wide through someone's delicately pruned shrubberies. Heck, when the festival gives you your first ride, it doesn't show you each car's individual stats--rather, it's as if the game simply asks: "Which one looks the most badass to you?" Even the series' signature Rewind feature feels more at home here than it ever did in Motorsport, as it keeps you from having to repeat races due to a single botched turn. Forza Horizon 2 wants you in a car and doing awesome stuff as quickly and as often as possible, without having to worry about differentials and gear ratios.
That is, unless you want to worry about that stuff, in which case Forza Horizon 2 has you covered there as well. You can poke around under the hood and change pretty much anything, from tuning different parts of your car to changing individual difficulty settings. That has long been a hallmark of the Motorsport games, but it’s new here in the more arcadey Horizon series. The cosmetic damage I mentioned earlier? You can switch over to realistic damage, meaning your car will stop dead in its tracks if it gets banged up too much--completely changing how you approach driving in the game. By taking advantage of these options, you can transform Horizon 2 from a simple arcade racer to a much more in depth simulation. It never feels truly necessary, though, and a vast majority of my time was spent without even touching any of these settings. Still, it's there if you want it, and it disappears almost completely if you don't care about anything other than going fast.
Race against the world In addition to the massive solo mode, Forza Horizon 2 includes an impressive online component. Compete in Road Trips or free roam across the entire map with several friends, picking and choosing races as you go. In addition to the typical races, you can also compete in Playground events, like Infected (ram into other cars as fast as you can to "infect" and turn them to your other side). While I wish the lines between online and off were a bit more blurred than they are here, if you're looking to test your driving mettle against the world's best racers, you won't be disappointed.
Actually racing on each of Forza Horizon 2's many courses is a varied and exciting experience. Drivatars--the AI system introduced in Motorsport 5 that takes other players' racing data and puts it in your game--are back, and they seem to fit even better here than they did in the game that created them. Drivatars in Motorsport 5 are overly aggressive, to the point of constantly trying to ram into you, and it feels out of place in that game’s overly sterile environment. Not so here, as races in Horizon 2 are far more cutthroat and unpredictable, going from pavement, to off-road, and back again, with racers often leaving behind a wake of wooden fences and traffic cones. Earning skill points takes the insanity to a whole new level, as you're rewarded based on how well you drift around corners or how close you get to other drivers without crashing. Racing in Horizon 2 is a contact sport, and it's the most thrilling it's ever been in the series.
In between championships, you can explore the massive open world of Southern Europe and take on a plethora of additional side content. It's makes for nice diversions, but much of it feels like just that--a diversion. Sure, you can seek out and destroy all 150 XP boards on the map, but there's really no incentive to do so, other than to say you did. Still, having this huge map to explore lets you be as focused or as distracted as you want to be, while always keeping you engaged in the act of driving.
Image 1 of 7 Things to do when you're not racing Southern Europe is a big place to roam, filled with massive straightaways, tight switchbacks, and countless nooks and crannies. And while the main attraction of Forza Horizon 2 is the championship itself, there are tons of things to see and do if you're looking for a break from the competition. Stuff like… Image 2 of 7 XP and Fast Travel Boards These delicate hunks of painted plywood are waiting to be run over with reckless abandon. Some feature the face of Horizon's smarmy host and an experience point award, while others will give you a small discount on fast travel costs. There are 150 of them, and many of them are well hidden--best get searchin'. Image 3 of 7 Speed Traps There are speed cameras located all over France and Italy, and when you see one, you'll want to make your car go as fast as it possibly can--you know, the exact opposite of what you'd normally do… Right? Image 4 of 7 Bucket List Want to drive across France as fast as possible in a McLaren P1? Check out the Bucket List--a list of challenges that give you a specific car, a specific goal, and certain amount of time in which to complete it. Image 5 of 7 Barn Finds Several abandoned barns are hidden across the French and Italian countryside, and inside each one is a rare, antique car. Sure, the cars are a bit beat up, but after a little TLC they'll be up and running in no time. And it's not stealing if their previous owners haven't touched them in decades, right? Image 6 of 7 Challenge a Drivatar to a one-on-one race for cash Every single racer with a name over it can be challenged to a one-on-one race at any time in between events. Each one varies in difficulty, with the most notorious racers paying out the most money for a win. Image 7 of 7 Car Meets Entering one of these locations will group you up with other online racers, let you look at their cars, challenge them to a race, or merely hang out for a chit chat. It's a great way to get to know the people you're going to destroy on the asphalt.
After a while, though, Forza Horizon 2 starts running out of new tricks. Each championship in the game works like this: First, you go on a Road Trip to your destination--a timed jaunt that's less about racing and more about learning the lay of the land. Once there, you partake in four different races tied to your chosen championship. Once you finish those, you go on another road trip and do it all over again. For a while, you're constantly unlocking new features in between races, but once you start focusing in on knocking off wins to make it to the Horizon Finale, it starts to feel a bit repetitive. Still, it takes around 10 hours to get to a point where you're even starting to repeat races, and with 180 different championships, there's a ton to do. And when the core racing is this good, you won't mind a little repetition.
Despite minor faults, it's easy to love Forza Horizon 2. With many of the optional features the more serious Motorsport games are known for, along with Horizon's high-octane thrills and massive open landscapes to explore, Forza Horizon 2 is a culmination of the best parts of both games, all in one package.
By combining open-world thrills with simulation racing and letting you customize the experience to your liking, Forza Horizon 2 is an excellent entry in the series.
This game was reviewed on Xbox One.The jury is still out, but at this early stage, there's good reason to doubt the legitimacy of claims that more than 32 million Twitter passwords are circulating online.
The purported dump went live on Wednesday night on LeakedSource, a site that bills itself as a breach notification service. The post claimed that the 32.88 million Twitter credentials contain plaintext passwords and that of the 15 records LeakedSource members checked, all 15 were found to be valid. Twitter Trust and Info Security Officer Michael Coates has said his team investigated the list, and he remains "confident that our systems have not been breached."
Lending credibility to Coates's claim, Twitter has long used |
YOU prepared to do on climate change that is commensurate to the threat?
Michael Burger, environmental lawyer, Columbia University
For Democrats: There is a gap between the emissions reduction pledge the Obama administration has made as part of the Paris climate agreement and the emissions reductions the US is projected to achieve through existing rules and programs. There is also no easy way for the US to increase its mitigation ambition in the future, as everyone recognizes will be necessary to avoid the worst consequences of climate change. Understanding that congressional action is unlikely, what is your plan for filling the emissions gap, and how would you establish an effective mechanism for further reducing emissions in the future?
There is a gap between the emissions reduction pledge the Obama administration has made as part of the Paris climate agreement and the emissions reductions the US is projected to achieve through existing rules and programs. There is also no easy way for the US to increase its mitigation ambition in the future, as everyone recognizes will be necessary to avoid the worst consequences of climate change. Understanding that congressional action is unlikely, what is your plan for filling the emissions gap, and how would you establish an effective mechanism for further reducing emissions in the future? For Democrats: The extraction and export of coal, oil, and gas from public lands represents an unfortunate escape hatch for the US, allowing segments of the US economy to continue to profit from fossil fuels even while the US ignores the emissions associated with the eventual, overseas combustion of those fuels. The Obama administration is taking a look at the coal leasing program, which may be a first step in correcting this gross inconsistency in the nation’s climate policy. Do you believe the US should refrain from extracting any further fossil fuels from public lands?
The extraction and export of coal, oil, and gas from public lands represents an unfortunate escape hatch for the US, allowing segments of the US economy to continue to profit from fossil fuels even while the US ignores the emissions associated with the eventual, overseas combustion of those fuels. The Obama administration is taking a look at the coal leasing program, which may be a first step in correcting this gross inconsistency in the nation’s climate policy. Do you believe the US should refrain from extracting any further fossil fuels from public lands? For Republicans: Do you still, in the face of the overwhelming scientific consensus and the constant stream of evidence, question whether greenhouse gas emissions from human activities contribute to climate change? Do you also question other basic science—like evolution—or is it really just this?
Finally, a slightly different take from NDT:
Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist, American Museum of Natural History
I don’t yet have questions for the candidates. All my questions are for the electorate. Top of the list: Knowing that innovations in science and technology stoke the engines of the 21st-century economy, how much weight will you give to a candidate’s policies on science and technology?
This post has been updated.All of the popular weight loss programs will work, as long as you stick to it, finds a new study involving McMaster University.
The study found "minimal" differences in popular programs such as Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers.
"I think this is a really nice, important message. The good news is they work," said Bradley Johnston, the study's lead author. "The take-home message is people don't have to fret over the type of diet they choose."
The key, said Johnston, is support and the ability to stick with whichever diet program you choose.
Adherence is the key factor. The fundamentals of losing weight have not changed. Bradley Johnston professor of clinical epidemiology at McMaster University
Diets with support and exercise enhance the chances of weight loss, said Johnston, who is an assistant professor of clinical epidemiology of the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine at McMaster University and clinical epidemiologist and scientist at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children.
"Adherence is the key factor," Johnston stressed. "The fundamentals of losing weight have not changed."
The study was published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Diet programs studied were Atkins, Weight Watchers, Zone, Jenny Craig, LEARN, Nutrisystem, Ornish, Volumetrics, Rosemary Conley, Slimming World and South Beach.
It involved a major analysis of 48 trials of "branded diets" and included more than 7,200 overweight and obese adults.
The study found there was little difference in weight loss among programs that promote low-carb diets and those which stress a low-fat diet. After a six-month followup, people on low-carbohydrate diets lost 19 more pounds than those who were not on a diet, while those on low-fat diets lost 17 more pounds than those on no diet. After 12 months, about two to three pounds of that difference was gone and there was no difference between low-carbohydrate and low-fat diets.President Obama met with families and first responders in Vilonia today, after taking a tour of the damage caused by the April 27 tornado.
Obama delivered remarks after walking through the Parkwood Meadows neighborhood, which was largely leveled during the storm. He promised federal government help as the town rebuilds.
“Folks here are tough. They look out for one another. And that’s been especially clear over the past week,” Obama said. “Your country’s going to be there for you.”
Obama was accompanied by Gov. Mike Beebe, Sen. Mark Pryor, and Cong. Tim Griffin as he flew over the damage in Marine One. The president declared a major disaster shortly after the storm hit to streamline federal assistance to affected communities.
This was Obama’s first visit to Arkansas as president. After spending about two and a half hours on the ground, the president departed shortly after 3 pm en route to Los Angeles.
You can watch video of his remarks here from our content partner, Ch. 7 News.
Comments
commentsCelestia's mane How-do-they-work??
This was suppose to be like a mother/daughter picture that I suppose to finish long time ago, even though its not mother's day in my country, but I just want to randomly join the bandwagon..
Then I remember in some bronycon or some random con a year ago, that has Andrea Libman alone in it, (or was she with Ashleigh, and Nicole Oliver? idk) whatever I think she was alone, and some fans asked her about which one is her favorite voice actress, she said Nicole, and I think she said "Read me a bed time story" after that I found some comment on the video below, a picture of Celestia reading a bedtime story to Fluttershy and Pinkie, that's such an adorable idea. except Fluttershy isn't here..
I'm going to use that idea. cause, y'know, how bad I am with titles.
ah well whether or not its true, or I just misheard.
Also, I remember I saw a PieLestia(?) fic in fanfiction.net.
SoooHey! a new ship is always nice, right?
Edit: did a little blur
and cropping
Characters, I do not own them
This art, I own themAnimal ethics statement
All animal studies have been approved by the Research Institute for Spinal Cord Injury of Sun Yat-sen University. All animal studies have been performed in accordance with the ethical standards laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments.
Materials
SPF grade female Sprague Dawley rats were purchased from the animal center of Sun Yat-sen University. The abortion embryos (2–3-month old) from cynomolgus monkeys were provided by South China Primate Research and Development Center. The NYU MASCIS impactor was provided by the Spinal Cord Injury Institute of Sun Yat-sen University. Poly-l-lysine (15–30 kDa), Hoechst 33342 fluorescent dyes, ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid, B27, N2, basic fibroblast growth factor and epidermal growth factor were purchased from Sigma (St Louis, MO, USA). Trypsin, fetal bovine serum and DMEM/F12 cell culture powder were purchased from Gibco (Grand Island, NY, USA). The analytical reagents paraformaldehyde and NaHCO 3 were purchased from Beijing Chemical Reagent Company, Beijing, China. Goat blocking serum was purchased from Wuhan Boshide Bio Inc (Wuhan, China). Rabbit nestin, MAP2, Oligo, GFAP monoclonal antibody, goat anti-rabbit IgG-Cy3 and goat anti-rabbit IgG-FITC (fluoroscein isothiocyanate) were purchased from Abcam (Cambridge, MA, USA). CM-DiI dye was purchased from Molecular Probes (Eugene, OR, USA). The self-assembling peptide gel was obtained from the Center for Biomedical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as a gift.
Isolation, identification, culture and differentiation of primate NSCs
The subventricular zone was dissected from the abortion embryonic brain tissue of 2–3-month-old cynomolgus monkeys under sterile conditions. The vessels and fascia were carefully removed from the subventricular zone in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) at 4 °C under a dissecting microscope. The subventricular tissue was cut into small pieces (1 mm3) and digested in 0.1% trypsin for 20 min. Digestion was terminated using 5% fetal bovine serum and passed through a filter to form a single-cell suspension. After centrifugation at 1000 r.p.m. and 4 °C for 10 min, the cell pellet was re-suspended in serum-free DMEM/F12 containing B27 (1:50), epidermal growth factor (20 μg l−1), basic fibroblast growth factor (20 μg l−1) and N2 (1:100). The cells were inoculated in a 12-well culture plate at a density of 2 × 108 cells per liter and cultured in an incubator of 5% CO 2 at 37 °C. After 7 days of culture, half culture medium was replaced by serum-free DMEM/F12. The first passage was generated after 2 weeks of culture, and cells of the third passage with good growth performance were stained with nesting.
Differentiation of NSCs
A single-cell suspension was generated by softly blowing NSC clones. The cells were inoculated into a serum-free normal culture medium in a 24-well culture plate with a poly-l-lysine-coated coverslip at a density of 2 × 108 cells per liter and cultured for 3 days. The culture medium was replaced by the DMEM/F12 medium containing 5% fetal bovine serum and cultured for 7 days. The cells attached on the coverslip were fixed and incubated with neuronal marker MAP2, astrocyte marker GFAP and oligodendrocyte marker Oligo for immunofluorescence staining.
Culture of NSCs with self-assembling peptide nanofiber scaffold
The sterilized self-assembled peptide nanofiber powder was dissolved in filter-sterilized triple-distilled water 1% (w/v; 10 mg ml−1). The self-assembled peptide nanofiber solution was transferred onto a 96-well culture plate (30 μl per well) and mixed with the DMEM/F12 culture medium (200 μl per well). The plate was incubated in an incubator at 37 °C for 30 min to allow the self-assembly of peptide nanofibers. The supernatant was removed by pipetting. The subcultured NSC clones were gently dispersed by pipetting to generate single-cell suspension. The NSCs were inoculated into the 96-well plate at a density of 2 × 108 cells per liter, in which the self-assembling peptide nanofiber scaffold was previously prepared, and cultured in the serum-free DMEM/F12 medium that was replaced by the DMEM/F12 medium containing 5% fetal bovine serum after 3 days of subculture. The NSCs were fixed by 4% paraformaldehyde after 7 days of culture in the DMEM/F12 medium containing 5% fetal bovine serum for immunofluorescence staining of neuronal marker MAP 2, astrocyte marker GFAP, conduct neuronal marker MAP2, astrocyte marker GFAP and oligodendrocytes marker Oligo. After immunofluorescence staining, the NSCs were examined under confocal microscopy to investigate the location and density of these molecular markers.
Establishment of the animal model of SCI and transplant of NSCs
Cells preparation before transplantation: the NSCs were inoculated into the 70mm culture plate at a density of 2 × 108 cells per liter, in which the self-assembling peptide nanofiber scaffold was previously prepared, after 6 days, collecting the cells by using the scraper. The cells were incubated in CM-DiI PBS solution (2 μg ml−1), 37 °C for 30 min and then 4 °C for 30 min; finally, the cells were washed twice with PBS, adjusting the cells at a density of 5 × 109 cells per liter.
NIH guidelines for laboratory animal care and safety were strictly followed. The animals had free access to food and water throughout the study. Fifty female s.d. rats (200–250 g) were anesthetized by intraperitoneal injection of 10% chloral hydrate (350 mg kg−1 body weight). Ten minutes after the injection, the rats were under general anesthesia. The rats were fixed on a board to remove the back hair. After conventional iodine disinfection, an incision on the back at the T10 level was applied to expose the thoracic laminectomy. The T10 lamina was removed using micro-scissors to expose the dura. The T10 spinal cord was injured using a NYU MASCIS impactor (10 g × 50 mm). The rats with SCI were randomly divided into four groups. The NSC plus self-assembling peptide scaffold group (n=15) was transplanted with 5 μl primate NSCs cultured in self-assembling peptide nanofiber scaffolds. The NSC group (n=15) was transplanted with primate 5 μl NSCs. The self-assembling peptide scaffold group (n=10) was transplanted with 5 μl self-assembling peptide nanofiber scaffolds. The control group (n=10) was the controls without any transplantation. The NSCs, NSCs cultured in self-assembling peptide nanofiber scaffolds or self-assembling peptide nanofiber scaffolds were injected into the center, proximal (1 mm) and distal ends (1 mm) of the injured spinal cord at the depth of 1 mm using a microinjector under a three-dimensional positioning system. The microinjector was pulled out 1 min after the injection, and the incision was closed by suturing muscle and skin. One milliliter of 0.09% NaCl and 5% carprofen (3 mg kg−1) was injected subcutaneously during the time animals recover from anesthesia. After recovering from anesthesia, the animals were housed separately according to the groups mentioned above, postoperative rats at 37 °C constant temperature with an electric blanket for every cage, with free diet, and a dropper to feed brine sugar when necessary. Antibiotic (amoxicillin sodium) was administrated by intraperitoneal injection after the surgery to prevent urinary tract infection. The animals had their bladder manually emptied twice daily until recovery of micturition and were carefully inspected for weight loss and dehydration.
A segment (approximately 2 cm) of spinal cord T9–T11 was dissected under anesthesia after 2, 4 and 8 weeks of the injection of NSCs, NSCs cultured in self-assembling peptide nanofiber scaffolds or self-assembling peptide nanofiber scaffolds. After careful removal of scar tissues, the dissected spinal cord was fixed in 4% paraformaldehyde for 24 h, followed by dehydration in 30% sucrose for 48 h. Frozen sections (4 μm) were produced for immunofluorescence staining of Nestin, GFAP, MAP2 and Oligo. The post-injury motor behavior of both hind limbs was assessed using the Basso, Beattie and Bresnahan (BBB) locomotor scale method between the first and 10th weeks after SCI experiment.
Immunofluorescence assays
The cells or sections were fixed in cold acetone for 20 min and washed three times with PBS for 5 min. After being treated with 3% hydrogen peroxide to block endogenous peroxidase for 20 min, the cells or sections were washed three times with PBS for 5 min and blocked with goat serum at 37 °C for 30 min. After the removal of the blocking solution, 50 μl anti-mouse primary antibodies including anti-nestin, NeuN, NSE, NF-M, GFAP (1:100 dilution) were added onto the cells or tissues and incubated in an incubator at 4 °C. PBS was used as the negative control. After overnight incubation, the cells or sections were washed three times with PBS for 5 min and dried in air. The slides were sealed and examined under the microscope.
Assessment of the motor behavior based on the BBB locomotor scale
The BBB locomotor scale method was first proposed by researchers in the Ohio University in 1995 to assess the functional recovery of SCI.6 This method is specifically useful for evaluating the functional recovery of hind limbs in rats with thoracic cord injury. The BBB method details the evaluation of the functional recovery of spinal cord functions in many animals. The grade of BBB score is consistent with the functional recovery of injured spinal cord, and each BBB score has independent assessment criteria.
In the present study, a double-blind BBB evaluation was conducted by two independent researchers, and the mean value was used to finally assess the functional recovery of hind limbs. The BBB score was determined weekly 1 day after NSC injection. Bladder massage was conducted for urination before the BBB assessment to avoid the influence of a full bladder on the movement of animals. The following movements were included in the BBB assessment, including the activity of hind hips, knees, ankles, the torso and abdomen status (deformity, stable walking, whether the abdomen touched the ground when walking), the status of claws when touching the ground (internal rotation, external rotation, or parallel), the gait and the hind paw and the tail status.
Statistical analyses
The results are expressed as mean±standard deviation. Statistical analyses were performed using the SAS8.0 package. The differences between the two groups were analyzed using analysis of variance for completely randomized experimental design. P-value <0.05 was considered statistically significant.Roberto Martinez has revealed Tom Cleverley and Leighton Baines could be in line for early returns against Manchester United next month.
The Blues duo are recovering from injuries sustained against Tottenham and on the eve of the season respectively.
But ahead of Monday evening’s game against West Brom, Martinez disclosed how his treatment room is slowly emptying, with Cleverley's recovery on course to be three weeks ahead of schedule.
“Tom avoided surgery and tomorrow he will be running on the grass and he wants to play against Manchester United,” Martinez said.
“That is a realistic target and is three weeks earlier than we thought. Leighton is the same."
Having already confirmed John Stones and Seamus Coleman would not be ruled out of contention for the Hawthorns clash, the manager also offered further updates on four other Blues currently out of action.
"Bryan Oviedo is fine and working with the group tomorrow and so is Aiden McGeady.
"Tony Hibbert will be on the grass after the international break, as will Steven Pienaar.”Former Palestinian prime minister and senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniya (L) attend during a rally organized by Islamic Hamas group a rally honoring 24,000 Palestinians who memorized the Koran, organized by Dar al-Koran association in Gaza City September 12, 2010. UPI/Ismael Mohamad. | License Photo
GAZA, Oct. 13 (UPI) -- Hamas security forces in Gaza shut down the headquarters of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate without any explanation, a Palestinian journalist said.
Tahseen al-Astal, a member of the press union's general secretariat told Ma'an news agency that forces raided the offices Tuesday and shut them down without explanation. Astal said the security forces informed the journalists that they were acting on a decision made by the local Ministry of Interior in Gaza.
The syndicate's offices in Ramallah condemned the move and issued a statement saying, "this crime comes as the syndicate organized workshops to unite journalists."
"Hamas leaders and security forces carry full responsibility for the lives of journalists in Gaza," the statement said, adding that the syndicate demanded Hamas reverse the decision and issue an apology to the union leadership, the news agency said.
The agency said the syndicate is the largest Palestinian press organization, and a delegate to the International Federation of Journalists has been accused in recent months of taking a pro-Fatah stance.
Hamas rival Fatah is in power on the West Bank.Dr. Victor Dostov is one of the leading experts and managers in Russian retail payment sectors. He has served as the President of the Russian Electronic Money Association since 2009.
Since 1999, Dr Dostov was a managing partner and one of the founders of the PayCash Group involved in technological engineering, project management, investment and consulting in retail payments. The PayCash Group launched such projects as Yandex.Money, Mobi.Dengi, iDealer, Beeline e-commerce, and many others. Victor was on the Board of the PayCash Group, Mobi.Dengi payment company, Director for new payment technologies in Tavrichesky Bank and other businesses.
Dr Dostov took part in regulatory consultations under the auspices of the Russian Central Bank, Infocommunication Union, Mobey Forum, GSMA and participated in devising regulations for the pre-paid cards and other pre-paid products. He consulted supervisory authorities in Russia and Ukraine as well.
He also takes part in the Consultative Council on AML/CFT matters, Multiagency Council on optimization of payments, Technical Committee “Mobile payments” of the Russian Central Bank, Expert Council on non-bank organizations, microfinancing and credit cooperation of the State Duma Committee on financial markets. Lastly, Dr Dostov is an active participant at conferences and roundtables on retail payments and is the author of multiple publications on the issues of retail financial services.
With such an extensive track record and experience in pioneering digital payments in Russia, Cointelegraph could not pass up the opportunity to ask Victor some questions on Bitcoin in Russia and get his thoughts on the proposed legislation banning cryptocurrencies and all related information in the world’s biggest country.
Cointelegraph: How does the Russian Electronic Money Association view cryptocurrencies?
Victor Dostov: Russian EMA represents the largest payment businesses in Russia. One of our duties as an industrial association is to study new payment technologies and increase awareness of the public about innovative ways to pay. And from this standpoint, I think that Bitcoin and its analogues represent a great new generation of digital cash invented back in the 1980-s by David Chaum.
This technology is certainly a breakthrough in payments. We do not think that cryptocurrencies and the existing payment methods (such as e-money or payments from prepaid mobile accounts) should necessarily compete. For our members and the Bitcoin community alike, creating products that would inherit the best of both worlds is the most preferable goal.
CT: We have heard the Central Bank’s statement on cryptocurrencies, but do the authorities acknowledge any of the blockchain technology’s benefits?
VD: Unfortunately, at this moment we have not heard any clear acknowledgement of the technology’s benefits from the authorities. Representatives of some large Russian banks (including state-owned) expressed their interest in cryptocurrencies, however. My understanding is that Russian officials have yet very limited knowledge about the advantages of this instrument.
“[I]t is sometimes very difficult to promote the technology when some in the Bitcoin community position it as overtly anti-state.” -Victor Dostov
Some of the government agencies have asked us about the gist of Bitcoin but for now there are surprisingly more requests for our expertise on the subject from abroad rather than from within the country. I do hope that this will change. But it is sometimes very difficult to promote the technology when some in the Bitcoin community position it as overtly anti-state: sad but true.
CT: Many publications such as Bloomberg and the WSJ have stated that Bitcoin technology is here to stay. Do you think it possible to integrate blockchain technology with the national monetary system in Russia similar to what has been proposed in Ecuador and the Philippines?
VD: I completely agree that the technology will be used further and in more projects in the upcoming decade. Yet, at this stage I am quite skeptical about its integration with national monetary system, be it in Russia and elsewhere. One thing is a conservative nature of the monetary policies: sometimes it is easier and cheaper to keep old ways instead of exploring something new. States need to know the exact, quantifiable benefits and should be aware of the associated costs first.
Second are the benefits for the customers. This may sound surprising but users in general do not like and do not benefit from anonymity. They want their payment instruments to be restored in case of theft, destruction, etc., with funds intact. Classic digital cash does not allow this and this is one of the reasons why first digital cash projects in the 1990-s (e.g. Digicash) were unsuccessful.
Speaking about Russia specifically, I think that this can be a point in discussion within the Central Bank in 5-10 years, minimum.
“I do not think that fines and a ban is a way to handle the risks that cryptocurrencies pose, just as any other technology.” -Victor Dostov
CT: What is your opinion on the fines proposed by the Russian authorities on the use and issuing of cryptocurrencies?
VD: We are concerned about the proposed legislation. I do not think that fines and a ban is a way to handle the risks that cryptocurrencies pose, just as any other technology. Probably, this approach of the Government is based on the limited understanding of the prospects cryptocurrencies have in the long run. At this point I can only say that we have informed the Ministry of Finance about our concerns and the potential drawbacks associated with the prohibitive approach.
CT: And what is your opinion on the Russian government proposing to ban all information related to cryptocurrencies?
VD: The proposal to ban the dissemination of information related to the issuing and transfer of the ‘payment surrogates’ is a logical way to enforce the prohibition of cryptocurrencies. Due to the decentralized nature of this technology, the authorities will have trouble finding parties to the transactions. But Russian regulation allows the issue of an order for all Internet providers in the country to ban access to certain websites.
“Technically, all websites providing software, web services and even the Wikipedia page on Bitcoin will be ultimately banned in Russia.” -Victor Dostov
Now, such measures are taken only against child pornography, information about suicide, drugs, and extremist materials. The approach of the legal draft is extreme and, if adopted, will significantly limit access to the information on cryptocurrencies. Technically, all websites providing software, web services and even the Wikipedia page on Bitcoin will be ultimately banned in Russia.
CT: If passed, do you think these regulations could be enforced given that the currency is decentralized similar to the internet? Does this not imply state control of the internet as well?
VD: I think that Internet is already more regulated than we like to think. Some degree of control is exercised in many countries. In China it is censored by the Great Firewall, in Russia Internet providers are made to block access to some websites, in the EU ‘the right to be forgotten’ can now be used. Fact is the transport for information is more or less decentralized. Websites, web services are not: they are always somewhere.
Whether we like it or not, states will regulate the Internet and that has nothing to do with Bitcoin. We have already seen this in payments: today almost no state wants foreign companies to process transactions for their citizens. I am pretty sure that in 15 years Google will find itself as much regulated in most countries as Visa and Mastercard now are. It is not the regulation itself but striking the right balance I am mostly concerned about.
CT: Bitcoin expert Andreas Antonopoulos appeared before a Canadian Senate and stated “I think this technology needs time to breathe, it needs time to show the full potential of what is possible with decentralized, programmable money”. Your thoughts?
VD: I do agree. Come to think about it that is true for any technology. If we tried to limit the expansion of the Internet, who knows what it would look like now. Same goes to any technological innovation. Will decentralized cryptocurrency change the way we pay? I do not know. And truth is, at this point, no one does.
Should we continue to explore the possibilities? Certainly. My belief is that the state should step back a little, at least for now. But regulation will be inevitable - this is one of the lessons history teaches us. I know that many Bitcoin users do not want that, but this is a fact.
CT: Many people have called Bitcoin the greatest invention since the Internet. Are there any concerns that Russia will be left behind with respect to technological innovation compared to more Bitcoin-friendly jurisdictions and tech-hubs such as the State of California, Isle of Man, Denmark etc.?
VD: This is one of the concerns we relayed to the Russian Ministry of Finance. From a legal perspective, I like to think about Bitcoin as a litmus test for regulation. Regulative approach towards cryptocurrencies reflects its flexibility and susceptibility to innovation.
This summer I spoke at the first large Bitcoin Russian conference in Saint-Petersburg and saw many bright entrepreneurs and researchers who presented their projects. Overly strict regulation will regrettably push them outside the country and Russia will definitely lose in this jurisdictional arbitrage. I still hope that it will not be the case. But this is one of the biggest concerns to date.
CT: Do you think Bitcoin has a future in Russia?
VD: At this point, I do not think that Bitcoin can become a mainstream mean of payment in Russia. We have rather elaborate and cheap payment products based on e-money transfers and payment cards. For example, Russia is the first country to make Visa card-to-card transfer. The other thing is technology itself. If the regulator opts for a milder approach, Russian businesses will be open to embrace its benefits, just as their counterparts in any other country.
President of the Russian Electronic Money Association Russia, Victor Dostov, will be taking part in a panel discussion at Mobile Money Global entitled ‘What will the dominant payments channels look like in 2024?’ Money & Digital Payments Global will take place November 18 - 20 at Wyndham Grand Istanbul Levent in Turkey.
Did you enjoy this article? You may also be interested in reading these ones:As affected groups worldwide take in news of Donald Trump’s renewal of a policy that has dire implications for family planning, Médecins Sans Frontières has aimed a broadside at the US president’s stance
Médecins Sans Frontières has told the Trump administration to stop “playing politics” with women’s rights and other global health efforts after the new US president reintroduced a policy likely to affect millions of women and girls around the world.
The “global gag rule”, which was reinstated by Donald Trump on Monday, withholds USAid funding from any overseas family planning organisation that offers or provides information about abortions.
The rule also affects civil society programmes, such as contraception provision, and campaigns for LGBT communities and teenage girls. Work to combat HIV and Aids, cervical cancer and Zika will likewise suffer.
MSF is not directly affected by the gag rule since it relies on donations rather than US government funds to provide its services. Nonetheless, the organisation pointed out that it treats women and girls with abortion-related complications daily.
'Global gag rule' could have dire impact in Latin America, activists warn Read more
Unsafe abortion is one of the five main causes of maternal mortality worldwide. The World Health Organisation has said that rates are even higher in certain regions – not least Latin America – and in contexts such as refugee camps and areas affected by conflict.
“The medical consequences of unsafe abortion are dire and should be treated as such,” said Jason Cone, executive director for MSF in the US.
“Governments should not play politics with the lives of women and girls. No matter what the risk or barrier, women will continue to seek ways to end pregnancies and they will continue to needlessly die if safe abortion care is not accessible. The Trump administration needs to face these facts and end policies that endanger the lives of women and girls.”
Below we look at groups likely to be particularly hampered by the gag rule around the world.
Teenage girls
Globally, roughly 16 million girls aged 15-19 – and an additional 1 million girls under 15 – give birth each year, according to the World Health Organization. The majority of these girls live in low- and middle-income countries, and many of them lack access to sex education and contraception. Roughly three million unsafe abortions among 15- to 19-year-old girls take place each year, the WHO estimates, which can lead to lasting health problems and in some cases maternal death.
Bernard Washiaka, programme manager for Family Health Options Kenya, one of the country’s main providers of sexual and reproductive health services, says an end to its programmes would have a major effect on many women and young girls.
Dutch respond to Trump's 'gag rule' with international safe abortion fund Read more
“We live in a patriarchal, male-dominated society and the advice and information we offer helps to empower girls,” he says. “They can enjoy their sexuality while avoiding unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. The services are entirely voluntary and based on the decisions of the girls, but we have seen the impact they have … Girls are able to stay in school for longer, which opens up a world of opportunity.”
In Uganda, where 78% of the population is under 30 and fertility rates are among the world’s highest, access to much-needed contraceptives will be severely restricted, particularly in rural communities, said Jackson Chekweko, executive director of Reproductive Health Uganda. A successful pilot initiative that distributes Sayana Press, a three-month injectable contraceptive combining the drug and needle in one unit, would likely come to an end because of lack of funding.
“As well as reaching more people with family planning services, we need to give women more choices about the form of contraception they want. Sayana Press does that,” he says.
LGBT communities
The global gag rule will also severely impact global LGBT communities, many of which already face severe marginalisation. Lesbian and bisexual women are between two and 10 times likelier to get pregnant – and are also at higher risk of sexual assault – than their heterosexual peers, according to the US National Centre for Lesbian Rights.
In countries where some people believe rape can “reverse” homosexuality, LGBT communities are particularly threatened as sexual assault can lead to unwanted pregnancy. In India, for example, where it is illegal to be gay, health groups have become increasingly reliant on US funding, often discreetly delivered, for programmes aimed at promoting LGBT rights and safety.
Rupsa Mallik, a director at the feminist human rights organisation Crea, said these groups would now have to make “a tough call” on whether to continue such work, if it meant also dropping any abortion services they provided.
HIV and Aids communities
Young women and teenage girls are at a disproportionately higher risk of contracting HIV and Aids: those aged 15 to 24 accounted for 60% of all new HIV infections among young people in 2013, while a UN report found that 80% of young women with HIV live in sub-Saharan Africa.
The gag rule is likely to prevent them from accessing contraceptives and counselling services, as well as limiting family planning programmes that could prevent future mother-to-child transmissions.
Kalpana Apte, secretary general of the Family Planning Association of India, said programmes that address HIV and Aids, maternal and child health, cervical cancer screening [and] gender-based violence would be affected by Trump’s ruling.
The US invests roughly $20m (£16m) annually in Indian health programmes in areas that include family planning but also target tuberculosis, and improved nutrition and sanitation. Funding for all of these is now subject to the gag.
“We stand to face significant reduction in our core grants [and] expect that in times to come, we may have to close our outreach services, satellite centres and reduce the staff strength,” Apte said. “It will hit the programme very hard.”
Victims of rape, and Zika-affected populations
In predominantly Catholic Latin America and the Caribbean, anti-abortion laws have come under stricter interpretation in recent years – a trend that is likely to be bolstered by Monday’s ruling. Terminating pregnancies is already a minefield: more than 97% of women of child-bearing age in the region live in countries where abortion is restricted or illegal. Even in countries where it is legal, the gag rule is likely to wipe out any assistance to women who require abortion – say in cases of rape – campaigners claim. In Peru, it is estimated that 13% of all maternal deaths are the result of back-street abortions gone wrong.
For women and girls in Zika-affected areas, being able to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is likely to become even more difficult because of the ruling. In Haiti, only 34% of women have access to contraception, while in El Salvador, almost 90% of pregnancies are unplanned. In Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua as well, groups that work on Zika prevention and family planning could lose funding if their US partners are deemed to fall foul of the gag rule in any way.Behance Cofounder’s Design Secret: Ignore the Internet
Belinda Lanks Blocked Unblock Follow Following Oct 13, 2016
Matias Corea opens up about the Adobe acquisition, the beauty of analog inspiration, and why designers need to stop scrolling.
Matias Corea has lived the entrepreneurial designer’s dream. In 2006, he, along with Scott Belsky, founded Behance, an online portfolio platform that became the place for creatives to showcase their work. Six years later, they sold the company to Adobe for a reported $150 million.
The union seemed like a perfect match: Adobe builds much of the software, such as Photoshop and Acrobat, that designers use to make stuff; Behance provides a place to promote that stuff. But two years after the acquisition, Corea left Adobe, citing cultural differences: “It’s an engineering company,” he says. “There’s not one executive who’s a designer. I was tired of being in meetings having to ask permission to do something from people who know very little about design.”
The Barcelona-born designer now spends most of his time on pursuits outside of design — learning to repair motorcycles, make films, and write stories. But he remains opinionated about the right and wrong ways to stoke a designer’s |
welcome all members of the National Guard and service they provide and all the talent they provide regardless of their gender or orientation,” Inslee said in a news conference.
Ferguson's office sent a news release on Monday afternoon that argued the ban “constitutes undisguised sex and gender identity discrimination."
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Why Trump wants a ban?
Trump sent a series of tweets in July how the military could not be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that “transgender in the military would entail.” It came as the military faced a deadline for updating its medical standards to accommodate transgender service members.
After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow...... — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2017
....Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming..... — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2017
In August, Trump signed a directive ordering a ban on transgender people serving, but it deferred to the Pentagon on how to remove those in uniform.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told The New York Times that a panel will analyze the ban and that transgender members will be able to serve pending the results of a study.
The ban reverses an Obama-era military policy in operation since last year, which allowed transgender service members to serve openly in the military.
What's in the motion?
In the motion to intervene, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, Ferguson argues the ban "serves no legitimate purpose and its implementation will have significant, damaging impacts on the State of Washington and its residents.”
Washington is home to approximately 60,000 active, reserve and National Guard members. The court will make its decision sometime after a three-week “noting period” has elapsed.
Washington state already a leader for transgender people in military
In June, Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed an amicus brief, along with eight others states,in a lawsuit that wants to change a Department of Veteran Affairs rule that denies surgical services to transgender veterans.
The brief is part of a lawsuit brought by Marine Corps veteran Dee Fulcher and U.S. Army veteran Giuliano Silva.
Silva, 26, wrote in a blog post he was denied coverage for a doctor-recommended mastectomy for back pain, and it lead to early retirement from service.
Marine Corps veteran Dee Fulcher, Army veteran Giuliano Silva and other transgender veterans asked the VA last year to change the 1999 rule.(Photo credit: Lambda Legal)
“My doctor told me that I needed to have surgery because of my severe back pain, but simply because I am transgender, a procedure that is available to thousands of other veterans will not be covered by the VA for me,” Silva wrote. “I made a commitment to the Army and I kept it until I retired, but it is heartbreaking for me that this policy on transition-related surgery keeps the VA from upholding its duty to me.”
Fulcher and Silva's lawsuit is not directly involved in Trump’s ban. Medical standards for military branches are under of the Department of Defense, whereas Fulcher and Silva's case is against the VA.
But Ferguson's brief in the lawsuit does talk about the claim regarding unmanageable costs for transgender veterans’ health care.
Ferguson’s team argues that covering sex reassignment surgery will not significantly raise health care costs and premiums. And that the costs associated with negative health effects could burden the states, according to the legal team’s argument.
How would health care costs be impacted?
President Trump's assertion that permitting transgender people in the armed services entails major health care costs appears to be overblown, based on estimates from the think tank RAND, which was asked by the Department of Defense to study the issue last year.
Health care costs for treating active members who want to transition to another gender would increase by between $2.4 million to $8.4 million annually, RAND found. That translates to 0.04 percent to 0.13 percent of the agency's annual spending on health care.
A supporter of LGBT rights holds up an "equality flag" on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, July 26, 2017, during an event held by Rep. Joe Kennedy, D-Mass. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
"Our study found that the number of U.S. transgender service members who are likely to seek transition-related care is so small that a change in policy will likely have a marginal impact on health care costs and the readiness of the force," the Rand researchers wrote.
Some military personnel are already in the process of changing gender, or have been formally approved to change gender. The numbers are small, however, with the Associated Press noting it currently stands at about 250 service members.
© 2019 Cox Media Group.A jetBlue pilot flipped out Tuesday on a flight from New York to Las Vegas, running up and down the aisle raving about terrorists and bombs after his frightened co-pilot locked him out of the cockpit.
Capt. Clayton Osbon's midair breakdown happened to take place on a flight packed with burly New Yorkers traveling to an international security conference — several of whom tackled Osbon and sat on him until the plane made an emergency landing in Texas an hour later.
"They're going to take us down, they're going to take us down. Say the Lord's Prayer, say the Lord's Prayer," the captain hollered, according to Anthony Antolino, 40, from Rye, Westchester County, one of the four men who leapt to restrain the captain when he made a move toward the emergency exit.
An off-duty jetBlue pilot who happened to be on the flight helped land the plane, the airline said.
Osbon, 49, a Wisconsin native who lives in Savannah, Ga., is a Flight Standards Pilot for jetBlue. His wife of seven years, Connye, a massage therapist, could not be reached but was distraught in a brief interview with ABC.
"I have no idea what's going on. I haven't spoken with him," she said. "There are several different sides to every story. Just keep that in mind."
Christine Lucas, a magazine writer who profiled Osbon last year, called him a quintessential pilot: confident, outgoing and seemingly happy.
"Obviously, I'm not qualified to make statements about his mental health, but he's not remotely the kind of guy you would expect this to happen to," she said.
According to witness accounts, Osbon had some sort of breakdown inside the cockpit about two hours into Flight 191, which had taken off at 7:28 a.m. from JFK Airport with 135 passengers and five crew members.
The co-pilot coaxed him out of the cockpit, then locked him out and wouldn't let him back in.
The crazed captain banged on the door, then started running up and down the aisles screaming about bombs, passengers said.
One passenger quoted the pilot saying, "Iraq, Al Qaeda, terrorism, we're all going down."
Then a flight attendant got on the public address system and screamed, "Restrain him!"
Retired NYPD Sgt. Paul Babakitis, 51, Antolino and two other men leapt into action as the 6 foot-4, 250-pound pilot began banging on the cockpit door.
"As we were restraining him, pulling him away from the cockpit door, he was saying 'We got Iraq, we got Afghanistan, they're going to take us down too,' " Antolino heard Osbon say.
Babakitis, who spent 22 years on the force, said that his NYPD training kicked in.
"We each grabbed a different part of his body and we just threw him to the ground," he said.
The hulking pilot struggled with the men, screaming, "I'm distraught. I'm distraught," Antolino said.
A flight attendant handed the men disposable handcuffs, but the furious pilot broke the ties.
Babakitis, who was sitting in aisle seat 7C, said that despite Osbon's jetBlue uniform, he assumed the crazed pilot was intent on downing the plane.
"I viewed him as a terrorist," said Babakitis, who runs PGB Executive Investigations in Jericho, L.I. "I did't view him as pilot, but a person who wanted to do harm to the plane and everyone on it."
Babakitis, Antolino and some of the other men heading to the 2012 International Security Conference in Las Vegas restrained the squirming, cursing pilot until the emergency landing in Texas an hour later.
"He picked the wrong plane. Huge guys just tackled him," one passenger said.
Antolino, an executive at Eyelock Corp., said the biggest hero was the co-pilot who locked out Osbon.
"He was in a state of mental crisis. He was foaming at the mouth, erratic — it got progressively worse. In his mental state, it could have been a tragedy today," he said.
At the airport in Amarillo, the flight was met by police, and Osbon was taken to a hospital with an undisclosed medical condition, jetBlue said.
A passenger's photo showed him being wheeled onto the tarmac on a dolly, his hands tied behind his back.
The shaken passengers boarded a new plane to Vegas a few hours later, jetBlue said.
According to a 2011 magazine profile of Osbon, he spent his life flying and has flown 35 different types of aircraft. He did a stint piloting luxury jets around the world and lived in Portugal and France.
He tried to fly for the Navy but didn't make the cut because of an astigmatism in his right eye.
"That broke my heart a little bit," he told Lucas, who wrote him up for last year's Richmond Hill Reflections "Guys in the Sky Issue."
Osbon has been flying for jetBlue since the airline launched in 2000 and has a sideline selling weight-loss products, including a "shake mix that tastes like a cake mix."
He told Lucas he'd like to start a new career as a motivational speaker.
"I'd like to think the world is more than just getting up in the morning, making a cup of coffee, going to work, coming home, kissing your wife good-night and going to bed," he said.
A grandfather, devout Christian and conservative Republican, his Facebook page lists two activities: "Working Hard" and "Praising God."
A neighbor in Georgia who declined to be named called Osbon "perfectly normal."
"One of his hobbies is kayaking. He's very laid back guy as far as I can tell," he said. "He's helpful if you ask him for something. I don't think he has ever had any problems with anyone here."
Two years ago, jetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater made global headlines when he quit dramatically by cursing out an aircraft full of passengers, grabbing two beers and exiting the plane by deploying the emergency slide.
With Sarah Armaghan
hkennedy@nydailynews.comFor, oh, about 2 years now, every time we do a lens teardown I get emails from Fuji shooters asking me to tear down one of their lenses. There are several reasons we haven’t. For one thing, we have far fewer copies of those lenses so there is less reason to work on them. Since we can’t get parts for them, chances are we couldn’t fix what’s wrong even if we did open them up.
Probably more realistic, though, is the fact that we are just plain and simply scared of them. Fuji lenses are really different inside, we’ve seen that from some quick peeks in the past. Since we have no experience with them, the chance of making idiots of ourselves during a teardown is significant. But we finally decided to face our fears because we had a nice, water-killed copy of the Fuji XF 55-200mm f/3.5-4.8 R LM OIS lens sitting on the parts shelf. After about 6 months, Aaron and I finally got the time and courage to take it apart.
Looking a bit worn, but anatomically correct, the Fuji 55-200mm is our subject for the day. Lensrentals.com, 2016
Plus, there were some things we were interested in seeing. First among these, of course, was the ‘dual linear focusing motor’ assembly. While this is a consumer-priced lens, it gets excellent reviews and has a very well-built external feel with its metal barrel. We were kind of interested in seeing how well-built it was inside. Most importantly, though, we just wanted to face our fears and explore the land of Fuji, where things are done differently.
We’ll start our adventure at the front of the lens. There’s a nice metal makeup ring that peels up. Underneath it is a plastic base ring that is there just for the makeup ring to stick to. The base ring can be removed by taking out 4 small screws after you peel up the makeup ring. Notice I say ‘can be’. If you look closely at the picture below you can see it’s staged with a broken piece of the plastic base ring stuck to the makeup ring Aaron (I repeat, Aaron) is pulling up. But don’t say anything, he’s kind of embarrassed about it and I promised I wouldn’t mention it to anyone.
Lensrentals.com, 2016
Anyway, with the makeup rings removed we are looking down at the front of the lens. Things are already a bit different and more complex than with most lenses, so I thought I’d further complicate this picture with some colored lines. The green lines show two of the 4 holes where the makeup ring screws were before we removed them. The blue lines point to the screws holding the front filter barrel in place. The red lines point to to the positions for the screws holding the front element group in place.
Lensrentals.com, 2016
Having this many screws in the front barrel is different (the most we’ve seen), but there’s something much weirder going on here. If you notice the red lines you’ll see that there are only screws at 3 of the 4 positions. We first thought that somebody at the factory just left out a screw. Except that empty space isn’t even threaded; there was never a screw there. So we were really puzzled. Why would you design a lens with screws in only 3 positions? Plus there’s another interesting thing; the front optical group and the filter barrel are heavily glued together; you can see some of the white glue in the image above.
We found out, the hard way, that you have to remove all of the filter barrel and lens screws and then take the filter barrel and first group out as a single assembly. That glue was pretty resistant to alcohol and heat.
Lensrentals.com, 2016
Once the front group was out, we understood the mystery of the 3 screws (well, we think we did). Under each of those screws was a fairly stiff spring. So by loosening and tightening the screws we could actually adjust tilt on the front group. Springs could used as a shock absorber, perhaps, but if that was the case I can think of no reason they wouldn’t be at all 4 positions. So a tilt adjustment seems more likely.
Lensrentals.com, 2016
To the right of the spring shown above, you can see the brass of the female screw threads. These are actually brass inserts slid into the barrel from the side before the screw is placed. Very sturdy – the tension is on the brass insert which has a thick base, rather than on plastic screw threads that might tear out.
Lensrentals.com, 2016
That basically finished the front end disassembly, so we flipped the lens over and started by removing the light baffle and rear mount. I added this artistic, low-key, fade-to-black image for those of you who, for whatever reason, come to the teardown articles to complain bitterly about the photo quality. I thought this was quite the dark, moody image; sort of matching my usual mood.
Lensrentals.com, 2016
The rear baffle and rear bayonet mount screws come out in the usual fashion, and the screws were appropriately large for a lens this size. They insert into plastic posts in the rear internal mount of the lens, but the plastic has fairly heavy brass inserts that the screws go into, so they aren’t trying to hold the bayonet on by screws-into-plastic. Screws into metal is best, but screws into metal inserts is good. We noted a single circular shim under just one of the screw posts, so we assume the rear mount is adjusted for tilt.
Lensrentals.com, 2016
As we see in a number of micro 4/3 lenses, there were ground flexes from the PCB to the rear barrel.This photo also demonstrates that sufficient caffeine to keep me alert leads to motion blur when I try to handhold macro shots from some contorted position or other. If you’re looking for high quality photography, go read one of Sarah or Zach’s posts. I’ll warn you, though, their tear downs are way worse than my photography.
Lensrentals.com, 2016
With the bayonet off we removed 4 small, non-loadbearing screws to remove the rear barrel and the switch plate.
Lensrentals.com, 2016
The back end of the lens with PCB is pretty exposed now and looks fairly complex, with a lot of flex connections, a lot of empty screws sleeves from those we’ve already removed, and a lot more screws still in place. If you want the system with the most screws, you want Fuji, no question.
Lensrentals.com, 2016
With the flexes disconnected, the PCB, which is held in place by rubber bumpers on both sides, can be lifted out. Removing three more screws lets us take out the rear group. We took out the rear group at this step because, honestly, we couldn’t figure out how to get the aperture ring off, which is what we had planned to do next.
Lensrentals.com, 2016
We were surprised to see the rear group has an electronic flex, with some obvious sensors held firmly in place by foam rubber friction pads.
Lensrentals.com, 2016
We’re not at all certain what function these perform since the rear group isn’t a moving or focusing group. Here’s a closeup of the paired, identical sensors. Hopefully one of you can tell us all what they are. (I’ll repeat what I’ve said before — intelligent people come and inform us about what we don’t understand in the comments section. Less intelligent people come inform us about what they don’t understand in the comments section. Sometimes it’s really hard to tell which category a given comment belongs in.)
Lensrentals.com, 2016
With the rear group removed, we can see why the aperture ring didn’t want to come off the barrel; there are some screws from inside the barrel into the aperture assembly that need to come out.
Lensrentals.com, 2016
Then we removed the plastic clip holding the aperture sensor in place. With this and the inner screws removed the rear aperture ring slides right off.
Lensrentals.com, 2016
The aperture has a nice mechanical feel, but it’s actually electronically controlled. There’s an electrical sensor that knows the dial has been rotated and adjusts the aperture accordingly.
Lensrentals.com, 2016
The aperture click mechanism, as with most aperture click mechanisms, is a spring-loaded ball bearing that clicks into slots in the aperture ring as it’s rotated. This technology has been around so long I assume Voigtlander stole it from Petzval along with his lens formulas.
Lensrentals.com, 2016
With the aperture ring removed, we can peel off the sealing tape under the zoom rubber,
remove a couple of screws connecting the ring to the inner zoom barrel, and slide the zoom ring off.
The inner zoom barrel is a solid piece of aluminum over 1mm thick. There are 3 zoom keys from the barrel into the inner mechanism; that’s good engineering, most lenses in this price range have one or two keys.
Each of the zoom keys is held in place by two screws and they have to be removed to take the metal zoom barrel off. Again, these are nice, heavy duty pieces of metal.
There were a few more screws in the back mount that have to be removed and then we can slide the zoom – focus barrel assembly off of the inner part of the lens.
The 55-200mm is a focus-by-wire lens, and with the outer barrel off we can see the focus ring sensor inside the ring. There’s also a felt friction ring that prevents scraping and keeps the focus ring feeling smooth when you turn it.
With all of the outer pieces removed, it might be a good time to show you a summary of the disassembly to this point. At the top of the image nearest to Aaron is the helicoid barrel and most of the optics. That’s what we’ll be working on for the rest of this post.
Here is a closer look at the inner helicoid barrel. The extending barrel is to the left, Arron’s holding the barrel by the base where the camera mount was originally attached. You can see even at a glance that the nylon collars that the elements slide in the helicoids are really thick, larger than most lenses we see.
We took the extending barrel off next, giving us a better look at the helicoid itself. You can see now that there are actually 5 groups that move when you zoom this lens. The front group moves with the extending barrel (which went in the long slot along the top in the image below). There are three groups each moving in one of the slots along the front of the lens. Finally, the 2nd group (from the front) moves in the slot near the front of the lens. We were really shocked that the new Leica 24-90mm zoom had 6 moving groups, we’re even more surprised to see 5 groups moving in a sub-$1,000 lens.
We were even more interested when we took a closer look at the collars. Most are thick nylon collars placed over heavy-duty post screws. However one set is something we’ve never seen before. These are actually double collars. The outer one rests in an oval slot in the lens group while the inner collar is clearly eccentric. These are used to adjust the center group optically, similar to what brass eccentric collars do in a lot of lenses. It’s really kind of an elegant solution, and definitely something we’ve never seen before.
As you can probably tell already, we decided to remove the collars and take the various elements out of the helicoid. We often don’t do this because it means optically readjusting the lens, but this lens was dead anyway so we weren’t putting it back in stock. More importantly, we were curious not only because there are a number of moving elements within this helicoid, but also because the IS unit and focusing unit are in there and we wanted a look at them.
The second group (first group was removed from the front of the lens earlier) is the OIS (image stabilizing) group. But it became apparent when we started to remove it that the flex connector going to the back of the lens (you can see it out of focus at the top) was going to keep us from removing the OIS group entirely.
So we went around to the back side of the helicoid and removed the second-from-the-rear group which came out nicely.
At this point, we removed all of the other group’s collars and slid the helicoid barrel off of the inner sleeve, so now we have a simple tube containing the rest of the lens elements.
In the above image, you can see the forceps pointing to what’s obviously a position sensor for the focusing group. This had to be removed to free up the focusing group. Once we took it out we could see it is a fairly straightforward plastic slider.
Now we can finally eviscerate our lens, sliding all of the remaining optics and their electronics out from the front of the center barrel, leaving just the empty tube behind.
With all the pieces out, we can take a closer look at the various components. The OIS unit was first.
Inside it’s really solid. Two large electromagnets sit opposite two smaller standard magnets (you can see the tips of them poking out from under the electronic flexes. Between each magnet the floating IS element is suspended by a set of springs over pins. It’s pretty normal looking construction but solidly made.
The aperture assembly was next on our list. It’s held together by 8 screws; again well built. We see some that use fewer.
Opened up, it’s pretty normal looking with an included glass element, the usual aperture control motor and slots that open and close the blade by rotating the upper ring.
Finally we get to the part I most wanted to see, the linear focusing assembly. This is a big assembly (scroll back up to the picture when we’re removing everything from the inner barrel, it’s that large thing Aaron’s holding in his fingers). Because it’s large and I have to use a macro lens to show you what I want to show you, in each of the following images there will be a fair amount of out of focus focusing element. (That was pretty good wasn’t it?) And for the inevitable comments, no I’m not going to get a tripod and macro rail and shoot them at f/16 or stack them in post. I’ve got work to do and this is what I do for fun.
First we’ll look down at the focusing element from the top of the assembly. The focusing element is at the bottom, attached to electromagnets on either side (you can see part of the copper coils) which are the ‘twin’ AF motors Fuji mentions in their marketing material. At 12 o’clock the silver bar you see is a position sensor that slides up and down as the focus group moves.
Here it is from the back side. You can see the magnetic strip along the back side of the metal rod and the green magnetic sensor that we’ve lifted up, out of position. This means there were two position sensors with the focusing group; the sliding one we removed earlier from the inner barrel and this one. Our guess is that the first one reports the position of the entire focusing group, which moves during zooming, and this one the position of the focusing element within the group. That’s another thing we haven’t noticed in other lenses.
This view is from the bottom of the focusing assembly with the focusing element in its most forward position. It gives a good view of the two large magnets the focusing group slides up and down on. While they’re out of focus, you can also see the two thick metal rods that also pass through the element. We’ve looked at some lenses with electromagnetic focusing where I was concerned the element could tilt during travel because the travel seemed a bit loose. I have no such concerns here. The focusing element is securely anchored at 4 different points. This is very solidly made.
Conclusions
Well, possibly the most fun for a lot of you was watching us fumble around inside a lens we’d never seen before. We messed up the front makeup ring getting in, stumbled figuring out the rear barrel disassembly, and made the disassembly of the helicoid group more complicated than it needed to be. Even after the fact, we aren’t quite certain exactly how some of the electronics and sensors work.
As for our impressions, first and foremost, the Fuji lenses are a bit more complicated than most we’ve tackled, but not hugely so. The construction, especially when considering this is a consumer-price zoom lens, is impressive. Some things, like the number of zooming elements, reminds us a bit of the Leica zoom we disassembled last week. There are obviously some optical adjustments made during the assembly of this lens, and that always makes me feel more comfortable. I’m uncomfortable when the manufacturer just assumes assembly is going to be fine – but since optical adjustment is what I do all day, that may just be my perspective.
The overall construction is excellent. There was no place during this disassembly that either of us thought we saw a weak point that would be likely to cause problems. It’s not massively over engineered, but it’s very solidly constructed. It’s definitely better constructed than what we would expect from a $600 zoom. This looks like a lens that was designed by people who know how to make reliable lenses.
As to whether we’ll do any more Fuji disassemblies, it’s not likely. We just don’t have enough Fuji stock that I see us doing repairs in-house. But we learned some things today and came away impressed — at this price point it’s an extremely well-built lens with a lot of interesting technology inside.
Roger Cicala and Aaron Closz
Lensrentals.com
February, 2016A CouchDB view example
Newcomers to CouchDB offerings often fall into two categories: people that use it purely as a key-value store, and people that are stuck wondering how to query non-primary-keyed data.
One answer built in to CouchDB is “map-reduce”.
Let’s dive in on a simple example. We’ll model a recipe book of bartending drinks. This example provides two interesting points. First, modeling recipes in relational databases provides for strong integrity, however, it is not very intuitive modeling. I once tried to explain to a Rails newcomer how to create join models between a recipe and ingredients, and they found it fairly confusing. Secondly, drink recipes provide a clear use case for a secondary index search by ingredient.
First, we’ll store some simple single document drink recipes that look like this:
{ "type" : "DrinkRecipe", "name" : "Angler's Cocktail", "ingredients" : [ { "name" : "Gin", "amount" : "2 oz" }, { "name" : "Angostura Bitters", "amount" : "3 dashes" }, { "name" : "Orange Bitters", "amount" : "3 dashes" }, { "name" : "Grenadine", "amount" : "splash" }, { "name" : "Red Maraschino Cherry", "amount" : "1" } ], "note" : "Serve in an old fashioned glass over cracked ice" }
Briefly, if you’re not familiar with CouchDB, take note of the type property. That’s a CouchDB convention of marking the document to distinguish them from each other. Unlike collections in MongoDB, or tables in SQL stores, your docs for an app typically exist in a single database. The rest of the properties are pretty self explanatory, but take note that it models the recipe as you might write it on a bit of scrap paper (minus the braces and keys).
Now let’s talk about two simple views. First, it’s pretty likely you’ll want to be able to list all your recipes by name. Here’s the one possible view for that:
function ( doc ) { if ( doc. type === 'DrinkRecipe' ) { emit ( doc. name. toLowerCase (), doc. name ); } }
We’ll store that in the ‘drinks’ design doc as ‘byName’. We’re emitting the document name in lowercase as the key (the first argument to emit), and the name as the value so we can preserve the case. Let’s grab at that view with curl:
$ curl http://127.0.0.1:5984/drinks/_design/drinks/_view/byName { "total_rows" :4, "offset" :0, "rows" : [ { "id" : "3b510371b46c2f20cd7d72a527007e2a", "key" : "angler's cocktail", "value" : "Angler's Cocktail" }, { "id" : "3b510371b46c2f20cd7d72a52700af45", "key" : "manhattan", "value" : "Manhattan" }, { "id" : "3b510371b46c2f20cd7d72a527008dd5", "key" : "martini", "value" : "Martini" }, { "id" : "3b510371b46c2f20cd7d72a527009c27", "key" : "old fashioned", "value" : "Old Fashioned" } ]}
The most important thing to note here is that the keys come back in sorted order, in this case alphabetical.
Now, say we wanted drinks starting with ‘m’. We can leverage the start and endkey params as such:
$ curl 'http://127.0.0.1:5984/drinks/_design/drinks/_view/byName?startkey="m"&endkey="n"&inclusive_end=false' { "total_rows" :4, "offset" :1, "rows" : [ { "id" : "3b510371b46c2f20cd7d72a52700af45", "key" : "manhattan", "value" : "Manhattan" }, { "id" : "3b510371b46c2f20cd7d72a527008dd5", "key" : "martini", "value" : "Martini" } ]}
Note that total_rows is 4, that’s because the view has 4 rows in total, but, our startkey “m” and endkey “n” only return two rows. Kind of strange but just be aware of it. Also, we’ve got back just our rows that start with “m” but not “n” because we disabled the inclusive_end.
OK, let’s introduce a second view to enable searching by ingredient:
// map function ( doc ) { if ( doc. type === "DrinkRecipe" ) { doc. ingredients. forEach ( function ( i ) { emit ([ i. name. toLowerCase (), doc. name. toLowerCase ()], null ); }); } } // reduce _count // uses the built in _count implementation
We’ve included the ingredient name as the first element of the key array (recall we had a string as key on the previous view), and the drink name as the second. This gives us already sorted results, as well as some search and aggregation ability as we’ll shortly see.
Let’s query it, we’ll get a row for every ingredient in every drink. We’ll pass it reduce=false to tell it to only run the map phase:
curl 'http://127.0.0.1:5984/drinks/_design/drinks/_view/byIngredient?reduce=false' { "total_rows" :17, "offset" :0, "rows" : [ { "id" : "3b510371b46c2f20cd7d72a527007e2a", "key" : [ "angostura bitters", "angler's cocktail" ], "value" :null }, { "id" : "3b510371b46c2f20cd7d72a52700af45", "key" : [ "angostura bitters", "manhattan" ], "value" :null }, { "id" : "3b510371b46c2f20cd7d72a527009c27", "key" : [ "angostura bitters", "old fashioned" ], "value" :null }, { "id" : "3b510371b46c2f20cd7d72a52700af45", "key" : [ "bourbon", "manhattan" ], "value" :null }, { "id" : "3b510371b46c2f20cd7d72a527009c27", "key" : [ "bourbon", "old fashioned" ], "value" :null }, { "id" : "3b510371b46c2f20cd7d72a527008dd5", "key" : [ "dry vermouth", "martini" ], "value" :null }, { "id" : "3b510371b46c2f20cd7d72a527007e2a", "key" : [ "gin", "angler's cocktail" ], "value" :null }, { "id" : "3b510371b46c2f20cd7d72a527008dd5", "key" : [ "gin", "martini" ], "value" :null }, { "id" : "3b510371b46c2f20cd7d72a527007e2a", "key" : [ "grenadine", "angler's cocktail" ], "value" :null }, { "id" : "3b510371b46c2f20cd7d72a527007e2a", "key" : [ "orange bitters", "angler's cocktail" ], "value" :null }, { "id" : "3b510371b46c2f20cd7d72a527008dd5", "key" : [ "orange bitters", "martini" ], "value" :null }, { "id" : "3b510371b46c2f20cd7d72a52700af45", "key" : [ "orange peel", "manhattan" ], "value" :null }, { "id" : "3b510371b46c2f20cd7d72a527009c27", "key" : [ "orange wedge", "old fashioned" ], "value" :null }, { "id" : "3b510371b46c2f20cd7d72a527007e2a", "key" : [ "red maraschino cherry", "angler's cocktail" ], "value" :null }, { "id" : "3b510371b46c2f20cd7d72a527009c27", "key" : [ "sugar", "old fashioned" ], "value" :null }, { "id" : "3b510371b46c2f20cd7d72a52700af45", "key" : [ "sweet vermouth", "manhattan" ], "value" :null }, { "id" : "3b510371b46c2f20cd7d72a527009c27", "key" : [ "water", "old fashioned" ], "value" :null } ]}
Cool, let’s try some queries with different options.
Find any drink recipe that uses gin:
curl 'http://127.0.0.1:5984/dr |
o, who will replace Calderon in December, promises to dramatically reduce the homicide rate.6 years ago
(CNN) - Texas Gov. Rick Perry said he expects the state legislature to finish their work as early as next week in a special session held in part to vote on restrictive abortion legislation.
But the Republican governor cautioned that there won't be the same "turmoil" and "mob rule" from protesters in the public gallery as there was last week.
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Though another large crowd is expected to descend upon Austin Monday, "the lieutenant governor and the speaker both are not going to allow that to occur in their chambers," Perry said in an interview with KFYO, a radio station based in Lubbock, Texas.
Supporters of state Sen. Wendy Davis piled into the state capitol last week as the Democrat from Ft. Worth attempted a 13-hour filibuster to stop a bill that would ban most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy and tighten standards on abortion clinics and the doctors who work at them. Critics say the legislation would shut most of the abortion clinics in Texas.
Texas abortion battle continues, heads into second special session
When the chairman ruled she had gone off topic around her 10th hour, the Senate attempted to cut her off and officially end the debate. The chamber then entered a lengthy debate about parliamentary rules, and shortly before midnight, supporters of Davis stalled by shouting and chanting in the public gallery. Others who were gathered in the rotunda joined in-all with the goal of silencing the Senate to prevent a vote on the bill.
Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst announced the bill was dead at 3 a.m., faulting the protesters for disrupting the process.
View the state House version of the bill
Perry said Monday that a group of people have never taken over the voting process at the capitol in the state's history. Asked how long he expects the Senate to stay in session, Perry said it depends: "The question is are you going to let a small group of people take over the process, an unruly mob, to keep from democracy from occurring."
But, he added, he thinks lawmakers "can get in and get out of here by next Monday or next Wednesday."
In a separate interview with WBAP, a station that serves the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex, Perry said the "absolute anarchy that we saw in the last 15 minutes in the Senate chamber (was) not appropriate or normal."
Wendy Davis: Perry has ‘demeaned’ the office he holds
He called on the anti-abortion community to have the same intensity as their opponents in the days ahead but to conduct themselves with "decency, civility and decorum."
"Regardless of whether there is a vocal opposition...Texans and their views will prevail," he said.
Perry fiercely defended the bill in the radio interviews, saying the legislation does more for women who are having an abortion by requiring higher medical standards to be put in place.
Davis, meanwhile, quickly became a national figure following her filibuster. Perry offered some personal criticism of the state senator last week, sparking a public dispute between the two that launched speculation over whether Texas may see a Perry-Davis showdown in next year's gubernatorial election.
Wendy Davis: From teen mom to Harvard Law to famous filibuster
The state senator told NBC News she hasn't "ruled out" the idea of running for governor but is focused on preventing the abortion bill from passing in the special session. In her slew of recent media interviews, Davis has argued that Perry is simply trying to boost his political aspirations by being a big voice in the abortion battle.
Asked about Davis on Monday, Perry, who hasn't announced whether he'll run in 2014, told KFYO the issue is about a debate over life and women's health, not "someone's political future."
Texas filibuster on abortion bill rivets online
- CNN's Miguel Marquez contributed to this report.CastCenter is a simple yet powerful podcast player and offers the best podcast experience on Windows Phone. HIGHLIGHTS : - Stream episodes or download to listen while offline - Skip forward and back using simple playback controls - Choose to download new episodes automatically when they become available, even when the app is not open - Rearrange any playlist whenever you want - Turn on Sleep Timer to automatically stop playing a podcast while listening in bed - Import your podcasts from iTunes or other podcasts clients - Ask Cortana to play specific shows by name, like "podcast play TEDTaks" PREMIUM FEATURES: - Subscribe to unlimited number of podcasts (free version is limited to 3 podcasts) - Create custom playlists of your favorite podcasts that update automatically when new episodes become available - Adjust the playback speed of your audio or video podcasts LANGUAGES CastCenter is available in English and French NOTES The free version has some limitations. To unlock all features you can purchase the In-App Product. New features are in the works, so please let us know what you like and what features you would like to see added. Please email caldeira-soft@live.fr with any problems you run into with this app so that we can address the problem quickly. Thanks. Follow us on Twitter to keep up with what’s new at CaldeiraSoft. Twitter - https://twitter.com/caldeirasoft -- • Ability to change default Podcasts view between list view, 2-column grid view and 3-column grid view • Ability to set playlists view as default start page • Lock screen and Universal Volume Control support: CastCenter will skip 30 seconds back/forward when you'll tap back/forward buttons • Now Playing view supports Landscape orientation • Now Playing view supports swipe gestures to display notes or current playlist • Display a Quick Tour on first app launch • Display up to 500 episodes when subscribing to a new podcast • Playback is now correctly resumed from the same position • Bug fix : When plCastCenter is a simple yet powerful podcast player and offers the best podcast experience on Windows Phone. HIGHLIGHTS : - Stream episodes or download to listen while offline - Skip forward and back using simple playback controls - Choose to download new episodes automatically when they become available, even when the app is not open - Rearrange any playlist whenever you want - Turn on Sleep Timer to automatically stop playing a podcast while listening in bed - Import your podcasts from iTunes or other podcasts clients - Ask Cortana to play specific shows by name, like "podcast play TEDTaks" PREMIUM FEATURES: - Subscribe to unlimited number of podcasts (free version is limited to 3 podcasts) - Create custom playlists of your favorite podcasts that update automatically when new episodes become available - Adjust the playback speed of your audio or video podcasts LANGUAGES CastCenter is available in English and French NOTES The free version has some limitations. To unlock all features you can purchase the In-App Product. New features are in the works, so please let us know what you like and what features you would like to see added. Please email caldeira-soft@live.fr with any problems you run into with this app so that we can address the problem quickly. Thanks. Follow us on Twitter to keep up with what’s new at CaldeiraSoft. Twitter - https://twitter.com/caldeirasoft --A local community in Buffalo, New York has launched a toy gun exchange program, reminiscent of gun buyback programs run by governments, because the group’s leaders believe that if kids have toy guns, they might get their hands on a real gun.
Leonard Lane, president of the Buffalo F.A.T.H.E.R.S organization, believes that a cap gun sounds like a real gun and explained that toy guns present a serious danger to children — while he held a toy gun filled with candy, WIVB reported on Friday.
“Whatever you put in a child’s hands that’s what he feels comfortable with and you put a toy gun in his hands at an early age and when he gets older he’s going to want the real thing,” Lane said.
Lane and his organization are urging parents to turn in their kid’s toy guns this Christmas and exchange it for a different toy for what is described as the “annual Toy Gun Exchange.” Lane said the goal is to make children feel uncomfortable around toy guns so they’ll never want to be around real guns.
“I understand how a mother may feel wanting to get something her child would like, but what we don’t want to do is make a child feel comfortable with a toy gun,” said Lane.
WATCH:Left: An elven character in “Lord of the Rings,” Legolas as shown on a New Zealand stamp. (Shutterstock*) Right: A mummy found in the Pedro Mountains in Wyoming believed by some to be the remnants of an elf. (Wikimedia Commons)
6 Credible Elf Incidents?
If you ask an Icelander whether elves exist or not, chances are he or she will say it is quite possible.
Many polls over the years have shown the majority of Icelanders believe in elves to some degree. Late last year, a judge even halted the building of a road in Iceland because it may disturb elves living in the area.
Myth often has fact as its foundation.
In 2004, the fossils of small humanoid beings were found on the remote Indonesian island of Flores. The being, named Homo floresiensis but better known as the “hobbit,” stood about three feet tall. The journal Nature explains that bones from several individuals were uncovered, showing that it was a society of people this size and not an anomaly.
So are elves more like the tall, lithe, and strong Legolas of “Lord of the Rings,” or more like Santa’s helpers who look like small children? Here are some accounts of elf encounters.
1. ‘Little People’ Legends, Mummy Found
A mummy found in the Pedro Mountains in 1932, thought to be possible evidence of the Nin’ am-bea little people of whom the local Shoshone natives spoke. (Wikimedia Commons)
The Cherokee native Americans spoke of Yunwi-Tsunsdi, which literally means “little people.” The Yunwi-Tsunsdi were described as kind and helpful, barely reaching the height of a man’s knee. The natives of Hawaii spoke of the Menehune, a plentiful race of little people who built cities, fished, and farmed. The Shoshone natives of Wyoming also spoke of little people, the Nin’ am-bea, whom they feared offending. The Nin’ am-bea were known to shoot people with arrows if offended.
In 1932, a mummy was found in the Pedro Mountains, close to where the Shoshone lived. It was examined by the anthropology department at Harvard University and at the American Museum of Natural History. It was originally identified as belonging to a 65-year-old man, though it is just over a foot tall.
The mummy was lost after one of its owners died. Dr. George Gill of the University of Kansas examined x-ray photographs decades later; he said the mummy was likely an infant with a birth defect that caused it to have an adult-sized skull, but remained open to other explanations.
Other people in the Pedro Mountains region have told stories of finding similar tiny mummies, as documented in books about local folklore.
2. Little People’s Burial Site in Ohio
The American Journal of Science published an account in 1837 of a strange discovery in Coshocton, Ohio: “From some remains of wood still apparent in the earth around the bones, the bodies seem all to have been deposited in coffins; and what is still more curious, is the fact that the bodies buried here were generally not more than from three to four and a half feet in length. They are very numerous, and must have been tenants of a considerable city or their numbers could not have been so great. A large number of graves have been opened, the inmates of which are all of this pigmy race. … Similar burial grounds have been found in Tennessee, and near St. Louis in Missouri.”
3. Bulldozing Operation Inexplicably Halted in Suspected Elf Habitat
In 1996, an attempt to bulldoze a hill in Kopavogur, Iceland inexplicably failed. The hill, which was to be cleared for a graveyard, was believed to be occupied by elves. During the operation, two bulldozers inexplicably malfunctioned. Television cameras malfunctioned, unable to focus on the hill.
Elf communicators were called in and apparently were able to reach an agreement with the elves. The elves decided to leave, the communicators said, and the machinery began to work again. The event was reported on by the New York Times.
Hildur Hakonardottir told the New York Times in 2005: “My daughter once asked me, ‘How do you know where elves live?’ … I told her you just know. It’s just a feeling.”
Another Icelander, Vigdís Kristín Steinthórsdóttir, expressed a similar idea in 2011 when a mining operation near her home was believed to be sabotaged by elves.
“I had been [in the mountain] before with other people who sensed the natural beings weren’t content with the disturbances to the ground and they hadn’t been asked to move. We sensed they were sad about it. I wanted for us to apologize,” she told IcelandReview.
4. Elvish Gathering in Mangrove Swamps
A file photo of a green mangrove forest in Africa (Shutterstock)
Stephen Wagner has been investigating the paranormal for 30 years and has written books on the subject, including “Touched By a Miracle: True Stories of Ordinary People and Extraordinary Experiences.” In an About.com article, he tells of multiple accounts of elf encounters, including that of Paul in South Africa.
In 1986, Paul was hiking near the Mangrove Swamps Nature Reserve with a group of friends. At around 6 p.m., they came across an open space with rock formations. Paul told Wagner: “We looked around and witnessed little people sitting on the illuminated rock formations and others who were interacting with each other.”
The experience lasted about 10 seconds, and he estimated there had been 20 to 30 of these little people. Startled, Paul and his friends ran back to the car. They later returned to the same spot and found the lights and rock formations, along with the little people, were gone.
5. A Shimmery Little Person Behind a Tree
Wagner recounts another story, this one from Greenburg, Penn. In 2003, a woman whose name is only given as K.T. was walking in the woods at dusk. The area around her appeared unusually “shimmery,” as she described it.
As she rounded a bend, she came face-to-face with a little elf. It was peeking at her from behind a tree. K.T. described it: “It was almost a stereotypical elf: long, pointy ears, long funny-shaped nose, very long fingers and pointy cap. It was wearing red clothes and hat, and its skin appeared to be a very light lavender color.”
When she made an exclamation of surprise, it jerked back and disappeared.
6. An Elf Neighbor Borrowed Scissors
Let’s return to Iceland for our final account. Iceland is home to the only Elf School. Located in the capital of Iceland, Reykjavik, the Elf School is a good place to learn all the elf-related stories. The headmaster, Magnus Skarphedinsson, has spent 30 years talking to thousands of people who claim they have encountered the hidden people.
One of the stories he tells is of Elly Erlingsdottir, the head of the Hafnarfjordur town council’s planning committee. She said some elves had simply borrowed her kitchen scissors and returned them a week later. She was completely confident that this really happened, and a local mystic was often invited to communicate with elves to get their opinions before the committee made decisions.
Andri Snaer Magnason, a well-known environmentalist, spoke to the Huffington Post about the Icelandic belief in elves in relation to development decisions.
When elf advocates were saying the construction of a road from Reykjavik to the Alftanes peninsula would disturb the little people, Magnason’s major concern was that the road would destroy bird nesting sites and have other environmental impacts.
He’s a bit skeptical about elves, but he said: “I got married in a church with a God just as invisible as the elves.”
Numerous accounts beyond those recorded here have been given of encounters with little people, whether with the leprechauns of Ireland or those with other names and slightly varying forms.
Video: From the documentary “The Fairy Faith,” directed by John Walker.MONTREAL — A Montreal hospital is bringing in the clowns to see if they can help women conceive.
Two professionally trained, university accredited medical clowns from Israel will present a conference at the McGill University Health Centre's reproductive centre Thursday morning about the link between clowning and fertility rates, then mingle with willing patients in the waiting room. Medical clowns are common in Israel and present in most hospitals, in the belief laughter can help heal and alleviate stress.
"With big red noses and a comedic disposition, clowns Jerome Arous and Nimrod Eisenberg will be making hopeful future parents smile and laugh with the goal of improving the chances their embryonic transfers will take," the MUHC said in a statement.
McGill officials were unable to clarify exactly what it was the clowns do to help women make babies, ("Clowning," said one doctor) but the theory is based in science. In a study of 219 women undergoing in vitro fertilization treatments, 36 per cent of the women entertained for 15 minutes by a medical clown following the implantation of the embryo became pregnant, compared with 20 per cent for those who were not. The study, led by Dr. Shevach Friedler of the Assaf Harofeh Medical Centre in Israel, was published in the journal Fertility and Sterility.
As there has been no confirmed link between emotional stress and successful IVF, it's not known whether decreased stress levels were to account for the improved fertility rates.
The MUHC isn't planning to institute clown-aided fertility treatments on a regular basis in the near future, said Dr. Hananel Holzer, medical director of the MUHC reproductive centre. Nor does it intend to inflict exuberant red-nosed clowns on unsuspecting hopeful mothers Thursday, he said. But it doesn't hurt to listen, he said.
The MUHC and other medical institutions in Montreal have long used clowns as part of medical therapy for children and adults, particularly through the Montreal-based Dr. Clown organization.
The touring clowns, Arous and Eisenberg, graduated with bachelors of arts degrees in theatre and therapy for medical clowns from Haifa University in Israel, and continued their studies in theatre school in Paris. Haifa University is now creating a Masters program in medical clowning.
The clowns, sponsored in part by the Consulate General of Israel and Quebec's Ministry of International Relations, are giving a series of conferences and workshops at hospitals in Quebec City, Montreal, Chicoutimi and Halifax.
rbruemmer@montrealgazette.comJosh Lowensohn/CNET
Apple might have been the first major smartphone maker to deliver 64-bit architecture in its smartphone's processor, but Samsung doesn't intend to be too far behind.
Speaking to Korea Times in an interview published Wednesday, Samsung Mobile co-CEO Shin Jong-kyun said that the next-generation Galaxy smartphones will come with 64-bit processors. Shin didn't say exactly when the Samsung handsets will come with 64-bit architecture, saying only that it will not happen "in the shortest time."
Apple announced its iPhone 5C and iPhone 5S on Tuesday. The company's 5C handset is essentially an updated iPhone 5 that features a plastic finish and multiple colors. The iPhone 5S comes with Apple's new A7 processor featuring the 64-bit architecture. The higher-end capability should make Apple's iPhone 5S more adept at handling resource-intensive applications that can take advantage of the new chip.
Samsung and Apple have been competing intensely for years now, so it's no surprise Samsung is looking to match the iPhone maker on this point. Shin didn't say what other features might come to the next-generation Galaxy handsets, but he did quickly turn his attention to China and Japan, where he says, Apple is trying hard to steal market share.
"Samsung understands that Apple intends to boost its mobile business in China, as well as in Japan, meaning that we should try harder in these countries," Shin told Korea Times.By Manny Gomez
Contributing Writer
Stony Brook University’s President Samuel L. Stanley unveiled the renovation of the Melville Library Knowledge Commons in his State of the University Address on Sept. 16. He said the Commons project will start at the outset of the Christmas vacation and be completed before the Spring Semester begins on January 25.
President Stanley said the new Melville Library Knowledge Commons will be “a place where [students] can come together and study” and assured the audience that new space will be practically designed to allow students to work in groups or independently. But most importantly, he says, the new commons will have “lots and lots of electrical outlets.”
Throughout his speech, President Stanley emphasized new capital improvements as his way to deal with the university’s aging infrastructure and for accommodating the University’s projected growth over the upcoming years.
“When we put together great facilities and you support the faculty and students amazing things can happen,” President Stanley said in his speech referring to the new construction projects. He pointed out the recent renovation of the Island Federal Credit Union Arena, the opening of the new Computer Science Center and reiterated his commitment to current projects underway.
Some of the projects have already begun to take shape. If you’ve walked to the Charles B. Wang Center lately, you have probably seen the Toll Drive Residence Halls being built to accommodate more resident students. President Stanley is expecting the number of resident students to grow past the roughly 10,000 students currently living on campus. This project is to be completed in two phases: Phase I to be done by next fall, and Phase II to be done by Fall 2017. The August 2015 President’s Report to the University Senate suggests that Stony Brook will have the most on-campus residences in the SUNY system when construction of these new residences are complete.
The speech also put the spotlight on the new Medical Research Translation Building and Bed Tower being built on the East Campus, which will eventually become the home of the Stony Brook Children’s Hospital. Other projects include the Innovation and Discovery Center in the University’s Research and Development Park and the highly-anticipated construction of the new Student Union building.
In his speech, President Stanley also celebrated other university milestones. Since 2011, the University has fundraised $428,26,284 dollars from donors from which $140,947,790 have gone to research and innovation. The rest has gone mainly to construction projects, hiring new faculty and providing financial aid to students.
For the future, President Stanley hopes to make Stony Brook University one of America’s top 20 public universities. He is going to continue to seek out federal, state and private funding to invest in the university and will push to raise the graduation rate to 60 percent in the next five years by placing particular attention to advising. Lastly, he placed an emphasis on the role of sponsored research moving forward in both, technology and the social sciences.If Clinton and Trump were Playing Texas Hold’em
Jacob Kanipe-Illig Blocked Unblock Follow Following Sep 30, 2016
A friend asked me an interesting hypothetical:
Categorize the election like a Texas Hold’em hand. Which two cards does Trump have? Which two does Hillary have? What’s the river?
I spent a little more time than a reasonable person should have playing with some odds and equity calculations, but I came up with a simple example. I designed the situation so that the probability of each scenario follows somewhat the same trends as the 538 prediction model.
Pre-Flop
In Texas Hold’em, each player is dealt 2 cards, then there is a round of betting. This is called the pre-flop stage.
Hillary Clinton was dealt a queen of spades (Qs) and a jack of spades (Js). This is a good hand. It’s not the best, but it is playable against most players in most positions.
Donald Trump was dealt an 8 of diamonds (8d) and a 7 of diamonds (7d). This is not a good hand, but it’s better than some people expect. He has some speculative value, but it’s a hand that should probably just be folded pre-flop out of position.
Pre-Flop
Right now, Clinton has a 62.1% chance to win. But the campaign is just getting started.
Flop
Next, we deal 3 cards face up. This is called the flop. The cards are 7s Td 4s. This corresponds to a point in the campaign around the time of the Republican National Convention.
Flop
Trump hit his 7, but Clinton has two over cards and a flush draw, so she is still technically the favorite with 52.5% chance of winning. However, if the hand were to end right now, Trump would win.
Turn
Next, we deal one more card face up. This is called the turn. In this scenario, the turn card is a Jd.
Turn
This is a good card for Clinton, as it gives her a better pair, but Trump still has outs. With an inside straight draw and a flush draw, there is still a 34% chance that Trump can pull off a win.
The River/Election Day
This election, much like poker, still has a lot of uncertainty. As this hand of poker currently sits, Clinton is in the lead. But with one card left to be dealt (The River), there is still plenty of opportunity for Trump to come out on top.
Good cards for Trump — Any diamond will complete the flush and give Trump the win. A 9 will give Trump a straight, but a 9 of spades will give Clinton the flush (which is better than a straight). An 8 (that is not a spade) gives Trump 2 pair. A 7 gives Trump three of a kind.
Number of cards that can give Trump a win: 15
Good cards for Clinton — Clinton needs to avoid any of the Trump win cards. Any random card that does not help Trump gives Clinton the win with a pair of jacks over a pair of sevens. Also, any spade gives Clinton the flush and the win.
Number of cards that can give Clinton a win: 29When you're depressed, every day has the potential to feel like the worst week of your life. Depression makes even the simplest of tasks difficult. The disorder hinders a person's ability to sleep, eat, work, and enjoy life.Depression also interferes with a person's ability to parent. Recently, epidemiologists found an association between depressed parents and worse academic performance in 16-year-olds.The researchers wanted to examine the associations between parental depression and child academic performance at the end of their mandatory education (approximately 16 years old).They examined parental depression diagnoses and school grades for all children born in Sweden from 1984 to 1994. The diagnoses were taken from both inpatient and outpatient records. The final sample included over 1.1. million children. Two percent of fathers and 3 percent of mothers were diagnosed with depression before their child finished their last required year of school.The researchers found that when parents were diagnosed with depression, at any time before the end of their child's required schooling, the child's grades would suffer. The authors note that maternal depression seemed to negatively affect the academic performance of daughters more than sons.The study was limited in that depression often goes undiagnosed. The authors also could not identify if the children were living with their birth parents."Our results suggest that diagnoses of parental depression may have a far-reaching effect on child development. Because parental depression may be more amendable to improvement compared with other influences, such as socioeconomic status, it is worth verifying the present results in independent cohorts. If the associations observed are causal, the results strengthen the case even further for intervention and support among children of affected parents," the authors said The study was published online in JAMA Psychiatry Source: JAMA PsychiatryFrom Despair To Where?
THERE is a tale. Possibly an apocryphal tale but a tale nevertheless. Colonel Tom Parker, fairground huckster, shyster, illegal immigrant, lousy gambler and – quite crucially – manager to Elvis Presley walks into Graceland on the hit of Elvis’ death and says to the gathered, devastated, mourning family “This changes nothing.”
This changes nothing.
THIS changes nothing.
This apparent throwing away of the league, this sacrifice of a three goal lead while hunting for a better goal difference, this waste, this depression, this physical illness that’s gripping so many of us, this ‘last minute against Arsenal, 1989’ – all of this changes nothing at all.
Yes, it’s in City’s hands but it was already in City’s hands. We needed to score a stupid amount of goals or we needed either Villa or West Ham to take a point or more from City. Now we quite simply need Villa or West Ham to take more than a point from City. Or a point each would do, let’s not be overly greedy here.
But that’s impossible isn’t it? Yeah, ’cause nothing else impossible has happened this season has it? Nothing mental. Nothing at all. When was the last time something unexpected happened in this league? Quarter to ten last night. Before that it was Sunday afternoon at Stamford Bridge. Do we really need the whole list?
Can you imagine how ‘Big Sam’ feels at the moment? Can you imagine how his ego is being stroked by the chance that the story on the last day will be about him, how the script is about how he proves the fans that booed him wrong by having West Ham prevent City from winning a league that appears to be theirs?
Last night was horrible, inexplicable, heartbreaking. It’s done. Put it behind us. All there is now is Newcastle.
This? All of this?
This changes nothing.
Pic: David Rawcliffe / Propagandafloating seahorse contemporary boat submerges rooms into marine life
floating seahorse contemporary boat submerges rooms into marine life
all images courtesy of kleindienst group
launched at the dubai international boat show, kleindienst group‘s ‘floating seahorse’ is a contemporary marine yacht that boasts underwater rooms with breathtaking views. intelligently designed, engineered and developed in dubai, the unique concept will be limited to just 42 units. the aquatic style retreat’s master bedroom and bathroom will be totally submerged in the clear sea, delivering pictures of the surrounding coral reef and ocean life.
CEO of kleindienst group, josef kleindienst comments, ‘since launching the floating seahorse we have been inundated with local, regional and international inquiries. we are excited to not just offer people a once in a lifetime investment opportunity in dubai but on a global scale. the floating seahorse is not restricted to dubai waters and can be designed and fabricated in dubai for other resorts and destinations worldwide.’
the unique project boasts three floors
moving up to the luxury boat’s sea level, the accommodation which includes a fully-fitted kitchen with a dining area and an open plan living area, has floor to ceiling windows, offering uninterrupted ocean scenes. furthermore, when the glass façade is open, the sun deck becomes an extension of the living space. on the upper deck, the floor is suitable for alfresco dining and relaxation, featuring an informal bed, mini bar, kitchenette and a glass-bottomed jacuzzi. the project is estimated to be completed by the end of 2016.
with the glass façade open, the living area extends to the sun deck
‘many months of research, design and planning have gone into the floating seahorse and we are excited to be able to officially launch and build it in dubai. we are confident that it will set a new benchmark in the luxury lifestyle market worldwide for outstanding innovation, contemporary design and underwater living at its best.’ adds josef.
the upper deck is perfect for relaxation, featuring a glass-bottomed jacuzzi
josef explains ‘the seahorse is an endangered species and we will create an artificial coral reef beneath the luxury retreats which will be a protected area in which seahorses can safely live and breed. very soon, people will be able to see up-close and personal, the beautiful and elegant arabian horse of the ocean – the seahorse!’
the underwater master bedroom offers breathtaking views of the marine lifeAmadeo Bordiga 1926
The Communist Left in the Third International
Bordiga at the 6th Enlarged Executive Meeting of the Communist International
Source: http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/3909/bordiga0.html;
HTML Mark-up: Andy Blunden 2003.
Since the Russian Revolution is the first great stage of the world revolution it is also our revolution. Its problems are our problems, and every militant in the revolutionary International has not only the right, but also the duty, to collaborate in their solution.
Amadeo Bordiga, at the 20th session,
15th March 1926
Seventy years ago the wave of proletarian strife and insurrection which had brought the lst World War to a close was all but over. Instead of being strengthened and supported by the establishment of a European soviet republic and beyond, the Russian proletariat had been left high and dry. Today, in the light of historical hindsight, it is easy to see that what had been salvaged from the great Russian Revolution was the skeleton of a once heroic revolutionary party that was now being transformed into the central arm of a brutal state apparatus. Two years after the death of Lenin, Stalin was already well on the way to establishing himself as the sole unquestioned leader in the party and the state. Ever since the 10th Party Congress in 1921 (at the time of the Kronstadt uprising and the introduction of NEP) factions had been officially disavowed inside the Russian Party. By 1926 all genuine political debate about the key issue of what had happened to the Revolution and the prospects for the working class had been stifled by appeals for Party unity supplemented by the intervention of the political police. Meanwhile, in the upper echelons of the Party there was an increasingly byzantine but no less vicious struggle for control over the Party apparatus amongst Stalin, Trotsky and the other Old Bolshevik leaders. (At the beginning of 1926 it was Zinoviev's turn to be muzzled by Stalin's manoeuvres and the short-lived Joint Opposition led by Zinoviev, Kamenev and Trotsky was in the process of formation.)
This sorry and unsavoury progression of the counter-revolution in Russia was echoed inside the Communist Inter-national where, from 1924, the policy of 'bolshevisation' of its constituent parties was a pseudonym for turning them into loyal and unquestioning clones of the Russian Party. Along with Stalin's theorisation of'socialism in one country', it was the means by which the Communist Left was effectively gagged. Moreover it closed off any discussion on what was happening in Russia itself within what was supposed to be the Executive body of the party of the international proletariat. The Communist International was being turned into the Comintern - a foreign policy arm of the Russian state.
We are taking the occasion of the seventieth anniversary to publish extracts from the interventions of Amadeo Bordiga, the spokesman for the Italian Communist Left, during the course of the meetings of the 6th Enlarged Executive of the Communist International held between 17th February and 15th March, 1926. During the various sessions Bordiga eloquently denounced the political degeneration of the International, focussing in turn on the tactics of the united front and workers' government, 'bolshevisation' and the hunting down of factions, as well as touching on the necessity for the Inter-national as a whole to discuss what was happening to the Russian Revolution.
However, he was never able to fully develop this last point in the open sessions — Stalin had already made sure of that. Only in a closed session between Stalin and the Italian delegates was he able to astonish Stalin when, after quizzing him about the relative situations of the Russian proletariat and the peasantry and the nature of the opposition groupings within the Communist Party, he directly asked whether "Comrade Stalin thinks the development of the Russian situation and the internal problems of the Russian Party are linked to the development of the international proletarian movement?" (Evoking the profound response from the Great Man: "Never till now has this question been put to me. I would never have believed that a communist could put it to me. May god forgive you for having done so.) There was to be no World Congress of the whole International in 1927 as Bordiga proposed in his summing up at the plenary session, Needless to say, when the 6th Comintern Congress was held (in 1928) neither was there any discussion of the Russian question.
As it was, however, Bordiga managed not only to put forward the positions of the Italian Left as they had just been propounded at the recent Congress of the Italian Party.[1] He also managed to broach the central issue of whither Russia. When it came to the "Theses on the Current questions of the International Communist Movement" Bordiga's voice — on behalf of the Italian Communist Left — was the only one raised in opposition.
Despite this courageous stand, on his return to Italy Bordiga virtually withdrew from political life. During the remainder of 1926 his only political text was a letter he wrote to Karl Korsch in October. Here he argued there was a "sense of reality" about the tactics of the current Trotsky-Zinoviev opposition in Russia and advised a cautious policy towards the Comintern, asserting that the Left "still needs to receive further blows before passing to the open offensive". In November he was arrested and confined on the island of Ustica before being incarcerated at Ponza until the end of 1929. In vain did the exiled Left Fraction (or Trotsky for that matter) which had been formed in 1927 try to persuade him to join them abroad. "Wait and see" became his personal political stance as he distanced himelf completely from political work both inside Italy and internationally. Thus, as Onorato Damen put it,
Subsequent political events, at times of historic importance, passed by this disdainful outsider without receiving any echo: The Trotsky/Stalin conflict; Stalinism; our Fraction which abroad - in France and Belgium — continued to develop the politics and ideology of the Livorno party; the civil war in Spain and the Second World War; and, finally Russia's line up on the imperialist war front. Not a word nor a line....
So it fell on the shoulders of others to draw up a balance sheet of the Russian experience and its worldwide counter-revolutionary aftermath. But that is another story. If his intervention at the Comintern in |
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23. Robyn – Call Your Girlfriend (Feed Me Remix)
A thousand remixes of Robyn in 2011, and Feed Me had the best. I can’t believe how far this guy has come with his bass in 2011.
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22. Noisia – Tommy’s Theme
Best sample of the year, hands down.
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21. Jakwob – Right Beside You (VIP)
Another favourite from my Summer of Dubstep mix.
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20. Flux Pavilion – Bass Cannon
One of the most recognizable Circus jams of the year.
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19. RacknRuin feat. Janai + Illaman – Dazed & Confused (SKiSM’s Baroque Out Remix)
Love the classical feel of this track.. similar appeal as Wolfgang’s Symphony.
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18. Skrillex – First of the Year (Equinox)
Up for a Grammy, for best short video.
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17. Trolley Snatcha – Rocco’s Revenge
A late addition to my set that is pure fire.
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16. Blue Foundation – Eyes On Fire (Zeds Dead Remix VIP)
Bar none, the biggest VIP of the year. The original remix was sick and these guys managed to let their audience experience the track for the first time again, at a live show with a swelling + crazed audience. Dizzying drops.
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15. Rusko – Everyday
Not sure if this one was on the radar in North America, but it was huge. Crowd reaction to this track in Rusko’s dj sets was crazy!
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14. Cassius – I 3 U So (Skream Remix)
Skream mastered this classic.
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13. Nero – Me & You (Original Mix)
One of the most epic tracks of the year. Possibly the epic-est.
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12. Zeds Dead – Rude Boy feat. Omar LinX
Most innovative track of the year, sick rap, and the energy in dj sets was unstoppable. Anthem.
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11. DJ Fresh – Louder (Feat. Sian Evans) (Flux Pavilion And Doctor P Remix)
The climbing bass noise at the beginning is bigger than 100 reggae horns. The biggest Circus jam of the year by far. Flux and Doc P nailed it. Anthem.
[wpaudio url=”http://www.salacioussongs.com/files/DJ Fresh – Louder (Feat. Sian Evans) (Flux Pavillion And Doctor P Remix).mp3″ text=”DJ Fresh – Louder (Feat. Sian Evans) (Flux Pavillion And Doctor P Remix)” dl=”0″]
10. Benny Benassi Feat. Gary Go – Cinema (Skrillex Remix)
The most recognizable anthem of the year. Nuff said.
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9. Feed Me – Strange Behaviour ft Tasha Baxter (Original Mix)
Somewhere between mid and up-tempo, this song’s climbing vocals, incredible dynamic range, and enormous winding drops make it one of my favourite tracks of the year, and the opening track off my Summer of Dubstep mix.
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8. Skrillex – Ruffneck (FULL Flex)
While the Cinema remix converted the masses, for the initiated this was the real Skrillex anthem at this summer’s festivals.
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7. Bare & Datsik – King Kong
These guys managed to nail this collabo somewhere between the popular modern talking sound of this year and the too-grimy chainsaw sound of yesteryear. I dropped this in literally every dubstep set I played in 2011. I saw Datsik drop this on the third day of Electric Daisy Carnival Las Vegas, and I can say definitively I saw fewer than five crowd reactions as powerful all year.
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6. Knife Party – Fire Hive
Rob Swire and Gareth McGrillen are coming in for a takeover in 2012, and their we can do it better attitude has secured them a place in all the big festivals. You’ll see them first at Ultra in Miami, and that’s just the beginning.
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5. Giant – Party Starter
The biggest track that no one knew. Rusko dropped it in almost every set he did this year, as did I. No wonder, it sounds like classic Rusko. Watch for this Russian trio in 2012.
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4. Dillon Francis – Beautician
Dillon Francis is one of the best AND most important artists of 2012 for having several of the biggest tracks, for being at the forefront, and contributing to the maturation, of a nascent genre (moombahton), and for having one of the best/only online personalities. I have a hard time deciding if I like 1.0 or 2.0 better. Fortunately I don’t have to decide in this article.
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3. Deadmau5 – Raise Your Weapon (Noisia Remix)
One of the most beautiful tracks of the year with an incredible flip by Noisia. These guys are a rare and truly talented group of musicians. If you are afforded the opportunity, see them live.
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2. Nero – Promises (Skrillex & Nero Remix)
The biggest collaboration of the year. A combination of the most epic vocals, from the UK kings of epic bass music, with the grimy modern talking bass sound that propelled dubstep and Skrillex to the mainstream (and the Grammys) in 2011. Just think of how many people this track converted.. nuts.
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1. Zeds Dead + The Killabits – Bassmentality
The holy trinity of excellent percussion, non-derivative synths, and high production values were hard to find in dubstep in 2011. No surprise though, that these four extremely talented musicians would get it done. Bassmentality is many things – the two duos’ most popular collaboration, one of the biggest dubstep anthems of the year, the namesake of the weekly party they founded in Toronto, and a description of the rise of popular dubstep in 2011, and the disposition of its new fans.
Kudos to these gentlemen for making one of the finest tracks of the year – a gem, and a true classic!
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Your Turn: What were your favourite dubstep tracks of the year?The Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded this week for developments in nanotechnology heralds a new era in science, akin to the discovery of electromagnetic induction 185 years ago. And like electricity, nanotechnology could influence the world in dramatic ways, not even imaginable today.
The world's tiniest machines
The Nobel Laureates developed molecular machines, which are incredibly tiny devices assembled one molecule at a time, including a working motor, a lifting machine, a micro-muscle, and even a four wheel drive vehicle, all of which can only be seen with the most powerful electron microscopes. While these lab experiments are novel curiosities, the implications are huge, and Canada is on the forefront of pushing this research forward.
Inside the Waterloo Advanced Technology Laboratory at the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology at University of Waterloo. (University of Waterloo)
Many universities offer degree programs on the subject while organizations such as the National Institute for Nanotechnology at the University of Alberta, and the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, are conducting fundamental research on these new novel materials.
Amazing potential to change our world
The potential applications for nanotechnology are huge, and could enter almost all aspects of our lives. Nano-machines could enter the bloodstream to deliver cancer drugs to precise targets, reducing the dosage needed, or carry out DNA repair. Artificial muscles would have a soft, natural grip, and biochips could be made to restore function to lost nerves.
Molecular computer chips would be smaller than current silicon-based chips, and the computers themselves could be made of flexible material that would roll up into your pocket instead of a hard body stuffed into a carrying case. There will be miracle products that are super thin, super strong, super smooth, super slippery, the list is endless. In fact, most researchers would admit that they really don't know how far nanotechnology will go, which is why it is worth pursuing.
This time of great potential for new technology is similar to the experiments of Michael Faraday who worked with magnets and electric currents to develop the electric motor in 1821 and went on to discover magnetic induction, the principle behind generators and transformers. While recognizing these basic principles were important, and held great potential, Faraday could not have imagined the global electrical grid, countless household electrical appliances, the internet, and smartphones. Yet they all came out of his simple experiments in a laboratory more than a century and a half ago.
And like electricity, which runs invisibly through wires and circuits, we won't see most of nanotechnology. We will simply enjoy the benefits of batteries that last much longer, improved solar panels, materials that repair themselves, no more needles at the doctor, and a whole myriad of conveniences yet to be imagined.
There have been revolutions in technology since people discovered that metals made better tools than stone, or that computer chips could calculate better than mechanical machines. These are exciting times to be alive at the beginning of what could be another powerful game changer in human achievement.My Kitchen Goods secret santa went well above and beyond.
See, I am a very, very busy and proud autism momma. I am not able to be home for very long periods of time and when I am, I am literally chasing my toddler from one end of the home to the other. We would never eat if I did not have my crockpot. I can barely go to the bathroom most days (tmi but so truth!)
Camedia came through like a saint! She got me everything I mentioned I could use. Stuff for crockpotting, a freakin AWESOME brownie pan (boys were on sugar overload today and Jamie says this was the best exchange ever! I highly recommend this pan) and a new cookie sheet (much needed, much appreciated!). Oh, and did I mention a rice cooker? I have wanted one for years but could never talk myself into buying one because autism is expensive and it is something to make MY life easier... It is being put to use tomorrow!
I love you. Seriously. I love you.
The feels. This exchange definitely got to me. Thank you so much! I don't get much time to myself or much appreciation in my busy life...you made me feel appreciated! I love my life and my boys but sometimes everyone needs a little personal love, so thank you for putting a long, overdue smile on my face!ESA — ESA root — ESA
N° 39–2013: ESA’s Swarm trio on its way to watch over our planet’s magnetic shield
22 November 2013
ESA’s three-satellite Swarm constellation was lofted into a near-polar orbit by a Russian Rockot launcher this afternoon. For four years, it will monitor Earth’s magnetic field, from the depth of our planet’s core to the heights of its upper atmosphere.
The Swarm satellites will give us unprecedented insights into the complex workings of the magnetic shield that protects our biosphere from charged particles and cosmic radiation. They will perform precise measurements to evaluate its current weakening and understand how it contributes to global change.
The Rockot launcher lifted off from the Plesetsk spaceport in northern Russia at 12:02 GMT (13:02 CET) on 22 November.
Some 91 minutes later, its Breeze-KM upper stage released the three satellites into a near-polar circular orbit at an altitude of 490 km.
Contact was established with the trio minutes later through the Kiruna station in Sweden and the Svalbard station in Norway.
All three satellites are controlled by ESA teams at the European Space Operation Centre in Darmstadt, Germany. In the next hours they will deploy their 4 m-long instrument booms. Over the next three months of commissioning, their scientific payloads will be verified and they will move to their respective operational orbits.
The lower pair will fly in formation side by side, about 150 km (10 seconds) apart at the equator and at an initial altitude of 460 km, while the upper satellite will rise to a higher orbit, at 530 km.
“Swarm is about to fill a gap in our view of the Earth system and in our monitoring of global change issues,” noted Volker Liebig, ESA’s director for Earth observation.
“It will help us to better understand the field that protects us from the particles and radiation coming from the Sun.”
About Swarm
Swarm is ESA’s fourth Earth Explorer mission, coming after the successful CryoSat, GOCE and SMOS satellites – all missions that expand our knowledge of Earth and its environment.
The combination of data collected by Swarm will give precious information on the sources of the magnetic field inside Earth. This includes understanding how the magnetic field is related to the motion of molten iron in the outer core, how the conductivity of the mantle is related to its composition and how the crust has been magnetised over geological timescales.
They will also investigate how the magnetic field relates to Earth’s environment through the radiation belts and their near-Earth effects, including the solar wind energy input into the upper atmosphere.
Swarm will also be able to distinguish between the various sources of our planet’s magnetic field and ensure continuity in its monitoring from space in conjunction with measurements from ground observatories.
Our magnetic field plays a major role in protecting the biosphere because it generates a bubble around our planet that deflects charged particles and traps them in the radiation belts. This shielding protects all life on Earth from the bombardment of heavy ions coming from the Sun and deep space.
Since the 1980s, previous missions have showed this field to be weakening, which could be a sign that the north and south magnetic poles are beginning to reverse – known to have occurred on multiple occasions during geological times.
Although such inversions usually take thousands years to complete, a further weakening of our magnetic protection could lead to an increase in events that damage our orbiting satellites or disrupt power grids and other electrical systems on the ground.
About the European Space Agency
The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. It is an intergovernmental organisation, created in 1975, with the mission to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space delivers benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
ESA has 20 Member States: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, of whom 18 are Member States of the EU.
ESA has Cooperation Agreements with eight other Member States of the EU. Canada takes part in some ESA programmes under a Cooperation Agreement.
ESA is also working with the EU on implementing the Galileo and Copernicus programmes.
By coordinating the financial and intellectual resources of its members, ESA can undertake programmes and activities far beyond the scope of any single European country.
ESA develops the launchers, spacecraft and ground facilities needed to keep Europe at the forefront of global space activities.
Today, it launches satellites for Earth observation, navigation, telecommunications and astronomy, sends probes to the far reaches of the Solar System and cooperates in the human exploration of space.
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ESA Media Relations OfficeEmail: media@esa.int Tel: +33 1 53 69 72 99INTRODUCTION Section: Choose Top of page Abstract INTRODUCTION << METHODS RESULTS DISCUSSION REFERENCES CITING ARTICLES
Working memory (WM) refers to the ability to temporarily maintain and manipulate information in active awareness (Smith, 2001). WM is essential for performing many cognitive tasks (Wiley & Jarosz, 2012), and individual differences in WM capacity are correlated with individual differences in intelligence (Engle, Tuholski, Laughlin, & Conway, 1999). In part for this reason, the feasibility of enhancing WM has been explored with training (Melby-Lervåg & Hulme, 2013), stimulant medications (Ilieva, Hook, & Farah, 2015), and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS; Brunoni & Vanderhasselt, 2014). Here, we look more closely into the tDCS and WM enhancement literature.
Early reports of tDCS effects on WM suggest that enhancement is possible through anodal stimulation of the left dorsolateral pFC (DLPFC), a finding that makes sense given the tendency for anodal stimulation to enhance neuronal excitability (Nitsche et al., 2008; Priori, 2003; Nitsche & Paulus, 2000) and the role of the left DLPFC in WM (Carpenter, Just, & Reichle, 2000). In an early study of 15 healthy volunteers, Fregni and colleagues (2005) found a significant effect of left DLPFC anodal stimulation on WM performance in a 3-back task. This was followed by other small studies assessing left DLPFC stimulation on WM in patient groups (see Nitsche et al., 2008) and healthy populations (e.g., Ohn et al., 2008). The literature has continued to grow and has prompted three recent attempts to synthesize the available findings by meta-analysis.
The earliest meta-analysis, combining tDCS and repetitive TMS studies of patients and healthy individuals, focused on the n-back task to operationalize WM (Brunoni & Vanderhasselt, 2014). In the n-back task, participants monitor a sequence of stimuli and must respond when the current stimulus is identical to the one presented n stimuli back. Meta-regression showed significant WM improvements in speed but not accuracy with tDCS. As most of the tDCS studies were done in healthy participants (16/19), these results provide some indication that tDCS probably enhances healthy WM performance as measured by speed of responding, but not accuracy. However, this meta-analytic review included a mix of different stimulation montages, such that the effects of anodal stimulation of the left and right DLPFC were grouped together. Further limiting the informativeness of this analysis with regard to WM, only one type of WM task was included. Performance on other WM tasks, such as digit span or the Sternberg working memory scanning task, was not examined.
A second meta-analysis surveyed the literature on tDCS and WM, along with other cognitive abilities; included multiple WM tasks; and concluded that tDCS has no reliable effect on WM (Horvath, Forte, & Carter, 2015). However, this meta-analysis has been criticized on the grounds that its design would make it difficult to find positive effects of tDCS whether or not such effects exist. Among the contentious design decisions were: limiting the analysis to tasks that had been studied in relation to tDCS by more than one laboratory, reducing the number of eligible studies, and applying inconsistent criteria for selecting dependent variables to meta-analyze when more than one is available (Chhatbar & Feng, 2015; Nitsche, Bikson, & Bestmann, 2015; Price & Hamilton, 2015; see also Horvath, 2015; Price, McAdams, Grossman, & Hamilton, 2015).
Most recently, Hill, Fitzgerald, and Hoy (2016) reported the results of meta-analyses covering multiple WM tasks in healthy participants and in neuropsychiatric patients. Two separate meta-analyses were carried out on data from healthy participants, focused on reported effects on RTs and accuracies. A drawback of this study is that, of the 34 studies entered into the meta-analyses of tDCS effects on healthy WM, only 12 different samples of participants were tested. Therefore, contrary to the assumptions of meta-analysis, many of the effect sizes entered into the meta-analyses were not independent of one another. The conclusion drawn from this study was that tDCS has small but significant enhancing effects on WM, whether measured by RT or accuracy.
In summary, despite early evidence that tDCS can enhance WM (Andrews, Hoy, Enticott, Daskalakis, & Fitzgerald, 2010; Ohn et al., 2008; Fregni et al., 2005), recent meta-analyses have concluded that the effects are reliable though small (Hill et al., 2016), partial (Brunoni & Vanderhasselt, 2014), or nonexistent (Horvath et al., 2015). The present meta-analysis addresses the effect of tDCS on WM with methods better suited to finding an enhancement effect in healthy people, if it exists, than the previous meta-analyses. Relative to the broad aggregation of Brunoni and Vanderhasselt (2014), who mixed studies of tDCS in healthy and psychiatric populations, we only evaluated WM effects in tDCS studies of healthy participants. Relative to the narrow selectivity of Brunoni and Vanderhasselt (2014), who excluded tasks other than the n-back, and Horvath and colleagues (2015), who excluded tasks not reported by multiple laboratories, we included all published data available on WM performance and tDCS in healthy adults.
Five other differences from the earlier meta-analyses would be expected to increase the sensitivity of our analysis in comparison with the three preceding meta-analyses: First, for studies that employed the n-back task, we excluded 0-back and 1-back conditions, which place little demand on WM (Braver et al., 1997) and have been used as control conditions in other WM research (Ragland et al., 2002; Carlson et al., 1998). Second, we included results from researchers who had not reported the information necessary to estimate a relevant effect size in their published article, using email requests and measurements of published figures as described under Coding procedures. By obtaining this additional information, we were able to expand the pool of evidence and reduce the influence of publication bias. Third, by excluding studies for which active and sham stimulation sessions were not counterbalanced, we increased the quality of the analyzed research. Fourth, we selected the most appropriate dependent variable from each study and combined them meta-analytically, following Ilieva et al. (2015). As discussed in more detail in the Methods section, under Dependent variables, we used a priori criteria to select dependent variables, rather than separately meta-analyzing accuracy and RT measures and selecting the specific measure of accuracy or RT emphasized by the authors of the original study. Fifth, the fact that the previous three meta-analyses were completed before ours gives our analysis access to later published studies, making it the most comprehensive to date.
Four main issues are addressed by this meta-analysis. First, we ask: For three commonly used anodal stimulation sites, does tDCS have an effect on WM performance in healthy adults, and if so, how large is this effect? Second, we ask: Are certain tDCS setups and contexts more effective for WM enhancement than others? What factors, including reference electrode placement, current density, stimulation before or during task performance, and so forth, moderate WM enhancement by tDCS? Third, we address the issue of tDCS as an adjuvant to WM training: Does tDCS amplify the enhancing effects of WM training, as might be expected given its effects on neuronal excitability and synaptic plasticity (Stagg, 2014; see also Santarnecchi et al., 2015)? Fourth, what role might publication bias play in shaping the literature on tDCS enhancement of WM, and how do the conclusions of that literature differ when the influence of publication bias is estimated and corrected?While Google, BMW, Tesla, Audi, Nutonomy and Uber are working feverishly to be the first to bring self-driving cars onto our roads, there hasn’t been a lot of noise about autonomous vehicle tech in developing countries – until now.
India-based engineering firm Tata Elxsi announced today that it’s gearing up to begin testing its own self-driving system in the southern Indian city of Bangalore. Although it isn’t building its own cars, the company (which is part of the Tata Group that also runs power, steel, communications and software businesses and racked up revenues crossing $100 billion in 2015-16) told Business Standard that it’s already started trials with two sedans at a facility on the edge of town with its custom kit consisting of LIDAR and radar, as well as cameras and sensors that feed data to a centralized processing stack.
If it secures the necessary permits in Bangalore, Tata Elxsi will be the first company to test self-driving tech on Indian roads. It hopes to eventually be able to offer manufacturers a platform that’s ready to be integrated into their vehicles in the years to come.
The challenge that Indian roads and traffic conditions offer is vastly different from what the likes of Google and Tesla are up against in developed countries. In India, lane discipline and pedestrian movement are wildly erratic, and the large numbers of two-wheelers and three-wheeler rickshaws that zig-zag between larger vehicles will likely provide autonomous vehicles’ sensors with far more data than they might pick up on roads in North America and Europe.
However, there’s a strong case for bringing self-driving cars to India. The country recorded a whopping 400 fatal road accidents per day in 2015; that’s one death every 3.6 minutes. Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Road Transport and Highways, has a lofty goal of reducing that figure by half by 2020. With intelligent technology behind the wheel, that might be possible over time.
Traffic congestion and air pollution caused by vehicular emissions are both on the rise. Last September, the World Health Organization reported that the capital of New Delhi was the second most polluted city in the world, thanks to high fine-particulate-matter (PM2.5) levels that were nearly 11 times higher than what the agency’s health standards prescribe.
With more self-driving cars and efficient carpooling systems for commutes, the number of vehicles could be reduced significantly. For reference, an MIT study noted earlier this month that the number of cabs in New York City could be brought down from 13,000 to 3,000 if more people carpooled.
Experts believe that self-driving cars will only begin to become commonplace around 2025, but it’s likely that demand for those vehicles will mostly be concentrated within developed countries. Efforts like Tata Elxsi’s could see the tech arrive at least around a similar time frame in emerging markets like India.
I for one, can’t wait to not have to drive a car ever again.
Tata Elxsi looks to test driverless cars on Bengaluru roads on Business Standard
Read next: School employee fired after busting joke about student's spelling on TwitterIn a move that will make legal and political waves, Cook County Board President Tony Preckwinkle and four members of her board kicked off a campaign aimed at vastly reducing the use of bail in pending criminal cases here, especially for nonviolent offenses.
Joined by fellow commissioner and former mayoral hopeful Jesus "Chuy" Garcia, the county chief announced a public hearing next month on whether people are being jailed largely "because they can't afford to pay" rather than because they pose a danger.
Following up: Facts back Preckwinkle's call for easier bail for low-risk offenders
The hearing likely will put pressure on Tim Evans, the chief judge of Cook County Circuit Court and an occasional rival to Preckwinkle, to get bond court judges to issue more I-bonds and the like.
Preckwinkle said she did not consult with Evans before today's announcement. His office had no immediate comment.
According to Preckwinkle and Garcia, the hearing, set for Nov. 17 on the fifth floor of the county building, is in response to a suit filed a few days ago that alleges racial and other discrimination in how the county operates its criminal prosecution system.
Read more:
• A way to cut violent crime arrests in half? U of C lab says yes
• Opinion: A most violent month and the toll on Chicago's children
• Chuy Garcia zaps Emanuel before his big crime speech
Substantial evidence exists that African-American and Latino alleged offenders are more likely than whites to be held behind bars while they await trial, Garcia said.
"We are going to try to figure out what's happening and investigate," he said, saying that the hearing will take testimony from criminal justice experts, some offenders who have been held because they couldn't make bail and judges from other jurisdictions.
"Pretrial detention is an incredible burden on our budget," said Preckwinkle, with taxpayers spending $162 a day to hold prisoners in the Cook County Jail, many of them accused only of nonviolent offenses. "Setting a very high bail figure is unfair to those being held and their families, and costly to us.”
Preckwinkle has pushed strongly for criminal justice reform in her tenure, urging alternatives to jail for drug offenders. She has had some success, with the jail's daily population down about 25 percent from its peak and some judges using a new standard in reviewing requests for bail.
But, she added, "We need to know by judge and by case how that tool is being applied.”
Another sponsoring commissioner, North Sider John Fritchey, suggested that some judges set high bail because they're worried of a backlash if they make a mistake and release the wrong person.
"A lot of judges don't want to be the Willie Horton judge," Fritchey said, referring to a notorious 1986 case in which a Massachusetts inmate out on a weekend furlough raped a woman. The incident was turned into a political ad that helped sink Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis' campaign for president. "But we're not talking about releasing people who are a danger.”
"People are being warehoused," said West Side Commissioner Richard Boykin. "That should not happen in a civilized society."
Also backing the call for a hearing was a suburban Republican, Pete Silvestri.
Garcia said the hearing could lead to changes in policy at the circuit court level, or to changes in the state's bail law. "The bail statute in Illinois actually isn't that bad," he said. "It's the application of the statute.”
Asked if the county could end up deciding to impose no bail at all in some cases, Garcia said he'd await the outcome of the hearing.Today, Hex Entertainment announced that Set 2: Shattered Destiny will be pushed back a week and released on December 8th. As a result of this, the official Shattered Destiny limited release weekend will instead take place on the same weekend we had originally planned on holding the Blood Cup.
We recognize that this is less than ideal; we would like to avoid running our tournament the same weekend as the Shattered Destiny release queues, as this would force people to choose between one or the other. In addition, scheduling our tournament for the week after these queues was no mistake, as they would be a great way for people to begin building their set 2 collection and get started on their competitive decks.
And so, we are officially moving the Blood Cup to December 20th (with finals on December 21st) to keep in line with our original intentions. We realize that some people will be unavailable to play the weekend before Christmas, but nonetheless believe this to be the best option given the circumstances. The sign-up page for the tournament remains the same; if you have entered already, you do not need to enter again. If you wish to drop in light of this news, please do so on challonge.
Future Shard Cup tournaments are still planned for the second week of every month. To read more about the Shard Cup, visit the official page here.
Like this: Like Loading...Suspects on the run after San Luis Hotel security guard shot 23-year-old victim identified, listed as critical but stable after rushed into surgery
About three suspects are on the run after a security guard was shot Sunday night at the San Luis Hotel in Galveston. (Metro Video) About three suspects are on the run after a security guard was shot Sunday night at the San Luis Hotel in Galveston. (Metro Video) Photo: Metro Video Photo: Metro Video Image 1 of / 10 Caption Close Suspects on the run after San Luis Hotel security guard shot 1 / 10 Back to Gallery
At least three gunmen are on the run after one of them fired at a security guard at the San Luis Hotel and Conference Center in Galveston.
Surgeons quickly operated on the victim, 23-year-old Philip Mollis, who was listed in critical but stable condition as of Monday afternoon.
Mollis was patrolling the back parking lot of the hotel around 10:15 p.m. Sunday when he saw several people involved in what he thought was suspicious activity, Galveston Police Department Capt. Joshua Schirard said.
When the security guard approached, the gunmen turned around and fired at him, striking the security guard multiple times, Galveston police said later Monday. The gunmen then fled the parking lot.
Mollis was transported to the University of Texas-Medical Branch hospital where he underwent surgery. After surgery he was listed in critical but stable condition, police said later.
"These suspects don't care if it was a police officer, a security guard," Schirard said. "They just turned around and shot."
The Galveston, Texas City, Lamar and Houston police departments have sent officers to help find the suspects. A canine unit is also being used to help track them down, along with a Houston police helicopter.
Police found and interviewed a person of interest but had not found the suspects as of Monday afternoon, Galveston police said. Anyone with information in the case is asked to contact Galveston detectives at |
unique public-private key pair and sends the public key part back to the computer.
“Remember that public-key cryptography uses two different keys: a public key that locks files, and a private key that unlocks them,” said Ducklin. “You can share your public key widely so that anyone can encrypt files for you, but only you (or someone to whom you have given a copy of your private key) can decrypt them.”
The malware offers to trade money for the private key to unlock the encrypted files. “It pops up a pay page, giving you a limited time, typically 100 hours, to buy back the private key for your data, typically for $300,” Ducklin said. Then a warning comes that the server will destroy the key after a time specified, meaning that the files will never be able to be recovered.
The picture doesn’t get better. “SophosLabs has received a large number of scrambled documents via the Sophos sample submission system,” he said. “These have come from people who are keenly hoping that there's a flaw in the CryptoLocker encryption, and that we can help them get their files back. But as far as we can see, there's no backdoor or shortcut: what the public key has scrambled, only the private key can unscramble.” In other words, unlike other ransomware, there is no remediation.
Worse, the infection vectors make it difficult for consumers to avoid. CryptoLocker arrives via email attachments and botnet – the former is easy to avoid by being wary of unsolicited attachments. Botnets though are a different story.
“Most bots, or zombies, once active on your computer, include a general purpose ‘upgrade’ command that allows the crooks to update, replace, or add to the malware already on your PC,” said Ducklin. “So take our advice: make it your task today to search out and destroy any malware already on your computer, lest it dig you in deeper still.”Blizzard ( Originally Posted by Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
This week’s update doesn’t bring any major additions to the PTR, but does have a few changes worth calling out.
We’re enabling the Kirin Tor Tavern Crawl for some additional testing. While it’s not exactly new to 7.2.5, we’d still appreciate any testing we can get, as we want to be sure we’ve ironed out all the bugs. There should be an NPC in Dalaran who can direct you to the right place.
We’ll also be turning on Black Temple Timewalking again. As you’ve probably surmised, last week’s test had to be cancelled at the last minute, so this time we’re just going to open it up for testing on Friday and leave it open all weekend. We’ve done some difficulty tuning since the last time it was available, so please give it a look and let us know how it goes!
The Chromie scenario will not be available for testing this week; as we’ve been playing through it ourselves, we’ve been finding opportunities to add some additional polish and shine in a few areas, and want to have all of that in place before opening it up for feedback. We really like the direction it’s headed, though, and hope you will too once we’ve got it ready for PTR in the next week or so.
There’s another round of class changes in this build, including some fairly significant changes to Vengeance Demon Hunter meant to help clean up the rotation a little bit (particularly in regards to Soul Fragments). Not all of these changes will be immediately apparent from reading tooltips, so we’d love to hear your thoughts after spending some time with them in-game.
You’ll also see a few changes to set bonuses in this build. We’re continuing to make tuning adjustments to Tier 20 set bonuses, and a few of those will be in this build. You may also see a number of changes to Tier 19 (Nighthold) set bonuses. This is to ensure that the Tier 20 pieces are a reasonable upgrade over Tier 19, without having to make the Tier 20 bonuses blatantly overpowered. Please keep in mind when testing these changes that we’re still working on overall class balance for 7.2.5.
Thanks, and happy testing!Last Monday, 13.5 million people watched the first episode of Under the Dome, making CBS’s thirteen-episode miniseries based on Stephen King’s 2009 novel the highest-rated scripted summer debut in six years. Of course, King’s output has been big business ever since the first television adaptation of one of his works aired in 1979, and each successive decade has even put its own spin on the author’s output — anthology series one-offs in the eighties, multi-part movies and miniseries of the nineties, and remakes and made-for-TV stories of the aughts. Dome also presented Vulture with the perfect opportunity to follow up on last spring’s ranking of all 62 Stephen King books; to come up with this definitive second countdown, we spent countless hours watching and rewatching the many episodes, shows, movies, and miniseries produced from his novels and stories, as well as a few things he wrote directly for the small screen. Go crazy in the comments below.
27. Trucks
At the time of its release, Stephen King described 1986’s Maximum Overdrive — adapted from his short story “Trucks” — as a “moron movie.” That wasn’t necessarily an insult coming from King, who wrote and directed the film; the B-movie horror and sci-fi flicks he watched and loved in his youth had given him an understanding of the joy to be had in the dumb stuff. USA Network’s 1997 adaptation of “Trucks,” though, is sub-dumb. Starring Timothy Busfield and a musical score that at several points sounds like the work of an intermediate piano student who’d just bought his first keytar, this two-hour movie about trucks that come to life and attack humans should make us all apologize to Maximum Overdrive for having ever called it such terrible names (at least that cheesefest had the good humor to give one of its trucks a memorable Green Goblin face). The King-like lesson to be learned here? There is always something worse.
26. The Outer Limits, “The Revelations of Becka Paulson”
One of the complaints frequently lodged against King’s TV work is that it’s not scary enough. This is true, but network standards have often been to blame; think of the half-dozen King miniseries of the nineties and what they might have looked like were they produced today. Of course, given King’s love of dark comedy, sometimes the work isn’t intended to be scary, and this 1997 episode of Showtime’s The Outer Limits revival falls into that camp. Based on a short story that was eventually incorporated into the novel The Tommyknockers, “The Revelations” stars Catherine O’Hara as a housewife who gains odd powers after she accidentally shoots herself in the head. Directed by Wings’ Steven Weber (who would later that year headline ABC’s six-hour remake of The Shining), the episode proves that the language and situational humor of some of King’s lighter stories don’t always translate well to the screen.
25. Quicksilver Highway, “Chattery Teeth”
Mick Garris is King’s go-to TV collaborator. (“I sometimes joke that we’re in danger of becoming the Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond of the horror genre,” King has said of his multiple team-ups with the director.) A former Universal Pictures publicist who first worked with King on the terrible 1992 theatrical release Sleepwalkers, Garris went on to helm TV adaptations of The Shining, Desperation, and The Stand. “Chattery Teeth” — which aired on Fox in 1997, the same year as the two previous items on this list (what happened in ’97?!) — served as one half of the backdoor pilot for a scuttled horror anthology called Quicksilver Highway; the story, from King’s Nightmares and Dreamscapes, concerns a traveling salesman who has bad luck with a hitchhiker and is saved by a pair of wind-up novelty teeth purchased at a roadside store. Sadly, the adaptation is another one-note story extended far past the limits of its conceit. Add in Fox’s questionable decision to frame the stories with set pieces starring Christopher Lloyd as a Rod Serling stand-in who travels America’s back roads in search of eerie stories, all while wearing a wig, a black muumuu, and a choker, and the inadvertent comedy becomes too much to bear.
24. Monsters, “The Moving Finger”
A good subset of King’s short fiction involves average Joes and Janes tossed into outlandish situations — explorations of how a regular person would respond when confronted with something unbelievable. Said person grapples with said crazy thing through internal monologue or (a King favorite) dialogue with oneself, and the suspense comes from the cascading character responses — shock, denial, realization, acceptance, action. Unfortunately, it’s extremely difficult to translate much of that to screen (and woe to the fool who tries to adapt Gerald’s Game, essentially a one-person novel in which a woman is handcuffed to a bed). Fittingly, this 1990 episode of the Monsters — watch the hardy-har-har opening credits here — served as the anthology show’s final entry. It stars Tom Noonan as a man who discovers a finger growing out of his bathroom sink. And that’s pretty much all there is to say about that.
23. Sometimes They Come Back
A child of the fifties, King has a particular affinity for the greaser as villain. It worked wonderfully in two of his best movie adaptations — Stand by Me and It — and terribly in this 1991 TV version of a story from his collection Night Shift. Tim Matheson plays a high school teacher who moves back to his hometown with his wife and young son. Who is in one of his classes? Why, it’s those three teens who died long ago after killing his older brother and have returned to finish him off. Full of schmaltzy voice-over and gauzy-filtered flashbacks scenes laden with treacly music, Sometimes is rife with forced sentimentality.
22. Tales From the Darkside, “Word Processor of the Gods”
Owner of the creepiest opening-credits music of eighties TV alongside Unsolved Mysteries, Tales From the Darkside was a horror anthology series created by Night of the Living Dead director George Romero in the wake of Creepshow, the film that he and King did together. Two pieces of King’s writing were made into Darkside episodes (and another made it into the eventual Darkside movie). The first, “Word Processor of the Gods,” adapted from a story collected in Skeleton Crew, is about a writer who inherits a mysterious word processor that can make real anything he types and vanish anything he deletes; the writer uses it to get rid of his overweight harridan of a wife and their loud, junk-food-eating son. The cheaply made episode (it feels like a basement porn movie without the sex) consists mostly of shots of actor Bruce Davison and cutaways to the mysterious word-processor screen and its infernal buttons, resulting in a half-hour of TV that’s neither scary nor funny nor particularly interesting.
21. Desperation
“Can-tah. Can-tak. Can de Lach! Tak ah Wan!” Variations on these lines are repeated several times in Desperation, directed by Mick Garris from a King script. And as Harrison Ford famously said about George Lucas’s screenplay for Star Wars, “You can type this shit, but you sure can’t say it.” Same goes for Desperation. Here, a cop in a small desert town pulls over an assortment of passers-by and tosses them in jail. Then things get bloody. As played by the hulking Ron Perleman, made to look even bigger by five-too-many low angle camera shots, evil cop Collie Entragian is a superb and frightening villain. Unfortunately, he disappears before half the film is over and we are left with a plot that requires a young boy to talk over and over again about the grace and will of God. (One of the last lines of the film is “God is love,” which may be true, but Jesus Christ!) Indeed, much of this three-hour movie, which aired on ABC in May 2006, is given over to characters talking or observing. When Tom Skerritt — as a King-like author — brings about an explosion with the one-liner, “I hate critics,” it feels like a knowingly preemptive strike.
20. Rose Red
King wears his influences on his sleeves. It’s why his characters so often say, out of the blue, some variation of the line, “It reminded me of a story I read in high school … ” It’s also why he has so often riffed on older genre classics. Rose Red, an ABC miniseries from 2002, is Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House mixed with Robert Wise’s film version of the same crossed with Richard Matheson’s Hell House. Nancy Travis plays a university professor who assembles a team of psychics to explore the haunted Seattle mansion of the title. The building — like the one in Mark Z. Danielewski’s utterly frightening meta-horror novel House of Leaves — has a tendency to grow bigger and shift its internal architecture on its own. Though the series starts off strong, with an initially compelling and ragtag group of characters and an appropriately Northwestern gray vibe, it dissipates over its six-hour running time. (Rose Red is only two hours shorter than The Stand!) How many times can one story have its characters foolishly choose to run through foggy woods? So many times. And Matt Ross’s performance as Emery Waterman is a drag on the movie. As a squeaky-voiced mama’s boy, his primary acting choice seems to have involved making his character the loudest mouth-breather ever. There is also a stereotypically King-ish psychic child. Overly long and indulgent.
19. Golden Years
This eight-hour CBS miniseries – King’s first original work for the small screen – involves an elderly janitor who, after getting caught in an explosion at the government lab he works at, begins to grow younger. He then finds himself pursued by a secret government agency called the Shop. (Also the main baddie in the novel Firestarter.) With interesting performances by Frances Sternhagen and Felicity Huffman, the show nonetheless throws all its eggs in the thriller basket and regularly fails to deliver.
18. Tales From the Darkside: “Sorry, Right Number”
King’s first original TV screenplay, “Sorry, Right Number” is, as the title indicates, a take on the famous Agnes Moorehead radio play “Sorry, Wrong Number.” (It was later adapted into a Barbara Stanwyck film.) Originally broadcast in November 1987, it finds the wife of a horror novelist (naturally) disturbed over a panicked phone call she receives out of the blue. She can’t identify the caller, but they sound so familiar. With a great twist ending, “Sorry, Right Number” is a tight piece of TV work, one of the best of King’s mostly terrible anthology show stories. According to Stephen Jones’s book Creepshows, “the story had first been submitted to executive producer Steven Spielberg’s disappointing half-hour anthology series Amazing Stories, but had been rejected by Spielberg because, according to King, ‘they were looking for Amazing Stories that were a little more upbeat.’”
17. The Langoliers
More often than not, if there’s a child actor in a King TV adaptation, he or she is going to bring the whole thing down. This four-hour 1995 ABC miniseries has a young blind girl who happens to have (surprise!) psychic powers. She alternates between hysterical and eerily calm. As does Bronson Pinchot, who chose to play only either lung-scorching rage or slack-mouthed catatonia. A group of airplane passengers awake mid-flight to discover that everyone else on the plane has vanished. It’s a fantastic setup, and indeed the first hour is its best, spooky and understated. But if you remember this movie at all, you probably remember Pinchot screaming or the title creatures — world-eating balls of teeth that resemble nothing so much as ugly Pac-Men. King’s ABC miniseries, as pricey as they were, often suffered from laughable climactic special effects. The Langoliers wasn’t the first instance and it wouldn’t be the last.
16. Children of the Corn
So many sequels have been made to the 1984 horror movie Children of the Corn that they practically comprise their own mini direct-to-video cottage industry. (2011 saw the release of Children of the Corn VIII: Genesis.) This adaptation of the original short story aired on Syfy in 2009. Set in 1975, it finds a Vietnam vet and his wife driving cross country, trying to outrun their failing marriage. They argue often. Then, while passing through the corn fields of Nebraska, they encounter a religious cult run by children who consider sinful adults to be enemies worthy of death. There’s something inherently funny about scenes of Amish-garbed teenagers running with sharp farm implements, screaming at the top of their lungs as if they were in a battle scene from Braveheart. This film can’t escape the cheesiness of moments like that. Nor can it avoid an inherent script flaw — we spend much of the first half observing the arguments of a couple that we know little about and have no attachment to. Still, there is an effective simplicity to the film’s scares — it uses silence as well as any Syfy movie has any right to. This version’s child preacher has got nothing on the original, though. Not even close.
15. The Tommyknockers
One could say that this four-hour movie that aired in May 1993 suffered from too-high expectations, following three years after the successful and frightening It. Part of the reason for this movie’s poor reception (Tom Shales called it “howlingly awful” in the Washington Post) was likely due to the fact that the sci-fi novel it was based on is far from scary. Another reason for the poor reception is because it is howlingly awful. One day, a writer in a small Maine town stumbles across a mysterious object buried on her property. She begins to dig it up and an alien presence takes over almost everyone in town except for her boyfriend, an alcoholic poet. Stuffed with overused King tropes (writers, a small town, telepathy, a typewriter typing the same thing over and over again, a main character sacrificing themselves at story’s end), The Tommyknockers plays like Invasion of the Body Snatchers–lite. Yet, on account of the performance of Jimmy Smits, it’s hard to completely dismiss. As the self-loathing alcoholic poet, he invests the role with a palpable sense of anguish. Which is appropriate given that King admitted, in his memoir On Writing, that the sell-your-soul-to-aliens conceit of the novel “was the best metaphor for drugs and alcohol my tired, overstressed mind could come up with.” Smits makes the movie watchable.
14. The X-Files: “Chinga”
King had initially wanted to write an episode of the dark thriller Millennium, but ended up working instead on a story for creator Chris Carter’s other show, then in its fifth season. A take on the classic evil doll trope (see the Twilight Zone’s “Talking Tina” episode, etc.), “Chinga” finds Scully on her own as she takes a long-needed vacation in Maine. She can’t escape her job, though, as she crosses paths with a young girl and her deadly toy doll. There’s a bit of fan service in the episode — Mulder back in Washington watching what first appears to be a porn video, Scully taking a bubble bath — but in the end, it’s no more than an above average Monster of the Week treatment. Owing to rewrites, “Chinga” (which basically means fuck in Spanish) ended up being more X-Files than Stephen King. According to Kim Manners, the episode’s director, “I was very excited to be able to direct a Stephen King piece, and when it was all said and done, there was very little Stephen King left in it. The nuts and bolts were his, but that was really one of Chris’ scripts.”
13. Bag of Bones
At one point in this 2011 A&E miniseries, a bell starts to ring even though no one is touching it. At another moment, a door closes shut even though no one has touched it. That’s what we’re dealing with here. As directed by King regular Mick Garris, Bag of Bones relies heavily on cheap and lazy frights — a raccoon jumps out at just the reight moment; a man kisses a beautiful woman who turns into a corpse only to wake up from his dream and then kiss another woman who then turns into a corpse! It’s a shame, too, because Pierce Brosnan, who plays a writer who retreats to a cabin by a Maine lake following the death of his wife, does very fine work here. But it’s laughable how many of the scare moments feel phoned in, likely by a phone that is disconnected. Seriously, though, it would be okay if there were never another King adaptation that featured a portentous yet homey phrase repeated over and over again or a shot of a typewriter/screen/manuscript with the same words written on line after line.
12. Haven
The Colorado Kid is one of King’s oddest books, a thin mystery that takes place entirely as a conversation between two Maine newspaper men and a young female intern. This Syfy series, now entering its fourth season, is loosely inspired by Colorado Kid (though its hard to see how.) In it, FBI agent Audrey Parker arrives at the titular Maine town, and discovers that it is a locus of people with supernatural powers. Essentially a procedural show that often plays as a weaker version of The X-Files, the main character arc is just wackadoo enough to make it worth returning to.
11. Stephen King’s The Shining
Is it hubris for a novelist to want to do a new movie version of his work if he was unsatisfied with the first attempt? Normally, the answer would be no — an author is free to do with his own work whatever he likes. But when it’s Stephen King remaking The Shining, there’s a bit of “fuck you, Stanley Kubrick” to the whole enterprise. King had long been dissatisfied with the liberties Kubrick and co-screenwriter Diane Johnson had taken in the 1980 big-screen version. (Let’s not re-litigate that film in this space.) So when the opportunity came to shoot a version more loyal to the original novel, a version in which Jack Torrance is flawed and troubled but ultimately heroic, as opposed to insane from the get-go, King took it. Behind the camera was King stalwart Mick Garris who, alongside the author and screenwriter, restored much of the novel’s original story line. In this version, which aired in three,two-hour parts on ABC in 1997, Jack’s ax is replaced by a croquet mallet; cook Dick Halloran makes it out alive; the climax is fiery, not frosty; and instead of a hedge maze, we get menacing CGI hedge animals that look simply ridiculous. Still, there are many who take issue with Kubrick’s version and prefer this one — Rebecca De Mornay plays Wendy Torrance as a strong, primary character, the opposite of Shelley Duvall’s sniveling pushover. The whole thing is played as more of a tragedy than a horror story. Pick the version you want.
10. Carrie
Brian De Palma’s 1976 movie version of Stephen King’s first novel remains one of the best King screen adaptations. Yet there’s something so primary and American about the story — budding sexuality, high school bullying, religious fundamentalism — that it can probably be remade every couple of decades with no loss of power or impact. This fall, Julianne Moore and Chloë Grace Moretz will star in a new big-screen version directed by Boys Don’t Cry’s Kimberly Peirce. This 2002 adaptation, which aired on NBC, was written by Bryan Fuller, a man who knows his way around dark subject matter, having created the shows Dead Like Me, Pushing Daisies, and this year’s Hannibal. Emilie de Ravin (Lost’s Claire) is appropriately bitchy as the high school queen bee, Patricia Clarkson does a more frigid, less campy take on Carrie’s mother, and Angela Bettis comes closer to the homely-looking, beaten-down Carrie White of King’s original conception. Not as stylized as De Palma’s and not as expensive as this fall’s version is likely to be, Carrie nonetheless gets right to the core of the story.
9. The Twilight Zone: “Gramma”
Given the fact that nothing much actually happens in this half-hour piece from 1986, it’s amazing how effective the episode is. King wrote this story, collected in Skeleton Crew, after recalling the fear he experienced as a child having to deal with his ailing grandmother. Here, young actor Barret Oliver (Bastian in The Neverending Story) plays a boy left alone with his invalid grandmother. When he goes to bring her a cup of tea, he discovers some famously evil books beneath her floorboards. The script was written by famed sci-fi writer/curmudgeon Harlan Ellison, and he does wonders with so little. Every child experiences a moment or two where they are scared of a relative or elderly person, and this episode brings that truth to its emotional and metaphorical endpoint.
8. Salem’s Lot — 1979
Several versions exist of this first TV adaptation of King’s work. There is the four-hour miniseries that aired on CBS in November 1979, as well as a three-hour and a two-hour version. The cast is solid: Starsky and Hutch’s David Soul plays a writer who returns home after years away only to discover that a vampire has hit town at the same time. Bonnie Bedelia plays his love interest, James Mason plays the vampire’s human familiar, and Fred Willard plays the town real estate king. Directed by Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s Tobe Hooper, Salem’s Lot looks incredibly quaint by today’s standards, but the few scares are still effective — a young vampire boy floating outside a window, nails scratching on the glass; the vampire’s Nosferatu-like makeup, Fred Willard in red silk boxer shorts. It’s slow-going, but Salem’s Lot is a classical horror film in spades
7. Nightmares and Dreamscapes
An eight-episode anthology series that ran on TNT in 2006, Nightmares and Dreamscapes proved that there’s more than one way to slice the King. Taking stories from three collections – Everything’s Eventual, Night Shift, and the title one – the series delivered a couple of stinkers, one very fine episode, and a bona fide masterpiece. The very fine one (“The End of the Whole Mess”) stars Henry Thomas and Ron Livingston as two brothers who devise a method to rid the world of violence and aggression; naturally, there are unintended consequences. It’s a clever recounting of the end of the world that’s partially told documentary-style. The story of the masterpiece, “Battleground,” sounds absurd: A hit man arrives home after his latest job to discover that he has fallen under attack from tiny green army men toys. But the execution is fantastic. Written by Richard Christian Matheson (son of the recently deceased author), directed by Brian Henson (son of Jim), and starring William Hurt, it’s an hour-long episode containing no dialogue. Verdict: Thrilling and fun and suspenseful.
6. Kingdom Hospital
A Maine hospital is built on the remains of an old mill where dozens of children died in a fire. Half ghost story, half medical drama, there’s nothing that’s not weird about this thirteen-episode ABC series from 2004. It’s almost like it goes out of its way to bring the weirdness. A sampling: two people with Down’s syndrome who serve as a Greek chorus of sorts, a creepy German security guard, regular earthquakes on account of the hospital being built on a fault line, a talking supernatural anteater, occasional moments when doctors break out into song. Stephen King developed the series, based on Lars von Trier’s Danish haunted hospital miniseries The Kingdom, and wrote half its episodes. The two-hour pilot includes a car accident that almost exactly matches the circumstances of the one that almost killed King in 1999. Kingdom Hospital is incredibly offbeat and, most important, never boring or predictable.
5. The Dead Zone
It’s not often that a filmmaker as demented and capable as David Cronenberg decides to take on a Stephen King movie. Luckily, this 1983 adaptation came along before King had alienated the Hollywood in-crowd with the overwhelming amount of dreck he produced later in that decade, and The Dead Zone, starring Christopher Walken in one of his most sympathetic roles, remains one of the most mature feature adaptations of the lot. But its basic premise, about a man who emerges from a long coma to discover that he can see both the past and the future, held the promise of something much larger — larger like this procedural, which ran for six seasons on USA starting in 2002 and starred grown-up Brat Pack pipsqueak Anthony Michael Hall in the role Walken made famous and Young Indiana Jones himself, Sean Patrick Flannery, as an up-and-coming politician whose rise may or may not lead to the apocalypse. The first season teases out much of the book’s plot, mixing it along the way with unrelated Mystery of the Week episodes. Subsequent seasons deepened the story line, adding a mythology and a new set of characters. So, should an above-average procedural rank this high? On its own, maybe not. But in the context of so many overly devoted King adaptations, it qualifies as an inspired decision to take one of his most compelling story nuggets and build an entirely new world around it.
4. Salem’s Lot
First off, the cast of this four-hour miniseries, which ran in two parts on TNT in June 2004, is fantastic. Rob Lowe does arrogant well as writer Ben Mears; Rutger Hauer and Donald Sutherland play the vampire Barlow and his human counterpart Straker, respectively; and Andre Braugher surprises as a local schoolteacher scared out of his wits. And while none of the images have the staying power of the 1979 original (the floating Glick boy, his dead brother snapping upright out of his coffin), the story here is altogether better. It’s named Salem’s Lot for a reason — this is a story about a small town and its inhabitants, and we get to know everyone and experience them as a community before they all turn into creatures of the night. With sparingly (but wisely) used CGI and several genuinely shocking moments, Salem’s Lot is an unexpected success.
3. Storm of the Century
King writes well about small Maine cities and towns (he’s even invented a few – Derry, Castle Rock) and this story, written specifically for TV, is one of his best explorations of what it means for the members of a community to be tied to one another. This six-hour miniseries aired on ABC over three nights in February 1999 (one part was cruelly pit against George Clooney’s final ER episode as a cast member) and told the story of the residents of Little Tall Island and the mysterious visitor who comes to visit right as the titular blizzard hits. Whenever the film (directed by Craig R. Baxley, who would go on to direct Rose Red and Kingdom Hospital) shoots for straight scares, it fails pretty poorly — a repeated shot of the villain baring his fangs is laughable every time. Thankfully, most of the time is spent on character development, quiet suspense, and moral complexity — and the last hour, in which one man’s principles butt up against horrible reality — is a truly gut-wrenching one. “Island business is island business” indeed.
2. The Stand
Considered by many to be King’s best book, the sprawling apocalyptic novel could only have been done justice by a long TV treatment. This eight-hour major event miniseries aired on ABC in May 1994. With a screenplay by the author and directed by Mick Garris (drink!), it remains near the gold standard for King on TV, despite a sometimes laughably dated cast (e.g., Parker Lewis from Parker Lewis Can’t Lose, Dauber from Coach, Molly Ringwald). The end of “Part I,” when Stu has to leave the underground bunker past dozens of dead bodies, is far creepier than a similar scene from the pilot of The Walking Dead. The end of “Part III” (reminder: an explosion occurs) remains a shocking TV kicker. While it suffers from having been shot in the mid-nineties (the version on Netflix looks like crap), there is an epic feel to this production that matches the scope of the novel and continues to remain rare, especially on network TV.
1. It
The spider. Everyone always brings up the spider. Sure, the climax of this four-hour miniseries, which aired on ABC in November 1990, features our main characters — played by John Ritter, Henry Thomas, Annette O’ Toole, and Harry Anderson — attacking a giant, Harryhausen-esque stop-motion spider. But the three and a half hours that precede that moment are undeniably strong. The story of seven kids from Maine who defeat the monster plaguing their town only to have to return to beat it again decades later, It (like the source material and like Rob Reiner’s film version of Stand by Me) portrays the joy and misery of childhood in a way that feels fundamentally true. A heavy sense of melancholy pervades all four hours and the constant flashbacks between past and present are as seamless as they come. The adult actors never swing too hard, the child actors (including Jonathan Brandis and Seth Green) are spot-on, and the villain — Tim Curry as Pennywise the Clown — is a nightmare come to life.NEW DELHI: Government on Thursday lifted the ban on bulk SMSs and MMSs with immediate effect -- a day before the earlier stipulated deadline of August 31.The telecom ministry had, on direction of home ministry, imposed the ban for 15 days on August 17. Later, the restriction was reviewed on August 24 when the telecom ministry increased the limit from five SMSes to 20 SMSes."After reviewing the matter again on Thursday, the ministry lifted the restriction allowing citizens to use text messages and MMSes without any limit of numbers with immediate effect," said a home ministry official.As MPs cutting across party lines had pitched for a foolproof mechanism to check spread of rumours that led to exodus of people from the northeast in certain states, the government on August 17 had imposed the ban on bulk SMSs and MMSs for 15 days across the country.As per that decision, no one was allowed to send more than five SMSs at one go and more than 20 KB of data from a cellphone for the next 15 days.Though such a ban may not put a complete check on spread of false or misleading information, officials believed that the mechanism coupled with strict monitoring of flow of SMSs had certainly acted as a deterrent.Adults with cancer often turn to using medical marijuana to relieve the side effects of chemotherapy, but can kids with cancer use medical marijuana, too? A new study published in Pediatrics found that many pediatric oncologists would feel comfortable recommending it for children for the very same reasons they would offer it to adults, since it eases the pain, nausea, and lack of appetite that comes along with cancer treatment.
However, those pediatricians who were already licensed to write prescriptions for medical marijuana were way less likely to say they would offer it to children — but not for the reasons you might think. The study found that because of discrepancy between federal and state laws, most doctors fear that giving marijuana to sick kids could get them in trouble with federal authorities, even though it's legal in their state.
So many of the docs who would refrain from recommending marijuana to kids aren't doing so because they don't believe in its efficacy, but because it would go against their hospital procedures or their own fears of getting in trouble.
Study co-author Kelly Michelson, MD, Critical Care physician at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, said in a press release via Eureka Alert accompanying the study:
It is not surprising that providers who are eligible to certify for medical marijuana were more cautious about recommending it, given that their licensure could be jeopardized due to federal prohibition. Institutional policies also may have influenced their attitudes. Lurie Children's, for example, prohibits pediatric providers from facilitating medical marijuana access in accordance with the federal law, even though it is legal in Illinois.
The survey included talking to 288 pediatricians in Illinois, Massachusetts and Washington, all states that have made medical marijuana legal. According to the research, nearly a third of them had received one or more requests for medical marijuana and 92 percent of those doctors were willing to help kids with cancer access it. The laws and the lack of industry standards about dosing and potency were the biggest barriers to recommending it, the study found. Only 2 percent of doctors said that they would never consider marijuana for pediatric patients.
Michelson added in the same press release:
In addition to unclear dosage guidelines, the lack of high quality scientific data that medical marijuana benefits outweigh possible harm is a huge concern for providers accustomed to evidence-based practice. We need rigorously designed clinical trials on the use of medical marijuana in children with cancer.
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Which is in line with the current recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics, which sanctions medical marijuana use for kids with "life-limiting or seriously debilitating conditions."
Luckily, more research is underway. The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia just entered into a new study to examine medical marijuana's efficacy for kids with autism, according to PhillyVoice. Currently, the Autism Research Center endorses doses of medial marijuana as an alternative to pharmaceutical treatments for the anxiety, aggression, and panic disorders that come along with autism.
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Usually, doctors and cannabis experts recommend marijuana strains with high Cannabidiol (CBD) levels as opposed to strains with high tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) levels. THC is the psychoactive element in weed, which means that kids don't get "high" in the colloquial sense of the word, but get all the benefits of weed from either tinctures or edibles (instead of having kids smoke it) administered by their parents.
A 2013 study from the National Institute of Health found that marijuana might be the perfect treatment for ASD, since the symptoms of autism are possibly caused by a blockage of the body's natural production of endocannabinoids, which medical marijuana can alleviate.
A study published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine also found that there |
ju. First instituted in 1952 under the new Communist government, the gaokao was suspended during the cultural revolution. Most universities were closed, and remaining college places were assigned according to political background rather than academic ability. It was only in 1977, the year after Mao’s death, that the gaokao resumed in its modern form. The first sitting was open to generations who had been deprived of the chance to pursue higher education – 5.7 million people enrolled, competing for just 220,000 university seats. Since 1978, it has been held every summer.
The gaokao is made up of four three-hour papers: Chinese, English, maths and a choice of either sciences (biology, chemistry, physics) or humanities (geography, history, politics). The questions are mostly multiple-choice or fill-in-the-gap, and are notoriously hard – the maths paper has been compared to university-level maths in the UK. But for many students, the most intimidating element is the essay in the Chinese exam. Students are given an hour to write on one of two prompts, which are often infuriatingly elliptical. Prompts in 2015 included “Do butterfly wings have colours?” and “Who do you admire the most? A biotechnology researcher, a welding engineering technician or a photographer?”. This summer, Yuan Qi’s choice was between “Old accent” and “Mysterious bookmark”. (He picked old accent.)
It is no surprise that, for many students, the pressure heaped on them by parents, teachers and themselves, is overwhelming. It is possible to retake the exam one year later, but if a student continues to fail there is no safety net or alternative path to university. Suicides are a regular feature of every exam season; a 2014 study claimed that exam stress was a contributing factor in 93% of cases in which school students took their own lives. Last year, a middle school in Hebei province fenced off its upper-floor dormitory balconies with grates, after two students jumped to their deaths in the months leading up to the gaokao. And the academic stress starts early – in July a 10-year-old boy tried to kill himself in oncoming traffic after fighting with his mother about homework. But still the study mill grinds on.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Yuan Qi in his bedroom at his parents’ apartment in Beijing. Photograph: Gilles Sabrié for the Guardian
In April, two months before the exam, the campus of Yuan Qi’s school was deceptively tranquil. A tree-lined boulevard led up to Beijing 101’s front entrance, where two guards with truncheons watched over the security gate. Inside, the school buildings glistened in the sun, surrounded by spacious sports grounds and a lake with a goose house and lotus flowers. Students walked around in colour-coded slacks that, like all school uniforms in China, more closely resembled pyjamas: dark blue for year 11, mauve and white for year 12, purple for year 13. The school nestles into the west flank of Beijing’s old Summer Palace – once the relaxation grounds of Qing dynasty emperors – and a back gate connects directly to the garden ruins. Founded in 1946, Beijing 101 was initially set up to educate the children of China’s top officials, and it still has many such students among its ranks.
It was an accomplishment for Yuan Qi to even be there. At his local primary school in Hebei province, there had been 70 to 80 children in each class. The school’s football pitch was never used, as none of the teachers knew the rules. Yuan Qi’s residency papers, or hukou, dictated that he should have stayed in Hebei for middle school, but his father used his connections in the People’s Liberation Army and arranged a transfer to Beijing, with a new hukou. Once there, Yuan Qi enrolled in a better middle school and, thanks to a good performance in the zhongkao – the entrance exam for high school – got into Beijing 101 at the age of 16. Yuan Qi was now one step closer to securing his future at the college he dreamed of attending.
Just a hundred metres down the road from Beijing 101, in the heart of the city’s university district, lies Peking University (or Beida, as it’s known in China). With its illustrious history, roll call of famous alumni and romantic campus dotted with lakes and stone bridges, Beida is the Chinese equivalent of Oxford or Cambridge. Ever since his parents first told him about it as a child, Yuan Qi had always dreamed of going there to study maths. His parents and teachers were encouraging, but even their expectations, he told me, were nothing like the pressure he put on himself.
“In middle school I realised that primary school was easy,” he said. “And in high school I realised that middle school was easy.” At Beijing 101, classes had just 20 to 30 students, but the work was twice as intensive as before. As Yuan Qi’s grades were good, he was put into one of four “experimental classes” in his year, which went at an even faster pace. And on top of his regular subjects, like all Chinese students, he also took two hours of politics class each week. They included the compulsory modules of Mao Zedong thought and Deng Xiaoping economic theory, which were introduced in 1991 as part of a patriotic education campaign. I ordered online one of the politics textbooks that Yuan Qi would be studying from. It was titled Integrity of Thought, and a typical page featured a cartoon of three boys sitting around a table discussing the latest government initiatives (as one does), with an accompanying discussion question for students: “What are the everyday applications of these laws?”
The routine at Beijing 101 is punishing. At 6.30am Yuan Qi was out of his dorm bed, and he was in the canteen for breakfast by 6.50. At 7.20 came half an hour of self-study reading time. From 8am he had five 40-minute classes, broken by a half an hour of group calisthenics in the yard – a thousand students doing jumping jacks in unison – or running around the grounds. Another three afternoon classes were interrupted by five minutes of eye exercises, during which students massaged their tired brows while a recorded track told them to rub behind their ears and press their temples. School broke at 4.05pm, but there was still another three or four hours of homework to be completed before bed.
As summer arrived, the pace picked up for Yuan Qi and his classmates. Almost all classes were now spent looking at past gaokao papers in methodical detail. After school, there were two extra hours of mock exams every day, on top of the homework, and five additional classes on Saturday. On Sundays, Yuan Qi’s parents had arranged private tuition for him in English and Chinese. His only relaxation was playing computer games, but whereas in middle school he had enjoyed complex online roleplayers, now he only had time for smartphone apps.
When I visited Beijing 101, the scene was not as disciplined as I had expected. School pupils in China are kids, after all, not robots – they goof around, joke, talk over each other. At the front gate as I waited to be let in, three boys were lifting up a fourth, giving him a wedgie. Inside was a bulletin board listing extra-curricular activities, from drama to traditional crosstalk comedy performances. A corrugated steel fence next to a basketball court was covered in graffiti, albeit sanctioned by the teachers and expletive-free: V for Vendetta; an alien face with the words “Once I was normal”; “Big Brother is Watching You”, with one of the letters replaced with a swastika. But in class the students quietened down, listened carefully and took notes. In years of reporting in China, I have never heard a single student grumble about their workload. To them, it is simply normal.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The campus of Beijing University (Beida), one of China’s top universities. Photograph: Gilles Sabrié for the Guardian
I sat in on one of Yuan Qi’s maths classes while the teacher – a tough but kindly woman with a strong Beijing accent – walked through exam-paper equations that left me feeling like a dunce. Yuan Qi followed along at his white plastic desk, where sheets covered in intricate geometrical squiggles were sprawled out next to his pencil case and a roll of toilet paper for blowing his nose. At the back of the classroom, a cartoon of Xi Jinping was drawn in coloured chalk on the blackboard next to the words “Wishing you a successful exam” and a reminder: “46 days”. This countdown is a national obsession. If you search for “gaokao” on Baidu, China’s largest search engine, in the months leading up to the exam, an image appears at the top of the results page, with a clock counting down to the start of the exam, next to a cartoon of a schoolgirl riding a flying book.
Before Yuan Qi knew it, the countdown was at 30 days. 15. Ten. Five. With just three days left, on 4 June – while the rest of Beijing either forgot or ignored the 27th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre – Beijing 101 held a big pre-exam event in the main lecture hall: part pep talk, part rules refresher. Yuan Qi and his friends joked among themselves, half-listening while the headteacher went through the exam drill in excruciating detail, from how students should register with their IDs to what to do if they needed extra paper. At the end, all the teachers lined up and waved at their pupils from under a PowerPoint slide that read: “We have already done abundant preparation! Wishing you every success! Awaiting the good news!”
With that, 12 years of primary and secondary education were finished. The climax of it all was in sight. Yuan Qi went home, and got his head straight for the first paper.
In China, the gaokao is sometimes described as a dumuqiao, which translates as “single-log bridge” – a difficult path that everyone has to walk. But some have better shoes than others. Rich families lay on extra tutoring for their children in what Jiang Xueqin, a Canadian-Chinese education scholar, described as an “arms race” among households looking to increase their child’s chances. Provinces with larger populations have tougher standards of entry into the best universities, while those that are sparsely populated set a lower bar. (This loophole has led to illegal “gaokao migrants” transferring to schools in Inner Mongolia just before the exam.) Students in Beijing and Shanghai get special privileges – they are the beneficiaries of generous local quotas for the best universities – despite being more likely to be privileged anyway.
“Scores are highly correlated with socioeconomic status,” Trey Menefee, a lecturer at the Hong Kong Institute of Education, told me. I asked if he considered the exam meritocratic. “I don’t,” he replied, “but almost every Chinese person does … Or it’s meritocratic only because it’s equally bad for everyone.”
There has been talk of reforming the gaokao for as long as it has existed, but little ever comes of it. The major concession in the early 2000s was to allow separate provinces to draft their own exam papers. This year, top universities trialled interviews with students who show special promise at school. Those who impress may be awarded extra points, which are added to their final exam score. Many students and their families have also called for the English paper – a stumbling block for many without access to private tuition – to be made optional.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Students revise for the gaokao in Jiaxing, China. Photograph: VCG/VCG via Getty Images
Meanwhile, relatively small changes can meet fierce resistance. In May, the government announced that a quota of 80,000 university places in Jiangsu and Hubei provinces would be reserved for students from poorer regions, in an effort to address provincial inequality. But mobs of middle-class parents took to the streets in six cities to protest against the measures, fearful that positive discrimination in favour of poorer families meant their own children would lose out. “The gaokao isn’t for everyone,” Jiang Xueqin told me. “It’s for the middle class.”
When it comes to more comprehensive reform, the general consensus among education scholars in China is that any alternative would be too easily manipulated by the rich. Were coursework or regular school marks to be taken into account alongside exam grades, bribery would be even more rampant than it already is (parents often give “red packages” stuffed with banknotes to teachers in return for special attention for their child in class, or simply a seat nearer the front). The same goes for direct university admission. And so, futures are still decided by how well each child performs at a cramped desk in a closed room for two days in early June.
China’s funeral revolutionaries | Jonathan Kaiman Read more
Not every student in China signs off their fate to the gaokao. Although more than nine million people still take it every year, the number is declining. This is partly down to the rising popularity of vocational courses, which often offer better prospects of finding a job after graduation, especially for those whose grades are less competitive. Above all, more and more students are heading abroad for university, and increasingly for high school. It used to be that the best students went to Beida; now they go to Harvard. There are more than 300,000 Chinese overseas students in US higher education and 90,000 in the UK. While many colleges overseas recognise the gaokao, it isn’t necessary to take it to secure a place. Just as China’s moneyed classes are deciding to protect their wealth by placing it overseas, their children are opting out of the country’s education system on an industrial scale.
One of Yuan Qi’s classmates in the experimental class at Beijing 101, Jiang Xinye, joined the exodus. During her last year of school, by arrangement with her teachers, she stopped coming to class and instead prepared applications to US colleges. Her parents hired the services of Bridge International Education, a company that helps students select colleges and pull application materials together (the bill was roughly £8,000; other companies charge up to £20,000). Instead of the gaokao she took the TOEFL, an English proficiency exam, and her SAT, the US college-entrance aptitude test. She settled on a major in business, and wrote in her personal statement about her experience selling phone cases at school. With the help of a college counsellor she filled in forms for 12 universities. When it was all over she accepted a place at Brandeis, a private university in Massachusetts.
Jiang Xinye feels strongly that her chosen path is preferable to that of many of her classmates. Chinese schools just teach the exams, she told me, even more so than abroad. “We don’t solve problems ourselves,” she said, “the teacher just tells you the right answer... and refuses to hear different voices.” One time, over a bowl of bibimbap in a Korean restaurant, the conversation turned to Yuan Qi and his other classmates who remained in the system. “They don’t realise that their imagination is limited. Even if they want to voice their opinions, they are too timid to challenge the teacher.” This struck me as the opposite of something Yuan Qi once told me: “Everything has a right answer. Even if it’s testing your argument, not the specific contents.” That’s why he disliked the more freeform essay question, while Jiang Xinye disliked everything else. While he sat the gaokao on 7 and 8 June, she was packing for America.
Yuan Qi often asked me what school was like in the UK. I swallowed my guilt as I mumbled something about less homework and bad food. One afternoon he used a term, qiutubeilun, which I didn’t understand. I looked it up on my phone: “prisoners’ dilemma”, the famous paradox about mutual competition despite the benefits of cooperation. “If every [student] agreed to take it more easy, and pursue their own interests and hobbies, then the competition wouldn’t be so intense,” he said. “But they would rather sacrifice that free time and spend all their time studying to have a greater chance of getting a high mark, and so everyone has to follow.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Parents wait for their children to finish taking the gaokao, outside the Beijing Renmin University Affiliated High School, one of the most prestigious in the country. Photograph: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images
Yuan Qi sat at a corner window on the second floor of McDonald’s, slurping a McCafé red tea before picking apart the empty cup. It was the morning of 23 June, two weeks after he had sat the exam, and the results would be posted online in a few minutes. The greasy wrapper of a crispy chicken fillet sandwich lay curled on the tray in front of him, next to a book titled Procrastination: Why You Do It and What to Do About It NOW. (In the margins, he had scrawled phrases such as “overcome fear” and “know your weakness”. Next to the sentence “You tell lies about how you organise your time”, he had written, in English, “ME”.) His phone was out on the tabletop and he checked it compulsively every few minutes, waiting for a text from his dad with his score.
The previous fortnight had been stressful but not idle. The day after his final exam Yuan Qi was back at the grind again, preparing for an interview at Beida – part of the new measures that now allow elite universities to meet with promising candidates. It took place a week after the gaokao: there was a written maths test, which was a breeze, and a sit-down with three Beida teachers and five other students, talking about Confucian culture and theoretical maths. The teachers liked him but the outcome was token: they could only give him a maximum of 10 points to be added to his score. After it all, he would still be just a number.
The results were released at noon. Most students checked them online, although they could also ring a hotline, or go to their school to check a printout posted on a bulletin board. Later, a full breakdown of their score would be mailed to each student, but for now it was a single mark for each exam and the all-important total, plus their ranking among other students in their province. Yuan Qi was so nervous that he couldn’t bear to be at home. He asked his father to text him, and repaired to McDonald’s instead.
Noon came and passed. I tried to distract him with smalltalk, but he was fiddling uncontrollably. Why hadn’t his dad texted yet?
At 12:41, his phone buzzed. “What is the score that you’re hoping for?”
“Just tell me, alright?......” Yuan Qi fired back. “Don’t keep me on tenterhooks............!!!”
Another three minutes. Buzz. “Are you on the first floor or the second floor?”
“Why in hell are you asking that for?”
“Is it a good time to talk?”
“Just send the text to me, you’re not allowed to ring!”
“Is anything wrong?”
Yuan Qi was visibly straining not to be rude as he replied. “Can you just send it, OK? Nothing’s wrong, but if you keep not telling me then it will be!!!”
A minute passed in agonising silence. Then it came, with no gloss.
“664, ranked 1,020 in Beijing.”
It was significantly lower than Yuan Qi, or his parents, had expected. Still a high mark, an achievement: 1,020th out of 61,222 examinees in Beijing. But only the top 500 had a real shot at getting into Beida, where the cutoff point was generally taken to be 680. Yuan Qi’s mock results were in the 690s but this mark, in his words, was “ordinary”. Not even in the top thousand.
His father texted again: “It’s OK son”. He stressed that they could apply to have his papers re-marked. But Yuan Qi was hyperventilating, taking short shallow breaths and pushing them out through pursed lips, as he stared at his phone. He scrolled down an online list of everyone’s results in Beijing, to double-check his ranking. The Katy Perry song Teenage Dream was blasting over the stereo. His peers were posting their scores in messaging app groups for each of his classes. I didn’t know what to say, and as a journalist I have never felt more intrusive as I watched a young man’s hopes crumble before my eyes.
Even with the full breakdown, Yuan Qi never knew exactly why he had underperformed. It was just one of those bad exam days. A few weeks after results day, he was accepted into Beijing Aviation and Space Flight University, known as Beihang for short. It is a good college, specialising in aeronautics, but with an excellent reputation for maths – not the best of the best, but the best Yuan Qi could have got into. He would go on to start college that September.
For now, he was using his summer to do all of the things he didn’t have time for while at school. He went swimming, took classes for the boardgame Go, learned how to ride a bike. And, now that it had served its purpose, his gaokao mark could be forgotten – no longer relevant, like much of the knowledge he had crammed to achieve it. Yuan Qi still didn’t complain about the exam, even though, by its narrow definition of success, he had failed – just as the exam had failed to capture his individuality, his passion for learning and discovery.
“I don’t feel disappointed so much as lost,” he said, as we left McDonald’s that day. “If it was just me, if I didn’t have parents, then I would feel a bit better. But why do I feel like it’s they who are the most disappointed? From when I was little, they had such high expectations.”
He gathered himself, picked up his book on procrastination, and went home to finish reading it before getting ready for the next chapter.
• Follow the Long Read on Twitter at @gdnlongread, or sign up to the long read weekly email here.Remember the massive push to bring the Super Bowl to New Jersey?
It was considered a coup, an economic touchdown, a crowning moment -- until New York grabbed the glitzy crown and left New Jersey with a massive migraine of traffic, bills and bad reviews.
Now, New Jersey has enticed the Philadelphia 76ers to set up a training facility and offices in Camden with a $82 million incentive deal extending over 10 years.
For that investment, the basketball team’s ownership has promised to bring 250 jobs to the struggling city. But 200 of those jobs will be transfers from the Sixers' current offices, and only 50 new employees will be hired during the transition. And it’s doubtful Camden will realize any benefits from sports enthusiasts visiting the practice venue of the second-worst team in the NBA.
But coaxing the team across the Ben Franklin Bridge showed New Jersey has what it takes to do attract a marquee sports name and its billionaire owner.
What it takes is simply money, and the state has spent far too much placating businesses that threaten to leave the state. Since 2010, New Jersey’s Economic Development Authority has awarded 252 companies more than $4 billion in subsidies -- tax breaks and credits. That’s more than triple the amount awarded over the previous 13 years.
That expensive and preferential treatment extended to approximately 1 percent of corporations in the state is not paying off as well as it should. A study by the think tank New Jersey Policy Perspective finds the policy to be largely unsuccessful in boosting the state’s economy with the value of a job tied to a subsidy award rising to $48,000, “leaving companies on the hook for far fewer jobs on a per-dollar basis than ever before.”
Attracting successful companies or keeping them in New Jersey requires more than a tax break. A talented workforce, education, public safety and transportation factor into decision on where to locate.
Attention and investment in those public assets could create more of a business-friendly environment -- and certainly a more enduring one -- than plying company owners with excessively exorbitant deals.
To curb a payout trend that’s gotten out of hand, New Jersey lawmakers should consider setting a cap on the tax breaks to better monitor the grants. Limiting the overall amount of the awards would also makes the process competitive; as the NJPP notes, “as it stands now, if a company meets the minimum requirements, the state has no compelling reason to reject the application, since there is no limit on the amount it can award.”
With finite resources, New Jersey must focus more on attracting and keeping companies with the ability to grow and prosper instead of emulating the sports world and handing out huge paydays to big-name athletes who founder or phone it in or move to another team.
On mobile or desktop:
• Like Times of Trenton on Facebook
• Follow @TimesofTrenton on TwitteA drug company which produces a painkiller 50 times more potent than heroin has donated $500,000 to the campaign to keep marijuana illegal in Arizona.
Insys Therapeutics - whose sole product is the powerful painkiller fentanyl - gave the money to 'Arizonans for Responsible Drug Policy'.
Their donation was nearly four times more than the second largest of $110,000.
Pro-legalization campaigners have claimed drug companies want to keep cannabis illegal to corner the market for drugs that relieve pain and other symptoms.
Scroll down for video
Insys Therapeutics - whose sole product is the powerful painkiller fentanyl - gave the money to 'Arizonans for Responsible Drug Policy'
The company said they opposed the initiative 'because it fails to protect the safety of Arizona's citizens, and particularly its children.'
It also said the US Food and Drug Administration had not approved marijuana for any medical use, the Arizona Daily Star reported.
But activists have seen their move as being a sinister ploy to maintain control over the drug market.
The company produces the painkiller that the singer Prince died from after taking an overdose.
America's Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) said fentanyl - which the company sells as a spray - is 50 times more potent than heroin.
On its website it says the drug'may provide pain relief in as little as five minutes...it is the first and only sublingual spray for breakthrough cancer pain.'
However the DEA said the drug was also being used on the streets to cut heroin.
Prince's cause of death was an accidental painkiller overdose of the painkiller fentanyl
J.P. Holyoak, chairman of the initiative-backing Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, said in a statement: 'We are truly shocked by our opponents' decision to keep a donation from what appears to be one of the more unscrupulous members of Big Pharma.'
He added: 'Our opponents have made a conscious decision to associate with this company. They are now funding their campaign with profits from the sale of opioids – and maybe even the improper sale of opioids.
'We hope that every Arizonan understands that Arizonans for Responsible Drug Policy is now a complete misnomer. Their entire campaign is tainted by this money. Any time an ad airs against Proposition 205, the voters should know that it was paid for by highly suspect Big Pharma actors.'
Fellow campaigner Barrett Marson said their opponents should return the donation.Rachel Dolezal, president of the NAACP’s Spokane chapter, is stepping down amid national outrage after her parents publicly accused her of falsely portraying herself as black for years.
Ms. Dolezal, chair of Spokane’s Office of Police Ombudsman Commission and an adjunct professor at Eastern Washington University, made the announcement on Facebook after she canceled a meeting with her chapter Monday, where she was supposed to address the swirling controversy over her racial identity.
“Many issues face us now that drive at the theme of urgency. Police brutality, biased curriculum in schools, economic disenfranchisement, health inequities, and a lack of pro-justice political representation are among the concerns at the forefront of the current administration of the Spokane NAACP,” she wrote Monday. “And yet, the dialogue has unexpectedly shifted internationally to my personal identity in the context of defining race and ethnicity.
“I have waited in deference while others expressed their feelings, beliefs, confusions and even conclusions–absent the full story,” she continued. “I am consistently committed to empowering marginalized voices and believe that many individuals have been heard in the last hours and days that would not otherwise have had a platform to weigh in on this important discussion. Additionally, I have always deferred to the state and national NAACP leadership and offer my sincere gratitude for their unwavering support of my leadership through this unexpected firestorm.”
Ms. Dolezal continues on to say that she’s passing her position to NAACP Spokane’s Vice President Naima Quarles-Burnley.
“Please know I will never stop fighting for human rights and will do everything in my power to help and assist, whether it means stepping up or stepping down, because this is not about me. It’s about justice,” Ms. Dolezal wrote. “This is not me quitting; this is a continuum. It’s about moving the cause of human rights and the Black Liberation Movement along the continuum from Resistance to Chattel Slavery to Abolition to Defiance of Jim Crow to the building of Black Wall Street to the Civil Rights and Black Power Movement to the #BlackLivesMatter movement and into a future of self-determination and empowerment.”
{snip}
Ms. Dolezal has identified herself in application materials as white, black and Native American. Her parents said they started noticing a change in their daughter’s appearance after she divorced a black man in 2004. She also started claiming to have biracial parents around the same time.
{snip}
Original Article
Share ThisWhile voice recognition software is nothing new, Apple was the first to introduce an integrated solution for smartphones starting with the iPhone 4S in the form of Siri. However despite it being demonstrated with such aplomb, the end result did not live up to the expectations of many its users. What was particularly frustrating was Siri’s inability to understand the user, at least compared to the alternatives like Google Now which did a much better job.
However according to the folks at Wired, it seems that Apple could soon be improving on that by replacing the company responsible for Siri’s technology, Nuance, with technology that they have built themselves. According to the people that they spoke to, Wired found that Apple had been steadily hiring voice recognition and speech experts, who will presumably be working on Apple’s own in-house voice recognition technology which could eventually replace Nuance.
According to Abdel-rahman Mohamed, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Toronto who claims that Apple had approached him with a job offer, “Apple is not hiring only in the managerial level, but hiring also people on the team-leading level and the researcher level. They’re building a very strong team for speech recognition research.”
The technology that they could be replacing Nuance with is called neural networks. This technology has been employed by both Microsoft and Google in their own software, like Skype and Android Voice Search, resulting in much more accurate and speedy results, at least compared to Siri. Of course it remains to be seen if this is something that Apple will do but what do you guys think?
Filed in. Read more about Siri.“The Art of the Deal” ghostwriter Tony Schwartz told MSNBC on Wednesday that Donald Trump’s campaign has sent him a cease and desist letter after he said the GOP nominee has “no heart and no soul.”
Schwartz said the letter sent from GOP nominee’s campaign asks for him to return all royalties he made from the book. “It’s nuts,” he responded.
The former journalist was hired by Trump to help write the book back in 1987, according to MSNBC, however, he recently made derogatory comments about Trump to The New Yorker.
“I put lipstick on a pig,” Schwartz told the magazine. “I feel a deep sense of remorse that I contributed to presenting Trump in a way that brought him wider attention and made him more appealing than he is.”
Also Read: Don King Tells Us Why Donald Trump Is Not a Racist (Video)
“What kind of human being says, ‘all publicity is good publicity,” Schwartz asked, before explaining that Trump doesn’t really care about his supporters.
Schwartz told Brian Williams and Rachel Maddow that he “wished” he didn’t have to speak up but felt obligated since Trump is so close to becoming President of the United States. He also mocked Trump’s attention span and said he can’t focus on things for a long period of time,
“I almost gave up on the book … because it was so impossible to interview him,” the ghostwriter explained.
Schwartz also said in the interview that he would name a book “The Sociopath,” if he was asked to write about Trump these days.
“The Art of the Deal” was a huge success, as Trump likes to point out. It spent 48 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list, including 13 weeks at No. 1.Chapter 5
"As Winter said I'm out of a job." Yang said. "I don't suppose any of you could help with that." She was met with silence and head shakes. "It was worth a shot." She shrugged.
"Anything else?" Glynda asked.
"Well my nightmares…" Velvet started. "No, I don't want to be a downer with a new person here."
"We just told the stories of how our loved ones died." Glynda said. "I don't think you have to worry about being a downer."
"Oh...okay." Velvet said. "It's actually good news too I suppose. My nightmares have been less frequent lately."
"Why don't you explain them for Winter?" Glynda suggested. "As long as you're comfortable with that."
"It's fine." Velvet said. "I already described Coco's death. I have a recurring nightmare where I relive it. There were times when I'd have the dream almost every night, but I've only had it once in the last week."
"That's good." Glynda encouraged. "You're making progress."
"And I don't have to wake up to her screaming." Blake laughed. Winter gave her a curious look. "Oh, yeah, we share an apartment. Our jobs aren't the best paying and it helps to split the cost."
"Anyone else?" Glynda asked. No takers. "Alright. Winter, this is the freeform part where we socialize or just hang out. It's a good chance to get to know everyone."
"Not everyone." Pyrrha said. "I have an exam coming up and I've got a study session with a few classmates, so I have to go." She got up and picked up her bag from under her seat. "Ready to go Nora?"
"Do I have to?" Nora groaned. "I want to hang out with Sun."
"You know what I'm going to say." Pyrrha said.
"Okay." Nora sighed, making an exaggerated gesture of it. She got up and headed for the door. "See you next week!"
"We'll play something later." Sun said with a wave.
Pyrrha followed, stopping at the door. "It was nice meeting you Winter." She said. "Bye everyone." She walked out and closed the door behind her.
"So...are they...a couple?" Winter asked.
"No." Blake replied. "Pyrrha drives Nora here."
"In her capacity as my assistant, she periodically checks on Nora and ensures she's taking her medication." Glynda explained. "Nora isn't allowed to drive and Pyrrha doesn't like the idea of her walking home or taking public transportation."
"They could probably be a couple though." Sun added. "They're good friends for sure. But Nora can be a bit...strange sometimes."
"Speaking of which, what was the deal with her story?" Winter asked. "It's obviously not true."
"I've been Nora's therapist for quite some time." Glynda said. "She's had...great difficulty dealing with her husband's passing. Her wild story is one of the ways she copes. I encouraged her to attend this group because she was very isolated, but she's not quite ready to face what happened. I know the truth, and when she's ready, she'll tell everyone else as well." She sighed. "I'm always hoping it will be time."
"She hasn't even told me and we're pretty good friends." Sun said. "We don't see each other much outside of the group but we play lots of video games together."
"If I had the cash I'd join you." Yang said.
"Sounds like fun." Winter added. She turned to Velvet. "Velvet, you mentioned you work in a shop. What kind?"
"Uh...I uh...lingerie." Velvet said in an embarrassed whisper.
"Can you tell she's shy?" Blake laughed. "Come on Velvet, it's nothing to be ashamed of. It's actually a pretty classy place."
"Way out of my price range." Yang said.
"And it's not like you're there to model the goods." Blake continued.
"Not that she couldn't." Yang teased.
Velvet blushed brightly. "Come on guys, stop it." She said.
"Alright, that's enough teasing." Glynda stepped in. "So, Winter, what do you think of our little group?"
"I think what you're doing here is wonderful." Winter replied. "I feel like you've already helped me and I think I'll be back. I suppose I should schedule a private session as well."
"Only if you want to." Glynda said.
"If it might help, it's worth a try." Winter said.
After chatting for a bit the group broke up. Winter offered to treat Yang to dinner and she readily agreed, having nothing but pancakes to eat at home. Winter picked out a seaside steak place that looked upscale, though it turned out to be a bit less so once they got inside. Yang did not care, it was far better than pancakes. It was after the peak hours for dinner so the pair were seated almost immediately, stashed in a booth by a window that overlooked the ocean. Not that they could see it in the dark of night. They ordered food and drinks - wine for Winter and beer for Yang - then settled in to wait.
After their drinks arrived Yang pulled out her wallet. After searching through it for a second she pulled out a folded and wrinkled picture. It featured Yang beside a petite girl with black and red hair, both smiling. "That's Ruby." Yang said, handing the picture to Winter.
"She's beautiful." Winter said.
"Ha, she would have found that funny." Yang laughed. "She was a tomboy at heart."
Winter sighed. "Weiss went through a phase like that." She said.
"I'm imagining you with a pixie cut, and it's doing strange things to my body." Yang said.
"Father was furious." Winter continued.
|
orphism).
Messages
In order to use person objects in our program, we still need to know how to send messages to an object. In this section we use the terminology sending messages (to an object) while in the Methods section, we use the terminology calling methods (of a class). We always send a message to an object by using the two commands sendMsg(object, message) and sendMsg_(object, message) args __ :
t_person *const per = person.new("Brown");
sendMsg(per, print);
delete(per);
per
"Brown"
new
ooc_bad_alloc
per
print
per
delete()
delete()
ooc_delete()
t_person per[1] = { person.person() };
person.init(per, "Brown");
sendMsg(per, print);
person._person(per);
per
person()
new
per
init
per
per
per
new
init
delete
_object
init()
In the example above, we have declared per as an array to avoid the & in the macros. If your compiler complains about the first line you can either do the initialization after the declaration or use the following alternative:
t_person per = person.person();
person.init(&per, "Brown");
sendMsg(&per, print);
person._person(&per);
int i;
t_person per_ref = person.person();
t_person per[100]; for(i=0; i<100; i++) {
memcpy(per +i, &per_ref, sizeof(t_person));
person.init(per +i, "Unkown");
} for(i=0; i<100; i++) {
sendMsg(per +i, print);
} for(i=0; i<100; i++) {
person._person(per +i);
}
memcpy()
__vptr
-DALLOW_OBJCOPY
per[i] = per_ref;
objCopy(obj1, obj2)
obj1=obj2
-DALLOW_OBJCOPY
memcpy
memcpy(&obj1, &obj2, sizeof(obj1))
initArr(size, args)
clearArr(size)
Methods
If you know the exact class of an object, sending a message can be replaced by the call of the object's method throughout its class like for the methods and class methods. For example,
sendMsg(per, print);
sendCMsg(per, person, print);
methodAddr(per, print)(per);
methodAddr()
per
sendMsg()
sendCMsg()
methodAddr(&person, print)(per);
Encapsulation
Leaving objects members to public access can bring serious data integrity problem like changing the stored size of an array without adjusting the array size. One way to protect data and methods is to declare them as private. Private members can only be accessed by their class or subclasses (see Inheritance). So it is wise to declare private all members that should not be accessible by objects users.
Private specification can be applied to the object data and methods as well as to class data and methods. Sometimes, for simplicity or efficiency, it is also useful to have direct access to object members like for the complex number object:
#define OBJECT complex BASEOBJECT_INTERFACE double public(real);
double public(imag); BASEOBJECT_METHODS /* no virtual function */ ENDOF_INTERFACE
t_complex *const j = complex.alloc();
j->m.imag = -1;
Interface
The interface is simply where object and class definition take place, usually in a header file ( person.h ) which looks like:
#ifndef PERSON_H
#define PERSON_H #include <ooc.h> #undef OBJECT
#define OBJECT person BASEOBJECT_INTERFACE char const* private(name); BASEOBJECT_METHODS void constMethod(print); ENDOF_INTERFACE CLASS_INTERFACE t_person *const classMethod_(new) char const name[] __;
void method_(init) char const name[] __;
void method_(copy) t_person const*const per __; ENDOF_INTERFACE #endif
ooc.h
BASE
OBJECT_INTERFACE
BASE
OBJECT_METHODS
ABSTRACT
CLASS_INTERFACE
ENDOF_INTERFACE
XXX_INTERFACE
OBJECT
person
t_OBJECT
t_person
print
print
Once the person interface is properly defined and included into your file, the following things are available:
The type t_person. This is the object type.
. This is the. The class person. This is the object class itself (instance).
. This is the itself (instance). The class method person(). This is the object constructor. A typical use is t_person per = person.person();
. This is the object. A typical use is The class method alloc(). This is the object allocator. A typical use is t_person *const per = person.alloc(); May throw ooc_bad_alloc exception.
. This is the object. A typical use is May throw exception. The generic type t_OBJECT. It is equivalent to t_person except for genericity. Typically used in generic object interface and implementation.
The method _person(). This is the object destructor. A typical use is person._person(per);
init
The method init(). This method does non-constant object initialization, including dynamic initializations like arrays allocation or string duplication. A typical use is person.init(per, "Brown");
new
alloc()
init()
new()
init()
Warning : Do not confound the new() class method, the allocator and the constructor! The constructor object() returns a well formed default object copy with all fields set to zero plus static initialization specified in initClassDecl() (see Implementation), the allocator alloc() allocates an object and calls the constructor and new() calls the allocator and init().
Implementation
The implementation is the hidden side of the class. Only class designers are concerned by the class implementation which take place into a separate C file ( person.c ) with the same name as the class interface header file ( person.h ). A good advise would be to always design entirely the interface first and then to program the implementation. This should help you to concentrate on object data and methods which is the most important part of your class and to postpone technical problems at development time. It is time now to have a look to the implementation:
#include <stdio.h> #define IMPLEMENTATION #include <person.h> void
constMethodDecl(print)
{
printf("name:\t%s
", this->m.name);
} BASEOBJECT_IMPLEMENTATION methodName(print) ENDOF_IMPLEMENTATION initClassDecl() {} /* class ctor, required */ dtorDecl() /* object dtor, required */
{
free((void*)this->m.name);
this->m.name = NULL;
} t_person
classMethodDecl_(*const new) char const name[] __
{
t_person *const this = person.alloc();
person.init(this, name);
return this;
} void
methodDecl_(init) char const name[] __
{
this->m.name = strdup(name);
} void
methodDecl_(copy) t_person const*const per __
{
person._person(this);
person.init(this, per->m.name);
} CLASS_IMPLEMENTATION methodName(new),
methodName(init),
methodName(copy) ENDOF_IMPLEMENTATION
IMPLEMENTATION
person.h
after
IMPLEMENTATION
name
Then follows the object methods definitions. The use of the keyword methodDecl, constMethodDecl and classMethodDecl helps to declare correctly the methods, the constant object methods and the class methods. All methods have the storage class specifier static which guarantees the encapsulation of the methods into the implementation module (i.e. the file). Since the static storage specifier is included into the methodDecl, constMethodDecl and classMethodDecl macros, pointers qualifier * and const have to be put with the method name, not with the returned type (i.e. char methodDecl(*const getName); ). A clean solution to avoid this little annoyance is to define the returned pointer type with typedef locally to the implementation. Macros methodDecl, constMethodDecl and classMethodDecl have their equivalent version with variable number of arguments: methodDecl_, constMethodDecl_ and classMethodDecl_.
Then follows the object implementation delimited by (BASE)OBJECT_IMPLEMENTATION and ENDOF_IMPLEMENTATION and inside these tags you find the list of the object methods in the same order as declared in the object methods interface. Whatever, the compiler will complain if the order is not respected (except if two successive methods have the same prototype!).
Then follows the required initClassDecl() declaration which is a special local function where class initializations are done like default object initialization (returned by the constructor), superclasses initialization (see Inheritance) or functions overloading (see Polymorphism). Default static object initializations can be achieved by assigning default values (by default all fields are set to zero) to members using objDefault() (i.e. objDefault(level) = 1; in manager.c ). The destructor _person() declared by dtorDecl() is always required even if it is empty like initClassDecl() is this example.
Then follows the methods and class methods definitions. Again the method declarations are done with the methodDecl, constMethodDecl and classMethodDecl macros. The class method new looks 99% of the time like this one, that is calling the allocator and initializing the new object.
Finally, the class implementation is delimited by CLASS_IMPLEMENTATION and ENDOF_IMPLEMENTATION and inside these tags you find the list of the methods and class methods in the same order as declared in the class interface. Whatever, the compiler will complain if the order is not respected (except if two successive methods have the same prototype!).
The section (BASE)OBJECT_IMPLEMENTATION and (ABSTRACT)CLASS_IMPLEMENTATION can be declared at the top of the file if you provide the methods prototypes before. It may significantly improve the readability of big implementation.
Note: Inside methods and object methods, the current object is always called this (C++: member function and this pointer). It is a pointer to constant object if the method has been declared as a constant method (C++: constant member function).
Note: If your libc does not provide the non-C89 strdup() function, your can use the one provided in ooc.c by compiling your programs with the flag -DALLOW_STRDUP.
Inheritance
Up to now, we have seen how to define base objects which do not inherit from other objects. But without inheritance you cannot reuse already implemented objects or split your project into smaller entities like OOP requires. Since we need at least another object, we create the specialized subclass employee from the class person. As in real life, an employee is a person to which we add a departement information. So we derive employee from person. Person viewed from employee becomes a superclass. Here is the employee interface ( employee.h ):
#ifndef EMPLOYEE_H
#define EMPLOYEE_H #include <person.h> #undef OBJECT
#define OBJECT employee OBJECT_INTERFACE INHERIT_MEMBERS_OF (person);
char const* private(department); OBJECT_METHODS INHERIT_METHODS_OF (person); ENDOF_INTERFACE CLASS_INTERFACE t_employee*const classMethod_(new) char const name[], char const department[] __;
void method_(init) char const name[], char const department[] __;
void method_(copy) t_employee const*const emp __; ENDOF_INTERFACE #endif
INHERIT_MEMBERS_OF()
INHERIT_METHODS_OF()
OBJECT_INTERFACE
OBJECT_METHODS
BASE
employee
The inheritance declarations in implementation are as simple as for the interface ( employee.c ):
#include <stdio.h> #define IMPLEMENTATION #include <employee.h> void
constMethodOvldDecl(print, person)
{
sendCMsg(this, person, print);
/* sub_cast() downcast this from person to employee */
printf("\tdept:\t%s
", sub_cast(this,person)->m.department);
} OBJECT_IMPLEMENTATION SUPERCLASS(person) ENDOF_IMPLEMENTATION initClassDecl() /* class ctor, required */
{
initSuper(person);
overload(person.print) = methodOvldName(print, person);
} dtorDecl() /* object dtor, required */
{
person._person(super(this,person)); /* upcast */
free((void*)this->m.department);
this->m.department = NULL;
} t_employee
classMethodDecl_(*const new) char const name[], char const department[] __
{
t_employee *const this = employee.alloc();
employee.init(this, name, department);
return this;
} void
methodDecl_(init) char const name[], char const department[] __
{
/* super() upcast this from employee to person */
person.init(super(this,person), name);
this->m.department = strdup(department);
} void
methodDecl_(copy) t_employee const*const emp __
{
employee._employee(this);
employee.init(this, emp->m.person.m.name, emp->m.department);
} CLASS_IMPLEMENTATION methodName(new),
methodName(init),
methodName(copy) ENDOF_IMPLEMENTATION
SUPERCLASS
person
employee
initClassDecl()
once
person
employee
init()
_employee()
init()
_person()
print
vtbl
print
employee
person
The super macro (equivalent to super_cast() ) used in the methods implementation above upcast this which is an employee ( t_employee ) to a person ( t_person ). Every time you need to send a message or call a method of a superclass, you must use super(object, superclass) to upcast the object into a superobject. Since a class may inherit from several superclasses (see Multiple Inheritance), the full member name (without the first m ) of the superclass must be provided. To reach a superobject public members of an object, you do exactly as for normal class:
super(object, super)->m.public_member.
sub_cast()
this
t_person
t_employee
sub_cast(object, superclass)
m
sub_cast(object, super)->m.public_member.
sub_cast()
OBJECT
To summarize, super_cast() (or super() ) upcast a subclass to a superclass while sub_cast() downcast a superclass to the OBJECT subclass. Both are static cast resolved a compilation time.
Multiple Inheritance
Multiple inheritance can be easily achieved in the same way as single inheritance (see Inheritance) by duplicating approprialty INHERIT_MEMBERS_OF(), INHERIT_METHODS_OF(), SUPERCLASS() and initSuper() definition and declarations. Assuming the existence of the superclasses class1, class2 and of the class aClass which inherits from both superclasses. Starting from single inheritance, some modifications have to be done in interface:
#ifndef ACLASS_H
#define ACLASS_H #include <class1.h>
#include <class2.h> #undef OBJECT
#define OBJECT aClass OBJECT_INTERFACE INHERIT_MEMBERS_OF (class1);
INHERIT_MEMBERS_OF (class2);
...
OBJECT_METHODS INHERIT_METHODS_OF (class1);
INHERIT_METHODS_OF (class2);
...
ENDOF_INTERFACE
CLASS_INTERFACE
...
ENDOF_INTERFACE #endif
...
OBJECT_IMPLEMENTATION SUPERCLASS (class1),
SUPERCLASS (class2),
...
ENDOF_IMPLEMENTATION initClassDecl()
{
...
initSuper(class1);
initSuper(class2);
...
}
...
CLASS_IMPLEMENTATION
...
ENDOF_IMPLEMENTATION
sendMsg(super(object, superclass), message);
sendMsg(super(object, superclass.m.supersuperclass), message);
But it can become quickly boring to use super() each time you have to send a message to your superclasses, or you may want to send the same message to all your superclasses at the same time. In that case, the best thing to do is to declare in your aClass a method using the same name (i.e. the_message ) with a declaration which should look like:
void
methodDecl(the_message)
{
sendCMsg(super(this,class1),class1,the_message);
sendCMsg(super(this,class2),class2,the_message);
}
object
aClass
sendMsg(object, the_message);
Polymorphism
The polymorphism is the aptitude of an object to be used as another object while keeping its original behavior. This section assume the following inheritance hierarchy:
manager --> employee --> person
--> education
-->
One important thing in these classes is the overload of their print method, like for the manager example:
void
constMethodOvldDecl(print, person)
{
/* this is a person */
/* send the print person message to this as an employee */
sendCMsg(this, employee, person.print);
/* send the print person message to this as an education */
sendCMsg(super(sub_cast(this,employee.m.person),education),education,print);
printf("\tlevel:\t%d
", sub_cast(this,employee.m.person)->m.level);
}... initClassDecl()
{
initSuper(employee);
initSuper(education);
overload(employee.person.print) = methodOvldName(print, person);
...
}
employe.person.print
print
print
print
employee
education
sendCMsg()
manager
sub_cast()
super_cast()
static_cast(this, employee.m.person, manager)
super_cast()
dynamic_cast(this, education)
dynamic_cast
The following example shows how to display all information of a person whatever it is a person, an employee or a manager (see test_manager.c for a complete example). The small program:
#include <manager.h> void print_person(t_person *const per)
{
sendMsg(per, print);
} int main(void)
{
t_person *const per = person.new("Brown");
t_employee *const emp = employee.new("Smith", "Cars");
t_manager *const mng = manager.new("Collins", "Trucks", "PhD", 2); print_person(per);
print_person(super(emp,person));
print_person(super(mng,employee.m.person)); delete(per);
delete(emp);
delete(mng); return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}
name: Brown
name: Smith
dept: Cars
name: Collins
dept: Trucks
dipl: PhD
level: 2
print_employee()
print
print_person
sendMsg()
__vptr
To simplify polymorphism implementation, ooc.h also provides few interesting macros:
className( object ) returns a constant string which contains the name of the object's class.
returns a constant string which contains the name of the object's class. isA( object, class ) returns a non-zero value if object is of class class.
returns a non-zero value if is of class. offsetOf( object ) returns the size_t offset of object inside its subobject (if any).
returns the offset of inside its subobject (if any). typeid( object ) returns a pointer to the object RTTI.
returns a pointer to the RTTI. methodAddr( object, message ) returns a function pointer to the object message.
returns a function pointer to the. super_cast( object, superclass ) upcast object to superclass (also available as super() ).
to (also available as ). base_cast( object ) downcast object to its bigger subclass. Returns an untyped pointer.
to its bigger subclass. Returns an untyped pointer. static_cast( object, class, subclass ) downcast object from class to subclass (unsafe).
from to (unsafe). dynamic_cast( object, class ) cast object to class or returns NULL (C++: dynamic_cast, safe).
cast to or returns (C++:, safe). sub_cast( object, class ) equivalent to static_cast( object, class, OBJECT) (only available in implementation).
equivalent to (only available in implementation). overload(object, method) returns the virtual table slot of method (only available in implementation).
constMethodOvldDecl(method, super)
methodOvldName(method, super)
constMethodDecl(method)
methodName(method)
Abstract Class
Abstract classes are commonly used to defined a common object interface for a set of objects. They rarely implement the services they declare (set to zero). These services must therefore be implemented by the subclasses and message passing resolution will be done by the polymorphism mechanism. Abstract classes are classes without object factory like alloc() or new() or with an incomplete set of messages. Pure abstract classes are classes without implementation (not supported by OOPC).
The abstract class interface must be declared with ABSTRACTCLASS_INTERFACE and the implementation must be declared with ABSTRACTCLASS_IMPLEMENTATION. The allocator ( alloc() ) is not available and therefore is it not possible to implement object factory (see memBlock in Examples). Constructor ( object() ) and destructor ( _object() ) are still available.
Genericity
Genericity can partially be performed with polymorphism at the level of object or with a combination of untyped pointer ( void* ) and isA() tests at the level of functions. But to write objects independently of data types like the C++ allows with templates, we need to introduce some programming techniques. The principle is based on the use of defined generic types like gType1, gType2, etc... in place of specialized types in objects and classes interfaces and implementations. Specialization of objects and classes is postpone at the user level according to its needs.
To simplify the transition between specialized code and generic code you can follow the step by step procedure below. Examples are based on the generic memBlock and array (which inherit from memBlock ) classes (see Examples):
Generalization (designer)
Build and test specialized (i.e. double ) objects and classes (i.e. array ). [Interface only] Replace the header top line #ifndef CLASS_H by (i.e. CLASS == ARRAY ):
#if define(GENERIC) ||!define(G_CLASS_H) [Interface only] Replace #define OBJECT object by (i.e. object == array ):
#define OBJECT GENERIC(object) Replace object by OBJECT everywhere (i.e. array by OBJECT ). It should also replace t_object by t_OBJECT everywhere (i.e. t_array by t_OBJECT ) since it is a substring. Replace super by GENERIC(super) everywhere (i.e. memBlock by GENERIC(memBlock) and _memBlock by GENERIC_DTOR(memBlock) ). In implementation you can #define MEMBLOCK GENERIC(memBlock) and #define _MEMBLOCK GENERIC_DTOR(memBlock) and use MEMBLOCK and _MEMBLOCK everywhere to make code more readable. Replace specialized types by generic types gType1, gType2,... (i.e. gType1 == double )
Create a specialized interface (i.e. array.h ) based on the following model (assuming that g_array.h is the generic interface):
#define gTypePrefix d
#define gType1 double
#include <g_array.h>
#undef gType1
#undef gTypePrefix Create a specialized implementation (i.e. array.c ) based on the following model (assuming that g_array.c is the generic implementation):
#define gTypePrefix d
#define gType1 double
#include <g_array.c>
gTypePrefix
t_darray
darray
Exceptions
An exception is a mechanism for handling errors in a different way than returning special values or setting global variables. The exceptions use the same philosophy as OOP techniques, that means solving the problem where you have the knowledge for. The advantages are on the object user side, you do not care where exceptions (errors) are trigged and therefore you do not need to check all the values returned by the called functions. You may catch the exceptions in your program and solve the problem at the appropriate place. On the object programmer side, you don't care how to answer to an exception and where to go after. You just throw the exception (error) and it is up to the user to catch it or not.
To use exceptions, you need to include the header file exception.h and to link the file exception.c in your project. Then exceptions are ready to use more or less like in C++:
try { statements } tries to execute the block enclosed into the braces.
tries to execute the block enclosed into the braces. catch( exception ) { statements } executes the instructions enclosed into the braces if exception has been thrown during the execution of the previous try block.
executes the instructions enclosed into the braces if has been thrown during the execution of the previous block. catch_any { statements } executes the instructions enclosed into the braces if an uncaught exception has been thrown during the execution of the previous try block.
executes the instructions enclosed into the braces if an uncaught exception has been thrown during the execution of the previous block. endtry closes the previous try.
closes the previous. throw( exception ) throws the exception exception.
throws the exception. exception is the current exception identifier (integer value) available in the catch_any block. Useful to propagate unprocessed exceptions.
is the current exception identifier (integer value) available in the block. Useful to propagate unprocessed exceptions. protectPtr( pointer, pointer_free ) protects dynamically allocated memory against exceptions.
protects dynamically allocated memory against exceptions. unprotectPtr(pointer) unprotects protected pointers against exceptions. Does not free the memory.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <math.h>
#include <exception.h> /* can also be #defined */
enum { no_exception, zero_divide, domain_error, bad_alloc } exceptions; double div_(double a, double b)
{
if (b == 0.0) throw(zero_divide);
return a/b;
} double ln_(double a)
{
if (a <= 0.0) throw(domain_error);
return log(a);
} int main(void)
{
double a, b; printf("a = "); scanf("%lf", &a);
printf("b = "); scanf("%lf", &b); try {
printf("ln(%g/%g) = %g
", a, b, ln_(div_(a,b)));
}
catch(zero_divide) {
printf("zero division
");
}
catch(domain_error) {
printf("domain error
");
}
catch_any {
printf("unknow exception %d
", exception);
}
endtry; return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}
div_()
ln_()
main()
errno
div_()
ln_()
main()
printf("unknow exception
");
throw(exception);
try
catch()
catch_any
switch()
Throwing an exception while no try{} appears at a higher level is equivalent to call exit(exception). If an exception is not caught within a try{}... endtry statement, the process continues just after the endtry (C++: exception behavior).
The following OOPC exceptions are already declared in ooexception.h :
ooc_bad_alloc : memory allocation failure (thrown by alloc() ).
: memory allocation failure (thrown by ). ooc_bad_cast : bad dynamic cast (not used).
: bad dynamic cast (not used). ooc_bad_typeid : bad typeid (not used).
: bad typeid (not used). ooc_bad_exception : bad exception (not used).
-DALLOW_PTREXCEPTION
Throwing an exception can bring dangerous side effects for dynamically allocated memory between the try and the throw statements. To protect memory allocation against exceptions, you may protect them (C++: auto_ptr ) in your intermediate functions:
t_employee *const emp = employee.new("Brown", "Cars");
protectPtr(emp, ooc_delete);
...
/* an exception can be thrown here, emp will be safely deleted */
...
unprotectPtr(emp);
delete(emp);
just after
Unprotection must take place before the end of the scope of the protected pointer, but it can be after the freeing of the memory the pointer was pointing to.
Exception handling and pointer protection do not make any dynamic allocation/freeing, so throwing a bad_alloc exception is safe.
Warnings: protection and unprotection must be done in reverse order (think about something like push(ptr) and pop(ptr) ). Unprotecting a pointer does not free the memory it points to. Unprotecting a pointer which is not on the top of the stack is safe, therefore unprotecting the same pointer twice is safe. Throwing an exception in the pointer_free function gives an undefined behavior (like in C++). The function ooc_delete doesn't throw any exception.
Debugging
OOPC provides four kinds of debbuging facilities: tracing function calls may help in debugging polymorphic methods, tracing exception thrown may help in debugging uncaught exception, tracing memory allocation may help in debugging object management and finally tracing object construction may help in understanding OOPC or find bugs in object hierachy. The file ooc.h includes automatically the header oodebug.h if one of these debugging facilities is activated, but you still need to add the file oodebug.c to your project.
Function call
To debug function call, add DEBUG_VOID_PROTO or DEBUG_PROTO at the beginning of the arguments list of functions prototypes and declaration and add DEBUG_VOID_ARGS or DEBUG_ARGS at the beginning of the arguments list of functions calls. The VOID versions are for functions which normally have no arguments. To trace functions which have XXX_PROTO and XXX_ARGS definition and calls, add DEBUG_DISPCALL(file, string) in their core where file can stderr and string any message.
Then compiling your project with the flag -DDEBUG_CALL will activate the function call debugging and will give an output like:
file(line):calling_function - called_function:message
Exception throw
Compiling your project with the flag -DDEBUG_THROW will activate the exception throw debugging and will give an output like:
file(line):throwing_function: exception 'exception' (id #) thrown
Memory allocation
Put DEBUG_DISPMEM(file) where file may be stderr in your program, usually before exit points and compile your project with the flag -DDEBUG_MEM to activate the memory allocation debugging. If you have any memory leaks, you will have an output which will look likes:
Index Address Size Begin End File(Line) - Total size 10
0 0x804a828 10........ test_protection.c(41):div2_
file:line:function
Heap corrupted @ beginning of 0x804a848 - test_protection.c(48):div2_
Heap corrupted @ end of 0x804a848 - test_protection.c(48):div2_
Index Address Size Begin End File(Line) - Total size 10
0 0x804a848 10........ test_protection.c(41):div2_ **INVALID**
INVALID
You can also check for a memory bloc validity with memchk(pointer, file). If bloc is valid, nothing is displayed otherwise you get corruption error messages and the returned value -1.
Note 1: Debugging protected pointers (see Exceptions) may cause some problems since the exception handler does not provide debugging information to the free function. Therefore, you might use a wrapper to the free function as shown in the test_protection.c file.
Note 2: Since oodebug.h wraps dynamic allocation functions like malloc() and strdup() with macros, it must always be included after the standard headers stdlib.h and string.h. The same remark applies to ooc.h since it automatically includes oodebug.h if you specify -DDEBUG_MEM.
Object construction
To see the construction of an object or a class in memory, compile your project with the flag -DDEBUG_OBJ to enable debugging of objects and classes construction. Then using ooc_printObjInfo(file, object) and ooc_printClassInfo(file, object) you can display the components of an object or a class. In test_manager.c, ooc_printObjInfo(stdout, mng) will print out something like:
OBJECT manager @ 0x804b258
ctor @ 0x804afc0
info @ 0x804afe0
vtbl @ 0x804b004
class @ 0x804b01c
SUPEROBJECT employee @ 0x804b258
base @ 0x804b258 (offset = +0)
info @ 0x804aee0
SUPEROBJECT person @ 0x804b258
base @ 0x804b258 (offset = +0)
info @ 0x804ae60
SUPEROBJECT education @ 0x804b264
base @ 0x804b258 (offset = +12)
info @ 0x804af60
ooc_printClassInfo(stdout, mng)
CLASS manager @ 0x804b01c
ctor @ 0x804afc0
info @ 0x804afe0
vtbl @ 0x804b004
SUPERCLASS employee @ 0x804af10
ctor @ 0x804aec0
info @ 0x804aee0
vtbl @ 0x804af04
SUPERCLASS person @ 0x804ae90
ctor @ 0x804ae40
info @ 0x804ae60
vtbl @ 0x804ae84
SUPERCLASS education @ 0x804af90
ctor @ 0x804af40
info @ 0x804af60
vtbl @ 0x804af84
ISO C99
ISO C99 provides new interesting features like the __VA_ARGS__ predefined macro which simplify the use of macros with variable number of arguments. Using __VA_ARGS__ allows to replace sendMsg_(obj, msg) args __; by sendMsg_(obj, msg, (args)); which may be considered to be closer to the C grammar. I still prefer to group args into parenthesis to be homogeneous with the sendMsg(obj, msg); command. This change can be applied to all the OOPC commands ending by an underscore (see ooc99.h ).
Performances
Methods calling and messages sending speed efficiency is more or less the same as in C++ since the programming techniques used behind are very close. So in general, you will nearly get the same performance as in C++ without inlining (+/- 10%). Object instance size is exactly the same as its C++ equivalent without drastic size optimisation.
Keywords
The list of introduced keywords at the preprocessor level is given in the following table:
INTERFACE Interface
OBJECT
t_OBJECT
BASEOBJECT_INTERFACE
BASEOBJECT_METHODS
OBJECT_INTERFACE
OBJECT_METHODS
ABSTRACTCLASS_INTERFACE
CLASS_INTERFACE
ENDOF_INTERFACE
INHERIT_MEMBERS_OF()
INHERIT_METHODS_OF() Encapsulation
public()
private() Declaration
classMethod()
classMethod_()
method()
method_()
constMethod()
constMethod_() Messages
sendMsg()
sendMsg_()
sendCMsg()
sendCMsg_() Miscellaneous
super()
className()
objCopy()
isA()
offsetOf()
typeid()
base_cast()
super_cast()
static_cast()
dynamic_cast()
delete() (macro) IMPLEMENTATION Implementation
BASEOBJECT_IMPLEMENTATION
OBJECT_IMPLEMENTATION
ABSTRACTCLASS_IMPLEMENTATION
CLASS_IMPLEMENTATION
ENDOF_IMPLEMENTATION
SUPERCLASS() Initialisation
methodName()
methodOvldName() Declaration
initClassDecl()
dtorDecl()
classMethodDecl()
classMethodDecl_()
methodDecl()
methodDecl_()
methodOvldDecl()
methodOvldDecl_()
constMethodDecl()
constMethodDecl_()
constMethodOvldDecl()
constMethodOvldDecl_() Miscellaneous
initSuper()
objDefault()
overload()
sub_cast() + INTERFACE keywords
CLASS Generated class members
object() (constructor)
alloc() (allocator) Required class members
_object() (destructor) Global names
object (class)
t_object (object)
t_object (generic object) Global functions
ooc_delete() (function) EXCEPTION try {}
catch() {}
catch_any {}
endtry
throw()
exception
protectPtr()
unprotectPtr()
GENERICITY t_OBJECT (generic object type)
GENERIC()
GENERIC_DTOR() Required defines
gTypePrefix
gType1
Examples
ISO C89
ooc.[hc] (OOPC files in C89).
(OOPC files in C89). exception.[hc], ooexception.h (Exception files).
(Exception files). oodebug.[hc] (Debugging files).
(Debugging files). example.[hc] test_example.c (OOPC hierachy examples).
(OOPC hierachy examples). person.[hc] employee.[hc] education.[hc] manager.[hc] test_manager.c (OOPC basic examples).
(OOPC basic examples). g_memBlock.[hc] g_array.[hc] memBlock.[hc] array.[hc] test_array.c (OOPC advanced examples).
(OOPC advanced examples). test_exception.c test_protection.c (exceptions tests examples).
(exceptions tests examples). compile.sh compile_tests.sh (examples of gcc commands).
ooc99.h (OOPC file in C99). Rename it to ooc.h to work with others OOPC files (Not examples).
example.[HC] test_example.C (C++ hierachy examples).
(C++ hierachy examples). person.[HC] employee.[HC] education.[HC] manager.[HC] test_manager.C (C++ basic examples).
(C++ basic examples). compile-cpp.sh (example of g++ commands).
References
Links given below can be read for information but they are not required to understand this paper since they do not follow the same philosophy. In fact, I disagree with most of the techniques presented into these references:
Abusive use of global name to simplify object methods call.
Abusive use of untyped pointers to handle polymorphism.
Abusive use of unprotyped functions to handle polymorphism.
Abusive use of structure field mapping to handle polymorphism and inheritance.
Abusive use of macros for classes definitions and inheritances (two macros per class).
Object messages managed by a switch statement.
statement. Multiple inheritance not supported.
Specific preprocessor required to manage (too complex) techniques.
Some techniques are not portable (problem of data alignment) and/or slow.
Difficult to implement genericity on top of these techniques.
[1] La programmation par objets en langage C, by A. Gourdin, Technique et Documentation 1991
[2] Reusable Software Components, by Truman T. Van Sickle, Prentice-Hall 1996
[3] Object-oriented programming in C, by Paul Field, November 1991
[4] Object-oriented programming using C, by Dave St. Clair, October 1995
[5] Object Technology with C, by Paul Long, September 1995
[6] Object Orientated Programming in ANSI-C, by Axel Schreine, October 1993 Some references of the C/C++ Users Journal [7] Object-Oriented Programming As A Programming Style, by E. White, February 1990
[8] Object-Oriented Programming in C, by D. Brumbaugh, July 1990
[9] Creating C++-Like "Objects" in C, by C. Skelly, December 1991
[10] OOP Without C++, by B. Bingham, T. Schlintz and G. Goslen, March 1992
[11] Extending C for Object-Oriented Programming, by G. Colvin, July 1993
[1] The C++ Programming Language, 3rd edition, by Bjarne Stroustrup, Addison Wesley 1997
[2] The ANSI C++ Specifications (Draft), December 1996
[3] Annotated C++ Reference Manual, by M. A. Ellis and B. Stroustrup, Addison Wesley 1990
[4] Effective C++, 2nd edition, by Scott Meyers, Addison Wesley 1997
[5] More Effective C++, by Scott Meyers, Addison Wesley 1997
[6] Inside the C++ Object Model, by Stanley B. Lippman, Addison Wesley 1996
[7] Essential C++, by Stanley B. Lippman, Addison Wesley 2000
[8] Exceptional C++, by Herb Sulter, Addison Wesley 2000 (see also Guru of the Week)
[9] Modern C++ Design, by Andrei Alexandrescu, Addison Wesley 2001 (see |
courts across the land”, I doubt she was calling for a strong independent judiciary.
The kindest thing one can say about this is that it over-estimates state capacity. But it might be more sinister. If we read these attacks upon independent institutions alongside demands to silence “unpatriotic” Remainers, what we’re seeing is a step away from liberty and towards totalitarianism.Before Overwatch’s latest character, Sombra, was unveiled at BlizzCon over the weekend, she was the focal point of an alternate reality game (ARG) that lasted months. It was like a hydra. Fans would reach the end of one countdown, only for the belligerent beast to sprout two more. At BlizzCon, I spoke to two of Overwatch’s designers about that.
Before Overwatch even came out, there were Sombra-related hints sprinkled throughout its beta. However, things didn’t kick into high gear until June and July, when people started uncovering QR codes and other ARG trademarks. Time and updates beget more clues. There were codes, cryptic scrawlings in developer videos, and unsolvable mysteries. Some people even resorted to actual hacking to find out more about the hacker hero/boop-fu master. But as the seasons changed and the countdown timers grew arbitrary, people began to feel like the ARG was overstaying its welcome. Shortly before BlizzCon, a lot of Overwatch fans were sick of it. In the beginning, they thought their hard work was gonna unlock Sombra, but they came to realize it’d all been a droning drum roll for a BlizzCon reveal.
Overwatch lead hero designer Geoff Goodman, who helped organize the ARG before it began, but wasn’t as directly involved after that, told me that he understands people’s ire. Blizzard was paying attention during the ARG. They weren’t deaf to the outcry.
“We were definitely taking the feedback,” he said during an interview. “I think it was fair, the feedback. We’re not very good at ARGs. We’ve never done one before.”
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Don’t take that as an admission of failure, though. Goodman is happy that Blizzard went for it with Sombra. “Overall, I think it was a success,” he said. “We got to show off Sombra in ways that we wouldn’t have otherwise been able to. People get an idea of who she is and a little bit of her personality before we even unveiled her.”
Sombra is, after all, kind of a troll. She pokes and prods. She plays with her food. She makes Reaper feel like a dick. From the get-go, Blizzard’s goal was to give players a glimpse of that.
“We have this new and interesting character that’s all about hacking, but what does that even mean, right?” artist Rachel Day told me. “We’re sitting around saying, ‘What does hacking mean?’ Going through this and showing the puzzles and how intelligent she is and how strong she is. Doing all of this stuff on her own, I think, this was a really great way for us to display that.”
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That said, Blizzard still communicated that in the language of ARGs, convoluted puzzles where people expect pay-off at least equal to the effort they put in. And while the ARG finally, mercifully came to a conclusion some considered exciting, others felt let down when, OF COURSE, Sombra hacked BlizzCon. Blizzard considers it a learning experience, something I learned after I decided to just straight up ask if they thought there were too many damn countdowns.
“I think the biggest thing was the timing maybe could have been better on it,” replied Goodman. “That was the biggest lesson.”
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“I think we were anticipating it taking a little bit longer for people to solve things,” added Day.
“They were just on the ball every time,” said Goodman. “I think that made those windows a little longer than the others might have been.”
I was curious, though, if Blizzard ever planned to end the ARG sooner, rather than draw it out all the way until BlizzCon. “BlizzCon was the goal for a long time,” said Goodman. I asked if they ended up having to add more segments to the ARG than originally planned once players started tearing through it, and Goodman replied that he wasn’t certain, but “I wouldn’t be surprised if they did, actually.”
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Looking toward the future, Blizzard doesn’t have any more ARGs planned for Overwatch characters, but they’re not entirely off the table, either. It depends on the character, really.
“We don’t always just want to do a new ARG,” said Goodman. “We don’t want it to be like, ‘Oh, here’s your new hero. Here’s a new ARG.’” Ultimately, the character decides the medium.
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“We like to build up the personality of our heroes and show their backstory before they’re revealed completely,” said Day. “Like we did with Junkrat and Roadhog, right? We had the whole Moment In Crime thing.”
As for who’s next, Blizzard’s not saying yet. Last we heard, a couple new heroes were showing promise internally, with one potentially arriving early next year. How will we meet them? Impossible to say right now. But my vote is for something that doesn’t last multiple months. Maybe a movie? Or a quick cup of coffee?Disadvantage caused by a person's Indigenous heritage does not diminish over time and should be taken into account in sentencing of criminal offences, the High Court has found.
Lawyers for William Bugmy, a 31-year-old from Wilcannia convicted of assaulting a guard inside Broken Hill prison in 2011, had asked the court to consider principles for recognising Indigenous disadvantage in sentencing.
Bugmy, who has been been in and out of jail since he was 13, was initially handed a reduced sentence for his offence because of the severe disadvantage he had suffered as an Indigenous man over a prolonged period.
The New South Wales Criminal Appeals Court recognised the so-called Fernando Principles, which take into account an offender's Aboriginal, cultural and social background, but the Crown appealed against the decision.
The judge of the court ruled the Fernando Principles diminish over time, particularly for repeat offenders, and added another year and a half to his sentence.
But today the High Court overturned that decision, finding that a long criminal record does not diminish the extent to which Aboriginal disadvantage can be taken into account - a key element of the case.
The High Court heard Bugmy had grown up in a home where alcohol abuse was common. He had seen his father stab his mother 15 times.
Felicity Graham from the New South Wales Aboriginal Legal Service says Bugmy has suffered from a series of disadvantages throughout his life.
"He's a man who is only 31 years of age, but has spent most of his adult life and even since he was only 12 years old being locked up either in juvenile detention or adult correctional centres," she said.
"He hasn't spent an adult birthday in the community. He has problems with his mental health. He is a man who has suffered from the socio-economic disadvantage that exists in Wilcannia - limited education, he can't read and write."
Decision could mean less Indigenous in prison
Ms Graham says the court's decision was being watched closely by Indigenous Australians and lawyers around the country.
Ms Graham says the court's ruling could bring down the number of Indigenous Australians in prison.
"The High Court has directed sentencing courts to give full weight to the background factors relating to Aboriginality and social disadvantage and so this certainly could have an impact on the trends of over-representation of Aboriginal people in the criminal justice system," she said.
Bugmy's aunt Julie travelled to Canberra for the hearing and told the ABC she hoped any reduction in her nephew's sentence would set a precedent.
"The outcome I'm hoping will be for all Aboriginal people," Ms Bugmy said.
"It's not just about William and growing up in Wilcannia.
"You've got the Aboriginal disadvantage: it's there for health, work, employment - there's no employment."
In another ruling today, a separate case brought by West Australian man Ernest Munda was not successful because the High Court found his original sentence, of just over five years' jail for manslaughter, was manifestly inadequate.
Munda, who was convicted of bashing his wife to death at Fitzroy Crossing in Western Australia in 2010, had his sentence increased to almost eight years.Founded in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania by a group of friends, Peterson Cartridge was built with one main goal in mind. The goal was to produce extremely consistent, American-made brass rifle casings designed for long-distance shooters. While several of its competitors may make other products, Peterson Cartridge has devoted everything, including its facility, machinery, and laboratory to producing brass rifle casings only. Specialization is the driving principle behind Peterson Cartridge producing one part of a multifaceted finished product.
Peterson Cartridge believes that if you want a product, buy it from a company that specializes in making that product. If you want consistent propellant and primers, purchase them from a company that specializes in propellant and primers. If you want extremely precise and consistent rifle casings, purchase them from Peterson Cartridge.With the death of Joan Rivers at 81 Thursday, we lost one more icon in a dwindling breed: the comedian who does not seek the good opinion of the powerful media and entertainment elite.
Just two months before her death, Rivers mocked President Obama as “gay” and First Lady Michelle Obama as a “tranny,” and caught hell for it from the likes of the Huffington Post. Those servants to power chided: “Rivers took her ‘jokes’ too far yet again this week, when she hurled a trans slur at the first lady.”
Think about that: a supposed LIBERAL publication said that a comedian “took her jokes too far.”
Barack Obama’s terrorist friend Bill Ayers standing on the American flag isn’t as offensive and un-American as someone saying a comedian “took her jokes too far.”
Now Rivers is gone and outside of a handful of comedic insurgents like Don Rickles, Dennis Miller, and Adam Carolla, we’re stuck with Politically Correct Palace Guards like Jon Stewart, Sarah Silverman, Stephen Colbert, Tina Fey, Will Ferrell, Lena Dunham, Ricky Gervais, the cast of “Saturday Night Live,” and pretty much everyone associated with Funny or Die — all big government-loving cowards desperate to fit into a comedic class that believes political correctness is a virtue and those who buck it should be held up to ridicule.
Today’s comedic class isn’t about pushing the boundaries of free speech towards sacred cows, they are Speech Enforcers using their talents and the power of ridicule to marginalize and silence those who do not conform to the left’s standards of accepted speech.
Gays, blacks, women, immigrants, Muslims… off limits.
Fat white southern heterosexual male Christians… katy bar the door.
Joan Rivers attacked everyone — from Michelle Obama to Sarah Palin. Whether you enjoyed her style or not, it was nice knowing that someone — someone! — was out there with the courage to invite the kind of outrage that causes a Huffington Post to accuse you of going too far. Pissing off Christians is a career-enhancer. Pissing off the Left and GLAAD is a career killer.
Before his untimely death, 80’s comedy legend Sam Kinison almost lost his career for the sin of believing no subject (starvation in Africa) or group (women, gays) should be innoculated from satire. Andrew Dice Clay was the biggest comedian in the country until even cast members of “Saturday Night Live”(!) organized to effectively destroy his career over crude jokes about women.
What makes this even more horrific is the double standard. Bill Maher calls Sarah Palin a “c*nt,” Louis CK says things about Palin that are too grotesque to repeat, David Letterman jokes about Palin’s underage daughter getting knocked up… that’s fine in America. These three men remain well-paid, critically-adored living legends because they are men of the left who chose the right target.
Rush Limbaugh, however, who is both an entertainer and commentator, uses the word “slut” and for weeks becomes public enemy number one in the media. Reality television star Phil Robertson is massacred on cable news and almost fired from “Duck Dynasty” for crudely expressing his Christian beliefs. GLAAD’s totalitarian re-education rampages against anyone who doesn’t treat a homosexual like a snowflake are straight out of the McCarthy era.
No free-thinking American would have a problem with non-stop PalinChristianConservativeMaleSouthern jokes if it weren’t so obvious that our media and entertainment overlords are aggressively stacking the deck into a politically-conceived double standard against us, and using the likes of Stewart, Colbert, and Ferrell to do it.
We’re fair game to be marginalized and made uncool.
The left is not.
That’s not comedy, that’s fascism.
I wasn’t a Joan Rivers fan, and I’m old enough to remember the mid-eighties when she was one of the biggest stars in the country. While I believe comedy should have no limits, that doesn’t mean I enjoy all of it. For years, at the height of her fame, Rivers made a cottage industry of mocking a middle-aged Elizabeth Taylor’s weight. Rivers could be a little too cheap, easy, and mean for my taste.
Regardless, part of me was always glad — no relieved and grateful — that there was someone out there who, in the name of comedy, was willing to say something cheap, easy, and mean — especially at a sacred cow like Taylor.
Now Rivers is gone, and any up-and-comer who wanted to take her place, who dared call Michelle Obama a “tranny” during open-mic night at the legendary Comedy Store, would be booed off the stage and blacklisted until she publicly recanted.
No one will ever call Michelle Obama a “tranny” again, and that is not a good thing, nor is it progress.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNCPeople who cheat on their partners are always open to extortion by the parties involved. But when the personal details of millions of cheaters get posted online for anyone to download — as is the case with the recent hack of infidelity hookup site AshleyMadison.com — random blackmailers are bound to pounce on the opportunity.
According to security firms and to a review of several emails shared with this author, extortionists already see easy pickings in the leaked AshleyMadison user database.
Earlier today I heard from Rick Romero, the information technology manager at VF IT Services, an email provider based in Milwaukee. Romero said he’s been building spam filters to block outgoing extortion attempts against others from rogue users of his email service. Here’s one that he blocked this morning (I added a link to the bitcoin address in the message, which shows nobody has paid into this particular wallet yet):
Hello, Unfortunately, your data was leaked in the recent hacking of Ashley Madison and I now have your information. If you would like to prevent me from finding and sharing this information with your significant other send exactly 1.0000001 Bitcoins (approx. value $225 USD) to the following address: 1B8eH7HR87vbVbMzX4gk9nYyus3KnXs4Ez [link added] Sending the wrong amount means I won’t know it’s you who paid. You have 7 days from receipt of this email to send the BTC [bitcoins]. If you need help locating a place to purchase BTC, you can start here…..
The individual who received that extortion attempt — an AshleyMadison user who agreed to speak about the attack on condition that only his first name be used — said he’s “loosely concerned” about future extortion attacks, but not especially this one in particular.
“If I put myself in [the extortionist’s] shoes, the likelihood of them disclosing stuff doesn’t increase their chance of getting money,” said Mac. “I just not going to respond.”
Mac says he’s more worried about targeted extortion attacks. A few years ago, he met a woman via AshleyMadison and connected both physically and emotionally with the woman, who is married and has children. A father of several children who’s been married for more than 10 years, Mac said his life would be “incredibly disrupted” if extortionists made good on their threats.
Mac said he used a prepaid card to pay for his subscription at AshleyMadison.com, but that the billing address for the prepaid ties back to his home address.
“So they have my home billing address and first and last name, so it would be relatively easy for them to get my home records and figure out who I am,” Mac said. “I’ll accept the consequences if this does get disclosed, but obviously I’d rather not have that happen because my wife and I are both very happy in our marriage.”
Unfortunately, the extortion attempts like the one against Mac are likely to increase in number, sophistication and targeting, says Tom Kellerman, chief cybersecurity officer at Trend Micro.
Kellerman is convinced we’ll see criminals leveraging the AshleyMadison data to conduct spear-phishing attacks aimed at delivering malicious software such as ransomware, a different type of extortion threat that locks the victim’s most treasured files with a secret encryption key unless and until the victim pays a ransom (also in Bitcoins).
“There is going to be a dramatic crime wave of these types of virtual shakedowns, and they’ll evolve into spear-phishing campaigns that leverage crypto malware,” Kellerman said. “The same criminals who enjoy deploying ransomware would love to use this data.”
The leaked AshleyMadison data could also be useful for extorting U.S. military personnel and potentially stealing U.S. government secrets, experts fear. Some 15,000 email addresses ending in dot-mil (the top-level domain for the U.S. military) were included in the leaked AshleyMadison database, and this has top military officials just a tad concerned.
According to The Hill, the U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said in his daily briefing Thursday that the DoD is investigating the leak.
“I’m aware of it, of course it’s an issue, because conduct is very important,” Carter told reporters at the briefing, The Hill reported. The publication notes that adultery in the military is a prosecuteable offense under Article 134 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Maximum punishment includes dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and confinement for one year. As such, Carter told reporters that service members found to have used adultery website Ashley Madison could face disciplinary action.
Kellerman said attacks against military personnel who used AshleyMadison may well target spouses of people whose information is included in the database — all in a bid to infect the spouse as a way to eventually steal information from the real target (the cheating military husband or wife).
“Something must already be going on for [the Secretary of Defense] to actually have a press conference on that,” Kellerman said. “We may actually see spear-phishing campaigns against spouses of individuals who are involved in this, attacks that say, ‘Hey, your wife or husband was involved in this site, do you want to see proof of that?’
And the proof, in this scenario, would be a a booby-trapped attachment that deploys spyware or malware.
Mac, who’s not a military man, says he doesn’t regret the affair he had via AshleyMadison; his only regret is not finding a way to keep his home address out of his records on the site.
“I regret using my home address and some of my personal information that AshleyMadison didn’t take as good care of as they should have,” he said. “But I really, I’m mad these hackers feel it’s so important to force the hand of people that have a different outlook on life.”
The AshleyMadison data is leaked on various sites, but the data itself is not easily searchable by folks who aren’t familiar with raw database files. However, several sites have since popped up that allow anyone to search by email address to find if that address had an account at AshleyMadison.com. True, AshleyMadison.com did not always verify email addresses, but some of these AshleyMadison search services coming online will indicate whether the associated email address also has a payment record — a marker which could be useful to extortionists.
Tags: ashley madison extortion, Ashley Madison hack, Bitcoin, Rick Romero, The Hill, Tom Kellerman, trend micro, US Defense Secretary Ash Carter, VF IT ServicesFormer Republican Senator Bill Frist starts out the U.S. News And World Report article in which he comes out in support of a government requirement that each American have health insurance with what can only be described as a fair degree of irony:
I believe in limited government and individual responsibility, cherish the freedom to choose, and generally oppose individual mandates—except where markets fail, individuals suffer, and society pays a hefty price.
Or, to put it another way, I believe in individual government and individual responsibility, cherish the freedom to choose, and generally oppose individual mandates — except when I don’t.
While Frist spends much time in his article talking about the alleged benefits that an individual mandate would bring, he spends no time whatsoever addressing the fundamental issues that need to be talked about if we’re seriously going to pass what amounts to the Health Insurance Industry Subsidization Act of 2009.
First, there’s the issue of why a mandate is necessary. Frist does not address at all the “market failure” that he claims exists which would be remedied by forcing everyone to purchase health insurance. What he does do, though, is reveal what the individual mandate is really all about — forcing young, healthy people who otherwise might choose to forgo the several-hundred-dollars-a-month worth of premiums they’d have to pay:
When healthier people opt not to carry insurance, only those with poorer health, and thus higher costs, remain in. This leads insurance prices to spiral up. And it further impedes markets’ ability to mitigate risks and prevent personal economic catastrophe. The “free-riders” who do not purchase insurance and the “voluntarily uninsured” who depend on emergency room care paid by others would then pay their fair share for services received.
What Frist doesn’t address, of course, is the fact that an individual mandate is likely to create upward pressure on premiums for one very simple reason — once insurance companies know that you have to buy their product whether you want to or not, they have zero incentive to keep premiums down. That’s the reason why, for example, auto insurance rates (which in most states are mandatory if you want to own a car) are higher than most other forms of insurance that individuals typically purchase.
What the individual mandate really does is to force the young and healthy to subsidize the older and sicker. It’s worth noting that hat’s the same logic that Social Security and Medicare are built on, and they’re in the process of going into an demographically inevitable bankruptcy. One can foresee much the same thing happening under an individual-mandate health scenario.
First goes on to cite Massachusetts as an example of an individual mandate plan that “works,” but that isn’t necessarily true:
The Massachusetts experiment with the same scheme has left the state with the nation’s most expensive insurance, with program spending up 70 percent in just three years and with a third of the uninsured remaining so. The cheapest insurance we can find in Massachusetts for an average family of four is $906 per month. In Iowa, it’s $145. Different coverage, certainly, but at least in Iowa cheaper coverage choices exist.
That’s what could come to America if we adopt the individual mandate.
Frist also fails to address a more important issue — what right does the Federal Government have to force me or you to buy health insurance? I don’t just mean to ask what Constitutional provision authorizes it, although that is certainly important, but also why should the government be allowed to do this at all, even if it technically had the power to do so? As a Republican who claims to “believe in limited government and individual responsibility, cherish the freedom to choose, and generally oppose individual mandates,” that’s a question that should be relatively easy for Frist to answer.
His silence, and the silence of other Republicans, is deafening.
Updated to reflect my failure to note that Frist is in fact a former Republican SenatorCOMMENTARY
At least Obama has quit Wright
By RICK CASEY
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
--MORE--
May 17, 2008, 10:27PM***In recent years the fabulously wealthy Moon has not been playing up his Unification Church with its mass weddings as he did in earlier years, or his role as the Messiah.Lately he's been presenting himself as a world peacemaker, staging conferences and "summits" around the globe under the auspices of a group called Universal Peace Federation.The group held a "summit" in Washington April 28 to May 2, featuring a number of former high government officials from Latin America and Spain, as well as a representative from the U.S. State Department.The event also included a "field trip" in which conference participants loaded onto a chartered jumbo jet for a session at the Bush Library featuring both Bush and Moon.Although a few blogs picked up the story, no newspaper or television station this side of Paraguay did.So we have no record of what Bush said, but the Universal Peace Federation Web site (www.upf.org) provides Moon's remarks. Here's a teaser for you:The Russian-American lobbyist who says he attended a June 2016 meeting with Donald Trump Jr. has been accused in the past of e-mail hacking and was trained in counterintelligence while in the Soviet army.
MOSCOW — Rinat Akhmetshin, the Russian-American lobbyist who met with Donald Trump Jr. in June 2016, had one constant message for the journalists who met him over the years in Moscow, London, and Paris, or at his home in Washington: Never use e-mail to convey information that needed to be kept secret.
While not an expert in the technical aspects of hacking nor, he insisted, a spy, Akhmetshin talked openly about how he had worked in counterintelligence while serving with the Red Army after its 1979 invasion of Afghanistan and how easy it was to find tech-savvy professionals ready and able to plunder just about any e-mail account.
A journalist who visited his home was given a thumb drive containing e-mails that had apparently been stolen by hackers working for one of his clients.
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On another occasion, at a meeting with a New York Times reporter at the Ararat Park Hyatt hotel in Moscow, Akhmetshin, now a US citizen, informed the journalist he had recently been reading one of his e-mails: a note sent by the reporter to a Russian-American defense lawyer who had once worked for the anti-Kremlin oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
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In that instance, the reporter’s e-mail had become public as part of a lawsuit, but the episode sheds light on Akhmetshin’s professional focus in the decades since he emigrated to the United States as a go-to man for ferreting out information from Russia and other former Soviet states.
His ever-changing roster of clients hired him to burnish their images — and blacken that of their rivals. Some clients were Russians close to the Kremlin. Others involved its bitter foes.
A gregarious, fast-talking man with a sharp sense of humor, he often warned his friends and contacts: “Nothing is secure.”
It was a conviction that emerged from the chaotic and often violent corporate battles that convulsed Russia in the 1990s, when “chyorny PR” — public relations based on stolen or fabricated documents — became a powerful weapon for businessmen seeking to damage their rivals without resorting to physical threats, another frequently used tool.
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The practice was rooted in Soviet techniques of “kompromat,” the collection of compromising information by the KGB against foes of the Communist Party, but reached its full flowering after the 1991 collapse of communism and the privatization of the dark arts formerly dominated by the KGB.
Russian-style “chyorny PR,” however, has now morphed into the all-American exercise of “opposition research,” the matter at hand when Akhmetshin, accompanied by Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, met in June 2016 in New York with President Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr.; his son-in-law, Jared Kushner; and the then-head of his presidential campaign, Paul Manafort.
The meeting, which was first revealed early this month by The New York Times, took place after a British intermediary promised Trump Jr. that it would yield “documents and information” from Moscow “that would incriminate Hillary” Clinton and “would be very useful to your father.”
In the end, Trump and his son have insisted over the past week, the Russians provided nothing of value, and the meeting was a waste of time.
Instead of simply examining old media reports, court records and other public documents to try to dig up dirt or embarrassing gossip, Russian-style opposition research has often focused on pilfering private information through hacking and physical intrusion into offices and filing cabinets.
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In his own investigations over the years, Akhmetshin has acquired a reputation for obtaining e-mail records, information from spyware, and other data that appeared to be drawn from Russian hackers, something he has denied.
There is no evidence his efforts were illegal or that he engaged in the technical aspects of hacking himself. His emphasis on unearthing e-mails in Russian-related matters also clearly served the interests of his clients, irrespective of whether they had close or hostile relations with the Kremlin.
In a 2015 lawsuit filed in a New York state court, which has since been withdrawn, International Mineral Resources, a Dutch-registered company controlled by former Soviet citizens, alleged Akhmetshin had been hired to hack into its computer systems and had stolen approximately 28,000 files, or about 50 gigabytes of data. It said the sensitive material was then distributed to journalists and others in an effort to harm the company’s reputation.
The suit alleged Akhmetshin was retained by EuroChem VolgaKaliy, a Russian potassium mining company, which was involved in a $1 billion litigation with IMR.
The suit also names as a defendant Salisbury & Ryan, a New York law firm representing EuroChem. According to the suit, Akhmetshin is “a former Soviet military counterintelligence officer” who “developed a special expertise in running negative public relations campaign.”
Akhmetshin has called this characterization misleading. He was, he said, drafted as a young man to serve in a military unit performing counterintelligence functions during the Soviet-Afghan war. As an enlisted man, he said, he never received any training in “negative public relations.”Instants after the big bang, the universe underwent a burst of rapid expansion known as inflation. In this period, according to standard cosmology, tiny ripples of energy seeded galaxies and the other large-scale structures we see today. But no one can explain how the ripples formed in the first place. Three physicists now say the key to this riddle lies in quantum gravity, a still tentative theory in which gravity would display the same fuzzy “uncertainty” typical of subatomic physics.
Standard cosmology, based on Einstein's general theory of relativity, cannot explain the origin of the ripples, because it breaks down at very small scales. During the infinitesimally brief period before the start of inflation, called the Planck era, the entire known universe was stuffed into a region many orders of magnitude smaller than an atom. If pushed that far back, relativity makes nonsensical predictions such as infinite energy densities.
To extend the reach of Albert Einstein's theory to such extreme regimes, researchers have developed a theory called loop quantum gravity. Beginning in the 1980s, Abhay Ashtekar, now at Pennsylvania State University, rejiggered Einstein's equations to make them quantum-friendly. Among the consequences are that space itself, instead of being a smooth backdrop, would consist of discrete units called loops and that its microscopic structure could fluctuate among multiple simultaneous states. In recent years physicists have also found that if loop quantum gravity is correct—a big if because experimental evidence is still lacking—then the big bang would really have been a “big bounce” from an earlier collapsing universe.
Ashtekar's team now says that by extending loop quantum gravity techniques it has bridged the gap between the big bounce—which is in the Planck regime—and the onset of inflation and that it can explain those all-important ripples without which you and I would not be here. The ripples, the researchers calculate, would be the natural outcome of quantum fluctuations existing at the time of the big bounce.
The team's predictions, however, differ slightly from those of “vanilla” inflation in a way that could be tested in future surveys of cosmic structure, Ashtekar says.
These results, to appear in Physical Review Letters, provide “a self-consistent extension of inflation all the way to the Planck scale,” Ashtekar says.
The conclusion that quantum gravity might have left an imprint on today's large-scale cosmic structures is “quite surprising and beautiful,” says Jorge Pullin of Louisiana State University, an expert on loop quantum gravity who was not involved in the research.
Neil Turok, director of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Ontario, says that the team still needs “artificial assumptions,” which it pushes back from the onset of inflation to an earlier time. Loop quantum gravity “has many interesting ideas,” Turok says, “but it is not yet a theory one should take too seriously as making predictions.”Coming Soon
River's Edge
High schooler Haruna befriends loner Yamada, then is drawn into the tangled relationship between him, a model and the girl who loves him unreasonably.
Giri / Haji
Helped by a young Japanese-British hustler, a Tokyo sleuth searches London for his brother, who's involved with the Yakuza and wanted for murder.
No Good Nick
A family finds their lives turned upside down when a young, street-smart grifter shows up on their doorstep, claiming to be a distant relative.
American Son
An estranged interracial couple searches for answers about their missing son. Based on the Broadway play. Kerry Washington and Steven Pasquale star.
Sharkey The Bounty Hunter
Bounty hunter Sharkey tracks criminals across the galaxy in his converted, rocket-powered ice-cream truck -- with help from his 10-year-old partner.
Kid Cosmic
In this animated series from the creator of "The Powerpuff Girls," an odd, imaginative boy acquires superpowers after finding five cosmic rings.
The Dirt
In this dramatization of Mötley Crüe's no-holds-barred autobiography, the band hits the monster highs and savage lows of heavy metal superstardom.
Delhi Crime
Based on true events, this dramatized series follows the police investigation of the 2012 Delhi gang-rape case. Starring Shefali Shah and Adil Hussain.After 10 years of custody battles, court-ordered counseling and imminent imprisonment for non-payment of child support, Thomas James Ball, a leader of the Worcester branch of the Massachusetts-based Fatherhood Coalition, had reached his limit. On June 15, 2011, he doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire just outside the Cheshire County, N.H., Courthouse. He was dead within minutes.
In a lengthy “Last Statement,” which arrived posthumously at the Keene Sentinel, Tom Ball told his story. All he had done, he said, was smack his 4-year-old daughter and bloody her mouth after she licked his hand as he was putting her to bed. Feminist-crafted anti-domestic violence legislation did the rest. “Twenty-five years ago,” he wrote, “the federal government declared war on men. It is time to see how committed they are to their cause. It is time, boys, to give them a taste of war.” Calling for all-out insurrection, he offered tips on making Molotov cocktails and urged his readers to use them against courthouses and police stations. “There will be some casualties in this war,” he predicted. “Some killed, some wounded, some captured. Some of them will be theirs. Some of the casualties will be ours.”
For people who associate the men’s and fathers’ rights movements with New Age drum circles in the woods, the ferocity of Ball’s rhetoric, the horror of his act, and, in particular, the widespread and blatantly misogynistic reaction to it may come as something of a revelation. When the feminist Amanda Marcotte, a bête noire of the men’s rights movement, remarked that “setting yourself on fire is an extremely effective tool if your goal is to make your ex-wife’s life a living hell,” a poster at the blog Misandry.com went ballistic. “Talk about the pot calling the kettle black,” he raged. “She is evil and such a vile evil that she is a disease that needs to be cut out of the human [consciousness] just like the rest of the femanazi ass harpies.”
Darren Mack
Ball’s suicide brought attention to an underworld of misogynists, woman-haters whose fury goes well beyond criticism of the family court system, domestic violence laws, and false rape accusations. There are literally hundreds of websites, blogs and forums devoted to attacking virtually all women (or, at least, Westernized ones) — the so-called “manosphere,” which now also includes a tribute page for Tom Ball (“He Died For Our Children”). While some of them voice legitimate and sometimes disturbing complaints about the treatment of men, what is most remarkable is the misogynistic tone that pervades so many. Women are routinely maligned as sluts, gold-diggers, temptresses and worse; overly sympathetic men are dubbed “manginas”; and police and other officials are called their armed enablers. Even Ball — who did not directly blame his ex-wife for his troubles, but instead depicted her and their three children as co-victims of the authorities — vilified “man-hating feminists” as evil destroyers of all that is good.
This kind of woman-hatred is increasingly visible in most Western societies, and it tends to be allied with other anti-modern emotions — opposition to same-sex marriage, to non-Christian immigration, to women in the workplace, and even, in some cases, to the advancement of African Americans. Just a few weeks after Ball’s death, while scorch marks were still visible on the sidewalk in Keene, N.H., that was made clear once more by a Norwegian named Anders Behring Breivik.
On July 22, Breivik slaughtered 77 of his countrymen, most of them teenagers, in Oslo and at a summer camp on the island of Utøya, because he thought they or their parents were the kinds of “politically correct” liberals who were enabling Muslim immigration. But Breivik was almost as voluble on the subjects of feminism, the family, and fathers’ rights as he was on Islam. “The |
the entire sky are signals from FRBs
Researchers from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CFA) have estimated how many Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) should occur over the entire observable universe.
Their work indicates that at least one FRB is going off somewhere every second.
When fast radio bursts (FRBs), were first detected in 2001, astronomers had never seen anything like them before.
Since then, they have found a couple of dozen FRBs, but they still don't know what causes these rapid and powerful bursts of radio emission.
Anastasia Fialkov of the CFA, who led the study, said: 'If we are right about such a high rate of FRBs happening at any given time, you can imagine the sky is filled with flashes like paparazzi taking photos of a celebrity.
If the mysterious phenomena is indeed a sign of intelligent life in the universe, it could suggest it is far more widespread than previously thought. Data from the FRB 121102 was gathered using the Green Bank Telescope (pictured)
'Instead of the light we can see with our eyes, these flashes come in radio waves.
'In the time it takes you to drink a cup of coffee, hundreds of FRBs may have gone off somewhere in the Universe,' added study co-author Avi Loeb.
'If we can study even a fraction of those well enough, we should be able to unravel their origin.'
To make their estimate, the scientists assumed that FRB 121102, a fast radio burst located in a galaxy about three billion light years away, is representative of all FRBs.
WHY STUDY FRBS? The Harvard team point out that FRBs can be used to study the structure and evolution of the Universe whether or not their origin is fully understood. A large population of faraway FRBs could act as probes of material across gigantic distances. This intervening material blurs the signal from the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the left over radiation from the Big Bang. A careful study of this intervening material should give an improved understanding of basic cosmic constituents, such as the relative amounts of ordinary matter, dark matter and dark energy, which affect how rapidly the universe is expanding. FRBs can also be used to trace what broke down the 'fog' of hydrogen atoms that pervaded the early universe into free electrons and protons, when temperatures cooled down after the Big Bang.
Because this FRB has produced repeated bursts since its discovery in 2002, astronomers have been able to study it in much more detail than other FRBs.
Using that information, they projected how many FRBs would exist across the entire sky.
While their exact nature is still unknown, most scientists think FRBs originate in galaxies billions of light years away.
One leading idea is that FRBs are the byproducts of young, rapidly spinning neutron stars with extraordinarily strong magnetic fields.
Fialkov and Loeb point out that FRBs can be used to study the structure and evolution of the Universe whether or not their origin is fully understood.
A large population of faraway FRBs could act as probes of material across gigantic distances.
This intervening material blurs the signal from the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the left over radiation from the Big Bang.
A careful study of this intervening material should give an improved understanding of basic cosmic constituents, such as the relative amounts of ordinary matter, dark matter and dark energy, which affect how rapidly the universe is expanding.
While their exact nature is still unknown, most scientists think FRBs originate in galaxies billions of light years away. One leading idea is that FRBs are the byproducts of young, rapidly spinning neutron stars with extraordinarily strong magnetic fields (artist's impression)
FRBs can also be used to trace what broke down the 'fog' of hydrogen atoms that pervaded the early universe into free electrons and protons, when temperatures cooled down after the Big Bang.
It is generally thought that ultraviolet (UV) light from the first stars traveled outwards to ionize the hydrogen gas, clearing the fog and allowing this UV light to escape.
Studying very distant FRBs will allow scientists to study where, when and how this process of'reionization' occurred.
'FRBs are like incredibly powerful flashlights that we think can penetrate thise fog and be seen over vast distances,' added Dr Fialkov.
'This could allow us to study the 'dawn' of the universe in a new way.'
The full findings of the study were published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.Wii U Sells 308,570 Units At Launch in Japan, 36% Bought Monster Hunter
By Spencer. December 10, 2012. 11:41pm
Famitsu reports Wii U sold 308,570 units in just two days. Nintendo’s new system launched in Japan on December 8 and early sales numbers include December 9.
The top selling game was New Super Mario Bros. U with 170,563 units sold. Roughly, 55% of people that bought a Wii U purchased Mario. Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate was the second best selling title with 110,159 units sold and a 36% attach rate.
Nintendo Land clocked in at number 3 with 78,461 units and a 25% attach rate. Unlike North America and Europe, Nintendo Land was not bundled the Deluxe Set. In Japan, Deluxe Set owners got an invite to the Dragon Quest X beta instead.The trillion dollar coin is emerging as a surprisingly serious proposal by the political left to avoid the looming fight over the debt ceiling.
It's also the political equivalent of the nuclear option -- something that may be technically practical, but would lead to all kinds of unpredictable political fallout. So much so that it's very likely to remain in the realm of liberal fantasy.
The idea of minting a trillion dollar coin (or two) has started to catch on in liberal Democratic circles as a means of circumventing the looming debt ceiling brinksmanship, with Republicans intent on using the negotiations over raising Congress's borrowing authority to secure big spending cuts -- and President Obama is not having any of it. The Post's Wonk team sums it up as follows:
Thanks to an odd loophole in current law, the U.S. Treasury is technically allowed to mint as many coins made of platinum as it wants and can assign them whatever value it pleases. Under this scenario, the U.S. Mint would produce (say) a pair of trillion-dollar platinum coins. The president orders the coins to be deposited at the Federal Reserve. The Fed then moves this money into Treasury’s accounts. And just like that, Treasury suddenly has an extra $2 trillion to pay off its obligations for the next two years — without needing to issue new debt. The ceiling is no longer an issue.
The fantastic attempt at a work-around has worked its way from academic circles into the political mainstream, so much so that Republican Rep. Greg Walden (Ore.) has seen fit this week to introduce legislation to prevent such a maneuver.
Much of the coverage over the last month or so has focused on whether the idea is legally feasible. But it's also worth a look at how politically feasible it would be because that, arguably, is the bigger hurdle. (Plus, The Fix is hardly a Constitutional scholar.)
Put simply: Minting a trillion dollar coin would ratchet up the partisanship and gamesmanship in Washington to a level we haven't seen (though we know that's hard to believe). And it also would open up Obama and the White House to charges of manipulating the political system in an underhanded way.
"I seriously doubt the president would risk jamming the Congress and the American public with the coin," said Republican former congressman Tom Reynolds (N.Y.).
In a lot of ways, the idea mirrors the current debate about changing the Senate's filibuster rules.
As with the debt ceiling, Republicans in Congress have gone to great lengths to use the filibuster (which requires 60 votes to pass a bill in the Senate) as a means of exercising the power available to them.
But even as that has occurred, Senate Democrats have been hesitant to eliminate or roll back filibuster rules. The current effort seems to be gaining some steam, but even now, it will require some (ahem) creative legislating to pass the reform and wouldn't actually alter the 60-vote threshold -- instead requiring filibustering senators to actually speak during the filibuster, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington-style.
As the filibuster fight shows, while the two sides may seem to be willing to do just about anything to gain partisan advantage, the idea of manipulating the process is still considered beyond the pale by many in Congress.
Just as with reforming the filibuster, the trillion-dollar coin idea presents all kinds of potential unintended consequences, including opening the door to other practices that have thus far been off the table. And while that would benefit the Democrats in this particular instance, there will be a day when the roles are reversed (the filibuster being case-in-point).
"It isn’t just a nuclear option, it is opening up the Book of Revelation," GOP consultant Dan Hazelwood said of the trillion dollar coin. "Laws, Constitution and common sense merely cease to exist."
And regardless of whether you think it's a good idea, the trillion dollar coin would undoubtedly further poison the political well of a federal government whose well is already downright toxic.
Which is why the "nuclear" metaphor is particularly adept in this case.The treasure-hunting company rejects the Spanish state's claim to the haul A deep sea treasure-hunting company has been ordered by a US judge to hand over half a million gold and silver coins to the government of Spain. The company, Odyssey Marine Exploration, raised the haul from a shipwreck in the Atlantic, suspected to be that of a Spanish naval vessel. The Spanish government argued that the treasure formed part of the country's national heritage. But Odyssey intends to appeal, saying it has a claim to the treasure. This is just the latest round of a long-running and sometimes murky dispute, says the BBC's Steve Kingstone in Madrid. The haul of coins - thought to be worth some $500m (£308m) - came to light in 2007, when Odyssey announced the recovery of artefacts from a wreck in the Atlantic. It kept the location of the wreck secret, in what it said was an attempt to deter looters. The haul was brought ashore in Gibraltar and quickly flown to Miami - enraging the Spanish government, our correspondent says, which says the wreck is that of the Mercedes, a naval frigate destroyed by the British in 1804. 'Private property' Just over a year ago, the Spanish government filed a suit with a federal court in Florida - where Odyssey is based - demanding the haul be handed over. FROM BBC WORLD SERVICE Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.
More from BBC World Service Late on Wednesday, a judge ruled that the court lacked jurisdiction over the case, and that the property should be returned to Spain under a principle known as "sovereign immunity". Spain's Culture Minister Angeles Gonzalez-Sinde expressed joy at the decision. "It's a very positive decision for the Spanish government and for all the Spanish citizens because it guarantees that this ship and the remains of this ship will come back to Spain, which was originally the owner of this ship," he told the BBC. "I am pretty sure that Spaniards will have the opportunity to travel back in time and to have a chance to see this treasure." But in a statement, Odyssey said it would appeal against the ruling. The Nasdaq-listed company argues that there is no conclusive proof that the wreck is that of the Mercedes and that even if it is, much of the cargo on board the ship belonged to private individuals and not the Spanish state. "I'm confident that ultimately the judge or the appellate court will see the legal and evidentiary flaws in Spain's claim, and we'll be back to argue the merits of the case," said the firm's CEO, Greg Stemm.
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StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable versionWUZHEN, CHINA — When AlphaGo topped the grandmaster Lee Sedol last year in Seoul, South Korea, becoming the first machine to beat a professional at the ancient game of Go, it grabbed the attention of the entire country—and beyond. This surprisingly powerful machine, built by researchers at Google’s DeepMind artificial intelligence lab, also captured so many imaginations in China, the birthplace of Go, where Google says more than 60 million people watched that match from across the internet.
Now AlphaGo is playing a Chinese grandmaster here in Wuzhen, China, an ancient city near the heart of the country's tech industry. The match between AlphaGo and Ke Jie, currently ranked number one in the world, seems like the perfect PR opportunity for a company that hopes to expand its presence in China in the years to come. But it hasn't quite worked out that way.
On Tuesday, AlphaGo won the first game of this best-of-three match, a litmus test for the progress of artificial intelligence since last year's tournament. But the audience was limited. Chinese state television did not show the event live after pulling out of the broadcast just days before, according to two people involved with the event. Meanwhile, local internet service providers, which are beholden to Chinese authorities, blocked other Chinese-language broadcasts about half-an-hour into the game. Local news outlets did cover the event, but many readers said the stories avoided using the name Google, apparently under restrictions imposed by authorities. The English-language broadcast from Wuzhen was not affected.
The atmosphere surrounding the match couldn't be more different than the vibe of the contest in Korea, where AlphaGo was the lead story on practically every news broadcast and in every newspaper for more than a week. Dozens of journalists were on hand to cover the event in Wuzhen, but so much of the expected energy was missing, partly because Ke Jie had little chance of winning the match against an improved AlphaGo—and partly because coverage of the event was curtailed by unseen forces.
Google chairman Eric Schmidt (right). Noah Sheldon for WIRED
The reasons for the apparent crackdown on publicity are unclear, and Google declined to publicly comment on the situation. But it's no secret that, like so many other American internet companies, Google has a complicated relationship with China. More than a decade ago, the company began offering various online services in the country, agreeing to obey China's stringent censorship laws. But in 2010, after Chinese hackers burrowed into Google's internal systems and apparently lifted information on Chinese human rights advocates from Gmail service, the company moved its Chinese-language servers to Hong Kong and lifted all censorship. In return, Chinese ISPs blocked Google's service. Since then, the internet's most powerful company hasn't really had an online presence in the country.
Google has made noises about returning to China, where it still operates some offices, and this week's AlphaGo match seemed like a chance to reboot its presence. But in China, the politics are never simple. Services like Facebook and Twitter are also unavailable here. Though some American internet companies, such as LinkedIn, have agreed to offer services that obey local laws, the Chinese internet is dominated by local companies, including giants like Alibaba, whose headquarters lies only about 50 miles from the city hosting this week's Go match.
The other subtext: Google and the leading Chinese internet companies are part of a worldwide battle for top AI talent. Engineers at Chinese internet giant Tencent have even built their own version of AlphaGo, a machine that also very much represents the future of AI.
Noah Sheldon for WIRED
Google worked closely with local authorities in arranging this week's event in Wuzhen, a historic "watertown" criss-crossed by canals, stone bridges, and traditional Chinese buildings adorned with elaborate wood carvings. The match was sponsored by the Chinese Go Association and the sports authority in Zhejiang Province, which surrounds Wuzhen. "Thanks so very much for having us, for letting us come," Google chairman Eric Schmidt said during a speech just before the match kicked off.
In the weeks before the first game, Chinese state media actively promoted their coverage of the event. But state TV pulled out two days before the match, according to two people involved in the event, who requested that their names not be shared—an indiction of how complex the political landscape in China can be to navigate, even for one of the world's biggest companies.
This made for a strange day as the match's first game played out. Google was holding the event in what seemed like the ideal place—the conference hall that also hosts China's World Internet Conference, a yearly gathering of major internet companies and personalities. But the game wasn't really available to locals over the internet itself. When a reporter asked DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis about the restrictions on live video of the event, he said he didn't know anything about the ban. But he noted just how much media had shown interest in the match. Sixty million people in China watched the match in Korea. Now they couldn't really watch the one in their home country.
In the end, the dynamic isn't all that surprising, considering the messy relationship between company and country. What's surprising is that this event is actually happening at all.While the march on Melbourne continues, the Greens suffered a poor result in two key electorates across the border, despite a large spending boost. Is NSW too conservative for the party, or has it lost its way in the state? Max Chalmers reports.
For Richard Di Natale’s party, the outcome of the 2016 federal election looks decidedly different in the nation’s two largest cities.
In Victoria, the Greens made significant advances in inner city electorates, intensifying the pressure on besieged Labor – and in one case Coalition – MPs. Although the party will likely not be able to brag of any new conquests by the time counting is completed, the foundations of Labor’s defences have been blasted through almost entirely, leaving a number of MPs with a slender buffer to defend next time around.
In Batman, a swing of just under nine per cent couldn’t quite dislodge Labor’s David Feeney, who finished second on primaries behind Alex Bhathal, but overtook the Greens candidate on preferences. In neighbouring Wills, a similar result put Samantha Ratnam in striking distance of her Labor opponent, while Jason Ball saw an almost nine per cent increase in the Greens’ primary vote in Liberal held Higgins, and Steph Hodgins-May increased the party’s primary vote by four per cent in another three-way race in the seat of Melbourne Ports.
There is severe disappointment that Bhathal in particular – who first contested Batman in 2001 – couldn’t knock off Feeney, but the consistent shift across the seats surrounding Melbourne is a positive sign.
The same can’t be said for the capital to the north. While the change to the Greens’ senate vote in each state was only minor, lower house seats tell a different story.
In the seat of Sydney, the Greens increased their primary vote by just 0.1 per cent, stalling at 18.5 per cent. That total is less than they received in Brisbane, and only just ahead of the first preference tallies in Fremantle and Perth.
Far worse, however, was the result in Grayndler, the nation’s smallest electorate, which lies just to the west of the city.
It is understood that the NSW Greens budgeted $250,000 to get as close as possible to toppling powerhouse Labor left MP Anthony Albanese, a man with a reputation for brawling with Tories who showed during the campaign he’s happy to throw a right hook as well. That figure is up from the $80,000 allocated to Grayndler in 2013, and is $60,000 more than was allotted to take on Tanya Plibersek in Sydney, according to figures seen by New Matilda.
On that return, the Greens saw both their primary and two party preferred vote in Grayndler go backwards, easing in the wrong direction by less than one per cent. Jim Casey, a charismatic firefighter and unionist, finished third on first preferences behind Labor and the Liberals.
In lower house seats the Greens moved their vote to 12.6 per cent in Victoria, while in NSW they advanced only slightly, to 8.6 per cent.
Melbourne MPs ‘An Embarrassment To Labor’
The first explanation proffered by Greens sources in NSW was the contrasting standing of Labor’s inner city MPs.
Plibersek and Albanese are formidable opponents who have a shared 38 years of incumbency and are regularly singled out as potential leaders. They have a national profile. As Albanese’s campaign showed, this means they can whip-up broad and often very positive exposure.
Those who campaigned in Sydney and Grayndler said the pair have been elevated to the level of celebrity. One Labor staffer noted the need to factor in the “cult of personality” when setting up events for Plibersek, while Greens staff described voters flocking around Albanese at polling places. “You really pity anyone who has to run against Tanya Plibersek,” the Labor source said.
According to Casey, there was a feeling from the beginning that if Albanese contested the seat he would be very difficult to overcome. The Greens campaign took a hit when the MP decided not to skip out and run in the redistributed seat of Barton, something a number of papers had confidently predicted he would do. There was another jolt when the Liberals announced they would preference Labor, and Casey said his camp experienced a “hiccup” in their volunteering campaign as a result. Momentum is important to insurgent parties like the Greens, and moments like these constantly deprived the Grayndler team of the commodity.
James Ryan, who headed up the party’s NSW campaign, also argued that Labor had still managed to significantly outspend the Greens in the seat. “In the face of a massive spend by Labor and the tantalising effect of the possibility of Labor winning government our Green vote did not increase in Grayndler despite our strong campaign,” he said.
Meanwhile, around Melbourne, Labor right faction stalwart David Feeney appeared to be sabotaging his own campaign in Batman, popular Wills MP Kelvin Thomas retired after 20 years, and Michael Danby continued to produce the signature brand of Labor right bombast that has assisted him in collapsing his party’s primary vote from the mid-40s to the just 27.4 per cent in Melbourne Ports.
Greens Senator for NSW Lee Rhiannon was one to draw attention to the disparity in the strength of opposition, describing Feeney and Danby as “uninspiring characters who were an embarrassment to their party.”
Rhiannon, the sole Greens Senator for the state, was returned at the election despite a small swing against her party, and Ryan argued this had been the party’s major goal at the poll.
Along with this argument, a number of those in the NSW Greens suggested their state was more hostile to the party’s progressive agenda than Victoria.
Julie Macken, Casey’s media advisor, pointed to relative numbers at climate change and refugee rallies in each state. “Melbourne flogs us every time,” she observed.
But according to Ben Raue, a psephologist who has previously done work for the NSW Greens and now assists GetUp and Guardian Australia, the demographics in Grayndler and Sydney favour the Greens more heavily than the seats surrounding Melbourne.
While Raue put Sydney and Grayndler in a similar category to the already-snatched seat of Melbourne, he noted that Greens support falls away as you move north through electorates like Batman and Wills, a reflection of the demographic challenge faced by the party in seats that sprawl further from ‘000 postcodes.
Interestingly, the Greens’ vote also increased in a number of regional electorates in NSW, and the only place the NSW party saw a swing similar to those around Melbourne was in the north-eastern seat of Richmond, another electorate with a very mixed base for the Greens.
Differnt States, Different Parties
Aside from the immediate political environment, it has also been pointed out in the wake of the result that the Greens organise in a very different manner in NSW and Victoria.
NSW is decentralised, with local groups given total control over any funding that flows to them, the power to control how preferences are allocated on How-To-Vote cards in their electorate, and significant power to halt changes to the party’s central platform. Local groups send representatives to the State Delegates Council, where decisions are made on a consensus basis. Decisions can go to a vote, but need a super majority of 75 per cent support to get over the line.
This makes internal machinations slower and more complex. Critics also say – much to the chagrin of those who support this system – that it renders the party unprofessional. One person who was more favourable to the status quo still warned that the party was losing good staff to progressive organisations offering a stable job between elections.
In defence of the model it was pointed out that a number of strong, locally run campaigns saw the Greens take their tally of lower house seats to three at the 2015 NSW state election. The state campaign had been criticised as dysfunctional, but the decentralised approach enabled the likes of Jenny Leong to run effective grassroots battles. (Leong scored a 10 per cent swing on primaries in the new seat of Newtown, comprehensively outgunning Labor MLC Penny Sharpe).
Rhiannon, who was careful to clarify that she was not criticising the way other states operate, noted that the NSW party had grown out of a series of local branches.
“Why are our local groups so strong in NSW? Before we had the NSW Greens, before we had the Australian Greens, the very first party in Australia to use the name ‘Greens’ was the Sydney Greens. Then you had the other Greens, the Eastern Suburb Greens, Newcastle Greens,” she said.
Rhiannon said she had seen the frustrations with the system up close but that the consultative approach ensured the party could build in the long-term.
“I know people try and typecast me, you know? ‘You’re just old fashioned’, ‘you’re stuck in the old ways’, blah blah blah. But I respect that to change organisations, you also need to respect how organistions work. You’ve got to learn what the good bits are,” Rhiannon said.
“So yes, there’s a heap we could do better in terms of how the campaigns run; what we focus on, what we talk about. I think what we talked about is a good one.”
Victoria, by contrast, has a more centre-heavy structure, including a full-time campaign staff of nine people who work between elections. Their number swells to 50 at the height of a campaign. Money flows to the centre then back out. Campaign skills and techniques are more easily transferred from one bout to the next.
One NSW member said this left Victorian local branches “screaming blue murder” as their views were discarded by campaign HQ, but a senior Victorian organiser saw things differently, and argued the state has a “centralised professional campaign group and decentralised local campaigns.” They said the campaign had been thoroughly consultative, and that the state-wide push had not been sacrificed by concentrating on the seats around Melbourne. On election day, the Victorian Greens mobilised around 6,000 volunteers, compared to 4,500 in NSW.
Mobilising volunteers is one thing, but it doesn’t hurt to have more cash on hand either.
The NSW party is at a self-imposed disadvantage here thanks to strict rules about donations. Unlike Victoria, it won’t take money from for-profit companies at all, and limits donations from individuals to $2,500. Victoria has a vetting process for donations over $1,000, but New Matilda understands they are rarely – if ever – turned down.
While a boost in funds to Casey’s campaign failed to see the Greens vote in Grayndler rise, the candidate made an obvious observation. “Of course more money would have meant more material, and this would have helped,” he said.
That’s not so say Casey or others in NSW want these restrictions to change. The party has debated the details of their donations policy but the focus has always been on tinkering – especially in regards to funds from unions – rather than overhaul. In a state where ICAC often serves as the most effective opposition to a government it’s not hard to understand why such a position is seen both as principled and pragmatic.
Macken was philosophical when reflecting on how the party’s internal machinations might impact campaigning.
“Democracy is brutally hard work,” she said. “It makes you really tired. It’s full of more losses than wins and it’s not easy or instant.”
“But that is the nature of building movements and building relationships. It’s the nature of true democracy. And it’s bad news if you want big wins instantly.”
Divisions In NSW
Somewhat confusingly, internal ruptures in the Greens NSW have also recently given rise to accusations that the party is too centralised. Just as the election campaign got humming, a number of staff quit the NSW Greens’ influential Committee of Management after Executive Officer Carole Medcalf was removed. Medcalf and her camp argue she was mistreated, while those still on the Committee say she was forced to leave after “serious misconduct”.
Chris Harris, one of those who departed during the row, told New Matilda he is a big fan of Richard Di Natale, and wants to see renewal in the NSW Greens.
“I think our election result was pretty poor in NSW. We haven’t grown. We’ve got a lot more members but our vote hasn’t grown as I think it should be,” Harris said.
The former NSW Greens treasurer and City of Sydney Councillor said this was not a veiled criticism of Rhiannon, who he acknowledged had been a good advocate for the party.
“I have no personal criticism of Lee Rhiannon for her efforts, but there is a power structure in the party [and it]has long been a dominant power structure in the party. Lee is part of that no doubt.
“I don’t think that power structure being maintained is in the longer term interest of the Greens NSW.”
Those on the other side of the divide fire back that, having failed to win support for his ideas, Harris became a critic of the system.
Interrelated to these divisions is one of ideology, a fracture that is being tested by Di Natale’s perceived move towards the political centre.
When the Financial Review reported that “recriminations” had begun after the election results, one Federal insider told the paper the NSW campaign had been too “bolshy”. While the Greens do not have a formal factional system like Labor, that was taken as a rebuke of those on the left of the party, who are worried Casey’s result will undermine their ability to push more ardently left-wing candidates and causes in the future. Harris, for one, criticised the “smash the system” mentality among some in the party. (He also rejected the idea that the split is along left-right grounds, though many others refer to it in those terms).
Whether disunity in the party was a factor or not at the election, the results will certainly feed back into that internal dynamic.
Max Phillips, another former Councillor aligned to state MP Jeremy Buckingham, who is generally thought to be on the other side of the divide to Rhiannon, said the campaign in Grayndler should have taken the gloves off and come directly at Albanese’s image as “a good guy in Labor.”
“The Victorian Greens have proved that our policies can appeal to a significant proportion of an electorate at a federal election,” Phillips said.
“Our good regional results show that appeal is also broadly based. The question for NSW Greens is how we campaign and do politics to harness that appeal for our Senate vote and to really challenge in federal lower house seats.”
The Greens in NSW will soon be conducting their own internal reviews of the poll, and making preparations for their true litmus test. Adam Bandt was able to sneak home in Melbourne after the seat was left open by the retirement of Lindsay Tanner and the future departure of Plibersek or Albanese will also provide a rare opportunity for the Greens to change their luck in the House of Representatives.
Disappointed for now, Casey is optimistic about the future.
“Either [Albanese] retires, opening the space for us, or he does a John Howard and stays too long. Both scenarios will work for the Greens,” he said.Relative newcomer Acorn TV launched in 2013 to stream programming from UK-based studios like BBC Worldwide, ITV, and Channel 4. The British-owned streaming services specializes in new and classic mysteries, dramas, comedies, and documentaries from the non-American English speaking world including Ireland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Acorn TV just released their fall 2017 schedule full of new seasons of their most popular series and a few premieres.
Acorn TV’s fall 2017 releases include the all-new second season of Scandinavian thriller Black Widows and the fourth season of hit Canadian police drama 19-2, debuting in September. The Wall Street Journal calls 19-2 “exciting in a wholly new way” and writes that the series manages to make the genre feel new again. Also premiering in September is The Governor, an ITV series which ran from 1995 to 1996 and features Idris Elba in one of his first roles ever, and Newton’s Law, a new fast-paced Australian legal drama.
In October, Acorn TV will also unveil their new original series Acceptable Risk, described as a “gripping international conspiracy thriller.” Acceptable Risk is a journey into the world of big pharmaceuticals, corporate intrigue, and surveillance starring award-winning actress Elaine Cassidy (The Paradise, No Offence). ITV’s hit Doc Martin will also return in October with an all-new eighth season.
In November and December, Acorn TV will roll out new seasons of The Brokenwood Mysteries, A Place to Call Home, and the EDGAR®-winning BBC One detective series George Gently. In addition, Acorn TV will debut the new BBC One drama Love, Lies, and Records, written by BAFTA award-winning writer Kay Mellor (The Syndicate) and starring Ashley Jensen (Agatha Raisin, Catastrophe).
An Acorn TV subscription costs just $4.99 a month and the streaming service is completely ad-free. The Acorn TV app is supported on most major streaming devices including Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, and Roku. Interested new users can check out Acorn TV for one week with no strings attached by signing up for a free trial.Introduction to Ketamine Therapy
Major Depressive Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) are among the most painful experiences a human being can endure – so painful, in fact, that each year over one million people choose suicide rather than suffering one more day with these conditions. The general public often thinks wrongly of these conditions as purely emotional, but sufferers endure serious and debilitating physical symptoms that impede their ability to function normally, in addition to the emotional pain amplified by those symptoms. People with the very worst cases do not respond to standard treatments. For them, depression/bipolar/PTSD is often a life sentence – or a death sentence – but ketamine offers a new source of hope.
Use the Learn menu at the top of the page to read about the following topics:
Route of Administration Explains why the method used to put ketamine in the body is so important.
Cost
Explains why the treatment costs what it does, and why it isn’t covered by insurance yet. The Infusion Experience
Describes the experience of undergoing a ketamine infusion. The Relief Experience
Explains the subtle way relief reveals itself and the way it improves function and mood. Getting the Most Out of Treatment
Practical tips to help you maximize the benefits of ketamine therapy. Opposition Explains why widespread use of ketamine therapy is opposed by Big Pharma, some ketamine researchers, and many psychiatrists.
This site focuses on extreme cases of depression, bipolar disorder, and PTSD. The word depression is casually used to describe any kind of low mood, but on this site it always means treatment-resistant major depressive disorder and is not meant to cover situational or temporary depression caused, for example, by a failing marriage or a toxic work environment. Anywhere on this site where we say patients like us, we mean patients with treatment-resistant major depression or bipolar or PTSD – grave medical conditions unresponsive to medication or therapy and involving years of intense suffering and extreme physical symptoms that dramatically impair one’s ability to function. It is patients like us who founded the Ketamine Advocacy Network and created this website.
For the past 15 years researchers have known that tiny doses of ketamine can rapidly relieve depression symptoms when delivered via slow intravenous infusion. The first scholarly paper describing this discovery was published by Yale in 2000. Since then, dozens more studies have been conducted by Yale and other major institutions, including the National Institutes of Health, the Veterans Administration, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Mount Sinai Medical School, Oxford University, and more. The original findings have been reconfirmed many times.
Studies to date have focused on the worst-of-the-worst cases. These are treatment-resistant patients who have suffered for years or decades, often since childhood. They have tried SSRIs, mood stabilizers, and many other medications with no success. Most have also tried standard therapies like psychological counseling or CBT, as well as alternative treatments like acupuncture, with little to no benefit. Among these extreme cases, an astonishing 70% experience rapid relief after a small IV infusion of ketamine.
If you’ve suffered for years and given up hope of ever finding relief, ketamine can sound too good to be true. But the number of patients receiving ketamine therapy (and the number of doctors who offer it) is growing rapidly. Today, more than 15 years after the breakthrough discovery at Yale, the treatment is finally starting to reach the patients who need it most.
But what does it mean when ketamine “works?” What does it feel like? Does it relieve physical symptoms, or emotional ones, or both? Will you instantly become the person you always wanted to be? Is it a permanent cure? Are there risks?
Those are big questions that can’t be answered adequately on a single web page. In the forums and throughout this site, you’ll find info about these questions from patients who have actually been there, and findings from the foremost ketamine researchers. For the remainder of this intro, we’ll stick to the most important headlines you need to get you started.
Ketamine Headlines for Newcomers
Ketamine works in a completely different way from any med you've ever taken for depression, bipolar, PTSD, or anxiety. Most medications prescribed for major depression work by manipulating the quantity of certain neurotransmitters in your brain, and their side-effects can be miserable. Ketamine works differently: it briefly blocks a certain type of receptor in the brain from being triggered. This blockade only occurs during the treatment, while you are actually connected to the IV. Afterwards, the Most medications prescribed for major depression work by manipulating the quantity of certain neurotransmitters in your brain, and their side-effects can be miserable. Ketamine works differently: it briefly blocks a certain type of receptor in the brain from being triggered. This blockade only occurs during the treatment, while you are actually connected to the IV. Afterwards, the acute effects of the infusion dissipate within minutes, and any lingering side |
about the battle of Aleppo. Most feel less confident in their knowledge of the situation in Syria
Canadians are split between believing that Western nations should have done more to prevent death and destruction in Aleppo (48%) and believing that greater Western intervention was not necessary and would not have helped (52%).
Knowledge of the situation drives opinions on the Western response to it. Those who profess the greatest understanding of the battle of Aleppo are also most likely to say the West failed by not doing more there (62% do).
Many feel uninformed about the situation in Aleppo
The siege of Aleppo drew a steady stream of news coverage in November and December, as pro-government forces surrounded and advanced on rebel-held neighbourhoods in the city’s east.
This media attention appears to have reached the vast majority of Canadians. Only one-in-ten (11%) say they haven’t seen or heard anything about Aleppo. That said, the Canadian public hasn’t necessarily been following the story closely in the news. As seen in the following graph, just one-in-six (16%) have been highly engaged with this story:
In fact, though most Canadians have at least been seeing some headlines about Aleppo, fewer than one-in-ten (8%) say they have a solid comprehension of what is going on in the region. A greater number, close to four-in-ten (39%) say they understand the general picture and who the main players are, but half admit they have little or no knowledge of the war or the drawn-out siege:
As might be expected, awareness of media coverage of Aleppo is correlated with confidence in one’s understanding of the situation there. Those who are “seeing a lot of coverage” of the issue are also most likely to say they “know a lot about” it.
That said, even this high-information group of Canadians is not especially confident in their knowledge. They’re more likely to say they know “the general picture” than to say they know “all the major points,” as seen on the left side of the following graph:
Much of the difficulty Canadians have in accurately understanding the conflict owes to the sheer complexity of the issue. While the civil war sprouted out of Arab Spring protests and the Syrian government’s violent suppression of burgeoning dissent, a number of other national and subnational groups now occupy physical space in the conflict, while outside actors interact by proxy, funding groups that side with their interests. The image below shows an assessment of who occupies which areas in the region at the outset of 2017, though borders change daily.
A failure of the West?
As the battle of Aleppo approached its end, Turkey and Russia negotiated a ceasefire that was intended to allow the evacuation of the many civilians still living in the surrounded neighbourhoods. The fighting did cease for a little while, but reports suggested that many of the scheduled evacuations didn’t actually happen.
The United Nations says hundreds of civilians died during the siege of Aleppo, and – though Russia and the Assad regime have denied targeting non-combatants – some commentators have said the actions of the pro-government forces constitute war-crimes.
In a speech, American ambassador to the UN Samantha Power likened the situation in Aleppo to past atrocities the international community had been seen as failing to stop, including the genocide in Rwanda in the 1990s. If Aleppo comes to be remembered in a similar light, will it be because nations like Canada, the United States, and their NATO allies didn’t do enough to stop the death and destruction there?
Canadians are divided on this line of thinking. Asked to choose between two opposing statements about the West’s involvement in Aleppo, roughly half (48%) say “Western nations failed here – they should have done more to try to prevent the death and destruction in Aleppo,” while the rest (52%) say “Western nations were right not to get more involved – it would not have helped in the end.”
This split is remarkably consistent across demographic groups. Canadians of all ages, genders, and education levels are divided roughly equally in their opinion on this question. There are some notable regional differences, however, with Quebecers more likely to say Western nations failed in Aleppo (56% there do), and every other province more likely to say the West was right not to get involved (see comprehensive tables for greater detail).
Also driving differences on this question? Political affiliation. Those who voted for the Conservative Party of Canada in the 2015 election take a more cautious approach to intervention, with 58 per cent saying the West was right not to get involved in Aleppo. Most 2015 New Democratic Party voters, on the other hand, say Western nations failed (57% do). Supporters of the governing Liberal Party are evenly split:
Interestingly, while the differences between partisans on this question are statistically significant, they’re smaller than the gulf between parties often recorded on other issues. Consider, for example, views on another Syria-related topic: the federal government’s refugee resettlement plan. When the Angus Reid Institute asked Canadians about the plan last year, there was a massive partisan gap, as seen in the graph that follows.
Notably, it is those who profess the greatest degree of knowledge about the situation who are most likely to say their country and its allies should have done more in Aleppo. More than six-in-ten (62%) do so. Conversely, those who say they don’t know anything about it are most likely to say intervention wouldn’t have helped:
Reflecting the approach taken by most Western governments – and perhaps the ambivalence of his party’s supporters – Canada’s Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan has said that while the situation in Aleppo was tragic, Canada has no plans to engage in Syria militarily, either by fighting or by contributing to training moderate Syrian forces.
The Angus Reid Institute (ARI) was founded in October 2014 by pollster and sociologist, Dr. Angus Reid. ARI is a national, not-for-profit, non-partisan public opinion research organization established to advance education by commissioning, conducting and disseminating to the public accessible and impartial statistical data, research and policy analysis on economics, political science, philanthropy, public administration, domestic and international affairs and other socio-economic issues of importance to Canada and its world.
Image credit – Amnesty International Belgium
Related PostsC. S. Lewis is one of the most quoted authors on Twitter. On the anniversary of his birthday, Nov. 29, we've decided to celebrate his life by sharing 100 of the top C.S. Lewis quotes.
The most popular account for Lewis on Twitter and Pinterest is CSLewisDaily.
This top 100 list is a compilation of the most retweeted and repinned quotes shared by CSLewisDaily. Each quote is presented as a Pinterest picture in this gallery.
Related article: The 15 best quotes from Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech.
100 Brave Brave
Quote: "Since it is so likely that children will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage.”
Source: “On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature” (1966)
99 Joy Joy
Quote: “Joy is the serious business of heaven.”
Source: “Letters to Malcolm” (1964)
98 Honor Honor
Quote: "We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.”
Source: “The Abolition of Man” (1943)
97 Goodness Goodness
Quote: “There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him.”
Source: “The Great Divorce” (1945)
96 Grief Grief
Quote: “No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.”
Source:“A Grief Observed” (1961)
95 Choice Choice
Quote: “Each day we are becoming a creature of splendid glory or one of unthinkable horror.”
Source: “Mere Christianity” (1952)
94 Preach Preach
Quote: Jesus Christ did not say, "Go into all the world and tell the world that it is quite right"
Source: “God In The Dock” (1970)
93 Education Education
Quote: "The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts."
Source: “The Abolition of Man” (1943)
92 Mothers Mothers
Quote: "The homemaker has the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose only - and that is to support the ultimate career. "
Source: “Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis” (2006)
91 Interruptions Interruptions
Quote: “The truth is, of course, that what one regards as interruptions are precisely one's life.”
Source: “Collected Works of C. S. Lewis” (1994)
90 The Future The Future
Quote: "The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.”
Source: “The Screwtape Letters” (1942)
89 Joy Joy
Quote: “I sometimes wonder if all pleasures are not substitutes for joy.”
Source: “Mere Christianity” (1952)
88 Free Will Free Will
Quote: There are only two kinds of people: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, "All right, then, have it your way."
Source: “The Great Divorce” (1945)
87 Vulnerable Vulnerable
Quote: "To love at all is to be vulnerable"
Source: “The Four Loves” (1960)
86 Remember Remember
Quote: "A pleasure is not full grown until it is remembered.”
Source: “Out of the Silent Planet” (1938)
85 Service Service
Quote: "It's so much easier to pray for a bore than to go and see one."
Source: “Letters to Malcolm” (1964)
84 Sacrifice Sacrifice
Quote: "The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self--all your wishes and precautions--to Christ."
Source: “Mere Christianity" (1952)
83 Good vs. Bad Good vs. Bad
Quote: “No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good.”
Source: “Mere Christianity”
82 Change Change
Quote: “Isn't it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back, everything is different...”
Source: “Prince Caspian” (1951)
81 Behavior Behavior
Quote: "When we Christians behave badly, or fail to behave well, we are making Christianity unbelievable to the outside world."
Source: “Mere Christianity" (1952)
80 Conceit Conceit
Quote: "If a man thinks he is not conceited, he is very conceited indeed."
Source: “Mere Christianity" (1952)
79 Love Love
Quote: "Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person's ultimate good as far as it can be obtained."
Source: “God In The Dock” (1970)
78 Mirrors Mirrors
Quote: "We are mirrors whose brightness is wholly derived from the sun that shines upon us."
Source: “The Four Loves” (1960)
77 Wants Wants
Quote: “All get what they want; they do not always like it.”
Source: “The Magician's Nephew” (1955)
76 Reality Reality
Quote: "[Reality] is not neat, not obvious, not what you expect."
Source: “Mere Christianity”
75 Pure in Heart Pure in Heart
Quote: “It is safe to tell the pure in heart that they shall see God, for only the pure in heart want to.”
Source: “The Problem of Pain”
(1940)
74 Fidelity Fidelity
Quote: "Being in love" first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise.
Source: “Mere Christianity” (1952)
73 Narnia Narnia
Quote: "All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”
Source: “The Last Battle” (1956)
72 Truth Truth
Quote: "Thirst was made for water; inquiry for truth."
Source: “C.S. Lewis: An examined life” (2007)
71 Family Family
Quote: "The sun looks down on nothing half so good as a household laughing together over a meal."
Source: “The Weight of Glory” (1949)
70 Forgiveness Forgiveness
Quote: "Forgiveness does not mean excusing"
Source: “Fern Seed and Elephants” (1967)
69 Love Love
Quote: "Love is something more stern and splendid than mere kindness."
Source: “The Problem of Pain”
(1940)
68 Miracles Miracles
Quote: “Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.”
Source: “God In The Dock” (1970)
67 Aslan Aslan
Quote: "This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.”
Source:“The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" (1952)
66 Peace Peace
Quote: "God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing."
Source: “Mere Christianity” (1952)
65 Give Give
Quote: “Nothing you have not given away will ever really be yours.”
Source:“Mere Christianity” (1952)
64 Beauty Beauty
Quote: "We do not want merely to see beauty... We want something else which can hardly be put into words - to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it."
Source:“Transposition and Other Addresses” (1949)
63 Dependent Dependent
Quote: "You may forget that you are at every moment totally dependent on God."
Source:“Mere Christianity” (1952)
62 Perspective Perspective
Quote: “What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on what sort of person you are.”
Source: “The Magician's Nephew” (1955)
61 Warning! Warning!
Quote: "Readers are advised to remember that the devil is a liar."
Source: “The Screwtape Letters” (1942)
60 Temptation Temptation
Quote: “No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good."
Source:“Mere Christianity” (1952)
59 Friends Friends
Quote: “What draws people to be friends is that they see the same truth. They share it.”
Source: “The Four Loves” (1960)
58 Clean and Bright Clean and Bright
Quote: “The instrument through which you see God is your whole self. And if a man's self is not kept clean and bright, his glimpse of God will be blurred”
Source: “Mere Christianity” (1952)
57 Compliment Compliment
Quote: "It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed"
Source: “Reflections on the Psalms” (1964)
56 God's Glory God's Glory
Quote: “A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.”
Source: “The Problem of Pain” (1940)
55 Better Things Ahead Better Things Ahead
Quote: “There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.”
Source: “Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis” (2006)
54 The Door The Door
Quote: "The door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last.”
Source: “The Weight of Glory” (1949)
53 Friendship Friendship
Quote: Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: "What! You too? I thought I was the only one.”
Source: “The Problem of Pain”
(1940)
52 The Future The Future
Quote: “The Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays.”
Source: “The Screwtape Letters” (1942)
51 Desire Desire
Quote :“If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.”
Source: “Mere Christianity”
50 God speaks God speaks
Quote: "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains; it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world."
Source: “The Problem of Pain” (1940)
49 Silence Silence
Quote: “I have learned now that while those who speak about one’s miseries usually hurt, those who keep silence hurt more.”
Source: “Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis” (2006)
48 You You
Quote: "When Christ died, he died for you individually just as much as if you had been the only person in the world."
Source: “Mere Christianity” (1952)
47 Excuses Excuses
Quote: "In our own case we accept excuses too easily; in other people's, we do not accept them easily enough."
Source: “The Weight of Glory” (1949)
46 Forgiving ourselves Forgiving ourselves
Quote: "If God forgives us we must forgive ourselves otherwise its like setting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than him."
Source: “Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis” (2006)
45 Treasures Treasures
Quote: "All these toys were never intended to possess my heart. My true good is in another world, and my only real treasure is Christ."
Source: “The Problem of Pain” (1940)
44 Blessings Blessings
Quote: "When we lose one blessing, another is often most unexpectedly given in its place."
Source: “Yours, Jack: Spiritual Direction from C.S. Lewis” (2008)
43 Father of Lights Father of Lights
Quote: "No good work is done anywhere without aid from the Father of Lights."
Source: “Reflections on the Psalms” (1964)
42 Pain Pain
Quote: "God, who foresaw your tribulation, has specially armed you to go through it, not without pain but without stain."
Source: “Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis” (2006)
41 Presence of God Presence of God
Quote: "We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with him. He walks everywhere incognito."
Source: “Letters to Malcolm” (1964)
40 Walking Walking
Quote: "To walk out of his will is to walk into nowhere."
Source: “Perelandra” (1946)
39 Despair Despair
Quote: "Faith in Christ is the only thing to save you from despair."
Source: “The Joyful Christian” (1977)
38 Bad men Bad men
Quote: "Of all the bad men, religious bad men are the worst."
Source: “Reflections on the Psalms” (1964)
Pinterest link
37 Roads Roads
Quote: "One road leads home and a thousand roads lead into the wilderness."
Source: “The Pilgrim’s Regress” (1933)
36 Reliance Reliance
Quote: "Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done."
Source: “Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis” (2006)
35 Fairy tales Fairy tales
Quote: "Someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again."
Source: “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” (1950)
34 Prayers Prayers
Quote: "If God had granted all the silly prayers I've made in my life, where should I be now?"
Source: “Letters to Malcolm” (1964)
33 A lovely idea A lovely idea
Quote: "Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive."
Source: “Mere Christianity” (1952)
32 A stable A stable
Quote: "Once in our world, a stable had something in it that was bigger than our whole world."
Source: “The Last Battle” (1956)
31 Love Love
Quote: "Though our feelings come and go, his love for us does not."
Source: “Mere Christianity” (1952)
30 Success Success
Quote: "It is not your business to succeed, but to do right; when you have done so, the rest lies with God."
Source: “Yours, Jack: Spiritual Direction from C.S. Lewis” (2008)
29 Faith Faith
Quote: "Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted in spite of your changing moods."
Source: “Mere Christianity” (1952)
28 Becoming a Christian Becoming a Christian
Quote: "If you're thinking of becoming a Christian, I warn you, you're embarking on something, which will take the whole of you."
Source: “Mere Christianity” (1952)
27 Choices Choices
Quote: "Now is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It won't last forever. We must take it or leave it."
Source: “Mere Christianity” (1952)
26 Help Help
Quote: "You must ask for God's help.... After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again."
Source: “Mere Christianity” (1952)
25 Aim Aim
Quote: "Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither."
Source: "Mere Christianity" (1952)
24 Free will Free will
Quote: "Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having."
Source: “Mere Christianity” (1952)
23 Alive Alive
Quote: "When all the suns and nebulae have passed away, each one of you will still be alive."
Source: “The Weight of Glory” (1949)
22 Arguing Arguing
Quote: "When you are arguing against God you are arguing against the very power that makes you able to argue at all."
Source: “Mere Christianity” (1952)
21 The best The best
Quote: "We're not doubting that God will do the best for us; we're wondering how painful the best will turn out to be."
Source: “Letters of C. S. Lewis” (1966)
20 Infinite attention Infinite attention
Quote: "God has infinite attention to spare for each one of us. You are as much alone with him as if you were the only being he had ever created."
Source: “Mere Christianity” (1952)
19 Happiness and peace Happiness and peace
Quote: "God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing."
Source: “Mere Christianity” (1952)
18 Parachute Parachute
Quote: "We regard God as an airman regards his parachute; it's there for emergencies, but he hopes he'll never have to use it."
Source: “The Problem of Pain” (1940)
17 Desire Desire
Quote: "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."
Source: “Mere Christianity”
(1952)
16 Crucifixion Crucifixion
Quote: "It cost God nothing, so far as we know, to create nice things: but to convert rebellious wills cost him crucifixion."
Source: “Mere Christianity” (1952)
15 The heart The heart
Quote: "The heart never takes the place of the head: but it can, and should, obey it."
Source: “The Abolition of Man” (1943)
14 Goals and dreams Goals and dreams
Quote: "You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream."
Source: “Chicken Soup for the Soul" (1993)
13 Trust Trust
Quote: "There would be no sense in saying you trusted Jesus if you would not take his advice."
Source: “Mere Christianity” (1952)
12 Needs Needs
Quote: "God intends to give us what we need, not what we now think we want."
Source: “The Problem of Pain” (1940)
11 Human history Human history
Quote: "Human history is the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy."
Source:“Mere Christianity” (1952)
10 Neighbors Neighbors
Quote: "Do not waste time bothering whether you 'love' your neighbor; act as if you do, and you will presently come to love him."
Source: “Mere Christianity” (1952)
9 Low points Low points
Quote: "God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons that we could learn in no other way."
Source: “The Problem of Pain”
(1940)
8 Importance of Christianity Importance of Christianity
Quote: "Christianity, if false, is of no importance and, if true, is of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important."
Source: “God In The Dock” (1970)
7 Pride Pride
Quote: "Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man."
Source: “Mere Christianity” (1952)
6 Religion Religion
Quote: "If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity."
Source: “God In The Dock” (1970)
5 Humility Humility
Quote: "Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less."
Source: “Mere Christianity" (1952)
4 Forgiveness Forgiveness
Quote: "To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you."
Source: “Essays on Forgiveness” (1960)
3 The Son of God The Son of God
Quote: "The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God."
Source: “Mere Christianity”
2 Happiness Happiness
Quote: "Don't let your happiness depend on something you may lose."
Source: “The Four Loves” (1960)
1 Christianity Christianity
Quote: "I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen — not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."
Source: “Is Theology Poetry” (1945)A koala sitting on a branch at a zoo in Sydney in 2007. Close to 700 koalas have been killed off by authorities in southeastern Australia because overpopulation led to the animals starving. (Saeed Khan/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images)
Koalas are cute and cuddly — and, according to Australian officials, there are too many of them.
This was the explanation offered for the euthanization of almost 700 koalas in Victoria state in southeastern Australia. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported the “secret cull” was done in 2013 and 2014.
Officials were quick to explain — and walk back — the program.
“It is clear it’s an overpopulation issue, and it is clear that we have had koalas suffer in that Cape Otway area because of ill health and starvation,” Environment Minister Lisa Neville said, as ABC reported. “That’s just not good enough, and that’s a terrible way to treat koalas. I’m wanting to make sure that we’re taking the best action we can in this terrible situation of overpopulation. I don’t want to see koalas suffer.”
Another individual, environmental scientist Desley Whisson, told Mashable that the program was not secret.
“Deakin University lecturer Desley Whisson, who specializes in koalas, clarified to Mashable it was not a secret cull but ‘a program implemented to reduce the suffering of starving koalas,’ ” the site reported. “She said despite reports, there was no effort to keep the program secret.”
The conditions described by the ABC were nothing short of horrifying. The decline of the koalas’ food supply in Victoria — manna gum trees — led to a famine with devastating consequences.
“A lot more were dying naturally than were euthanized,” Frank Fotinas, whose company offers “camping under koalas,” said. “The whole of the cape smelled of dead koalas. It smelled like death. You should come and look at the trees. There are hundreds of acres of dead trees.”
He added: “Koalas are great for business, but if there’s no trees, there’s no koalas.”
Whisson defended the killing.
“Euthanasia of sick koalas is a humane action,” Whisson said. “Anyone who witnessed the problem in 2013/14 would agree that it was necessary. It was great that the government responded in the way they did.”
Though the koala is not listed as endangered in Australia, it is not in great shape.
“The koala population has been devastated over the last hundred years and is currently under great threat due to urbanization and massive, uncontrolled habitat destruction,” according to Australia Zoo, the conservation organization run by the family of slain “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin. “The Australian Koala Foundation estimates that upwards of 80 percent of original koala habitat in Australia has been cleared since European settlement.”
The next steps weren’t clear. Fotinas called for more government intervention — but Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott does not have a reputation as an environmentalist.
“Koala over-browsing has caused drastic decline of woodland health and extent,” according to the Web site of an ecology center in the affected region that undertook a tree-planting program. “In some areas the dieback is so severe that it has caused entire canopy death, and koalas too are suffering.”
Clarification: Though the colloquial term “koala bear” is used in this article, koalas are marsupials, not bears.Shuttering the National Hockey League for two weeks and sending its best players to the Winter Olympics is “ridiculous,” a marquee NHL owner says.
Philadelphia Flyers boss Ed Snider told reporters he has major problems with the league’s involvement in the Games, comments likely to further talk that Sochi may be the final time NHLers take part.
“Basketball plays in the winter but they play Olympics in the summer,” he’s quoted as telling philly.com. “It’s ridiculous. The whole thing is ridiculous.
“I think it’s ridiculous to take three weeks off, or however long it is, in the middle of the season. It screws everything up... There’s no benefit to us whatsoever. If anything, I can only see negatives.”
Lest fans think Snider’s only worried about his wallet, the long-time NHL owner said he believes the Olympic break hurts the league’s competitive balance.
“It’s not good for our fans. It’s not good for our league. It changes the momentum. Everything about it is wrong.”Media playback is not supported on this device Highlights: Murray win puts GB into final
Andy Murray is set to miss this year's World Tour Finals if, as expected, Belgium decide to host the Davis Cup final against Great Britain on clay.
The Flanders Expo Arena in Ghent will stage the tie if the Davis Cup Committee gives its approval on Tuesday.
The Belgian Federation has two weeks to confirm its choice of surface, but has opted for clay in four of its last six home ties and may conclude it is the surface most likely to inconvenience Murray.
The World Tour Finals - on a hard court - finish at London's O2 Arena on Sunday, 22 November, with the Davis Cup final played over three days from the following Friday.
"The O2 would obviously be a question mark for me if we were playing on the clay," Murray told BBC Radio 5 live after sealing Britain's place in the final.
"I would go and train and prepare on the clay to get ready for the final.
Andy Murray's ATP Finals results 2014: Round robin 2013: Did not play 2012: Semi-finals 2011: Round robin 2010: Semi-finals 2009: Round robin
"You saw last year with Roger Federer that the matches at the O2 are extremely tough and physically demanding.
"If you reach the final and play on the Sunday you also need to take time off - you can't just play five matches against the best players in the world and then not take any days off."
Federer woke up with a bad back on the morning of last year's final at the O2 and was unable to play Novak Djokovic.
Media playback is not supported on this device Andy Murray 'proud' of Davis Cup history
Although Switzerland went on to win the Davis Cup the following week, Federer lost his opening match to France's Gael Monfils in straight sets.
Murray's back surgery in 2013 was successful, but he was managing a problem throughout Britain's semi-final victory over Australia and needs extra time to make the transition to clay.
The Scot, who won three points in the 3-2 win over Australia in Glasgow, explained: "For me to play - if I was to reach the final - five in a row and then take a couple of days off, it would mean only playing for two days on the clay before the Davis Cup final starts and that wouldn't be enough for me.
"I need more time on the clay to let my back get used to it."
Belgium thrashed in sole final Belgium have only played in the Davis Cup final on one previous occasion - in 1904, when they were beaten 5-0 by Great Britain.
If Murray does not play in the World Tour Finals, he will miss out on prize money ranging from £100,000 to £1.25m, 1,500 ATP ranking points and the chance to win the prestigious season-ending event for the first time.
The Flanders Expo Arena, meanwhile, which in the past has hosted Elton John, Prince and U2, as well as Belgian TV's version of The Voice, will have a capacity of 13,000 fans for the final. Although the arena is vast, the height of the roof limits the size of the stands that can be built.
Tickets are expected to be cheaper than for last year's final which was watched on the opening day in Lille by a world record crowd of more than 27,000 people.
However, it is unlikely there will be more than 1,300 made available to British fans with the Belgian Federation only obliged to distribute 10% to the away team and Belgium appearing in their first Davis Cup final for 111 years.
Murray 'expected to play' in London - ATP
Chris Kermode, executive president of the ATP which governs men's professional tennis, said Murray would be expected to play in London.
"The Barclays ATP World Tour Finals is a mandatory event on the ATP World Tour," he said.
"All players who qualify, unless injured, are required to compete in the event. Andy Murray has had a fantastic season and earned his place among the world's top eight players to compete at the season finale.
"We are aware of the comments made after the Davis Cup tie in Glasgow, however our expectations are that, if fully fit, Andy would compete in this year's tournament. Unless we hear otherwise via an official withdrawal, he is still entered to compete at the O2."Cruellest thief this Christmas: £2,000 worth of presents for seriously ill children stolen
from Great Ormond Street
Gifts were meant for children too ill to go home for Christmas
About 20 wrapped items were taken between Friday and Monday from a cupboard in a part of the hospital not open to the public
Great Ormond Street Hospital and the police are appealing for information
Police last night said they would mount a nationwide hunt for the ‘despicable’ thief who stole Christmas presents from desperately ill children at Great Ormond Street Hospital.
The 20 gifts, worth £2,000 and bought with donations from well-wishers, were destined for patients on the intensive respiratory care ward.
There are fears the thief may be someone who works at the world-famous Central London hospital because the gifts were in a room secured with a key-code lock.
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Wishing well: Employees from a London recruitment company deliver Christmas presents to Great Ormond Street children's hospital last night
Donations: All the stolen gifts have been replaced by an anonymous supporter, yet further gifts, such as these from last night, have been donated to Great Ormond Street
Investigators are scouring hundreds of hours of CCTV footage to identify the culprit.
A source said: ‘The thieves took two large bags. They even took the small bags which the presents were to be given to the children in.’
The items included portable DVD players, Nintendo DS games and DVDs.
Team support: England assistant Coach Ray Lewington and England Manager Roy Hodgson were pictured having a chat with Rebecca Mawbey, 13, from Watford during a visit to Great Ormond Street Hospital yesterday England Coach Gary Newille, England assistant Coach Ray Lewington and England Manager Roy Hodgson speaking to Kevshi Shah, aged 10 from Ilford, at Great Ormond Street Hospital
England Manager Roy Hodgson and Coach Gary Neville sign a shirt for the nurses at Great Ormond Street Hospital
Just hours after news broke of the callous theft, they were replaced by some of the many celebrities who support the hospital.
Stunned detectives suspect the gifts may have already been sold for as little as a few hundred pounds to buy drugs.
Det Chief Insp Les Newman said he and his colleagues were ‘utterly disgusted’. Mr Newman, whose son visits the hospital every year for tests for a kidney problem, said some of the intended recipients may not see another Christmas.
‘This is a despicable crime committed by heartless individuals,’ he said.
‘I urge the thief to think about their actions and do the decent thing and return them.
‘I would like to think they had a heart, especially around this time of year.
Despicable crime: Due to the location of the presents at the time of the theft it is feared they were taken by a member of staff Helping hand: Employees from a London business deliver Christmas presents to the children's hospital Toy service: London crewing company Pinnacle were among many businesses and members of the public who offered help in replacing the stolen presents ‘For some of these kids, it could be their last Christmas. Anyone with kids will feel for this crime and if they have got a suspicion, I suspect they will contact us.
‘There is no honour |
Eight years ago, Cindy Cooper provided a helpful timeline of the movement (1979–2009). Updating it could require graphical software that thinks in three or four dimensions. A full history would fill a volume.
What can be done here? I can offer an overview, via the answering of some Frequently Asked Questions.
Is this even documented?
Widely. It has to be or else no one would believe it! Many of these studies and tallies are available online, beginning with the landmark NYSCA study "Report on the Status of Women: a Limited Engagement?" (2002), by Susan Jonas and Suzanne Bennett, which is full of insights and well worth revisiting today. Here is just a partial listing of studies:
Action for Women in Theatre: A Study on Employment Discrimination Against Women Playwrights and Directors in Non Profit Theatre (1969-1975) released by Action for Women in Theatre (1976), NYSCA’s Report on the Status of Women: A Limited Engagement (2002), The Status of Women in Canadian Theatre (1982), League of Professional Theatre Women’s Directors and Designers Report on Sex Discrimination in the Theatre (1983), What Share of the Cake?: The Employment of Women in the English Theatre (1994), Report on the Status of Women Directors and Playwrights in the New York City Theatre (1998), The Status of Women in Theatre—The Ontario Experience (2004), Sphinx Theatre Survey (London, 2006), Adding It Up (Canada, 2006), Opening the Curtain on Playwright Gender: An Integrated Economic Analysis of Discrimination in American Theatre (Princeton, 2009), Chicago Storefront Summit study (2009), Gender Equity Report (Chicago, 2010), LAFPI’s The Study (Los Angeles, 2011), The Diversity/Inclusion/Gender Parity Task Force Report (2013), Women’s Leadership in Resident Theatres—a gender equity study by the Wellesley Centers for Women in partnership with the American Conservatory Theatre (A.C.T.) (2013-ongoing), Gender Statistics—Theatre in Sydney (2014-ongoing), Writing by the Numbers (2014-ongoing) LPTW’s Women Count: Women Hired Off-Broadway 2010-2015 (2014-ongoing), Not Even: A Gender Analysis of 500 San Francisco/Bay Area Productions from the Counting Actors Project 2011-2014 (2015), Dramatists Guild/Lillys’ The Count (ongoing), DC Theater Demographic Analyses (2012-ongoing), A Gender-Based Analysis of Theatre Awards in Canada (1992 – 2015), Purple Seven Gender and Theater Study (2012–2015), Achieving Equity in Canadian Theatre: A Report with Best Practice Recommendations (2015), The National Voice—Australia Writers Guild Report (2015), Who Designs in LORT Theatres by Gender: Infographic (2015), Who Designs and Directs in LORT Theatres by Gender: Phase Two (2016), StageSource Gender Parity Task Force study (2016).
Has it been discussed?
Frequently. Perhaps most memorably in “Not There Yet,” an essay written for American Theatre Magazine by Marsha Norman in 2009, and in this 2010 speech by Theresa Rebeck. Those are two good places to start if you want to catch up on reading.
There have also been scads of conferences and panels, including:
Women and Theatre Program Conference (annual pre-ATHE conference since 1980), The Standing Conference of Women Theatre Directors and Administrators (London) (1980, ongoing), “Plays by Women: What’s the Difference?” Dramatists Guild Committee for Women (1985), “Women on Broadway: Do They Make a Difference?” Outer Critics Circle (1986), “Women In Theatre: Mapping the Sources of Power“ Women’s Project and Productions (WPP) (1997), NYSCA/Women in Theatre Panels and Roundtables series (1999-2001)—“Pointed View”: a three-part symposium on gender and theatre (1999), “Why Do Numbers Matter? The Thorny Question of Underrepresentation” LPTW & WPP (2003), “Re-Opening the Rina Fraticelli Report” (Toronto) (2003), Town Meeting with Artistic Directors: Proposals to Reach Gender Parity on New York Stages (2008), 50/50 in 2020 series of Town Hall Meetings, New York (2009), Association for Theatre in Higher Education/American Alliance for Theatre Education “The Glass Proscenium,” New York (2009), “Women in Theatre: Issues for the 21st Century” Conference, Princeton (2009), Working Groups (2009), Women’s Initiative Symposium —“Women in Theatre: Achieving Gender Parity” (2009), Vamps, Vixens, and Feminists Conference (London, 2009), Women Playwrights International Conference (Sweden, 2012) Gender Parity, Playwriting, and Production (2013), The Summit, Washington DC (2014), “The Glass Curtain,” Washington DC (2015), Neo-Political Cowgirls’ Women of the Theatre Panel, New York (2015), Necessary Exposure Parity Panels, New York (2015–6), Good to Go Parity Summit, New York (2016), Women in the Arts and Media Coalition’s Percolating Gender Parity in Theatre—A Forum (2015), Statera Foundation annual Conference on Gender Parity in Theater (2015, 2016), Women in Theatre Conference: Challenge and Connection (2016), “Onward and Upward: a Public Forum for Women in Theatre,” Chicago (2017), Unconscious Bias: Achieving Gender Equity (upcoming, 2017).
So where did these discussions lead?
At times, they led to the forming of organizations or the launching of initiatives. The idea of the League of Professional Theatre Women, for instance, was born at an American Theatre Association Conference.
Having panel discussions about parity was important, but could only go so far. Susan Jonas says, “I was contacted to speak on my millionth panel and I balked and said we have to stop talking about it—showing stats—as that was not provoking change… and demand very specific change.” And she suggested trying to get to 50/50 by 2020, leading to the founding of that organization.
Soon more panels would beget more specific actions. At times panel participants would raise subjects such as examining bias in awards, reexamining the canon, and supporting women artists by buying tickets to their productions—and then would be inspired to found other groups that addressed those issues directly, adding to a growing list of organizations and groups including:
What about theatres?
Yes. Soon it started happening. Reviving “lost” women playwrights who had been erased from the canon, discovering new ones and publishing them in anthologies. Meanwhile, a number of theatres and theatre festivals started cropping up to fill the gender gap for female theatre artists, performers, and even characters, for example:
New Feminist Repertory (1969), Women’s Interart Center (1969), Interart Theatre (1972), Westbeth Playwrights Feminist Collective (New York, 1971–1975), Women’s Theatre Cooperative (Vancouver, 1973–1974), Circle of the Witch Feminist Theatre (US Midwest, 1974–1980), Redlight Theatre (Toronto, 1974), Spiderwoman (1975), Monstrous Regiment Theatre Company (London, 1975–1993), Nellie McClung Theatre (Winnipeg, 1976–1980), Split Britches (1981), Works by Women (1976–1983), The Women’s Project (1978), Nightwood Theatre (Toronto, 1979), Mrs. Worthington’s Daughters (London, 1978–1982), WOW Café Theatre (originally an international women’s theatre festival, 1980), Scarlet Theatre (formerly Scarlet Harlets, London,1981), Vitalstatistix (Australia, 1984), International Women in Experimental Theatre Conference (Cardiff, 1986), Character Ladies (London, 1986–1991), Brava! Theater Center (San Francisco, 1986), Nora Theatre Company (1987), Five Lesbian Brothers (1989), Voice & Vision (1989), The Company of Women (1990), Six Figures (1990), New Perspectives Theatre (1991), New Georges (1992), Los Angeles Women’s Shakespeare Company (1993), Renaissance Theatreworks (Milwaukee, 1993), Looking Glass Theater (1993), Women’s Theater Company (1993), Journey Company (1995), Judith Shakespeare Company (1995), Dusky Divas (1998), Echo Theatre (Dallas, 1998), Hourglass Group (1998), Women of Color Productions (1998), Women’s Shakespeare Company (1998), Estro Tribe (1999), Stockyards Theatre Company (Chicago, 1999), Theatre Unbound (Minneapolis-St. Paul, 1999), VH Theatrical Development Foundation (1999), Women’s Expressive Theatre (W.E.T.) (1999), Airmid Theatre Company (2000), Estrogenius Festival (2000), Lady Cavaliers (2000), The Queen’s Company (2000), Venus Theatre (Maryland, 2001), The Women’s Theatre Project (TWTP) (Florida, 2001), 20% Theatre (Chicago, 2002), Tennessee Women’s Theater Project (2002), Arizona Women’s Theatre Company (2003), 3Graces (2004), Potluck Productions (Missouri, 2005), Rosalind Productions (2005), And Toto too Theatre Company (2005), Live Girls! Theatre Company (Seattle, 2005), Moxie Theatre (2005), 20% Theatre (Twin Cities, 2006), Nora’s Playhouse (Boston, 2009), WAM Theatre (2010), F.A.B. (“For, About, and By”) WOMEN (2010), Artemisia, A Chicago Theatre (2011), Infinite Variety Productions (2011), The Habitat (2013), 365 Women a Year: A Playwriting Project (2014), Women’s Voices Theatre Festival (Washington DC, 2015), Parity Productions (2016), North Carolina Women’s Theatre Festival (2016).
Were legal avenues explored?
Yes. There have been proposals for connecting public funding to equal opportunity efforts. They have not caught on.
Have there been protests?
Sure! At one point it was proposed to hold a Women in Theatre “Day of Absence” to draw attention to the problem of disparity in hiring women. Women Stage the World, an arm of LPTW, holds an annual costume parade in Times Square featuring historical women to raise awareness of the problem. Guerilla Girls have staged “Girlcotts” where you boycott, or rather girlcott, theatres that don’t hire girls.
Has there been positive advocacy, too?
Yeah, that’s one thing that gets discussed in the discussions—the need not only to protest and complain and girlcott but to support women in a positive way. When a fellow on one panel during The Summit in DC suggested there were no plays by women “in the pipeline,” the Kilroys began putting out an annual list of new plays by women recommended by literary managers and directors. The web page “We Exist,” an open-source listing of female and female-identified playwrights, also came into being in response to conversations at The Summit. A database of theatre artists including directors and designers is now being built by Parity Productions.
There have been many examples of positive advocacy; here are just a few:
But isn’t it marginalizing to give women their own awards, publications, festivals, and theatres? What about increasing the numbers of women working at existing institutions?
Indeed. At a 2009 panel sponsored by LPTW and New Perspectives Theatre Company, the artistic director of the Women’s Project said nothing would make her happier than to have the mission of the Women’s Project become obsolete. It hasn’t.
All these different organizations—with sometimes overlapping or possibly redundant projects—do they ever get together and try to coordinate all this work?
Yes. For instance, the Women in Arts and Media Coalition, founded in 1989, functions as an umbrella group. But even as coalitions form, it’s easy for people not to be aware of groups in other places or from other time periods.
What about working from within?
There’s been some of that, especially in the UK. An organization called Tonic Theatre has engineered behind-the-scenes conversations.
Was it always like this?
No. In London from 1695–1706, of all things, it is estimated that women wrote between 33 percent and 50 percent of all produced plays.
But shouldn’t we just forget about gender, and focus on who’s writing the best play? Of course! But there are a few issues to consider.
1. Studies have shown that a script submitted with a male author’s name will get better recommendations from literary departments than the same script submitted with a female author’s name. So the quality of the script gets overshadowed by gender bias. 2. There are some people in this conversation who believe that women are writing different plays than men are—that there are female aesthetics that are underappreciated. Of course not everyone believes this, and (see 1) even where we share the same exact aesthetic or are even the same person writing the same play a bias can prevail. But there may be some room to explore our definition of “best” play since aesthetics are culturally determined. 3. We are not always seeing quality plays anyway. A female stage manager who was surprised to learn that theatres are still not hiring women and men in equal numbers pointed out that members of both genders write both good and bad plays, and bad plays by men still get staged in greater numbers, concluding, “men have terrible plays produced, why can’t we?” While this sounds like a glib provocation, it also speaks to the underlying economics of the problem. Plays that get a first production often go on to greater opportunities, even when those plays are not the greatest, and female playwrights seemingly have fewer of those opportunities.
But even bringing up this issue is so impractical! Don’t commercial producers just want to choose the play that will earn the most money?
One study that looked at Broadway numbers showed that plays by women sell an average of 3,538 more seats per week than plays by men. Over the next couple of years, the representation of female dramatists did not change. Indeed, it had not changed in a century.
It should be noted that in musical theatre, women are even less represented. Some female musical theatre writers talk about that experience here.
What helps?
Given the state of unconscious bias, it helps when theatres read scripts “blind”—without names. Conversely, it helps when ticket buyers educate themselves and see work generated by artists of more than one gender. Women buy over seventy percent of theatre tickets and might purchase differently if they knew about the ghettoization of female playwrights.
But ideally we want to get to a better place, where it’s blind reading rather than awareness of gender that leads to equal numbers—and to an even better future place where we can just refer to “women playwrights” as “playwrights.” Of course blind reading has its limits, as it really only works at the entry level, and won’t help with known plays or second productions.
Certain Canadians have made a helpful list of best practices.
Finding ways to honor and spotlight women helps, too: If you missed them, I highly recommend watching the League of Professional Theatre Women Awards here and the Lilly Awards here.
After seeing those, your questions might change.
What’s the conclusion? There’s a bias against women?
I would argue the bias runs even deeper. It’s not just against women, it’s even against women’s stories and viewpoints. I know a man who never had trouble getting his plays produced until he wrote a play about two women! On the flip side, women are expected to write about women—so paradoxically it becomes harder to place a play written by a woman about a man. This problem is affecting not only female writers, but stories by and about authors of both genders.
Why does it happen?
There are heaps of reasons. It’s been said that we can’t fix it until we fix education and un-erase the many women erased from the canon, changing our image of what a dramatist is. It’s been said we can’t fix it without changing economics, awards, and unconscious bias—though the Boston Symphony Orchestra changed almost overnight just by putting a curtain up during auditions. Some think it runs deeper, into the nature of who we want characters to be. We accept flawed male characters but not women who are as flawed. There are biases in our very language, where the best thing you can say about a play is that it’s “masterful.” But “mistressful” wouldn’t be as much of a compliment.
What can we do? Engage in in-depth problem solving and complex discourse about this complicated issue. Then simplify the conversation for the outside world, so the audience will get it.
Women from all areas of theatre attend the "Waking The Feminists" event at the Abbey Theatre. It follows criticism of the Abbey's "Waking The Nation" program and the #WakingTheFeminists social media campaign. Image: Irish Times video still by Bryan O'Brien / Paula Geraghty.
Can critics help?
Yes, but critics also have biases. A study of 6,000 plays in the UK concluded that reviewers tend to prefer plays with casts that have majority of characters of their own gender. And of course female critics are underrepresented, too.
What can we do?
Engage in in-depth problem solving and complex discourse about this complicated issue. Then simplify the conversation for the outside world, so the audience will get it.
What’s the big deal?
Four decades after those early industry reports and picketers, many female characters are less like “cardboard cutouts,” but some of the stereotypes linger. And so does the disparity. Women still get objectified, consigned to secondary roles onstage and backstage, offstage and in life. So many voices are still not represented.
In A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf imagines the difficulties a female dramatist might have had in Elizabethan times, suggesting that a sister of Shakespeare’s with similar genius would have faced impossible obstacles trying to write for the stage. But Woolf invites us to imagine the work that could be done by such a woman if the obstacles did not exist. In the spirit of that vision, actor and author Ellen McLaughlin created a fellowship program for female playwrights, the Shakespeare’s Sister Fellowship, which she has called “our way of defying attempts to silence the equality of voice that makes for civilization.” Looked at in that way, nothing less than civilization itself is at stake here.
Um, civilization? But aren’t you just talking about putting on plays?
Theatre is a generative medium. Ideas that begin there reverberate beyond to other stages, and to other media such as film and TV. They can travel great distances. Hearing different perspectives there could only enhance our capacity for empathy, especially if they’re the perspectives of those who commit the fewest violent crimes.
Not only women, but all marginalized groups could bring a lot to the table—if they just had a seat at the table, instead of a seat in the audience looking at the table.
And when all viewpoints can be heard onstage, that will change what gets heard in the world.The gloves are off
How many of us have thought that white cotton gloves are a must for the safe handling of precious documents? What do you think when you see archival documents being handled with white gloves on television?
Well, until I became a Conservator at The National Archives, I hadn’t really questioned the need for them; when I saw the white gloves in the media I assumed that they indicated the document was being well treated and cared for.
But this isn’t necessarily the case. And from now on crews filming at The National Archives will have to follow the same rules for handling documents as those in our reading rooms – they will have to remove their white gloves!
Why, you ask? Well, it’s important we give out a consistent message that reflects best practice when handling original documents. It is confusing when we say one thing on site and another on TV. This also brings us in line with other large institutions with similar collections. If you are interested in the thinking behind the decision to ditch the gloves, read on…
In handling most archival documents gloves are more of a hindrance than a help and they can actually pose a threat. The main reasoning behind wearing gloves was to protect document surfaces from marks made by oily or sweaty hands. In fact, if you clean and dry your hands before handling archival documents this risk is significantly reduced. Handling archival documents with gloves puts them at greater risk of damage for a number of reasons:
Gloves can dull your senses. Your bare fingertips are very sensitive. They tell you exactly how fragile the paper or brittle the parchment of the document you are handling is. This means that you might damage the document by inadvertently handling it more roughly than you ought to. Gloves can make you clumsy. Your hands are very dextrous but cotton gloves don’t always fit very well and can be quite thick, which means they have a potential to make picking up documents or separating pages more difficult. There is a greater potential for damage if you have to fumble with document corners or edges or if you have to grip harder than normal because of ill-fitting gloves. Gloves can catch on fragile or previously damaged edges. This is especially true if the paper is brittle. If they do catch, this can cause tears or flaking of the pages. Gloves get dirty. It is very easy to wash your hands if you find you have handled a particularly dusty or dirty document so that you don’t transfer the dirt to the next document you handle, but it is much more labour-intensive to have a fresh clean pair of gloves at the ready.
Despite this there are some materials with which you do still have to use gloves. In an archival collection this will most commonly apply to photographic materials. This is because oils and sweats from the skin can easily damage a surface that contains metals, such as black and white photographs.
In conclusion, I don’t mean to suggest that it is ok to remove gloves when handling any sort of historical artefact, but for some materials gloves have a potential to do more harm than good. For us it is very important to make sure everyone can be confident in the best way to handle documents which means our messages and recommendations must be clear. So as we update our training material and new filming takes place you’ll notice that the gloves will come off!Rare is the Democrat who hasn’t wondered how President Donald Trump gets away with his more colorful, controversial and just plain clueless statements, or considered the likely consequences if Barack Obama had made the same remarks.
HBO’s Real Time With Bill Maher made things a bit clearer Friday, when Obama impersonator Reggie Brown took the stage during the end-of-show New Rules segment. As Maher set up each true Trump quote, Brown provided the pitch-perfect Obama interpretation.
Watch the segment above.
All of Trump’s greatest hits are here, from the “I like people who weren’t captured” McCain insult to shooting someone on Fifth Avenue. “When I drink my wine and have my little cracker, I guess that’s a form of forgiveness,” Brown-as-Obama-as Trump said of Holy Communion, to which Maher offered the politically incorrect, “My little cracker? You mean Jeff Sessions?”
When Brown launches into Trump’s “You think our country is so innocent?” bit, Sean Hannity’s head explodes.
Inevitably, the routine arrives at Access Hollywood, grabbing and endowment braggadocio. Just imagine.I’ve packed for all sorts of trips over the years. Long distance wilderness treks with no resupply, day hikes, heck just a trip around town requires a certain level of preparation when you think about it. “Keys? Wallet? Hat? Awesome!” Packing for a long-term backpacking trip abroad though? This has been a new adventure for me and the hassle of mixing hostels with homestays and a few multi-day wilderness treks hasn’t made it any easier. So let’s break down what seemed “necessary” for four months in the Transcaucasus & Anatolia, in the vein of a classic packing list!
The first decision was the pack itself: I own quite a few, but unfortunately neon colored nylon and loud branding is not the kind of thing you want to be toting around in poor countries where you’re off the beaten path. Thankfully I picked up a robust 22L Klettersack some years back before MEC went full-profiteering (a post for another day), and so I had my pack. Only 22L though? Most people would consider that a daypack, not to live out of for four months!
Years of ultralight hiking philosophy when it came to buying gear came to my rescue here, as you’ll see:
Clockwise, spiralling inwards:
– Swimshorts
– Light beige pants, nylon with drytek
– 100% Merino hoodie
– 100% Merino long-johns (sleeping)
– 3x 100% Merino Boxers
– Black 100% Merino T-shirt
– Beige / grey 100% Merino T-shirt
– 4x Merino socks of various weights.
– Brown Prana Zion zip-off pants.
– White cotton over-shirt (Not pictured)
– Green windbreaker / rainjacket (Not pictured, being waterproofed)
You may notice that that is a metric…ounce or two of Merino. Frankly, it’s a wonder material: It takes forever to get smelly, it keeps me warm, it keeps me cool, it dries almost instantly, it remains slightly insulating when wet. It also doesn’t wrinkle and compresses down to basically nothing, while weighing nothing. I cannot sing the praises of it more, to be honest, it’s never let me down and arguably saved my ass over the years.
All the crap a traveler can’t do without these days, eh? Thankfully, again, it’s bulkier than it looks at first glance:
Large items:
– 5L silnylon compression sack
– 5L stuff sack (ultimately not used)
– Shoulderbag for day use
– Brazilian Tarp Hat
Electronics & Misc
– Medical kit (in yellow)
– Olympus OMD-EM5 w/ Flash unit & spare eyecup (breaks easily)
– Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 pancake lens
– Olympus 12-50mm F/3.5-6 Lens
– 4x OMD Batteries (400ish shots/per)
– 32gb SD card, 32GB SD card, 64GB SD card
-2GB SD card (Border security will sometimes check cameras when leaving Abkhazia. Taking several dozen shots on this during my stay, and leaving it in the camera, is a precautionary measure).
Olympus charger + Euro plug
Olympus Cable + USB OTG adapter (with this I can pull.raw files to my phone for editing and backup to the cloud).
USB charger & Cable
20,000 Mah Li-On Battery Bank (7.5 charges for my Z3C).
Camera Clip
Silnylon Poncho / Tarp (For the backpacking trips)
Camera Cleaning supplies
Toiletries (toothbrush, sanitizer, deodorant, sunscreen, comb)
2x Journals & Pen
3x Custom phrasebooks with itineraries and & guides to each destination
Passport.
Pfew, that’s a hell of a lot of random stuff to cart around. But how small do all these clothes and sundry pack down? Well….
Toiletries, Electronics, Clothes. My foot is a size 9, for reference. So that was easy! But we’re not done yet.
Silk hidden pocket
Small packtowel (these things are so handy!)
Enlightened Equipment “Enigma” Down Quilt
2x Platypus 1L folding waterbottles
Moneybelt
Pouch for Electronics
Slik Sprint Pro-II Tripod
Ridgerest (abandoned as too bulky, ultra-thin foam bivvy liner taken instead!)
The grand old MEC Klettersack.
Throw in a pair of Tiva sandals and my trekking shoes, and we’re off to the races! But did it all fit in the pack in the end?
Damn straight it did, and with room to spare. We’ll find out how well things go in the weeks ahead. Frankly in the end I feel I may have packed too much for a trip like this, but life is a learning experience, no?
Like this: Like Loading...In The Arena To Get Ahead in Congress: Skip Governing, Raise Money Just look at Aaron Schock.
Trevor Potter, a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, is president of the Campaign Legal Center, a senior adviser to Issue One, and head of the political law practice at Caplin & Drysdale. Meredith McGehee is policy director of the Campaign Legal Center and heads McGehee Strategies, a public interest consulting business.
When Congress returns from recess next week, Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.), who resigned after Politico raised questions about his mileage reimbursements, will not return with it. Before Schock becomes a footnote in history, it’s worth reflecting on how he represents everything wrong with the way Congress raises money. The dismissals of Schock as simply a “show horse, not a work horse,” to use the old phrase, misses the more interesting—and disturbing—story.
The rise and fall of Schock embodies the reality of the current campaign finance system. Members are now valued by the Leadership and fellow Members because of their fundraising prowess, not their legislating abilities. Aaron Schock will only be missed in Congress for his ability to raise significant amounts of money for himself and his party. Known for connecting himself and others with big donors, he had little time to do any of the things he was elected to do by his constituents in Peoria, nor paid to do by all of us taxpayers.
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The most important reason that the young Congressman was seen as an up-and-comer was that he was viewed by his fellow Members and the media as a rainmaker who was willing and able to shake money from wealthy donors. He reportedly raised almost $11 million in his seven years in Congress. For example, he successfully convinced the Campaign for Primary Accountability, a Super PAC based in Texas, to use $25,000 of its money to help a fellow Illinois Republican who was thrown into a tough battle against another Republican after redistricting. Rep. Schock also headed up “30 for 30,” a campaign to raise $30,000 for GOP lawmakers in their 30s.
In the meantime, his record of legislative achievement in the House can only be described as slim, especially for someone who was named a Deputy Minority Whip upon arriving in the House.
As much as Rep. Schock’s Instagram account provides juicy tabloid fodder, the scandal here is not that he spent political money on a cushy and glamorous lifestyle. If he had been advised by lawyers who knew campaign finance laws, he could have spent all of this money through a leadership PAC and it would not have violated any laws (though that is another story!).
Instead, the true scandal is that he was doing what all "successful" Members of Congress now do—ignoring Congressional grunt work and instead raising money. Schock is far from alone in having become lost in the money-chase, and the five-star travel culture to which he and fellow members of Congress now feel entitled. The only difference is that Rep. Schock made the fateful choice to decorate his office in a Downton Abbey theme and documented much of his lifestyle of the rich-and-famous on Instagram—a mistake others will be well warned to avoid.
Rep. Schock’s primary focus was on campaign money rather than legislative duties. After all, that is where all of the incentives for power and influence currently reside. And they will remain so until the campaign finance system is significantly changed.
In theory, last least, Congress could pass a comprehensive rewrite of the campaign finance laws, but that is not going to happen soon given the captive status of members in the current money-driven system. There are, however, other approaches and possible solutions that are worth exploring in the meantime.
For example, Congress could turn its attention to its own behavior. Each body could adopt rules prohibiting Members of Congress from fundraising while Congress is in session. Or they could adopt of a rule that prohibits Members from soliciting contributions from any industry or entity they regulate from their committee positions. Or Congress could tighten the current “revolving door” laws. Clearly, the current ones fail to prevent Members of Congress and their staff from keeping one eye out for a high-paying job while still serving in the Capitol.
Another approach would be for Congress to loosen the links between Members of Congress and lobbyists. Lobbyists could be prohibited from bundling for those Congressmen whom they lobby, as the American Bar Association has recommended. Or there could be lower contributions limits for lobbyists and their clients or limits on lobbyist fundraising for political campaigns.
None of these changes is a magic bullet to “fix” the problems that ensnared Rep. Schock nor will they stop the juggernaut of secret money flowing into our elections. But any or all of them could begin to change the dynamic of a broken system. What happened with Schock is an example of how the current campaign finance system increasingly rewards “show horses” to the detriment of our democratic system. Members of Congress need new incentives to actually focus on doing the people’s work, instead of burnishing their fundraising prowess. Changes like these can make a difference now until growing public disgust with the system—or the next inevitable scandal—pushes the nation once again over the tipping point to a comprehensive overhaul of how our elections are funded.Year end is a good time to look back and reflect on what's ahead. If past is prologue, however, the outlook isn't good, and nothing on the horizon suggests otherwise. Voters last November wanted change but got betrayal from the bipartisan criminal class in Washington. Their attitude shows in an October Reuters/Zogby (RZ) opinion poll with George Bush at 24% that tops Richard Nixon's worst showing of 25% at his lowest 1974 Watergate point. And if that looks bad, consider Congress with "The Hill" reporting from the same RZ Index that our legislators scored a "staggering 11%, the lowest (congressional) rating in history," but there's room yet to hit bottom and a year left to do it. Why not with lawmakers' consistent voter sellout and failure record that keeps getting worse.
It's been that way ever since 9/11 with both sides of the aisle complicit with the administration. This article looks back at the record, and year end is a good time to review it. It's hard imagining another as bad with a President defiling the law and once telling Republican colleagues the Constitution is "just a goddamned piece of paper."
He didn't just say it. He governs by it, gets away with it, and former Defense Department analyst Daniel Ellsberg, of Pentagon Papers fame, says "a coup has occurred (with another to come from) the next 9/11....that completes the first (that's) seen a steady assault on every fundamental (aspect) of our Constitution (to create) an executive government (to) rule by decree" no different from a police state.
Author Naomi Wolf spells it out in her April, 2007 Guardian article - "Fascist America, In 10 Easy Steps." In it, she argues the Bush administration is following the same script any "would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms," and she lists them. They range from "invoking a terrifying internal and external enemy" to "creat(ing) a gulag" to spying on everyone to harassing opposition to controlling the media to calling dissent treason to "suspend(ing) the rule of law." She also notes how much "simpler" it is to shut down democracy than "to create and sustain" it, and that's today's threat.
It's not with jackboots in the streets but by a steady "process of erosion" with the public largely unaware and distracted by media mind manipulators. It's happening today, and Wolf sounds the alarm with the words of James Madison saying "The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands....is the definition of tyranny," and that's the condition now in America. This article reviews the record for the past seven years. It's not pretty.
Even the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, (unlike every Pope in memory) condemned it in a wide-ranging UK Muslim magazine interview. It was quoted in a November 25 Sunday Times column headlined "US is 'worst' imperialist" and wields its power more reprehensibly than Britain ever did in its heyday. He explained that American overseas adventurism led to "the worst of all worlds" and expressed pessimism about the current state of western civilization and Washington's own misguided sense of mission.
He critiqued the "war on terror" and stated America lost the moral high ground post-9/11 and needs to launch a "generous and intelligent programme of aid to the (nations it) ravaged;....check (its) economic exploitation of defeated territories" and demilitarize them. He called the West fundamentally adrift and our "definition of humanity (isn't) working." He denounced America's violence and belief it can solve problems left for "other people (to clean up and) put....back together - Iraq, for example." Another is the condition at home.
Since taking office in January, 2001, George Bush signed a blizzard of Executive Orders and attached dozens of "signing statements" to hundreds of law provisions even though nothing in the Constitution allows this practice, and the Supreme Court banned line-item vetos. He continues to do it while Congress and the courts condone his claiming unconstitutional "unitary executive" authority to ignore the law and do as he pleases in the name of "national security" on his say alone.
It began on 9/11 when George Bush addressed the nation and declared a "war on terrorism," asked for world support to win it, and began what became "our government's emergency (preventive war strategy) response plans." The scheme was to ignore the law, go to war, and destroy our civil liberties to keep us safe from "rogue states, 'bad guys,' and evil-doers" throughout an "arc of instability" from the South American Andean region (mainly Colombia) to North Africa through the Middle East to the Philippines, Indonesia and elsewhere in Asia. Congress as well acted right out of the box with two audacious resolutions that surrendered its authority to the executive, allowed him to proceed |
we have emergency machines around but we decided to burn everything for the redeployment. – SeriousSamThe future of McLaren is electric. The hybrid P1 wasn't a fluke–it previews more hybrid supercars to come from the British brand. McLaren announced earlier this year that it was investing $1.4 billion into powertrain development, with a focus on electrification. Now, it seems that possibility might become a very fast reality.
UK publication Auto Express reported Thursday that McLaren is working on a limited-production all-electric supercar to slot above the 675LT but below the P1. A McLaren insider told Auto Express that a successor to the P1 won't arrive until 2023, but that the company could add an all-electric car to its Ultimate Series, the automaker's highest-performance bracket, which currently consists of only the P1.
If McLaren ends up building such a car, it'll need to be as good as everything the company currently offers—despite not being powered by internal combustion.
"No one buys a McLaren because they need one. We know that," said Auto Express' unnamed McLaren source. "So we need to make an EV that's as exciting as a 675LT... An electric McLaren would need to manage 30 minutes on track with a 30-minute break before heading back out again." AutoExpress also posits that this could be the first electric production car to break the 200-mph barrier.
And if you think about it, McLaren is very well-positioned to make an all-electric supercar. The automaker's extensive expertise in lightweight carbon fiber and the massive cooling needs of a track-ready supercar are imminently applicable here. Add in the obsessive engineering that McLaren is known for, and you've got a great recipe for a battery-powered supercar that can stand up to track duty—something no major automaker has attempted thus far.
Still, if McLaren wants to attempt this, it's going to be a major challenge. It will take a lot of effort to make an electric car feel as exciting as something with the sound and fury of a race-derived internal combustion engine. In other words, it's one thing for Tesla to make a blindingly quick all-electric sports sedan. It'll be a whole different challenge for McLaren to build an electric supercar that can compete with Ferrari, Lamborghini, or even other McLarens.NEWARK — The former president of the Prudential Center sued the Devils’ Lou Lamoriello Thursday claiming the general manager regularly cursed and disparaged him, jeopardizing his livelihood.
Richard Krezwick, the former president of Devils Arena Entertainment, claims in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, that Lamoriello’s criticism cost him the $2.25 million he would have made under the new ownership team. Devils Arena Entertainment operates the Prudential Center and is the parent company of the New Jersey Devils.
He claims Lamoriello bridled at the decision by then-Devils owner Jeff Vanderbeek to give Krezwick responsibility for the team’s business operations when he hired him in 2009, relegating Lamoriello to the hockey side.
“Because Krezwick assumed Lamoriello’s former business responsibilities, Lamoriello harbored ill will toward Krezwick and treated Krezwick as his nemesis throughout the rest of Plaintiff’s tenure with DAE (Devils Arena Entertainment),” the lawsuit says.
Michael Levine, the Devils senior vice president for communications, declined to comment today.
A series of weekly sitdowns in the fall of 2011 between Vanderbeek, Lamoriello and Krezwick did little to soothe tensions between the men, the lawsuit alleges.
“The meetings continued to occur and grow more acrimonious for several months, until the final meeting when Lamoriello launched into a vulgarity-laced personal attack on Krezwick,” the lawsuit states. “Lamoriello then abruptly left the room and refused to resume that meeting or take part in any future meetings.”
The following year Lamoriello, who also holds the title of team president, threatened not to renew his own contract if Krezwick was offered a new deal, the lawsuit adds.
In July 2012, Krezwick was offered a four-year deal worth more than $700,000 a year to take over as president and chief executive officer of MetLife Stadium where the Jets and Giants play, the lawsuit says.
He said he turned down the offer when Vanderbeek promised him a multi-year contract once the refinancing of Devils Arena Entertainment was complete.
In the spring of 2013, the lawsuit claims, Vanderbeek was close to finalizing a deal to sell the team to Philadelphia attorney Andy Barroway.
Krezwick said Lamoreillo “disparaged Krezwick’s professional competence” during a meeting with a Barroway consultant.
And, the lawsuit says, Lamoriello’s badmouthing extended to NHL executives “jeopardizing his potential for future employment with other NHL clubs.”
The team was sold to Joshua Harris and David Blitzer in August 2013 at a time when the team’s finances were in disarray. In the months leading up to the sale, the Devils had been sued by several of its contractors for millions of dollars in unpaid bills, the Star-Ledger reported at the time.
On Aug. 15, 2013, Krezwick and his staff of 100 people were summoned to a meeting with the new ownership team, the lawsuit says. There, Krezwick found out he was being replaced when someone else was introduced as the head of business operations, the title he held at the time, the lawsuit adds.
“Krezwick then realized that he was being fired in front of his staff without any prior warning,” his lawyer, Robert Mellman of Upper Montclair, writes in the lawsuit.
Krezwick said the Devils’ new CEO, Scott O’Neil, apologized for how his termination was handled.
Several weeks after Krezwick learned he would be let go, several of his senior managers were fired by the Devils, the lawsuit says.
“Lamoriello physically positioned himself in a chair at the base of the employee elevator of the arena so that he could watch these individuals pass by with their boxes of personal belongings in order to leave the building directly after they were fired and to laugh as they passed by, as to take credit for their firing,” the lawsuit adds.
Krezwick remained with the team as a consultant through September 2013. He is currently living in London and lists himself as senior vice president for facilities for AEG Europe on his Twitter account.
The lawsuit seeks damages of at least $2.39 million for Lamoriello’s alleged interference in his prospective contract as well as an order restraining Lamoriello from “impugning Krezwick’s professional reputation and interfering in present and prosective contractual relationships.”
Thomas Zambito may be reached at tzambito@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TomZambito. Find NJ.com on Facebook.Libyan revolutionary forces claimed to have seized parts of the city centre of the Gaddafi stronghold of Bani Walid.
The fall of the town is an important breakthrough for the fledgling authorities who have bogged down there and in the symbolically important town of Sirte, Gaddafi's birthplace. Sirte is now the last source of resistance to the Libya rebels as fighters loyal to Col Gaddafi cling on to territory in the town.
Libyan revolutionary forces secure the entrance to the city of Bani Walid
Guma al-Gamaty, the rebel's representative to Britain, said that the nerve of commanders who had fought to hold on to Bani Walid finally broke on Sunday night. Rebels were able to take the town and launch clear up operations.
"The city of Bani Walid has been completely liberated," said Saif al-Lasi, a commander of the Zliten Brigade, one of the National Transitional Council (NTC) units which took part in the final assault launched on Sunday.
"The road is now open east towards Sirte, south to Sabha and west to Tripoli," he said.
NTC field commander Jamal Salem said his fighters had encountered "heavy resistance" from Kadhafi loyalists holed up in the Saharan town, 105 miles southeast of Tripoli.
The desert region's Warfala tribe was a major recruiting ground for elite units of Kadhafi's regime and devotion to the fugitive strongman runs deep.
Fighters with Libya's interim government celebrate in the centre of Bani Walid
Two NTC fighters were killed and 16 wounded in Monday's fighting, commander Salem Ghit said. Two more were killed and 70 wounded on Sunday, he added.
The new regime troops had launched a pincer attack, with columns advancing from north and south which met in the city centre capturing the castle at the heart of the sprawling oasis.
The jubilant fighters hoisted the red, black and green flag of the new government over mosques and other buildings, tearing down the all-green emblem of the ousted regime,
after again failing to dislodge remaining loyalists from their other holdout in Sirte.
The forces said they had raised the country's new flag over Bani Walid, but it was not clear if they had captured the whole town and witnesses said gunfire continued.
Bani Walid and Sirte have both defied forces loyal to the NTC for more than a month and stalled attempts to form a government to replace Col Muammar Gaddafi.
Col Abdullah Naker, a leading commander in Tripoli, said: "We have reached the city centre [of Bani Walid] and have raised the flag."
Bani Walid is an ancestral home of the large and influential Warfalla tribe who have traditionally supported the deposed Libyan dictator.
Steep hills and valleys have helped hundreds of loyalists resist the NTC offensive so far and talks to broker a truce or surrender have been unsuccessful.
The ten-day-old assault on Col Gaddafi's birthplace of Sirte appeared to have reached a temporary stalemate after seizing more than 80 per cent of the city.
Rebel brigades from Benghazi and Misurata continued to fire heavy weapons into the devastated district two area, where loyalists have now held off attacks for six days.
Many rebel fighters now predict it will take several more days to subdue the remaining pocket of resistance where determined and apparently well trained soldiers are holed up in housing blocks along a main thoroughfare.
In western Sirte, Misurata fighters squeezed the pocket from the recently captured television station, but other fronts moved little despite heavy barrage and gunfire.
William Hague, Foreign Secretary, made a brief visit to Tripoli to reopen the British embassy in Tripoli in what he said was a "watershed" moment for relations with Libya.
He said: "Having been one of the first diplomatic missions back into Tripoli after its liberation, we have now formally re-opened our embassy and appointed an excellent new ambassador to Libya."
He said Britian was putting pressure on the NTC to senure the militia fighters are quickly established as a regular army under a single chain of command.
"It is important for the militias to be integrated into the work of the National Transitional Council, and then of course into the national transitional government that will be formed once the liberation of the country is declared,"I am almost somewhat reluctant about posting this post, since I've already written so many posts about Krugman recently, so it might give the impression that I'm obsessed with him (which I'm not).However, he is unfortunately a very influential pundit, and lately he has produced unusually many misleading and dangerous posts/columns, including his infamous "treason to the planet"-column Now Krugman claims that some unnamed commentators have accused him of being a Malthusian, something which he reacts to not by trying to differentiate his views from Malthus' but by defending him. While acknowledging that Malthus' dire views about population growth have been dead wrong for the last two centuries (which is to say the two centuries that have passed after Malthus made his predictions), he claims that Malthus was right before that.This is a perfect example of an own goal from Krugman's part. I won't bother to argue with his data despite the fact that they are extremely unreliable given the fact that statistics authorities didn't exist until the twentieth century and given the fact that most people at the time were mostly self-sufficient farmers, because the data if true actually argues against his own views.Remember that the accusation arose because of his views that because of the alleged threat from global warming/"climate change", we need to dramatically reduce and preferably end our use of fossil fuels (like coal and oil).The thing is here that one of the reasons why the Malthusian worldview has proven to be dead wrong for the last two centuries is precisely because we have started to use fossil fuels in large scale (both coal and oil were used on a limited scale before the Industrial revolution, but it was only after that that large scale use of coal and oil started).While the dramatically increased use of fossil fuels wasn't the only reason why the dire Malthusian forecasts were proven wrong, it was certainly a very important factor.By emphasizing indirectly (without realizing it) how it was only after the large scale use of fossil fuels that mankind lifted itself from the predictions dire Malthusian worldview, while at the same time pushing for the end of use of fossil fuels, Krugman is indirectly acknowledging (without realizing it) that he is pushing for the creation of a dire, suffering ridden Malthusian world.I'm running ubuntu server and I'm having an issue with my new WD Easystore 8TB external USB hard drive. I've reformatted the device from ntfs to ext4 and successfully mounted the drive to /data. Then I launch a screen session and begin rsync my 1TB NAS to it, also mounted via nfs. Everything goes pretty well for the first couple of hours, but then the drive suddenly disappears. Doesn't show up in df, blkid, or fdisk.
I'm getting the following out of my dmesg. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
mounted in /etc/fstab as
# boot wd external UUID=74e77482-49a1-4f94-ae5e-410d2542e242 /data ext4 defaults 0 0 # Worldbook 192.168.1.148:/nfs/Public /home/brombomb/Public nfs nolock,rw,intr 0 0
dmesg - pastebin
When I have it initially plugged in here are the relevant bits:
blkid
/dev/sdb1: UUID="74e77482-49a1-4f94-ae5e-410d2542e242" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="30d87852-6cbd-4787-b24e-121203770b71"
fdisk -l
Device Start End Sectors Size Type /dev/sdb1 2048 15628052446 15628050399 7.3T Linux filesystem
lsusb
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:8000 Intel Corp. Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:8008 Intel Corp. Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub Bus 004 Device 006: ID 1058:25fb Western Digital Technologies, Inc. Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub Bus 003 Device 004: ID 28de:1142 Bus 003 Device 003: ID 8087:0a2a Intel Corp. Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
lsblkThe U.S. military command is considering contracting a private firm to manage security on the front lines of the war in Afghanistan, even as Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates says that the Pentagon intends to cut back on the use of private security contractors.
On a Web site listing federal business opportunities, the Army this month published a notice soliciting information from prospective contractors who would develop a security plan for 50 or more forward operating bases and smaller command outposts across Afghanistan.
Although the U.S. military has contracted out security services to protect individuals, military bases and other facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan, this contract would award a commercial company unusually broad "theater-wide" authority to protect forward operating bases in a war zone.
"The contractor shall be responsible for providing security services, developing, implementing, adequately staffing, and managing a security program," the notice said, adding that the contractor would have to be available "24 hours a day, seven days a week."
The U.S. military currently has 72 contracts that provide 5,600 civilian guards, mostly local Afghans, at forward bases across Afghanistan, according to Lt. Cmdr. Christine M. Sidenstricker, chief of media operations for U.S. Forces-Afghanistan. The intent of the proposed contract is to bring all "disparate and subordinate contracts" under single, theater-wide management at a time when the U.S. forces are expanding, she said.
The Army has not issued a formal proposal for a contract, but the notice says that interested companies should reply by Wednesday and that a formal request for proposals should follow. The "anticipated award date" for a contract is Dec. 1, according to the notice.
The request for information comes as Gates is moving to put soldiers back in charge of security roles that contractors have filled in recent years. Drawing on its experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Defense Department recently organized a task force to measure the military's dependence on contractor support in training and security, with the goal of determining an appropriate mix.
Lawmakers, too, have raised concerns about the cost of contractors and about outsourcing what have traditionally been government roles.
The Commission on Wartime Contracting, a bipartisan congressional panel, noted in a recent report that in previous wars, military police protected bases while other service members pursued the enemy. "Contractors are now literally in the center of the battlefield in unprecedented numbers," the commission said, creating "a need to define specific functions that are not appropriate for performance by contractors in a contingency operation."
Meanwhile, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), chairman of the Senate subcommittee on contracting oversight, said her panel had "revealed major concerns about the use of private security contractors in Afghanistan." She added that a hard look needs to be taken "at where we have gone wrong in the past, to ensure that the military does not repeat history."
Afghan forward operating bases are often considered dangerous posts. An American soldier was critically injured this month when insurgents attacked Forward Operating Base Salerno, near the eastern border town of Khost. Two U.S. troops died July 4 at Combat Outpost Zerok, also near the Pakistan border, in an insurgent assault.
In the worst attack on an outpost, roughly 200 insurgents broke through security walls last year at an outpost in Konar province and killed nine American soldiers. Sen. James Webb (D-Va.), a member of the Armed Services Committee, recently asked the Pentagon's inspector general to investigate whether security at the post was adequate.
With Afghan army and police officers totaling roughly 160,000, and the number of U.S. service members in Afghanistan set to grow to 68,000 by year's end, the U.S. military is moving to protect the facilities where personnel will be based. But many experts say commanders do not have enough forces.
"We don't want to waste scarce Afghan army and police, so we must be creative," said Michael E. O'Hanlon, a senior fellow and military expert at the Brookings Institution.
But O'Hanlon also said he is concerned that if contractors were to take over security at forward operating bases, they would be the first to see hostile fire, and they -- not soldiers -- would have to decide whether to employ weapons against an enemy.
Instead of hiring a private firm, O'Hanlon said, the Americans and Afghans could create a local version of Iraq's Facilities Protection Service, the modestly trained but government-paid guard force that was pulled together to provide protection for government ministries in Baghdad and the oil fields. "We should create a different branch of the Afghan security forces that has minimal training," he said.
At a town hall meeting at Fort Drum, N.Y., on July 16, Gates said that the military had let contracting "grow without the kind of controls that we should" have had. The purpose, he said, was "to try and free up as many soldiers for actual combat duty, rather than having them do things that civilian contractors could do."
Contractors, Gates noted, have done a variety of jobs, including running dining facilities and doing laundry, cleaning chores and security work. "So, we're kind of going back through all of these roles, at this point, to figure out where military ought to be doing these things and where civilian contractors can be," he said.This article is over 3 years old
Environment minister responsible for approving expansion of Abbot point coal terminal in Queensland says he is ‘genuinely humbled’ by award
Greg Hunt wins 'best minister in the world' for efforts to reduce carbon emissions
The federal environment minister, Greg Hunt, has received the inaugural “best minister in the world” award at the World Government Summit in Dubai for his efforts to reduce carbon emissions.
Five reasons Greg Hunt may not be the best minister in the world Read more
“On a personal level I am genuinely humbled to receive this award. I am, however, deeply proud that this inaugural award is being presented to an environment minister,” Hunt told the summit as he accepted the award.
“The environment is our common heritage, our land, our home and our identity. As an Australian I also see this as recognition of the profound work Australia has done in the environment space – and I thank you for that.”
In an interview with Fairfax Media, Hunt described his win as “really an award for Australia”.
The World Government Summit describes itself on its website as “the primary global forum dedicated to shaping the future of government worldwide”.
World Gov Summit (@WorldGovSummit) In Pictures: Best Minister in the World being awarded to Australian Minister @GregHuntMP at the #WorldGovSummit pic.twitter.com/3DnHyYNfuu
“Each year, the summit sets the agenda for the next generation of governments with a focus on how they can harness innovation and technology to solve universal challenges facing humanity,” the website says.
Hunt last year approved expanding the Abbot point coal terminal in northern Queensland, a move that will allow coal from other projects, like Adani’s Carmichael mine, to be shipped for export.
Greg Hunt's 'gift' will bring Coalition closer to 2020 emissions reduction goal Read more
In 2014, Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions dropped 1.4% in the second full year of the carbon tax, the largest recorded annual decrease in a decade. The tax was abolished by Hunt under the Abbott government.
“The aim of this award is to recognise innovation in global government work and highlight ministerial initiatives that have resulted in positive changes in their communities,” the United Arab Emirates minister of cabinet affairs, Mohammed Al Gergawi, told the summit as he gave Hunt the award.
“Our world today needs ministers to serve as role models of thought and action, which bring about progress and welfare and improve general societal wellbeing.”
Nominations came from more than 80 countries, with part of the criteria leading “quality successful initiatives at the public sector level that serve the needs of citizens”.
Speakers at the summit included US president, Barack Obama, and the president of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim.
World Gov Summit (@WorldGovSummit) Few words with H.E. Greg Hunt winner of the Best Minister in the World award at #WorldGovSummit #Austrailia pic.twitter.com/uhpZ5yVesr
An Australian government report released in December revealed Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions increased in the year to the end of June 2015 by 0.8% and by 1.3% when land use and deforestation were taken into account. Australia generated 549.3 mega-tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2014-15, the report shows.
The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, said of Hunt’s win: “I’d like to see what competition he was up against.”
Asked by reporters in Canberra what he thought led to Hunt receiving the award, Shorten said: “Well, goodness only knows what the entrance requirement was into that competition.
“We see the rate of emissions going up, not down. The only way we’re going to tackle climate change isn’t by giving awards to ministers in Dubai, it’s by having a focus on renewable energy, it’s about committing to real action on climate change.”
The Greens MP Adam Bandt questioned the win, telling reporters in Canberra: “Someone has a good sense of humour.”
“He has done precious little to tackle climate change,” he said.
However nobel laureate Professor Peter Doherty, who has researched the impact of climate change on heath, said Australia’s action on climate change would be lessened had it not been for Hunt.
“My perception of Greg Hunt is that, during a very difficult time for climate and environmental science during the Abbott era, he did his best to defend these areas,” Doherty said.
“We may not be delighted with every decision associated with his office, but my personal sense is that, in these times of constrained budgets, things would have been worse without him.”Weddings legalised for Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster in New Zealand
Updated
It's official — New Zealanders can now tie the noodle knot in a legally recognised Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster wedding ceremony.
Key points: Marriages at Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster recognised in NZ
Weddings to feature swords, noodles and pasta
Church leader rejects notion religion is a parody
University expert criticises government decision
The church, which believes the existence of a god made of spaghetti and meatballs is just as likely as the existence of other gods, has just had its first marriage celebrant approved by the New Zealand Government.
Now weddings of church members, who call themselves "Pastafarians", and anyone else, will be perfectly legal, and different.
The head of the church, Karen Martyn, has been dubbed a "Ministeroni", or marriage celebrant.
"We have swords, we have noodles and pasta involved in the ceremony. It's a bit of fun," Dr Martyn says.
New Zealand's Department of Internal Affairs late last year approved The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster's request to be able to solemnise weddings.
Now, the department has approved Dr Martyn as a marriage celebrant.
Although it may seem unorthodox for the New Zealand Government to sanction what many consider a spoof church, the law says any group that "upholds or promotes religious beliefs or philosophical or humanitarian convictions" can obtain the right to perform marriages.
Jeff Montgomery, the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, says the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster demonstrated "a consistent presentation of their philosophies" when he approved the church last year.
Church leader: 'We're not a parody'
The church itself has few rules, but Dr Martyn argues it does have convictions.
"While some claim this is a parody organisation, members have rebutted this on a number of occasions," she explains.
"Our religion has no dogma. It's one of our rules.
"So we have no dietary restrictions. You can wear any clothing you want. You can look like what you want. You can speak what you want. You can act like what you want. You can even belong to other religions and we don't care.
"You can make fun of us because we really believe all religions should be subject to scrutiny and to humour. And they should be for the greater good — not something that tears people apart, communities apart, or pits people against each other.
"We are really into maximising the happiness and pleasure not only of individuals, but community and the world, all sentient beings."
The organisations that marry people have to treat marriage with appropriate seriousness... really, this is completely absent. Professor Peter Lineham
But Peter Lineham, a professor at New Zealand's Massey University who specialises in religious history, thinks the Government has erred in allowing the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster to solemnise marriages.
"This is a delightful group which facetiously mocks religious bodies by its constitution and that's perfectly fine, but to then start investing them with what not all religious groups are allowed to have, seems to me to be astonishing," he says.
"Karen Martyn will doubtless do excellent and appropriate celebrations of marriage but it won't be according to rituals and values, because really, they don't have any.
Professor Lineham says a better move would have been to make Dr Martyn one of New Zealand's independent celebrants.
"The heart of the matter is that the organisations that marry people have to treat marriage with appropriate seriousness. They have to have some reason for wanting to engage in this," he said.
"And really, this is completely absent."
Pastafarians join Druids, Wiccans as official wedding celebrants
New Zealand has 9,665 registered wedding celebrants.
Less than half of those celebrants are with religious organisations.
Other groups that can solemnise marriages include Druids, Wiccans and those who practise yoga or spiritual healing.
So what can those who want to marry in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster expect?
Rather fancy clothes for one thing, given church members often dress in pirate garb.
"I've got the formal Pastafarian Ministeroni outfit and I've got the more piratey one," Dr Martyn says.
Her pirate hat also has holes in it, a nod towards the colanders that adherents overseas have worn as their religious headwear.
There are also special vows — although those are still closely guarded by Dr Martyn.
"Different couples will choose what suits them," she says.
The congregation, or crew, as Pastafarian church members are called, can expect to be quite involved.
And after a wedding, there will be a pasta feast, including special love pasta, although not for use as confetti, Dr Martyn warned.
"We're so environmentally minded here, that we don't throw anything," she said.
Topics: religion-and-beliefs, other-religions, marriage, world-politics, new-zealand
First postedBJP president Amit Shah claimed here on Friday that the Congress was never a party based on principles, it was merely a “special purpose vehicle” to secure freedom. And Mahatma Gandhi, a “bahut chatur baniya,” could presage the bleak future of the party. In contrast, because the BJP was a party which was clear in its approach, Shah said, it had no hesitation in saying “jo deshdrohi naare lagayega, woh deshdrohi kahlaya jayega.” Shah was speaking to a collection of “eminent persons” of Chhattisgarh, on the second day of his three-day trip to the state, with a view to strengthening the party before elections in late 2018.
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Saying that the Congress was an instrument to get independence, and that people from all ideologies, left and right, socialist and Communist, were part of its pre-independence movement, Shah said, “Congress kisi ek vichaar dhaara ke adhaar par, kisi ek siddhant ke adhaar par bani hui party hi nahi hai, woh azadi prapt karne ka ek special purpose vehicle hai, azadi prapt karne ka ek saadhan tha. Aur isi liye Mahatma Gandhi ne durandesi ke saath, bahut chatur baniya tha woh, usko maloom tha aage kya hone waala hai, usne azadi ke baad turant kaha tha, Congress ko bikher dena chahiye. Mahatma Gandhi ne nahi kiya, lekin ab kuch log usko bikherne ka kaam samapt kar rahe hain. Isliye hi kaha tha Mahatma Gandhi ne, kyunki Congress ki koi ideology hi nahi thi, siddhanto ke aadhar par bani hui party hi nahi thi. Desh chalaane ke, sarkar chalaane ke koi siddhant hi nahi the. (The Congress is not a party based on one ideology or one principle, it is a special purpose vehicle to gain independence…this is why Mahatma Gandhi with foresight, he was a very clever baniya, he knew what was going to happen, he said immediately after independence that the Congress should be dissolved. He didn’t do it, but some people are now completing the job of dissolving it. He had said this because the Congress had no ideology, was not formed based on a principle, and did not have any principle to run the country or government,” he said. Also read | Congress slams Amit Shah for ‘insulting’ Mahatma Gandhi, freedom struggle; demands apology. Click here.
WATCH Amit Shah speak about Mahatma Gandhi at 32:40 to 32:50
Shah said that “clarity of thought” helped (the BJP) take firm stances on issues.
“They (the Congress) think someone will say this, someone will say that. But we have no confusion. We are clear. Agar koi desh drohi naare lagayega, wo deshdrohi kahlaya jayega,” he said. Shah said that only two parties, BJP and CPI(M), out of the 1650 political organisations in India, have inner democracy. He said that it was clear that if Congress president Sonia Gandhi stepped away, Rahul Gandhi would take over as Congress president but nobody could predict who the next BJP president would be.
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Shah applauded the Raman Singh government, praising the state for emerging from the “BIMARU” tag and said that a fourth term for the party in the state was in the offing.People operating open WiFi networks in Germany have long risked being held liable for the actions of those using them. However, to the relief of thousands of citizens that position will change later this year after the country's coalition government decided to abolish the legislation which holds operators responsible for the file-sharing activities of others.
In many countries it’s accepted that whoever commits a crime or a civil tort in the file-sharing space is the person that should be held directly responsible for it.
For example, if someone shares the latest movie online without permission, that is the only person copyright holders should have an interest in for that particular offense. Certainly, innocent third parties should not be held liable.
In Germany, however, the position is more complex. Due to a concept known as Störerhaftung, a third party who played no intentional part in someone else’s infringements can be held liable for them. This type of liability has raised its head in many file-sharing cases where open WiFi owners have been considered liable for other people’s infringements.
Now, however, this stifling situation is probably in its dying days. According to a Spiegel report, Germany’s ruling coalition have agreed to abolish the so-called ‘interferer liability’.
This means that both private and small scale WiFi operators (such as café owners) will soon enjoy the same freedom from liability enjoyed by commercial operators.
No splash-pages or password locks will be required meaning that open WiFi hotspots will at last become as freely available in Germany as they are already in countries such as France and the UK.
Pressure had been mounting on the German government following a European Court of Justice opinion published in March which held that entities operating unsecured wireless networks should not be held liable for the copyright infringements of third parties.
The case involves Pirate Party member Tobias McFadden who received a claim from music company Sony who alleged that his open WiFi was used to offer an album without permission. Sony demanded that McFadden prevent future infringement by password protecting his network, blocking file-sharing ports, and logging/blocking users sharing copyrighted content. The Pirate objected to Sony’s claims of liability and the case went to the European Court of Justice.
The final judgment from the ECJ is not expected for a few months but in most cases early recommendations from experts are upheld by the ruling judge.
Should all go smoothly, the removal of the liability from German law has the potential to shake up the massive file-sharing settlement letter business. While those accused of infringement already have some means to fight back, the absence of third-party liability for connection owners could remove much of the pressure placed on them to settle, whether they were directly involved in an infringement or not.
According to reports the legislative amendments are set to be passed by Parliament next week and could be in place as early as this fall.Reading time: 5 minutes
Outline
How I learned about this new approach How to apply The Tracking Technique One last twist to the Tracking Technique Summary Your turn
What if I told you that you that there’s one thing that you can do that has been scientifically proven to help tens of thousands of individuals to lose weight, stop smoking, stop drinking, improve their grades, earn more money, and improve their health by simply using a pen and paper? I know, it sounds absolutely absurd, but this is no joke!
Just be mindful, I have NOTHING against weed. Weed has its benefits and some people use it responsibly without negatively impacting their lives, but if you need to take a tolerance break or if you wish to learn how to stop smoking weed for good, this is a simple and effective way to achieve your intended outcome.
And to be quite frank, I wish I knew about this when I was trying to quit because it would have made life soooo much easier on me! Can’t go back in time, right?.. right? (hmmm).
The backstory
Like always, I must give credit to where credit is due. This technique was inspired by an article, The Key to Saving: Track Your Spending where Gerri Detweiler teaches her clients how to improve their spending habits using scientifically proven techniques.
And one of the techniques that she uses is teaching her clients to track their spending.
In order to improve spending habits, a four month experiment was conducted by researchers, Ken Cheng and Megan Oaten, whereby they instructed the participants to write down every expense during the four month period.
The results from the experiments were outstanding! The participants reported smoking less, drinking less, consuming less junk food, and an increase in productivity at home and at school. And of course the obvious, the participants experienced the financial upside of tracking their spending.
Charles Duhigg, the author of The Power of Habit, says that “As people strengthened their willpower muscles in one part of their lives — in the gym, or a money management program — that strength spilled over into what they ate or how hard they worked. Once willpower became stronger, it touched everything.”
Gerri Detweiler interviewed the co-founder of MoneyMinder Online, Mikelann Valterra, she explained the neurological reasons why tracking your spending has |
may choose to ignore the many danger signs and animal watch tours. Some overseas visitors have been told that officials have been known to pay a hobo to put on a specially created suit and impersonate a Drop Bear in the zoo grounds. The sources of these rumours appear to be anti-immigration activists who hope to prevent tourists from overstaying their visas by increasing the likely hood of drop bear attack. This strategy is thought to pose no threat to the Australian Tourist Industry as the very same rumours are used to convince the tourists that no one will believe them.
There have been recent reports of evidence that Drop Bears once lived in Indonesia. According to the reports, these spurious Bears were an even larger version of the modern Australian version. Evolutionists will tell you this is because the ancestors of Indonesian Drop Bears are related to the ancestors of the devolved Australian bear. It is likely however that the Bears originated on the Australian Continent as most species grow to a smaller size when confined to Islands. As such, it may be concluded that the fossils found in Indonesia represent an earlier time period than those found in Australia.
Recent reports of the existence of a Giant American Drop Bear (see image far below) are still under investigation, however it is likely that, if validated, the Giant American Drop Bear would represent an example of convergent evolution, rather than a true relative of the Drop Bear.
Physical Appearance Edit
Drop Bears resemble Koalas, with several noticeable differences:
Koalas do not grow up to 2m in height. Koalas do not have sharp canine teeth (Used for bark or meat). It is unlikely for a Koala to have a tail. Koalas do not eat their young. Drop Bears do not have pouches. Drop Bears do not photograph well. Koalas are cute according to tourists, tourists don't survive saying that a drop bear is cute. If you see a Drop Bear, you are already dead.
Compared with Koalas, which some authorities insist are close relatives of these creatures, Drop Bears are usually browner in colour, ranging from dark brown to darker brown. They have short, thick, curls of fur, and four digits on each paw. The digit terminates in a long claw-like retractable nail. This makes them especially good at eye-gouging and slicing open the skin of their prey (a practice which can facilitate growth of particularly virulent strains of swamp-borne infection).
There have been rare sightings of Drop Bears on terra firma (i.e., not in trees) although there are some rare species which have not taken to the trees, and are the most dangerous. The only individuals to describe these have been American tourists, who wisely listened to their tour guide and placed vegemite, behind their ear and/or on their nose (this being the only known protection against this species). Unfortunately these descriptions have been seized by the A.D.O.R.S.P.A (Australian Department Of Rare Species Protection Agency) in order to keep tourists travelling to Australia. This species can be found in all states of Australia and comes out mainly at day time.
The fact some Drop Bears don't live in trees makes the suggestion that the Drop Bear's unusual lack of digits makes it very difficult for the animal to gesticulate like a human being. Nevertheless, this deficit does not prevent the Bears from trying to emulate this action as best they can. That this can sometimes be quite successful is supported by a report[citation needed] of a Drop Bear who appeared to be attempting to copy Chris Warbol. [Link required to explanation or expose of Chris Warbol.]
Habitat Edit
The Common Drop Bear is usually to be found in the Tall Forests of Victoria and South Australia. One such example is the town of Glenburn in Victoria, due to the numerous reports of drop bears it has resulted in a drop in the population because residents feared for their lives and fled. Drop Bears are also known to inhabit the Mangrove Swamps of the Northern Territory and Queensland. The animals like to spend most of the time in the tree tops. This gives them a good launching spot for a drop upon unsuspecting prey, an activity which led to their common name. Drop Bears are notoriously hard to spot whilst in their natural habitat as their fur camouflages well with the olive grey hue of the foliage. [Note: other variations of Drop Bear have been recorded with characteristics which are more suited to their differing habitats. These include the rare Snow Drop Bear (white fur), the Lesser Aquatic Drop Bear (mottled blue) and the Shallow Water Drop Bear (aqua blue fur)]
Despite its name the Shallow Water Drop Bear is not restricted to just shallow waters, it can also swim out to sea. This special type of Drop Bear poses a major threat to sharks and boats (the Shallow Water Drop Bear's favourite foods). The Shallow Water Drop Bear can be cannibalistic, at times a vegetarian and at other times it can be an omnivore (it will even eat sand) this type of Drop Bear is not to be confused with Sea Monkeys.
Prey Edit
The primary prey of Drop Bears are unsuspecting tourists, often Welsh or German but usually US American or Japanese. It is commonly understood that the Bears favour those with cameras, due to the entrancing reflection of the sun's rays from the glass lenses on a typical Aussie scorcher of a day. It is not true that Drop Bears are merely mesmerized by their reflections in the instruments or harbour a conscious or unconscious desire to be photographed. There is no truth in the rarely misquoted assertion that they wish to be "at one with the lens". It is a well known fact that the Australian Government would have banned tourism long ago had it not been for the fact that with no tourists, the drop bears would have been forced to feed on Australians.
Other factors are responsible for causing the natives of some countries to be more attractive then others to Drop Bears. When lost in the Australian bush, German tourists are known to excrete a musky odour (apparently a fear response) which has been shown to attract Drop Bears from up to 5km (approx 3 miles) away.
Although the Drop Bears are attracted to light they, like their similarly sozzled koalic cousins, are often too drunk or too hung over to handle an excess of it. Fortunately this factor, coupled with the sometimes predictable nature of the Australian climate, keeps Drop Bears contained to the tree tops in most situations. A carefully pointed camera may catch one arsing around up there or placidly enjoying the gum juices.
Drop bears particularly enjoy the taste of children as they are plump, perfect sized and go oh so great with gum leaves... When a drop bear does manage to catch one of these delicacies, he will swallow it whole, the only reason that they don't swallow adults is because their flesh tastes like crap... Children are known to be considered such delicacies, that drop bears will push their own mates and babies from the tree just so it doesn't need to share it.
It is a commonly held misconception that Drop Bears are vicious Vampires. Whilst a sub-species of marsupial almost identical in appearance to the Drop Bear has been reported to display vicious tendencies upon contact with Homo Sapiens, the true Drop Bear is just as often gentle and tender as it is aggressive. Because of this inexplicable fluctuation of mood Drop Bears are considered unpredictable and 'dangerous'. It is, however, widely rumoured that the aggression of native Australian Drop Bears is increasing in both scale and sophistication. Recently cited examples of Drop Bear activity include Schapelle Corby's first name and (surprisingly unrelated) her incarceration for drug trafficking (having allegedly packed her boogie-board bag). Other reported activities include the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, Gretel Killeen and Prime Minister John Howard's anus, rectum and left buttock, colloquially and collectively referred to as "Alexander Downer". (This site disclaims all responsibility for this.)
It should be noted that the official research arm of the Australian Government, the CSIRO, is currently investigating claims of increased aggression in the Drop Bear population of Pine Gap. An unpublished paper[citation needed] allegedly found elevated levels of G-23 Paxilon Hydrochlorate in the tissues of (*cough*)...subdued... Drop Bears. If confirmed, the implications of this discovery would be absolutely devastating for the Australian economy, for the morale of the populace and for sporting event telecast rights. The implied reason for this conclusion is that it would confirm Joss Whedon is, in fact, a Drop Bear. And a cute one, too.
Drop Bears have had some devastating effects on the environment. Central Australia now consists of vast tracts of treeless desert due to the voracious appetites of the local Drop Bear population coupled with the dearth of American tourists and escaped Boat People in the area. This has increased carbon dioxide levels to highly predictable proportions. Scientists have noted that there is now a large hole in the ozone layer above Australia.
In recent times, Drop Bears have been forced to move into urban areas due to deforestation. In 2003, fatalities due to Drop Bear attacks reached a devastating high when the population of Adelaide was completely wiped out. After the attacks, a Drop Bear sanctuary was created on the site of the former city, and 90% of Australia's Drop Bear population was moved here and put under the rule of the Kintiser. Sadly, the sanctuary was not to last. In February of 2005, the Kintiser was assassinated by 500 drop bears and Queensland stole the last drop of water from the River Murray. Once again, the Drop Bears were deprived of their main water supply. The Drop Bears protested this outside Parliament house in Canberra, where they were unjustly accused of being illegal immigrants and promptly deported to the Philippines. It was thought prudent not send them in the same facilities housing illegal boat people as these individuals have been already been targeted as a major food source for the animals. It is rumoured that the remaining 10% of Drop Bears are currently lobbying the Australian government to acknowledge their fellow furries' right to full citizenship and to return them to the land of their birth. However this rumor appears to be a little far-fetched.
Other little known facts about Drop Bears are that they have a top speed of 400 km/h, can eat a human in 1/100 of a second and incubate their offspring in the human male. While the latter fact is heavily disputed it would not be wise to be near a Drop Bear in mating season, especially if you are a male.
Geographical distribution Edit
A related drop bear (ursus nuciferous), a smaller and extremely vicious beast inhabits Cocos Islands. It has been known to attack mainland Australians. Wounds have the appearance of gravel rash, the kind normally associated with motor bike accidents. Police are still skeptical of the animal's existence, but are wary of challenging the locals' animist beliefs in court. The sound of motor bikes can send the little bastards into a frenzy, locals believe that the presence of an empty beer keg or two empty cartons of beer will almost guarantee an attack on a motor cyclist.
As you can see from the map above, drop bears tend to be found in the southern, eastern and south-western parts of Australia where there tends to be more trees for them to drop from. Drop bears find it difficult to drop from spinifex bushes and flat desert wastelands, plus with few victims to prey on in central Australia, their distribution is predictably lower. There are reports of periodic attacks on opal miners in Coober Pedy, and bloodied corpses of tourists at Uluru, so do not let your guard down when in these areas - drop bear attacks still happen!
Prevention of Drop Bear Attacks Edit
Preventing attacks from Drop Bears can be easy (and fun) if you know how.
Avoid walking under trees. If for some bizarre reason you feel a compelling urge to walk under every tree you see, attempt to avoid the chainsaw of natural selection by lying down under trees and spitting upward. Drop Bears will typically spit back down at you. If you successfully detect a Drop Bear - Move. Quickly.
Do not camp or pitch tents under trees. Especially trees with long overhanging branches. If the drop bears don't get you, the eucalypt's annoying habit of shedding boughs during dry conditions will.
Rub Vegemite (non kids) behind your ears. Drop Bears cannot abide the smell of Vegemite. Do not fall for the common mistake of rubbing toothpaste behind your ears: that's just silly. Stick to the Vegemite! Do not be lured by the misconception that rubbing the shit of an Australian politician behind your ears will prevent attack. It may stink but it's full of bullshit!
Drop Bears have been known to be allergic to sub-machine gun rounds. It would be a good idea to carry a sub-machine gun on your next camping trip. Carry it in plain sight at all times, even in 'cities' and around coppas (the Australian term for what Americans call 'Pigs'.)
If you really dont want to be attacked by a Drop Bear then try not to walk under trees that growl at you. or ones that say your'e a f!!!ing pussy
If you see a drop bear and it sees you too there is very little that you can do, but some say that if you talk to the Drop Bear it may think you are a complete retard, some have never seen a retard before and they think it is a contagious disease, so acting like this may help... but if they have encountered someone with this tactic before they may just eat you anyway.
Play all the Kid's Bop series of CDs continuously if you are anywhere near Drop Bear territory. Drop Bears are inclined to drop on children because their anal teeth can easily digest one so small. However, a whole platoon of screeching children is quite a different matter all together (YOU try shoving a platoon of pre-teens up your ass and see hows' you like it).
Stick forks in your hat. While this may not actually prevent the Drop Bear from attacking you, it will certainly deter it from attacking you again.
Before setting out on a bushwalk (aka Magic Roundabout) trickle rivulets of your own urine on your footwear.
If you suspect an encroaching attack by a Drop Bear, walk on your hands. This totally confuses drop bears, as they begin to wonder if they are actually below you looking up through the ground. This is so distressing for the Bear that it often triggers an onset of SEHS.
WARNING: Although drop bears prefer to live in the wild, the recent 7 year drought has driven many of them into the Central Business Areas of major cities. Although widely suppressed in the media, there have been a number of incidents of Drop Bears plummeting from city office blocks and killing pedestrians. No reports are yet confirmed as drops from as high as the 40th floor do not leave much of either the victim or the Drop Bear for the purposes of identification. Do not step on suspicious street substances as this may destroy vital evidence. Be careful under buildings, as 300 Drop Bears can live on a single building, and often hunt as a pack.
Do NOT, I repeat, DO NOT take certain brands of beer or articles of food into the bush. Drop Bears have a supernatural smell gland which enables them to locate their favorite brands of beer and food. The definition of food may not be entirely obvious even if it is understood. It should be noted that the Common Drop Bear has a predilection for the Lesser Brained American Tourist, especially members of famous bands.
For some weird reason, drop bears never eat Aussies. Pretending to be Australian doesn't help. Drop Bears are always suspicious of accents which sound like Paul Hogan.
Wear goggles- Drop Bear's find the eyeball meat the most delicious, if they see that they cant get to their favourite part of the meal they may decide not to eat you.
German WW I helmets with the spikes on the head were introduced in June of 1916 when the Australian 105th Laundry and Dirty Tricks Brigade started dropping drop bears into the enemy trenches from special "eucalyptus zeppelins," and to this day a more potent deterrent has yet to be found.
if you want to prevent a drop bear from raiding you campsite spread a 6 pack of lite beer around your campsite. the scent of the lite beer repels the drop bear away from your campsite. WARNING:do not place XXXX beer around your campsite. This will only attract more drop bears and they will stay for hours more. If beer is essential (as it often is) only bring Fosters. The smell alone will knock out a healthy adult Drop Bear for up to 4 hours.
Always have a shotgun in your hand. It is amusing to yell "that's what I thought!" :)
Wear counterfeit items (fake watches, bags, etc). For some reason they scare Drop Bears off (possible allergy to intellectual property breach).
Leave Australia! For some reason, 99% of attacks are on the continent. If you leave the Southern Hemisphere, your chance of being involved in a drop bear attack, drops by 87.6783%
Wearing a cork hat after covering your face with Vegemite has been known to keep away Drop Bears. This may be because the scent of the Vegemite confuses the Drop Bears into thinking that you're Australian. Be careful though, because if the entire face isn't covered, it has been known to fail.
Always have a baggy (bag of dope), in your bum bag! and just hand it to it. It will not scratch your eyes out!
See also Edit
References Edit
This is the exclusive source where 98.4% of the above article comes from see here.
I nearly crapped myself in fear watching this!In 1904, a young woman named Florence Brooks interviewed Henry James for the New York Herald. James had never given an interview before. “One’s craft, one’s art, is his expression, not one’s person,” he said, stressing that his stories were supposed to leave the reader with questions—questions that he was not disposed to answer in conversation. His distaste for the interview process was such that Brooks herself began to doubt the purpose of their meeting. “Why should the public want him to splash himself, reveal his person on paper?” she wondered in her write-up.
James had been a famous novelist for thirty years. No twenty-first-century writer could avoid an interview for so long. Unless you’re Thomas Pynchon, you’ll be giving interviews after the publication of every book: to newspapers and Web sites, on the radio, in bookshops, and at literary festivals. Not that writers these days are any more pleased about giving interviews than James was. “A writer’s life is in his work, and that is the place to find him,” Joyce Carol Oates said in a Washington Post interview earlier this year.
No doubt most of Oates’s contemporaries have felt something similar. But the Post interview was different. Oates was interviewing herself, and she made her fictional interviewer a gossipy, sensationalist hack who wants to know his subject’s most embarrassing moments and complains when her answers aren’t snappy enough to tweet. Oates’s mock interview is her answer to Florence Brooks’s question. The public, and even the interviewer, want the author to reveal herself for the same reasons that we click and click again on the Daily Mail’s sidebar of shame: because they—we—are nosy and celebrity obsessed.
Naturally, those doing the interviewing take a rather different view. John Freeman is a former editor of Granta and the author of “How to Read a Novelist.” The book brings together fifty-five of his profiles of novelists, originally published in dozens of newspapers and magazines. Nobel Prize winners and octogenarians appear alongside newer names, such as Jennifer Egan and Kiran Desai. The profiles are short, but Freeman is keen to invest them with meaning, and to distinguish meeting a novelist from “running into a celebrity.”
In this aim, he mostly fails. Freeman sketches the writer’s biography and throws in a few sentences linking life to work. Sometimes he quotes other critics; sometimes he offers his own, reasonably perceptive, criticism. Often we get a description of what the writer happened to be wearing that day. The profiles are notable for Freeman’s absence. He’s there, of course, shaping proceedings, but there’s little sense of a conversational back-and-forth between interviewer and interviewee. As he says in the introduction, this was deliberate: his intention was to make it “easier for a reader to step into the frame and imagine themselves there.” The result is weirdly artificial. Too often the profiles read as if the writer is sitting alone in a restaurant or, sometimes, in her glamorous apartment, addressing occasional comments to the atmosphere.
Speaking to the Los Angeles Times shortly after the publication of “How to Read a Novelist,” Freeman said that interviewing novelists in their homes is “obviously” best, “because you get to look at their stuff.” I’m as interested in Peter Carey’s “large, airy Lower Manhattan loft” as the next Carey fan. But I try not to kid myself that it’s an interest any more profound than a fan of Gwyneth Paltrow wanting to know the details of her latest cleanse. The desire to know about writers’ homes is not new; in fact, it predates author interviews by several decades. Literary interviews became popular in the eighteen-eighties, but Richard Altick, a late professor of Victorian literature at Ohio State University, traces the public fascination with writers’ homes at least as far back as the eighteen-forties, when there was a vogue for books describing the houses and landscapes of famous authors, complete with engravings and, later, photographs.
In the early eighteen-nineties, Henry James wrote in his notebook about “this age of advertisement and newspaperism, this age of interviewing.” He was planning a short story about a “man of letters” who is tremendously famous, “yet with whose work … not one of the persons concerned has the smallest acquaintance.” (This is the fear behind Oates’s Washington Post self-interview: that the author interview does not ask the author to talk about her work but, rather, to replace it.) Some sixty years later, a new age of interviewing dawned. The first issue of The Paris Review, published in the spring of 1953, contained a lengthy interview with E. M. Forster that would set the pattern for the magazine’s legendary “Writers at Work” series. But, though the series has become the gold standard for the form, the initial reason behind the Forster interview was financial rather than literary: it was a way to get a famous name on the cover without having to pay for that famous name’s work. In the nineteen-eighties, as newspapers got longer, and again in the aughts, with endless online space to fill, editors of large publications began favoring author interviews for the same reason. Chain bookstores and literary festivals have also found that author interviews a good way to increase sales.
It makes good commercial sense for publishers, journalists, and bookshops to promote author interviews. But these do not explain public interest in such interviews, or why we want our novelists to be celebrities. We have, after all, so many other celebrities to think about—celebrities whose jobs, if they have jobs, make for better stories than sitting alone moving words about on a screen. So why not spare novelists the burden of becoming public figures? Why not let them slope off to write their books in private, for the few souls left who read them?
Ramona Koval is an Australian broadcaster who has made a career interviewing writers, both on radio and at book festivals. For her, the author isn’t a celebrity at all. In the introduction to “Speaking Volumes,” a collection of Koval’s conversations with writers including Saul Bellow, Norman Mailer, Toni Morrison, and Jeanette Winterson, she describes herself as a “seeker of wisdom.” When Koval interviews a novelist, she’s interested in nothing less than “how one evaluates a life, the getting of wisdom, facing death, the meaning of love, whether a book ever changed the course of history.” Elsewhere, Koval has said that she only interviews writers about whose work she is “totally passionate”—with the result that her “big questions,” as she calls them, sometimes seem more like flattery than investigation. Some of the best parts of her interviews are those in which she comes at such questions aslant, as in her conversation about jigsaw puzzles with Margaret Drabble, or engineering with Norman Mailer.
By Koval’s reckoning, we read or listen to author interviews for the same reason we read novels: to find out how to live. But where novels are often opaque in their wisdom, declining to tell us how to live as plainly as we might like, the interview offers clarity. There will be questions, there will be answers, and if the answers are a little elliptical—well, the interviewer can keep asking until the matter is resolved. The E. M. Forster Paris Review interview sets the tone for this kind of truth-seeking. “What was the exact function of the long description of the Hindu festival in A Passage to India?” “Would you admit to there being any symbolism in your novels?” Interviewer and novelist collaborate in isolating, condensing, and, finally, spoon-feeding the novel’s meaning to the audience. It’s been a long time since Barthes declared the author dead, but we’re more eager than ever to hear the corpse speak.
As creative-writing courses and online fiction forums swell and it gets easier to self-publish, interest in writers’ routines increases. Anyone who has attended a staged author interview will be familiar with questions from the audience like, What time do you start writing in the morning? Do you write longhand or on a computer? Do you work from a plan or make it up as you go along? As the series title “Writers at Work” suggests, the Paris Review interviews have always concentrated on this aspect of their subjects’ lives, asking as much about writing routine and process as about literary form or subject. What people really want to know is what it is that the writer does that enables her to transform ordinary words—the same ones non-writers use all day, every day—into art. Everyone has a book in them, the saying goes—not a sculpture or an arabesque. If you, like Haruki Murakami, could rise at 4 A.M. every day and write for five or six hours straight, perhaps you too could write “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.” (On the other hand, the knowledge—as revealed in Mason Currey’s recent book, “Daily Rituals”—that Patricia Highsmith loved her pet snails so much that she once went to a party with a hundred in her handbag might reassure you that you’d rather be sane than a novelist.)
For the most part, novelists submit to interviews good-humoredly enough, pretending not to notice the demands that interviews make of them, or the fact that interviews undermine as much as validate their work. But alongside the history of traditional author interviews, smoothly unfolding in the past hundred and thirty years, runs a seam of fictional interviews in which writers probe and mock and complain about the form. In November, Granta published “Dead Interviews,” in which living writers interview famous dead people. Cynthia Ozick takes tea with Henry James, Rebecca Miller visits the Marquis de Sade in the Bastille, and so on. The interviewers are often ignorant or crass, and the interviewees are puzzled, evasive, or angry—as if the live writers are using dead ones to say what they’ve been suppressing for years.
Nor is Joyce Carol Oates’s Post interview the only instance of a writer complaining about interviews through interviewing herself. The front page of the second issue of The New York Review of Books, which appeared in June, 1963, carried an interview with the critic Edmund Wilson, by Edmund Wilson. The headline was “Every Man His Own Eckermann”—a reference to Johann Peter Eckermann, whose published conversations with Goethe are a kind of author-interview prototype. “The Visitor” (Wilson’s interviewer figure) asks Wilson to “contribute some opinions” about art and music. “Gladly: I know nothing whatever about them,” says Wilson, before holding forth for several paragraphs.
To mark the magazine’s twenty-fifth anniversary, Gore Vidal wrote a sequel, under the title “Every Eckermann His Own Man.” Here, the Visitor returns to interview Eckermann himself—whose attitude toward interviewing is resigned. “In a thousand years no one will know who wrote what or why or if at all,” he predicts. “So let’s keep those questions moving right along.”
Hannah Rosefield works for the British Library and is an editor at Review 31.
Photograph of Toni Morrison by Alberto Bernasconi/LUZphoto/Redux.storywriter Profile Joined February 2011 Australia 527 Posts Last Edited: 2012-05-02 11:55:01 #1 IMMVP
+ Show Spoiler +
This is now your fifth time in ro4 of Code S
I returned from China yesterday. I thought the match would be physically difficult so I’m glad I had an easy win. This is my first ro4 in a long time so I’m very excited.
You relied heavily on strategy not once but twice. Was it because of your wrist? Some other problem?
I am of the opinion that you should be punished for risky play. If you get greedy with me, you will get punished. Naniwa is a player who has a risky early game and gets a good economy. Those strategies were a response to that.
Today’s control made it difficult to believe you have a wrist injury. How was it today?
I couldn’t really exert my wrist even in today’s games. It was difficult to mineral boost with my workers at the start. Other than that, it was okay.
Your team and Naniwa have had some run-ins in the past. Did you think about those in your match today?
Not really. I’ve faced foreigners several times in the GSL and never lost once. Since we’re playing on my home soil, I believed that I had the advantage. I think that led to my victory.
Lately, Protosses are on the rise but you keep the Terran pride strong.
Protosses are definitely on the rise. Still, the Terrans that are left are extremely powerful players. There should be at least one more Terran in ro4. I hope the finals is a TvP rather than a PvP.
Your next match is a TvP no matter what. Who do you want to face?
Both players have strong PvT so both are difficult to deal with. Still I prefer Oz to Parting. I feel like I will be more sore about losing to Parting. Parting acts like he’s already won the championship and he’ll probably do a ceremony on me too.
You have secured a spot to win a fourth GSL championship before anyone else.
I’ve fallen in ro4 after my third championship before. Even if I don’t win the championship, I hope I get to walk onto the stage of the finals.
This is your first official win wearing the LG-IM uniform.
This is my first appearance in the uniform and my first win. I am so happy that I won. I think things are looking good for me. It’s a good sign.
Anything to add?
First I want to thank our newest sponsor LG electronics. I also want to thank Nvidia, SteelSeries, Coca cola, Googims. I will play even harder to promote these sponsors.
I was able to win because my teammates Anyppi and Ready practised a lot with me before I left for China. I want to thank them both.
Source:
StartaleParting (T/N: interview from TiG, img from Leveltory since TiG used an old one. Interviews are almost identical anyway. Also Parting is a troll)
+ Show Spoiler +
This is your first time in ro 4 of Code S
Similar to what I said in the ro8 interview, it’s just like a dream. As I got ready for today’s match, I remembered losing to DRG in ro8 of last season. That defeat saddened me so much that DRG appeared in my dreams afterwards. I practised hard so I wouldn’t have a repeat of that and won with luck on my side.
Unexpectedly, you had a landslide victory of 3:0. If you were to evaluate today’s match?
If I were somewhat arrogant last season, I fixed that after my loss in ro8. I changed my mindset after the defeat in ro8 and subsequent losses in the GSTL. I dug deep and thought about all the practice I had to go through to get where I am. I think that is why I won.
The opponent took his expansion before you in Set 1. Did you anticipate that?
Not at all. However, I’ve used such a build myself and practised it too. So I just played based on those experiences and it worked out.
Set 2 wasn’t favourable but as your two immortals kept the stalkers busy, you were able to attack an empty base and win.
Each player has their own style of army control. I focused solely on the immortals. I set all the other units on attack move and controlled the immortals while watching the opponent’s stalkers. It seemed like my opponent was going to take out my immortals before defending. It was partly planned.
Your ro4 opponent is the three time champion IMMVP
To be honest, he’s just another Terran to me. Terrans are a free meal to me and that’s the case for whomever. So I don’t care. I feel like I must get to the finals so that I don’t shame the players I have beaten so far.
MVP mentioned your attitude in his interview and even predicted that you would pull off a ceremony on him.
I plan to save the ceremonies for more interesting players like MC. If I get really excited, I will do one. I don’t feel like I acted too over the top but other people seem to think so. I guess I was a little arrogant but it wasn’t to the level of acting like a champion (laugh). I do resent that statement. That’s also not to say that I will become even more arrogant if I win the championship.
If you had to predict your ro4 score?
My heart says 3:0 but my brain says 3:1. Since it is King MVP after all.
Depending on how the bracket works out, you may have to teamkill Squirtle. Is that possible?
Even if I don’t get to the finals, Squirtle definitely will. I’ve always said that Squirtle is the one best Protoss but his potential just didn’t become realised. Now that he’s showing his true self, he will get to the finals.
If I don’t make the finals, this is his GSL. However, if I do, I’m sorry to Squirtle but I will win 4:3.
Anything to add?
I want to thank Ace and Tiger for practice. I also want to thank Genius, Seed, Anyppi, Mentalist and Soulman as well as Finaleand Vampire for their advice.
I want to thank Red Bull, Zowie Gear and BenQ as well as DigiTech High School which supports progaming.
Also, last time, I seem to have offended MC but it’s all a misunderstanding. He took care of me like I was his son at MLG. I am really grateful and I love him. I will treat him something nice with my GSL winnings.
Source:
img: Source: http://www.thisisgame.com/board/view.php?category=13439&id=1177854 (T/N: interview from TiG, img from Leveltory since TiG used an old one. Interviews are almost identical anyway. Also Parting is a troll)Source: http://www.thisisgame.com/board/view.php?category=13439&id=1178010 img: http://leveltory.com/8238 TranslatorTake a look to this new poster of The White Crow, the upcoming drama movie directed by Ralph Fiennes and starring Oleg Ivenko:
(Click on the poster to enlarge.)
THE WHITE CROW The incredible true story of Rudolf Nureyev. A film by Ralph Fiennes.
Plot synopsis:“Rudolf Nureyev, a remarkable young dancer of 22, is a member of the world-renowned Kirov Ballet Company, travelling to Paris in 1961 for his first trip outside the Soviet Union. But KGB officers watch his every move, becoming increasingly suspicious of his behaviour and his friendship with the young Parisienne Clara Saint. When they finally confront Nureyev with a shocking demand, he is forced to make a heart-breaking decision, one that may change the course of his life forever and put his family and friends in terrible danger.”
He looks more like a little bird than a crow.
The Us release date of the movie is set to April 26, 2019.
Here’s the movie trailer of The White Crow if you haven’t seen it yet: Continue reading »Digital technology has become increasingly pervasive in China, with the government planning to cover the entire nation with surveillance cameras capable to gather personal information in real time.
Beijing promised to build the world’s largest surveillance system, and in the next three years 400 million new cameras will be installed, along with the 170 million already in use. These cameras will also contain the most sophisticate technology available: the surveillance system’s AI can read faces, age, gender and ethnicity.
The BBC’s John Sudworth meet the Guangdong’s police to demonstrate if China’s Big Brother is really effective. The surveillance system took 7 minutes to discover Sudworth in the city centre and to send the alarm to police officers.
“Citizens has nothing to fear”, said a policewomen to Sudworth, explaining they “will only extract their data when they need our help”. Although not everyone is convinced by the surveillance system. Ji Feng, a poet and government critic, thinks the surveillance on dissidents may intensify.
Thank you for visit The Business Globalist. Our articles are totally free and we want to continue to offer precious information for everyone, without any paywall. If you think this article has been useful you may consider to make a little donation to support free journalism. You can make a donation at the Paypal account del-gatto@hotmail.comYou’ve been playing MMOs for years, and if there’s one thing you’re sick of, it’s the verb number noun quests. Kill ten rats. Fetch twenty pelts. Talk with four NPCs. Gaaaaah! Is there anything more dull, more mind numbing? Anything less original, less compelling? You did better when you were the DM for your Second Edition campaign back in elementary school, for crying out loud.
Let’s say you’ve put your money where your mouth is, and you’ve gotten yourself a job at an MMO studio doing quests. What’s the first thing you’re going to do?
You’re going to implement all the kill ten rats quests someone else wrote, for starters. But let’s back up and go through some of the things you’ll find.
Every studio uses a different tool to get quests from your brain into the |
ites for cover and no way over the fence, the deer crowded the corners until the rifle reports stopped and none of them moved in the grass anymore. In other parts of the ranch, where the 70-by-100-foot pens were built with swing gates for working the deer into chutes like cattle, the killing was much easier. By dusk on December 6, 2010, Texas Parks and Wildlife had destroyed more than 70 of Anderton's prized animals, including a buck with a 272-inch rack. A white helicopter with what appeared to be a forward-looking infrared camera mounted to its nose flew lazy loops over the ranch, scanning for survivors.
TPW would return five months later to shoot a handful they'd missed.
Deer breeders across Texas — representing an estimated billion-dollar industry — reacted with horror to the extermination of the Anderton herd. They called it a stunning display of brutality by one of the state's most powerful law enforcement agencies. Much of the leadership in Texas Parks and Wildlife, they believed, had little but contempt for the deer breeders it was required by state law to police. And they feared TPW would shut down by any means necessary an industry that violated a closely held, almost canonical belief — that whitetail deer were a public trust, belonged to the people of Texas and should not be corralled, bred and sold like livestock.
The agency, for its part, said it destroyed Anderton's herd to test for a fatal contagion that is similar to mad cow disease. Experts say chronic wasting disease is decimating populations in parts of Wisconsin, Colorado and Wyoming and so far has been detected in nearly 20 other states. It was identified last year in West Texas mule deer for the first time. The agency has quarantined much of Hudspeth County, hoping to prevent the illness from spreading to the state's four million whitetail deer. James Anderton, the chief warden said, was a "bad actor" whose deer were untraceable and potentially infected. TPW needed to know for certain so it could locate other breeders who may have purchased deer from him.
The agency's supporters — many of them conservationists, wildlife managers and low-fenced hunting ranches — believe Anderton and his ilk threaten wild deer herds with disease. They say pen-raised, genetically cultivated bucks with incredible (and occasionally grotesque) spreads of antlers represent not only the commodification of wildlife, but the outright perversion of traditional hunting culture.
Breeders call it antler envy.
Either way, it's a fight with fronts in the courts and in the Legislature. And the victor may just shape how we breed and hunt Texas' most iconic game.
Mike Wood whispered with a mix of pride and reverence, "There he is. It's Max Dream!" High atop a sound-proofed, air-conditioned deer blind on the Madera Bonita Ranch in Kaufman County, Wood peered through binoculars at the crown jewel of his herd. Max, one of the top five whitetail bucks in the U.S., was feeding placidly on pelletized grains from a trough inside a heavily wooded, two-acre pen surrounded by a 10-foot fence.
His antlers, even this early in the growth process, were more befitting of an elk than a whitetail deer. The rack's main branches were like live-oak limbs, and its kickers and drop tines and points twisted and canted in all directions, crowding like branch coral. The huge, perennial growths of bone scored 342 inches, derived by measuring their length and every point sprouting from them. He'd be the highest-scoring whitetail deer ever, if the Boone & Crockett Club, the arbiter of hunting records, allowed consideration of pen-raised bucks.
Wood declined to disclose how much Max Dream was worth. "It's enough that I'd never have to work again," he said. "He's a once-in-a-lifetime buck."
In magazine advertisements in which Max is backlit in messianic grandeur, his value can be determined in other ways. Wood sells half-cubic-centimeter straws of the animal's cryogenically frozen semen (or about a 10th of a teaspoon) for $5,000 a pop. And breeders will pony up just for a shot at a fawn boasting the great Max Dream as sire. Bear in mind, a buck in his prime with an electroejaculator inserted in his rectum can produce 60 straws at a time.
Though Max never leaves the confines of Madera Bonita, FedEx spreads his cryogenically frozen seed far and wide.
Many of his offspring could be found in the pen next to his, where yearling bucks already sported 10-point, even 12-point racks — estimable antlers for a full-grown wild buck but commonplace among Wood's farm-raised youngsters.
As we drove back toward the main lodge, he gestured out the window at the native buffalo grass and the bluestem that grew lush and thick, and at the brimming ponds they'd dug. It was about more than money, he said. When his business partner Art Browning bought the place from a rancher in 1995, the land was a shambles. It had been grazed down to the nub and took years to rehabilitate. The way he sees it, outfits like his preserve native habitat that might otherwise be destined for the dozer and the concrete slab. It's a business that's keeping failing cattle ranches, struggling through drought and narrowing profit margins, in the family.
What's more, Wood believes deer breeding is democratizing trophy bucks. "People pay $25,000 to the King Ranch to shoot what we'd call a scrub buck. Or they can come here for $7,000, $8,000 — for half the money — and shoot a genetically superior buck."
That may be one reason, he says, why deer breeders have encountered so much opposition to the legislation they've pushed over the last two sessions: one bill to establish their ownership of bred deer, another to transfer oversight of the industry from Texas Parks and Wildlife to the state animal health commission, which deals exclusively with livestock. Yet even uncontroversial measures like microchipping the deer in place of plastic ear tags and tattoos faced impassioned resistance. Wood believes it all springs from massive, low-fenced wild game ranches whose bucks can't compete anymore. "It's all about the money," he said.
Greg Simons, a wildlife biologist and outfitter, said the industry had to have known it would face resistance when it pushed a slate of controversial bills in 2011 and again this year. "This was legislation they knew would be hot-button issues: privatization of natural resources, transfer of regulatory authority. These were very sensitive issues that would not conveniently come into the capitol and go unnoticed."
The industry nevertheless cheered a bill recently signed into law that will grant breeders whose permits have been denied by TPW the chance to contest the decision. The agency has never revoked a permit, which would allow a breeder the opportunity to plead its case before the State Office of Administrative Hearings. Instead, TPW denies the permit when it comes up for renewal, when the breeder has far less recourse to appeal.
"It was quite alarming that come renewal time, Parks and Wildlife could tell you, 'We're not going to issue a permit or renewal and, by the way, you have so many days to close down your operation and vacate the premises of any deer,'" says Texas Deer Association President Gilbert Adams. "When someone has hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars invested in that farm, that's concerning and alarming."
But most breeders I encountered claimed the absence of due process was typical of an agency that polices rather than promotes the industry. "Texas Parks and Wildlife is regulating us to death," Wood said.
When I pressed him for specifics, he rattled off a list of bureaucratic backlogs and headaches. Robert Williams, one of the first deer breeders in the state and known by some in the industry as "The Godfather," admitted he'd personally never had a problem or "a cross word" with the agency. Yet if you want to get a breeder truly riled, ask him about chronic wasting disease (CWD). Both Wood and Williams called it a "political disease." They characterized TPW's efforts to control its spread as fear-mongering.
In cases like Anderton's, Madera Bonita co-owner Art Browning said the slaughter had more to do with retribution than disease prevention.
According to TPW's numbers, between 2009 and 2010, the year Anderton's deer were destroyed, the number of breeder deer the agency dispatched for CWD testing rose 350 percent, to 289 animals. The following year, that number doubled. The TPW big game program's director, Mitch Lockwood, said he isn't sure what might explain the sharp increase, apart from the discovery of big herds of untraceable or smuggled deer coming to the agency's attention more often. And when they do, he said the agency does what must be done to prevent an epidemic.
For now, that means a post-mortem sample taken from the animal's spinal column. There is a live tonsillar biopsy, but the deer must be sedated, making for a lengthy process.
"We certainly look forward to a day when there's another option out there," Lockwood says.
Wood doesn't buy it. "There's no doubt CWD is just used to keep us under their thumb."
Disease experts, of course, see it differently. "If you look at a deer in the clinical phase of the disease, I find it hard to understand how you'd call it a 'political disease,'" U.S. Geological Survey CWD coordinator Bryan Richards says. It's a form of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, so named because the brain of an animal in the end stage of the disease will be pocked with tiny holes like a sponge, where neurons used to be. It usually takes a few years to kill a deer, but once an animal begins to display the symptoms — listlessness, rapid weight loss — it's dead within weeks.
"Take everything you know about disease and throw it out the window," Richards says. The fatal illness is caused by a prion, which is nothing more than a common protein found in animals. But at some point, its sequence of amino acids mutates, and it becomes deadly. Because the body can't recognize the prion as an infectious agent, it puts up no immune response. It can be transmitted between deer through excrement or animal-to-animal contact. Prions remain dormant in the soil for years, decades even, and are impossible to eradicate.
CWD has been detected in wild populations in 22 states and in 50 different breeding farms. It was first identified in Colorado in 1960, at a government research facility. The disease moved quickly through animals in tight concentrations. It sprang up in another facility in Wyoming that was known to trade elk back and forth with the one in Colorado. In mule deer near Boulder, it's been detected in 40 percent of bucks and has caused a "significant reduction," Richards says, in doe lifespans. Over a 20-year period, they've documented a 50-percent decline in that population.
In a 65,000-square-mile range in Wyoming, some 50 percent of mule deer bucks are infected with CWD. Their numbers have declined by 50 percent over the last decade. In parts of southwest Wisconsin, disease rates among whitetail deer have climbed 30 percent a year after its initial discovery in 2002. "That type of growth is unprecedented," Richards says.
He cautioned that it's difficult to prove just what exactly is behind the declines. Other factors like drought and land development could be contributing. But the disease is spreading, and he fears that its best vector is a trailer going 60 mph down the interstate. He finds it suspicious that the disease emerged in Wisconsin, some 900 miles away from where it originated, on the other side of the Mississippi River and in a state with a vibrant breeding industry. "The Canadian food-inspection agency has spent significant time and resources tracking movement in facilities," Richards says. "They believe they can track how CWD has moved between a majority of those facilities and that it is in fact through the transfer of animals — deer farmer to deer farmer.
"The idea that there's no involvement by this industry, that's probably not true."
The same year CWD was detected in Wisconsin, Texas Parks and Wildlife officials closed the state's border to imported deer. Wildlife officials said the move was an attempt to protect a nearly $3 billion hunting industry from the ravages of the disease. And as much as they worry about its impact on the state's deer, just as troubling is the shadow it could cast on Texas' reputation among hunters nationally. If CWD found its way into high-density whitetail populations in the Hill Country, local economies in hunting meccas like Llano could be devastated.
In 2012, however, the disease walked right into the state, carried by wild mule deer. In the Hueco Mountains spanning the Texas-New Mexico border, the agency believes 30 percent of the mule deer population is infected.
James Anderton waded through the overgrown wild vetch around his empty deer pens. Sections of neglected fence bowed and rusted. The black canvas he'd hung along the working chutes was tattered and fluttering. During fawning season, when Anderton would artificially inseminate the does laparoscopically, there'd be several hundred deer in these pens. He'd bottle-feed the females himself or nurse them on blindfolded goats to make them gentle. He could sell a trailer full of 25 yearlings for $2,500 apiece. In good years, when his does dropped two fawns each, he made more money off deer than he did his 300 acres of irrigated Bermuda sod.
"I could walk in my pen, push them out the gate and walk 'em down the chute and work them like cattle," he said. "We didn't have to tranquilize the deer or nothing on our farm.
"My deer were nothing but pets."
He still wished he had been there when Texas Parks and Wildlife came to exterminate his animals. But he was sitting in a Texarkana prison camp at the time, serving a 25-month sentence. He thinks the investigation was personal, stemming from a lawsuit he filed against TPW in 2006 for failing to issue his breeder permit in a timely fashion. "That's what made them mad," he says. "They don't want people to contest them."
Nonetheless, the FBI and Texas Department of Public Safety caught wind that Anderton and his son Jimmie were involved in a conspiracy to move stolen trucks, tractors and trailers across state lines. The same informant told them in 2006 that Anderton was trucking deer in from out of state. According to investigative records, it's clear investigators also suspected Anderton was breaking state law by capturing wild deer. In 2003, the year after Texas closed its borders, a man named Raymond Scott Sly said he hitched his pickup to a low-slung, shop-built trailer with plywood partitions at Anderton's ranch, according to the records.
He followed Anderton to a Walmart in Greenville, where the deer farmer bought a road atlas. Anderton put his finger on Bald Knob, Arkansas, northeast of Little Rock. If Sly got pulled over, he instructed him to tell the officer they were fallow deer — an exotic, legally transportable breed similar to whitetail deer.
Sly hauled the trailer north and before dusk came to a gravel road, with a high fence on one side. As he pulled up to his destination, he told investigators, he was scared. There was an Arkansas Game and Fish truck parked next to a double-wide trailer. A man he thought might have been Native American came out and waved him in, told him he'd come to the right place. The Arkansas warden would later tell investigators during an interview that he didn't think it was his job to worry about where the deer he sold were headed, even if the end customer was flouting federal law. So Sly backed the trailer up to a barn and he and the game warden pushed a herd of does and a few bucks inside. One of them balked, and the warden darted the doe with tranquilizer, then administered a reversal once they'd loaded her. Sly handed the warden a check from Anderton and steered south into Texas. He had an auxiliary tank on his Dodge, so he wouldn't have to stop at a fueling station where curious eyes might pry.
As he was instructed, he left the trailer-load of deer at Anderton's hunting ranch in Delta County, near the guest house. Two weeks later, he was paid $2,000 for his trouble. Years later, he was paid a visit by state and federal investigators. By 2009, Anderton and his son received federal indictments for trafficking wildlife and stolen property. From 2003 to 2005, investigators said, they'd moved 125 deer across state lines. These weren't high-quality deer, according to one U.S. Fish and Game agent involved in the investigation. They were shooters, he said, worth about $62,000 all told. The Andertons pleaded guilty in August 2009. Anderton surrendered himself to a federal prison camp in March 2010. The month before, even though he'd admitted to trafficking deer, the breeder license he'd been waiting on finally came through. That's because TPW's own rules didn't allow the agency to strip him of his license for a federal prosecution. So, in August 2010, TPW changed the rules and revoked Anderton's permit.
Four months later, agents showed up at his ranch to carry out the destruction of the herd. It would have been roughly five years since the federal complaint accused him of bringing in the last shipment of deer. TPW said Anderton couldn't provide proof of origin for the animals. They may have been infected with chronic wasting disease, the agency reasoned. "They could've come from anywhere," a spokesman told Lone Star Outdoor News in 2010 (the agency wouldn't comment on the case because of pending litigation).
"They had zero evidence that a deer that came from out of state went into my breeder pens," Anderton claims, adding that each animal had a state-issued unique number. The deer he was accused of transporting, he says, went to his game ranch in Delta County, not the farm in Hunt County. If they'd come into contact with infected animals, they'd be dead by now. "This was all done in 2002, 2003 and 2004. They killed my deer in 2010 and 2011, five or six years after all this stuff was supposed to happen. They knew about it in 2005!" he says. "They wanted me out of the deer business."
TPW leadership, for its part, seemed to agree. In documents obtained by WFAA-TV, the former chief warden sought changes in the rules in order to "shut [Anderton] down." In an internal message, he wrote that he'd "already put too much info in emails about putting Anderton out of business."
In a lawsuit filed on his behalf by Dallas attorney Steven M. Griggs in April, Anderton is seeking the return of his breeder permit and compensation for his deer. His complaint attacks the foundation of TPW regulatory authority over deer breeders — the Texas statute that says all wildlife belongs to the state. "... A person's legally obtained property may be seized at any time by the state, without due process of law and without any administrative or legal remedy," he argues. This, he claims, violates his constitutional rights.
TPW, in its response, says Anderton could only possess deer legally as long as he held a permit. When the rules changed, his was taken away. He was "legally bound to dispose of the deer and TPWD had legal justification to take the actions it did," the agency wrote in its response.
Anderton may not exactly be the upstanding test case the deer breeding industry was hoping for, but right now he's the best they've got.
"That's what the industry is waiting on," Madera Bonita Ranch's Browning says. "Someone to say, 'Those are my deer.'"
It took a while for two Bobcat tractors to dig a 10-foot-deep trench big enough for more than 70 deer. Texas Parks and Wildlife biologists had severed their heads, their antlers and their ears. They took samples from the spinal cords. Sharon Anderton picked up the corner of a black tarp and stared at the pile of heads. She knew these deer to a one, but shorn of ears and antlers, they were unidentifiable.
"It's one of those things you always remember," she says. "You're never going to forget that."
If a judge orders TPW to compensate Anderton for them, the decision may prove private ownership in a state where every whitetail, even those conceived artificially and born in a pen, belongs ultimately to Texas and its people. It would signal a fundamental shift in the concept of wildlife as an irrevocable public trust. That outlook dates to the backlash to market hunting and the near extinction of whole deer species for the sale of pelts and venison. Beginning with Teddy Roosevelt's presidency, a movement to set aside federal wildlife refuges took shape. The secretary of agriculture created hunting seasons and bag limits, effectively ending the mass harvesting of game species for personal gain. Deer populations rebounded.
Now wildlife conservationists can't help but wonder if this isn't somehow a creeping return to the bad old days. "We recognize that wildlife is a public trust, and it belongs to all people in the state, held in trust and managed on behalf of the people by private landowners," says Doug Slack, director of the Wildlife Society's Texas Chapter. "[Breeders] consider me old-fashioned, but they're promoting new legislation that's promoting ideas and concepts that came up in the 1800s."
But because game species like whitetail deer are no longer in danger of extinction, the industry wonders whether the prevailing public trust model is outdated.
"There's a lot of religious zeal and elitism in my profession that hangs tenaciously to that old belief that wildlife belongs to everybody, and that wildlife in commerce is an evil thing," says Dr. James Kroll, a deer breeder and director of Stephen F. Austin State University's Institute for White-tailed Deer Management and Research. "They're looking at the days of market hunting, but those were days when there was no regulation.
"Academicians and wildlife scientists still have this attitude that is good in many ways but needs to evolve with the times."
Yet these times are witnessing a disease that researchers scarcely understand and don't know how to control beyond quarantine and the preemptive slaughter of deer like Anderton's, placed belly to belly at the bottom of a mass grave. And it's an industry that survives only by moving deer like trading cards, swapping genetics from herd to herd, farm to ranch, in every corner of the state. What if the disease finds its way out of far West Texas and into a deer farm?
Says TPW's Mitch Lockwood: "You begin to see the spider-web effect that traps and tangles many deer breeders."
For now, at least, it hasn't. When the test results for Anderton's deer came back, his herd was given a clean bill of health.The United states has cut aid to Uganda and cancelled a military exercise in response to a law that imposes harsh penalties on homosexuality.
A White House statement on Thursday said the move was intended to "reinforce" support for human rights for Ugandans regardless of sexual orientation.
Uganda's new law, signed by President Yoweri Museveni in February, imposes jail terms of up to life for "aggravated homosexuality" which includes homosexual sex with a minor or while HIV-positive.
Widely condemned by donor countries, the law also criminalises lesbianism for the first time and makes it a crime to "help" individuals engage in homosexual acts, the Reuters news agency reported.
Western donors, including the US, had halted or re-directed about $118m in aid to the east African nation's economy before Thursday's announcement.
Projects targeted by the cuts include funding for a $2.4m Ugandan community policing program, which was stopped in light of a police raid on a US funded health program at Makerere University.
The White House will move funding for salaries of Ugandan health ministry employees to non-governmental organisations, and reallocate money earmarked for projects in Uganda to another African country, which it did not name.
In addition to financial sanctions, the US also said it would impose visa restrictions on Ugandans it believes have been involved in human rights violations, including gay rights.
Military cooperation
It also canceled plans for a US sponsored military exercise in Uganda that was meant to include other east African countries. A date had not yet been set for the exercise.
Uganda is a key US ally in the fight against the al-Shabab armed group in Somalia, where Ugandan troops form the backbone of an African Union force battling the rebels.
US special forces have also been involved in the hunt for Joseph Kony, a Ugandan rebel commander hiding out in neighbouring countries, who is seeking to topple the government.
In Kampala, a government official asked about the US measures said Uganda would not alter its decision to toughen laws against homosexuals.
"Uganda is a sovereign country and can never bow to anybody or be blackmailed by anybody," government spokesman Ofwono Opondo said.
Homosexuality is taboo in most African countries and illegal in 37, including in Uganda where it has been a crime since British rule.Order had returned to the previously crowded world of Wonderland. Queen had returned, and brought with him the previously established sense of proper management. Seats were well aligned, tables were the proper distance from each other, and people were able to move as freely as they needed to. A few waitresses skipped in between tables, caring trays of drinks throughout the club, unhindered by poor replacement level messes.
"My VAST apologies to those of you who saw our last show. I had some business to take care of, loose ends to tie up, and a... safety concern, but that's no excuse to have such a poor replacement." Queen sounded annoyed, clearly turned off by the fact that his call in was unsatisfactory. "However, in my travels to exotic far away lands, not everything was spent some admittedly well deserved R in fact, I met a lovely someone who I convinced to have a little break of their own. I'm always thinking of all of you. How nice of me." His familiar tone of sarcasm and a lack of seriousness was met with the dimming of the lights, plunging the room into darkness.
"My new friend came a ways to get her; all the way from the bayou in fact, so please treat her nicely. She deserves it. And she says you guys deserve a special on drinks. Halfway through– you'll know, trust me– starts Happy Hour."
Queen's acquisition smiled brightly, thinking of her chance meeting with the well spoken man in red. After a brief chat and a number of drinks, she had agreed to come all the way down to Vale and have a little fun with his work, and she could tell she'd be well received.
"Hey, waitress, you mind if I ask what you'd recommend? And also ask if you'd be willing to have a little chat about an opportunity that you may be interested in? I run a club, and I feel like someone like you would be very popular."
The woman had told him that he'd have to wait until she finished working in a few minutes, considering how late it was, but brought him a glass of strong brandy after a short back and forth on tastes. A few minutes later, she was on the other side of his table, a drink of her own in hand.
"You see, I'm on... Vacation right now... Complicated stuff, but you look like you're just the kind of person who would enjoy a vacation of her own, and let me tell you about Vale and a place called Wonderland."
The woman took a sip of her drink and looked at Queen with her shining face.
"That. It's what you're doing right there. That face is enough to warrant me asking you to accompany me on a business deal. That... Coyness you have. It's a really desirable trait, and no, that's not hyperbole. You mind if I ask your name?"
The woman decided to play more with being coy. She was intrigued with the offer, but felt like she could make the man sitting before her work. She danced around her name, not divulging that crucial bit of information.
"Playful to a LOVELY degree. I do like you." Queen took a swig of his drink and had a coy thought of his own as he raised his glass. He eyed it for a second before saying, "Well, Ms... Brandy. Yeah, that's it. Ms. Brandy, what do you say about another round of drinks? On me, of course; I've been told I have good taste."
The woman now referred to as Brandy laughed a cute laugh and clinked her glass to Queen's. She nodded.
"One last thing: what's it like being an innkeeper? Surely a skirt of that length is better suited to my line of work rather than yours, but I guess since you'll be joining me, it'll work out."
The curtain burst open with a glowing enthusiasm. A positively bouncing silhouette traipsed down the catwalk, near skipping under the green lights bathing it. Energy, joy, and pleasantry radiated from the figure, filling the room with a feeling of camaraderie and cheer usually reserved for times surrounded by drinks and friends. The room seemed to warm from the seedy establishment it was into a more friendly and loose atmosphere as the lights in the club raised just the slightest bit.
"Such a warm welcome~"
Brandy twirled her way down the catwalk, playfully skipping in time with the loose beat and feeling the air of the room lighten just through her presence. Queen was right; she did need this vacation. She deserved a treat. She deserved to be noticed. They deserved to see more of her.
The innkeeper reached the main stage as the lights strengthened once more. Her auburn hair danced down the side of her gentle face, wavy, luscious, and a well fitting color for her assumed named of Brandy. The other side was charmingly tucked behind her ear, set with a simple silver earring and opening up her large, bright green eyes to sparkle over her adorable freckles and beaming smile that could melt the iciest heart. Her ponytail caressed her neck before spilling onto her shoulder and encroaching over her speckled bust. She wore a white top with short, puffy sleeves contained by a small, black, and sleeved bodice that brought out the green lining of her outfit. Her freckled cleavage was full behind the olive hems, and sat just high enough to be considered appropriate to work in. Leftover from her job, she wore a homely apron, which, when revealed with a coy twirl, was tied behind her back with a beautifully made bow. She wore an olive skirt, and was it ever a skirt. It sat at the absolute perfect length to be just enough cover and just enough tease, and looked like the slightest breeze would show all of her joyous secrets as she bounced around the stage. The glimpses underneath the idyllic green garment revealed beautifully pale thighs that quickly dropped into pure white thigh highs and further into black slippers. The look of the cheery woman who handed men the keys to their rooms along with a hearty drink and a blown kiss was fully completed by her holding a rounded drink tray, covering her stomach as it lay flat across, as if she was ready to provide any and every service with a smile.
"Pleasure to be of service!" Brandy thought as she curtsied with a cute wink. The crowd ate her, her appearance, and her positivity up as she proudly stepped forward. Her skirt rustled in the worst best way, gently edging up her legs while showing nothing but the perfection of the area around the waistband of her thighhighs, her skin pillowing ever so slightly underneath the scruff of her socks. She released a hand from her tray and grabbed a pole before stretching out and near singing as she swung around it, looking like she was enjoying life to the fullest as she spun. "This was definitely worth the trip!"
Brandy spun off the pole, her skirt twirling with her, still not revealing anything out of what the crowd could only assume was spite. She shifted to another shaft and put her back to it, reaching her free hand as high up as it could go and gripping the pole. She lowered her body, smoothly snaking her way down as she spun, kicking up a leg in the process as the other folded inward. She stopped, her beaming grin facing the audience as she sat posing against the pole. She lowered her hand and intimately clutched her tray to her chest like a security blanket, her face becoming far gentler and loving as she stood up.
"Okay, I know I'm off work, but that REALLY bothers me..."
Brandy decided to run with her image and hopped down into the gutter between the stage and the wall separating it from the room. She smiled her coy smile as she sat on the divide, giggling as she arced her legs around it, flashing her panties to those lucky enough to be on the proper side as she made a perfect round. She bounced up with a glowing enthusiasm, holding out her tray with a defined balance. She held it out to a nearby table populated by a young blonde man and asked, "Sir?"
The blonde man looked a bit confused at the woman that was supposed to be on stage, but realized her intent and placed his empty drink on her tray. Brandy giggled, bounced a bit, and went about to the next table that needed tending. She made her way around the floor of the club, brightening the world with her smile as she retrieved empty bottles and glasses from all the patrons trying to see under her skirt. She didn't discourage them, flitting about and keeping her cover only because this was her everyday life and she dealt with this crowd near daily. Brandy loved looking back at the people with their eyes planted firmly on her rear only to see them realize it wouldn't happen.
"Not while I work!"
Brandy finished her round through Wonderland and deposited her tray onto the bar, where a grateful attendant thanked her for helping and sent her in her way. Happy now that the room was cleaner, the shining innkeeper flashed underneath her skirt once more as she arced over the divide of the barrier, showing more of the club that she and her impossibly clingy skirt didn't intend to tease them forever. With a hop, she returned to the main stage and caught herself in a spin around the nearest pole. Gleefully giggly, she spun off and found herself in perfect presentation for the club to see her.
"I think it's about time we get started!" Brandy thought as she turned around. Bending forward slightly, the table closest to her could just make out underneath her skirt as she pulled the bow adorning her back, taking her sweet time before plucking her apron off. With a back facing smirk, she dropped it to the floor and kicked her heel up, jubilantly posing as voices raised. She started prancing to a nearby pole, pulling at the strings on her bodice as her skirt continued to show only the slightest hints. With some fidgeting to account for the sleeves, Brandy removed her black top and spun around the pole, smoothly transitioning from her playful demeanor to a more seductive step. Her remaining white blouse rode up her soft stomach, showing off her waist as she spun. The freckles on her bust only ever became more apparent as she drew her fingers down her cleavage, beaming as bills flew towards her. She fell to her knees, spread out her legs and further prevented the audience from seeing her secrets as she lowered a hand over her skirt. The ire from the lacking view of her panties was quickly forgotten as she traced her other arm down her body, flowing her soft hands over her softer curves as she presented. She never stopped filling the room with her giggling voice, spreading the joy of camaraderie everywhere.
"I think it's about time. Happy Hour's now!"
Brandy slowly raised herself to a stand, putting a finger on her lips as her face grew more lascivious. She slowly threaded her arms through her puffy sleeves before starting to lift her top off at an ever slower pace. The music swelled as her hems reached her breasts, and a final forceful tug was rudely interrupted by the lights blowing out. The room sat in darkness as the music choked out.
"Drinks and my clothes are half off."
A single emerald spotlight hit the stage like a blow from a hammer, loosing the striking figure resting against the pole, lifting her body with one arm in order to maintain her pose. Brandy's legs were brought out to their prime length as she stretched them out, giving an immaculate path to follow up her legs and revealing that she had removed her skirt under the cover of shadows to reveal an even shorter one. This new olive garment covered her lower half by an inch from the front, and didn't by several inches from the back. Her panties were red as wine and conformed perfectly to her rear as she twirled to reveal the lacking length of her skirt. They matched her newly revealed bra: small, perfectly fit, covering just enough, and were the color of fine drink and the perfect shade to bring out the freckles adorning her pale body. Her features were immaculate in her state of undress and her thigh highs, and her beautiful smile only accentuated her status further.
"And NOW you can look while I work!"
Brandy gave a quick spin around the pole she was posing on before standing straight. With a very noticeable hip sway, the innkeeper swung her way down the stage and gracefully hopped off into the gutter. To the crowd's delight, her new, shorter skirt had no qualms revealing her panties as it flew up from her drop, nor when she twirled over the divide. With a skirt flipping spring in her step, Brandy made straight for the bar, casually turning her head back to smile and wink at every last person gazing at her as her panties flashed with ever step. She retrieved her tray and began making another round through the club.
With a smile, a wink, and a lovely close up of her bra, Brandy began collecting more empty bottles and glasses, this time significantly less covered than her first run through. She only ever laughed harder as she witnessed patrons hurriedly downing their drinks for an excuse to draw her towards them. It worked, and she took a tray full of dishes to the bar before going back for more, knowing her hastening of the emptying of drinks would definitely cause |
climate change
“I am not afraid to stand up to anyone. I’ll stand up to the president,” she said.
But Republican Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito, who is running against Tennant to replace retiring long-time Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller, argues that the best way to block the EPA rules is to help Republicans gain control of the Senate.
“Miners are losing their jobs, families are struggling to make ends meet and there is no relief in sight from the heavy hand of Obama’s EPA,” Capito said in a statement.Among those in his camp were men whose job it was to collect the blood from executions, put it in a black plastic bucket and keep it for when the insurgents returned from war so they could wash their hands in it. Mustapha did not know why they did this, just that the insurgents had been washing their hands with blood when he arrived, and so after returning from battle he, too, washed his hands with blood, sinking them deep in the bucket, lifting them out and rubbing his palms together.
Mustapha found he enjoyed his new life so much he did not even want to remember having been a fisherman. Each morning, he woke early and took his breakfast. Boys brought him water in which to bathe, and his bathroom was always stocked with soap and cream. The women working in his house asked what he wanted for dinner and washed his clothes. He found himself eating often with a young man in his early 20s named Mubarak. Mubarak gave Mustapha good advice and was thoughtful. Mustapha never told Mubarak something and heard it later from someone else. He reminded him of his friend Abba back in Baga. He had the same quiet laugh and the same walk, a slow drag of his legs as if they were too heavy to lift off the earth.
Mustapha now had a dozen outfits to chose from, including a camouflage vest reserved for emirs. By 7 a.m., he would go to his base and dispatch his people for patrol, then spend the day sitting with his men, listening to their chatter. Mustapha was young, so he adopted a strategy: He didn’t harass those under him needlessly. He never ordered people to go bring him things. He did everything himself. He rarely spoke. That way, when he did command his men, in his soft, low voice, they would know he was serious.
Mustapha knew it was important to remain light. He had noticed the great changes in himself. Back in Baga, if he saw a dead body being conveyed to the cemetery, that day was a problem for him. He would leave his room and spend the night among his half brothers out of fear. But since he got to Malam Fatori, Mustapha sometimes caught himself wondering: Am I the same person? Myself, who doesn’t want to see corpses, I can now just cross over them and go back to a sound sleep? There were drugs in camp, sold by people who brought them from outside villages. Mustapha got his free. He took a pill called Desert 200, which he had also taken back in Baga to help him forget anything that disturbed him. Now he moved about with it in his pocket all the time; he hardly did anything serious without taking it.
When Mustapha felt inclined, he could go into the special rooms at the emir’s palace or at his own base and pick a girl to friend. On entering, he would always spot the one he liked, no matter how many were there. When he called them, most girls would oblige. Some of the girls he pointed to would be shedding tears, but they did not make any effort to stop him. He was sure they knew what was about to happen. Perhaps they were only feigning reluctance modestly. They would make it look as if they didn’t want to, but when he took one home, she would cooperate. “Oh, I don’t like it,” some said, even when it was just the two of them. But as she was saying “Oh, I don’t like it,” she would be undressing.
When he first brought Bintu home, she was not free with him. She was very angry and so worried. “Look, better relax your mind,” Mustapha told her. “There’s nothing you can do. Relax your mind. It will be better for you.” Afterward, Mustapha did not order her to return to the rooms. A short time later, when he got malaria, Bintu was the one who cooked for him and took care of his feverish sweats. He did not send her away after he recovered. She slept in his bed, and Mustapha didn’t friend anyone else. Often when he looked at Bintu, he felt like laughing, and she would ask him, “Why are you looking at me and laughing?” And Mustapha would say, “O.K., if you don’t want me to, lower your face.” So Bintu would look down, and then she, too, would laugh. Sometimes Bintu would start: “When I look at you... ” and Mustapha would finish “I feel like laughing.” They would laugh together.
Whenever a woman at Mustapha’s base delivered a son, he reported the birth to the babban emir. The other emirs did the same. One month after the birth, a man from the palace would come to collect the baby, and everyone would know. In the palace courtyard, the baby would be put on a special table with a hole in the middle. Anybody could watch as they lay the baby flat, neck over the hole. The emir from the unit would be given a special knife — sharp, double-edged with a black handle. He would use it to slaughter the baby. The blood would drain through the hole and into a bucket. That was how the insurgents slaughtered their sons. Mustapha couldn’t ask questions. He slaughtered four babies this way. It was just something that needed doing.Do Doctors Support Or Oppose Health Overhaul? Who Knows?
Do physicians in the main support the Obama-congressional health-care overhaul or not? A straight-forward question without an equally straight-forward answer apparently.
For example, a market research company, HCD Research Inc., just this week asked a panel of 900 doctors their opinion. The question: "Which of the following best describes your overall opinion regarding the Obama Administration's current plan for health-care reform?"
HCD Research reports that 71 percent of the doctors had an unfavorable opinion while 29 percent reported they felt favorably.
Meanwhile here was another question: "If you had the opportunity to choose your career today, how would your knowledge of health care reform affect your choice to go into the medical field?"
Similar to the first response, 63 percent said they'd do something else while 32 percent said they'd be as likely to become docs.
An Investors Business Daily/TIPP poll from last September also found 65 percent of doctors opposing the overhaul. And 45 percent in the IBD/TIPP poll said they "would consider leaving their practice or taking an early retirement" if the overhaul became law.
All right, try squaring all that negativity with a survey done last year of 2,130 docs. Asked in a survey by two doctors at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine whether or not they supported the now-defunct public option, 63 percent of those docs said they did.
Given how much many docs complain about Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements, that's a fairly stunning result and doesn't seem to jibe at all; with the ant-overhaul sentiment of the other survey. Unless the doctors in the HCD and IBD polls opposed the overhaul because it didn't have a public option, which seems unlikely.
Based on all this, who really know what doctors think?"It's All in the Game" was a 1958 hit for Tommy Edwards. Carl Sigman composed the lyrics in 1951 to a wordless 1911 composition titled "Melody in A Major," written by Charles G. Dawes, later Vice President of the United States under Calvin Coolidge. It is the only No. 1 single in the U.S. to have been co-written by a U.S. Vice President[1] or a Nobel Peace Prize laureate (Dawes was both).
The song has become a pop standard, with cover versions by dozens of artists, some of which have been minor hit singles.
Edwards' song ranked at No. 47 on the 2018 list of The Hot 100's All-Time Top 600 Songs.[2]
Melody in A Major [ edit ]
Dawes, a Chicago bank president and amateur pianist and flautist, composed the tune in 1911[3] in a single sitting at his lakeshore home in Evanston. He played it for a friend, the violinist Francis MacMillen, who took Dawes's sheet music to a publisher. Dawes, known for his federal appointments and a United States Senate candidacy, was surprised to find a portrait of himself in a State Street shop window with copies of the tune for sale. Dawes quipped, "I know that I will be the target of my punster friends. They will say that if all the notes in my bank are as bad as my musical ones, they are not worth the paper they were written on."[citation needed]
The tune, often dubbed "Dawes's Melody," followed him into politics, and he grew to detest hearing it wherever he appeared.[4] It was a favorite of violinist Fritz Kreisler, who used it as his closing number, and in the 1940s it was picked up by musicians such as Tommy Dorsey.[5]
"It's All in the Game" [ edit ]
In summer 1951, the songwriter Carl Sigman had an idea for a song, and Dawes's "Melody" struck him as suitable for his sentimental lyrics. Dawes had died in April of that year. It was recorded that year by Dinah Shore, Sammy Kaye, Carmen Cavallaro, and Edwards.[5] The Edwards' version reached No. 18 on the Billboard Best Sellers In Stores survey.[6] The range of the melody would have been "difficult to sing", so required rearrangement.[7] A jazz/traditional pop arrangement was recorded by Louis Armstrong (vocals) and arranger Gordon Jenkins, with "some of Armstrong's most honey-tinged singing." Jenkins would in 1956 produce a version with Nat King Cole along the same lines.[8]
In 1958, Edwards had only one session left on his MGM contract. Stereophonic sound recording was becoming viable and it was decided to cut a stereo version of "Game" with a rock and roll arrangement. The single was a hit, reaching number one for six weeks beginning September 29, 1958, and would be the last song to hit number 1 on the R&B Best Seller list.[9] In November, the song hit No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart.[1] The single helped Edwards revive his career for another two years.[6]
Recordings [ edit ]
"It's All in the Game" has been recorded by many artists, notably Nat King Cole. Other notable versions include:
Personnel for Merle Haggard Version [ edit ]
Merle Haggard– vocals, guitar, fiddle
The Strangers:
Roy Nichols - lead guitar
Norm Hamlet – steel guitar
Tiny Moore – fiddle, mandolin
Mark Yeary – keyboards
Dennis Hromek - bass
Biff Adams - drums
Jim Belken – fiddle
Don Markham – horns
See also [ edit ]Fish oil is commonly taken by pregnant women, and supplements sold at retail are often oxidized. Using a rat model, we aimed to assess the effects of supplementation with oxidized fish oil during pregnancy in mothers and offspring, focusing on newborn viability and maternal insulin sensitivity. Female rats were allocated to a control or high-fat diet and then mated. These rats were subsequently randomized to receive a daily gavage treatment of 1 ml of unoxidized fish oil, a highly oxidized fish oil, or control (water) throughout pregnancy. At birth, the gavage treatment was stopped, but the same maternal diets were fed ad libitum throughout lactation. Supplementation with oxidized fish oil during pregnancy had a marked adverse effect on newborn survival at day 2, leading to much greater odds of mortality than in the control (odds ratio 8.26) and unoxidized fish oil (odds ratio 13.70) groups. In addition, maternal intake of oxidized fish oil during pregnancy led to increased insulin resistance at the time of weaning (3 wks after exposure) compared with control dams (HOMA-IR 2.64 vs. 1.42; P = 0.044). These data show that the consumption of oxidized fish oil is harmful in rat pregnancy, with deleterious effects in both mothers and offspring.
Copyright © 2016 the American Physiological Society.Ian Macfarlane, the industry minister, has hit out at the “precious petals in the science industry” who criticise the government over Australia’s lack of a science minister.
Macfarlane, who oversees a large portfolio that includes energy, skills and science, said he is irked by criticism of Tony Abbott’s decision to not appoint a dedicated science minister.
“I’m just not going to accept that crap,” he said. “It really does annoy me, because there is no one, no one, more passionate about science than I am. I am the grandson and son of a scientist, and I give science more than their share of my time, and just because I’m not the minister for energy, do I hear the whinge from [the energy sector]? No.
“But I hear it constantly from some of the precious petals, can I say, some of the precious petals in the science fraternity, and if you can’t guess, I won’t accept it.”
Australia had a dedicated science portfolio in cabinet since the 1930s until Abbott’s decision to fold the role into Macfarlane’s purview.
Last year, Abbott told a gathering of scientists that the government should be judged “by our actions, not by our titles”. In the budget, the funding of the CSIRO, the government’s science agency, was cut by $111m over the next four years.
Macfarlane, speaking at a Committee for Economic Development of Australia event in Sydney, also stressed the government’s support for renewable energy.
The sector is currently in a state of limbo following a review of the renewable energy target led by businessman Dick Warburton. The review found that the RET, which stipulates that 41,000 gigawatt hours of Australia’s energy must come from renewable sources by 2020, was successfully driving jobs and investment but should either be closed to new entrants or suspended until energy demand rises.
The Coalition promised not change to the RET prior to the last election. Labor and the Greens oppose any change to the target, while the clean energy sector has warned that $15bn in new investment and around 20,000 jobs will be put at risk if the scheme is wound back or closed.
Macfarlane did not say what the government’s official response to the review would be, but said he was “alarmed” that Labor would not negotiate over the RET.
“If Bill Shorten and Mark Butler don’t reach a bipartisan position with us on the RET, it’s the renewable energy industry that will suffer the consequences, not the Coalition,” he said. “It won’t be us who suffer, but it will destroy the renewable energy sector.”
“So I’ll wait to hear from Labor. But neither option from Dick’s report is closing down the RET, to be clear.”
Macfarlane said that while Australia has around 9,000MW of excess energy capacity, challenges remain if the country is to become an “energy superpower”. He said gas production in NSW needs to be stepped up, otherwise the state will become “very, very short” of gas within the next five years.
On Wednesday, Bernie Fraser, head of the Climate Change Authority, an agency the government is attempting to abolish, said the old, carbon-intensive coal generators could be paid to shut down, reducing Australia’s excess capacity while bringing down emissions.
Fraser said this could be done by using funds from the Coalition’s proposed $2.55 billion Emissions Reduction Fund, which will, if legislated, provide voluntary grants to businesses that wish to reduce emissions.
However, a spokesman for Greg Hunt, the federal environment minister, told Guardian Australia that the government’s focus is on “cleaning up, not shutting down power stations.”
• This article was amended on 11 September 2014 to include a more complete version of what Ian Macfarlane said.439 SHARES Share Tweet Post
The doors had barely closed at Moe’s Southwest Grill when a new restaurant signed up for its space.
Jitendra Poudel owned both Kathmandu Bistro and Everest Cuisine Restaurant in Rapid City but sold them to open an Indian restaurant in Sioux Falls.
“He wants to move as quick as possible,” said Scott Blount, a commercial broker with Lloyd Cos. “He’s in the process of moving his family to Sioux Falls and sold both Rapid City restaurants. He likes the area and thinks it will be a good place for his family and his restaurant.”
Poudel will need to do some remodeling to the former Moe’s space at 41st Street and Western Avenue. The franchise restaurant closed last month. The plan is to open in December, Blount said.
The restaurant doesn’t have a name yet. The concept calls for a lunch buffet and sit-down dinner.
It will be the second Indian restaurant in Sioux Falls, joining Shahi Palace.Description [ edit ]
The Overlord is the Zerg's supply unit and is the equivalent of the Terran's Supply Depot and the Protoss Pylon. The Overlord provides the Zerg player with 8 supply. More must be built to create additional units.
SC2's Overlords are not Detectors (their Brood War counterparts had the ability). Instead, the Zerg morph Overlords to Overseers for mobile detection. Overseers require a Lair.
Overlords may be placed behind the opponent's natural expansion, offering map vision and information about when they have started their expansion.
Many Zerg players spread out their Overlords early on, so when they have reached Lair tech they can start using the Generate Creep ability and thus expand the Creep.
Good Zerg players also know when to use Overlords for setting up a chain of vision. When the threat of air attack is low it is advisable to place Overlords across a section of or the whole of a map in a line or Curve as an early warning system. It is also advisable to place Overlords around the map in general or to allow them to patrol, spotting early enemy raiders, aerial drops or pushes. Use high ground to hide the Overlords from ground units. It is vital that a player researches Pneumatized Carapace for Overlords in order to facilitate a quick escape.
In Legacy of the Void, the Overlord can still morph into an Overseer, but it can also morph into an Overlord with Ventral Sacs, which now is an ability for a single unit, not all Overlords. Ventral Sacs change the Overlord's appearance, denoting to the enemy that they may carry units. This can be used tactically, e.g. feigning an imminent drop using empty Overlords. Ventral Sacs require a Lair. Overlords with Ventral Sacs can still morph to Overseers, but they lose their ability to load units, and the upgrade can only performed while the Overlord is empty.
Abilities [ edit ]
Generate Creep Duration: 11 s 11 s Hotkey: G When selected, the Overlord will create Zerg creep beneath it, spreading out to a 2x2 area.
Generate Creep is a useful ability for the Overlord and can allow them to quickly reinforce their units to key parts of the map. Overlords are often used to generate creep by expansions to prevent Terran or Protoss players from expanding.
Upgrades [ edit ]
Pneumatized Carapace 100 100 43 Hotkey: P Researched from: Hatchery Increases the movement speed of Overlords to 2.63 and Overseers to 4.72.
Competitive Usage [ edit ]
Overlords can be sent to scout the opponent's base, but once the Cybernetics Core is built, the Overlords should be moved to a safe location to prevent it from getting sniped by a Stalker or Sentry. Players should also watch for a Stargate. Void Rays and Phoenixes are very effective against Overlords.
When sending your Overlord to a Terran opponent's base, you have to be very careful to not let it get sniped by Marines. On most maps, the Terran player will already have Marines, so it may be suggested to scout with a faster Drone at 13 supply instead.
Since Terran players can scan your base to scout your tech, the Overlord's Generate Creep ability can be used in a discreet location in your base so that an important building like a Spire can be built underneath it, keeping the building hidden from the enemy scan. Just be careful, as the building underneath it will start to die from lack of creep if the Overlord moves away or is killed.
Overlords should be sent to the bases of the opposing Zerg player, but once the Spawning Pool completes, the Overlords should be moved to a safe location since the Queen can attack air units. Conventional ZvZ play does not use units that attack air, so Overlords can generally be spread throughout the map without fear of losing them, granting enormous map vision. However, if the enemy makes Hydralisks or Mutalisks, this can be a liability if all the Overlords are easily killed.
Other [ edit ]
When acting as a shuttle, the Overlord - like all transporter units - can unload 1 unit per second, independent of size.
Cannot mutate into an Overseer while transporting units.
Gallery [ edit ]
Quotes [ edit ]
Patch Changes [ edit ]
Patch 4.0.0 [1] Movement speed increased from 0.82 to.902. Afterwards, Evolved Pneumatized Carapace will increase the Overlord’s movement to the same value of 2.63.
Patch 4.0.2 Balance Update [2] Overlord will respond more quickly to morph commands.
Patch 4.2.1 Balance Update [3] The Overlord’s Mutate Ventral Sacs upgrade now requires a Lair instead of an Evolution Chamber.
Patch 4.7.1 [4] Time between Generate Creep growth periods increased from 0.36 to 0.45.Introduction
Columnist Wendell Potter Robin Holland
Health insurance executives and lobbyists have for years told us that one of the main reasons they charge us so much for coverage is the cost shifting that results from Uncle Sam’s stinginess.
The story goes like this: hospitals are paid so inadequately by government programs like Medicare and Medicaid that they have to charge private insurers more to keep their doors open.
One of the regular communicators of this theory is Karen Ignagni, CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans, the industry’s biggest PR and lobbying group.
Ignagni pushed this line incessantly during the health care reform debate. She even cited it in response to a question about why the industry was so opposed to the creation of a government-run “public option” health plan.
“What we have is a significant amount of cost shifting because the government underpays,” she said. “Our [premium] rates are higher as a result of that. If you set up a public structure, whatever you call it, and it has the benefit of government rates, we are still being disadvantaged because of the cost shifting.”
A few months later, on March 23, 2010, to be precise, the day President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act, Cigna CEO David Cordani, predicted that cost shifting was only going to get worse because of the new law. He was quoted as saying that the “cost shift from Medicaid to private insurance would worsen as millions of eligible people are added to the Medicaid rolls.”
Three years later, Ignagni was still blaming cost shifting for higher premiums. In a 2013 speech she stated that, “In the past, when governments reduced reimbursement rates for Medicaid and Medicare, private insurers have generally paid more to make up for it.”
Health care executives have talked about cost shifting for so long it has become conventional wisdom. We’ve all come to believe it without challenging it.
But what if it hasn’t really been happening, at least not in recent years?
Health economist Austin Frakt presented compelling evidence in a New York Times op-ed last week that just because the government often pays a lower rate than many hospital executives would like, that doesn’t mean they can simply force private insurance companies to pay more. In fact, as he pointed out, reduced government reimbursement rates often result in lower—not higher—private insurance reimbursement rates.
Frakt cited a study published in the May 2013 edition of Health Affairs that found that a 10 percent reduction in Medicare payments was associated with an almost 8 percent reduction in private prices. In other words, not only did hospitals not charge private insurance companies more between 1995 and 2009 because of lower payments from the government, they actually charged them less.
It seems that about the only time hospitals can get away with shifting more costs to private insurers is when there are not many other hospitals in the same geographical area competing with them.
That was the conclusion of the authors of a 2010 Health Affairs article. They wrote that hospitals that face little competition are less efficient and have higher costs. Because of the lack of competition, private insurers have less leverage and usually are forced to cover those higher costs.
The dynamic is completely different, though, in markets with significant competition. Although hospitals in a competitive market might want to charge private insurers more, they can’t. Insurers are in a better position to say thanks but no thanks when a hospital with one or more competitors tries to gouge them.
“Put it together and it is hospitals’ underlying costs, driven by competition—not cost shifting,” that determine how much hospitals are able to charge private insurers, Frakt wrote.
So if health insurers’ talking point about having no choice but to hike premiums because of low government payments is based more on myth than reality, why do premiums continue to grow, even as hospitals in many markets actually charge them less—not more—when Medicare and Medicaid rates decline?
My hunch is that they’re able to get away with it because nobody has called their bluff. Masters of spin that they are, insurance executives and lobbyists have led us all to believe that cost shifting is the inevitable result of government bureaucrats being too tightfisted. They can get away with it because so many Americans are willing to accept as truth just about any talking point that reinforces their deep-seated belief that the government is to blame for everything that ails us.
So it’s little wonder that we’re willing to buy the insurance industry’s suggestion that our premiums would be lower if it weren’t for cost shifting.
As long as we keep buying it, insurance company bureaucrats will keep jacking up our rates by more than they could otherwise get away with. And they’ll keep grinning all the way to the bank as they do it.
Wendell Potter is the author of Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans and Obamacare: What’s in It for Me? What Everyone Needs to Know About the Affordable Care Act.Britain is planning to send 1,000 ground troops into Isis-ridden Libya, an influential House of Commons committee said tonight.
The new Libyan unity government told MPs on the Foreign Affairs Committee during a visit to the war-torn country at the weekend that one of its first acts will be to accept the UK Government's offer to send in troops to help a 6,000-strong international force to shore up the new administration.
Isis has established a foothold on the Mediterranean coast, setting up its north African headquarters in the Libyan coastal town of Sirte, which sits just 200 miles from Europe.
UK and US officials are trying to persuade the Libyan government to accept 1,000 British troops to help in the fight against ISIS, which has seized control of strategic points along the Mediterranean coast
ISIS has set up a North African headquarters in the Libyan coastal city Sirte, Muammar Gaddaffi's hometown, which became ravaged by fighting between rival militias, pictured above, in 2011
British government officials travelled to Libya earlier this year to discuss the possibility of accepting UK troops to help train Libyan soldiers in its fight against Islamic militants.
Crispin Blunt, chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said they had been told that Defence Secretary Michael Fallon will confirm the deployment at a European conference this week.
He has written to Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond demanding he makes a statement to MPs this week to explain the decision and to set out how the deployment 'is consistent with our policy objectives'.
The troops are expected to join an Italian-led force of around 6,000 ground forces to train Libyan soldiers in their fight against Islamic terrorists.
The Government of National Accord (GNA), backed by the UN, moved to take power of the crisis-hit country at the weekend.
The expansion of ISIS along the Mediterranean coast has raised fears that ISIS terrorists could pose as refugees boarding boats into Europe
Mr Blunt wrote: 'We heard that the GNA's likely first formal action will be to request that the UK and its allies conduct airstrikes against Isil targets in Libya.
'In the course of our meetings and discussions in North Africa, we also heard that the UK plans to contribute 1,000 ground troops to a 6,000-strong international force which will be deployed to Libya in the near future.'
He added: 'The pre-emptive deployment of UK military forces is now a matter for the House of Commons. I therefore request that you make a statement to the House on the state of the plan for any deployment of UK military forces in Libya before the Defence Secretary agrees the UK component of any international force and explain how this deployment is consistent with our policy objectives.'
One of the members of the military protecting a demonstration against candidates for a national unity government proposed by U.N. envoy for Libya Bernardino Leon, is pictured in Benghazi
Isis has seized control of strategically important points along the Libyan coast over the last year.
It took control of Sirte, the Libyan coastal city where Muammar Gaddaffi was born, last year and is now the location of its north African headquarters.
Sharia courts now rule the city and the terror network carry out public beheadings and floggings in the city.
The group's expansion along the Mediterranean coast has raised fears that ISIS terrorists could pose as refugees boarding boats into Europe.
The overthrow of Gaddaffi in 2011 triggered rival militias fighting to take control of the country and created a vacuum for terrorist groups such as ISIS to operate.
Last week US President Barack Obama launched a remarkable attack on David Cameron for leaving Libya a's*** show' after intervening to oust Colonel Gadaffi in 2011.
He used a damning interview with The Atlantic magazine yesterday to claim Mr Cameron had been 'distracted by other things' when he should have been stablising Libya in 2011.
Mr Obama said he wanted Britain and France to take the lead in Libya to break their habit of 'pushing us to act but then showing an unwillingness to put any skin in the game'.
In the interview yesterday Mr Obama said he wanted Mr Cameron and the then French President Nicolas Sarkozy to take charge of the campaign to oust Libyan dictator Colonel Gadaffi in the spring of 2011 instead of relying on the US acting 'unilaterally'.
Mr Obama believed the UK and France were too happy to rely on the US to deal with conflicts on Europe's doorstep but was keen for them to take the lead in the fight against Gadaffi.
David Cameron visited the Libyan capital Tripoli, pictured right, following the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, pictured left. He was criticised by Barack Obama for his policy on Libya last week
Last week US President Barack Obama launched a remarkable attack on David Cameron for leaving Libya a's*** show' after intervening to oust Colonel Gadaffi in 2011
He even went as far as describing the likes of Britain and France as 'free riders,' adding later that he had told Mr Cameron that 'free riders aggravate me' when he had told the PM: 'You have to pay your fair share'.
There are widespread fears that ISIS, which has seized a long stretch of coastline around the city of Sirte, wants to move its headquarters from Syria to north Africa and threaten the Mediterranean.
Over past weeks, ISIS have stepped up attacks against the country's oil infrastructure and made the most deadly single raid since the 2011 overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi.
Reports that British troops would be deployed to Libya as part of an international peacekeeping mission surfaced in August last year.
At the time, it was reported that American, French, Spanish and German officials would join Britain in an international mission to stabilise the country once the rival warring faction agree on forming a unity government.When the NBA season ends for George Hill, he usually heads down to Texas for the summer.
It’s an outlet for him. It’s comfortable to go back down where he played his first three NBA seasons with the Spurs. It’s warm, by the water, and away from the image of “Hometown Hero.” Down in Texas, he worked out with good friends, enjoyed spending time fishing in the Gulf of Mexico, and held events to give back to the community.
When Hill was traded to the Pacers in June 2011, Spurs fans were equally upset that he was going to another team as they were excited that he would play a larger role. But his time spent learning under sure-thing Hall of Famers Gregg Popovich, Tony Parker, Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili certainly aided to his growth process.
Hill, however, didn’t call Texas home this offseason.
After a disappointing 2013-14 season for Hill, perhaps his toughest as a pro, he trimmed his list of activities, stayed in Indiana, and locked in on what he needed to do.
“It’s been hell,” Hill said candidly this month during a 15-minute conversation as kids at his basketball camp paused for lunch. “I’ve been kicked out of the gym a couple of times because I’ve been in there too much. Just staying in the gym, getting my body right to put on a little pounds, just getting my shot back right, working on ball handling, pick-and-rolls and things like that. Just trying to become a better player.”
Much of what he has worked on is movement shooting — off the bounce, finishing at the rims, and floaters. It’s mostly work to fine-tune and be more consistent rather than adding new elements.
“He’s doing it all,” said coach Frank Vogel. “He’s doing stuff in the morning with Yoga and some other stuff like that, and then he’s shooting for an hour and a half, and then he’s lifting. It’s a very, very extensive offseason routine, one that stacks up against any I’ve seen since I’ve been a coach. And usually when that happens, the guy comes out and has a great year.”
Too much last season, where his points per game average dropped nearly four points (14.2 to 10.3 per game), Hill was reserved to standing in the corner and being ready to shoot if the ball came his way. That ate at him, especially with negative comments were fired his way. With Lance Stephenson and Paul George, two dominant ball-handling players, those two were called upon to create leaving Hill off to the side. Hill quietly and without backlash did what was asked of him, even if it didn’t stretch his potential.
Vogel believes Hill was “unfairly criticized” for his play last season. It was unfair to an extent, but even Hill recognizes that he needs to be more consistent, and consistently be aggressive.
With his close friend and carpool mate, Paul George, suffering a broken leg, and Lance Stephenson signing with Charlotte, more will be asked and needed from Hill this upcoming season.
“I think he wants to be a strong point for this team,” Vogel said. “… I just think he wants to bring everything he possibly can to the table.”
Hill has sat down for hours with longtime assistant coach Dan Burke to study tape of opposing guards. They would break it down, see why the guards were successful and tools to defend them. (The team is finishing the installation of a new video software system, which should improve the picture quality, ease, and functionality. They are also switching to Apple Computers. That has Vogel excited.)
While others are playing in Pro Ams and getting in any games they can, Hill opts to do individual work. He is consistently at the Fieldhouse, as his Roy Hibbert, Chris Copeland, and rookie Shayne Whittington.
“Me and Roy have been working out together a little bit, just working on our chemistry,” Hill said.
Hill and Hibbert are planning to make it down to San Antonio for a couple days to workout in that environment and with whomever is down there, hopefully with their mentors, Parker and Duncan, respectively. Last summer, a group of them that also included Ian Mahinmi, a former Spur, trained for a few days in San Antonio.
One of Hill’s biggest takeaways from his time on Duncan’s team was his work ethic. Duncan was the first guy in, last one out everyday and worked harder than anyone. And he had a firm grasp of the basic fundamentals. Hill is now exhibiting some of those traits.
“The best summer that I’ve ever seen him had, in terms of work ethic,” Vogel said of Hill with a big grin. “He’s over the top right now with the hours that he’s putting in, the commitment, the movement shooting that he’s doing.
“He’s working as hard as I’ve ever seen him work, and that started the day after the season ended.”
George took a few vacations, and made his annual appearance in China with PEAK. But Indy is where he’s spent the majority of the summer.
“I just wanted a consistent gym to get into with consistent guys that can train me, and can rebound (for me),” Hill explained. “Knowing when I go to Texas – South Padre Island and San Antonio — sometimes you don’t have a rebounder or the gyms to get into. Just staying down here this whole summer so I know that I have the Pacers’ weight lifting coach, I have the Pacers’ interns to rebound, I have the coaches here knowing my game the whole year and knowing what I need to work on.”
Hill said his weight is fluctuating between 190 and 195 pounds. He hopes to weigh in at about 200 pounds and maintain it during the season. The Pacers are going to need Hill to help them keep moving forward and compete in hopes of making their |
then have at least two or three codes.
Special codes were also used to denote the town centre. "STC" is Sengkang Town Centre and "PTC" is Punggol Town Centre.
Station Code Service Examples BP Bukit Panjang LRT BP1-BP14 CC Circle Line CC1-CC32 CE Circle Line Extension CE1-CE2 CG Changi Airport Line CG1-CG2 DT Downtown Line DT1-DT37 EW East West Line EW1-EW33 NE North East Line NE1-NE17 NS North South Line NS1-NS28 PE Punggol LRT East Loop PE1-PE7 PW Punggol LRT West Loop PW1-PW7 SE Sengkang LRT East Loop SE1-SE5 SW Sengkang LRT West Loop SW1-SW8 TE Thomson-East Coast Line TE1-TE31 JS Jurong Region Line (South) JS1-JS12 JE Jurong Region Line (East) JE1-JE7 JW Jurong Region Line (West) JW1-JW5
For example:
Expo CG1 for the East West Line section and DT35 for the Downtown Line section.
for the East West Line section and for the Downtown Line section. Dhoby Ghaut NS24 for the North South Line section, NE6 for the North East Line section and CC1 for the Circle Line section.
History of station and train announcements [ edit ]
SMRT Trains [ edit ]
The public announcement system in all SMRT operated lines was introduced in 1994, beginning with the announcement of station names when a train arrives at the station. The door closing announcement was later added in 1997 and the next station announcement in 1999. Over time, however, some sections of the announcements were modified, and finally, the entire announcement system was changed in January 2008 in preparation for the installation of STARIS on all trains later that year. The new announcement system features a new voice, and a new chime before each announcement.
The original announcements were made by the late Juanita Melson and contained information on how to purchase single journey tickets as well as how to obtain the deposit back, for the benefit of the tourists.[citation needed] This was eventually removed when the announcement system was upgraded with the current announcer, Chan Hui Yuh. Only the Juanita Melson announcements are now being operated on the Bukit Panjang LRT when used on the BPLRT trains.
All announcements on the NSEWL were changed again in October 2012 but was met by strong criticism by the public after Chinese announcements were included.[opinion] This was eventually removed on all trains by December 2012.
SBS Transit [ edit ]
The North East Line and the Downtown Line, which are both operated by SBS Transit, features different announcements from SMRT operated lines. It features different chimes and a different announcer, as well as next station messages in Chinese, and in some cases, Malay and Tamil.
History of the ticketing system [ edit ]
1987 to 2002 [ edit ]
When the MRT opened in 1987, fares ranged from S$0.50 to S$1.10 in S$0.10 increments for all adult tickets, regardless of whether they were single-trip or stored-value tickets.[19] Several discounted fares were available: senior citizens and permanent residents above the age of 60 could travel on a flat fare of S$0.50 during off-peak hours; children below the height of 1.2 metres and full-time students in primary, secondary, pre-university and vocational training (VITB) institutions paid a flat fare of S$0.30 at all times.[20]
Magnetic strip plastic tickets were used, in various forms. Stored-value tickets were called farecards and came in three types: the blue farecard was issued to adults, the magenta farecard to senior citizens, and the red farecard to children.[20] Single-trip forms of these tickets were retained at the faregates on exiting the paid area of a destination station.[21] Monthly discounted tickets were available in four values: beige, pink, and purple tickets for primary and tertiary students, and full-time national servicemen came with a value of S$13, S$30 and S$36, respectively;[22] the peach ticket was for secondary, pre-university and VITB students, costing S$17 each. These discounted tickets were valid for a month from the date of purchase, allowed up to four trips a day, and were non-transferable.[22]
Their farecards cannot be used from 1 December 2002 and support has been terminated since June 2003 with the removal of metal holes and convert validators to printing tickets (by cash). It is currently no longer workable.
2002 to 2009 [ edit ]
The EZ-Link card is a contactless smart card, initially based on Sony's FeliCa smartcard technology.[23] The cards are mainly used for the payment of transportation fares, but may also be used for payment at selected retail outlets. Established in 2002, the technology was promoted as the means for speedier and more convenient transactions[24] and as well as being an efficient method of reducing fare evasion, although there have been some cases of overcharging users.[25] As a benchmark, fares range from S$0.70 to S$3.20 for adults, S$0.70 to S$1.35 for senior citizens, and S$0.40 to S$0.50 for student EZ-Link cards. Patrons using an EZ-Link card receive a discount for their journey, including a discount if they use a connecting bus after their MRT ride.[26]
The General Ticketing Machines (GTMs) at each station which replaced the older ticketing machines, allow commuters to purchase additional credit to add to their EZ-Link cards or to purchase tickets for single trips. Fares for these single trip tickets are higher than those for EZ-Link cards. In addition, a S$1.00 refundable ticket deposit is charged for each Standard Ticket. This refund can be collected from any General Ticketing Machine so as long as the card is returned to the machine within 30 days of purchase. The card can also be deposited into a charity collection box, with the S$1 deposit going to charity. The rationale behind such a refundable deposit feature was that the smartcard technology contained within each Standard Ticket makes each one costly enough to necessitate the recycling of Standard Tickets. Since November 2007, external readers were installed on GTMs at stations operated by SMRT Corporation to address problems of card jamming in insert slots. The slots, however, remain in use for the purpose of refunding Standard Ticket deposits.[28]
Concession fares are available for children, students, senior citizens and national servicemen. Students are given free personalised cards, complete with their photos, names and national identification numbers. Regardless of its type, each card is assigned a unique card ID that can be used to recover the card if lost. Transport operators have organised lotteries that are based on these card IDs. The Singapore Tourist Pass offers unlimited travel for tourists on Singapore's public transport system. For S$8 a day, tourists can take any number of rides on buses and trains operated by SBS Transit, SMRT Buses and SMRT Trains.[29]
The old EZ-Link card can be used up to September 2009 where the old EZ-Link card usage became limited support. It remains on some MRT stations.
Main articles: CEPAS
On 26 August 2008, Land Transport Authority announced a two-month trial of the new generation Contactless ePurse Application (CEPAS) card that was developed in-house.[30] It is intended to standardise the technology of cashless payment, allowing for use on public transport, Electronic Road Pricing (ERP), everyday shopping and meals. The card has replaced this generation of EZ-Link cards in 2009 and aims to encourage competition by allowing up to four CEPAS card issuers.[31] Mass replacement of the old Sony FeliCa cards to the new CEPAS cards went on at TransitLink Ticket offices and Singapore Post outlets till 7 October 2009.
History of Passenger Information Systems [ edit ]
The plasma displays which is easier for elderly and wheelchair passengers. The displays announced a train's terminating station when it arrives (or otherwise, a "Do Not Board" warning), although the disadvantage was that it could not tell the duration of a train's arrival time (e.g. the train will arrive at Jurong East Station in 2 mins). The second generation of such displays installed at stations along the Woodlands Extension featured a slightly updated version where the time till the next train arrival would be displayed from 3 minutes prior to the train's arrival.
List of Incidents [ edit ]
Clementi rail accident [ edit ]
Nicoll Highway collapse [ edit ]
The Nicoll Highway collapse was a construction accident that occurred at approximately 3.30 pm on 20 April 2004 in Singapore when a tunnel being constructed for use by Mass Rapid Transit trains collapsed. The tunnel was part of the construction of the underground Circle Line, near the Nicoll Highway. The supporting structure for the deep excavation work failed, resulting in a 30-metre (100 ft) deep cave-in that spread across six lanes of Nicoll Highway. The collapse killed four people and injured three. The accident has delayed the construction end date for the MRT station.
2016 staff fatalities [ edit ]
2017 Joo Koon rail accident [ edit ]“No nation can achieve true greatness if it lacks the courage and determination to undertake the surgery necessary to remove the cancer of poverty from its body politic.” That’s a useful quote to keep in mind as the Wynne government pushes aside the naysayers, at least for the moment, and undertakes a three-city social policy experiment to test the efficacy of basic income. Hamilton, Lindsay and Thunder Bay are the chosen Petri dishes for the three-year Ontario Basic Income Pilot (OBIP) project, which means that this big test — will basic income not only provide better support for those on the bottom rung but also help push them up the ladder — may outlive the current government.
By choosing Lindsay, Hamilton and Thunder Bay for its basic annual income pilot, the Wynne government has chosen representative sites that mirror the province as a whole: north, central, large, small. ( Dave Chidley / THE CANADIAN PRESS )
Or not. The federal-provincial Manitoba Basic Annual Income Experiment of the 1970s, or Mincome, didn’t survive the political changing of the guard from Ed Schreyer’s NDP government to Sterling Lyon’s Conservatives. The fuller story: interest in the project, located in Dauphin and Winnipeg, was waning at the federal level. The project had already pushed beyond its initial time mandate when the plug was pulled, leaving behind a confusion of data and first person accounts. There were even complaints about researchers trying to get to interviews with Dauphinites in the middle of a Manitoba winter. Images of cost escalation aren’t difficult to conjure. Throughout there was deep skepticism here in Ontario, which had been offered federal funding to conduct a similar experiment, but took a pass, taking the position that guaranteed income and negative income tax experiments had been conducted in the United States dating back to 1968, albeit with inconsistent results.
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So the first takeaway is that regardless of what happens in the next provincial election, all parties need to pledge allegiance to OBIP’s full three years. History tells us that the rigorous research and evaluation experts promised by the Wynne government had better be the best in their field for this will be key to a robust scientific outcome. The third-party research consortium that will evaluate the study has yet to be announced. The remnant data from Mincome has been much discussed, including here in an interview with Evelyn Forget, a University of Manitoba health economist. Forget’s first focus was on health outcomes, with the significant finding that health care utilization was reduced and mental health complaints dropped significantly. When I spoke to Forget last spring she emphasized that one of the really big findings was the increase in high school completion for the children of Mincome-receiving parents. “Particularly boys,” Forget said. “Before Mincome they had been under a fair amount of family pressure to go out and become self supporting. When Mincome came along I guess their families decided they could support them in school a little longer.” That’s a huge win that can’t be overstated, and the kind of result that plays into both federal and provincial promises to help advance “inclusive growth.” Wisely, the Wynne government is not taking the Dauphin saturation site approach in which all residents were invited to participate — “a very weird way of doing an experiment,” Forget said, though the family files proved a goldmine for her own research — but rather will build its data base on 4,000 randomly selected participants between the ages of 18 and 64. Residents will be invited to apply.
A key point too is that by choosing Lindsay, Hamilton and Thunder Bay, the government has chosen representative sites that mirror the province as a whole: north, central, large, small. When I spoke with Forget she made the point that so much data — health, justice, education — is now routinely collected, it’s a completely different world than it was in 1974. There are two elephants in the room.
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The first is the fear that such a plan will serve as a disincentive to work — will there be negative labour market effects? And if so, where will they pop up? The second, from the other end of the political spectrum, is that social programs will be compromised. The government’s announcement states that participants receiving support through Ontario Works will continue to receive the Ontario Drug Benefit. The government hopes the first perceived barrier will be overcome by a 50-cents-on-the-dollar incentive: for every dollar earned, the basic income amount will be reduced by 50 cents. It’s long past time that we figured out the labour market impacts of such a strategy. Oh, and that opening quote? Those are the words of Senator David Croll, who led the senate committee’s report on poverty in Canada. In 1968. The key recommendation of the report? A guaranteed annual income. Senator Croll’s words ring a familiar bell. Here’s what the Wynne government said in its release Monday: “Our approach to basic income is a simplified way to deliver income support that provides a floor under which nobody can fall.” Here’s Senator Croll addressing the Empire Club in 1972: “What does the guaranteed annual income do? In essence, it simply means providing a floor below which the income of Canadians will not be allowed to fall.” A near half century has passed. It’s now up to the Wynne government to hold the experiment to a gold standard, and resolve the decades old guaranteed income conundrum once and for all. jenwells@thestar.caEverybody knows about putting a wet iPhone in a bowl of rice to get the moisture out or tapping the top of a soda can to keep it from exploding when you open it. But those life hacks have got nothing on the one Glendale resident Alison Beckner has come up with to get through her day. You see, each and every day, Alison says she’s going to do things but then doesn’t do them. Life = hacked!
It’s so simple! Alison saves herself so much time by just agreeing to give a friend a ride somewhere and totally flaking out, or RSVPing to an event and never showing up. Any time something is asked of her, big or small, she commits 100 percent, either verbally or in writing, and then completely blows it off. Pretty neat, huh?
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“Whenever people are organizing a meeting or a dinner, I’ll just tell them I’ll be there and make them plan the whole thing around my schedule, and then I just don’t go,” said Alison. “It completely eliminates every hassle. I don’t know why no one thought of just saying you’ll do things, getting everyone’s hopes up, and then not doing them.”
Alison’s awesome life hack has also come in handy at work. When she and her coworkers are asked to complete a task, she puts it off till the end of the day, and someone else always ends up doing it instead. Just like magic!
“It’s so useful because it applies to every inconvenience imaginable,” continued Alison. “Everything from helping my mom set up her new iPad to being there for my friends when they’re going through tough times. All I have to do is never follow through with what I said I was going to do and it solves the problem in an instant. Life has never been easier.”
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Hats off to Alison for inventing this great new life hack! Seems like it’s really made things a million times easier for her and totally fucked everyone else. Awesome!For another third round of a pandemic, see Third cholera pandemic
Plague patient being injected by a doctor 1897 in Karachi
Picture of Manchurian plague victims in 1910–1911
Third Pandemic is the designation of a major bubonic plague pandemic that began in Yunnan province in China in 1855.[1] This episode of bubonic plague spread to all inhabited continents, and ultimately more than 12 million people died in India and China, with 10 million people killed in India alone.[2] According to the World Health Organization, the pandemic was considered active until 1960, when worldwide casualties dropped to 200 per year.[citation needed][3]
The name refers to this pandemic being the third major bubonic plague outbreak to affect European society. The first was the Plague of Justinian, which ravaged the Byzantine Empire and surrounding areas in 541 and 542. The second was the Black Death, which killed at least one third of Europe's population in a series of expanding waves of infection from 1346 to 1353.[4]
Casualty patterns indicate that waves of this late-19th-century/early-20th-century pandemic may have been from two different sources. The first was primarily bubonic and was carried around the world through ocean-going trade, through transporting infected persons, rats, and cargoes harboring fleas. The second, more virulent strain, was primarily pneumonic in character with a strong person-to-person contagion. This strain was largely confined to Asia, in particular Manchuria and Mongolia.
Pattern of the pandemic [ edit ]
The bubonic plague was endemic in populations of infected ground rodents in central Asia, and was a known cause of death among migrant and established human populations in that region for centuries. An influx of new people due to political conflicts and global trade led to the distribution of this disease throughout the world.
Origin in Yunnan Province of China [ edit ]
A natural reservoir or nidus for plague is located in western Yunnan and is an ongoing health risk today. The third pandemic of plague originated in this area after a rapid influx of Han Chinese to exploit the demand for minerals, primarily copper, in the latter half of the eighteenth century.[5] By 1850, the population had exploded to over 7 million people. Increasing transportation throughout the region brought people in contact with plague-infected fleas, the primary vector between the yellow-breasted rat (Rattus flavipectus) and humans. People brought the fleas and rats back into growing urban areas, where small outbreaks sometimes reached epidemic proportions. The plague spread further after disputes between Han Chinese and Hui Muslim miners in the early 1850s erupted into a violent uprising known as the Panthay rebellion, which led to further displacements (troop movements and refugee migrations). The outbreak of the plague helped recruit people into the Taiping Rebellion. In the latter half of the nineteenth century the plague began to appear in Guangxi and Guangdong provinces, Hainan Island, and later the Pearl River delta including Canton and Hong Kong. While William McNeil and others thought that the plague was brought from the interior to the coastal regions by troops returning from battles against the Muslim rebels, Benedict suggests that the evidence favors the growing and lucrative opium trade that began after about 1840.[5]
In the city of Canton, beginning in March 1894, the disease killed 60,000 people in a few weeks. Daily water-traffic with the nearby city of Hong Kong rapidly spread the plague. Within two months, after 100,000 deaths, the death rates dropped below epidemic rates, although the disease continued to be endemic in Hong Kong until 1929.[6]
Political impact in colonial India [ edit ]
Directions for searchers, Pune plague of 1897
Plague came to British India in 1896, most likely from Hong Kong where the epidemic had been festering since 1894. Over the next thirty years, the country would lose 12.5 million people to the disease. Almost all cases were bubonic, with only a very small percentage changing to pneumonic plague. (Orent, p. 185) The disease was initially seen in port cities, beginning with Bombay (now Mumbai), but later emerged in Pune, Kolkata, and Karachi (now in Pakistan). By 1899, the outbreak spread to smaller communities and rural areas in many regions of India. Overall, the impact of plague epidemics was greatest in western and northern India—in the provinces then designated as Bombay, Punjab, and the United Provinces—while eastern and southern India were not as badly affected.
The colonial government's measures to control the disease included quarantine, isolation camps, travel restrictions and the exclusion of India's traditional medical practices. Restrictions on the populations of the coastal cities were established by Special Plague Committees with overreaching powers, and enforced by the British military. Indians found these measures culturally intrusive and, in general, repressive and tyrannical. Government strategies of plague control underwent significant changes during 1898–1899. By that time, it was apparent that the use of force in enforcing plague regulations was proving counter-productive and, now that the plague had spread to rural areas, enforcement in larger geographic areas would be impossible. At this time, British health officials began to press for widespread vaccination using Waldemar Haffkine’s plague vaccine, although the government stressed that inoculation was not compulsory. British authorities also authorized the inclusion of practitioners of indigenous systems of medicine into plague prevention programs.
Repressive government actions to control the plague led the Pune nationalists to criticise the government publicly. On 22 June 1897, the Chapekar brothers, young Pune Hindus, shot and killed Walter Charles Rand, an Indian Civil Services officer acting as Pune Special Plague Committee chairman, and his military escort, Lieutenant Ayerst. The action of the Chapekars was seen as terrorism.[7] The government also found the nationalist press guilty of incitement. Independence activist Bal Gangadhar Tilak was charged with sedition for his writings as editor of the Kesari newspaper. He was sentenced to eighteen months rigorous imprisonment.
Public reaction to the health measures enacted by the British Indian state ultimately revealed the political constraints of medical intervention in the country. These experiences were formative in the development of India's modern public health services.[citation needed]
Global distribution [ edit ]
The network of global shipping ensured the widespread distribution of the disease over the next few decades.[8][9][10] Recorded outbreaks include:
Each of these areas, as well as Great Britain, France, and other areas of Europe, continued to experience plague outbreaks and casualties until the 1960s. The last significant outbreak of plague associated with the pandemic occurred in Peru and Argentina in 1945.
Disease research [ edit ]
Researchers working in Asia during the "Third Pandemic" identified plague vectors and the plague bacillus. In 1894, in Hong Kong, Swiss-born French bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin isolated the responsible bacterium (Yersinia pestis) and determined the common mode of transmission. In 1898, French researcher Paul-Louis Simond demonstrated the role of fleas as a vector.
The disease is caused by a bacterium usually transmitted by the bite of fleas from an infected host, often a black rat. The bacteria are transferred from the blood of infected rats to the rat flea (Xenopsylla cheopsis). The bacillus multiplies in the stomach of the flea, blocking it. When the flea next bites a mammal, the consumed blood is regurgitated along with the bacillus into the bloodstream of the bitten animal. Any serious outbreak of plague in humans is preceded by an outbreak in the rodent population. During the outbreak, infected fleas that have lost their normal rodent hosts seek other sources of blood. The bacterium that causes this disease, Yersinia pestis, was named after Yersin. His discoveries led in time to modern treatment methods, including insecticides, the use of antibiotics and eventually plague vaccines.
The British colonial government in India pressed medical researcher Waldemar Haffkine to develop a plague vaccine. After three months of persistent work with a limited staff, a form for human trials was ready. On January 10, 1897 Haffkine tested it on himself. After the initial test was reported to the authorities, volunteers at the Byculla jail were used in a control test, all inoculated prisoners survived the epidemics, while seven inmates of the control group died. By the turn of the century, the number of inoculees in India alone reached four million. Haffkine was appointed the Director of the Plague Laboratory (now called Haffkine Institute) in Bombay.[17]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]Thanks to reddit user “BenneyBopper”, who got access to back covers of Ryse: Son of Rome, Dead Rising 3 and Forza 5 at a nearby EB Game Store, we have known some interesting details about these three games.
First of all we have to remark that, as we can see in the image, Dear Rising 3 won’t have local Co-Op game mode. Bad news, at least for me. Ryse also lacks local Co-Op mode and, in contrast, Forza 5 features up to 16 players online.
The other details we can see in the images are the install size of the games. If you remember, Call of Duty: Ghosts will need 49GB of free space on your HDD, so let’s see how much space is needed to install these games.
Ryse: Son of Rome: needs 47GB HDD Space for Installation.
Forza Motorsport 5: needs 35GB HDD Space for Installation.
Dead Rising 3: needs 35GB HDD space for Installation.
Thanks, Gamepur.Scott Sinclair has scored six goals in three games against Hearts
Celtic clinched a sixth consecutive Scottish title with a flourish as three-goal Scott Sinclair again proved to be a thorn in the flesh of Hearts.
Brendan Rodgers' side survived early pressure to sweep to victory and secure the earliest title success, with eight games to spare, in a 38-game campaign.
Two deadly finishes from Sinclair - he has scored six in three outings against Hearts - edged Celtic ahead.
Stuart Armstrong and Patrick Roberts matched them before a Sinclair penalty.
Media playback is not supported on this device Highlights: Heart of Midlothian 0-5 Celtic
The final whistle signalled a party in the Edinburgh sunshine as Celtic celebrated their 48th Scottish title - their 12th this century and first with Rodgers as manager.
And the records keep tumbling for Celtic, who remain unbeaten in 37 domestic games this season, eclipsing a 100-year-old club record.
Sinclair inspires Celtic symmetry
Media playback is not supported on this device Celtic share Scottish title joy with fans
Winning the title in Edinburgh was an act of perfect symmetry for Rodgers' side.
The Northern Irishman's first domestic game in charge of Celtic was at Tynecastle and the packed stands were playing host to the 300th league meeting between the sides - and the 150th to be hosted by Hearts.
On that day back on 7 August, a late goal from Sinclair was needed to subdue hosts who were looking to overtake Aberdeen as Celtic's main title challengers after finishing third in their first season back in the top flight.
A Sinclair double also helped secure a 4-0 win over Hearts in Glasgow in January on a day when he deputised up front due to the absence of first-choice strikers Moussa Dembele and deputy Leigh Griffiths.
That day, the 28-year-old's goals came after he was switched to a more natural wide role, with Roberts in the centre, and that's the way they started at Tynecastle this time out as Rodgers was again denied his two top marksmen through injury.
Lesson learned, one-time Manchester City winger Sinclair combined superbly with fellow Englishman Roberts, himself on loan from the Etihad Stadium, twice within three first-half minutes to virtually end Hearts' challenge.
Cathro can't reverse Hearts' slide
Media playback is not supported on this device Hearts a work in progress - Cathro
Aberdeen's 7-0 thrashing of Dundee on Friday had ensured that Celtic would require another three points to secure the title.
However, there were few signs that Hearts had the form to make them wait any longer.
Celtic had arrived at Tynecastle unbeaten in their last 10 visits since their last defeat by Hearts - 2-0 at Tynecastle in October 2011 - with the Edinburgh side only avoiding defeat once during that spell.
Since Ian Cathro had taken over as head coach from MK Dons-bound Robbie Neilson, they had slipped from second to fifth and had won only once in their last seven outings.
Yet they had lost only two of their last 14 Premiership home games and they came out full of determination to deny Celtic a title party in their own back yard.
Cathro looked to have won the early tactical battle, with his high-pressing game knocking the visitors out their stride and Isma Goncalves twice testing goalkeeper Craig Gordon, who then saved at point-blank range from Jamie Walker.
Magic from Sinclair and Roberts
Patrick Roberts set up two goals and scored one for Celtic
It had looked ominous for Hearts when Sinclair played in Callum McGregor to find the net after only two minutes.
The linesman's flag allowed the home side to breathe again and they were soon giving as good as they got in a fast and furious start that raged from end to end.
McGregor somehow side-footed wide from only six yards and we began to question Rodgers' decision to switch to an unusual formation with three at the back.
However, Sinclair played a clever one-two with Roberts on the edge of the penalty box before thumping high past goalkeeper Jack Hamilton to give Celtic a 24th-minute lead.
It was soon two as Roberts threaded the ball behind the Hearts defence for Sinclair to score again.
Hearts' defensive frailties had come home to roost and Armstrong's 20-yard drive after the break and Roberts' deft chip from the edge of the penalty area ensured the title was on its way back to Glasgow.
Sinclair completed his hat-trick from the penalty spot after being pulled down by Krystian Nowak.
What now for Celtic? With the League Cup already won, a Scottish Cup semi-final awaits as they seek a domestic treble and the prospect of ending the domestic season unbeaten - a feat no Scottish champions have achieved since the late 19th century.Denis Cheryshev (left) was ineligible to play against Cadiz
Real Madrid could be expelled from the Copa del Rey for fielding an ineligible player.
Russia winger Denis Cheryshev started in the fourth-round tie away to Cadiz despite being suspended after picking up a third yellow card in the semi-finals of last season's competition. He scored Real's first goal.
Cheryshev was on loan at Villarreal when he was booked for a third time in the 3-1 defeat to Barcelona in March, with suspensions carried over into the following season's competition.
Cadiz have submitted a written complaint to the Spanish FA over the offence and the governing body have set Real Madrid a deadline to respond.
President of third tier Cadiz, Manuel Vizcaino, admitted the decision was made with a "heavy heart".
"This situation required a speedy decision because there was no time to speculate," he said. "The board has met and decided to report Real Madrid for fielding an ineligible player, out of respect for our fans and the club.
Rafa Benitez is 'unlikely to be blamed' for the blunder
"We decided to do this with a heavy heart, but it is our firm decision. We do this not without a sense of pain, because we are friendly with the club (Real)."
Speaking after the game, Real manager Rafa Benitez said: "Clearly, the club did not know anything," he said. "We weren't told by Villarreal or the RFEF. We knew nothing and [after finding out], we have substituted the player to show good faith."
And Real director Emilio Butragueno told Marca: "We knew nothing of the situation.
Cheryshev (No 21) was substituted at the start of the second half
"We had no notification from the RFEF or Villarreal. Cheryshev, who was the player of Villarreal, he had no knowledge. We will await developments."
There is a precedent for such a situation in Spanish football, as Sky Sports' Spanish football expert Guillem Balague told Sky Sports News HQ: "The same thing happened to Osasuna in September, for fielding an ineligible player. They were kicked out of the competition as well."
Barcelona defender Gerard Pique tweeted his apparent reaction to the news
Real can appeal any judgement from the league but it is unlikely they will succeed, according to Balague.
He said: "We actually have a match delegate who is responsible for the line-ups and the referees, and actually checking if there are any suspensions, so I'm sure he'll be blamed.
Watch highlights of Real Madrid v Getafe in La Liga on Sky Sports 2 HD on Saturday, 9.30pmLOWELL, MA—Saying he feels the need every now and again to vary his repertoire, Seaport Data Systems junior account manager Brandon Herbert, an individual who already spends much of his workday breathing and chewing loudly, told reporters Monday that he is thinking about getting into arrhythmically drumming his hands on his desk. “I’ve had a lot of success making a high-pitched whistling noise as I slowly breathe through my nose and smacking my lips as I consume a variety of heavily redolent meals with my mouth slightly agape, but I think the time has come to move on to new frontiers,” said the man who shares an intimate workspace with approximately 30 other people, noting that periodically beating a halting rhythm onto his desktop, pausing for a few seconds, and then resuming at a slightly different tempo represents “the logical next step.” “Sure, I could always pursue something more conventional, like slamming my fingers as hard as possible on my keyboard while I type, or noisily clearing my throat of phlegm before audibly swallowing, but I really think spending hours a day slapping out what I think is the rhythm to the song ‘Hot For Teacher’ on a desktop is the way to go.” At press time, Herbert decided that, fuck it, he might as well tunelessly hum while he’s drumming too.
AdvertisementThe second SourceRuns Half-Life Jump Map Cup is finished!
🇧🇪 Beginner takes the crown with a 3-1 victory against 🇹🇷 ThereIsNoNeedToRun, congratulations!
We want to thank all participants for entering the cup and showing off some incredible skills to us once again. Also, massive props to those who have contributed to the prize pool, raising it to an incredible sum of 500€+, this completely blew away all of our expectations!
We hope everyone had a good time and see you next time!
Hey everyone! Happy new year!
After a pretty successful first edition of SourceRuns Half-Life Jump map cup™ we’ve been trying to organize a second one this past year, however due to lack of good organization it never really happened. Until now, that is!
The SourceRuns Half-Life Jump map cup is coming back for a 2nd edition in 2018! It will take place in February 3rd, starting at 16:00 UTC. Don’t miss it!
Same as last year, it will be a live event that we will stream on our Twitch channel at http://twitch.tv/SourceRuns so make sure to follow that.
Map pool
This time we’ll be introducing some new maps, though a couple of classic ones have remained as well.
bkz_junglebhop
gayl0rd_bhop
kz_anubis
dyd_axn_plant
kzsca_watertemple
agtricks
ztricks
A package with all the map files is available here.
Rules
The rules are pretty much the same as last year, with the map picking part being slightly different.
The tournament will have a Best of 3 Single Elimination format, with the grand final being Best of 5. Each participant will be able to pick and ban one map out of the pool. During the grand final, each player will only be able to ban one map.
All runs are done in a Half-Life multiplayer mod Adrenaline Gamer, on a server running HL KreedZ. The mod has uncapped bunnyhopping and a built-in autojump feature that you will be able to use.
In order to allow fair competition, the fps_max CVAR is capped to 249.5
Using checkpoints and teleports is not allowed, every run has to be a “Pro” run.
Abuse of health boosters to gain speed at the start is not allowed.
Tournament runs will be 1v1 races.
Any kind of scripted sequences are banned, except OpenAG autojump, duckroll, doubleduck and usespam.
agtricks stair climb script is also banned.
You are required to record demos during your runs and be able to provide them if requested.
Servers
If you need a place to practice the maps:
Europe server (Stockholm) play.sourceruns.org:27016
NA East server: 165.227.197.61:27015
Prize pool
We are going to have an open prize pool again, so if you wish, you can donate here.
Current prize pool: 356,18€
1st place winner will receive 70%
2nd place winner will receive 30%
Sign-ups
Sign-ups are now closed.
List of players who have signed up so far is available here.
Stay tuned for further updates!The Nintendo Switch’s Joy-Con connectivity problem hasn’t been fixed
Gloss Blocked Unblock Follow Following Mar 4, 2017
Some thoughts on the Nintendo Switch.
It’s a nice piece of hardware. Zelda is a really good game. The Joy-Con problem that was reported pre-launch is still a serious, frustrating issue that was not fixed by the Switch’s day-one |
I did have to get creative, though. I started making those grains that I’d bought (like quinoa and couscous) but hadn’t yet tried. I tried new things, ate good food, and didn’t spend a cent.
How To Save Money On Groceries Tip #2: Shop fresh, then frozen
Eventually, though, you will run out of pantry supplies and you’ll need to start shopping again. I used to make a huge list with two or three meals to cook during the week — but by the time I got to meal three, the veggies I’d bought for it had wilted or molded. When you’re busy, you can’t always predict when you’re going to get around to making a meal. Now I shop for one “fresh” meal at a time–getting all the produce I want, then I buy frozen for the rest of my meals. I also buy a few “easy” meals. This does not mean pre-packaged (read: expensive and not really healthy) foods. Frozen foods include vegetables for a quick stir fry or curry, and “easy” means baked potatoes for work lunches (add some salsa, and you’ve got a delicious, healthy lunch that will keep you full until you get home).
How To Save Money On Groceries Tip #3: Make it yourself
I have expensive taste when it comes to food. I don’t like cheapo store bread. I like the artisan bread boules and loaves. I can’t stand condensed soups, but enjoy a french mushroom made with a base of wild mushrooms soaked in brandy and reduced with Chianti. If I were to buy these things straight up, I could easy spend $4 a loaf and $6 for a cup of soup. However, if I make them myself, I spend less than if I had bought the cheap bread and soup.
So, identify your splurges. Is it gourmet ice cream? Those fancy coffee drinks? Pizzas from the best shop in town? Once you know what you love, spend some time on the internet until you find a recipe that looks like what you’re into. I found a recipe for no-knead bread dough that I can plop into my cast iron dutch oven, and in a half hour have a bread boule that is art as well as food. My french mushroom soup addiction is also sated with a twist on a french onion soup recipe I found. The brandy and wine cost a bit at first, but they will make dozens of servings (if I don’t just drink them). I freeze what I can’t eat right away, and now I can have the soup I would dream about whenever I want without the guilt of spending $6 per bowl.
How To Save Money On Groceries Tip #4: Eat less meat (but still scan the section for deals)
One of the biggest game changers was cutting out meat. My husband and I are not vegetarians and don’t plan on converting, but since we do like vegetables, we’ve tried to center our meals around foods that don’t require so much meat. Think tacos with cilantro, avocados, tomato salsa and seasoned beans. Delicious and meat-free. Artichoke pate roll-ups (artichokes blended with seasonings to create a thick spread for lettuce wraps), hearty corn chowder, savory dips with crudites, and my personal favorite quick-and-easy lunch: some of my homemade bread, an amazing dilled cheese (any kind: cheddar to havarti, it’s all good), with fresh tomato slices on top. I toast the bread with the cheese, layer on the tomato slices, and then crack fresh pepper and a dash of sea salt on top, and I could eat that, well, right now.
How To Save Money On Groceries Tip #5: Think seasonally
This is critical for saving money. If you buy cucumbers or ears of corn during the summer, you can leave the store with your arms full–the store is practically giving them away. During the winter time, you’d have to leave an arm and a leg at the store if you want to stock up.
Even better, utilize your local farmers’ market. By cutting out the middle man, you’ll save price-wise, and the food could not be fresher. Even in climates with a long, cold winter like where I live, there’s often an indoor market where vendors bring what they’ve canned, cured or otherwise preserved.
During the warmer months, find a local farm where you could work for food (you can look online, but it may be easier just visiting a co-op or natural foods store and asking around). For a few hours a week, you’ll get the seasonal produce in exchange for picking weeds or harvesting. The baskets are a cornucopia filled with more than you can imagine. If you don’t have time to get your hands dirty, some of these places will also sell an assorted basket for a flat fee. Eating locally and seasonally is exciting — and healthy!
How To Save Money On Groceries Tip #6: Find your local dent-and-bent
My mom opened my eyes to this truly amazing option: a store where I can find the most exotic ingredients, and the most I’ve ever spent for any one item is $1.50. Mom goes there to buy Caribou and Starbucks coffee for $4 or less a bag (next time you go to the supermarket, look at these coffee brands. They cost twice as much, or more). I can find specialty bags of grains, curry pastes, and other ethnic or otherwise strange items stacked right next to cans of beans, soy sauce and salsa. The store is a bit disorganized, and you can’t really go with a list because the inventory is always changing, but the selection blows my mind every time. If you like to cook gourmet, but don’t want to spend $5 for candied ginger, find the dent and bent store in your area — and you’ll likely spend around $.50.
How To Save Money On Groceries Tip #7: Invite others over
I include my eating out in my food budget, and it was sinking me. So, instead of eating out, I invite friends over. I may spend as much as an evening out (but very often, it’s much less), but there’s always days of leftovers afterwards, and my friends bring delicious side dishes and drinks, which they often leave as a thank you for hosting. It’s a way to eat, socialize, have fun, and save money.
How To Save Money On Groceries Tip #8: Create routines
For breakfast, I always have sauteed veggies with an egg cracked on top. If I’m in a hurry, I switch it to homemade bread with a homemade spread (apple butter, gingered pears, or peach preserves) with a little strained yogurt (it turns into a sort of tangy cream cheese). I never have to think about what I’m going to eat, which makes my mornings run smoother. For my meal at work, I have container with soup or salsa (depending on my mood). Soup and bread one day, salsa with a potato the next. Keeping it simple and organized when I’m moving fast helps me to eat well without spending a ton on fast food, processed meals, and other junk that would just make me lethargic or leave me hungry, not to mention leave a dent in my budget.
How do you save money on groceries? Share your secrets in the comments!The USS West Virginia sank during the attack on Pearl Harbor with three trapped sailors who fought to survive for sixteen days.
by Don Haines
When Nathan and Jane Olds of Stanton, ND; Ralph and Vera Endicott of Aberdeen, Wash.; and Effie Costin of Henryville, Ind., were informed by the U.S. Navy in December 1941 that each of their families had lost a son during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, they were heartbroken.
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Terse Telegrams Didn’t Tell The Full Story
Clifford Olds, 20; Ronald Endicott, 18; and Louis “Buddy” Costin, 21, had been sailors on the battleship USS West Virginia, which had been hit by a series of bombs and torpedoes. The telegrams merely stated that the three young men “died at their duty stations.”
But during the ensuing years another story began to emerge—one so horrible that family members who learned the truth decided not to tell the parents in order to prevent them from suffering further.
Harland Costin, younger brother of Buddy, found out in 1942 when a chance meeting with a crew member of the now refloated West Virginia told a sad tale that by now has become legend. It was a story of three young men who had survived for what must have been 16 hellish days in the dark pump room of a battleship sitting on the bottom of Pearl Harbor. Costin, Olds, and Endicott had not died easily or willingly, as attested to by witnesses who remember.
Desperate Banging
“It was worse at night,” said Marine Corps bugler Dick Fiske. “You’d hear bang-bang-bang, then stop, then bang-bang-bang from deep in the bow of the ship. It didn’t take long to realize that men were making that noise.” To this day Fiske chokes up when he tells the story. “Pretty soon nobody wanted to do guard duty, especially at night when it was quiet. It didn’t stop until Christmas Eve.”
Bob Kronberger, who was a crewman on the West Virginia, says he knew all three of the young sailors. “I didn’t know them well because I was of a higher rank and couldn’t fraternize, but it was an awful way to die.” Kronberger is a good example of the fortunes of war. His brother and father were also part of the West Virginia crew. All three survived the attack.
A Family Legacy Of Tragedy
It was not hard for Harland Costin to make the decision not to tell his family about the true circumstances of Buddy’s death. His family had already suffered much. A brother had died young of an infectious disease. The father had died in a fight. To tell his mother how Buddy must have suffered might have been too much for her to bear. He would keep his secret until the 1990s, when newspapers began to report the story.
Duke Olds found out about his brother’s struggle to live from a relative who worked at the shipyard in Bremerton, Wash., where the West Virginia had been taken for repairs. Olds told his brother and two sisters but not his parents. “It would have been really hard on my father. He and Cliff were real close. It was best to let it be.” It would be many years before Duke would find out that what he thought had been a well-kept secret had been revealed to his mother not long before she died. “They say she took it really hard.”
One Last Night Out Before Infamy
Jack Miller, a buddy of Clifford Olds, says he knew his friend was one of those making the noise that was coming from the bow section. Clifford had often invited him into the pump room for conversation. Just for laughs, they would close the hatch and scream all manner of epithets in the airtight space, knowing no one on the outside could hear them. The night before the attack, Cliff, he, and another buddy had gone to a Honolulu nightspot together. They had said no thanks to a barmaid who had taken their picture and offered to sell it to them. Miller could not know that the morrow would change their lives forever—and how much that photo would come to mean.
Ronald Endicott had joined the Naval Reserve at age 17, mainly because he wanted to emulate his father who had served earlier. He had been on active duty for 10 months when the Japanese rained death on his ship and he found himself entombed in Pump Room A-109 with Olds and Costin. Velma Lawrence, now of California, was Endicott’s childhood sweetheart and says his parents left Aberdeen in 1956. She knows they never knew how their son died.
Fateful Decision Saved And Doomed
No doubt the main reason for the state of anguish among the sailors topside stemmed from the fact that they knew rescue was impossible. Olds, Costin, and Endicott were sitting on the bottom of Pearl Harbor, surrounded by water. The ship’s commander, Captain Mervyn S. Bennion, had been killed in the early moments of the attack, but quick thinking by a young lieutenant who was also the fire-control officer ensured the West Virginia would sink on an even keel.
It is somewhat ironic that the three men were doomed; the young officer’s action saved hundreds but ensured their deaths. Had the WeeVee, as the ship was affectionately known, capsized like the battleship USS Oklahoma, the three might have been rescued by cutting through the hull. Not that rescue would have been guaranteed, as the Oklahoma rescuers discovered. Many men on that ship died of asphyxiation when air rushed out as soon as the hull was breached.
Those topside on the WeeVee also knew that rescue from below the waterline by drilling a hole through the hull would result in a blowout, killing the diver. Added to this was the realization that the United States had been plunged into war, and many things had taken precedence over three enlisted men at the bottom of Pearl. Those above knew it was not a question of whether Olds, Costin, and Endicott could be rescued. It was only a question of how long they would last.
“Does Anybody Up There Hear Us?”
The three entombed young men, who had only three years of service between them, probably did not know they were doomed. They wanted to live, and they had more on their side than their comrades knew. They had emergency food rations, access to the fresh water compartment, flashlights to enable them to see, and two other things—an eight-day clock and a calendar. And so they banged. At the end of each 24-hour period, they marked their calendar. No doubt they wondered, “Does anybody up there hear us?”
They were heard, but nothing could be done. The brass probably saw them as they did all the dead men below. They could not be helped, so efforts were concentrated on the living.
Despite all the remembrances, the story of the three trapped sailors might never have been released to the public without the salvage report filed by Commander Paul Dice during body-retrieval efforts in May 1942.
While many of the 106 deaths on the West Virginia were from drowning when compartment hatches had to be closed on those trying to escape, Dice immediately noticed that Pump Room A-109 was completely dry. Three bodies were found huddled together on the storeroom shelf. Then Dice saw flashlights and batteries strewn about, along with empty food ration cartons. The manhole cover to the fresh water tanks had been removed. Then salvage workers saw the eight-day clock and the calendar with a red X marked through each day through December 23. With this discovery, grown men broke down in tears.
Dice’s official report is matter of fact and devoid of emotion. “Three bodies were found on the shelf of storeroom A-111, clad in blues and jerseys. This storeroom was open to fresh water pump room A-109, which was apparently the battle station assigned to these men. The emergency rations at this station had been consumed and the manhole cover to the fresh water tanks had been removed. A calendar which was found in the compartment had an ‘X’ marked through each day from December 7, 1941, through December 23rd, inclusive.”
Dice kept the eight-day clock until, as an old man, he donated it to a museum in Parkersburg, WV, his hometown. He sent the calendar to naval headquarters in Washington. It has never been found.
Unfair Death Date On Tombstones
The three sailors were buried in a mass grave with 22 others. That is what officials told Harland Costin when he journeyed to Honolulu in 1945. In 1949, when the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific was opened, the bodies were disinterred and given separate burials. Clifford Olds’ remains were shipped home to Stanton, ND. Costin and Endicott are buried in the National Memorial Cemetery in Honolulu, which is commonly referred to as the “Punch Bowl.” The three stones are identical and have death dates of December 7, 1941. There is unanimous agreement that the death date is unfair in view of the heroic struggle waged by the three young sailors to stay alive.
When Jack Miller (who died in 2002) returned to Honolulu after sea duty, he understood that the photo taken by the barmaid was one of the last snapped before the world fell apart. He retrieved the negative and kept it for the rest of his life. It shows three carefree young men out on the town and was the last happiness Clifford Olds would ever know.
Submerged Wristwatch Restored By Sailor’s Mother
Hundreds of thousands of young men died in World War II. They all had names and faces. They all had a story and people who loved them. When Buddy Costin’s locker was cleaned out after the raising of the WeeVee, a water-soaked ladies’ wristwatch was found. It was intended as a Christmas present for his mother. She had it restored and wore it until her death in 1985.
Harland Costin and his sister, Edna, still live in Southern Indiana, and the memories of their older brother are ever fresh. “Buddy was such a cut-up, always making jokes and getting into mischief. One of his favorite things was grabbing Mom and waltzing around the kitchen. When he came home on his first leave, he went to school and apologized to all the teachers for raising such havoc in their classes. They loved him,” Edna recalled.
Edna says she cried a lot the day she got a call from the Honolulu Advertiser telling her the story of her brother’s struggle to survive. “We assumed he’d been killed instantly and therefore didn’t suffer.” Now she can’t help but think of her older brother below in his ship trying desperately to let those above know he was still alive.
Honolulu Fitting Resting Place
Letting Buddy’s gravesite remain in Honolulu was not a difficult decision. “It was where he wanted to be.” The Costin family has made several pilgrimages to section Q1105 of the National Memorial Cemetery. They hope someday his date of death will be changed, and they cannot help but think that if Buddy had found a way to make it out of the pump room, he might be alive today, a spry 82-year-old who would still be waltzing.
Dwaine “Duke” Olds will never forget the brother who was nine years his senior. “Cliff loved motorcycles. We still have a picture of him sitting on his bike, dressed in leather. He was a feisty little guy, always picking fights, though he usually lost. Cliff was very close to our Dad. Wherever Dad went, Cliff was right on his heels. Actually, Cliff was in the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) before he joined the Navy. He was making $19 a month in the CCC and he got a $2 raise when he joined the Navy. That was a lot of money back then. And you know, out of that $21 he sent $18 home—said he didn’t need it. Mom put it in bonds.”
No doubt, Clifford Olds’ story mirrored that of other young men who joined the military before World War II. They were children of the Great Depression. In many cases, serving as a lowly enlisted man in the military was superior to any civilian job they could get.
Memories Of Teenage Sweetheart Remain Strong
Velma Partridge (now Lawrence) was only 14 when she became the steady girlfriend of 17-year-old Ronald Endicott. Until now she did not know that the tall, blond, blue-eyed young man who was her first love was one of those trapped in the pump room. “I’d heard the story of the trapped men because it was published in the local paper in 1991. As a matter of fact, his parents got word the middle of December in ¸41 that he’d been killed. It tears your heart out to think that at that very moment, he was trying desperately to live.”
Velma says she remembers that her long-ago sweetheart always wore a leather jacket. “To this day, anytime I smell leather I think of him. It’s funny, because he was tall and thin, but everyone called him ‘Tubby.’ It was a nickname that went back to the time when he was a baby.”
Velma Lawrence went on to marry and have four children and many grandchildren. “I’ve had a wonderful life, but Tubby will always have part of my heart.” Lawrence says that on their last night together they went to a Charlie Chaplin movie. “The next night my Dad and me took him to the bus, and I never saw him again.”
Maintaining Navy Discipline To Final Moments
World War II Navy lore is full of courageous yet sad stories that have been fully told. Yet the story of three young sailors and their heroic struggle to stay alive on the bottom of Pearl Harbor lives only in a few belated newspaper columns and the memories of some shipmates, most of whom have now passed away.
It is time to recognize them. They kept their discipline and a record as they tried mightily to live. They may have died not knowing what catastrophe had befallen them. Had they lived, no doubt they would have gone to war against the Japanese enemy with the same determination as their shipmates.
Louis “Buddy” Costin, Clifford Olds, and Ronald “Tubby” Endicott deserve more than a Purple Heart and an incorrect date on their tombstones.
Originally Published August 14, 2015(use your mouse to find links to other information from NORML)
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Also see How to Avoid Being StoppedFound in Books: The War Map
Today a find that was, at least to me, completely unexpected. It was well hidden and I only happened to notice it because I was wondering, for some reason I don’t recall, what my book looked like underneath its dust jacket.
Here’s the book in question: a fairly worn copy of Bertrand Russell’s A History of Western Philosophy. It’s the second British edition from 1947.
I peeled off the dust jacket, to find a fairly bland gray hardcover underneath. I was very much surprised, though, when I noticed what was on the back of the dust jacket. I think it’s best to just show you:
(You can click the image above to see a larger version.) Did you see that one coming? Apparently these dust jackets were printed on the unused backs of old maps. If you look carefully, you can even see the old folds of the map, although the printer did a good job hiding these in the folds of the dust jacket.
Two main towns featured on the map are Knittelfeld and Judenburg, as you can see in the picture above. Near the top of the map we also have Waidhofen an der Ybbs. This places the map in the eastern Austrian Alps. Since this seems to be the westernmost section of a larger map, I’m guessing the original map covered all of the Alps east of here. If you’d care to see things in context, I marked some of the locations found along the edges of the map on Google Maps here.
Given the year (1947) this book was printed, I can think of one reason why the British might have had maps of Austria lying around. Let’s zoom in on the map’s legend for a moment, shall we?
Have a look at the top left corner:
“Geographical Section, General Staff, No. 4346
Published by War Office, 1944”
The War Office was the precursor of the British Ministry of Defense and the reason this map was created isn’t hard to guess. In 1944-45, the Allied forces were busily taking back Austria from the Germans. This map was perhaps printed to aid ground troops having to make their way through the mountainous terrain of the Alps.
This particular map was probably never used. It was presumably left over after the war, and the printer had them lying around or bought them cheaply and then reused them to print dust jackets. The size of the map happens to lend it fairly well for that purpose and the folds in the map happened to be just in the right places to hide them in the dust jacket’s folds. Still, it’s a really neat little piece of history!
I’ve never seen this before and I couldn’t find any other instances of maps on the backs of dust jackets reported anywhere. If you’ve seen this sort of thing elsewhere, I’d love to hear about it, so let me know!About
Mako Playing Cards.
(*PRICES ARE AUD CHECK THE USD CONVERSION! *)
Our names are Beau Challis and Gianluca Hayes. This is the kickstarter campaign for Mako playing cards designed by Toomas Pintson. Some of you may recognise us from, instagram, youtube or perhaps even facebook. We are 19 years old and hailing from the UK and Australia. We will be co managing this kickstarter campaign - 2 brains are better than 1!
This deck of cards however is not so much to do with us.. Mako is designed by Toomas who i think a good few of you may already know, as Pint5on. It was Toomas who last year revolutionised instagram with his 3D renederings of playing cards. He has also designed several decks of cards in the past, showing all manner of design talent. HOWEVER.. there is a catch. Toomas is from Estonia, meaning he cant use kickstarter to fund his decks, and previous attempts on indiegogo have been unsucessful.
Earlier this year Toomas approached me (Beau) with the idea of teaming up, him focusing on the design aspect and me actually producing the deck and managing all aspects of the kickstarter/production etc. Hopefully as a team and together with the help of you kickstarter backers we can reach success!
This is Mako.
ooft
Mako is a deck of playing cards mainly aimed at the cardist, however it still has full suits and can be used as an ordinary deck of cards so magicians and collectors dont be scared away! Featuring a modern geometric back design, sleek number cards, fully custom ace of spades, jokers and minimally colour themed court cards, featuring metallic ink. The tuck box is minimal, modern, contemporary, visionary, life changing. Ok... its just a box, and a pretty simple one. Themed in black and white to compliment the deck, it provides all the protective housing you may imagine a box could offer.
The design may not be complex, but it is sleek and leaves nothing lacking.
Pow.
Boom.
Sex.
The cards geometric patterns make will your cardistry look even better than it already does! ;)
SHAZAYUM.
A Few Facts.
The Funding goal is set for us to print 1000 decks. This will be a limited run, after the kickstarter these will not be printed again!
There are no Stretch Goals as of yet. Just to reach our goal will be awesome, as for the rest. We will take it as it comes!
SOMETHING FREE! : Back 2 or more decks and get C4D render kit for free. C4D Render kit makes it very easy for playing card designers to create 3d rendering of their designs! With a value of 25 USD, we are giving it away for free! More info on the render kit: http://pint5on.tumblr.com "
Add ons: If you want to add on decks (eg 2 bricks) simply double the amount of your pledge, and give us a message to let us know! Dont forget to add the shipping!
What do other people think?
"Mako possesses all the qualities of a sleek and bold design. It is streamlined and striking to look at. Coupled with the new and improved Classic Finish out of Legends, this looks like it will be one hell of a Cardistry deck." - James Milaras. (Co-creator of Joker and the Thief Playing Cards!)
Photo taken by James!
Printing and Shipping.
This deck of cards will be printed by Legends Playing Card Company. LPCC is famous for its precise printing registration and "diamond cut" process that other manufactures cannot match. Mako will be printed using the highest quality stock and finish available. Classic finish and casino grade paper stock will be used for this deck. Mako will have the same handling and feel as the Mirage playing cards (Patrick Kun) also printed by LPCC. For fulfilment, Legends Playing Card Co. fulfilment service will also be used! This not only means that you will receive you decks up to a month earlier than campaigns using other services such as art of play, but the process is much safer and less complex as the cards will come almost direct from the factory to your frontdoor! For more info about LPCC follow this link: www.legendsplayingcards.com
So...
Can we do this? With your help.. YES! yes we can but we neeeed your help. If its $1000 or just $1 everything is appreciated! Together we can reach our goal, reach our dreams and reach the stars. WE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD. ok maybe not that far. but we can fund a damn awesome deck. and thats something. so lets do it. :)
CONTACT:
Feel free to just contact us via the kickstarter! However if you need, here is other ways to grab a hold of us!
beaundeth@gmail.com
pintson@gmail.com
https://instagram.com/metrosexualhipsterdawg/
https://instagram.com/pint5on/
https://www.facebook.com/beau.challis.31Just moved to Pittsburgh? Or perhaps you've lived here your entire life and find yourself saying things like, "Pittsburgh's air is totally clean now... it's nothing like it used to be." True, the air in the Steel City is not as unhealthy as it once was, but it's not great. Find out more below.
What's in Pittsburgh's air...
While the quality of Pittsburgh’s air has drastically improved since steel industry’s heyday, the city and its surrounding areas still get a big fat F from the American Lung Association (ALA). The association ranks the Pittsburgh area as the 14th most-polluted area in the country for daily fine particulate matter and the eighth most-polluted for annual particle pollution.
Pittsburgh and Allegheny County are out of compliance for federal pollution standards largely because of industrial facilities in the Monongahela River Valley. The Allegheny County Health Department has air pollution monitors spread throughout the county. The monitors that are in violation, which throw the entire county out of attainment, are located around industrial sources in the Mon Valley, said Albert Presto, an assistant research professor with Carnegie Mellon University’s Center for Atmospheric Particle Studies.
Presto said Pittsburgh’s city center is less polluted and levels are similar to other U.S. cities.
A primer on the pollutants you could be inhaling
Allegheny County currently does not meet the federal standards for fine particulate matter (PM 2.5), sulfur dioxide (SO2) and ozone (smog). Each can cause breathing problems, especially for children, the elderly and people with asthma.
During winter, when air is warmer in the atmosphere than at the surface, residents should be aware of temperature inversions. Why? An inversion happens when the warmer air acts like a lid above the cooler air underneath, preventing pollutants from rising and dispersing, trapping them at breathing level. Inversions are strongest in the winter months when pollution from vehicle exhaust, industrial sites and wood burning can fester near the ground, leading to poor air quality.
PM 2.5
Fine particulate matter commonly comes from industrial sites, car exhaust and chemical reactions in the atmosphere. The particles can lodge in the lungs and bloodstream, causing respiratory complications. Even though Pittsburgh wasn’t in compliance, the city improved its particle pollution levels this year and posted its fewest unhealthy days since the ALA started reporting in 2000.
Sulfur dioxide
This gas emits from fossil fuel combustion at power plants and industrial facilities. It can be damaging to the environment and to public health. Sulfur dioxide can make the harmful effects of breathing in ozone even worse.
Ozone (smog)
Smog forms when sunlight meets with a mix of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and nitrogen oxide, which are emitted from vehicle exhaust, power plants and other industrial sites. More than half of the U.S. population lives in areas where levels of ozone are considered to be unhealthy, according to the ALA. Not only are the elderly and people with pre-existing health problems susceptible to smog, but it can also affect teens and people who work or exercise outdoors.
Who's most affected by poor air quality?
In Allegheny County, the poor air quality poses a threat to the 25,367 children and 98,074 adults who suffer from asthma, according to the ALA. Another 67,737 people who suffer from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in the county are also at risk. The pollutants can cause these sensitive populations to experience shortness of breath, chest pain and asthma attacks, and it can shorten their lives by months or even years.
A recent study of 267 Pittsburgh-area schoolchildren found more than 40 percent of the participating fifth graders already have or are at risk for developing asthma.
“I’m surprised we found as much uncontrolled asthma as we did,” the study’s lead author Dr. Deborah Gentile told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in May. “We have to reduce their triggers and get their asthma under control,” added Gentile, a physician and director of allergy and asthma clinical research at the Allegheny Health Network.
The Allergy and Asthma Foundation of America ranked Pittsburgh as the 27th-most challenging to live in if you have asthma, based on triggers including poor outdoor pollution, tobacco smoke exposure and a high poverty rate.
What's being done and what can you do?
The recent Allegheny Health Network asthma study on schoolchildren has led to district-wide screening for asthma in the Woodland Hills, Clairton and Northgate school districts. The authors of the study hope they can expand screenings throughout the region and statewide. Future studies will focus on identifying asthma triggers as well as treatment and prevention for children, according to a press release on the study.
Environmental groups like the Group Against Smog and Pollution (GASP) also conduct studies and lobby public officials to address issues around poor air quality. The group provides a list of elected officials for people who wish to contact lawmakers about air pollution issues.
Here’s GASP Executive Director Rachel Filippini discussing all of the groups focused on cleaning up the region’s air pollution:
If you or your child has asthma or you think air pollution may be affecting your health in any way, you should contact your doctor. You can also check this Air Quality Index website to see if there are air quality alerts in your area. Consider staying indoors as much as possible on bad air days.
There are also air monitoring devices available to help you identify and reduce poor air quality in your home. The Speck sensor (around $200), created by Carnegie Mellon robotics researchers, measures fine particulate matter (PM 2.5) and is available to rent at Carnegie Libraries in Pittsburgh.
The ALA also encourages concerned citizens to conserve electricity, drive less, not to burn wood or trash, and to ask about the condition of your local school buses and if there is a policy on buses idling.
Photo of child via flickr.
Reach Natasha Khan at natasha@publicsource.org. Follow her on Twitter @khantasha. Reach J. Dale Shoemaker at dale@publicsource.org. Follow him on Twitter @JDale_Shoemaker.“I don’t think it’s fair, this game.”
Patrick Maroon has been around a bit. Played 300-some games, scored his share in Anaheim and Edmonton. Had his ups, had his downs.
But this? He’s never lived through anything quite like what’s happening in Edmonton right now, where the Oilers dominated Nashville for most of the night Thursday yet lost 4-0.
They outshot the Predators 46-23, but couldn’t beat backup Juuse Saros even once. Kind of like the other night in Toronto, where they walked the Maple Leafs all night long and watched backup Curtis McElhinney stop all 41 shots they fired in a 1-0 loss.
“I’ve been around the game for a long time now, and it’s a weird, weird game,” began Maroon, in a post-game address that had a scent of Phil Esposito back in ‘72. “You’re going to go through times where you shouldn’t win, but you do. And you’re going to go through times when you should have won by a lot and don’t win.
“Let’s put it this way: They had eight shots on net,” and a 3 |
Close 84 countries have fewer people than San Antonio 1 / 29 Back to Gallery
SAN ANTONIO — San Antonio, the seventh largest city in the United States, isn't getting any smaller.
As city officials like to call it, the “City on the Rise” is one of the fastest growing areas in the country, according to Forbes Magazine.
But just how big is the Alamo City on a world scale?
If San Antonio was a country, it would be the 156th largest nation in the world.
The Alamo City has 1,358,143 people living in 461 square miles.
Some of the 84 countries in the world that have fewer people than San Antonio include vacation destinations like Aruba, The Bahamas, Fiji and Trinidad and Tobago. Also included in the list are European and Middle Eastern countries like Cyprus, Bahrain, Montenegro and Malta.
Click through the slideshow above to some of the countries with fewer people than San Antonio and their populations.Veronica Barahona, 37, was arrested for at least the second time in a month on June 19. Veronica Barahona, 37, was arrested for at least the second time in a month on June 19. Photo: San Francisco Police Department / S.F. Police Department Photo: San Francisco Police Department / S.F. Police Department Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Woman who crashed SF ambulance arrested again on burglary charge 1 / 1 Back to Gallery
A 37-year-old woman who went to jail after allegedly stealing a San Francisco ambulance this month was arrested again Sunday night — this time on suspicion of burglary in the Bayview neighborhood.
Veronica Barahona forced herself through the sliding glass door of a home on the 1700 block of McKinnon Avenue around 10:20 p.m. Sunday, police said. She made her way into a bedroom, where the homeowner was awakened and started screaming.
Barahona fled out of the home but was arrested after the homeowner called authorities to tell them she was hiding in the backyard, police said. She was booked on a first-degree burglary charge.
Sunday’s incident comes less than two weeks after Barahona led police on a chase in a stolen ambulance that went through the city, onto the Bay Bridge, and ended when she crashed on Yerba Buena Island.
On June 7, she jumped into the San Francisco Fire Department’s emergency rig around 8 a.m. at 55 Mason St. and sped through city streets, said Officer Grace Gatpandan, a San Francisco police spokeswoman.
The ambulance had been left running while paramedics responded to a medical call at the Ambassador Hotel, and when they returned with the patient, the rig was gone.
Police used a tracking system on the vehicle to pinpoint the driver as she careened through city streets and slammed into several vehicles. Barahona led police on a chase over the bottom deck of the Bay Bridge, police said, where she took a hard left turn on the Treasure Island Road off-ramp.
But a sharp curve in the road proved too challenging to negotiate, and she slammed into a concrete barrier, firefighters said.
The ambulance became stuck and burst into flames as Barahona got out and ran, police said. She was taken into custody.
It was not immediately clear when Barahona was released from jail before the Sunday burglary.
She was booked into county jail on the recent charges early Monday and was being held on $150,000 bail.
San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Evan Sernoffsky contributed to this report.
Jenna Lyons is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jlyons@sfchronicle.com Twitter: JennaJournoFaroese musician Teitur has the unusual ability of being able to connect with his listeners through poetic, captivating storytelling.
His lyrics are the winding tales about a multifaceted collection of people in all walks of life, from the desperate hipster, through to the cell-phone vendor and the merry-go-man at amusement parks. Each character is treated with equal amounts of love and humor in the Teitur universe.
Backed by two cellists and another singer / guitarist, a drummer and a chap who was introduced as “the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, on percussion,” Teitur was at his usual captivating self.
His latest album, Story Music was at the helm of his set on Saturday which also featured a bit of his older material and was almost a carbon copy of his set in Århus 'Run the carousel' and 'Louis Louis' are but two tracks that were well received.
The former brought a welcome kicking impetus to an otherwise tame concert whilst 'Louis Louis' took a cocky stab at the politics of George W Bush when he was president.
The mixed audience reacted with discreet laughter at the political touch, and this was where the politics started and ended on the night.
The rest of the evening featured Teitur's lengthy banter accompanied by soft-spoken, discreetly placed musical arrangements that echoed with the unique creativity of Faroese musicianship, a lot of which has an almost spellbinding quality to it.
His is a form of musicianship that is replete with warmth and positive energy, elements that have been in short supply locally of late and that, by such virtue, were well received.
An extended three song encore came all too soon for many, most of all Teitur who looked as if he could have played for the entire evening and into dawn. Whilst his show was indeed a credible performance and an enjoyable experience that was shared by a very mixed crowd of old and young, there are some who felt that it was too close a copy of an earlier show in Århus.
This notwithstanding, originality was still an element that was present in plenty insofar as Teitur's musicianship was concerned. There are well and truly few Scandinavian musicians that can cultivate an identity as well as he does through his anecdotal renditions.
Teitur
Store Vega
February 22After Layoffs of 175 Workers, J.Crew Exec Instagrams His Night Celebrating, Making Hunger Games Joke
J.Crew exec Alejandro Rhett's boozy, post-layoff celebrations were documented on Instagram with jokey hashtags referencing The Hunger Games. (New York Post)
After telling members of his team they had lost their jobs, a J.Crew executive went drinking and celebrating with other employees at a bar, posting goofy photos and The Hunger Games jokes on Instagram.
The New York Post reported that Alejandro Rhett, vice president of men's merchandising at the struggling clothing company, delivered the news Wednesday to some of the 175 workers affected by the layoffs at the company's New York City headquarters. He then went drinking with other employees at the Linen Hall bar, their celebrations documented—and extensively hashtagged—on Instagram.
One photo depicting Rhett and a female friend jumping for joy used the hashtags #hungergames and #maytheoddsbeeverinyourfavor, ostensibly comparing the bloody battles royale of the young adult dystopian novel to the layoffs. J.Crew employee Julie Stamos posted another photo where she and Rhett pose for a "casual photo shoot" outside Linen Hall, complete with hashtags #forthewin and #damnitfeelsgoodtobeagangster.
The photos have since been taken down, and a J.Crew spokesman said the company "does not condone" the behavior of Rhett and the other employees. “As soon as we were made aware, the appropriate actions took place,” said the spokesman without elaboration.
A J.Crew insider, the Post reported, criticized Rhett's "poor judgment" and "inappropriate" behavior. “J.Crew has serious issues right now, and no one in the office had a smile on their face that day.” The layoffs came after J.Crew reported mounting losses in its first quarter, with sales dropping by 5 percent compared to the same period in 2014 and an operating loss of nearly $521 million.
Company executives have blamed J.Crew's poor performance on various fashion faux pas in their catalog, such as the "Tilly," a crop-top women's sweater that bombed and ended up in the sale pile.On Media Blog Archives Select Date… December, 2015 November, 2015 October, 2015 September, 2015 August, 2015 July, 2015 June, 2015 May, 2015 April, 2015 March, 2015 February, 2015 January, 2015
The Drudge hype falls flat
DENVER, Colo. -- One night before the first presidential debate, conservatives Matt Drudge, Sean Hannity, and Tucker Carlson hyped footage of a five-year-old speech by then-Sen. Barack Obama, widely covered at the time, in which the presidential candidate suggested the George W. Bush administration was discriminating against the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
But when footage finally aired on Hannity's Fox News program and on Carlson's Daily Caller website at 9 p.m., following hours of aniticipation spurred by Drudge's promise of controversy and Hannity's promise of a "bombshell", it fell flat.
"What’s the ‘So what’ of this video? I don’t think it’s going to really go anywhere,” Republican Rep. Allen West said on Fox News.
“I don’t think this particular speech is definitive," said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, though he added that it was at least a "reminder" of Obama's "pattern of dishonesty."
If the footage failed to impress, it may be because Sen. Obama's remarks were widely covered -- by Carlson, by Fox News, and by the mainstream media -- when they were made on June 5, 2007.
"Barack Obama was talking about a quiet riot today. And no, it was not a reference to a 1980s heavy metal band, unfortunately," Carlson, who hosted his own program on MSNBC until 2008, reported at the time. "The senator waded into the controversial waters of race during a speech Hampton University in Virginia. He said the Bush administration has done little to quell a brewing storm among some black Americans. He compared the current tension to what fueled the L.A. riots in the wake of the Rodney King verdict."
"Senator Obama today said the Bush administration has done nothing to defuse what he calls a quiet riot among black Americans, a riot he suggests is ready to erupt," Fox News host Brit Hume reported. "Obama said African American resentments and frustrations are building, especially, he said, because so many blacks from New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are still displaced 21 months after Hurricane Katrina. Obama warned against conditions similar to those in Los Angeles 15 years ago."
The speech was also covered by CNN, NBC News, ABC News, The Associated Press, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, and the Chicago Sun-Times, among others. Parts of the speech -- specifically, Obama's introduction of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright -- would also be mentioned by reports in 2008.
But Hannity and Carlson said the full 40-minute footage of Obama's speech was notable because it included parts of the speech not included in the 2007 reports, most of which were based on prepared remarks and a compressed version of the video. The two men faulted the mainstream media -- which presumably includes Carlson and Fox News -- for not covering Sen. Obama's remarks in full.
What the "mainstream media" missed, Carlson alleged, was Sen. Obama "whipping up race hatred and fear" with remarks about how the federal goverment helped victims of 9/11 and Hurricane Andrew (in Florida), but did not help the victims of Hurricane Katrina because it didn't care about them as much. Carlson called those remarks "racial rhetoric designed to make people fearful."
Five years after the fact, and almost four years into Obama's presidency, it may be difficult for the outside observer to understand how a previously reported event could draw so much attention, especially given that it offers few bombshell revelations. The answer isn't Hannity or Carlson -- it's Drudge.
Despite providing only 2 percent of Americans with their campaign news, the Drudge Report continues to carry outsized influence -- because of his brand recognition and, in 2012, because he has a direct line to the Romney campaign. (When Drudge first posted a banner-headline for the video, the link re-directed to the Romney campaign donation page, and was subsequently pulled down.)
At 3 p.m. today, Drudge tweeted, "Curious tape dropping tonight. NOT from MOTHERJONES. Will cause controversy, ignite accusations of racism -- in both directions!", and it was off to the races. The "NOT from MOTHERJONES" meant to suggest the "curious tape" would create controversy to rival the recent footage of Romney telling donors at a private fundraiser that 47 percent of Americans didn't pay income taxes and would never vote for him. Smelling Drudge-level sensation, reporters, including yours truly, spent six hours in heated anticipation -- and all for naught.
In order to sell the video, Hannity resorted to claims that the media "has been trying to hide" the video. He ran the footage next to footage of Obama's famous speech on race and Rev. Wright the following year and said he couldn't tell which Obama was the real Obama. No one seemed to care.
So why rehash the race debate now? Some have suggested that Romney was trying to get into Obama's head ahead of the debate. Others saw it as a dog whistle masking itself as an accusation against a dog whistle (or, as Carlson put it, a "dog siren.")
"This is supposed to make you believe that in this tape from before he was president, Barack Obama is revealing his secret plan to be way more black than he seems to you now," Rachel Maddow, the liberal MSNBC host, said on her show. "This is how he snuck into the White House, right? People didn't know he was this black and if they would have known he was this black, they never would have elected. That's the idea here, right?"
The Obama campaign sees something far less nefarious but far more pathetic afoot.
“In a transparent attempt to change the subject from his comments attacking half of the American people, Mitt Romney’s allies recirculated video of a 2007 event that was open to and extensively covered by the press at the time," Obama campaign press secretary Ben LaBolt said in a statement. "The only thing shocking about this is that they apparently think it’s wrong to suggest that we should help returning veterans, children leaving foster care and other members of Mitt Romney’s 47 percent get training that will allow them to find the best available jobs. If the Romney campaign believes that Americans will accept these desperate attacks tomorrow night in place of specific plans for the middle class, it’s they who are in for a surprise.”CLOSE Male infants may be exposed each year to a deadly form of herpes from an ultra-Orthodox circumcision ritual that mandates rabbis use their mouths to suck blood from the fresh cut. Wochit
Potentially thousands of male newborns in Lakewood, N.J., may be exposed annually to a deadly form of herpes from an ultra-Orthodox circumcision ritual. (Photo11: Asbury Park (N.J.) Press)
TRENTON, N.J. — Potentially thousands of male newborns in a New Jersey community may be exposed each year to a deadly form of herpes from an ultra-Orthodox circumcision ritual that mandates rabbis use their mouths to suck blood from the fresh cut.
But there is no safety protocol in place to assess and mitigate risks associated with the mouth-to-genital contact — despite four deaths statewide of infants between 1999 and 2015 where herpes simplex virus was found as an underlying cause, an Asbury Park Press investigation found.
The ritual is prevalent among the booming Orthodox population in Lakewood, N.J. There were 4,464 births to township women in 2015 — a birth rate that is four times higher than the state rate.
July 2017: More couples face welfare fraud charges in New Jersey
New York, where officials have linked metzitzah b'peh (sucking with the mouth) circumcisions to at least 24 cases of infant herpes since 2000, bans mohels from practicing, pending a herpes test, if they're believed to be responsible for passing the disease to infants. New Jersey doesn't have any similar rules.
A mohel, who is the rabbi performing the ritual, briefly places his mouth over the cut after removal of the foreskin of the penis and sucks out a small amount of blood, ceremonially purifying the area.
Medical experts say the procedure is risky because the oral contact puts babies at risk of getting harmful herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) viruses.
Many adults carry HSV-1 in their bodies. They may have no symptoms or only mild symptoms, such as cold sores. Unlike adults, babies are too young to fight the virus — they could suffer brain damage, develop a lifelong disability or in some cases die.
Faith and medicine
Despite the risk — discovering neonatal herpes in males who undergo the ritual is 3.4 times more frequent than for other male babies, according to a federal study — metzitzah b'peh is another case of conflict between faith and safe medical practices.
The issue has prompted state Sen. Robert Singer, a Republican who lives in Lakewood, to consider legislation to test rabbis for herpes.
It might be impossible to establish a protocol governing oral suction circumcision, said Dr. Paul A. Offit, professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. (Photo11: Provided by University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine via Asbury Park (N.J.) Press)
But there is no medical oversight in New Jersey, and leaders of Lakewood’s Orthodox community say they would consider restrictions on the centuries-old ritual as an infringement on religious freedom.
Lakewood is home to Beth Medrash Govoha, the largest Orthodox Jewish college or seminary in the U.S. The growth of the yeshiva over the years spurred a boost in the population, which went from 45,000 in 1990 to more than 100,000 now, making it New Jersey's fifth-largest municipality.
Establishing a protocol governing oral suction circumcisions in Lakewood might be difficult if not impossible, said Dr. Paul Offit, a professor of vaccinology and pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, who said he's in favor of banning the ritual entirely.
July 2017: New Jersey welfare fraud arrests spark anti-Semitic sentiment
"There's a tangled relationship between religion and America,'' said Offit, author of Bad Faith: When Religious Belief Undermines Modern Medicine."
"There's a politically powerful Orthodox community in Lakewood that I'm sure would push back against anything that would impact their freedom to have the ritual circumcisions," Offit said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a 2012 report said circumcisions should be performed under sterile conditions, and direct oral contact should be avoided as much as possible.
While neonatal herpes is not among the diseases that needs to be reported to local health departments, the Asbury Park Press found the four instances in New Jersey by examining CDC death records. Nationally, there were 284 such deaths of infants between 1999 and 2015.
New York's example
New York City officials say of the 24 cases since 2000 of infant herpes they've linked to metzitzah b'peh, two of those babies died and two more suffered brain damage. The city in March began barring mohels who test positive for herpes and who may have passed the virus to an infant.
'There has never been any correlation between (the circumcisions) to herpes here," said Rabbi Avi Schnall, director of the Agudath Israel of America's New Jersey office. (Photo11: Asbury Park (N.J.) Press)
In Rockland County, N.Y., where ultra-religious Jewish communities were established during the 1950s, health officials say they worked with Orthodox leaders to launch a protocol four years ago after seven cases of neonatal herpes emerged. DNA testing is used to try to link a baby with the source of infection.
There's no need for New Jersey to follow suit, said Rabbi Avi Schnall, director of the Lakewood office of Agudath Israel of America, a non-profit that advocates for civil and religious rights for Jews.
"There has never been any correlation between (the circumcisions) to herpes here,'' said Schnaal. "There are some in the community who would not consider metzitzah b'peh a required part of the ceremony, but there are others who believe it’s an integral part, and the religious right of those people should be defended.''
State officials wouldn't provide more information about the four infant deaths — such as locations, circumstances or genders — citing a law that limits public disclosure of vital records.
Singer said the investigation raises concerns about the dearth of reporting on neonatal herpes and the lack of oversight of mohels.
June 2017: How did massive N.J. welfare fraud scheme work?
"Even if it’s just one case (of neonatal herpes), we should know about it and where it’s coming from," Singer said. "It should be a disease reportable to health departments."
Singer said he's also interested in exploring whether it would be wise to have "mohels tested maybe once a year.''
“Even if it's just one case (of neonatal herpes), we should know about it and where it's coming from.” New Jersey state Sen. Robert Singer
Schnall, from Agudath Israel of America, said testing mohels "risks encroaching the separation of church and state."
In New York, former mayor Michael Bloomberg's requirement for mohels to provide a health department pamphlet to parents describing the risks of HSV as well as obtain written consent acknowledging those risks, encroached on separation of church and state Schnaal said. Mayor Bill de Blasio removed the requirement when he took office in 2014.
“If the government wants to produce pamphlets or provide education on this, by all means. But to regulate the ritual and require of the parents or mohels that they need to do X, Y and Z, that’s different entirely,’’ Schnall said.
The demand among Lakewood residents for the oral suction circumcision for their babies is high, said Dr. Jeffrey Mazlin, an OB-GYN and part-time mohel based in New York.
“I know metzitzah b’pehis done by mohels a lot in Lakewood," said Mazlin, who doesn't perform the procedure. “My own thoughts are it’s potentially dangerous and the mohel has to make sure he doesn’t have any open sores if they’re performing it."
Several mohels who advertise their services in Lakewood declined to discuss how frequently they perform the ritual that’s said to be 4,000 years old.
June 2017: 14 arrested in New Jersey welfare fraud investigation
"My understanding is that it takes place with 90% of the babies in Lakewood,'' Offit said.
Offit said state lawmakers should rally behind Singer to help improve tracking of neonatal herpes, which is also not a reportable disease nationally or in most states.
"I think it’s really important to change the reporting. Children are being put at risk unnecessarily,'' Offit said. "This is a time when it’s reasonable for the state to stand up and protect its children.''
Like Offit, Rabbi Moshe Tendler, a professor of medical ethics at Yeshiva University, New York, said the ritual should be abandoned.
"Oral suction of the incision is not required by halacha (the collective body of Jewish religious laws)," Tendler said from Israel in a telephone interview.
‘’The medical facts are not in dispute, not by anyone who has an understanding of infection and contamination,'' he said. "Nowadays almost every mohel uses an ointment, a bacitracin, which most likely protects against most bacteria, but maybe some mohel don’t use it. In any case, it’s still unwise medically to do (the ritual).’’
Follow Bob Jordan on Twitter: @BobJordanAPP
Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2whoNZ7Vermont’s only Bitcoin ATM is now offline because the state’s Department of Financial Regulation claims the operation was violating the local law.
The device was installed back in October 2014 and was available to the general public at the Burlington-based 3D printing store Blu-Bin. The team says the cash mashine was a success amongst the city’s tech-savvy community.
However, the store received a letter from the state regulators on January 12th, claiming that the presence of an active cryptocurrency ATM in the establishment was a breach of the law. Another letter was also sent to PYC, the company that owns the device.
According to the document, quoted by the site VPR, Blu-Bin now faces several penalties. “Operation of a Bitcoin ATM in Vermont without a license could result in a monetary penalty of $1,000 per day. Given your October 25th start date, you are already facing an administrative penalty over $75,000,” said the official document.
But there’s more: “additionally, knowingly engaging in a money services business without a license carries potential criminal penalties of a $10,000.00 fine plus up to three years in prison.”
And although Emilio Pagan-Yourno, CEO of PYC, recognises that the company doesn’t have a Vermont license to engage in such services, he reminds the authorities that PYC has a federal license issued by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).
“According to FinCEN, I do need to have an MSB [Money Services Business] license, which I do for all 50 states and territories. And that’s just telling FinCEN that I do provide a service with digital currency according to the new statutes, and Vermont doesn’t have that,” explained the entrepreneur.
PYC operates a total of seven Bitcoin ATMs in three different American states: Vermont, New Hampshire and New York. However, Pagan-Yourno says Vermont’s authorities are the first (and only) to create obstacles. “I’m not really sure what Vermont’s trying to get at, because it’s a stretch. And it’s funny that they singled me out instead of (similar) companies that have been operating in the state since 2012.”
The problem, according to the CEO of PYC, is that Vermont’s regulators don’t understand cryptocurrency and how the ATM operates.
They didn’t really do their research. And they’re trying to target smaller digital currency businesses rather than ones that have already been operating for three years now in Vermont.
The CEO of Blu-Bin agrees. Dan Riley believes that the state regulators do not understand Bitcoin at all, something that was clear when Riley and a PYC representative organized a conference call with the authorities and ended up having to explain from scratch how the system worked.
The license now required by the local authorities costs about $1,500, a value that would render the operation too expensive.
“Obviously we want to comply with any regulatory framework that needs to be complied with. We’re not trying to run anything under the table, so to speak. But what we’re trying to actually make sure is that this is properly taken care of. Because our understanding has been that the state doesn’t really understand where this falls, so they’re just trying to shove us into a box that we might not fit into,” Blu-Bin’s CEO said.
The regulators might have won the battle as the Bitcoin ATM is offline at the moment, but they are far from winning the war against PYC. Pagan-Yourno said that the regulators are “reaching out for something I don’t need”, which means he intends to ignore the official demands. “I’m not entertaining that at all. (…) They can’t fine me on something I don’t need,” he said.
The state’s Department of Financial Regulation has refused to make any comments regarding pending issues.Submitted by Chris Martenson via PeakProsperity.com,
I wish I could say things were improving between the US and Russia but they aren't.
There’s so much happening right now, I can only provide a summary of a few of the more interesting and worrying developments.
This report builds on those I've released over the past two years and begins with a chilling editorial put out by the NY Times on September 29th, 2016, which further demonized Putin specifically, Russia generally, and openly advocates for military confrontation.
Hey, we’ve been down this path before. The deeply conflicted NY Times has never met a war in the Middle East it didn’t support, and has never had any trouble repeating war plan talking points (that always neatly align with those put out by neocon think tanks) or even printing obviously fake “intelligence” from unnamed sources such as that used to justify the illegal US attack and invasion of Iraq.
As a reminder for my US readers who many only have read US press sources on the matter, prior to being attacked Iraq had never threatened the US, had no role in 9/11, and had allowed extensive UN access to its country’s military bases none of which ever showed the slightest trace of manufacturing weapons of mass destruction. And, even if they had been producing these so-called weapons of mass destruction (weapons which are also owned and maintained in the US, for the record), there was still no legal case for an attack by the US because pre-emptive attacks are not justifiable, ever.
What the NY Times has done, again, I fear, is served as a conduit for neocon talking points and therefore has become a propaganda arm readying the US population for another war, this one with Russia. This is a very disturbing development.
Here’s the editorial, into which I have inserted comments where appropriate [in brackets]. Remember, propaganda is designed to elicit core emotional responses such as fear, anger, moral indignation, and a sense of threat to one’s very survival:
Vladimir Putin’s Outlaw State Sept 29, 2016 President Vladimir Putin is fast turning Russia into an outlaw nation. As one of five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, his country shares a special responsibility to uphold international law. Yet, his behavior in Ukraine and Syria violates not only the rules intended to promote peace instead of conflict, but also common human decency. [Which “rules intended to promote peace” is the NY Times referring to here? The same sorts of rules that led NATO to bomb Libya back into the stone age? Or are these the “rules” that allow a country to manufacture fake evidence on Iraq and then attack that country unleashing a decade of bitter sectarian violence? Also, how does “common human decency fit into that schema? I’m truly curious.] This bitter truth was driven home twice on Wednesday. An investigative team led by the Netherlands concluded that the surface-to-air missile system that shot down a Malaysia Airlines plane over Ukraine in July 2014, killing 298 on board, was sent from Russia to Russian-backed separatists and returned to Russia the same night. [The MH-17 disaster is anything but clear-cut and the JIT investigation was heavily compromised from the start. Nothing like the claim being made here is supported by the actual investigation evidence presented. This is pure, unsupported speculation at this stage. More on this at a later date.] Meanwhile, in Syria, Russian and Syrian warplanes knocked out two hospitals in the rebel-held sector of Aleppo as part of an assault that threatens the lives of 250,000 more people in a war that has already claimed some 500,000 Syrian lives. [Meanwhile, in Afghanistan the US bombed a MSF hospital and has killed ~90% innocents with its drone program. Also, not to pick nits, but the US and European interests funded and started the war in Syria. It seems a bit short-sighted to now claim that Russia bears some special responsibility for the lives at stake. You have to forget everything that happened prior to this moment.] Russia has tried hard to pin the blame for the airline crash on Ukraine. But the new report, produced by prosecutors from the Netherlands, Australia, Belgium, Malaysia and Ukraine, confirms earlier findings. It uses strict standards of evidence and meticulously documents not only the deployment of the Russian missile system that caused the disaster but also Moscow’s continuing cover-up. [Nope. Just nope. I’ll detail why in a future report, but the MH-17 investigation was bogus from the get go. Short version: there were only two suspects, the Ukrainian military and rebels. The Ukrainian secret service (SBU) was inside the investigation from the beginning and supplied all of the ‘evidence’ against Russia and the rebels. What investigation ever has one of the prime suspects supplying the evidence? As I said, completely rigged and bogus.] Some Western officials have accused Russia of war crimes, charges that could be pursued through international channels, even if Moscow blocks a formal referral to the International Criminal Court. New sanctions against Russia also should be considered. Mr. Putin will undoubtedly fight any such action, using his veto on the Security Council, but whatever his response, the United States should lend its support to Ukraine’s quest for accountability. [“Some western officials?” There the NYT goes again with the unnamed sources. How about you name names this time NY Times? Well, in truth, a whole host of named individuals and organizations have accused the US of war crimes, as well as Israel, which the US has routinely blocked. Glass houses and all of that.] Over recent days, Mr. Putin has again shown his true colors with air attacks that have included powerful bunker-busting bombs that can destroy underground hospitals and safety zones where civilians seek shelter. [Note the slippery use of the word ‘can’ in this sentence. Have they been used to target and destroy hospitals and civilian safety zones, or not?] On Sept. 19, Russia bombed an aid convoy, which like hospitals and civilians are not supposed to be targeted under international law. [Russia denies this, and has also released radar evidence showing that the only planes in the region at the time were two US drones, plus the sort of damage seen on the fire-destroyed trucks is consistent with the damage caused by the US drone based Hellfire missile. If the US wants to release some radar data showing Russian planes in the area or other compelling evidence, then we can all be more confident in that claim. For now the NY Times is repeating an unproven assertion made by the US State Department.] President Obama has long refused to approve direct military intervention in Syria. And Mr. Putin may be assuming that Mr. Obama is unlikely to confront Russia in his final months and with an American election season in full swing. But with the rebel stronghold in Aleppo under threat of falling to the government, administration officials said that such a response is again under consideration. [The “rebel stronghold in Aleppo under threat” is interesting use of evocative language. However the nature of war is that the sides attempt to take key positions form each other. The “rebels’ in question are some of the most dodgy humans to ever walk the planet. The rebels backed by the US include nasty elements of Al-Nusra, Al-Qaida, ISIS and a host of really vile outfits. If you are not aware, these groups have executed thousands of civilians, taken sex slaves, and conducted other horrible crimes against the innocent. ] Mr. Putin fancies himself a man on a mission to restore Russia to greatness. Russia could indeed be a great force for good. Yet his unconscionable behavior — butchering civilians in Syria and Ukraine, annexing Crimea, computer-hacking American government agencies, crushing dissent at home — suggests that the furthest thing from his mind is becoming a constructive partner in the search for peace. [Pay close attention to that word “unconscionable.” It really stood out for me here and I knew something was up when I heard it used again by a US official. It will soon appear again in media quotes below. For now, let’s just note that every act declared as 'unconscionable' has also recently been done by the US: civilians have been ‘butchered’ (again a strongly evocative word very different from the ‘collateral damage and targeting mistakes’ that the US reserves for its own actions), computers have been hacked (even Angela Merkel’s cell phone as you may recall), and peaceful protests have been crushed in the US, most recently a peaceful prayer circle of Native Americans at Standing Rock by heavily armed LEO’s who brought armored personnel carriers for the task)] (Source)
Okay, that editorial was yet another in a long line from the NY Times which has never met a neocon-proposed war it didn’t blindly support. Supposedly the bastion of the east coast liberal elites, the NY Times is actually acting once again more like the personal propaganda arm of the US necons and Israeli likuds who have been dragging the US into one war after another.
As I’ve written about extensively in the past, a war this time could mean anything from a shooting (kinetic) war, to a cyberwar, financial or trade war, or even a hacking attack that takes out the grid or other critical infrastructure. If you want to go deeper into the details of what that might mean and how you should prepare, we have a more extensive Part 2 of this report prepared.
Now, lets continue on with our thesis that a propaganda effort is underway to drag the US into yet another useless war. This one with the potential to literally end the US as a going concern.
I’m going to skip over a few events here so we can connect this propaganda dot. Then we’ll get back to the other worrying events that show how the situation with Russia is deteriorating badly.
Fast forward just five days from that NY Times editorial and we read this:
White House Warns of 'Actions' If Russia Won't Negotiate Oct 4, 2016 President Obama faces an increasingly stark choice in Syria — he can order American military action or watch thousands of women and children die as the rebel stronghold of Aleppo falls. So far, he has shown no willingness to launch a U.S. military response, but White House officials told NBC News Monday they are now considering escalating the U.S. involvement in Syria's civil war, including unspecified "actions…that would further underscore the consequences of not coming back to the negotiating table." American intelligence officials on Monday pointedly accused Russian and Syrian forces of mass atrocities during their advance on the city, describing a horrific bombing campaign in recent days that has killed women and children at an increasing rate. "The regime and Russia's use of incendiary weapons have contributed to the unconscionable civilian deaths and suffering," a U.S. intelligence official said. (Source)
How much more obvious can all that be? First there’s a NY Times editorial that literally lays to a series of talking points ranging from women and children being at risk to a rebel stronghold to unconscionable civilian deaths and suffering.
It’s all there in this second article and, just for a bonus, it’s all attributed to unnamed White House and intelligence “officials.” Exactly the same pattern we saw in the run up to the Iraq war. I would put a lot of money on the bet that these scripted talking points were developed by a small team of neocons operating in the shadows. A lot of money.
As in the past |
Tara Street, Pearse and Grand Canal Dock.
Heuston Station is not part of the route but existing services to Heuston will continue from Newbridge/Hazelhatch.
The new route has been introduced following a €13.7 million upgrade of the Phoenix Park tunnel that was funded by the National Transport Authority.
The timetable for the new route is available on Irishrail.ie.Photo
Personal Health Jane Brody on health and aging.
Pregnancy, or the desire to become pregnant, often inspires women to take better care of themselves — quitting smoking, for example, or eating more nutritiously.
But now many women face an increasingly common problem: obesity, which affects 36 percent of women of childbearing age. In addition to hindering conception, obesity — defined as a body mass index above 30 — is linked to a host of difficulties during pregnancy, labor and delivery.
These range from gestational diabetes, hypertension and pre-eclampsia to miscarriage, premature birth, emergency cesarean delivery and stillbirth.
The infants of obese women are more likely to have congenital defects, and they are at greater risk of dying at or soon after birth. Babies who survive are more likely to develop hypertension and obesity as adults.
To be sure, most babies born to overweight and obese women are healthy. Yet a recently published analysis of 38 studies found that even modest increases in a woman’s pre-pregnancy weight raised the risks of fetal death, stillbirth and infant death.
Personal biases and concerns about professional liability lead some obstetricians to avoid obese patients. But Dr. Sigal Klipstein, chairwoman of the committee on ethics of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, says it is time for doctors to push aside prejudice and fear. They must take more positive steps to treat obese women who are pregnant or want to become pregnant.
Dr. Klipstein and her colleagues recently issued a report on ethical issues in caring for obese women. Obesity is commonly viewed as a personal failing that can be prevented or reversed through motivation and willpower. But the facts suggest otherwise.
Although some people manage to shed as much as 100 pounds and keep them off without surgery, many obese patients say they’ve tried everything, and nothing has worked. “Most obese women are not intentionally overeating or eating the wrong foods,” Dr. Klipstein said. “Obstetricians should address the problem, not abandon patients because they think they’re doing something wrong.”
Dr. Klipstein is a reproductive endocrinologist at InVia Fertility Specialists in Northbrook, Ill. In her experience, the women who manage to lose weight are usually highly motivated and use a commercial diet plan.
“But many fail even though they are very anxious to get pregnant and have a healthy pregnancy,” she said. “This is the new reality, and obstetricians have to be aware of that and know how to treat patients with weight issues.”
The committee report emphasizes that “obese patients should not be viewed differently from other patient populations that require additional care or who have increased risks of adverse medical outcomes.” Obese patients should be cared for “in a nonjudgmental manner,” it says, adding that it is unethical for doctors to refuse care within the scope of their expertise “solely because the patient is obese.”
Obstetricians should discuss the medical risks associated with obesity with their patients and “avoid blaming the patient for her increased weight,” the committee says. Any doctor who feels unable to provide effective care for an obese patient should seek a consultation or refer the woman to another doctor.
Obesity rates are highest among women “of lower socioeconomic status,” the report notes, and many obese women lack “access to healthy food choices and opportunities for regular exercise that would help them maintain a normal weight.”
Nonetheless, obese women who want to have a baby should not abandon all efforts to lose weight. Obstetricians who lack expertise in weight management can refer patients to dietitians who specialize in treating weight problems without relying on gimmicks or crash diets, which have their own health risks.
Weight loss is best attempted before a pregnancy. Last year, the college’s committee on obstetric practice advised obstetricians to “provide education about possible complications and encourage obese patients to undertake a weight-reduction program, including diet, exercise, and behavior modification, before attempting pregnancy.”
An obese woman who becomes pregnant should aim to gain less weight than would a normal-weight woman. The Institute of Medicine suggests a pregnancy weight gain of 15 to 25 pounds for overweight women and 11 to 20 pounds for obese women.
Although women should not try to lose weight during pregnancy, “a woman who weighs 300 pounds shouldn’t gain at all,” Dr. Klipstein said. “This is not harmful to the fetus.”
Dr. Klipstein also noted that obesity produces physiological changes that can affect pregnancy, starting with irregular ovulation that can result in infertility.
Obese women are more likely to have problems processing blood sugar, which raises the risk of birth defects and miscarriage. There is also a greater likelihood that their baby will be too large for a vaginal delivery, requiring a cesarean delivery that has its own risks involving anesthesia and surgery.
The babies of obese women are more likely to develop neural tube defects — spina bifida and anencephaly — and to suffer birth injuries like shoulder dystocia, which may occur when the infant is very large.
High blood pressure, more common in obesity, can result in pre-eclampsia during pregnancy, which can damage the mother’s kidneys and cause fetal complications like low birth weight, prematurity and stillbirth.
It is also harder to obtain reliable images on a sonogram when the woman is obese. This can delay detection of fetal or pregnancy abnormalities that require careful monitoring or medical intervention.There's trouble in paradise on We The People, the White House's experimental crowdsourced petition platform. A new petition has been started to directly address the government's apparent disinterest and dismissive attitude toward popular petitions.
We The People started earlier this year to let anyone create an official petition and collect digital signatures. Any petition that reached 25,000 votes within a month would be reviewed by appropriate and top-level policy-makers. However, some users have complained that the platform is more about letting the public vent than creating substantive reforms.
Enter the petition entitled: We demand a vapid, condescending, meaningless, politically safe response to this petition. The slightly passive aggressive petition lampoons what signers say is the government's standard practice of responding to successful petitions:
Since these petitions are ignored apart from an occasional patronizing and inane political statement amounting to nothing more than a condescending pat on the head, we the signers would enjoy having the illusion of success. Since no other outcome to this process seems possible, we demand that the White House immediately assign a junior staffer to compose a tame and vapid response to this petition, and never attempt to take any meaningful action on this or any other issue. We would also like a cookie.
The government has certainly answered more outlandish petitions (ahem, aliens), but the Vapid Petition actually seems well on its way to breaking the 25,000 signature requirement. The petition has more than 9,700 signatures since it started on Nov. 4.
Aside from the petition's clearly sarcastic tone, it legitimately speaks to a wide-spread frustration with the We The People platform. It will be interesting to see what happens if it gains more than 25,000 votes by Dec. 3 — the petition's cut-off — and the government is obligated to respond. To its credit, the White House has left the petition unaltered (to our knowledge) and voters can still use all of the site's social features to promote the petition.
What do you think? If you were the White House, would you fight fire with fire and deliver a deliberately mocking, vapid and condescending response or take the high road? Any chance on that cookie?
Image courtesy of Flickr, El BibliomataUnless you use a Kindle or another e-reader regularly, you probably don't come into contact with E Ink displays. While they were once popular for high-end devices, they've largely been relegated to use in reading devices now that LCD and other display technology have grown in popularity and affordability.
But the company reMarkable is trying to expand E Ink's use with the reMarkable paper tablet, a slab with a 10.3-inch E Ink display and an included stylus. Not only is it meant to be a reading device, but the reMarkable is designed to replace pretty much any papers you have to bring with you anywhere—books, documents, notes, sketches, and the like.
That's not a new concept, as many of us have one device that holds most of the things we need daily. The reMarkable tablet goes after paper lovers specifically, boasting its E Ink display and companion stylus as better, more convenient alternatives to the traditional paper-and-pencil setup. But it's a hard sell—priced at $599, the reMarkable tablet may offer a unique reading and writing experience compared to other tablets, but it has limiting features that prevent it from being great.
Design
ReMarkable built its tablet like a cross between a Kindle e-reader and an iPad. Measuring 6.9×10.1×.26 inches, it's more rectangular than an iPad Pro and much larger than a Kindle device. It has to be bigger to allow a comfortable reading and writing experience, but as someone who is accustomed to using both the aforementioned Apple and Amazon devices, the reMarkable paper tablet felt a bit tall for my liking.
Specs at a glance: reMarkable tablet (as reviewed) Screen 10.3” 1872x1404 resolution (226 DPI) monochrome digital paper touch display OS Codex, a custom Linux-based OS optimized for low-latency e-paper CPU 1 GHz ARM A9 CPU RAM 512 MB DDR3L Storage 8GB Networking Wi-Fi Ports One Micro USB port Size 177 x 256 x 6.7mm (6.9 x 10.1 x.26 inches) Weight.77 pounds (350 grams) Battery 3,000mAh Supported files.pdf,.epub Price $600 Other perks Included stylus
However, the overall slim frame and solid build of the tablet helped me overcome my initial issue with its dimensions. My model is a soft white with a shiny aluminum back plate that's hugged at the top and bottom by silicone-like rubber strips. These help keep the tablet in place on a table or flat surface so you can write or draw on its E Ink display without the device sliding around.
The tablet has a PMMA cover lens that the company promises will protect it from drops and rough handling. While the reMarkable tablet certainly doesn't feel flimsy, it doesn't have the weighty design of an all-metal device. But that also makes it quite light at just over three-quarters of a pound, so it won't weigh down any backpacks or bags.
Inside is a 3,000mAh battery, typical for devices of this size, but it works for much longer on this e-reader than for most other mobile devices. ReMarkable's website promises "days" of battery life, and that vague statement appears to be true. I used my tablet on and off for about three days before it hit 20-percent battery and made me consider recharging it.
The reMarkable tablet comes with a stylus, and the device recognizes its input, pressure, and orientation. E Ink strokes on the screen will change depending on how hard you press and the angle of the tip. The tablet also comes with replacement pen tips for when the original tip gets worn down (as it will over long periods of use). The stylus does not need a battery to work, which is a plus for any tablet stylus, as it removes the anxiety of having a depleted battery in the middle of an important meeting, class, or event in which you'll be writing furiously.
Pros and cons of reMarkable’s big E Ink display
The large E Ink display was jarring at first for me because this device is considered a tablet. Currently, the tablet market is dominated by bright LCD and bold OLED displays, with each manufacturer trying to out-spec the next with the debut of each new tablet. The reMarkable tablet isn't trying to do that; rather, it's stripping away all the unnecessary tech in favor of a simple reading and writing experience. E Ink makes sense on a tablet like this, but it takes some adjustment by the user (if you're like me, at least).
Since I started testing the reMarkable tablet with the mindset that it was, indeed, a tablet, it was a little jarring to see a message on the E Ink display when the device was powered off. "Your reMarkable is powered off. Hold power to start your reMarkable," appears on the turned-off display, along with the company's logo at the bottom of the screen. I don't expect a tablet screen to show anything on its display unless I'm using it, but E Ink displays are different—Kindles often show suggested titles or advertisements on their displays when powered off.
But one way that E Ink and LCD displays can be similar is that they can both use lights to make them easier to see. Kindle devices have frontlights that make the E Ink display much easier to read in dark environments, like an airplane. However, the reMarkable tablet doesn't have a backlight nor a frontlight, making it significantly less useful as an e-reader in less-than-perfect lighting situations.
Pressing and holding the power button for a second or two will make the screen flash in that inky black color typical of E Ink displays before this message appears: "Your reMarkable is starting. Give it a second to set things straight." Unfortunately, the tablet takes a solid 15 to 20 seconds to power on completely and at least another 10 seconds after that to fully connect to Wi-Fi.
While the tablet appears to be a portrait in minimalism at first, its four buttons belie that assumption. The power button at the top edge is obviously necessary, but the three buttons at the base of the device are somewhat befuddling. The center square button takes you to the tablet's homepage, while the other two turn the pages of the document you're currently in.
This E Ink display may not be sophisticated enough to render apps or games, but it supports touch input. Anyone who has used a Kindle would assume a simple swipe from left or right could turn a page, but you cannot do that on the reMarkable tablet. You can, however, swipe up and down to scroll through paper template options (more on those later). The two page-turning buttons feel like a weird and unnecessary addition, and the fact that you can't swipe to turn a page at all on this E Ink display is borderline unforgivable. A reMarkable representative told Ars that these swipe gestures may be included in future software updates.
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Reading, writing, and drawing experience
The reMarkable interface
Let's start with how the reMarkable paper tablet organizes your content. The device is meant to hold books, documents, and other files that would be most comfortable to have in one place, as opposed to lugging everything around separately. The homepage of the tablet organizes files into a few folders, many of which overlap with one another: My Files, Notebooks, Documents, E-Books, and Bookmarks.
Every file on your tablet shows up under My Files, while only documents made on the device (like sketches and drawings) appear in Notebooks;.pdf files populate the Documents folder; and.epub files fill up the E-Books folder. Any important files that you choose to flag will appear in the Bookmarks folder.
The Documents and E-Books folders may be confusing if you're unaware of the file types of all your documents. The reMarkable tablet only supports.pdf and.epub files, and its premade folders divide them as such..pdf and.epub support may be enough for some, but you should pay special attention to this if you expected to transfer all your Kindle or other e-books to this device. Most Kindle books are.mobi files, so you'd have to break Amazon's DRM and convert them to.epub files to make them accessible via the reMarkable tablet.
Even if the homepage is a bit busy, it organizes all your files in a fairly intuitive way. You have the option to sort files in different folders by last updated, file size, or name as well. However, there's no way to search for a file based on keywords or topics, and the reMarkable tablet can't recognize your handwriting to let you search through documents of handwritten notes.
Just above all the file folders is an icon that takes you to the device's settings. This is where you can manage Wi-Fi networks, check battery status, manage account and security settings, change font sizes, and more. I only went to the settings menu to change from left-handed mode to right-handed mode (which changes the positioning of the on-screen writing menu) and to set up my Wi-Fi network.
The tablet automatically connects to Wi-Fi after the initial setup, and, while connected, the device can sync files and download firmware updates. The reMarkable tablet doesn't support apps or any other programs, so all you can do while connected to Wi-Fi is update the files on your device by adding and removing them using either the mobile or desktop companion app. The only way you'll know if your files are synced is if you open the reMarkable desktop or mobile app, and reMarkable's cloud takes a few moments to sync all the new aspects of each document.
Reading
Reading any kind of document is a pleasure on the reMarkable tablet. That's no surprise—it's accepted now that E Ink and e-paper displays are some of the best ways to consume the written word, as far as non-paper technology goes. On that count, the reMarkable tablet is no exception. It's much like reading on a Kindle, just at a larger scale. Viewing angles are wonderful, and reading in direct sunlight is great. While I still scowl at the lack of left- and right-swipe support, the physical buttons work fine to turn pages, and the center button provides a quick way to exit a document and return to the homepage.
Thanks to the large size of the tablet's display, you can fit more content on each page than you can on a Kindle, but otherwise I don't feel like size made a huge difference in the reading experience. If anything, it was weird to hold a "book" in my hand that was so much larger than my Kindle (and many physical books). However, the tablet isn't so large that it's unwieldy or ostentatious.
At the top of the screen is a three-dot icon that opens the general settings of the document you're currently reading. You can change the document's name or customize text settings by increasing or decreasing text size or changing the font, justification, page margins, and line spacing. These are typical e-reader settings that those with sight issues will immediately change to their liking, and I appreciate the short list of serif and sans-serif fonts to choose from.
However, pen input will be skewed if you change text settings after the fact: while in an.epub file, you can use the stylus to write or highlight on the pages. After highlighting a few sentences in a document, I changed the text settings to check out different fonts and line-spacing effects. I was annoyed to find that my highlighted passages were not maintained after changing some of the text settings. The lines of my highlights were off, and some covered blank portions of the page where paragraphs were broken.
Kindle devices fuse highlight strokes with words on the page, maintaining those called-out sections no matter which text settings are used. On the reMarkable tablet, it's best to set your preferred.epub text settings first and then hope you never have to change them if you plan to highlight and edit documents with handwritten notes. A reMarkable representative told me that this issue should not occur in.pdf files, and that's likely because you can't change things like text size and line spacing in a.pdf.
Listing image by Valentina PalladinoYcuá Bolaños supermarket fire Entrance of the Ycuá Bolaños V supermarket on August 1, 2006, two years after the fire. Banners of protest demanding justice for the victims hang on the sides of the building. Date August 1, 2004 Time 11:25 UTC-4 (15:25 UTC) Location Asunción, Paraguay Coordinates Coordinates: Death(s) 396 Non-fatal injuries 500+
The Ycuá Bolaños supermarket fire was a disastrous fire that occurred on August 1, 2004 in Asunción, Paraguay. After the fire broke out, exits were locked to prevent people from stealing merchandise. The building also lacked adequate fire protection systems. Nearly 400 people were killed and more than 500 were injured. The president of the supermarket company, as well as various employees, were later sentenced to prison terms for their actions during the fire.
Background [ edit ]
The Ycuá Bolaños V supermarket, located in the capital city of Asunción, Paraguay, opened on December 7, 2001. The two-story building consisted of an underground parking garage on the lower level and a sales area and food court on the second story. Two separate mezzanines contained administrative offices and an extension of the food court.[1]
According to the defense attorney of the building's owner, the bakery and food court kitchen were not properly ventilated, which would cause smoke and gas to accumulate in the building.[2] The structure also lacked a fire sprinkler system and the smoke detectors did not work.[1][2]
Fire [ edit ]
The fire broke out on August 1, 2004, with two explosions on the first floor. The fire burned for seven hours before firefighters were able to extinguish it. The final death toll was 396, and more than 500 injured.[3] The cause was believed to be a faulty barbecue chimney that leaked hot flammable gases into the ceiling, which ignited.[citation needed]
Several survivors of the fire and volunteer firefighters alleged that, when the fire broke out, doors within the complex were deliberately closed under the direction of the owners, Juan Pío Paiva and his son, Víctor Daniel, trapping people inside, in order to prevent people from fleeing with merchandise without paying for it. The management of the shopping center denied the charge.[4] Paiva, his son and a security guard surrendered to the police and were formally charged.
A major issue was that the complex lacked emergency exits and efficient fire protection systems. The architect of the complex and several municipal public servants responsible for the overseeing of commercial buildings were prosecuted as well.[citation needed]
Aftermath [ edit ]
On December 5, 2006, Juan Pío Paiva, Víctor Daniel Paiva and the security guard were convicted of involuntary manslaughter with a maximum penalty of five years in prison. The prosecution however was seeking a 25-years-in-prison term.[3] As the verdict was read, angry survivors and family members of the deceased started a violent demonstration inside the court room, which later spread onto the streets of Asunción. The prosecution demanded a retrial.[5]
On February 2, 2008, a new court ruled that the trio committed negligent homicide. Juan Pío Paiva, president of the company, received a sentence of 12 years in prison. His son Víctor Daniel Paiva, present at the start of the fire, was sentenced to 10 years in jail. Security guard Daniel Areco, who closed the doors, was condemned to 5 years in prison. Additionally, shareholder Humberto Casaccia, also present at the start of the fire, was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for endangering people in the work place.[6] Architect Bernardo Ismachowiez, who both designed and built the complex, spent two years in house arrest for "dangerous activities in construction".[7]This bill has 7 versions. Select a version to view: Jan 19, 2011: Introduced Feb 11, 2011: Reported by House Committee Feb 28, 2011: Passed the House Mar 1, 2011: Referred to Senate Committee Nov 17, 2011: Reported by Senate Committee Feb 6, 2012: Passed the Senate with an Amendment Feb 29, 2012: Passed Congress
Compare to a previous version to see how the bill has changed: (Select Other Version) Jan 19, 2011: Introduced Feb 11, 2011: Reported by House Committee Feb 28, 2011: Passed the House Mar 1, 2011: Referred to Senate Committee Nov 17, 2011: Reported by Senate Committee Feb 6, 2012: Passed the Senate with an Amendment
Compare this bill to another bill: (Select Bill) H.R. 2780 (111th) Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2010 (RFS) S. 1794 Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011 (ES)
React to this bill with an emoji ··· Save your opinion on this bill on a six-point scale from strongly oppose to strongly support Add Note All Positions » (Shared on panel.)This week The[Crafty]Gamer features Katy Creider from Tulsa, OK, who has crafted these incredible plush GlaDOS personality cores. What’s even cooler is each one has a voice box installed so you can have your very own GlaDOS core spew its memorable sayings with a good squeeze. If you made it to the end of Portal you’ll recognize these talking plushies (though you probably don't want to incinerate them). Read on to find out how Creider put these amazing cores together and how you can get your hands on the rare items.
Full Name: Katy Creider
Age: 26
Hometown: Tulsa, OK
Occupation: Banker
Creation: GlaDOS Personality Cores
[View:http://vimeo.com/13665266:610:343]
Tell us about the spheres and the inspiration behind the project?
I've always been a gamer and a crafter. Any time that I can combine the two, I will! I fell in love with Portal the moment GlaDOS starting talking and my love grew as the game continued. When I was introduced to the GlaDOS personality cores, I knew I had to make them and have them for my own.
As with all my creations, they are inspired by the characters themselves. I tend to go for plushies that might not get the limelight that others would receive. I also shy away from plushies that have been already made by official companies. I find it much more rewarding to be able to make something for someone they can't find anywhere else.
Please describe the process of putting the plushies together. How long does it take to make each one?
The creation process is hard to explain. It usually starts with a rough pattern that I've hand drawn. Then, after I've pieced everything together, I can make adjustments and tweak the little things to make them exactly how I want. Each plushie's process is unique and time consuming! On average, a whole set of GlaDOS spheres will take me roughly seven to 10 hours. It's a full day of work, but it's always worth it.
[View:http://vimeo.com/13664031:610:343]
What sorts of challenges, if any, did you come across when putting them together? How did you resolve them?
My biggest challenge with the spheres were the side pieces. I had a few prototypes that had the handlebars as shown in Portal. The problem was the handlebars wouldn't stand up properly on their own and would almost hang around the spheres. I eventually scrapped the idea and ended up sewing the spheres without them. I might eventually add handlebars when I can figure out a way to do it while still keeping the spheres huggable.
Most people would've just stopped with the plushies, but you went the extra step and added a voice box. How did you do it? Why add the voice box?
The voice boxes were a must. When the idea came to me it was based around the thought that I had to make them talk. I searched for days to find a suitable voice box. I finally found a recordable one that holds 10 seconds of sound. They were made specifically for plush animals so the setup was perfect! I then found voice tracks ripped straight from the game and recorded them to the voice boxes. Once sewn in behind the pupil, a single press of a button will get the spheres talking. Everything just fell into place.
[View:http://vimeo.com/10766107:610:343]
Any Web links to other work?
At the moment I don't have any websites other than penguinotic.etsy.com. I will hopefully have a website of my own sometime soon.
Anything else you’d like to add about yourself?
I used to make small things for my friends: Pokémon hats, scarves, and perler bead art. The sewing grew over time as my friends started requesting more difficult, hard-to-find characters. Some of my early work included a few Pokémon characters (Aron, Chikorita, Jigglypuff), some plush monsters, a plush Doop from the comic book X-Force, and a Mr. Saturn. My friends finally convinced me to start an Etsy page. I was reluctant thinking that my work wouldn't sell. I'm glad to say I was wrong. It means everything to me to hear the stories of children and adults alike who appreciate my plushies.
Will we see more video game-themed art from you in the future? If so, what are you thinking about making?
I am always thinking of new ideas and new characters to make. Luckily, I am surrounded by other gamers who always have ideas and requests for me. I've had a few ideas running around in my head that involve the voice boxes. Currently, I'm designing patterns for talking Gyroids from the Animal Crossing universe. I'm sure more talking plushies will show up in my store shortly! Keep an eye out for them. ;)
How can we get our hands on these personality core plushies?!
The spheres are available through my Etsy page at penguinotic.etsy.com. The store is barren at the moment due to the overwhelming response to the GlaDOS spheres! I have a running pending list that anyone can request to be added to. As things get finished, I am able to contact the next person in line. I appreciate all the love everyone is showing! It means the world to me! Thank you so much!
The[Crafty]Gamer has officially moved from the Editor Blogs section to the Features section. Check out our previous entry on Jeff Dokken and his Pac-Man painting that shows a side of the pellet chomper we've never seen. We are regularly looking for new entries, so if you'd like your work featured, please send me an e-mail to express your interest and I will follow up with details: annette@gameinformer.com.Trump: Construction Of Border Wall Will Begin in A Matter Of ‘Months’! (Video); Orders Expected To Be Signed Wednesday
Construction Of The Border Wall Will Begin Soon
President Trump sent out a tweet on Tuesday night announcing that: “Big day planned on NATIONAL SECURITY tomorrow. Among many other things, we will build the wall!”
Big day planned on NATIONAL SECURITY tomorrow. Among many other things, we will build the wall! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 25, 2017
According to the Wall Street Journal, Donald Trump will sign two executive orders on Wednesday.
*White House: President Trump Will Sign Two Executive Orders on Immigration *One Order Will Call for ‘a Large Physical Barrier’ on Border With Mexico *President to Restore ‘Secure Communities’ Program to Force Local Law Enforcement Cooperation
President Trump also gave an interview with ABC News on Wednesday in which he said that construction of the border wall will begin within a matter of months.
From ABC News:
When asked about the start of construction, Trump said it would happen in “months.” “As soon as we can, as soon as we can physically do it,” he said. “I would say in months, yeah. I would say in months — certainly planning is starting immediately.”
VideoBritish TV chefs and restaurateurs are keen for us to eat locally grown produce. But is there a single national vegetable?
Leeks are Welsh. Potatoes are associated with Ireland. And overcooked cabbage, cauliflower and sprouts are classic school dinner fare.
Asparagus is a strong contender for an English vegetable, coming into season on St George's Day, says Nora Ryan, editor of the BBC Food website. But is there one that could be described as Britain's national vegetable?
"The French have the green bean, garlic and onions, Eastern Europeans have the beetroot and cabbage, and Italians can lay claim to the tomato," she says.
BBC Two's new series The Great British Food Revival seeks to revive interest in traditional crops under pressure from exotic rivals, market pressures and changing food fashions.
Food historian Ivan Day says it is hard to narrow down a quintessential vegetable as British cookery has, historically, lavished more attention on meat and fish dishes. And many contenders have their origins in other countries. Kale and leeks date from before the Norman conquest, but the cool climate has long limited choices for gardeners.
What about the humble spud - where would these islands be without mash, chips and potato-laden Irish stew?
This vegetable comes from foreign climes. The first eaten here were sweet potatoes, used in desserts in the late 16th Century, says Day. But, as natives of Spanish colonies in central America, these didn't grow well in Britain.
White potatoes from North America, however, flourished. "They nudged themselves in gradually. It wasn't until the late 18th Century that potatoes became a staple, replacing bread or pie crust. They were particularly popular in the 'oat counties' - northern England and Scotland - where wheat didn't grow easily. Potatoes were a welcome substitute for coarse oat cakes."
Image caption The garden pea: Ivan Day's nomination
Our attitudes to vegetables are not static, says Day. "In the past 40 years, we've been introduced to more vigorous tasting vegetables, from aubergines and peppers to salad leaves from the Far East. Bigger flavours have outshone our traditional vegetables."
Cauliflower sales alone have fallen by 35% in the past decade, supplanted largely by its greener cousin broccoli, which has been cannily marketed as a superfood, says Philip Lowery, of the Real Food Festival.
"Because of this idea that green and colourful vegetables are more nutritious, the poor, pale cauliflower has suffered in comparison. But it's full of folic acid and vitamin B6."
Sales of traditional veg rallied somewhat five years ago thanks to the vogue for locally sourced ingredients and classic British dishes.
But today, sales have fallen again - Brussels sprouts down 5.8% and cauliflowers down 2.9% in the past year, according to Kantar Worldpanel figures - and only four in 10 households still eat caulis.
Sales of British veg Image caption Cauliflower cheese has had a revival Cauliflower, Brussels sprout, turnip and swede sales dropped from Jan 2010 to Jan 2011
But kale rallied, up 21% after falling 13% the previous year
And broccoli, carrots and cabbage have made modest gains Source: Kantar Worldpanel
Tellingly, those keen to reawaken our love of caulis, cabbage and sprouts typically lace their recipes with strong-tasting ingredients such as chilli, garlic, bacon or stinky cheeses (not all in the same dish).
Cooks in India used similar tactics when colonial Britons introduced the cauliflower to the sub-continent. Revved up with cumin, ginger and mustard seeds, aloo gobi - cauliflower and potato curry - was born.
Day's own pick for a national vegetable? The garden pea.
It grows easily throughout Britain, and has done for centuries. Its name dates from Chaucer's time, when it was known as pease. In its dried form, the pea is the basis for traditional staples such as pease porridge. When eaten fresh, with little more than butter as a garnish, it was prized by Tudor kings and commoners alike as a welcome burst of bright green in summer.
"And then there was the miracle of frozen peas in the 1950s," says Day.
Proud Scots might nominate neeps and tatties - mashed swedes (or turnips) and potatoes - that are the traditional accompaniment to haggis.
But swedes are a European invention, a cross between a cabbage and a turnip thought to have originated from Scandinavia or Russia and introduced to Britain in the late 18th Century. As for the turnip, it has a long and illustrious history - in the Mediterranean. The Roman author Pliny the Elder praised it as "its utility surpasses that of any other plant".
What's in British veg Cauliflower: vitamins C and K, folate and fibre
Brussels sprouts: rich in vitamin C and folic acid
Cabbage: high in iron and potassium
All benefit from shorter cooking times
Phillip Effingham, of the Brassica Growers Association, which runs a Love Your Greens campaign, says he associates four - not one - vegetables with British food.
"Cauliflower, cabbage, carrots and onions. If I had to choose one, in terms of sales, versatility and year-round production in Britain, it would come down to the carrot."
Not the white, knobbly wild carrots native to Britain. He means the orange carrot, developed in the Netherlands during the reign of William of Orange.Fire takes another significant step forward by adding McCarty
New York Red Bulls midfielder Dax McCarty advances the ball while defends by Montreal Impact defender Laurent Caiman in a match last season. (Vincent Carchietta-USA TODAY Sports)
As Fire general manager Nelson Rodriguez prepared for the Major League Soccer SuperDraft last week, he seemingly did so with a bit of uncertainty.
The Fire held the No. 3 overall pick, a selection Rodriguez realized was valuable, given the needs of a rebuilding franchise. So when he traded the pick for $250,000 in general-allocation money, his strategy of storing up for the future fell into place.
That quickly took shape when the Fire acquired midfielder Dax McCarty on Monday from the |
to a play by linebacker Von Miller. He eluded tackle Austin Howard’s attempt at a chop block, jumped into Carr’s lap and pulled the ball from the quarterback’s hands. Oakland’s defense then gave up only 14 yards on four plays, but the 20-yard field goal was too costly.
On this day, the Raiders couldn’t afford to give up 10 points off turnovers. And their second-year quarterback knew it.
“Look to me,” Carr said. “I always take all the accountability.”
Vic Tafur is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: vtafur@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @VicTafur
Raiders’ 3 notables
Defense: Held Peyton Manning without a touchdown and the Broncos to 2 of 13 on third down. The unit deserved a win.
Derek Carr: He made a “hot read” on a Denver blitz and fired a pass behind Seth Roberts that resulted in a game-icing Pick-6 for cornerback Chris Harris.
Sebastian Janikowski: Will want to forget the day he broke Tim Brown’s team record for games played. Missed a 40-yard field-goal try and had one blocked in a six-point loss.
— Vic TafurDiverse leftist commentators such as Samuel Farber, Paul Krugman, and Leigh Phillips are arguing that economic growth is necessary to protect existing and future well-being. But rarely do they define what they mean by economic growth.
Recently there’s been a wave of arguments defending economic growth from a leftist perspective. People are increasingly reacting to the rise of ‘degrowth’: a diverse movement calling for, among other things, scaling back the total material and energy use of the global economy.
One particularly vigorous example is the work of Leigh Phillips, where he accuses degrowthers—who he claims have become “hegemonic” (file under: things I wish were true but aren’t)—of undermining classic leftist pursuits such as progress, well-being, and strengthening of social services. Similar arguments could be seen in a recent article that appeared in Jacobin Magazine, in which growth was posited as necessary for progress. And Keynesian economists like Paul Krugman have come out against degrowth, claiming that economic growth is actually necessary to address climate change, and lumping degrowthers together with the Koch Brothers, as they both seem to seek to dismantle the state.
Many of their points have been valid and necessary—serving to complicate the simplistic ‘are-you-for-capitalism-or-a-Luddite?’ narrative. Preaching the benefits of technology and criticizing the current economic system are not mutually exclusive. But there are some recurring problems with these arguments that I want to highlight.
In this article, I argue that definitions of growth are either unclear or constantly shifting depending on the argument. The result is that authors often misunderstand and do not engage adequately with critiques of growth. When two sides of an argument have a totally different definition of the concept that’s being debated, and if one side even refuses to define it, constructive discussions tend to turn into uncompromising squabbles. I call on authors to choose, and define, their words carefully, because so far, they have largely failed to do so. In an effort to clear up some misunderstandings, I briefly explain what I see as some of the values of the degrowth position.
Growth is everything and nothing: long live growth!
Perhaps the most emblematic—and unfortunate—leftist challenge to degrowth came from Paul Krugman, all the way back in October 2014.
This was a significant occasion. For the most part, mainstream economics ignores ecological economics—a "rogue" field that harbors many of the growth dissenters. But with this article, Krugman brought the challenge out into the open. In his words, the criticism of growth is “a marginal position even on the left, but it’s widespread enough to call out nonetheless.”
Weirdly, Krugman spent most of the article explaining how shipping companies reduced their energy expenditure in 2008 by slowing down their ships. Using this example, his defense of ‘economic growth’ waffled between two very different arguments: that an increase in efficiency can lead to less energy being consumed, and that, theoretically, it is possible to increase the total economic transactions while decreasing total energy use.
With respect to efficiency, Krugman waded into a discussion in which he seems to be out of his depth—other ships have sailed these waters for a long time now. From 19th-century English economists concerned with the decline of available coal to scientists investigating the of washing machines, people have long wrestled with problems like the one he raised: how an improvement in efficiency might nevertheless lead to a total increase in energy use. So from the perspective of ecological economics—which has sought to understand how the human economy is embedded within the physical environment—it’s not that hard to sink Krugman’s flimsy argument that an increase in efficiency necessarily increases economic growth while decreasing total energy consumption.
What’s curious though about his article is that he not once defined economic growth. This definition remained latent—one can only assume that, whenever he used the term economic growth, he meant the increase in the annual monetary value of economic transactions over time, calculated using the GDP. The article could’ve been a chance for him to show exactly why economic growth is desirable. Instead, he spent most of the article fumbling to find some example that shows that economic growth can theoretically be decoupled from oil consumption.
Granted, if that was the only goal of his article, it would’ve been a good point: a rise in GDP is not the same as a rise in energy use, economic transactions could still take place in a low-carbon economy. The problem is that his argument claimed to go beyond this—seeking to contradict the degrowth claim that, until now, economic growth has been strongly coupled with increasing material and energy use. But his evidence remained purely theoretical, and therefore failed to settle the debate.
This tendency isn’t unique to neoclassical Keynesians—I’ve seen Marxists who’ve suffered from the same inability to explain what, exactly, they mean by economic growth, thereby misunderstanding the call for degrowth.
In Jacobin Magazine, Samuel Farber argues that notions of progress are actually essential for any leftist project. Improvements in technology, infrastructure, and material well-being are crucial for addressing inequality and injustice globally. Fair enough. But then he also explicitly criticizes the degrowth stance:
Many progressive activists today are skeptical of material growth, for ecological reasons and a concern with consumerism. But this often confuses consumption for its own sake and as a status symbol with the legitimate popular desire to live a better material life, and wasteful and ecologically damaging economic growth with economic growth as such.
So here, like Krugman, Farber argues that economic growth is not the same as what he calls ‘material growth.’ And like Krugman, he argues that economic growth is not, in itself, environmentally destructive. But what, then, is economic growth to him? He notes in the following paragraph:
Environmental policies that would make a real difference would require large-scale investments, and thus selective economic growth. This would be the case, for example, with the reorganization of the individualized and wasteful system of surface and air transportation into a collective and rational plan…
It seems that for Farber, defending economic growth is necessary to fight for progressive changes to well-being. What is not clear is exactly why this should be called economic growth. From his examples, there is no quantitative growth—unless you start counting the growth of things like trams and hospitals.
Interestingly, like Farber, many degrowthers might also argue for “more of the Good Things”—for example, increasing health care services, supporting care labor, creating infrastructure for public transportation, and incentivizing renewable energy—but they wouldn’t call them economic growth. Instead, they might prefer to use terms like ‘flourishing’ or ‘sufficiency’ or just ‘more of that good stuff’. They wouldn’t assume that it is total economic growth that allows the good stuff to come into being. Instead, more of the good stuff requires redirecting economic activity to better suit the needs of society—for which the primary ingredient is democratic deliberation, not increased production (social metabolism), larger money supply, or an increase in the transactions taking place in the market economy (GDP growth).
So there are two problems: the misidentification of what degrowthers are calling for, and a poor definition of economic growth as such. Farber seems to think that degrowthers are claiming that preventing (or reversing) environmental destruction necessitates "less Good Things". As a result, his argument against degrowth, and for growth, amounts to a bait-and-switch between two definitions of growth: growth of Good Stuff and growth of total economic activity. This failure to define his terms then allows him to mischaracterize the claims of the degrowth movement.
This tactic is heightened to an extreme degree in Leigh Phillips’ recent anti-degrowth polemic, Austerity Ecology & the Collapse-porn Addicts: A defence of growth, progress, industry and stuff. While reading his book I not once got an exact definition of what he meant by economic growth. Growth seemed to include a whole host of things, such as: growth = progress, growth = innovation, growth = increase in well-being, growth = increase in money supply, growth = increase in resource use. He tended to use these interchangeably.
In one instance, Phillips acknowledges this directly:
Of course, one might argue that I’m being far too loose with the terms growth, progress, and invention, which begin to blur here. But then, as well they should, as perhaps what it means to be human is to invent, to progress to grow. To constantly strive for an improvement in our condition. To overcome all barriers in our way.
As far as I could figure out, the logical reasoning here goes as follows:
Degrowthers argue that infinitely and exponentially increasing economic growth is bad for humans and the planet. But economic growth leads to Good Things as well. Therefore, degrowthers are against Good Things.
Phillips denies degrowthers the ability to realize the most basic fact: more good = good, more bad = bad. And if growth is simply Everything That Is Good In The World, it becomes a hard thing to argue against: we’ve reached a conversational impasse.
The problems with muddling the definition of growth come to the fore when Phillips tries to argue, in contrast to Naomi Klein’s recent book, that degrowth and anti-austerity are incompatible: "Austerity and ‘degrowth’ are mathematically and socially identical. They are the same thing." To show this, he uses the example of the economic decline following a time of rapid growth immediately after the Second World War—which involved "high productivity, high wages, full employment, expanding social benefits…". In contrast, he argues that after the 1970s, according to "whichever metrics we use", there was a decline in prosperity for all Americans.
The implication is that economic growth is directly related to material and social well-being, and "degrowing" would limit that kind of progress. Actually, during this time, well-being decreased just as consumption and economic growth sky-rocketed—a fact which he conveniently doesn’t mention. To avoid this fact, he usefully switches from defining economic growth as increase in productivity and material use, to defining economic growth as decrease in inequality. But different kinds of things can grow or degrow at different rates—a decrease in consumption is not the same as a decrease in well-being. In fact, since the 1970s, the US has only increased its per capita material use, not decreased it. Austerity does not inherently lead to a decrease in total consumption, nor does a decrease in well-being inherently require a decrease in material consumption.
His argument reminds me of a recent New York Times article about degrowth. As fellow degrowth scholar Francois Schneider pointed out in an email, in this article, degrowth was defined simply as a reduction of income. Not only does this misinterpret what, exactly, needs to degrow (hint: not well-being), it also feeds into the tendency—symptomatic of the neoliberal era—to reduce all kinds of well-being to monetary indicators.
Phillips continuously makes the same error: conflating income with wealth, material production with material well-being. While this is standard practice in development circles—used to justify land-grabbing, exploitative industry, and privatizations—you would expect different discursive tactics from a staunch anti-capitalist austerity-basher. Part of the degrowth framework has been specifically to argue that well-being and income have been conflated for far too long, with very negative consequences (such as the wholesale destruction of indigenous livelihoods for the sake of development).
Finally, when trying to counter the degrowth position, you’re also going to have to deal with the now well-known catchphrase that "infinite growth is impossible on a finite planet". To do this, Phillips calls upon a pretty quirky theoretical model:
Think of a single rubber ball. Like the Earth, it is bounded in the sense that very clearly there is an edge to the ball and there is only so much of it. It doesn’t go on forever. It is not boundless. And there is only one of them. But it is infinitely divisible in the sense that you can cut it in half, then cut that half in half again, then cut that quarter in half, then that eight in half, and so on. In principle, with this imaginary ball, you can keep cutting it up for as long as you like, infinitely extracting from this finite object.
Phillips counters the necessity to degrow with a variation of Zeno’s paradox, hoping to show that, theoretically, infinite growth is possible on a finite planet, as long as it decreases at a negative exponential rate. Basically, in a finite world, you can keep on growing infinitely as long as you grow less and less, all the way to infinity. But this also involves acknowledging that positive exponential growth (e.g. a 3-5% growth rate) is physically impossible. Funnily enough, in trying to prove the possibility of infinite growth on a finite planet, he trapped himself in an argument that looks very similar to that of the degrowthers.
Similarly, later in the book, he concedes that we do need to move toward a low-carbon economy and that, within capitalism, this is impossible. But, rather than conceding that economic growth within capitalism is undesirable, he argues that, since it’s possible to conceive of a socialist system where economic growth leads to a low-carbon economy, economic growth (largely defined in capitalist terms, even as he rejects GDP elsewhere) is inherently a Good Thing. It’s reminiscent of another classic sophist argument: since it’s possible to conceive of God, He therefore must exist.
So what needs to degrow?
Let’s be clear, even if defenders of economic growth rarely are. Historically, economic growth (defined as total increase in measured economic transactions, or GDP) has risen along with social metabolism: the total consumption of materials and energy of an economy. Increased material-energy throughput is what makes climate change and environmental destruction happen, and engenders environmental conflicts around the world. Therefore we have to downscale our total material-energy throughput to address environmental and social injustice. Most available evidence points to the fact that decreasing total economic activity is the best way to do this, while still being able to provide adequate social safety nets.
Degrowth, then, is about challenging the idea that infinite and positive exponential growth in monetary transactions (GDP) is the main tool for achieving well-being, today and for future generations. Further, degrowth is about acknowledging that exponential GDP growth has been, and will likely be for the foreseeable future, linked with rising material and energy throughput, and that this increase in total consumption has disastrous effects on the earth and its people. This comes along with a critique of GDP: many argue that it is a terrible indicator for well-being in the first place. It also comes along with criticizing the neoliberal demand to increase economic growth at all costs, even if this means subjugating an entire population to decades of debt (more on this in another piece).
There are many definitions of degrowth out there, but a commonly cited one is “an equitable downscaling of production and consumption that increases human well-being and enhances ecological conditions”. Under most definitions, degrowth is about maximizing well-being while minimizing energy and resource consumption (particularly in the rich nations) which may be mutually beneficial, and can address climate change to boot.
So degrowth is not about decreasing the Good Things. Nor is its main thrust that decrease in total consumption is the only thing that must be done. And all degrowthers I know would happily concede Phillips’ point that a change in the mode of production—involving a critique of capitalism, better use of technology, and better democratic planning—is necessary to avoid environmental and social Bad Things.
But they would disagree that the prerequisite for more Good Things is increasing total economic activity. In fact, as I argue in my next piece, the ideology of economic growth actually waylaid struggles for better welfare, helping to shut down the political action necessary to provide more Good Things.
Now, it istheoretically possible to decouple exponential economic growth (be it positive or negative) from exponentially increasing metabolic rates, even if no such thing has, as far as is known, been successfully implemented. Arguments for decoupling, including those in Phillips’ book, fail to take into account the embedded material and energy consumption of economies that have, so far, ‘dematerialized’ while GDP has gone up.
Krugman’s proposal for how to decouple remains in the neoclassical camp: toggling consumer preferences—demand, and regulating undesirable economic activity—supply, while continuing to increase economic activity on the whole. Farber and Phillips’ approaches are in the Marxist camp: radically shift the mode of production to rationally plan an economy, limiting the Bads and upping the Goods, while (presumably) continuing to increase economic activity on the whole.
To make their case, these authors have conjured up magical scenarios involving a slow ship economy and a post-capitalist socialist world order. Neither economies exist today. To really support their points, they would need to point to extensive research and probably some robust models, rather than possible worlds.
Take the case of Austerity Ecology: Phillips argues that socialist economic growth has the potential to save us, even as he does not draw on any examples of situations where this has occurred. It’s a cheap argumentative trick to defend economic growth today just on the basis that it could theoretically work under socialism.
So if they really wanted to defend economic growth as it exists today, this would be where the conversation would need to go: determining whether, and how, economic growth could keep going without exponentially increasing material and energy use. Bonus points: showing exactly why economic growth—defined as the exponential increase in monetary transactions at 3-5% per year—is desirable in itself.
But it is exactly at these points that the defenders of growth remain obscure. Rarely do they explicitly concede that, in fact, current rates of economic growth have been historically tied to increasing environmental degradation. Rather, they spend most of their time trying to convince readers that decoupling economic growth from "the Bad Things" is theoretically possible, even as they don’t define what they mean by economic growth.
And yet this approach actually suggests that they are already on the defensive: they are trying to save economic growth from the accusation that it inevitably leads to more "bad stuff". Without proper evidence, and by shifting the definition of growth constantly to suit the needs of their arguments, the positions of growth-defenders start looking more like denial than reasoned debate.
In contrast, degrowth starts from the reality of the current economy. In this economic system, decoupling is very difficult, if not impossible. Therefore, because climate change is now and a global socialist economic order is not yet in sight, a realistic short-term strategy is to limit exponential growth in metabolic rates, most easily achieved by limiting exponential economic growth. This could be paired by a long-term shift to a more equitable, democratic economic system. Then, theoretically, a new economic system could be constructed where equitable economic growth does not lead to more fossil fuel consumption.
Whether we should focus on creating a global socialist system instead of shifting to a low-impact economy is debatable, but perhaps, just to be on the safe side, we could give both a try.
Thanks to Sam Bliss, Grace Brooks, Adrian Turcato, and Giorgos Kallis for their comments and feedback.0 Investigators raid Narconon of Georgia
NORCROSS, Ga. - A Norcross drug rehab center that's been the subject of a series of Channel 2 Action News investigations was raided by law enforcement Friday.
"Police search warrant, police search warrant!" yelled investigators with the Georgia Insurance Commissioner's Fraud Unit and the Gwinnett County District Attorney's Office as they executed search warrants at Narconon of Georgia on Peachtree Parkway.
They went in with guns and came out with evidence in an ongoing criminal case against the facility.
"Everything you see us seizing, we have to go through it, analyze it, follow up on it, so this is going to take a while," said Sherry Mowell, director of the Insurance Commissioner's Fraud Unit.
They filled so many boxes with financial paperwork and medical records, they had to go rent a U-Haul van to drive it all back to their office.
Nearly two dozen computer hard drives and laptops will be important for tracing which employees were responsible for billing.
"The difficulty with these cases when you're working with an organization is statements that are given say 'they did this' and 'they did that,' and that's hard for us to pinpoint the actual individual," said Gwinnet County District Attorney Danny Porter.
Mary Morton said she paid in full for treatment for her daughter, Emily Morton, only to find out their insurance was then billed $166,000.
"It was ridiculous, they billed for $58,000 for doctor visits that she never saw a doctor," said Mary Morton.
Eight of Emily Morton's bills said "partial hospitalization," which her insurance company rejected, saying "coverage is not available" for "your continued stay at Narconon."
The insurance company said care could continue with an outpatient facility, indicating the company did not know Narconon is only licensed as an outpatient facility.
Last fall, Channel 2 investigative reporter Jodie Fleischer caught the program advertising as a residential facility, which brings in more money and promises a higher level of care.
The director at the time denied it, but Georgia's Department of Community Health has since taken steps to try to revoke the facility's license to operate.
The facility's longtime executive director resigned in January, within weeks of when two doctors whose names were on insurance bills said they never authorized the treatments.
In some cases, they said they didn't even treat the patient. Investigators say those doctors are cooperating.
"The insurance case basically involves services that were not provided and also services that were supposedly authorized by doctors who did not authorize them," said Porter.
A large part of the investigation will be determining which Narconon employee or employees were responsible for submitting the insurance bills and who directed them to do so.
"Each individual normally has a password, so if we can tie down the password to the person, we'll be able to determine who it was that submitted the claims," Mowell said.
State Insurance Commissioner Ralph Hudgens had worried some evidence might be destroyed after Channel 2's stories exposed the potentially criminal activity. Friday, his investigators were pleased with what they found.
"It appears everything is intact, but we will not know that until we go through each and every document," Mowell said.
Investigators made no arrests Friday. They first plan to examine all of the evidence seized. Mowell says that could take months.
None of the Narconon employees present during the execution of the search warrants wanted to comment. Neither did attorney Steven Sadow, who now represents the center's former executive director.
Last Fall, Fleischer uncovered evidence of direct links between Narconon of Georgia and the Church of Scientology.
The drug treatment program requires patients spend hours each day in a sauna, take megadoses of the vitamin Niacin, and study communication techniques taught when joining the church.
Many former patients who have contacted Channel 2 say it did nothing to help their drug addiction.
"It's ridiculous. They are preying on the most vulnerable of people," said Mary Morton, who was thrilled to hear about Friday's search warrants.
She says she hopes her case is the one that gets the facility closed for good.
"Not one more person needs to be checked in there, not today, not tonight, not tomorrow. It needs to stop now," said Morton.
Narconon sent Fleischer a statement about the investigation, saying, "Narconon is aware of the investigation. Narconon of Georgia follows customary and professional billing practices and procedures. Payment terms are clearly explained to all students.
"Narconon of Georgia has served the Atlanta community for the past decade offering drug education, prevention and rehabilitation services. Scores of successful Narconon graduates and their families can attest that the program has transformed lives through recovery and sobriety."With an outlook towards the future, some financial aspects of the club were [surprisingly] shared during the post-mortem press conference on October 31st 2012. Joey Saputo talked about being ''slighty in the red'' with unexpected expenses that included 2 pre-season camps and the Italy post-season tour; add to that a mid-season ticket price cut.
The Montreal Impact is at around 4.5M$ in Guaranteed Compensation but still held the advantage of being an expansion team in 2012 which gave the club extra allocation money. Not making the playoffs also gives the club additional allocation money. That allocation pool can be used:
via MLSSoccer.com
To sign players new to MLS (that is, a player who did not play in MLS during the previous season).
To re-sign an existing MLS player, subject to League approval.
To "buy-down" a player's salary budget charge below the League maximum of $350,000.
In connection with the exercise of an option to purchase a player's rights or the extension of a player's contract for the second year provided the player was new to MLS in the immediately prior year.
The Allocation money trick is an important tool to help a club's salary management.
As Sporting Director, Nick De Santis, made the search for an offensive midfielder official, cap flexibility will be needed to acquire such a player, DP or not. Outside acquiring new players, management needs to re-evaluate current players that might deserve and/or demand a salary increase. An important player like Hassoun Camara fits the bill of a player that will look for a compensation increase. The versatile central midfielder/defender is currently making 75K$ and can fetch more in and outside Major League Soccer.
Contracts Re-Negotiation
Re-negotiation of contracts is another tool that the Montreal Impact can use. Will players,that might be overpaid or that under-perform,volunteer to a contract salary and term reduction?
The Usual Suspects for salary re-negotiation :
(*) Justin Mapp (218,333.33$) : Talented? Yes. Seldom frustrating in inconsistency? Yes. A rumor that popped up on twitter was talking about Justin Mapp in the process of re-negotiating his contract. Whether this is true or not, it is a reality that might be happening for the MLS veteran.
(*) Davy Arnaud (290,000$) : The first captain of the team in MLS has been a hard-working player and an example to follow intensity wise. His technical skills were not top notch but was still able to perform and have added value on the field. The Arnaud-haters have their arguments but get someone better and the Montreal Impact will replace him. Making almost 300K$, the Texan MLS veteran has helped the expansion team get comfortable in MLS.
(*) Sanna Nyassi (132,625$) : The Gambian international was much more effective coming off the bench than starting games. He has speed and is versatile as a striker and winger but did not fully convince in both roles as a starter. He could be part of the long-term solution for the club to have depth up front with a versatile offensive player.
(*) Zarek Valentin (142,000$) : The Generation Adidas defender was slotted as the starting right back for the club. He lost his spot due to a combination of injury and new players coming in. The Akron Zip player could leave or get traded to get playing time and help shed some salary cap hit on the club. A very young and talented player, Valentin has a place in most MLS teams but it is not sure where he stands in the Impact's plans.
I did not include Andrew Wenger (at 202,000$) as he is still a Generation Adidas player who has played under 2000 minutes, hence not a full salary cap hit unlike Zarek Valentin. I also did not include the 2012 MLS rookie as he has shown that he can bring added value to the club as a forward, a potential successful striker in MLS.
With Davy Arnaud acquired via trade and the other 3 via the expansion draft, all 4 moves are part of the Jesse Marsch era. Their future will depend on a combination of the club's evaluation of their value to the club and the vision of the new head coach.
Good Ol' MLS Trades
The whole question around trading players and re-negotiating salaries will revolve whether the Montreal Impact actually wants to keep player x,y and z. With a potential DP player coming to fill an offensive role in the midfield, getting role players for the starting XI and a deep bench is important. In the same time, players like Mapp and Arnaud have probably dropped in the pecking order in the eye of the Montreal Impact management.
With a flurry trades coming up right after the end of the MLS season and MLS Cup final, will the Impact be able to trade away salaries? No one is sure whether the club is looking for MLS talent as it has fielded more ''non-MLS'' players in the starting XI this season.
Willing To Spend?
Money is no issue for Joey Saputo but the Saputo empire did not just create itself out of bad business decisions. At the end, getting return on investment is important for any club in a competitive professional league. Spend a lot but spend wisely one might say.
Being slightly in the red the first year is not an indication of an overflow of revenues. But the attendance numbers at Stade Saputo have been positive in mid-season to hope for a good revenue. Are we talking about top third revenue in the league? At this point, freeing up money seems to be the more viable solution but expect the Montreal Impact to do so in a rational way.
Reducing salaries will help towards acquisitions of top players even if money is no issue for Joey Saputo. Without wanting to read the mind of the club, the Impact is leaning toward a LA Galaxy / New York Red Bulls model quicker than expected. Successful teams during the season like Real Salt Lake and Sporting Kansas City have shown to be able to combine expensive talent and efficient cheaper role players to have success on the field.
How close is the Montreal Impact to becoming another giant (at least on paper) of the East and MLS?CTV Ottawa
Ottawa Police have released a YouTube video of a violent robbery at a bank on Centrepointe Drive August 12, 2014.
The video shows a man with a construction hat, and dressed in reflective vest and pyjamas jumping on the bank counter in the theft.
The armed suspect got away with an undisclosed amount of cash.
There were no injuries.
Ottawa Police believe the same suspect is responsible for another bank robbery in the 900 block of Carling Avenue on Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2014.
In that robbery, the suspect also threatened to hurt the bank employee unless cash was handed over.
Again, he fled on foot.
The employee was not injured.
Anyone with information about these bank robberies should call Crime Stoppers at 613-233-8477 or Ottawa Police at 613-236-1222 ext 5116.The New York Consumer Affairs Board recently conducted a study titled “From Cradle to Cane: The Cost of Being a Female Consumer” that tells us something we all kind of already knew from browsing the CVS and Rite Aid razors: women’s products cost more than similar products for men.
However, the study reveals how this goes way beyond just feminine hygiene or grooming products. Gender pricing actually effects everything from toys, accessories, children’s clothing, adult clothing, personal care products, and even home health care products for seniors. Women’s products cost an average of 7% more, but here’s a breakdown:
7 percent more for toys and accessories
4 percent more for children’s clothing
8 percent more for adult clothing
13 percent more for personal care products
8 percent more for senior/home health care products
A disparity chart revealed that women pay more 42% of the time, pay the same 40% of the time, and pay less than men 18% of the time. The study references another study that estimates women pay a “gender tax” of approximately $1,351 a year! On top of the wage gap, the study emphasizes just how expensive it is to be a woman. Even if you opt for the “male” version of the product, the study states that “these higher prices are mostly unavoidable for women.”
The Department of Consumer Affairs is promoting a social media campaign to drag attention to gender pricing with the hashtag #genderpricing. You can read the full study here.
(via Jezebel, Image via Rock Your Legs Commercial)
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Do you follow The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +?With implementation only about three months away, Democrats in the state legislature were raising concerns about a major state computer project on Wednesday, while a Republican leader said they have had weeks to have those concerns addressed. The State Transforming Agency Resources – or STAR Project – will consolidate IT systems and equipment, at a total cost of some $138 million.
Democrats on the state budget panel balked at covering a $16.5 million overdraft for STAR. “I understand that we have an implementation timeline that is coming up, and I just don’t feel like we have the answers about how this all going to come together,” said Representative Gordon Hintz (D-Oshkosh).
“There’s a lot of questions with this. We all know that,” said Senator Jon Erpenbach. “When we’ve had some folks in our office before, nobody can truly answer some questions on this, because I don’t think anybody really knows.”
But Joint Finance Committee co-chair, Representative John Nygren, said Department of Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch released a memo on the project back in late December. “That allowed almost three months for you to get any questions you might have answered,” Nygren said.
According to the state’s STAR Project website, Wisconsin government currently operates more than 120 different administrative systems, which handle a variety of functions across numerous state agencies. Most systems are unable to communicate with each other and rely on technologies that are in come cases decades old. The state’s budget system, for example, was implemented in the 1960s.
A spokesman for the Walker administration told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that STAR remains on time and on budget.China’s Shanghai Composite Index dropped more than 7% in early trading on Monday, setting the stage for another brutal week in world stock markets.
Last week, China’s markets dragged Asian stock markets lower and the Dow Jones Industrial Average into correction territory for the first time since 2011. On Friday (Aug. 21), the Shanghai Composite Index fell 4.3%, and briefly dipped below the 3,500 level at which the government has stepped in previously to prop the market up. The index fell more than 11% last week. Despite more than $1 trillion worth of government support measures, stocks have not really stabilized since they started stumbling in June:
One trigger for last Friday’s drop was the independent “flash” manufacturing purchasing managers index (PMI), a measure of manufacturing conditions. The index fell to its lowest level since 2009, spooking investors.
The number was a nasty surprise, but it doesn’t explain why markets continued down today.
The problem that is dogging China’s markets (and the rest of the world) isn’t just that a long-expected China slowdown is truly emerging. The really spooky thing is that no one has any idea of how bad things in China are going to get. Analysts, investors, consultants, and an entire zoo full of “China bears” have been churning out reports on what a potential Chinese economic slowdown will look like for months, even years.
But now that it is upon us, the dearth of reliable, non-manipulated data coming from China and the opaqueness of its big companies, government, and banks, mean that most of these reports are educated guesswork. And that means no one can say for sure what will happen in the world’s second-largest economy. “Uncertainty about China growth is now the main swing factor in markets,” Tim Condon, an economist at ING Group in Singapore, told Reuters on Aug. 21.
China’s GDP, for example, has long been considered a carefully-managed charade. The country’s scarily high bad debts are believed by many bears to be seriously under-reported, although nobody outside of the banks themselves really knows by how much.
That may be why markets reacted so sharply to the “preliminary” PMI figure on Friday. It is one of the few independent measures of China’s manufacturing growth, compiled by Markit and newly sponsored by Chinese business news outlet Caixin, which recently took over from HSBC. China has an officially generated PMI as well, but that figure nearly always comes in equal to or higher than the Markit figure.
China formally relaxed laws over the weekend that would allow pension funds to invest in the stock market. But instead of inspiring investors, the move, like much of China’s market stimulus, seems to have made them more worried about China’s economic future.Chinese are more likely to shop online than consumers from any other country, according to the latest survey by the International Post Corporation, a Brussels-headquartered association on postal services.
In the second annual study of 24,000 respondents in 26 markets across North America, the Asia-Pacific and Europe, the IPC found that 36 per cent of Chinese buy from digital sites at least once a week, a frequency far outstripping peer buyers, People's Daily reported.
China is also the most popular market for consumers around the world to shop from, accounting for 26% of the most recent cross-border purchases, followed by the US with 16%, Germany's 15% and the UK 15%.
Purchases from China are more popular with younger people and women, while purchases from Germany receive warmer welcome by men and the elderly, the international study found.
Online marketplaces such as Amazon.com Inc, eBay and Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd were the most sought-after avenues for buyers from almost all countries, accounting for around two-thirds of all cross-border purchases, the study said.
China was the overall favoured market for Europeans, but notable differences were seen in Luxembourg, Belgium, Austria or Switzerland |
downtown eastside of Vancouver enables drug abusers to avoid rock bottom virtually indefinitely and ensures that the cycle will continue. The social agencies need drug abusers to justify their existence and drug abusers need the social agencies to allow them to continue their habits. I suspect the percentage of drug addicts who get clean in this system is a fraction of one percent. Continuing to throw money at social agencies will only perpetuate the problem. The consequences of drug abuse must be harsh before addicts will seek help. Then, and only then, help must be made available.
Of course a deeper understanding of what compels addiction is necessary in stemming the latest rise in hard drug use, from brain chemical dependency, emotional and psychological displacement and the reinforced culture at large. Time will tell if the program will deal with drug addiction and gaining the trust of addicts. Nominally one can expect less incidence of HIV/ and hepatitis. After all shatter proof crack pipes are hard to come by, but unfortunately the above diseases are not. At the very least enabling dialogue as to the root of addiction and the debilitating consequences of it are a sign in the right direction….
nationalpostAmidst a dearth of politically judicious and penetrating analyses of contemporary popular mobilisations, a new book, 'Marxism and Social Movements', represents a timely and refreshing contribution to social movement studies. Puneet Dhaliwal reviews.
By Puneet Dhaliwal
Tahrir Square protesters at the height of the Jan 25 revolution against Hosni Mubarak. (Credits: Tara-Todras Whitehill/ AP)
The current political conjuncture is characterized by a concatenation of popular protests against neoliberalism which have intensified following the deepest crisis of the world economy since the 1930s. In particular, some of the most visible phenomena in recent years have been the mass demonstrations across North Africa and the Middle East, the European movements against austerity, and the worldwide Occupy protests.
While this resurgence of grassroots mobilisation has been inspiring to behold, our understanding of such movements has often been somewhat less illuminating. The facile, not to mention hubristic, equation of British anti-cuts campaigns with the Egyptian Revolution, for example, indicated a misapprehension of the contemporary wave of protest movements and their varied social conditions. Equally, the mainstream media obscured the common threads connecting such struggles by obstinately disavowing the systemic circumstances that generated them: a crisis of global capitalism, rising inequality, and a political system dominated by élites.
Given the dearth of politically judicious and penetrating analyses of contemporary popular mobilisations, Marxism and Social Movements is a timely and refreshing contribution to social movement studies. Though the subject matter examined in each chapter is diverse— spanning, in total, struggles across six continents and over 150 years—the edited volume as a whole presents a compelling case for reviving Marxist analytical frameworks to examine social movements.
Mainstream social movement theory, according to the volume’s editors, has largely expunged “capitalism” and “class” as analytical categories, especially from a Marxist perspective. This followed, in part, from the rise of identity politics and a declining labour movement in the 1980s and 1990s, but was also enacted through the re-drawing of disciplinary boundaries. The outsourcing of the study of strikes to scholars of industrial relations, “everyday resistance” to cultural studies, and revolutions to political science, for example, has compromised the efforts of more critical sociologists to integrate such phenomena into their studies of social movements and contentious politics.
The result of jettisoning Marxist analysis, the editors argue, is a “fragmented theory” that treats social struggles as “discrete and disconnected instances of protest”. Rather than enabling us to see particular struggles in relation to wider social totalities and material realities, mainstream scholarship consigns us to a narrow, a-historical viewpoint that obscures “the bigger picture of global power relations” such as neoliberal globalisation.
If mainstream social movement theory is thus disparaged as myopic, the Marxist tradition is valued precisely for its breadth and depth of analysis, as well as its practical orientation toward social struggles. As “an argument about movements, and an argument within movements”, Marxism simultaneously offers a theorisation of power structures, popular agency, and social transformation in conjunction with related strategic questions.
This volume, then, is unabashedly Marxist in its orientation: the capitalist system is taken to be the central problem facing popular movements and the working class is proposed as the collective agent capable of undoing Capitalism and laying “the foundations of a new cooperative world community.” The editors, however, are at pains to distance themselves from a doctrinaire variant of Marxism—one that is crudely deterministic, economically reductionist, and statist— espousing, instead, a democratic “socialism from below” that accentuates the political agency of a multiplicity of social groups beyond a narrow, producer-focused labour movement. Moreover, they acknowledge that Marxism currently offers a very under-developed theory of social movements, particularly in light of the challenge posed by post-modernists to rethink class and the constitution of social subjects.
The aim of Marxism and Social Movements, though, is not to derive the Marxist Theory of social movements—indeed, no such thing exists—but to bridge the substance of social movement research with the critical potential of Marxist analysis, thereby setting a new agenda for both fields of study.
The book pursues this project in three distinct yet complementary sections. The first part lays the theoretical foundations for a Marxist approach to social movements by presenting core Marxist tenets as a corrective to conventional social movement theory. Gabriel Hetland and Jeff Goodwin forcefully argue for the dynamics of capitalism to be re-introduced to social movement studies, claiming that political economy is pertinent for all movements, including the LGBT movement and other “new social movements” (NSMs) that are not ostensibly motivated by class. In a similar vein, Colin Barker foregrounds class struggle, arguing that social movements should be studied not as discrete entities, but as contextually situated expressions of class struggle against the capitalist system.
John Krinsky further enriches this groundwork by outlining a dialectical approach to social theory, whereby the social world is viewed as a totality composed by various social relationships that are in constant flux. Social movements are thus studied in terms of praxis, with reference to their actual historical or contemporary conditions. Alf Gunvald Nilsen and Laurence Cox also present a theoretical account of social movements in relation to praxis, focusing on the re-negotiation of social formations by subaltern movements from below as well as dominant movements from above.
The second and third parts of the book explore the more concrete manifestations of a Marxist approach to social movements, addressing the configurations and workings of both historical and contemporary cases. The range of popular struggles and thematic issues addressed here is impressive, if a little frenetic. The diversity of perspectives presented, however, invites the reader to appreciate the power of Marxist analysis in studying social movements.
A recurring theme across the chapters is, of course, the centrality of class in grasping the nature of social movements. Laurence Cox, for example, challenges mainstream understandings of social movements by reviving the broader nineteenth-century notion of the “social movement” as the self-organisation of the mass of society, which encompassed the poorer classes. While Cox focuses on the English and Irish working classes, Marc Blecher explores working-class formation in China since the onset of industrialisation in the early twentieth century. For Blecher, the Chinese proletariat flourished through local community and workplace struggles, but was unable to transcend this local dimension to gain hegemony within the national revolutionary movement.
More contemporary processes of class formation are analysed in David McNally’s chapter, which addresses recent mass struggles in Egypt, Tunisia, Oaxaca (Mexico), and Cochabamba (Bolivia). These movements, for McNally, are decisively shaped by class dynamics, which he understands—citing E.P. Thompson—as “the friction of interests” between classes. Rather than an abstract sociological category, class is conceived as a dynamic and concrete social formation that is primarily defined by its relation to capital. From this perspective, McNally deftly weaves together the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, which were driven by radical labour unions, and those in Oaxaca and Cochabamba, where indigenous and (rural and urban) working-class resistance converged.
While the Left often presumes the progressive nature of grassroots social movements, Neil Davidson’s sobering analysis underscores the reactionary direction that popular mobilisation can, and does, take. Consider, for example, the upsurge of the Tea Party in America and working-class support for right-wing populism in Britain. Davidson’s important contribution reminds us of the indeterminacy of social movements and the need for socialists to influence working-class movements.
Though Marxism and Social Movements foregrounds class analysis, the contributors are by no means mechanistic in their understanding of class, often highlighting its variegated and intersectional nature. Paul Blackledge thus breaks with crude materialist determinism to emphasise the political agency of various socio-cultural identities. At the same time, he argues—against the linguistic idealism of post-modernists—that “new” social movements, like the “old”, share common material interests as part of a broader struggle against capitalist alienation.
Other contributors are likewise sensitive to the complex composition and operation of social movements. Ralph Darlington discusses the relation between bureaucracies and the rank-and-file within trade unions, arguing, contraRobert Michels, that bureaucratisation is not an inescapable “iron law”, but a contingent process amenable to countervailing democratic tendencies. Similarly, Chik Collins explores the disjunctures between poor communities and their own organisations, highlighting the co-optation of local communities in Scotland by governmental “regeneration partnerships”.
This focus on organisational matters is also evident in the chapters by Elizabeth Humphrys and Heike Schaumberg. Reflecting on the shortcomings of the Australian Global Justice Movement, Humphrys argues for the strategic importance of “organic intellectuals” that emerge from particular movements but play a leading role in connecting them to a wider struggle for hegemony.
Schaumberg, by contrast, emphasises alternative forms of working-class self-organisation that emerged in the 2001 uprising during the Argentinian debt crisis. Largely autonomous from the political system and parties, the Argentine movements were directly democratic in character. Schaumberg, though, astutely notes the practical limitations of such “horizontality”, arguing that clearly vertical leadership relations re-surfaced in the movements, which also came to recognise the importance of the state for revolution.
Alongside these discussions of class formation and movement organisation, Marxism and Social Movements also features a welcome set of essays that more directly address the distinctive features of movements in the “global South”, where societies have been profoundly shaped by colonialism and its enduring legacy.
In his discussion of the Indian Revolt of 1857, Hira Singh argues for the primacy of class analysis—encompassing rather than excluding caste—in explaining the rebellion. While acknowledging a multiplicity of historical causes, Singh persuasively locates the principal dynamic in landlords’ resistance against the East India Company’s encroachment on their economic-political power and cultural privilege, but also stresses peasant-landlord alliances based on cultural adherence to the caste system against a colonial power. In a complementary fashion, Christian Høgsbjerg’s chapter creatively employs C.L.R. James’s influential History of Negro Revolt to explore the intersectional relationship between class and racial hierarchies.
With respect to contemporary resistance in the global South against neoliberal globalisation, Alf Gunvald Nilsen discusses the mobilisation of Adivasi and peasant communities in opposition to the dispossession of lands caused by the Narmada Valley dam projects. Against state-centric and anti-institutionalist writers, Nilsen argues that the post-colonial state presents both opportunities and structural constraints for subaltern movements. These issues are taken up in Chris Hesketh’s comparative study of the Zapatista movement and the APPO (Popular Assembly of the People’s of Oaxaca), in which he explores their “spatial” dimension. Whereas capital accumulation entails the conquest of space, poor and indigenous community struggles to defend their lands create alternative, autonomous “spaces of resistance” against capital. Focusing on South Africa’s highly militant urban social movements, Patrick Bond, Ashwin Desai, and Trevor Ngwane accentuate their tendencies towards localism, the uneven contours of South African protest, and the ensuing risks of co-optation by a neoliberal government.
Collectively, these chapters offer incisive and thought-provoking studies and interpretations of numerous social movements. This volume, though, is not without its limitations, the transnational dimension of social movements being particularly under-developed. A discussion of a twenty-first century internationalism, including its prospects and pitfalls, is notably lacking, with only a few passing comments on the World Social Forum scattered in various chapters.
More substantively, the uneven nature of resistance movements in core and peripheral regions of the global capitalist system receives scant attention. Given that many contemporary European social movements are organised around the defence of the welfare state—largely erected on the proceeds of conquest and empire in the first place—the hierarchical stratification of global capitalism is a crucial discussion point for Marxist scholars of social movements.
No single volume, of course, can adequately address such an expansive raft of themes, and such omissions do not detract from what is an otherwise excellent collection of essays that should be of interest to both activists and researchers. At a time when capitalism is in crisis and popular resistance to neoliberalism is resurgent, Marxism and Social Movements aptly lays the basis for a renaissance of Marxist analysis — above all, a critical, unapologetically materialist, and practically-oriented approach to social movements.
Marxism and Social Movements
Colin Barker, Laurence Cox, John Krinsky, and Alf Gunvald Nilsen (eds.)
473 pp – $179
ISBN: 9789004211759
Leiden: Brill, 2013As soon as the result of the Democrat primary in Iowa was decided by six consecutive winning tosses of the coin, it emerged that the lucky Mrs. Clinton was even luckier than we all thought, for she was already way ahead on delegates to the Convention.
Her humiliating defeat in New Hampshire six days later revealed that she had accumulated an even bigger lead in Convention delegates over the luckless Bernie Sanders, who discovered the existence of ‘Superdelegates’. Mrs. Clinton, it transpired, was well aware of their existence and had already laid claim to several hundred.
As Bernie, the ancient, drooling, wild-eyed Trotskyite from Vermont (via Brooklyn, via an Eastern European ghetto) has long been preaching, life in capitalist America is not fair. For his young, college-educated – and therefore more intelligent than any poorly -educated Trumpet – White followers, it must have come as quite a shock to discover that not all White Votes Count the same.
On the night of New Hampshire, it occurred to us that this state of affairs would not go un-protested. After all, his followers know all about protesting even if they know little about the ways of the world, how wealth is created, or how a college degree in gender oppression will land a job. And so it has come to be that a protest is gathering like a storm!
MoveOn.org has at least two petitions gathering the names of protesters, and in just three days, more than a quarter million young Trotskyites have signed up. This number will grow and grow, we are pleased to predict, presenting Mrs. Clinton and the Democrat Party’s politburo with an embarrassing dilemma.
As we understand it, the Democrat Party’s elite introduced the ‘superdelegate’ mechanism in response to the Convention victory of Senator George McGovern. McGovern, a principled South Dakota anti-war Leftist back in the days when the Democrat Party was merely crooked and controlled from smoke-filled rooms but had not been purged by the rising Media Class, lost in a 1972 landslide to Richard Nixon. In the smoke-filled room, it was decided that young grass-roots supporters could never again be allowed to pick the Convention winner. And so the dice were loaded by giving ‘super delegate’ votes to trusted Party functionaries. Prior to that they had been used to bolster Black representation.
If Hillary wins South Carolina and then Nevada by big margins, and it becomes obvious that Bernie has no appeal beyond White College youth and old 1960’s pony-tail Starbucks habitués, the petition will fizzle out. But if, God forbid! Bernie eats into her Black vote and her Latino vote and perhaps acquires some of her homosexual Media billionaires, and runs her close, the super-delegate issue will erupt. At the moment the MSM is able to hide this rebellion, but a close race in South Carolina, and more superdelegates for Hillary, will fuel MoveOn.org’s young firebrands.
It is hard to see Hillary graciously relinquishing her unfair advantage, for the Clinton’s are shameless, ruthless and desperate. Their brand of Socialism is all about sharing the wealth of others but not their own ill-gotten gains. The Democrat Party is surely going to rue the day it took the easy way out and allowed the Clinton crime machine back in.
Interestingly, MoveOn.org, founded in 1998 by Far Leftist Joan Blades and now responsible for the petition, has been largely funded by George Soros, Peter Lewis and Linda Pritzka – all Clinton supporters. Perhaps the explanation is that the current Executive Director Ilya Sheyman is a Jew and sees an opportunity to put the first Jew, rather than the first woman, in the White House. Perhaps a website visitor can fill in the blanks for us.
MoveOn.org Superdelegates Petitions
“Superdelegates: Let the Voters Decide” by Ilya Sheyman As of 4:56 PM: 106,970 signatures “Superdelegates: Don’t Deny Democracy” by Emiljana Ulaj & Rob Akleh As of 5:01 PM: 165,741 signaturesSaudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir delivers his speech during the 53rd Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany, February 19, 2017. REUTERS/Michaela Rehle Reuters
MUNICH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's foreign minister on Sunday rejected Iranian calls for dialogue saying Tehran was the main sponsor of terrorism in the world, a destabilizing force in the Middle East and wanted to "destroy us."
"Iran remains the single main sponsor of terrorism in the world," Adel al-Jubeir told delegates at the Munich Security Conference. "It’s determined to upend the order in Middle East... (and) until and unless Iran changes its behavior it would be very difficult to deal with a country like this."
Al-Jubeir said Iran was propping up the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, funding the Houthi separatists in Yemen and violent groups across the region. He said the international community needed to set clear "red lines" to halt Iran's actions.
(Reporting by John Irish, Vladimir Soldatkin; editing by Andrea Shalal)Here's the thing
But you can't remember where the hell you saved the damn thing on your computer.
If you're a data scientist (especially the decision sciences/analysis focused kind) this has happened to you. A bunch. You might laugh it off, shrug, w/e but it's a real problem because now you have to spend hours if not days recreating work you've already done. It's a waste of time and money.
Fix it.
I used to be this person too, so I get it. I decided to experiment with a new method that sounds so simplistic and stupid you'll think it won't work.
Try it.
Just. Try. It. It will change your life.
The Fix
I now keep all of my analyses in a single folder. I call mine "Research" call yours w/e you want it doesn't fucking matter. Next, any time I start ANY analysis (SQL query, python notebook, Excel workbook, etc) I create a folder in my research folder. The folder is named by the date and then a brief description of what it is about.
Example:
Research/20161208_blog_post_on_not_losing_research
That's it. I have not lost a single analysis since I started doing this. I've been asked for analyses that are 6 months old and I can find them in <10 minutes.
Once you have this folder structure you have to work directly out of the folder for all of your work. There can't be extra effort to get your work into this folder or you'll start losing research again.
But I won't remember what date I did an analysis!
You don't have to! But you will remember that you did it a few months ago. Or a week or two ago. If you remember nothing you can probably ask the person with the question when you first presented that and they'll give you a time range. Really the time range is there to eliminate 95% of the noise.
But it's hard to make sure the descriptions are clear/useful!
If you work on two analyses that you would describe basically the same way (for some weird reason) that's where the dates come in handy! It's hard to mix up what you did last week with what you did last month in this system. Worst case you find both and have to look at both. You still haven't lost anything but maybe it takes you the full ten minutes to figure out which is which.
But... but...!
If this method is even an option for you it's because you lose your research. Before you come up with more excuses just try this out for a couple weeks and see if it doesn't affect the quality of your life.
Tooling that has helped me
What's important is that this method is so light and simple, it works with almost any tool. If you use SQL as much as I do, I recommend getting a tool like PyCharm or DataGrip that allows you to organize your SQL files in custom folders like you would code in a standard IDE. I can't imagine this being easy if you have to keep copying and pasting SQL code from your research folder.
Again, you have to set up your workflow so you can work entirely out of this one folder.
Keep that tenet in mind as you look at your tools and evaluate new tools. It's key.
Writing a Spark job? Do the same. Just live in this folder for your analysis.
You can combine this with software that does full text searches over folders as well to make finding things even easier.
Conclusion
That's it. I know it's nothing flashy or exciting. No one who interviews you for a data science role will ever ask you about this either. The people who work with data scientists though will notice you have your shit together and while those around you can never keep track of their work, you're always able to pick up where you left off and get down to business immediately.
Just remember this format and try it.
Example: Research/20161208_blog_post_on_not_losing_research
If you've solved this problem another way, I'd love to hear your solution. For people who struggle with this I'd love to offer more than one approach. Share it with me via comments or Twitter or something. Thanks!
I'm going to make this quick. You do a carefully thought through analysis. You present it to all the movers and shakers at your company. Everyone loves it. Six months later someone asks you a question you didn't cover so you need to reproduce your analysis...GETTY Deputy chief executive Kassim Tokan claimed that 95 to 97 per cent of the camp's migrants are men
The Human Relief Foundation (HRF) has been giving aid to the migrant camp with the belief that its occupants are fleeing war-torn countries like Syria. However, the charity decided to pull the plug after its deputy chief executive Kassim Tokan recently paid a visit to Calais.
I thought they have valid reason, but most of them they haven't any valid reason Kassim Tokan
The shocked deputy claimed he discovered unwanted clothing and food "being dumped and burnt" by migrants. Mr Tokan said: "I thought they have valid reason, but most of them they haven't any valid reason... they want to go [to the UK] to get money, a better economic situation."
GETTY Thousands of migrants have arrived in Calais to claim asylum in Britain
GETTY Mr Tokan said he saw migrants burning unwanted food and clothes
He also said that 95 to 97 per cent of migrants in the camp were young, fit men - some of whom allegedly told him they were happy to stay in the camp. Mr Tokan added the HRF will now turn its attention to helping Syrians trapped in neighbouring Labanon and Jordan, claiming migrants at Calais no longer need the help.
EPA The camp even has its own shop
He told ITV: "They have enough food, they have enough clothes and we have seen clothes everywhere thrown. "I think we need to find other places. These people come from certain countries, which are safe, everything is there, they can work, but I don't know why they came here."WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is preparing executive orders that would clear the way to drastically reduce the United States’ role in the United Nations and other international organizations, as well as begin a process to review and potentially abrogate certain forms of multilateral treaties, officials said.
The first of the two draft orders, titled “Auditing and Reducing U.S. Funding of International Organizations” and obtained by The New York Times, calls for terminating funding for any United Nations agency or other international body that meets any one of several criteria.
Those criteria include organizations that give full membership to the Palestinian Authority or Palestine Liberation Organization, or support programs that fund abortion or any activity that circumvents sanctions against Iran or North Korea. The draft order also calls for terminating funding for any organization that “is controlled or substantially influenced by any state that sponsors terrorism” or is blamed for the persecution of marginalized groups or any other systematic violation of human rights.
The order calls for then enacting “at least a 40 percent overall decrease” in remaining United States funding toward international organizations.
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The order establishes a committee to recommend where those funding cuts should be made. It asks the committee to look specifically at United States funding for peacekeeping operations; the International Criminal Court; development aid to countries that “oppose important United States policies”; and the United Nations Population Fund, which oversees maternal and reproductive health programs.
If President Trump signs the order and its provisions are carried out, the cuts could severely curtail the work of United Nations agencies, which rely on billions of dollars in annual United States contributions for missions that include caring for refugees.
Advertisement Continue reading the main story
The second executive order, “Moratorium on New Multilateral Treaties,” calls for a review of all current and pending treaties with more than one other nation. It asks for recommendations on which negotiations or treaties the United States should leave.
The order says this review applies only to multilateral treaties that are not “directly related to national security, extradition or international trade,” but it is unclear what falls outside these restrictions.
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For example, the Paris climate agreement or other environmental treaties deal with trade issues but could potentially fall under this order.
An explanatory statement that accompanies the draft order mentions two United Nations treaties for review: the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Taken together, the orders suggest that Mr. Trump intends to pursue his campaign promises of withdrawing the United States from international organizations. He has expressed heavy skepticism of multilateral agreements such as the Paris climate agreement and of the United Nations.
The draft orders, which are only a few pages each, leave several unanswered questions. For example, it is unclear whether they call for cutting 40 percent of United States contributions to each international agency separately, or to the overall federal funding budget.
The United States provides about a quarter of all funding to United Nations peacekeeping operations, of which there are more than a dozen, in Europe, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia. At least one of these, the operation in southern Lebanon, directly serves Israeli interests by protecting the country’s northern border, though the draft order characterizes the funding cuts as serving Israeli interests.By By Katerina Nikolas Oct 4, 2012 in Environment Whilst Greece stares into the abyss of endless recession and austerity, a study presented to Antonis Samaras in June shows the nation has potential natural gas reserves worth $600 billion. In 2010 Greece's Energy Ministry commissioned a group of experts to research potential gas and oil reserves in Greek waters. Antonis Foscolos of the Technical University of Crete and the Canadian Geological Survey Greece has commissioned a seismic survey to measure the level of hydrocarbon deposits. In January 2012 According to John Ward, author of In August With the study presenting new evidence that Greece may indeed prove to be the richest country in Europe it offers new hope that Greece may be able to exploit her natural resources to fiscal advantage. Reuters reported they have seen a copy of the study conducted by Antonis Foscolos, Elias Konofagos and Nikos Lygeros, which estimates gas reserves offshore from Crete could generate almost $600 billion over 25 years.In 2010 Greece's Energy Ministry commissioned a group of experts to research potential gas and oil reserves in Greek waters.Antonis Foscolos of the Technical University of Crete and the Canadian Geological Survey said : "subsea methane emissions and the presence of gas hydrate mounds on the seabed indicate the presence of large reservoirs."Greece has commissioned a seismic survey to measure the level of hydrocarbon deposits. In January 2012 Digital Journal reported Greece launched a licensing round for bids to explore development of an offshore oil and gas sector, with potential investors given until July to tender their bids.According to Prison Planet earlier surveys estimated that the value of natural gas resources available for Greece to exploit could exceed $9 trillion. Those surveys did not take into account the Cretan Sea or the Southern Aegean.John Ward, author of the Slog, has long maintained that the EU and U.S. have been aware of the potential of oil and gas reserves in Greek waters, noting that both sides are fully cognizant of the geopolitical importance of Greece.In August Digital Journal reported "Analysts gauge that Greece is in fact the richest country in Europe due to its wealth of, yet unexploited, oil and gas deposits. Greece may be on the brink of bankruptcy but its assets have much appeal, especially as the rights to exploit them can be snapped up on the cheap due to the Greek crisis. Whichever country claims the rights has access to what is deemed the largest deposits of oil in Europe, cited in a strategic European position."With the study presenting new evidence that Greece may indeed prove to be the richest country in Europe it offers new hope that Greece may be able to exploit her natural resources to fiscal advantage. More about Greece gas and oil reserves, Flow Energy, greek hydrocarbon deposits More news from Greece gas and oil r... Flow Energy greek hydrocarbon de...I will not be seeing Stonewall or, as I like to call it, “Director Roland Emmerich Presents ‘Diary of a Mad White Twink.'” Wait, let me back up.
In case you haven’t heard, the “rich white men” are making a film about the Stonewall uprising and true to the rich white men form, they’ve made some *ahem* edits to the 1969 historical event, sparked by two trans women, Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, that gave birth to the modern LGBTQ rights movement we see today.
While in New York City for a gig, I went to the gentrified remains of the place and was lucky enough to be stopped on my way in by an elder. This person began telling me about Christopher Street and Stonewall Inn, as it was around the time of the uprising. After establishing I was, indeed a “fish”, this person went on to tell me in 1969, the toilet situation there wasn’t conducive to my needs. “You couldn’t sit on them seats honey unless you wanted a pee bath.” As if I would ever place my tush on a public toilet – girl, bye! However, I digress.
Apparently, the beer at Stonewall was basically water, anyone too femme was sent to the back, and police raids happened consistently. According to my research, this was likely because Stonewall Inn had no liquor license – also as we black women know all too well, the police love a good reason to harass systematically oppressed persons. The night of the Stonewall uprising was essentially the night the patrons realized they were sick and tired of being sick and tired.
The question is, why have rich white men decided the lead character in a film about this historic event, Danny, threw the first brick in the clash that led to the freedoms so many queer people enjoy today? The answer is simple: laziness.
Imagine the precarious situation in which film director Emmerich and writer Jon Robin Baitz found themselves: they are telling the story of people who, despite being terrorized and abused because of who they are and how they love, start a movement to overcome systematic oppression. But there’s all these pesky misconceptions about the heroes of the movement who happen to be Trans women, people of color and poor people.
The heroes of the movement just happen to be people society has essentially decided deserve maltreatment. It’s easier to just make the heroes white men because then you never have to ask the audience, or yourself, to see how little has changed for queer and trans people of color. You never have to ask how little has changed for queer people who are poor or uneducated. You never have to ask why you aren’t doing more to address the needs of those in the LGBTQ community who don’t look like sweet white Danny who was just minding his own business in his trying-too-hard tee shirt, being thin and cisgender when the world came along and picked on him. Why do all this work using truth telling to debunk harmful stereotypes of Trans women and people of color when you can just change the story?
My answer is because it is lazy to do so. The debunking of harmful stereotypes is quite frankly; the only reason progress is the means in the fight for survival. If we have learned nothing from the win for marriage equality, it is that only when appealing to hearts, minds and consciences that we move forward in the struggle for human dignity and survival. Re-writing history to make people more comfortable and never challenging viewers to be socially responsible is at best a missed opportunity and at worst cruel.
So, I’m not seeing Stonewall. I’m kidding. I’m obviously seeing Stonewall. Why? Well, because I’m a queer woman of color who supports the queer community, even when the queer community doesn’t support queer women of color. In the words people like Marsha P. Johnson, Tata Sanchez, Amber Monroe, Yazmin Vash Payn, India Clarke, Mercedes Williamson, Papi Edwards, Taja DeJesus, Ma Hall, Penny Proud, London Kiki Chanel, Ty Underwood, should have been able to live long enough to say: “You’re welcome”.
CommentsImmigration Minister Bowen said that the government was trying to remove the incentive for people to try and make it all the way to Australia. "We're trying to save people's lives here," he told Sky News. Mr Bowen said that the government was trying to remove any opportunity for people smugglers to make dangerous promises such as, "I can get you to the mainland, so you won't be sent to Nauru." "We do need to close down any opportunity for people smugglers to spin," he said. The legislative change was taken to caucus this morning and was approved but members of the Left faction did raise their concerns.
The Left factional bosses secured from Mr Bowen a commitment to have ongoing discussions about refugee policy. Although the Left agreed to support the immigration changes long ago, there was still significant discomfort among the faction about policy direction. ''We will continue to have discussions with Bowen about a number of issues,'' said one member of the Left. This Labor government is now going to try to enact legislation that is so discriminatory and un-Australian that John Howard faced an internal revolt when he tried it in 2006. Legislation could be introduced as early as this week.
Mr Bowen's office said the changes would not apply to asylum seekers who arrive by air. It is rare for asylum boats to reach the mainland, but in April a boat carrying 10 Chinese nationals arrived in Darwin, and in 2008 a boat carrying Sri Lankan asylum seekers made it to Shark Bay, in Western Australia. While Mr Bowen acknowledged that there were not large numbers of people arriving on the Australian mainland by boat, he said the new excision announcement sent a "significant message". Coalition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison noted the proposal was similar to that put forward by the Howard government, but would not commit the Coalition to supporting the measure. ''When we see the legislation we'll take it through the normal processes,'' he told reporters in Canberra.
''I find it interesting that the Minister has not sought to alert me to this. I don't think that's in the spirit of how we've been dealing with things coming out of the Houston report.'' Asked about the plan today, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott would not say whether the Coalition would support it. ''We'll wait and say exactly what we're going to do when we see the relevant legislation. I haven't seen any legislation,'' he told reporters in Canberra. ''I understand the government had a huge argument in the caucus about this this morning. Let's wait and see what the government comes up with.'' Greens immigration spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young said the Greens would oppose the change, describing it as a ''shameful piece of legislation that discriminates against some of the most vulnerable people in our region, based on the way in which they arrive in Australia''.
"The government will say that this is about discouraging people from getting on boats but it is clear that the only way to achieve that is by offering people safer pathways, not by removing people's fundamental right to apply for asylum in Australia,'' Senator Hanson-Young said in a statement. ''Rather than trying to help these vulnerable people, this Labor government is now going to try to enact legislation that is so discriminatory and un-Australian that John Howard faced an internal revolt when he tried it in 2006. "It is such a bad piece of legislation that even Barnaby Joyce threatened to cross the floor. It was a bad law then and it is a bad law now.'' with Judith Ireland |
little bit bigger. Elizabeth pretty much told me to bring Dee and Taffy along. My head kinda exploded. Andrew had built a good size aviary and Elizabeth and I discussed maybe two pairs. Although Palomacy prefers local adoptions, as do Andrew and I, they were willing to part with some much loved birds to make room for others in need.
So now, I was driving down to San Francisco, a two day trip, with my two birds, staying two nights, adopting four more birds, another two days to get home, by myself!! Where do I stay? How do I get the birds from my car to the room, safely? It seemed like a lot and then Andrew had the brilliant idea of renting an RV. I wouldn’t have to rent a hotel room, the birds would be safe, problems solved. I could kill him.
Everything was cool till I realized I had to drive that thing, the beast, a 22 foot RV, the smallest one available, into San Francisco. I drive a 1998 VW GTI. It’s the size of a clown car. I was nervous. I asked (begged) my good friend, Allison, to go on this adventure with me, mostly for moral support, but I knew she wouldn’t hassle me about driving across a few states to adopt pigeons. Unfortunately, she could only do the last leg. That’s okay. I reserved my KOA campsites, spent a lot of time online and kept psyching myself up. I also had my husband and Elizabeth and some super special friends cheering me on. Andrew took apart the RV and made sure the birds, in their cages, would be safe when I slammed on the brakes. Of course I was worried about disrupting my birds, they were sitting on some eggs. They were troopers! They barely batted a nictitating eyelid. Pigeons are amazing animals.
I took off Thursday morning, after a quick cry (baby) and made it to Medford with no problems. It rained the entire time, but it was surprisingly easy in the beast. Getting into Alameda was a little more challenging. I was so excited to get to Ploughshares. Poor Elizabeth, who had an awful lot going on in her life, both good and bad, met me at the aviary. It was a lovely day, Ploughshares was a beautiful nursery and the people there were immediately friendly. Andrew and I had been on Petfinder looking at who was available, so I had an idea who was who. We wanted birds who were aviary ready. We wanted them all! Batman and Max! Tux and Whimsy! Blaze and Mocha! I fell in love with a little, grey fiesty, March, I think, and mate Grace? Elizabeth and I brought in my two little rapscallions, and they are little compared to those Kings, and let ‘em loose. So cute! I was terribly proud of both of them. It was really neat to see them with other birds. After some buzzing around, Elizabeth decided to torture Dee and crammed his adorable bum into pigeon pants. It went well until he had a freak out and tried to fly. Oh, my heart hurt. He’s sturdy though. Taffy escaped, unscathed, almost, Dee beat the snot out of her in the carrier on the way back to the beast.
I now had to get from Alameda to Pacifica. Friday night, 5:30. What in the world?? I will never complain about traffic in my neck of the woods, AGAIN!! It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I’ve driven through Boston and navigated Logan airport. I’ve driven through Manhattan, New Jersey and I’ve even driven through Chicago, numerous times, but holy smokes, that Bay Bridge was astounding. I did make friends waiting for the toll booth… It was dark when I finally got to Pacifica around 7:30 and I couldn’t find the RV park. I had a quick panic, Andrew helped me and the kids and I had a fine night.
I enjoyed Pacifica. I could walk to get coffee and snacks and it was close to the event. I took my very first Uber to get to Flocktober Fest, decided to make it a share even. Those people didn’t know what they were in for! My girlfriend had missed her flight, so she was meeting me at the event. The event… Flocktoberfest!
I was super nervous. Overwhelmed and overstimulated. Dee is a brat who is allowed to do whatever he wants and I baby him like he’s the bubble boy. Taffy is wild and wants nothing to do with us, so we leave her alone. We don’t press her or try to make her love us. We give her all the space she wants. Now I had them at a party!! Also, Dee is a jerk, domestic abuser, who takes his frustrations out on his poor, little wife. When Dee is unable to process his emotions he takes it out on Taff. They were in their new carrier and Taffy was getting the beat down from her husband. Well, Liese gave Dee a schooling. It was terrific to watch. He was in pigeon pants and on his side getting manhandled. I loved it. Liese had other birds to love on, so she gave me back my PoopyBear and he proceeded to put the smack down on me! I lack the bird handling skills of my fellow pigeon rescuers and I’ve got scars to prove it! I shoved him back in their carrier and tried to keep calm. I needed to get out there and meet my heroes.
You can see all the Flocktoberfest fun here.)
Elizabeth had put me in touch with friends and fellow Palomacy wonderworkers when Dee first came home and I needed extra encouragement with his care. Jill was there for me and I recognized her immediately, it was terrific to finally meet her in person. I had my eye on Spike and Apina and I recognized their mother, Cheryl, who was working her magic and had both kids with her. I didn’t know it when I got there, but I would be bringing them home with me that night. I’m an Instagram stalker, I don’t post much, but I love to follow people and their pigeons. I got to meet Miu and her mother, Cynthia and her friends, Kumi and Kai. Ashley Dietrich is a wonderful artist and has an amazing rescue aviary and Andrew and I are the proud owners of two of her pieces of artwork, Hester and Jacob. I loved Sophia and her dad, Nathan. I spotted Captain Cardamom, that cutie, now Charming, and got a pic! I love Stephanie’s aviary and hope all is going well with Fleetwood and Hootie. I set up shop next to Faye, who could not be sweeter, and her two fosters, Cookie and Delilah. I did not know I would be bringing them home by the end of the night too, along with Spike and Apina. And, to top it off, Maryam! What a kid! So great to talk with her and meet Pearl! So many wonderful people, I wish I’d had more time.
The spread was amazing! The prizes were fantastic. The music was bumpin! The MC was rockin’ it. The people who make up Palomacy are an amazing bunch of people who give rescue a good name. I’m always so impressed with their constant devotion and dedication. The outreach, the fundraising and the endless education they offer is astounding. Their compassion and the sincerity they treat all they encounter is an inspiration. I was scared to embark on my adventure, but I’m so glad I did. Not only did I get to meet people I truly admire I brought home four beautiful birds to complete our family.Sunderland fan handed three-year ban after making monkey gesture at Lukaku
A fan who made a monkey gesture when striker Romelu Lukaku scored against Sunderland has been handed a three-year football banning order.
Liam Jones, 22, was given an 18-month conditional discharge after he admitted causing racially aggravated harassment, alarm or distress while watching his team lose to West Brom at the Stadium of Light in November.
Sunderland lost the game 4-2 and Jones, from East Vines, Hendon, was photographed in the stands making a monkey gesture towards the Belgian striker who had just scored.
Guilty: Liam Jones was handed a three-year football banning order after he made a monkey gesture
As the player was snapped leaping in celebration, Jones could be seen out of his seat, in a grey flat cap, shouting at the striker with his hands cupped towards his armpits.
He later told reporters he was doing a 'chicken dance' and pleaded not guilty to the charge when it came before Sunderland magistrates.
A trial had been due to take place next month but at a hearing last week Jones entered a guilty plea.
Court officials have confirmed he was handed a three year football banning order and an 18-month conditional discharge.
Shamed: Jones reacted to Romelu Lukaku scoring against Sunderland in the Premier League
Following a previous court hearing, Jones made as if he was going to spit at photographers waiting outside.
After the case, Chief Superintendent Steve Neill of Northumbria Police, said: 'Racist behaviour of any kind will not be tolerated and Northumbria Police will fully investigate any reports made to us.
' We know people who are responsible for these actions are part of a small minority and would continue to encourage anyone who sees this kind of behaviour to report it to us and help us rid football of any racism.'Dozens gathered on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside Sunday to light candles and share stories about potent opioids circulating in the community and about those who have died from overdoses.
Angel Gates says she knows 25 people in the past year who have died from drug overdoses. (Errol Richardson/CBC)
"I'm here because I've lost 25 friends and family members since May," said Angel Gates, a member of the Haida Nation. "I've gone to three funerals in a weekend.
"It's heartbreaking. You start to just expect it. I'm trying so hard to not become desensitized. It's just insane how many people are dying. Our government needs to do something to stop this."
A man lights a candle at Pigeon Park in remembrance of people who have died of drug overdoses. (Tina Lovgreen/CBC)
In 2016, 914 people died of drug overdoses in the province — an increase of nearly 80 per cent from the year before.
And the end doesn't seem to be in sight as an even more potent narcotic than fentanyl — carfentanil — was recently confirmed in drug users in Metro Vancouver.
Musqueam woman and activist Audrey Siegl helped organize the vigil. Her mother died of a drug overdose in January 2017. (Tina Lovgreen/CBC)
The vigil at Pigeon Park in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside was organized by Karrie Barefoot and Audrey Siegl who, between them, lost a son and a mother to overdoses.
Siegl, a Musqueam woman and activist, said her mother was sent to residential school at the age of four and left at 16.
"Because of real damage and trauma that was done to her, she was never able to heal, she was never able to have a moment of peace [or] dignity."
Despite all the tragedy and sadness many people feel about the overdose health emergency in B.C., there is hope a solution can be found. (Tina Lovgreen/CBC)
This week, mayors from a dozen major Canadian cities launched a task force to tackle the opioid crisis. Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson will lead it.
It's meant to share experiences and best practices in an effort to stem the escalating number of overdose deaths.
Two participants at a vigil in Vancouver on Saturday, Feb. 5, 2017 honouring the 914 victims of drug overdoses in the province in 2016, and thousands of others who have suffered from the health emergency. (Errol Richardson/CBC)
Meanwhile, those at the vigil hoped it would provide something to help cope with all the sorrow.
"This is a vigil to provide hopefully some comfort, some peace, some healing," Siegel said.
Barbara Abrahams and Ben Mark attended the vigil with their son, Daniel, and say the overdose epidemic in the province is a result of poverty, abuse and discrimination. They want those suffering to keep hope that they can overcome their addictions. (Errol Richardson/CBC)
Others, despite tragedy in their own lives involving their own addictions, abuse, poverty and the death of families members, are fighting to stay hopeful.
Ben Mark and Barbara Abrahams came to the vigil with their son, Daniel. Both have had family members die of overdoses.
"It takes people to stand for the people we have lost and the people that are out here struggling," said Mark. "This epidemic is taking so many people.
"What we'd like to say to everybody is that there is hope. Reach out to somebody, reach out to those places where you know people are getting better. Just keep fighting, love your loved ones."
Two people embrace at a vigil held in Vancouver to reflect on the overdose crisis the province is facing. (Tina Lovgreen/CBC)
With files fromTina Lovgreen.If, as Peggy O'Mara says, "the way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice," then fat kids are screwed. At the very least, fat kids are going to have to do a lot of arguing with their inner voice if they ever want to usurp it and find their own, kinder, more confident voice. Sadly, there are things people say to a fat kid that they would never say to a thin kid and, color me totally shocked, they all suck.
Our society is fatphobic, to say the least. From laughably unfunny comedians ranting against fat people to otherwise reasonable, cool humans misguidedly ranting against fat people, we are caught, it seems, in an echo-chamber constantly resonating with disdain for fatness. If you're a fat person caught in this hellscape, I wish you strength, resilience, and courage because there's no doubt you'll need all three in spades.
Being fat is not definitively indicative of anything other than the amount of adipose between one's muscle and skin. Yet our culture seems hell-bent on continuing to treat fatness as a moral failing and an impediment to true happiness. There is nothing worse than being fat, we think (society "we," not, like, "you and me," because f*ck that noise). This is a lesson we've been taught our whole lives, and, as we get older, a lesson many of us pass down to our children, repeating the damaging and moronic cycle for the next generation.
"I don't care what they look like," we say, "I just want them to be happy and healthy." And yet despite study after study showing that being overweight often has nothing to do with one's health, and that it's perfectly possible to be happy, healthy, and fat, we consistently urge fat children to "make healthy choices." Sure, we should be urging them to make healthy choices, just as much as we urge thin children to do the same. Otherwise you can't argue that it's their health you're concerned about: it's obviously their fat. So, having said all that while simultaneously attempting to feel uplifted about our society, there are a lot of things a fat child will hear growing up that their thin friends will not be subjected to. Including but not limited to...
"You Don't Want To Get Fat..." giphy While I'm sure some thin kids have heard this, in my experience it's usually said to kids who are already fat. The adults speaking somehow think that by vilifying fatness and fat people to a fat child it will motivate the kid to get thin. This establishes two major problems and probably a slew of lesser ones I won't even get into: 1) It's setting up fatness as something shameful and to be avoided. 2) It's creating an "us versus them" mentality between fat people and non-fat people. The truth of the matter is, deep down, a lot of kids know "you don't want to get fat" is really code for "I don't want you to get any fatter." So now this child begins to think "fat is bad and I am fat so I am bad."
"Let's Start Exercising Together" People will defend this one by saying "Exercise is important for everyone!" This is true, and kids should be active. But at best an adult will tell a thin child "Go play, you need to get outside and burn off some energy." Thin children aren't told they have to "exercise." Fat kids are. While offering to do it together is, I'm sure, well-meaning, it's both condescending and driving home the idea that they find the child's body objectionable to the point that they're personally willing to spend time "getting them into shape."
"Do You Really Want That Ice Cream?" giphy I'm sorry, but are you kidding me? Show me one child in the history of children who didn't "really want that ice cream" and I will prove to you that that child is actually a villainous adult dressed up as a kid, because no child has ever not "really wanted that ice cream." Come on. I can't think of too many grown-ass men and women who realize, after taking an ice cream "Actually, no, I don't want this absolutely delicious dessert." Ice cream is fantastic. So are cookies and french fries and pizza and cupcakes and whatever other food people try to shame a fat child out of eating by questioning whether they "really want it." Yeah. Funny that this question is never asked of a thin child, right? It's almost like people aren't actually asking so much as passive-aggressively trying to get a fat kid to realize they should try harder not to be fat and forgo the same things people rarely chide thin children for eating.
"That Outfit Really Isn't Meant For Kids Like You" Fat kids have the unfortunate distinction of being informed of bullshit "dress for your body" rules before their peers, who can usually get to middle school before anyone gives a flying fart about what they're wearing. Not only is this heartbreaking to the little fat girl who wants to wear a two-piece bathing suit or whatever other garment has been deemed "not for her," it's also alienating and sends the message that she is somehow fundamentally different from her thin friends.
"You Have Such A Beautiful Face" giphy Thin kids are just called "beautiful" or "handsome" or "pretty." Who they are is beautiful: the whole package. Fat kids are picked into parts and told which of those parts are acceptable. Most often: face, hair, eyes and other body parts that can't be fat. Everything else, unremarked upon and in contrast with a "beautiful face," are implied to be less than beautiful.
"Look At How Thin And Beautiful That Other Person Is" This shallow attempt to motivate a fat kid to not be fat by making them feel insecure and competitive with someone else. Great precedent, guy. People don't do this to thin kids. That's not to say people don't compliment other children in front of thin kids, but never in a pointed, obvious way meant to make them feel ugly in comparison.
"You're On A Diet? That's Great!" giphy Diets are bad. Diets are stupid and bad for adults and they're even worse for kids, whose unique nutritional needs are very likely not being met by a program that seriously restricts caloric intake and/or cuts out certain food groups entirely. Of course healthy eating habits are good, but more often than not diets do not promote long-term, sustainable healthy eating habits at all. Still, when fat kids are praised for dieting, people often extol their "healthy eating habits." If a thin kid said they're on a diet, people will go on and on about how kids don't need to go on diets. Well, which is it?
"I'm Trying To Help You Learn From My Mistakes" In this transparent attempt to shame a fat kid, an adult (sometimes a fat adult, sometimes an adult who just claims to be fat to attempt to show solidarity) will criticize behavior in a fat child that they would never criticize in a thin one (eating "bad" foods, not being as active as they think they should be), even if both demonstrate the exact same behavior. Apparently, people who say this are only interested in the fat kids "learning from their mistakes." Thin kids, I guess, will learn later? (Ha! J/k! They're not really interested in teaching these kids anything, because it's not the behavior they want them to steer away from, it's the fat!)
"Imagine How Pretty You'd Be If..." giphy...you lost weight. Fat kids get to hear variations of this a lot, unfortunately. Thin kids usually don't hear about ways they could be attractive, though I will admit to sometimes hearing this in regard to how even thin girls dress or wear their hair. Any iteration of this is awful, of course, but I would contend that "if you lost weight" is fundamentally worse than, say, "if you let your hair grown long." Whereas the latter states "you're making the wrong choice" the former implies "your body is wrong."
"Big-Boned" Isn't it funny how only fat kids have big bones? How can you even tell how big someone's bones are? X-ray vision? Can we officially retire this term? We all know what it really means.
"Your [Thinner Sibling] Is Allowed To Eat Those Cookies, But You Need To Be Healthier" wordpress Food restrictions on fat kids are always posited as a parameter established to encourage healthy eating, but you're kind of tipping your hand when you let a thin kid have cookies when a fat kid "can't." It's like, "You know it has the same nutritional value no matter who eats it, right?"James Barrett, the head of the British Association of Gender Identity Specialists, has penned a scathing missive in the British Medical Journal criticizing doctors for failing to help people with gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria is defined as a condition where there is a conflict between a person's physical gender and the gender he or she identifies.
Barrett who is also a consultant psychiatrist at one of 11 gender identity clinics in the U.K., says access to hormone treatment for trans people is often delayed or prevented.
"It seems odd," he says, "that such effective treatment was ever considered a low priority, or that access to it should have been delayed."
March 31 is Trans Day of Visibility. (Jeff Stapleton/CBC)
"Currently, however, in the experience of those of us who work at gender identity clinics, as many as one in five GPs won't prescribe for people with gender dysphoria", he says, even after expert advice from a clinic.
Reasons include concerns that hormone prescriptions are "dangerous," "difficult" and "expensive." Barrett writes he's heard disturbingly frank admissions from doctors.
"Some of them, truthfully have got, kind of ethical or religious or moral objections or find it icky, or are a bit transphobic," he told CBC News. "Or a recent one: We are not trained to change nature."
They are backward comments that sadden and disappoint him. "Precisely the same remarks that could have been said 10 years ago about gay people, or 60 years ago, about black people. The arguments are about as invalid as those were."
'People aren't freaks'
"People with gender dysphoria aren't freaks", says Barrett. "They are teachers and accountants, police officers and doctors, parents and taxpayers." He says trans patients deserve respect and decent healthcare as anyone else.
Greta Bauer says its a similar situation in Canada, where there's a reluctance amongst family doctors to treat their trans patients. Bauer is an associate professor in the department of epidemiology and biostatistics at Western University in London, Ont. She recently led a study that looked at transgender patients in Ontario and their access and comfort level with family doctors.
I remember being at the emergency room at one point and being questioned about why I was there, and if I was there because I was trans … I was actually asked to leave. - Luke Fox
"There are a lot of resources and a lot of training available for doctors" in prescribing hormones to trans patients, she says. "But it's something that's unfamiliar and until the family doctors start doing it you can see why they might be a little bit nervous to start."
In the Western University study, researchers found that half of transgender Ontarians didn't feel comfortable discussing transgender-related health issues with their family doctor. Reasons included:
Whether the patient perceived their doctor was knowledgeable about transgender-related issues.
Negative experiences with family physicians.
"They talked about just a range of negative experiences that they'd had that were really traumatizing," Bauer said in an interview. "They talked about being outright denied care, and sent away. They talked about being bumped from doctor to doctor to doctor and the feeling that nobody really wanted to treat them."
Luke Fox knows a bit about that. He's a 30 year old trans person. He says he experienced discrimination during one of his visits to a Toronto hospital.
'I was asked to leave'
"I remember being at the emergency room at one point and being questioned about why I was there, and if I was there because I was trans, even though the reason I was there had nothing to do with being trans," he said in an interview with CBC News. "I was actually asked to leave."
There are more stories. "I've been called in for ultrasounds, X-rays, and I've had the wrong name called out, or the wrong gender marker has been attached to my name," he says. Fox says he's not comfortable talking about how many surgeries he's had, preferring to talk about the challenges accessing gender confirming surgeries.
"Our medical system isn't set up to service trans folks," he says.
As of March 1, the Ontario government has broadened access to referrals for medically necessary gender confirming surgery. In a news release, it says OHIP "has changed the funding criteria for sex reassignment surgery by allowing qualified providers throughout the province to assess patients for the surgery."
Luke Fox is hopeful. "It's great that people are having the conversation. But I think it's just taking it to the next level and saying, OK, now we know this is something that's within our society and these are people who definitely need care, so what can we do to make that care more accessible, and more available."
March 31 is Trans Day of Visibility.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
A woman has been left with horrific injuries after she was kicked and punched in an attack being treated as "racially motivated".
Nikki Hurst has been left with a huge wound to her head and serious facial injuries following the brutal assault.
She claimed the attack was carried out by three Asian men.
Police in Batley, West Yorkshire, confirmed they are treating the assault as "racially motivated" at this stage.
Nikki 32, says she was attacked as she was walking at 6:45am.
The men approached her and launched verbal abuse, before pushing her and kicking her.
(Image: Huddersfield Examiner/MEN Media)
(Image: Huddersfield Examiner/MEN Media)
She described falling to the ground, sustaining the head wound and serious facial injuries as a result.
Today the force confirmed enquiries were ongoing, reports the Huddersfield Examiner.
Det Insp Mark Atkinson, of Kirklees CID, said: “This was a terrible incident and one which left the victim with very serious injuries. We have been in regular contact with her to enable us to investigate the incident fully.
“I would like to appeal to members of the public who have witnessed the incident or have any information to come forward and assist with our investigation.”
Anyone with any information or anyone who witnessed what happened is asked to contact police via 101 quoting crime reference 13170506171.How Instagram phenomenon #FollowMeTo started
News Hour:
You all have probably seen the photos of an elegantly clad mystery woman leads her partner by hand to colourful and exotic places. They are the chicest husband and wife duo Murad and Nataly Osmann, co-creators of the Instagram phenomenon #FollowMeTo.
Murad and Nataly Osmann are best known for their globe-trotting ways and Nataly’s assortment of clothes and jewellery, sourced from small designers across the world. And nnow Murad osman has4.5 million followers on Instagram. He and his wife Nataly have travelled the world capturing the allure of countless destinations in their signature style known as #FollowMeTo.
Before the project began to gain followers, they worked with Natalayjust like all other people, five days a week and on weekends escaped in a short trip. The story has started on there first trip together to Barcelona.
They were strolling along sunny narrow streets, chatting, laughing, and, of course, taking lots of photos. All of a sudden Natasha looked away and pulled Murad forward, and that was the moment when he caught ‘that shot’!
Since they shot to fame with their iconic ‘Follow Me To’ photo series, social media stars Murad Osmann and his wife Nataly have travelled the world, from India to Jordan. The latest stunning shots of Nataly leading Murad by the hand through the streets of Cuba capture the spirit of the Caribbean island, blending iconic landmarks, local culture and artistic flair.
Like this: Like Loading...During my research into the Java Remote Method Invocation (RMI) protocol, the most common RMI service that I came across was Adobe ColdFusion’s Flex integration service which is used to support integration between Flash applications and ColdFusion components. A quick look at this service led to the discovery of two Java deserialization vulnerabilities, both leading to unauthenticated RCE in a service that runs under the local SYSTEM account by default.
Adobe released a security update on the 12th September 2017 for ColdFusion 11 and ColdFusion 2016 which can be installed through the ColdFusion Administrator application, however this update alone is not sufficient. Adobe ColdFusion comes bundled with its own Java runtime environment (JRE), which must be manually updated for the update to be effective.
The end-of-life ColdFusion 9 is also known to be affected, however no supported fix was available at the time of writing.
Update (13/10/2017): To clarify, this vulnerability affects the Java RMI service and does not affect HTTP(S) services exposed by ColdFusion.
Update (19/03/2018): It seems I made a typo in the blog title, this post is about CVE-2017-11283 and CVE-2017-11284 not 11238!
Update (18/06/2018): Adobe’s security update didn’t fully resolve this issue, more details can be found on my post about CVE-2018-4939.
The Vulnerability: RMI and java.lang.Object
The first thing I did when I started researching RMI was to write some code to enumerate RMI endpoints (which eventually became BaRMIe). The goal was to identify software that used RMI which I could investigate further.
I used Shodan to find targets for enumeration, then enumerated those targets using BaRMIe. The following class was the most commonly exposed:
coldfusion.flex.rmi.DataServicesCFProxy 1 coldfusion. flex. rmi. DataServicesCFProxy
The problem with RMI services is that we can’t interact with them without access to the relevant Java interface or stub class, so I downloaded a trial version of Adobe ColdFusion 2016 and installed it in a virtual machine. With ColdFusion installed I did a recursive grep over the installation directory for the above class name “DataServicesCFProxy” which guided me to the file “lib/cfusion.jar”. I opened this file up in JD-GUI to find the class (interface) listed above.
package coldfusion.flex.rmi; import java.rmi.Remote; import java.rmi.RemoteException; import java.util.List; import java.util.Map; public abstract interface DataServicesCFProxy extends Remote { public abstract List fill(String paramString, Object[] paramArrayOfObject, Map paramMap) throws RemoteException; public abstract List sync(String paramString, List paramList, Map paramMap) throws RemoteException; public abstract Object get(String paramString, Map paramMap1, Map paramMap2) throws RemoteException; public abstract Integer count(String paramString, Object[] paramArrayOfObject, Map paramMap) throws RemoteException; public abstract boolean fillContains(String paramString, Object[] paramArrayOfObject, Object paramObject, Boolean paramBoolean, Map paramMap) throws RemoteException; } 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 package coldfusion. flex. rmi ; import java. rmi. Remote ; import java. rmi. RemoteException ; import java. util. List ; import java. util. Map ; public abstract interface DataServicesCFProxy extends Remote { public abstract List fill ( String paramString, Object [ ] paramArrayOfObject, Map paramMap ) throws RemoteException ; public abstract List sync ( String paramString, List paramList, Map paramMap ) throws RemoteException ; public abstract Object get ( String paramString, Map paramMap1, Map paramMap2 ) throws RemoteException ; public abstract Integer count ( String paramString, Object [ ] paramArrayOfObject, Map paramMap ) throws RemoteException ; public abstract boolean fillContains ( String paramString, Object [ ] paramArrayOfObject, Object paramObject, Boolean paramBoolean, Map paramMap ) throws RemoteException ; }
Each of the five methods of this interface accept arbitrary Java objects as parameters either directly or indirectly (List and Map can both contain arbitrary Java objects). The RMI protocol uses Java serialization for method parameters so each of these five methods can be used as an entry point for a Java deserialization attack by passing a specially crafted object to the method.
The Payload
For a complete Java deserialization exploit we need two key components – the entry point (detailed above) and a payload. The payload consists of one or more classes with properties configured in such a way that some useful code is executed when the object is deserialized. For those not familiar with Java deserialization attacks, there’s an awesome tool called ysoserial which generates Java deserialization payloads using classes found in common Java libraries. Unfortunately the version of ColdFusion I had installed was not affected by any of the ysoserial payloads, and in fact Adobe released a security update in May 2016 which updated the bundled Apache Commons Collections library from version 3.2.1 to version 3.2.2, protecting ColdFusion against what is probably the best known Java deserialization payload.
On further investigation I came across the file “libs/js.jar”, which is the Mozilla Rhino JavaScript library. There is a deserialization payload for this library available in ysoserial but it didn’t affect my lab environment. I also couldn’t find any information indicating that a deserialization issue had been fixed in this library (whereas details of the Apache Commons Collections vulnerability were published). Using Wireshark to look at the network traffic I spotted the following:
A “java.io.InvalidClassException” stating that the local class was incompatible and listing the “serialVersionUID” of both the local and remote classes. Helpful! The serialVersionUID field of a class is usually generated automatically by Java and is updated whenever certain “incompatible” changes are made to the class. Depending on usage, however, it is entirely possible for these changes to be made without introducing an incompatibility.
I fired up a hex editor, loaded up the Mozilla Rhino payload bytes that I had generated using ysoserial, and searched for the local serialVersionUID listed in the exception. I modified the value to match the remote serialVersionUID and fired the payload off again whilst monitoring the network traffic with Wireshark. I had to repeat this process several times to fix all of the serialVersionUID values, but eventually I got this:
Outdated JRE
The other of the two vulnerabilities is simply that ColdFusion comes bundled with an outdated version of Java. The bundled Java version does not attempt to validate the type of objects received in an RMI Registry.bind() request before deserializing them. It also fails to check that the bind request came from localhost prior to deserializing the object. This presents another entry point for Java deserialization attacks.
References
Security update for ColdFusion 11 and ColdFusion 2016 (https://helpx.adobe.com/security/products/coldfusion/apsb17-30.html)
Further information for ColdFusion 11 (https://helpx.adobe.com/coldfusion/kb/coldfusion-11-update-13.html)
Further information for ColdFusion 2016 (https://helpx.adobe.com/coldfusion/kb/coldfusion-2016-update-5.html)
Adobe ColdFusion trial version download (https://www.adobe.com/support/coldfusion/downloads.html)
BaRMIe RMI enumeration and attack tool (https://github.com/NickstaDB/BaRMIe)
JD-GUI Java decompiler (http://jd.benow.ca/)
ysoserial Java deserialization payload generator (https://github.com/frohoff/ysoserial)
Shodan search engine for Internet-connected devices (https://www.shodan.io/)
Attacking Java deserialization (https://nickbloor.co.uk/2017/08/13/attacking-java-deserialization/)
ColdFusion May 2016 Commons Collections hotfix (https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/security/products/coldfusion/apsb16-16.html)
Mozilla Rhino JavaScript library (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Projects/Rhino)
Apache Commons Collections deserialization vulnerability (https://commons.apache.org/proper/commons-collections/security-reports.html)
Versioning of serialized objects documentation (http://docs.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/platform/serialization/spec/version.html#6678)One of the most common questions asked by learners of Arabic is'should I learn Modern Standard Arabic or a dialect first'?
Dialect of course refers to any of the many local varieties of Arabic spoken across North Africa and the Middle East, and Modern Standard Arabic is the variety you see and hear when you turn on the news or read a newspaper.
This question is often asked by people who want to be conversational in Arabic too. We're not talking about students of politics or religion here necessarily.
Just people who want to travel and converse to people.
So let's clear this up.
Modern Standard Arabic is not the lingua franca of the Arab world
Perhaps in the realm of politics but certainly not for ordinary people.
This is one of the biggest misconceptions out there.
A lot of language products and courses market Modern Standard Arabic as the lingua franca (bridge or vehicular language) of the Middle East and North Africa.
They teach MSA as a 'conversational' language that will make communication between |
The Wall” – gives a lightly satirical swing to Seal’s uplift. Breezily sketching in geopolitics with hand-drawn maps (which occasions a sharp joke on the inability of some to tell one Central American destination apart from another), he finds new ways to polish the central irony of Gary Spinelli’s script: that his anti-hero was both product and casualty of Reaganomics, a delivery boy momentarily handed half the world on a platter.
Seal’s conspicuous wealth generation is forever undercut by inserts of later, self-taped depositions, those of someone haunted by the knowledge these might be his only legacy, and his last chance to offer it. What price a man’s life?
That back-and-forth invests “American Made” with rather more credible peril than has been on display in the last few “Mission: Impossible” movies. Drug-running proves a risky business even with the Escobars at one’s back, and Liman gives an appreciable visceral kick to those scenes which find the increasingly frantic Seal taking off from untested runways, making a single-handed coke drop barely a thousand feet above the ground or making an emergency landing to evade Customs officials, the latter a near-miss that feels dramatically trumped up – big Dolby swooshes, a flash of CGI – yet still succeeds in making the stomach lurch.
The hopping around risks inducing discombobulation or jetlag in the viewer, yet it appears a considered editorial tactic, intended to shake up a generally self-assured leading man. Even with both feet on the ground, Cruise isn’t entirely safe. When Gleeson’s Schafer first confronts Seal with evidence of illegal cigar-smuggling, that familiar grin first freezes, then dies on the actor’s face, as though April Grace’s “Magnolia” journalist had just walked into the bar. As Seal rolls and lurches through this plot, Cruise sweats and panics in ways Jack Reacher wouldn’t countenance; in jail, the character even loses a tooth, albeit a discreet back molar. (Nobody’s paying to see Tom Cruise turn into Walter Brennan just yet.)
A little of that insecurity feeds back into the film. As “War Dogs” – last year’s name-director-does-recent-foreign-policy offering – suggested, just because a story in the Times or Post catches our eye, it doesn’t automatically generate characters we want to sit in the dark with for two hours. (Liman concedes as much in spinning Talking Heads’ “Slippery People” just as Seal has evaded three branches of law enforcement simultaneously.) Still, the film has just about enough going on around its anti-hero to sustain the interest and land its punchline, and there are signs Liman (a Cruise veteran since “Edge of Tomorrow”) is solving the enduring problem of making a Cruise film that’s not wholly about its leading man.
While Jesse Plemons and Lola Kirke’s pairing as a shrugging sheriff and his more vigilant wife looks to have been a lamentable cutting-room casualty, others have the time to make more persuasive and valuable contributions: the emergent Sarah Wright Olsen impresses as Seal’s wife Lucy, calling out her man’s wilder maneuvers on the homefront, and Caleb Landry Jones is touching as a tragically weak link in the whole criminal enterprise.
The draw, however, remains Cruise, figuratively walking out on a wing; whether multiplexers rejoin him there will be seen, but after endless formula runouts, it’s encouraging to see him being properly exercised again.
Grade: B
“American Made” opens nationwide on September 29.
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Foregen is a non-profit organization founded to research and implement regenerative medical therapies for circumcised males.
Our Foundation
Foregen™ was created in 2010 thanks to donor funds. Foregen operates in the United States and Europe. Its head office is in Rome, Italy, where it is a registered charity (Reg. No. 6482, Serie 1T, 2010). See original founding documents here. Foregen is also tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and is headed by a board of charitable directors with participants and donors across both continents and beyond.
Our People
Foregen is led by the Board of Directors with help from dedicated members and volunteers. In 2010, Mr. Vincenzo Aiello became Foregen’s President. He is assisted by a Vice-President and an Administrative Council.
Our Mission
Foregen’s goal is to heal the physical detriment that that is inherent to circumcision. Research undeniably demonstrates the functional and sensory losses to the penis when circumcised, as well as the potential for psychological damage for those on whom such surgery was performed. Fortunately, regenerative medical techniques now offer a greater possibility than ever to regrow human tissue, especially dermal tissue, lost in prior trauma. However, those techniques have not yet been applied to those who have been circumcised and no longer wish to be.
Foregen was founded to promote and arrange a clinical trial that would use regenerative techniques to regrow the tissue removed at circumcision. After dismissing many unsatisfactory proposals from research institutions, we have decided to conduct our own research and clinical trials. With the help of dedicated scientists, we will apply known regenerative techniques to the foreskin in order to restore normal penile function and sensitivity.
Foregen is not an activist organization; we have no legislative or political agenda, nor any desire to engage in the conversation that surrounds the topic of circumcision. Foregen is a pioneering research organization dedicated to creating options for circumcised men. We have applied regenerative techniques to animal foreskins and will continue our research on adult human foreskins. Foregen is the organization that regenerative medicine was made for, as it applies to roughly one billion people - circumcised males and their partners! Since Foregen’s foundation, countless men have expressed great delight that an organization such as this finally exists, something for which they have been searching for years.
Our Work
Foregen’s tasks are:
To experiment with animal tissue to obtain a viable method of foreskin regeneration
To apply what we have learned from our animal experiments to regenerate human foreskins
To advance onto clinical trials once Foregen proves that regenerating human foreskin is possible
To see Foregen’s latest progress click here.
For more on the potential of regenerative medicine and the viability of Foregen's goals, click here.
Non-Discrimination: A Core Value
Foregen complies with all applicable federal and state laws regarding nondiscrimination. Foregen is committed to a policy of equal opportunity for all persons and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, marital status, sex, pregnancy status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, disability, religion, height, weight, or veteran status in all actions, employment, association and involvement.Predictions that the leader into turn one would win the Australian Grand Prix turned out not to be true. And the first race of 2017 also indicated Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton may have a fight on their hands this year.
But there’s no denying the Melbourne curtain-raiser was short of action. It received the second-lowest rating F1 Fanatic readers have given a race over the last ten years, averaging 6.4 out of ten, better only than the 2015 race.
Are spectacular cars which drivers can race flat-out a worthwhile trade-off for fewer overtaking moves? Here’s what you made of the first round of 2017:
I thought it was a good race. Nothing special. Quite typical for a dry race at Melbourne with no Safety Car. Glad to see that Mercedes didn’t win, and Ferrari won on genuine pace. Good to see that the drivers can push hard too.
@Jaymenon10
This is Ecclestone’s final laugh. Cars that can’t overtake. This isn’t racing. The result was decided on one pit stop. Ecclestone must be laughing his head off as he sells a destroyed series. If the rest of 2017 is like this race then it really will be a disaster for Liberty.
Bill
If you subtract the excitement of the season being under way and judge the race as objectively as possible, there was very little actual passing or direct competition for positions. Relatively processional. It could be that Albert Park is not conducive to passing with the new car design, that the new aero wake makes following closely through corners harder than last year or a bit of both. This may be less of an issue at other circuits but time will tell. For the season ahead, it is great to see two teams with such a small performance gap at the front of the field. Hopefully Red Bull and others can overcome the gap to the leaders sooner rather than later.
Hillstc86
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Several of you expressed the hopeful view that the racing might improve once F1 goes to more ‘normal’ tracks:
Sadly that was a very dull race that was only partially redeemed by seeing genuine competition at the front. I couldn’t watch the race live and half way through watching the re-run I had actually forgotten I was watching the ‘highlights’ package because there was so little action taking place. Still, Melbourne is not known for great racing so I’m hopeful that most races will be a bit more exciting. And if we’re really lucky we’ll get a 2010 style season where although most of the racing was mediocre (in my opinion) there was an exciting championship battle to keep us interested.
Keith Campbell (@Keithedin)
One race is not enough to judge how the new regulations have affected the racing but the signs aren’t good so far. There were hardly any on track overtakes with the most significant change in position coming through strategy and timing of the pit stops. From the start of the race it seemed that Vettel was the quickest and if he managed to get ahead of Hamilton then he could pull a gap and he wouldn’t be troubled, when Hamilton lost track position after his pit stop that is what happened. From the post-race comments it seemed that it wasn’t a strategy error from Mercedes as Hamilton had to stop then and that they just didn’t have the overall pace to match Vettel on the day. Again after only the first race weekend we do not have an accurate picture of how competitive each team is, the relative pace of all the cars this weekend may be a one off, and when the teams and drivers get to understand the new rules and cars we may see one team has a clear performance advantage on the others, so I am not getting my hopes up yet that we will have a close championship battle this season.
@Pja
Hope on the ‘proper’ race tracks that ‘proper’ battles can occur. However, so much aero combined with one-stop strategies isn’t a recipe for engaging racing. Oz is usually boring, but without a safety car and all the mind numbing aero, it was dull to watch. Once Vettel made the pass in the pits, race was over. According to timing screens the cars are faster, but as usual FOM production methods managed to make them look slow as ever. Would it kill them to kill the helicopter shots?
@Jimmi-cynic
It wasn’t just the lack of overtaking which was a cause for concern:
Something is fundamentally wrong with F1 and it needs to change soon. We can’t have a competition where 70% of the entries are there just for colour or noise. And it’s not like this is a knockout event where there’s a final race where only a small percentage of the participants have a shot at winning the event. The rules must ensure that more than half of the field should finish in the same lap as the leader. It’s a de facto two-tier championship and that is not attractive to viewers or sponsor, it thus renders the competition unsustainable, commercially.
@Faulty
The usual bottom banner displaying times and positions was not there. As a result the race was far less understandable I hope it will be back for the next race. I usually watch it live so got the F1 timing screen on a tablet but not today and I couldn’t have this information. This was quite frustrating.
@Spoutnik
It wasn’t a great race but it was made even worse by the poor feed quality. There was never any live timing so we couldn’t see what the midfield was doing, they barely showed any replays and strangely even on board cameras seemed non-existent. I hope it was just tech errors, rather than a sign of future, where they expect you to use an app to get all the detail.
Simon (@Weeniebeenie)
But those who experienced the new-look F1 in person weren’t disappointed:
My first race event since I went to Albert Park in 2011. Being as passionate as I am it felt like a dream come true after I got tickets for my birthday earlier this year. I felt going in that regardless of what happened it would be an amazing experience on Sunday. Watching Ricciardo ground to a halt on the big screen twice didn’t help the cause, but seeing Ferrari back on top of the podium certainly made up for that. By far the best part of the weekend for me though was getting the opportunity to have a little wander around with none other than Martin Brundle after qualifying.
Little_M_Lo (@Pezlo2013)
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2017 Australian Grand PrixAtlanta (CNN) -- Hussein Shafei prepared Saturday for a journey back to a place of darkness in Libya.
Soon, he plans to stand again in Cell 14, Block 2 at the Abu Salim prison in Tripoli. Only this time, the metal door will not slam behind him, caging him in a bathroom-size cell.
He will be a free man within the confines of what became a potent symbol of Moammar Gadhafi's repression -- Libya's Abu Ghraib.
Shafei wants to return to the place where he witnessed a massacre that fuels his nightmares. Sometimes, he said, his wife would wake him up in the middle of the night, saying, "Hussein. You are screaming. You are scaring the kids."
As many as 1,200 prisoners were killed at Abu Salim in the summer of 1996, according to Human Rights Watch. Without justice, the infamous event festered in Libya's national psyche and eventually acted as tinder to spark the flame of revolt in February of this year.
Rebels stormed the prison a few days ago, freeing those held inside, including an American journalist.
"I am so excited about Tripoli," Shafei said of the distinct possibility of the capital falling under rebel control. "This is the moment I have been waiting for for so many years."
Since his release in 2000, Shafei had thought about Abu Salim's dead. Where were their bodies? What was it like for their children to grow up without their fathers? For a wife to not know what happened to her husband?
He vowed to expose the carnage of that June day.
Then this week in Benghazi, he watched a video posted on YouTube that purportedly showed the storming of Abu Salim. Shafei, now working with the opposition in Benghazi, knew he had to return there.
He was waiting to board a plane to Tripoli. Or perhaps, with the fighting still raging in places like Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte, he will have to go by boat.
With the Libyan regime on the brink of collapse, Shafei hopes the truth about Abu Salim will finally be known. He is hardly alone in his wish.
The shooting went on for almost three hours
Shafei was a teenage college student when he was arrested for offending the regime. Inspired by perestroika reforms in the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, he spoke out in favor of greater freedoms in his own country.
Shafei's mother, Najia, clearly remembers that day in 1988 when she returned to her home in Benghazi to find her daughters wailing. Her son was gone.
"We had no idea where he was," she said from her home in Atlanta. "Whether he was alive or dead."
Nineteen months passed before Najia Shafei learned, through contacts, her son's whereabouts. After that, she occasionally made the long trek west from Benghazi to the prison in Tripoli.
The guards would drag her son out of his cell and into a warehouse at the entrance of the jail, where mother and son met.
If she was lucky, she got 20 minutes with him, she said.
She could never ask him about his situation. There were always guards listening in. He could never tell her about what he knew was going on in that jail -- beatings, torture, deaths.
Shafei spent eight years that way, in a cramped cell, without his family or the education he should have finished. His father died in 1994 and he was released for three days to attend the funeral. That was the extent of his freedom.
Then, on June 28, 1996, prisoners rioting over poor conditions and restricted family visits seized a guard and escaped from their cells.
"Five or seven minutes after it started, the guards on the roofs shot at the prisoners who were in the open areas," Shafei said in an interview with Human Rights Watch many years later.
Security officials ordered the shooting to stop and feigned negotiations. But Shafei told Human Rights Watch that the officials instead called in firing squads to gun down about 1,200 people.
He said a grenade was thrown into the courtyards where the prisoners were gathered.
"I heard an explosion, and right after, a constant shooting started from heavy weapons and Kalashnikovs from the top of the roofs," he said. "The shooting continued from 11 until 1:35."
Much later, while buying lamb at a slaughterhouse in the United States, Shafei commented to his brother Nabil: Not even here can they kill at the rate Gadhafi's men did that day.
"I could not see the dead prisoners who were shot, but I could see those who were shooting," Shafei told Human Rights Watch. "They were a special unit and wearing khaki military hats. Six were using Kalashnikovs. I saw them -- at least six men -- on the roofs of the cellblocks."
The next day, Shafei was ordered to clean the blood-smeared watches taken off the wrists of the dead.
Human Rights Watch said it had no way to verify Shafei's story but another description of the incident from a report by the opposition National Front for the Salvation of Libya corroborated Shafei's account.
Gadhafi's government did not acknowledge the killings and denied any crime had taken place. More than a decade after the Abu Salim incident, the United Nations Human Rights Council noted that the Libyan government was unable to provide any information on its investigation of the allegations.
But the families, mostly from Benghazi, now the de facto rebel capital, did not abandon their longing for answers.
Some of them filed a complaint in a Libyan court in 2007. The Gadhafi regime offered them compensation in exchange for their silence, according to Human Rights Watch.
But the families refused the money, considering it a bribe. Instead, they boldly began to protest each Saturday in Benghazi, an action unprecedented in Gadhafi's four decades of rule.
"It was radical," said Sarah Leah Whitson, director of the Middle East and Africa division at Human Rights Watch.
The government began informing some of the families that their loved ones were dead. But no bodies was ever returned nor a cause of death given.
Among those waiting to find out more are three brothers in Atlanta whose father, opposition activist Izzat Almegaryaf, was plucked from his home 20 years ago.
The Almegaryaf brothers know their father was detained at Abu Salim -- they received letters from him in the early 1990s. But the letters stopped a few years into Izzat Almegaryaf's imprisonment. His sons do not know whether their father was among the massacre victims.
Tasbeeh Herwees, a Libyan-American journalism student in California, recalled in a blog post the funerals for the Abu Salim victims held in the summer of 2009 when she visited Benghazi.
"Inna lillahi wa ilayhi rajioon," each family said. Verily, we belong to God, and to God we return.
Herwees tripped over the words in Arabic, but by the end of her stay she had repeated the phrase so many times that she was fluent.
"I spent more time in tents that summer than in my own home, the cloth of my black abaya sticking irritatingly to my skin from the Saharan humidity," she wrote. "In the faces of the family of the dead, I detected relief in the sea of sadness. 'At least now we know,' they said."
Then in February of this year, the regime arrested Fathi Terbil, a human rights lawyer who represented some of the Abu Salim families. Hundreds of people jammed the streets of Benghazi to protest.
Terbil was released but the demonstrations did not stop. A revolution took root.
"The memories of that summer come rushing back as I watch the present events in Libya unfold from my home in Cypress, California," Herwees wrote. "It was, after all, the Abu Salim families who kick-started this revolution. It was they who initiated protests in Benghazi in front of police headquarters when their lawyer, Fathi Terbil, was mysteriously detained by security officials."
Exposing the carnage
After 12 years at Abu Salim, Shafei was released in 2000. He often cried openly, with flashbacks triggered by something as small as macaroni reminiscent of Abu Salim chow, said his older brother, Nabil Shafei.
He eventually made his way to the United States, where Nabil lived.
"Hussein came here and had a mission," Nabil Shafei said. "He wanted to expose the massacre of Abu Salim."
Hussein Shafei told Human Rights Watch about the carnage he witnessed. He even approached the State Department, which includes the Abu Salim massacre in its statements on human rights abuses in Libya.
As the civil war raged this year and Benghazi blossomed as a city free of Gadhafi's grip, Shafei, now 42, returned there from Charlotte, North Carolina. He took his wife and three children with him.
He has been working with the opposition television station and telling the world about the dark secrets of Abu Salim. Now, as the newly freed prisoners began returning home to Benghazi, Shafei knew the time had come for him to go back to the prison.
It is part of his own healing. The nation must heal, too, he believes. The first step will be to hold Libyan leaders accountable for what happened at the prison.
Najia Shafei is wary of her son's trip to Tripoli. She remains fearful about what might happen to him as long as Gadhafi is still alive.
But Hussein Shafei is determined to complete his mission. He owes it to all those who survived Abu Salim. But mostly, he owes it to the souls of the dead.A recent study conducted by a group of Ohio University med school professors found that their students are more likely than not to “support the use of trigger warnings.”
Professor Elizabeth Beverly, et al. surveyed 259 medical students for a study published in the most recent issue of Teaching and Learning in Medicine, finding that 31 percent absolutely support “the use of triggers warnings in medical education.”
"We’re all future physicians so a picture of anything medically related shouldn’t be too distressing."
[RELATED: Survey finds majority of profs use trigger warnings]
Meanwhile, 39 percent of respondents said they would “maybe” support their usage, though many of those expressed generally-favorable opinions of trigger warnings, including one student who said they should be used before discussing “very deep issues that potentially could cause an emotional rise in someone.”
One student, for instance, acknowledged that “a picture of anything medically related shouldn’t be too distressing” for someone who is training to be a physician, but then asserted that “sometimes it’s nice to have a warning to mentally prepare yourself for the conversation or information presented.”
Conversely, only 29 percent of the students who were surveyed rejected the use of trigger warnings in the classroom entirely, citing concerns that they enable students to avoid difficult topics or inhibit the academic freedom of instructors.
[RELATED: UChicago reminds freshmen that it doesn’t do safe spaces]
Beverly told Campus Reform that, at the very least, she and her peers have “identified a need to educate students about triggering topics and explain why trigger warnings can be very subjective to any one individual,” but clarified that since the survey is among the first of its kind, more research will need to be conducted before administrators consider mandating the use of trigger warnings in medical school classrooms.
“Research is needed to test the effectiveness of using triggering warnings in the classroom with both subjective (e.g., reflective writing, interviews) and objective measures (e.g., stress, depression, anxiety, empathy, knowledge questionnaires),” she explained, adding that “if future research shows trigger warnings improve knowledge, empathy, and wellbeing, trigger warnings would be a positive addition to the medical students’ curricula.”
[RELATED: Student gov pres demands mandatory trigger warnings]
“Our findings did not reach consensus for or against the use of trigger warnings in medical school. However, we did identify a need to educate students about triggering topics and, in turn, how to cope with this information,” Beverly and her colleagues write in the conclusion of their report.
“We need to teach our medical students how to deal with difficult feelings, thoughts, and physical reactions so that when they do encounter patients who share experiences that can be triggering, they know what to do,” the professors add, speculating that “trigger warnings may represent teachable moments for professors to offer insight and techniques on how to handle challenging situations in future patient encounters.”
Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @Toni_AiraksinenCanada's 42nd Parliament faces a historic challenge. We must rule on what the limits to medical assistance in dying should be — a topic that is both controversial and heart-wrenching for many.
The Supreme Court of Canada's unanimous ruling in Carter vs. Canada struck down the portions of the criminal code related to medical assistance in dying and gave the previous government a year in which to pass legislation regulating access and availability.
The previous government didn't move on it and then lost the election, leaving the Liberal government with about three months before the deadline on February 6, 2016. We were granted a very short extension until June 6, 2016.
I have listened to constituents who argued passionately on both sides of this debate. Their thoughtful arguments showed me that the issue of medical assistance in dying poses a complex challenge to all Canadians.
There are questions of Charter rights and personal freedoms. There are questions of protecting the vulnerable and responding to those who are enduring intolerable pain. There are theological, moral and ethical considerations. There are, of course, emotional commitments to both sides of the argument, and, sadly, there is an economic component as our society ages and inheritance pressures increase.
As well, this debate touches upon one's vision of a just society. Does one feel that ultimate justice involves complete choice? Does one feel that justice is best served by sometimes limiting the avenues available to a person to keep open for them the possibility of a happier tomorrow?
The ruling in Carter vs. Canada was limited to a competent adult person who clearly consents to the termination of their life. The ruling did not find that there was a right to medical assistance in dying for minors or persons with psychiatric disorders. I was greatly relieved that these provisions were not included in this legislation.
To ensure that the path to the end is as fair and secure as possible, I believe very strongly it is imperative that we accompany any legislation for medical assistance in dying with enhanced support for palliative care. I look forward to engaging my colleagues in these debates and fighting for greatly enhanced palliative care for Canadians.
I spent the last 20 years working with youth as a chaplain in high schools in Hamilton and Ancaster as they negotiated the difficult terrain of adolescence and early adulthood. The burdens that youth carry, through family difficulty, personal struggles with identity, emotional pain, loneliness, rejection or alienation are very real.
Amazingly, although we sometimes sombered into darkest night, we found a flicker, that, with love, inclusion, acceptance and safety, grew into roaring fire of hope, and then into a desire to change the world. If assisted dying had been available to them when they were in the depths of their depression they may not be with us today.The prefrontal cortex is an important part of the brain that is responsible for many of our cognitive abilities. The prefrontal cortex is required for our analytical thinking (problem solving), emotional control and intelligence, verbal communication, and memory forming abilities.
The Prefrontal Cortex and Planning
So what would happen if you remove only the prefrontal cortex from the frontal lobe of the brain?
First, let us consider that the prefrontal cortex is interconnected with many areas throughout the brain, including sensory and motor areas[1,2] and posterior association cortices. [3-6]
Note that posterior association area is referring to the area located between the occipital, temporal and parietal lobes. It links information from primary and unimodal sensory areas, and is important in perception and language.
Although the prefrontal cortex is interconnected with many other parts of the brain, damage to the prerfontal cortex does not result in any immediately obvious impairment to cognition and intelligence [7]. But given that the prefrontal cortex is connected to many different parts of the brain, a change should be expected if the prefrontal cortex is damaged.
The first studies of a monkey’s prefrontal cortex didn’t observe significant changes in behavior when removing parts of the prefrontal cortex surface. And again, no substantial behavioral change was observed when the entire left or right prefrontal cortex was surgically removed.
However, it wasn’t until both left and right prefrontal cortices were removed that a drastic change in the monkey’s behavior was observed. The monkeys without any prefrontal cortex left showed something called “disinhibited, stimulus-bound behavior” that lacked goal direction and understanding the context or condition behind an action or event.[8]
In other words,the monkeys would automatically perform simple actions in response to a stimulus, almost like a reflex.
To illustrate what this means, these monkeys were taught to do a certain action according to a stimuli- before their whole prefrontal cortex was removed. For example, how to open a door by its handle.
After the prefrontal cortex was removed, the monkeys would still reach for a door handle if they saw one.
However, the monkeys without the prefrontal cortex could not open the door- which is a complex, goal-oriented action that requires turning the handle and moving the door to open.
This goes to show that the prefrontal cortex is required for planning and acting according to a plan. The monkeys without the prefrontal cortex could only do an action reflexively without knowing why they are doing it.
Prefrontal Cortex and Self Control
Humans with significant prefrontal impairments from strokes or traumatic-injuries can display similar disinhibited symptoms termed “inappropriate utilization behaviors”.
Certain objects and settings can compel these individuals to perform the associated action without regard to the appropriateness of the context [9,10]. Many fascinating anecdotal stories of these patients with damage to the PFC are available.
For example, one story recounts of a patient who had worked in an executive position for numerous years prior to his frontal stroke. Now he would enter his doctor’s office and unconsciously take a seat behind the desk in the doctor’s chair.
Another patient, upon seeing a stapler, was compelled to staple together any loose paper that was sitting on the desk.
Yet another patient saw a toothbrush and automatically picked it up to brush her teeth. When the doctor asked her why she was brushing her teeth, she simply said she didn’t know.
These anecdotes show that the prefrontal cortex is required for our judgment or our decision making ability. Whether to do something, or not. Without the prefrontal cortex, a person no longer has the ability to say no. Instead, he or she would act habitually according to a stimuli.
That’s why one patient started brushing his teeth for no reason. Because that is the habit that he/she learned; that is the action (brushing) that he or she has learned to associate with that object (brush). Without the prefrontal cortex, the patient loses his ability to decide when or when not to perform an action; when or when not to brush his or her teeth.
And perhaps the prefrontal cortex may hold the answer to why some people have a hard time quitting an addiction. In fact, many studies show that the prefrontal cortex plays a significant role in our ability to control an addiction. “Disruption of the PFC [prefrontal cortex] in addiction underlies not only compulsive drug taking but also accounts for the disadvantageous behaviours that are associated with addiction and the erosion of free will“[11].
According to the review, a person with a damaged Prefrontal Cortex is more likely to compulsively take drugs, because we need the prefrontal cortex to function properly for our “free will”. We rely on the prefrontal cortex to overcome our primary instincts, desires, or addictions.
Because the prefrontal cortex is related to our self-control, I speculate that a damage or malfunction to the prefrontal cortex may lead to Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), given that the symptoms of OCD fits the fact that a person may perform an action compulsively, reflexively, or without self-control.
Furthermore, it is observed that prefrontal cortex damage also effects our emotional self-control, leading to emotional lability and volatile behaviors.
Where emotional lability refers to patients who experience extreme mood swings that may quickly change from one emotion to another. These patients sometimes express emotions outwardly that aren’t the same as their emotions on the inside.
So for prefrontal cortex damage, emotional lability and volatile behaviors is specifically seen in orbital frontal lesions, such as the classic story of Phineas Gage. Although Phineas had survived having an iron tamping rod running through his face and the brain’s left frontal lobe, anecdotal stories of him in the following years describe him as impetuous and irritable, as well as socially inappropriate (though in much later years, he eventually relearned much of his lost interpersonal skills).
Prefrontal Cortex and Language Processing
The prefrontal cortex plays a very important role in language.
Specifically, the left inferior prefrontal cortex, especially the anterior and inferior parts of the gyrus, is shown to be associated with semantic mental activities[12]. That means this region of the brain experiences increased energy metabolism (i.e. increased blood flow, increased glucose intake) when a person performs mental operations related to semantics. In other words, the left prefrontal cortex is responsible for mental operations that involve understanding language meanings.
The Prefrontal Cortex and Semantics
So the question is, how did scientists learn that the left prefrontal cortex is connected to language processing, specifically semantic functions?
Well, researchers scanned the brain’s of human test subjects while they performed semantic tasks and non-semantic tasks. The researchers compared the differences between the brain scans, and found that the left prefrontal cortex “turned on” or activated, meaning increased in blood flow and glucose intake, during the performance of a semantic task compared to a non-semantic task.
Note that a semantic task entail the generations of words (verbs like “tie”) to a semantic cue (nouns like “shoe”), and the classification of words or pictures into a specific category.
A non-semantic task may be something along the lines of judging whether a word is in upper or lower case (e.g. CHAIR vs. chair), or if the first and last letters of a word is ascending or descending (e.g. car, zone, etc.).
Scientists have also found that people who are atypically right brain hemisphere dominant in language experienced activation in the right prefrontal cortex for semantic tasks.
In other words, semantic functions belong to side of the brain that is dominant for language processing- and is not necessarily bound to one side of the prefrontal cortex. It is just that the norm for many people is to have the left prefrontal cortex to be dominant for semantic language processing.
Another observation that scientists have made is that novel semantic stimuli activates the left prefrontal cortex, leading to better explicit memory formation. That means performing a semantic task forms a memory for the person that can be actively recalled. Note that explicit memory is the type of memory that requires conscious recall, like facts, ideas, meanings, concepts, places, etc.
Repetition Priming and Left Prefrontal Cortex Activation
However, repeated semantic stimuli (repetition priming) deactivates the prefrontal cortex, leading to the formation of implicit memory. Note that implicit memory is the type of memory that is remembered unconsciously, like tying your shoes or riding a bike.
And it makes sense that the left prefrontal cortex is “deactivated” with repeated semantic stimuli. Because at this point, the brain can simply recall the memory related to that particular semantic stimuli, instead of processing the information through the left prefrontal cortex again. This means that the left prefrontal cortex is not needed as much when recalling a semantic memory, vs processing a novel semantic stimuli that is not known by memory.
To explain it in an example, let’s say that a person is asked whether a word referred to concrete (“table”) or abstract (“truth”) entities. The first time the word, let’s say “pie”, is asked about, the person will take a moment to judge that it is a concrete object. But if the same word is asked about again (repeated semantic stimuli), then the person will give the same answer at a faster speed from memory without needing to re-think the answer.
Summary of the Semantic Role of the Left Prefrontal Cortex
To summarize, the prefrontal cortex is responsible for tasks that require semantic information processing, or the ability to understand the meaning behind language. This also means that the prefrontal cortex is associated with the formation of semantic memories- given that semantic memories are a type of information that is processed or obtained through the prefrontal cortex. The left prefrontal cortex is used for interpreting new meanings from words. However, it is used less for remembering a meaning previously assigned to a word.
And here’s the summary of the PNAS journal article that I used, if you are curious:
It is hypothesized that activations in left inferior prefrontal cortex reflect a domain-specific semantic working memory capacity that is invoked more for semantic than nonsemantic analyses regardless of stimulus modality, more for initial than for repeated |
If an attacker wins the conflict, they get to use the elemental ring ability of the element they declared. Furthermore, if their total skill value, less the defenders' total skill value, is equal to or higher than the strength value of the province they are attacking, the province becomes broken, bringing the attacker one step closer to victory.
When a conflict is over, all participating characters bow and return to their home area. After all conflicts have resolved, one of the players will receive the Imperial Favor, a powerful force that we will explore in future gameplay previews.
Clan provinces are filled with new warriors and holdings from the Dynasty Deck, and characters already on the field of battle feel the pull of time. Those with no fate left leave the battlefield, their time in the story at a close, for now. Those who remain have a fate token removed, one step closer to their destiny.
The Paths to Victory
Legend of the Five Rings: The Card Game offers three paths to victory. First, you may break your opponent’s stronghold. If you successfully attack and break three of your opponent’s provinces via any combination of military or political conflicts, you are then allowed to attack your opponent’s stronghold directly. If that becomes broken, you win the game!
Alternatively, if you ever accrue 25 honor, you have proven yourself the more honorable clan in conflict and immediately win the game. Conversely, if you ever lose all your honor, your clan has abandoned the tenets of Bushidō and you immediately lose the game.
The Great Clans of Rokugan
For over one thousand years, the Seven Great Clans of Rokugan have served the Chrysanthemum Throne according to their unique strengths and weaknesses. As conflicts break out across Rokugan, it will be these strengths that provide unique ways to play Legend of the Five Rings: The Card Game. Your clan choice will not only give you a unique way to play the game, but a way to connect with the land of Rokugan as you rally around your clan. Each clan exemplifies a core tenet of Bushidō, and finding the clan whose philosophy speaks to you will be an important decision when deckbuilding.
Players have the choice of becoming entrenched with the pure military might of the Lion Clan or the underhanded tricks of the Scorpion Clan. To become the pinnacle of honor and culture with the Crane Clan or learn the foreign ways of the Unicorn. From choosing between the arcane art of the Phoenix, the mysterious beliefs of the Dragons, or the stalwart self-sacrifice of the Crab. Regardless of their choice, no clan can avoid conflict, and all will be swept up in the struggles of the Legend of the Five Rings.
The Story So Far…
It is an era of sudden change and upheaval in the Emerald Empire. Mortal schemes, elemental imbalances, and celestial turmoil have disrupted the political, military, and spiritual equilibrium of Rokugan. Long-simmering rivalries and fresh betrayals ripple through the courts and on the battlefield. The Chrysanthemum Throne is beset by threats from without and within, and the honor of the seven Great Clans shall be put to the test.
After a devastating tsunami strikes their coastal farmland, the Crane Clan balances on the precipice of famine and war. Doji Hotaru—the young Crane Clan Champion who grew up in the shadow of her father, the legendary Emerald Champion Doji Satsume—must defend her clan’s artistic legacy, political clout, and extensive borders with honor alone.
While the Crane have been laid low, the Scorpion Clan has ascended to the height of glory. The clan serves Emperor Hantei XXXVIII well: Bayushi Shoju as a trusted friend and his impossibly beautiful wife Kachiko, as Imperial Advisor. No word is whispered in the Imperial Capital that escapes the Scorpion Clan’s ears, and no plot is hatched that evades the notice of its agents.
The Scorpion maintain a tenuous alliance with the Lion Clan’s leader, Akodo Arasou, who seeks to carry out an age-old vendetta against the Crane at the side of his beloved, the warrior Matsu Tsuko. No army can withstand the ferocity and tenacity of the Lion’s warriors or the stratagems of the clan’s brilliant new general, Akodo Toturi.
The Lion’s unconventional neighbors, the Unicorn Clan, struggle to reconcile their foreign customs with the laws and traditions of Rokugan. Shinjo Altansarnai believes she has brokered a peace with the Lion Clan at last, but the fiery Utaku Kamoko may not be able to leash her hatred for the Lion, whom she believes murdered her mother.
The Phoenix Clan cast a wary eye on meishōdō, the talismanic name magic practiced by the Unicorn, and fear the imbalance that foreign sorcery has wrought among the spirits. Phoenix Clan Champion Shiba Ujimitsu must prepare to defend his clan’s borders while the prayers of the Phoenix’s mystical shugenja go awry. The Council of Elemental Masters cannot explain the disquiet affecting the elemental kami, and so they turn to forgotten or forbidden lore for answers.
In the secluded mountains of the far north, the Dragon Clan—beset by a failing birthrate and the surging popularity of a potentially dangerous and heretical sect of Shinseism—looks to the guidance of its enigmatic champion, Togashi Yokuni, to restore the clan’s enlightened way of life.
Amid this infighting, the largest and most dangerous Shadowlands army ever recorded marches on the great Carpenter Wall in the south. A combined force of goblins, ogres, undead, and legendary demons known as oni threaten to spread their darkness and destroy civilization in the name of Fu Leng, the fallen Kami. Hida Kisada of the Crab Clan and his children must gain the support of the entire Empire to turn back the tide of destruction or risk being broken beneath the evil Shadowlands onslaught.
Who among the clans will prove strong enough to guide Rokugan in these tumultuous times? Will their names be lifted up beside those of the honored ancestors, or will they fall among the ranks of the empire’s most infamous villains?
From this starting point, the storyline of Legend of the Five Rings: The Card Game begins! Look for the story to continue through fiction inserts in the Living Card Game, articles posted on our website, at select major tournaments and more.
For Honor and Glory
Raise your sword, rally your clan, and prepare for battle in the Legend of the Five Rings: The Card Game with a pre-release at Gen Con and a wide release in the fourth quarter of 2017!If you plan to buy a Tesla for your job, you won’t be able to use the company’s Supercharger stations anymore. The company recently released a new policy called Supercharger Fair Use, which prohibits new commercial drivers from using the red-and-white charging ports.
Tesla has been working to expand its network of charging stations, announcing in April that it hoped to have more than 10,000 Supercharger stations by the end of 2017. The expansion is needed to alleviate heavy traffic at the stations, which have become a congestion point for drivers. Last year, the company announced fees for charging, and said that it will begin charging drivers an additional fee if they leave their cars at the stations after they’ve finished charging.
Tesla says that the stations are intended for drivers who don’t have ready options for charging at home or at work, and that when they’re not used for this purpose, “it negatively impacts the availability of Supercharging services for others.” Thus, the new policy says that for vehicles purchased after December 15th, drivers who plan to use their vehicles as a taxi, for ridesharing, commercial delivery or transportation, governmental purposes, or other commercial ventures won’t be permitted to use the free stations.
The company tracks usage and driver behavior, and if they find that someone isn’t complying with the policy, they might be asked to stop, and simply limit or block one’s vehicle from the stations in certain instances. The policy went into effect on Friday, December 15th, 2017.
A Tesla spokesperson said that the company does “encourage the use of Teslas for commercial purposes,” and that they will work with drivers to find other places to charge their vehicles. The policy carve out an exception, saying that some stations might be excluded, depending on local circumstances.
Update December 17th, 2017, 2:30PM: A Tesla spokesperson clarified that the policy applies to new Tesla drivers as of December 15th, 2017.The Anti-Trump Protesters Are Tools of the Oligarchy
«Reform always provokes rage on the part of those who profit by the old order». Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Crisis of the Old Order
Who are the anti-Trump protesters besmirching the name of progressives by pretending to be progressives and by refusing to accept the outcome of the presidential election? They look like, and are acting worse than, the «white trash» that they are denouncing.
I think I know who they are. They are thugs for hire and are paid by the Oligarchy to delegitimize Trump’s presidency in the way that Washington and the German Marshall Fund paid students in Kiev to protest the democratically elected Ukrainian government in order to prepare the way for a coup.
The organization, change.org, which claims to be a progressive group, but might be a front, along with other progressive groups, for the Oligarchy, is destroying the reputation of all progressives by circulating a petition that directs the electors of the Electoral Collage to annul the election by casting their votes for Hillary. Remember how upset progressives were when Trump said he might not accept the election result if there was evidence that the vote was rigged? Now progressives are doing what they damned Trump for saying he might do under certain conditions.
The Western presstitutes used the protests in Kiev to delegitimize a democratically elected government and to set it up for a coup. The protest pay was good enough that non-Ukrainians came from nearby countries to participate in the protest in order to collect the money. At the time I posted the amounts paid daily to protesters. Reports came in to me from Eastern and Western Europe from people who were not Ukrainian but were paid to protest as if they were Ukrainians.
The same thing is going on with the Trump protests. CNN reports that «for many Americans across the country, Donald Trump’s victory is an outcome they simply refuse to accept. Tens of thousands filled the streets in at least 25 US cities overnight». This is the exact reporting that the Oligarchy desired from its presstitutes and got.
I hope no one thinks that simultaneous protests in 25 cities were a spontaneous event. How did 25 independent protests manage to come up with the same slogans and the same signs on the same night following the election?
What is the point of the protests, and what interest is served by them? As the Romans always asked, «who benefits?»
There is only one answer: The Oligarchy and only the Oligarchy benefits.
Trump is a threat to the Oligarchy, because he intends to stop the giveaway of American jobs to foreigners. The jobs giveaway, sanctified by the neoliberal junk economists as «free trade», is one of the main reasons for the 21st century worsening of the US income distribution. Money that was formerly paid in middle class wages and salaries to American manufacturing employees and college graduates has been re-routed to the pockets of the One Percent.
When US corporations move their production of goods and services sold to Americans offshore to Asian countries, such as China and India, their wage bill falls. The money formerly paid in middle class incomes goes instead into executive bonuses and dividends and capital gains to shareholders. The ladders of upward mobility that had made America the land of opportunity were dismantled for the sole purpose of making a handful of people multi-billionaires.
Trump is a threat to the Oligarchy, because he intends peaceful relations with Russia. In order to replace the profitable Soviet Threat, the Oligarchy and their neoconservative agents worked overtime to recreate the «Russian Threat» by demonizing Russia.
Accustomed to many decades of excess profits from the profitable Cold War, the military/security complex was angry when President Reagan brought the Cold War to an end. Before these leaches on American taxpayers could get the Cold War going again, the Soviet Union collapsed as a result of a right-wing coup against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.
The military/security complex and their Zionist neoconservative agents cooked up «the war on terror» to keep the money flowing to the One Percent. But as hard as the presstitute media worked to create fear of «the Muslim threat», even insouciant Americans knew that the Muslims did not have thousands of ICBMs carrying powerful thermo-nuclear weapons capable of destroying the entirety of the United States in a few minutes. Neither did the Muslims have the Red Army capable of overrunning all of Europe in a couple of days. Indeed, the Muslims haven’t needed an army. Refugees from Washington’s wars enabled by Europeans are overrunning Europe.
The excuse for the annual trillion dollar ($1,000 billion) military/security budget was missing. So the Oligarchy created «the New Hitler» in Russia. Hillary was the Oligarchy’s principle agent for heating up the new Cold War.
Hillary is the tool, enriched by the Oligarchy, whose job as President was to protect and to increase the trillion dollar budget of the military/security complex. With Hillary in the White House, the looting of the American taxpayers in behalf of the wealth of the One Percent could go forward unimpeded. But if Trump resolves «the Russian threat,» the Oligarchy takes an income hit.
Hillary’s job as President was also to privatize Social Security in order that her Wall Street benefactors can rip off Americans the way that Americans have been ripped off by the insurance companies under Obamacare.
Those Americans who do not pay attention think, mistakenly, that the FBI cleared Hillary of violating National Security protocols with her email practices. The FBI said that Hillary did violate National Security, but that it was a result of carelessness or ignorance. She got off from indictment, because the FBI concluded that she did not intentionally violate National Security protocols. The investigation of the Clinton Foundation continues.
In other words, in order to protect Hillary the FBI fell back on the ancient common law rule that «there can be no crime without intent». (See PCR and Lawrence Stratton, The Tyranny of Good Intentions.)
One would think that protesters, if they were legitimate, would be celebrating Trump’s victory. He, unlike Hillary, promises to reduce tensions with powerful Russia, and we hope also with China. Unlike Hillary, Trump says he is concerned with the absence of careers for those very people protesting in the streets of 25 cities against him.
In other words, the protests against the American people for electing Trump as their president are pointless. The protests are happening for one reason only. The Oligarchy intends to delegitimize the Trump Presidency. Once President Trump is delegitimized, it will be easier for the Oligarchy to assassinate him. Unless the Oligarchy can appoint and control Trump’s government, Trump is a prime candidate for assassination.
The protests against Trump are suspicious for another reason. Unlike Hillary, Obama, and George W. Bush, Donald Trump has not slaughtered and dislocated millions of peoples in seven countries, sending millions of refugees from the Oligarchy’s wars to overrun Europe.
Trump earned his fortune, and if by hook or crook, not by selling US government influence to foreign agents as Bill and Hillary did.
So what are the protesters protesting?
There is no answer except that they are hired to protest. Just as the Maidan protesters in Kiev were hired to protest by US and German financed NGOs.
The protests in Kiev were equally pointless, because presidential elections were only months away. If Ukrainians really believed that their president was conspiring with Russia to keep Ukraine from becoming a Western puppet state and wished to become a puppet state regardless of the costs, the opportunity to vote the government out was at hand. The only reason for the protests was to orchestrate a coup. The US did succeed in putting their agent in control of the new Ukrainian government as Victoria Nuland and the US ambassador in Kiev confirmed in their telephone conversation that is available on the Internet.
The Maidan protests were pointless except for making a coup possible. The protests were without any doubt arranged by Washington through Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, a neoconservative brought into the State Department by Hillary Clinton for the purpose of creating conflict with Russia.
Trump is being protested in order to make him vulnerable in the event he proves to be the threat to the Oligarchy that he is thought to be.
Trump won the presidency, but the Oligarchy is still in power, which makes any real reforms difficult to achieve. Symbolic reforms can be the product of the contest between President Trump and the oligarchs.
Karl Marx learned from historical experience, and Lenin, Stalin, and Pol Pot learned from Karl Marx, that change cannot occur if the displaced ruling class is left intact after a revolution against them. We have proof of this throughout South America. Every revolution by the indigenous people has left unmolested the Spanish ruling class, and every revolution has been overthrown by collusion between the ruling class and Washington.
Washington has conspired with traditional elites to remove the elected presidents of Honduras on a number of occasions. Recently, Washington helped elites evict the female presidents of Argentina and Brazil. The presidents of Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia are in the crosshairs and are unlikely to survive. Washington is determined to get its hands on Julian Assange. To achieve this Washington intends to overthrow the Ecuadoran government that, in defiance of Washington, gave Julian Assange political asylum.
Hugo Chavez had the power to exile or to exterminate the Spanish ruling class in Venezuela when the ruling class participated in a CIA coup against Chavez. But before the CIA could kill Chavez, the people and the military forced his release. Instead of punishing the criminals who would have murdered him, Chavez let them go.
According to Marx, Lenin, and Stalin, this is the classic mistake of the revolutionary. To rely on good will from the overthrown ruling class is the certain road to the defeat of the revolution.
Latin American has proved itself unable to learn this lesson: Revolutions cannot be conciliatory.
Trump is a dealmaker. The Oligarchy can permit him the sheen of success in exchange for no real change.
Trump is not perfect. He might fail on his own. But we should back him on the two most important elements in his program: to reduce tensions between the major nuclear powers, and to halt Washington’s policy of permitting globalism to destroy Americans’ economic prospects.
If tensions between nuclear powers worsen, we won’t be here to worry about other problems. The combination of the economy hollowed out by globalism and immigration is an economic nightmare. That Trump understands this is reason to support him.
Note: Some believe that Trump is a ruse conducted by the Oligarchy. However, as Hillary is the bought-and-paid-for representative of the Oligarchy, such an elaborate ruse is unnecessary. It is preferable for the Oligarchy to win on its own platform than to install a president on the opposite platform and then change him around. Another sellout increases the anger of the people. If Hillary had won, the Oligarchy would have had the voters’ mandate for their platform.Earlier today, the news world was rocked by the allegations brought forth in an explosive lawsuit. The suit, filed by Fox News contributor and private investigator Rod Wheeler, claims that a pro-Trump investor and Fox News reporter concocted a false report on slain DNC staffer Seth Rich’s murder. And if that wasn’t enough, Wheeler also alleges that President Donald Trump supervised the whole thing, all in an effort to distract from the Russia probe.
This evening on CNN, senior media correspondent Brian Stelter took the opportunity to take some shots at Fox News regarding the claims that have been made by Wheeler.
After recapping the allegations made by Wheeler and how it will be a tough case to prove, Stelter reacted to Ed Butowsky — the Trump supporter who hired Wheeler and is named in the suit — contacting Fox News and telling them what angles to push.
“Very unusual at a normal television news operation,” he told anchor Anderson Cooper. “But maybe not unusual for Fox News.”
When Cooper remarked about a political operative emailing Fox News employees to tell them what they should be talking about, Stelter added that it was “highly unethical.”
“A lot of this about Fox seems highly unethical,” he added.
UPDATE! A Fox News Insider hits back, telling Mediaite: “Last we checked, it’s highly unethical for a CNN contributor to provide debate questions to the democratic candidate for president at a CNN debate.”
Watch the clip above, via CNN.
[image via screengrab]
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Follow Justin Baragona on Twitter: @justinbaragona
Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.comSometimes, it does not pay to express opinions on another person’s achievements (or lack of achievement) without accurate information. This is what Joel Tudor found out after he made some remarks about Kelly Slater who apparently earned a blue belt in AOJ Academy recently.
Kelly Slater, the legendary surfer, appeared in a photo wearing a gi and a blue belt. Joel Tudor, who has a black belt in jiu-jitsu, remarked that Slater had no business wearing a blue belt when he had not earned one. Unfortunately, Joel Tudor spoke too soon. As it turned out, Kelly Slater had every right to wear the blue belt because he had just earned one.
Congratulations are definitely in order for Kelly Slater. As for Joel Tudor. The whole thing was a just a misunderstanding and there was no malice intended. Now, it is official, Kelly Slater is blue belt holder so he has every right to wear the belt.An erroneous ABC News report about President Trump and his former adviser Michael Flynn met widespread criticism and led the network to suspend the journalist behind the story for making a "serious error."
But could the bungled story also be grounds for an investor lawsuit?
President Trump suggested as much Sunday on Twitter. He pointed to the 350-point downturn the Dow took after the story broke.
That's enough, Trump said, for "people who lost money" when stocks fell to consider suing ABC "for the damages this bad reporting has caused - many millions of dollars!"
People who lost money when the Stock Market went down 350 points based on the False and Dishonest reporting of Brian Ross of @ABC News (he has been suspended), should consider hiring a lawyer and suing ABC for the damages this bad reporting has caused - many millions of dollars! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 3, 2017
But legal experts say that's just not how the law works.
"The idea of a class action against a media company because of a story leading to a market fall seems to be unlikely at best," said Floyd Abrams, a First Amendment expert who represented the New York Times in the landmark 1971 Pentagon Papers case.
Stocks fell after ABC News reported that Flynn, who had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, was prepared to testify that Trump "as a candidate" directed him to make contact with the Russians.
ABC News later said its report was wrong. Investigative reporter Brian Ross corrected his story that evening.
Meanwhile, stocks largely recovered by the end of the day.
Related: Wall Street rocked by Michael Flynn, tax debate
A reporting blunder alone isn't enough to justify liability, said James Rickards, an author, economist and attorney who formerly practiced securities law.
"It's complete nonsense," Rickards said. "Brian Ross may have been sloppy, but it's pretty clear that he didn't intentionally create a story with the intention of sinking the stock market."
Federal securities law protects investors from people who try to commit fraud on the markets. But any federal investigation of Ross for a securities violation is highly unlikely, said Nicolas Morgan, an attorney who practices securities litigation and who used to work as a senior trial attorney for the Securities and Exchange Commission.
"I can't think of a single instance in which there was even any threat under federal securities laws for a mainstream source of journalism" in a situation like this one, Morgan said.
Related: ABC News suspends Brian Ross for 4 weeks over erroneous Flynn story
The bottom line, experts say: Without evidence of a deliberate plot, there are no solid grounds for an investor to sue a news organization over an error that moved markets.
"The notion that journalists are responsible for the consequences for news -- even if their report was mistaken -- would not be consistent with the First Amendment," said Jane Kirtley, a media ethics and law professor at the University of Minnesota. "If journalists were responsible when bad things happen, they couldn't report anything."
--CNNMoney's Oliver Darcy contributed to this story.• José Mourinho had first offer of £20m turned down • Everton’s manager, Roberto Martínez, upset by Chelsea behaviour
Chelsea will make a £26m bid for John Stones within the next 48 hours. José Mourinho remains desperate to sign the Everton defender and has not been put off by Roberto Martínez’s anger over the battle for his signature.
The Premier League champions had a bid of £20m turned down by Martínez last week with the Spaniard furious with Mourinho, his Chelsea counterpart, for openly talking about the move.
John Terry rules out ending Premier League career anywhere but Chelsea Read more
Yet the Portuguese has seen his defenders struggle so far during the club’s North America tour and will push on with his pursuit of the England international.
Stones, 21, is understood to be keen on a transfer to the Premier League champions and knows the option of playing Champions League football next season will ultimately be too good an offer to refuse.
Relations between the two clubs remain strained and hearing Gary Cahill, who has played with Stones for England, commenting last week how beneficial it would be to have him at Stamford Bridge did not go down well on Merseyside.
Mourinho, however, has not been deterred and is hopeful a fee can be agreed before the start of the Premier League season on 8 August.
Stones is seen as the perfect long-term replacement for John Terry. The fee could go higher than £30m depending on how long Martínez digs his heels in.
It will represent the first major spending of the summer for Chelsea after bringing in Radamel Falcao on loan from Monaco and signing Asmir Begovic from Stoke.
Mourinho has watched with interest as his Premier League rivals spend huge amounts to wrest domestic power away from Chelsea.
After Saturday’s friendly win over PSG here he accused Manchester City, Manchester United and Liverpool of trying to buy the title.
“In the beginning of Mr Abramovich coming to Chelsea, Chelsea was buying the title,” said Mourinho. “Now, they are buying the title. All of them, they are buying the title. It is up to us to be strong and to fight them and, obviously, to try and win it again, even without the big investments.”For many, patience is a virtue. For Dr. Henry Klassen, it’s been a necessity. For nearly 25 years, he has focused on restoring sight to people suffering from retinitis pigmentosa by creating treatments to regenerate damaged retinal tissue.
Klassen, a pioneer in the field of stem cell research, has seen his patience pay off. This year, a first-of-its-kind, stem cell-based therapy for RP developed in his lab received all necessary approvals and moved into the important clinical trial phase.
His work – and that of dozens of researchers at UCI – are bringing the promise of stem cell research from the lab to patients. Klassen’s clinical trial is the third based on UCI research (two others focus on spinal cord injury) and the first to be held on the UCI campus.
Much of this work is housed in the Sue & Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center, which is located in Sue & Bill Gross Hall: A CIRM Institute. Both are named in honor of the Laguna Beach couple, who donated $10 million in July 2006 to support stem cell research at UCI. Their support, along with thousands of others, helped raise $1 billion during UCI’s “Shaping the Future” campaign, the first fundraising campaign by an Orange County nonprofit to attempt, and reach, $1 billion.
RP is marked by the slow decay of the photoreceptors – in the shape of rods and cones – that perform the initial detection of light. The disease is known to be caused by mutations in genes important to photoreceptor function. Eventually, the rods die, followed by the cones. People with retinitis pigmentosa first experience night blindness, then tunnel vision and, ultimately, legal blindness.
“We’ve believed it’s possible to rescue and even rejuvenate rods and cones in the degenerating retina,” Klassen says. “Now that our method has been validated, I’m optimistic that stem cell-based treatments will help people with failing vision.”
To date, seven participants with RP – all visually disabled due to the degenerative disease – have enrolled in the trial that tests the use of photoreceptor retinal progenitor cells, which are created from immature retinas formed from retinal stem cells. They have received cell injections, either at the Gavin Herbert Eye Institute at UCI or at Retina Vitreous Associates in Los Angeles. This effort is in conjunction with the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine’s new Alpha Stem Cell Clinic network, of which UCI is a founding member.
The objective is to preserve vision by intervening at a time when degenerating photoreceptors in the patient’s retina can be protected and potentially reactivated. This is done by introducing these retinal progenitor cells into to the eye to rescue and potentially resuscitate moribund cones, thus reversing the course of RP even at relatively advanced stages.
The open-label phase I/IIa trial is designed to evaluate the safety of these cells at two different dosage levels in patients with late-stage RP. Total enrollment will be 16 patients – up to 12 at UCI – all of whom will receive a single injection of cells under topical anesthesia. Participants will be followed for 12 months; safety and efficacy parameters will be monitored.
The initiation of this clinical trial represents the culmination of a research project stretching back many years – a project, according to Klassen, accelerated by support from the state’s stem cell agency, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, formed in 2004 when voters passed Proposition 71. CIRM granted the team $17 million for the current phase of the project.
Klassen came to UCI in 2006 and is affiliated with the Gavin Herbert Eye Institute and Sue & Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center, which were both constructed during UC Irvine’s 10-year, $1 billion Shaping the Future campaign. The Discovery Eye Foundation, which aids many UCI efforts to find cures and treatments for corneal and retinal eye disease, also supports his work.
“We are delighted to be moving into the clinic after many years of bench research,” he says.ID Check Repeal Prompts Spike In Murders, Study Finds
In 2007, Missouri repealed a law requiring gun buyers to obtain a license demonstrating they'd first passed a background check. In the years that followed, the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research tracked the results. In the forthcoming issue of Journal of Urban Health, the center will release it's findings: The law's repeal was associated with an additional 55 to 63 murders per year in Missouri between 2008 and 2012. For more on the report, Audie Cornish speaks with Daniel Webster, the director of the center.
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This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Robert Siegel.
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And I'm Audie Cornish. In 2007, the state of Missouri made a big change to its gun laws. It repealed a long standing law that required anyone who wanted to buy a handgun to obtain a license proving they'd passed a background check. So no matter who the seller was, a buyer had to have this license. Well, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research have been studying what happened in Missouri after this repeal and they've just released their findings.
I'm joined now by the director of the program, Daniel Webster. Welcome to the studio.
DANIEL WEBSTER: Thanks for having me.
CORNISH: So before we get to what happened, let's be clear. What did you need to buy a gun, a handgun in Missouri?
WEBSTER: Well, following the repeal, if you were going to purchase a handgun from a licensed dealer, you would apply right there with the dealer, give your information and then they would submit it for a background check. However, if you found that inconvenient, you could simply go to a private seller, maybe you would connect at a gun show or through the internet or some other means and that seller would have no obligation to ask any questions, whether you were prohibited or not. They deregulated private transactions for handguns.
CORNISH: In your research, what did you find happened after the repeal?
WEBSTER: Well, firearm homicide rates increased sharply immediately after the repeal of the law. For more than a three-year period following the law, firearm homicides increased by 23 percent.
CORNISH: Give us a sense of what those numbers mean. I don't know if that's hundreds of murders or, you know, dozens.
WEBSTER: Oh, sure. We estimate that the repeal of the law was associated with roughly 60 additional homicides per year that the law was no longer in place.
CORNISH: And so how exactly did you measure that, though? I mean, how did you go about narrowing it down to say, yes, it's because of this law?
WEBSTER: Well, we wanted to first statistically control for other things that might explain changes in the homicide rates, so we controlled for policing levels, incarceration rates, unemployment, poverty and changes to other laws that some studies show are related to homicide rates. We also wanted to know whether the change in homicide rates was specific to firearms or whether it was just an overall increase in violence that had nothing to do with firearms.
What we found is after we controlled for all those competing hypotheses that, again, there was a 23 percent increase associated with the repeal of this law, and it was only found in homicides that were committed with firearms.
CORNISH: And you also looked at criminal traces of weapons, I understand.
WEBSTER: Yes, we did. As we would've predicted, if the law is responsible for the increase in homicide rates, we would've seen an increase in the diversion of guns to criminals. Looking at data from guns traced to crime, that's precisely what we found. We found, basically, a twofold increase in the proportion of guns that were being recovered from criminals in crime scenes that had been purchased after the repeal of this law when there's less accountability in the system.
CORNISH: So this increase was 23 percent for firearm-related death in Missouri, but what was going on nationally or even in the border states?
WEBSTER: Well, the trends in the border states and nationally were in opposite direction. Bordering states aggregated saw a 2.2 percent decline in firearm homicide rates during that period and nationally there was a 5.5 percent reduction in firearm homicide rates.
CORNISH: What is the kind of greater context for this? I mean, does this speak to a direct correlation when it comes to background checks? And can you make that leap given how few states actually have these kinds of laws?
WEBSTER: Well, we've done studies in the past that looked at these laws in particular and their association with keeping guns from being diverted to criminals and we've found, and very consistently, that these are probably the most effective single tool for preventing diversions of guns to criminals.
CORNISH: Daniel Webster, he's the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research. Thank you so much for coming in to talk with us.
WEBSTER: Thanks for having me.
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NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.A Texas high school on Friday barred a girl from attending class as part of the fallout from a legal flap that began when the sophomore refused to wear around her neck an RFID-chip student ID she claims is the "Mark of the Beast," lawyers connected to the brouhaha said.
The Northside Independent School District in San Antonio began issuing the RFID-laden student-body cards when the semester began in the fall. The ID badge has a bar code associated with a student's Social Security number. The chip monitors pupils' movements on campus, from when they arrive until when they leave.
Andrea Hernandez was notified in November by the district that she would not be able to continue attending John Jay High unless she wears the badge around her neck like all students. The district said the girl, who objects largely on religious grounds, would have to attend another high school in the district that does not employ the RFID tags.
"It's obvious that John Jay High School has no interest in putting their students first, which is a sad reflection on our educational system," said John Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute, which defended the girl in court.
The devout Christian sued the district, and last week a Texas federal judge concluded the 15-year-old's right of religion was not breached, a decision a federal appeals court left intact Wednesday. That's because the school district, the lower court ruled, eventually agreed to accommodate the girl and allow her to remove the RFID chip while still demanding that she wear the identification like the other students.
U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia's ruling gave the girl and her family until Friday to decide whether to go to a different school or comport. She appealed to the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing that adorning herself with the ID card, even one without an RFID chip, amounted to discriminating against her "sincerely held beliefs."
On the Friday deadline, the district notified her family that she could no longer attend John Jay High when the new semester begins Tuesday. Her lawyers said the girl would, indeed, attend a new school while continuing a legal challenge.
The Hernandez family, which is Christian, said the badge, even without the RFID tag, signifies Satan, or the "Mark of the Beast" warning in Revelations 13: 16-18.
Money is the main motive behind the school using the RFID chips.
Like most state-financed schools, the district’s budget is tied to average daily attendance. If a student is not in his seat during morning roll call, the district doesn't receive daily funding for that pupil because the school has no way of knowing for sure if the student is there.
But with the RFID tracking, students not at their desk but tracked on campus are counted as being in school that day, and the district receives its daily allotment for that student.
Tagging school children with |
15th July on Syfyis a senior fellow at The King's College in New York City and a frequent contributor toA few years ago at a meeting in Amman, Jordan, a Bush administration official suggested the time might be ripe for an Arab "democratic spring"--a flowering of democratic institutions in the Middle East. Amr Moussa, secretary-general of the Arab League, delivered the predictably gloomy forecast: "There will be no spring or autumn or winter or summer without solving the Palestinian problem. We want our friends in the United States to know that this is the consensus in the region."
The consensus is holding. The result is that the 22 member states that make up the Arab League retain their status as some of the most economically backward, politically corrupt, and socially repressive countries on the planet. That's the implicit message of the most recent Arab Human Development Report, "Challenges to Human Security in the Arab Countries," released last week by a group of leading Arab intellectuals. It is more or less the same conclusion reached by the editors at The Economist, who devoted a special edition of the London-based magazine to examine what ails the Arab world.
There's a good deal of candor to these reports, including a willingness to admit that authoritarian rulers--aided by "flawed constitutions" and "unjust laws"--are a major reason for social instability and economic decline. Yet both reports suggest a baffling ignorance of the political principles essential to healthy, democratic societies. To wit: Neither the seven-part critique by The Economist nor the 200-page study by Arab intellectuals breathes a word about democratic ideals such as freedom of religion and the separation of church and state.
The latest Arab Human Development Report (AHDR)--the fifth in a series sponsored by the United Nations--identifies numerous threats to "human security" in Arab states. They include everything from climate change to poverty to "outside intervention" from hostile forces (read Israel and the United States). One is left with a sense of skewed priorities and confusion about the deepest obstacles to human flourishing.
To be fair, there's a measure of self-criticism, including the fact that flawed economic policies have saddled Arab countries with the world's highest unemployment rate, about 14.4 percent, or more than twice that for the world at large. The report does not blink in describing the plight of "abused and subordinated" Arab women. It cites the problem of legalized discrimination, "honor crimes," and state-sanctioned sexual violence, including rape. "One of the most violent, intrusive and traumatic threats to women's personal safety continues while society averts its eyes," the report says. And there's at least a confession that many Arab states ignore the human rights provisions of international charters to which they are signatories. The AHDR also delivers probably the toughest criticism of the Sudanese government uttered by Arab leaders, agreeing with U.N. reports that the regime is guilty of summary executions, torture, and other crimes against humanity. Better late than never.
Missing from the analysis, though, is any exploration of how Islamic religious values might be causing, or exacerbating, the problems. Nowhere in its treatment of Darfur, for example, does the AHDR mention the principal culprit in the humanitarian catastrophe: the radical Islamist ideology of the Sudanese government. Nowhere do we learn that the violent repression of Arab women is upheld by Muslim clerics making appeals to the Koran. Similar omissions by The Economist taint its overall critique. One might read both reports and not realize that political Islam represents the greatest threat to freedom and security in the Arab world.
This sanitizing approach to intensely religious societies is not only bizarre, but misleading: By failing to see the fundamental political and theological defects in Arab culture, it cannot chart a convincing way forward.
Consider the AHDR's view of the source of stability in the multi-cultural West. "In western political history," the authors say, "the normative concept that has contributed most to the management of ethnic, cultural and linguistic diversity is that of citizenship." There is even mention of the need for a renewed "social contract" in Arab societies. These might be useful concepts if the authors understood them in their fullest historical contexts--but they don't. Neither, sadly to say, do the reporters at The Economist.
Their treatment of the Bush administration's democracy agenda, particularly in Iraq, highlights the deficiencies. The Economist claims that Iraqis participated in the 2005 national elections "at America's behest"--as if U.S. Marines mobilized at gunpoint the 11 million Iraqis with ink-stained fingers who turned out to vote. We hear, approvingly, from an Egyptian academic who calls American forces in Iraq "the Mongols of the 21st century." There is virtually nothing in The Economist's report about the attraction of democratic ideals. No mention of the importance of government by consent or a vibrant civil society, the guarantees of any social contract worth signing. Instead, The Economist treats contemptuously the suggestion that the "lack of democracy and pluralism" in the Arab world has anything to do with the rise of religious radicalism. The Arab Human Development Report takes much the same line. Every unhappy indicator of violence and social unrest in Iraq is blamed on the U.S. invasion--while three decades of authoritarian rule and state-sponsored genocide under Saddam Hussein are ignored. There's talk about the need for an independent judiciary, but not much about what actually makes for a just society.
Arab and European intellectuals seem to suffer from the same intellectual vertigo: They don't grasp the central religious rationale that has guided and legitimized successful democracies, namely, the idea of a loving God who has endowed every individual with natural rights and binding obligations.
Chief among these rights is the freedom to seek spiritual truth without fear of penalty or coercion. This is what we mean in the West by religious liberty--including the liberty to change one's religion. It is a central duty of the state to protect this right, without discrimination, for all its citizens. This is what we mean by equal justice under the law. "Neither pagan, nor Mahometan, nor Jew, ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the commonwealth, because of his religion," wrote John Locke in A Letter Concerning Toleration. "The Gospel commands no such thing... And the commonwealth, which embraces indifferently all men that are honest, peaceable, and industrious, requires it not."
The genius of the American Founders--who drew heavily on Locke--was their ability to find within the prevailing religious tradition, Protestant Christianity, the moral and spiritual resources to anchor democratic government. Their argument about "inalienable rights" drew its strength from a belief in the transcendent source of human rights. Neither Madison nor Jefferson could conceive of a just society without protections for the rights of conscience, the crown jewel of democratic freedoms.
Yet the leading "enlightened" thinkers in the Arab world--and more than a few in European capitals--can easily imagine it. They are untroubled by the appalling lack of religious freedom in Arab countries. They don't dare to defend the rights of religious minorities. They fail to understand why religious pluralism, under a political system of equal justice, is the best hope for more stable, humane, and prosperous societies in the Middle East.
Such a benighted view of religion and democracy cannot bode well for the future of the Arab world or, for that matter, the democratic West.
By Joseph Loconte
Reprinted with permission from The Weekly StandardFXX
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia just concluded its 12th season — an absurd lifespan (even with shorter cable seasons) for any comedy, much less one that remains as vital and funny and inventive as this. Season 12 was a particularly momentous one for the Gang, as we saw (SPOILERS) Mac finally come out of the closet, life from Cricket’s perspective, and, in tonight’s finale, Charlie finally convince the Waitress to have sex with him (for the purpose of giving her the baby she’ll never otherwise have) and Dennis, after being confronted by the son he fathered (after the events of season 10’s “The Gang Beats Boggs”) and the boy’s mother, having an epiphany about his own awfulness and leaving town by declaring, “I can’t do any of this shit anymore.”
It was a remarkably emotional moment for a series that has made it through a dozen years without anyone in the Gang growing or learning much of anything from their many terrible misdeeds — and exceptionally well played by Glenn Howerton (who, shortly before Sunny came together was briefly part of the ER cast) — but one I assumed would be undone shortly into the start of season 13. So when I got on the phone with Howerton this afternoon to discuss both the finale and this wonderful dozenth season of the show, I asked if he was leaving the show entirely from a sense of journalistic thoroughness, rather than any belief that the answer would be yes.
That’s when things took a very surprising turn — albeit one that made a bit more sense an hour after the interview ended — which you can read about just as soon as I fake my death in an alley…
I have to start off with a question I’m pretty sure I know the answer to, but just in case: Are you leaving the show?
So… it’s a little complicated. I may seem a little bit evasive here, and I don’t mean to. It’s not entirely certain whether I am or am not. I might be. I might be, but I might not be. That really is the truth. Just to be clear, to dispel any potential weirdness, it has nothing to do with my relationship to anyone on the show or Rob or Charlie or anyone like that. It’s partially a creative and personal decision. We may be taking an extended hiatus between season 12 and season 13. So I’m certainly staying open to the possibility of doing more, but there is a possibility that I will not.
(An hour or so after we finished speaking, clarity appeared in the form of reports in the Hollywood trade press that Howerton has signed to do an NBC comedy pilot with Patton Oswalt. These things are usually verboten to discuss before they become official, and as the Variety report suggests, this would be a slightly different situation than Kaitlin Olson pulling double duty with Sunny and The Mick, since FX and Fox are corporate siblings (and thus more amenable to share their stars than NBC would be if it had Howerton on a series regular contract), and since Howerton is a writer and executive producer on Sunny, while Olson just acts. So it sounds like his availability for future seasons will depend on whether the NBC pilot goes to series, and/or whether Sunny season 13 is delayed long enough to create a hole in Howerton’s schedule that lets him do both.)
So that brings us to what happens with Dennis at the end of the episode. How did you decide that, if you’re going, this is the way you wanted to go out?
You know what’s funny about our show is we’re on such a weird schedule. We used to air in the fall and now we air in January, but we still write it on the same schedule, so the conversations that happened about how to leave the show, what’s going to happen with Dennis at the end of this season if Glenn is not going to be coming back, they happened so long ago — almost a year ago, I’d have to go back in my mind to try to remember exactly how we landed there. We knew we wanted to leave it open-ended. We didn’t want to do something where Dennis died or anything like that, anything hokey. For my part, I’m just a big fan of subverting expectations whenever possible. It just makes for interesting drama, comedy, whatever you have it in entertainment. And in comedy, I have a great affinity for trying to surprise people and do the exact opposite of what people expect. In my mind, I like the idea of taking a character who we’ve built up to be potentially a serial killer and realize that it may be the exact opposite. He may be an extraordinarily fragile and emotional person who has created a shell around himself to try to protect himself.
As an outside observer, it seems that one of the ways you’ve been able to sustain the show creatively for so long is by keeping the Gang oblivious to their many terrible flaws and crimes and failings. Then suddenly, Dennis has this huge moment of self-awareness as his son says “Bye, Dada” to him.
I think the truth is, what we’ve always tried to do on the show is take a certain mentality that exists in the real world and amplify it. A certain attitude towards an issue. That’s the main vein of social commentary that I’ve tried to tap into: take a mentality that I see existing in our culture and giving that mentality to our characters, and watching it play out to its extreme. That to me is the best way to satirize the ridiculousness of taking a hard stance on anything where there’s nuance. And all of that is to say, I think it’s accurate to say to a certain degree, I think the characters are oblivious a lot of times. But I think even the most oblivious person registers things at the very least on some subconscious level.
It’s just a matter of, for us, we satirized the opposite for so long, the idea of being completely oblivious. I think that now I find it interesting the idea of hitting a point where a character realizes, “I can’t hide from this anymore. I can’t pretend. There’s a lot of wreckage and carnage I can leave in my past,” but there’s an interesting emotional truth to the idea of having a child and realizing, “I don’t think I can hide from this.” And recognizing the damage that was done — it’s weird to get this deep about a show like Sunny — but for me, there was something really interesting and poignant about Dennis having a moment of realizing, maybe his childhood was fucked up, and that he doesn’t want his kid to have a fucked-up childhood, too.
This is the most dramatic moment of the season, and probably the entire series, but there have been other interesting epiphanies this season. Mac finally came out of the closet. How often had you discussed having this happen in seasons past, and why did it finally happen now?
We never really entertained very seriously the idea of him coming out of the closet, and the reason we didn’t is, to me, there’s nothing more sad and poignant, and quite frankly funny, in the way we portray it, in the dark humor that I really love, that there still are so many people who have this hyper-masculine view of themselves, and the one thing that does not, absolutely cannot fit into that hyper-masculine view of oneself is admitting that you’re gay. Obviously, anybody with half a brain and half a heart and half an understanding of science understands how fucking ridiculous that is. That’s what makes it so sad, and also funny, to have a character who is so clearly gay, and be surrounded by a group of friends who could not fucking care less.
And I thought that was a funny joke… when you always see supportive friends trying to get a friend to admit the truth about this, they go, “Don’t worry, we’ll always love you and support you.” And our version of that is, “Dude, we support you coming out of the closet because we’re going to hate you either way. The things we dislike about you is not whether you’re gay or not. It’s everything else about you, so just come out of the closet.” For a long time, I never wanted him to come out of the closet, because he represents a certain thing that still sadly exists. But 12 seasons in, I don’t think anyone expected we would be on this long, we finally got to a point where we were like, let’s have him come out of the closet just so we can explore some new storylines and do some new shit.Nine months after Justin Trudeau’s government was sworn in, it’s becoming clearer which cabinet ministers have begun to distinguish themselves from the rest. I’d recommend keeping an eye on Jane Philpott, the health minister. I’ll admit that’s a bit of a challenge. She moves around a lot. Here is how Philpott stayed busy during only the second half of July.
Jane Philpott is older than some of her colleagues. She counsels them informally on work-life balance, on management techniques, and on policy. When a colleague needs help or simple encouragement, Philpott helps make it happen, writes Paul Wells. ( Adrian Wyld / THE CANADIAN PRESS file photo )
In five days at the World AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa, she delivered eight speeches, on topics ranging from mother-to-child HIV transmission to the “undeniable and unacceptable gaps” in health outcomes between indigenous and non-indigenous populations in Canada. Canadian health ministers usually attend the annual World AIDS Conference. But Philpott brought a rare level of sustained intensity to her visit — as befits a woman who has been fighting AIDS in Africa for 30 years, as a family doctor, a health-care administrator and a private fundraiser. On her way home from Durban she stopped at Addis Ababa University, in Ethiopia, to check up on the family-health program she helped establish nearly a decade ago.
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Philpott was back in Ottawa for all of a day before she headed to the northern Quebec Inuit village of Kuujjuaq to announce a suicide prevention program for Inuit communities. The national Inuit association, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, designed the program; Philpott was on hand to announce $9 million in federal funding. These programs are more effective if the affected populations take the lead in designing them, she said. Just before her burst of travel — two long weeks ago now — Philpott deftly defused a nasty dispute between Canadian health scientists and the federal body that provides most of their funding, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). Funding for the CIHR has stagnated in recent years, even as the number of applications for funding skyrocketed. The CIHR responded by streamlining peer review, the mechanism by which researchers themselves decide which projects will be funded. The goal was to save on workload and travel costs by having peer-review panels discuss proposals online instead of meeting face-to-face. Jim Woodgett, director of research of the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital, wrote a letter protesting that the quality of funding decisions was deteriorating under the new system. He posted the letter online. In a week 1,300 researchers had signed it. Philpott could have ignored the little rebellion as an intramural turf fight among eggheads. A government-appointed panel is already wandering around the country reviewing science policy. It was safe to assume they’d recommend the sort of changes Woodgett and his colleagues wanted, say six or eight months from now.
Philpott refused to wait. She ordered CIHR brass to meet the disgruntled researchers immediately. She sent her deputy minister and a senior staffer to attend. By the end of the meeting, the CIHR had suspended the controversial peer-review process. Woodgett told me Philpott’s emissaries played a key role in ensuring the changes would be immediate. Why meddle in the lab-coat uprising, I asked Philpott. “I think when a health minister gets a letter from 1,300 researchers, there’s obviously a breakdown,” she told me. “What they were asking for was not unreasonable.”
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Woodgett, who is not shy about complaining about politicians, came away deeply impressed. “She acts quickly before things get out of hand or fester,” he said. “I think she has deep respect from the medical community — in large part due to her irreproachable background and genuine care for people, whether in isolated African villages or Canada. It’s that breadth of experience that must give her confidence.” Philpott’s confidence is getting noticed within the Trudeau government. Early on, she chaired a cabinet committee designed to meet Trudeau’s target of 25,000 Syrian refugees, and led her new colleagues with the assurance of a political veteran. At 55, she is older than some of her colleagues in this young government. She counsels them informally on work-life balance, on management techniques, and on policy across a range of topics extending outside her own portfolio. She is said to work well with Katie Telford, Trudeau’s chief of staff, whom she has known for less than two years. When a colleague needs help or simple encouragement, Philpott helps make it happen. Like everyone else in this hyperkinetic government, Philpott has a tough year ahead, including potentially bruising negotiations with the provinces on health funding and reform. It will be a sustained test for someone who is still new to the federal arena. But I suspect she’ll continue to impress. Correction – July 29, 2016: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly said Jane Philpott delivered speeches on mother-to-daughter HIV transmission. In fact, the speeches were on mother-to-child HIV transmissions.
Read more about:This Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2013 aerial photo shows the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant at Okuma in Fukushima prefecture, northern Japan. Deep beneath Fukushima’s crippled nuclear power station a vast underground reservoir of highly contaminated water that began spilling from the plant’s reactors during the 2011 earthquake and tsunami has been creeping slowly toward the sea. (AP Photo/Kyodo News) JAPAN OUT, MANDATORY CREDIT
TOKYO (AP) — The Japanese government announced Tuesday that it will spend $470 million on a subterranean ice wall and other steps in a desperate bid to stop leaks of radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear station after repeated failures by the plant's operator.
The decision is widely seen as an attempt to show that the nuclear accident won't be a safety concern just days before the International Olympic Committee chooses between Tokyo, Istanbul and Madrid as the host of the 2020 Olympics.
The Fukushima Dai-ichi plant has been leaking hundreds of tons of contaminated underground water into the sea since shortly after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami damaged the complex. Several leaks from tanks storing tainted water in recent weeks have heightened the sense of crisis that the plant's owner, Tokyo Electric Power Co., isn't able to contain the problem.
"Instead of leaving this up to TEPCO, the government will step forward and take charge," said Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said after adopting the outline. "The world is watching if we can properly handle the contaminated water but also the entire decommissioning of the plant."
The government plans to spend an estimated 47 billion yen ($470 million) through the end of March 2015 on two projects — 32 billion yen ($320 million) on the ice wall and 15 billion yen ($150 million) on upgraded water treatment units that is supposed to remove all radioactive elements but water-soluble tritium — according to energy agency official Tatsuya Shinkawa.
The government, however, is not paying for urgently needed water tanks and other equipment that TEPCO is using to stop leaks. Shinkawa said the funding is limited to "technologically challenging projects" but the government will open to additional help when needed.
The ice wall would freeze the ground to a depth of up to 30 meters (100 feet) through an electrical system of thin pipes carrying a coolant as cold as minus 40 degrees Celsius (minus 40 Fahrenheit). That would block contaminated water from escaping the facility's immediate surroundings, as well as keep underground water from entering the reactor and turbine buildings, where much of the radioactive water has collected.
The project, which TEPCO and the government proposed in May, is being tested for feasibility by a Japanese construction giant Kajima Corp. and set for completion by March 2015.
Similar methods have been used to block water from parts of tunnels and subways, but building a 1.4 kilometer (2-mile) wall that surrounds four reactor buildings and their related facilities is unprecedented.
An underground ice wall has been used to isolate radioactive waste at the U.S. Department of Energy's former site of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee that produced plutonium, but only for six years, according to the MIT Technology Review magazine.
Some experts are still skeptical about the technology and say the running costs would be a huge burden.
Atsunao Marui, an underground water expert at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, said a frozen wall could be water-tight but is normally intended for use for a couple of years and is not proven for long-term use as planned in the outline. The decommissioning process is expected to take about 40 years.
"We still need a few layers of safety backups in case it fails," Marui told the Associated Press. "Plus the frozen wall won't be ready for another two years, which means contaminated water would continue to leak out."
Marui said additional measures should be taken to stop contaminated water from keep traveling under the seabed during that time and leak further out in the sea.
TEPCO has been pumping water into the wrecked reactors to keep cool nuclear fuel that melted when the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami knocked out the plant's power and cooling system. The utility has built more than 1,000 tanks holding 335,000 tons of contaminated water at the plant, and the amount grows by 400 tons daily. Some tanks have sprung leaks, spilling contaminated water onto the ground.
After spending on the ice wall, the remainder of the public funding — 15 billion yen until March 2015 — will go to the development and production of a water treatment unit that can treat the contaminated water more thoroughly and by a larger volume than an existing machine, which is under repair after corrosion was found during a test run.By Anatoly Zak
Science Reporter
Phobos-Grunt and Yinghuo 1 are due for launch together Less than two months before the scheduled launch of Russia's flagship planetary spacecraft, officials are set to recommend a delay until 2011. The Phobos-Grunt mission aims to land on the Martian moon Phobos to collect soil samples and return them to Earth. Sources within the Russian space industry gave RussianSpaceWeb.com details of the likely postponement. The Russian space agency Roskosmos is expected to announce the mission's fate within a week. The agency's decision will be based on results of testing which the spacecraft has been undergoing since July at its assembly facility at NPO Lavochkin in Khimki, near Moscow. A delay for Phobos-Grunt would also affect China's first Mars probe Yinghuo 1, as the two craft are due to be launched together on the same Zenit rocket. Tight schedule According to its latest increasingly tight schedule, the Phobos-Grunt spacecraft had to be shipped to the launch site in Baikonur Cosmodrome on 26 September 2009 in order to catch a narrow astronomical launch window to Mars in October of this year. A previously announced timeline called for the shipment of the spacecraft to Baikonur in August, only to be pushed back to the middle of September 2009. The decision to roll out the vehicle to Baikonur would mean a commitment to launch this year, while failure to do so would postpone the mission to 2011. Industry sources said that despite all efforts, the probe's flight control systems are likely to need more tests before they can be considered reliable enough to survive a complex multi-year mission. Complex demands The systems will need to be robust enough to cope with complex manoeuvring in Martian orbit, landing on the surface of Phobos, the takeoff of the return vehicle and the landing of the capsule containing the soil samples on Earth. A further argument to postpone the mission to 2011 would be lack of duplicate failsafe systems at Russian mission control to guide the spacecraft into deep space. Currently Russia's only operational deep space antenna capable of sending flight control commands to Phobos-Grunt is in Ussuriyisk near Vladivostok. Any serious problems there would doom the mission. A second antenna, in Medvezhi Ozera, near St Petersburg, could be capable of controlling the mission - but only after an upgrade, which is not expected to be completed until sometime next year. Launching the spacecraft with only a single operational flight control antenna would endanger the mission, experts said. Roskosmos recently reached an agreement with the European Space Agency, Esa, to use its facilities in the Phobos-Grunt project. But European ground control stations would only be capable of receiving data rather than controlling the spacecraft. Those in favour of postponing the mission to 2011 argue that Russian scientists have not conducted a deep space mission for more than two decades, and available time to prepare the launch in 2009 was inadequate. In 1988, a pair of Soviet probes was sent to Mars but one failed on its way to the red planet and the other soon after entering orbit. Flight control error was blamed for at least one failure. Russia's latest probe to Mars, launched in 1996, crashed back to Earth when the launch vehicle failed. Lack of Russian ground control facilities meant the exact cause was never pinpointed. Despite many previous unofficial reports that the beleaguered project would have to be delayed to at least 2011, the Russian space agency and NPO Lavochkin, the probe's primary developer, have always insisted that the mission would launch in 2009. Knock-on effect According to latest reports, the launch of Phobos-Grunt was pushed to the beginning of November 2009, essentially beyond the available launch window to Mars. It was unclear how such a move would affect the mission, since launching outside of the astronomical window would limit the mass of the payload to be carried to Mars. Delaying Phobos-Grunt from 2009 to 2011 might also have a knock-on effect on future Russian missions into deep space. Experts say Phobos-Grunt is relatively well prepared for flight, so it would need little extra money to be ready for 2011. However the same personnel and facilities employed in the preparation of the Phobos-Grunt project, at NPO Lavochkin and the IKI space research institute in Moscow, will be needed to design subsequent missions such as the Luna-Glob probe, which - according to the official schedule - is due to enter orbit around the Moon in 2011.
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StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable versionEveryone loves Tide, from the toddlers who gobble detergent pods to the criminals who boost it and sell it illegally. Some people even do laundry with it. The real question at the core of the Tide trade is this: How did bottles of brand-name detergent become a de facto currency? Why this brand, Tide? Where do the bottles come from, and who is the end consumer who actually pours the Tide in their washer?
Ben Paynter investigated the secret detergent economy for New York magazine earlier this month. The lifecycle begins at regular retailers of all kinds, from corner stores to Super Walmarts. We’ve featured many of these Tide heists on the site in the past. It was the police in Prince George’s County, Maryland who decided to go all Lester Freamon on the detergent economy, tracking down and questioning people caught repeatedly on security footage stealing Tide. Who did they sell it to?
Police then staged a sting operation, bringing orange bottles to known buyers, casually mentioning that it was stolen, and handing it over at cut-rate prices.
Tide, a Procter & Gamble product which debuted in 1946, was the first liquid laundry detergent on the market, and has strong cachet and brand recognition for American consumers. “It’s unfortunate that people are stealing Tide, and I don’t think it’s appropriate at all, but the one thing it reminds me of is that the value of the brand has stayed consistent,” the marketing director of Procter & Gamble noted helpfully. That’s true. An item that serves as a currency only retains it value when people want it.
Suds for Drugs [New York Magazine]
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Thieves Are Targeting Tide Detergent For Resale On The Black MarketEarly Sunday morning, Microsoft's legal team triumphed over its developers once again, announcing the tenth license agreement with an Android vendor of mobile phones and patents.
The tone of Microsoft's press release on its patent agreement with Compal Electronics, Inc. was dry and unremarkable compared to the legal team's blog about the same agreement, which seemed positively bellicose in comparison. The patent arangement, made for undisclosed terms and undisclosed patents, was notable in that it also implicated ChromeOS as an infringing technology.
ChromeOS, a Linux distribution based on Canonical's Ubuntu, has been a target of Microsoft's attorneys since this summer, when it entered a license agreement with original design manufacturer (ODM) Wistron in July. ChromeOS was also mentioned as a potential violator of Microsoft patents in a similar patent deal with another ODM, Quanta Computer, made earlier this month on Oct. 13.
This weekend's arrangement makes Compal the third ODM company to enter into a Microsoft agreement over ChromeOS and Android, and the tenth Android-related patent deal Microsoft has made in 18 months.
The tone from Microsoft's General Counsel team of Brad Smith and Horacio Gutierrez was full of vim and vinegar, as my grandmother used to say, in their victory-lap blog entry posted Sunday morning.
"Cocky" would be the term I would use, being far less genteel than my grandmother.
One example: the post, chock full of information on Microsoft's latest patent score, included a chart that also detailed Apple's and Oracle's separate lawsuits against Google's Android, which seems to all but confirm Google's assertions all of this Android litigation is all part of a coordinated effort.
The post from Microsoft Executive Vice President and General Counsel Smith and Deputy General Counsel Gutierrez made no mention of ChromeOS, curiously, but did brag (there being no other word for it) that Microsoft now has licensing agreements in place with 55 percent of the ODM market (by revenue) and "[f]ollowing our agreement earlier this month with Samsung, Microsoft now has license agreements in place with OEMs that account for 53 percent of all Android smartphones in the United States."
Of course, it's not only Android who gets to share in this ever-so-effective legal strategy. "… [A]s reported in this morning's Seattle Times, we've now entered into 1,133 agreements over the last decade to license our patents to other companies that share our desire to respect IP rights."
In the same paragraph, Microsoft claims it has spent $4.5 billion to license patents from other companies, but did not include a figure on how much revenue it has gained from those 1,133 patents.
It was interesting that Microsoft pointed out that Seattle Times article, as the tone of that piece was not particularly one of praise for Microsoft's legal actions.
I invite you to read the article in its entirety, as it gives an detailed look into Microsoft's plays on the patent field, as well as possible long-term strategies.
One thing is for sure, the braggado and preening is unlikely to win Microsoft fans, since essentially they are going to perceived as patent trolls doing little more than celebrating their agreements made with (as yet) unproven patents. The comment section of this weekend's Smith and Guteirrez blog post demonstrates that quite clearly.
Microsoft's legal team has moved past any sort of tipping point where they really give a damn about the opinions of such people. They have demonstrated, for now, that they have come up with a proven legal strategy that generates revenue in a way that offsets their current losses in the mobile field with Windows Phone 7.
One wonders if they will start caring if any of these patents they have licensed are proven to be invalid.
Until that day, Microsoft is getting while the getting's good with their new revenue stream.
How innovative.
Read more of Brian Proffitt's Open for Discussion blog and follow the latest IT news at ITworld. Drop Brian a line or follow Brian on Twitter at @TheTechScribe. For the latest IT news, analysis and how-tos, follow ITworld on Twitter and Facebook.'BiP' Star DeMario Jackson Release Pool Sex Footage... I Have Nothing to Hide
'Bachelor in Paradise' Star DeMario Jackson Wants Corinne Pool Sex Footage Released
EXCLUSIVE
"Bachelor in Paradise" star DeMario Jackson desperately wants the tape of his sexual encounter with Corinne Olympios to be released so he can clear his name.
Sources close to DeMario tell TMZ... he's hell-bent on getting a copy of the footage of himself and Corinne "rubbing, touching and fingering" in the pool. We're told he already had a lawyer contact Warner Bros requesting the tape.
DeMario believes the video will prove what he's said all along -- Corinne was lucid and he did nothing wrong. If he can't get a copy, we're told he wants WB to release it on its own. DeMario also wants them to release a statement clarifying HE isn't under investigation.
Multiple people who've seen the footage tell us... the encounter appears completely consensual and DeMario is in no way the aggressor. In fact, we're told he and Corinne seemed kind and considerate to each other.
Our sources say DeMario's looking to lawyer up because although Corinne hasn't blamed him yet, he's not taking any chances. When we saw him in WeHo Tuesday, he seemed to bear no grudge toward her.Workers of Metro's construction company are seen at the ancient ruins in the northern Greek port city of Thessaloniki on Monday, June 25, 2012. Archaeologists in Greece’s second largest city have uncovered a 70-meter (230-foot) section of an ancient road built by the Romans that was city’s main travel artery nearly 2,000 years ago. The marble-paved road was unearthed during excavations for the city’s new subway system that is due to be completed in four years, and will be raised to be put on permanent display for passengers when the metro opens. (AP Photo/Nikolas Giakoumidis)
THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP) — Archaeologists in Greece's second-largest city have uncovered a 70-meter (230-foot) section of an ancient road built by the Romans that was the city's main travel artery nearly 2,000 years ago.
The marble-paved road was unearthed during excavations for Thessaloniki's new subway system, which is due to be completed in four years. The road in the northern port city will be raised to be put on permanent display when the metro opens in 2016.
The excavation site was shown to the public on Monday, when details of the permanent display project were also announced. Several of the large marble paving |
mixed mainstream-media-bait comments about how today's Republican party wouldn't welcome either Reagan (he'd be "criticized for doing the things that he did") or his father, George HW Bush (they'd both have "a hard time"), with slightly more subtle nudges to his colleagues about the calcification of party lines.
"I hope we don't all have this march" toward irreversible partisanship, he said. "If someone is a conservative or a liberal, we're sent this little book that says, 'you must not veer."'
Of course, there are such books – in the sense that there are keepers of partisan orthodoxy on either side. Whether by virtue of temperament or power structure, however, it's the GOP that, right now, seems most sensitive – or maybe, most enthusiastic – about conformist tendencies. (And I'd guess the Obama re-election team is jealous.) Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, was one of the first to jump on Bush's remarks. That's not surprising: Norquist is the martinet behind one of the more literal books of rightwing moral instruction, the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, which holds the signatory to oppose "any and all" tax increases.
An astounding 95% of elected Republicans have signed Norquist's contract. I am hard-pressed to name any single policy aim that has that kind of backing on the Democratic side. In the legislature itself, Democrats have more caucuses than caucus unity. Whereas the GOP has the Republican study committee, famous for pressuring lawmakers to push a strict agenda, one that even House Republicans worry is set by outside groups more intent on ideology than moving legislation forward. Last summer, representatives staged an impromptu protest against the group's attempt to generate votes against House speaker John Boehner's debt ceiling compromise.
For a more recent example, see, well, the past year or so of the Republican presidential primaries, a race defined by its finish line on the far right. Wherever they started, by the end of their campaigns, Romney and Santorum only gave voters as their choice varying degrees of extreme: who was the hungriest for war with Iran, the least amenable to women's rights, the keenest to repeal healthcare reform, the toughest on immigration.
It's no secret that the Obama campaign hopes that this extremism, paired with a portrait of Romney-the-job-killer, will undo his opponent in the fall. The plan has many flaws, mostly having to do with the Obama team's inability to mount a positive case for their own stewardship of the economy. But there's also an underlying cognitive dissonance to the argument: to make Romney's past as a corporate hatchet man ring true, he must be painted as a cold pragmatist – and his obvious pragmatism gives his extremist rhetoric the kind of shaky foundation that might allow moderate voters to discount it.
And as president, Romney could very well negotiate the narrow-but-visible range of ideological latitude that George W Bush wiggled in. Progressives tend to forget that W disappointed many conservatives: he failed to follow through on turning social services into a "faith-based" enterprise and he practically invented what some bemoan as "big government conservatism". Traditionally, though, presidents have the luxury of defining their own course, with incumbency as the most powerful card in any re-election campaign.
On the other hand, it's no wonder that congressional representatives, low men on the Washington totem poll, are the easiest prey for anyone with a large bank account and the promise of activist involvement. They make campaign promises and, two years later, must face up to them. The difference in these post Citizens United days is that the promises aren't to constituents, they're to American Crossroads, the Club for Growth and random bored billionaires.
The power of these outside ideology police raises the question as to whether any of the polarization that has frozen Congress is for real. Is there a little Mitt in everyone who prostrates themselves for donations, their very willingness to bend their beliefs a sign that they aren't all that enthusiastic about enforcing them? We shall find out, because the mounting level of influence levied by conservative extremists has shaped a party that looks very little like America. As the leadership and pocketbooks of the GOP move right, the country has stayed mostly in the center. Republican officials have been able to believe their own funhouse mirror reflection because the money keeps working, keeps winning. Romney's own skilful manipulation of the Super Pac system could make for a victory that sustains the illusion of a relationship between the goals of the party and the goals of most Americans.
And unlike past administrations, where the president could reasonably push back on donors, the sheer amount of money involved in this election raises the question of just how more beholden Romney would be to the people who put him in office.
The Republican party rests on fault line that has been papered over with cash. Only if Romney wins, can they ignore its existence for a while longer.A bit of a scuffle broke out yesterday between two men inside Jintai Road Station on Beijing Metro Line 6. Fellow commuters gathered around to watch the spectacle with no one stepping forward to try to put an end to it.
Just then, a hero emerged from the crowd in the form of a young foreigner, who stepped between the two men to get them to stop their pointless dispute. For his act of heroism, the guy took a few incidental punches himself, according to NetEase.
Apparently, the impetus for the fight was that one of the men had shamelessly slid his way into the metro car ahead of other commuters patiently waiting in line. However, the carriage was too crowded, so the man was pushed back out, right into the midst of the aggrieved people he had impolitely left behind.
An eyewitness said that the fight between the two men was actually rather intense, with one of them forcing the other to the ground and grabbing his neck. Still not violent enough to cause a single soul to step in until the lone foreigner arrived on the scene. It’s all fun and games until someone gets stabbed or run over.
We haven’t seen such an inspiring act of expat heroism since one brave Beijinger took his righteous stand against cars in the bike lane.
[Images via NetEase]
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PrintIn their effort to shift austerity from tax hikes, France will cut spending for the first time in over 55 years, by $2 billion.
Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault confirmed on Tuesday that the French Government will decrease spending year on year. The government is facing opposition from lawmakers who claim the deficit will be higher than expected this year.
"This is the first time that we will propose to Parliament such a reduction. It is a structural effort," said Ayrualt.
The central government will cut spending in 2014 by $2 billion to avoid unpopular tax rises and quell unsustainable spending.
750 million euro will be cut from central government support and 750 million euro will be cut from ministry budgets. Ayuralt said the government’s priorities would remain unchanged: job creation, education, and housing.
Opposition lawmakers like Gilles Carrez who heads the finance commission at the national Assembly, said in an interview to Le Figaro the government would miss its targets, and that deficit in the euro zone's second-largest economy could reach 4 percent in 2013. Carrez calculated this to be €20 billion higher than anticipated.
After pledging to cut France's deficit to 3 percent this year, President Francois Hollande and the Socialist government revised their predictions and updated their deficit forecast to 3.7 percent of GDP.
Hollande has not yet been able to deliver on his promise of 0.1 percent growth, on which he campaigned a year ago.
Hollande isn’t alone. Within the 27 member eurozone, only Germany and Austria have managed to generate positive growth, the rest are left in a similar predicament as France- slow growth, high unemployment, a looming triple dip recession, and a need to somehow cut more.
To reach their budget deficit goal, France should cut the public deficit to 3.9 percent of gross domestic product this year, then 3.6 percent in 2014 and 2.8 percent in 2015.
France’s economy officially slipped back into recession in May, after it shrunk for a second consecutive quarter. The IMF has forecast the economy will shrink 0.2 percent this year, more than the 0.1 percent initially predicted.
Hollande has done all he can to appear to fight the German dictate of austerity, even auctioning off presidential vintage wines to contribute to the endangered budget.
President Hollande at first stood with Merkel on austerity, but after being met by 30,000 protestors on the first anniversary of his inauguration, among slews of other protests, he has shifted his position to resonate with public opinion.
France’s appeal to China
The President has asked China to increase investment in France, to create a balance in employment between the two countries, the head of state said at a speech at the Elysee Palace on Tuesday before members of the China Entrepreneur Club (CEC).
"There is no fear in French society," Mr. Holland assured the entrepreneurs, inviting the Chinese to up their stake in French projects, LePoint reported. Four percent of foreign investors in France are Chinese, and the CEC generates 245 billion euros a year.Fifty years ago this week, filming began of the original pilot for the series Star Trek. (credit: CBS/Paramount Pictures) Boldly inspiring no more
Fifty years ago this Thursday, on a series of rather decrepit soundstages in Culver City, California, Star Trek started filming its first pilot. It was rejected by NBC network execs who were nevertheless sufficiently intrigued to order a second pilot, spawning a show that lasted three seasons, went into countless repeats, and eventually led to more shows totaling over 700 episodes and a whole bunch of movies. But beyond entertaining millions, Star Trek in its various incarnations has had a profound impact on the American space program, primarily by inspiring countless people to pursue science and engineering careers, become astronauts, and even develop devices that they first encountered as props on a TV screen. But now that Star Trek’s influence is fading, what will influence and inspire future generations to work in the field of space? The pilot was high quality, almost at the level of a motion picture. When cultural critics today sneer at the show’s sets or aliens they are looking back through a lens of more than 40 years of TV production and technology. Star Trek was, of course, the brainchild of Gene Roddenberry, a former bomber pilot and police officer who had written other television shows and produced the short-lived series The Lieutenant. He pitched his science fiction idea to executives at Desilu Studios, owned by Lucille Ball, who at the time wanted to expand beyond producing only sitcoms. Star Trek was a bold leap for the studio, and despite the fact that Ball misunderstood the show at first—she thought it was about travelling movie stars—she stuck with it through cost overruns and naysayers. On November 27, 1964, the Friday after Thanksgiving, the studio started shooting the first pilot, known as “The Cage.” The pilot was expensive. It required a lot of sets that had to be custom built and costumes that had to be custom made because there wasn’t a Hollywood warehouse filled with Starfleet uniforms and alien masks. Ultimately it ran significantly over budget and schedule. According to Larry Nemecek, writing in Star Trek magazine, it took eleven days to shoot instead of the planned six. “The Cage” featured Captain Christopher Pike, played by Jeffrey Hunter, commanding the starship Enterprise. Pike was brooding, angry, and tired, and at the beginning of the episode he is ready to give up his job after a disastrous mission that killed and wounded several of his crew. While investigating a distress signal from a vessel lost many years earlier, Pike is taken captive by a race of aliens that can project images into the minds of their captives which they do as a form of entertainment—perhaps an early example of Roddenberry engaging in social commentary about the medium that was paying his salary. Pike manages to defeat the aliens by demonstrating that humans would rather die than be caged, and by the end of the show he has undergone a transformation, deciding that he wants to be out exploring the stars. When Desilu producers showed the pilot to NBC executives in spring 1965 they got an unexpected reaction. The pilot was high quality, almost at the level of a motion picture. When cultural critics today sneer at the show’s sets or aliens they are looking back through a lens of more than 40 years of TV production and technology. At the time, Star Trek’s production and costume design, set construction and special effects were quite impressive, even more so when you consider that the average episode budget was not particularly high. The pilot had run way over budget—according to Nemecek, instead of the $451,503 budgeted, it cost $615,751, the equivalent of $4.73 million in 2014 dollars and a substantial investment at the time. But the NBC suits were looking for new shows and they thought Star Trek had potential. They told the studio to do something unprecedented for the time and shoot another pilot. Roddenberry went back to the drawing board, but he didn’t have to start over completely. Actor Jeffrey Hunter could not shoot the second pilot—his wife didn’t want him doing television—and so he was replaced by William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk. Shatner was more energetic and more positive, and Roddenberry wrote him as a confident, almost cocky leader who wanted to be boldly going where no man had gone before. Star Trek’s influence on the American space program and more generally science and technology has been chronicled in many places. Several astronauts have said they were inspired by the show, and some even appeared on its later incarnations. There were many other changes as well. Roddenberry had gotten pushback on two of the main characters, the Enterprise’s first officer, known only as Number One, and the Vulcan science officer, Mr. Spock. (Spock was originally supposed to be a Martian, but the producers realized that reddish makeup would make him look dark gray on black and white TV screens, so they changed the character to Vulcan and gave actor Leonard Nimoy’s skin a different hue.) Roddenberry got rid of Number One, and ended up marrying the actress who played her. He kept Spock, but it took him and Leonard Nimoy many episodes before they found the right tone for the character, whose race had been violent in the past but suppressed their emotions and pursued logic. That gave Spock an unusual appeal, particularly to female fans. Roddenberry made a number of other changes. He added a multi-ethnic cast including an Asian, a Scotsman, and an African American woman, and eventually a Russian. This was a forward-leaning move for the producer, but it was also in tune with NBC, which was encouraging greater ethnic diversity in its television shows. He also wanted the Enterprise crew to be fifty percent female, but the network was nervous that the audience would wonder about them fooling around, so he made it thirty percent female, a quarter century before the US Navy integrated its warships. Roddenberry also brightened up the show’s look. The ship’s corridors and bridge were a naval gray in the pilot, but Roddenberry had them repainted to reds and blues and other brighter colors. This too matched with another NBC initiative to appeal to people purchasing newly-available color television sets. The Peacock Network was the prettiest to look at. Star Trek had pretty good ratings, and more recently people writing about the show determined that even in its last season it was still relatively well watched and the network simply lacked the ability to track the audience demographics. But it was not until the 1970s, when the show ended up in endless reruns on syndicated television, that it took off, gathering an even larger audience and inspiring many people. Writers have generally credited the show’s appeal to its relatively positive view of the future: at a time when nuclear war was a very real possibility, Trek showed that humans would be around hundreds of years in the future and thriving. Michael Okuda, who worked on all of the Star Trek shows starting with The Next Generation as well as most of the movies, explained via email that the era in which the show aired was important to its overall impact. “In the 1960s, we feared the end was near: Nuclear annihilation. Falling dominoes and unending war in Vietnam. Racial tensions. Inflation. Overpopulation. Environmental disaster. Drugs. Distrust of The Man. (Any of those sound familiar?) One of the reasons Star Trek struck a nerve was because it was a beacon of hope.” Star Trek’s influence on the American space program and more generally science and technology has been chronicled in many places. Several astronauts have said they were inspired by the show, and some even appeared on its later incarnations. Numerous inventors and scientists have pointed to the show as the origin or encouragement for their work. One of the more amusing, and clever chronicles of this phenomenon was the 2005 documentary How William Shatner Changed the World, which included a number of interviews with people who developed everything from ion engines for spacecraft propulsion to the cell phone to medical devices. But as Michael Okuda notes, the way we view space exploration is different today. “Back in the 1960s, space exploration seemed like a real promise. A space fantasy like Star Trek seemed somehow plausible, at least in spirit, if not in detail. Today, real human exploration of space seems distant and improbable.” So what, or who, will influence the next generation of space enthusiasts? There is not, and maybe never will again be, a single powerful entertainment or event that that will positively inspire the young in large numbers. Probably the most obvious future real-world influence is likely to be Elon Musk. Musk is a unique combination of visionary, businessman, and spokesman who has become an icon himself, showing up in movies like Iron Man 2 and episodes of South Park. His most visible endeavors, SpaceX and Tesla, have garnered publicity far beyond their actual market impact. He has not quite reached Bill Gates or Steve Jobs stature yet, but he is quickly becoming one of the most recognizable names in high technology business. Undoubtedly there are countless young engineers and inventors who look at Musk and want to be like him and do things like he is doing. Admittedly, Musk also has a darker side and has been warning about the dangers of computer artificial intelligence, which he thinks is going to kill us all. If that’s true, then even escaping to Mars is unlikely to save humanity. Other real-world influences will probably be the Mars rovers, particularly Curiosity with its wild “sky crane,” and spacecraft like Rosetta and its bouncy lander Philae. Robotics are popular even among kids in grade school and it is not much of a leap to imagine a child with a Lego robotics kit seeing a rover on Mars and imagining building something like it when they’re older. Popular entertainment influences are much harder to guess. Certainly pop culture can have unexpected influences—many students now study forensic science because of the CSI franchise and similar police procedurals. The influence is not always positive: people in the criminal justice system refer to the “CSI effect” on juries that expect definitive forensic evidence in criminal cases because they see it all the time on television. Real world cases are rarely settled with a confession in the final act. Many young girls have taken up archery because of the Hunger Games franchise, but it seems doubtful that they’ll grow up to be professional archers. Last year’s big movie, Gravity, was a decidedly anti-space film whose primary message was that humans don’t belong in space (see: “Life in space is impossible,” The Space Review, May 19, 2014). Interstellar is director Christopher Nolan’s attempt to show spaceflight as humanity’s salvation, but it has garnered very mixed reviews. One movie that could have a positive impact is next year’s The Martian, based on the popular book that depicts a can-do astronaut who solves problems and never ever quits. That kind of hard-edge reality-based engineering drama could impact future generations to go into engineering fields (although, notably, the astronaut in the book is a biologist). It is also not simply the overall cultural environment that has changed, but science fiction entertainment as well. “Most sci-fi films these days are decidedly anti-space and are pessimistic about the potential for science and technology to enable a better tomorrow,” Okuda notes. “Compare the celebration of science, technology, and wonder that is 2001 to the dire future of Interstellar. Or the utopian vision of Star Trek with the dystopian (although fascinating) world of Battlestar Galactica. Even Star Wars, which celebrates the imagination, is set in a decaying universe in which scientific inquiry and exploration play no role in the plot, nor are they values embraced by the heroes.” No young person daydreams about someday designing weapons to battle killer robots who have enslaved humanity in a dystopian future. Science fiction writer Neal Stephenson noticed it in his own work and even started a Project Hieroglyph to start creating more positive visions of science and technology. Then again, perhaps, our current and future cultural influences are suffering the same fractionalization as our entertainment. There is not, and maybe never will again be, a single powerful entertainment or event that that will positively inspire the young in large numbers. “We need better dreams,” Okuda says. So this Thanksgiving, you can tip your wineglass and give thanks to the inspiration that started exactly fifty years before. Maybe if we’re lucky the next Gene Roddenberry starts filming on Friday. But don’t bet on it. HomeBERKELEY, CA—Claiming that the eatery was already generating a buzz among locals with its “East Meets Mex” flavors, owners of the Bento Burrito location on Shattuck Avenue explained to reporters Tuesday how their new restaurant offers a totally unwanted twist on Mexican cuisine. “You’ll find all your favorite Mexican dishes on our menu, but with completely unnecessary alterations that no one wants or has ever once asked for,” said Bento Burrito founder Alex Cochran, noting that as part of the restaurant’s efforts to make arbitrary, superfluous Japanese substitutions, patrons would have no choice but to eat their house-made tortilla chips with wasabi instead of salsa. “Enchiladas are a delicious traditional Mexican standard, so there’s no need to add pickled ginger to them, but that’s exactly what we did. Or if you’re looking for lighter fare, simply stop in and shake your head at our tacos that come topped with a wholly uncalled-for pile of bean sprouts.” Cochran encouraged residents to check out the restaurant’s menu online, guaranteeing that every customer would be 100 percent infuriated by item names ranging from Teriyaquitos to Sake-ritas.
AdvertisementIn case you've been under a rock for the last decade, you might not know that today's technology wars aren't over who has the best prices, the most features, or the greatest quality. No, in 2011, instead of working on innovating, tech. giants like Apple, Microsoft, and Oracle, are now wasting their resources on intellectual property (IP) lawsuits. So, perhaps it should come as no surprise that networking powerhouse Cisco and social networking force Twitter, is joining the Linux patent protection group, the Open Invention Network (OIN).
The OIN was formed in 2005 by IBM, Sony, Philips N.V. and Linux distributors Red Hat Inc. and Novell. Then, as now, the group was created to defend Linux from patent trolls and other attacks from patent holders. It tries to do this with its own patents which are then available royalty-free to any company, institution or individual that agrees not to assert its patents against Linux. While it hasn't been done, these patents could also, in theory, be used by the OIN, or an OIN member, against a hostile company in a patent war.
After years of slow, steady growth, OIN has been growing significantly in the last quarter. During the second quarter of 2011 alone, OIN had 35 new companies join its community of licensees. The consortium now has 360 corporate supporters. OIN licensees, which include founding members and associate members, benefit from leverage against patent aggression and access to enabling technologies through OIN's shared intellectual property resources.
Why are companies doing this? Need you ask? Look at the mobile software patent wars surrounding Android, the insane court decision that's blocked the sales of Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the European Union, and how Microsoft is trying to get patent contracts from such Linux using companies as Samsung.
No wonder companies like Google are building up their patent portfolios and Cisco and Twitter are joining forces with the OIN. Any major technology company CEO with a room temperature or higher IQ knows he or she needs patent ammo for the ongoing IP wars. As Keith Bergeit, OIN's CEO explained, "Increasing IP assertion and litigation activities and the increasing ubiquity of Linux together have combined to increase the value of OIN's license offering. For licensees, OIN creates a 'no fly zone' for Linux as it relates to IP assertion and litigation activity, helping to promote open source collaboration and the innovation that arises from it."
That's why, besides Cisco and Twitter, other major companies that have recently joined the OIN include CentOS, Data-Warehouse, Fujitisu, and Nationwide Mutual Insurance, Even so you might wonder why Cisco, which has a few patents to call its own, would join up. Keith Bergeit, OIN's CEO, speculated, "OIN believes that Cisco became a licensee to support for Linux as Linux has apparently become increasingly relevant to the core Cisco business."
Last, but not least, Bergeit told me that founding member Novell, although now a wholly owned subsidiary of Attachmate is still in the OIN. In addition, "Attachmate has guaranteed the performance by Novell of Novell's obligations as a licensee and member of OIN."
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Sun CEO explicitly endorsed Java's use in Android: What do you say now Oracle?For the first time, astronomers have discovered complex organic molecules, the basic building blocks for life, in a disk of gas and dust surrounding an alien star.
To the researchers' surprise, the organics found around a young star called MWC 480 are not only surviving but thriving in quantities slightly higher than those thought to have existed in the early solar system. The prolific amount of material reveals that Earth's solar system is not the only one to contain these complex molecules, suggesting that the ingredients required for life to evolve may exist throughout the universe. The scientists created a video tour of the star MWC 48 to showcase their discovery
An artist's impression of the protoplanetary disk surrounding the young star MWC 480, where the giant ALMA radio telescope has detected complex organic molecules – the building blocks of life – suggesting that the conditions necessary for life are universal. (Image: © B. Saxton (NRAO/AUI/NSF))
"The very rich organic chemistry present in the young solar system, as evidenced by cometary compositions, is far from unique," lead author Karin Öberg, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Massachusetts, told Space.com by email.
"It thus seems likely that the prebiotic chemistry that took place in the solar system, including Earth, is also happening elsewhere," she said. [Related: Signs of Alien Life Will Be Found by 2025, NASA's Chief Scientist Says]
Building blocks abound
Located in the Taurus star-forming region 455 light-years away from Earth, the star MWC 480 is about twice the mass of the sun and shines nearly 10 times brighter. A disk of material surrounds the million-year-old star, but scientists have not observed any obvious signs of planet formation.
Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), Öberg and her colleagues observed MWC 480, finding enough methyl cyanide (a complex carbon-based molecule) in the disk surrounding the star to fill all of Earth's oceans. They also found a supply of other complex carbon-based molecules.
Volatile elements such as cyanides boil away at high temperatures. Despite this fragility, they are thought to be necessary for life. The carbon-nitrogen bonds of cyanides are especially important, as they are essential to the formation of amino acids, which in turn are the building blocks for proteins.
While astronomers have found simple volatilesin disks around other stars, complex organic molecules such as those spotted by the team have remained more difficult to pin down in previously studied disks. These complex elements exist in interstellar clouds between stars, but scientists were unsure if the elements could survive the energetic formation of a young solar system, where radiation could break apart their bonds. But the material surrounding MWC 480 is awash in the building blocks of life.
Öberg and her team found cyanides throughout the disk, in locations ranging from 30 to 100 times the distance of Earth from the sun. Scaling the massive system down, the region is comparable to the solar system's Kuiper Belt, the region beyond Pluto where cold planetesimals and icy comets reside.
By studying asteroids and comets, Öberg and her team determined that the disk surrounding MWC 480 contains more organic cyanides than currently observed in the comets of Earth's solar system. The presence of these complex organics suggests that the building blocks for life may exist in planetary systems throughout the universe.
"What I find most exciting here is the general context in which this places the assembly of planetary systems," Geoffrey Blake, of the California Institute of Technology, told Space.com by email. Blake, who was not involved in the research, authored a News & Views article that appeared alongside the research.
"We know from the Kepler mission and other searches that planets are incredibly common," he said. "From studies such as this, we are learning that the pivotal chemical compounds needed to seed early worlds with the volatiles required for life are universal."
The research, along with Blake's article, appears online in the journal Nature.
An image of the sky surrounding the young star MWC 480, which lies in the constellation of Taurus. (Image: © ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2)
Delivery: Earth
After planets in the early solar system evolved, they suffered constant bombardment from icy comets. These comets, leftovers from the birth of the solar system, are thought to have seeded Earth with water and other elements necessary for life to evolve. By studying the compositionof comets today, scientists can determine how plentiful complex organic molecules, such as methyl cyanide, were in the early solar system.
Because the cyanides around MWC 480 are located in a region analogous to the Kepler Belt, the same bombardmentmay occur for the planets that form around that star, or any other that hosts a similar disk. Since the early Earth contained far less carbon and nitrogenthan the planet does today, the process was highly important.
"The delivery of volatiles that contain these elements, and water, to the surface of the Earth is critical to life as we know it," Blake wrote. "Once on the surface, cyanides are likely very important to the origin of life."
Öberg's team relied on the extreme sensitivity of ALMAto detect the cyanides in gas form. The telescope is in fact an array of several individual 7- and 12-meter (23 to 39 inches) instruments whose positions can be shifted as needed.
"This huge improvement in sensitivity and imaging resolution is opening up entirely new frontiers in astronomy and exoplanetary science," Blake said. "We literally can image, with ALMA, the molecular gas in zones around young stars in which planetesimal formation is underway, in molecules we could never detect before."
ALMA, along with other imaging instruments, can be put to use searching for the elusive cyanides around other young stars, as well as the movement of ices, organics and rocks.
"We are exploring entirely new territory here," Blake said. "Until now, we had but one example to study the organic chemistry associated with the birth of planetary systems — our own solar system. Now, we will be able to examine protoplanetary disks around low-mass stars, high-mass stars, stars in clusters, stars by themselves, etc. Some chemical models have been run, but there is no substitute for measurements!"
Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.Image copyright AP
On 5 July, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, known by his supporters as Caliph Ibrahim, left the shadows and showed his face for the first time, in a Friday sermon in Mosul, Iraq.
While previous pictures of him had been leaked, Baghdadi had not shown himself in the four years since he became leader of what was then the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq (forerunner of Isis, then the Islamic State group).
Before April 2013, Baghdadi also did not release many audio messages.
His first written statement was a eulogy to Osama Bin Laden in May 2011.
His first audio message was released in July 2012 and predicted future victories for the Islamic State.
Since the group's resurgence, which began 15 months ago, Baghdadi's media output has risen. The amount of specific information about his background has also increased.
'Descendant of the Prophet'
In July 2013, a Bahraini ideologue Turki al-Binali, writing under the pen name Abu Humam Bakr bin Abd al-Aziz al-Athari, wrote a biography of Baghdadi.
Image copyright AFP Image caption Prior to his appearance in Mosul, there were only two known photographs of Baghdadi
It highlighted Baghdadi's family history which claims that Baghdadi was indeed a descendant of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad's Quraysh tribe - one of the key qualifications in Islamic history for becoming the caliph (historically, leader of all Muslims).
It said that Baghdadi came from the al-Bu Badri tribe, which is primarily based in Samarra and Diyala, north and east of Baghdad respectively, and known historically for being descendants of Muhammad.
Turki al-Binali's tract continued by highlighting that prior to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, Baghdadi received his PhD from the Islamic University of Baghdad, with a focus on Islamic culture, history, sharia, and jurisprudence.
Baghdadi preached at the Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal Mosque in Samarra.
Baghdadi does not have credentials from esteemed Sunni religious establishments such as al-Azhar University in Cairo or the Islamic University of Medina in Saudi Arabia.
Nonetheless, he is more steeped in traditional Islamic education than either al-Qaeda's past and current leaders, Osama Bin Laden and Aymen al-Zawahiri, both laymen and an engineer and doctor respectively.
This has conferred on Baghdadi a higher level of praise, worthiness, and legitimacy among his supporters.
Rise to top
Following the US invasion of Iraq, Baghdadi, along with some associates, created Jamaat Jaysh Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamaah (JJASJ) - the Army of the Sunni People Group - which operated in Samarra, Diyala, and Baghdad.
Within the group, Baghdadi was the head of the sharia committee. US-led coalition forces detained him from February to December 2004, but released him since he was not viewed as a high-level threat.
After al-Qaeda in the Land of Two Rivers (al-Qaeda in Iraq) changed its name to Majlis Shura al-Mujahidin (Mujahideen Shura Council) in early 2006, JJASJ's leadership pledged baya (oath of allegiance) to it and joined the umbrella organisation.
Within the new structure, Baghdadi joined the sharia committees. But soon after the organisation announced another change to its name in late 2006 to the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), Baghdadi became the general supervisor of the sharia committees for the wilayats (provinces) within the new "state" as well as a member of ISI's senior consultative council.
When ISI's leader Abu Umar al-Baghdadi died in April 2010, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi succeeded him.
Place in history?
Since taking over the leadership of the Islamic State, Baghdadi has rebuilt and reinvigorated a battered organisation after the Sunni tribal sahwa (awakening) against it, which was then consolidated by the US military surge.
Compared with the Islamic State's first attempt at governance last decade, thus far, while still brutal, it is doing a better job, though questions still remain about its longer-term sustainability.
Image copyright Reuters Image caption Under Baghdadi, the Islamic State has become one of the most formidable jihadist groups in the world
Part of this is related to augmenting its cruel judicial punishments with a social service regime to create more soft power, but also to have a carrot to its stick.
Likewise, as a lesson from the tribal awakening, the Islamic State over the past couple of years has either assassinated key leaders within the sahwa movement or brokered "repentances" from those that would like to join the organisation.
This, in ways, has helped blunt more of the potential for a large-scale uprising similar to last decade, though there have been calls and rumours that some tribal elements that have not "repented" will take on the Islamic State.
Moreover, if one looks at the locations that the Islamic State has targeted to take over or currently controls, many are along both the Euphrates and Tigris rivers as well as areas that have oil in both Iraq and Syria.
Baghdadi and the rest of the Islamic State leadership realise that if one has a monopoly on the energy (whether for human consumption or electrically powered devices) along with its growing military might, it is a lot easier to consolidate its writ, even if parts of the population disagree with its ideological project.
While we may not know the future of the Islamic State, it is clear that Baghdadi has steered the organisation back to prominence. In many ways, he has eclipsed even the founder of the group Abu Musab al-Zarqawi last decade in prestige, resources, and potential for the future.
His true significance will likely come more to light following his death, since, as we have seen with al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri has had a difficult time replacing Bin Laden.
For now, the Islamic State's "Caliph" is the new star of the ascendant "Caliphate Project".
Aaron Y Zelin is the Richard Borow Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the Rena and Sami David Fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence. He is the founder of Jihadology.net. Follow him @azelinTommy La Stella has reported to the Chicago Cubs' Double-A affiliate in Tennessee, after he was first assigned to the minors July 29.
He's expected to play Wednesday, |
of what would become North America nearly ripped apart. If the U-shaped rip had gone to completion, the land between its arms — including at least half of what is now called the Midwest — would have pulled away from North America, leaving a great ocean behind.
Weisen Shen, a postdoctoral research associate with Wiens, will be presenting seismic images of the rift at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America (GSA) Sept. 25-28. The images were made by analyzing data from Earthscope, a National Science Foundation (NSF) program that deployed thousands of seismic instruments across America in the past 10 years.
What is that thing?
The Midcontinent Rift was discovered by geophysicists who noticed that gravity was stronger in some parts of the upper Midwest than in others. In the 1950s and 1960s, they mapped the gravity and magnetic anomalies with airborne sensors. Shen is contributing to a session at the GSA dedicated to Bill Heinze, a geophysicist who helped discover and map the Midcontinent Rift.
But understanding of the rift then stalled until 2003, when the NSF funded Earthscope, a program whose mission is to use North America as a natural laboratory to gain insight into how the Earth operates.
As part of Earthscope, the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS) installed a network of 400 seismometers, called the USArray, that rolled across the United States from west to east, gathering data at each location for two years before moving on. USArray was installed on the West Coast beginning in 2004, and had advanced to the Midwest by 2010.
Earthscope also made available a pool of seismometers, called the flexible array, for more focused field experiments. A consortium of universities, including Washington University in St. Louis, installed 83 of these stations along and across the rift in 2011, creating a dense array called SPREE.
A telescope looking down
Seismologists had never before been able to blanket the landscape with seismometers in this way, and so the USArray has stimulated many innovations in the manipulation of the seismic data to extract information about Earth’s crust and upper mantle.
Seismic interpretation is a thorny version of what is called an inverse problem. If the Earth’s interior were of uniform composition, seismic waves would travel in straight lines. But instead, underground structures or differences in temperature and density refract and reflect them. The problem is to figure out mathematically which obstructions could have produced the wave arrivals that the seismometers recorded.
It’s a bit like trying to figure out the shape of an island in a pond by throwing a pebble into the lake and recording the ripples arriving at the shore.
The data wizard on the Washington University team is Shen, who has devised new techniques for combining many types of seismological data to create sharper images of Earth’s interior.
The farmers in Minnesota have a point when they wonder what an “earthquake sensor” could detect in an area where there are no earthquakes. The answer is that the seismometers record distant earthquakes, such as those on the Pacific Ring of Fire on the opposite side of the planet, and ambient noise, caused by activity such as powerful storms slamming into the Jersey Shore.
Shen has seasoned the mix with several other measurements that can be extracted from the seismic record as well. By inverting all of these data functions simultaneously within a Bayesian statistical framework, he is able to obtain much clearer images of Earth’s interior than one type of data alone would produce, together with estimates of the probability that the images are correct.
Not just a scar, a keloid scar
What have the scientists learned about the rift?
“When you pull apart a continent, like a piece of taffy, it starts to stretch and to thin,” said Michael Wysession, professor of earth and planetary sciences and a member of the SPREE team. “And as it sags, the dip fills with low-density sediment.
“So if you go over a rift with a gravity sensor, you expect to find a negative gravity anomaly. Mass should be missing. But that’s not what happened with the Midcontinent Rift. Instead of being thinner than the surrounding crust, it is thicker.
“We know that lava comes out at rifts,” Wysession said. “The East African rift zone, for example, includes a number of active and dormant volcanoes, such as Mount Kilimanjaro. But the Midcontinent Rift was flooded with lava, and as it sank under the weight of the cooling basaltic rock, even more lava flowed into the depression.
“A huge volume of lava erupted here,” Wysession said. “It was perhaps the largest outflowing of lava in our planet’s history. And then, after the eruptions ended, the area was compressed by mountain building event to its east, thickening the scar by squeezing it horizontally.
Shen published images of the rift made with USArray data in the Journal of Geophysical Research 2013. But at that time, he had only sparse coverage in the rift’s vicinity. At the 2016 GSA meeting he will present images made with both USArray and SPREE data (especially many more “receiver functions,” a type of seismic data that is particularly sensitive to seismic boundaries) that show what lies beneath the rift more clearly.
Miles beneath the Earth’s surface, there is a seismic boundary called the Mohorovičić discontinuity, or Moho. At the Moho, seismic waves hit higher density material and suddenly accelerate. But beneath the rift, Shen said, the Moho is blurred rather than sharp. “Its structure has been destroyed,” he said.
He also sees evidence of something called magmatic underplating. “We think magma might have trapped, or stalled out, at the Moho or within the crust during its rise to the surface,” he said. This might explain why the Moho is so disrupted, although Shen can think of alternative explanations and expects there to be lively discussions at the GSA.
He compares images of the Midcontinent Rift made with the SPREE array to images of the Rio Grande rift made with a similar seismic array called La Ristra. The La Ristra images show that the Rio Grande rift is thinner than the surrounding crust, not thicker. The Moho is clear and rises rather than sinks under the rift.
“I think we’re looking at different stages of rifting,” Shen said. The Rio Grande Rift is still active, still opening, but the Midcontinent Rift is already dead and has been squeezed shut.
Wiens commented that the tremendous outpouring of magma at the Midcontinent Rift might also have disrupted its structure, making it look different from other rifts.
“My goal,” Shen said, “is to provide basic seismic models of interesting tectonic regions like this one for geologists, geochemists and scientists from other disciplines to use — to help them interpret their results and also help the public to better understand the story of the land they live on.”
Rural Minnesota is already onboard. “Some landowners were quite interested in what we were doing,” Wiens said. “We got into one or two small town newspapers. ‘So-and-so now has a seismometer on his farm,’ the headline would read.”Jon "Sensible Software" Hare told me an hour ago that "the PC hasn't had a decent version of Speedball maybe ever - certainly for a long time". That's why he's masterminded a new version called Speedball 2 HD, which is coincidentally "the best version of Speedball that's ever been available on the PC".
It's coming out on 5th December on Steam priced $9.99/£6.99/€7.99.
What's so good about it? Speedball 2 HD has the fast, tight gameplay of the original with some new features and tarted up graphics.
It's the product of about a year's work by little Polish team Vivid Games, working under Hare's watchful eye. And Speedball 2 HD builds on lots of very good work done on recent mobile conversions of the game.
The guts of the original Amiga game were taken out and the graphics treated a couple of times to get them into HD. But the 2D look remains.
"The 3D version last time kind of proved it didn't work," Hare said, referencing the 2007 Speedball 2 Tournament, which "oh my god yes", Speedball 2 HD will be better than.
"Some games don't convert to 3D very well and Speedball is one of them."
The original graphics are enhanced and special effects - "sparkles and s*** like that" - added for power-ups.
The new bits include formations - attacking, defensive and very defensive - that you can swap on the fly, and that the AI will use as well. There's also a new competition structure - a kind of Champion's League that features elite teams from different planets. You'll fly off to meet them on their home planets of ice, fire and "cyber", and they'll look very different indeed (although they'll play the same).
There's a Europa League-style tournament that will give you a taste of the aliens as well. Tournaments, teams and stadiums will be unlocked along the way. You can also customise your own leagues and tournaments and stuff in up to eight human-controlled teams.
There's same-machine one-on-one multiplayer - using keyboard or "joypad", as Jon Hare calls them - but there's no online multiplayer.
"We've tried it before with Sensible Soccer (Xbox Live) and there are problems with very fast games with lag," he explained. "It's something which we would consider doing in an update but it's not done in this version."
The team has doubled-down on controls and "there's little bits of Sensible Soccer in there", in terms of player selection and throwing and things.
Speedball 2 HD being on PC and playable on plugged in controllers (or "joypads" or "joysticks" if you're Jon Hare) also makes it "better than any touch-screen version can be". "The game was designed for joysticks; it's the way the game was meant to be."
Jon Hare is also hopeful that an older Steam crowd will remember Speedball 2 as fondly as he does.
"It's my favourite Bitmap Brothers game," he said. "It was one of my favourite games of all time on the Amiga, which is the main reason I wanted to do it! And the thing is, underlyingly, no matter what we do with this Steam version: it's a great game.
"All we've tried to do with this version is bring that great game forward on a new platform - you don't need to much with a great game, just not f*** it up."Lorning Profile Blog Joined April 2011 Belgica 34096 Posts Last Edited: 2014-04-13 00:10:10 #2 Poll: Head?
Jin Air Green Wings (15)
56%
KT Rolster (12)
44%
27 total votes (15)56%(12)44%27 total votes Your vote: Head? (Vote): KT Rolster
(Vote): Jin Air Green Wings
Poll: Heart?
KT Rolster (16)
57%
Jin Air Green Wings (12)
43%
28 total votes (16)57%(12)43%28 total votes Your vote: Heart? (Vote): KT Rolster
(Vote): Jin Air Green Wings
Poll: Most Valuable Player for KT?
Zest (15)
48%
Flash (13)
42%
Other (1)
3%
Stats (1)
3%
Action (1)
3%
31 total votes (15)48%(13)42%(1)3%(1)3%(1)3%31 total votes Your vote: Most Valuable Player for KT? (Vote): Action
(Vote): Zest
(Vote): Stats
(Vote): Flash
(Vote): Other
Poll: Most Valuable Player for Jin Air?
Maru (15)
47%
sOs (13)
41%
Rogue (3)
9%
Other (1)
3%
Terminator (0)
0%
32 total votes (15)47%(13)41%(3)9%(1)3%(0)0%32 total votes Your vote: Most Valuable Player for Jin Air? (Vote): Rogue
(Vote): sOs
(Vote): Terminator
(Vote): Maru
(Vote): Other
Community News
Vesky Profile Joined January 2013 United States 856 Posts #4 Damn, all the games are sick. Especially looking forward to 3 and 4.
Can't wait.
Shellshock Profile Blog Joined March 2011 United States 94972 Posts #5 On April 13 2014 09:11 Lorning wrote:
Time to change my flair
+ Show Spoiler + Just for a day Time to change my flair
Lorning curse. now Jin Air will play like an 8th place team.
KT 3-0 for sure Lorning curse. now Jin Air will play like an 8th place team.KT 3-0 for sure Moderator http://i.imgur.com/U4xwqmD.png
chairmobile Profile Joined July 2013 United States 111 Posts #6 Really hoping for Flash > Maru, he needs a win like that to establish his confidence again. The game is balanced. We just suck.
Lorning Profile Blog Joined April 2011 Belgica 34096 Posts #7 On April 13 2014 09:16 Shellshock wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 13 2014 09:11 Lorning wrote:
Time to change my flair
+ Show Spoiler + Just for a day Time to change my flair
Lorning curse. now Jin Air will play like an 8th place team.
KT 3-0 for sure Lorning curse. now Jin Air will play like an 8th place team.KT 3-0 for sure
I only give blessings. Look at Prime. I only give blessings. Look at Prime. Community News
Yorkie Profile Blog Joined December 2012 United States 12126 Posts #8 Hypeuuuuu Proleague threads are up. Time for no sleep! Hwang Kang Hooooooooooo. Follow mah boy Shellshock @Shellshock1122
Caihead Profile Blog Joined July 2011 Canada 8514 Posts #9 gogo action "If you're not living in the US or are a US Citizen, please do not tell us how to vote or how you want our country to be governed." - Serpest, American Hero
Undead1993 Profile Joined January 2012 Germany 16256 Posts #10 how big is the chance for both teams to put their players in the same order so we get only mirrors?
sc2 is so jinxed SEKO SEKO SEKO SEKO SEKO
Xinzoe Profile Joined January 2014 Korea (South) 2359 Posts #11 maze new map? wtf
Shellshock Profile Blog Joined March 2011 United States 94972 Posts #12 On April 13 2014 09:45 Xinzoe wrote:
maze new map? wtf
It's the second coming of Arkanoid It's the second coming of Arkanoid Moderator http://i.imgur.com/U4xwqmD.png
Undead1993 Profile Joined January 2012 Germany 16256 Posts #13 On April 13 2014 09:46 Shellshock wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 13 2014 09:45 Xinzoe wrote:
maze new map? wtf
It's the second coming of Arkanoid It's the second coming of Arkanoid
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/448078-proleague-round-3-map-changes SEKO SEKO SEKO SEKO SEKO
marcesr Profile Joined June 2008 Germany 1369 Posts #14 Great OP as always!
Lee Young Ho fighting!
Talionis Profile Joined November 2010 Scotland 4000 Posts Last Edited: 2014-04-13 01:01:30 #15
http://pgr21.com/pb/pb.php?id=free2&no=53916
Is it just about what happens when shit is under the rocks when it collapses? I thought it was some next level rock mechanics. Anyone know what this flow chart is all about?Is it just about what happens when shit is under the rocks when it collapses? I thought it was some next level rock mechanics.
FrostedMiniWheats Profile Joined August 2010 United States 30313 Posts Last Edited: 2014-04-13 01:05:30 #16 I think this is going to ace or it'll be a 3-1 for Jin Air.
Jin Air probably wins the ace as well with Maru.
Kinda disappointed PvP is our introduction to Maze. Protoss strikes me as the race most likely to circumvent the defining feature of the map what with having the best scouting, blink, and warp-in. Oh well, might still be a cool game who knows.
Just from the image Bio vs mech tvt looks like a dream come true on Maze. Hopefully we get one of those somewhere down the road this round. NesTea | Mvp | MC | Leenock | Losira | Gumiho | DRG | Taeja | Jinro | Stephano | Thorzain | Sen | Idra |Polt | Bomber | Symbol | Squirtle | Fantasy | Jaedong | Maru | sOs | Seed | ByuN | ByuL | Neeb| Scarlett | Rogue | IM forever
Musicus Profile Joined August 2011 Germany 22502 Posts #17 Yay new maps. Baguette lover | I recognize the might and wisdom of my Otherworldly overlord | Serral is overrated, NaNiwa would beat him | Lilbowjwa > Maru | Make SC2 great again, bring back the old Swarm Hosts | ROACH ROACH ROACH
Shellshock Profile Blog Joined March 2011 United States 94972 Posts Last Edited: 2014-04-13 01:55:14 #18 op has wrong starting time. this is the second match so it starts at 11:30 GMT (+00:00) instead of instead of 09:30 GMT (+00:00) Moderator http://i.imgur.com/U4xwqmD.png
opterown Profile Blog Joined August 2011 Australia 42225 Posts Last Edited: 2014-04-13 03:19:54 #19
go maru! On April 13 2014 10:54 Shellshock wrote:
op has wrong starting time. this is the second match so it starts at 11:30 GMT (+00:00) instead of 09:30 GMT (+00:00)
lichter plz lichter plz Moderator Retired LR Bonjwa
theBALLS Profile Blog Joined July 2011 Singapore 2924 Posts #20 Zest vs sOs. PvPs usually stink for me, but this should be a treat If you lose the stick, you'll always have theBALLS.
1 2 3 4 5 22 23 24 Next AllDive Brief:
Amazon Prime members convert 74% of the time on Amazon.com, says a new study from Millward Brown Digital, compared to 13% for non-prime members.
Prime members also showed a preference for Amazon, converting 6% of the time at other warehouse retailers’ e-commerce sites.
If membership growth for Amazon Prime continues at its current pace, half of all U.S. households could be Amazon Prime members by 2020.
Dive Insight:
Amazon Prime members not only convert more often, according to a new survey from Millward Brown Digital, they are loyal to Amazon, too. Members of the subscription loyalty program convert a whopping 74% of the time, or some 22 times more often than the average 3.32% for the nation’s top online retailers.
Non-members also convert at a greater rate when shopping Amazon, with 13% of visits leading to a sale. Prime has proven extremely effective at making Amazon shoppers’ go-to site, Millward Brown says, making the likelihood that a shopper will look for items at another general-merchandise site such as Wal-Mart or Target drop to less than 1%.
With these numbers, rival retailers will have to rethink their own loyalty programs or try to entice customers away from Amazon with other deals. One possible solution might be found in the new marketplace retailer Jet.com, which lets customers lower their shopping cart by adjusting different variables like basket size and shipping.
Investment firm Macquarie estimates that 40 million U.S. households are Prime members, and current growth rates could bring Prime to half of all households by 2020.Baselworld is an incredibly busy time for anyone in the watch industry, and this is especially the case for the CEOs who are here to meet customers, talk with the media and generally promote their brand at a time when everyone is completing for attention and space.
When I met with Jean-Christophe Babin he was nine hours into a day that was back-to-back with meetings- yet he still looked and sounded as fresh as he would have at 9am.
The impact that Jean-Christophe Babin has had at TAG Heuer is hard to over-state. At his speech to launch the Pendulum movement, Jack Heuer said he considered Jean-Christophe to be the “fifth generation” of his family to run the company- it’s hard to get a more meaningful seal of approval than this.
I had 30 minutes with Jean-Christophe and was keen to get his perspective on his time at TAG Heuer and what he wanted to achieve in the future. The resulting interview was illuminating and frank- I hope you enjoy it.
Calibre 11: It’s been 10 years since you joined TAG Heuer- what were your first impressions when you arrived?
Jean-Christophe Babin: A very dynamic, energetic company, especially in the field of design and advertising, which really attracted me to the company. I didn’t know too much about the real history, which I discovered later and was even more amazed.
But an observation from looking at the windows in the stores was there were apparently several different series, but they were all looking very much alike.
Therefore one of my first questions to the team when I joined was if we have many series, what exactly is the role? They said, “it’s price because we have the 1000, 1500, 2000, 4000 and 6000 and each is more expensive than the previous one”, and you say OK, but as a consumer what is the difference, because they have all the “six features”, they said “ah, but the quality is a bit better” [as you move up from a 1000 to a 1500 and so on].
The second thing that surprised me was that they were also quartz- all of them, except the re-editions like the first Carrera and Monaco, but these were very marginal at the time. And I felt that at around USD2000 having quartz-only could maybe be a handicap.
So I asked “what about the engines?” [the movements] to discover that everything was bought from ETA- quartz and mechanical. We had a glorious history of movements at the beginning of Heuer, in the 1940s and even more impressive in the 70s…and then….nothing.
So very rapidly I came to the conclusion that we had to come back with our movements, but at the same time to capitalise on our design, but to try and diversify design, digging into our history to find some shapes or styles that had a certain meaning a certain time ago and could probably be revived.
C11: My next question is about the movements- over the last 10 years you’ve focused a lot of movements- V4, Calibre 360, Calibre S and now Calibre 1887- what’s driven that? Consumer demand for in-house movements, or a desire for greater Independence
JCB: When I first arrived at the company I spent a lot of time taking to former CEOs to discover that the quest for precision had been a company obsession- at least until the 80s- and this was very important because there are hundreds of watch brands and they all have to express something in 40mm- a differentiation consistent with their heritage and also delivering ideally a vision.
I was a bit shocked that having pursued precision for 140 years, we had nothing in 2000 that was connecting with precision, and we decided that we should go back to what makes us different as a brand, which is the most precise brand on the market, the “king of chronographs”.
Therefore in 2001, six months after I joined, we decided to launch an all-out programme, and when I say all-out, I mean without any sacred cows from quartz to digital to mechanical, whatever it would be, to bring TAG Heuer back into movements, but especially movements which would get the company back to its roots, which is mastering the tiniest fractions of time.
The first move was the Calibre 36 which we borrowed from Zenith, because beating at 36,000 it was the first quick and easy step to that strategy because the development required to adapt the el Primero to our needs was pretty simple and this came already in 2002 with the Link and the Monza- we had a vintage one and we had a more contemporary one.
And at the same time, in 1916 Charles Heuer had come with 1/100 of a second mechanical. It was close to one century ago that we mastered that- OK, it’s not a watch, it was a stopwatch but how can it be that we can not have a wrist watch that measures 1/100 of a second? Man walked on the moon 30 years ago, so don’t tell me that it’s impossible- and they told me “no, it’s impossible” and I said “no, I can not accept that. It must be done and TAG Heuer must be the brand first with that”.
That’s when we started the [Calibre] 360 project which eventually saw the light in 2005 and was very impressive and at the same time we also started to challenge classical quartz chronograph to figure out how we could take them to 1/100th/ second from 1/10th/ second and now we could re-think them in a different way, because in the 1980s when they were born, they were a kind of architectural carbon copies of the mechanical- 3-6-9 [layout], or 2-6-10 to be more precise- but they were a carbon copy without any reason because with quartz you can do whatever you want.
So we launched the Calibre S project, which has those two objectives- to get to the 1/100th/ second which we believed was substantial and at the same time to have a very pure, minimalist look and we kept with that.
At the same time, with the world becoming more and more digital, so we launched the Microtimer project and the boundary that we fixed was a 1000th/ second.
And so to cut a long story short, we ended up by 2006 with 1/1000th/ second digital, 1/100th/ second quartz and mechanical with the S and the 360, 1/10th/ second with the Caliper- the Calibre 36 was beating at 36,000, but you wouldn’t read it and so with the calliper scale we were the first to be able to read 1/10/ second mechanical. Then this year, Zenith are presenting interesting news, which is without a calliper, with the central second hand, you can read 1/10th/ second as well, which is interesting, but TAG Heuer made it before they did with their movement!
And so, we achieved that first goal which was really regaining a unique edge in mastering the tiniest fractions of time and being the only company in the world with the 1/10th, the 1/100th and the 1/1000th in the catalogue and in time-keeping 1/10000th of a second, because in Indy 500 they ask you for 1/10000th of a second, unlike F1 which is 1/1000th second and all of this got the company back to its roots and provided the company with a very sharp, very clear, very straight-forward, very simple image profile.
Because if you master the tiniest fraction of time, in the human mind, you produce the most accurate brand, because if you can split time up into fractions of 1/1000th or 1/100th, if you put that together, probably your minute will be more accurate, which is the true essence of watch making: ultimate precision.
In parallel, we also started re-thinking watches, so instead of trying to go into the traditional watch complications, we decided to look at the chain, which is made of energy, transmission and regulation.
All of those concepts had been on the market for 3-4 centuries and never really changed. They were improved obviously, such as the tourbillion which corrects the impact of gravity on the hairspring, but eventually it’s still the same- so isn’t there another way? Not necessarily to replace, but to complement and to add to the glory of Swiss watch-making to re-think this chain.
Then we came up with the V4 idea which was addressing another way to do transmission and now it’s on the market and this year comes the Pendulum, which is probably the ultimate innovation. You know, it’s always arrogant to say that this is one of the “most important ever” or “greatest ever”, but the fact is that the hairspring and the escapement are considered to be the heart- the thing that makes anything alive or dead.
And so with the Pendulum, we’ve re-thought the heart of the mechanical movement substituting the traditional and proven successful hairspring with something totally different, but achieving the same goal with different advantages.
C11: I wanted to come back to the Calibre 360, because it’s an amazing movement, but you’ve only made about 1000 of those and we haven’t seen it again. Is it coming back?
JCB: We still produce it in small quantities, but we don’t try and push it too much. In parallel with producing the current one in small quantities, we’ll develop the 360 as an integrated chronograph combining two barrels and two assortments, but instead of having one on top of the other, to have them next to each-other….facing each-other so that from the back you can see the two beats- the 28,800 and the 360, which is magic because for the first time you will see two different beats, and taking advantage of the new integrated product to come up with a new re-setting system that eliminates the possibility that the hand doesn’t re-set perfectly.
C11: And this is a new in-house movement?
JCB: Entirely in-house, 100% TAG Heuer patents, which will come on the market probably Basel next year.
C11: One question that all collectors like to ask is about the re-editions. I guess there are two ways of thinking about re-editions: a modern interpretation of the vintage design themes or a faithful homage to the vintage model. How do you think about re-editions?
JCB: We do both. For example last year the 40th anniversary Monaco Calibre 11, which except for the materials, the sapphire crystal and the movement was 95% aesthetically speaking, a replica of the McQueen chronograph- it’s really a very faithful replica.
And we do the same this year for the 150 years with the Silverstone, which again has a different movement, but if you look at the new Silverstone compared to the historical one, OK its 1mm more diameter, but it’s a very close replica.
But we also do the first category which is elaborating re-editions – re-inventing them. So this year for instance one of our hero chronographs is the Carrera 1887 driven by the Calibre 1887, but at the same time we do a vintage Heuer version [The Heuer 300 SLR, which Jean-Christophe slides across the table].
C11: I wanted to ask you about this one, because it’s the first watch in a long time with only Heuer, but it’s not a re-edition
JCB: Yes, but it captures the spirit of the 1970s, so its more a Heuer than a TAG Heuer to that extent, but you’re right- it’s unlike the Silverstone which is an exact replica. It’s a new creation, but it could have been a replica of a model of the 70s.
C11: This is my favourite of the watches you’ve shown this year
JCB: I’m not surprised!
C11: What interesting is that in 2003 the Autavia and Targa Florio were branded TAG Heuer, but before LVMH took over the re-editions were branded Heuer- why the change?
JCB: In 2003 I decided that there was one brand only: TAG Heuer. Why? Because looking at what was then 140 years of history, 95% of the cumulative advertising had been done on the TAG Heuer name and only 5% on the Heuer name, so what was recognisable for most people was the TAG Heuer logo rather than the Heuer logo.
And so we turned the Monaco and the Carrera which were marginal replica’s into huge mainstream series and so this decision has been extremely successful, because it has positioned those time pieces not as niche replicas for collectors only, but as products that have a future, because if it was stamped TAG Heuer, it was a stamp for eternity and therefore they became mainstream.
And then for the very exceptional events like the 40 years of the Monaco, for the 150 years with the Silverstone we say that for “one-shot” products we could and we should use the Heuer [logo] but in a very different spirit than we did in ‘96 with the Carrera and ‘98 with the Monaco, because they were not “one shot”. From ‘96 to 2003 we had seven years of the Heuer Carrera [re-edition]. Here you have the Silverstone, its one shot only this year- 1860 in blue and 1860 in brown… and then it’s over.
This one [Heuer 300 SLR which Jean Christophe has managed to extract from my hands], it’s one shot and then it’s over. And the Monaco McQueen last year: one shot and then its over.
So, one brand only: TAG Heuer for everything, and so all Carrera’s are TAG Heuer, but there is one [The 300 SLR] because of the 150th which is Heuer because it has the spirit of the brand when it was the Heuer brand.
C11: And so how many of these [300 SLR] are being made?
JCB: Well, initially we had started with 1860, but I’m afraid that we’re going to make more. We have it for 3 days here at Basel and already it’s oversold, so we’ll push to another number.
I agree it’s amazing- and I love the contrast between the brown and the orange- it’s subtle.
C11: How do you think about growing the brand further- OK, there’s growing geographies, but do you think about extending the range into higher/ lower price points, do you think about new series?
JCB: No, I think we already have several series and they do exactly the job we ask them to do. What they have in common is the sports inspiration because they were all born initially as sports watches.
The Monaco was a chronograph for sports, the Carrera was in the same spirit, so they are consistent from the F1 to the Monaco with the sports inspiration, but their styles are complementary from very sporty (the Formula 1- very powerful and strong), to a bit less sporty( The Aquaracer, at least the normal Aquaracer- the 500m is more muscle), to sports and elegance (The Link), to more classical, (the Carrera) and to classical contemporary (the Grand Carrera and the Monaco). So style-wise we go from “sporty” sport to “classical” sport via “elegant” sport and “daring” sport like the Monaco, so the sportiness is the essence.
Accompanying the complementary style and inspiration, we also offer a very interesting scale in terms of pricing to dominate the world market anywhere from USD900 to USD7000. Formula 1 starts at USD800 and ends up at USD2500, Aquaracer starts at USD1000 and goes up to USD3500-4000, Link starts at USD1500 and goes up to USD6000 and so on. So with those series we also cover every hundred dollars between USD900 and USD7000- both overall and within each series.
And last but not least, in terms of “engines”, Formula 1 is quartz-only, Aquaracer and Link are quartz and automatic- you have the choice- and Carerra is automatic only, like Monaco is automatic only and Grand Carrera automatic is only. And they all come in Ladies.
So, it’s a very strong category management solution for any retailer between USD900-USD7000. If you start a new store from scratch and you want the highest traffic in that price range, you just put TAG Heuer in and you get 40% of the category traffic because of that variety of styles, of engines, of prices- but with the consistency of a brand that allow you to be very sporty to classical but without losing the soul of the brand which is sportiness.
C11: It’s been 10 years- so what are you going to do at TAG for the next 10 years?
JCB: Well, firstly I hope that the shareholders will trust me for another 10 years because I have a passion for the brand and it’s really in my blood. So when you have the chance- the privilege, the honour- to be the CEO of TAG Heuer and when you have the trust of a shareholder leaving you so much freedom in developing the brand with your own vision, and when I say with my own vision I mean with my colleagues of course, obviously it’s not a one-man show.
With a shareholder leaving you so much freedom to achieve the vision and when the potential to further grow the brand is so huge…geographies on the one hand there are some countries where there is a lot of upside, in movements- in mechanical we can grow much further where there are brands that are already 100% mechanical- we have a lot of |
is my guard passing – Rico teaches a very different approach to passing than I am used to, so it’s taking a lot of time and effort to try and make such huge changes to my game. It feels very unnatural to me at the moment but I just need to spend more time on it and I’m sure it will start to click. Other than that I am always working on my guard – much to the annoyance of my training partners I’ve started trying to use various forms of lapel guard and incorporate them into my open guard game!
What kind of fighter are you?
I am definitely more of an open guard player – I like all the open guards, but most of all De la Riva and spider guard variations. Usually I like to try and get the submission or take the back from the guard, but now I am focusing more on sweeping and working from the top. I am also trying to fight much more aggressively, as I know it is a weakness of mine to be too relaxed, which is not good for competition. I’m trying to push the pace a lot more and become a more dominant fighter.
And finally, what piece of advice would you give an aspiring bjj fighter?
Train as much as you can. Eat healthy. Stay in shape. Divide your time equally between your top and bottom game. Compete as much as possible. Find areas of your game that you can work on when injured. Even if you are too messed up to roll you can always do something to improve your jiu-jitsu!
You can follow Sam in Brazil on his blog Collar and Sleeve.An investor who hosts the reality show “Shark Tank” said “it’s fantastic” that the world’s 85 richest people hold as much wealth as its 3.5 billion poorest people.
The international relief organization Oxfam issued a new report this week that found the richest 1 percent in the world controlled about $110 trillion in wealth, or 65 times more than the world’s poorest half.
Venture capitalist and television personality Kevin O’Leary said Monday during an episode of the Canadian Broadcast Company’s “The Land and O’Leary Exchange” that this disparity didn’t bother him at all.
“It’s fantastic, and this is a great thing because it inspires everybody, gets them motivation to look up to the 1 percent and say, ‘I want to become one of those people, I’m going to fight hard to get up to the top,’” O’Leary said.
“This is fantastic news, and of course I’m going to applaud it,” O’Leary said. “What can be wrong with this?”
His co-host, Amanda Lang, seemed astonished. “Really?” she asked.
“Yes, really,” O’Leary said. “I celebrate capitalism.”
Lang asked if he honestly believed that someone living in Africa and making about $1 a day could realistically aspire to one day be as wealthy as Bill Gates.
“That’s the motivation everybody needs,” O’Leary said.
Lang sarcastically suggested that the only thing that keeps that hypothetical African from becoming one of the world’s richest people was motivation.
“I just need to pull up my socks,” she said, speaking as that hypothetical impoverished person. “Oh, wait, I don’t have socks!”
O’Leary responded by saying he was “not against charity.”
While Oxfam’s report conceded that some wealth inequality could serve as a motivator, the organization warned that extreme levels of wealth concentration threatens to shut out hundreds of millions of people from the global economy.
O’Leary, a Canadian businessman, also hosts CBC’s “Dragons’ Den,” in addition to his work for the ABC reality show that matches up entrepreneurs with potential investors.
He likes to say that his primary interest in life is making money and that he’d fire his own mother to keep his cash flow positive.
“I’m hard-core right wing, slightly right of Attila the Hun, and I believe that money solves a lot of problems in life,” O’Leary said.
Watch this video of the exchange posted online by Matt Hudson:
[Image via Wikipedia Commons]CBS.com Jessie Godderz first made a name for himself as being one of the most memorable contestants to ever appear on Big Brother. These days, he is known as Mr. PEC-Tacular to millions of wrestling fans across the world for Pop TV’s Impact Wrestling.
What can’t Jessie Godderz accomplish? Mr. PEC-Tacular turned out to be one of Impact Wrestling’s most promising stars on the rise. Not only is Godderz a certified wrestling superstar, he is also delighting fans on the internet in Amazon’s Tainted Dreams. It shouldn’t be surprising to people who know Godderz personally. His friends and family always knew he had that extra something that would help propel him to greatness.
“I just reconnected with a friend that I knew from middle school. We went to church camp. She actually just sent me an old picture of us together. I was always the runt of the group. What’s funny is that my dad even said that on national television when I was on Big Brother,” Godderz recalled with a big laugh. Growing up, Godderz quickly learned that he would have to man up and adapt to his surroundings. He told me, “I remember when we first moved from the city to the country. That winter I had to clean up the barn. As soon as we got on the farm, my dad and I were already doing chores. I was a little kid who was picking up sticks and rocks. Doing yard work and the most monotonous, meticulous kind of chores. The daily grind helped make me who I am.” Godderz remembered, “One time, I had to pick up a wheelbarrow and carry it across the other end of the barn. Keep in mind, we were on acres of land.”
The man known as Mr. PEC-Tacular insisted that the work he put in during his younger years gave him a distinct edge over the competition. “The work ethic was instilled in me at a young age. It gave me a discipline that I’ve always been able to fall back on to this very day. Whether it’s my diet, staying in shape all year round for TV tapings or whatever role I might jump into at any given time,” Godderz said. He explained, “A lot of other bodybuilders would gain 40 pounds just to lose 35 pounds. That was never my intention just because I’ve been natural my entire life. I could never fluctuate that much weight so I would just work as hard as I could consistently. My goal is to be in shape all year round as supposed to looking good for just one week.” Godderz gave credit to his father and his admirers for keeping him focused. “I owe it to the work ethic that my dad gave me at a young age. I took up weights after and I applied myself to something that was attractive to the girls,” Godderz laughed.
Godderz would soon catch his big break by appearing on the insanely popular CBS reality show, Big Brother. Godderz explained that he has maintained a special relationship with the producers of the show that continues to this day. “Chris Roach has become a really good friend of mine. The entire team really. Rich Meehan. Allison Grodner. A special thanks, wholeheartedly, goes to Robyn Kass and Christopher Roach. Not to discredit anybody else because everyone is equally important, but those two helped me out big time. Robyn was the casting director that actually got me on the show.” When asked about the auditioning process, Godderz dished on his strategy to get on the show. “I tried to separate myself by telling her something about me. There’s a lot of good looking people out there. There’s a lot of people who are even in better shape than you are but it’s your personality that is going to separate yourself. I am from Iowa so I have values, morals and standards. That’s what they were trying to cast for. The Midwest, boy next door kind of guy,” he grinned.
CBS.com Jessie Godderz is a man of many different hats. Here he is as Kris Kringle himself delivering bags of joy to the Big Brother house.
“When Robyn got me in the door, that’s what she thought she had. She told me to speak from my heart. I went through the casting process and when I got on Big Brother, I showed my enthusiasm for using my physique that I acquired throughout life. I also showcased the success I used from bodybuilding to harness it and parlay that fame and notoriety into an actual career which is professional wrestling. It has obviously been a dream come true,” Godderz nodded. He continued, “Everybody—when they are kids, look up to these wrestlers. I’m still a realist. I’m not the tallest guy in the world, but when you get me in a pair of trunks, it looks like if I threw a punch—it would really hurt somebody.” Godderz took a quick pause. “You know what I’m saying? I look the role. That was what I was going for. That’s all I could do. Nobody has ever worked a day in their life to get taller. There is no machine inside a gym that makes you get taller or I would be on that thing every day if there was,” he laughed.
Godderz said that the entire Big Brother team has been thrilled with his transition to the wrestling ring. He explained, “Everybody on CBS has been a huge supporter of mine. They are family. We are their kids. They want to see us all succeed like everybody else. They invest in us and they want to see us spread our wings to do bigger and better things. Because of the opportunities that they gave me, it definitely catapulted me into a totally different league.”
It wasn’t an easy path to success. Godderz had to prove himself every day to get a chance of a lifetime. Godderz recalled, “Going from reality TV as a reality TV star into the professional wrestling world—that was a whole different hurdle to try and clear in of itself. You don’t see a butcher going to a bank to try to become a banker.” He elaborated, “All the bankers would look at the banker and go, ‘What the hell are you doing here? Why do you think you are going to be able to take one of our jobs?’ It was the same exact thing when a reality TV star enters the wrestling world. The wrestlers think you are going to be here for a cup of coffee and that’s it.” Godderz nodded, “It took some time but it was something I was very passionate about. Just like anything else in my life, once I applied myself to it, perseverance is what made me get to that level. You have to try that one last time.”
Mr. PEC-Tacular revealed how he first got noticed on the wrestling circuit. “It was a collaboration with Chris Roach, who reached out to Dixie Carter and some friends over at TMZ. The TMZ guys ran a story about me and my interest in wrestling. That was in 2008, during my run on Big Brother 10. After that, in February of 2009, I moved to Florida and went through training in FCW,” Godderz said. He continued, “They were able to further me down the road. People already saw that I was taking it seriously and picking up all the techniques. Nothing has ever been given to me.” He then stated, “Between TMZ running the article on me and Chris Roach reaching out to Dixie, those two were huge supporters of me and got the right eyes on me so people knew what I was doing and actually taking it seriously. It made me take the right course of action to try to become a wrestler for whichever company.”
Dixie Carter decided to roll the dice on Godderz. Being the owner of Impact Wrestling, she was looking for a guy who could give her wrestling organization a boost in star power. Godderz said, “Dixie gave me a few dark matches and Terry Taylor was over there at the time and the rest was history. I’ve been happy ever since. They gave me a chance. That’s all you can ask for at the end of the day. To get a foot in the door and get a chance, or get that meeting or be in front of the right eyes to tell your story.”
Lee South Godderz isn’t one to shy away from flexing off his muscles.
After receiving his contract for Impact Wrestling, Godderz found himself in many interesting situations in front of the cameras. He said, “Initially, I started out a manager for Tara and I slowly got introduced to different situations like tag team matches to get the feel for pacing myself in the ring. I’ve consistently stayed on television since 2012.” Proud of his accomplishments in such a short amount of time, Godderz continued, “Going from a Hollywood boyfriend with Tara to the BroMans with Robbie E. Then DJ Z came in being the DJ. Keep in mind, we won two tag team titles as BroMans and then I had that stint as the modern day Adonis. I continued to stay as a heel and we had that long stretch with our tag team imploding for a while.” Godderz then said something unexpected happened along the way. He became a good guy. “I went back to being in a tag team but after that, I became a singles wrestler. In a move which nobody really saw coming—it was me turning babyface,” he glowed. Godderz continued, “It was a slow transition into it. Bubba Ray Dudley called it when I was training with him. He said, ‘You look like a heel because you are not relatable but by the way you walk, talk and act as a person you are more of a babyface.’ It was also the fire that I have in me and the passion that I show on my face that can bode well for a babyface.”
There seems to be no turning back for Godderz. He said that he enjoys making his fans smile. “I like being a good guy. I love being able to go out there and hear the cheers. Some of my fondest memories include me being a heel for five years. So now I’m waiting for that coin to flip over,” he said. Godderz continued, “I know what I need to do as a new character of being a good guy but I think I’m a good guy at heart. I love the fans. I love the kids. That’s who I am. I hope that’s what comes across. When you are out there, having fun and being able to showcase your abilities and perform in front of a live crowd is completely different.” To Godderz, there is no greater feeling in the world. “It is one of the most euphoric things. Words can’t describe it. When you get that connection with the fans, there is nothing like it. It’s like a high. When you feel that and that rush sweeps over you, there is just nothing like it. I’m really looking forward to having a much longer ride as a face and I think that is what they want to keep me as. I love it,” he stated.
Godderz also loves being able to showcase his acting chops to a large audience. He is currently delighting fans with a standout role on the new soap opera, Tainted Dreams. Godderz revealed, “Tainted Dreams is a soap that is inside of a soap opera. It’s like an all-star cast with everybody from As The World Turns, Guiding Light, General Hospital and Days Of Our Lives. It is a collaboration because they follow the director Sonia Blangiardo, who is a friend of mine. She actually was the director on CAWL To Arms for ESPN and I worked with her on that project. She was the one who brought me on to work on Tainted Dreams.” Godderz then explained what his role entails. “My name is Dylan Buckwald on the show. I’m the hunky handyman. I’m brought in to interact with all of the other cast members. They all took a keen liking to me. It has been amazing. It is one of my proudest achievements. It’s on Amazon TV which is now broadcast in over 200 countries. Amazon TV is blowing up. Everything is online now,” he said.
Godderz approaches his role on Tainted Dreams with the same focus he gives to professional wrestling. He said, “I go in there and I make sure I know my lines and I feel them. All of the actors and actresses that I have worked with had nothing but praise for my performance. It’s awesome because you see how good they are and they take you to their level. When you are in a scene with somebody—they bring it to their level. They are never going to come down to yours.” Godderz pointed out it is not unlike what goes on inside of the squared circle. “It’s relateable to wrestling. If you wrestle Kurt Angle—he’s not going to wrestle like some green guy. He is going to take you and have you wrestle Kurt Angle to whatever capacity that you are able to do that. These actors and actresses are the same exact way,” Godderz said. He continued, “Sonia gave me incredible feedback. Keep in mind, she is an Emmy Award winning daytime director. She said, ‘Jessie, I had certain expectations from you and you blew them out of the water.’ Of course that is a very good feeling. Again, I was given an opportunity and they took a chance on me. I needed to knock it out of the park. All the feedback I have gotten has been positive.”
cbs.com Jessie Godderz is no stranger to the cameras. It is not uncommon to see him make a random appearance on one of your favorite television shows.
Godderz is thrilled with the progress he made as an actor. “You go to people that you appreciate. You have to really value their opinions. You take what they say and you make it your own. You try to sort it all out and address what you can. Unless they were blowing smoke up my tail, everybody was telling me I was doing a great job,” he told me. That doesn’t mean he plans on hanging up his Mr. PEC-Tacular wrestling trunks anytime soon. “Wrestling is my passion. This is what I want to do. This is why I train. This is why I work out. This is why I put my body through this. It’s a craft which not many people have. I love what I do. There’s nothing like it in this world. Once you do that, you can’t replace it with anything. All these other projects just happened to fall into place,” Godderz told me. He explained that he isn’t ruling out more roles in the future. “If the schedule is open, absolutely. You know? I’ve been on CBS and Big Brother nine different times. I’ve been with Impact Wrestling for five years and hopefully Tainted Dreams goes to season two. I’ve done other movies. I’ve done a handful of things for CBS, including The Talk. A handful of different magazines. Special appearances on The Price is Right,” he said.
The list continued for Godderz. “Even before all that, I was on MTV and The Soup. I think I was on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. They all kind of coexist and it all happens at the same time. It just takes a little bit of scheduling on my behalf. I would love to do acting on the side, long story short. Continue to do Tainted Dreams for more seasons as many years possible. I like to show myself in different lights. That’s the biggest thing,” Mr. PEC-Tacular said. When asked how other people can achieve their own dreams, Godderz shared his secret. “Don’t take no for an answer. Don’t quit because you are going to hear a lot of nos. If it is your passion, and you have that drive—you have to follow through. Or else you are always going to wonder, ‘What if?’ That’s the one thing I don’t ever want to ask. I’ve gone through 30 years in my life and haven’t regretted one thing.”
Before getting ready for his next big match, Godderz gave credit to all the people that helped get him to the top. “I owe a lot to my Big Brother family. CBS and Pop TV because they are the networks that are making it happen and the guys behind the scenes that were believing in me at the very beginning. I owe everything to them. I wouldn’t be here today without them. Talk about a Renaissance Man...I’m doing it all!”
When asked what the future holds for him, Godderz grinned, “2017 is going to be my best year yet. I hope to win my first singles title at Impact Wrestling and become the Impact World Heavyweight Champion. That would be a lifelong dream come true.” He followed up by stating, “With Anthem Sports & Entertainment at the helm, the future looks brighter than ever. I am honored and excited to be an integral part of the Anthem family and Impact roster, as well as an important part of the CBS Big Brother and Tainted Dreams families. I feel very blessed. Now THAT's PEC-Tacular!”Ben Badler of Baseball America is reporting that the Cincinnati Reds have a private workout scheduled with Cuban prospect Luis Robert next week. They aren’t the only team with a private workout scheduled with the player that has been referred to as the best or possibly second best international player not in Major League Baseball right now, players need the best workout to reach their goals and they look for the most recognized Dallas personal trainer to achieve them.
The other big news from within the article from Badler is that it appears that Luis Robert is going to become eligible to sign this period. That’s big news for the Reds, and for Luis Robert. The Reds won’t be able to sign a player of his caliber in the next signing period as they will be unable to spend the kind of money that would be necessary to bring him in. Until June 15th they can spend any amount of money that they would like to as long as they are willing to pay the 100% tax penalty on it to Major League Baseball.
For Luis Robert, the timing is also important. He can sign for whatever someone is willing to pay before June 15th. After that point, he will be subject to the new international signing rules, which would limit him to roughly $10.5M at the absolute most as a signing bonus, and to get that much a team would have to trade for slot money from other teams in order to spend that. So it would cost a team more than just money.
Notes from around the organization
Ben Badler is worth every penny that Baseball America pays him. On top of the Luis Robert news, he also wrote up the Top 20 Dominican Summer League prospects from the 2016 season. The list isn’t numbered, but just the Top 20 guys listed in alphabetical order. There’s only one Red on the list and it’s a guy that I saw out in Arizona and wrote up: Mariel Bautista.
Gavin LaValley hit his Florida State League best 4th home run last night. It was a blast according to the Daytona Tortugas, coming in at 422 feet to left field.
Meanwhile, Gavin LaValley hits his third home run of the homestand and 4th on the year. 422 ft to LF #AintNoLaValleyLowEnough — Daytona Tortugas (@daytonatortugas) April 19, 2017In 1977, Welsh F1 driver Tom Pryce died during a race in South Africa at just 27 years old. This programme looks back at his life through the people who knew and admired him.
40 years ago Welsh F1 driver Tom Pryce died during a race in South Africa. He was tipped to become a World Champion but was involved in a fatal accident when he was just 27 years old. We look back at his life through the people who knew and admired him. Former World Champion, Sir Jackie Stewart, legendary commentator, Murray Walker, GP F1 race winner, John Watson and fan, Manic Street Preacher drummer, Sean Moore, are just some of the contributors who all share their memories of the Tom Pryce, who was Wales' last F1 driver.Formula 1 is likely to have a new owner by Wednesday, if the deal for Liberty Media to take a minority stake as a prelude to a controlling stake and then partial flotation goes through.
The deal, which values F1 at $8bn, has been a long time in the making and Liberty has offered and been rejected before, as have other entities including Stephen Ross and the Qatari investment fund.
But this time, all the signs are that it will go through and the money is due to be transferred on Tuesday for a deal to be completed Wednesday.
Speaking to CVC's Donald Mackenzie (above left) in Monza, it is clear that they will halve their stake, relinquishing control of the F1 business, but remaining a minority shareholder. The cornerstone investors, like Waddell and Reed and BlackRock, who came in as a prelude to the aborted flotation in Singapore in 2012, have already had their initial investment back and more, but they will make their exit. There will be a partial flotation of the business.
Mackenzie is also keen for the teams to become shareholders in the F1 business, which will tie them into the business long term and give them a share of the upside and a motive to work for the mutual benefit of all to grow F1. All teams will be offered the chance to take a stake and even smaller teams like Sauber, now they are owned by Longbow Finance, might be able to avail themselves of the opportunity.
This site has long argued that the only way to have real stability in F1 is for the teams to have skin in the game as shareholders.
There are signs that the new management, under new chairman Chase Carey, currently exec vice-chairman of 20th Century Fox, will seek to reduce the burden to circuits of hosting fees by working with their local partners in each country F1 visits to promote the sport and connect with the fan base, then sharing in the upside when the ticket sales and gross revenues increase. Making the tickets more affordable should be a part of that strategy.
Carey will have two lieutenants reporting to him; one will be in charge of the commercial side of F1, the other will be responsible for the sporting side, relations with teams, FIA and circuits.
There was much discussion on Sunday of the future role of F1 chief executive Bernie Ecclestone, who also controls 14% of the F1 stock, 5% in his own right and 9% through his family trust Bambino.
The word was that he will stay on until the end of this year; however on race day Ecclestone's long time ally Eddie Jordan said on Channel 4 that the 85 year old would not even be at the next race. It is not clear why Jordan said this, other than it sowed some uncertainty into the situation.
It is hard to imagine Ecclestone going quietly into retirement as F1 has been his life for almost half a century and he enjoys everything revolving around him.
Why does Liberty Media want F1?
Liberty Media's interest in buying the sport is clear. Live sport is emerging as one of the real stars of the new media landscape. It pulls in huge global audiences and the content can be served up in a multitude of live and short take methods across multiple platforms but increasingly mobiles and Smart TVs.
Media companies like Amazon, Netflix, SKY, BT and even Google, Facebook and other players are realising the value of rich content to their growth strategy in multi-platform communications. F1 is a living circus, it has huge and valuable brands like Ferrari and Mercedes Benz as well as global sports stars like Lewis Hamilton. It has a large archive which can be monetised. It is an annual global series with frequent events and content creation opportunities, it has genuinely global reach and high potential on the monetization of the digital content side.
Simply as an asset in itself, in a media climate where Amazon, Netflix and the rest are becoming increasingly acquisitive, the value of F1 will rise. But it will rise more quickly if and when they get a comprehensive digital strategy in place and execute it.
For this reason the likes of Christian Horner and Toto Wolff said at the weekend that Liberty could be good for F1, while at the same time reserving some caution for the huge cultural change that will come from the sport no longer being run by Ecclestone. Neither of them is in line to take on a senior role in the new management team.
It is hard to imagine, given that he has run it since 1981 and shaped modern F1 as it is today. But F1 is a media business and he made it what it is by harnessing first mass market free to air TV in the Senna and Prost era and then found a way to gain revenues from new circuits, Pay TV and global partnership sponsors. It currently turns over around $1.6bn a year and the teams receive around $700m of that.
Part of the reason Mackenzie would not sell the business before and send Ecclestone into retirement was because he doubted whether any entity or group of individuals could run it as effectively and profitably as Ecclestone.
The media industry has been - and continues to be - well and truly disrupted by technology. F1 is seen to have stood still while the world moved on around it and hence this will be a pivotal moment if the sale goes through on Wednesday.
F1 is well set up to benefit from that, with class leading fibre connectivity from race venues, cutting edge broadcast technology and the ability to send more or less anything to anyone around the world and to have it bi-directional so fans can connect back with the circuit from wherever they are. Meanwhile the potential to greatly enhance the customer experience on event is there to be exploited; to share rich data from the cars and drivers to users via their smartphones in the stand, to have connectivity from fans to teams and drivers during the events, to make attending the event a much richer experience than watching on TV.
There is much that can be done but before then the deal has to go through this week. There have been many false dawns in the past and deals that fell through and this one still might.
But the sense from all the key players at the weekend was that this time F1 is set for a change of ownership and a fresh plan for the future.German investigators were scouring Berlin last night for a Syrian man believed to have been planning a bomb attack after a raid uncovered several hundred grams of “highly volatile” explosives in an apartment — a discovery one local expert says should highlight the importance of vetting refugees flooding out of the war-torn region.
Although authorities didn’t say whether the suspect, identified as 22-year-old Jaber Albakr from the Damascus area, was among the more than 890,000 asylum seekers who poured across the German border last year, secur-?ity sources said he was believed to be connected to Islamic?extremist groups and was “known” to members of the?intelligence community — details that fueled speculation of Islamic State involvement.
“A portion of the refugees have exploited these openings to commit terrorist acts,” Northeastern University professor and terror expert Max Abrahms said of the wave of refugees who have fled the Civil War in Syria that has ravaged their country.
“There are many combatants in Syria. If you allow a large number into the country — especially unvetted — you’re bound to have some terrorists.”
About 100 people were evacuated from the five-story apartment building after local authorities found hidden explosives while acting on a tip that Albakr may be living there and that he was actively planning a bomb attack. The explosives, which Saxony police spokesman Tom Bernhardt said were “well-hidden” in the apartment, were destroyed in a controlled explosion. The chemicals, Berhardt said, were a “highly volatile mixture” considered more dangerous than TNT.
After two people who had “contacts” with Albakr were taken into custody near a?local train station and a third was found downtown, authorities?issued an alert along with a photo of a dark-haired man wearing a hooded sweatshirt and said he was last seen wearing similar clothes. Those detained were?being questioned with the hope that they might help authorities find Albakr, investigators said.
Authorities have not said where or when they suspect the attack was going to take place.
The country has been on edge since two attacks this summer claimed by the Islamic State in which multiple people were?injured and both assailants died. The possible bomb plot is expected to fuel calls for tighter border security from citizens who fear German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s immigration policies are putting the public in harm’s way, Abrahms said.
“Merkel allowed into Germany a huge number of asylum seekers and she did this for altruistic?reasons,” Abrahms said.
“But they were quite naive in thinking there would be trivial security costs.”
Herald wire services contributed to this report.Here lies the changes in pub pick rates for the June 2014. If you are interested in the pick rate shift from last month, click here.
Landscape
The Summit and ESL One LAN were the two major tournaments this month. The TI4 Immortals were released at the very end of last month, and the TI compendium 10 Hero and Daily Hero challenges are currently active. 6.81b came out a week into the month. These are all potential factors that have influenced hero pick rate changes.
Method
The June pick rates have been compared to those of the previous month, May 2014. Months are sometimes drawn a few hours beforehand. I also use both raw percentage and actual percentage. A hero who goes from 4% pick rate to 2% pick rate has only gone down 2% raw percentage. But he has gone down 50% actual percentage, as that hero is now only in half the games he was previously. Both raw and actual percentages are useful in seeing shifts in pick rates.
Biggest Winners
Heroes with recently released immortals seem to be the biggest winner of this month, alongside heroes who had a surge in pro scene picks such as PA, Tinker and Faceless Void. Tinker happens to have both a surge in pro scene play and an immortal, and has skyrocketed by 5.46% raw percent. Juggernaut has neither however, and still managed to a solid gain (very low tier in pro scene). Off the back of a 0.5% gain last month, Juggernaut seems to be the surprise this month, perhaps pubbers noticed the effects from the 6.81b changes, such as to his BAT (1.5 -> 1.4).
While fairly similar, you’ll notice that comparatively Skywrath Mage and Brewmaster have been increasing in popularity this month. Both are very unpopular heroes in pubs, but have been seeing steady gains of late. SM had a steady month but primarily saw massive gains over the past week, which suggest to me his increase in pro-scene play is the likely cause here. Monkey see, monkey do.
Apparently ‘обезьяна’ is Russian for monkey, but doesn’t look humorous enough for some comedic english-russian hybrid sentence stating how pubbers like to copy pro players. ‘Mono’ is the Spanish equivalent though, so I guess perhaps “Dota players have a bad case of Mono”. Ok, that was bad.
Biggest Losers
Pudge and Invoker took huge hits this month, most likely as people flocked to the shiny new things (Immortal/Pro-scene heroes). It would appear that the players who like the pick Pudge and Invoker, are also the players that chase after the latest shiny thing. The rest of the drops appear to be fallout of the 6.81 changes, as last month they were the shiny new thing. SF and LS are at the lower end of the spectrum, but are still interesting to note.
The 6.80 trifecta of Phoenix, Terrorblade and Ember Spirit are all still dropping rapidly as time ticks on. Their recent nerfs hit them hard and have been dropping ever since as they quickly become towards the bottom end of the hero list. All three heroes dropped significantly last month as well.
Overall the month’s changes seems to be controlled by pro-scene picks and immortal heroes, with some fallout from the 6.81 and 6.81b patches. On the bright side, that’s a lot less Pudge and Invoker.
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NEWARK — They waited patiently, several thousand of them, outside the Prudential Center here on Friday night. They were mostly young, a combination of futuristic cool and slightly awkward. The more extravagantly attired were beyond mere extravagance: shiny clothes in bold contrasting prints, hair dyed in colors known to no rainbow.
They were K-pop fans, here for the first American performance of 2NE1, the K-pop — that’s Korean pop — stars. And they were being made to wait, unhappily, for unspecified reasons well past the time that doors were supposed to open, then also past the time that 2NE1 (pronounced “twenty-one” or “to anyone”) had been meant to take the stage. There was at least one report of fangirl tears on the street before the arena’s doors finally relented, and the crowd clogging the sidewalks was slowly herded to seats, just dodging the rain that would have compromised those outfits.
The members of 2NE1 awaited them, taking the stage in track jackets with their names — CL, Dara, Minzy, Bom — spray-painted on the back and, for some of the band, their own faces airbrushed onto the front. (The clothes for the tour were by the fantasist designer Jeremy Scott.)
“I’m going to make this show worth the wait,” CL assured the crowd, just as the group began “Clap Your Hands,” which sounded like a carbon copy of mid-2000s up-tempo R&B, and during which the group’s backup dancers were making a scene that could have been from “Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo.”
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have me as a lesbian. That's been interesting. That's their right to portray it however they want.
How did you first get involved with the FBI's behavioral science unit?
It [was] actually because of my research. Lynda Holmstrom, a sociologist, and I had done one of the first studies on rape here in Boston. A mandate came down because of the women's movement, making that an issue—thank heavens they made that an issue. William Webster, the director of the FBI at the time, said he better get his FBI agents trained in that. They invited me down to talk about it because I had published on rape victims by then. It was in the course of going down there and spending some time that we would sit around the table in the evenings and chat. The agents began to talk about the kinds of cases they were seeing. I said, "You should really think about doing some research with it, because this is important information to get out to the field." So that's really how it started. It's not too far off from the way they have it.
They began to be much more focused, and started with serial sexual murderers. They would sit down and put these crime scenes down on a big table and talk about what they saw at the crime scenes. It was fascinating to see them do it in progress. The show was right that I wanted them to be systematic so they wouldn't get a lot of criticism from pure methodologists—they were certainly not researchers. The best I could do was to come up with a consistent form.
In the show, the agents are portrayed as stumbling across this phenomenon. Was it more purposeful in real life?
We didn't set out to do it. It really just evolved. In watching them do it, I just said, "Let's get a form together." They worked on the form, and of course the form got bigger and bigger. That's what we based the research on.
The agents seem like renegades on the show. Was there much resistance from the FBI?
The [FBI] never said they couldn't do it. We were just doing it. I didn't have any interactions with any of the higher-ups. This was being done at the academy, not at headquarters. I don't think it was resisted so much, as it wasn't seen as important at the time.
What was your role within the Behavioral Science Unit?
My role was strictly as an academic, to see if I could capture what they were saying and put it into academic or conceptual terms. For example, [take] the patterns: Going to a crime scene, is it organized or disorganized? We looked at the forms, developed the forms. That's where the background on these 36 serial killers came from. They did the interviews when they would go out on the road schools [where FBI agents taught local law enforcement], brought [them] back, [they] would be typed up, and we'd go over [them].
There's a scene in which Agent Holden Ford, or John Douglas, comes up with the term for "sequence killer" off the top of his head. Were the agents really coming up with this in a vacuum?
They were just tossing the terms around. For some reason "serial" caught on more than "sequential." People would make fun of it, like "corn flakes." They had to have some levity in this, because this is pretty tough crime-scene stuff to work with. John came up with the "signature" term, and he would always look for that in the crime scene: What was it in the crime scene that was psychologically motivated? He would really hammer in on that. That was an important part of their learning and teaching.
While you were doing this work, was there a sense it was all new?
There had been some research done at the academy already—Howard Teton had done some early work, not really exactly what John and Bob were doing, but he had talked about the psychology of the offender. By the time Bob and John get there, they really carried it. It expanded much more because they were getting all these cases in, and they were just so intuitive. You and I would look at the crime scene and see something very different from what they would see. They were on target much of the time. It's what we would call in our field "clinical judgment"—that you can see something clinically that's never been researched in great detail.
Fans and reviewers of the show note that Dr. Wendy Carr is something of a female role model or trailblazer in this very male-dominated world. Do you view yourself that way?
Really, at the time, I was not thinking about that. I was trying to get my work done, you know, I was an academic. I was trying to write the papers. And there were several female field agents. But of course, it was mainly male at that time. They certainly had some staff that were female.
What everyone gets wrong is that I was not a psychologist, I was a nurse. Speaking of women having trouble in certain fields, the nurse is not as well-respected for her knowledge and background in health care and certainly in the forensic field. From that standpoint, as a forensic nurse, I was unique in bringing my expertise in terms of health and all of the areas of health to bear on legal issues.
What was the reaction to this research among your peers?
There was not much reaction. They didn't think much of the problem of rape. We were able to do what we wanted to do down at Boston City Hospital. It was never seen until the women's movement became involved in it, and then Boston's Rape Crisis Center popped up. I think a lot of very good work was done on issues in that time period.
How has this field evolved since you first started studying trauma in rape victims?
We've got rape trauma on the radar. I think that's something that women did, and I was happy to be a part of that. There was so much cover-up and so much silence. [Victims] were really silent—and blamed. We spent a lot of days teaching on victim myths. Today, I don't know if we've made much progress. The first question is still, "Do you believe her?" You still get that skepticism. But the two big areas we have now are the campus sexual assault issue and military sexual trauma. You have two groups that are still struggling with the silence around it, the victims not reporting, and having to really suffer [for it]. It has to be done from the male side. There is still a culture out there for that.
How do you think research and science can help combat that culture?
I think the more that is published on this, the better, to get the word out there and make it so that people can understand it—without getting one side or the other defensive. The key is to just present the cases and let people understand it from that perspective. That is what I've always tried to do with case study. There's nothing more powerful than for a victim to speak. I have that in my classes. I had one of my victims come [tell her story in class] last week, and the place was silent. It was very powerful.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.I’ve continued to think about a question raised by Frank Furedi in an otherwise lackluster essay about distraction and digital devices. Furedi set out to debunk the claim that digital devices are undermining our attention and our memory. I don’t think he succeeded, but he left us with a question worth considering: “The question that is rarely posed by advocates of the distraction thesis is: what are people distracted from?”
In an earlier post, I suggested that this question can be usefully set alongside a mid-20th century observation by Hannah Arendt. Considering the advent of automation, Arendt feared “the prospect of a society of laborers without labor, that is, without the only activity left to them.” “Surely, nothing could be worse,” she added.
The connection might not have been as clear as I imagined it, so let me explain. Arendt believed that labor is the “only activity left” to the laborer because the glorification of labor in modern society had eclipsed the older ends and goods to which labor had been subordinated and for the sake of which we might have sought freedom from labor.
To put it as directly as I can, Arendt believed that if we indeed found ourselves liberated from the need to labor, we would not know what to do with ourselves. We would not know what to do with ourselves because, in the modern world, laboring had become the ordering principle of our lives.
Recalling Arendt’s fear, I wondered whether we were not in a similar situation with regards to attention. If we were able to successfully challenge the regime of digital distraction, to what would we give the attention that we would have fought so hard to achieve? Would we be like the laborers in Arendt’s analysis, finally free but without anything to do with our freedom? I wondered, as well, if it were not harder to combat distraction, if we were inclined to do so, precisely because we had no telos for the sake of which we might undertake the struggle.
Interestingly, then, while the link between Arendt’s comments about labor and the question about the purpose of attention was initially only suggestive, I soon realized the two were more closely connected. They were connected by the idea of leisure.
We tend to think of leisure merely as an occasional break from work. That is not, however, how leisure was understood in either classical or medieval culture. Josef Pieper, a Catholic philosopher and theologian, was thinking about the cultural ascendency of labor or work and the eclipse of leisure around the same time that Arendt was articulating her fears of a society of laborers without labor. In many respects, their analysis overlaps. (I should note, though, that Arendt distinguishes between labor and work in way that Pieper does not. Work for Pieper is roughly analogous to labor in Arendt’s taxonomy.)
For her part, Arendt believed nothing could be worse than liberating laborers from labor at this stage in our cultural evolution, and this is why:
“The modern age has carried with it a theoretical glorification of labor and has resulted in a factual transformation of the whole of society into a laboring society. The fulfillment of the wish, therefore, like the fulfillment of wishes in fairy tales, comes at a moment when it can only be self-defeating. It is a society of laborers which is about to be liberated from the fetters of labor, and this society does no longer know of those other higher and more meaningful activities for the sake of which this freedom would deserve to be won. Within this society, which is egalitarian because this is labor’s way of making men live together, there is no class left, no aristocracy of either a political or spiritual nature from which a restoration of the other capacities of man could start anew.”
To say that there is “no aristocracy of either a political or spiritual nature” is another way of saying that there is no leisured class in the older sense of the word. This older ideal of leisure did not entail freedom from labor for the sake of endless poolside lounging while sipping Coronas. It was freedom from labor for the sake of intellectual, political, moral, or spiritual aims, the achievement of which may very well require arduous discipline. We might say that it was freedom from the work of the body that made it possible for someone to take up the work of the soul or the mind. Thus Pieper can claim that leisure is “a condition of the soul.” But, we should also note, it was not necessarily a solitary endeavor, or, better, it was not an endeavor that had only the good of the individual in mind. It often involved service to the political or spiritual community.
Pieper further defines leisure as “a form of that stillness that is the necessary preparation for accepting reality; only the person who is still can hear, and whoever is not still cannot hear.” He makes clear, though, that the stillness he has in mind “is not mere soundlessness or a dead muteness; it means, rather, that the soul’s power, as real, of responding to the real – a co-respondence, eternally established in nature – has not yet descended into words.” Thus, leisure “is the disposition of receptive understanding, of contemplative beholding, and immersion – in the real.”
Pieper also claims that leisure “is only possible on the assumption that man is not only in harmony with himself, whereas idleness is rooted in the denial of this harmony, but also that he is in agreement with the world and its meaning. Leisure lives on affirmation.” The passing comment on idleness is especially useful to us.
In our view, leisure and idleness are nearly indistinguishable. But on the older view, idleness is not leisure; indeed, it is the enemy of leisure. Idleness, on the older view, may even take the shape of frenzied activity undertaken for the sake of, yes, distracting us from the absence of harmony or agreement with ourselves and the world.
We are now inevitably within the orbit of Blaise Pascal’s analysis of the restlessness of the human condition. Because we are not at peace with ourselves or our world, we crave distraction or what he called diversions. “What people want,” Pascal insists, “is not the easy peaceful life that allows us to think of our unhappy condition, nor the dangers of war, nor the burdens of office, but the agitation that takes our mind off it and diverts us.” “Nothing could be more wretched,” Pascal added, “than to be intolerably depressed as soon as one is reduced to introspection with no means of diversion.”
The novelist Walker Percy, a younger contemporary of both Arendt and Pieper, described what we called the “diverted self” as follows: “In a free and affluent society, the self is free to divert itself endlessly from itself. It works in order to enjoy the diversions that the fruit of one’s labor can purchase.” For the diverted self, Percy concluded, “The pursuit of happiness becomes the pursuit of diversion.”
If leisure is a condition of the soul as Pieper would have it, then might we also say the same of distraction? Discreet instances of being distracted, of failing to meaningfully direct our attention, would then be symptoms of a deeper disorder. Our digital devices, in this framing of distraction, are both a material cause and an effect. The absence of digital devices would not cure us of the underlying distractedness or aimlessness, but their presence preys upon, exacerbates, and amplifies this inner distractedness.
It is hard, at this point, for me not to feel that I have been speaking in another language or at least another dialect, one whose cadences and lexical peculiarities are foreign to our own idiom and, consequently, to our way of making sense of our experience. Leisure, idleness, contemplative beholding, spiritual and political aristocracies–all of this recalls to mind Alasdair MacIntyre’s observation that we use such words in much the same way that a post-apocalyptic society, picking up the scattered pieces of the modern scientific enterprise would use “neutrino,” “mass,” and “specific gravity”: not entirely without meaning, perhaps, but certainly not as scientists. The language I’ve employed, likewise, is the language of an older moral vision, a moral vision that we have lost.
I’m not suggesting that we ought to seek to recover the fullness of the language or the world that gave it meaning. That would not be possible, of course. But what if we, nonetheless, desired to bring a measure of order to the condition of distraction that we might experience as an affliction? What if we sought some telos to direct and sustain our attention, to at least buffer us from the forces of distraction?
If such is the case, I commend to you Simone Weil’s reflections on attention and will. Believing that the skill of paying attention cultivated in one domain was transferable to another, Weil went so far as to claim that the cultivation of attention was the real goal of education: “Although people seem to be unaware of it today, the development of the faculty of attention forms the real object and almost the sole interest of studies.”
It was Weil who wrote, “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” A beautiful sentiment grounded in a deeply moral understanding of attention. Attention, for Weil, was not merely an intellectual asset, what we require for the sake of reading long, dense novels. Rather, for Weil, attention appears to be something foundational to the moral life:
“There is something in our soul that loathes true attention much more violently than flesh loathes fatigue. That something is much closer to evil than flesh is. That is why, every time we truly give our attention, we destroy some evil in ourselves.”
Ultimately, Weil understood attention to be a critical component of the religious life as well. “Attention, taken to its highest degree,” Weil wrote, “is the same thing as prayer. It presupposes faith and love.” “If we turn our mind toward the good,” she added, “it is impossible that little by little the whole soul will not be attracted thereto in spite of itself.” And this is because, in her view, “We have to try to cure our faults by attention and not by will.”
So here we have, if we wanted it, something to animate our desire to discipline the distracted self, something at which to direct our attention. Weil’s counsel was echoed closer to our own time by David Foster Wallace, who also located the goal of education in the cultivation of attention.
“Learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think,” Wallace explained in his now famous commencement address at Kenyon College. “It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience.”
“The really important kind of freedom,” Wallace added, “involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day. That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think.” Each day the truth of this claim impresses itself more and more deeply upon my mind and heart.
Finally, and briefly, we should be wary of imagining the work of cultivating attention as merely a matter of learning how to consciously choose what we will attend to at any given moment. That is part of it to be sure, but Weil and Pieper both knew that attention also involved an openness to what is, a capacity to experience the world as gift. Cultivating our attention in this sense is not a matter of focusing upon an object of attention for our own reasons, however noble those may be. It is also a matter of setting to one side our projects and aspirations that we might be surprised by what is there. “We do not obtain the most precious gifts by going in search of them,” Weil wrote, “but by waiting for them.” In this way, we prepare for “some dim dazzling trick of grace,” to borrow a felicitous phrase from Walker Percy, that may illumine our minds and enliven our hearts.
It is these considerations, then, that I would offer in response to Furedi’s question, What are we distracted from?Fiorentina have agreed to insert a €35 million release clause into Juan Cuadrado’s new contract - and the Colombia international is now expected to put pen-to-paper on an extension with La Viola.
The Manchester United and Chelsea target, who was expected to leave his current employers at the end of the summer transfer window, is also in line to receive a significant pay rise on his current €1.2 million-a-year deal.
News of this latest development comes courtesy of Italian newspaper La Nazione - and brought to our attention by Football Italia - who understand that Cuadrado will now finalise negotiations over the length of the contract as well as the salary.
Related links
- Man Utd prepare new bid for Juan Cuadrado
- Agent confirms bids were rejected for Cuadrado
- Cuadrado demands €35m release clause in contract
Andrea Della Valle may intervene
Fiorentina owner Andrea Della Valle may personally intervene with the contract negotiations in order to help the club and player reach an agreement over the salary as soon as possible.
That Cuadrado was so keen to have the €35 million release clause inserted into his new deal suggests that he would be prepared to leave the Stadio Artemio Franchi in the near future.
United preparing £30m bid
Reports on Tuesday claimed that Manchester United were preparing a fresh £30 million bid for the player when the transfer window opens in January, which would be a big enough offer to enter into contract negotiations.
United boss Louis van Gaal is believed to be keen to bring Cuadrado to Old Trafford in the New Year - this could indicate that the veteran Dutch coach plans to switch to his favoured 4-3-3 formation - but might face competition from Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho.
Chelsea still keen?
The Portuguese coach also has an interest in Cuadrado, although a deal to bring the live-wire winger to Stamford Bridge appears unlikely, unless Germany international Andre Schurrle leaves the club.
Barcelona were keen to bring Cuadrado to the Camp Nou in the summer, as a direct replacement for Dani Alves.
Barcelona banned
However, the Catalan giants failed to offload the Brazil international and ended up signing the unconvincing Douglas from Sao Paulo instead.
Barcelona are banned from signing any new players until January 2016, meaning Manchester United have a clear run at Cuadrado should Mourinho opt against making a formal offer for the Colombian, who starred at the World Cup finals in Brazil.
Fiorentina were not prepared to listen to any offers for Cuadrado below €50 million (£38 million), but the South American star will now be allowed to enter into talks with other clubs should they stump up a more reasonable €35 million (£27 million).I arrived in Medellín to see the ambitious and photogenic buildings that have gone up, but also to find what remains undone. The murder rate, while hardly low, is now under 60 per 100,000. Architecture alone obviously doesn’t account for the drop in homicides, but the two aren’t unrelated, either. Around the world, followers of architecture with a capital A have focused so much of their attention on formal experiments, as if aesthetics and social activism, twin Modernist concerns, were mutually exclusive. But Medellín is proof that they’re not, and shouldn’t be. Architecture, here and elsewhere, acts as part of a larger social and economic ecology, or else it elects to be a luxury, meaningless except to itself.
The story of Medellín’s evolution turns out to be neither as rosy nor as straightforward as fans of new architecture have tended to portray it. It’s generally told as a triumph for Sergio Fajardo, the son of an architect who is the governor of the region and who was the city’s visionary mayor from 2004 to 2007. He pushed an agenda that linked education and community development with infrastructure and glamorous architecture.
But the city’s transformation established roots before Mr. Fajardo took office, in thoughtful planning guidelines, amnesties and antiterrorism programs, community-based initiatives by Germany and the United Nations and a Colombian national policy mandating architectural interventions as a means to attack poverty and crime.
What sets Medellín apart is the particular strength of its culture of urbanism, which acts now almost like a civic calling card. The city’s new mayor, Aníbal Gaviria, spent an hour describing to me his dreams for burying a congested highway that runs through the middle of town, building an electric tram along the hillsides to stem the sprawl of the slums, adding a green belt of public buildings along the tram, rehabilitating the Medellín River and densifying the city center — smart, public-spirited, improvements. It’s as if, in this country whose relatively robust economy has underwritten many forward-thinking projects, every mayor here has to have enormous architectural and infrastructural plans, or risk coming across as small-minded or an outsider.
Mr. Gaviria, local designers, businessmen and community leaders sketched for me a picture of a city in which violence, much of it today by small drug traffickers, remains a big problem and victories are fragile. People in Medellín were cautious about the future, about easy solutions and seeing architecture as an end in itself. At the same time, they stressed the social and economic benefits that public architecture and new public spaces can create, and the wisdom of long-term, community-based policies of urban renewal.
“A holistic approach,” is how Alejandro Echeverri, one of the principal architects of the city’s transformation under Mr. Fajardo, described the philosophy.
I came here from Bogotá, whose renewal programs starting in the late 1990s — like earlier ones in Barcelona before the Olympics in 1992 — set the stage for Medellín’s revival. But now Bogotá is suffering, as strains multiply on its famed rapid bus system and residents’ faith in the city’s future plummets.
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Medellín, by contrast, still counts on an almost fierce parochial pride, a legacy of decent Modernist architecture dating back to the 1930s, a cadre of young architects being aggressively nurtured and promoted, and a commitment by local businesses to improve social welfare that begins with the city’s biggest business: its state-owned utilities company, E.P.M.
You can’t begin to grasp Medellín’s architectural renaissance without understanding the role of E.P.M., the Empresas Públicas de Medellín, which supplies water, gas, sanitation, telecommunications and electricity. It’s constitutionally mandated to provide clean water and electricity even to houses in the city’s illegal slums, so that unlike in Bogotá, where the worst barrios lack basic amenities, in Medellín there’s a safety net.
More than that, E.P.M.’s profits (some $450 million a year) go directly to building new schools, public plazas, the metro and parks. One of the most beautiful public squares in the middle of Medellín was donated by E.P.M. And atop the slums of the city’s Northeast district, E.P.M. paid for a park in the mountaintop jungle, linked to the district by its own cable car.
Federico Restrepo used to run E.P.M., before he became the city planner under Mr. Fajardo. “We took a view that everything is interconnected — education, culture, libraries, safety, public spaces,” he told me, pointing out that while fewer than 20 percent of public school students here used to test at the national average in 2002, by 2009 the number exceeded 80 percent.
“Obviously it’s not just that we built and renovated schools,” he said. “You have to work on the quality of teaching and nutrition in conjunction with architecture. But the larger point is that the goal of government should be providing rich and poor with the same quality education, transportation and public architecture. In that way you increase the sense of ownership.”
But of course ownership can’t just be bestowed on poor neighborhoods; it must also be declared, in small, critical ways. In the troubled Comuna 13, two members of Revolución Sin Muertos (Revolution Without Deaths) — started not long ago by a group of neighborhood hip-hoppers rejecting the gang culture — took me on a graffiti tour. At a crowded street corner, Daniel Felipe Quiceno, known as Dog, and Luis Fernando Álvarez, who is called AKA, pointed to a mural of four of their own, murdered by local gangs. Revolución Sin Muertos paints murals around Comuna 13; sometimes residents put their own tags on them, as if to signal support. Murals, Mr. Álvarez said, have helped people here vent frustration and proclaim ownership of the neighborhood.
Progress is hard. Venture a few yards from the heralded new squares, library and cable car stations in the Santo Domingo barrio, across town in the hills of the Northeast district, and it’s clear just how dramatic but also tenuous change is here. Mr. Echeverri met me at the cable car terminal one morning for the ride into the Northeast slums.
“We were already working before Fajardo on how to use cable cars to transform the surrounding area, to have the cable car stations as the neighborhood nervous system,” he recalled. “The barrios always had lots of energy but the energy was disconnected from the city.”
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Our car rose high above a sea of illegal houses, the cable car stations creating a spine of commercial development up the mountainside. In what used to be a district too risky even for the police to patrol, we got off and wandered through a souk of restaurants, schools and clothing stores, leading onto busy squares and then to the España library, the most conspicuous emblem of the new Medellín.
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“A seed to plant trust,” is how Mr. Echeverri described the neighborhood after its makeover. “The main physical transformation is to public space, but it’s only the beginning,” he cautioned, gesturing toward the sprawl of poverty just beyond the new development. Mr. Echeverri said all the headlines about the recovery of this much-photographed barrio have been great, but they’ve also had the unintended effect of inclining some officials to look elsewhere, for less politically complex projects.
He showed me the $4 million España library: three linked black boulders perched 1,500 feet over the valley, designed by the gifted Bogotán architect Giancarlo Mazzanti, which has become a community center and civic symbol. It’s impressive from the outside.
But there are serious problems on the inside. The buildings are steel-frame boxes clad in dark stone tiles, with floating concrete cores — in effect, boxes within the boxes with reading rooms, a child-care center, an auditorium and other facilities. Construction is shoddy, navigation confusing, the interior claustrophobic; acoustics are awful, windows scarce.
More impressive but less flashy is another library in Medellín by Mr. Mazzanti: the León de Greiff library in La Ladera also a trio of buildings, in this case well-connected cantilevered pods on slate pedestals, splayed like a fan across the brow of a hill. The shared roof is linked to a park next door. Views are spectacular. The reading rooms and children’s play areas look out through panoramic windows.
Mr. Echeverri took me down the hillside to Andalucía, another part of the Northeast slums. Formerly ruled by gangs who held opposite sides of a garbage-clotted creek, it’s now remade with a sports complex and school, new sidewalks, new mid-rise housing blocks and a bridge over the creek. Dozens of shops have opened. Men were tinkering beneath cars in the hot sun, chatting over beers, when I visited; children dawdled on the way home from school, eating ice cream on the bridge. A thousand eyes were on the streets.
There I found Mateo Gómez, a 20-year-old on his way to work at a local beer company in the city center. The cable car had cut his commute in half, from two hours to one, he told me.
“The España library changed our conception of ourselves,” he added. “Before, we felt a stigma. But we’re still missing cultural spaces, the library closes too early, the situation is still very uncertain.”
From the hills of the Northeast, I made the circuit of some of the other new architecture in Medellín, much of it in and around the Botanical Garden, which had been the city’s Central Park before it became too dangerous to visit, and was shut down. For a while, the garden was intended for demolition. Then, a decade or so ago, thanks to Pilar Velilla, the garden’s director at the time, and with the support of Mr. Fajardo, the area was turned around.
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Mr. Echeverri has designed a dramatic new science museum and public plaza across the street from the garden, and the garden has been lovingly renovated, its walls taken down, a gem of a circular pavilion, by Lorenzo Castro and Ana Elvira Vélez, added at the entrance.
After an initial scheme to hire Norman Foster to devise another pavilion was rejected, a local competition was held, with the idea of advertising Medellín’s own young architectural talent. The winner, JPRCR Architects (Camilo Restrepo runs it), and Plan B Architects (Felipe Mesa and Alejandro Bernal), came up with the Orquideorama, a towering wood meshwork canopy rising 65 feet above a latticed patio. Its 10 hexagonal flower-tree structures, collecting fresh rainwater and woven together like honeycombs, shelter an orchid collection and butterfly reserves. The canopy is at once formally economical and spectacular.
But the most remarkable building of all is a few blocks away, a cultural center in the neighborhood called Moravia, next to a vast garbage dump. The center is one of the last works by the Colombian master Rogelio Salmona, a quasi-Moorish design of refined simplicity, all transparency, modesty and openness. Carlos Uribe, an artist, who runs the center, showed off the beehive of below-ground practice rooms, the dance studio and theater opening onto the outdoors, the library and courtyard, flanked by low ramps, providing a desperately needed safe and attractive public space, where small children romped before watchful teachers among burbling fountains that recalled the Alhambra.
The authorities have lately been moving residents from the unsafe landfill next door to new housing on the city’s periphery, which is understandable but a striking case of thoughtless urban planning, because the move isolates the residents from their jobs and what had become their neighborhood, with Salmona’s building as its anchor.
“Of course we will continue to improve schools and neighborhoods,” Mr. Gaviria, the mayor, had told me. “But we also need to care for the mountains and the river, which to us are like the rivers and Central Park in New York.”
My impression from that conversation was that it’s politically easier to propose new plans for burying highways and building trams in the hills than to untangle old problems, and that the city still had to be vigilant when it comes to housing policies. I met just before I left with eight young architects at the Museum of Modern Art, a steel mill from the 1930s, handsomely converted. “We’re still not thoughtful in terms of social housing, mixed neighborhoods,” agreed Verónica Ortiz Murcia, a partner at Arquitectura y Espacio Urbano.
“There’s a general feeling among young architects of a missed opportunity here,” said another architect, Catalina Ortiz. That view was echoed by Camilo Restrepo and Alejandro González.
Their skepticism seemed almost the most encouraging sign I had encountered in Medellín. The city has made big strides, after all, using cutting-edge architecture as a catalyst. But here young architects press for yet more creative solutions. They take for granted as their jobs both formal innovation and also the humanitarian role of architectural activism, leapfrogging an older generation of architects and others who have remained fixated on eye-catching buildings to grace the covers of glossy magazines.
It’s this restless energy among an up-and-coming generation, in a city where people already take seriously the goal of greater equality, that seems to promise change will continue.This week’s “stupidest thing said on Fox News” is especially pathetic. (Above video, via Media Matters.) Three teenagers in Oklahoma allegedly murdered an Australian student named Christopher Lane, for which they were arrested and charged with murder. The reason this is a “scandal” is because two of the teenagers were black and, as Tom Scocca at Gawker explains, racists figure it’s their turn to be angry after feeling put upon by the heavy coverage of the George Zimmerman trial. Now everyone on the right, including anti-choicers, wants a chance to voice their outrage about murder suspects who were arrested and charged with murder. Non-priest and executive director of Priests for Life Janet Morana was asked on Fox News to diagnose what caused the boys to allegedly kill. Naturally, the answer is legal abortion.
First of all, we have to start with the fact that since 1973…. These kids are survivors. They could have been aborted. And that’s a fact. And people don’t realize. They’re post-Roe v Wade, and therefore there’s a thing called “survivor syndrome.” There’s a psychiatrist up in Canada, Dr. Philip Ney, has studied this for decades and shown the effect. Just the fact that you could have been aborted can affect you as a survivor of Roe v Wade.
How a person’s supposedly deep grief over embryos that didn’t make it leads him to go shoot people is never explained. Questions like, “how’s that work?” or “what about people murdered prior to 1973?” were not uttered by the Fox News host. But don’t think about any of that, viewers. Just let the bath of righteous indignation about those abortions and kids these days and blacks wash over you like a warm bath. It’s August and all you need to know is that you should be mad about something. Too many questions will spoil the magic.Slip is a fast paced level-centric platformer for Windows and Mac. The best way to summarize it would be, "Ikaruga meets Mario, and they hit it off. Really well. I mean, REALLY WELL (They make a baby)". Slip achieves addictive levels of difficulty by combining the simple and intuitive controls of a platformer with the beautiful simplicity of color swapping. The result of the merger is a game that is very easy to understand, yet extremely difficult to master and wholly unique from other games featuring the color swap mechanic.
Slip is broken up into levels and plays out gauntlet style in the likes of classic games like R-Type, Contra, Ikaruga etc. You start from the beginning and push your way through the levels. Check points are spread throughout the levels so that dying doesn't mean starting over from the beginning. As well, there is an unlimited life mode (in which scoring is disabled) for those that just want to try and make it through the game without worrying about the numerous deaths to come.
The last portion of every level features a miniboss sequence |
curities.
6. “Geothermal Escapism”
Part of the tragedy of a show vaulting its actors to fame is dealing with them moving on to other projects in the middle of a run. Donald Glover opted to do just that in Season 5, with “Geothermal Escapism” acting as his sendoff. His character Troy’s deep friendship with Abed is forced to separate, leading them to play an episode-long, campus-wide game of the “the floor is lava.”
Once again we see two best friends combatting their grief by harkening back to a carefree childhood game as they battle with the idea that all things must come to an end. Ending with a tearful goodbye set to Styx’s “Come Sail Away,” it’s a nuanced and hilarious farewell to one of Community‘s core characters.
7. “Paradigms of Human Memory”: The dreaded clip-show
Typically, when a sitcom needs to burn an episode that it’s had no time to make, it runs with a clip-show, where characters flash back to their favorite moments from earlier seasons. It’s usually a quick and dirty way to fill a week and takes almost no effort, since it’s merely a question of editing together footage producers already have.
In Season 2, “Paradigms of Human Memory” takes the idea of the clip-show and turns it on its head. Instead of the group remembering its fondest times from episodes we’ve already seen, the show flashbacks to adventures characters never had on screen (some of which were unused ideas for full episodes). We see a uniquely depicted take on an overused device, showing us once again how Community refuses to play by the rules of typical television.
More from Entertainment Cheat Sheet:We all know the play.
It's fourth-and-five, Vince Young takes a shotgun snap, looks to pass left and then pulls the ball down and sprints to the right corner of the end zone. Two seconds later, Young is "Invincible" and the Longhorns took a lead over No. 1 USC in the 2006 national title game with just 19 seconds remaining.
It's one of the most famous plays in college football history, and the 2006 Rose Bowl will forever be remembered for Young's dash to the right pylon.
But it wasn't just the final drive that is seared forever in college football lore, the entire game was a classic. So much so in fact, NFL.com named the 2006 Rose Bowl, a 41-38 Longhorn victory, as the No. 1 most memorable national title game in college football history.
The game featured a number of future NFL stars, two undefeated teams and 32 fourth quarter points. Young may not have won the Heisman Trophy that season, but he outshined winner, at least back then, Reggie Bush with 467 yards of total offense and three touchdowns.
Is it the greatest college football game ever?
Perhaps, but not many could argue against its merit as best title game.Ethereality is no way to live. Drifting, unconnected, forever floating about, untethered to reality – it only works if you are an angel or Cocteau Twins. And Mexican Summer recording artist Tamaryn may actually be a little bit of both. The New Zealand-born, NYC-based artist has dabbled with ethereal music over two previous albums and numerous singles, EPs and guest appearances. But she never succumbs to complete bliss-out; instead grounding her songs (which are as intimate as any singer/songwriter’s might be, if one pays close attention) with a solid musical foundation. Her latest release, Cranekiss, demonstrates this very well, with moments of gloss reminiscent of Beach House, while others drive along with a garage rock verve in the vein of friends Dum Dum Girls. The album’s introductory title song, "Cranekiss," sets the scene perfectly, with a blurry melody and spaciously reverbed vocal layered on top of a simple, but insistent rhythm track. "Hands All Over Me" punches things up a bit, while "I Won’t Be Found" begins with a minute of slowly-building guitar chimes & gauzy murmuring, creeping in like an early morning fog. Solid listening for fans of ethereal sounds.
Album Pre-Order here.
-Eric J. Lawrence
Tracklist:
1. Cranekiss
2. Hands All Over Me
3. Last
4. Collection
5. Keep Calling
6. Softcore
7. Fade Away Slow
8. I Won't Be Found
9. Sugar Fix
10. Intruder (Waking You Up)I’ve hesitated to share this secret because I worry it seems silly. Then it occurred to me that if I’m really striving to provide a complete parenting “toolbox” on this blog, I can’t not include a practice, however inane, that has been essential to my own sanity and to raising three kids who are healthier and better adjusted than I could ever have hoped.
I’m the kind of person who absorbs and is affected by everyone’s feelings. But I also know that staying calm and centered in the face of even the darkest of my children’s emotions is imperative to their well-being. My boat is easily rocked, and when that happens I can lose perspective, and rather than giving my kids the solid support for their feelings or the behavior limits they need during a tantrum, I can end up losing patience, melting, second-guessing myself, getting mad or frustrated, yelling, doing things that not only don’t work, but also create problems that make matters worse.
When we lose our cool most of what we say or do is completely lost on our children. All they learn when we’re flailing is that they have the power to hurt us or ignite our rage, which unsettles them, creates an unsafe atmosphere, and usually causes them to repeat their difficult behaviors until or unless we find some control.
Or perhaps we say things like, “You’re hurting my feelings!” Our vulnerability creates guilt and insecurity, burdening children with an inordinate amount of power and leaving them bereft of the confident, gentle leadership they desperately need.
But we’re human. We’re never going to like it when our kids are upset, and we’re going to lose our cool sometimes — more than sometimes during the toddler years. How can we control our feelings and responses?
I appreciate the wonderful suggestions offered by parenting bloggers and advisers for helping parents temper their emotional reactions — healthy things to do instead of yelling or spanking when we’re triggered. A few of my favorites are breathe, call a friend, do jumping jacks and eat dark chocolate (preferably all at once). But in the frenzy of a difficult moment, I know I need something more immediate, powerful and proactive.
So when my kids are angry, sad, frustrated, winding up or melting down, I imagine myself donning a superhero suit equipped with a protective shield that deflects even the fiercest, most irritating emotional outbursts. It makes me feel confident and capable and inspires me to rise above the fray. Just reaching for my superhero suit helps me to take a step out of myself and gain a clearer perspective. I realize:
This is a VIPM (very important parenting moment). Releasing these feelings is so good for my child. This explosion will clear the air and lift my child’s spirits. Staying present and calm, sticking with whatever limits I’ve set and being a safe channel for these emotions is the very best thing I could ever do.
Some of the superhuman parenting powers my suit provides:
1. I understand that difficult behavior is a request for help — the best my child can do in that particular moment.
2. I remember to acknowledge my child’s feelings and point of view. The importance of this can’t be overemphasized.
3. I have the confidence to set and hold limits early (before I get annoyed or resentful) and do so calmly, directly, honestly, non-punitively.
4. I know that my words are often not enough – I must follow through by intervening to help my child stop the behavior.
5. I’m not afraid of what others think when I need to pick up and carry my crying, screaming child out of a problematic situation. My child comes first.
6. I have the courage to allow feelings to run their full course, without trying to calm, rush, fix, shush or talk my child out of them. I might say, “You have some very strong feelings about that” rather than yelling “enough!”
7. I move on without the slightest resentment, once my child’s storm has passed.
8. Rather than feeling angry, guilty or dejected for the rest of the day, I hold my head high and congratulate myself for being an awesome, heroic parent.
Occasionally (though it’s pretty rare) my superhero perspective even allows me to recognize the romance in these moments. I’m able to time travel at hyper-speed into the future, look back and realize that this was prime time together. It didn’t look pretty, but we were close. I’ll remember how hard it was to love my child when she was at her very worst and feel super proud that I did it anyway.
***
I offer a guide to gentle leadership in my book: NO BAD KIDS: Toddler Discipline Without Shame
I also highly recommend Mindfulness Tools by Tasha, which are available HERE and featured in this podcast I recorded with Tasha, Challenging Moments With Kids: How To Keep Your Cool:
Other recommended resources:
For The Love Of A Tantrum by Darci L. Walker, Psy.D., Core Parenting
Losing Control by Vanessa Kohlhaas, Deep Breath Of Parenting
Help! My Daughter Is Out Of Control by Lisa Sunbury, Regarding Baby
(Photo by TheodoreWLee on Flickr)Brian Windhorst believe that while he thinks Rajon Rondo's apology was sincere for the most part, he says he will not be changing his behavior any time soon. (1:33)
AUBURN HILLS, Mich. -- Chicago Bulls point guard Rajon Rondo admitted he "could have handled the situation better" in the wake of his one-game suspension for conduct detrimental to the team.
Rondo, who was punished after a verbal altercation with assistant coach Jim Boylen during Saturday's loss to the Dallas Mavericks, spoke for the first time since missing Monday's loss to the Portland Trail Blazers.
"Me, as a player, as a point guard, I could have handled the situation better," Rondo said. "But when I feel a certain way, I'm going to speak on it. My whole thing is always for the betterment of the team. So if it comes off the wrong way or things of that nature, I'm trying to work on that; but for the most part, I'm not a selfish individual. I try to do what's best for the team. I try to watch film with my other teammates, as well. So it's just part of the game, part of who I am."
Rondo, like Bulls coach Fred Hoiberg and general manager Gar Forman, declined to go into detail about the incident.
Editor's Picks PG Rose exits Knicks' win with back spasms New York Knicks point guard Derrick Rose left Tuesday's game against the Miami Heat in the third quarter with back spasms and did not return.
Sources: Rondo suspended over verbal altercation The Bulls suspended guard Rajon Rondo for one game, to be served Monday night, reportedly for a verbal altercation with an assistant coach. 1 Related
"Some things happened," Rondo said. "It's part of it. We'll try to move forward as a team. Me personally, I addressed the team, I addressed the coaching staff. And just try to move forward."
Rondo did not confirm reports that he threw a towel in Boylen's face during the argument but did acknowledge that the pair had talked since Saturday.
"You got to look at the film," Rondo said. "I don't know. You got to look at the film."
Rondo said he feels his teammates and coaches were receptive to his apology and believes everybody is pulling in the same direction.
"Without a doubt, yeah," Rondo said. "I have a good relationship with my team. That's what I take pride in, being a great teammate... I think we're still on the same page. When you lose, things blow up a little bit out of proportion. When you win, it covers everything up, so we got to get back to winning, winning basketball.
"I think we're playing the right way; it's just we have to find ways to get consecutive stops. We can't dig a hole on the road early. We have to get back in transition, we have to communicate, we have to talk better. And take better shots, being able to have the floor balance and get back in transition."
Bulls teammates and coaches have repeatedly praised Rondo since he signed with the Bulls over the summer, and they were happy to have him back on the floor during Tuesday's loss to the Pistons in Detroit.
"It was good," Bulls guard Dwyane Wade said of having Rondo back. "That's our starting point guard. We need veteran guys on this team. We need our bodies. He's our leader today, so when we got down early, he was the one who kept talking to us defensively. He's so smart out there on the floor, takes certain things away, get out in open transition. The reason we got back in the game, he did a good job of leading us in those moments."
Rondo, who has now been suspended seven times since 2012 for a variety of reasons, didn't seem too concerned about how his latest setback would affect his image.
"People want to write what they write," Rondo said. "I'm OK with where I am in my life and what I bring to this team."
Rondo seemed reflective at times during his five-minute postgame news conference.
"Am I too smart for my own good?" he said, while repeating a question. "I don't think so. I always try to increase my intelligence. I'm always trying to learn the game. I love to listen to people's opinions. They might say 10 things, and nine might be bulls---, but the one thing I can learn from I always try to pick that up, put it into my game."
Rondo has always been considered one of the most cerebral players in the league by his peers. He showed no trepidation in answering questions, even joking that reporters should have talked to him before Monday's game while he was working out in the Bulls' practice facility.
"I don't really read the papers," Rondo said. "I don't have Instagram or social media, so whatever you guys write, good luck with what you're writing. I'm going to continue to work as hard as I can to be the best player for this team and try to lead the right way."Money Morning, one of the fastest growing financial and investing sites on the web, is looking for a Production Editor to oversee and coordinate the day-to-day production of its flagship publication.
Responsibilities include: Manage multiple editorial deadlines; direct page make up of publication; proofreading; coordinate with production team the posting of stories for web site and electronic newsletter and, interacting with design and marketing teams.
The successful candidate must have either two-plus years of experience in a production editor or production manager role, or the recognizable desire and editorial skill to take their career to the next level. The successful candidate will also demonstrate a fundamental understanding of the stock, options, bond, and/or precious metals markets. Knowledge of today’s investing landscape is a plus.
If you love the markets, desire an opportunity to work with some of the most respected names in the business, and want to work with a highly motivated editorial team uncovering the market’s most insightful investing stories, then send us your cover letter and resume.
Managing Editor, Money Morning is a full-time, on-site position located in the beautiful, historic Mt. Vernon area of Baltimore. We offer a highly competitive benefits package and salary commensurate with experience and qualifications. To apply, send a cover letter and a resume to the link provided. Note: Submissions without a cover letter will not be reviewed.The Delaware Supreme Court last week held that a prohibition on firearms on public land issued by two state agencies is unconstitutional.
The lawsuit, brought by several gun rights advocates and backed by the Bridgeville Rifle & Pistol Club and the Delaware State Sportsmen’s Association, argued the Delaware Departments of Agriculture and Natural Resources and Environmental Control exceeded their powers when they almost totally banned firearms on the land under their control. In a 3-2 ruling last Thursday, the state’s high court agreed.
“We are asked whether unelected officials from the State’s parks and forest departments, whose power is expressly limited, can ban (except for a narrow exception for hunting) the possession of guns in state parks and forests in contravention of Delawareans’ rights under the State’s constitution,” said Justice Karen Valihura for the majority. “Clearly they cannot. They lack such authority because they may not pass unconstitutional laws, and the regulations completely eviscerate a core right to keep and bear arms for defense of self and family outside the home — a right this Court has already recognized.”
DNREC, with some 23,000 acres under their control, had banned guns on their land since 1977 while the agriculture department, controlling 18,000 acres in three state forests, had maintained similar policies since 2003 with violations subject to fines ranging between $25 and $500.
“The limited ability to have a hunting rifle or shotgun while engaged in a controlled hunt on state park or forest land does not fulfill — and cannot substitute for — the people’s right to have a firearm for defense of self and family while camping overnight in a State Park or hiking in the more remote acres of State Forests (assuming compliance with all other laws governing guns),” said Valihura. “The Regulations not only unduly burden that constitutional right, but eviscerate it altogether.”
Plaintiffs in the case welcomed the news.
“They did the right thing,” said Jeff Hague, treasurer of the Bridgeville Rifle and Pistol Club and president of the Delaware State Sportsmen’s Association, as reported by DelawareOnline.com. “This reaffirms the constitutional right that Delawareans have … to self-defense and the right to keep and bear arms, not just in hunting and fishing and sporting, but in defense of their family and home.”
In a lengthy dissent penned by Chief Justice Leo Strine, the minority argued that the gun bans up for debate existed in one form or another on public land in the state back to the 19th Century and continued to operate without controversy. Further, Strine held the land affected only amounts to about 3 percent of the state and voiced concerns for public safety should guns be allowed.
“When people come together in Parks and Forests for games and recreation, emotions can run high,” he said. “When folks camp, they sometimes drink, including at events within the Parks like beer and wine festivals. When folks drink and carouse, they sometimes get jealous and angry. When folks play or attend sporting events, spirits run high and sometimes out of control. When folks get emotional around guns, things can get dangerous fast.”
Spokesmen for the two agencies said they are reviewing the ruling before they release a response.Last month Dwayne Johnson shared a few words about his upcoming role as Black Adam in the Shazam movie, and the possibility of him squaring off against the likes of Batman (Ben Affleck) and Superman (Henry Cavill) in the DC Cinematic Universe. Well, The Rock has now offered up a few more comments about the character, specifically the possibility of exploring his heroic side, and whether we might see him joining the Justice League at some point in the future.
“I think so, and I think you always want to leave that creatively open, that he could join the Justice League,” Johnson tells IGN. “I think that’s the fun part of creating this character right now and everybody involved, from the studio, from New Line, to Warner Bros., as well, to the writer, our producing partners. You definitely want to engage in his heroic side, but that has to be earned and with the mythology of Black Adam starting off as a slave, because when you start off as a slave, just inherently, there’s things in your DNA that piss you off. And that’s the bottom line, so I think we have to respect and pay homage to the true mythology and then the heroic side will come down the line. But I think it’s important and we all feel it’s important and I believe the fans feel it’s important to make sure the homage is paid at the beginning because then you have a stronger foundation to stand on, and so he will become an anti-hero, but at first… daddy’s got to go to work.”
SEE ALSO: New Line’s Toby Emmerich talks Shazam movie and Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam
Shazam is set for release on April 5th 2019.Amazon Studios this fall will debut six pilots — including comedies from Louis C.K. and Sacha Baron Cohen — from which it will select shows to greenlight as full series.
The new half-hour pilots premiering later this year are: “Highston” from Bob Nelson (Nebraska), directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (Little Miss Sunshine) and executive producer Sacha Baron Cohen (The Dictator); “One Mississippi” from exec producers Louis C.K. (“Louie”), Tig Notaro (“Boyish Girl Interrupted”), Diablo Cody (“Juno”) and exec producer/director Nicole Holofcener (“Enough Said”); and “Z” from Dawn Prestwich and Nicole Yorkin (“The Killing”), produced by Pam Koffler and Christine Vachon (“Still Alice”) and directed by Tim Blake Nelson (“Anesthesia”).
Amazon’s three hour-long drama pilots will include “Edge” from Shane Black (“Lethal Weapon,” “Iron Man 3”) and Fred Dekker (“Tales from the Crypt,” “Star Trek: Enterprise”); “Good Girls Revolt,” written by Dana Calvo (“Made in Jersey”); and “Patriot” (working title) from Steven Conrad (“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” “The Weather Man”).
Actors starring in the pilots include Christina Ricci in “Z” as Zelda Fitzgerald (pictured above), Anna Camp (whose credits include “Pitch Perfect”), Flea (“The Big Lebowski”), Ryan Kwanten (“True Blood”), Shaquille O’Neal (“Blended”), Terry O’Quinn (“Lost”), Chris Parnell (“Saturday Night Live”), Mary Lynn Rajskub (“24”) and David Strathairn (“Good Night, and Good Luck,” “The Bourne Ultimatum”).
Related ‘Transparent,’ Amazon Break New Ground with Emmy Wins
The shows will be free for anyone to watch on Amazon Video in the U.S., the U.K., Germany and Austria. Amazon execs will incorporate ratings and comments from users in deciding which ones to turn into full series, available only to Prime subscribers.
“We have something for everyone in this season and I am excited to see which shows spark conversation amongst our customers and what they want to be made into series,” said Roy Price, VP of Amazon Studios.
Amazon’s “Transparent” won five Primetime Emmy awards this past Sunday, including Jeffrey Tambor for lead actor in a comedy and series creator Jill Soloway for directing.
Here’s a rundown of the six new pilots:When Kid Rock took the stage to present the award for Top Rap Song of the year at the 2013 Billboard Music Awards, he immediately attracted attention for the random mug (with unknown contents) he was clutching.
However, the multi-genre artist managed to neatly steal the spotlight from his mystery drink with a single neatly barbed statement.
"Let's give it up for people lip-synching under pre-recorded music," the singer said wryly, before presenting the honor to Macklemore & Ryan Lewis for the hit tune "Thrift Shop."
Oh hai, Kid Rock. The social media-sphere instantly went into overdrive regarding his comment: Was the Kid specifically dissing Chris Brown — who'd just performed a very choreographed, Michael Jackson-esque revue of "Fine China"? Or, as other gossipy fans speculated, Selena Gomez's appearance earlier in the show?
Or, even though it came later in the program, perhaps the unexpected but not exactly live-feeling appearance of A-Ha's Morten Harket during Christina Aguilera and Pitbull's rendition of "Feel This Moment"?
Heck — was this a comment on rap music in general, given the award he'd just handed over?
Whatever he specifically meant, to be fair, Kid Rock had just a couple weeks ago been spending time with a group of musicians who definitely do not engage in lip-synching — namely, a host of country legends at the iconic late George Jones's funeral. The Kid himself performed a very organic, acoustic original tune at the memorial. It may be forgiven that he was feeling a little…itchy regarding anything even remotely canned.
But still: Gotta hand it to him for raising a few eyebrows in the crowd. As one fan noted on Twitter: "Kid Rock may have just become my favorite artist for speaking da truth...#lypsyncingsucks."
Still no word what was in that mug he was holding, though.
The Billboard Music Awards aired live from Las Vegas May 19.MK Dons have signed highly-rated Peru international Cristian Benavente from Real Madrid Castilla, subject to international clearance and FA approval.
The 21-year-old attacking midfielder has penned a two-year deal, with the option of a further 12 months, after completing a medical at stadiummk on Friday. He joins on a free transfer and becomes Karl Robinson’s fifth signing of the summer.
Dubbed the ‘Peruvian Ronaldinho’, Benavente has featured 33 times for Real Madrid’s reserve side, managed by Zinedine Zidane, scoring three goals. He also has collected eight caps for his national side, Peru.
Speaking to mkdons.com, the versatile forward said: “I’m so happy to be here in this stadium and in this city. (MK Dons) is a really good club with good people and I’m excited to start training and playing.”
Dons boss Karl Robinson added: “Cristian came on our radar about a month ago. We knew of him and I was able to speak to one or two of my contacts in Madrid about him. We did a lot of due diligence behind the scenes and didn’t get one bad report.
“He will take time to settle in England because of the way he plays but I feel we’re a club that suits him. There is an unpredictably about it but he’s been schooled in a wonderful way having been with Real Madrid since the age of eight.
“He has an ability to play in a number of positions. He is one for the future but hopefully he can make an impact now as well – he’s certainly an exciting talent.”
Keep it mkdons.com for more on the Dons' latest signing.Conquer the job market | Thinkstock
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But more than anything, you’ll want to have a solid set of skills and competencies that will win over hiring managers, and show businesses that you can and will be an asset to their growth and long-term strategy.
all of the traditional core competencies that businesses are looking for, including punctuality, solid industry experience, and maybe even a college degree. It’s all going to depend on what you’re looking for, of course, but there’s some new insight that is giving job-seekers — that may mean you — a bit of insider information that may put you in the upper echelon of applicants. Your resume should include all of the traditional core competencies that businesses are looking for, including punctuality, solid industry experience, and maybe even a college degree. It’s all going to depend on what you’re looking for, of course, but there’s some new insight that is giving job-seekers — that may mean you — a bit of insider information that may put you in the upper echelon of applicants.
Businesses want employees with social skills.
This is the conclusion of a slew of new research into labor economics. The New York Times’ Upshot recently did a story This is the conclusion of a slew of new research into labor economics. The New York Times’ Upshot recently did a story covering the phenomenon, which included diving into a new study from David Deming, associate professor of education and economics at Harvard University. Deming’s paper, The Growing Importance of Social Skills in the Labor Market, says that social skills and an ability to bring a “human touch” to the workplace is becoming more important as automation and technology render many positions obsolete.
“While computers perform cognitive tasks of rapidly increasing complexity, simple human interaction has proven difficult to automate,” his paper reads. “Since 1980, jobs with high social skill requirements have experienced greater relative growth throughout the wage distribution. Moreover, employment and wage growth has been strongest in jobs that require high levels of both cognitive skill and social skill.”
It’s an interesting development and hypothesis, and the data seems to support Deming’s findings.January 1 is the first day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 364 days remaining until the end of the year (365 in leap years). This day is known as New Year's Day since the day marks the beginning of the year. It is also the first day of the first quarter of the year and the first half of the year.
History
During the Middle Ages under the influence of the Catholic Church, many countries in western Europe decided to move the start of the year to one of several important Christian festivals – December 25 (the Nativity of Jesus), March 1, March 25 (the Annunciation), or even Easter. The Byzantine Empire began its numbered year on September 1.[1]
In England, January 1 was celebrated as the New Year festival, but from the 12th century to 1752 the year in England began on March 25 (Lady Day). So, for example, the Parliamentary record notes the execution of Charles I as occurring on January 30, 1648, (as the year did not end until March 24), although modern histories adjust the start of the year to January 1 and record the execution as occurring in 1649.
Most western European countries changed the start of the year to January 1 before they adopted the Gregorian calendar. For example, Scotland changed the start of the Scottish New Year to January 1 in 1600. England, Ireland and the British colonies changed the start of the year to January 1 in 1752. Later that year in September, the Gregorian calendar was introduced throughout Britain and the British colonies. These two reforms were implemented by the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750.
January 1 became the official start of the year as follows:
Julian calendar:
Gregorian calendar:
Events
Pre-Julian Roman calendar
153 BC – For the first time, Roman consuls begin their year in office on January 1.[2]
Early Julian calendar (before Augustus' leap year correction)
Julian calendar
Gregorian calendar
Births
Deaths
Holidays and observances5 Myths of Custom OEM Android Skins – AOSP, Sense, TouchWiz – XDA Developer TV
Android version 4.2.2 of Jelly Bean has arrived on the Nexus line up’s door step. That can mean only one thing: It is time to cue the onslaught of mainstream technology journalist statements about the “fragmentation” of Android. They proclaim this fragmentation hurts Android, that non standardized hardware and different OEM customized versions of Android will be the downfall of Google’s mobile operating system. These people have perhaps drank a bit too much iKool-Aid.
The different options of Android handsets are what make Android a success. If I want a 5.5 inch phone screen, there is the Samsung Galaxy Note II. If I want a water and dust proof phone, there is the Sony Xperia Z. If I want a phone that I cannot unlock and has some of the most difficult bootloaders to crack, there is almost every Motorola and HTC device. In this episode XDA Developer Producer azrienoch gives us the 5 myths of the custom OEM Android software ecosystem.
Be sure to check out other great XDA Developer TV Videos.Jeremy Corbyn has refused to back down in the row over his claims women are discriminated against by after-work drinking.
The Labour leader caused controversy by saying “early evening socialisation” was unfair on female workers.
Speaking at the launch of his equality manifesto, Mr Corbyn said that after-work drinking “benefits men who don't feel the need to be at home looking after their children and it discriminates against women who will want to, obviously, look after the children that they have got".
Critics accused him of sexism for appearing to suggest that only women feel a responsibility to look after their children once they finish work.
This is the speech in which Corbyn calls on firms to ban after work drinks, saying they discriminate against mothers pic.twitter.com/2aAYDOLphm — ITV News (@itvnews) 2 September 2016
A spokesman for the Jeremy for Labour campaign rejected claims that Mr Corbyn wanted to ban after-work drinks.
But he added: "He instead highlighted a concern among many women's groups and the head of the CBI that a male-led after-work networking culture in some workplaces can be detrimental to the career progression of female co-workers who can feel excluded, especially those women with caring responsibilities."CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — As the United States heads into an election cycle in which immigration reform is destined to be a voting issue, Pope Francis made a politically charged stop at the US-Mexico border Wednesday to highlight what he called the “human tragedy” faced by migrants.
The pope said the world can no longer deny the crisis generated by untold numbers of people who have crossed deserts, mountains, and inhospitable zones, by whatever means necessary, to flee violence and poverty.
“The human tragedy that is forced migration is a global phenomenon today,” Francis said during his homily at a Mass for migrants and victims of violence. “This crisis, which can be measured in numbers and statistics, we want to instead measure with names, stories, families.”
Those forced to migrate today, Francis said, are “brothers and sisters excluded as a result of poverty and violence, drug trafficking and criminal organizations.”
In a dramatic gesture before the Mass, Francis stopped at the border, walking up a ramp lined with yellow flowers to a specially built platform facing across the fence toward the United States. Next to a giant crucifix, he made three signs of the cross and blessed hundreds of people gathered a few yards away in El Paso on the US side. The three blessings were for the diocese of El Paso, one for Juárez, and one for Las Cruces, New Mexico, considered part of a common metropolitan area on the border.
Several US bishops, including Boston Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez, and El Paso Bishop Mark Seitz, concelebrated the Mass with Francis, symbolically answering the pope’s call to make immigrants a priority.
Juárez is no longer the Mexican capital of crime, as it was known not long ago, but it still is the destination of choice for thousands of Mexicans and Central Americans who want to flee their countries for the United States.
By addressing the issue of migration in Ciudad Juárez, Francis answered the prayers of many of those who were at the Mass, such as Jorge, a 26-year-old from El Salvador, who’s been waiting for “the right opportunity” to join some members of his family who have settled in Chicago.
“I hope his words can open the hearts of those who want to put up a fence instead of opening the doors,” Jorge told Crux before the Mass started.
“I’m not a criminal, I’m not a rapist, I’m a medical doctor who’s seen to many friends and family members killed by the maras,” he said, referring to Central American drug gangs.
Jorge is only one of hundreds who continue to flee the surge of violence in the three countries that make up the Northern Triangle: Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. In 2014, the violence in Jorge’s nation rivaled that of Syria, by then already a stronghold of Islamic terror.
Young migrants, Francis said in his homily, become “cannon fodder,” persecuted and threatened when they try to flee the spiral of violence and the hell of drugs.
“Then there are the many women unjustly robbed of their lives,” Francis said. This is particularly significant in Ciudad Juárez, a city that in the late 1990s and early 2000s saw at least 700 women killed in a wave of “feminicides.”
More than 200,000 people attended the Mass Francis celebrated in the “fair area” of Ciudad Juárez, a site within walking distance of the fence that divides the city from Texas. Another 50,000 joined from El Paso.
Juárez is the fifth largest city in Mexico. Land of the burrito and the Margarita, it’s also home to the largest United States consulate, which receives more visa applications than any other place in the world.
Those who see their requests rejected often fall prey to human traffickers and organized crime.
When he was archbishop of Buenos Aires, Francis — then Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio — condemned his city’s clandestine sewing shops where hundreds of Peruvians, Paraguayans, and migrants from other countries where forced to work in slave-like conditions.
During the Mass he celebrated in Juárez, he said that for those trying to reach the United States, each step is laden with grave injustices: “the enslaved, the imprisoned and extorted; so many of these brothers and sisters of ours are the consequence of a trade in human beings.”
“No more death! No more exploitation!” Francis decried. “There is still time to change, there is still a way out and a chance, time to implore the mercy of God.”
The pope also thanked the men and women religious, priests, and laypeople who are “in the front lines, often risking their own lives,” to help migrants and defending life. He also had words of appreciation for civil organizations working to support the rights of migrants.
Before closing his homily, Francis spoke to those who joined the Mass from the Sun Bowl, the stadium of the University of El Paso.
Francis thanked those who participated in the celebration, many of them immigrants, saying: “With the help of technology, we can pray, sign, and celebrate together the merciful love that God gives us, and that no border can prevent us from sharing.”
As the crowd in the stadium cheered, he said, “Thank you, brothers and sisters in El Paso, for making us feel like one family and one Christian community.”As Victor Moses pulled up in the Selhurst Park penalty area 40 minutes into a 2-1 defeat to Crystal Palace, the reasons could not be clearer to |
a chapter called "Channeling Chicken Little," he said it's not as dire as some officials claim and that reforms undertaken during his administration will help make a difference. "The sky isn't falling and doomsday is not around the bend," he wrote.
More: Beshear administration official admits to raising contributions from state workers
More: Bevin lashes out at Courier-Journal story on his media policy, calls reporters 'cicadas'
More: Matt Bevin's media policy: Ignore reporters and control the message
Beshear devotes a chapter to the same-sex marriage debate that roiled Kentucky, explaining that despite his personal views—which he declined to disclose at the time—he pursued the appeal so the case could get final resolution. (It did when the U.S. Supreme Court in 2015 struck down state efforts to ban same-sex marriage.)
His account is sure to provoke skepticism from those who saw Beshear's appeal as a purely political move to protect Democrats running for legislative seats in 2014 as well as to protect his son Andy Beshear, a Democrat running for attorney general.
Beshear, in an interview Wednesday, said he understands such skepticism and that's why he wanted to tell his story in his 364-page book published by A Stronger Kentucky Inc., a charitable and educational group he founded.
"People may not agree with what I did, but at least they know why I did it," he said.
The main purpose of his book, Beshear said, is to try to "make government" work again in an age of partisanship and gridlock.
Much of it is devoted to his efforts to expand access to health care in Kentucky after the federal Affordable Care Act was enacted in 2010.
Beshear details many efforts to work with Republicans, who controlled the Senate, and Democrats, the majority party in the House, during his tenure. But he acknowledges having to sidestep lawmakers — with most Republicans and some Democrats adamantly opposed to Obamacare — by using executive orders to enact provisions of the law in Kentucky.
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Beshear said his executive orders — one in 2012 creating the state's health insurance exchange, kynect, and the other, in 2013, expanding Medicaid — were worth it because more than 500,000 Kentuckians gained health coverage. Kentucky experienced one of the sharpest drops in the nation in the rate of uninsured, going from 20 percent of residents with no health coverage to around 7 percent.
"It's a huge success both from a moral and economic standpoint," said Beshear, whose book details the health and economic gains he said the expansion has brought to Kentucky, largely through Medicaid, a program financed mostly by the federal government.
Still, Beshear, who describes health coverage as his "legacy," acknowledges it has an uncertain future.
Bevin, who ran a campaign promising to dismantle Obamacare in Kentucky, is shutting down kynect and working to dramatically overhaul the Medicaid expansion, seeking federal permission to change it to a more limited program with cost-sharing and reduced health services. Bevin has said the state can't afford its share of the Medicaid expansion and cost-sharing will encourage more personal responsibility.
Meanwhile, in Washington, where Republicans control Congress, lawmakers are involved in an ongoing effort to repeal the health law and replace it with their own creation, which could mean major changes to or elimination of much of Kentucky's program.
Beshear said his hope of preserving the best parts of the health law is a key reason he wrote his book.
"I'm hopeful that further public discussion will make a difference in where we end up," he said.
Beshear will be signing copies of his book in Louisville on Friday at 11 a.m. at Carmichael's Bookstore, 2720 Frankfort Ave., and in Lexington at 4 p.m. at Joseph Beth Booksellers, 161 Lexington Green Circle.
Contact reporter Deborah Yetter at 502-582-4228 or at dyetter@courier-journal.com.
Read or Share this story: http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/2017/05/24/despite-legal-challenge-former-gov-steve-beshear-says-he-supported-same-sex-marriage/335994001/A movie house with a bit of history in the hamlet of Inlet, on Fourth Lake in the Central Adirondacks, is being torn down.
Tamarack Cafe and Movie House is described by Adirondack historians as the first Quonset-type movie theater in the United States. It dates to 1926.
The owners, Brandon DiMartino and his wife, Megan, say they plan to build a video arcade, miniature golf course and restaurant on the site. Brandon said he hopes the project will be finished by next summer.
The cafe, a popular spot for breakfast in the area, will not be affected, Brandon explained. It’s a separate building connected to the theater by a hallway.
Tamarack Movie House has 250 seats, according to Norman Keim’s book, “Our Movie Houses” of 2008. It has one screen. Tickets are $3 for adults. The movie house was open July and August.
Brandon explained several economic pressures contributed to his decision to demolish the theater, which has been a landmark in the Adirondacks since the 1920s.
One was the trend in the movie business these days to the digital film format. Equipment for the changeover is very expensive for a small, independent, an estimated $50,000 to $70,000. The owner said he’s been told the large chains are given a deal on the transition that a small theater is shut out of.
Another challenge for the Inlet movie house is that business has been declining over the past six years.
“It’s been a downward trend,” according to Brandon, who only opens the theater in the two months in the middle of summer. He tried several experiments, such as opening earlier in the season and closing later and investing in new projection equipment “but those things didn’t work.”
The Tamarack showed its last picture show over Labor Day Weekend.
Running the theater, and the restaurant, was pretty much of a family operation; Brandon running the projector, his dad, Joe DiMartino, handling the concession stand, while someone helped out selling tickets.
Megan and Brandon bought the theater in 1995. At that time, it was called The Gaiety.
Over time, the business has had several owners, including Mendel Schulman and Jacob Reatstone, both of Utica. The theater burned in 1926 and during the winter of 1942, the roof collapsed. The next summer, according to Inlet historians, the movie house operated as “an open air theater.”
Brandon said he’s lived in Inlet most of his life, coming to the community in the fourth grade. He sold real estate and managed a cafe in Rochester, his hometown.
The DiMartinos are in the cafe’s kitchen every day, serving an average 600 meals a day in the summer.
Brandon said the theater was given a reinforced steel frame in the recent past. The building is 80 percent metal, which he’s sold to a recycling company in Utica, hoping to offset the expense of rebuilding.
He told The Weekly Adirondack newspaper “we’re excited. We will be filling a void with something that’s missing in Inlet. It’s gotten busier in town; there seems to be more synergy between the businesses.”
Rail City memories
Katherine Martin McClure lives in Fort Pierce, Fla., but she grew up in Syracuse and spent many summer weekends at Sandy Pond, where the Groman family (Stanley, Sr. who owned Rail City) had their camps. A special friend was Susan, a niece of Stan’s. I wrote about Rail City’s decline last Sunday.
“Every day we would go to the City and ride the train, walk though the museum and do our favorite thing, ride the rail car,” Kathy recalled in an e-mail. “We would pump it so fast it would scare us. Half way around the tracks, the train ride would stop and people could get off to go see the Green Monkey.
“The monkey was in a box and people would cautiously approach it and open the lid slowly, look in and SURPRISE, you were looking at yourself in a mirror at the bottom of the box.
“In the museum we would examine the old pictures of famous outlaws who were laid out in their coffins and marvel at the spectacle. We would climb the water tower and look out to Lake Ontario.
“What a way to spend so many summers.”
Dick Case writes Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at 470-2254, or by e-mail, dcase@syracuse.com.Legal team preparing to apply for judicial review of Tory-DUP pact on grounds that it breaches the Good Friday agreement
Theresa May is facing a landmark legal challenge over her proposed deal with the Democratic Unionist party on the grounds that it breaches the Good Friday agreement.
An experienced legal team, which has been involved in constitutional challenges, is planning to apply for a judicial review of the deal once it is announced, the Guardian has learned.
High court judges would be asked to examine whether the pact breaches the British government’s commitment to exercise “rigorous impartiality” in the Good Friday agreement.
The case, which could be heard in the supreme court because of its constitutional significance, follows warnings by politicians from all sides that the deal risks undermining the peace process in Northern Ireland.
The transport secretary, Chris Grayling, said on Tuesday that the deal to support the Conservative’s minority government may not be sealed until after the Queen’s speech.
It is understood that the legal challenge has been in preparation for some time but that any action would be announced after the prime minister outlines the deal in the coming days.
Lawyers are believed to have found a lead claimant to fight the case, similar to the role that the investment banker Gina Miller had when she won a supreme court ruling ordering ministers to introduce emergency legislation to authorise Britain’s departure from the EU in January.
It is understood that potential lead claimants have been warned to expect significant press attention – Miller has said the Brexit case made her the most hated woman in Britain – and that the claim will need to be crowdfunded.
Lawyers are understood to be keen for the judicial review to be heard before the end of this year at the latest.
An announcement of a deal between the Conservatives and the DUP to form a minority government was expected last Wednesday but was delayed due to the Grenfell Tower fire, in which at least 79 people died or are presumed dead.
Politicians from all sides have warned the prime minister that striking a deal with Arlene Foster’s party could put the fragile peace in Northern Ireland at risk.
Sir John Major said last week that a deal risked alienating armed republicans and loyalists, and cause resentment in other parts of the UK if the government made promises to spend large amounts of public money.
The Sinn Féin president, Gerry Adams, also accused May of not honouring the Good Friday agreement after meeting the prime minister last week.
The Guardian is also aware that a Northern Ireland law firm has considered a similar challenge.
The legal challenge is likely to focus on subsection five of article 1 of the 1998 Good Friday agreement, which states that the UK and Irish governments “affirm that whatever choice is freely exercised by a majority of the people of Northern Ireland, the power of the sovereign government with jurisdiction there shall be exercised with rigorous impartiality on behalf of all the people in the diversity of their identities and traditions and shall be founded on the principles of full respect for, and equality of, civil, political, social and cultural rights, of freedom from discrimination for all citizens, and of parity of esteem and of just and equal treatment for the identity, ethos and aspirations of both communities.”
The phrase “rigorous impartiality” and what it implies is likely to be the crucial legal issue to be tested.
In a commentary last week, Colin Harvey, professor of human rights law at Queen’s University, Belfast, wrote: “‘Rigorous impartiality’… is central to the Good Friday agreement and to the British-Irish agreement (an international treaty between the UK and Ireland). The concept flows from the complex right of self-determination on which the current British-Irish constitutional compromise is based.
“Any deal between the Conservative party and the DUP that infringed the above principles or strayed directly onto Good Friday agreement territory (such as, for example, ruling out a unity referendum) runs a real risk of being in breach of article 1 of the British-Irish agreement.”Carbon fiber chairs, tables, and other furnishings combine the kind of technology found in Formula One racing cars with the elegance and artful design most often encountered in a modern art museum. The visual interest is undeniable, and the real carbon fiber construction, custom workmanship, and made-to-order design options create a range of custom furniture pieces that will easily become the centerpiece of any room - whether you’re considering a residential or commercial installation. But don’t think that the sleek, modern design cues and carbon fiber-intensive construction techniques demand form over function. Rather, these carbon fiber chairs are incredibly supportive and the tables are artfully designed yet completely functional. If you are looking for the ideal blend of sleek design elements and real-world comfort, you’ve found it.
Lightweight, technical, and designed with the utmost in attention to detail, our selection of intricately crafted carbon fiber furniture for home and office are stylish and sophisticated - and perfect for your unique space. Each piece artfully combines next-gen design philosophies with incredibly strong, featherweight construction to deliver intriguing shapes and inspired angles that can elevate any home or office. The natural strength of carbon fiber melds seamlessly with materials like glass, stainless steel, and aluminum to create stunning and modern carbon fiber furniture that is unlike any other furniture on the market today. Tables, chairs, lighting systems, and more are designed to deliver real-world utility and a captivating appearance - and they’re destined to become the centerpiece of your room. Order today and discover how easy it is to make a bold statement with carbon fiber furniture.Back on Election Day, Hillary Clinton won New Hampshire by the slimmest of margins, and now-Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) defeated Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) by an even smaller margin. Now, about 5,000 votes are being called into question as they may have been cast by non-residents of New Hampshire.
New Hampshire has same-day voter registration, and new residents of the state have two months to obtain a New Hampshire license. The vast majority of the people who registered to vote on Election Day have not yet done this, says NH Speaker of the House Shawn Jasper.
According to Jasper, who received numbers from the Department of State and the Department of Safety, of the 6,540 people who registered to vote on Election Day with an out-of-state license, only 1,014 of those people have actually received a New Hampshire license since then. Additionally, about 200 people have registered a car in New Hampshire. This means that 5,313 people who voted in New Hampshire have failed to receive a New Hampshire driver's license or establish another form of residency in the state--a troubling number given how close the elections were. About 200 people are also under investigation for voting in both New Hamsphire and in another state.
Jasper received a letter from the departments of State and Safety containing the voter data. While the letter did not say that fraud took place, it does provide examples to explain how the discrepancies happened.
From the Washington Times:
The two state departments, State and Safety, provided the data to Mr. Jasper on Wednesday in a joint letter. Secretary of State William M. Gardner, a Democrat, signed the letter. Also signing was John Barthelmes, the Republican appointed commissioner for the Department of Safety. The two agencies explained the 5,313 number (neither a driver’s license nor a registered motor vehicle many months later) with several possible reasons. “It is likely that some unknown number of these individuals moved out of New Hampshire, it is possible that a few may have never driven in New Hampshire or have ceased driving, however, it is expected that an unknown number of the remainder continue to live and drive in New Hampshire. If they have established their residence in New Hampshire, they may have failed to obtain a New Hampshire driver’s license.” Nowhere in the letter do the departments suggest that out-of-state people voted illegally.
While these numbers don't prove fraud, they're certainly head-scratching. In theory, it would be quite easy for a person to drive into New Hampshire, register to vote with an out-of-state ID, and then return home. Perhaps New Hampshire should look into improving voter security procedures to ensure that these types of numbers do not happen again. While ~5,000 people seems like a small amount, in this case, it could have changed two election results. That's not good.Gamereactor Spain has learnt that some retailers in the country have already started selling copies of GTAV, well ahead of the game's launch next week.
After a phone call to a retail store to confirm an allegation that the game was being sold early, Gamereactor Spain was told: "yes, it's for sale. You can come and buy your copy".
It's not unknown for retailers to start selling titles ahead of their official release date as copies arrive early in-store. Exactly how this will play out in Spain over the weekend - whether the sales will remain isolated, or if other retailers will seek permission to sale the game too to compete fairly with those breaking the release schedule early -is unknown. Whether the same situation will be reflected in UK retail remains to be seen.
We're currently playing the game for review, with the embargo on our impressions lifting 3pm GMT next Monday, September 16th. In just under ten minutes we'll be live streaming a retrospective on the series.
This news story originally appeared on Gamereactor Spain.WALNUT CREEK — A former girls basketball coach has been arrested and charged with two felonies after a police investigation determined she had two sexual encounters with a minor, authorities said.
Catherine Handlin, 24, was a junior varsity girls basketball coach at Berean Christian High School — a private school in Walnut Creek — until these allegations surfaced. She faces charges of oral copulation with a minor — which would require Handlin to register as a sex offender if she’s convicted — and sex with a minor, according to the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office. She is also accused of exchanging sexual texts with students.
The investigation started Jan. 8, after the school received an anonymous tip that Handlin had been engaging in inappropriate conduct with a student, and immediately called police. Detectives located two male students — an 18-year-old and a 17-year-old — who admitted to receiving nude pictures from Handlin, police said.
Handlin never coached either of the students, according to authorities. Principal Nelson Noriega said he alerted parents at the beginning of the investigation and recently sent out a second mass email explaining to families what had happened.
Authorities conducted interviews and determined that Handlin had engaged in two sexual encounters with the 17-year-old, and she was arrested on Jan. 10. She has been released after posting $70,000 bail but was fired from her coaching job the same day the allegations surfaced, police said.
“(School officials) did contact police pretty promptly,” deputy district attorney Bruce Flynn, head of the county’s sex assault unit, said.
According to authorities, the sexual encounters happened Dec. 31 and Jan. 7 in cars parked in Clayton and Walnut Creek.
Handlin’s attorney, Dan O’Malley, called the incident “an unfortunate mistake in judgment.”
“She’s taking responsibility for it,” he said.
Handlin’s father, Mike, echoed that sentiment.
“Catherine made a mistake,” he told ABC7 News. “She’s taking responsibility. She’s a young adult. There’s no reason to drag her over the coals for the rest of her life for this.”
Both Catherine Handlin, the students and school administrators cooperated fully with the investigation, police said. Authorities are confident that Handlin’s purported sexual misconduct was limited to the two students.
The two charges are known to authorities as “wobblers” because they can be prosecuted as misdemeanors or felonies. After reviewing all the facts, authorities decided to prosecute the case as felonies, even though Handlin’s alleged crimes weren’t as egregious as many sex crimes that get prosecuted, such as child molestation or rape, Flynn said.
“It’s a position of trust issue, with a student and teacher or coach,” he said. “That’s the thing that’s troubling about it.”
Principal Noriega said that since the allegations have surfaced, the school has been “grieving” and that the experience — his first sex scandal in 40 years of working at schools — has been “nerve-wracking.”
“It really breaks my heart. We’re a faith-based school, and we’re committed to our faith, and when we hire people, we vet them for their character,” he said. “I’m saddened for her, but I’m also saddened for the students and how this is going to affect the rest of their lives.”
Contact Nate Gartrell at 925-779-7174, or follow him at Twitter.com/nategartrell.Dogs' paths during group walks could be used to determine leadership roles and through that their social ranks and personality traits, say researchers from Oxford University, Eötvös University, Budapest and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HAS).
Using high-resolution GPS harnesses, scientists tracked the movements of six dogs and their owner across fourteen 30-40 minute walks off the lead. The dogs' movements were measurably influenced by underlying social hierarchies and personality differences.
'We showed that it is possible to determine the social ranking and personality traits of each dog from their GPS movement data,' said study author Dr Máté Nagy of Oxford University's Department of Zoology, formerly of Eötvös University and HAS. 'On individual walks it is hard to identify one permanent leader, but over longer timescales it soon becomes clear that some dogs are followed by peers more often than others. Overall, the collective motion of the pack is strongly influenced by an underlying social network.'
The study, published in PLOS Computational Biology, demonstrates the power of path tracking to measure social behaviour and automatically determine dogs' personalities. In future, one possible use of the technology would be to assess search and rescue dogs to see which dogs work best together. As dogs are ideal models of human behaviour, the same methods could be used to study social interactions in humans such as parents walking with their children. The study is part of the European Research Council project COLLMOT led by Professor Tamás Vicsek (Eötvös University and HAS) which aims to understand the collective motion a wide variety of different organisms in nature.
How dogs behave during walks reveals a lot about traits such as trainability, controllability, aggression, age and dominance. Dogs that consistently took the lead were more responsive to training, more controllable, older and more aggressive than the dogs that tended to follow. Dogs that led more often had higher dominance ranks in everyday situations, assessed by a dominance questionnaire.
'The dominance questionnaire tells us the pecking order of dog groups by quantifying interactions between pairs,' said Dr Enikő Kubinyi, senior author of the study from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. 'For example, the dogs that bark first and more when strangers enter the house, eat first at meals and wins fights are judged as more dominant. Conversely, dogs that lick other dogs' mouths more often are less dominant as this is a submissive display.'
Pack leadership is well-established in wolves, where packs are typically led by a single breeding pair, but there is still much debate as to whether groups of domestic dogs have a social hierarchy.
'These dogs have no breeding pair,' said Dr Kubinyi. 'However, there are dogs who take the lead more often than others. On average, an individual took the role of the leader in a given pair in about three quarters of the time. This ratio is of similar magnitude to the case of wild wolf packs with several breeding individuals. Using this qualitative data over longer time scales allows us to see the more subtle relationships that might otherwise be missed. Of course, hierarchies are likely to vary across breeds and individual groups, so we hope to use this technology on other animals in future to investigate further.'
The dogs used in this study were of the Vizsla breed, a Hungarian hunting dog known for their good-natured temperament and trainability. It is interesting to note that the leader-follower relationships were always voluntary; dogs chose who to follow and the leaders did not compel other dogs to follow them.
The technology used in the study could be applied to other dogs used for search and rescue to provide quantitative data allowing handlers to compare how different dogs work together and pick those with the highest compatibility. Each device weighs only 14 grams and further sensors such as gyroscopes could be used to determine what each animal is doing at a given time.DV Home Cooking is devoted to readers and their recipes. All we ask is that you're a home cook, not a professional chef. Got a favorite dish you want to share? Send it, along with the story behind it, to DVHomeCooking@dailyvoice.com.
Home Cook: Alon Popilskis, Congers, N.Y., blogger at www.localtasteblog.com/.
Back Story: "I’m obsessed with pancakes which is a bit odd since they were never a staple at home. The first time I ever cooked a stack of pancakes was for breakfast after sleeping over my cousin's house. After that, I was instantly hooked and even though 20+ years have passed since my first pancake, my love for them hasn't died down. It probably has to do with the fact that they're so versatile -- they can be had for breakfast, lunch, dinner, a snack, or a dessert. Since it’s autumn, I clearly decided to join the pumpkin bandwagon which is why you'll find me whipping up these pancakes for the next few weeks."
Recipe: Pumpkin Pancakes
Ingredients
1 cup white unbleached flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp pure maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla
1 flax egg (1 Tbsp. flaxseed meal + 3 Tbsp. warm water) or 1 egg
1 cup milk of choice (I use almond)
½ a can of organic pumpkin (about 7.5 ounces)
1 Tbsp coconut oil, melted
¼ cup peanut butter (I use my own homemade PB mixed with pure maple syrup. Another suggestion would be Peanut Butter & Co. Mighty Maple or you can just use regular PB in which case you can up the maple syrup to 1.5 Tbsp.)
½ cup chocolate chips
Maple syrup for topping
Instructions
For those looking to keep the pancakes vegan (otherwise skip to next step): In a small bowl combine 1 tablespoon flaxseed meal + 3 tablespoons warm water and set aside until gel-like (flax egg)
In a large bowl, mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon together.
Stir in maple syrup, vanilla, flax egg or egg, almond milk, organic pumpkin, melted coconut oil, peanut butter, and chocolate chips.
Stir until mixed well but don't beat to death.
Heat a non-stick griddle over medium-high heat.
Place spoonfuls of batter onto greased griddle or skillet over medium-low heat and cook evenly on both sides (should be golden brown on each side).
Serve warm, with maple syrup.
Click here to sign up for Daily Voice's free daily emails and news alerts.New words list March 2011
In addition to revised versions of Second Edition entries, the following new words were added:
about round, adv.
ambigram, n.
banh mi, n.
Barnard’s star, n.
bet-hedging, n.
bet-hedging, adj.
biker, n.
biologic, adj. and n.
calligram, n.
car crash, n.
couch surf, v.
couch surfer, n.
couch surfing, n.
cream crackered, adj.
crème de cassis, n.
Divehi, n.
dot-bomb, n. and adj.
dotted line, n. and adj.
drill-down, n.
dubplate, n.
Dutch colonial, adj. and n.
ego-surf, v.
ego-surfing, n.
English colonial, adj. and n.
fabless, adj.
fnarr fnarr, int. and adj.
gnasher, n.
gremolata, n.
headline, v.
headlined, adj.
headlining, adj.
hentai, n.
heteronormative, adj.
heteronormativity, n.
Hindutva, n.
June, n.
kleftiko, n.
la-la land, n.
lari, n.
LOL, n.1
LOL, int. and n.2
lumpenintelligentsia, n.
meep, n. (and int.)
meep, v.
muffin top, n.
non-dom, n.
non-domicile, n.
non-domiciled, adj.
OMG, int., (n.), and adj.
pap, n.5
pap, v.3
party-crasher, n.
party-crashing, n.
party-crashing, adj.
radioprotectant, adj. and n.
rotograph, v.
rotoscope, v.
rotoscoped,
rotoscoping, n.
rototill, v.
rototilled, adj.
rotten egg, n.
Rotterdammer, n.
Rottie, n.
rottle, n.2
rotty, adj.
rouding time, n.
rough-cut, adj.
rough-cut, v.
rough-dress, v.
roughed-in, adj.
rough-in, n.
roughstock, n.
roulade, v.
roulading, n.
roulette, v.
roundman, n.
round-nose, adj. and n.
round-trip, v.
roupily, adv.
Roussanne, n.
roustabouting, n.
routed, adj.2
router, n.6
routery, n.
routineness, n.
rowdily, adv.
rowed, adj.3
rower, n.3
rowlock, n.2
Royal Free disease, n.
royalness, n.
rozzle, v.
RSA, n.2
Rev., n.
Revd., n.
Ru, n.
rua, n.
ruach, n.
rub-a-dub, v.1
rubber-banded, adj.
rubberization, n.
rubberize, v.1
Rubisco, n.
rubrene, n.
rubrification, n.2
rubus, n.
ruck, v.7
ruckly, adj.2
rude, n.1
rudimentarily, adv.
ruesome, adj.
ruff, n.10
ruff, int. (and n.11)
rufiyaa, n.
Rugby sevens, n.
rugelach, n.
rugulate, adj.
ruleful, adj.
rumble-de-thumps, n.
Ruminal, adj.1
rumminess, n.1
rumour control | rumor control, n.
Rumping, adj.
rumspringa, n.
run-and-shoot, adj. and n.
runathon, n.
runchick, n.
Rungu, n.
runiform, adj.
run-round, n.
ruote, n.
Rupert, n.
RUPP, n.
Ruppia, n.
rural economics, n.
Rurales, n.
ruralite, n.
Russellite, n.1 and adj.
Russellite, n.2
Russellite, n.3
Russophilia, n.
Russophobic, adj.
Russophone, n. and adj.
russula, n.
rusticate, adj.
rusticator, n.
rusticle, n.
Rusyn, n. and adj.
Ruthenic, adj.1
ruthenous, adj.
Ruthian, adj.
rutinic, adj.
rutting, n.2
ryanodine, n.
ryotei, n.
ryugi, n.
Second Coming, n.
singledom, n.
Skidi, n. and adj.
smack talk, n.
smack talking, n.
smack-talking, adj.
spinback, n.
state-run, adj.
stonewash, n.
stonewash, v.
stonewashed, adj.
suicide door, n.
taquito, n.
tetri, n.
tinfoil hat, n.
Wag, n.4
wassup, int.
yidaki, n.
In addition to these new entries, a number of new subordinate entries were added to existing entries. These included:
(Under B, n.) BFF
, n.) (Under behavioural | behavioral, adj.) behavioural economics behavioural economist behavioural science behavioural scientist
, adj.) (Under bereavement, n.) bereavement counselling bereavement counsellor
, n.) (Under bogus, n.1 and adj.) bogus caller
, n.1 and adj.) (Under bottle, n.2) bottle rocket
, n.2) (Under breaking, n.) breaking capacity
, n.) (Under C, n.) CEO CFO
, n.) (Under cage, n.) cage fighting
, n.) (Under call, n.) call and response
, n.) (Under car, n.) car accident
, n.) (Under care, n.1) care home
, n.1) (Under cat, n.1) cat shark
, n.1) (Under client, n.) client-centred
, n.) (Under con, n.4) con artist
, n.4) (Under D, n.) DOB DRM
, n.) (Under dark, adj.) dark rum
, adj.) (Under dental, adj. and n.) dental dam
, adj. and n.) (Under domestic, adj. and n.) domestic goddess
, adj. and n.) (Under doughnut, n.) doughnut hole
, n.) (Under driving, n.) driving test
, n.) (Under drop -, _form) drop-down
-, _form) (Under Eton, n.) Eton mess
, n.) (Under fixed, adj.) fixed gear fixed wheel
, adj.) (Under flat, adj., adv., and 3) flat white
, adj., adv., and 3) (Under god, n.) God-botherer God-bothering
, n.) (Under happy, adj.) happy camper
, adj.) (Under ick, n. and int.) ick factor
, n. and int.) (Under Jerusalem, ) Jerusalem Syndrome
, ) (Under leisure, n.) leisure suit
, n.) (Under light, adj.2) light rum
, adj.2) (Under long, adj.1 and n.) long bone
, adj.1 and n.) (Under rotograph, v.) rotographing
, v.) (Under rotor, n.) rotor wash
, n.) (Under rotten, adj., n., and adv.) rotten-toothed
, adj., n., and adv.) (Under rough, adj. (and int.)) long rough dab rough dab rough edge rough Epsom salts rough flapper rough food rough lemon rough oak rough ray rough seal rough service rough terrapin rough-billed pelican rough-gaited rough-keeled snake rough-scaled lizard rough-tail rough-tailed snake rough-tailed stickleback rough-wing rough-wing tortrix rough-winged swallow
, adj. (and int.)) (Under rough, n.1) rough of the mouth
, n.1) (Under rough-backed, adj.) rough-backed caiman
, adj.) (Under rough-dress, v.) rough-dressed rough-dressing
, v.) (Under roughening, n.) roughening transition
, n.) (Under rough-legged, adj.) rough-legged buzzard rough-legged hawk
, adj.) (Under roughness, n.) roughness length surface roughness length
, n.) (Under rounce, v.1) rouncing
, v.1) (Under round robin, n.) round-robining
, n.) (Under round, adj.) round baler round baling round bracket round game round potato round shave round whitefish round window round-baled round-crowned round-leaf round-neck
, adj.) (Under round, adv. and prep.) —— way round round and about
, adv. and prep.) (Under round, n.1) round book the rounds of the kitchen
, n.1) (Under round, v.2) to round aft to round down to round up
, v.2) (Under roundball, n.) roundballer
, n.) (Under rounding, n.3) rounding down rounding error
, n.3) (Under round-leaved, adj.) round-leaved sundew
, adj.) (Under round-nose, adj. and n.) roundnose grenadier
, adj. and n.) (Under Rous, n.) Rous sarcoma virus
, n.) (Under route, n.1) route army route master route planner route sheet route step route taxi route-finding routeway
, n.1) (Under router, n.5) router table
, n.5) (Under routing, n.1) routing-house
, n.1) (Under routing, n.8) routing table
, n.8) (Under roving, adj.) roving bridge roving wiretap
, adj.) (Under row, v.1) to row back
, v.1) (Under rowel, n.) rowel scissors rowel-bone
, n.) (Under royal, adj. and n.) royal absolutism Royal Academician royal albatross royal household Royal Institution royal kite Royal Mail royal moth royal pardon royal patronage royal refugee royal spoonbill royal walnut royal walnut moth
, adj. and n.) (Under royalty, ) royalty cheque royalty fee royalty income royalty rate royalty revenue royalty-free
, ) (under rub, v.1) to rub down to rub in to rub it in
, v.1) (under rubber band, n.) rubber-band gun
, n.) ( |
.speed_x;
b.y = b.y + b.speed_y;
// if ball goes over bottom reset it
if (b.y > h) {
b.y = random(-100,0);
b.colour = rgb(randomInt(255));
}
}
}
For neatness’ sake let put the rest stuff in a resetBall() function. We’ll need to pass a reference of our ball to the function, otherwise the function won’t know which ball we are referring to. We do this just by passing the an object/variable to the function in it’s brackets, like so:
// syntax: functionName(variable)
resetBall(b)
And receiving the variable in the function like so:
function resetBall(_b) {
// do some stuff with _b
}
In coding we often use the underscore (like _b in this case) because it just makes it easy to see that we’re referring to a local variable reference (any variable declared inside a function can’t be see outside of it — which is a good thing. You should always try to steer away from global variables as much as possible).
So now our completed code should look like this:
var ctx = createCanvas("canvas1");
var max_balls = 2000;
var balls = [];
for (var i = 0; i < max_balls; i++) {
addBall();
}
function addBall(){
var ball = {
x: random(w),
y: random(-200,0),
speed_x: 0,
speed_y: random(0.5, 3),
size: 8,
colour: rgb(random(255))
}
balls.push(ball);
if (balls.length > max_balls) balls.splice(0,1);
}
function draw(){
ctx.background(0, 0.06);
moveBall();
drawBall();
}
function moveBall(){
for (var i = 0; i < balls.length; i++) {
var b = balls[i];
b.x = b.x + b.speed_x;
b.y = b.y + b.speed_y;
if (b.y > h) {
resetBall(b);
}
}
}
function resetBall(_b){
_b.y = random(-100,0);
_b.colour = rgb(randomInt(255));
}
function drawBall(){
for (var i = 0; i < balls.length; i++) {
var b = balls[i];
ctx.fillStyle = b.colour;
ctx.fillEllipse(b.x, b.y, b.size, b.size);
}
}
And that’s it... Particle rain. Most code you’ll use is really just a variation of this. So play around and see what other effects you can come up with… See you next time.
Follow me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/radarboy3000/
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Introduction to Creative Coding Part 1: https://medium.com/@radarboy3000/creative-coding-basics-4d623af1c647#.hn9zzliob
Introduction to Creative Coding Part 2: https://medium.com/@radarboy3000/introduction-to-creative-coding-part-2-d869832d9ffb#.fzxcom541
Introduction to Creative Coding Part 3: https://medium.com/@radarboy3000/how-to-make-particles-1cbeee937593#.wwjhkv7u2
Github repository of all the code: https://github.com/GeorgeGally/creative_codingIn today’s highly charged political landscape, the effective use of rhetorical devices can be an incredible weapon against the other side.
Consider how the Left has used the label “racist” and “nazi” for years to describe anyone to the right of Lindsey Graham. It may have taken a while, but that lost its edge when, well, Leftists started calling everyone to the right of Lindsey Graham a racist. That and the fact that reasonable people started figuring out that wanting to bring law & order and job opportunities to the inner cities isn’t exactly the same as actually lynching and subjugating black people.
Alan Dershowitz: The court’s ruling means if Obama had issued same travel ban, it would’ve been upheld
Most recently, they tried to pin the moniker “fake news” on conservative websites and publications only to see President Trump turn around and fire the label right back at the likes of the New York Times and CNN. Now, if you want to rankle the establishment media, just call them “fake news” and watch them squirm.
The right, of course, have their own original rhetorical devices. Consider the label “snowflake.” Used for years by conservatives to describe college students so afraid of having their delicate sentimentalities offended that they’d rather cringe in their safe spaces, or plug their ears and shout “death to fascism,” than allow someone with an opposing view to speak freely, the term has gained a wider audience, er, victim group in the wake hysterical liberal reaction to November’s stunning election results and the presidency of Donald Trump.
Let’s face it, it’s fun, and effective rhetoric, to call liberals “snowflakes.”
But now, knowing they can’t run from the label (because it’s too accurate), there seems to be a movement among lefties to embrace it and turn it into something that benefits them, and to be fair it’s a pretty nice try.
Liberal blogger Julie Ruth puts it this way: “Winter is here, and we must be the snow. Our blizzard is just getting started. Resist. We must blind the administration that has just begun to advance their hateful rhetoric with our fury. Make no mistake, this movement has snowballed, but it will take each and every snowflake to make a nor’easter.”
Apparently, this combination of “Game of Thrones” and “snowflakes” is supposed to inspire liberals to band their snowflake selves together into an “avalanche” that will oust the evil conservatives from power in 2018.
Tomi Lahren may be on her way out from the Blaze; Glenn Beck’s response to ‘The View’ pro-choice interview
I am #TheResistance. I am #Antifa. And if having empathy being humane makes me a snowflake, I am a #Snowflake. #WinterIsComing #WeRise — Bisexual Brunette (@BisexBrunette) February 22, 2017
"snowflakes" are nothing to trifle with. 👇 pic.twitter.com/jbOAsoZJtO — Buddy Stone (@buddystone) March 12, 2017
believing in equity, kindness and compassion makes me a snowflake? Well then Winter is coming #winteriscoming — Janis Drake (@DramaQueen00611) March 19, 2017
Yes!! Sick of the snowflake 'insult' being hurled at me. #WinterIsComing https://t.co/7kVN5aXZ30 — Kirsten Dixon (@kirstenducky) March 12, 2017
Nice try snowflakes… nice try. Time will tell if it works. But for now… America belongs to us.
Op-ed views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of BizPac Review.
Wake up right! Receive our free morning news blast HEREBy: Lucky Ngamwajasat
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Three Observations After the Cosmos’ 3-3 Draw vs. Indy Eleven:
Cosmos 3, Indy 3 Janusz Michallik and Ed Cohen break down how the Cosmos came back from a first half deficit to retrieve a point against Indy Eleven at MCU Park. Cosmos 3, Indy 3
1. Questionable on Defense …
A roller-coaster of a match got off to a rocky start for the Cosmos, as their defending was punished by a Mexican National Team icon.
Even at the age of 38, Gerardo Torrado is a player you don’t want to leave unmarked with time to shoot.
Capped 146 times by Mexico, the Indy Eleven midfielder didn’t take long to stamp his authority on Saturday’s match. Off a set piece, the former Cruz Azul man was given time and space to launch a rocket of a shot past Jimmy Maurer in the 10th minute. The Cosmos’ goalkeeper had no chance of saving it and the visitors had the early lead.
His second goal of the evening came from a preventable situation. In midfield, Darrius Barnes lost control of the ball which led to an Indy counterattack. After working the ball around the edge of the penalty area, Torrado slammed another roaring shot past Maurer in the 14th minute.
“For the first 18, 19 minutes of the match, we weren’t connected,” Juan Guerra said during his post-match comments. “We were kind of lost in the game and I didn’t think we expected to concede a goal so early.”
After equalizing early on in the second half, Indy quickly took the lead back when Eamon Zayed took advantage of a Dejan Jakovic slip and fired a booming shot into the back of the net.
There’s no question the Cosmos are a force to be reckoned with as an attacking threat, but their defensive issues continue to be exposed.
“What we lacked [Saturday] was that composure defensively,” coach Giovanni Savarese said. “We didn’t deal with some of [Indy’s] offensive moments.
2. … But No Questioning Their Offense
While the Cosmos’ defensive play wasn’t up to par, their attacking play was top notch.
New York had 36 shots in the match, including an incredible 24 in the second half.
After a sleepy first 20 minutes, the Cosmos were jolted back into the match after scoring off a set-piece goal of their own. Jakovic halved the Indy Eleven lead after a well-worked set piece in the 29th minute.
Cosmos 3, Indy 3 Andres Flores serves up a brilliant cross that Dejan Jakovic puts away, getting the Cosmos on the scoreboard against Indy Eleven. Cosmos 3, Indy 3
The hosts started the second half with their foot on the accelerator and turned up the pressure in desperate search of the equalizer. The Cosmos’ pressure paid off after Pablo Vranjican was alert to follow up a rebound and bundle it home with his head in the 50th minute.
Cosmos 3, Indy 3 Pablo Vranjican cashes in after a friendly bounce off the post, equalizing the game for the Cosmos at MCU Park. Cosmos 3, Indy 3
Even after Zayed had given Indy the lead again, the Cosmos were undeterred and were able to get back on level terms late in the game. Emmanuel Ledesma‘s corner kick in the 84th minute was powered home by a thumping Guerra header.
Cosmos 3, Indy 3 Juan Guerra makes it a tie game against Indy as he heads in a corner from Emmanuel Ledesma. Cosmos 3, Indy 3
There’s no doubting the Cosmos as an attacking unit. They’ve yet to be held off the scoresheet in the early part of the Fall Season and continue to create chances no matter where they play, whether at MCU Park or away from Coney Island.
3. Denied a Deserved Three Points?
Were it not for the efforts of Jon Busch, the Cosmos would probably be celebrating a stirring comeback win.
The 41-year-old Indy Eleven goalkeeper came up with timely saves in the second half to stop New York from taking home all the spoils.
His 77th-minute denial of Andres Flores‘ gilt-edged opportunity was just one of many big saves the veteran keeper made.You won't need this any more. And neither will baby need a sunscreen.Image credit: Alohakine.com, window sun shade.
This past spring California Air Resources Board (CARB) was actively considering a regulation that required new vehicles to be painted with coatings formulated to reduce absorption of the sun's heat, lowering the vehicle's air conditioning load, and thereby improving vehicle efficiency. (Opposition to the paint rule was strong for technical and for political reasons; but, it's still under consideration.) See Cool Cars: Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Efficiency for details. In its latest move to control heat input to cars, CARB has now approved a proposed requirement for solar gain-reducing windows. Besides boosting mileage, heat controlling windows would make cars a lot more comfortable on hot days. However, some argue that the technology will 'interfere with wireless communications'. Read on for details.
From the CARB press release:-
Cooler cars mean less air conditioning thereby increasing fuel efficiency and preventing about 700,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere in 2020 - roughly the equivalent of taking 140,000 cars off the road for a year. "This is a common-sense and cost-effective measure that will help cool the cars we drive and fight global warming," said ARB ChairmanMary D. Nichols. "It represents the kind of innovative thinking we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from our vehicles and steer our economy toward a low-carbon future.... The regulation has two steps. Over a three-year period starting in 2012 windows in new cars sold in California must prevent 45 percent of the sun's total heat-producing energy from entering the car, with the windshield rejecting at least 50 percent of the sun's energy. In 2016 car manufacturers will be required to install windows in new cars sold in California that prevent at least 60 percent of the sun's heat-producing rays from entering the cars interior, or propose alternative technologies to achieve an equivalent result. Costs for the windows are expected to average $70 for the 2012 standard, and about $250 for the 2016 standard, with annual savings in gas of $16 and $20 respectively. Costs would be recouped over a five to twelve year period.
Here's the money slide from a recent CARB public hearing on thie topic (via pdf from CARB presentation at hearing.
Don't be making any direct leaps from cars to buildings and speculating on government over-reaches to come. Cars with internal combustion engines produce waste heat year round - if a car is compared to a building, its engine would be a furnace that's always on, even when it's hot out. Unlike a car, you might want heat pouring in through a buildings' windows during the cooler months of the year. The CARB proposal, then, is not directly applicable to buildings.
For EV's and plug-in hybrids which are highly battery dependent, like the Volt, this glazing technology is even more important. Instead of using your batteries to run an electric air conditioning compressor at full load as you leave the parking lot mid-day, you keep the juice for the cruise.
As for the worries about interfering with wireless signals: what would you rather have, a climate catastrophe or the ability to know how hot it is outside your car via a thermister transponding a temperature signal from the car's antenna tip? Although invisible nano-bits of metal coated on the windows, as proposed, would partially function as a "Faraday Cage" I'm sure there are engineers clever enough to solve the problem.
A TreeHugger prediction.
If you were born before roughly 1960 you will recall that until the early 1980's most cars sold in the USA were without original equipment air conditioning when they arrived at the dealers. You had to take your car to an aftermarket shop to have one installed. By the late 80's, car makers had caught on, and air conditioning became a "standard" feature, not an option that others supplied to customers.
Same for music. Until the mid-eighties most cars came with truly crappy AM radios, if anything. A huge aftermarket developed for decent sound system installation, leading to OEM makers eventually catching on and capturing that business for themselves - quite belatedly.
The same thing willo happen once cool cars meeting the California standard are driven by people who live in other hot states. Where was Detroit on this all along? Why does government have to lead the way?
Related posts.
Car windows up & AC on versus windows down: which is more efficient?
Lighter Roofs Could Save $1Billion USD Annually
Solar Powered Prius Could Be First Hybrid With SolarEven though upon his return at Apple, Steve Jobs decided against licensing OS X to other computer makers, the exec wanted to make an exception with Sony, a company he deeply admired. Ex-Sony president Kunitake Ando revealed to Japanese reporter Nobuyuki Hayashi in an interview that Jobs wanted Sony to sell a Mac OS-running Vaio laptop in 2001.
The two met in late 2001 in Hawaii, where Sony execs were on Christmas holiday. “Steve Jobs and another Apple executive were waiting for us at the end of the golf course holding Vaio running Mac OS,” Ando said. However, apparently “most of the Vaio team opposed the idea wondering whether such a move was worth pursuing at a time Sony’s laptop family was fully optimized for Windows and was gaining popularity with consumers.
Since then, Apple’s OS X grew stronger and stronger, and, even though it never threatened the market share of Windows devices, it enjoyed impressive sales – even Google requires employees to choose a Mac for business purposes. Meanwhile, PC shipments have decreased at a faster rate than Mac sales, facing tremendous competition from “post-PC” devices including smartphones and tablets. Now, Sony is rumored to sell its Vaio division to Lenovo, the Chinese giant who recently announced its intention of taking Motorola off of Google’s hands.
As for Jobs, the same reporter revealed he was in close contact with Sony execs during the time, was very familiar with the company’s products and visited its headquarters many times. Products such as Sony’s CyberShot camera line and SonyStyle retail store may have further impressed the Apple co-founder and former CEO.
Apparently, Jobs said about a CyberShot camera that “if this thing had a built-in GPS, I can record everything that happens [in] my life.” Ando revealed that “this idea of built-in GPS for camera originated from Jobs.” But Sony also inspired Jobs to further pursue his Apple retail store dreams when Ando told him that SonyStyle stores help the company tell customers what they can do with Sony products. “And that is what we want to do at our retail store.” To this, Jobs replied “and that is exactly what we need.” But Jobs, who was quick to tell his opinion on new Sony products also criticized Sony’s use of discs with the PlayStation Portable, telling Ando that “discs are so out-of-date.”A super-dense star formed in the aftermath of a supernova explosion is shooting out powerful jets of material into space, research suggests.
In a study just published, a team of scientists in the Australia and the Netherlands discovered powerful jets blasting out of a double star system known as PSR J1023+0038.
It was previously thought that the only objects in the universe capable of forming such powerful jets were black holes.
PSR J1023+0038 contains an extremely dense type of star astronomers call a neutron star, in a close orbit with another, more normal star nearby.
It was first identified as a neutron star in 2009 but it was only when the research team observed the star with the Very Large Array radio telescope in the United States in 2013 and 2014 that they realised the star was producing much stronger jets than expected.
Astronomer James Miller-Jones, from the Curtin University node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), says neutron stars can be thought of as stellar corpses.
“They’re formed when a massive star runs out of fuel and undergoes a supernova, and the central parts of the star collapse under their own gravity,” he says. “These things are typically about one and a half times the mass of the Sun and yet they’re only 10-15 kilometres across, so they’re incredibly dense.”
Astronomer Adam Deller, who led the research, says neutron stars and black holes are sometimes found in orbit with a nearby ‘companion’ star.
“Gas can then flow from the companion star to the neutron star or black hole, producing spectacular displays when some of the material is blasted out in powerful jets at close to the speed of light,” says Deller.
“From what we had seen previously, black holes were previously considered the undisputed kings of forming powerful jets, even when they were only fed by a little bit of material from their companion star.”
“In comparison, neutron stars seemed to make relatively puny jets, which only became bright enough to see when the neutron stars were gobbling gas from their companions at a very high rate.”
Dr. Deller says when the team looked at PSR J1023+0038 it was only consuming a trickle of material and should have been producing a very feeble jet.
“But our observations suggest its jets are nearly as strong as you’d expect from a black hole,” he says.
Dr. Miller-Jones says PSR J1023+0038 is a ‘transitional’ neutron star, spending years at a time powered mainly by the rotation of the neutron star but transitioning occasionally into an active gathering state, when it gets much brighter.
“Two other transitional systems are now known and both of these have also been shown to exhibit powerful jets,” says Miller-Jones. “This is casting neutron stars in a new light and showing that in fact they can sometimes launch jets to rival those coming from black holes.”0
67 votes
If Obsidian + Kickstarter =? Posted by Chris Avellone, 10 February 2012 · 147087 views
All of Double Fine�s success from Kickstarter has been inspiring.
I GUESS PEOPLE LOVE THOSE CLASSIC ADVENTURE GAMES AFTER ALL.*
The idea of player-supported funding is... well, it�s proof certain genres aren�t dead and sequels may have more legs than they seem. And the idea of not having to argue that with a publisher is appealing.
Out of curiosity, if Obsidian did Kickstart a project, what would you want to see funded? (You can respond in comments or to @ChrisAvellone on Twitter, whichever you prefer.)
* I only use all caps for sarcasm and shouting. And for the Think Tank in Old World Blues for comedy value.The good news for Rory McIlroy is that his career will be defined and remembered by multiple major championship victories. Nobody will retrospectively care that the golfer was unjustly denied the title of BBC Sports Personality of the Year for 2014. Which, in itself, is illuminating.
The only logical conclusions to be drawn from Sunday evening in Glasgow are that McIlroy’s failure to endorse his sporting superiority to Lewis Hamilton owed plenty to timing and the inability of a wider audience to understand the scale of his season’s success. McIlroy has every right to be wounded by this result on the simple basis that it was unfair, even if he has far bigger career priorities.
Hamilton’s world championship glory is far more fresh in the mind of the public consciousness than McIlroy’s stunning summer of golf. That spell included back-to-back major triumphs, a World Golf Championship win, playing a crucial part in a Ryder Cup success and the march back to No1 in the world, which seemed simply unattainable during a troubled 2013. These sorts of spells are not routine for European golfers.
Unlike Hamilton, McIlroy didn’t achieve everything he did with a clear competitive advantage over his rivals. Being blunt, and for all Hamilton’s brilliance in his field, sport is not about gears, tyres and space-centre computer systems which control every move.
Unlike Hamilton, McIlroy also did not take a sullen approach to the culmination of his professional year before appearing on programmes such as This Morning in a bid to endear himself to a nation where he spends little time anyway.
And, speaking of television, the BBC’s continued withdrawal from serious golf coverage unquestionably harmed McIlroy in respect of public awareness. Formula One retains far more of a presence on the BBC.
This was a typically curious Spoty affair; one where a non-coach, Paul McGinley, was awarded coach of the year. One where Carl Froch claimed only 11,000 votes; 80,000 watched him triumph over George Groves at Wembley in May. Quite what the Sports Personality occasion is representative of remains as unclear as ever.
Perhaps golf and boxing fans simply feel no compulsion to vote for their favourites. Certainly the result is damaging to golf and to the reputation of the event – the sport has been represented just nine times in 60 years on the Sports Personality podium, a ludicrous statistic given the participation and viewing figures over that period.
McGinley was clearly baffled by McIlroy’s snub, if typically measured in his public verdict. “I honestly don’t think a golfer can have a better year on the course than Rory had,” he said. “Not just in terms of his major wins and success in world events but what he did for the Ryder Cup team, the role he played there. I am very disappointed for him.
“Rory is a great guy, he is very mature and understands the responsibilities that come with being the world’s No1 player. He is very happy to carry that. We are lucky in golf to have a guy like him.”
Indeed, McIlroy is entitled to ask what he needs to do in order to claim this trophy; he would be well within his rights to swerve it in a year’s time, by which point he may have claimed a grand slam of major championships. He could follow recent tradition by appearing via videolink, a move that didn’t do Andy Murray any notable harm 12 months ago.
The sinister argument relating to McIlroy’s second-place finish suggests his declaration for Ireland in respect of the 2016 Olympics played a part. This is a ludicrous notion. McIlroy’s participation for Ireland as both an amateur and young professional was never considered a negative in a United Kingdom context. His confirmation that he would play under an Ireland flag in Rio de Janeiro passed over in the summer without controversy.
In the Glaswegian venue on Sunday, McIlroy’s on-stage arrival was met with the loudest cheer of the night. British golf fans have lauded the 25-year-old, none more so than at the moment of his Open success five months ago at Hoylake.
They have done likewise towards AP McCoy and Darren Clarke, Northern Irishmen who have respectively won and been robbed of victory on recent Sports Personality nights.
It says a lot that a debate is even taking place regarding Hamilton’s success over McIlroy. The sentiment is perfectly valid.Heisenberg: My name is Heisenberg, and I am a retired pharmacist living up in the mountains of New Hampshire. Contrary to popular belief, I am not a kingpin. My name actually came from the scientist who had a principle he wasn't too sure about. I like to garden in my backyard and do some woodworking when my arthritic hands can handle it (thanks mantra spam!).
Heisenberg: I love to cook. (Food)
Heisenberg: Not too long, I only started playing Diablo 3 since it was on sale at the Microsoft Store two holidays ago - and for some reason and the thing I was wanting to buy there wasn't in stock, but saw D3 was just $10. I had never heard of it before, but I liked how the III was a claw.
Heisenberg: I didn't get into video games until one of my children forced me into it. It was this old SNES game called Lost Vikings, and my son really hated the game (and puzzle games in general) but the only reason why he played it was because one of the main characters LOOKED like me. (The one called Olaf.) How does that relate to Diablo? Well it doesn't - I'm just old.
But I did hear they are making a comeback in Heroes of the Storm? Can't wait!
Heisenberg: Football Manager. That's like fantasy soccer by yourself.
Heisenberg: I have always played a tank with a shield, so Crusader! I wanted to name him Olaf, but didn't want to be thought of as a Disney character.
Heisenberg: No clans, I found most of them to be full of immature kids. Please never impliment an in-game voice chat.
Heisenberg: Groups. I like to use my magic find character as a tank, keeping my allies safe, and then dropping unidentified legendaries in the most dangerous of situations... or one second before a rift closes.
Heisenberg: In game it would have to be leveling to 70 without selecting a single passive. My son called me a noob.
Heisenberg: I was playing with my son in Act 2 sewers and he said "Guess what? You're going to be a grandpa."
What would you like to tell us about yourself?Got any cool hobbies or talents?How long have you been playing Diablo games?What’s your history as a gamer?What are some of your favorite games?Do you play any other classes?Are you in a great clan or community? If yes, tell us about them!Do you normally play solo or in groups?What's your most embarrassing moment while playing?Okay, what about your most AWESOME moment while playing?Congratulations! That sounds like the sort of gaming moment that simply can't be topped.Survarium is the new free-to-play MMO from Vostok Games, a studio made up of ex-S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 devs. VG247’s Dave Cook speaks with the team to learn more.
“At the time S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 was at the initial stage of development scaling, we completed the graphical prototype, accomplished several level segments, to make sure everything worked as required and to eliminate the technical risks. By our internal estimation, the project would have needed about two more years of work.”
Losing your job unexpectedly is one of the most terrifying things a person can go through. Once the initial blow hits you a sense of panic overwhelms as you try to figure out how you’re going to survive the following month.
Vostok Games’ PR & marketing director Oleg Yavorsky knows the feeling all too well, after having his employment cut without warning by his previous employer GSC Game World, developers of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R series. The whole team was laid off unexpectedly and S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2 was canned, leaving Oleg and his friends with no where to turn.
Despite attempts to save the S.T.A.L.K.E.R franchise – many of which we discuss with Oleg below – the team failed to keep it alive, but instead formed Vostok Games, a new studio with a bright idea, an idea called Survarium.
Survarium is a free-to-play MMO title that takes place in a post-apocalyptic future where the growth of nature accelerates and chokes the densely populated land masses of earth, and all wildlife turns ferociously hostile, creating anarchy and economic collapse across the globe. All that’s left for survivors is to make it through each day in this harsh new wilderness.
It has S.T.A.L.K.E.R.’s DNA written all over it, but this is a bigger, more ambitious project that looks to deliver similar themes like anomalies and mutants, but this is largely a new effort from an incredibly talented team.
To learn more about the demise of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. project, the birth of Vostok Games and the creation of Survarium, we posed many questions to Yavorsky and ended up with an interesting and in-depth new insight into the matters at hand.
VG247: At what point after S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2’s collapse did you decide to set up on your own to make Survarium?
Oleg Yavorsky: That unfortunately, was a forced move. Back in December 2011, after GSC Game World was unexpectedly closed down by its owner, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 development was ‘frozen’, the team had two choices: scatter and start seeking employment elsewhere, or stick together and try to secure some type of investment to continue developing the project we’re all so passionate about.
We opted for the latter. After several months of escapades and negotiations we secured the necessary funding. Then the problem with IP rights occurred as we couldn’t come to an agreement about using the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. brand.
The investors though, believed in the team’s ability to create cool games, even if we’d have to start everything from scratch. So this is what we did. In March 2012 we founded Vostok Games and started with the development of our first project, Survarium.
The process of making it on your own so suddenly must have been daunting.
Well, it definitely wasn’t an easy road. On the one hand, none of us had experience in fundraising before. On the other, we needed to meet the interests of three parties: the investor, the team and the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. IP owner.
Unless we arranged it all quickly, we ran the risk of losing the team too. So we all started looking up our old contacts and acquaintances trying to locate potential investment partners. We spoke to publishers we worked with before, we asked friends and friends of their friends, we asked people in the community.
Given that everything collapsed right before the December Holiday Season, we couldn’t really start negotiations until mid-January. By that time we had put together a business plan and were ready to pitch S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 to potential investors.
“We’ve been into shooters for over ten years now, so FPS was an easy choice for a start-up project. The huge success of recent free-to-play online games like League of Legends, Team Fortress 2, World of Tanks and more looked very interesting.”
How did the pitching process go? Did anyone express interest in keeping the project alive?
We had a few meetings with venture funds and private investors in Kiev, we were on phone with Western publishers and we went to Moscow to talk about prospects. After a month or so into talks we could not get any real offer about backing up the project.
The game, with its multiplatform nature and huge volume of content required not only solid funding, but also an extensive production time period too. So the investors wanted to take their time, which the team obviously could not afford and which made us nervous, of course.
We started hurriedly thinking about an alternative project which would be cheaper and faster to produce and it was at this point when we considered the direction of the free-to-pkay online shooter. Dubbed S.T.A.L.K.E.R.-Online, we wrote up another business plan and started pitching it as our plan B.
The negotiations livened up and the team held its breath in anticipation. In February we realized that despite all efforts, we wouldn’t be able to secure the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. IP rights. That was a tough moment, with the prospects to continue the development of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. becoming vague the team was really on the verge of collapse.
Was that the final straw for your team?
Well at this point we got acquainted with Vostok Ventures, an investment company with interest in IT sector. They quickly understood our situation and it took us a mere two weeks of constructive talks to reach the basic agreement.
So by the beginning of March we celebrated the birth of Vostok Games. Those months of uncertainty were tough and challenging, but ultimately very much worth it. That experience made us stronger as the team and we also grew as individuals.
Can you describe what stage S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 was at when you left, and what the feeling around the office was at the time of its demise?
On the day of GSC’s closure we planned an internal team presentation of the game’s scenario. Before that happened though, the CEO called a general meeting to announce he decided to close down the project and the studio, which left development team dumbstruck.
At the time S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 was at the initial stage of development scaling, we completed the graphical prototype, accomplished several level segments, to make sure everything worked as required and to eliminate the technical risks. By our internal estimation, the project would have needed about two more years of work to complete all the planned content.
Survarium is your silver lining of course, and the concept sounds fantastic. Can you talk us through the process of how Vostok brainstormed the pitch?
We’ve been into shooters for over ten years now, so FPS was an easy choice for a start-up project. The huge success of recent free-to-play online games like League of Legends, Team Fortress 2, World of Tanks and more looked very interesting.
Obviously the online genre was pretty new to us as we’d only dealt with traditional game development before. So, for months we’ve been researching the available information about the market, prospects, development challenges and so on.
Some basic advantages of going online were pretty obvious from the start, such as the possibility to launch the game early and continue developing it, versus having to run the full development cycle to be able to release as with the traditional retail game.
This saves us development cost and time, increases our chances to kill piracy by running the game free-to-play, and gets us in line with the current games market evolution.
Survarium is a new IP, but it does have some things in common with S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Is it fair to call it a spiritual successor to the series?
“Although we’re not striving to make it a survival simulator, we do plan to integrate certain game elements requiring players to take care of their character’s basic needs for food, medicine and other elements you would need to survive in a post-apocalyptic world.”
We indeed see Survarium as an evolutionary successor of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. concept. Many familiar game elements, such as factions, anomalies, artifacts, mutants, the atmosphere in general are going to be in common with S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, but all of those elements will be new as it’s a different game with its own world and rules.
As opposed to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. universe, with Survarium we are no longer going to be limited by the Chernobyl exclusion zone. The ecological catastrophes in the game have a global nature, so in terms of locations and events, we plan to demonstrate not only Ukrainian post-apocalyptic areas, but move further around ex-USSR and beyond. The game’s concept allows us to implement practically any place on Earth.
These areas have become overgrown and hazardous of course, so does that backdrop give rise to survival elements we’re now seeing in games like DayZ?
Although we’re not striving to make it a survival simulator, we do plan to integrate certain game elements requiring players to take care of their character’s basic needs for food, medicine and other elements you would need to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. It’s something I hope we never experience that for real [laughs].
For example, oxygen tanks and gas masks will help you safely avoid chemical or radioactive dust poisoning. Need for food, medicine, antidotes and more are all on our list |
. Photo by Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images
Foreign Policy’s Liz Carter notes the results of a recent Chinese Internet survey, which could give some perspective on potential impact of the government’s recent decision to further ease the one-child policy:
But according to a Nov. 18 survey of 5,000 web users conducted on Sina Weibo, a surprisingly large portion of Chinese think one is plenty: 52 percent of respondents said the “economic pressure” of a second child would be too much. Chinese wages are expected to rise 8.4 percent in 2013, yet many still feel constrained. “In China, when you get married you have to take care of both partners’ parents,” explained one Weibo user. “And don’t forget the mortgage. Add another child to that and the pressure is enormous.”
In other words, the kind of educated middle-class young people taking surveys on Sina Weibo—China’s equivalent of Twitter—aren’t necessarily itching to have larger families. (This doesn’t in any way justify the basic inhumanity of the policy or how it is often enforced.)
It’s also interesting to note that on the CIA World Factbook’s ranking of “countries” by fertility rate, the bottom four spots are occupied by Singapore, Macau, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Hong Kong’s fertility rate is 1.11, compared with 1.55 for mainland China.
All of these places are predominantly Chinese in ethnicity and culture. Two (or three, depending on your point of view) of them are actually part of China. None of them has the one-child policy—just the opposite in Singapore’s case.
It’s misleading to compare the demographics of small city-states with the world’s largest country for the same reasons Matt Yglesias recently explained in reference to D.C. These places also have density concerns that China doesn’t.
On the other hand, it’s generally been the case that when societies become more urbanized and affluent—both currently goals of the Chinese government—birthrates drop. Beijing and Shanghai are currently the Chinese regions with the lowest fertility rates.
So as China gets richer and more urban, and mainland cities start to look more like the autonomous ones, it doesn’t seem likely that we’ll see a big increase in births, no matter how many children people are legally allowed to have.Sci-fi films and video games for years have dreamed up humanoids with super strength who could make our lives just a little bit easier. Making that a reality hasn’t been so easy.
Now, a group of researchers at Columbia University have gotten us a step closer to the robots in our imaginations. The 3-D-printed muscle meant for soft, fleshy robots can lift 1,000 times its own weight and exert three times more force than human muscles.
“We’ve been making great strides toward making robot minds, but robot bodies are still primitive,” Hod Lipson, a mechanical engineering professor at Columbia University, said in a release. “This is a big piece of the puzzle.”
Why soft muscles matter
The most useful robots will probably need the ability to lift, push and pull considerable weight — and they need bodies that are nimble enough to move like humans while they do it.
Then there’s the safety aspect of “soft robotics”: Squishy materials like these muscles help pave the way for fleshy robots. That material allows scientists to create robo-companions whose bodies aren’t rigid and dangerous (imagine accidentally getting jabbed by a metal arm, for example).
“You cannot work with a lot of robots today, side-by-side, because of the safety,” Aslan Miriyev, a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University’s Creative Machines lab, said by phone. “The robot will do what it will do — and it’ll do it perfectly — but it won’t care about you. In some labs, you cannot just enter because you will actually be injured by those robots.”
Here’s how they work
These soft muscles are a step toward creating the perfect humanoid — one that we could someday see helping us take out the trash or move into our new apartments.
This video shows the synthetic muscle at work. GeoBeats News/YouTube
But robot muscles need to be able to expand and contract like a balloon as they work, sort of like human muscles do.
“These are pretty heavy — literally heavy — and big pieces of equipment that limit miniaturization,” Miriyev said. “In our case, we didn’t need any external equipment — just 8 to 30 volts of electricity, depending on the size of the muscle, and that’s it.”
The synthetic muscle is electrically actuated (expanded) using thin wires in a rest position. Aslan Miriyev/Columbia Engineering
The 3-D-printed soft muscle is basically modeled after human and animal muscles, and the materials are incredibly cheap: Outside of small lab quantities, Miriyev expects it to cost less than 3 cents per gram. He said he hopes it will help develop more realistic and capable soft robots, particularly to help out with health care. He said he imagines these robots providing assistance out in the field after natural disasters, like the recent earthquake that has devastated Mexico, or in actual hospitals as an extra set of hands.
“Imagine nurses, who are under high pressure today because of low nurse-to-patient ratios: They can get help with specific procedures around the hospital,” Miriyev said. “For me, achieving that would already be a great investment of my time and career — all of the effort it takes to build this muscle.”Aaron Gash/Associated Press
One of the best point guards to ever play the game, Jason Kidd enjoyed a 19-year career with the Dallas Mavericks, Phoenix Suns, New Jersey Nets and New York Knicks. He was selected to 12 All-Star Games and won a championship with the Mavericks in 2011.
But after the San Antonio Spurs announced that Tim Duncan was retiring Monday, the Milwaukee Bucks head coach revealed that not joining the power forward in San Antonio as a free agent in 2003 was "the biggest disappointment" of his career, per Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN.com (via Matt Moore of CBSSports.com).
Instead, he took a six-year, $103 million deal to stay with the defending Eastern Conference-champion Nets:
I thought I was going to be a Spur. I committed when I was down there on my visit [to San Antonio]. On my flight home, I think I got cold feet. And sometimes I have nightmares about that. Maybe I could have won a championship or two there. But I got really lucky with Dallas and won a championship.
That decision came shortly after Kidd and his Nets lost to the Spurs in six games for the NBA title, which delivered Duncan his second championship. It was Kidd's second straight NBA Finals defeat, as the Nets were swept by the Los Angeles Lakers in 2002.
Kidd wouldn't make it back to the Finals until that 2011 triumph with the Mavericks as a 37-year-old.
For the Spurs, things worked out just fine even though they didn't get Kidd's signature in the summer of 2003. Instead, they stuck with a French point guard named Tony Parker, who has gone to six All-Star Games while helping Duncan win an additional three titles in 2005, 2007 and 2014.
Had Kidd signed with the Spurs, Parker's career could have taken a much different-looking path. Then again, Kidd's would have as well, as he could have celebrated four titles instead of just one.
Stats courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com.James Stranko, Advisor to the Clinton Global Initiative and author of Avenida America on the major reform everyone is wondering if Mexico will make.
Uttering the word “PEMEX” to any Mexican is likely to provoke a reaction. Tell a taxi driver and he’ll complain about creeping price rises at the pump. Tell a leftist and risk an hour-long diatribe on the history of imperialism and the Mexican Revolution. Tell an economist and she’ll embark on a long discussion of how over-dependent the state’s finances are on oil resources.
This is why the reforms proposed by the Peña Nieto administration are so important. Just putting the words “reform” and “PEMEX” in the same sentence in Mexico is already a type of reform.
Up until recently, the thought was unthinkable.
Today, 75 years after the country nationalized its oil exploration and production by taking control of a host of U.S. and British-owned assets in the country, Mexico is faced with dwindling production numbers, a fall in proven reserves in its showpiece Cantarell field, and increasing demand in its growing industrial economy. Through in an energy renaissance north of the border that threatens its largest export market and suddenly times are ripe for change.
Now, as Mexico builds a framework for opening up foreign participation in the country’s oil industry, politicians, citizens, and hydrocarbon companies are vying to direct reform in Mexico, and, more importantly, who will net the largest share of the reforms.
Even the most partisan PEMEX supporter will admit that the country needs foreign oil expertise to unlock more challenging fields through advanced drilling and surveillance techniques. This is why the government and private oil companies from the US and farther afield have changed their often frosty relations over the past several years into a more engaging discussion of how and when, rather than if.
The Felipe Calderón administration (2006-2012) recognized this reality in 2008, when it passed reforms that allowed external companies to assist in new exploration offshore. Because they remain hamstrung on investment possibilities by broader constitutional constraints, they haven’t produced any major upstream operations.
Any glasnost will involve increased foreign participation in exploration, rather than outright privatization. Mexicans across the political spectrum would likely bristle at the possibility of its oil fields in foreign hands. Beyond nationalism, the constitutional reform necessary to divorce the state from Mexico’s oil markets would be a herculean task.
Still, Reform is not inevitable.
Serious roadblocks include citizen opposition, pressure within opposition parties to not hand such a juicy victory to the PRI, and the nitty-gritty fights behind constitutional reform. Another fight that transcends party lines concerns how resources will be distributed in a post-PEMEX federal budget.
Mexico’s public budget relies heavily on oil revenues, and oil royalties from PEMEX in recent years has comprised between 35-50 percent of total spending. This is a vast public policy challenge for Mexico, and over the past several years the government has paid dearly for oil price hedges that guaranteed a price floor per barrel for Mexican oil.
El País published an excellent article this week summing up the challenges ahead for President Peña Nieto:“En las próximas semanas, el Gobierno del PRI deberá concretar su propuesta de modernización de la petrolera más allá de su voluntad de abrirla a la inversión privada y de ambiguas declaraciones sobre la necesidad de modificar la Constitución para que la reforma sea real y no cosmética. Para esto último, el PRI, al no tener mayoría en el Congreso, necesitará los votos del Partido Acción Nacional (PAN, centro derecha) que, de momento, se deja querer y no opone serios obstáculos a la iniciativa.”
In the next few weeks, the PRI government must offer a concrete plan to modernize PEMEX. They will have to transcend vague overtures to “open up the oil company to private investment” or to “make the necessary amendments to the constitution” to drive real reform.
On the point of constitutional reform, given that the PRI does not have a majority in Congress, it will need the votes of former President Calderón’s center-right PAN party. The PAN, for its part, appears open to discussing reform, and has not put any serious obstacles in the way of Peña Nieto’s initiative.
I’m bullish on the prospects of energy reform…
…for the same reason that I’m bullish on Mexico. Beyond the macro winds that have shifted in favor of Mexico (including a US recovery and rising labor costs in China), the discussion of oil revenue comes at a time when Mexico’s economy is more diverse than ever. Heavy manufacturing is booming thanks to the US recovery.
A closer North American union and rising labor costs in China have converged to make the Mexico’s tech, textile and light manufacturing industries competitive again. And brisk internal demand for consumer goods and construction materials makes Mexicans less sensitive to the idea that all their energies are focused on exports.
Certainly there are a number of improvements that would make pumping crude even less central to the country’s livelihood, such as investments in refining that would move its exports up the value chain (rather than exporting crude to Texas to be refined).
But this first step towards meaningful foreign participation in Mexico’s oil sector couldn’t come at a better time for the country. Politically, a reform seems much easier to swallow when times are good than when a government is desperate for revenue.
Reform: Easy as one, two, PRI
In a way, the fact that the PRI is spearheading reform in Mexico makes it more credible to Mexicans across the political spectrum.
A party borne of the Mexican Revolution and built around strong national icons, managing state assets in a way that isn’t entirely oligarchic falls within the little moral authority that most Mexicans give them. Add in the recent “Pact for Mexico“, a tripartite pledge to reform Mexico’s fiscal state of affairs, and Peña Nieto can be credited with establishing a credible agenda.
What remains to be seen is who benefits most from the reforms.
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Get your fill of Kobe Bryant while you still can, because there's a distinct chance you might not see him suit up for the Los Angeles Lakers too many more times in the 2014-15 season.
Lately, Bryant has been playing much smarter offensive basketball, declining to shoot as frequently and involving himself as a passer more often. His 17-assist performance against the Cleveland Cavaliers on Thursday night not only set a new career high, but it also showed his willingness to play the style of basketball that's most beneficial to the Lakers.
But what if that style involves sitting on the bench and wearing street clothes for the rest of the season?
"I will do what they ask of me, but it's very, very hard for me to miss one game," the future Hall of Famer said after his team's loss to LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers, via ESPNLosAngeles.com's Baxter Holmes. "I'm not going to be here much longer, so the games that I play, I want to make sure that I'm playing and enjoying it and appreciating it."
Bryant isn't just referring to listening to head coach Byron Scott and operating according to his desires within the confines of a half-court set.
USA TODAY Sports
"Seriously, I understand," he told reporters. "I understand. It's my responsibility to be ready every single night and when I step out there on the floor to give it my all. If they want to shut me down, if they decide to sit me out, I will do what's asked of me. It's that simple."
Though he wouldn't necessarily like for his franchise to follow through, he's admitting that he would be amenable to Scott pulling the plug on his age-36 season. After all, it would keep him fresher for the more-important 2015-16 campaign, one that will give him a shot at the playoffs, an opportunity the 2014-15 season no longer offers.
The Lakers coach has brought up this possibility before.
"I'm pretty sure if we're [not in] playoff contention in March or something like that, then we might discuss that," Scott said earlier this week, per Holmes. In other words, the Lakers will be discussing it, as their postseason chances are only alive in a mathematical sense and would basically require season-ending injuries to every star player in the Western Conference.
Now, it's worth remembering that a Bryant shutdown is not a guarantee.
Not even close, in fact.
USA TODAY Sports
"It's important to note Bryant's indefinite removal doesn't appear imminent. March is not January. The Lakers can cross that bridge when they get there," Bleacher Report's Dan Favale wrote while arguing against such a move for the Purple and Gold. "For now, they're making the right call, eschewing the temptation to prematurely pull the plug on a player who, whenever possible, still needs to play."
A lot has to change between now and whenever this proud franchise decides to make such an extreme decision. After all, Bryant has been effective and content operating on a limit of 32 minutes per game, and he's looked fresh when he's out on the court. Relatively fresh, at least.
In the wake of a basketball legend setting a career mark with $1.70 worth of dimes against James and the Cavaliers, it's tough to envision Bryant just hanging up his sneakers for the remainder of the year.
It's probably tougher still for a competitive firecracker like Bryant to accept doing so, as that requires him shelving his desire to prove all the doubters wrong during a season in which so many of them have emerged and seen their case strengthened.
But kudos to the shooting guard for being willing to listen to his team's plan. That in and of itself shows a significant amount of maturity and perspective.
"I actually did listen to some of the Zen stuff that he would throw out there—being present, being mindful, being able to detach yourself from the situation and just 'be' is something that's really helped me throughout this entire season," he explained, referring to his old coach Phil Jackson.
"It's the ability to be calm and to see the big picture and to just be present."“The Chinese system is not transparent in any way,” said Arthur L. Caplan, a medical ethicist at New York University. “I do not trust Chinese bioethical deliberation or policy. Add healthy doses of politics, national pride and entrepreneurship, and it is tough to know what is going on.”
Image Photographs on the walls of Dr. Ren’s lab at Harbin Medical University showed his experiments on body transplants in mice. The mice lived only for a day after the procedure. Credit Gilles Sabrie for The New York Times
Some Chinese researchers are also concerned that the experimentation is going too far, too fast.
“I don’t want to see China’s scholars, transplant doctors and scientists deepening the impression that people have of us internationally, that when Chinese people do things they have no bottom line — that anything goes,” said Cong Yali, a medical ethicist at Peking University, referring to Dr. Ren’s plans.
The Chinese government invested 1.42 trillion renminbi ($216 billion) in scientific research and development last year, compared with 245 billion renminbi in 2005, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
Last year, researchers at Sun Yat-sen University, in the southern city of Guangzhou, altered a gene in the human embryo that causes thalassemia, a rare blood disease, using a technique developed in the United States. The experiment crossed an ethical line, some scientists in China and abroad said, because the changes would be inheritable if conducted on viable embryos. (The experiment used unviable embryos.) That could pave the way for permanent gene modification for qualities such as looks or intelligence.
Despite the concerns, in April another team in Guangzhou altered embryos to make them H.I.V. resistant. Internationally, some scientists criticized the experiment, citing a lack of consensus on the ethics of such work.
The team, from Guangzhou Medical University, said that “significant technical issues remain to be addressed.” It added that on ethical grounds it would not advocate genome editing on viable lines “until after a rigorous and thorough evaluation and discussion are undertaken by the global research and ethics communities.”
Ethical issues have long dogged Chinese researchers in the field of organ transplants, where China was an international pariah for using the organs of executed prisoners. While China says it no longer uses those, Chinese transplant doctors still sometimes submit research from prisoner organs to international conferences, which is not permitted under global ethical norms.Axe from North America
Pipe tomahawk
American made tomahawk
A tomahawk is a type of single-handed ax from North America, traditionally resembling a hatchet with a straight shaft.[1][2] The name came into the English language in the 17th century as an adaptation of the Powhatan (Virginian Algonquian) word.
Tomahawks were general-purpose tools used by Native Americans and later the European colonials with whom they traded, and often employed as a hand-to-hand or a thrown weapon. The metal tomahawk heads were originally based on a Royal Navy boarding axe and used as a trade-item with Native Americans for food and other provisions.[1][2]
Etymology [ edit ]
The name comes from Powhatan tamahaac, derived from the Proto-Algonquian root *temah- "to cut off by tool".[3] Algonquian cognates include Lenape təmahikan,[4] Malecite-Passamaquoddy tomhikon, and Abenaki demahigan, all of which mean "axe".[5][6]
History [ edit ]
The Algonquians in early America created the tomahawk. Before Europeans came to the continent, Native Americans would use stones attached to wooden handles, secured with strips of rawhide. Though typically used as weapons, they could also be used for everyday tasks, such as chopping, cutting or hunting.
When Europeans arrived, they introduced the metal blade to the natives, which improved the effectiveness of the tool. Metal did not break as readily as stone and could be fashioned for additional uses. Native Americans created a tomahawk’s poll, the side opposite the blade, which consisted of a hammer, spike or a pipe. These became known as pipe tomahawks, which consisted of a bowl on the poll and a hollowed out shaft.[7] These were created by European and American artisans for trade and diplomatic gifts for the tribes.[8]
Composition [ edit ]
Pre-contact Native Americans lacked ironmaking technology, so tomahawks were not fitted with metal axe heads until they could be obtained from trade with Europeans. The tomahawk's original designs were fitted with heads of bladed or rounded stone or deer antler.[3][9]
A pipe tomahawk dating to the early 19th century
The modern tomahawk shaft is usually less than 2 ft (61 cm) in length, traditionally made of hickory, ash, or maple.[1][2][10] The heads weigh anywhere from 9 to 20 oz (260 to 570 g), with a cutting edge usually not much longer than four inches (10 cm) from toe to heel.[2] The poll can feature a hammer, spike, or may simply be rounded off, and they usually do not have lugs.[1][2] These sometimes had a pipe-bowl carved into the poll, and a hole drilled down the center of the shaft for smoking tobacco through the tomahawk.[2] There are also metal-headed versions of this unusual pipe.[2] Pipe tomahawks are artifacts unique to North America: created by Europeans as trade objects but often exchanged as diplomatic gifts.[1] They were symbols of the choice Europeans and Native Americans faced whenever they met: one end was the pipe of peace, the other an axe of war.[1][2][10]
In colonial French territory, a very different tomahawk design, closer to the ancient European francisca, was in use by French settlers and indigenous peoples.[10] In the late 18th century, the British Army issued tomahawks to their colonial regulars during the American Revolutionary War as a weapon and tool.[11]
Modern use [ edit ]
Tomahawk throwing[12] is a popular sport among American and Canadian historical re-enactment groups, and new martial arts such as Okichitaw have begun to revive tomahawk fighting techniques used during the colonial era.[13] Tomahawks are a category within competitive knife throwing. Today's hand-forged tomahawks are being made by master craftsmen throughout the United States.[14][15]
Traditional form tomahawk
Modern tomahawks designed by Peter LaGana included wood handles, a hatchet-like bit and a leather sheath and were used by select US forces during the Vietnam War and are referred to as "Vietnam tomahawks".[14][16] These modern tomahawks have gained popularity with their re-emergence by American Tomahawk Company in the beginning of 2001 and a collaboration with custom knife-maker Ernest Emerson of Emerson Knives, Inc.[14] A similar wood handle Vietnam tomahawk is produced today by Cold Steel. The tomahawk was later redesigned featuring synthetic shafts by American Tomahawk Company and named "VTAC" ("Vietnam Tactical Tomahawk") and are manufactured by Fehrman Knives. SOG Knives Inc. has also entered the field with its own version of the Vietnam tomahawk, the Fusion Tactical Tomahawk. Original Vietnam tomahawks are rare and expensive.[14]
Tomahawks are useful in camping and bushcraft scenarios. They are mostly used as an alternative to a hatchet, as they are generally lighter and slimmer than hatchets. They often contain other tools in addition to the axe head, such as spikes or hammers.[17]
Many of these modern tomahawks are made of drop forged, differentially heat treated, alloy steel.[18] The differential heat treatment allows for the chopping portion and the spike to be harder than the middle section, allowing for a shock-resistant body with a durable temper.[18]
Tomahawk throwing competitions [ edit ]
Today, there are hundreds of rendezvous and events that host tomahawk throwing competitions.[19] These events typically require mountain man style dress.[17]
The tomahawk competitions themselves have their own regulations concerning the type and style of tomahawk used for throwing. There are special throwing tomahawks made for these kinds of competitions. Requirements such as a minimum handle length and a maximum blade edge (usually 4 in [100 mm]) are the most common tomahawk throwing competition rules.[19]
One such tomahawk throwing competition is made and sponsored by the International Knife Throwers Hall of Fame. They have a ranking system to determine skill level. The International Knife Throwers Hall of Fame Association ranking system establishes an international standard by which knife and hawk throwers may measure their accuracy and versatility, and compare their skill to that of any knife and hawk thrower anywhere in the world.[19]
Military application [ edit ]
A US Army soldier throws a tomahawk as part of the Top Tomahawk competition at Forward Operating Base Spin Boldak in Kandahar
American Tomahawk Company's VTAC was used by the US Army Stryker Brigade in Afghanistan, the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team based at Grafenwöhr (Germany), the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division out of Fort Lewis, a reconnaissance platoon in the 2d Squadron 183d Cavalry (116th Infantry Brigade Combat Team) (OIF 2007–2008) and numerous other soldiers.[14][18] The VTAC was issued a national stock number (4210-01-518-7244) and classified as a "Class 9 rescue kit" as a result of a program called the Rapid Fielding Initiative; it is also included within every Stryker vehicle as the "modular entry tool set".[14][18] This design enjoyed something of a renaissance with US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan as a tool and in use in hand-to-hand combat.[20]
Law enforcement [ edit ]
The tomahawk has gained some respect from members of various law enforcement tactical (i.e. "SWAT") teams. Some companies have seized upon this new popularity and are producing "tactical tomahawks". These SWAT-oriented tools are designed to be both useful and relatively light. Some examples of "tactical tomahawks" include models wherein the shaft is designed as a prybar. There are models with line/rope cutting notches, cuts in the head allowing its use as a wrench, and models with broad, heavy heads to assist in breaching doors.[21][self-published source]
Modern tomahawk fighting [ edit ]
There are not many systems worldwide which teach fighting skills with the axe or a tomahawk to civilians. However one martial art known as Okichitaw teaches Tomahawk fighting in conjunction with other Indigenous weapons such as the plains dagger, lance and gunstock war club, mostly based on Plains Indian combat principles. Since the axe is becoming more popular again in movies and video games (e.g.: The Patriot; Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter;[22] Bullet to the Head; Assassin's Creed III)[23][24] the interest in tomahawk and axe training within the martial arts has grown. It can also be observed however that Escrima practitioners are putting it to use.[25]
Manufacturers [ edit ]
Modern tomahawk manufacturers include:
See also [ edit ]Announcing the Oddshot Creator Program
oddshot.tv Blocked Unblock Follow Following Dec 1, 2015
Hi guys,
We have some pretty exciting news for you!
After a crazy few weeks, we’ve put together something we believe will be pretty cool for content creators.
We’ve always wanted to create a really cool experience for viewers and so we’ve been hesitant to put in ads. We have also wanted to remain flexible enough to try and come up with a really good, non-intrusive way to do ads, instead of just going with banners and pre-rolls. If I were an Oddshot viewer and I had to sit through a pre-roll, I’d probably shoot myself.
Obviously it’s also really important that the content creators are able to monetize and keep creating the awesome content we get to enjoy. So, as far as we could tell, there was only one way that would allow us to remain flexible, but still support streamers financially.
Today we present to you:
The Oddshot Partner Program
What is it?
What we decided to do is start paying streamers a competitive amount based on the views their content is getting. We have set a side $30 000 per month that will be paid out to streamers every month. We calculate each streamers cut, by calculating their percentage of our aggregate views. This comes out to an average realized CPM of $1.2 (per 1000 views) at our current aggregate view counts.
So streamers get paid for creating great content and viewers can support streamers just by watching videos of great moments. We think it’s pretty cool.
Obviously this is only a first step. We will be experimenting with a lot of different ad concepts in an attempt to find the right solution. Once we are confident we have found a way to do ads that doesn’t suck, we will be transitioning in to a revenue share model.
Note: If our aggregate view count increases greatly, we may need to increase the size of the pot to maintain a reasonable level of payouts.
When is this happening?
The first payments to all streamers who have signed up will go out on the 11th of January and they will be based on the December performance numbers. After that payments will always go out 7–10 days after each respective month has ended.
I’m a streamer. How do I get in on this?
It’s super easy.
1. Sign up for the partner program here: goo.gl/ME6z1R
2. Our team will be in contact with you and will ask you to verify your identity and payment information by sending us a message via Twitch from your official twitch account.
3. You will then receive the Oddshot Partner Agreement to sign.
4. Get back to creating awesome content! We will payout monthly via PayPal and send you a report detailing how your videos have been performing.
How can I make the most out of the partnership program?
Your payout is dependent only on the total number of views your stream’s Oddshots get. So have your viewers and fans take and share your shots to the max — they’ll be helping you along the way!
How can you afford this?
We have some money from investors and we really want to create an amazing platform for enjoying gaming related content, so we can’t think of a better way to spend this money right now. We truly believe we can build something pretty awesome and if this helps us get there, it was money well spent, if not at least we helped support the content creators for a little while.
What next?
Let us present to you Oddshot 2.0 (ETA February):June 2013
That Damned Mob of Scribbling Women
In 1855, Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote a letter to his publisher in response to the overwhelming success of female writers at the time. Novels such as Susan Warner's The Wide, Wide World (1849), Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) and Ruth Hall: A Domestic Tale of the Present Time (1854) by Sara Payson Willis Parton (aka Fanny Fern) were dominating the era both in terms of critical acclaim and sales. His envy overwhelming him, Hawthorne told William Ticknor: "America is now wholly given over to a d[amne]d mob of scribbling women, and I should have no chance of success while the public is occupied with their trash." Having genuinely appreciated Susan Warner's novel for its stylistic innovations, he goes on to say: "This woman writes as if the devil was in her; and that is the only condition under which a woman ever writes anything worth reading...Generally, women write like emasculated men, and are only to be distinguished from male authors by greater feebleness and folly."
This anecdote appears in Philip Gura's astonishing, extraordinary book Truth's Ragged Edge: The Rise of the American Novel. It is a seminal work of literary history and criticism, and revolutionary in its organic inclusion of women and African Americans. Gura's study is a thorough, fascinating, and gratifying survey of American fiction from its beginnings to the late nineteenth century -- and how that fiction reflected the developing American character. His work compellingly examines the effects of liberalism and capitalism on fiction, contemplates how Americans have perceived the function and object of literature, and interrogates the effects of fiction on society and vice versa. He traces the development of the American character, both fictional and real, from its Puritan beginnings when Americans defined themselves in relation to God and religious scripture to their mid-century obsession with self-examination and human motivations to the post Civil-War American who was more likely to turn to science than scripture for answers and who was deeply concerned over an entrenched individualism to the sacrifice of civic duty and society's greater good.
Over the course of his book, Gura recovers an astounding number of female novelists, many successful, influential, and popular in their own time, who have since been marginalized to oblivion. By integrating these women's biographies along with analyses of their novels so plentifully and seamlessly into his book, Gura shows us what the future of scholarship could look like, providing a glimpse of when "women's studies" as a corrective to centuries of female exclusion from the canon will become obsolete. For Gura, American writers in possession of a vagina or dark skin are inherent to the definition of an American writer. This, alas, is decidedly not true for the Hawthorne-types who continue to prevail over our literature and history, lately exemplified by the editors of Wikipedia who have been systematically removing women writers from their "American Writers" category and placing them in the subcategory "American Women Writers;" and similarly for African-American writers.
Gura provides a fresh look at the Great Male Writers of the period and introduces lesser-known male authors deserving of greater recognition. But the Bombshell will stick to her bias and address here a sampling of the women Gura has unearthed. I do hope and expect we'll be seeing many of these women's novels reprinted by the growing crop of excellent small presses devoted to salvaging our literary past.
Susanna Rowson was a late eighteenth century writer of international renown most remembered for her highly popular novel Charlotte Temple (1794). A seduction and betrayal narrative common to the era, it spoke, especially in light of the recent French Revolution, to a fear of the anarchic and transgressive effects the American Revolution might be having on the American people. Similarly, Hannah Webster Foster's The Coquette, almost as successful as Rowson's novel, transformed "a sad tale of frailty and human sorrow into a parable about democracy and its incipient discontents." Foster, along with other novelists of the period including Tabitha Tenny, author of the popular Female Quixotism, Exhibited in the Romantic Opinions and Extravagant Adventures of Dorcasina Sheldon (1801), wrote about and satirized the restrictive and unfair treatment of women regarding sexual transgressions.
Catharine Maria Sedgwick's novel A New-England Tale (1822) established her as a chief competitor to the reigning distinguished man of letters James Fenimore Cooper, much to his consternation, and the two dominated American fiction from the mid-1820s through 1840. Her very popular and enormously influential 1827 novel Hope Leslie; or, Early Times in the Massachusetts introduced nonwhite characters into her fiction and "challenged both the traditionally patriarchal trajectory of American history and, more particularly, Native Americans' role in it." Her "true innovation" was to give voice to Puritan women and Native Americans excluded from narrative histories; it was claimed that her depictions of "savage life" were "more truthful than Cooper's."
Warner's phenomenal success with The Wide, Wide World followed by Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin inaugurated an era when women writers commanded the publishing world and many of their novels had strong feminist themes railing against the pervasive sexism and racism of American society. Still, African American writers in general, and African American women writers in particular, met with great difficulty when trying to publish their work. For example, it took the "talented and unique" Harriet Jacobs four years to find a publisher for Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Written by Herself (1857).
In the 1850s the influential cultural journals Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Putnam's Monthly Magazine, The Nation, The Galaxy and especially The Atlantic Monthly encouraged and sought out female writers to be published in their pages. Women writers penned fully half of The Atlantic Monthly's early issues. Many careers were thus launched and these women -- including Alice Cary, Lillie Devereux Umsted Blake, Rebecca Harding Davis, and Elizabeth Barstow Stoddard -- "created their own distinct vision of authorship," and were "responsible for the final important development in the early American novel." Stoddard's novels The Morgesons (1862) and Two |
retrieve To-do items from the browser, we are actually telling the browser to make a GET request. This method retrieves information without changing anything on the server.
In order to retrieve all To-do items, we call the select method of the DSLContext interface and then specify that we want to select attributes from the Task table. To get a list of TaskRecord objects, we’d tell the browser to call the fetchInto method of the ResultQuery interface. It would look like this:
// READ get("/tasks", (request, response) -> { List<TaskRecord> todoList = dsl.select(Task.TASK.ID, Task.TASK.TITLE, Task.TASK.DESCRIPTION, Task.TASK.IS_DONE, Task.TASK.CATEGORY_ID).from(Task.TASK).fetchInto(TaskRecord.class); return todoList; });
We can test this method with Postman by creating an HTTP GET request and sending it. A list of all To-do items is returned:
3. Update Stored Information
When we want to update information stored in database, we tell the browser to send a PUT request. In Spark’s PUT method, we can add a variable part to the URL (for example ‘ :id ’). This variable part is then passed as a keyword argument to the function.
If we want to update a task with a particular id, we start with the following:
Fetch the To-do item that equals the requested id.
Create a select statement by calling the selectFrom method of DSLContext Interface
method of Interface Specify which item we want to fetch within the where method
method Call a fetchOne method in order to retrieve the record
To actually change the record, we need to:
Get the requested title and description
Set new values by using generated methods of setTitle() and setDescription()
and Update the record by calling an update method
The code for this would look like:
//UPDATE put("/tasks/:id", (request, response) -> { TaskRecord task = dsl.selectFrom(Task.TASK).where(Task.TASK.ID.equal(Task.TASK.ID.getDataType().convert(request.params(":id")))).fetchOne(); //if found if (task!= null) { //retrieve new data for todolist String newTitle = request.queryParams("title"); String newDescription = request.queryParams("description"); task.setTitle(newTitle); task.setDescription(newDescription); task.update(); } else { response.status(404); } return "Example updated"; });
To test the PUT request, we’d create a query string by specifying the id of To-do item that we want to update and then setting new values for that item.
4. Delete an Item
When we want to delete a To-do item, we instruct the browser to make a DELETE request. The recipe is simple: create a delete statement by calling the deleteFrom method of the DSLContext interface. In the where method, we specify that we want to delete the item that matches the requested id.
//DELETE delete("/tasks/:id", (request, response) -> { TaskRecord task = dsl.deleteFrom(Task.TASK).where(Task.TASK.ID.equal(Task.TASK.ID.getDataType().convert(request.params(":id")))).returning().fetchOne(); });
The appropriate DELETE request follows. Notice that we specify the id of the item we want to delete.
And there you have it – a simple app built on Spark and jOOQ.
Of course, the actual amount of written code used to build an app will vary based on the language you use. Some frameworks also make it harder by insisting on boilerplate code (or at least making it harder to avoid) and a more complicated configuration. Frameworks like Spark and jOOQ are very helpful in keeping code simple. You can test it for yourself, or see our example on this Github link.Nyaope “bluetooth” addicts in Soshanguve exchange blood through a syringe to share the high because it’s cost-effective. Picture: Facebook
Pretoria – The young nyaope addict from Mabopane in Pretoria took a tiny syringe out of his pocket. He then identified a person he entrusted with his life enough to share “bluetooth” with him. The young man unwrapped a small package of the powdered drug and mixed it with a drop of water from the lid of a cold-drink bottle and infused the mixed product in his syringe.
He then stiffly tied his wrist with a piece of string, and without hesitation picked a vein in his arm and pumped the mixture into it.
“Get ready Small, tie your arm up and come closer,” he said to his friend as the mixture went into his hand.
Within a few seconds of injecting himself he started withdrawing the fluids, which rushed back into the syringe with blood.
“I have to retract it while it’s still hot because it’s still strong and fresh,” he said. That way it would have the same impact on his bluetooth partner as it had on him.
He passed the syringe on to the other man, who had tied a string around his upper arm too in preparation for his friend’s blood.
The other man shot the blood into his veins while his friend went into a daze from the nyaope.
“We only use bluetooth on tough days, when one of us has no money to buy nyaope,” he said.
The two said they had heard of the method of sharing a high and thought it was a better way to feed each other’s cravings.
They are among a growing number of nyaope abusers sharing blood to keep each other high.
The method, called bluetooth, is spreading fast across the city’s townships and has been identified among young nyaope users in Mabopane, Ga-Rankuwa and Soshanguve.
The two asked not to be identified, and said they took great care to protect each other from blood diseases and infections by testing regularly.
“We have been living on the streets for too long, hustling and sharing a lot. We also take regular rapid HIV tests together just so that when we share bluetooth we know that we are safe,” one of the men said. He said bluetooth had turned them into cowards as they shared their drugs.
“We hide when we do it because other people could see us as parasites.”
A group of nyaope addicts in Soshanguve Block XX also told the Cape Times's sister paper the Pretoria News of the blood-sharing method, saying they were aware of the trend, but were sceptical of it.
The drug costs R30 a packet on the streets, and injecting it is apparently more potent than smoking it.
Pretoria NewsA website being used to help organize protests against Gov. Scott Walker in Wisconsin has been blocked from the Capitol Building in Madison, according to reports.
The site, http://www.defendwisconsin.org/, was inaccessible from the building on Monday and into Tuesday morning, CNN reported.
According to ThinkProgress:
If you are in the Capitol attempting to access the internet from a free wifi connection labeled “guest,” you cannot access the site defendwisconsin.org. The site has been used to provide updates on what is happening, where you can volunteer, and where supplies and goods are needed to support protesters. Administrators of the website were notified on Monday that the page is being blocked
Wisconsin Democrats were quick to blame Walker and Republican lawmakers for causing the outage. Wisconsin Democratic Party press secretary Graeme Zielinski said: "In a direct assault on the First Amendment, Scott Walker's administration is blocking access in the Wisconsin Capitol to opposition websites."
State Department of Administration spokeswoman Carla Vigue said in response to the allegations, "DOA's security software automatically blocked the site, as it does all new websites."
But according to Michael Tate, chairman of the Democratic Party of Website, the DOA explanation is not sufficient, as the site had been working previously but has been blocked in the Capitol Building since Friday.
Tate said of the development, "(Apparently Governor Walker) feels comfortable blocking the First Amendment right of protesters at the exact time that they are exercising their First Amendment right. This is undemocratic and this is un-American."
CNN has audio of Tate responding to the alleged blocking.“It’s a good day for Europe,” said President François Hollande of France. “The crisis came from the banks, and mechanisms have been put in place that will mean nothing is as it was before.”
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, said the agreement was “a big step toward more trust and confidence in the euro zone.” The summit meeting could now focus on “strengthening economic coordination” and “set out a road map for the coming months,” she added.
In another measure to shore up the euro, the finance ministers approved the release of nearly 50 billion euros, or $65 billion, in further aid to Greece, including long-delayed payments, support that is crucial for the government to avoid defaulting on its debts.
“Today is not only a new day for Greece, it is indeed a new day for Europe,” Antonis Samaras, the Greek prime minister, said ahead of the summit meeting.
But threatening to spoil the upbeat atmosphere were questions over the future leadership of Italy, where the economy is contracting, debt levels are rising and Silvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister, has threatened to try to reclaim the office in an election next year.
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It remained unclear on Thursday whether Mr. Berlusconi would run and, if that were to happen, whether he would campaign on promises to reverse reforms put in place by Mario Monti, the current prime minister. Even so, the re-emergence of Mr. Berlusconi — who attended a summit meeting of center-right parties in Brussels on Thursday — could destabilize markets and even rekindle the financial crisis.
The bank supervision plan was first discussed in June and wrapped up in a matter of months — record time by the glacial standards of European Union rule-making. The agreement should serve as a springboard for leaders to weigh further steps toward economic integration during their meeting.
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Such measures could include a unified system, and perhaps shared euro area resources, to ensure failing banks are closed in an orderly fashion. This could be followed, in time, by actions intended to reinforce economic and monetary union, including, possibly, the creation of a shared fund that could be used to shore up the economies of vulnerable members of the euro zone.
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Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, said the agreement on banking supervision was “an important step towards a stable economic and monetary union, and toward further European integration.” But he noted that governments and the European Commission still had to work on the details of the supervision mechanism.
The new system should be fully operational by March 2014, but the ministers left the door open for the central bank to push that date back if it would “not be ready for exercising in full its tasks.”
A series of compromises was needed for finance ministers to reach agreement on banking supervision.
Initially, France and the European Commission had asked that all 6,000 banks in the euro area be closely regulated by the central bank. But in a concession, France agreed that only banks holding more than 30 billion euros in assets, or assets greater than 20 percent of their country’s gross domestic product, would be directly regulated by the central bank.
Germany, seeking to make the central bank’s job more manageable and facing pressure from a powerful domestic banking lobby trying to shield many small savings banks from closer scrutiny, sought a reduced portfolio for the bank. But Germany agreed to let the central bank, at its discretion, step in and take over supervision of any euro zone bank.
The Germans and Swedes also had concerns that the central bank could be tempted to alter its decisions on monetary policy to make its supervisory job easier. As a compromise, member states are to be given greater scope than originally foreseen to challenge central bank decisions.
Britain, which is not a member of the euro zone, sought assurances that the new banking supervisor would not have influence over banks operating in the City of London. Britain agreed to a formula that should allow it and other European Union members outside the euro zone to counteract most — but probably not all — rule-making by the central bank. These countries will also be able to challenge decisions pertaining to cross-border banking.
The supervisor is a prerequisite for a new European bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism, to provide aid directly to the troubled banks of countries including Spain and Ireland. Such aid would allow those governments to avoid weighing down their national balance sheets with yet more debt. Those countries, along with France, successfully lobbied for direct recapitalization of banks to be mentioned in the agreement.
But in a concession to Germany, which is wary about spending more money on bailouts ahead of national elections in late 2013, and to assuage similar concerns by the Dutch and Finns, the agreement underlined the need for unanimity among states contributing to the bailout fund before any such measures can go ahead.Questions have been raised about tensions between female chief constables and male PCCs. Three who have left are, from left, Suzette Davenport, Justine Curran and Carmel Napier, seen with Martin Surl, Keith Hunter and Ian Johnston
The loss of several female chief constables has raised sexism concerns and allegations of operational interference by the elected police and crime commissioners who oversee them, The Times has learnt.
The number of women in the top police jobs in England and Wales has halved since 2014, causing alarm in the senior ranks about the “worrying message” their departures send.
The disproportionate number of female chief constables who have been forced to retire or have left the service early when they are working with an elected police and crime commissioner (PCCs) who happens to be a male former police officer has been noted.
The Times understands that the National Police Chiefs’ Council is conducting exit interviews with every chief constable who has left the service…Early life Edit
Married life Edit
Civil War and widowhood Edit
Conspiracy Edit
Arrest and incarceration Edit
Trial Edit
Execution Edit
Burial Edit
Grave of Mary Surratt (with modern headstone) at Mount Olivet Cemetery. Each body was inspected by a physician to ensure that death had occurred.[197][201][208] The bodies of the executed were allowed to hang for about 30 minutes[201][205][210] and soldiers began to cut them down at 1:53 P.M.[197] A corporal raced to the top of the gallows and cut down Atzerodt's body, which fell to the ground with a thud.[197] He was reprimanded, and the other bodies were cut down more gently.[197] Herold's body was next, followed by Powell's.[197] Surratt's body was cut down at 1:58 P.M.[197] As Surratt's body was cut loose, her head fell forward. A soldier joked, "She makes a good bow" and was rebuked by an officer for his poor use of humor.[24][197] Upon examination, the military surgeons determined that no one's neck had been broken by the fall.[24][197] The manacles and cloth bindings were removed but not the white execution masks, and the bodies were placed into the pine coffins.[197][201] The name of each person was written on a piece of paper by acting Assistant Adjutant R. A. Watts,[205] and inserted in a glass vial, which was placed into the coffin.[201] The coffins were buried against the prison wall in shallow graves, just a few feet from the gallows.[201] A white picket fence marked the burial site.[211] The night that she died, a mob attacked the Surratt boarding house and began stripping it of souvenirs until the police stopped them.[206] Anna Surratt unsuccessfully asked for her mother's body for four years.[212] In 1867, the War Department decided to tear down the portion of the Washington Arsenal where the bodies of Surratt and the other executed conspirators lay.[213] On October 1, 1867, the coffins were disinterred and reburied in Warehouse No. 1 at the Arsenal, with a wooden marker placed at the head of each burial vault.[211][213] Booth's body lay alongside them.[211] In February 1869, Edwin Booth asked Johnson for the body of his brother.[213] Johnson agreed to turn the body over to the Booth family, and on February 8 Surratt's body was turned over to the Surratt family.[211][212][214][215] She was buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Washington, D.C., on February 9, 1869.[214][215] Lloyd is buried 100 yards (91 m) from her grave in the same cemetery.[216]
Surviving family and home Edit
Portrayals Edit
References Edit
Sources EditDeadlines spur action in the NFL.
Share your story for a chance to win the trip of a lifetime to Super Bowl XLIX.
Free agent Brett Keisel spent the offseason on the Pittsburgh Steelers' back burner as the organization poured resources into Cam Thomas and rookie Stephon Tuitt at defensive end.
It took the Arizona Cardinals reaching out to Keisel on Tuesday to bring the two sides together again.
The Steelers reached an agreement on a new contract with the 12-year veteran, reports ESPN's Adam Schefter. The team announced Keisel signed a two-year deal Wednesday.
The Arizona Republic reported earlier in the day that Keisel was reluctant to leave his family in Pennsylvania for a season in the desert. The Cardinals did make an offer, per the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but Keisel turned them down.
Now 36 years old, Keisel is ticketed for a backup role behind Thomas and Tuitt after starting 42 games over the past three seasons.
The reunion with Keisel caps off a busy day in which the Steelers also doled out a lucrative five-year extension for right tackle Marcus Gilbert.
I am very excited to finish what I started in 2002 with the @steelers. Time to get to work!! #SteelerNation #DaBeardNation â Brett Keisel (@bkeisel99) August 19, 2014
The latest "Around the League Podcast" recaps all of the action from the second week of the preseason.Brian Rice, charged with manslaughter in Gray death, accused ex-lover’s husband of breaking a court order as part of a feud that police chiefs were warned about
The Baltimore police lieutenant charged with the manslaughter of Freddie Gray had an innocent man arrested and prosecuted as part of a years-long personal feud over his love life that city police chiefs were repeatedly warned about.
Brian Rice filed criminal charges against his ex-girlfriend’s husband in 2013, incorrectly accusing him of breaking a court order, according to sealed court documents obtained by the Guardian. Rice tried to have the same man, Andrew McAleer, arrested again two weeks before Gray’s arrest last month.
The incident raises further doubts about whether Baltimore police department should have allowed Rice to remain in his job, according to policing experts. McAleer was acquitted after being arrested in a dawn swoop on his home by police. A county court judge later said McAleer had been charged because Rice was a police officer.
Officer in Freddie Gray case demanded man's arrest as part of personal dispute Read more
The Guardian reported on Friday that Rice used his position to demand McAleer’s arrest on 29 March. Rice was also earlier accused of threatening to kill McAleer in 2012 and was given a temporary restraining order by a judge.
Rice, 41, initiated the arrest of Gray on 12 April after the 25-year-old “made eye contact” with him in a west Baltimore street and ran away. Gray was chased and subjected to an arrest declared unlawful by the city’s top prosecutor. Gray suffered a badly broken neck while travelling in a police van in handcuffs and shackles. He died a week later in hospital, prompting protests and unrest across the city.
The Guardian can also reveal that another erratic episode involving Rice in June 2012 – in which Rice allegedly threatened to kill McAleer - was reported directly to his superior officer at the Western District police station in Baltimore. This supervisor, Major Cliff McWhite, was later promoted to lieutenant colonel by the city’s police commissioner, Anthony Batts, but subsequently stepped down and was charged with theft in 2014.
brian rice document A report of the incident involving Brian Rice. Some redactions made by the Guardian to protect individuals’ privacy.
Baltimore police spokespeople declined again to discuss any disciplinary action taken against Rice and how his fitness for work was assessed. He was given two lengthy administrative suspensions in 2012 and 2013, according to a police source, who said his firearms and police badge were taken away both times while Rice was restricted to paperwork. But then he returned to patrols.
Investigators from Baltimore police’s internal affairs division, which looks into allegations against the department’s officers, were making inquiries over the 29 March incident shortly before Rice’s involvement in Gray’s arrest, according to police records.
The 2013 prosecution of McAleer, reported here for the first time, related to a court order between the two men about the young son Rice had with McAleer’s wife, Karyn. Rice had stipulated that McAleer could not supervise the boy alone. Late on 19 January, Rice called police to McAleer’s house to investigate what he said was a violation of the order.
The police found Karyn McAleer had left another of her sons, aged 13, in charge of the younger boy while she was at work, and that Andrew McAleer was also in the house. According to a source familiar with the incident, the officers were initially satisfied that no violation had occurred, and left.
But at 2.16am, Rice filed an application to a Carroll County court for criminal charges against McAleer, alleging he had indeed violated the order and the arrangement placed Rice’s 15-year-old son in danger. According to the source, Rice made his status as a police lieutenant known to the court commissioner, a claim on which Rice’s attorneys declined to comment. The court issued a warrant and police were sent back to McAleer’s house and arrested him.
Marilyn Mosby, Baltimore state’s attorney, announces criminal charges against all six officers suspended after Freddie Gray suffered a fatal spinal injury while in police custody. Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP
McAleer was charged with violating the court order by prosecutors in Carroll County. He was bailed and released, according to the source. But he was then the subject of a court process lasting almost two months, before eventually being acquitted on 26 March, according to records from the office of the state’s attorney for the county.
The following month, Carroll County circuit court Judge Thomas F Stansfield, who oversaw the court order on McAleer’s access to Rice’s son, addressed the incident – which he called “a serious episode” – in a court filing.
“Maryland law clearly allows a 13-year-old to supervise visitation with a younger child,” Stansfield wrote. “Because the natural father, Brian Scott Rice, is a police officer, he objected to supervision of visitation by the 13-year-old and attempted to pursue criminal charges against Mr McAleer.”
Records of the entire saga, including the court order over visitation rights and the prosecution of McAleer, have been expunged from Maryland’s publicly accessible court and police files. Copies were obtained by the Guardian from a source working in the criminal justice system in Maryland who was not authorised to release them to the media.
Another incident uncovered in Westminster police filings shows that in September 2013 Rice was accused of stealing Karyn McAleer’s mail and throwing it into a public garbage can. The incident was reportedly witnessed by Andrew McAleer but there was no CCTV footage available. The case is marked “suspended at this time”. Mail theft is a federal crime and carries a punishment of up to five years in prison.
Karyn and Andrew McAleer declined to comment. Attorneys for Rice did not respond to a series of detailed questions about the incidents involving McAleer. No one answered the door at the lieutenant’s home in Maryland on Monday.
Professor Samuel Walker, emeritus professor of criminal justice at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, said the new findings raised “even more serious doubts” about Rice’s suitability for frontline police work following earlier disclosures about his suspensions.
Jonathan Blanks, a research associate for the Cato Institute’s study of police misconduct, said thanks to Maryland’s law enforcement officers’ bill of rights, which bans the disclosure of personnel files, “we don’t know who is misbehaving” among Baltimore’s ranks.
“One of the problems we see is that sometimes officers become repeat offenders because things are allowed to be handled in-house, and other times they get away with things altogether,” said Blanks.
Additional reporting by Caitlin Goldblatt in BaltimoreThe “Big Boss” of Initech’s Australian division ran the Sydney office as his own personal kingdom. Work- or workers- he didn’t care for was banished to the hinterlands of the Melbourne office. For example, IT services was a “useless sack of morons who only know how to spend money,” and thus the entire department was banished to Melbourne.
Stewart C. lived in Melbourne, and was a new hire not long after the exile. The Melbourne office, with a 900km buffer zone protecting it from the whims of upper management, was actually a decent place to work. At least, until Brendan arrived.
Brendan was an upwardly mobile middle manager based out of Sydney. One day, he did something to offend Tony. The scuttlebutt had a lot of rumors about what that was, ranging from “oh, he was late to a big meeting,” to “he took the last beer at the company party”. Rumors aside, the facts were clear: Brendan was in Melbourne with a long list of projects to manage, and he wasn’t going back to Sydney until he completed all of them.
A few days into his exile, Brendan brought that list of tasks to Stewart’s cube. “Stewart. Stew. Stewie. I’m gonna need you to go ahead and test our backups, yeah? Make sure we can actually restore from them, right?”
“That’s a great idea,” Stewart said. “So great, that we test them on a regular basis. I can send you a doc that covers our backup strategy-”
“Right, yeah, but have you tested them in production?” Brendan asked.
Stewart paused, making certain that he’d heard the question properly. “Well, no…”
“Right then, yeah? They haven’t really been tested ’till we run them against production, yeah?”
“We… really shouldn’t test things in production,” Stewart said. “I mean, what if the test fails?”
Brendan shook his head and laughed. “Stewie, why would the test fail unless the backups are broken, right? Yeah, I’m gonna need a plan to cycle through every production server. Wipe it, restore from backup tape, and confirm it’s working, yeah? Right, so get on that. Orders from Tony, yeah, we need this by next week.”
Stewart immediately got to work- on making sure this hare-brained idea didn’t go forward. He roped in his boss, who roped in her boss, and everyone was on the same page: this was a terrible idea that had no real benefit and carried with it too much risk and downtime. “Buuuuuuut,” his boss said, “it’s what Tony wants. We haven’t got the political clout to tell him ‘no’, so we’re going to have to do it.”
Wind of Stewart’s attempts at killing the project got back to Brendan. This resulted in a rather nasty meeting invite demanding a “status update”. Stewart wasn’t the only invitee. When he took a seat next to Brendan, they were both staring at a speakerphone.
The phone resonated with Tony’s booming voice and confident authority. “Well? What’s all this then?” he demanded.
“I’ll tell you what this is,” Brendan said. “It’s just like you said, sir- everyone out here in Melbourne is lazy and obstructive, right? Yeah.”
“You’re telling me crap I already know,” Tony said, his voice crackling on a bad connection. “Of course they’re useless, that’s why they’re out in Melbourne. Was there a point to this call?”
“Well, yeah, right,” Brendan said. “I wanted you on the line for this because Stewart has been the worst, right? He’s been nothing but a trouble-maker disrupting my efforts and second-guessing me-”
Stewart started to mount a defense, but he couldn’t get a word in before Tony’s laughter drowned him out. “Brendan, if you can’t handle the Melbourne office, how do you expect to cut it back here in Sydney? You just haven’t got the guts for this business, Brendan. Now, c’mon then, you’ve got your orders. Chop chop, and no excuses.”
Tony ended the call, leaving Brendan and Stewart staring at each other in uncomfortable silence. Brendan was the first to break the silence. “Yeah, as you can see,” Brendan said, “this project has attention right from the top. So you’re going to give me a workable plan for testing all of the backups on the production servers by tomorrow- or else, right? Yeah.”
Stewart nearly demanded, “Or else what?”, but decided against it. Instead, he wrote up his plan, noted the steps that involved downtime, and sent it to Brendan the following day. Brendan didn’t have any follow up questions, and nobody told Stewart to execute the plan, so he promptly forgot about it and got back to doing real work.
Until all IT operations came screeching to a halt two weeks later. Brendan, as it turns out, decided he didn’t trust Stewart to run the tests. Instead, he strong-armed one of the junior technicians into doing it for him- but not until after making his own modifications to Stewart’s plan. Specifically, he wasn’t happy with the schedule- Stewart had very conservatively scheduled only one server to be tested a week, outside of regular business hours, so that any failures or issues would be minimized. That would have taken months, and Brendan wasn’t willing to wait that long, so he made the junior technician do them all at once. Without coordinating downtime.
The result was every bit as catastrophic as one might expect, especially considering the junior technician didn’t think to order the backup tapes before starting the test, which meant they needed to be shipped from their offsite location. All in all, they lost two days of operations and a lot of reputation among their customers. Tony was furious, and he knew exactly who to blame: the “useless sack of morons who only know how to spend money.”
Obviously, the folks in Melbourne couldn’t handle the complicated job of running IT services, so the IT department there was closed down at the end of the quarter and Initech hired on contractors to set up a new datacenter in Sydney. Stewart wasn’t particularly happy to lose his job, but he took some solace in the fact that he had prospects lined up- while Brendan didn’t.Coming Soon
Cannon Busters
With a maintenance robot and a deadly fugitive tagging along, friendship droid S.A.M searches for its best friend, the heir to a kingdom under siege.
SAINT SEIYA: Knights of the Zodiac
Seiya and the Knights of the Zodiac vow to protect the reincarnated Greek goddess Athena in her battle against evil forces bent on destroying humanity.
The Order
Out to avenge his mother's death, a college student pledges a secret order and lands in a war between werewolves and practitioners of dark magic.
Love, Death & Robots
Terrifying creatures, wicked surprises and dark comedy converge in this NSFW anthology of animated stories presented by Tim Miller and David Fincher.
Mixtape
This romantic musical drama follows the love stories connecting an eclectic group of people in modern-day Los Angeles.
Nate Bargatze: The Tennessee Kid
Comedian Nate Bargatze takes aim at the absurdity of everyday life in an approachable and deadpan stand-up set shot in Duluth, Georgia.
Sharkey The Bounty Hunter
Bounty hunter Sharkey tracks criminals across the galaxy in his converted, rocket-powered ice-cream truck -- with help from his 10-year-old partner.
AJ and the Queen
RuPaul stars in this outrageous series as a down-on-her-luck drag queen traveling across America in a van with a tough-talking 11-year-old stowaway.Here’s a really cool article from the days before Cal Ripken Jr. as an Oriole. This article was printed on June 8th, 1978
Largo–Just one day after being chosen in major league baseball’s free-agent draft, Aberdeen’s Cal Ripken, Jr., displayed a few reasons why the Baltimore Orioles made him their No. 2 draft selection.
Ripken fanned 17 batters and gave up only two hits while pitching the Eagles to the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association Class A baseball crown in a 7-to-2 win over Thomas Stone yesterday at Prince Georges Community College.
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Yesterday, though, Ripken left no doubt about his major league potential, as he zipped assorted fast balls, curves and change-ups past the Lions. For the most part, facing Ripken became an exercise in futility for Thomas Stone’s batters, as every batter fanned at least once and many came back to the dugout shaking their heads in disbelief at Ripken’s pitching. Ripken wasted few pitches, throwing only 102 pitches at the Lions. In the third inning he only used 11 pitches to set down Stone, 1-2-3.
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Although Ripken was nearly flawless yesterday, he still found himself trailing, 1-0, after the first inning, when Stone’s Mark Cannon reached first on an error and later scored on a Ripken wild pitch.
[Mark] Calvert was able to shut out Aberdeen for three innings, but threw 62 pitches in the first three innings. In the fourth inning Calvert lost his control and gave up four hits, walked on,e hit one batter with a pitch and, with the help of three infield errors, fell behind for good, 7-1.
…
“I was really able to throw the ball hard today,” RIpken said. “Plus all that wind helped me too. It was blowing in hard, so it helped my pitching, but did nothing for my hitting,” he said referring to his two 350-foot drives that were caught on the warning track by Lion outfields.
Ripken, who completed his high school career with a 14-4 overall mark and an 8-2 regular season record, says he definitely will play for the Orioles’ organization next year.
“It may be my only chance to play pro ball, so I don’t want to miss out,” he said. “I’d prefer to play shortstop in the majors, but I’ll play anywhere.”At age 50, I am an official member of Generation I.V.F., having grown up after the Pill and Baby Boomer feminists revolutionizing women’s reproductive choices and lives. We watched as millions of American women infiltrated formerly closed-to-females professions, and as home and office politics, the economy, and relations between the sexes radically shifted.
My generation also came of age alongside reproductive technologies: in-vitro fertilization (I.V.F.), frozen sperm, donor eggs, and surrogacy. I vividly remember reading front-page stories about the first test-tube baby born in Britain (in 1978) and about the first donor-egg baby born (in 1984). These advances were so extraordinary that my girlfriends and I began to believe that almost anything would be possible by the time we were ready to have kids…that is, if we chose to have kids.
I can recite from memory the names and ages of the celebrities who first seemed to beat the biological clock: Photographer Annie Leibovitz (twins at 52), supermodel Cheryl Tiegs (baby at 52), actress Geena Davis (twins at 48). Now, it seems just about every other 40-plus female in Hollywood has conceived through I.V.F.
Bombarded by these relentless endorsements for older motherhood, many middle-class, educated, Gen-I.V.F. women like myself started thinking, “Wow, science is finally beating Mother Nature.” We reassuringly told each other, “It’s okay to delay motherhood while we pursue our careers. If we run into trouble, well, there are always fertility treatments.” Science and technology became our New God.
My own fertility story has four chapters.
Chapter One: Ambivalent about motherhood and thrilled to be ensconced in a meaningful career, I married in my mid-thirties and five years later started trying to make a baby the old-fashioned way.
Chapter Two: A four-year odyssey into assisted reproductive technology (A.R.T.), which 99 percent of the time means I.V.F. With A.R.T., the sperm and egg are handled outside of the womb (A.R.T. does not include straight hormone therapy or intrauterine insemination). Most A.R.T. requires very expensive injections, via needles to the abdomen, thigh or buttock, aimed at controlling your body’s hormones and stimulating your egg production. Notoriously, they can also fuel horrible mood swings and alter your personality.
During the years I underwent I.V.F., I met women so addicted to the hope the science offered that they’d endured as many as 18 rounds of treatment. My husband Michael and I abandoned the I.V.F. treadmill after four failed cycles, including one emotionally devastating miscarriage and another in which my ovaries produced no eggs at all.
For the most part, this $4-billion-a-year biotech industry is not invested in providing appropriate patient education that can help women and couples determine when to cease treatments, or support them in coming to terms with the indescribably painful fate of their biological childlessness. Still reaching for the stars ourselves, Michael and I continued on to Chapter Three: The Donor Egg Phase.
At this point a third party was introduced into the sacredness of the conception process, deeply challenging not only our values, but also our core sense of identity. We talked endlessly about ethics, spirituality and the excruciating realization that we were actually considering buying another woman’s eggs, commodifying her.
Still, sad to say, despite trepidation, disabling bouts of insomnia and self-flagellation, our obsession to procreate prevailed. Slowly but surely, we became that thing: Fertility Junkies. We began working with a donor egg agency, spending endless hours online |
described as "shocking", with little evidence of indigenous field forces or of adequate training, discipline, pay, or supply for the barbarians who formed most of the available troops. Local defence was occasionally effective, but was often associated with withdrawal from central control and taxes; in many areas, barbarians under Roman authority attacked culturally-Roman "Bagaudae".
Corruption, in this context the diversion of public finance from the needs of the army, may have contributed greatly to the Fall. The rich senatorial aristocrats in Rome itself became increasingly influential during the fifth century; they supported armed strength in theory, but did not wish to pay for it or to offer their own workers as army recruits. They did, however, pass large amounts of money to the Christian Church. At a local level, from the early fourth century, the town councils lost their property and their power, which often became concentrated in the hands of a few local despots beyond the reach of the law.
The fifth-century Western emperors, with brief exceptions, were individuals incapable of ruling effectively or even of controlling their own courts. Those exceptions were responsible for brief, but remarkable resurgences of Roman power.
395–406; Stilicho [ edit ]
Without an authoritative ruler, the Balkan provinces fell rapidly into disorder. Alaric was disappointed in his hopes for promotion to magister militum after the battle of the Frigidus. He again led Gothic tribesmen in arms and established himself as an independent power, burning the countryside as far as the walls of Constantinople. Alaric's ambitions for long-term Roman office were never quite acceptable to the Roman imperial courts, and his men could never settle long enough to farm in any one area. They showed no inclination to leave the Empire and face the Huns from whom they had fled in 376; indeed the Huns were still stirring up further migrations which often ended by attacking Rome in turn. Alaric's group was never destroyed nor expelled from the Empire, nor acculturated under effective Roman domination.
Stilicho's attempts to unify the Empire, revolts, and invasions [ edit ]
Stilicho moved with his remaining mobile forces into Greece, a clear threat to Rufinus' control of the Eastern empire. The bulk of Rufinus' forces were occupied with Hunnic incursions in Asia Minor and Syria, leaving Thrace undefended. He opted to enlist Alaric and his men, and sent them to Thessaly to stave off Stilicho's threat, which they did. No battle took place. Stilicho was forced to send some of his Eastern forces home. They went to Constantinople under the command of one Gainas, a Goth with a large Gothic following. On arrival, Gainas murdered Rufinus, and was appointed magister militum for Thrace by Eutropius, the new supreme minister and the only eunuch consul of Rome, who controlled Arcadius "as if he were a sheep".[94] Stilicho obtained a few more troops from the German frontier and continued to campaign ineffectively against the Eastern empire; again he was successfully opposed by Alaric and his men. During the next year, 397, Eutropius personally led his troops to victory over some Huns who were marauding in Asia Minor. With his position thus strengthened he declared Stilicho a public enemy, and he established Alaric as magister militum per Illyricum. A poem by Synesius advises the emperor to display manliness and remove a "skin-clad savage" (probably Alaric) from the councils of power and his barbarians from the Roman army. We do not know if Arcadius ever became aware of the existence of this advice, but it had no recorded effect. Synesius, from a province suffering the widespread ravages of a few poor but greedy barbarians, also complained of "the peacetime war, one almost worse than the barbarian war and arising from military indiscipline and the officer's greed."
The magister militum in the Diocese of Africa declared for the East and stopped the supply of grain to Rome. Italy had not fed itself for centuries and could not do so now. In 398, Stilicho sent his last reserves, a few thousand men, to re-take the Diocese of Africa, and he strengthened his position further when he married his daughter Maria to Honorius. Throughout this period Stilicho, and all other generals, were desperately short of recruits and supplies for them. In 400, Stilicho was charged to press into service any "laetus, Alamannus, Sarmatian, vagrant, son of a veteran" or any other person liable to serve. He had reached the bottom of his recruitment pool. Though personally not corrupt, he was very active in confiscating assets;[94] the financial and administrative machine was not producing enough support for the army.
An ivory diptych, thought to depict Stilicho (right) with his wife Serena and son Eucherius, ca. 395 ( Monza Cathedral
In 399, Tribigild's rebellion in Asia Minor allowed Gainas to accumulate a significant army (mostly Goths), become supreme in the Eastern court, and execute Eutropius. He now felt that he could dispense with Alaric's services and he nominally transferred Alaric's province to the West. This administrative change removed Alaric's Roman rank and his entitlement to legal provisioning for his men, leaving his army – the only significant force in the ravaged Balkans – as a problem for Stilicho. In 400, the citizens of Constantinople revolted against Gainas and massacred as many of his people, soldiers and their families, as they could catch. Some Goths at least built rafts and tried to cross the strip of sea that separates Asia from Europe; the Roman navy slaughtered them. By the beginning of 401, Gainas' head rode a pike through Constantinople while another Gothic general became consul. Meanwhile, groups of Huns started a series of attacks across the Danube, and the Isaurians marauded far and wide in Anatolia.
In 401 Stilicho travelled over the Alps to Raetia, to scrape up further troops. He left the Rhine defended only by the "dread" of Roman retaliation, rather than by adequate forces able to take the field. Early in spring, Alaric, probably desperate, invaded Italy, and he drove Honorius westward from Mediolanum, besieging him in Hasta Pompeia in Liguria. Stilicho returned as soon as the passes had cleared, meeting Alaric in two battles (near Pollentia and Verona) without decisive results. The Goths, weakened, were allowed to retreat back to Illyricum where the Western court again gave Alaric office, though only as comes and only over Dalmatia and Pannonia Secunda rather than the whole of Illyricum. Stilicho probably supposed that this pact would allow him to put Italian government into order and recruit fresh troops. He may also have planned with Alaric's help to relaunch his attempts to gain control over the Eastern court.
However, in 405, Stilicho was distracted by a fresh invasion of Northern Italy. Another group of Goths fleeing the Huns, led by one Radagaisus, devastated the north of Italy for six months before Stilicho could muster enough forces to take the field against them. Stilicho recalled troops from Britannia and the depth of the crisis was shown when he urged all Roman soldiers to allow their personal slaves to fight beside them. His forces, including Hun and Alan auxiliaries, may in the end have totalled rather less than 15,000 men. Radagaisus was defeated and executed. 12,000 prisoners from the defeated horde were drafted into Stilicho's service. Stilicho continued negotiations with Alaric; Flavius Aetius, son of one of Stilicho's major supporters, was sent as a hostage to Alaric in 405. In 406 Stilicho, hearing of new invaders and rebels who had appeared in the northern provinces, insisted on making peace with Alaric, probably on the basis that Alaric would prepare to move either against the Eastern court or against the rebels in Gaul. The Senate deeply resented peace with Alaric; in 407, when Alaric marched into Noricum and demanded a large payment for his expensive efforts in Stilicho's interests, the senate, "inspired by the courage, rather than the wisdom, of their predecessors,"[110] preferred war. One senator famously declaimed Non est ista pax, sed pactio servitutis ("This is not peace, but a pact of servitude").[111] Stilicho paid Alaric four thousand pounds of gold nevertheless. Stilicho sent Sarus, a Gothic general, over the Alps to face the usurper Constantine III, but he lost and barely escaped, having to leave his baggage to the bandits who now infested the Alpine passes.
The empress Maria, daughter of Stilicho, died in 407 or early 408 and her sister Aemilia Materna Thermantia married Honorius. In the East, Arcadius died on 1 May 408 and was replaced by his son Theodosius II; Stilicho seems to have planned to march to Constantinople, and to install there a regime loyal to himself. He may also have intended to give Alaric a senior official position and send him against the rebels in Gaul. Before he could do so, while he was away at Ticinum at the head of a small detachment, a bloody coup against his supporters took place at Honorius's court. It was led by Stilicho's own creature, one Olympius.
408–410; the end of an effective regular field army, starvation in Italy, sack of Rome [ edit ]
Stilicho's fall and Alaric's reaction [ edit ]
Stilicho had news of the coup at Bononia (where he was probably waiting for Alaric). His small escort of barbarians was led by Sarus, who rebelled. His Gothic troops massacred the Hun contingent in their sleep, and then withdrew towards the cities in which their families were billeted. Stilicho ordered that these troops should not be admitted, but, now without an army, he was forced to flee for sanctuary, promised his life, and killed.
Alaric was again declared an enemy of the Emperor. The conspiracy then massacred the families of the federate troops (as presumed supporters of Stilicho, although they had probably rebelled against him), and the troops defected en masse to Alaric. The conspirators seem to have let their main army disintegrate, and had no policy except hunting down supporters of Stilicho. Italy was left without effective indigenous defence forces thereafter. Heraclianus, a co-conspirator of Olympius, became governor of the Diocese of Africa, where he controlled the source of most of Italy's grain, and he supplied food only in the interests of Honorius's regime.
As a declared 'enemy of the Emperor', Alaric was denied the legitimacy that he needed to collect taxes and hold cities without large garrisons, which he could not afford to detach. He again offered to move his men, this time to Pannonia, in exchange for a modest sum of money and the modest title of Comes, but he was refused as a supporter of Stilicho. He moved into Italy, probably using the route and supplies arranged for him by Stilicho, bypassing the imperial court in Ravenna which was protected by widespread marshland and had a port, and he menaced the city of Rome itself. In 407, there was no equivalent of the determined response to the catastrophic Battle of Cannae in 216 BCE, when the entire Roman population, even slaves, had been mobilized to resist the enemy.
Alaric's military operations centred on the port of Rome, through which Rome's grain supply had to pass. Alaric's first siege of Rome in 408 caused dreadful famine within the walls. It was ended by a payment that, though large, was less than one of the richest senators could have produced. The super-rich aristocrats made little contribution; pagan temples were stripped of ornaments to make up the total. With promises of freedom, Alaric also recruited many of the slaves in Rome.
Alaric withdrew to Tuscany and recruited more slaves. Ataulf, a Goth nominally in Roman service and brother-in-law to Alaric, marched through Italy to join Alaric despite taking casualties from a small force of Hunnic mercenaries led by Olympius. Sarus was an enemy of Ataulf, and on Ataulf's arrival went back into imperial service.
Alaric besieges Rome [ edit ]
In 409 Olympius fell to further intrigue, having his ears cut off before he was beaten to death. Alaric tried again to negotiate with Honorius, but his demands (now even more moderate, only frontier land and food ) were inflated by the messenger and Honorius responded with insults, which were reported verbatim to Alaric. He broke off negotiations and the standoff continued. Honorius's court made overtures to the usurper Constantine III in Gaul and arranged to bring Hunnic forces into Italy, Alaric ravaged Italy outside the fortified cities (which he could not garrison), and the Romans refused open battle (for which they had inadequate forces). Late in the year Alaric sent bishops to express his readiness to leave Italy if Honorius would only grant his people a supply of grain. Honorius, sensing weakness, flatly refused.
Alaric moved to Rome and captured Galla Placidia, sister of Honorius. The Senate in Rome, despite its loathing for Alaric, was now desperate enough to give him almost anything he wanted. They had no food to offer, but they tried to give him imperial legitimacy; with the Senate's acquiescence, he elevated Priscus Attalus as his puppet emperor, and he marched on Ravenna. Honorius was planning to flee to Constantinople when a reinforcing army of 4,000 soldiers from the East disembarked in Ravenna. These garrisoned the walls and Honorius held on. He had Constantine's principal court supporter executed and Constantine abandoned plans to march to Honorius's defence. Attalus failed to establish his control over the Diocese of Africa, and no grain arrived in Rome where the famine became even more frightful. Jerome reports cannibalism within the walls.[133] Attalus brought Alaric no real advantage, failing also to come to any useful agreement with Honorius (who was offered mutilation, humiliation, and exile). Indeed, Attalus's claim was a marker of threat to Honorius, and Alaric dethroned him after a few months.
In 410 Alaric took Rome by starvation, sacked it for three days (there was relatively little destruction, and in some Christian holy places Alaric's men even refrained from wanton wrecking and rape), and invited its remaining barbarian slaves to join him, which many did. The city of Rome was the seat of the richest senatorial noble families and the centre of their cultural patronage; to pagans it was the sacred origin of the empire, and to Christians the seat of the heir of Saint Peter, Pope Innocent I, the most authoritative bishop of the West. Rome had not fallen to an enemy since the Battle of the Allia over eight centuries before. Refugees spread the news and their stories throughout the Empire, and the meaning of the fall was debated with religious fervour. Both Christians and pagans wrote embittered tracts, blaming paganism or Christianity respectively for the loss of Rome's supernatural protection, and blaming Stilicho's earthly failures in either case.[94] Some Christian responses anticipated the imminence of Judgement Day. Augustine in his book "City of God" ultimately rejected the pagan and Christian idea that religion should have worldly benefits; he developed the doctrine that the City of God in heaven, undamaged by mundane disasters, was the true objective of Christians. More practically, Honorius was briefly persuaded to set aside the laws forbidding pagans to be military officers, so that one Generidus could re-establish Roman control in Dalmatia. Generidus did this with unusual effectiveness; his techniques were remarkable for this period, in that they included training his troops, disciplining them, and giving them appropriate supplies even if he had to use his own money. The penal laws were reinstated no later than 25 August 410 and the overall trend of repression of paganism continued.
florentissimo invictissimoque, the most excellent and invincible, 417–418, Inscription honouring Honorius, as, the most excellent and invincible, 417–418, Forum Romanum
Procopius mentions a story in which Honorius, on hearing the news that Rome had "perished", was shocked, thinking the news was in reference to his favorite chicken he had named "Roma". On hearing that Rome itself had fallen he breathed a sigh of relief:
At that time they say that the Emperor Honorius in Ravenna received the message from one of the eunuchs, evidently a keeper of the poultry, that Roma had perished. And he cried out and said, "And yet it has just eaten from my hands!" For he had a very large cockerel, Roma by name; and the eunuch comprehending his words said that it was the city of Roma which had perished at the hands of Alaric, and the emperor with a sigh of relief answered quickly: "But I thought that my fowl Roma had perished." So great, they say, was the folly with which this emperor was possessed. Procopius, The Vandalic War (De Bellis III.2.25–26)
The Goths move out of Italy [ edit ]
Alaric then moved south, intending to sail to Africa, but his ships were wrecked in a storm and he shortly died of fever. His successor Ataulf, still regarded as an usurper and given only occasional and short-term grants of supplies, moved north into the turmoil of Gaul, where there was some prospect of food. His supergroup of barbarians are called the Visigoths in modern works: they may now have been developing their own sense of identity.
405–418 in the Gallic provinces; barbarians and usurpers, loss of Britannia, partial loss of Hispania and Gaul [ edit ]
The Crossing of the Rhine in 405/6 brought unmanageable numbers of Germanic and Alan barbarians (perhaps some 30,000 warriors, 100,000 people ) into Gaul. They may have been trying to get away from the Huns, who about this time advanced to occupy the Great Hungarian Plain. For the next few years these barbarian tribes wandered in search of food and employment, while Roman forces fought each other in the name of Honorius and a number of competing claimants to the imperial throne.
The remaining troops in Britannia elevated a succession of imperial usurpers. The last, Constantine III, raised an army from the remaining troops in Britannia, invaded Gaul and defeated forces loyal to Honorius led by Sarus. Constantine's power reached its peak in 409 when he controlled Gaul and beyond, he was joint consul with Honorius and his magister militum Gerontius defeated the last Roman force to try to hold the borders of Hispania. It was led by relatives of Honorius; Constantine executed them. Gerontius went to Hispania where he may have settled the Sueves and the Asding Vandals. Gerontius then fell out with his master and elevated one Maximus as his own puppet emperor. He defeated Constantine and was besieging him in Arelate when Honorius's general Constantius arrived from Italy with an army (possibly, mainly of Hun mercenaries). Gerontius's troops deserted him and he committed suicide. Constantius continued the siege, defeating a relieving army. Constantine surrendered in 411 with a promise that his life would be spared, and was executed.
In 410, the Roman civitates of Britannia rebelled against Constantine and evicted his officials. They asked for help from Honorius, who replied that they should look to their own defence. While the British may have regarded themselves as Roman for several generations, and British armies may at times have fought in Gaul, no central Roman government is known to have appointed officials in Britannia thereafter.
In 411, Jovinus rebelled and took over Constantine's remaining troops on the Rhine. He relied on the support of Burgundians and Alans to whom he offered supplies and land. In 413 Jovinus also recruited Sarus; Ataulf destroyed their regime in the name of Honorius and both Jovinus and Sarus were executed. The Burgundians were settled on the left bank of the Rhine. Ataulf then operated in the south of Gaul, sometimes with short-term supplies from the Romans. All usurpers had been defeated, but large barbarian groups remained un-subdued in both Gaul and Hispania. The imperial government was quick to restore the Rhine frontier. The invading tribes of 407 had passed into Spain at the end of 409 but the Visigoths had exited Italy at the beginning of 412 and settled themselves in Narbo.
Heraclianus was still in command in the diocese of Africa, the last of the clique that overthrew Stilicho to retain power. In 413 he led an invasion of Italy, lost to a subordinate of Constantius, and fled back to Africa where he was murdered by Constantius's agents.
In January 414 Roman naval forces blockaded Ataulf in Narbo, where he married Galla Placidia. The choir at the wedding included Attalus, a puppet emperor without revenues or soldiers.[148] Ataulf famously declared that he had abandoned his intention to set up a Gothic empire because of the irredeemable barbarity of his followers, and instead he sought to restore the Roman Empire. He handed Attalus over to Honorius's regime for mutilation, humiliation, and exile, and abandoned Attalus's supporters. (One of them, Paulinus Pellaeus, recorded that the Goths considered themselves merciful for allowing him and his household to leave destitute, but alive, without being raped.)[148] Ataulf moved out of Gaul, to Barcelona. There his infant son by Galla Placidia was buried, and there Ataulf was assassinated by one of his household retainers, possibly a former follower of Sarus. His ultimate successor Wallia had no agreement with the Romans; his people had to plunder in Hispania for food.
Settlement of 418; barbarians within the empire [ edit ]
Areas allotted to or claimed by barbarian groups in 416–418
In 416 Wallia reached agreement with Constantius; he sent Galla Placidia back to Honorius and received provisions, six hundred thousand modii of wheat. From 416 to 418, Wallia's Goths campaigned in Hispania on Constantius's behalf, exterminating the Siling Vandals in Baetica and reducing the Alans to the point where the survivors sought the protection of the king of the Asding Vandals. (After retrenchment they formed another barbarian supergroup, but for the moment they were reduced in numbers and effectively cowed.) In 418, by agreement with Constantius, Wallia's Goths accepted land to farm in Aquitania. Constantius also reinstituted an annual council of the southern Gallic provinces, to meet at Arelate. Although Constantius rebuilt the western field army to some extent – the Notitia Dignitatum gives a list of the units of the western field army at this time—he did so only by replacing half of its units (vanished in the wars since 395) by re-graded barbarians, and by garrison troops removed from the frontier.
Constantius had married the princess Galla Placidia (despite her protests) in 417. The couple soon had two children, Honoria and Valentinian III, and Constantius was elevated to the position of Augustus in 420. This earned him the hostility of the Eastern court, which had not agreed to his elevation. Nevertheless, Constantius had achieved an unassailable position at the Western court, in the imperial family, and as the able commander-in-chief of a partially restored army.
This settlement represented a real success for the Empire—a poem by Rutilius Namatianus celebrates his voyage back to Gaul in 417 and his confidence in a restoration of prosperity. But it marked huge losses of territory and of revenue; Rutilius travelled by ship past the ruined bridges and countryside of Tuscany, and in the west the River Loire had become the effective northern boundary of Roman Gaul. In the east of Gaul the Franks controlled large areas; the effective line of Roman control until 455 ran from north of Cologne (lost to the Ripuarian Franks in 459) to Boulogne. The Italian areas which had been compelled to support the Goths had most of their taxes remitted for several years. Even in southern Gaul and Hispania large barbarian groups remained, with thousands of warriors, in their own non-Roman military and social systems. Some occasionally acknowledged a degree of Roman political control, but without the local application of Roman leadership and military power they and their individual subgroups pursued their own interests.
421–433; renewed dissension after the death of Constantius, partial loss of the Diocese of Africa [ edit ]
Constantius died in 421, after only seven months as Augustus. He had been careful to make sure that there was no successor in waiting, and his own children were far too young to take his place. Honorius was unable to control his own court and the death of Constantius initiated more than ten years of instability. Initially Galla Placidia sought Honorius's favour in the hope that her son might ultimately inherit. Other court interests managed to defeat her, and she fled with her children to the Eastern court in 422. Honorius himself died, shortly before his thirty-ninth birthday, in 423. After some months of intrigue, the patrician Castinus installed Joannes as Western Emperor, but the Eastern Roman government proclaimed the child Valentinian III instead, his mother Galla Placidia acting as regent during his minority. Joannes had few troops of his own. He sent Aetius to raise help from the Huns. An Eastern army landed in Italy, captured Joannes, cut his hand off, abused him in public, and killed him with most of his senior officials. Aetius returned, three days after Joannes' death, at the head of a substantial Hunnic army which made him the most powerful general in Italy. After some fighting, Placidia and Aetius came to an agreement; the Huns were paid off and sent home, while Aetius received the position of magister militum.
Galla Placidia, as Augusta, mother of the Emperor, and his guardian until 437, could maintain a dominant position in court, but women in Ancient Rome did not exercise military power and she could not herself become a general. She tried for some years to avoid reliance on a single dominant military figure, maintaining a balance of power between her three senior officers, Aetius (magister militum in Gaul), Count Boniface governor in the Diocese of Africa, and Flavius Felix magister militum praesentalis in Italy. Meanwhile, the Empire deteriorated seriously. Apart from the losses in the Diocese of Africa, Hispania was slipping out of central control and into the hands of local rulers and Suevic bandits. In Gaul the Rhine frontier had collapsed, the Visigoths in Aquitaine may have launched further attacks on Narbo and Arelate, and the Franks, increasingly powerful although disunited, were the major power in the north-east. Aremorica was controlled by Bagaudae, local leaders not under the authority of the Empire. Aetius at least campaigned vigorously and mostly victoriously, defeating aggressive Visigoths, Franks, fresh Germanic invaders, Bagaudae in Aremorica, and a rebellion in Noricum. Not for the first time in Rome's history, a triumvirate of mutually distrustful rulers proved unstable. In 427 Felix tried to recall Boniface from Africa; he refused, and overcame Felix's invading force. Boniface probably recruited some Vandal troops among others.
In 428 the Vandals and Alans were united under the able, ferocious, and long-lived king Genseric; he moved his entire people to Tarifa near Gibraltar, divided them into 80 groups nominally of 1,000 people, (perhaps 20,000 warriors in total), and crossed from Hispania to Mauretania without opposition. (The Straits of Gibraltar were not an important thoroughfare at the time, and there were no significant fortifications nor military presence at this end of the Mediterranean.) They spent a year moving slowly to Numidia, defeating Boniface. He returned to Italy where Aetius had recently had Felix executed. Boniface was promoted to magister militum and earned the enmity of Aetius, who may have been absent in Gaul at the time. In 432 the two met at the Battle of Ravenna which left Aetius's forces defeated and Boniface mortally wounded. Aetius temporarily retired to his estates, but after an attempt to murder him he raised another Hunnic army (probably by conceding parts of Pannonia to them) and in 433 he returned to Italy, overcoming all rivals. He never threatened to become an Augustus himself and thus maintained the support of the Eastern court, where Valentinian's cousin Theodosius II reigned until 450.
433–454; ascendancy of Aetius, loss of Carthage [ edit ]
Aetius campaigned vigorously, somewhat stabilizing the situation in Gaul and in Hispania. He relied heavily on his forces of Huns. With a ferocity celebrated centuries later in the Nibelungenlied, the Huns slaughtered many Burgundians on the middle Rhine, re-establishing the survivors as Roman allies, the first Kingdom of the Burgundians. This may have returned some sort of Roman authority to Trier. Eastern troops reinforced Carthage, temporarily halting the Vandals, who in 435 agreed to limit themselves to Numidia and leave the most fertile parts of North Africa in peace. Aetius concentrated his limited military resources to defeat the Visigoths again, and his diplomacy restored a degree of order to Hispania. However, his general Litorius was badly defeated by the Visigoths at Toulouse, and a new Suevic king, Rechiar, began vigorous assaults on what remained of Roman Hispania. At one point Rechiar even allied with Bagaudae. These were Romans not under imperial control; some of their reasons for rebellion may be indicated by the remarks of a Roman captive under Attila who was happy in his lot, giving a lively account of
the vices of a declining empire, of which he had so long been the victim; the cruel absurdity of the Roman princes, unable to protect their subjects against the public enemy, unwilling to trust them with arms for their own defence; the intolerable weight of taxes, rendered still more oppressive by the intricate or arbitrary modes of collection; the obscurity of numerous and contradictory laws; the tedious and expensive forms of judicial proceedings; the partial administration of justice; and the universal corruption, which increased the influence of the rich, and aggravated the misfortunes of the poor.
A religious polemic of about this time complains bitterly of the oppression and extortion suffered by all but the richest Romans. Many wished to flee to the Bagaudae or even to foul-smelling barbarians.
Although these men differ in customs and language from those with whom they have taken refuge, and are unaccustomed too, if I may say so, to the nauseous odor of the bodies and clothing of the barbarians, yet they prefer the strange life they find there to the injustice rife among the Romans. So you find men passing over everywhere, now to the Goths, now to the Bagaudae, or whatever other barbarians have established their power anywhere... We call those men rebels and utterly abandoned, whom we ourselves have forced into crime. For by what other causes were they made Bagaudae save by our unjust acts, the wicked decisions of the magistrates, the proscription and extortion of those who have turned the public exactions to the increase of their private fortunes and made the tax indictions their opportunity for plunder?[173]
From Britannia comes an indication of the prosperity which freedom from taxes could bring.
No sooner were the ravages of the enemy checked, than the island was deluged with a most extraordinary plenty of all things, greater than was before known, and with it grew up every kind of luxury and licentiousness.[174]
Nevertheless, effective imperial protection from barbarian ravages was eagerly sought. About this time authorities in Britannia asked Aetius for help:
"To Aetius, now consul for the third time: the groans of the Britons." And again a little further, thus: – "The barbarians drive us to the sea; the sea throws us back on the barbarians: thus two modes of death await us, we are either slain or drowned." The Romans, however, could not assist them...[174]
The Visigoths passed another waymark on their journey to full independence; they made their own foreign policy, sending princesses to make (rather unsuccessful) marriage alliances with Rechiar of the Sueves and with Huneric, son of the Vandal king Genseric.
In 439 the Vandals moved eastward (temporarily abandoning Numidia) and captured Carthage, where they established an independent state with a powerful navy. This brought immediate financial crisis to the Western Empire; the diocese of Africa was prosperous, normally required few troops to keep it secure, contributed large tax revenues, and exported wheat to feed Rome and many other areas. Roman troops assembled in Sicily, but the planned counter-attack never happened. Huns attacked the Eastern empire, and
the troops, which had been sent against Genseric, were hastily recalled from Sicily; the garrisons, on the side of Persia, were exhausted; and a military force was collected in Europe, formidable by their arms and numbers, if the generals had understood the science of command, and the soldiers the duty of obedience. The armies of the Eastern empire were vanquished in three successive engagements... From the Hellespont to Thermopylae, and the suburbs of Constantinople, [Attila] ravaged, without resistance, and without mercy, the provinces of Thrace and Macedonia.
Attila's invasions of the East were stopped by the walls of Constantinople, and at this heavily fortified Eastern end of the Mediterranean there were no significant barbarian invasions across the sea into the rich southerly areas of Anatolia, the Levant, and Egypt. Despite internal and external threats, and more religious discord than the West, these provinces remained prosperous contributors to tax revenue; despite the ravages of Attila's armies and the extortions of his peace treaties, tax revenue generally continued to be adequate for the essential state functions of the Eastern empire.
Genseric settled his Vandals as landowners and in 442 was able to negotiate very favourable peace terms with the Western court. He kept his latest gains and his eldest son Huneric was honoured by betrothal to Princess Eudocia, who carried the legitimacy of the Theodosian dynasty. Huneric's Gothic wife was suspected of trying to poison her father-in-law Genseric; he sent her home without her nose or ears, and his Gothic alliance came to an early end. The Romans regained Numidia, and Rome again received a grain supply from Africa.
The losses of income from the Diocese of Africa were equivalent to the costs of nearly 40,000 infantry or over 20,000 cavalry. The imperial regime had to increase taxes. Despite admitting that the peasantry could pay no more, and that a sufficient army could not be raised, the imperial regime protected the interests of landowners displaced from Africa and allowed wealthy individuals to avoid taxes.
444–453; attacks by the empire of Attila the Hun [ edit ]
In 444, the Huns were united under Attila. His subjects included Huns, outnumbered several times over by other groups, predominantly Germanic. His power rested partly on his continued ability to reward his favoured followers with precious metals, and he continued to attack the Eastern Empire until 450, by when he had extracted vast sums of money and many other concessions.
Attila may not have needed any excuse to turn West, but he received one in the form of a plea for help from Honoria, the Emperor's sister, who was being forced into a marriage which she resented. Attila claimed Honoria as his wife and half of the Western Empire's territory as his dowry. Faced with refusal, he invaded Gaul in 451 with a huge army. In the bloody battle of the Catalaunian Plains the invasion was stopped by the combined forces of the barbarians within the Western empire, coordinated by Aetius and supported by what troops he could muster. The next year, Attila invaded Italy and proceeded to march upon Rome, but an outbreak of disease in his army, lack of supplies, reports that Eastern Roman troops were attacking his noncombatant population in Pannonia, and, possibly, Pope Leo's plea for peace induced him to halt this campaign. Attila unexpectedly died a year later (453) and his empire crumbled as his followers fought for power. The life of Severinus of Noricum gives glimpses of the general insecurity, and ultimate retreat of the Romans on the Upper Danube, in the aftermath of Attila's death. The Romans were without adequate forces; the barbarians inflicted haphazard extortion, murder, kidnap, and plunder on the Romans and on each other.
So long as the Roman dominion lasted, soldiers were maintained in many towns at the public expense to guard the boundary wall. When this custom ceased, the squadrons of soldiers and the boundary wall were blotted out together. The troop at Batavis, however, held out. Some soldiers of this troop had gone to Italy to fetch the final pay to their comrades, and no one knew that the barbarians had slain them on the way.[190]
In 454 Aetius was personally stabbed to death by Valentinian, who was himself murdered by the dead general's supporters a year later.
(Valentinian) thought he had slain his master; he found that he had slain his protector: and he fell a helpless victim to the first conspiracy which was hatched against his throne.[192]
A rich senatorial aristocrat, Petronius Maximus, who had encouraged both murders, then |
. However, the scenario is a little different when it comes to the second-tier government colleges. Blame the reservation or any another factor that major companies seldom visit such government colleges.
Private institute:
Established private institutes are definitely working hard and using their resources well to host established companies on campus and help students in getting placed. Thank their contacts and the competition in the market that they manage to pull the 100% placements. However, the status of the “shops” here and there in the town is still same and even poorer than the government colleges.
Faculty
It is not what you teach that matters alone but whom you learn it from does too! Which one offers you the better faculty?
Government institute:
The job security and the recruitment procedure by the government help the making of qualified and the experienced faculties. They are well paid, highly educated, knowledgeable and carry an insight out of their research and the experience that help the students learn from the best.
Private institute:
This is one section where the private colleges may lack a little! Marked by the shortage of the faculties, employing graduates for teaching purpose also deprives the students of learning from the experience. However, not all the fingers of the hands are same and there are still many private institutes which have the faculties at par with the government colleges and even better.
Infrastructure
The environment where you study has an impact on your education.
Which one can offer you the better infrastructure?
Government institute:
Most of them lack on the note of infrastructure. Poor labs, old furniture in the classes and not so considerable building mark the government institutes.
Private institute:
We are bound to give full marks to the private institutes on this note. Since the purpose is to make money and funds are fair, the infrastructure is considerable and promotes the studying environment on the psychological front.
This is just a fair comparison that brings a real picture of the both to you. To chose one or to go to another is solely dependent on you. Make a wise decision considering all the aspects! All the best.Meet the newest Pokémon, Yungoos. The internet thinks he looks kiiiind of familiar.
Earlier today, Nintendo debuted footage of a new normal-type weasel monster who will be available in Pokémon Sun and Moon. This is what he looks like normally:
See the yellow fur on the top of his head? That’s what Pokémon fans are fixated on, and what is drawing all sorts of comparisons to Donald Trump’s famous hair on Twitter.
Some folks are going even further, and straight up drawing Yungoos as Trump, or with Trump:
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We of course had to throw our hat into the ring, which is why the lovely Angelica Alzona drew up Yungoos on the campaign trail on the first image of this post. It’s almost too perfect, no?
I’d totally vote for that guy. That razor-sharp smile inspires both confidence and terror! Yungoos is like a real politician already.The abridged biography of Richard Nixon, as most know it, goes something like this. Born the son of a grocer and housewife, Nixon grew up in southern California and attended Whittier College, a small liberal arts college less than 20 miles from Los Angeles. He graduated from Duke University’s law school, moved home to California and started practicing law. He was first elected as a U.S. congressman in 1946 and then a senator in 1950, then served as vice president and eventually the president, before resigning in the wake of the Watergate scandal.
The National Archives, however, adds a surprising little insert into that timeline. That is, a 24-year-old Nixon applied to be a special agent in the FBI in 1937.
Submitted on April 23, Nixon’s application, once part of the FBI’s files, is now in the holdings of the National Archives. For likely the first time ever, the document is on display to the public in “Making Their Mark: Stories Through Signatures,” an exhibition featuring more than 100 signed artifacts at the archives through January 5, 2015.
“It is a nice window into a moment in Richard Nixon’s life that people probably don’t think about,” says Jennifer Johnson, the exhibition’s curator. “He has just finished law school, and like everyone, he is clearly trying to figure out what he wants to do.”
As the story goes, Nixon attended a lecture by an FBI special agent while studying at Duke. Just before he graduated with his law degree in June, 1937, he formally applied to the bureau. He was contacted for an interview, which he did in July of that year, and completed a physical exam at the request of J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI. But, after that, it was radio silence. He never received a response.
On June 11, 1954, the then-Vice President Richard Nixon spoke at the FBI National Academy’s graduation. Hoover actually introduced him, saying that he took special pleasure in doing so, because Nixon had once applied to the bureau. “Having already embarked upon the practice of law, the FBI’s loss ultimately became the country’s gain,” remarked Hoover. Nixon, in a later address to the academy, said, “he never heard anything from that application.”
In his memoirs, Nixon describes being at a party during his vice presidency, when he approached Hoover and expressed an interest in knowing what had happened. The exchange prompted the FBI to open Nixon’s file. Apparently, Nixon was accepted, but his appointment was revoked in August 1937, before he was ever notified. The details are murky. According to Nixon, Hoover told him that he was ultimately not hired due to budget cuts made to the bureau that year. But, it has also been said that Nixon’s plan to take the California bar exam in September didn’t jibe with the FBI’s hiring schedule.
Either way, it is an interesting game of “what if,” says Johnson.If you haven’t read Part 1- Arizona and New Mexico, Part 2 – Colorado, or Part 3 – Wyoming and Idaho, you should go back and check them out.
When Jeff and I started out on the Great Divide, Montana seemed so far away, an almost impossible distance to ride. But after about a month of pedaling there we were, roiling through Big Sky Country. Montana has a true western feel with huge vistas, lots of cowboy boots, small country stores (I recommend the one just off route in Ferndale), and big pickups with Montana mudflaps. Jeff needed to get back to Vermont by end of August for work and time was quickly winding down. While we could have pushed a bit harder and taken less rest days, we chose to ride without a time crunch. Unfortunately this meant Jeff and I were parting ways at the Canadian border so he could keep his job. He rode back to Whitefish and spent a few days at the Whitefish Bike Retreat before flying out, while I contracted some stomach ailment and continued on to Banff.
Some notes from Montana and Canada:
Montana has some great craft brews with Cold Smoke Scotch Ale being a favorite for us
Unfortunately much of Montana also has some pretty lousy tasting water
The wide open camping in southern Montana was some of my favorite, but that’s also because we had perfect weather
It seems much of the state closes on Sunday, not good when a bike shop is needed
There’s great covered camping in the closed winter parking lot on the way down the hill to Seeley Lake
The town of Seeley Lake, while a little off route, has most of what you need to resupply
Jeff and I were fortunate to stay with Tom and Pat Arnone, who host cyclists along the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route south of Columbia Falls. Tom is a bicycle frame builder, restores Italian motorcycles, and is a general master craftsman. He’s a fascinating person to spend time with.
The the Whitefish Bike Retreat has a great singletrack trail that leads back to town
Watch out for the early morning lawn sprinklers if you camp in the Eureka Town Park
Heading north from the Canadian border the GDMBR follows pavement for a few miles before turning right into the mountains and up an almost 4,000 foot dirt climb. I was already feeling pretty ill and climbing this in triple digit temperature stomped me hard
Elkford BC has a new grocery store called the Kootenay Market that’s really well stocked
There’s great camping on the GDMBR about 4 miles south of Banff
Enjoy the Photos.
While this is the last post for the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, there’s still more to come. After finishing in Banff, I pedaled and hitched back to the US border, where I was greeted by the forest fires and smoke that had engulfed the northwest. Finding lots of road closures and detours, I decided to ride to Missoula Montana and regroup.
After visiting the headquarters of the Adventure Cycling Association and plotting a rough route across the northern U.S., I started pedaling and spent a little over a month riding back to Vermont. Thanks for visiting and stay tuned.
AdvertisementsSaints center Olin Kreutz has left the team because he has lost his passion for the game of football, leaving a hole in middle of New Orleans' offensive line.
"He loves the games," said his agent, Mark Bartelstein. "He has to love the game. He just hasn't been feeling it."
The Saints will place Kreutz on the left-team list and then eventually release him. By doing that, the team will be able to get out of the guaranteed portion of his contract. Kreutz has been battling a sprain of the medial collateral ligament in his left knee.
"He called me on Monday and Tuesday and said, 'I don't know if I can keep on doing this,' " Bartelstein said on "The Waddle and Silvy Show" on ESPN 1000 in Chicago. "Went in and talked to (coach) Sean Payton and (general manager) Mickey Loomis and expressed it to them. They tried to talk him out of it. They wanted him to stay and he actually thought he was going to give it another whirl and called yesterday and said, 'I just know, it's not in my heart. I'm not going to keep collecting a check if I know deep inside me I can't bring what I need to bring to play every week.' "
This has been a tumultuous year for the 34-year-old center, who played the first 13 seasons of his career with the Chicago Bears but could not come to terms on a contract this offseason. Kreutz, a six-time Pro Bowl performer, had said he was willing to take a pay cut to stay in Chicago, but negotiations became public and messy and Kreutz finally signed a one-year deal with the Saints.
"I think there's probably some correlation to [how things went down with the Bears]," Bartelstein said. "It hurt him a lot the way it went down with the Bears. He wanted to finish his career with the Bears, so I think there's a part of it. But how much, it's hard to say."
Bartelstein said that Kreutz will not retire immediately.
"We're not going to file anything right now," he said. "I just never think it makes sense to do that right away. He's going to step back and spend time with his family. My guess is I'm not sure he'll play again, but we'll see. The Saints made it clear that if he changed his mind, they'd love to have him come back. But knowing Olin and the way he handles himself, I don't think that's going to happen. But we'll see."
Senior writer John Clayton covers the NFL for ESPN.com.Khada Jhin, the Virtuoso
“Art requires a certain…cruelty.”
I
Jhin is a meticulous criminal psychopath who believes murder is art. Once an Ionian prisoner, but freed by shadowy elements within Ionia’s ruling council, the serial killer now works as their cabal's assassin. Using his gun as his paintbrush, Jhin creates works of artistic brutality, horrifying victims and onlookers. He gains a cruel pleasure from putting on his gruesome theater, making him the best choice to send the most powerful of messages: terror.
For years, Ionia’s southern mountains were plagued by the infamous “Golden Demon.” Throughout the province of Zhyun, a monster slaughtered scores of travelers and sometimes whole farmsteads, leaving behind twisted displays of corpses. Armed militias searched the forests, towns hired demon hunters, Wuju masters patrolled the roads - but nothing slowed the beast’s grisly work.
In desperation, the Council of Zhyun sent an envoy to beg Great Master Kusho for help. Upon hearing of the region’s plight, Kusho feigned an excuse for why he couldn’t help. But a week later, the master, his son Shen, and star apprentice Zed, disguised themselves as merchants and moved to the province. In secret, they visited the countless families emotionally shattered by the killings, dissected the horrific crime scenes, and looked for possible connections or patterns to the murders.
Their investigation took four long years, and left the three men changed. The famous red mane of Kusho turned white; Shen, known for his wit and humor, became somber; and Zed, the brightest star of Kusho’s temple, began to struggle with his studies. Upon finally finding a pattern to the killings, the Great Master is quoted as saying: “Good and evil are not truths. They are born from men and each sees the shades differently.”
Depicted in a variety of plays and epic poems, the capture of the “Golden Demon” would be the seventh and final great feat in the illustrious career of Lord Kusho. On the eve of the Blossom Festival in Jyom Pass, Kusho disguised himself as a renowned calligrapher to blend in with the other guest artists. Then he waited. Everyone had assumed only an evil spirit could commit these horrifying crimes, but Kusho had realized the killer was an ordinary man. The famed “Golden Demon” was actually a mere stagehand in Zhyun’s traveling theaters and opera houses working under the name Khada Jhin.
When they caught Jhin, young Zed marched forward to kill the cowering man, but Kusho held him back. Despite the horrors of Jhin’s actions, the legendary master decided the killer should be taken alive and left at Tuula Prison. Shen disagreed, but accepted the emotionless logic of his father’s judgment. Zed, disturbed and haunted by the murder scenes he had witnessed, was unable to understand or accept this mercy, and it is said a resentment began to bloom in his heart.
Though imprisoned in Tuula for many years, the polite and shy Khada Jhin revealed little of himself - even his real name remained a mystery. But while a prisoner, the monks noted he was a bright student who excelled in many subjects, including smithing, poetry, and dance. Regardless, the guards and monks could find nothing to cure him of his morbid fascinations.
Outside the prison, Ionia fell into turmoil as the Noxian empire’s invasion led to political instability. War awoke the tranquil nation’s appetite for bloodshed. The peace and balance Kusho had famously fought to protect was shattered from within as dark hearts rose in power and secret alliances competed for influence. Desperate to counter the power of the ninja and Wuju swordsmen, a cabal within the ruling council conspired to secretly free Jhin and turn him into a weapon of terror.
Now with access to the Kashuri armories’ new weapons, and nearly unlimited funds, the scale of Khada Jhin’s “performances” has grown. His work has brought fear to many foreign dignitaries and to Ionia’s secret political underground, but how long will a serial killer, craving attention, be satisfied working in the shadows?Frequently Asked Questions
What is Bimbo land?
The Internet republic of Bimbo lands is the worlds first Internet republic.
What is its mission?
To unite the world.
Where is MissBimbo.com? Miss Bimbo was much better than this site.
The Internet republic of Bimbo land was created by Miss Bimbo herself and is its more intelligent successor. The old site was for junior bimbos. This site is for intelligent bimbos.
What is the national flag of Bimbo land?
When was the Internet republic of Bimbo land founded
2007
What is the capital city of the Internet republic of Bimbo land?
Bimbo City
How many states make up the internet republic of Bimboland?
There are 6 states that make up the internet republic of Bimboland. They are Atheistia, Freethinkerland, Reasonopia, Agnostica, Secville, and Antitheocra. Bimbo City is the neutral administrative capital and is its own city zone. Boob Island is the home of the President of the Internet republic of Bimbo land
What is a bimbo citizen?
A ‘bimbo’ or ‘bimbo citizen’ is a member of the internet republic of Bimboland community.
How can I become a bimbo citizen?
In order to become a citizen of bimbolands you must first pass the Bimbolands citizens test. It is free to become a bimbo citizen.
What is a bimbo senator?
A bimbo senator is a senior member of the Internet republic of Bimbo land. Only senators are eligible to put themselves forward for election to become State Ministers and then ultimately the Prime Bimbo.
Who is the Prime Bimbo?
The Prime Bimbo is the democratically elected head of the Internet republic of Bimbo land.
Where does the Prime Bimbo live?
The Prime Bimbo lives in the Pink House for the 4 month term they are in office.
I want to become Prime Bimbo. How do I do that?
Any bimbo citizen can become Prime Bimbo using the democratic process. Its a 3 stage process from Senator>State Minister> Prime Bimbo. All bimbo citizens can vote in general elections but in order to put themselves forward to become Prime Bimbo they must first become a bimbo senator. All bimbo senators are electable as state ministers. State Minister elections take place every 4 months also. Only state ministers are eligible to then become the Prime Bimbo.
Can I become Prime Bimbo more than once?
Yes a bimbo can hold the position of Prime Bimbo for 3 terms max.
How often do elections take place?
The Internet republic of bimblands holds elections every 4 months for Prime Bimbo and 4 months for State Minister.
Where do important discussions take place?
The Forum.
What is the treasury/Prime Bimbos salary?
The treasury/salary is the bank account of the Internet republic of Bimbo land. This figure is transferred to the paypal account of the Prime Bimbo at the end of their 4 month term in charge.
How is the treasury calculated?
The treasury is funded by the bimbo citizens.
A percentage of the money paid by bimbo citizens via Paypal and SMS is transferred into the bimbo treasury. The rest is wisely used for further game development.
What's the national colour of Bimbo land?
Pink
How old must I be in order to become a bimbo land citizen?
Anyone over the age of 13 are welcome to become a bimbo citizen.
When are the national holidays of Bimbo land?
Jan 1st New years day
Feb 12th Darwin day
Feb 14th Lovers day
March 8th Womens day
March 21st Spring solstice
April 13th The Hitchslap Day (Christopher Hitchens birthday)
May 3rd National day of reason
June 21st World Humanist Day
Aug 2nd The Internet republic of Bimbo land national day
Sep 21st Peace one day
Dec 25th Newtons birthday
What is the currency of Bimbo land?
The Bimbo Dollar (B$). Currently it is pegged in value to the US$
Who is the President of Bimbo land?
Miss Bimbo is the president of Bimbo land. She founded the bimbo nation in 2007 after escaping the tyranny, bigotry and and conservatism of the old world. You can read more about her here and hereBeing a huge Metal Gear Solid fan I have been reading through numerous articles and watching videos regarding the highly anticipated Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. Here are my thoughts and some new information regarding the next game in Hideo Kojima’s highly revered saga.
Creator of the Metal Gear Solid series, Hideo Kojima, recently stated in an interview that the theme of Metal Gear Solid V will revolve around race, different cultures and revenge. Much like previous Metal Gear games, each game explores topics that Hideo Kojima is interested in at the time and are controversial in today’s world. Previous games in the series have explored human cloning, nuclear weapons, free will, patriotism and of course the horrors of war. Metal Gear Solid V will undoubtedly continue the trend of exploring both taboo and important topics, that are rarely explored in video games. Hideo Kojima has made it clear that he believes video games should explore ideas that are controversial and prevalent in today’s society just as how movies and novels have done.
Speaking on the size of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain Kojima said “it’s 200 times bigger than Ground Zeroes.” Many people have claimed that Ground Zeroes is only and hour long so based on that math we could say that MGSV would take 200 hours to explore and complete but, that is unlikely. Even if the game is only a tenth of that players could potentially explore the game in 20 hours with a relaxed playthrough. Along with that the game will feature an online component adding much more content for players to explore. Kojima also stated that based on feedback from Ground Zeroes, controls and playabilty will be improved and Snake’s infamous cardboard box will be returning in the Phantom Pain. I personally hope Kojima spends considerable time crafting and perfecting the online component of MGSV. I loved Metal Gear Online in Metal Gear Solid 4 even if it had a lot of flaws and would love to see its resurgence.
Metal Gear Solid V is looking like the most ambitious Metal Gear Solid game yet with dynamic weather including a day and night cycle, rain and sand storms. These realistic weather effects will affect things like the ability to successfully transport packages with the Fulton Recovery System. Kojima’s humor isn’t lost in this realistic war drama, players will be able to strap animals to the recovery balloon and have them float away to Big Boss’ Mother Base. The Fulton Recovery System that first appeared in Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker will play a key role in this installment along with Big Boss’ Mother Base. Players will be able to transport enemy soldiers, vehicles and animals among other things. Capturing enemy soldiers and enlisting them will provide the opportunity to level them up, much like Peace Walker, to help your cause and provide valuable information. Successful packages that are transported with the Fulton Recovery earn GMP to help acquire more items and Weapons similar to the Drebin Points in Metal Gear Solid 4. Mother Base is adding some RPG elements to the game, something not very present in previous Metal Gear Solid games. Players will be able to customize their Mother base and have lots to do in between missions at Mother Base, which itself acts as a giant location to be explored. This is different from the typical Metal Gear Solid experience where Snake is on his own with no breaks in between objectives. While it could be argued that adding this element will detract the fluid Metal Gear experience we know and love, I trust Kojima will incorporate Mother Base in a smart and useful way that gives the game more depth.
Speaking at a roundtable interview session at E3, courtesy of Gamasutra, Hideo Kojima stated that Metal Gear Solid V will be the most expensive game he has ever designed and a larger budget is affecting his ability to be more creative in his work. “I want to use a lot of technology, but as we use more technology we need more budget, and when you need more budget it’s more difficult to put more authorship into the game; the relationship with the marketing department becomes more difficult, so, as a creator it has become very difficult; the more technology we use, the more difficult being creative becomes.” Further into the interview Kojima explains why he focused on the dark themes of rape and torture in Ground Zeroes. “Of course I expected people to react to this, but then again the theme of the game I’m trying to create here…there are very dark themes; themes such as race, and revenge. That’s something I don’t want to look away from. I did see the reaction coming, but that doesn’t change the message I want to relay.”
With the end if E3 more details have been made public about Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain and there are a few main things to take away from Kojima’s next creation. The Phantom Pain will undoubtedly be much darker than any previous Metal Gear Solid Game. It’s looking to be the deepest game visually and technically, the infamous box now has more versatility allowing players to use items in it and jump out of it, all I can say is…it’s about time. This installment will have much more RPG aspects about it with Mother Base and the game itself will be massive, with much much more terrain and areas to explore than any previous Metal Gear Solid.
Metal Gear Solid V articles to read
USGamer E3 2014: Metal Gear Solid V Combines The Best Elements Of Peace Walker And Snake Eater In One Stunning Package
Gamespot E3 2014: Making Peace in Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain
Gamasutra Kojima Hopes To Tackle Controversial Themes With AAA Design
Eurogamer Managing Mother Base In Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain
Hideo Kojima Gametrailers E3 2014 InterviewOn October 1, 2015, US commerce will undergo a considerable change—a variety of big credit card companies, financial groups, and issuers will require that merchants upgrade their point-of-sale (POS) terminals to accept chip-based cards as well as (and eventually, instead of) magnetic stripe cards. You may have already received chip-based replacements for your magnetic stripe cards in the mail.
The plan to transition to the new payment standard—called EMV for EuroPay, MasterCard, and Visa, (the developers of the standard)—was agreed upon in 2012, but a recent Manta survey said that 28 percent of small and medium business owners still aren't aware of the new payment standard. That's particularly troubling, because in the event of magnetic stripe card fraud at a store's POS, the store will be liable for that faulty transaction if they don't have up-to-date hardware that can accept chip cards. (Website-based transactions, commonly considered "card-not-present transactions," are not part of the EMV transition and are treated separately.)
Today, payments processing company Square, founded by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, said it wants to try to speed that adoption rate up in the next month or two, and hopefully convert some businesses to Square's platform.
To do this, Square has promised to cover any faulty charges that a business incurs if the business has already pre-ordered its latest card reader, set to launch in the fall.
Square already sells a magnetic stripe reader as well as a combination mag stripe and EMV chip card reader, both of which attach to an iOS device to create a user-friendly terminal, but Square's newest device will read EMV chip cards and also accept contactless payments from NFC-enabled devices (think phones enabled with Apple Pay and eventually Android Pay and Samsung Pay). Square is hoping that its liability offer will tempt businesses to integrate its devices, even if the latest device won't be out until fall, after the October 1 liability shift deadline.
Of course, if any fraud occurs with an EMV card at an EMV-compliant terminal, the liability for those charges goes back to the card issuer as normal.
Correction: Ars originally stated that a business could continue using its non-EMV-compliant card readers and be covered for fraudulent charges by Square if they've purchased just one contactless and chip card reader from the company. This is not the case. The business would have to update all of its terminals with contactless and chip card readers, so the offer only covers businesses until those new Square readers arrive in the fall.Work in progress, a map of the Greek underworld, featuring the rivers (which were the main reason for doing this map), as described in a contradictory manner by several accounts including : Plato, Euripides, Cicero, Aeschylus, Simonides, Statius, Ovid, Homer and Virgil, with a stronger credibility given to the most ancient sources (which are not the more precise). I decided not to discriminate what was geographically relevant and what was metaphorical: if it can be drawn, it is. A few choices were made and can be justified. Comments, questions and criticism welcome.
Amongst essential elements, I tried to conserve : placement (relative), rivers' relative size, proximity to points of interest, physical credibility and accuracy of water flow (phlegeton runs in the opposite direction of cocytus, etc), the order of crossings needed to get from somewhere to somewhere else.
Still missing are a few important elements (Erebus, Fields of Punishment...), the sources and gates and the connections with the outer world (Delphi, Oceanus...). The Styx should be circling 7 times the whole to form the limit between the under-world and the human world, and there seems to be a very circular/spherical geometry that I haven't figured out how to convey yet. The Tartarus is merely alluded to. No indication of scale is given.
The rivers Eridanos (only present in Virgil) and Alpheios (later accounts) are not considered relevant hence not represented.The trial started on Monday of a woman accused of murdering her boyfriend in extraordinary circumstances.
On a winter night in late 2008 Gabriele P. and Alex H. were having sex at home in their apartment in the east of Munich, the Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) reports.
As usual the 28-year-old Alex H. had pulled a pair of diver’s goggles covered in duct tape over his eyes, meaning that he couldn't see.
At some point during the intercourse he asked his girlfriend to tie him down.
But after she had bound him to the bed frame, Gabriele P. reached for an electric saw which was lying nearby. She removed the safety catch and pressed it to her boyfriend's chest. He died from the injuries.
For months his body lay where he had been killed. The 23-year-old trainee teacher cut his head from his body with the saw and then pulled a sheet over the body and never went back into the room, according to the prosecution.
It was only when the young woman took her new boyfriend home six months later, that he discovered the partially dismembered body. But instead of informing the authorities, he enlisted the help of a friend and carried the pieces down into the garden, where they were buried.
Alex H.'s foster parents became worried when they didn't hear from him and employed a private detective to track him down. But they heard a rumour that he had moved to Romania with a new girlfriend and wanted to break off contact with his entire family. It is unclear whether Gabriele P. started the rumour.
An apparent sighting in 2010 also appeared to convince authorities that Alex H. was still alive.
Only in February 2016 did police discover his remains, acting on a tip-off they had received weeks earlier.
it is now up to the judge to decide whether Gabriele P.'s crime constituted murder, or whether there were mitigating circumstances.
According to the SZ, Gabriele P.'s diary records her tumultuous relationship with Alex H. and the demeaning sexual practices he thought up and which she let happen.
Investigators have spoken to witnesses who recount how Gabriele P. threw her boyfriend out of the house after a huge argument at some point in December. But shortly after, he was able to persuade her to let him move back in.
The prosecution alleges though, that it was at this point the young woman decided to murder him.
But her defence saw that the act was not premeditated. It claims that the electric saw lay in the bedroom as the couple were undertaking renovation work.
The attack was an impulsive "act of desperation" - a crime that does not constitute murder - the defence argues.Dogecoin
Such rhythm! So rhyme! Wow -- it's bobsled time. In the ultimate Internet fairytale, the founders of amusing meme-based crypto-currency Dogecoin have raised nearly enough money for a two-man bobsleigh team from Jamaica to go to the Winter Olympics.
After the story of Winston Watts and Marvin Dixon qualifying for Sochi 2014 went viral online -- thanks to the Internet's collective nostalgia for 1993's "Cool Runnings" -- it became clear Jamaica's first trip to the Winter Games since 2002 might founder for want of funds.
"We need about $40,000 for travel and also to buy new runners for the sled because we can't go to an Olympics with only one set," Watts told the BBC.
The Dogecoin Foundation, founders of the shiba-inu fronted online currency, quickly started Dogesled.net, a tip jar for the Caribbean ice racers. It had all the ingredients for a whirlwind of virality -- a funny pet-related meme, bitcoin, nostalgia, money-raising, and lovable '80s funny man John Candy.
More than 26 million Dogecoins, worth $30,000, were donated in just a couple of hours, with enthusiastic fans buying so much of the currency that it massively inflated its value. Other online fundraisers for the team have nearly matched that total.
Team Jamaica
"We noticed the value of Dogecoin had more than doubled since we'd last checked," Dogecoin founder Liam Butler told The Guardian, "so we raced back to my house to ensure we could get the best price for the donations in a form the team could actually use.
"As much as we have faith in Dogecoin to become the community currency of the Internet, we still understand that the team need to buy their airfares in a fiat currency," Butler said.
The comic-sans currency made the news last week when it emerged that it accounted for more transaction volume than all other cryptocurrencies combined, although this was largely due to each coin's tiny value. It was also the subject of a hack last month, with $16,000 worth going missing.European commission says Turkey has not met conditions of possible deal including border security and human rights issues
Turkey has missed an EU deadline that would have allowed its citizens visa-free travel through most of Europe, amid ongoing tensions over a controversial migration deal.
EU leaders promised the Turkish government that 79 million Turks could have access to Europe’s 26-country border-free Schengen travel zone by June, as part of a hotly disputed bargain on migration. But this was always conditional on Turkey meeting 72 EU conditions on border security and fundamental rights.
The European commission announced on Wednesday that Turkey had still failed to meet some of the conditions, including changes to its counter-terrorism legislation.
In a separate decision, EU ambassadors are expected to approve the opening of negotiations on one part of Turkish membership talks later on Wednesday. The decision to open talks on budget is a symbolic gesture that was promised under the migration deal.
The prospect of Turkey’s membership of the EU has inflamed the UK EU referendum debate even though Turkey is unlikely to join for decades, if ever. The visa deal does not apply to the UK or Ireland, which are outside the EU’s Schengen area.
Since Turkey’s EU membership talks began in 2005, only one of the 35 “chapters” has been closed. Several are blocked over the country’s long-running dispute with Cyprus, while Turkey is seen by the EU as regressing on freedom of expression and the rule of law.
The widely expected decision to delay the visa deal came one day after the EU’s ambassador to Turkey resigned. Hansjörg Haber will leave his post as the EU ambassador to Turkey in August, after making provocative comments about the migration deal that infuriated the Turkish government. The German diplomat, who was only appointed last August, was accused of showing disrespect for Turkish national values and Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Doubts about the visa deal have mounted ever since Erdoğan ousted the prime minister who led negotiations with the EU. Turkey’s strongman leader has flatly rejected EU calls to rewrite his country’s anti-terrorism laws, saying: “We’ll go our way, you go yours.”
In a statement the European commission said progress on the EU-Turkey deal was fragile.
But Dimitris Avramopoulos, the European commissioner in charge of migration and visa policy, said he expected Turkey to meet the EU conditions on visa-free travel. “Statement diplomacy is not very helpful,” he said, adding that his talks with government officials at the highest possible level showed a strong will to cooperate with the EU.
“I believe the migration crisis is bringing Turkey closer to Europe,” he said.
He declined to specify when the deal could be agreed, muddying expectations that this might happen when the EU published its next progress report in September.
Anxieties about visa-free travel in the EU have surfaced in several countries. A visa-free deal for Georgia’s 5 million citizens was put on hold last week, after last-minute opposition from France, Italy and Germany. The EU is also negotiating a visa-free travel deal with Ukraine. Governments, led by France and Germany, have insisted on an emergency brake that would allow them to halt the arrangement if there was abuse of the rules.
Since the EU agreed the migration pact with Turkey in March, the number of migrants making the perilous journey to Greece has fallen sharply. Fewer than 50 people a day risked the dangerous Aegean Sea crossing in May on average, compared to daily arrivals of up to 2,000 at the start of the year.
So far 511 Syrian refugees have been resettled in Europe from Turkey, under the one-for-one scheme. Around 462 migrants, including 31 Syrians, have been sent back to Turkey from Greece.
The EU executive also called on Greece to take urgent steps to improve its asylum claims system, which fell foul of human rights standards even before a surge in arrivals on Greek beaches last year. Issuing a series of recommendations, it said Greece had to do more to ensure the safety of unaccompanied children and guarantee legal aid for claimants.
But a senior human rights advocate at the Council of Europe said the EU-Turkey deal had created problems for Greece, which was struggling to cope with processing asylum claims.
Tomáš Boček, special representative on migration and refugees at the Council of Europe, |
, Leo Le Blanc on pedal steel”). Recorded with a 4 track cassette recorder, these songs were all previously unheard by the public with three exceptions: the title track from Steve’s movie short Feel The Bunny, and Liquor Cabinet’s “Mile High” and “Razario” (both released on a single in 1994 with slightly different mixes than heard on the recently surfaced tape, though those are the two tracks on the Bogus Flow tape that Beck himself is not on according to whiskeyclone.net) (protip: whiskeyclone.net is the ultimate Beck resource).
For fun I’ve made mock music videos by editing the silent super 8 footage with songs from Bogus Flow (watch “United Whiskey Man” and “Bologna” above). Listen to Bogus Flow in full and watch the complete, unedited super 8 footage below. Protip: Bogus Flow may be a bit hard to get through if you’re accustomed to Beck’s more polished stylings, but at the very least check out purty pedal steel-graced closing track “Bringin it Back” (linked directed here).
Protip: enough with the protips already….Are you looking for a way to track post views without a plugin using post meta? While there’s probably a plugin for this, we have created a quick code snippet that you can use to track post views without a plugin using post meta in WordPress.
Instructions:
Add this code to your theme’s functions.php file or in a site-specific plugin:
function getPostViews($postID){ $count_key = 'post_views_count'; $count = get_post_meta($postID, $count_key, true); if($count==''){ delete_post_meta($postID, $count_key); add_post_meta($postID, $count_key, '0'); return "0 View"; } return $count.' Views'; } function setPostViews($postID) { $count_key = 'post_views_count'; $count = get_post_meta($postID, $count_key, true); if($count==''){ $count = 0; delete_post_meta($postID, $count_key); add_post_meta($postID, $count_key, '0'); }else{ $count++; update_post_meta($postID, $count_key, $count); } } // Remove issues with prefetching adding extra views remove_action( 'wp_head', 'adjacent_posts_rel_link_wp_head', 10, 0);
Optionally add this code as well to a column in the WordPress admin that displays the post views:
// Add to a column in WP-Admin add_filter('manage_posts_columns', 'posts_column_views'); add_action('manage_posts_custom_column', 'posts_custom_column_views',5,2); function posts_column_views($defaults){ $defaults['post_views'] = __('Views'); return $defaults; } function posts_custom_column_views($column_name, $id){ if($column_name === 'post_views'){ echo getPostViews(get_the_ID()); } }
This part of the tracking views code will set the post views. Just place this code below within the single.php file inside the WordPress Loop.
<?php setPostViews(get_the_ID());?>
Note about fragment caching: If you are using a caching plugin like W3 Total Cache, the method above to set views will not work as the setPostViews() function would never run. However, W3 Total Cache has a feature called fragment caching. Instead of the above, use the following so the setPostViews() will run just fine and will track all your post views even when you have caching enabled.
<!-- mfunc setPostViews(get_the_ID()); --><!-- /mfunc -->
The code below is optional. Use this code if you would like to display the number of views within your posts. Place this code within the Loop.
<?php echo getPostViews(get_the_ID());?>
Note: If this is your first time adding code snippets in WordPress, then please refer to our guide on how to properly copy / paste code snippets in WordPress, so you don’t accidentally break your site.
If you liked this code snippet, please consider checking out our other articles on the site like: 10 best WordPress testimonial plugins and how to Set Up Author Tracking in WordPress with Google Analytics.For its sixth-generation iPhone, presumably called iPhone 5, Apple is reportedly building a device with a thinner and lighter frame, but a bigger 4-inch screen, according to Korean-based ETNews. Yet with a slew of rumored features, from an NFC mobile payments system to 3D photography, a recently released patent for an incredibly intelligent multi-tiered haptics system could be the one feature to rule them all.
Imagine feeling the texture of a picture, or buttons and arrows that magically elevate from the rest of your screen. This is what Apple has in mind for the future of its iDevices, and the first version of this exciting technology could possibly be introduced alongside its flagship device, the iPhone.
Talk of advanced haptics has been circulating in the rumor mill since last year, when reports surfaced shortly before the release of the iPhone 4S that the next iPhone would feature a haptics system that gave users a new level of feedback for their touchscreens. More recently, before the new iPad was unveiled in March, there was talk of the same haptics system coming to the iPad. Now, it appears that system is becoming a reality.
A control system of a tiered haptic system may determine the amount of pressure, force, displacement or other physical response associated with the user stimuli, Apple said in its patent filing. For example, a tiered haptic system may distinguish between relatively light contact and a relatively heavy contact on the screen surface. In some embodiments, a tiered haptic system may perform particular tasks depending on the physical response of the stimuli. (This could certainly apply to painting or illustrating apps.)
In its patent filing, Apple describes how current haptic feedback systems allow a user to interact with a subsystem by touching it, which is accomplished with sensors, actuators or both. Most forms of haptic feedback are found in video games (e.g. controllers that rumble) and robotics, but Apple's concept system would blow previous methods out of the water.
The new haptics system developed by Apple is all about flexibility. In addition to vibration, Apple's haptic system can use actuation to create shape changes or patterns. For example, future iPhone or iPad users could feel the contours of a geographical map, or could feel raised buttons on a touch display, which would make touchscreen typing substantially easier.
Apple's advanced haptics are also multi-functional, so they can both sense and perform actions at the same time. Some versions of the technology couple the haptics system with a secondary display screen, audio system or another device entirely, so an action performed on a TV screen could possibly be felt directly on your device. This would be extremely useful if Apple ever builds its iTV, so any iDevice could create buttons specific to the program you're trying to control (e.g. Blu-ray DVD controls vs. cable TV controls vs. video game controls, etc.).
So how does this all work? How can a user feel a 3D object on a 2D screen? Apple says its new invention includes several elastic screens (made of any suitable material, from elastomers like rubber to polyeurethane or polyester) that are stacked on top of each other, so various arrangements of the signals could create elements of different sizes and shapes. With these layers of elastic sheets, Apple's haptic system can create different types of actuation, including vibration, net displacement, bending, deforming, other modes, or any combination of these elements.
While the system would create a striking way to interact with your iPhone, Apple also adds that this haptic system can be applied to flexible organic light emitting diode screens, or OLED screens. The OLED screen can be flexible or inflexible, and inflexible embodiments of the display could potentially include a protective cover made of a clear plastic like Lexan. It was interesting that Apple cited Lexan, since the plastic is typically used for space and sports helmets, but it can also be used for heads-up displays or video glasses, such as Google's Project Glass. Who knows, Apple could be building a Project Glass competitor as we speak.
Even if Apple isn't building its own eyeglasses, the company says this advanced haptics system would work with almost every portable Apple device, including iPhones, iPod Touch devices, iPads, MacBooks, and even TVs and video projectors. It can also work with monochrome displays like e-Ink displays, which could mean Apple is building a hybrid Retina-to-grayscale display.
So what's the likelihood that Apple could actually implement this display in time for September or October, when everyone expects the iPhone 5 to be released? It is completely possible since this technology has been long in the making, but there's no mistaking the fact that Apple has filed several haptic-related patents since March 2011. Apple wants this technology to happen, and it would make sense if Apple introduced 3D haptics alongside its 3D camera system, which is also apparently in the works. Both pieces of technology may be finished by October, which would certainly make it the No. 1 smartphone on everyone's holiday wish lists.
iPhone 5: Other Rumored Features
OLED Display. Speaking of OLED... Apple has reportedly been testing iPhone 5 prototypes with an A5X chip, which is the same quad-core graphics processor that powers the Retina Display in the new iPad. But why would Apple want such a powerful chip for an iPhone? Given that the A5X chip is a graphics powerhouse, if Apple doesn't drastically change the physical size of the screen to 4.6 inches, it could change the display's overall quality.
On April 4, the Korea Times reported that Apple was interested in switching from LCD to OLED displays for its next round of iPhones and iPads. The reason behind the potential move would be Samsung, which recently launched its spinoff company called Samsung Display that aims to pivot away from LCD to focus more on OLED technology. Apple is by far Samsung's biggest customer: The Cupertino, Calif.-based company bought $7.8 billion worth of components from Samsung in 2011, ranging from memory chips to LCD panels, but the company will reportedly buy $11 billion worth of parts this year, which could mean Apple is buying more expensive display material.
Apple has plenty of money to afford OLED screens in an iPhone-sized display, and it would make sense for Apple to ask Samsung to help build its iPhone 5 displays. Samsung knows how to build big, beautiful screens for any size device: Just imagine what Samsung could do with Apple's Retina technology implemented into an OLED. Apple would effectively put distance between the iPhone and all other smartphone competitors for another five years, at the very least.
Lag-free multi-touchscreen. A touchscreen that created the sensation of textures would be an incredible piece of technology, but we're hoping Apple completes the puzzle with one important piece of technology from Microsoft. In mid-March, Microsoft engineers unveiled a lag-free touch screen that responds to the finger's touch in less than one millisecond. Current Apple devices only have a minor lag with their touchscreens, but this minor adjustment would make users feel like they're really touching their work, drawing a picture, or handwriting a note. Apple has proven to us time and again that simplicity is the key to an enjoyable experience, but speeding up the touchscreen would make the already-popular iPhone into the best touchscreen experience ever.
Crack-proof glass. Apple's patent for crack-resistant glass, granted on Nov. 15, uses the same alumino silicate glass solution used in the iPhone 4 and 4S, but chemically treats it with potassium and sodium ions to achieve greater compression thresholds on the surface and edges of the glass, making it less susceptible to cracks.
Apple also included a handy feature that will appeal to everyone who's ever dropped their iPhone: The patent calls for a shock mount to be placed between the glass and the body of the device, which will instantly inflate if the device senses it's falling. If the iPhone's internal accelerometer senses it's falling, an actuator within the device sucks in the cover glass as it accelerates to the ground, protecting it from damage.
3D Photography. Some may say 3D technology is nothing new, or possibly even overdone; Apple would argue that's because nobody has done it right. Yet.
Apple says that while existing 3D cameras and video records can get three-dimensional information from objects, they're generally incapable of getting detailed enough information in relation to the shapes, surfaces and depth of the objects. Apple's solution involves a series of systems, tools and methods to capture a 3D image by using multiple sensors and cameras. One sensor would capture a polarizing image, while two other sensors would capture two different non-polarizing images, and Apple's system would combine the images into a composite.
Apple has another solution involving different specialized sensors for capturing the image's surface information, color imaging and luminance, and combining the data into another composite that has information about the depth and plurality of surfaces. Together, these systems and methods of capturing light and image information would create an incredible 3D image that can be seen without glasses.
LTE Connectivity. It's already a foregone conclusion that Apple will implement radio bands for 4G LTE in the iPhone 5, given that Apple introduced the high-speed network on its new iPad, released on March 16, which was likely done as a practice run.
LTE features significantly higher download and upload speeds compared to 3G technologies, but previous implementations of LTE in smartphones tended to ravage battery life, which was a major complaint from users. If Apple wanted LTE in the iPhone 4S at the time, it would have been forced to increase the phone's thickness to accommodate a larger circuit board and a bigger battery. Apple CEO Tim Cook, in a company earnings conference call in April 2011, said first-generation LTE chipsets force a lot of design compromises.
The iPhone 4 PCB [printed circuit board] is already incredibly small, not leaving any room for an extra chip to enable LTE without shrinking the size of the battery, said Anand Shimpi, a chip expert and CEO of Anandtech.
Fortunately, Qualcomm recently unveiled the fifth iteration of its new chip, which supports TD-SCDMA, TD-LTE, HSPA+, EV-DO, embedded GPS, and LTE on TDD and FDD networks worldwide. The chip works with Android and Windows 8 devices, but there's a great chance this will be the chip inside the iPhone 5.
NFC. Near-Field Communication is nothing new: in fact, many current smartphones have the chip built-in so owners can use mobile payments solutions like Google Pay. Apple has held off on implementing NFC technology into its iPhone, but a slew of recently granted patents seem to suggest that will change with the sixth-generation iPhone. Two of the major features said to use NFC rather heavily are the iWallet, and iTunes Gifting.
The iWallet. Apple won a major patent on March 6 for a piece of technology called the iWallet, which is a digital system that gives users complete control over their subsidiary financial accounts on their iPhones, and also leverages Near-Field Communication technology to complete credit card transactions directly on the phone as well. The iWallet has many different features, including giving users the ability to see their entire credit card profiles, view statements and messages from their banks, and even set parental controls for their children, should they also want to use their iPhones as digital wallets. Outside of the iPhone, users can keep track of their payments and statements within the iTunes billing system, which keeps credit card information and records safe and secure. There's a possibility that iWallet could also work with other Apple utilities, which could allow users to buy things like movie tickets directly within the apps, but only time will tell with that one.
iTunes Gifting. While downloading and storing digital media with online service providers has become commonplace -- more so than purchasing DVDs and CDs at physical retail stores -- it's not very easy to transfer digital files from one individual to another, usually because of copyright laws. Apple believes it has a solution to this issue: A gift-giving platform where users have a standardized way for buying, sending and receiving media files from a media provider (iTunes) between multiple electronic devices (iPhones, iPads and iPod Touch devices). The process is simply called, Gifting.
One method for gifting requires the sender to authorize a gift charge to their iTunes account, which is then transmitted from the sender's device to the receiver's device -- via tapping, or as long as they're nearby -- thanks to the NFC chip. If the recipient of the gift isn't nearby -- or you want it to be a surprise -- the gift-giver may submit an official request with iTunes, which then processes the request and charges the initiator's account for the given file. The patent also allows for multiple gifts to be sent in a single transaction, as well as certain customization options for the gifts -- including voice greetings and custom gift images, likely to conceal the gift's identity before the receipient opens it.
* * *
What features would you like to see in the iPhone 5? Do you hope to type onto a 3D keyboard someday? Let us know your thoughts and impressions in the comments section below.SINGAPORE - From next year, operators of dormitories in factories or other workplaces will have to meet additional licensing conditions announced by the Manpower Ministry (MOM) on Wednesdsay (Aug 24), in order to raise living standards for foreign workers here.
The rules kick in on Jan 1 and will require operators to provide workers with Wi-Fi, personal lockers, a way to provide feedback on their accommodation and at least one sick bay or contingency plans for infectious disease cases.
These 1,000 or so factory-converted dorms (FCDs), which house about 80,000 workers in total, must already provide basic amenities such as one electrical point per worker, bed frames and clean sanitary facilities.
Since last August, MOM has inspected about 900 FCDs and has taken enforcement action, such as warnings or prosecution, against 160 which were found to be overcrowded, or have poor hygiene standards or other substandard living conditions.
The 50 or so large purpose-built dorms with at least 1,000 beds have to adhere to stricter rules under the Foreign Employee Dormitories Act, which took effect on Jan 1 this year.
Minister of State for Manpower Teo Ser Luck said on Wednesday that the new conditions for FCDs will help to ensure workers are better taken care of while they are here, and were decided on after feedback from industry players.
"They are conducive and basic enough that they will help the workers in their day-to-day living," he told some 600 company representatives at a an FCD seminar in the Textile Centre.
Although some companies were worried about the cost and whether the new rules would add to their administrative processes, he said: "It is not to add cost to the operators, but really for the longer-term benefit of the operators because if you take care of the well-being of the workers they will work harder, they will be happier, and they won't go into medical problems or social issues."
Companies will have to provide documents and photographs to show that they are following the rules when they apply for or renew their licences. MOM will also continue to inspect premises regularly.
Mr Teo also said that his ministry will be introducing a new set of awards to recognise exemplary dormitory operators who do more for their residents than what is required, and educate other operators on best practices. The assessment will be done by dorm residents, government agencies and other associations. More details will be announced at a later date, MOM said.DONALD J. TRUMP ENDORSED BY NASCAR CEO AND DRIVERS
(Valdosta, GA) February 29th, 2016 – Today Donald J. Trump was endorsed by Brian France, Chairman & CEO of NASCAR, popular retired driver Bill Elliott, and active drivers Chase Elliott, Ryan Newman, and David Lee Regan. France, Elliott, and the drivers endorsed Mr. Trump at a rally attended by thousands in Valdosta, Georgia just one day before the Super Tuesday primary.
Mr. Trump said, “I am proud to receive the endorsement of such an iconic brand and a quality person such as Brian. Brian has a wonderful family and is an incredibly successful business person. I have great respect for Brian and I am grateful for his support and that of Bill Elliott, one of the best drivers in history, and active stock car racers, including his son Chase Elliott, Ryan Newman and David Lee Regan.”
Brian France added, “Mr. Trump is changing American politics forever and his leadership and strength are desperately needed. He has had an incredible career and achieved tremendous success. This is what we need for our country.”
Bill Elliott said, “It is my great honor to endorse Mr. Trump for President of the United States. He is a leader representing strength and common sense solutions.”
These influential endorsements come just days after former Presidential candidate and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and Senator Jeff Sessions, recognized by many as the conservative soul of the U.S. Senate, offered their endorsements of the republican frontrunner.
Mr. Trump continues to dominate in state and national polls with the most recent survey from CNN showing Mr. Trump with 49% support nationwide.At The Forge
Blacksmithing at the Village
Most classes at the forge are from 9am-1pm. Cost: $75.00 per session ($67.50 for members). The exceptions are:
Immersion Classes, 9am-3pm, cost $125 ($112.50 for members)
Forging Fridays, 4-7pm, cost $55 ($49.50 for members), ages 13-16 years
Pre-registration is required. Registration can be done over the phone or in-person at the museum or at any Burnaby recreation centre, or on-line through WebReg. (A family PIN, client number and a credit card are required to use WebReg. Pin numbers are available at Burnaby recreation centres.)
Basic
This introduction to blacksmithing starts with learning the importance of safety in a blacksmiths shop. The hands-on component has students lighting a coal forge, as well as making a coat hook and dinner triangle. Students will learn how to heating mild steel in a forge and shape it with a hammer and anvil. Completing this course fulfills the prerequisite for taking further blacksmithing courses. Students must wear steel-toed boots. Available dates:
Oct 14
Nov 17
Feb 3
Feb 24
Mar 3
Mar 10
Tool Making
Students are introduced to the basics of working with tool steel. They forge a cold chisel and a simple punch, then use a grinder to finish shaping their tools. Finally, the tools are quench-hardened and tempered. It is required that students with no forging experience take a Basic or Immersion before enrolling in this course. Students must wear steel-toed boots. Available Dates:
Oct 21
Feb 10
Tong Making
Blacksmith's unlike other artisans, made their own tools. Students make two pairs of light blacksmithing tongs. A pair of flat bit tongs will be made from 3/8 square stock, and a second pair from flat bar stock using a “twist” technique. Both pairs of tongs are suitable for light blacksmith. It is required that students with no forging experience take a Basic or Immersion before enrolling in this course. Students must wear steel-toed boots. Available Dates:
Feb 17
Mar 16
Immersion
This 9am-3pm (half hour break) course is for students who would like a more in-depth introduction to blacksmithing, or who are thinking of taking it up as a hobby. Using a forge, hammer and anvil, learn the basic techniques of tapering, bending and twisting metal while producing a simple series of blacksmithing tools. Also discussions on what equipment is needed, how and where to get it, as well as the differences between coal and propane forges. This course fulfills the prerequisite for taking further blacksmithing classes. Students must wear steel-toed boots. Available Dates:
Oct 6
Oct 13
Nov 3
Nov 10
Feb 2
Feb 9
Feb 16
Mar 2
Mar 9
Ornamental Door Pull
A new course for the the blacksmith enthusiast: learn how blacksmiths produce traditional hardware that is both functional and decorative. Students will make a simple door or drawer pull incorporating a decorative leaf and simple scroll design. Students with no forging experience must have taken a Basic or Immersion course. Available dates:
Oct 20
Letter Opener
In this course students will take a scrap railroad spike and forge it into a decorative letter opener using the techniques of fullering, tapering, flattening and hot filing. Blacksmith Basics or Immersion is a prerequisite for this course. Steel toe boots are required. Available Dates:
Nov 4
Nov 18
Feb 23
Mar 31
NEW for Teens - Forging Fridays
Join us on Friday afternoons from 4-7pm for a modified basics course. Students start by learning the importance of safety in a blacksmiths shop. Then learn how to light a coal forge, and how to heating mild steel in a forge and shape it with a hammer and anvil. Students will create a coat hook or two. Completing this course fulfills the prerequisite for taking further blacksmithing courses. Students must wear steel-toed boots. (Ages 13-16 years-old)
Students must wear steel-toed boots during all Blacksmithing classes. Students should bring a drink and snack, as well as warm clothes in the fall and winter. Available dates:
Oct 5
Nov 2
Feb 1
Mar 1REDWOOD CITY — Authorities on Thursday announced the arrests of five women inmates at the Maple Street Correctional Center in connection with a scheme to smuggle methamphetamine into the jail.
The San Mateo County Narcotics Task Force and the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office Corrections Division launched an investigation about a month ago after corrections staff intercepted several cards and letters that had been dipped in liquefied methamphetamine and mailed to the inmates, the sheriff’s office said.
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The inmates had planned to distribute the drug inside the jail, the sheriff’s office said.
On Dec. 22, the task force served search warrants in Burlingame, Daly City and San Francisco, resulting in the seizure of more than 10 ounces of methamphetamine and thousands of dollars in suspected drug money, as well as the arrest of Richard Wood, 54.
The Daly City resident was booked on drug and conspiracy charges. He is being held in lieu of $700,000 bail.
The inmates were re-arrested on charges of attempting to bring a controlled substance into a correctional facility, attempted possession of a controlled substance and criminal conspiracy. They were identified as Rhiannon Lawler, 37, of San Francisco; Shelby Myers, 26, of San Mateo; Peweli Pinkston, 27, of East Palo Alto; Sara Regan, 34, of San Francisco; and Jean Stoller, 36, of Pacifica.
Four suspects are being sought in connection with the case. They were identified as Bridgette Chavis-Damon, 38, of Redwood City; Ephraim Manlapaz, 44, of San Francisco; Nancy Sanchez, 32, of San Francisco; and Agnes Banquerifo-Taylor, 47, of Pacifica.
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“This case highlights the ongoing commitment of the sheriff’s office to running safe correctional facilities,” Capt. Paul Kunkel said in a statement. “We will continue to investigate and take action on any criminal activity that endangers the safety of our staff or the safety of the inmates in our custody.”
Anyone with information about the case or the whereabouts of the at-large suspects can contact Special Agent Rich Daly at 650-573-3991 or rdaly@smcgov.org, or the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office anonymous tip line at 800-547-2700.As you have perhaps already ascertained, this quickening comes in many shapes and forms, and for some of you, it has been almost overpowering at times. Again, we hasten to remind you all that even if you at times may feel like you are down on your knees, unable to even think about getting up again, you are not being driven further down by these energetic shifts that keep battering you ceaselessly. No, you are simply being elevated further in vibration with every single blast of these energetic missiles, but still, it might not be as easy to remind yourself of this selfsame truth. For many will be struggling with themselves now, and so, it can be hard not to look into the seeming abyss in front of you and think that you are heading ever deeper into it. But this is not an abyss dear ones, no matter how deep you find yourself sinking as these energies keep swatting you around the ears. For what will seem as an endless quest for retaining your balance, is simply a sure sign of energetic upgrading, and as such, the elevator is indeed going up all the time, even when you feel the surge in your stomach that seems to signal you are in a free fall ever downward.
We say this in order to try to reassure all those amongst you feeling less than sure of themselves, as we know that these last barrages haves served to dislodge what may be construed as the last piece of solid ground beneath your feet. For you are merely being lifted out and up of what used to be the lower grounds, for that is not where you belong anymore. But as you have yet to feel any semblance of new ground under your feet, you will find yourself flailing around seeking for something solid to grasp on to. But remember, there is no such thing at the moment, for everything is in flux, not only within, but also without, and as such, the chaos we have talked about is what you are experiencing in all sorts of ways. Remember, when we spoke of chaos, you all got an image of what this chaos would be, for such is a human brain, it will always search for a known pattern, even in the unknown. And so, you had perhaps already started to prepare for your version of the chaos, but as you have already seen, this is not what you will be getting.
Again, we say expect the unexpected, for if what you get is what you expected, it would hardly be labeled as chaos. So this is what is causing some extra consternation amongst so many now, as you find yourself once again in unknown territory, and before you can start to get the slightest grasp of this new land, you will be whisked away again, to an even more uncharted part of your consciousness. For you are changing so rapidly now, there is no sense in trying to keep abreast in any way. You must simply let yourself surrender completely to this ever flowing river of chaotic change, forever tipping you this way and then that way, in a seemingly random manner. We say this in order to remind you that there is indeed a carefully laid plan behind all of this, so the outcome is indeed assured, but do not forget that the road that will take you there, is not one you will be shown in detail beforehand. For that is indeed the whole point of this process, as you need to be jolted out of the old patterns and ruts that you so vehemently try to follow, no matter how hard you are being pushed to get out of them. For the old human was reprogrammed in a way that would ensure them staying in the same old rut over and over again, never seeking to venture beyond the borders set up before them. And so, you are still very much prone to keep within those strict limits, even now, when all semblance of limitations have been lifted. So you are in many ways still like a prisoner in your mind, even long after the walls of your cell have been demolished.
Again this is in no way a form of reproach, it is simply a reminder that now you will be asked again and again to go against what has been your very nature for eons, and as such, you will be jostled and tumbled, stretched and compressed until you lose any hold of what used to be the old you, and what used to constitute the natural limits for a human being. So you will be subjected to these sudden immersions of energetic deluges, pulling you under when you least expect it, for you need all the help you can get to shake you loose from the old foundations. For even when you think you have set yourself completely free from them, there is still some little part of you trying to cling on with all that it has. And so, we will do what we can to help you to pry loose that last hold you have on the old illusion, for what you have defined as your reality will not serve you in any way. But as you have been so deeply programmed to stick to it no matter how surreal it seems, you will need a lot of shaking up in order to let you shake yourself free of these constraints once and for all.
So remember, even if you feel as shaken and torn as a rag doll in the arms of vigorous toddler, know that all you experience even if it does feel less than bearable, it is all done with one goal in mind: to set you free for real. Not just a semblance of freedom, where a small portion of you still cling tenaciously to the old. No, you must be as free as a bird, and we do mean that in every sense of the word. For if you insist on maintaining even the minutest hold on the old, it will literally serve to drag you back down when the next huge wave of light arrives in order to lift you even higher up. For this time, surrender will truly be the only way to conquer it all.
AdvertisementsAs reported around the barefoot-minded blogosphere this week, the U.S. Army has banned Vibram FiveFingers and all other “toe-shoes” because they “detract from a professional military image.” That’s according to an official Army communiqué released this week. The aesthetic of the shoes, not their inherent performance (or lack thereof), is ostensibly the primary concern that the Army has with “foot gloves” like the Vibram FiveFingers and Inov-8’s silicone Evoskins.
Says the Army release, “There are a variety of minimalist running shoes available for purchase and wear. Effective immediately, only those shoes that accommodate all five toes in one compartment are authorized for wear. Those shoes that feature five separate, individual compartments for the toes detract from a professional military image and are prohibited for wear with the IPFU or when conducting physical training in military formation.”
Predictably, there’s been an impassioned backlash from FiveFingers fans. It’s interesting that “toe shoes” have become popular enough in Army ranks to warrant a wide-scale ban. They are incredibly odd looking, there is no doubt. But more and more people now want to wear these minimal shoes for training, exercise, and everyday use. The Army is saying “I don’t think so, clowny.”
Readers, what do you think? Is the Army shooting straight, or does this ban step on that very American right of the freedom to choose, including choosing footwear, even if the shoes you wear do look like monkey feet. —Stephen Regenold
Related Content:
> “FiveFingers ‘Casual Shoes’”
> “Barefoot Craze”
> “Review: Vibram FiveFingers Running Shoes”A new Google report explains how often its driverless cars have been in near-crashes on California roads. The data is from 424,331 of the 1.37 million miles Google has driven autonomously. (Noah Berger/AFP/Getty Images)
Google’s fleet of 53 driverless cars, currently being tested on roads in California and Texas, have never been at fault in an accident. But in 13 cases, the vehicles came pretty close, and the driver had step in and prevent a crash, according to a new company report on the California tests.
The report also stated that during 272 occasions in the 14-month span, drivers took control of autonomous vehicles because the software was failing. In 69 other incidents, the test drivers chose to take control of the autonomous vehicles to ensure that the vehicles operated safely.
The new data shows that autonomous cars are making progress, Google said. But other experts cautioned that the company’s report doesn’t provide enough information to definitively say whether the technology is safe.
Google’s test drives have been very closely watched because they have put driverless cars on real roads for the first time. Even minor incidents between human drivers and Google’s cars have garnered media scrutiny because of the huge interest in the technology.
[What it’s like to ride in a Google self-driving car]
The report was the most detailed to date on how the cars are performing and was required by California rules. Google is also testing the tech in Austin, but Texas did not obligate the company to release similar data. The report shows an overall decline in incidents in which the technology fails since the fall of 2014.
“We’re really excited about these numbers. It seems to be a pretty good sign of progress,” Chris Urmson, who leads Google’s self-driving car project, said in an interview with The Post.
The rate at which Google’s test drivers are intervening to ensure safe operations is decreasing. (Google)
Experts caution that the findings should be taken with a grain of salt.
“It’s not going to be reflective on the quality of the system,” said Alain Kornhauser, chairman of Princeton University’s autonomous vehicle engineering program. “From an evaluation standpoint, I don’t think there’s anything you can read into it in the end.”
How good the cars look can be skewed by the situations they face, according to Kornhauser. Easy road conditions will make a car look much more impressive than tough situations.
“It’s informative, but it shouldn’t be treated as a true measure of the vehicle’s safety,” said Aaron Steinfeld, a Carnegie Mellon professor who researches human-robot interaction.
The most significant improvement in the report is the rate at which the cars detect a system failure and request the test driver to take over — incidents that Google and regulators call “disengagements.” These situations happened once every 785 miles in late 2014, but only once every 5,318 miles in the fourth quarter of 2015.
The measure is an indicator of the stability of the overall system. Urmson said he was pleased with the improvement as his engineers have focused on adding new capabilities to the software. He said a focus on stability will happen before the technology is released to the public.
While the rate at which test drivers chose to take control of the cars decreased in early 2015, it took an upward turn late in 2015. Google says that’s because the cars have been pushed into more difficult circumstances.
“You’ll |
made things suspicious? I can’t say that's definitely the case because I can’t prove it. But I'm very suspicious and I have the right to be suspicious. I think one of them should resign to avoid that conflict of interest."
Ready for a conflict
Tinkov has never been afraid to flex his muscles and share his thoughts or opinions on Twitter. He is investing heavily in the sport by signing a swath of new riders for 2015. He is extending his influence and ideas in his own team and the sport as a whole.
Tinkoff-Saxo is playing a key role in the so-far secretive Project Avignon team association that is studying and debating ways to improve and better commercialise professional cycling. Project Avignon is trying to include the UCI in any process of change, preferring diplomacy and negotiation rather than conflict.
However Tinkov is ready to take on the UCI if he comes under attack and fired a warning shot across their bow with a mix of bravado and aggression.
"Some people think the UCI will go against us now and perhaps not give us a (WorldTour) licence as they did with Katusha. But I'm not looking to start a war, I'm just trying to change cycling, to make it better. I'm the one paying the bills and I'm the one with a heart for this sport and just want to make it more valuable and better," he argued.
"But if I start the war there will be no hostages. They should understand that. I'm not starting a war yet but if they want one, then they will cry.
"Of course, if they're ready to sit down and discuss things in a normal way then we should do that. If they're looking for a war then I'm ready, no problem. Then they will push me to become the Bernie Ecclestone of cycling and create my own league. I have a sponsor behind me and I have investors behind me. If we the team owners make an agreement with ASO, why do we need the UCI?"America’s oldest living World War II veteran is getting a little help from his friends.
Richard Overton, a 110-year-old U.S. Army veteran who served in the colored unit of the 1887th Engineer Aviation Battalion during World War II, has lived in an Austin, Texas home he built with his own hands for over 60 years.
But an in-home caregiver that looked after him now needs her own medical assistance, and Overton’s few remaining relatives are reaching out to come up with the estimated $480 per day for a new caregiver to help keep him in his home, CNBC reports.
“We all know that moving him out of his house will put him in the grave,” Overton’s third cousin, Volma Overton, told the news site. “That house has so much to do with his happiness, his joy and his love for humanity and everything else.”
Volma Overton and her daughter contacted the department of Veterans Affairs for help, but the agency would only provide a nurse for three hours per day, or assistance moving into an assisted living facility.
“When you’re at the point where 24/7 care is needed… what’s best for the veteran might not be the home,” Patrick Hutchison, public affairs specialist for Central Texas Veterans Affairs Health Care System, told KXAN. “The caregiver is taxed at that point too.”
Volma Overton and another friend stop by daily to check on him, as do others from church and the neighborhood, but she believes a professional caregiver would be more appropriate. The group eventually turned to the crowdfunding site GoFundMe to raise money for Overton’s care, and the response has been overwhelming.
“Richard has out lived all of his closest relatives and is in need of 24/7 home care. We are asking for donations to keep him living in his home instead of a nursing home,” the GoFundMe page read.
The page featured numerous highlights of the cigar and whiskey-loving veteran in recent years, including Overton’s 2013 visit with President Obama during a Veterans Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, a 2015 documentary on his life, and a feature the same year in Cigar Aficionado.
Overton credits his long life to “cigars and God,” and often enjoys his Tampa Sweet cigars with those who stop by to chat on his front porch.
Volma Overton told CNBC the veteran also drinks “one (shot of whiskey) to wake him up and get him going and one to put him asleep.”
Martin Wilford told the news site his long-time friend makes the most of life through jokes and stories with friends on the porch, and wants to see him continue that tradition as long as possible.
“He will say some things man, that will make you fall out of your chair,” Wilford said. “I don’t care what color or what religion, he loves people.”
People love him, too.
In the first two days after the GoFundMe site went up in late December, it reached an initial goal of $50,000. The goal has since been increased to $100,000, and then $150,000 as donations poured in.
As of Monday, 2,286 people have donated a total of $110,940 to help keep him in his home.
“I’d hate to see him not have a smile on his face because he’s smiling when we come over here. [Going to a nursing home] would take that smile away,” Volma Overton told KXAN. “This smile is America’s treasure.”
Aside from the money, many folks who commented on the GoFundMe page also offered to volunteer their time, food, and other essentials to honor a man who fought for their freedoms.
“Our Cub Scout Pack had a meeting with Mr. Overton on the front lawn a few years ago. We would like to know if there are any home maintenance items that need attention around the house, anything from lawn mowing to clearing the roof of leaves, trimming trees, etc,” Mark P. Schram wrote. “I am a roofing contractor & have all the tools for handling any of these items & more.”
“I’m an Executive Chef and will be traveling through Texas this week. It would be an honor to cook for Mr. Overton while I am in Texas. Please feel free to email me,” Apple-Elgatha Ethel posted.
“Please have him call our office at Meals On wheels. We can help Mr. Overton with his Home health care needs,” Adrenne Mendoza added. “I am the veterans services case manager for Meals on Wheels.”
“I am a nurse and would be honored to care for Mr. Oliver, free of charge for a few hours a day, any day of the week, if needed. Please email me if help is needed. God Bless this wonderful man. :)” Susan Morrison Sattler wrote.I'm always perplexed at why Congress doesn't make it easier for people to save for retirement. Most of Europe makes it easy. Australia has a mandatory savings plan.
Yet the richest country on earth can't provide retirement security for most Americans. There's a stealth war on retirement savings and Wall Street is behind it.
This is neither paranoia nor is it a partisan statement. Wall Street has long coveted privatizing Social Security funds because it can charge outrageous fees on private accounts. That's pretty much what many big banks, brokers and insurers have done to 401(k)s, which were never meant to be mainstream retirement plans.
Lately, the GOP has been attacking the idea of states setting up retirement plans for small businesses, most of which offer no retirement options. The Senate majority recently voted against a plan to provide state-sponsored small-business retirement programs. President Trump is expected to sign this giant leap backward of a bill.
It's not that these "work and save" plans were bad ideas: Some 55 million American workers have no workplace retirement plan at all.
The U.S. is the only modern, industrialized country without a uniform national pension system. Although there are dozens of retirement vehicles -- IRAs, 401(k)s, 403(b)s, SEP-IRAs, etc. -- employers are not required by law to offer any of them, nor are they required to fund them. It's such a scattershot approach that it should be a national embarrassment.
"The Department of Labor last year issued guidance that would allow cities and states to set up 'work and save' plans without worrying they would run afoul of federal pension laws," notes the AARP in a recent statement.
"The House of Representatives voted this year to get rid of the guidance, and last month the Senate narrowly agreed to roll back the one pertaining to cities. In the next vote, senators will decide whether to scrap the part affecting states. Research shows that workers with modest incomes are 15 times more likely to save for retirement if they can do so automatically from their paychecks. So far, seven states had approved setting up work-and-save plans for their private sector workers. More than 20 other states as well as a few major cities are considering doing the same. Under these plans, workers could have a portion of their paychecks automatically deposited into a retirement account, typically an IRA. Employers don’t contribute at all. And workers can always opt out, too."
These plans were a great move in helping workers who had no retirement options. They could build savings automatically at a low cost. But Wall Street hated the idea because they couldn't layer on fees that eat into retirement kitties.
And it gets worse.
Wall Street and insurers have also been working hard to snuff a Department of Labor "fiduciary rule" that would force broker-advisers to work in the best interest of their clients when offering retirement advice.
That would have prevented financial-product peddlers from selling high-commission, junk products. It also would've protected millions of retirees who are facing rollovers from their 401(k)s into other products such as annuities and IRAs.
President Trump has put the DOL Rule on hold for "further review," which is bureaucratese for a slow death through inaction or perhaps a thousand cuts that will neuter its effectiveness through over-regulation.
There's more. Now the GOP and its Wall Street allies claim that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is really the best agency to issue a fiduciary rule (not the mean old DOL). When the new SEC Chair Jay Clayton was recently confirmed, he was urged by the securities industry to draft such a rule.
Clayton, it should be noted, was a Wall Street lawyer. And the SEC -- empowered to draft a fiduciary rule by the Dodd-Frank law more than five years ago -- has done nothing. The agency is known for sitting on investor protection rules for years – and then often waters them down, if they surface at all.
But the coup de grace for investor and retirement protection would be the "CHOICE Act" scrapping of the Dodd-Frank law and its raft of safeguards of the entire banking system by the GOP-Wall Street alliance.
A more sensible plan would've been to reinstate the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act, which cleaved risky investment banking/trading from the federally insured deposit/lending business. That seems unlikely, although many Republicans had voiced interest in it and President Trump said he's "considering breaking up the big banks."
The Dodd-Frank law also put into place the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has reaped more than $12 billion in refunds for consumers who were preyed upon by rapacious banking practices. Wall Street would love to ax the CFPB, which is obviously costing them billions through its consumer protection actions.
Despite all of its flaws, Dodd-Frank attempted to shield Main Street from Wall Street's most dangerous excesses. Without it, retiring in dignity will be much more difficult. And it's hard enough already.KUGAARUK, NUNAVUT—Officials are scrambling to find classroom space for hundreds of children after a suspicious fire in bitter cold destroyed the only school in a remote Arctic hamlet. “We’ve lost everything here,” said John Ivey, senior administrative official for Kugaaruk, a community of just under 1,000 people on Nunavut’s central Arctic coast.
RCMP have called the blaze suspicious and are investigating along with the territorial fire marshall’s office and the local fire department. ( Dreamstime )
“The school’s totally gone. Everything in there is gone. “People are in shock.” No one was hurt in the blaze.
Article Continued Below
“That’s the silver lining,” Ivey said. “We’ll pick up the pieces.” The fire began late Tuesday night and wasn’t extinguished until Wednesday morning. RCMP have called the blaze suspicious and are investigating along with the territorial fire marshall’s office and the local fire department. Ivey said the firefighting effort was hampered by extremely cold temperatures which reached -60 C. “The water lines kept freezing up. The guys worked very hard all night long. They were extremely cold. We kept bringing them in out of the cold.”
He said the fire might have been contained if the hamlet had better equipment. “Perhaps if we had the proper equipment we might have been able to put out the fire, but we just didn’t. A second pumper truck would have been good.”
Article Continued Below
The fire also threatened the community office as well as the hamlet’s power plant and its diesel fuel supply tanks. “There’s no wood stoves up here,” Ivey said. “If you lose power, the heat’s off. Had we lost the power plant, that’s a major state of emergency.” Like most Nunavut communities, Kugaaruk’s population is overwhelmingly young. More than one-third of its population — 310 students — attended the kindergarten to Grade 12 school. There were 45 staff. The community hall, a church, an Arctic College facility and the hamlet’s offices are being considered as potential classroom space so children can continue their education, Ivey said. Territorial officials are expected in Kugaaruk on Thursday to assess the damage and figure out what comes next. The building itself is at least 30 years old, but had been renovated. The loss of the gymnasium is a heavy blow to the community, said Ivey. Kugaaruk is the second Nunavut community in recent years to lose its school to a fire. Cape Dorset lost its school in 2015. Five youths were charged with setting the fire and one pleaded guilty. Work on a new school has not been completed. Kugaaruk sits on the southeastern shore of Pelly Bay off the Gulf of Boothia. It is about 1,100 kilometres northwest of the territorial capital Iqaluit.About
Our Story
Craig Conant (left) and Craig McRae hanging out at 'the bean' years before the sudsy was born.
Way back when... the two founders - Craig & Craig - were roommates at the University of Cincinnati. They met by chance due to some loud music playing through the halls (Oasis) and soon found that they were both just as ambitious and fun loving as the other. Years later, still friends with towering ambitions, they came together to start a new chapter in their lives.
In the Winter of 2010 Craig C. had a vision of creating something that we've all thought about at one point or another; a beverage holder for the shower. The idea to create one of his own only came after researching the trenches of the internet in order to purchase one and coming up empty handed.
Obviously, simply creating a product isn't that easy. After a few phone calls to some manufacturing companies and research into the patent process, he began to hammer away at some metal in his garage. This spawned the beginning of a project (yet to be named) and a year long journey to this very Kickstarter page. This is how the Sudsy was born.
original packaging label idea
In February of 2011 Craig C. reached out to his long time friend Craig M. (yeah, we know...) for some help and advice. The partnership would lend itself to the project's website, technology, design, sales and marketing. Over the next year they took rudimentary concepts through the paces, be it design or branding. The two worked together to bring a final marketable product that they were both proud of.
Thank you for taking the time to view our page. We are very excited about this project and appreciate the opportunity from Kickstarter and all of the support - Craig C. & Craig. M
Design & Manufacturing Plan
Our number one priority for the Sudsy was to engineer the initial prototype into a smart and attractive design. Once we met the team at Process 4, we knew we were in good hands.
Process 4 (located near Cleveland, Oh) has been in business for over 20 years and has worked with companies of all sizes to design and develop products. This experience has given them the knowledge to direct customers to the best possible manufacturing approach for innovative products in every possible field including: medical, industrial, sporting equipment, toys, office, hardware, and housewares – The list is long and comprehensive. Process 4 has products sold in almost every major retailer as well as the market place of made-for-TV products.
We later learned that Process 4 built a very strong relationship with a plastic manufacturer they have been in business with for years. They speak highly of their operations, are very confident in their timelines and have proven time and time again in respect to the quality of their products.
If we are able to reach our goal, the very next step is to order the first run of the Sudsy.
We are excited and very fortunate to be working with a local industrial design firm and look forward to the manufacturing process and an on time delivery!
Early Concepts and Prototypes
first prototype, made out of metal in the garage
First 3d printed prototype
second 3d prototype - longer neck for better support
aside from a slight branding change, this is what the final version looks like
Patents
One of the most exciting aspects of this project was obtaining the 'patent pending' status. This alone set us back quite a bit on our initial investment money as well as a large amount of time. We have had the pleasure of working with an excellent patent firm in Cleveland that has helped us expedite the process and made the experience far more enjoyable than we thought possible.
Patent drawings below:
patent drawing showing components
patent drawing showing three sizing options
Action ShotsThe Israeli public doesn’t care about Palestinians on hunger strike, about conditions in prison, or what happens to a body after it is deprived of food for so long.
Sometime in the ’90s, “Popolitica,” a popular political talk show in Israel, brought on a woman from Israel’s geographical periphery who could not send her child to school because she could not afford it. “There is a law in this country that mandates all parents send their children to school!” she said angrily. Tommy Lapid, the late father of Yair Lapid, who sat on the panel, cut her off: “My dear, the money you spent on your haircut could have been used to educate your child for a year.”
I recalled this story after watching Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan and his doppelgängers celebrate the release of the video showing Palestinian prisoner Marwan Barghouti eating a chocolate-coated waffle while on hunger strike. How low does one need to go to bait a hunger-striking prisoner and then celebrate it as a victory? But this is the way of the villains: to scorn a woman who cannot send her son to school over her hair color, in order to avoid a serious discussion about a system that leaves out her son, or to celebrate images of a prisoner eating during a hunger strike, instead of talking about the demands and conditions in which thousands of Palestinian prisoners find themselves.
In fact, until this moment I didn’t see a single media outlet, aside from Local Call, publish the hunger strikers’ full list of demands. Why have 1,600 prisoners refused to eat for 3 weeks? What do they want? Who are these people? The Israeli public doesn’t know. It doesn’t know what their conditions are in prison, or how much harsher conditions have become for them since they started their strike. Prisoners are prevented from meeting with their lawyers and are subject to solitary confinement, raids on their cells at all hours of the day, invasive body searches, confiscating salt, which forms the core basis of hunger strikers’ diet during their strike. The Israeli public neither knows nor has any desire to know.
After three weeks of hunger strike, the Israeli public neither knows nor wants to know what happens to a body after it is deprived of food for so long. How the hunger striker struggles to stand on his feet, suffers from severe dizziness, a dramatic decrease in heart activity, fatigue, tremors, and potential damage to his lungs and motor skills. As the days go by, prisoners will have a difficult time swallowing water and may lose their sight, their ability to hear, and will have a difficult time breathing. And all this without going into the psychological consequences. But the Israeli public neither knows nor wants to know.
The Israeli public neither knows nor wants to know about the enormous significance this strike has for the Palestinian people on the outside; about the solidarity protests and tent encampments erected in support in nearly every city across the West Bank; about the people who joined the hunger strike in solidarity with the prisoners; about the hopes among the hunger strikers that this will move forward an internal dialogue between Fatah and Hamas. It does not know about the “Saltwater Challenge,” in which Palestinians around the world film themselves drinking a cup of saltwater in solidarity with the prisoners. It neither knows nor wants to know.
What is the Israeli public interested in, instead? Marwan Barghouti’s chocolate-coated waffle.
How did we stoop so low? How did we become such a lowly people that celebrates after a person whose body is close to giving in after prolonged starvation stuffs a few crumbs into his mouth. The nation that goes out and barbecues outside a prison so that the smell of the meat reaches the nostrils of the hunger strikers? When did we turn into such repulsive people? When did we willingly choose ignorance, blindness, and deafness — to become such a stupid collective? In what way does this serve us? And why do the vast majority of media outlets play along? What kind of story will we tell ourselves after the Barghouti tabloid stories disappear, and the first hunger strikers begin to collapse — or perhaps are even sent to some field hospital where they will be force-fed by doctors brought in from abroad — yet another one of Erdan’s twisted ideas.
Paradoxically, as the Israeli public chooses stupidity and refuses to open its eyes and look at the other side, and as the regime manipulatively takes away its power to do so, it loses its ability to deal with the conflict, thus increasing the acute need for international intervention. When hundreds of humans bring themselves to the brink inside prison as the only act of protest left at their disposal, while others blow smoke in their face from the other side of the wall, it becomes clear that the latter have lost all sense of pragmatism or moral right to write the rules of the game.
This post was originally published in Hebrew on Local Call.Kudzu and the California Marriage Amendment
by Rick Moen
August 25, 2008
(last updated October 21, 2018)
This past century, large portions of the American South have been consumed by an unintended side-effect.
I refer to the infamous "kudzu" vine, imported from Japan for its stunning erosion-control properties. This tactic worked: Crumbling riverbanks and hillsides were stabilized all over the South — but, then, everyone realized with mounting horror that this hardy legume is almost completely unstoppable anywhere protected from hard freezes, growing at the awesome rate of a foot per night and reaching heights of 100 feet. Entire abandoned houses have been observed to vanish under a kudzu carpet, over a summer growing season. It's now considered a pest; sometimes, an outright menace.
The plant can be used with caution, where its invasive side-effect is known and planned for — but the point is that it was deployed without understanding its full effects.
Laws' side-effects, likewise, can render them self-defeating (though, on the bright side, bad laws are easier to eradicate than kudzu): I'm going to explain, below, why recently popular marriage-definition legislation like California's November 2008 "California Marriage Protection Act" (an initiative state-constitutional amendment) creates kudzu-class unintended side effects its proponents haven't anticipated and will find horrific — in that they're going to end up mandating and legally sanctifying exactly the sort of same-sex marriages they're intending to ban.
Please note: Yr. humble author is deliberately avoiding the question of whether same-sex marriage is desirable, an offense against God, and so on. (For what it's worth, said author is a heterosexual genetic male, happily and monogamously married to qty. one (1) heterosexual genetic female. So, this essay is not a sneaky ploy to induce gender confusion in unwary citizens.) It's not that I don't have opinions on that contentious question. It's just that they're not relevant to what I'm writing about.
In short: I'm going to show that recent legislation restricting marriage to "a man and a woman" — regardless of whether you consider that effort good, bad, or indifferent — is going to produce harmful, unintended side effects (maybe even for you, your family, your friends, and so on), exactly the opposite of what proponents intend.
I'll not be moralizing, and this isn't lobbying from the "intersex" movement or anyone else. I'm just a regular hetero guy, quietly telling you what's starting to happen, why, and how to see for yourself. OK?
Marriage Protection Meets Biology
Here's the sort of law we're talking about:
Proposition 8
Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry: Initiative Constitutional Amendment SECTION I. Title This measure shall be known and may be cited as the "California Marriage Protection Act." SECTION 2. Article I. Section 7.5 is added to the California Constitution, to read: Sec. 7.5. Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.
Now, that's simple and should have predictable, orderly results, right? I'll bet the Soil Conservation Service guys in the 1950s thought that about kudzu, too.
The biggest problem is that laws like the California initiative will make the courts decide who is male and who is female — and all available decision criteria create unavoidable miscarriages of justice that will, or should, dismay initiative proponents.
You're probably thinking, about now, that I'm going to exaggerate the sex-definitional1 problem: Probably, you and everyone you know is unambiguously male or female — or at least has always believed himself or herself to be so, and nobody's challenged that, and nobody's likely to.
That's true, absolutely: Only maybe one live birth in 100 has some non-standard sex anatomy, and genetic anomalies are slightly rarer than that. However, let's talk about those 1-in-100 or 1-in-1000 cases — because those could be you, or your aunt or uncle, or your best friend — and because our system of law has to deal with 1-in-1000 situations, too.
An illustrative example: Let's say you're an adult woman. You were always female; you never had any doubts about this. You have all the right parts and none of the wrong ones; you think of yourself as a gal. You get married. (Yes, I do mean to a man.) Somewhere down the road, your genes get tested: To your astonishment, it says you're not only not XX (double-X being the classic female chromosome pairing), but in fact XY (classic male chromosomes). Testing shows your blood to be loaded with testosterone and other classic androgens (male hormones). Ultrasound locates an undescended set of testes in your abdomen. What's going on? (Note that all women do produce androgens, normally, but at much lower levels than in men.)
What's going on is called Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS, found in both "Partial" = PAIS and "Complete" = CAIS sub-variants), where, at a critical early stage of development, because of a structural variation on your X chromosome, your cells' androgen receptors became unable (with CAIS) or poorly able (with PAIS) to respond to those hormones. The hormones were there, but had no (or much reduced) effect. Your entire subsequent development was thus into a woman. You're a gal — one with no ovaries / womb and thus infertile, and with vestigial testes somewhere inside, but every other inch a woman.
Laws like Proposition 8 might very well cause such a woman's marriage to be retroactively annulled — or prohibited in the first place. Furthermore, if the law decides that this particular citizen is male on account of the Y chromosome, testosterone, and testes, then she would be permitted to marry... guess who?... another woman. So, courtesy of Prop. 8, we are likely to suddenly have court-mandated same-sex marriages.
Let's say you're an adult male. You've always been male; you seem to have exactly the right parts, and so on. Your genes get checked one day, and they come up "XX" — the classic chromosome pair of a genetic female. Yet, you're a 230 lb. guy with facial hair who was a high school running back. What's going on?
When your mother and father's genes fused, the key part of Dad's Y chromosome (the "SRY" = Sex-determining Region Y bloc) got translocated to somewhere other than chromosome 46. Are you an XY, a genetic male? Well, no, you're not — even though you think you're a guy, you look like a guy, and so on. Your marriage might end up getting annulled, too — and you might end up being permitted to marry only men.
It turns out, those two cases — AIS and transported SRY blocs — are only the beginning of the troubles we're facing. Here's a litany of other ways people can end up biologically difficult to classify, through no fault of their own. I'll keep the jargon factor low, but you can certainly skip this list if not interested:
You're a girl with female sex organs — but, at puberty, your voice deepens and some testes descend out of your lower abdomen. (I'm steering clear of some of the more graphic details, here.) It turns out you have XY chromosomes (male), but you look like a young woman. You might or might not be fertile, but it would (if so) be as a male. This is a recessive genetic condition called "5-alpha-steroid reductase deficiency", that causes testosterone to be chemically transformed in peripheral tissues before it can have its usual effect. You're a man with all of the apparent parts, facial hair and all. One day, during unrelated abdominal surgery, doctors are surprised to find inside a full set of normal female parts (ovaries, Fallopian tubes, womb, etc.). Genetic typing shows you to be XX, but something called "Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia", starting early in life, caused your adrenal glands (near your kidneys) to induce production of an unusual mix of sex hormones, changing your entire course of post-natal development, leading you to appear, and believe yourself to be, male. You're a gal: All the gal parts. None of the others. Yet, you're XY. It turns out that, during development, you ended up short of a hormone called "Müllerian Inhibiting Factor". That factor would have let your Müllerian ducts regress and the related Wolffian duct develop, leading to more-complete and functional development of male organs, which would have given you more androgens. Its absence means you end up looking, seeming, and believing yourself female. (This pattern of early development is called "gonadal dysgenesis".)2 You're a girl — but you don't seem to be entering puberty. Genetic testing shows you're XY, although in all other respects apparently completely female. What's happened is that the sex-determining "SRY" region of the Y chromosome didn't trigger the development of testes, with resulting female development. This is called "Swyer syndrome", or "XY gonadal dysgenesis". You're a man, albeit somewhat on the tall and thin side. You and your wife are having fertility problems. You're both checked: It turns out you, the husband, have "XXY" or "XXXY" or "XXYY" chromosomes. (There's also been one reported case of "XYYY".) You might be borderline fertile (as a man), or you might be out of luck. This is called "Klinefelter's syndrome". There's also a variant "mosaic" form of Klinefelter's where some of your body's cells have XY chromosomes and others are XXY. Speaking of mosaicism: You're a male with all the fixings, but also female equivalents — and raised as a boy. You then get the worst parts of both types of puberty, with both menstruation and your voice cracking, and so on. This is an incredibly rare but documented "cellular mosaic" condition where you have some XY cells and some XX ones, the only known way of generating true (bi-fertile) hermaphrodism, which is otherwise impossible and a medical myth. (There can be diverse combinations of mosaicism: XY with XXY, XX, XXXY, and so on.) You're a man with all the normal parts. You and your wife are having fertility problems. Genetic testing shows you to be "XX", but with the sex-determining "SRY" genetic bloc also present on some non-standard chromosome, and thus producing male development anyway. You're an apparently normal man, with fertility problems. Genetic testing reveals "XX" genes, and no SRY block can be found anywhere. This "SRY-negative XX male syndrome" is observed but so far not fully understood. You're a gal. You're late entering puberty. The doctors find no womb or a partial one. Otherwise, you're an (infertile, except via surrogacy) XX woman with absolutely nothing wrong with you. The causes are not really understood, but it's called Mayer Rokitansky Küster Hauser (MRKH) syndrome. You're a gal, but your secondary sex characteristics at puberty seem underdeveloped, relatively speaking. You turn out not to be XX, but rather have a single, unpaired X chromosome (also called either "XO" or "45,X" as opposed to "46,XX") — or a second X is present but abnormal, or some single-X cells are mosaiced among XX ones. In any of those cases, you might be fertile, or maybe not, and it's called Turner (or Ullrich-Turner) syndrome. You may be unsurprised to hear that babies also sometimes end up with mixed sexual characteristics caused by fetal conditions (e.g., Mom was prescribed a progestin-based medicine such as Danazol, a testosterone-related hormone once prescribed to treat endometriosis), or for no identifiable reason. Traditionally, obstetricians tend to pick a sex and use neonatal surgery to converge the baby towards it — something more common than people realize, as nobody wants to talk about it — yet another contentious, opinion-soaked issue I'm carefully avoiding. (But, anyway, the point is: Are you sure you're not a man, or a woman, primarily because a scalpel made you that way?)
(If keeping count, please note that I've listed13 distinct, real-world, genetic/hormonal/developmental conditions raising profound sex-classification conundrums, not 11: AIS and transported SRY blocs count as the 12th and 13th.)
What's the point of all this? It's that, even if you and everyone you know falls into none of the above categories — and, honestly, how many of us know for sure? — somewhere on the order of 1 in 1000 of us do. In the USA, that's enough people to populate Minneapolis or Colorado Springs. The entire populace of a medium-sized American city could be told by some court, "No, you're not the sex you always thought you were. Go marry someone of that sex you minutely resemble, and have always believed yourself to be, but that (according to us) you aren't."
If you back laws like Proposition 8, you're trying to put all such people into exactly the situation you say you're against — pushing them into marrying the same sex. In fact, you're doing something more extreme than that: You're saying they should be permitted to marry only the same sex.
Proto-Kudzu: The Olympics
These ironies have been seen before — i.e., we really should know better — because of sex-testing's unfortunate history during the 20th Century's Olympic Games. In the years and decades following the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics, awareness grew of the strange, ultimately sad case of Dora Ratjen (1918-2008) of Bremen, who'd been a women's high-jump competitor for Germany (eliminated in the finals), and then took gold for the German Reich at the September 1938 European Athletics Championships in Vienna.
A few days later, on an express train to Cologne (Köln), Magdeburg Police Detective Sergeant Sömmering, hearing a tip about a woman passenger who was actually a man, insisted on taking Dora to the police station for questioning as to whether she were a man. There, Dora hesitated, then said she was indeed a man, albeit one legally female who'd been raised female from birth. Dora was arrested on suspicion of fraud and her gold medal confiscated. Charges were later dropped as evidence emerged that neither Dora nor any of the athletic officials had been guilty of fraudulent intent, as there was no scheme for financial gain: Dora had been raised female in part because of somewhat non-standard genital anatomy, realizing she had male traits only at puberty, but then lead a lonely life of concealment, attempting to continue the only life she'd ever known.
The 1938 train ride changed that, as she was suddenly ruled male. Dora changed her name to Heinrich Ratjen, Jr., was a working man in Hanover for some years, and then lived out a quiet life running his parents' bar in Bremen. German and international sports authorities adjusted competition records, handling the matter quietly, as the Ratjen family had requested.
Public attention to the case was therefore very low until an extremely inaccurate short piece appeared in the Sept. 16, 1966 issue of Time magazine, breaking the story to English-speaking audiences: Time's uncredited author invented out of whole cloth a subsequently oft-repeated but totally bogus moralistic |
Lo and behold the drug worked effectively against the virus and while it wasn’t a cure it was a step in the right direction. Everywhere I looked (except in that book) the one credited with the creation of this medicine was a man, not a feminist. It’s sad to see people try to steal credit from others, but then again this is the age of victimization we live in, and who is a bigger victim than those who were never given proper credit? perhaps, those who intend to steal said credit?
*** Images belong to their respective owners***
Sources:
http://web.archive.org/web/20071124113927/http://www.bikeathletic.com/History.aspx
http://web.archive.org/web/20070821141215/http://www.jockstrappedstuds.com/pages/news/jock_cup_hist.htm
http://superbeefy.com/who-invented-the-first-computer/
***Blog is copyrighted to the original writer***
http://www.nytimes.com/1986/09/20/us/a-failure-led-to-drug-against-aids.html
Advertisementsin Hardware on 2014-10-18 | comments
Update 2014-11-19: Thanks to the hackaday team for featuring my article on hackaday =-)
This blogpost shows you my recent overclocking experiments with the venerable Thinkpad 701 - a laptop from 1995 which has even made it to the MoMA collection. Why? Well, when it came out, the 701 was not only one of the first subnotebooks around, it was also the first subnotebook to feature a full-sized standard keyboard at the same time (and it still remains to be the only one btw). The engineers at IBM achieved this with an ingenious slide-mechanism which folded the keyboard together when the laptop lid was closed and they called their invention the "TrackWrite" keyboard. For its similarity with the folding of butterfly wings, the 701 became known as the Thinkpad butterfly.
Thinkpad 701 CPU specs
With the system´s original bus clock frequency set to 25 MHz, the 701 was either available with an Intel 486-DX2 which doubled this base frequency to 50 MHz, or with an Intel 486-DX4 which - against what the four in DX4 might suggest - only trippled it to 75 MHz. However, there was yet another inofficial configuration back then - the butterfly powered by a 133 MHz AM-5x86 CPU. It was a third-party modification which was offered by some specialized shops, e.g. by "Hantz & Partner" (at least according to the info from this thread). As for benchmarks, I recommend to read through the extensive X5 CPU comparisons conducted by David A. Ross on his webpage.
Mainboard details
The butterfly had two mainboards which acted as a single unit when connected together. As I have not found too much info about them I present some hardware details in the following paragraphs.
1. The bottom system board (BSB):
As seen from above:
A) TSB connector
B) OPTi 82C465 MVA, chipset controller chip (the mainboard design derives from this chip)
C) CHIPS F65545 B1, VGA controller chip
D) LC-display connectors
E) CIRRUS LOGIC CL-PD6720-QC-C, PCMCIA controller chip
F) PCMCIA connector
As seen from below:
F) PCMCIA connector
G) HDD connector
H) BIOS battery (replace it with a new one, e.g. CR2025, if you want to save your board from corroding away in the future by leaking battery acid!)
I) 8 MB onboard RAM and RAM expansion slot (the latter is for up to 64 MB, thus maximum RAM will be 64+8 -> 72 MB)
J) AVASEM AV9107-03, CPU frequency generator chip (the 14.381 MHz oscillator crystal next to it provides the reference frequency btw)
K) Flash chips, probably for BIOS: Left ALTERA EPM7032V EEPROM labelled 11H0517, right Intel E28F004BL-T150 4-MBit Low-power boot block flash memory labelled 29H1850
L) Intel 80486DX4-75 SK052, the CPU
2. The top system board (TSP):
As seen from below:
M) Coils (cold solder joints under these transformer coils - a realistic problem after almost 20 years - can cause the laptop not to power up, check them if your 701 doesn´t show any lifesign at all!)
N) BSB connector
O) ESS AudioDrive ES688F, audio controller chip
As seen from above:
P) Floppy drive connector
Q) Keyboard connectors (the smaller one is for the Trackpoint a.k.a. the red dot)
R) PC87334VJG, controller chip for IEEE1284, parallel port and IDE interface (the 24.000 MHz reference crystal lies on the other side of the board)
S) Hitachi H8/3332 microcontroller labelled 10H4142
T) YAMAHA YMF289B, OPL3 FM synthesizer chip with 33.868 MHz reference crystal
U) YAMAHA YAC516-E, DAC16-L delta sigma modulation Digital-to-analog converter
V) Hitachi H8/3332 microcontroller labelled 25H4933
W) Keyboard connector
X) LCD inverter connector
Y) Internal speaker and microphone connectors
Some research work
To reverse-engineer how to get to a working Am5x86-powered Thinkpad 701 mainboard, I started to collect every info I could find about the X5 boards and 486 CPU overclocking in general. Some things I found out:
The X5 upgrade boards on the net (e.g. on ebay) include only the BSB -> thus the TSB must be irrelevant for successfully overclocking the butterfly. -> Consequently I purchased several additional BSBs for my Thinkpad 701C to tinker with them...
The 701´s BSB holds a S mall Q uad F lat P ack-208-pin CPU -> Only a fracture of the AMD 5x86 CPU family has this 208-pin package. There were several 168-pin upgrade kits for 80486 boards back in the 1990s which presumably had these chips soldered on top, e.g. known as "Turbochip" or "Evergreen" module. The chips were mostly labelled AMD Am5x86-P75 X5-133SFZ or AMD Am5x86-P75 DX5-133V16BHC -> I acquired both versios cheap on ebay...
In the (D)X5 the system clock is multiplied - no, not with five - but with four: 25.1 MHz * 4 -> 100.4 MHz in case of the butterfly. To get the full 133.3 MHz out of it requires to raise the bus clock speed from 25.1 to 33.3 MHz: 33.3 MHz * 4 -> 133.3 MHz.
Overclocking the system bus
To raise the bus clock speed to the desired 33.3 MHz I searched for an oscillator circuit on the BSB - and I found one, a 14-pin AVASEM AV9107-03 clockspeed generator chip and a 14.318 MHz crystal next to it. According to its datasheet (thanks alldatasheet.com!) the chip uses the latter as a reference crystal to generate preprogrammed frequencies. Four pins select which CPU frequency comes out:
Pin 14 -> Frequency Select FS0
Pin 1 -> Frequency Select FS1
Pin 2 -> Frequency Select FS2
Pin 3 -> Frequency Select FS3
Here the CPU info I got from the standard Intel DX4 mainboard configuration using CHKCPU v1.24 (a simple but great tool):
The decoding table for the AVASEM chip gave the following frequency settings:
For the TP 701 standard bus: FS0=0 FS1=1 FS2=0 FS3=1 -> 25.06 MHz
This gives the desired AMx586-frequency: FS0=0 FS1=0 FS2=1 FS3=1 -> 33.29 MHz
Here the corresponding Frequency Select Pins (FSPs) on the board:
Notice something? The two grey smd resistors on the chip´s left set the corresponding FSP to "low" / zero. To get from 0101 in the photo to 0011, I simply had to put the second resistor one position lower (edit info: I had written capacitors here before which is indeed wrong - the credits go to zaprodk on hackaday for correcting me, thank you =-):
And a short test:
Okay - it worked - 100.4 Mhz. The overclocked DX4 works but gives "incorrect opcode" errors from time to time. As the original DX4 is not even intended to work on this frequency, I decided to continue with the AMx586.
AMD AMx586 CPU upgrade
The X5 is a low-power chip which uses a core voltage of 3.3 volts instead of the 5 volts used by 80486 desktop CPUs. Luckily the original DX4 is also powered by 3.3 volts and the pinout is more or less identical. This makes it unlikely that the 5x86 will get fried when used on the board.
I started with a standard non-overclocked DX4 board:
To prevent damages from excessive heat during the removal of the old chip, I wrapped the board with aluminum foil. With a stream of hot air I heated the chip up until the solder became fluid. Then I could lift the DX4 carefully up and put it away.
Afterwards, I cleaned the solder points on the board and put a fine amount of new solder to them.
Now I checked my two X5 CPUs:
The first one was an unused AM486DX5-133V16BHC made for embedded x86-based applications.
The second one was soldered to an Evergreen 168-pin module.
I removed the latter with hot air (for those interested the circuit traces under the butterfly DX4 and under the Evergreen X5):
Now I could align it on the butterfly board.
With a fine tip on my soldering iron I resoldered the pins and checked the solder joints under the microscope (this photo was taken from the AM486DX5-133V16BHC which I soldered to another board).
And finally, I had a successfully swapped CPU (here the AM486DX5-133V16BHC):
This is what the CPU identifier gave me now (the "Vendor string" has changed significantly =-):
I still had to raise the multiplier and bus clock speed. As for the latter I did it like described above.
Setting the correct clock multiplier
Again alldatasheet.com helped me on by providing a datasheet for the Am5x86 microprocessor. The tag "CLKMUL" gave me an important hint: "For 133-MHz processors, [CLKMUL] must always be connected to VSS [i.e. has to to be grounded] to ensure correct operation." - that means bridge CPU-pins 10 and 11 to get a 4.0-multiplier (I later verified this by inspecting the pins on the Evergreen module and it showed that the 4x mode was activated with a jumper which did just the same).
And another check:
Great, everything worked out as exspected. As the X5 has an internal 16K write-back cache, next step will be to get it activated.
Activating the internal write-back cache
Again, the datasheet for the Am5x86 microprocessor delivered the answer: "If the processor samples [pin 64 tagged "WB/WT"] High at RESET, the processor is configured in Write-back mode". To get it "High", I looked for the easiest way to connect pin 64 to a Vcc pin. I determined pin 62 to be the closest one and interestingly R1 - a 100k resistor located on the other side of the mainboard - already connected pin 64 to pin 62.
I thus replaced the 100k with a zero-ohm-resistor as seen on the following picture.
This final modification gave me a permanently activated write-back cache - and a Am5x85-powered Thinkpad butterfly...
greetings noq2
Update
I´m looking for a working top system board to get my second Thinkpad butterfly (a Thinkpad 701CS) repaired. It already died many years ago after the faulty hibernation battery leaked =-(
If you can sell me one for a small amount of money, please post a comment below to get into contact with me - I would really appreciate it =-)Police arrested a Florida man on first-degree murder charges Tuesday after he allegedly pocket dialed 911 and accidentally revealed his plot to murder another man.
In the phone call recorded on May 5, 24-year-old Scott Simon can reportedly be heard telling someone that he's going to follow another man home and kill him.
More from GlobalPost: Waffle House CEO accused of sex abuse
Minutes after the call was made, Nicholas Walker, 33, was shot dead while driving onto an I-95 on-ramp. His car hit a guardrail and exploded into flames, shutting down the highway for three hours.
Detectives said they believe Simon was the one to coordinate the killing, but that someone else pulled the trigger that killed Walker. Simon and Walker are said to have gotten into an argument at a Waffle House before the shooting.
Police are currently looking for two other suspects, one of who was seen with Simon in surveillance video earlier that night.A major new study of body cameras and the Washington, DC Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) that was released last month found that the wearing of body cameras had no statistically significant effect on the number of use-of-force incidents and civilian complaints recorded.
How much of a reassessment of body cameras should this study prompt?
First of all, let’s note that this study was only focused on one aspect of body camera police oversight — their deterrent effect on officers inclined to engage in abusive or unprofessional behavior — which is only one possible benefit of the technology from a civil liberties perspective. It does not have implications for other potential benefits of body cameras such as resolution of factual disputes in critical incidents or other situations where complaints have been lodged against officers, better training, better overall police transparency and accountability, and increased trust between police departments and communities. It also does not have implications for the chief downsides of police body cameras: their potential to invade privacy, their risk of being reduced to just another tool for government mass surveillance, for example through their integration with face recognition capability, and their risk of becoming a propaganda tool if the police control what footage the public is allowed to see.
Still, the finding in this study seems surprising. A big reason we are concerned about surveillance is that it changes people’s behavior. There is a wealth of social science research showing that being monitored brings chilling effects and otherwise changes behavior. When it comes to police officers, who have been given the authority to use brutal, sometimes deadly force, we think such monitoring would be helpful if it improves their behavior. That is why we have been willing to accept body cameras if they are deployed with strong policies, despite the fact that they are government cameras with a very real potential to invade privacy.
So it seems surprising that police officers would not be affected by the monitoring (via bodycams) that they are being subjected to.
There are a number of possible explanations for the finding. They include:
MPD officers are already so good that there was no room for improvement via body cameras. As our colleague Monica Hopkins-Maxwell of the ACLU of DC observes in response to this study, that is hardly the case. However, there are far more troubled police departments in the U.S. than DC’s, and it stands to reason that the more ill-trained a police force, the more benefits bodycams will bring as a deterrent to bad officer behavior.
At the other end of the spectrum, officers might not change their behavior because they feel confident they won’t face any consequences for anything they are recorded doing. As Hopkins-Maxwell points out, experts have been “surprised” to find that the U.S. Attorney in D.C. hasn’t brought a single criminal charge against an MPD officer for using lethal force.
All officers have become aware of the ubiquity of cameras, including fixed CCTV cameras as well as bystander video, dashcam video, and the body cameras that some other officers around were wearing. Although some officers wore cameras and others didn’t, even the officers without cameras felt the same restraining effect as those wearing them. The authors of the study note that fully 70 percent of all calls for service examined in the study had at least one bodycam-wearing officer at the scene. If one officer had a bodycam and a control group officer didn’t, that one bodycam likely had an effect on both officers’ behavior. Officer awareness that the study was underway could have also contributed to a general atmosphere among officers of being under scrutiny, even among those without cameras.
It’s also possible that body cameras could have a strong deterrent effect in certain situations, but that those situations are too rare to show up in the statistics. Perhaps most police encounters happen in places where other people are or could be watching, and so officers’ general awareness that everyone carries a video camera restrains their behavior. But there could be very rare situations where a) an officer is alone with a civilian, b) is tempted to engage in abuse, and c) where only the presence of the body camera restrains that officer. If that were the case, the cameras would be providing a benefit that simply can’t be picked up in the statistical analysis.
In the end, we just don’t know the answers now. It is possible that further studies will shed more light. But at the end of the day, when it comes to assessing the costs and benefits of police body cameras, the most significant factor in the overall analysis remains whether cameras are deployed with a good policy framework to maximize their role as an oversight and community trust-building tool, and minimize their potential privacy invasiveness. Although frequently mischaracterized, we at the national ACLU have always been careful never to endorse body cameras in the sense of saying, “we think every police officer in America should be wearing one.” What we have consistently said is, “IF you as a community decide you want the oversight the cameras can bring despite their downsides for privacy, we think the cameras are okay if deployed with good policies in place.”
One final point: there is a real tendency for policymakers’ conventional wisdom to lurch from certitude to certitude based on the results of the latest study. For several years, conventional wisdom among body camera-watchers was that the technology would have dramatic effects, a view that derived largely from a single small study conducted in Rialto, California. That study (as we have been saying for several years) should not have been given the weight it was. This study is much larger and more rigorous, but neither should it be regarded as definitive. Even in physics, the findings of an experiment have to be repeated numerous times before it is generally accepted as true. When it comes to the incredibly complex and hard-to-study subject of techno-human systems such as body cameras, that should be true many times over.
In the final analysis, the police body camera debate should largely be focused on whether the benefits body cameras can bring for police transparency and accountability justify their costs, including their risks to privacy, and what laws and policies can be put in place to maximize the cameras’ benefits while minimizing their drawbacks. If body cameras help to reduce the occurrence of abuse, that would be a major benefit, but it would still be just one such benefit.by
Readers with a morbid sense of curiosity can visit a web site called NukeMap that allows visitors to witness the devastation caused by nuclear weapons of varying yields on a city of their choosing[i]. Herman Kahn, who was an armchair theorist from RAND during the Cold War, insisted that nuclear war was winnable[ii]. But a few hours with NukeMap will disprove Kahn’s folly and the baleful smiley face that he tried to slap over human extinction.
Against this backdrop it’s no wonder that recent developments in the Ukraine have been known to cause night terrors. Your author can vouch for this. Last week there was an earthquake in the Bay Area and at the outset I woke up mistaking it for a shock wave from sub-megaton warhead hitting Silicon Valley.
One could posit that what’s happening in Eastern Europe offers a look-see into the nature of the groups that are calling the shots in the United States. Do they care that their destabilization program in Ukraine provokes a nuclear-armed country or enables neo-Nazis to assume vital positions in government[iii]? So far almost 2,600 civilians have been killed in the ongoing humanitarian crisis[iv]. While the corporate press does its best to create the impression of a “shining city upon a hill” which aims to “spread democracy” and conduct “humanitarian intervention[v],” a different sort of world power is clearly visible to those who look carefully.
The appalling savagery of radical groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) reflects the appalling savagery of American military incursions[vi]. Or perhaps the collective consciousness of the United States has already forgotten over hundreds thousand dead Iraqi civilians [vii] and the long trail of drone induced “bug-splats[viii].” Ruthless men like Genghis Khan didn’t vanish into history books. Oh no, they’re still around. Some of them are right here in the good old U.S.A. It’s just that they’ve replaced scepters with hand-tailored suits and have traded thrones for seats on corporate boards.
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
Such men often go unnoticed because they tend to exercise power discreetly, standing behind a veil of propaganda[ix]. For instance Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Steve Coll has called ExxonMobil an “invisible company” thanks to a disciplined and well-funded public relations division[x]. This underscores the fact that the narratives put forth by the press are under the influence of an extensive subversion apparatus that CIA officer Frank Wisner referred to as the Mighty Wurlitzer[xi]. Powerful groups build consensus behind closed doors and then, as Chomsky and Herman explain, coax the rest of society along by manufacturing consent[xii]. Thus enabling what’s known as democratic elitism.
Despite all the filtering that occurs, readers will still, occasionally, get a glimpse of politicians dutifully lining up to kiss the boots of plutocrats[xiii]. Political leaders like Barack Obama and George W. Bush are merely hired help, useful lightning rods who draw our attention away from the men working the levers of power in Washington D.C.
Pluralists contend that we, the voters, own these levers. Published research says otherwise.
Who Are Those Guys?
So just who are the “deciders”? American philosopher John Dewey answered this question in one crisp sentence[xiv]: “Politics is the shadow cast on society by big business.”
A number of sociologists have arrived at the same basic conclusion. For example, back in the 1950s a professor at Columbia named C. Wright Mills described national policy decisions as being forged by a small group of power elite who were bound together by shared class interests. The work of contemporary sociologists like G. William Domhoff[xv] and Peter Phillips[xvi] further substantiate the conclusions of Mills.
It’s alleged that when Franklin D. Roosevelt was in office told labor activists “I agree with you, now go out and make me do it.” Which, if true, is a reminder that most politicians could care less about genuine social justice and are far more concerned about doing whatever it takes to stay in office.
A natural corollary of this is that lawmakers respond to those groups which are capable of rewarding and punishing them. This is in line with the Investment Theory of Party Competition, a model devised by political scientist Thomas Ferguson. Ferguson’s theory describes the political process as being dominated by corporate interests which coalesce into factions and compete to guide policy. A couple of researchers, Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page, have published a paper that offers quantitative validation of Ferguson’s model concluding that[xvii]:
“Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.”
Note the mention of “organized groups” in the previous excerpt. Although political mobilization is typically associated with unions and social movements, Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson explain in their book Winner Take All Politics that corporations have used similar collective strategies to coordinate their efforts and instrument policy changes. The media likes to portray political contests as one individual versus another (as American culture is rooted in the myth of rugged individualism) but it’s more accurate to view political struggle as a form of conflict between organizations. A billionaire like George Soros isn’t just a lone citizen, he represents a small army of people.
Let’s take a look at some of these corporate sets.
Corporate Emperors: The Banks
The late Michael Ruppert once stated that “The CIA is Wall Street. Wall Street is the CIA[xviii].” There’s definitely something to this as the figures responsible for creating the CIA, men like Allen Dulles and John Foster Dulles, were heavily linked to Wall Street[xix]. This is only logical as the global nature of espionage during World War II required people who were steeped in the nuances of international law and trade. Both Allen and John Foster were partners in Sullivan and Cromwell, a Wall Street law firm that remains one of the most profitable legal practices in the world.
Is it any surprise that both subcultures ─spies and bankers─ exhibit indications of being above the law? For example, the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper perjured himself on camera with little or no fallout[xx]. The Director of the CIA outright lied about monitoring the Senate Intelligence Committee and in return received the full backing of POTUS[xxi].
Spies by virtue of their work break laws in other countries on a regular basis. Some intelligence officers become rather adept at it. It would be naïve to think that agencies like the CIA, answering only to the President and shielded by official secrecy, might be tempted to take shortcuts with the legal system here in the United States. Journalist Gary Webb, who investigated the CIA’s connection to drug smuggling, arrived at this conclusion. He committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. Twice[xxii].
Likewise Bank of America was recently fined over $16 billion for mortgage fraud and the company’s stock price jumped 4 percent[xxiii]. The CEO of JPMorgan presided over various scams that resulted in $20 billion worth of fines and, for his trouble, he was awarded a 74 percent raise[xxiv]. No one outside of a few sacrificial lambs like Bernie Madoff is serving jail time. Hunter S. Thompson disciple Matt Taibbi points out the obvious: rule of law has broken down[xxv]:
“In the case of a company like HSBC, which admitted to laundering $850 million for a pair of Central and South American drug cartels, somebody has to go to jail in that case. If you’re going to put people in jail for having a joint in their pocket or for slinging dime bags on the corner in a city street, you cannot let people who laundered $800 million for the worst drug offenders in the world walk.”
In addition to their role in the origins of U.S. intelligence, large financial institutions maintain a special position in the power structure because they’re the primary architects of the West’s economic model, driven by an ideological vision of open markets and accessible resources. As custodians of the world’s reserve currency they work diligently to realize this vision. Bankers have demonstrated the ability to shape history and spur military engagement[xxvi]. When push comes to shove, as we saw during the 2008 financial crisis, they can hold entire economies hostage[xxvii].
This isn’t necessarily surprising given the amount of assets that they have at their disposal. For instance, Richard Fisher of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank has reported that 12 American megabanks control something on the order of 70% of the American banking industry’s assets[xxviii]. Or consider the investment management company BlackRock which holds over $3 trillion in assets[xxix]. This figure is on par with the 2013 U.S. Federal Budget.
Corporate Emperors: Other Sectors
Rivaling the banks are the fossil fuel companies. For example oil monolith ExxonMobil, a corporate descendant of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, brings in annual revenue on the order of half a trillion dollars.[xxx] Thus making ExxonMobil roughly as big as the economy of Poland.
Over the past two decades the company has spent more than $200 million lobbying on the D.C. beltway[xxxi]. Modern society runs on oil and this translates into a mountain of money and a comparable level of influence. Like the bankers[xxxii], the executives of the fossil fuel industry has the resources to reward those politicians who attend to their needs[xxxiii].
Finally there’s the defense industry and its hi-tech offshoots. This is a sector of the economy that has held sway since the end of World War II, when Charles Wilson, then the president of General Electric, promoted the idea of a permanent war economy[xxxiv]. Not only does the defense industry arm and equip the most powerful military on the planet, whose budget for 2014 is over $500 billion[xxxv], but it also dominates the international arms market. In 2012 the New York Times reported that United States weapons exports were more than 75% of the global market[xxxvi].
Defense companies in the United States sell heavy weaponry to repressive governments in Saudi Arabia[xxxvii], Egypt[xxxviii], and Israel[xxxix]. Business is thriving, enough so that taken in aggregate defense contractors like Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon form a prevalent lobbying force in Washington.
Think of it this way, these are businesses that manufacture the weapons which can level cities. Defense companies are intimately connected to people who wield such weapons both in the government and in the mercenary outfits of the private sector. The defense industry embodies the primeval archetype of unencumbered raw violence, the tip of the imperial spear, the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about as he left office. No one crosses these executives, not even allegedly progressive political candidates who promise “change.”
An Elite Backdoor: The Deep State
How is it that influential corporate factions, with no constitutional authority whatsoever, are able to exercise state power? Congressional staff member Mike Lofgren claims that the corporate elite go through a Deep State[xl]. An extension of the visible state that resides below the surface of the body politic.
The derin devlet, or “deep state”, was a term coined in Turkey to describe a shadow government that existed as an outgrowth of covert operations launched during World War II. It consisted of government officials, spies, and organized crime elements[xli]. The Turkish Deep State served as a means to quash countervailing power centers that threatened the established secular order.
The ongoing instability in Egypt has also revealed the presence of a deep state in that country[xlii]. Powerful interests anchored in the nation’s military and security services have aggressively attacked anyone and anything that represents a threat, as a court ruling which sentenced hundreds of people to execution for the death of a single police officer demonstrates[xliii].
Like Turkey and Egypt, Ukraine also has a deep state. The New York Times describes it as being choreographed by a league of oligarchs[xliv]:
“The ultra-wealthy industrialists wield such power in Ukraine that they form what amounts to a shadow government, with empires of steel and coal, telecoms and media, and armies of workers.”
It’s interesting that although the New York Times openly refers to oligarchs in Ukraine in its headlines, the editors are far more demure in terms of how they refer to the ruling class here in the United States.
The American Deep State, or what Colonel Fletcher Prouty called the Secret Team, is a structural layer of political intermediaries: non-governmental organizations (e.g. National Endowment for Democracy, Ford Foundation), lobbyists (e.g. Chamber of Commerce, AIPAC), media outlets (e.g. Time Warner, News Corp), dark money pits (e.g. Freedom Partners, NRA), and private sector contractors (e.g. Booz Allen, SAIC) that interface with official government organs (CIA, Department of Defense)[xlv]. This layer establishes a series of informal, often secret, backchannels and revolving doors through which profound sources of wealth and power outside of government can purchase influence.
As in Turkey, Egypt, and Ukraine, the American Deep State is a fundamentally anti-democratic apparatus that caters to the agenda of heavily entrenched elites. CIA Officer John Stockwell explains what ties the Deep State together[xlvi]:
“The CIA and the big corporations were, in my experience, in step with each other. Later I realized that they may argue about details of strategy – a small war here or there. However, both are vigorously committed to supporting the system. Corporate leaders fight amongst themselves like people in any human endeavor. They raid and hostilely take over each other’s companies. Losers have been known to commit suicide. However, they firmly believe in the capitalist system”
WAR IS PEACE
Looking back at the past two decades, U.S. intervention in the Middle East has failed to “spread democracy” or win the “war on terror.” It has only succeeded in creating more instability, more conflict, and more enemies[xlvii]. After spending $25 billion to equip and train Iraqi security forces[xlviii], our military ends up bombing its own equipment[xlix] to fend off CIA-armed jihadist forces[l] in anticipation of providing even more military aid to the Kurds[li].
One thing is certain: the Middle East is awash with armaments supplied by the United States.
There are those who would argue that this incongruous state of affairs is intentional, that stated claims about WMDs and nurturing democracy are a mere pretext for a more ominous stratagem. More than a decade ago John Stockwell presciently pointed out an unsettling logic, an instance of Hegelian Dialectic where the ruling class creates its own enemies to feed off of the ensuing carnage[lii]:
“Enemies are necessary for the wheels of the U.S. military machine to turn. If the world were peaceful, we would never put up with this kind of ruinous expenditure on arms at the cost of our own lives. This is where the thousands of CIA destabilizations begin to make a macabre kind of economic sense. They function to kill people who never were our enemies-that’s not the problem-but to leave behind, for each one of the dead, perhaps five loved ones who are now traumatically conditioned to violence and hostility toward the United States. This insures that the world will continue to be a violent place, populates with contras and Cuban exiles and armies in Southeast Asia, justifying the endless, profitable production of arms to ‘defend’ ourselves in such a violent world”
The defense industry thrives from regional conflicts like this, a constant stream of flash points in America’s self-perpetuating campaign to eradicate terrorism. The cost for the U.S. military campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan reaches into trillions of dollars and much of that funding ends up covering military expenses[liii]. About a year ago, back when President Obama announced he was thinking about bombing the Assad regime, Raytheon’s stock jumped[liv].
And the defense executives aren’t alone, the fossil fuel industry also extracts its pound of flesh[lv]. It’s the failed state model for neocolonialism[lvi]. Non-nuclear countries that have been ravaged by war are more susceptible to opening their doors and yielding nationalized resources on behalf of corporate pressure. Before the United States invaded Iraq its oil wells weren’t accessible to outside firms. After the invasion Western oil interests like Shell, BP, and ExxonMobil have all gained entry to one of the world’s largest sources of oil[lvii]. In March of 2014, the Wall Street Journal reported that Iraq’s oil output was at its highest point in more than 30 years[lviii].
SLAVERY IS FREEDOM
As perennial conflict abroad is leveraged as a tool of empire, at home it leads to repression. The late Chalmers Johnson, who studied this phenomenon as a professor at UC San Diego, characterized this with the adage “Either give up your empire, or live under it.”
With the public exposure of the NSA’s global surveillance apparatus there are intimations that this process is already underway. In 2005 there were revelations of warrantless wiretapping under President George W. Bush[lix], a story that the New York Times sat on for months[lx]. Then a slew of NSA whistleblowers like Russell Tice[lxi], Thomas Drake[lxii] and William Binney[lxiii] publicly came forward with allegations that the NSA’s monitoring programs were unconstitutional. And in May of 2013 the other shoe dropped when a Booz Allen contractor named Ed Snowden handed over a large set of classified documents[lxiv] to journalists in Hong Kong.
The purpose of the NSA’s panopticon is to further the interests of the corporate elite. In an open letter to Brazil Ed Snowden clearly states as much[lxv]:
“These programs were never about terrorism: they’re about economic spying, social control, and diplomatic manipulation. They’re about power.”
Yet it’s important to keep in mind that the origins of the emerging police state can be traced much farther back[lxvi]. For example, in the late 1960s the Department of Defense conceived Civil Disturbance Plan 55-2, code named Operation Garden Plot, which included “plans to undercut riots and demonstrations” using “information gathered through political espionage and informants.[lxvii]”
In 1971 an instructor for the U.S. Army, a man named Christopher Pyle, revealed that the military had been tracking civilian political activists and demonstrations for several years. A few years later in 1974 Seymour Hersh, writing for the New York Times, exposed a CIA program called CHAOS (aka MCHAOS) which targeted antiwar activists in the United States[lxviii].
Though the trend of militarization is hard to dismiss[lxix], how exactly does military action overseas incite civilian persecution within our borders? George Orwell in his timeless book 1984 provides a succinct explanation:
“War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent.”
American society cannot endure perpetual war and maintain a healthy middle class. Especially when plutocrats[lxx] and executives[lxxi] do everything in their power to avoid[lxxii] paying taxes[lxxiii]. The decree of maximizing profit requires |
Orthodox neighborhoods. On January 1, hundreds of men and women boarded buses to protest the segregation of public buses.
h/t to Luci Capeleanu for posting on my Facebook page!Dolores R. sent in a cartoon by rampaige. It seems unlikely that a man would randomly criticize a woman in a scoop neck t-shirt for the existence of her breasts, but it happens more often than you think.
I’m a bit busty, and a girl, and strangers have occasionally given me “advice” about my breasts. Once I was told by a man I had just been introduced to that I shouldn’t wear sweaters. Stumped — and living in Wisconsin — I asked why. He explained that sweaters have “pile,” by which he meant that the fabric was thick. The thickness of the fabric, he said, made my boobs look even bigger. Since that was a bad thing, apparently, he advised me to avoid sweaters. Weird, I know. But I’m just saying, this stuff happens.Could you imagine leaving your home so that you can be out? I imagine a lot of us can. Diaspora is simply part of the LGBT experience in this country. People leave rural areas for cosmopolitan areas with more protections. People leave their families to create new more accepting families. Movement to a better life is something we know all to well.
For some of our LGBT brothers and sisters, diaspora is the only way to survive as an out LGBT person. Without moving from our homes, some of us face the ultimate consequence -- death. This is especially true for Iranians.
A few brave Iranians are speaking out about life beyond their oppressive native boarders and their hopes for a better future.
Check out this report from Voice of America:
Have you ever left your home to be safer? Share your story in the comments.There is something unexpected going on at one of the country’s oddest football clubs.
Oxford United – once owned by Robert Maxwell, located in a three-sided carbuncle of a stadium – are playing some of the best football around. Embarked on the longest unbeaten run in all four divisions, their flexible, fluid passing game will be showcased this lunchtime on live television when they travel to Bristol Rovers. And the club manager is convinced viewers will be pleased. “You can’t guarantee a result,” Michael Appleton said. “We’re trying to guarantee a performance that’s enjoyable to watch.”
That Appleton is in charge is another eye-opening facet of the Oxford revolution. After all, his is not the most stable of managerial CVs. He had walked out on Portsmouth to take charge of Blackpool, spent but two months on the Lancashire coast before accepting a job at Blackburn at the height of the Venky madness, from which, despite winning an FA Cup tie at the Emirates Stadium - almost three years on, they remain the last side to beat Arsenal in the competition - he was fired after just 67 days.
“No, I always thought there would be opportunity,” he says when asked if he feared he might never work again. “Though I must admit being sacked by letter by someone you’ve never actually met was a little tough to take.”
The mailed defenestration by Blackburn’s absentee owners turned out to be but a temporary setback for someone who has long been reckoned as one of the sharpest young English coaches.
A competitive midfield enforcer, a product of the Manchester United academy (he is a year younger than the Class of ’92) he was obliged to retire after sustaining a knee injury playing for West Bromwich Albion. He coached at the West Brom academy for six years before being promoted to be Roberto Di Matteo’s assistant. When the Italian left, he remained as Roy Hodgson’s No 2.
“The year I worked with Roy I learned so much,” he says of the England manager. “The attention to detail, the organisation side, he was excellent.” The respect seems to be mutual: Hodgson recommended Appleton be absorbed into the Football Association coaching system after he was sacked by Blackburn.
“I did some opposition scouting for Roy, did some work on the training ground, thought about it,” he says of the job offer. “But I wanted to get back working with players every day.”
He arrived in Oxford in the summer of 2014, brought in by the club’s new owner, the former Marussia Formula One boss Daryl Eales. “Michael is highly regarded in the game as a forward thinker and an intelligent human being,” Eales says.
Appleton’s brief was simple when he took over: get Oxford playing an attractive, progressive game, one which might enthuse a sizeable potential local audience who had grown weary of a decade of kick and rush. And might then provide a sustainable methodology to take the club further up the divisions. Which went against the conventional wisdom that insists the only way to get out of League Two is to hoof it forward.
“Oh yeah, at first I heard that all the time, in the dressing room as much as anywhere,” Appleton says. “All I got was ‘you can’t play that way in this division.’ I’d hear a moan in the crowd at a sideways pass. But however much I’d disagree with that, last year I was trying to change the ethos and the players we had weren’t good enough to do it. I was putting a noose to my neck, saying this is how we should play and then not being able to deliver.”
After a miserable 5-1 defeat at Cambridge the last time Oxford were live on television, Appleton went to work. He used 25 per cent of his playing budget to pay off half a dozen players. A total of 32 left or joined in his first year. But gradually he has managed to change things. An unbeaten run at the end of last season has continued into this.
“You need the environment to be right. You need a philosophy as to how you’re going to play and most of all you need the right people,” he says. “When I arrived, I thought there were a lot of poor personalities here. Part of our recruitment drive was to get people who bought into what we’re trying to do. We’re getting there now.”
A stickler for detail, Appleton has introduced all sorts of changes, from reducing the size of the home pitch, through decorating the tunnel entrance with pictures of former local heroes to installing an analysis room at the training ground.
“We might be League Two, but that doesn’t mean we can’t work like a Premier League side. We’ve now got a group of players who don’t dash home after training. They’ll stay on in the gym, or work on their skills, or they’ll be on the computers in the analysis room checking on the opposition.”
The revolution appears to be working. “A lot of fans are telling me they haven’t seen football as good as this at Oxford for 15 years. It’s nice to hear. But ultimately you’ve got to win games as well.”
And if he manages that, the club might soon be obliged to build a fourth stand to accommodate the growing interest.moskonia Profile Joined January 2011 Israel 1448 Posts Last Edited: 2014-01-11 18:43:50 #1
Hello Dwellers of Team Liquid, since you cannot edit old threads I bring a new thread for
What makes my Spine Crawler rush unique? Well while the normal Spine rush consists of a single Spine Crawler built on the edge of the opponent's creep, the MSR goes straight to the face, no trickery! The rush consists of a Spine Crawler behind the mineral line, and that Spine Crawler is protected by other buildings (mainly Evolution Chambers)
The build:
Make a Spawning Pool on 9 supply.
Build a drone, then stop making workers.
Send 3 drones about when the Spawning Pool is started.
When you reach the enemy base build the 1-2 Spines and 1-2 Evolution Chambers, depends on the map (see below).
Followup with lings.
Win.
*On frost you will need to send 2 workers to scout about 40 seconds before the pool starts, so that you can start the rush on time.
Sadly the MSR is too powerful to have on all maps, so on maps it doesn't work on you will need to use other means for victory.
In the current map pool 4 maps are worthy, Frost, Heavy Rain, Habitation Station, and Daedalus Point.
Building placements:
It is very important to memorize the building placements, a small mistake will cost you the game. Screenshots were taken in games versus the AI
Heavy Rain:
Note: one worker can attack the spine, but it cannot kill it before it morphs.
Habitation Station:
Daedalus Point:
Frost:
Note: the Spine Crawler can only hit part of the mineral line, thus the lings are necessary to finish the game.
Comment versus hatch first:
If the opponent goes for Hatch first then you're in luck since a 9pool is the hard counter to a hatch first, you can spawn 6 lings and a spine or 2 if you want, or got for the regular rush and count on the slightly later lings to clean the natural when the drones transfer to it.
There are no up-to-date replays, but you can view them at the old thread that was linked at the top. Will update when there will be. This build won me many games in WoL and I see no reason why it shouldn't work in HotS as well
*Credit to Existor for the the banner Hello Dwellers of Team Liquid, since you cannot edit old threads I bring a new thread for the glorious MSR. This guide is for ZvZ only and is the equivalent of a boss cannon rush like the one commonly used on Daybreak.What makes my Spine Crawler rush unique? Well while the normal Spine rush consists of a single Spine Crawler built on the edge of the opponent's creep, the MSR goes straight to the face, no trickery! The rush consists of a Spine Crawler behind the mineral line, and that Spine Crawler is protected by other buildings (mainly Evolution Chambers)Make a Spawning Pool on 9 supply.Build a drone, then stop making workers.Send 3 drones about when the Spawning Pool is started.When you reach the enemy base build the 1-2 Spines and 1-2 Evolution Chambers, depends on the map (see below).Followup with lings.Win.Sadly the MSR is too powerful to have on all maps, so on maps it doesn't work on you will need to use other means for victory.In the current map pool 4 maps are worthy, Frost, Heavy Rain, Habitation Station, and Daedalus Point.It is very important to memorize the building placements, a small mistake will cost you the game. Screenshots were taken in games versus the AINote: one worker can attack the spine, but it cannot kill it before it morphs.Note: the Spine Crawler can only hit part of the mineral line, thus the lings are necessary to finish the game.If the opponent goes for Hatch first then you're in luck since a 9pool is the hard counter to a hatch first, you can spawn 6 lings and a spine or 2 if you want, or got for the regular rush and count on the slightly later lings to clean the natural when the drones transfer to it.There are no up-to-date replays, but you can view them at the old thread that was linked at the top. Will update when there will be. This build won me many games in WoL and I see no reason why it shouldn't work in HotS as wellDavid Price has 217 million reasons to smile after agreeing to a seven-year deal with the Boston Red Sox on Tuesday. (Photo11: Kim Klement, USA TODAY Sports)
David Price teed off Tuesday morning at a charity golf tournament in Las Vegas believing he would be spending the next seven years pitching for the St. Louis Cardinals.
By the time he left the event hosted by former major leaguer Wally Joyner, Price had agreed to become a member of the Boston Red Sox with a deal that will make him the richest pitcher in history.
Price has agreed to a seven-year, $217 million contract with the Red Sox, a person directly involved in the negotiations told USA TODAY Sports. The person spoke on condition of anonymity since the deal won’t become official until Price passes a physical Thursday evening. Price is expected to be introduced at a press conference on Friday in Boston.
The contract, which was first reported by the Boston Globe, includes no deferred money, with an opt-out clause after the 2018 season. Price will be paid $30 million a year for the first three seasons, and will then receive annual salaries of $31 million in 2019, and $32 million from 2020 through 2022.
Price, one of top pitchers on the market with Zack Greinke, was ready to sign with the Cardinals, but then the final push began.
The Red Sox were also in negotiations with Greinke, according to a high-ranking team official who asked not to be identified due the sensitive nature of negotiations.
Greinke’s representative, Casey Close, told Red Sox president Dave Dombrowski that he wanted an answer by Tuesday night on whether the team would agree to Greinke's contract proposal. Greinke is also being courted by the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants.
Dombrowski, wanting to make sure that he would land one of the two pitchers, then went to Price's agent, Bo McKinnis, early Tuesday with an increased offer and said the Red Sox needed a decision from Price by Tuesday night.
The Cardinals were also in the hunt for Price, and offered him the richest contract in franchise history, a seven-year deal worth at least $30 million less than the Red Sox's offer. And the Chicago Cubs met with Price but never made a formal offer, according to the person directly involved in the negotiations.
Price’s deal, which is $2 million more than the Dodgers gave ace Clayton Kershaw in January 2014, easily dwarfs the largest deal for a pitcher in Red Sox history. The highest previous contract was a four-year, $82.5 million extension given to Rick Porcello in April.
Price, 18-5 with a 2.45 ERA last season, who finished second to Dallas Keuchel of the Houston Astros in the AL Cy Young voting, certainly has the credentials to be the highest-paid pitcher. He is a five-time All-Star and 2012 Cy Young winner, who has thrown 1,299⅓ innings the past six seasons, the fourth most in baseball. He joins a rotation that yielded a 4.39 ERA last season, the third highest in the AL.
Price, in reaching the deal, rejoins Dombrowski, who was president of the Detroit Tigers until he was fired in August. Dombrowski traded for Price from Tampa Bay in July 2014 and, in one of his his final moves with the Tigers, traded away Price to the Toronto Blue Jays a year later.
Price, a native of Murfreesboro, Tenn., was enamored with joining the Cardinals, who have reached the postseason the last five seasons, with two pennants and a World Series title. Yet, the Red Sox’s offer simply was too strong for him to refuse.
Now, unless he opts out of his contract or is traded, Price has a chance to become the first starting pitcher to spend his entire career in the American League in the DH era and reach the Hall of Fame.
And if he opts out, well, the Cardinals and Cubs will be there waiting again.
GALLERY: TOP FREE AGENTSWindows Update's automatic reboot can be one of the most annoying "features" in Microsoft operating systems. While it's a bit less pushy with Windows Vista and 7, allowing users to postpone the restart for up to four hours, you may not be at the computer to intercept the first or subsequent notifications.
In many cases this isn't a major deal. However, it can be frustrating if you step away from a work session and come back to a freshly rebooted system. You might also be downloading a large file or letting a lengthy operation run while away from your PC, expecting it to be finished upon return.
Fortunately there are various workarounds available. Today we will mention a few that have been tested to work in XP, Vista and Windows 7 systems.
Temporary Workarounds
The methods below will disable the nagging reminders after Windows Update runs by stopping the associated service. They are only temporary solutions because Windows will automatically start the service again when you reboot, which means you might be faced with the same problem the next time Windows updates are installed. In other words, this is your one-time off solution.
Windows XP: Open Start > Run and enter the following command: net stop "automatic updates" OR sc stop wuauserv. You can also suspend the process with PsSuspend and the command pssuspend wuauclt.
Windows Vista/7: Open Start and search for cmd. Right click on the found program and click Run as administrator. Enter the command net stop "windows update" and you're good to go. Likewise, you can suspend the process with PsSuspend and the command pssuspend wuauclt.
Permanent Fix
Unfortunately most of the everlasting system tweaks out there are unavailable to "Home" users -- that includes even Home Premium versions as these lack the group policy editor and a few other "advanced" Windows features. However, the third party application Shutdown Guard works well, and even prevents other applications from rebooting your PC.
For users of Professional, Ultimate and other upper-tier versions of Windows, you can adjust a few things in your group policy settings or system registry:
Windows XP: Start > Run > enter gpedit.msc. Navigate to Local Computer Policy > Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Update. Double click "No auto-restart for scheduled Automatic Updates installation," then choose Enabled and click OK.
Windows Vista/7: Start > search for gpedit.msc. Navigate to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Update and enable "No auto-restart for scheduled Automatic Updates installations".
All non-Home users can apply the same policy change by adding a new key to the registry. Go to Start > Run/Search for regedit. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SOFTWARE Policies Microsoft Windows WindowsUpdate AU. Create a new 32-bit DWORD value named NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers and give it a value of 1. You can also download and double click on this registry key to add the key automatically.
Did you know?
Keeping your operating system up to date is vital to having a malware-free computer. But even with Windows fully patched, any of your installed applications can be a potential point of entry for attackers should you forget to grab the latest version available. Utilities such as Secunia's PSI can provide an extra layer of protection by scanning your computer for installed software, and then warning you of potentially unsafe applications that have available updates.
Previous Tech TipsSome employers are taking a tougher stance against workers’ drug use since recreational marijuana became legal in Colorado, according to a new workplace survey.
One in five Colorado employers reported that they have implemented more stringent drug-testing policies in the wake of passage of Amendment 64 in 2012.
Only 2 percent of responding companies said they have relaxed their testing for marijuana; 71 percent reported no changes in screening since legalization.
The survey, by Denver-based Mountain States Employers Council, queried 1,648 members of the organization. Responses were sent by 334 companies.
“There seems to be a movement toward more testing,” said Curtis Graves, a staff attorney with the employers group. “A lot of people are freaked out” about the prospects of employees’ legal marijuana use.
Graves said increased testing may be a result of several factors, including aggressive marketing to Colorado employers by drug-test vendors and a campaign to make companies aware that costs for workers’ compensation are lower for businesses that test.
Advocates for legal marijuana say it should be treated the same as alcohol, with no workplace sanctions if employees consume it responsibly off the job.
Despite marijuana’s legal status in Colorado, courts have ruled that employers have the right to fire workers for using pot, even off-duty.
In a split decision last year, the Colorado Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal of a Dish Network employee who admitted he used medical marijuana off the job but said he was never impaired at work.
The court said Colorado’s Lawful Off-Duty Activities Statute, which protects workers from being fired for engaging in legal acts, did not apply because of marijuana’s illegal status under federal law. That decision is under appeal to the Colorado Supreme Court.
Fairfield & Woods employment law attorney Michelle Magruder
said the appeals-court ruling gave assurance to employers that their drug-testing policies are valid and enforceable. She said that may be reflected in the survey results indicating a more stringent testing approach.
The court case showed employers that “it’s OK to continue your policies on drugs and alcohol, and to implement drug-free workplaces,” Magruder said.
Among other findings of the Mountain States Employers Council survey:
• 77 percent of respondents said they test for drugs either in pre-employment screenings or during employment.
• Of those that test, 97 percent screen for marijuana and cocaine, 96 percent for opiates and 95 percent for amphetamines. Seven percent test for alcohol.
• 53 percent of testing employers said they would fire a worker for a first-time positive test for marijuana, and 12 percent would allow an employee to return under probationary conditions.
Mason Tvert, of the pro-legalization advocacy group Marijuana Policy Project, said the survey had suspect methodology that produced biased results.
He said the 20 percent response rate to the survey was “abysmal,” and noted that members of the Mountain States Employers Council are more inclined to have stringent testing policies than employers in general.
“The people most likely to respond to something like this are the ones that are far more likely to conduct testing in the first place,” he said. “I don’t think there should be a conclusion that businesses are cracking down more, based on a survey that has flawed methodology.”
Graves, of the employers council, agreed that the group’s membership is highly focused on workplace issues and may be predisposed toward drug testing.
Marijuana Industry Group executive director Michael Elliott said employers “continue to have the power to have any marijuana policy they want, including zero tolerance.
“Coloradans can be fired from their jobs for failing a drug test, even if the drug test reveals only trace amounts of marijuana that could have been consumed in a legal place outside of the workplace,” he said. “The question remains whether employers are justified in having that much control over the private lives of their employees.”
Steve Raabe: 303-954-1948, sraabe@denverpost.com or twitter.com/steveraabedpEvent in the Christian faith, Gospel episode represented in the cycle of the Passion of Christ
The resurrection of Jesus or resurrection of Christ is a central doctrine in Christianity. According to the New Testament, after being crucified by the Roman authorities and buried by Joseph of Arimathea, Jesus was raised from the dead by God and appeared to witnesses before ascending into heaven to sit at the right hand of God.
Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus on Easter Sunday, two days after Good Friday, the day of his crucifixion. Easter's date corresponds roughly with Passover, the Jewish observance associated with the Exodus, that is fixed for the night of the full moon near the time of the spring equinox.[1]
Paul the Apostle declared that "Christ died for our sins" and that belief in both the death and resurrection of Christ is of central importance to the Christian faith: "And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain."[2]
Background [ edit ]
Belief in a bodily resurrection of the dead became well established within some segments of Jewish society in the centuries leading up to the time of Christ, as recorded by Daniel 12:2, from the mid-2nd century BC: "Many of those sleeping in the dust shall awaken, some to everlasting life, and some to everlasting peril". Josephus (1st century AD) gives the following outline: The Pharisees believed in resurrection of the dead, and the Sadducees did not.[3] The Sadducees, politically powerful religious leaders, rejected the afterlife, angels, and demons as well as the Pharisees' oral law. The Pharisees, whose views became Rabbinic Judaism, eventually won (or at least survived) this debate. The promise of a future resurrection appears in the Torah as well as in certain Jewish works, such as the Life of Adam and Eve, c 100 BC, and the Pharisaic book 2 Maccabees, c 124 BC.[4]
The resurrection is mentioned in several locations in the Bible. There are several places in the Four Gospels in which Jesus foretells his coming death and resurrection, which he states is the plan of God the Father.[5] Christians view the resurrection of Jesus as part of the plan of salvation and redemption by atonement for man's sin.[6]
Biblical accounts [ edit ]
Paul and the first Jewish-Christian followers of Jesus [ edit ]
The letters of Paul, which began to appear around two decades after the death of Jesus, record widespread belief in the resurrection of Jesus among his earliest followers. Their many references include:
Paul's proof of the resurrection is the appearances of the risen Lord to others and himself. In his First Epistle to the Corinthians he lists these appearances, first to the Apostle Peter, then to "the Twelve," then to five hundred at one time, then to James (generally believed to be the member of Jesus' family with that name), then to "all the Apostles," and finally to Paul himself. In contrast to the Gospels, Paul doesn't mention appearances to women such as Mary Magdalene, but does mention an appearance to a group of 500 which is not mentioned in other New Testament sources.
Gospel narratives [ edit ]
Mark [ edit ]
Just before sunrise on the day after the regular weekly Sabbath three women, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, came to anoint Jesus' body, wondering how they would be able to roll the large rock away from the tomb; but they found the rock already rolled aside and a young man in white inside; he told them that Jesus had risen, and that they should tell Peter and the disciples that he will meet them in Galilee, "just as he told you". Then the women "fled from the tomb".[Mark 16]
Matthew [ edit ]
Just before sunrise on the day after the regular weekly Sabbath two women, Mary Magdalene and "the other Mary", went to visit the tomb. An angel had come down from Heaven, accompanied by an earthquake, and rolled the rock aside from the tomb. The angel waited for them and told them not to be afraid, but to tell the disciples that Jesus had risen and will meet them in Galilee. The women were joyful and set out to tell the disciples the good news, then soon afterward Jesus appeared and told them not to be afraid, and told them that He had risen and that they should tell the disciples that they will see Him in Galilee. The disciples went to Galilee, where they then saw Jesus in the flesh.
The soldiers guarding the tomb were terrified by the angel, and informed the chief priests; the priests and elders bribed them to spread a lie that the disciples stole the body, "[a]nd this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day".[Matthew 27:61–28:3]
Just after sunrise on the day after the Sabbath, "the women" came to anoint Jesus's body. They found the stone rolled away and the tomb empty. Suddenly two men in clothing glowing "like lightning" stood beside them and said, "[Jesus] is not here; he has risen". The women told the disciples, but the disciples did not believe them, except for Peter who ran to the tomb. Peter found the grave-clothes in the empty tomb and went away, wondering.
The same day Jesus appeared to two of his followers on the road to Emmaus. They failed to recognize him until he broke bread and gave thanks, and he then vanished. The two go at once to Jerusalem where they found the disciples describing Jesus' appearance to Peter. As they told their story Jesus appeared to them all. They were afraid, but he invited them to touch his body, then ate with them, and explained the prophecies which are fulfilled through him.[Luke 24]
(The Acts of the Apostles is presented as a continuation of the Gospel of Luke.)
Jesus appeared to the apostles for forty days, giving many proofs that he was alive, and instructing them not to leave Jerusalem until they were baptised with the Holy Spirit.[Acts 1]
John [ edit ]
Early on the day after the Sabbath, before sunrise, Mary Magdalene visited the tomb and found the large stone had already been rolled away. She told Peter and "the beloved disciple", who then ran to the tomb to only find the grave-clothes, then went home. They assumed his body had been stolen. Mary wept, then saw two angels who spoke to her, and then saw Jesus, whom she did not recognize. Jesus told her to tell the disciples that he is ascending to God, and Mary then told the disciples she had seen the Lord.
That evening Jesus appeared among them inside a locked room, and gave them power over sin and forgiveness of sin. A week later he appeared to doubting Thomas, who had not believed, but when Thomas was instructed to touch the wounds of Jesus he said, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus replied: "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed".[John 20]
Comparison of narratives in the Gospels and Acts [ edit ]
Matthew Mark Luke John Acts An angel in white descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it [1] A young man dressed in a white robe in the tomb [2] Two men in clothing "like lightning" in the tomb [3] Two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet [4] Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene and the other Mary [5] Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome [6] Jesus appeared to "the women" [7] Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene [8] Jesus appeared to two disciples [9] Jesus appeared to two disciples [10] Jesus appeared to apostles for forty days [11]
Jesus stayed with them and promises the Holy Spirit [12] Jesus appeared to eleven disciples [13] Jesus appeared to eleven disciples [14] Jesus appeared to disciples [15] Jesus appeared to disciples; [16]
Jesus appeared to disciples in a locked room [17] Jesus was taken up into heaven [18] Jesus was taken up into heaven [19] Jesus was taken up into heaven [20]
Gospel harmony [ edit ]
Resurrection of Jesus, Jesus Christ, part of the Resurrection group. Marble, before 1572.
In the New Testament all four gospels conclude with an extended narrative of Jesus's arrest, trial, crucifixion, burial, and his resurrection. In each gospel these five events in the life of Jesus are treated with more intense detail than any other portion of that gospel's narrative. Scholars note that the reader receives an almost hour-by-hour account of what is happening. The death and resurrection of Jesus are treated as the climax of the story, the point to which everything else has been moving all the while.[12]:91–92
Another characteristic of the gospel accounts is that they include only a plain description of the events. Unlike elsewhere in the gospels, there is an absence of any citation of the Hebrew scriptures to contextualize or interpret the resurrection appearances. N.T. Wright calls this "The Strange Silence of the Bible in the Stories."[13] Wright explains that "[t]he very strong probability is that when Matthew, Luke and John describe the risen Jesus, they are writing down very early tradition, representing three different ways in which the original astonished participants told the stories."[14]
After his death by crucifixion, Jesus was placed in a new tomb which was discovered early Sunday morning to be empty. The New Testament does not include an account of the "moment of resurrection". In the Eastern Church icons do not depict that moment, but show the myrrhbearers and depict scenes of salvation.[15][16] The major resurrection appearances of Jesus in the canonical gospels (and to a lesser extent other books of the New Testament) are reported to have occurred after his death, burial and resurrection, but prior to his ascension.[17]
Burial [ edit ]
The synoptic gospels agree that, as the evening came after the crucifixion, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus, and that, after Pilate granted his request, wrapped it in linen cloth and laid it in a tomb.[18] This was in accordance with Mosaic Law, which stated that a person hanged on a tree must not be allowed to remain there at night, but should be buried before sundown.[19]
In Matthew, Joseph was identified as "also a disciple of Jesus;"[20] in Mark he was identified as "a respected member of the council (Sanhedrin) who was also himself looking for the Kingdom of God;"[21] in Luke he was identified as "a member of the council, good and righteous, who did not consent to their purpose or deed, and who was looking for the Kingdom of God'"[22] and in John he was identified as "a disciple of Jesus".[23]
The Gospel of Mark states that when Joseph of Arimathea asked for Jesus's body, Pilate marveled that Jesus was already dead, and he summoned the centurion to confirm this before releasing the body to Joseph. In the Gospel of John, it is recorded that Joseph of Arimathea was assisted in the burial process by Nicodemus, who brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes and included these spices in the burial clothes per Jewish customs.[23]
Tomb discovery [ edit ]
Women at the empty tomb, by, by Fra Angelico, 1437–1446
Although no single gospel gives an inclusive or definitive account of the resurrection of Jesus or his appearances, there are four points at which all four gospels converge:[24]
Attention to the stone that had closed the tomb The linking of the empty tomb tradition and the visit of the women on "the first day of the week;" That the risen Jesus chose first to appear to women and to commission them to announce the resurrection to the disciples, including Peter and the other apostles; The prominence of Mary Magdalene;[15][25]
All four gospels report that women were the ones to find the tomb of Jesus empty. According to Mark and Luke, the announcement of Jesus' resurrection was made to several women. According to Mark and John, Jesus appeared first ( ) to Mary Magdalene.[15]
In the gospels, especially the synoptics, women play a central role as eyewitnesses at Jesus' death, entombment, and in the discovery of the empty tomb. All three synoptics repeatedly make women the subject of verbs of seeing,[26] clearly presenting them as eyewitnesses.[27]
Post-Resurrection appearances of Jesus [ edit ]
After the tomb was found empty, the gospels indicate that Jesus made a series of appearances to the disciples. He was not immediately recognizable, according to Luke.[28]:277 E. P. Sanders concluded that although he could appear and disappear, he was not a ghost. Writing that Luke was very insistent about that, Sanders pointed out that "the risen Lord could be touched, and he could eat".[Lk. 24:39–43] He first appeared to Mary Magdalene, but she did not immediately recognize him. The first two disciples to whom he appeared, walked and talked with him for quite a while without knowing who he was, (the road to Emmaus appearance).[Lk. 24:13–32] He was made known "in the breaking of the bread".[Lk. 24:35] When he first appeared to the disciples in the upper room, Thomas was not present and would not believe until a later appearance where he was invited to put his finger into the holes in Jesus' hands and side.[Jn. 20:24–29] Beside the Sea of Galilee he encouraged Peter to serve his followers. [Jn. 21:1–23] His final gospel appearance is reported as being forty days after the resurrection when he was "carried up" into heaven[29] where he sits on the right hand of God.[Mark 16:19] [30]
At a later time, on the road to Damascus, Saul of Tarsus, then the arch-persecutor of the early disciples, was converted to Christ following an extraordinary vision and discourse with Jesus which left him blind for three days.[Acts 9:1–20] (Saul later became known as Paul the Apostle.)[Acts 13:6] [31] He became one of Christianity's foremost missionaries and theologians.[1 Cor. 15:6] [28]
Historicity and origin of the narrative [ edit ]
As historical event [ edit ]
New Testament scholar and theologian E. P. Sanders argues that a concerted plot to foster belief in the Resurrection would probably have resulted in a more consistent story, and that some of those who were involved in the events gave their lives for their belief. Sanders offers his own hypothesis, saying "there seems to have been a competition: 'I saw him,''so did I,' 'the women saw him first,' 'no, I did; they didn't see him at all,' and so on."[32] In defending the historicity of the resurrection, Sanders goes so far as to state, "That Jesus’ followers (and later Paul) had resurrection experiences is, in my judgment, a fact. What the reality was that gave rise to the experiences I do not know."[33]
James D.G. Dunn writes that, whereas the apostle Paul's resurrection experience was "visionary in character" and "non-physical, non-material," the accounts in the Gospels describe physical appearances to the other apostles and women. He contends that the "massive realism'...of the [Gospel] appearances themselves can only be described as visionary with great difficulty—and Luke would certainly reject the description as inappropriate," and that the earliest conception of resurrection in the Jerusalem Christian community was physical.[34] Conversely, Helmut Koester writes that the descriptions of the resurrection were originally epiphanies in which the disciples are called to a ministry by the risen Jesus and were interpreted as physical proof of the event at a secondary stage. He contends that the more detailed accounts of the resurrection are also secondary and do not come from historically trustworthy sources, but instead belong to the genre of the narrative types.[35]
N.T. |
of Kiwis support legalising cannabis for pain relief, even more if the person has a terminal illness. Another 16% think it should be decriminalized, which takes overall support for medicinal cannabis law reform over 80%.
But here’s the issue - there isn’t much evidence for this position. Ironically there is far better evidence to legalise and regulate cannabis for recreational use than there is for medicinal. This is where parliament should be spending its time and the taxpayer’s money. Of course legalising cannabis for recreational use means that people can use cannabis for medical reasons if they chose to do so. Medicinal is a sideshow, in comparison to where the largest reductions in harm can be achieved, and where the grounds for progress is strongest – by a mile.
How is the Greens proposal going to work?
What the Greens are proposing is not a legal market for medicinal cannabis. If you have a terminal condition or other chronic pain you could go to your GP who would write you (or your designated support person) a prescription to grow and possess cannabis. There would be no limit on how much you can grow or possess, nor any restrictions on what you can create with it.
Some honesty is called for here. Legalising medicinal cannabis is a Trojan horse for full legalisation. When cannabis was legalised for medicinal purposes in California this spawned a whole industry of doctors willing to service people with the drug, creating a $US1.3b industry for medicinal cannabis products. This showed what a farce the system was, and legalisation soon followed.
We won’t see this outcome here under the Greens’ proposed legislation. They have made no provision to produce and market quality-assured products, so we won’t even get the economic benefits of a medicinal cannabis industry. Even with the recent government move to allow prescription of CBD (a non psychoactive element of cannabis or hemp) products they have made it clear that they don’t want to see a medicinal cannabis product industry here in New Zealand. What do all these politicians have against people making money out of a crop New Zealand is good at growing?
The outcome of the Greens’ proposal could be even more farcical than what happened in California. As soon as cannabis is legal for medicinal use, you could suddenly see lots of people claiming they have ‘pain’ and going to their doctor for a prescription to grow it. It will make the existing system much harder for police to enforce, because all growers will need in order to legitimize their crop is a certificate saying they have a “sore back”. Meanwhile there is no regulation over what they are growing, and nothing to stop money ending up in the pockets of criminals. It would be chaos.
Leave the doctors out of it, just legalise and regulate cannabis
As it stands, doctors don’t have much evidence about what circumstances they should prescribe cannabis in, so it really comes down to their personal judgement. Do we really want to turn our GPs into dealers, bending the rules so recreational users can access the drug under the guise of spurious medicinal reasons? Do we want to put our medical professionals in the position where they are being asked to prescribe something that is based on anecdote rather than evidence?
We need to skip the bullshit and go straight to what we know works.
Let’s be clear - The Opportunities Party (TOP) is happy for people to use cannabis if it works for them. But that decision should lie with the individual, not fobbed off to the medical community to make decisions on spurious grounds. That’s an insult to the profession. Once cannabis is legal there will no doubt be more medical trials, and cannabis or some derivatives may well end up being an accepted part of our medical arsenal. But the state of science simply doesn’t support a medicinal-only supply of cannabis.
So why the hell are these Establishment politicians taking us through the farce, the showpony of medicinal cannabis reform? It’s nothing but a distraction and reflects the sheer lack of evidence-based thinking that is too often employed by politicians. This is precisely what generates such despair from informed experts so often with politics, that the sheer expediency of career-focused politicians sees them so often backing second or third rate solutions to the challenges we face. And there really is no excuse for such sub-par performance – it’s not political pragmatism, it’s political expediency.
For goodness sake can we get real for a moment here? Can our politicians at least aspire to some sort of excellence? Two in five Kiwis have tried cannabis, and one in nine in the last year. It is everywhere, and for most users causes very little harm. The far greater harm is that we force those wanting to buy it to deal with the criminal underworld, people who have no respect for society, who will do whatever is necessary to maximize their profits. It is this harm that needs to be taken out by fully legalising and controlling the supply, quality and price of cannabis. Then, the issues become issues of health and safety, not criminality.
We agree with the Greens that criminalising cannabis is wrong. But let’s not try to use two wrongs to make a right, turning our doctors into dealers, compromising their integrity while all the while avoiding the main harm inflicted by the prohibition of recreational use.From the moment that Disney and Lucasfilm announced its initial slate of Star Wars films through to 2020, we’ve had intense speculation and rumours as to the story line for the as-yet-unrevealed third Anthology movie.
Well, it seems we may not have too much longer to wait until we get some official news from Lucasfilm, as Kathleen Kennedy has revealed that the studio will be making a decision on the next project in June.
“We haven’t identified it yet, but yes,” said Kennedy when asked whether the next Anthology film after 2018’s Han Solo movie is in development. “We have a couple of things right now that we’re circling, and we’ll make a decision between the two pretty shortly. It’s probably for 2020, and we will make a decision by June.”
SEE ALSO: Kathleen Kennedy says the fans will influence the next batch of Star Wars Anthology movies
Rumours for the next Anthology movie have suggested everything from Obi-Wan Kenobi and Boba Fett solo films to a YA romance, but of course it is entirely possible that Lucasfilm has several other potential projects waiting for the green light. Let us know what you’d like to see in the comments below…High court rules that up to 161 allegedly unlawful killings by British military should be subject of coroner-style hearings
A series of public inquests should be held into the deaths of civilians who are alleged to have been killed unlawfully by the British military following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the high court has ruled.
In a ground-breaking judgment that could have an impact on how the British military is able to conduct operations among civilians in the future, the court ruled on Friday that up to 161 deaths should be the subject of hearings modelled upon coroners' inquests.
In practice, a series of hearings – possibly amounting to more than 100 – are likely to be held as a result of the judgment, which follows a three-year legal battle on behalf of the Iraqis' families.
Each hearing must involve a "full, fair and fearless investigation accessible to the victim's families and to the public", the court ruled, and should examine not only the immediate circumstances but other issues surrounding each death.
As a first step, the court ordered Philip Hammond, the defence secretary, to announce within six weeks whether any of the deaths are to result in prosecutions, or to explain any further delays over prosecuting decisions.
After years of judicial review proceedings, and in the face of determined opposition from the Ministry of Defence, which appeared anxious to maintain control over any investigative process, the court concluded that hearings modelled upon coroners' inquests were the best way for the British authorities to meet their obligations under article 2 of the European convention on human rights (ECHR), which protects the right to life.
The court rejected calls for a single public inquiry to be held to examine British military detention and interrogation practices during the six-year occupation of the south-east of Iraq, on the grounds that such an inquiry would take too long and cost too much.
The first public hearings are expected to focus on 11 cases in which civilians died in British military custody. These will be followed by public examinations of other incidents in which civilians died – often in circumstances that were unclear or are disputed – but where it is alleged that British personnel used unlawful force.
The court also ruled that this should be just the start of the process by which public hearings will examine the alleged misconduct of some members of the British armed forces who served in Iraq.
Following the completion of the Article 2 hearings – into allegedly unlawful killings – further hearings should be established in order to meet the UK's obligations under Article 3 of the ECHR, the court said. These will inquire into allegations of torture and lesser mistreatment of individuals detained by British troops in Iraq, focusing on a sample of the most serious of the 700-plus cases in which such allegations have been made.
In December last year the MoD said it had paid out £14m in compensation and costs to 205 Iraqis who alleged unlawful imprisonment and mistreatment, and that it was negotiating a further 196 payments. Several hundred more claims were expected to be lodged.
Many of the hearings that examine allegations of torture and mistreatment are expected to shed light on the activities of a British interrogation unit known as the Joint Forward Interrogation Team, whose personnel, drawn from all three branches of the services, appear to have received training in the abuse of prisoners.
The deaths in custody include those of a number of teenagers who drowned after allegedly being pushed into canals.
In another case, an RAF police investigation into the death of a man who was allegedly kicked to death while on board an RAF helicopter failed to establish the cause of death, or even the dead man's name. A Guardian investigation established that there were concerns that MoD officials may have interfered with the initial investigation because they feared a prosecution could lead to the discovery that the dead man – and large numbers of other prisoners – were being ferried to a secret interrogation centre that had been concealed from both British army lawyers and the Red Cross.
A third case concerns a mother who was shot and wounded in November 2006 when troops raided her home. She was certified dead on arrival at a first aid post, and her body was later dumped at the side of a road in a British army body bag.
Baha Mousa. Photograph: Liberty/PA
Several other victims died after being detained for interrogation, and are thought to have been beaten to death in a manner similar to that of Baha Mousa, the Basra hotel receptionist who was murdered by British soldiers in September 2003.
The court said it had examined "allegations of the most serious kind involving murder, manslaughter, the wilful infliction of serious bodily injury, sexual indignities, cruel inhuman and degrading treatment and large scale violation of international humanitarian law".
The judgment from Sir John Thomas, president of the Queen's Bench Division, and Mr Justice Silber, added that there was evidence to support claims that some of the abuse had been systemic, and questioned whether responsibility for poor training and a failure to investigate promptly lay with senior officers and figures in government.
Many of the cases have been under investigation for a number of years by a body known as the Iraq Historic Allegations Team (Ihat), which is made up of retired civilian detectives and service police, answering to an MoD panel.
The court ruled that Ihat was an independent body, and rejected completely claims made by a former Ihat official-turned-whistleblower, who had dismissed it as a face-saving exercise. Nevertheless, the judgment concluded, Ihat was not capable of examining the instructions, training and supervision of troops, and the way in which this is alleged to have led to the abuse.
Phil Shiner, a lawyer for the Iraqis, said: "My clients welcome, at last, the opportunities for accountability flowing from the judgment.
"I trust that the various and troubling systemic issues emerging from these cases will lead to further reforms following the Baha Mousa inquiry report of September 2011. The secretary of state must ensure that UK forces abroad respect and apply the rule of law."
An MoD spokesperson said: "We welcome the court's finding that Ihat is independent and carries out its duties with competence and integrity. We are also pleased that the court has agreed that the secretary of state was justified in concluding that a single comprehensive public inquiry into allegations of abuse in Iraq should not be established. This would have led to unnecessary expense and unacceptable delay.
"Ihat continues to make progress in its task of investigating allegations which have been made against British troops serving in Iraq."Elite_ Profile Joined June 2012 United States 4259 Posts #1
ETisME Profile Blog Joined April 2011 Hong Kong 11848 Posts #2 Ragnarok is such a great player, hope he can get a team soon 其疾如风，其徐如林，侵掠如火，不动如山，难知如阴，动如雷震。
ShowTheLights Profile Blog Joined June 2012 Korea (South) 1390 Posts #3 back to IM •••Acer.MMA••• <> KT_Puzzle <> JinAir•GreenWings_CoCa <> CJ_herO <> Axiom CranK & Ryung <> IM_Seed <> IM_Squirtle <> le' ToD <> Innovation <> ROOT_CatZ <> inuh! <> Chobra <> SKT1_Fantasy
GTPGlitch Profile Blog Joined March 2011 4555 Posts #4 CJ_Ragnarok pls, we need someone that doesn't throw games :'( Jo Byung Se #1 fan | CJ_Rush(reborn) fan | Liquid'Jinro(ret) fan | Liquid'Taeja fan | oGsTheSuperNada fan | Iris[gm](ret) fan |
Iodem Profile Joined October 2010 United States 1144 Posts #5 On February 02 2014 13:50 ShowTheLights wrote:
back to IM
I hope so, but I really think IM needs to pick up more Terran players. I hope so, but I really think IM needs to pick up more Terran players. If you don't like it, you can quit.
Yakikorosu Profile Joined March 2013 1203 Posts #6 Hope someone picks him up, he was very strong for AZUBU during the last GSTL.
Darkhorse Profile Blog Joined December 2011 United States 22865 Posts #7 Ex TSL zergs fighting. Hope he gets picked up for proleague, he was a stud in GSTL last season. Writer "I was born on the same day the fucking holocaust happened" - TL Writers Skype 9/22/2014Within the last month, the officer-involved deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson and Eric Garner in New York City have become the focus of intense protest across the country. Yet much, much closer to home, this week marks the nine-month anniversary of Bernal neighbor Alex Nieto’s death in an SFPD officer-involved shooting on Bernal Hill.
Many of the circumstances surrounding Neighbor Alex’s death on March 21, 2014 remain unknown. An autopsy report was (belatedly) released, but the names of the officers involved in the shooting have not been made public, no grand jury has been convened, and the City’s formal investigation into the incident remains maddeningly opaque.
On Sunday, December 21, Alex Nieto’s family and friends are holding a procession and Mexican Posada to remember Neighbor Alex:
4pm @ 24th Street and Mission Street (BART Plaza on Northeast corner): Opening ceremony & words by families who have lost loved ones in 2014 to police brutality. Confirmed visiting families:
Family of Yanira Serrano Garcia (killed in Half Moon Bay). Family of Antonio Lopez (killed in San José)
Friend and/or family of Errol Chang (killed in Daly City) Sidewalk procession to Bernal Hill. @ Bernal Heights Park, Alex Nieto Memorial Site, northside slope: Words by family and supporters of Alex Nieto. Closing ceremony. Walk to site of Mexican Posada, to be announced on hill.
Additional details about Sunday’s event can be found on the Justice 4 Alex Nieto website.
Separately, Alex’s parents, Elvira and Refugio Nieto of Cortland Avenue, report that their memorial to Alex on Bernal Hill was recently vandalized yet again. This time, the entire memorial was taken, leaving nothing behind. This video shows Elvira and Refugio Nieto rebuilding part of the memorial to their son:
IMAGE: Video still of Bernal neighbors Elvira and Refugio Nieto, parents of Alex Nieto, on Bernal Hill, December 16, 2014Join us as we explore Sacramento for Worldwide Instameet 11 this weekend.
What is an Instameet?
Since the earliest days of Instagram, people have been meeting up to take photos and videos together. As the community has grown around the world, so too has the occurrence of InstaMeets: gatherings of people coming together to connect, explore, and celebrate their creativity.
On the weekend of March 21-22 Instagram has encouraged Instagrammers around the world to get out and meet up with Instagram communities in their local areas. Follow the hashtag at "#WWIM11."
@Socality Instameet benefiting @CharityWater
Saturday March 21 7:30 a.m. - Sunrise Meet
Join the team as they meet up on the West side of Tower Bridge and celebrate #WWIM11. Enjoy @bakersdonuts and @templecoffeeroasters before heading out for a morning of exploring and community. Click here to sign up via Eventbrite. Donate to the cause here.
Co-Hosts:
@cityscoutsac @societychurch @dinelianoel @faithmari
Sponsors: @templecoffeeroasters @bakersdonuts
#RStreetMeet
Saturday March 21st, 5:30 p.m. R Street at the arch, 10th & R streets. @IGersSac.
The Sacramento Instagrammers community @IGersSac is excited to announce that it will be hosting a street meet for #WWIM11. Participants will be gathering at the corner of 10th and R in front of the Fox and Goose building. They will explore the historic R Street district and surrounding area. Keep in mind this is a street meet, so be prepared for a lot of walking and be encouraged you to bring props. #igerssac #rstreetmeet
#MeetMeAtTheArboretum
Sunday, March 22 from 4:30 p.m. till sunset. Redwood Grove at the UC Davis Arboretum
Local Davis Instagrammer @NikPalomares is announced that he will be hosting a #WWIM11 at the UC Davis Arboretum on Sunday, March 22. Come meet friends old and new; see the beautiful Arboretum; and, of course, take photos.
Free Parking: Multiple options available near the intersection of A and 1st Streets, across from the Mondavi Center, along Mrak Hall Dr., and south of the intersection of Arboretum Dr. and Old Davis Rd.Crack in the universe: Incredible new image of a distant galaxy seen from side-on
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Like a thin band of light stretched across space, it looks like some sort of intergalactic letterbox.
But this extraordinary image is in fact is a distant galaxy called NGC 4452, captured as it lies directly edge-on to Earth.
The result is an extraordinary picture taken by the Hubble space telescope of billions of stars observed from an unusual angle. The bright nucleus can be seen at the centre, along with the very thin disc that looks like a straight line from our unusual viewing position.
This astonishing shot shows a distant galaxy seen from side-on so it looks like a thin strip of light
A hazy halo of stars on the periphery of the galaxy makes it seem to glow.
NGC 4452 was first seen by William Herschel in 1784 with his 18.5inch telescope in England. He described the object as a bright nebula, small and very much elongated. The new Hubble image shows just how elongated this unusual object really is.
Galaxies typically contain many billions of stars and can also be grouped in galaxy clusters. NGC 4452 is part of the Virgo Cluster which lies approximately 60 million light-years distant and contains around 2000 galaxies.As a Fellow of the Royal Society for the last 25 years, and author of a textbook on statistics, I feel sure that I am capable of dealing with the intellectual rigours of handing out placebos to patients. I feel that my academic qualifications, and my authorship of many research papers, including several articles about homeopathy, should more than make up for my lack of formal qualifications in medicine or homeopathy. Indeed I have spent more time than I care to remember on reading the extensive literature on homeopathy.
Having some expertise in the statistical analysis of clinical trials, my reading of the literature has equipped me well to impress gullible patients with sciencey sounding words like “succussion”, “energy medicine” and “quantum theory”. As an additional qualification, I have read widely about crystal healing, magnetic bracelets, aura photography and other such fairground paraphernalia which are designed, like homeopathy, to impress those with no knowledge of science or medicine.
I have had over two years’ experience of serving on the Conduct and Competence Committee of the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council, which has provided me with valuable insights into the world of alternative medicine. Indeed I have been told that my name is well known in Clarence House itself.
If appointed to this job, I should like to combine it with research in homeopathy. I would approach this by using systems biology, in the hope that proteomics and metabolomics would be able to explain the still mysterious ability of medicines that contain no medicine to satisfy patients. People whom I know at the University of Westminster have proposed to use systems biology to explain Traditional Chinese Medicine, and I imagine that its application to homeopathy will be every bit as successful as theirs. To have cutting edge research of this sort will, I believe, give NHS Scotland a reputation that will spread around the world.
I would also propose to save the Tayside PCT a lot of money, something not to be ignored in these hard times. At present, homeopathic pharmacies stock many thousands of sorts of pill. Recognising that the majority of them contain nothing at all, I’d retain the labels but fill all the bottles with sugar pills. This would save huge amounts of time and money, while having no effect at all on the outcome for patients.
Despite my lack of formal qualifications, I hope you will agree that I’m qualified intellectually to meet the rigours of your job.Last year, a couple of fellas at Northeastern University with a bit of spare time on their hands proved that any configuration of a Rubik’s cube could be solved in a maximum of 26 moves.
Now Tomas Rokicki, a Stanford-trained mathematician, has gone one better. He’s shown that there are no configurations that can be solved in 26 moves, thereby lowering the limit to 25.
Rokicki’s proof is a neat piece of computer science. He’s used the symmetry of the cube to study transformations of the cube in sets, rather than as individual moves. This allows him to separate the “cube space” into 2 billion sets each containing 20 billion elements. He then shows that a large number of these sets are essentially equivalent to other sets and so can be ignored.
Even then, to crunch through the remaining sets, he needed a workstation with 8GB of memory and around 1500 hours of time on a Q6600 CPU running at 1.6GHz.
But Rokicki isn’t finished there. He is already number-crunching his way to a new bound of 24 moves, a task he thinks will take several CPU months. And presumably after that, 23 beckons.
Where is this likely to finish? A number of configurations are known that can be solved in 20 moves but it’s also known that there are no configurations that can be solved in 21 moves.
So 20 looks like a good number to aim at although that will still be an upper limit. No news yet on whether 20 might also be the lower limit, which would give the answer a satisfying symmetry.
What this problem is crying out for is a kindly set theorist who can prove exactly what the upper and lower limits should be without recourse to a few years of CPU time (although it may take a few years of brain time). Any takers?
Ref: arxiv.org/abs/0803.3435: Twenty-Five Moves Suffice for Rubik’s CubeDidn't see that one coming did you?
According to the Fox News chairman, that's how the payroll math adds up inside Fox News: The channel has just "one" conservative opinion host on the air, but employs 24 liberal contributors.
Ailes made the head-scratching pronouncement during two recent campus lectures. The first came at the University of North Carolina [emphasis added]:
Well, first, I separate out news from programming. If you're talking about programming, we noticed that all the talk shows on the other networks basically had progressive or liberal talk show hosts. We have one conservative on FOX News, Sean Hannity. Quite open about it, that's what he is, that's what he does, that's his framework, that's where he comes from. Others tend to be libertarians or populists or you can't really tell.
Last week, according to reports from Ailes' lecture at Ohio University, the Fox chairman boasted about the array of progressives he employs:
Ailes defended his network, saying he was not politically biased compared with competitors MSNBC and CNN. Ailes said he employs 24 "liberals," which distinguishes him from those networks who feature fewer dissenting opinions.
You see the point Ailes is pushing? It's that contrary to Fox's carping critics, the cable channel actually is a bastion of liberal opinion makers and viewers have to look hard to find the one conservative host.
For the record then, according to Ailes none of these Fox News opinioin hosts are "conservative":
Eric Bolling (compares Obama to drug dealer)
Steve Doocy (calls Rick Santorum "Mr. Spectacular")
Brian Kilmeade (asks why Obama is "so determined to bring us down")
Gretchen Carlson (announces voters "love love love" Herman Cain's tax plan)
Andrea Tantaros (former Republican aide; says "thank God" Tea Party members in Congress are "driving a lot of the policy in Washington")
Neil Cavuto (says Robert Reich is a "sanctimonious twit" for suggesting the rich should pay more in taxes)
Dana Perino (former Bush White House press secretary; claims Obama administration doesn't "really want any success" on the economy)
Bill O'Reilly (calls Senator Al Franken "a despicable gutter snipe")This morning, Prime Minister Stephen Harper tweeted about mental health: "Today is #BellLetsTalk day - let's end the stigma around #mentalhealth. RT, share & spread the word: @Bell_LetsTalk.
For the past few years, Bell's Let's Talk campaign has encouraged people to talk about their struggles with mental health. On one hand, Harper's support for such a campaign is encouraging. Surely, Canada's Prime Minister wants us to talk about mental health and end stigma, that's good news.
But there are deep problems with the campaign in general, and coming from Harper, it's a cynical publicity stunt.
Since 2006, Stephen Harper has lead attack after attack on community organizations making it harder for women and other minority groups to advocate on behalf of their members, especially for issues that can make peoples' mental health worse.
Harper's government has introduced measures that criminalize people with mental health struggles. Mandatory minimum sentences mean that judges have no choice but to incarcerate a person who also struggles with mental illness and who may otherwise benefit from a different treatment.
Harper wants to push this even further, by allowing some men and women to be locked up in jail until they die. In a time where overall crime rates are decreasing, this will cause an explosion to Canada's incarceration rates.
Harper's government refused to implement any of the recommendations made by the inquiry that examined Ashley Smith's death. The young woman spent most of her teenaged life in jail before she hung herself while prison guards watched. The death was ruled a homicide and many experts argued that solidarity confinement created torturous situations for inmates, especially those struggling with mental health.
Harper's government has closed offices that help Canadian veterans, despite the widespread opposition from veterans themselves. Veterans suffering from PTSD argue that they are being denied the compensation they deserve.
Harper's government has quietly allowed Canada to go to war, with boots on the ground in Iraq. If the treatment of Afghanistan veterans is any indication, many of those soldiers will likely return to find that the supports that exist for them are inadequate.
Harper has rejected the widespread call for a national inquiry into murdered and missing Indigenous women, arguing that as a criminal issue, a national inquiry won't help. Of course, systemic issues that perpetuate this violence cannot be addressed if the phenomenon is seen as simply a criminal issue, rather than a systemic societal one.
Harper's government has consistently refused to create a national system of childcare. This forces women and families into impossible situations that can exacerbate and further decline already difficult mental health struggles.
Household debt, credit card debt, student debt and mortgages have put incredible financial stress on thousands of Canadians. These debts have been encouraged by various economic policies promoted by Harper's government. For many people, financial pressures can be the cause or the trigger of poor mental health. This, of course, includes monthly bills for cell phones and Internet, sometimes sent by Bell.
Bell's Let's Talk campaign glosses over these realities and allows for someone like Stephen Harper to non-ironically declare his support for the campaign. The work done by Clara Hughes is of critical importance, but it individualizes mental health struggles and continues to stigmatize it as a personal problem.
But our collective mental health, and the ranges that exist within our communities is not an individual problem. Together, when we discuss our own mental health struggles, we realize that we're all struggling together. And, despite the attempts by right-wing government forces like the Harper Conservatives, we can find strength in talking together about our common challenges.
We need progressive organizations to build off the publicity of Let's Talk and call for a new day: Let's Act. When it feels like the snow will never melt and spring will never come, let's commit ourselves to act.
Let's Act and demand more funding to mental health supports, including the improved public funding of mental health doctors, treatments and facilities.
Let's Act and reject Stephen Harper's attempt to criminalize people with mental health struggles: help and rehabilitation rather than solitary confinement and life-long prison sentences.
Let's Act and share our struggles, share our solutions and give each other the strength we need to improve our personal situations.
In 2008, I struggled with an intense year of work-place depression. I would cry randomly every night. I felt as if the world was turning and it left me behind. I developed phobias that remain with me until today.
But had I not talked about it, I may not have overcome it. So, yes: today, we can talk. Let's talk today and Let's Act tomorrow.
Because the only shame when it comes to mental health is how the system fails our communities.
MORE ON HUFFPOST:Fall crafts are a wonderful way to celebrate the season, bring the beautiful fall colors indoors and keep your kids happily occupied. From beautiful wreaths and candles to pillows and so much more, I’ve collected 19 fun and easy craft ideas that are sure to add some fall color to your space! Most of the crafts use items that you already have around the house (or can get inexpensively).
1. Mason Jar Lid Pumpkins
Tutorial: Crafts by Amanda
2. Farmhouse Style Fall Wreath
Tutorial: The Craft Patch
3. Bourbon Bottle Pumpkins
Tutorial: Sadie Seasongoods
4. Painted Pinecone Garland
Tutorial: My Life at Playtime
5. Autumn Leaf Wall Art
Tutorial: Tattooed Martha
6. Mason Jar Firefly Lanterns
Tutorial: Lil Blue Boo
7. Leaf Bowl
Tutorial: Hello Lucky
8. Candy Corn Button Art
Tutorial: Repeat Crafter Me
9. Pumpkin Wine Glass Candle Holder Centerpieces
Tutorial: Freebie Finding Mom
10. Twig Candle Holder
Tutorial: Daisychains & Dreamers
11. DIY Fall Pillow from a Flannel Shirt
Tutorial: The 2 Seasons
12. Acorn Fall Wreath
Tutorial: Crafts Unleashed
13. Yarn Pumpkins
Tutorial: Not Quite Susie
14. Autumn Leaf Fairy Lights
Tutorial: Wallflower Kitchen
15. Wood Slice Owl
Tutorial: House of Hawthornes
16. Painted Leaf Mason Jars
Tutorial: Sugar Bee Crafts
17. Fall Pumpkin Monogram
Tutorial: How to Nest for Less
18. Book Page Pumpkin
Tutorial: Creations by Kara
19. Fall Sign
Tutorial: Little Vintage Nest
Save these fall craft ideas for later by pinning this image to your favorite board!U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., addresses an audience during a meeting of the South Shore Chamber of Commerce, in Randolph, Mass., Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2012. The Massachusetts Republican said he's trying to keep taxes low to help businesses grow, while portraying Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren as a "jobs destroyer" who favors a heavier tax burden. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
During the Dodd-Frank financial reform debate in early 2010, newly elected Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts was referred to as an ATM for the bankers -- meaning that whenever they needed some more cash, they would stop by his office. It was not paper money he was handing out, of course, it was something much more valuable -- rule changes that conferred a greater ability to take on reckless risk, damage consumers, and impose higher future costs on the taxpayer.
Mr. Brown had this ability because he represented the final vote needed to pass Dodd-Frank through the Senate. He could have asked for many things -- including greater consumer protection, a more thorough investigation into mortgage practices, and reforms that would have cleaned up unscrupulous lenders. He asked for none of those changes -- or anything else that would have made the financial system safer and fairer.
Instead, Senator Brown's requests were designed to undermine the Volcker Rule -- i.e., he was opposing sensible attempts to limit the ability of big banks to place highly dangerous bets (and to blow themselves up at great cost to the rest of us). Mr. Brown seems to have been particularly keen to allow big banks to invest in hedge funds of various kinds -- and the Boston Globe reported recently that he has continued to push in this direction behind the scenes.
Such risky investments earn high returns when times are good (and big bonuses for senior executives), but they also imply large losses when something goes wrong. The special interests involved naturally like, "heads I win, tails you lose," but this is absolutely not in the broader social interest. Banks with FDIC-insured deposits absolutely should not be allowed to engage in such speculative activities. This was the original insight of former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker -- and it remains the right view today.
The economy absolutely does not need banks that can go crazy on various kinds of "proprietary" trading. In fact, it is exactly this kind of mismanagement of risk that brought the financial system to its knees and inflicted great damage on the economy in 2008-09.
Very large financial institutions get implicit government support and effective taxpayer subsidies -- this is what it means to be "too big to fail." This point is widely agreed on the right and the left of the political spectrum. One sensible idea is to offset these subsidies with a levy on large financial institutions, for example based on how much leverage they have -- as large amounts of debt relative to equity is precisely what makes these firms so prone to failure. And there was a "bank levy" of exactly this kind in the Dodd-Frank legislation until the very end. Then Senator Scott Brown killed it -- again, a form of cash withdrawal for the banks (and big future liability for everyone else).
Senator Brown knows the financial sector well -- in fact, he recently acknowledged working specifically on real estate transactions during the boom years. His lobbying of the U.S. Treasury and other government agencies has been sophisticated and exactly in line with the positions of the most dangerous big banks. He has drawn a great deal of support from financial sector donors, both to his campaign and running ads in parallel with his efforts (including through Karl Rove's Crossroads groups.)
In his bid for re-election, Mr. Brown presents himself as some sort of Massachusetts moderate, looking out for our common interest. But his record is unambiguously someone who sticks up for the special interests of big banks -- and creates great risk to the rest of us.
Mr. Brown had a chance to make a difference and he did, ensuring more cash now for big banks and more danger and destruction for the economy later.
Mr. Brown knows the banking sector well and his staff includes sophisticated financial services professionals. They understand exactly what they want and why they want it.
Fortunately, Massachusetts has a choice. The voters can either choose Scott Brown and his allies, the big banks. Or they can choose Elizabeth Warren who has worked hard to make the financial system safer, fairer, and less prone to collapse.
Mr. Brown fooled Massachusetts voters once, in his original election. Who thought they were electing someone to stick up for the global megabanks?
Will he fool them a second time -- when his achievements in diluting sensible financial reform are apparent for all to see?Once upon a time, in the late 1980s, a group called the Hospital Association of Pennsylvania built its suburban ideal in Swatara Township. Plenty of surface parking. Fun stores and restaurants nearby. Accessible to highways and airport. Even for a statewide association, the struggling capital city wasn’t seen as a good home.
Fast-forward 27 years. Government has gained prominence in a complex health care system. Seeking proximity to lawmakers, what is now the Hospital & Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania is moving back into Harrisburg proper, where—surprise—there’s convenient parking and fun stores and restaurants nearby.
“To be six miles away from the center of decision-making for Pennsylvania struck me as a lost opportunity to be both visible and accessible to policymakers who are asking hundreds of questions about health care,” said HAP President and CEO Andy Carter, who helped lead the board in making the move. “I want to be there when they ask those questions so we can give our answer as part of their due diligence.”
Nationwide, businesses have been pulling up stakes from suburban campuses or outlying spots and resettling into cities. Likewise, businesses here |
cumulative distribution of finishing time, which allows us to easily recognise that while there is a probability of 20% of finishing in 330 days, for a much more secure 80% probability, we should allow for 470 days - some 42% longer and correspondingly more costly. Finally, looking at the proportion of the code base that was, at any time, written by the current team, we see an exponential decline in this fraction, leaving us with a headline figure of 20% after 20 years. That's right, on a 20 year old code base only one fifth of the code will have been created by the current team. This resonates with my own experience, and quantitatively explains why working on large legacy systems can be a lonely, disorienting and confusing experience.With Detroit suffering from massive population loss and an inability to keep up its basic infrastructure (see the water crisis, or the city's many non-functioning traffic lights) it certainly seems odd to be spending tens of millions of dollars on a short new streetcar line. But while Jim Epstein's Reason article asking "Is Detroit's New Light Rail Line America's Greatest Boondoggle?" raises many good points about the project, the sad reality is that it's not even close to being the most egregious boondoggle going. The current fad for streetcar construction is actually bequeathing quite a large number of terrible projects to the country. And the very worst of these — like Washington, DC's maybe-opening-soon streetcar line — aren't just expensive, they actually make mass transit worse. And bad transit helps trap poor people in poverty.
The original sin of every bad streetcar program is this: it doesn't have a dedicated lane.
Without a dedicated lane, a streetcar can't really run much faster than a bus under ideal conditions. And since unlike a bus, a streetcar can't shift out of its lane to avoid an obstacle, in real-world circumstances it's likely to move slower than a bus. There are some objectives related to real estate development and tourism that this kind of project can serve, but they're nearly useless in terms of transportation.
But wait — it gets worse
The thing about adding a slower-than-a-bus new vehicle to the curb lane of a street is that not only is it expensive it slows the buses down. In a case like Detroit where the city doesn't have serious traffic congestion this isn't necessarily an issue.
But in Washington and other cities where buses struggle with rush hour traffic, slowing them down is a problem. Of course, slower buses aren't a problem in cases where a new streetcar fully replaces an existing bus line. But, again, consider the case of the DC Streetcar. Along its very limited route it replicates the path of the existing X2 bus line, slowing it down. But rather than following the X2 deep into the Central Business District, the streetcar line will simply stop near Union Station. Consequently, for a person seeking to commute from the H Street area to downtown or for a downtown worker trying to head to H Street's bars and restaurants after work, the existence of the Streetcar will make mass transit slower and less convenient. That's a hard trick to pull off, but they've managed it.
To improve transit, smash the car lobby
Mass transit advocates don't like it when people harp on the failings of high-profile transit projects. But the very worst of these projects are so bad that they actually make transit worse. More broadly, nobody is worse-served by wasting resources on bad projects than transit riders themselves. The problem is that securing funding for a boondoggle often seems more politically realistic than the harder problem of tackling the entrenched interests of (heavily subsidized) frequent car drivers.
The only way to make a new surface rail project work is for it to have its own dedicated lane over significant portions of its route. To achieve that requires seizing road space from drivers and allocating it to transit instead.
And of course the same trick — dedicated lanes — works to greatly improve bus service. Given a dedicated lane, the question of whether the additional benefits of streetcar are worth the price tag is an interesting debate. But absent dedicated space for transit, filling the road with mixed-traffic streetcars is at best a waste and at worst a disaster that will actually slow existing transit down.The dollar amount of the long-term contract Giancarlo Stanton will sign, according to industry expectations, is growing with every home run, every RBI, every piece of confirmation that Stanton is going to be a franchise anchor for years to come.
But the question lingers: For which franchise?
Stanton is only 21 months older than Mike Trout, and whether he wins the National League's Most Valuable Player Award or not, he has established this summer that he can stay on the field without repeated trips to the disabled list and that his production is monstrous in an era when offensive numbers are in decline, which only increases his value. On Wednesday, he homered for the third straight game.
He has 36 homers, tied for the most in the majors. His 102 RBIs are the most in the majors. His.968 OPS is the highest in the National League and the second-best in baseball. He has 90 walks. His defense has improved.
But Stanton is not signed to a long-term deal yet, and with his free agency just two winters away, some evaluators believe that his next deal will be something in the range of $250 million to $300 million.
It's possible the Marlins will be open to a massive investment for a homegrown slugger such as Stanton, whose outsized power still translates in their cavernous ballpark. They have almost no payroll obligations and could afford him as their franchise centerpiece.
But a lot of rival officials believe Stanton won't sign long term with the Marlins, that it's inevitable he will depart. They believe the Marlins soon will have to face the reality that they need to trade him, or lose him to free agency, the same quandary that forced the Tampa Bay Rays to deal David Price on July 31.
And the looming cost of what it will take to trade for Stanton and then sign him will effectively allow him to dictate exactly where he wants to go, rival executives say.
All Stanton needs to do is stick to the same line, said one official: That he doesn't intend to sign until he reaches free agency. So if Stanton, a California native, really wants to play for the Dodgers (or whatever team, for that matter), he could simply respond to any trade proposal to any other team by saying he won't commit to a long-term deal.BOSTON – Christians, Muslims and Jews filled the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center in an interfaith call for dignity and solidarity as president-elect Donald Trump prepares to take oath as the 45th American president.
“I brought a lot of my non-Muslim friends here tonight, because they wanted to do something,” Tahirah Dean, 24, an immigration attorney and worships at the Islamic Society, told wbur.org on Monday, December 12.
“They know how difficult this time is for us. For a lot of my friends, I’m their only Muslim friend and this was a really fabulous way for them not only to show support for me, but for this entire community.”
On Sunday evening, Massachusetts US Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh joined a crowd of more than 2,000 people at Boston’s largest mosque.
Christians, Muslims and Jews filled the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center in Roxbury for the event billed as an “interfaith call for dignity.”
The event was sponsored by the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization to counter rising anti-Muslim hate crimes triggered by controversial presidential campaign in which Trump called for banning Muslims from entering the US.
Standing in solidarity, the crowd listened as faith leaders called for an end to intolerance, asking elected officials to take a stance in the local community and in Washington.
Sen. Warren addressed an uptick in hate crimes and the fear of an uncertain future following Trump’s election. She emphasized the importance of listening.
“I believe that truly to build bridges in our country, in our communities, whether it’s political debates or it’s other ways that we come together, that we start by listening and seeking understanding,” she said.
Diversity
The event also saw a diverse group of speakers, including a young man whose parents brought him to the US illegally from Peru; a young member of the Black Lives Matter movement; and Peter Brook, a member of the Fourth Presbyterian Church of Boston, who voted for Trump.
Brook said the day after the election, he noticed a difference in his own church community.
“That day I went to my regular Wednesday night Bible study at church,” he said.
“Everyone was out of sorts, there were tears shed, and there was this unsettling uncertainty about our future and where we’re going. It hung over the group. This really bothered me. I’m a Trump voter.”
Brook said he’s committed to building bridges with people of different politics and different faiths.
Mayor Walsh extended that commitment, asking for leaders across the country to do their part.
“If every elected official in America visited a mosque between now and the inauguration in January, we would be able to have a better conversation about diversity in our country,” Walsh said.
The gathering provided a new hope for American Muslims who were facing tough days over the past months.
“I was going on Route 1,” explained Asma Ali, who lives in Sharon. “And there were three people calling me names and asking me to take my hijab out. And some guy in the truck, calling me names and asking me to go back to my country, but I’ve lived here for 34 years.”
Now, Ali said she feels safer.
“To see all different faith, and all clapping hands together, talking to each other, [about] what’s going on, it’s going to be OK.”Inferitvm - The Grimoires · Walls Of Blood - Imperium · Backstabber - Conspiracy Theorist · Mountain Eye - Roads Uncharted · Antioch - Antioch III: Wings and Warlocks · Endolith - Chicxulub - The Fossil Record · Fugitive - The Awakening · Nordjevel – Necrogenesis · Abyssic - High the Memory · Obscura @ O2 Academy Islington, London, UK Latest updates: We hope you enjoy your visit here. Please join or login if you have joined before. MT @ Facebook
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Users online 33 guests Welcome to our newest member, hypervincentocasio Enslaved - E Enslaved E by Justin "Witty City" Wittenmeier at 10 October 2017, 12:29 PM Share this on Facebook | Share this on Twitter
E” is the fourteenth full length studio album from the prolific Norwegian band ENSLAVED. Ever since “Isa” (and possibly further back, if you really get down to it), the Black Metal band has incorporated more and more Prog into their sound. In a scene where bands often time can’t get out of their own way, ENSLAVED’s discography has often been a breath of fresh air for both Black and Progressive Metal. With “E,” they become more Prog than ever but, unlike other bands such as OPETH, retain their Metal sound. The sounds found in this album isn’t so much Prog in terms of out there ideas or trying to cram as much notes as possible into a bar but rather its more seeing the band stretch their boundaries to a certain line, come back around, and then return out to venture further past the line. I could best describe this album as a Heavy Metal PINK FLOYD. Of course, the two bands couldn’t sound further apart but, much like PINK FLOYD, ENSLAVED use longer song structures and depth filled sonic excess to create oceans of sound and atmosphere that blend in seemingly with their core sound.
Grutle must be commended for his harsh vocals. He has always been one of the better Black Metal vocalist but he really outshines himself here. His guttural sounds and screams are like a hurricane made of acid, such is the fury from which they burst forth from within. Without a doubt, this is his best vocal performance. Speaking of vocals, longtime member Herbrand Larsen has left the band and now replaced by Hakon Vinje on clean vocals and keys. His performance is also nothing short of spectacular. His voice is similar to Herbrand’s but not quite as low pitched. The constant change up between the harsh and cleans vocals really adds to the atmosphere. They have used dual vocals for some time now but it really fits in with this album’s style and never seems forced. The opening track, ‘Storm son,” was a good choice for both the first single and video (and track placement) because in the almost 11 minutes it runs, every style and sound in the album is represented. It is a safe bet that if you like the song then you’ll be drooling by the end of the album. If it isn’t your thing, then I don’t see having a need to continue with the remaining five. However, I think most ENSLAVED fans, especially fans of their last four or five, will find everything here to their liking. It probably goes without saying but tru and klvt Black Metal purists will need to look elsewhere. ENSLAVED have grown beyond the confines of the genre and created a Metal sound only they can do.
“Storm Sun” begins with the sounds of nature and impending battle. The epic opening gives away to clean keys and Grutle’s wonderfully melodic bass. Cato’s drums may not constantly hammer like most other Black Metal but the intricate and well timed work speaks for itself. The guitar duo of and slowly creeps in until they are playing crunch yet melodic riffs that work in rich tandem with the rest of the song’s smooth vocal delivery finds its place well among the back ground vocals as does the random harsh attack of. His harsh vocals are like lightning strikes against the storm clouds of Hakon’s own voice. The two of them are as important of a duo as the guitar players.
Six minutes or so into the song, the sound changes and the music goes a bit more Black Metal. It may not be as furious of an assault as their own old stuff like “Frost,” but it’s still chaos among their progressive calm. Even when they get heavy, the songs remain melodic. However, even when they are melodic, they don’t go too soft. Much like the rest of the album, each song is just so well balanced. Unlike a lot of Prog Metal bands, there isn’t any mindless self-indulgence or guitar wankery here—each instrument, sound, and note has its own place and time within the songs’ frames. “E” doesn’t contain any fluff. “The River’s Mouth,” is suddenly a very different type of song, almost a different band. Whereas “Storm Son,” definitely rode into a wide plain of variety, this song is more focused and it immediately begins heavy with Grutle showing us how harsh vocals should be done. The drumming is speedier but still lives just inside the pro realm. The guitars are more riff based this time around, focusing on being the foundation of the song rather than being added elements to the melody.
“Sacred Horse,” has a quick, folky intro before the dam bursts and a hammering drums and rapid fire riffs tear up the landscape. Grutle sounds especially rough here and there is a darkened energy to both his vocals and bass that cannot be denied and can barely be contained. The lead guitar is a highlight with its startling sense of sound and melody. The last couple minutes of the song are the definition of epic: thundering bass from drums and the guitar, keys, and the almost chant like clean vocals end the song with a bang. The next track, “Axis of The World,” has some of the best riff work and leads on the album. Grutle and Hakon both give a top vocal performance but their instrumental use is just as potent. The bass and guitars in the last minute and a half echoes the glory days of OPETH, with the Prog Metal riffs and the harsh vocals ripping everything apart. The most experimental track, definitely more Shoe Gaze elements than ever before, is “Feathers of Eolh.” It is a wonderful track that’s well put together; the band clearly took a risk with this song and it paid off. There are a few uses of harsh vocals here and there but the bulk of the song is voiced by Hakon. He really shines here, both his vocals and his keys. He plays a large part in giving the song its heavy Prog leanings. The drums are all over the place here and give the song an almost random feel as they speed up and change styles many times throughout. The guitars too give way to various sound as well; in addition to the more typical Black Metal riffs, there is also some groovy filled riffs but clean an an acoustic guitar. The riffs towards the end of the song are particular interesting, the drumming as well. I don’t think it’s the best song on the album but its definitely the most rewarding because its great knowing ENSLAVED can definitely pull off anything.
The final track, “Hiindsiight,” is, alongside “The River’s Mouth,” the best song on the album. Much like the aforementioned track, it is definitely more on the metallic side in terms of vocals and a lot of the riffs but it also experiments with the use of the saxophone. The keys really play well with the sax, boosting the songs Prog leanings to compensate for the doom metal riffs. Seriously, parts of this song sound like MY DYING BRIDE. It is awesome. “E,” is an album that shows the strength of a band that is willing to push their sound to places most Metal bands, especially Blackened ones, would never go while still letting the Metal flow. It is an album that will never get old and contains a tone of depth. In the couple weeks I have been listening to it, I am still finding new things to enjoy. 2017 has been a great year for Metal and with this album ENSLAVED will probably land on a lot of top five lists, if not taking the number one spot.
Songwriting: 10
Originality: 10
Memorability: 10
Production: 10
” is the fourteenth full length studio album from the prolific Norwegian band. Ever since “” (and possibly further back, if you really get down to it), the Black Metal band has incorporated more and more Prog into their sound. In a scene where bands often time can’t get out of their own way,’s discography has often been a breath of fresh air for both Black and Progressive Metal. With “,” they become more Prog than ever but, unlike other bands such as, retain their Metal sound. The sounds found in this album isn’t so much Prog in terms of out there ideas or trying to cram as much notes as possible into a bar but rather its more seeing the band stretch their boundaries to a certain line, come back around, and then return out to venture further past the line. I could best describe this album as a Heavy Metal. Of course, the two bands couldn’t sound further apart but, much likeuse longer song structures and depth filled sonic excess to create oceans of sound and atmosphere that blend in seemingly with their core sound.must be commended for his harsh vocals. He has always been one of the better Black Metal vocalist but he really outshines himself here. His guttural sounds and screams are like a hurricane made of acid, such is the fury from which they burst forth from within. Without a doubt, this is his best vocal performance. Speaking of vocals, longtime memberhas left the band and now replaced byon clean vocals and keys. His performance is also nothing short of spectacular. His voice is similar tobut not quite as low pitched. The constant change up between the harsh and cleans vocals really adds to the atmosphere. They have used dual vocals for some time now but it really fits in with this album’s style and never seems forced. The opening track, ‘,” was a good choice for both the first single and video (and track placement) because in the almost 11 minutes it runs, every style and sound in the album is represented. It is a safe bet that if you like the song then you’ll be drooling by the end of the album. If it isn’t your thing, then I don’t see having a need to continue with the remaining five. However, I think mostfans, especially fans of their last four or five, will find everything here to their liking. It probably goes without saying but tru and klvt Black Metal purists will need to look elsewhere.have grown beyond the confines of the genre and created a Metal sound only they can do.begins with the sounds of nature and impending battle. The epic opening gives away to clean keys andwonderfully melodic bass.drums may not constantly hammer like most other Black Metal but the intricate and well timed work speaks for itself. The guitar duo of and slowly creeps in until they are playing crunch yet melodic riffs that work in rich tandem with the rest of the song’s smooth vocal delivery finds its place well among the back ground vocals as does the random harsh attack of. His harsh vocals are like lightning strikes against the storm clouds ofown voice. The two of them are as important of a duo as the guitar players.Six minutes or so into the song, the sound changes and the music goes a bit more Black Metal. It may not be as furious of an assault as their own old stuff like “,” but it’s still chaos among their progressive calm. Even when they get heavy, the songs remain melodic. However, even when they are melodic, they don’t go too soft. Much like the rest of the album, each song is just so well balanced. Unlike a lot of Prog Metal bands, there isn’t any mindless self-indulgence or guitar wankery here—each instrument, sound, and note has its own place and time within the songs’ frames. “E” doesn’t contain any fluff. “,” is suddenly a very different type of song, almost a different band. Whereas “,” definitely rode into a wide plain of variety, this song is more focused and it immediately begins heavy withshowing us how harsh vocals should be done. The drumming is speedier but still lives just inside the pro realm. The guitars are more riff based this time around, focusing on being the foundation of the song rather than being added elements to the melody.,” has a quick, folky intro before the dam bursts and a hammering drums and rapid fire riffs tear up the landscape.sounds especially rough here and there is a darkened energy to both his vocals and bass that cannot be denied and can barely be contained. The lead guitar is a highlight with its startling sense of sound and melody. The last couple minutes of the song are the definition of epic: thundering bass from drums and the guitar, keys, and the almost chant like clean vocals end the song with a bang. The next track, “,” has some of the best riff work and leads on the album.both give a top vocal performance but their instrumental use is just as potent. The bass and guitars in the last minute and a half echoes the glory days of, with the Prog Metal riffs and the harsh vocals ripping everything apart. The most experimental track, definitely more Shoe Gaze elements than ever before, is “.” It is a wonderful track that’s well put together; the band clearly took a risk with this song and it paid off. There are a few uses of harsh vocals here and there but the bulk of the song is voiced by. He really shines here, both his vocals and his keys. He plays a large part in giving the song its heavy Prog leanings. The drums are all over the place here and give the song an almost random feel as they speed up and change styles many times throughout. The guitars too give way to various sound as well; in addition to the more typical Black Metal riffs, there is also some groovy filled riffs but clean an an acoustic guitar. The riffs towards the end of the song are particular interesting, the drumming as well. I don’t think it’s the best song on the album but its definitely the most rewarding because its great knowingcan definitely pull off anything.The final track, “,” is, alongside “,” the best song on the album. Much like the aforementioned track, it is definitely more on the metallic side in terms of vocals and a lot of the riffs but it also experiments with the use of the saxophone. The keys really play well with the sax, boosting the songs Prog leanings to compensate for the doom metal riffs. Seriously, parts of this song sound like. It is awesome. “,” is an album that shows the strength of a band that is willing to push their sound to places most Metal bands, especially Blackened ones, would never go while still letting the Metal flow. It is an album that will never get old and contains a tone of depth. In the couple weeks I have been listening to it, I am still finding new things to enjoy. 2017 has been a great year for Metal and with this albumwill probably land on a lot of top five lists, if not taking the number one spot.Songwriting: 10Originality: 10Memorability: 10Production: 10 Tracklist: 1. Storm’s Son
2. The River’s Mouth
3. Sacred Horse
4. Axis of the Worlds
5. Feathers of Eolh
6. Hiindsiight Lineup: Ivar Bjornson – Guitars, Keyboards, Backing Vocals
Grutle Kjellson – Harsh Vocals, Bass
Arve Isdal – Lead Guitar
Cato Bekkevold – Drums, Percussion
Hakon Vinje – Keyboards, Clean Vocals Record Label: Nuclea Blast br>
Rating Unrated You do not have permission to rateRight after Sandy Hook we were treated to a rant from Wayne-o in which the head of the NRA blamed gun violence, among other things, on “a thousand music videos that portray life as a joke and murder as a way of life.” He then castigated “media conglomerates” for bringing murder and violence as entertainment motifs into every American home. In defending gun ownership following this horrendous gun violence event, the NRA found it expedient and effective to rally its troops around the idea that popular culture and gun culture don’t mix.
I think that June 2, touted as Gun Violence Awareness Day, may mark a true turning-point in the argument about guns. The pro-gun community can lobby all it wants for laws that make it easier to own or carry guns, but fewer gun restrictions won’t really matter if the country’s dominant culture becomes anti-gun. And while the NRA has been promoting gun ownership as their response to the “culture wars,” the millennial culture that is emerging and will define the country appears to be solidly anti-gun.
How can I say that when recent opinion polls indicate that a majority of Americans believe that guns make America a safer place? I’ll tell you why. First, the surveys which ask Americans if guns make them safer also show that less than a majority actually own guns. Second, despite the Obama-driven spike in gun sales, the industry has not managed to penetrate new demographics such as women and minorities; most guns and ammunition sold in the last few years went to the same-old, same-old who bought those guns for the same reason that gun sales have spiked at other times, namely, the fear of losing their guns. Finally and most important, the social and political views of millennials are completely at odds with the socio-demographic profile of the gun-owning population, and as millennials become the dominant generation, this could have dire consequences for the health and even survival of the gun industry as a whole.
According to Pew, a majority of millennials support gay rights, less than a majority are patriotic, only one-third are religious and they voted Obama in 2012. As for Boomers, who buy and own most of the guns, they don’t support gays, they are fiercely patriotic, a majority are religious and they split their vote evenly in 2012. What these numbers tell me is that over the next twenty years, the gun industry better come up with a wholly different argument for owning guns.
Gun Violence Awareness Day, as reported ruefully by Brietbart and other pro-gun blogs, garnered support from movie, song and media personalities like Russell Simmons, Aasif Mandvi, Padma Lakshmi, Amanda Peet, Tunde Adebimpe and many, many more. I’m actually a pre-boomer, and I don’t have the faintest idea who any of these people are. But I do know the celebs who show up each year at the NRA shindig; guys like Chuck Norris and Ollie North. Wow – talk about young, hip and cool.
Another master-stroke in planning this event was using orange to build identity and awareness for the folks who get involved. Orange, or blaze orange as it is known, has always been worn by hunters and many states require it for anyone goes out after game. Brady and Shannon’s Moms, among other organizations, have lately moved into the safety space which was owned lock, stock and barrel by the NRA. Guess who now shares and could soon own that space?
Until recently, the playing field where gun violence arguments played out was controlled by the NRA. But right now the field is tilting the other way. And notice how millennial culture has no problem attaching the word ‘violence’ to the word ‘guns.’ This alone should make the NRA wonder if their message can win or even compete for hearts and minds. The NRA always assumed that gun owners would defend their guns while everyone else just sat by. After June 2nd, I wouldn’t want to take that assumption to the bank.
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Seeing green helps spiders perfect jump
Arachnid focus Jumping spiders use green light to gauge the distance of their jumps, a Japanese study has found.
The findings not only explain how the spiders so reliably hit their targets, they may help to improve computer vision.
Professor Akihisa Terakita, Dr Mitsumasa Koyanagi and Dr Takashi Nagata and colleagues of Osaka City University in Japan report their results this week in the journal Science.
There are thousands of species of jumping spider spread throughout the world, which have a remarkable ability to leap several times their body length on to their prey. The scientists looked at a particular species (Hasarius adansoni) that lives in the fields around the Osaka City University. "We often find them in our houses", says Terakita.
Most jumping spiders have four sets of eyes. The key to their athletic prowess appears to be the main eyes in the centre. In the 1980s, studies showed that the retina of these central eyes are very unusual - having four layers of photoreceptor cells instead of the normal single layer.
The Japanese scientists knew that the spiders were not using 'binocular vision' to measure distance. This is the main technique we use, where each eye gives a slightly different picture of the scene and the brain can then work out how far away things are.
The spiders were also not using 'lens accommodation' - thickening or thinning of their lenses. The spider lens is "in a rigid cuticle and therefore not able to be altered in thickness", says Terakita.
They weren't using'motion parallax' either. This is used by insects such as the praying mantis, which sways back and forth thus giving itself different pictures of the object.
This left scientists wondering how do spiders measure depth.
'Depth defocus'
Terakita's team examined a mechanism known as 'depth defocus', where the depth (or distance to an object) is determined by measuring the fuzziness of its image.
Their first discovery was that the two deepest layers of the retina only had receptors for green light.
Whether or not an image is focussed depends on two things: the wavelength (or colour) of the light, and distance between the lens and the layer of photoreceptors. Other scientists had already noted that green light would only be sharply in focus in the deepest retinal layer. In the next layer, which is a little closer to the lens, green light would be 'defocused' giving fuzzy images.
So why would the spiders bother collecting a fuzzy image? Terakita thinks that the spiders are in some way measuring the fuzziness of the image in the nearer layer and using that to judge distance by depth defocus.
The culmination of their research was an experiment where four spiders were repeatedly tested for their ability to jump on flies in either red or green light. In the green light they jumped perfectly. In the red light they consistently fell short, jumping only about 90 per cent of the distance to the flies. The value of 90 per cent fitted nicely with theoretical calculations the scientists had done using lens equations.
'Excellent eyes'
Professor Marie Herberstein of Macquarie University, who was not part of the research, is an expert in colour and vision in spiders. "Jumping spiders have excellent eyes", she says. "Their entire life revolves around vision, unlike most other spiders which rely on vibration."
"Depth perception is important to these spiders, not just for jumping on prey, but for things like males approaching females (which can be much larger). Cannibalism is rife amongst spiders and when they are hungry, well anything that moves, they just jump on it."
"The real beauty about this paper is the fullness of their explanation", says Herberstein. "I particularly value the fact that they went on to do the behavioural study. High tech is great but in the end you have to test [the hypothesis] on the whole animal."
Terakita's team have looked at just one species of jumping spider, but both he and Herberstein suspect that other jumping spiders are also using depth defocus.
"About ten kinds of jumping spiders have had their retina structure investigated by different research groups", says Terakita. "All of them have a four-layered retina. So we think most jumping spiders have a similar system."
"How to detect depth is one of the ongoing challenges in the field of computer vision", adds Terakita. He thinks there may be much to learn from the spider's system.Academy Award-winning actor and ardent Bernie Sanders campaigner Susan Sarandon, spoke out against Hillary Clinton, saying that her presidency could prove “more dangerous” than Donald Trump’s.
In an appearance on The Young Turks, Sarandon criticised Ms Clinton on her foreign policy positions. She also conveyed that she does not take seriously Mr Trump’s sensational promises to build a wall along the southern border and bar Muslim immigration into the US.
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.
“I believe in a way she is more dangerous,” Sarandon suggested, responding to questions about the Clinton campaign calling her Republican rival “dangerous”.
“She did not learn from Iraq, and she is an interventionist, and she has done horrible things … and very callously. I don’t know if she is overcompensating or what her trip is.
“I think we’ll be in Iran in two seconds.”
She continued: “I’m not worried about a wall being built. [Trump] is not going to get rid of every Muslim in this country.... I don’t know what his policy is. I do know what her policies are, I do know who she is taking money from, and I do know that she is not transparent, and I do know that nobody calls her on it.”
Sarandon also appeared on MSNBC Thursday night deriding the lack of media coverage that is critical of Ms Clinton, calling the federal indictment of the former secretary of state “inevitable”.
“Nobody’s even talking about this indictment. What happens with that?” Sarandon said. “Besides the trust issue of catching her in so many lies.”
When reminded that there has not been an indictment, Sarandon responded: “No, but there’s going to be. There’s going to be. I mean, it’s inevitable.”
Sarandon is campaigning on behalf of Sen Sanders ahead of Tuesday’s primaries.
Hillary Clinton gave her most critical speech of Mr Trump during a foreign policy address Thursday afternoon in San Diego.
In her speech, she called Mr Trump "temperamentally unfit" to be president, and said his foreign policy consisted of only "bizarre rants, personal feuds and outright lies".
We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view.
At The Independent, no one tells us what to write. That’s why, in an era of political lies and Brexit bias, more readers are turning to an independent source. Subscribe from just 15p a day for extra exclusives, events and ebooks – all with no ads.
Subscribe nowBernardi resigns after bestiality comment
Updated
Liberal senator Cory Bernardi has resigned as Tony Abbott's parliamentary secretary amid a fierce backlash over comments he made linking gay marriage to the social acceptance of having sex with animals.
Mr Abbott has described the comments as "ill-disciplined" and has accepted Senator Bernardi's resignation.
"They're views I don't share," the Opposition Leader told reporters in Canberra.
"They're views that I think many people would find repugnant.
"I had a conversation with Senator Bernardi [and] as a result of that conversation, he offered his resignation and I've accepted his resignation.
"I think it's pretty clear that I have sent a very strong message to every member of the team that ill-discipline is unacceptable.
"I think it's pretty clear that if you want to freelance, you can do so on the backbench," he said.
During a Senate debate last night Senator Bernardi said the push for same-sex marriage was coming from "radicals" who were determined to overturn the social fabric of Australian society.
And he questioned where the campaign would end, if society was prepared to redefine marriage based on the "latest criterion" that it should be allowed irrespective of gender.
"The next step, quite frankly, is having three people or four people that love each other being able to enter into a permanent union endorsed by society - or any other type of relationship," Senator Bernardi said.
"There are even some creepy people out there... [who] say it is OK to have consensual sexual relations between humans and animals.
"Will that be a future step? In the future will we say, 'These two creatures love each other and maybe they should be able to be joined in a union'.
"I think that these things are the next step."
Speaking on ABC Radio this morning, Senator Bernardi was not backing down.
"We've already had complaints from those in the polyamorous community about [how] this will discriminate against them... these people will continue to advocate for these causes and I think if we're going to redefine marriage... there will be another call to include a broader |
itions on murder, theft and kidnap, are clearly principles for an ordered society, but they are secular as well as religious principles to live by. With an increased awareness of all kinds of injustices, our moral consciousness continues to shift and so is often determined by the zeitgeist. Furthermore, the obvious patriarchal tone of some of these commandments reflects their context and time, but in an age of increased inclusiveness and gender equality, how do these commandments speak to the moral responsibilities of women? Women also covet, murder and desire the illicit.
As a society we usually do not frame our lives with moral absolutes; our thinking has become far more fluid on ethical matters. We could imagine the state coming up with its own commandments, such as “You shall pay your taxes” or “You shall not commit an act of terrorism”, far more important for political regimes than whether its citizens commit adultery. But maybe, despite changing realities, we like to hold on to ideals that fix certain things such as marriage and property as inviolable. They are sacred to us precisely because they can’t be couched in legal language.
The Ten Commandments don’t form part of daily conversation for most of us, but I grew up well aware of the implications of one particular commandment: that of honouring my father and mother. It was culture, religion and my parents’ discipline all rolled into one. It wasn’t always easy but it remained an unspoken truth.
For me, however, I think there is only one rule to live by, the golden rule of treating others as you wish to be treated yourself. A bit ordinary – even a cliché, maybe – but it still stands as culturally the most widely shared ethical tenet in history. This is the ultimate religious, secular and moral commandment, applicable to all and deserved by all. It has the power to lift people out of all kinds of subjugation but it’s not always about doing anything or acting in any way. Rather, it is more an orientation towards others, a state of mind in which we are aware that we are essentially relational beings, without drawing on too many emotional or psychological excesses. If we turn it into a philosophical abstraction, it becomes meaningless; if we think of it in terms of our everyday encounters with one another, it speaks to human aspiration in us all.
Mona Siddiqui is Professor of Islamic and Interreligious Studies at the University of Edinburgh
Thou shalt tolerate other gods
Julian Baggini
Morality is one of humanity’s most important innovations. Although it is often thought of as belonging to an eternal metaphysical reality, handed down to human beings on tablets of stone, it is first and foremost simply a powerful tool for managing the social world. At the very least it keeps us from each other’s throats and at its best it promotes actively pro-social behaviour. Laws enforce a
certain degree of order but it is morality that oils the wheels of daily interactions and gives the law its legitimacy. Different cultures have found different ways to implement such a system of benign control, and the Ten Commandments provide the template for how it has been made to work in the West.
The first component is that the core moral principles tell us what we must avoid if we are to live together peacefully. The five final instructions of the Decalogue – the “Thou shalt nots” – state these in the broadest terms possible. Three still form the basis of our most serious criminal laws: killing, cheating, stealing. The other two are examples of the kinds of sins – adultery and covetousness – we generally oppose but which it would be foolish to use the weight of the law to enforce. All five still resonate today. The prohibition against adultery might seem outdated but it is remarkable how our theoretical tolerance usually goes out of the window if we are the ones cheated on.
The first five, however, deal with a very different aspect of morality: the authority on which the rules stand. They are prefaced by a simple message: “I am the Lord thy God.” The message is clear: if anyone should ask why these commandments should be followed, the answer is simply because your God says you should, and gods are not to be disobeyed. God is a strangely elusive being, however; and consequently, a society obedient to him must remind itself frequently that he exists. This demands forsaking all other gods, setting aside a day a week to worship him and creating taboos against uttering his name in vain or trying to create images of him.
Then there is the rule that links divine with secular authority: “Honour thy father and thy mother.” Here is the acknowledgement that morality requires a commitment to the social order, not just the heavenly one. To keep the old rules, people must learn to respect the old ways and that starts by revering the generation above you, with the reward that you, too, will one day be respected by the generation that follows.
So here you have a kind of recipe for a moral system that can survive millennia: rules that govern social interactions, underpinned by an obedience to those who gave you the rules. These law-givers are both the ultimate source – remote and divine – but also the actual people who pass these laws on – proximate and human.
No wonder that the very word “morality” seems to be increasingly out of place in the modern world. Even though almost no one would want to be killed or slandered, or see their partner or belongings stolen, very few of us recognise anything as providing sufficient authority to underwrite these rules. We want the protections of morality without having to defer to it, the fruits without the roots.
The problem is not that morality requires divine assent. Plato showed long ago why God’s say-so doesn’t answer the question of why some things are right and others wrong. If things were good only because God commanded them, then morality would be hollow and God could as easily demand murder as prohibit it. So God only gave us his commandments because they were the right ones to follow in the first place. That means they are right whether God tells us about them or not.
The problem we have now is social, not philosophical. We have as much reason to be moral today as when Moses descended from Mount Sinai. The trouble is that, in practice, reason has little to do with it. Ask most people why they hold the values they do and they won’t give you a philosophical argument: they’ll simply say “That was how I was brought up” or “It’s just right”. Deference to a moral authority saves us the trouble of having to think more deeply about why we ought to do anything at all.
I don’t think there can or should be a going back to the days when spiritual shepherds spoke and human flocks followed. But something needs to do the work today that those five commandments did for centuries. That something needs to transcend our own narrow self-interests and those of our kith and kin. The only credible candidate for that is our common humanity. To cynics this sounds like wet, naive, kumbaya-singing optimism. Ideals of a shared human nature evaporated pretty quickly in the Balkans, Rwanda and Congo. When even Muslims slaughter Muslims for being the wrong kind, it would seem that when push comes to shove, what divides us is always much stronger than what unites us.
Yet these things horrify us precisely because they are exceptions to the rule. On the whole we do treat each other well, for no other reason than we recognise that if you prick any of us, we bleed. Every major moral advance – the emancipations of slaves, women, ethnic minorities and gay and transgender people – has followed from a growing recognition that those previously seen as second-class citizens are in all vital respects the same as anyone else. Add to that a strong dose of enlightened self-interest,
a recognition that the smitten have a tendency to smite back with even more righteous violence, and there is no mystery as to why we still largely adhere to the social teachings of the Decalogue long after their author has exited stage left.
But the genocides and sectarian struggles of our age remind us that this sense of shared humanity is extremely fragile and we need to work constantly to maintain and strengthen it. In a globalised world, that requires us to resist any kind of “us and them” thinking, particularity the kind that denigrates outsiders.
This is the heart of the moral revolution that has been quietly rumbling on over the past few hundred years. Morality used to be rooted in a sense of attachment and loyalty to the group, with its requirements to honour its God alone and to forsake all others. Now it has to be about weakening those partisan links and connecting with a wider humanity. This requires a complete reversal of the first three commandments. Thou shalt allow other gods or none, tolerate graven images or likenesses, and let your Lord’s name be taken in vain. For whoever the Lord thy God is, your first and highest duty is to your fellow human beings.
Julian Baggini is a philosopher. His books include “Freedom Regained: the Possibility of Free Will” (Granta)
Follow the mantra of online gamers
Laurie Penny
The sun is blazing over the smoky mountains as I sit down to eat my lunch on the “thou” of “Thou Shalt Not Kill”. The words are hammered into the North Carolina hillside above a natural amphitheatre a hundred feet high. I have come to the World’s Largest Ten Commandments, a roadside attraction and religious theme park, to make some healthy British fun of bonkers American Christianity and to amuse myself by walking all over the word of God. Quite literally, in fact – the barrier is broken, and there is no sign saying, “Thou shalt not wander on to the Ten Commandments and eat a peanut butter sandwich.” Which is what I do.
Making fun of Bible-bashing Yanks is a standard tourist activity for British expats. This is a country marinated in Christianity, a country where some believers open fire in women’s health clinics and others dedicate their lives to social justice in the name of a dead Palestinian. Americans are not perturbed by the violent absurdity of Christianity, whereas the British have had too many centuries of mad aristocrats roasting each other alive for reciting the wrong catechism to be anything else. It is no accident that most of the high priests of world atheism are British – not when our major exports are intellectual snobbery, religious discomfort and passive aggression.
The Ten Commandments theme park is relentlessly mockable. The gift shop features so many weak attempts at wacky religious wordplay that it should be called a punnery. You can buy a ten-inch plastic ruler that says “He is the Ruler” and a T-shirt with an owl on it that says “God is Good Owl the Time”. There are books of prayer specifically for the followers of various sports teams. There’s a plaque acknowledging the sponsorship of the Church of God of Florida, a mysterious cult that surely involves the worship of a giant alligator. I could go on.
There are countries and communities in the world where being an atheist takes true courage – but I did not grow up in one, and neither did most of us in the West. There are situations where it’s fine to laugh at religion, where religion is used as an excuse to terrorise the vulnerable and oppress minorities. But religion does not have a monopoly on those excuses. To my surprise, browsing in the awful gift shop, I find myself thinking of the “ultimate commandment” of Jesus. The one he is supposed to have invented for a follower who found ten too many to handle: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
****
People are often surprised by how well I know the Bible. As a child, I briefly attended an evangelical boarding school – an unusual phenomenon in godless Britain, especially for the atheist child of a lapsed Jew and a lapsed Catholic.
There were daily Bible lessons, and I was a swot. It was a point of pride to me to get the top marks in every scripture class, despite thinking the whole thing was silly and not being afraid to say so.
I had about as much fun at that school as you might expect. Once, after midnight, I was shaken awake and led into a bathroom where eight other 11-year-old girls were clutching Bibles and praying for my soul. There followed a long session of prepubescent proselytising about how terrible it was that I was going to burn in hell for all eternity. My overwhelming memory of that night is of shame, not about my sinfulness, but about how badly I needed to wee. The toilets were right there and the girls wouldn’t let me go because they were too concerned about my eternal soul, whereas I was worried about the immediate possibility of wetting my pyjamas.
Kids are mean, especially when someone gives them a book of rules telling them that they’re allowed to be mean for somebody else’s own good. So are adults. I got into trouble with the kids for being a weirdo, and I got into trouble with the teachers for arguing about evolution. I got into trouble for questioning the school uniform and asking why there were different rules for boys and girls.
Getting into trouble for those things didn’t make me feel good – it made me feel righteous. I knew I had the right answers, unlike my poor, deluded, hymn-singing and hand-waving classmates. Having the right answers meant that I was smarter than they were, and that meant that I was better than they were, and that was a small comfort while they were pouring orange juice in my schoolbag.
I did have one friend, a girl who was sometimes kind to me and invited me to her house to listen to Sugar Ray while her brother shot crows in the back garden. We didn’t have much in common, but if it hadn’t been for her, my lonely childhood would have been far lonelier, though I never found the courage to say so at the time. When we had rows, like little girls do, it was always about Jesus.
We were both convinced that we were right and the other was dangerously stupid, but somehow we stayed friends. She got sick, and I visited her in hospital and made her mix tapes until she got better. When she was well, she gave me a copy of Left Behind, the evangelical novel about the Rapture. I interpreted this as a catty comment about my sinfulness and never opened it.
In senior school, my friend began to make new friends, girls with shiny hair and social skills. Instead of telling her how hurt I was, I picked fights about God to push her further away. Once I made her cry in the middle of double English by calling her a religious hysteric. I was right and she was wrong, so of course I didn’t think of myself as a bully. I was only telling her those things for her own good.
We grew up, like little girls do, and lost what touch we still had. Years later, packing my books to move house, I opened that copy of Left Behind – and found a note in curly, childish handwriting, thanking me for being a good friend.
****
Goodness is not about what a person believes, but how a person behaves.
I no longer think it’s a good use of my time to mock other people simply because they believe silly things. I believe a lot of silly things, myself. I believe that human beings are basically decent, and that if we learn to take better care of one another there’s a good chance the species will survive the century. I believe that scientific progress can solve structural problems. I believe that one day Doctor Who will be good again. I believe in such things as justice and mercy, which are impossible to see or touch or quantify, and if I didn’t, I don’t know quite how I’d carry on.
I don’t like rules. I prefer guidelines. But if I had to come up with a commandment, it would be: “Don’t be a dick.” This mantra of the online gaming world actually works rather better than “Do unto others”, which relies on people thinking that they deserve to be treated with kindness, when even the most devout people can find it hard to believe in their own worth.
I learned, as I’ve grown and travelled, that people often see God not as he is, but as they are. I’ve learned that being right and being good aren’t always the same, although I’d rather be both. I still think that the Bible is a patriarchal fairy tale that can be poison in the hands of bigots. I’m not sorry about that. I am sorry for being a dick to my friend when I was 13. I was right, but I was also wrong.
“Don’t be a dick” covers the important bases. It probably includes not making public fun of people’s profound beliefs simply because that makes you feel superior. I am an atheist. I believe that all we’ve got is this world, and each other. All the more reason, then, to be kind.
Laurie Penny is an NS contributing editor
Keep it simple: just be kind
Jan Morris
I am an agnostic edging towards theism, by which I mean that on balance, on the whole, it seems to me there probably exists some unimaginable agency, somewhere or other, which has, since the beginning of all things, governed everything, past, present and in the future. That being so, during my nearly nine decades of existence and experience, I have reached the conclusion that one’s own life can best be governed by a single rule of moral conduct. God knows (if I may be forgiven the phrase), I don’t always obey the rule, but here it is for what it’s worth; my One Commandment, as it were: Be Kind!
This strikes me as simple, straight, easy to understand and all-embracing. I was brought up, though, in the Judaeo-Christian tradition that honours the more complex injunctions brought down from Mount Sinai by Moses – the Ten Commandments, known to scholars as the Decalogue. They appear in several, slightly different versions in the first five books of the Bible, known as the Pentateuch and traditionally believed to have been written by Moses himself, and as I am a child of Anglican discipline they lie always dormant in my subconscious.
It is curious to consider how relevant they are to today’s concerns and how my own elementary rule conforms to the instructions of my distant childhood; so here they are, the Decalogue, from the Book of Exodus in the good old King James version of 1611, shortened and provided with my own agnostic responses. They are prologued by a simple declaration – “I am the Lord Thy God,” which is agnostically debatable, for a start – and they continue thus:
1 The Decalogue: Thou shalt have no other gods.
Me: Well, so you say.
2 The Decalogue: Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.
Me: It depends entirely upon the image.
3 The Decalogue: Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
Me: If you mean using religious conviction to evil ends, I agree.
4 The Decalogue: Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
Me: Oh dear, I wish I could, but it’s too late even for Wales.
5 The Decalogue: Honour thy father and thy mother.
Me: Quite right, too.
6 The Decalogue: Thou shalt not kill.
Me: Spot on.
7 The Decalogue: Thou shall not commit adultery.
Dear me, no.
8 The Decalogue: Thou shall not steal.
Me: Certainly not.
9 The Decalogue: Thou shall not bear false witness.
Me: Agreed, of course.
10 The Decalogue: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, nor anything that is thy neighbour’s.
Me: Semantically acceptable, as there’s a difference between coveting and envying.
(11 The Decalogue: Thou shalt not lie.
Me: This is not one of the commandments but I think it should be.)
I agree with most of the Ten, you see, as most of us presumably would. Allowing for changing circumstances, in the many centuries since Moses first carved them in his Sinai rock, most of his commands seem to me to make moral sense still. But naturally, down the generations Christians of diverse persuasions, followers of the New Testament, have questioned aspects of the code, and many converts to the faith have doubtless been puzzled by it.
Indeed, in the 1860s the first Anglican bishop of Natal, an ardent Christian missionary, publicly doubted the historical validity of the entire Mosaic law, resulting in a celebrated imperialist limerick:
A bishop there was of Natal
Who took a Zulu for a pal.
Said the Kaffir, “Look ’ere,
“Ain’t the Pentateuch queer?”
And converted My Lord of Natal.
I agree with that Zulu. I reject the Decalogue as a behavioural guide for Christians, let alone agnostics, not merely because some of it is outdated and ignorable, but because of its utter lack of compassion. There is no hint of forgiveness in the Ten Commandments, an absence which might well have seemed queer to converts to the faith of the New Testament. For it was, of course, Jesus, long after Moses, who taught us the fundamental Christian virtue of universal affection: and it was St Paul, a convert in his own right, who told the Celtic Christians of Galatia that all the laws of conduct could be summed up in this single one of Christ’s sayings: “Love thy neighbour as thyself.”
In other words, BE KIND!
Jan Morris is a historian and the author of more than 30 books
Thou shalt not destroy
Jeanette Winterson
I love the story of Moses going up Mount Sinai to visit G-d, who is variously a thick cloud and a burning bush and who eventually writes in stone with his finger. G-d likes writing with his finger, especially on solid surfaces – later he will terrify Belshazzar by graffiti-ing his wall while he is having people over to dinner.
Aramaic was written with consonants alone, no vowels, so knowing what vowels to add is supplied by the context. In G-d’s case, that usually means trouble, and in Belshazzar’s case it certainly did: he had been weighed and found wanting – Mene mene tekel upharsin. When I was growing up Mrs Winterson had a tray for her bills labelled “Mene Tekel”: she could never pay them.
Our turns of phrase are here – the writing is on the wall. Written in stone. The Ten Commandments had to be written out twice by G-d because Moses broke the first set in a fit of rage when he got back down the mountain and found the Israelites dancing round a golden calf they had made by melting their jewels. They didn’t know that G-d had just written that they weren’t to make any graven images or go chasing after other gods. It was an awkward moment.
Unusually, because G-d loses his temper easily in the Old Testament (see Get Out of Eden wearing just the fig leaves on your back, well not on your back, elsewhere, and The Flood – I made them, I can break them), G-d agrees to write another set of commandments, provided Moses brings him the stone.
The big deals of the Ten Commandments are no murdering, no adultery and no gods other than G-d. This move to monotheism was radical, and signalled YHWH’s corporate takeover of tinpot deities like blingy calves. It was a political decision on the part of G-d and a smart move to rebrand Israel as different. If you are wandering around in the desert wishing you were back in Egypt with better food and toilet facilities (if you don’t believe me, read it for yourself), then some new ideas might distract you from the fact that 40 years in the wilderness is a long time for what started out as a camping trip to the Promised Land.
The adultery clause, like No Other Gods, is a way of keeping things focused and in the family. It addresses the worry that we always know who is the mother of the child but in a patriarchal system it’s paternity that counts. Such a system is plainly bonkers, but we’re pretty much still in it, and women, then as now, are expected to be the gatekeepers of morality.
At the time, an even bigger worry than whom your wife might be sleeping with was the Great Whore of Babylon: in other words, any of the goddess-worshipping, female-first religions that Judaism had to get rid of. The Goddess Has To Go preoccupies priests and prophets alike, and cripples the role of women in Orthodox Judaism – in spite of the strange and magnificent presence of the Shekinah, always feminine in the Kabbalah.
Fear of female sexuality is the negative of the Sex Commandment. The positive side of this Thou Shalt Not must be that if you are not sleeping with someone else, your erotic and emotional attention is available to your partner. We all know that gets harder as a marriage gets older. But the best part of commitment is the challenge. Finding new ways to love is more difficult than finding a new person to love.
When Jesus was presented with the woman taken in adultery, and the religious types ready to stone her, he did some of that finger-writing favoured by G-d – this time in the dust – and challenged anyone who was without sin to cast the first stone. When her accusers slunk off, Jesus forgave her. That the woman couldn’t be stoned or strangled was a step forward in consciousness. The commandment Thou Shalt Not Murder was not understood as Thou Shalt Not Kill.
Murder is the wrongful taking of a life. Killing can be legal, as all our wars make miserably clear. People of all faiths kill each other for just cause. I wish we could revise that commandment. As long as people of faith – any faith – can justify killing, we will go on killing, and the outlook in 2016 for world peace is bleak.
My favourite commandment is the honouring of the Sabbath. The six days of labour and the seventh day of rest. The rest day isn’t about slumping in front of the TV with a tube of Pringles; it’s a day shaped differently from a week of getting and spending. I am not religious any more, but I like the spiritual observances that religion is mindful of. If you believe that life has an inside as well as an outside, then how shall we honour that truth? How shall we find time for contemplation, imagination, turning the mind away from daily worries towards that word, “soul”? You don’t have to believe in God or an afterlife to believe that human beings are more than their material purpose.
It is against the materiality of life that the Graven Images Commandment has most to say. How do we imagine what is transcendent? Music can do it. Poetry can do it. Abstract art can do it. Representation cannot – what are we representing? Not an apple, not a dog, not a thing, not a noun. The Puritan zeal against Roman Catholic adornment was the usual wish of reformers to return to a simpler basic – wherein, supposedly, truth lies waiting.
Isis has been doing the same. When you watch the hateful men in black laying waste to ancient monuments, remember Cromwell on his spree across England, finally halting at Stonyhurst, leaving behind an orgy of smashed altars, stained-glass windows and the dust of desecrated Virgins. Mary, of course, had to endure a double destruction, as icon and as woman.
Thou Shalt Not Destroy would be a good commandment for the modern world. It might even save the planet. Along the way, it might save the destruction in the name of profit of much that is beautiful. That commandment about covetousness is never observed. We want everything our neighbour has, and newer and bigger. But there is no commandment that says “Buy Now, Pay Later”. l
Jeanette Winterson is a novelist and professor of creative writing97 Hubstaff. It integrates with more than 30 project management services and offers automatic payroll, budgets, website monitoring, and more.... Hubstaff is a really nice time tracking tool that is best known for its screenshots and activity levels $5.00
95 Toggl. Toggl combines a solid feature set with intuitive design, great mobile apps, and handfuls of integrations. A great choice for any freelancer/team.... Toggl is a fantastic time tracking software available for only $5 per month $9.00
94 Freckle, Freckle is a gem of a time-tracker. Highly recommended for freelancers and teams alike.... Fully featured and a pleasure to use $19.00
92 Harvest. A pleasure to use, with modern features and great integrations, Harvest is a solid choice for time tracking.... Harvest is a great solution for freelancers and teams $12.00
92 Paymo. Positives include great support across devices, a good API and solid invoicing. It's hard to find anything wrong with Paymo.... Paymo is a great solution for freelancers and teams who want to track their time $4.95
91 Activecollab. Full set of features with lots of benefits. Modern and good value.... With ActiveCollab, time tracking is part of a bigger package which is suited to teams and project management $25.00
91 Cashboard, it's comprehensively integrated with other platforms and it's simple to use.... Cashboard is a slick modern platform for freelancers and teams $8.25
91 Timecamp. Feature-full and slick, their apps and integrations "just work", and their free-to-modest pricing is likely to help your decision.... Timecamp has placed itself high up the running order and for good reason $6.00
87 Open Hour. With genuinely useful integrations with Adobe CS suite and Creative Cloud, CreativeWorx is highly usable for creatives. Other pros include a pretty GUI, an awesome 'tag' system, Quickbooks integration and more. Cons in comparison with the others here include no native mobile apps. CreativeWorx is another Automatic time-tracker, ideal if you're established in your work, but if you prefer to start and stop timers it'll take getting used to.... CreativeWorx is a great option for freelancers and teams who live in Adobe products $7.95
86 Rescue Time. RescueTime's watches your apps and automatically segments computer operations into project times. Has great features such as blocking of websites, notifications and 'highlights of the day'. Overall a great option for those wanting automatic tracking. Pleasantly geared towards helping you optimise.... RescueTime has recently had an overhaul and it's now looking good $9.00
86 Timeneye. Integrations with Basecamp, Redbooth & Hiveed are useful and their API is well documented. Splitting a time entry over a projects tasks is a useful, (and unique), feature. With a new pricing scheme from Jan 2015, you can get a really usable time-tracking solution for $9pm, or a greatly scaled team option for less than $40pm. The latest version of Timeneye is also a good improvement (released end of 2014).... Timeneye is a great value time tracking software $15.00
84 ChronoMate. A pretty Mac-only option.... Simple, functional timer app for a single machine environment $1.00
84 Tick. Tick has a modern interface, Basecamp QuickBooks and FreshBooks integrations, and is a very usable time tracker. Tick's pricing makes it a cheaper option for teams, being focused on project count, rather than user count. It's API is XML based, though it does have a JSON API in Beta.... Solid time-tracking $19.00
84 Timely, and it's multi-day drag and drop timer layout is a pleasure to use. Great for freelancers and teams. Timely also has a very pretty iPhone app. Timely is hot on development, and I believe is working on many new amazing features! (One to watch.)... Timely is beautiful $14.00
84 ZipBooks customers and projects to track time to and generate invoices from time you have tracked.... ZipBooks is a free web based time tracking app. It lets you create $0.00
83 Time Doctor, whether you are a single user or running a team. Pros include all-device support, integrated billing, handfuls and handfuls of features, (screenshots of team-screens, reminders, a pretty 'always on top' bar). Cons: a lack of a project/task hierarchy (actually, this restriction is only for lite users), and a little dated GUI, (compared to others). Overall though, a great option at this price.... Time Doctor is another solid option for time tracking $9.99
82 Chrometa. It's pricing doesn't get cheaper with more users and there's no API, but the interface is slick.... Chrometa is great if you're looking for automated tracking of everything you're doing $12.00
82 Paydirt with some cool innovations including a great quote builder and keyword focused browser-extension (Chrome - parses websites as you use them and try to infer which project you are working on.) Overall a usable time tracker, and more. Having no API or mobile/desktop apps is a considerable drawback, but for a freelancer the other features do add value.... Paydirt is a browser-centric time tracking software $8.00
81 mite.. With a focus on a strong API and a solid web-app, mite. offers you a 'no-frills' time-tracking experience, but has some great integrations from what seems to be a growing developer community. This approach, (letting others build on a framework) is a nice innovation, and certainly developers will feel at home with this cultural choice. However, if you want a full-service all-features-under-the-sun option, this isn't that. It's cheap though, at �5pm. (Price is �5pm, converted to USD on 13/02/2015 is $5.70)... mite. is ideal for developers $5.70
81 TMetric project management services. It's currently free but paid plans will be offered in the future.... TMetric is a simple to use, web based time tracking tool. It features reports and integrations with $0.00
80 TSheets to its mobile time tracking with GPS. It also helps to keep track of employee paid time off.... TSheets is a great time tracking tool for teams on the move thanks $8.00
80 TrackingTime calendars, reports, and integrations. It is easy to get started with TrackingTime.... TrackingTime is a slick web app and time tracking tool that includes $4.99
79 Time Clock Wizard employees. They offer GPS tracking via their Android and iOS apps as well.... Time Clock Wizard is a free (add supported) time tracking tool that allows you to track unlimited $0.00
78 Clockodo. Project budgets are a nice touch and the dashboard is good. Not a bad choice at $8pm, even if the website isn't totally informative.... A very usable time-tracker with unique styling $8.00
78 MinuteDock web based time tracking that works well on any device, so you can use it anywhere you need.... MinuteDock offers time tracking for clients, projects, tasks, and more. It features $19.00
78 Avaza that also offers per user rates, reporting, and billing.... Avaza is an up and coming web based time tracking tool $9.95
77 primaERP or enter time manually in the calendar view. The budgeting allows you to compare estimated time with actual time.... primaERP offers a time tracking app (web based or mobile apps). Track time automatically $4.00
75 TimeFox, in-house design teams and the like. Timefox is geared towards design-houses, and suits that environment, but it is definitely usable. Apps across platforms is a bonus. Note: Free plan available to students.... Full of features, TimeFox gives you handfuls of tools but feels most suitable for small agencies $5.00
75 Ding, and if you are after a simple option to track non-complex tasks, it's ideal. There is a high-level simplicity to Ding, whereby a super-slick GUI doesn't overwhelm you with features. It's simple, direct, focused. Cons for power users include a lack of a project/task hierarchy, which is quite a big feature-gap. Ding remains highly usable and simple, though perhaps over-priced for that fact.... Ding is a pretty time-tracker $10.00
75 TimeAttend and reporting. Cloud based time tracking is available as a paid add on.... Replicon's TimeAttend is a solution for businesses in need of overtimeand absensce management, time tracking, $9.00
75 bill4time for clients, staff, and consultants. You can run multiple timers at once and convert appointments to time entries.... bill4time allows you to track both billable and non-billable time. You can track time $15.00
74 Zoho People. Zoho People is not a bad choice, with Zoho integration and a well supported API. Not ideal for solo to medium sized companies though.... For those of you with HR departments $39.00
74 ManicTime. By logging the time you spend in different apps it lets you leave time-tracking until the end of the day, allowing you to later tag time periods against projects. In lots of ways a good app if you want all of your activity logged, though restricted to Windows.... ManicTime is another automated time-tracking software $67.00
74 10,000ft Plans set budgets and track fees as well.... 10,000ft Plans offers flexible timesheets and expense tracking. You can $10.00
73 TimeWriter scheduling, time off, ovetime management, job costing, and budgets.... TimeWriter is a downloadable time tracking software. It includes staff $200.00
72 Subernova. Overall not a bad option, it falls down though, with it's slightly-dated UI, lack of payment options (only Paypal), and by the fact it's desktop app has not been updated for over two years.... Subernova is a fully-featured platform for managing your freelance/agency work $19.00
72 Ronin to set budgets and rates and generate invoices.... Ronin is a simple web based time tracking tool that allows you $15.00
72 eBillity so you can review employees' work. It syncs with QuickBooks, Xero, Gusto, and Concur.... eBillity is web based time tracking that allows approvals $9.95
70 Atracker but lacks integrations and web access. Bonus: It's only $2.99.... A great app if all you need is simple time tracking $4.99 |
sort of person who takes so many self-portraits you’ll consider spending money on a selfie stick, it’s a cast-iron certainty that absolutely no one needs or wants to see another photograph of you ever again. Until the invention of the Selfpreciator, that is. The Selfpreciator is a quasi-sentient head-shaped device with one giant eye and a fixed grin, programmed to gaze approvingly at every self-portrait you upload while issuing appreciative murmurs and tweeting encouraging emojis your way. It’s even got its own selfie stick, so it can take photographs of itself admiring photographs of you, then email them to you, so you can ignore them while adjusting your selfie stick.
Total Farage Plus
As 2015 dawns, Britain seems more divided than ever. But there’s one thing we can all agree on: we just don’t see enough of Nigel Farage. Sometimes you can eat an entire Twix without seeing a photograph of him raising a pint and guffawing or hearing his voice on the radio. Total Farage Plus is a tiny chip almost painlessly inserted into the back of your mind using a knitting needle and a croquet mallet. Once in place and booted-up, it hijacks the signal to your visual cortex, skilfully Photoshopping Farage into whatever you’re looking at. Enjoying a glorious sunset? It’ll be even better with Farage’s face peeping over the horizon. Bathing your kids? Nigel’s here too, with a cheeky blob of bath foam perched on his lovable nose! Staring into the eyes of the one you love? That’s not your own reflection gazing back at you – it’s Farage. Kicking a foreigner to death? Who’s that standing beside you, delivering the final blow with his steel-toe boots, real ale sloshing from the pint he’s still holding in one hand, a lusty guffaw bursting from his wobbly amphibian throat? It’s Farage again! What a card!
City Shittle
Our metropolises are blighted by two problems: a lack of public transport and a lack of public loos. This solves both issues in one fell swoop: a driverless biofuel vehicle and toilet cubicle in one. Step in, sit down, tap in the target postcode with your nose (more hygienic than fingers), then simply let go and defecate, secure in the knowledge that the supersmart vehicle is converting your excretions into fuel as it expertly navigates the city streets, allowing you to arrive at your destination as empty-bummed as you are relaxed. NB to prevent terrorism and/or mobile cottaging, the entire thing is made of completely transparent glass, and has a maximum speed of 1mph.
Pocket Timejump
A small handheld device that enables you to leap forward in time without even realising you’re doing it. Simply pull the small rectangular device out of your pocket midway through an episode of Call the Midwife or a dinner party or a wedding or something, intending to glance at it for mere seconds, then gasp in astonishment as you look up apparently moments later to discover an hour’s flown by and you haven’t heard or seen anything that’s happened in your immediate vicinity in that time. Twist: you’ve already got one of these. DIDN’T SEE THAT COMING, DID YOU? #christ #jesus #mindblown #wowImage caption Some game farms in South Africa have resorted to de-horning rhinos before poachers get to them
South Africa is considering legalising rhino horn trade - in a bid to combat rampant rhino poaching, but the suggestion has been met with mixed reaction in Southern Africa.
Demand for rhino horn is at an all time high and South Africa, which has the largest reserves of the wild animal, is a prime hunting ground for poachers.
Over the past three years, gangs are said to have killed more than 800 rhinos for their horns, which can fetch £22,000 ($35,055) per kg on the black market.
Poachers use a chainsaw to cut away the rhino's horns, after darting it with a tranquilizer - drugged and helpless the animal bleeds to death.
Large syndicates are involved in this multi-billion dollar trade worldwide - exporting the horns from Africa to parts of Asia and the Middle-East.
Despite many anti-poaching measures 310 have been killed in South Africa this year, more than 330 had been killed at the end of last year - and the numbers are set to increase, experts warn.
In the five years up to 2005, an average of 36 rhinos were killed each year.
Some say today's efforts are "too conventional" and are not enough.
Africa's rhino population 80% Africa's rhino population is found in southern Africa
There are 4,500 black rhino in southern Africa
The black rhino population has decreased by 95% since the 1980s
There are 20,000 white rhino in South Africa alone
About 80% of Africa's rhinos are found on state-owned land and the rest on private property Sources: WWF and Campfire Zimbabwe
Now South Africa has commissioned a study into whether legalising trade in rhino horn could in fact help to bring down poaching, the Department of Environmental Affairs announced recently.
"We are impartial at this stage but we are looking at all the suggestions which could help us in the fight against poachers," the department's spokesperson, Albie Modise, told the BBC.
"We are awaiting submissions and would consider this if we get authentic scientific backing that this would be effective," he said.
The idea is that legalising rhino horn trade would make South Africa directly responsible for meeting the demand for the horns - taking power out of the hands of poachers and placing it in the hands authorities who would also be sensitive to current conservation efforts.
These authorities would do market research into global markets of the trade, said Mr Modise.
The department says rhino horn stock piles could also be sold to fund further rhino conservation efforts.
Mr Modise says the suggestion first came up at a rhino summit held last year to find ways of tackling poaching in southern Africa.
Rhino horn trade is regulated by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) and at present South Africa allows the export of horns only as hunting trophies.
The legal debate
But the consideration has drawn heavy criticism from international conversation group WWF, which says this would be a setback by decades the efforts made to stabilise the rhino population.
"We understand the need to come up with new ways of combating the rhino horn trade but we are against the notion that legalising it is the answer," said Morne du Plessis, of WWF in South Africa.
We must be open to the idea of engaging with the markets and finding ways which would make Africa benefit from the demand Charles Jonga, Director of Campfire Association Zimbabwe
"How can we control legal rhino horn trade when we can't even control illegal trade. There are too many unknowns for us to even start thinking in that direction," Mr du Plessis said.
If WWF believed legalising the industry would be of benefit - it would be done research on the matter itself, he added.
Instead, WWF believes that such a move would only further endanger the lives of rhino - and possibly drive them to extinction.
There are currently 4,500 of the critically endangered black rhino (Diceros bicornis) spread across southern African nations - a shocking decline from the 1980s when 75,000 of the mammals were mostly found in Zimbabwe.
The two sub-species of white rhino (Ceratotherium simum) have a population in the region of 20,000 in South Africa alone.
But Campfire Association Zimbabwe - which advocates being able to make a living from wildlife - supports the idea of legalising the trade, saying it is time efforts looked at untested measures as opposed to the current ones which are not always effective.
"We view this as part and parcel of placing value on the rhino species. We are looking forward to a time when communities would benefit directly from living with the species," says Charles Jonga, who heads Campfire Zimbabwe.
He said his organisation, which was founded in the 1980s, had found that communities which were directly involved in conserving wildlife and were also able to earn a living from it were more keen to protect the animals from poachers.
If the trade were legal, Campfire Zimbabwe says, it would give power to countries with rhinos to set appropriate conditions to the sale - for example insisting that the horn not be used for medicinal purposes or perhaps to get clarity on what markets use the horns.
Mr Jonga said the demand needed to be met and not shunned, adding that there were ways of doing this without driving the rhino population to extinction.
"We must be open to the idea of engaging with the markets and finding ways which would make Africa benefit from the demand and indeed the communities where the rhinos are found," said Mr Jonga.
"We must also look at possibilities of breeding the rhino in our communities," he added.
'Hotspot' patrols
Image caption Some protests in South Africa have called for more action against poaching
Conservationists suspect that most of the illegally harvested rhino horns destined for south-east Asia are used for medicinal purposes.
In Vietnam many believe that ground rhino horn can be used to cure cancer - although there is no scientific proof of this - and those horns taken to the the Middle East are used to make handles for ornamental daggers.
Some measures have been put in place to curb poaching in South Africa including the deployment in recent months of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) to protect the animals from poachers by patrolling "hotspots".
Millions of dollars have been invested over the past few years on high-tech technology, upping conservations efforts and starting up range expansion programmes all in a bid for counter the effects of poaching on the rhino population.
While many countries are desperate for answers to the poaching problem - and many agree that a lot more can be done to save rhinos, critics says South Africa's idea might be too unconventional and untested to get the supports it needs.Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is keeping senators in Washington for a rare Saturday session—and risking a government shutdown—after he went to extraordinary lengths to block Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) from forcing a vote to block President Barack Obama’s executive amnesty.
What happened on Friday night is a series of procedural tactics that Cruz and Lee engaged in with Reid. Cruz tried to force a constitutional point of order—which requires a 51-vote threshold—to challenge the constitutionality of Obama’s executive amnesty. Meanwhile, Lee was pushing an amendment to the cromnibus spending bill that just passed the House that would have blocked funding for Obama’s executive amnesty implementation.
Using parliamentary tricks, Reid blocked both Cruz’s and Lee’s measures, then sought unanimous consent to adjourn the Senate until Monday—at which time Senators would have been brought back in for passage for the cromnibus. But in consultation with Cruz, Lee objected to unanimous consent to adjourn the Senate until Monday unless Reid would allow a vote on the effort to block funding for Obama’s executive amnesty. Because Reid wouldn’t agree to allow the vote, he decided to keep Senators in Washington for the weekend.
Because Reid needs to, per Senate rules, fill the timeframe until senators can actually vote on cloture on the cromnibus bill—which they can first technically do at 1 AM early Sunday morning—Reid is now attempting to force through several controversial Obama nominees like NRA-opposed surgeon general nominee Vivek Murthy, Deputy Secretary of State nominee Tony Blinken, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) director nominee Sarah Saldana.
The nominees—like Murthy—who have a hold placed on them still need to clear a 60-vote threshold to be confirmed, which means five Republicans would need to enable any nominee assuming all the Democrats vote for each one. So it doesn’t mean Reid will be able to succeed on them anyway.
“While the Senate considers the CRomnibus spending bill, all we’ve done was simply request to hold a vote on a measure to stop President Obama’s amnesty,” Cruz said in a Facebook post about his and Lee’s efforts on Friday evening. “Instead, Majority Leader Harry Reid is holding a series of votes today for the sheer purpose of blocking that vote on Obama’s amnesty. Harry Reid’s last act as Majority Leader is to, once again, act as an enabler for President Obama, by blocking this vote on the President’s amnesty. He is going to an embarrassing length to tie up the floor to obstruct debate and a vote on this issue because he knows amnesty is unpopular with the American people, and he doesn’t want the Democrats on the record as supporting it.”
Garrett Murch, a communications adviser to incoming Senate Budget Committee chairman Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), said in an email to reporters that these tactics from Reid are similar to how the Senate Democrats haven’t produced a budget in years.
“Last night, Senator Cruz sought to have senators go on record whether they believed the President’s executive amnesty is Constitutional, and Senator Lee sought a vote on prohibiting spending on said executive amnesty,” Murch said. “Reid blocked both attempts. Just as he did for three years in not producing a Senate Democrat budget, Reid is shielding his members from having to show their constituents where they stand on Constitutional separation of powers, the rule of law, immigration policy, and protecting American workers and national security.”
“While there will not be a shutdown, Reid could very easily have done the democratic thing and simply allowed votes,” he continued. “Senators would have been free to vote for the President’s lawlessness, defeated Cruz and Lee, moved on to the year’s remaining business, and been on flights home this morning. But Reid would not allow that. As such, efforts continue to let the American people know where their elected officials stand on an unconstitutional executive amnesty of monumental consequence to our nation’s future.”
Cruz noted in his statement that Reid’s efforts risk a government shutdown.
“No one wants a government shutdown,” Cruz said. “We are only seeking a vote. As soon as the Majority Leader allows a vote on a measure to stop President Obama’s amnesty, we can and should move forward on this bill to fund the government. If he does not, then we will continue to insist upon regular order and use every tool at our disposal to ensure there is a vote.”
Lee, according to Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn who spoke with Politico’s John Bresnahan, offered Reid a five-day Continuing Resolution to keep the government open but Reid is refusing to take up the offer.
As a result of Cruz’s and Lee’s efforts, they will now get a vote after the cromnibus cloture vote on Cruz’s constitutional point of order. The measure only requires 51 votes to pass, and since all 45 Republicans will likely vote for it, only six Democrats would need to support it for it to succeed. But, since everyone expects the Democrats who say they oppose Obama’s executive amnesty—there’s 12 total, at least—to not vote in a manner consistent with their rhetoric, it is expected that Cruz’s point of order will not pass the Senate.
“We support the Republican Senators trying to force a vote on President Obama’s unilateral, unconstitutional executive amnesty,” Glyn Wright, the executive director of Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum, said in an email. “No one wants a shutdown, but we want a vote. The American voters deserve to see where their elected officials stand on the rule of law and separation of powers. In his last few moments as Majority Leader, Senator Reid is using procedural gimmicks, yet again, to blame conservatives, shield his members from having to take a position on a controversial issue, and using the time to push through controversial nominees.”
“Conservatives understand the mandate they were given by voters, which is why they are doing everything possible to stop Obama’s unlawful amnesty,” Heritage Action spokesman Dan Holler added of Cruz’s and Lee’s battle with Reid. “Our country would be in much better shape if they’re GOP colleagues joined them in that effort.”
Gregg Phillips, founder of the conservative group the Voters Trust and someone who’s spent three decades in state parties, campaigns, PACs and more, said this is a time for choosing for Republicans in Congress.
“It’s gut check time for many of the Republicans – either they support the Constitution or they support Obama’s illegal amnesty,” Phillips said. “The lack of backbone will be on display for all America to see. Sen. Cruz was brilliant in his maneuver.”
Many establishment Republicans, however, have openly opposed Cruz’s and Lee’s efforts to force a vote on this.
“I fail to see what conservative ends were achieved,” Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), a supporter of amnesty and original member of the Senate’s “Gang of Eight,” said about what Cruz and Lee are doing, per a tweet from CQ Roll Call.
Flake was apparently upset he has to work on the weekend. “Sen. Flake opposes keeping Senate in session over the wknd,” CQ tweeted with his quote.
It’s worth noting that the only person keeping the Senate in session over the weekend is Reid, as all he has to do is allow a Senate vote on Lee’s amendment to block funding for Obama’s executive amnesty in the cromnibus. That amendment would likely fail if it came up for a vote, and if Lee got the vote he wouldn’t object to the unanimous consent request for the Senate to adjourn.
Of course, if Lee got his vote, then liberal Democratic Sen. Liz Warren (D-MA) would almost certainly demand a vote on her amendment to strip parts of the cromnibus bill that liberal Democrats oppose like handouts to Wall Street by rolling back Dodd-Frank provisions and loosening campaign finance provisions. Those amendments would likely pass the Senate since there’s widespread Democratic opposition to those provisions in the cromnibus, and force the House to reconsider the Senate’s newly amended cromnibus with those provisions removed. The deal probably wouldn’t pass the House again since Speaker John Boehner barely muscled it through with procedural chicanery and GOP leadership allegedly lying to members.
Sources throughout the Senate also tell Breitbart News that Reid had been planning to force through all of these nominees–with the exception of Murthy–next week anyway. Nonetheless, as some establishment Republicans scream and moan about having to work on Saturday, those who break with Cruz and Lee will be in big trouble with the grassroots moving forward.
“We strongly support Sens. Sessions, Cruz, and Lee as they fight to insure that the Congress does not appropriate funds for an unlawful, unconstitutional order,” Tea Party Patriots co-founder Jenny Beth Martin told Breitbart News. “We urge their colleagues to join them in that fight. This is not a fight about amnesty; this is a fight over whether or not America will remain a Constitutional Republic.”In the two days after Sunday's conclusion of the inaugural Fashion Meets Music Festival, the texts and calls to Melissa Dickson's cellphone remained steady. The messages tended to fall into one of two categories: positive support ("We want to be in this for years to come," said the band O.A.R) or constructive criticism (the event was too spread out, ticketing proved confusing, where was the fashion?). Festival organizers plan to use both the support and criticism to improve on the event for next year: They will be back in 2015, they say, and already have scheduled the second annual festival for Sept. 4-6 ( Labor Day weekend again).
In the two days after Sunday�s conclusion of the inaugural Fashion Meets Music Festival, the texts and calls to Melissa Dickson�s cellphone remained steady.
The messages tended to fall into one of two categories: positive support (�We want to be in this for years to come,� said the band O.A.R) or constructive criticism (the event was too spread out, ticketing proved confusing, where was the fashion?).
Festival organizers plan to use both the support and criticism to improve on the event for next year: They will be back in 2015, they say, and already have scheduled the second annual festival for Sept. 4-6 ( Labor Day weekend again).
�You have to have an expectation,� said Dickson, communications director for the Downtown festival, which blended concerts, fashion shows and shopping.
�We started very, very large. Where we ended up, we think was a success.�
The festival, held Friday through Sunday at various venues, drew nearly 60,000 people for the three days combined, Dickson said � about half the number that organizers had hoped to attract. The event, privately funded, suffered a loss financially, although she declined to specify the amount.
In March, when co-founder Bret Adams originally announced plans for the festival, the Columbus lawyer and sports/entertainment agent said he hoped it one day would become as popular as South by Southwest in Austin, Texas � a 10-day music, film and interactive festival that last year drew 155,000 visitors who spent $218 million.
Dickson pointed out yesterday that the inaugural South by Southwest, in 1987, drew only 700 registrants. Likewise, she noted, Coachella � an annual music and art festival in southern California that dates from 1999 � lost almost $1 million in its first year.
She acknowledged that the festival has a long way to go, a sentiment echoed by some festival patrons, vendors and artists.
For Westerville resident Jeremy Stuhlfauth, the biggest disappointment: Fashion never actually met the music.
The 26-year-old Westerville resident traveled Downtown with his girlfriend and parents on Sunday afternoon several hours before the Cold War Kids performed, he said, but a confusing layout, closed marketplace and lack of beverage options left them with little to do before the concert.
�If you were walking on Nationwide Boulevard, you couldn�t really see the fashion,� said Stuhlfauth, who was surprised by the smaller crowds. �We thought there would be boutiques and stuff on the streets.�
In fact, the Retail Marketplace � where fashion vendors shared their wares � was stationed at the Greater Columbus Convention Center, nearly a half-mile from the music at McFerson Commons and Lifestyles Community Pavilion, and fashion shows at the Studio Movie Grill.
Horacio Nieto, a Columbus fashion designer who presented his men�s and women�s and bridal lines, agreed that festival goings-on felt a bit scattered.
�If I gave them advice, I�d put it all in the convention center and use the convention center the whole weekend,� Nieto said.
Organizers already plan to move the marketplace closer to the music � probably outdoors along Nationwide Boulevard and other streets in the Arena District � and host runway shows on McFerson Commons while concerts are taking place.
�For the O.A.R show (on Friday night), we had 8,000 people on that lawn,� Dickson said. �With the arch, obviously, we can turn that into a really cool runway � that is where music will meet fashion.�
Festival organizers also plan to clarify ticketing policies, she said. With some events being free, some requiring a ticket and VIP options available, a number of patrons struggled to discern what was what.
Despite the hiccups � which began in July, when founders had to break their contract with headliner R. Kelly because of backlash about the R&B singer�s past � the festival had its bright moments, some said.
Nieto said the event gave Columbus area musicians and designers the rare opportunity to showcase their talents on a large stage and amid nationally recognized artists.
Besides O.A.R., bands such as New Found Glory and Switchfoot served as headliners.
Kid Runner, a local band, performed twice on Saturday. Although the afternoon show was sparsely attended, the after-party show at the Basement was packed.
�It was one of our favorite shows,� Kid Runner guitarist Kurt Keaner said. �The festival was right in our neighborhood.�
Plus, the band got to take in a show of one of their idols: Local Natives.
Keaner and his bandmates can�t wait to perform a year from now.
�The promoters realized what mistakes they made. I�m stoked to see where it goes next.�
award@dispatch.com
@AllisonAWardHow Canada's housing market will look in 2024: If you're wealthy, it's healthy.
If house prices rise from current levels by an average annual rate of 2.5 per cent over the next 10 years, the average Canadian home will cost half a million dollars. By my rough estimate, that would be a realistic purchase only for families with pretax income of at least $125,000 or so. Just for context, the most recent Statistics Canada numbers put the median total family income at $72,240 in 2011.
The "housing market is fine" people talk about immigration, low inventories and the fact they're not building any more houses in some urban downtowns. But questions about basic affordability undermine all of these supports for the market.
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Current affordability levels are a problem documented in a previous column that you can read here. Another way to look at this issue is to imagine what might happen if prices keep rising at recent levels.
House prices have risen in the area of 5.5 per cent annually on average over the past 17 years, almost exactly what the Canadian Real Estate Association has estimated for 2013. Looking ahead to the end of this year, CREA sees a gain of 2.5 per cent on a Canada-wide basis. Let's apply that number on an average annual basis to sketch out what the housing market might look like 10 years from now across Canada and in five major markets from coast to coast.
The average price across Canada would rise to $500,622, which means the minimum 5-per-cent down payment would cost you $25,031. Now, for your mortgage costs. If you were to buy that average Canadian house in 10 years' time, your mortgage rate would almost certainly be somewhat higher than it is today. Let's conservatively project a discounted five-year fixed rate of 4.5 per cent, which compares to 3.5 per cent today, and would produce monthly payments of $2,709 on the average-priced Canadian house.
To qualify for a mortgage, the total of your mortgage, property tax and heating costs must be no more than 32 per cent of your gross household income. If we estimate costs of $4,000 for property taxes and $1,800 for heating today and increase them by 2.5 per cent annually over the next 10 years, we can project that a household income of $124,775 would be needed to support the average-priced Canadian house. That's up from $89,713 today.
Might annual wage increases bridge us from today's income levels to where we need to be a decade from now if we want to maintain affordability at current levels? To get from the most recent median total family income figure of $72,240 to $125,000 over 10 years, you'd need annual pay hikes of 5.6 per cent. Dream on.
The national estimate of where prices might go mixes lower-cost markets like Halifax and Montreal with high-cost cities like Vancouver and Toronto. Vancouver – no surprise – is where the most gruesome numbers are. The average house price there jumps to $991,978 over the next 10 years, which would mean a minimum 5-per-cent down payment of $49,599.
It's usually estimated that buyers will need 2 to 4 per cent of the price of their home for closing costs like legal bills, moving and, in some locales, a land-transfer tax. If we take 2 per cent of $991,978 and add it to the down payment, we end up with people in Vancouver needing almost $69,450 in cash to buy an average home.
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In Toronto, the average price rises to $689,813 in 10 years and requires a minimum down payment of $34,491. On that basis, your mortgage payment would be a massive $3,727 per month with a five-year fixed rate of 4.5 per cent. The household income needed to carry this home would be $162,950, which compares to Toronto's 2011 median total family income of $69,740. Something like $55,000 in cash would be required for the down payment and closing costs that, as of today, include a city and provincial layer of land-transfer taxes.
And what if average home price increases maintain a 5-per-cent clip for 10 more years? The average Canadian home would then run you about $637,000, Vancouver would be at $1.3-million, Calgary at about $725,000 and Toronto at almost $878,000. These are fantasy numbers, of course. Even if prices keep rising at half the average rate of the past 17 years, they'll be utterly unaffordable for everyday people. We're not far from that now.
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House prices have risen in the area of 5.5 per cent annually on average over the past 17 years, almost exactly what the Canadian Real Estate Association has estimated for 2013. Looking ahead to the end of this year, CREA sees a gain of 2.5 per cent on a Canada-wide basis. Let's apply that number on an average annual basis to sketch out what the housing market might look like 10 years from now across Canada and in five major markets from coast to coast.
Click here to read full story.The Federation starship USS Voyager, chasing a band of Maquis rebels, enters the dangerous space nebula known as the Badlands. Both ships are transported by a distant space probe to the Delta Quadrant, 75,000 light-years from Federation space. Voyager's crew and the Maquis form an uneasy truce to rescue crewmen of both ships, kidnapped by the probe's builder, the powerful, dying Caretaker. The Maquis ship is destroyed in a battle with the warlike Kazons. To prevent a Kazon aggression against a helpless world, Voyager destroys the space probe. Without the probe, it will take 75 years for Voyager to travel back to Federation space. With the differences between them rendered meaningless by time and distance, The Federation and Maquis crews unite aboard Voyager. Together, they embark on their new mission: to boldly go - home. Written by Anthony Bruce Gilpin <agilpin@pacbell.net>During the New Hampshire Voters First political forum at St. Anselm college in New Hampshire, three senators stayed back in Washington D.C. to hold a vote to defund Planned Parenthood.
But Sen. Marco Rubio, Sen. Rand Paul, and Sen. Ted Cruz, appeared remotely via satellite after the vote.
Paul was the first one out of the gate, mistakenly asserting that he was in the Senate that night to vote to defund Obamacare.
“I have been leading the fight for the last two weeks to defund Obamacare and was lucky this evening to get a vote on that,” he said.
That was a brief stumble for the Kentucky senator, who claimed he was there “leading the fight” to defund Planned Parenthood, mispeaking about what they were actually voting about.
Paul went on to explain deftly his views on surveillance and national security.3 March 2011, Rome - Global food prices increased for the eighth consecutive month in February, with prices of all commodity groups monitored rising again, except for sugar, FAO said today.
FAO expects a tightening of the global cereal supply and demand balance in 2010/11. In the face of a growing demand and a decline in world cereal production in 2010, global cereal stocks this year are expected to fall sharply because of a decline in inventories of wheat and coarse grains. International cereal prices have increased sharply with export prices of major grains up at least 70 percent from February last year.
"Unexpected oil price spikes could further exacerbate an already precarious situation in food markets," said David Hallam, Director of FAO's Trade and Market Division.
"This adds even more uncertainty concerning the price outlook just as plantings for crops in some of the major growing regions are about to start," he added.
Food Price Index
The FAO Food Price Index averaged 236 points in February, up 2.2 percent from January, the highest record in real and nominal terms, since FAO started monitoring prices in 1990.
The Cereal Price Index, which includes prices of main food staples such as wheat, rice and maize, rose by 3.7 percent in February (254 points), the highest level since July 2008.
The FAO Dairy Price Index averaged 230 points in February, up 4 percent from January, but well below its peak in November 2007.
The FAO Oils/Fats Price Index rose marginally to 279 points in February, a level just below the peak recorded in June 2008.
The FAO Meat Price Index averaged 169 points in February, up 2 percent from January. By contrast, the FAO Sugar Price Index averaged 418 points in February, slightly below the previous month but still 16 percent higher than February 2010.
Cereal supply and demand
FAO expects winter crops in the northern hemisphere to be generally favourable and forecasts global wheat production to increase by around 3 percent in 2011.This assumes a recovery in wheat production in major producing countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States. So far, conditions of winter crops in those countries are generally favourable.
The latest estimate for the world cereal production in 2010 is 8 million tonnes more than was anticipated in December but still slightly below 2009. This month's upward revision reflects mostly higher estimates for production in Argentina, China and Ethiopia.
The forecast for world cereal utilization in 2010/11 has been revised up by 18 million tonnes since December. The bulk of the revision reflects adjustments to the feed and industrial utilization of coarse grains. Larger use of maize for ethanol production in the United States and statistical adjustments to China's historical (since 2006/07) supply and demand balance for maize are the main reasons for the revision.New Delhi: Apparently with China in mind, Defence Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday said the government is taking all steps to create matching infrastructure on the Indian side to realise its military potential.
Noting that "our immediate neighbours have already enhanced infrastructure in proximity to the borders", he said the government has initiated several steps to overcome road blocks such as procedural delays, environmental clearance and shortage of high-technology equipment to hasten the process of building roads in these critical areas.
Addressing the first meeting of the Consultative Committee attached to his Ministry after the new government came to power, Jaitley said, "Based on the strategic reality of our neighbourhood, the government is taking all steps to create matching infrastructure on our side to realise our military potential."
As far as India-China border roads are concerned, the government has initiated building of 73 roads with a total length 3,812 kms for development, a statement released by the Ministry of Defence said.
Out of this, 61 have been entrusted to Border Roads Organisation (BRO), totalling 3410 kms. BRO has completed 590 kms on 17 roads.
Work on the balance roads structures are under progress and in different stages of completion.
The army has prioritised 22 roads structuring upto 3000 kms for development.
The works on these roads have been taken up by BRO and are being intensively monitored by the Ministry for early completion, the statement said.
Giving details, Director General Border Roads Lt Gen A T Parnaik said that the completion of roads has been affected due to various reasons.
These include delays in obtaining forest/wildlife clearance, difficult terrain conditions, hard road structures, limited working period in a year due to extreme weather conditions, paucity of construction material and challenges posed by natural disasters like flash floods in Leh in 2010, earthquake in Sikkim in 2011, Uttarakhand floods in 2013 and Jammu and Kashmir floods this year.
Lt Gen Parnaik said efforts have been made to overcome the factors coming in the way through greater coordination with Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), modernisation of BRO and induction of more units and resources.
Jaitley thanked MoEF for easing environmental clearances which has helped in progress of road construction.
He complimented BRO for their work in restoring road links during the recent floods in J&K. "BRO has been an effective initial responder in disaster management," he said.
Taking part in the discussion, Members of Parliament belonging to various political parties highlighted the yeoman service provided by BRO to the nation since its inception in 1960, the release said.
They were, however, critical about the delay in completion of projects so crucial for the safety and security of the country.
They were also unanimous in their opinion that BRO should be spared of any budget cuts in the event of austerity measures.
Some members wanted that BRO should undergo a "transformational change" to convert it into a highly efficient organisation.
Members of Parliament who attended the meeting included Mallikarjun Kharge, Choudhary Babu Lal, Vijay Sampla, Raj Kumar Singh, Saugata Roy, Rajeeve Chandrasekhar, Mahendra Prasad, TK Rangarajan and HK Dua.
Minister of State for Defence Rao Inderjit Singh, Defence Secretary R K Mathur, Secretary, Defence Production G Mohan Kumar, Secretary, Defence Finance Vandana Srivastava also attended the meeting.PSN Reaches 20 Million Accounts Worldwide
Written by Adam
Today Sony Computer Entertainment announced that the PSN has reached 20 million registered accounts worldwide as of February 20, 2009. Although some will dismiss this and say most consumers have multiple accounts, this is still a huge milestone for Sony online who has been slowly trying to catch Microsoft in overall online entertainment.
It has reached this impressive milestone in just 2 years and 3 months since its initial launch. Since the PS3 launched, PlayStation Network has expanded its services to over 55 countries and regions around the globe, and has been an ever-evolving online system.
PlayStation Store offers more than 14,500 diverse pieces of digital content, ranging from exclusive online games, downloadable versions of PSP UMD titles, game demos and items, as well as more than 5,900 films and TV show episodes available through the PlayStation Video Store. To date, more than 380 million pieces of content have been downloaded, with total sales exceeding 180 million US dollars.
Home, which only launched 2 months ago, has exceeded 4 million users, and the promises of new game spaces and more ways to interact these numbers will surely bring more into the fold. In addition to Home, the number of users enjoying Life with PlayStation has now exceeded 2.6 million.
With the constant flow of new content coming to PSN, Home and Life with Playstation as well as Sony’s strides to improve your online experience through firmware updates it is a sure thing that these numbers will continually grow leaps and bounds in the future.
[Source]It does not directly show a penchant to use excessive force, but |
and an initial wave of foreign investment are helping to spur economic activity, particularly in the energy, construction, and retail sectors. Broader economic improvement, long-term fiscal health, and sustained increases in the standard of living still depend on the government passing major policy reforms and on continued development of Iraq's massive oil reserves. Although foreign investors viewed Iraq with increasing interest in 2010, most are still hampered by difficulties in acquiring land for projects and by other regulatory impediments.
Inflation has decreased consistently since 2006 as the security situation has improved. However, Iraqi leaders remain hard pressed to translate macroeconomic gains into improved lives for ordinary Iraqis. Unemployment remains a problem throughout the country.
Recent history [ edit ]
Nominal GDP grew by 213% in the 1960s, 1325% in the 1970s, 2% in the 1980s, -47% in the 1990s, and 317% in 2000s.[12]
Real GDP per capita (measured in 1990 $) increased significantly during the 1950s, 60s and 70s, which can be explained by both higher oil production levels as well as oil prices, which famously peaked in the 1970s due to the OPEC's oil embargo, causing the 1973 oil crisis. In following two decades however, GDP per capita in Iraq dropped substantially because of multiple wars, namely the 1980-88 war with Iran, the 1990-1991 Gulf War.[13]
Iran-Iraq War [ edit ]
Prior to the outbreak of the war with Iran in September 1980, Iraq's economic prospects were bright. Oil production had reached a level of 560,000 m³ (3.5 million barrels) per day in 1979, and oil revenues were 21 billion dollars in 1979 and 27 billion in 1980 due to record oil prices. At the outbreak of the war, Iraq had amassed an estimated 35 billion in foreign exchange reserves.
The Iran–Iraq War and the 1980s oil glut depleted Iraq's foreign exchange reserves, devastated its economy, and left the country saddled with a foreign debt of more than $40 billion. After the initial destruction of the war, oil exports gradually increased with the construction of new pipelines and the restoration of damaged facilities.
Sanctions [ edit ]
Iraq's seizure of Kuwait in August 1990, subsequent international economic sanctions on Iraq, and damage from military action by an international coalition beginning in January 1991, drastically reduced economic activity. The regime exacerbated shortages by supporting large military and internal security forces and by allocating resources to key supporters of the Ba'ath Party. The implementation of the UN's Oil for Food program in December 1996 helped improve economic conditions. For the first six six-month phases of the program, Iraq was allowed to export increasing amounts of oil in exchange for food, medicine, and other humanitarian goods. In December 1999, the UN Security Council authorized Iraq to export as much oil as required to meet humanitarian needs. Per capita food imports increased substantially, while medical supplies and health care services steadily improved, though per capita economic production and living standards were still well below their prewar level.
Iraq changed its oil reserve currency from the U.S. dollar to the euro in 2000. However, 28% of Iraq's export revenues under the program were deducted to meet UN Compensation Fund and UN administrative expenses. The drop in GDP in 2001 was largely the result of the global economic slowdown and lower oil prices.
After the fall of Saddam Hussein [ edit ]
The removal of sanctions on 24 May 2003 and rising oil prices in the mid-to-late 2000s led to a doubling in oil production from a low of 1.3 mbpd during the turbulence of 2003 to a high of 2.6 mbpd in 2011.[14] Furthermore, reduced inflation[15] and violence[16] since 2007 have translated to real increases in living standards for Iraqis.
One of the key economic challenges was Iraq's immense foreign debt, estimated at $125 billion. Although some of this debt was derived from normal export contracts that Iraq had failed to pay for, some was a result of military and financial support during Iraq's war with Iran.[17]
The Jubilee Iraq campaign[18] argued that much of these debts were odious (illegitimate). However, as the concept of odious debt is not accepted, trying to deal with the debt on those terms would have embroiled Iraq in legal disputes for years. Iraq decided to deal with its debt more pragmatically and approached the Paris Club of official creditors.
In a December 2006 Newsweek International article, a study by Global Insight in London was reported to show "that Civil war or not, Iraq has an economy, and—mother of all surprises—it's doing remarkably well. Real estate is booming. Construction, retail and wholesale trade sectors are healthy, too, according to [the report]. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce reports 34,000 registered companies in Iraq, up from 8,000 three years ago. Sales of secondhand cars, televisions and mobile phones have all risen sharply. Estimates vary, but one from Global Insight puts GDP growth at 17 percent last year and projects 13 percent for 2006. The World Bank has it lower: at 4 percent this year. But, given all the attention paid to deteriorating security, the startling fact is that Iraq is growing at all."[19]
Industry [ edit ]
Traditionally, most of Iraq's manufacturing activity has been closely connected to the oil industry. The major industries in that category have been petroleum refining and the manufacture of chemicals and fertilizers. Before 2003, diversification was hindered by limitations on privatization and the effects of the international sanctions of the 1990s. Since 2003, security problems have blocked efforts to establish new enterprises. The construction industry is an exception; in 2000 cement was the only major industrial product not based on hydrocarbons. The construction industry has profited from the need to rebuild after Iraq's several wars. In the 1990s, the industry benefited from government funding of extensive infrastructure and housing projects and elaborate palace complexes.
Primary sectors [ edit ]
Agriculture [ edit ]
Historically, 50 to 60 percent of Iraq's arable land has been under cultivation.[20] Because of ethnic politics, valuable farmland in Kurdish territory has not contributed to the national economy, and inconsistent agricultural policies under Saddam Hussein discouraged domestic market production. Despite its abundant land and water resources, Iraq is a net food importer. Under the UN Oil for Food program, Iraq imported large quantities of grains, meat, poultry, and dairy products. The government abolished its farm collectivization program in 1981, allowing a greater role for private enterprise in agriculture.
Iraqi agriculture suffered substantial physical disruption from the Gulf War, and economic disruption from sanctions imposed by the United Nations (August 1990). Sanctions curtailed imports by cutting off Iraq's petroleum exports, and embargoing those agricultural production inputs deemed to have potential military applications. The Iraqi government responded by monopolizing grain and oilseed marketing, imposing production quotas, and instituting a Public Distribution System for basic foodstuffs. By mid-1991 the government supplied a “basket” of foodstuffs that provided about one-third of the caloric daily requirement, and cost consumers about five percent of its market value. With subsidies for agricultural inputs diminished, the prices that the government paid to farmers failed to cover their costs. The implicit tax on agricultural production was estimated to reach 20 to 35 percent by the mid-1990s. In October 1991 the Baghdad regime had withdrawn personnel from the northern region controlled by two Kurdish parties. Iraqi Kurdistan was described as "... a market economy essentially left alone by a very weak governing structure, but heavily influenced by substantial international humanitarian aid flows."[21]
Under an “Oil for Food Program” negotiated with the United Nations, in December 1996 Iraq started exporting petroleum, and used the proceeds to start importing foodstuffs three months later. Grain imports averaged $828 million in the years 1997-2001, an increase of over 180 percent from the previous five-year period. Due to foreign competition, Iraqi production declined (29 percent for wheat, 31 percent for barley, and 52 percent for maize). Because the government had generally neglected the production of forage crops, fruits, vegetables, and livestock other than poultry, those sectors had remained more traditional and market-based, and less buffeted by international affairs. Nevertheless, severe drought, an outbreak of screwworm, and an epizootic of foot-and-mouth disease devastated production during this period.[22] As the Oil for Food Program expanded to cover more agricultural inputs and machinery, the productivity of Iraqi agriculture stabilized around 2002.
Following the invasion led by the United States in March 2003, with incomes of many Iraqis devastated, the market for foodstuffs shrunk. Seeking to re-orient Iraq's economy toward private ownership and international competitiveness, the United States had seen the dismantling of the Public Distribution System as essential for a market-driven agriculture. Because of the great reliance of most Iraqis on government-subsidized food, this goal was never realized. Increased productivity became the focus of much of the U.S.-funded agricultural reconstruction program. Many of these projects were undertaken by the Agricultural Reconstruction and Development Iraq (ARDI)[23] program run by Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI) of Bethesda, Maryland, under a contract with USAID signed on October 15, 2003. While ARDI participated in limited ways, the restoration of Iraq's irrigation systems was mostly funded under USAID's contract with Bechtel International.
ARDI conducted demonstration trials of improved practices and varieties of many crops: winter cereals (wheat and barley), summer cereals (rice, maize, and sorghum), potatoes, and tomatoes. Feed supplements and veterinary treatments were demonstrated to increase ovulation, conception, and birth weights of livestock. Surveys were conducted of poultry growers and apple farmers. Nurseries were established for date palms and grapes. College buildings and farm tractors were rebuilt. ARDI had projects promoting trade associations and producers’ co-ops, but also supported extension as an appropriate governmental function. The contract eventually cost over $100 million and lasted through December 2006. Under its Community Action Program, USAID also funded an analysis of markets for sheep and wool. It awarded a contract to the University of Hawaii to revitalize higher education in agriculture. It awarded a contract for $120 million to the Louis Berger Group to promote Iraq's private sector, including agriculture.[24]
Starting in 2006, agricultural reconstruction was also conducted by Provincial Reconstruction Teams within the occupying military forces. Intended to promote goodwill and sap the insurgency, “PRTs” allowed military commanders to identify local needs and, with few bureaucratic hurdles, to dispense up to $500,000. Civilians from many agencies within the U. S. Department of Agriculture, as well as USAID, served tours on PRTs. Some participants criticized the absence of a national agricultural strategy, or clear direction on the design of projects. Others complained that projects emphasized "American-style, 21st-century agricultural technologies and methodologies..." that were inappropriate for Iraq.[25]
Agricultural production has not rebounded noticeably from the reconstruction program. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), between 2002 and 2013, production of wheat increased 11 percent and milled rice 8 percent, but barley had decreased 13 percent and maize 40 percent. Scaled in “international dollars” (2004-2006 base equaling 100) Iraq's per capita food production was 135 in 2002, 96 in 2007, and 94 in 2012. The agricultural sector shed workers. In those same years, production per worker was 117, 106, and 130, respectively.[26]
The international Oil-for-Food program (1997–2003) further reduced farm production by supplying artificially priced foreign foodstuffs. The military action of 2003 did little damage to Iraqi agriculture; because of favorable weather conditions, in that year grain production was 22 percent higher than in 2002. Although growth continued in 2004, experts predicted that Iraq will be an importer of agricultural products for the foreseeable future. Long-term plans call for investment in agricultural machinery and materials and more prolific crop varieties—improvements that did not reach Iraq's farmers under the Hussein regime. In 2004 the main agricultural crops were wheat, barley, corn, rice, vegetables, dates, and cotton, and the main livestock outputs were cattle and sheep.
The Agricultural Cooperative Bank, capitalized at nearly 1 G$ - by 1984, targets its low-interest, low-collateral loans to private farmers for mechanization, poultry projects, and orchard development. Large modern cattle, dairy, and poultry farms are under construction. Obstacles to agricultural development include labour shortages, inadequate management and maintenance, salinization, urban migration, and dislocations resulting from previous land reform and collectivization programs.
In 2011, an agricultural adviser to the Iraqi government, Layth Mahdi, summarized the forced United States agricultural reconstruction:
Prior to 2003, Iraq had imported about 30 percent of its food needs annually. The decline in agricultural production after this period, created the need for importing 90 percent of the food at a cost estimated at more than $12 billion annually. Due to the sudden shift in the agricultural policy from subsidized assistance to an immediate shift to a free market policy, the outcomes led to a decline in production. The observed outcome resulted in many farmers abandoning the land and agriculture. The impact on natural resources results in an exploited and degraded environment leaving the land destitute and the people impoverished, unemployed [and] experiencing a sense of losing their human dignity.[27]
Importation of foreign workers and increased entry of women into traditionally male labour roles have helped compensate for agricultural and industrial labour shortages exacerbated by the war. A disastrous attempt to drain the southern marshes and introduce irrigated farming to this region merely destroyed a natural food producing area, while concentration of salts and minerals in the soil due to the draining left the land unsuitable for agriculture.[28]
In the Mada’in Qada region east of Baghdad, hundreds of small farmers united to form the Green Mada’in Association for Agricultural Development, an agricultural cooperative that provides its members with drip irrigation and greenhouses as well as access to credit.[29]
Forestry, fishing, and mining [ edit ]
Throughout the twentieth century, human exploration, shifting agriculture, forest fires, and uncontrolled grazing denuded large areas of Iraq's natural forests, which in 2005 were almost exclusively confined to the northeastern highlands. Most of the trees found in that region are not suitable for lumbering. In 2002 a total of 112,000 cubic meters of wood were harvested, nearly half of which was used as fuel.
Despite its many rivers, Iraq's fishing industry has remained relatively small and based largely on marine species in the Persian Gulf. In 2001 the catch was 22,800 tons.
Aside from hydrocarbons, Iraq's mining industry has been confined to extraction of relatively small amounts of phosphates (at Akashat), salt, and sulfur (near Mosul). Since a productive period in the 1970s, the mining industry has been hampered by the Iran–Iraq War (1980–88), the sanctions of the 1990s, and the economic collapse of 2003.
Energy [ edit ]
A proportional representation of Iraq's exports
Iraq is one of the most oil-rich countries in the world, holding the fifth largest proven crude oil reserves.[30]:5 Most of this oil—4 million barrels per day out of 4.3 million barrels produced daily—is exported, making Iraq the third-largest exporter of oil.[30]:5 Despite its ongoing civil war, Iraq was able to increase oil production during 2015 and 2016, with production dipping by 3.5 percent in 2017 due to conflict with the Kurdistan Regional Government and OPEC production limits.[30]:5 By world standards, production costs for Iraqi oil are relatively low.[31] However, four wars[32]—the 1980–1988 Iraq-Iran War, 1991 Gulf War, the 2003-2011 War in Iraq, and the civil war—and the 1991–2003 UN sanctions have left the industry's infrastructure in poor condition, and the de facto independence of oil-rich Iraqi Kurdistan have limited production.[30]:5-6
In the 1970s, Iraq produced over 3.5 million barrels of oil per day. Production began to fall during the Iran-Iraq War, before plummeting 85 percent after the 1991 invasion of Kuwait. UN sanctions prevented the export of oil until 1996, and then allowed exports only in exchange for humanitarian aid in the Oil-for-Food Programme.[32]
The 2003 lifting of sanctions enabled production—and exports—to restart.[32] Production has since recovered to pre-Gulf War levels, and most of Iraq's oil infrastructure has been repaired, in spite of persistent sabotage by the Islamic State (ISIL) and others.[33] In 2004 Iraq had eight oil refineries, the largest of which were at Baiji, Basra, and Daura.[34]
Despite its oil wealth, sabotage and technical problems at refineries have forced Iraq to import petroleum, other refined oil products, and electricity from neighboring countries, especially Iran.[35] In 2004, for example, Iraq spent $60 million per month for imported gasoline. Sabotage In late 2004 and early 2005, regular sabotage of plants and pipelines reduced export and domestic distribution of oil, particularly to Baghdad. Nationwide fuel shortages and power outages resulted.[34] Persistent ISIL sabotage of pipelines, power plants and power lines, and theft of oil and electricity have also contributed to the July 2018 protests in southern Iraq.[35]
In 2004 plans called for increased domestic utilization of natural gas to replace oil and for use in the petrochemical industry. However, because most of Iraq's gas output is associated with oil, output growth depends on developments in the oil industry.
Half of Iraq's power plants were destroyed in the Persian Gulf War of 1991, and full recovery never occurred.[36] In mid-2004, Iraq had an estimated 5,000 megawatts of power-generating capacity, compared with 7,500 megawatts of demand.[37] At that time, the transmission system included 17,700 kilometers of line. In 2004 plans called for construction of two new power plants and restoration of existing plants and transmission lines to ease the blackouts and economic hardship caused by this shortfall, but sabotage and looting kept capacity below 6,000 megawatts. The ongoing civil war, sabotage of transmission lines, and government corruption caused the electricity shortage to worsen: by 2010 demand outstripped supply by 6000 megawatts.[37]
Oil continues to dominate Iraq's economy. As of 2018, oil is responsible for over 65 percent of GDP, 90 percent of government revenue, and almost 100 percent of exports.[30] The central government hopes to diversify the economy away from oil, and has had some success: non-oil GDP growth, which was below the regional average from 2014-2016, pushed above the average in 2017.[30]:4 Despite this, the percent of government spending going to non-oil investment has continued to decline since 2013 and now stands at only 34 percent.[30]:4
2009 oil services contracts [ edit ]
Between June 2009 and February 2010 the Iraqi Oil Ministry tendered for the award of Service Contracts to develop Iraq's existing oil fields. The results of the tender, which were broadcast live on Iraqi television, are as follows for all major fields awarded but excluding the Kurdish controlled areas where Production Sharing Contracts have been awarded that are currently being disputed by the Baghdad government. All contracts are awaiting final ratification of the awards by the Iraqi government. Company shares are subject to change as a result of commercial negotiations between parties.
Notes: 1. Field shares are as a % of the total. The Iraq state retains a 25% share in all fields for which Service Contracts have been awarded. 2. Production Increase Share is the millions bbls per day that will attract the Service Fee for the company. 3. Gross revenue at plateau is the total payment each company will receive upon reaching their declared target plateau production rate (in between 5 and 8 years depending on field), before deduction of any operating costs but in addition to recovery of all development costs as billions of US$ per annum. The total gross revenue for all companies, after recovery of capital costs, is at plateau production of an additional 9.4 mb/d, 4.34 bn US per annum at a $70 bbl oil price. The 2010 Iraq govt budget is $60 billion. $300 billion is approximately $10,000 per annum for each Iraqi citizen.
In summary the shares by region in the increased production are:
Region Production
Share mb/d % of
total Iraq 1.462 25% Asia 1.9 20% UK 1.81 19% US 1.462 16% Russia 1.402 14% Europe (excl UK) 0.528 6%
Services [ edit ]
Finance [ edit ]
Iraq's financial services have been the subject of post-Hussein reforms. The 17 private banks established during the 1990s were limited to domestic transactions and attracted few private depositors. Those banks and two main state banks were badly damaged by the international embargo of the 1990s. To further privatize and expand the system, in 2003 the Coalition Provisional Authority removed restrictions on international bank transactions and freed the Central Bank of Iraq (CBI) from government control. In its first year of independent operation, the CBI received credit for limiting Iraq's inflation. In 2004 three foreign banks received licenses to do business in Iraq.
Private security [ edit ]
Because of the danger posed by Iraq's ongoing insurgency, the security industry has been a uniquely prosperous part of the services sector. Often run by former U.S. military personnel, in 2005 at least 26 companies offered personal and institutional protection, surveillance, and other forms of security.
Retail [ edit ]
In the early post-Hussein period, a freewheeling retail trade in all types of commodities straddled the line between legitimate and illegitimate commerce, taking advantage of the lack of income tax and import controls.
Tourism [ edit ]
The Iraq tourism industry, which in peaceful times has profited from Iraq's many places of cultural interest (earning US$14 million in 2001), has been dormant since 2003. Despite conditions, in 2005 the Iraqi Tourism Board maintained a staff of 2,500 and 14 regional offices.[citation needed] Between 2009 and 2010, 165 tourists from 16 different countries entered Iraq to visit historic sites; as of January 2011, a U.S. State Department grant provided $2 million to help preserve Babylon, supporting the re-opening of one of the site's two museums.[39]
Telecommunications [ edit ]
During 2003-8, mobile phone subscriptions had expanded over hundredfold to 10 million nationwide, according to the Brookings Institution.[40]
Labor force [ edit ]
In 2002 Iraq's labor force was estimated at 6.8 million people.
In 1996 some 66.4 percent of the labor force worked in services, 17.5 percent in industry, and 16.1 percent in agriculture. 2004 estimates of Iraq's unemployment ranged from 30 percent to 60 percent.
Nationwide unemployment rate since May, 2003[41][42] Month Unemployment
rate 2003-5 May N/A 2003-6 June 50-60% 2003-7 July N/A 2003-8 August 50-60% 2003-9 September N/A 2003-10 October 40-50% 2003-11 November N/A 2003-12 December 45-55% 2004-01 to 05 (January - May) 30-45% 2004-06 to 11 (June - November) 30-40% 2004-12 December 28-40% 2005-01 to 10 (January - October) 27-40% 2005-11 to 12 (November - December) 25-40% 2006-01 to 12 (January - December) 25-40% 2007-01 to 12 (January - December) 25-40% 2008-01 to 12 (January - December) 25-40% 2009-01 (January) 23-38% 2010 15.2% 2011 15.2% 2012 15.3% 2013 15.1% 2014 15% 2015 15.5% 2016 16%
The CPA has referred to a 25% unemployment rate, the Iraqi Ministry of Planning mentioned a 30% unemployment rate, whereas the Iraqi Ministry of Social Affairs claims it to be 48%.[41] Other sources are claiming a 20% unemployment rate and a probably 60% under-employment rate.[43] The actual figure is problematic because of high participation in black-market activities and poor security conditions in many populous areas. In central Iraq, security concerns discouraged the hiring of new workers and the resumption of regular work schedules. At the same time, the return of Iraqis from other countries increased the number of job seekers. In late 2004, most legitimate jobs were in the government, the army, the oil industry, and security-related enterprises.[44] Under Saddam Hussein Hussein, many of the highest-paid workers were employed by the greatly overstaffed government, whose overthrow disrupted the input of these people to the economy. In 2004 the U.S. Agency for International Development committed US$1 billion for a worker-training program. In early 2004, the minimum wage was US$72 per month.
External trade [ edit ]
Iraqi exports in 2006
Iraq is a founding member of OPEC.[45] Petroleum constitutes 99,7% of Iraq's exports with a value of $43,8 billion in 2016.[9]
From the 1990s until 2003, the international trade embargo restricted Iraq's export activity almost exclusively to oil. In 2003 oil accounted for about US$7.4 billion of Iraq's total US$7.6 billion of export value, and statistics for earlier years showed similar proportions. After the end of the trade embargo in 2003 expanded the range of exports, oil continued to occupy the dominant position: in 2004 Iraq's export income doubled (to US$16.5 billion), but oil accounted for all but US$340 million (2 percent) of the total. In late 2004, sabotage significantly reduced oil output, and experts forecast that output, hence exports, would be below capacity in 2005 as well. In 2004 the chief export markets were the United States (which accounted for nearly half), Italy, France, Jordan, Canada, and the Netherlands. In 2004 the value of Iraq's imports was US$21.7 billion, incurring a trade deficit of about US$5.2 billion. In 2003 the main sources of Iraq's imports were Turkey, Jordan, Vietnam, the United States, Germany, and Britain. Because of Iraq's inactive manufacturing sector, the range of imports was quite large, including food, fuels, medicines, and manufactured goods. By 2010, exports rose to US$50.8 billion and imports rose to US$45.2 billion. Chief 2009 export partners were: U.S., India, Italy, South Korea, Taiwan, China, Netherlands, and Japan. Chief 2009 import partners were: Turkey, Syria, U.S., China, Jordan, Italy, and Germany.[46]An appeals court in New Jersey on Friday threw out the conviction of the former roommate of Tyler Clementi, the Rutgers University freshman who killed himself six years ago after he was spied on while having sex with another man.
The Appellate Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey in Newark overturned a lower court’s conviction of the ex-roommate, Dharun Ravi, on several counts of bias intimidation because of a change in state law. The court called for a new trial of Mr. Ravi on 10 other counts that included invasion of privacy and tampering with evidence.
Mr. Ravi was convicted in 2012 in a case that drew international attention to the bullying of gay teenagers after Mr. Clementi jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge. Mr. Clementi’s life and death were taken up by advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights, and the case delved into the risks that are sometimes associated with coming out as Mr. Clementi had struggled with questions about his sexuality.
Mr. Clementi’s suicide at age 18 came just days after he learned that Mr. Ravi had used a webcam to spy on him and had used social media to invite others to watch a sexual encounter in the dormitory room Mr. Clementi shared with Mr. Ravi.Tiger Woods during the final round of a golf tournament at TPC Blue Monster at Trump National Doral in 2014. (Andrew Weber/USA Today Sports)
On the campaign trail, Donald Trump mocked President Obama’s penchant for golf, suggesting that he was neglecting his presidential duties to indulge in his favorite pastime.
But Trump’s critique must be a campaign bygone, because on Friday the president-elect interrupted his busy schedule of transition meetings and foreign policy declarations to tee up with legendary golfer Tiger Woods.
[Donald Trump rips Obama for playing ‘more golf last year than Tiger Woods’]
The two met on a sunny and breezy morning at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, not far from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort where he and his family have been secluded for the past week.
Trump, whose company owns more than a dozen luxury golf courses around the world, is an avid golfer and follows the sport closely. Golf Digest recently listed Trump as among the best golfers in Washington, with a 2.8 handicap, and suggested he could be “the best-ever golfer president.”
Trump has long admired Woods, who also has a home in the Palm Beach area, and earlier this month he tweeted that Woods was “special.”
Obama also has played golf with Woods during his presidency, though typically the president’s golf partners are personal friends and select aides, as opposed to celebrities.
At a campaign rally in December 2015, Trump ripped into Obama for playing hundreds of rounds of golf as president.
“He played more golf last year than Tiger Woods,” Trump said suggestively. “We don’t have time for this. We have to work.”
He added, “I love golf, I think it’s one of the greats, but I don’t have time.”JEP 259: Stack-Walking API defines an efficient standard API for stack walking that allows the easy filtering of and lazy access to stack trace information. This API supports short walks that stop at a stack frame matching given criteria, and also supports long walks that traverse the entire stack. This post introduces you to the Stack-Walking API.
From StackTraceElement to StackWalker
Java 1.4 introduced the java.lang.StackTraceElement class to describe an element representing a stack frame in a stack trace. This class provides methods that return the fully qualified name of the class containing the execution point represented by this stack trace element along with other useful information. Java 1.4 also introduced the StackTraceElement[] getStackTrace() method to the java.lang.Thread and java.lang.Throwable classes. This method respectively returns an array of stack trace elements representing the invoking thread's stack dump and provides programmatic access to the stack trace information printed by printStackTrace().
There are several reasons why you might want to access stack trace elements. I've listed three reasons below -- you can probably add to this list:
Understand an application's behavior.
Log stack trace element details to assist with debugging.
Find out who called a certain method in order to identify the source of a resource leak.
Before Java 9, you might obtain a stack trace by instantiating Throwable and invoking its getStackTrace() method, as shown here:
StackTraceElement[] stackTrace = new Throwable().getStackTrace();
Unfortunately, this approach to obtaining a stack trace is rather costly and impacts performance. The Java Virtual Machine (JVM) eagerly captures a snapshot of the entire stack (except for hidden stack frames), even when you only need the first few frames. Also, your code will probably have to process frames that are of no interest, which is also time-consuming. Finally, you cannot access the actual java.lang.Class instance of the class that declared the method represented by a stack frame. To access this Class object, you're forced to extend java.lang.SecurityManager in order to access the protected getClassContext() method, which returns the current execution stack as an array of Class objects.
Omitting stack frames According to JEP 259, a JVM implementation can omit some stack frames to improve performance. For example, Thread::getStackTrace might return a partial stack trace, which isn't useful when all stack frames are desired.
These APIs don't satisfy the use cases that depend on the JDK-internal sun.reflect.Reflection::getCallerClass method, or else their performance overhead is intolerable. These use cases include:
Walk the stack until the immediate caller's class is found. Every JDK caller-sensitive API looks up its immediate caller's class to determine the API's behavior. For example, the Class::forName and ResourceBundle::getBundle methods use the immediate caller's classloader to load a class and a resource bundle, respectively. Reflective APIs such as Class::getMethod use the immediate caller's classloader to determine the security checks to be performed.
and methods use the immediate caller's classloader to load a class and a resource bundle, respectively. Reflective APIs such as use the immediate caller's classloader to determine the security checks to be performed. Walk the stack, filtering out the stack frames of specific implementation classes to find the first non-filtered frame. The java.util.logging API filters intermediate stack frames (typically implementation-specific and reflection frames) to find the caller's class.
API filters intermediate stack frames (typically implementation-specific and reflection frames) to find the caller's class. Walk the stack to find all protection domains, until the first privileged frame is reached. This is required in order to do permission checks.
Walk the entire stack, possibly with a depth limit. This is required to generate the stack trace of any Throwable object, and to implement the Thread::dumpStack method.
Java 9 introduces the Stack-Walking API as a more performant and capable alternative to the StackTraceElement - and SecurityManager -related APIs. The Stack-Walking API primarily consists of the java.lang.StackWalker class with its nested Option class and StackFrame interface. However, Stack-Walking also includes the java.lang.IllegalCallerException class.
StackWalker basics
The StackWalker class is easy to use. In this section, I'll focus on the basics by showing you first how to obtain a StackWalker instance and then how to use this instance to walk all or only a few stack frames.
Obtaining a StackWalker
StackWalker provides four static getInstance() methods that return StackWalker s. The methods differ in whether or not the walkers also access hidden frames or refective frames (a subset of hidden frames) and retain Class references:
StackWalker getInstance() : Return a StackWalker instance that's configured to skip all hidden frames and that doesn't retain any Class reference.
: Return a instance that's configured to skip all hidden frames and that doesn't retain any reference. StackWalker getInstance(StackWalker.Option option) : Return a StackWalker instance with the given option specifying the stack frame information that it can access.
: Return a instance with the given specifying the stack frame information that it can access. StackWalker getInstance(Set<StackWalker.Option> options) : Return a StackWalker instance with the given options specifying the stack frame information that it can access. If the given options is empty, this StackWalker is configured to skip all hidden frames and to not retain any Class reference.
: Return a instance with the given specifying the stack frame information that it can access. If the given is empty, this is configured to skip all hidden frames and to not retain any reference. StackWalker getInstance(Set<StackWalker.Option> options, int estimatedDepth) : Return a StackWalker instance with the given options specifying the stack frame information that it can access. If the given options is empty, this StackWalker is configured to skip all hidden frames and to not retain any Class reference. Furthermore, estimatedDepth specifies the estimated number of stack frames that this StackWalker instance will traverse. StackWalker could use this value as a hint for its buffer size.
The value passed to option or included in options is one of StackWalker.Option.RETAIN_CLASS_REFERENCE, StackWalker.Option.SHOW_HIDDEN_FRAMES, or StackWalker.Option.SHOW_REFLECT_FRAMES.
StackWalker is thread-safe StackWalker is thread-safe. Multiple threads can share a single StackWalker object to traverse their own stacks.
The following examples demonstrate these methods:
import static java.lang.StackWalker.Option.*; StackWalker sw1 = StackWalker.getInstance(); StackWalker sw2 = StackWalker.getInstance(RETAIN_CLASS_REFERENCE); StackWalker sw3 = StackWalker.getInstance(Set.of(RETAIN_CLASS_REFERENCE, SHOW_HIDDEN_FRAMES)); StackWalker sw4 = StackWalker.getInstance(Set.of(RETAIN_CLASS_REFERENCE), 16);
The first example skips all hidden frames and doesn't retain any Class reference. The second example is like the first example except that it retains Class references by passing RETAIN_CLASS_REFERENCE.
The third example also retains Class references, and shows hidden frames by passing SHOW_HIDDEN_FRAMES. The final example retains this reference and also sets the estimated traversal depth to 16. Note that the third and fourth examples demonstrate Java 9's convenience factory methods enhancement in a java.util.Set context. (I discussed this enhancement in Part 1 of this series.)
Walking all stack frames with forEach()
Once you have a StackWalker instance, you can access stack frames by invoking the forEach() and walk() methods. The forEach() method header appears below:
void forEach(Consumer<? super StackWalker.StackFrame> action)
This method walks the stack, performing the given action on each element of the current thread's stream of StackFrame s. Traversal starts at the stack's top-most frame, which identifies the method that called forEach().
Listing 1 presents the source code to an application that demonstrates forEach().
Listing 1. SWDemo.java (version 1)
public class SWDemo { public static void main(String[] args) { a(); } public static void a() { b(); } public static void b() { c(); } public static void c() { StackWalker sw = StackWalker.getInstance(); sw.forEach(System.out:: |
thing to do is respect their wishes about how they are addressed.
Y’all can call me “Jedi Master Guy the living sword god” if you want. Go on, I dare you.
We have had a small number of transgender people in one or other branches of my School over the last 15 years. In every case, School policy is absolutely clear: respect their preferences. It really doesn’t matter a damn whether the person you are training with is male, female, trans, or even (gods protect us) Swedish. It matters what their weapon is doing and why.
Likewise, within the school, our tournaments are not segregated in any way. If you are smaller or weaker, or taller, or stronger, you are expected to deal with it as best you can and learn from the experience. That’s it. Weapons do not discriminate and neither should we. In our most recent tournament, students even had a free choice of weapon (axe, spear, sword, dagger or unarmed); the best fight of the day was one student with a dagger defeating another with a pollax. You gain honour in direct proportion to the difficulty of the fight.
I understand that there is an argument made regarding high-level competition having gender categories, and a stated policy regarding what is required to gain admission to one category or the other. With millions of dollars on the line, it makes a sort of sense, I suppose. And in some arts, such as MMA or wrestling, weight categories make sense. But in combat of any kind, they just don’t strike me as martial.
This is topical because a student of mine has recently been denied entry to the women’s longsword tournament at an event in the USA. This student has gone through all sorts of difficulties to become who she is meant to be; it seems perverse to me to add to those difficulties deliberately.
This is the whole point of training swordsmanship. You start out wanting to be something that you are not (yet): A swordsman. You train, and sweat, and bleed and suffer (in my classes, anyway), and through the alchemy of practice you become the person you aspire to be. For any swordsman to fail to see the similar but vastly more difficult course that trans people go through strikes me as a pathetic failure of imagination and empathy.
Training is all about personal growth, and respecting the efforts that our fellow students make to grow, in all aspects of their lives.
Frankly, I don’t care what you think about a transperson’s gender. The only polite and decent course is to respect their choice regarding how they are identified, and to respect the courage it has taken them to live as they do in a world so sadly full of people slow to love and quick to hate.
(Visited 886 times, 1 visits today)Tyler and I are huge Guillermo del Torro fan boys and, therefore, we have both been waiting in anticipation of his vampire television saga The Strain. For those rolling their eyes, I know I know it was a book series first, but that would involve reading…we are not THAT big of fans. Given the series premiered recently, I will review each episode of the first season. Here is the fourth of those reviews.
Episode: “It’s Not for Everyone” (4:13) Air Date: August 3, 2014 Directed: Keith Gordon Written: Regina Corrado
Goodweather (Stoll), Kent (Astin), and Martinez (Maesrto) decide to perform a covert autopsy on Captain Redfern (Potts). The results startle the crew and force Kent to admit his involvement in the epidemic. Goodweather and Martinez race to save the father of one of the victims, but find themselves too late. Barbour (Witschl), another victim, takes extreme measures to protect his family.
“It’s Not for Everyone” is a perfect description for not only this episode but the series as a whole. The Strain is not for everyone, but it sure is for me. This most recent episode was everything I was hoping this series was going to be. I had my problems with the previous episode given its slow pace, but there was none of that in the fourth installment. The Strain grasped my attention from the moment the team started slicing up the Captain and never let go. Not only was the action fantastic in this episode, but the dialogue, which has been the weak link of the series so far, held its own. Goodweather rationalizing helping Setrak (Bradley) was truly compelling and Martinez’s retort was equally so. If that was not enough the scenes with Barbour and his family really brought a new level of depth to the victims. I had to hold back some tears! The Strain is quickly becoming my favorite new show on television!
(4 / 5)First off the box was filled with Halloween garland which will look great in my living room. I left it in the box while I pulled out the presents so each one would be a surprise. First I pulled out a Ludo plush from Labyrinth. I love Labyrinth and didn't have a Ludo yet so he will be a great edition to my collection. Next I pulled out a season of Fraggle Rock followed by the card. Thank you for thinking I have excellent taste. Those followed by the other 3 seasons. My son and me will enjoy watching them together. We're watching the first one now until it is time for him to go to bed. Next was an owl candle holder and he looks kinda mean so perfect for Halloween. I am very happy to have him join my owl collection on my dresser. Finally, the bottom of the box was filled with Milky Ways and a box of rice candy. My son keeps trying to sneak them. He loves chocolate and movies. Thank you very much from both of us.Let’s be honest—we’re all obsessed with pumpkin sweets. Luckily, there’s no reason that obsession has to stop with our edibles. These cute mini-cheesecakes are the perfect pièce de resistance for your next seasonal dinner party or 420-friendly gathering (and they’re just as nice savored on the couch over the course of an evening Netflix marathon).
Infused Pumpkin Cheesecakes
Start to finish: 45 minutes
Yield: 15 cheesecakes
Approximate dosage: 20mg per serving*
Ingredients
2 cupcake pans
15 cupcake liners
15 ginger or molasses cookies (look for small, circular ones)
One 8-oz package of cream cheese, softened
One 15-oz can pumpkin
1 cup sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
1 egg plus 2 egg yolks, lightly beaten
1 cup half and half
¼ cup melted cannabutter
½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon ginger
⅛ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Whipped cream (optional)
Directions
Preheat oven to 325˚F. Line pans with cupcake liners. Place one cookie at the bottom of each lined cup. In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese with a mixer until smooth. Add the pumpkin and beat until combined. Add sugar and salt and mix until incorporated. Add the eggs, yolks, half and half, and cannabutter. Mix thoroughly to ensure even distribution of the cannabutter throughout the mixture. Add vanilla and spices and mix until incorporated. Ladle the pumpkin pie filling into the prepared cupcake pans, almost to the top. Bake 25 to 30 minutes, or until centers are almost set. Remove from oven and allow to cool at room temperature. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours before serving. Top with whipped cream and enjoy!
This recipe was developed in partnership with Tilray. Tilray and Leafly are both owned by Privateer Holdings.
*Note: The amount of cannabutter specified in this recipe is a very loose suggestion; the actual amount you use should be modified based on the strength of your butter and the potency you desire. Dosing homemade edibles can be tricky (click here to learn why), so the best way to test for potency is to start with one portion of a serving, wait one to two hours, then make an informed decision on whether to consume more. Always dose carefully and listen to your body, and never drive under the influence of cannabis.Updated to 1.11.2! Should be otherwise identical to 1.10.2-beta-0.2.6, but is marked alpha due to potential bugginess.
0.2.6
---------
+Added French translation, thanks to Niuttuc!
! Fixed metabolic generator bug introduced in 0.2.5 that caused major server issues
0.2.5
---------
+ Low-light vision and metabolic generator now can be toggled in the radial menu
! The metabolic generator now functions correctly with saturation - also acting as a buff
! Myomer muscle replacements now correctly replace muscles
0.2.4
---------
+ Added an experimental HUD float effect. This can be enabled in the config and adds a bit of life to the HUD
+ Added a config option to disable changes to the player model
! Configuration options now sync from server to client for numbers tweaks. This means that servers can adjust tolerance numbers or engineering table and scanner percentages or times and clients will adapt
! Corrected optifine fix from 0.2.3, now functions as intended
! Ensured that the Baubles button shows up in the inventory with Fine Manipulators installed
! Fixed a desync bug where the charger would stop charging on the client
! Fixed positioning of the crosshair while using implanted spider eyes
0.2.3
---------
! Eased performance issues regarding event handling
! Fixed a rare crash related to item tooltips
! Disabled first person rendering adjustments with optifine installed, resolving issues where cyberarms wouldn't appear
! Blueprints now always create full durability items
! Fixed a crash related to the platelet dispatcher
0.2.2
---------
! Fixed RAM consumption issues
+ Added a HUD customization system, allowing players to recolor and reorganize their HUD
+ Added a notification to remind players to open the Cyberware radial menu
+ Added the Hudlens, an alternative to Cybereyes and the Hudjack
+ Added API system for HUD elements
! Fixed Cyberware armor rendering on zombies
! Fixed player rendering when the player has missing skin and no legs
! Fixed missing limbs and other organs not correctly registering on the client
! Fixed HUD with Tough As Nails installed
! Fixed Engineering Table collision box
! Fixed crash related to bone upgrades
0.2.1
---------
! Fixed extra printlns
! Updated mcmod.info
0.2.0: Warranty Voiding Update
---------
+ Reworked textures, courtesy of Yulife!
+ First stage of progression system
~ Cyberzombies now drop "Salvaged" quality Cyberware, which has a 50% higher Tolerance cost
+ Added the Engineering Table to deconstruct and craft Cyberware
+ Added the Scanner to scan Cyberware loot for Blueprints
+ Added the Blueprint Archive and Component Box to organize Components and Blueprints
+ Added the Radio Kit and Radio Beacon to attract more Cyberzombies
+ Several Cyberware items can now be toggled
+ Hold R (by default) to open the radial menu
+ Can bind Cyberware to a keybind
+ Added Cyberzombie Brutes
+ Added two gamerules to keep or drop implanted Cyberware on death
+ Added two augments that integrate with Tough As Nails to help keep you safe in extreme temperatures
+ Added seven new augments for you to find!
+ Added the Katana, Trenchcoat, Mirrorshades, and Biker Jacket
~ Cyberzombies now spawn like vanilla mobs
~ Cyberzombies are now spookier
~ Essence is now called "Tolerance" so it's more descriptive
! Fixed rendering of Cyberlimbs with the Alex player model
0.1.13
---------
+ Hudlink power display now flickers under 5%, turns red under 20%
! Fixed Tesla API modid, fixing a crash. If you get a crash with this version of the mod, you're using an outdated Tesla API.
! Fixed bonelacing hearts not appearing after changing dimension.
! Fixed defibrillator not dropping from zombies
0.1.12
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! Fixed function of the Charger - should now no longer "ghost charge" on the client, leading to presumed issues when changing dimensions or relogging
! Fixed losing all augments when you travel through the End return portal
0.1.11
---------
! Fixed a bug related to usage of the Tesla API
! Fixed a crash with heart upgrades
0.1.10
---------
+ The Robosurgeon GUI has experienced several additions
+ When clicking a slot would remove or add a piece of Cyberware, this is now indicated via tooltip
+ An index page was added to the Robosurgeon including a full list of Cyberware installed and a list of changes made
+ Cyberlegs now replace the fall damage noise with a satisfying clank
~ Missing eyes and unpowered Cybereyes now don't blind players in Creative mode
~ The Neural Contextualizer now will not switch from swords
! The Creative Capacitor now actually acts as a producer in terms of GUI warnings
! Cyberarms now render correctly with the thinner (Alex) player model
! Cyberzombies no longer spawn in the Nether
0.1.9
---------
! The Creative Capacitor now acts as a producer in terms of GUI warnings
! Cyberware resetting now functions correctly
! Fixed hitbox for no-legged players
0.1.81
---------
+ Added the /clearcyberware command for server ops to clear a user's ware
+ Added a config option for a player's Essence cap and critical Essence level
+ Added a warning when a player has no installed power generation but has power-consuming ware
~ Changed behavior of the Surgery Chamber to better stop players from doing things they don't want to
0.1.7
---------
! Fixed a bug that prevented players from accessing the skin/muscle/bone cross cut
0.1.6
---------
+ Added a back button to the Surgery GUI
! Fixed a bug with the Surgery Chamber renderer that could cause a crash
0.1.5
---------
! Fixed a Cyberzombie performance issue
0.1.4
----------
! Fixed two crashes related to Cyberzombies
0.1.2
----------
! Fixed a crash related to the Robosurgeon on dedicated servers.
0.1.1
----------
! Fixed Surgery Chambers dropping an Apple instead of a Surgery Chamber. Oops!August 2, 2013 at 6:50 AM
UPDATE, 5:38 p.m.: The Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission unanimously decided today to ban giant Pacific octopus hunting across seven popular scuba sites in the Puget Sound. The rules, which take effect this fall, prohibit the activity at the following locations:
Redondo Beach in Des Moines.
Three Tree Point in Burien.
Seacrest Park Coves 1, 2, and 3 near Alki Point and the Alki Beach Junk Yard in West Seattle.
The Days Island Wall and an area next to Les Davis Fishing Pier in Tacoma.
Deception Pass north of Oak Harbor.
ORIGINAL POST:
OLYMPIA (AP) — Hunting giant Pacific octopuses in Puget Sound could be banned or restricted under regulations the state Fish and Wildlife Commission is considering at its meeting Friday and Saturday in Olympia.
The commission reviewed the rules after a diver killed an octopus last October in a popular diving area near Alki Point in Seattle.
The commission also is deciding whether to change rules to permanently allow ranchers and farmers in Eastern Washington to kill a wolf that is attacking their livestock.Thirty-two million more people people will be uninsured by 2026, compared to current law, if the GOP repeal-and-delay legislation the Senate may vote on next week becomes law, the Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday.
The legislation, which was posted shortly before the CBO released its score, tracks closely with a bill that Congress passed and then-President Barack Obama vetoed in early 2016.
The CBO report also said that premiums would double by 2026 under the Senate legislation, which eliminates the Affordable Care Act’s taxes, insurance subsidies and Medicaid expansion, but keeps its regulatory regime in place.
The repeal of the subsidies and expansion would go into effect in 2020, while the elimination of individual mandate would take place right away.
The analysis predicted that insurers would flee the exchanges under those conditions:
In CBO and JCT’s estimation, under this legislation, about half of the nation’s population would live in areas having no insurer participating in the nongroup market in 2020 because of downward pressure on enrollment and upward pressure on premiums. That share would continue to increase, extending to about three-quarters of the population by 2026.
The CBO predicted that the Medicaid expansion elimination would reduce Medicaid spending by $842 billion over the next decade, and the government would save $454 billion from getting rid of the subsidies. Those savings would be partially offset by the repeal of the taxes — which costs the government $613 billion in revenue—and the end of mandate, for a net deficit reduction of $473 billion.
The analysis comes as Senate Republicans consider whether to vote on the so-called “clean repeal” bill, after their legislation known as the Better Care Reconciliation Act saw enough defections this week to sink it.
In theory, Republicans say, they will work out a replacement plan in the two years before repeal of the ACA subsidies and Medicaid expansion kicks in. However, CBO’s analysis highlights that even in that ideal scenario, some of the legislation’s ugly effects will kick in pretty quickly.
The CBO predicted that in 2018, 10 percent of the population would be living in areas where no insurers would be participating in the individual market. It also said premiums for what are known as “silver plans” under the ACA would rise by 25 percent in 2018, because fewer people would chose to enroll without the mandate and because the mix of those individuals who would remain would be costlier.
In 2018, 17 million more people would not have health insurance coverage than under current law, 10 million of those losses coming from the nongroup market. While those increases are largely fueled by the end of the mandate, the increase in premiums and the departure of insurers from the marketplace would also play a role in reducing coverage, the CBO said.
Come 2020, 27 million fewer people will have coverage compared to current law, and that number would grow to 32 million by 2026. Of the 32 million, 19 million would be due to Medicaid cuts and 23 million to changes in private insurance.
Leaving Obamacare’s regulatory regime in place while taking away its government assistance is partly to blame for those high numbers. The CBO found if the regulations were also repealed, 23 million fewer people would be insured in 2026 compared to current law, instead of 32 million.
Overall, the CBO painted a picture of major instability if the legislation became law, culminating in three out of every four Americans living in an area with no insurers by 2026.
Read the report below:January 27, 2016
Art of Anonymous browsing online
Surfing anonymously isn’t as hard or as intimidating as it looks. But remember one thing practically there is no tutorial out there that will make you completely anonymous browsing. Being completely anonymous browsing is next to impossible.
Also check : Anonymous hackers from worldwide – Everything you need to know about them
For anonymous browsing, you have to go through all these Steps
The Web Browser Security
Masking IP Address
Local Network Security
Encryption/Logs
Anonymous Based Operating System
Configure Web Browser security to Browse Anonymously
Tor Browser
Tor is free software for enabling anonymous communication.Tor does not protect all of your computer’s Internet traffic when you run it. Tor only protects your applications that are properly configured to send their Internet traffic through Tor.To avoid problems with Tor configuration, For anonymous browsing online I recommend you use the Tor Browser. It is pre-configured to protect your privacy and anonymity on the web as long as you’re browsing with the Tor Browser itself.
Note: Just by installing Tor or Tor browser doesnt make you anonymous.
Cookies
For anonymous browsing online,Cookies is also is the main factor that is a simple text file that is stored on your computer or mobile device by a website’s server and only that server will be able to retrieve or read the contents of that cookie. Each cookie is unique to your web browser. It will contain some anonymous information such as a unique identifier and the site name and some digits and numbers.In Simple words, Cookies are used to track your web activities. Here are the steps to get rid of cookies
There are plenty of Add-ons that you can use
Set your browser to not accept cookies from sites (Disabling cookies you won’t be able to access certain sites) or, at least, make sure that you remove cookies after browsing. I hope Everyone knows how to clear the cookies.
There are some cookies long-term cookies. Also Known as Local shared objects (LSOs), commonly called Flash cookies (due to their similarities with HTTP cookies), are pieces of data that websites which use Adobe Flash may store on a user’s computer.To remove this type of cookies there are several <ADD-ONS> or use can use <Flash Cookie Cleaner>.
Note : just because you are using Tor Browser you are safe from cookies
HTTP referer :
It is an HTTP header field that identifies the address of the web page (i.e. the URI or IRI) that linked to the resource being requested. By checking the referrer, the new web page can see where the request originated.This can be used to track your path from page to page. Here is the simple Fix
In Firefox use can use ADD-Ons like Referer Control or you can do it manually.
In Firefox go to > about:config,search for > network.http.sendRefererHeader. Once you’ve found it just set it to a value of 0.
In chrome, you can use <Referer Control>.
Note: These steps dont apply for internet explorer
User Agent :
Today, nearly everyone uses a web browser as their user agent. You can anonymize your browser user agent by installing the addon to change/create custom User Agents.
Note: Partially anonymizing your user agent actually makes your header more unique, not less.
Search Engine : Every time you use a regular search engine, your search data is recorded. Major search engines capture your IP address and use tracking cookies to make a record of your search terms, the time of your visit, and the links you choose – then they store that information in a giant database.check out Startpage. It sends your searches to their own server before actually sending it out to the web to help hide who’s searching.StartPage Protects Your Privacy!
Masking IP address and using Proxy to Browse Anonymously
When you connect to the Internet, your Internet Service Provider (ISP) assigns you an IP address. When you surf the web, view email or download a photo from the Internet, your activity can be tracked with your IP address. The IP address can be used to locate a person, and trace the Internet activity.anonymous browsing online and protect your privacy, you’ll need to hide your real IP address.
Proxies :
Mask your IP address with Proxies. Another thing to look at is the different kinds of protocols a proxy may use. The main kinds of proxies you will here about are SOCKS proxies and HTTP proxies.SOCKS proxies are lower-level than HTTP proxies. SOCKS uses a network handshake to send information about a connection. The SOCKS proxy then opens a connection, perhaps through a firewall. HTTP Proxies are transported over TCP and forwards an HTTP request through and HTTP server. One simple way to look at it is that HTTP proxies are web-based(obviously), and SOCKS proxies are machine based.There are thousands of free web proxy servers that you can use to hide your IP address and surf anonymously. Browsing through a proxy means that you are not accessing a website directly, but going through an intermediate “proxy” which relays the information back and forth between you and the destination website. list of Proxy sites
Also check : bypass video streaming sites like putlocker
VPN:
Virtual Private Network (VPN) offers a connectivity to another network, and when connected your computer receives a new IP address from a VPN provider. Every traffic from your computer routes through the VPN network, so your true IP address assigned by your ISP is hidden. Aside from hiding your IP address, using VPN allows you to access any network even though your network may be geo-restricted. They help you get on the Internet with a different IP address than the one provided by your ISP.
There’s a major difference between proxies and VPNs.
proxy == anonymous(more or less)
VPN == private(Virtual PRIVATE Network)
Editor Choice : HideMyAss VPN
download HideMyAss VPN for Free and get upto 43% OFF on 12 Months Plan
<cyber ghost is also one of the best VPN software >
Note: don’t use openVPN for anything illegal Activities. Never buy a VPN from your personal credit card or from your real name
Proxy Chaining:
It’s a very useful tool and it’s easy to use. With this tool, you can chain proxy to proxy, proxy to VPN, proxy to VPN to Tor(if you want), proxy to proxy to proxy to proxy to proxy to VPN to the proxy.It’s like a chain every time it changes
It is More Secure: Instead of connecting to the internet through just one proxy you will be able to access the internet through several proxies and, as a result, will enjoy better security.
It is More Reliable: Since you’re using more than one proxy it will be difficult to guess your IP and as a result difficult to hack into your network. Of course, this particular technique has its own vulnerabilities but it is more reliable than using just one proxy.
It is Less Stressful: You don’t have to worry about changing your proxy every hour. A good proxy chain can last longer before you start experiencing problems.
<Proxy Chaining software>
Tweak Local Network Security to Browse Anonymously
MAC Address: MAC Address:
Your MAC address is a 48bit hardware identifying address which is part of your network card. Everyone has one and they are all unique. media access control address (MAC address), also called physical address, is a unique identifier assigned to network interfaces for communications on the physical network segment. MAC address is “burned into” a given device from the factory. A MAC address takes the form of six pairs of hexadecimal digits.MAC addresses allow communication between devices on a local network.
how to find MAC address in windows open CMD > type config /all
How to spoof/change your MAC address:
For Windows: <Technitium MAC Address Changer>
Also check : how to bypass blocked torrent
Note: change your IP address doesnt make you anonymous on the internet, you can be tracked down with MAC address which is still there, not spoofed
DHCP:
Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) is a client/server protocol that automatically provides an Internet Protocol (IP) host with its IP address and other related configuration information such as the subnet mask and default gateway.You DHCP client will often transmit some information when requesting an IP address. Much of the time this only includes your hostname and MAC address.it transmits a hell of a lot more. It will transmit your hostname, DHCP cd version, kernel, OS, and architecture. This is known as your vendor class id. Which is obviously very identifying. This can be taken care of by editing your /etc/dhcpcd.conf file.
instead of having your actual hostname and vendor class id be transmitted you can change it to whatever you want using <Wireshark>
Note: Not to have a unique or identifying user and hostname.
Encryption/Logs
Stacked Encryption:
This is a when an encrypted filesystem is stacked on top of an existing filesystem. This causes all files written to the encrypted folder to be done so “on the fly” before being written to disk.
– eCryptfs
– EncFS
Block Device Encryption:
This, on the contrary, is written below the filesystem layer to make sure that everything written to a certain block device is encrypted.
– dm-crypt + LUKS
– Truecrypt
Logs :
Logs can let someone know what you have been doing on your system. Be aware of hiding logs files and don’t break your head too munch. You can google for more information about logs
Note: dont mess with som files Destroying certain files could do serious damage to your OS it would be nightmare
Anonymous Based Operating System : To Browse Anonymously on the Internet
Good idea is to install some anonymity based OS like <Whonix>.Whonix is an operating system focused on anonymity, privacy, and security. It’s based on the Tor anonymity network[1], Debian GNU/Linux[2] and security by isolation.
Even you can create Live USB for one-time use which increases chances of anonymity.
MISC :
Software Like weather monitoring could be very bad because they may transmit zip codes or address information to get local weather reports. Many people overlook this. Hiding your IP won’t matter if you overlook this.
Also check: Top 5 network hacking tool
This tutorial doesn’t make you 100% Anonymous.Remember we cant Browse Anonymously completely FBI or CBI can find you within a blink of eye,so don’t try any Trying illegal Activities.
Thanks to Lucid(evil one) I was able to collect all these Points
This tutorial for educational purposes onlyOne of the bigger story lines in last weekend’s NFL Draft, at least for Arizona Cardinals fans, was if the team would choose a quarterback.
The thought process was that while starter Carson Palmer is still playing at a high level, his advanced age (36 years old) necessitates the team at some point soon finding a young replacement, better known as a quarterback of the future.
The problem in finding that guy in the draft, of course, was that the Cardinals were picking 29th in the first round and the elite passers — Cal’s Jared Goff and North Dakota State’s Carson Wentz — were long gone before Arizona was on the clock.
That was expected, though. When discussing the Cardinals and their possible pursuit of a passer, most analysts figured the guy Arizona would target was Memphis’ Paxton Lynch.
Thought of as incredibly talented, the 6-foot-7 player with good mobility seemed like he could be a good fit for Bruce Arians’ offense, and a wonderful prospect to groom while Palmer finishes out his impressive career.
Unfortunately, we’ll never know if the Cardinals would have drafted Lynch 29th overall because the Denver Broncos traded up to pick No. 26 and snagged him.
However, it turns out we do know the Cardinals at least had significant interest in the 22-year-old who last season completed 66.8 percent of his passes for 3,776 yards with 28 touchdowns and four interceptions.
“We have a process where we stack our players one through 120 on how they would come off the board for us,” Cardinals GM Steve Keim told Colin Cowherd on the Colin Cowherd Show on FOX Sports 1. “Some of it’s based on need; most of it’s based on best player available because I’ve always had the philosophy your needs in April and May are always much different than they are in October because of injuries, suspensions, whatever it may be. Needs are always changing but you can never have enough good players.
“But Paxton Lynch was certainly in the conversation. Now, whether he made it to us or not, that’s a different discussion. But he’s certainly a guy in this draft that we looked at and determined was potentially a franchise quarterback. And because of Carson’s age, where we are with Drew Stanton — there’s no question that, for the future, at some point we need to find a young quarterback to be our guy.”
Though they did not draft a QB, the Cardinals did add a rookie passer to the roster with the signing of undrafted free agent Jake Coker. The former Alabama QB has good size, and Arians spoke highly of what the National Champion brings to the table ahead of this weekend’s rookie mini-camp.
“He won the games throwing the football in critical downs, and watching him grow — really can’t wait to get our hands on him this weekend and watch him grow with us,” he said. “He’s got the size, he’s got the skill; he’s got a lot of moxie about him.
“So yeah, I’m very anxious to get him here.”
Including Coker, the Cardinals’ QB depth chart has Palmer as the starter and Stanton as the backup. Matt Barkley is the incumbent third-string option, but his roster spot is not guaranteed.
With that, the good news is the Cardinals — who see themselves as Super Bowl contenders — have an elite starter as well as a very capable backup. But as Keim said, a surefire option for the future is not on the roster, and that is an issue they would like to rectify in the near future.
Follow @theAdamGreenMy coveted Wanker of the Week award goes to the man who accused Butlins of “race hate” because it featured a wrestling match in which the bad guy was a bearded Muslim brandishing an Islamic-State-style flag and the good guy a man waving an England banner.
He went to see the wrestling show with his kids at a Butlins holiday camp in Skegness, Lincolnshire and was appalled by what he saw.
Families were encouraged to boo a bearded baddie called Hakim as he entered the ring carrying an Islamic-type flag. His opponent ‘good guy’ Tony Spitfire wore Union Jack shorts and waved an England banner. Red Coats urged the children and their families to chant “En-ger-land” as Hakim snuck up behind Mr Spitfire.
The man, whose name is Christian Cerisola and who runs a PR company called Glue PR in Newcastle, announced to the world his dawning horror in a series of stunned tweets.
So we brought the kids to. @Butlins this w/e. Rough round the edges, but loads for them to do. It was all going well… — Christian_GluePR (@ChristianCeriso) April 3, 2016
They asked to watch the wrestling last night. Harmless bit of fun, we thought @Butlins. But no… — Christian_GluePR (@ChristianCeriso) April 3, 2016
I felt I was dropped into the middle of a Britain First rally. Out came ‘Hakim’. The Islamic flag waving baddie. ‘BOOOOO’, we were told. — Christian_GluePR (@ChristianCeriso) April 3, 2016
Then came Union flag trunk wearing ‘Tony Spitfire.’ Yes Tony Spitfire, ladies and gents. ‘En-Ger-land!’ he thumped over and over. — Christian_GluePR (@ChristianCeriso) April 3, 2016
A horrific race hate-filled ten minutes of everything wrong on racial stereotypes. How did this get past the sense checkers @Butlins? — Christian_GluePR (@ChristianCeriso) April 3, 2016
Later he enlarged on his trauma to a local newspaper:
“It was very uncomfortable. I have nothing against wrestling and understand there needs to be a good guy and a bad guy. “Basing that on race and nationality just felt wrong. I felt like I had to say something to Butlins. “Considering what has recently happened in Brussels and Paris, surely someone must have thought this cannot be right. It was like being stuck in the dark ages.”
Naturally, Butlins felt compelled to issue an apology, insisting that it had all been a terrible mistake.
“We’d like to assure you and all guests this was a totally unacceptable one-off which is contrary to Butlin’s values. It won’t happen again.”
and (the old ‘blame the supplier’ excuse)
“We had a wrestling company in on Saturday who did a show we are not happy about. “That part of the show was not agreed. “It was not funny or acceptable. It is a company we have used for years and years. “For some reason they tweaked that part of the show which we did not know about.”
But if anyone should be apologising to anyone, I think, it’s this grisly, middle-aged Social Justice Warrior Christian Cerisola.
What on earth does he think he was doing, playing the offence card over a show which – I’ll lay money – would have delighted 99.99 per cent of the audience?
Maybe if this wrestling match had been staged at some Hamas-sponsored fringe event at the Labour party conference, Cerisola might have had a point. But Butlins, Skegness is a very different kettle of fish. These are your actual white working class and what they’re really not into is political correctness of any kind.
And why bloody should they be? Wrestling matches have always been cartoonish contests between good and evil – and if you’re looking for a bad guy in the world today, where better to find one than radical Islam?
Who, right now, is most likely to kill a member of the British armed forces? (Or indeed a civilian)
A German? Nope, that was a while back. A Soviet? Nope, that one’s over too. A Frenchman? Well, possibly: you never want to discount the danger posed by our most ancient enemy. But still, I’d argue, most likely, it won’t be any of the above, but rather a member of the Religion of Peace. Probably with a beard. And a black Islamic flag. Just like Hakim the baddie wrestler.
Perhaps Cerisola thought that by complaining he would win some work for his PR company. And maybe he will. I can imagine there are all sorts of fellow Social Justice Warriors in the public sector who’ll be itching to award him contracts promoting something worthy and taxpayer-funded. A shiny new refugee centre, perhaps.
But I doubt many people in the real world will feel quite so enthusiastic about Cerisola’s wanky virtue-signalling.
What Cerisola did with that vexatious complaint to Butlins was to do his tiny bit towards making it that much more difficult for people to express themselves freely in Britain. It will make companies like Butlins that much more cautious; it will make entertainers more circumspect; it will, of course, further encourage Muslim victimhood. All just because some tossy SJW manque decided to show off how enlightened and sensitive he was by complaining publicly about a harmless joke.We can only hope that these two German ladies racist discussions do not reflect a growing undercurrent of xenophobia across such a currently open, and multi-cultural society. However, with immigrants "mysteriously disappearing," it may be too late:
“None of us want this. We’re all scared.”“What is this? How will this be in 100 years?”
“This is not my life. It just shows you how many of them are here already.”
“Now there’s another 1.5 million who came this year.”
“Every year 2-3 million arrive.”
“It’s generally about foreign infiltration.”
“Yes, exactly.”
“We won’t dress like |
that the class will not become releasable once we are out of the closure scope, this class will have to be released manually somewhere else through the unmanaged instance we declared initially.
And this is just one simple, and maybe not the best, example of a category of problems that Unmanaged could solve, to learn more about Unmanaged check out this NSHipster’s article.
Working with Files
Since on some platform we could have to deal directly with files frequently using the standard C library functions, let’s see some examples of how to read and write from files:
let fd = fopen("aFile.txt", "w") fwrite("Hello Swift!", 12, 1, fd) let res = fclose(file) if res!= 0 { print(strerror(errno)) } let fd = fopen("aFile.txt", "r") var array = [Int8](repeating:0, count: 13) fread(&array, 12, 1, fd) fclose(fd) let str = String(validatingUTF8: array)! print(str) // Hello Swift!
As you can see there is nothing weird or convoluted about file access, this is essentially the same code we would have written in C. Notice that we have full access to errno and all the related functions.
Bitwise Operations
Since it’s highly likely that you’ll need to perform bit mask operations when interoperating with C, i recommend a post I wrote a while ago on the subject that should cover all you need to know.
Get the mixed Swift/C playground for this post from GitHub or zipped.
Swift and C: Mixed Projects
Swift projects can access libraries written in C using a bridging header following the same procedure used for Objective-C libraries.
But since this does not work for framework projects, let’s see a more general alternative approach that has only slightly more of typing involved. We’ll create a LLVM module that will contain the C code we want to export to Swift.
Let’s suppose we’ve added to our Swift project a C source file:
// CExample.c #include "CExample.h" #include <stdio.h> void printStuff(){ printf("Printing something!
"); } void giveMeUnsafeMutablePointer(int* param){ } void giveMeUnsafePointer(const int * param){ }
And its header:
// CExample.h #ifndef CExample_h #define CExample_h #include <stdio.h> #define IAMADEFINE 42 void printStuff(); void giveMeUnsafeMutablePointer(int* param); void giveMeUnsafePointer(const int * param); typedef struct { char name[5]; int value; } MyStruct; char name[] = "IAmAString"; char* anotherName = "IAmAStringToo"; #endif /* CExample_h */
To keep the C sources separated from the rest we’ve put these files in the CExample sub-directory in the root of the project.
We must now create a module.map file in that same directory and this file will declare what our C module exports and from which header file.
module CExample [system] { header "CExample.h" export * }
As you can guess, we are exporting all the content declared in the header but modules can also selectively export only part of what’s declared.
Furthermore, in this example the actual source of the library is contained in the project, but if you need to expose to Swift one of the libraries you have installed on your system you can just create a module.map (not necessarily in its own directory) and specify as header one or more of your system’s headers. In this case you’ll likely need to specify the name of the library your headers refer to too using the link libname directive in your modulemap (that will link that library as you would manually do with -llibname). And you can also declare more than one module in a single module.map.
To learn more about LLVM modules and all the options available check out the official documentation.
The last step consist in adding the module directory to the search path of the compiler. To do this, open the project properties and add the module path (${SRCROOT}/CExample) to Import Paths under Swift Compiler - Search Paths:
And that’s it, we can now import from Swift the new module and use what it contains:
import CExample printStuff() print(IAMADEFINE) //42 // Pass a bogus pointer at address 0x1 giveMeUnsafePointer(UnsafePointer<Int32>(bitPattern: 1)) giveMeUnsafeMutablePointer(UnsafeMutablePointer<Int32>(bitPattern: 1)) let ms = MyStruct(name: (0, 0, 0, 0, 0), value: 1) print(ms) print(name) // (97, 115, 100, 100, 97, 115, 100, 0) //print(String(validatingUTF8:name)!) // Cannot convert it print(anotherName) //0xXXXXXX pointer address print(String(validatingUTF8:anotherName)!) //IAmAStringToo
Swift Package Manager
The Swift Package Manager supports the creation of C modules via module.map as described in the documentation. You can either create mixed projects or create a main project importing various sub-projects, each one providing a wrapper module (with likely some Swift to decorate the original C API) for each different C library you need to use.
Swift 3 Changes
The third major release of Swift introduces many changes related to pointers and other functionalities shown in this article, some of the pertaining Swift Evolution proposals are: SE-0016, SE-0055, SE-0076, SE-0101, SE-0107, SE-0136 and finally SE-0138 that extends SE-0107 and has been implemented in Swift 3.0.1.
With SE-0107, a new UnsafeRawPointer type has been introduced to replace the UnsafePointer<Void> that was used in Swift 2.2 code for pointer without type information and strict aliasing for the pointers element type is now enforced. A comprehensive migration guide is available to help the transition.
Closing Thoughts
I hope this article will at least shed some light on the mysterious and scantily documented world of Swift and C interoperability but I don’t really expect to have covered everything you could encounter in your projects.
You’ll find yourself in situations where a bit of experimenting will be needed to make things work as you want and it’s likely that C interoperability will be improved over the next releases of Swift (UnsafePointer and all the related functions were introduced just in Swift 2.0, before that, interoperability with C was a bit more convoluted) with new constructs.[EXPERIMENT] Emacs with the SpiderMonkey garbage collector
From: Pip Cet Subject: [EXPERIMENT] Emacs with the SpiderMonkey garbage collector Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2017 19:01:02 +0000
Hello everyone, I'm typing this in a version of Emacs that uses the SpiderMonkey (Mozilla's JavaScript engine) garbage collector, which I've just succeeded in starting for the first time. It's an experiment, and I'm perfectly happy to abandon it and leave with what I've learned; but I think it's an interesting experiment, and it might help those actually wanting to use a different garbage collector in the official version of Emacs. Most of the code is available at https://github.com/pipcet/emacs/tree/c%2B%2B (This code won't work as-is yet, I'm afraid. I'm trying to figure out how to get the gnulib files to build for C++. It's also missing some very recent changes. I'm hoping to fix that soon, but if you actually want to try things, it might be best to contact me by email. Also, if anyone could help me find a better place to host free software, that would be very much appreciated). Again, this is an experiment. It's currently slow, unstable, contains known bugs, will not work except on GNU/Linux with X (and with a specific hacked version of the SpiderMonkey library), leaks memory, and provides no practical advantages over official Emacs. I'm writing this now because I'm trying to decide how much more time to spend on it, and would appreciate comments and feedback. And, of course, questions! The main difference between the current mark-and-sweep garbage collector and the SpiderMonkey garbage collector is that the latter is a copying garbage collector and precise, meaning that objects may change address during GC and that only typed values, not memory locations that might or might not be, must be traced. A minor difference is that GC can happen at any time the code is in the JavaScript API, meaning that we can no longer get away with stretches of code that "never GC". I was hoping to find some bugs in official Emacs during this process, but have been mostly[1] unsuccessful--I have found bugs, but only ones introduced by my previous changes. Let me describe in detail some of the changes I made and how I made them: 1. Make Emacs compile with CC="g++" CFLAGS="-fpermissive" This was harder than it sounds. In fact, I ended up writing a simple parser for "Emacs C", the unpreprocessed source code as it appears in the repository, and performing the necessary replacements automatically. As a side effect, declarations of the form int x, y; are rewritten to int x; int y; 2. Replace Lisp_Object in the source code My plan was to use JS::Value objects instead of Lisp_Object. In order to properly use SpiderMonkey, stack objects must be rooted: I've decided to use separate types for (a) stack values and values in structs that live on the stack (b) values on the heap (c) values on structs that live on the heap (d) return values (e) function arguments. (In order, ELisp_Value, ELisp_Heap_Value, ELisp_Struct_Value, ELisp_Return_Value, ELisp_Handle). While Lisp_Object values need to be protected, pointers to Lisp_Object need not, so there is a simple ELisp_Pointer type (which is currently bloated because it determines at run time whether it's pointing to an ELisp_Value or an ELisp_Struct_Value), as well as vector (resizeable arrays) and array (fixed size) types. Luckily, I was able to modify the C-to-C++ conversion script to determine automatically which of the replacement types to use for most of the ~10k instances of "Lisp_Object" in the Emacs source code. In fact, I decided to keep this approach, modifying the C source code as little as necessary, then turning each.c or.h file in the src directory into a C++.c.cc or.h.hh file, then (ideally) not modifying the resulting C++ files. It's currently not quite clean that way. 3. Replace lisp.h The replacement, jslisp.h.hh, defines ELisp_Value etc. to be C++ types based on SpiderMonkey's JS::Value, which can be a non-NaN double, or an NaN-boxed object pointer, 32-bit integer[2], undefined, null, or a JavaScript symbol or string. I'm only using doubles, integers, and JavaScript objects. (So strings and symbols are JavaScript objects, including Qnil). Each object points (using the JS_GetPrivate pointer) to an unmovable structure in memory, which in turn contains a copy of the JavaScript value that represents it. This combines the disadvantages of a moving and a non-moving garbage collector, but it was good enough for this experiment. ELisp_Value, for example, is a rooted type which has a non-trivial constructor which registers the JS::Value it contains in a "root list" and a destructor that removes it. In ordinary code, you can otherwise use it much like a Lisp_Object. Apart from beginning with a JavaScript value, the actual constant-address structures are mostly unchanged (I moved some Lisp_Object struct members that previously weren't GC'd (because they didn't need to be) to the pseudovector Lisp-Object area so I could trace them). 4. Replace alloc.c Most of alloc.c is married to the current garbage collector and needed to be replaced or simplified, in order to leave memory management to SpiderMonkey. Instead, a new file, js.c.cc, contains the new rooting/tracing code: it registers a hook with SpiderMonkey's garbage collector which traces, directly or indirectly, all Emacs data except for stack values, which are traced by SpiderMonkey. 5. Stack unwinding Emacs uses setjmp()/longjmp(). While I think this code can be converted to use C++ exceptions instead, I decided it would be easier to make stack unwinding work with SpiderMonkey. The problem is destructors of intervening stack frames are not called when unwinding the stack, so we must find and destroy objects in unwind_to_catch. This turns out to be easily possible, though we violate the SpiderMonkey API by accessing fields in a private structure: we save a stack pointer in the struct handler structure, then compare it to the current stack pointer upon entering unwind_to_catch. We then walk the root lists to find all rooted objects that live in the intervening stack region and destroy them (and do the same for auto-rooted vectors, which work the same way but use slightly different code). 6. Calling convention The usual SpiderMonkey calling convention is that functions do not return GC types; their arguments are "handles", essentially read-only pointers to JS::Values. I decided to return JS::Value objects directly (except for being wrapped in another class), which opens up a race condition: If f1 and f2 are functions returning ELisp_Return_Type values, it's illegal to call another function g as g(f1(...), f2(...)). f1's return value will not be traced if f2 triggers a GC, so if it is moved there will be a segfault (or worse). It should be possible to further extend my C-to-C++ script to deal with this by automatically assigning ELisp_Value temporaries in this situation. I also decided to pass function arguments as JS::Value objects, rooting them in the callee instead. Both of these decisions are open to revision. 7. Misc Some unions were turned into structs in order to ease tracing them. Some structs had to be duplicated into a stack and a heap version. Many previously-unrooted (again, because they didn't need to be) objects were staticpro'd or added directly to the tracing code. ELisp_Pointer, a data type representing a pointer to a JS::Value, was modified to require explicitly-named methods rather than operator overloading to catch bugs. This introduced new bugs. Finally, after much debugging, Emacs showed me a usable frame. 8. What now? While I don't think it's right to have SpiderMonkey-specific code in Emacs, we don't need to: there's pretty much an automatic API between Emacs and its garbage collector that's good enough for SpiderMonkey, but can be trivially implemented by the existing mark-and-sweep garbage collector. I'd like to make that work, by making as little code as possible depend on the innards of ELisp_Value etc. I do not advocate switching to this garbage collection mechanism in the official Emacs, converting the official Emacs to C++, or renaming all Lisp_Objects in the official Emacs. I do advocate making the official Emacs compile with G++ with the -fpermissive option, to help further experiments. I also think that if there are other ways to make it easier in the future to switch to a more complicated garbage collector, we should investigate them, but I need to think about this more. The C-to-C++ converter seems potentially useful for other projects (my initial approach was to try coccinelle, but I never got that to work right), and should be extended to provide temporary variables automatically, at which point we can change the calling convention back to one that uses handles for read-only arguments. Using JSObject structures for everything is wasteful, particularly in the case of cons cells, which should require only 16 bytes each. I think it should be possible to modify SpiderMonkey to assign a unique tag to cons cells, allowing us to get them down to 24 bytes (car, cdr, and a hash value (we can no longer use the address because that might change). I'd like to get away from the dual constant-address-structure/pointer-only-JSObject approach. We could use JSObjects to store rarely-needed properties as JavaScript properties, and store only commonly-used data in the private structure. In some cases, we can forego a private structure entirely (cons cells). 9. Unimplemented This list is incomplete: - non-X environments - non-GNU/Linux environments - weak hash tables - finalizers - finalizing markers - threads (it's unclear to me whether this is possible) - modules - images and sounds - debugging/backtraces - dumping (I'm currently using CANNOT_DUMP=yes. Is that supposed to work? Because it doesn't without a few changes to the initial Lisp files.) (Again, I'm not sure this will ever work). - reduce warnings (-fpermissive produces copious warnings, most of which are valid and need to be fixed in the code. Right now, I'm ignoring them as long as the result works.) - remove -fpermissive - signal handlers need to be protected specially In the C-to-C++ converter: - operator precedence - global (not per-chunk) data, such as function prototypes - performance [1] - there's one place that uses "false" for "NULL", and garbage collection of markers is O(n^2) in the number of markers per buffer, which means it tends to dominate GCs in some scenarios (including my typical usage). Both are trivial to fix. [2] - JavaScript doesn't distinguish integers from floating-point numbers, but SpiderMonkey does. This is relevant because Emacs sometimes uses a floating-point argument to mean something different from the equivalent integer argument. Sorry this got quite long! Any comments, private or public, would be appreciated.
reply via email toAN INTRODUCTION TO ALTERNATIVE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION CONSPIRACY THEORIES – (part 1 of 1,459,871,643)
Personally, I am very fond of Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories, and I’ve even got a few of my own. After all, it only takes a few minutes to invent these things.
Now, the sine qua non of any good Kennedy assassination conspiracy theory is that it must not reflect negatively upon Pretty Boy Prince Jack of Camelot, and it must not be overly anti-Communist, i.e., it must be expressed entirely within the frame of reference of left-wing liberalism.
For example, we sense instinctively that the following will simply never do:
a) Having firmly ensconced the Communists in power in Cuba using the same methods that proved so successful in China (placing an embargo on the sale of arms and ammunition to anyone fighting them), left-wing cells in the State Department dream of going on to bigger and better things in terms of even more extensive Communist subversion and treason. Finding themselves thwarted by Kennedy, a woolly-minded liberal but certainly no Communist, the President is eliminated by a team of State Department “black-op” specialists and an expendable fellow-traveller is framed for the crime.
b) Flushed with success over the “Cuban Missile Crisis”, JFK dreams of going on to bigger and better things with a “Missile Crisis” over Viet Nam. He is regretfully eliminated by patriotic elements in the CIA in the belief that this is the only way to avoid nuclear war -- sooner or later.
c) As the Belgian Congo collapses into chaos, with mass looting, terror, torture, murder, cannibalism and rape spreading throughout the country. JFK – despite his refusal to provide promised air support to Cuban refugees fighting at the Bay of Pigs – provides U.S. military aircraft and money to the U.N. in its illegal invasion of Katanga, the only peaceful province of the country -- a region with no linguistic or cultural ties to North Congo -- led by secessionist Moise Tshombe, the only black African leader anywhere on the continent who is a college graduate, an anti-Communist, and a Christian, enjoying the respect of both white and black. Tschombe declares he is " withdrawing from chaos" but is refused a visa to visit the US to plead his cause (although there are no legal grounds to exclude him), while Holden Roberto and other Angolan Communist guerrilla leaders are granted visas to visit the U.S. by special order of Robert F. Kennedy, although their entry is formally and explicitly barred by Federal law. Tshombe resists U.N. aggression for over two years with an army of Africans trained and led by European professional soldiers -- Tschombe's famous "white mercenaries" -- recruited from all over Africa and Europe, very few of whom ever got paid. The Katangan Air Force is destroyed on the ground by the U.N. in a sneak attack in violation of a truce in December 1962, after which the whole country is totally destroyed in an orgy of pillaging, looting and rape, a situation which persists to this day. JFK is eliminated by a 3 South Africans formerly employed by Tschombe in the Congo.
d) Chaos in the Congo quickly spreads to the adjacent Portuguese colony of Angola, where thousands of whites and Africans are raped, tortured and murdered in a few days, plunging the most poverty-stricken country in Europe into a full-scale war, fought for 13 years with great determination and courage, partly in the mistaken belief that the Americans would come to realize that both countries were fighting the same enemy, Communism -- the U.S.A. in Viet Nam and Cuba, and Portugal in Africa. JFK is eliminated by 3 Portuguese immigrants having lost their families in Angola.
[Note that the number “3” seems to be a sort of lucky number in these things.. - C.P.]
e) Same scenario as above: JFF is eliminated by 3 ex-members of the “P.I.D.E.”, Portugal’s dreaded “international “ secret police force, in the hopes that JFK’s successor would prove more anti-Communist.
f) Since JFK’s father was a bootlegger, it seems reasonable to assume that JFK enjoyed access to Mafia connections, as in fact he did. He is eliminated in a 10-million Mafia hit for welshing on a 200-million dollar gambling and prostitution deal in the Caribbean.
[COMMENT: Why the Caribbean? Because it is exotic, another sine qua non in these fairy tales. Besides, it sounds plausible. - C.P.].
g) That JFK’s sex life very much resembled that of dictator Sukarno of Indonesia (Sukarno suffered from sexual mania caused by terminal syphilis, and demanded to be furnished with 2 young women per day everywhere he went; since Sukarno was a big shot, the women were duly supplied), was no secret to anyone in Washington for 30 years, but was covered up by the Press. JFK is eliminated by 3 CIA agents just in time to thwart a KGB/Mossad blackmail plot gravely jeopardising American security.
h) Same scenario as above. JFK is eliminated by 3 government agents whose wives and/or daughters have been humiliated, abused and degraded by Kennedy.
i) Same scenario as above. He is eliminated by 3 Secret Service officers fed up with risking their lives so the President of the United States can screw around with prostitutes all over the country.
j) JFK’s pledge to put a “Man on the Moon by 1970” is perceived as a threat by space aliens planning to use the Moon as a base for an invasion of the Earth. JFK is eliminated by 3 space aliens assuming the form of human beings, and an inconsequential Earthling is left holding the bag. The invasion is called off when the aliens decide that Earthlings are simply not worth bothering with.
[COMMENT: Is this a joke? A reductio ad adsurdum? I don’t think so. Not when you read ALIEN AGENDA (subtitled THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE EXTRATERRESTRIALS AMONG US; other editions are subtitled INVESTIGATING THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL PRESENCE AMONG US), by Jim Marrs, one of the most successful kactologists in America (from K.A.C.T.U.S., “Kennedy Assassination Conspiracy Theorists of the United States”), author of CROSSFIRE, basis for the film “JFK” (by half-Jewish left-winger Oliver Stone), placing the film squarely in the “fiction” category. - C.P.].
So much for some “bad” JFK conspiracy theories. Now, let me show you how to turn a bad Kennedy Assassination Conspiracy Theory into a good one.
BAD – UNSALEABLE AND UNMARKETABLE:
“JFK’s collaboration with the A.D.L. and the Communists to destroy America through uncontrolled non-white immigration is perceived as a threat by patriotic elements within several government agencies, concerned with the probability of widespread infiltration, subversion and left-wing chaos arising as the result of such a policy. The first two brothers are eliminated by assassination, while the third – an alcoholic nincompoop and total non-entity – is simply left to destroy himself.”Google could face fines from six European countries' privacy regulators, including the UK and Germany, after refusing to reverse changes to its privacy policies made in March 2012.
The search company has infuriated the regulators by declining to respond to their demands made over multiple months – even as research shows that user concerns about online privacy are high.
France's privacy body, CNIL, together with its counterparts in the UK, Netherlands, German, Spain and Italy, said on Tuesday they will take joint legal action involving an investigation and possible fines. The UK's information commissioner's office (ICO) can levy fines of up to £500,000 for breaches of the Data Protection Act. A decision is expected by summer 2013. CNIL could fine it up to €300,000 (£255,000).
However, even both fines added together would be less than Google generates in sales in 10 minutes. Yet the regulators could sue to block Google from operating in Europe – a move that would be highly damaging to its reputation.
Google's rival Facebook has been forced in the past to make a number of changes to its operation to comply with Europe's data protection laws, which are significantly tougher – but more fragmented – than those in the US.
The move comes while European competition regulators are separately trying to decide what action to take to prevent monopoly abuses by Google, which has about 95% of the European search market.
The decision will be the first big challenge for Google's new privacy director, Lawrence You, a software engineer based at Google's Mountain View headquarters in California – replacing London-based Alma Whitten, another engineer who was the first to have the job created in October 2010.
This is not unfamiliar ground for the new director – You worked with Whitten on combining the privacy policies together last year.
After an earlier data protection investigation concluded in October, CNIL said in a statement on Tuesday that "the EU Data protection authorities asked Google to comply with their recommendations within four months,". "After this period has expired, Google has not implemented any significant compliance measures."
The agencies complained of being stonewalled by Google for over a year about their concerns that its unification of more than 60 separate privacy policies last year could confuse users and leave them unsure how their data was being used.
"We put our concerns to Google [in October] and gave them a date to respond," said a spokesperson for the ICO. "They failed to respond. We had a meeting in March and Google was present, and gave them a deadline to respond. They failed to respond. Google has failed to address the concerns or take on board the recommendations from the meeting held last month."
A Google spokesperson said: "Our privacy policy respects European law and allows us to create simpler, more effective services. We have engaged fully with the data protection authorities involved throughout this process, and we'll continue to do so going forward."
Research published by the privacy pressure group Big Brother Watch in February revealed 68% of the British public expressed concern about their online privacy, with 22% of the total saying they were "very concerned". The same research found that 71% felt it was right for privacy regulators to investigate the changes in Google's privacy policy last year, and two-thirds said the regulators should do more to force Google to comply.
As the latest moves were announced on Tuesday, Nick Pickles, director of Big Brother Watch, said: "Google has repeatedly put profit ahead of user privacy and the way that the company ignored concerns from regulators around the world when it changed its privacy policy showed just how little regard it has for the law. Just because Google is a big business does not put it above the law. The company has ignored the authorities and refused to make any meaningful changes to how it collects and uses people's data."
"There is a wider debate going on about personal data and who owns and controls personal data," Colin Strong, a technology analyst with GfK, told the Associated Press. "The question is the extent to which consumers understand the value of their personal data and the extent that they are happy with the trade that they're getting."
Sources at Google told the Guardian that the company filed a response to the October recommendations in January, but added "no change [in privacy policies] isn't the same as no response".
The rolling-up of the policies sparked an investigation led by CNIL last year. Google's intent was to combine user data from the different services, so that videos watched on YouTube would inform the choice of advertising shown when doing Google searches or reading Gmail.
In October, CNIL and the other regulators criticised the changes, and demanded alterations. Google declined to do so.
Pickles said: "Consumers are increasingly concerned about how their data is being used, and it is essential that those breaking the law are properly punished. It is essential regulators find a sanction that is not just a slap on the wrists and will make Google's think twice before it ignores consumer rights again."
"No one is against Google's objective of simplicity. It's legitimate. But it needs to be accompanied by transparence for consumers and the ability to say yes or no," Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin, head of CNIL, said recently. "[But] consumers have the right to know how the information is being used and what's being done with it."There’s a time and a place for hilarious WiFi signal names, however a trans-continental flight on a major Australian airline is not one of them.
Because it’s 2016, and we are a generation of cyber-vandals, WiFi names are increasingly becoming a platform for ‘creative self-expression’.
Aristotle and the ancient Greeks had their amphitheatres, Shakespeare had the Globe and we have the 25 characters or so for our Internet login.
They can be puns:‘Pretty Fly For A WiFi’, ‘Silence of the LAN’, ‘Wi Believe I Can Fi’ – all classics.
Or they can be used for passive aggressive digs at neighbours – for instance, someone in my apartment block has ‘Apt 504 we can hear you having sex’.
But what they most certainly should not be used for is grounding flights and ruining everyone’s day.
Some jerkoff changed their WiFi hotspot name on Qantas flight from Melbourne to Perth that created a major security scare for everyone on the plane.
After a passenger boarded flight GF481 on the weekend, she noticed a hotspot on her phone’s WiFi menu titled ‘Mobile Detonation Device’.
She showed it to the crew, who then told the captain and security.
Panic gripped the 40 passengers on board, as they were told the flight was delayed because “a device” was believed to be onboard that needed to be found.
“He said there was a device on the plane that had a name on it that he found threatening and that we were not leaving until that device was brought to him,” John Vidler, a passenger, told The West Australian.
So naturally – because, you know, they didn’t want to be blown up – a bunch of passengers demanded to be let off the flight, causing further delays as their luggage had to be unloaded.
Two long hours later, the plane took off and got to Perth without any further drama.
This isn’t the first time something like this has happened, though.
In 2014, an Americans Airlines flight was delayed four hours after someone stumbled upon a hotspot named “Al-Quaeda Free Terror Network” – which is at least a bit better because it used a pun.
But still… not cool, man, not cool.Isaac: The Hardening!
First ill get a few small things out of the way. The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth soundtrack went up on steam mid last week for preorder, Sadly steam doesnt support preorder downloads for soundtracks so the only way to listen to a few tracks early is to download via Ridulon's Bandcamp page. sooo what we did is put the steam soundtrack on a 33% off discount if you pick it up before it official releases with the game on nov. 4th.
also word on the street is if you set your price to 6.66 when you buy the album on their Bandcamp page, they will send you something… something evil….
Speaking of evil, im in the process of finishing up a screen print/tshirt design for the launch of the Rebirth album (and rebirth itself). im not sure when we will get around to printing shirts (or let alone reopening our shop) due to a current move… but rest assured this image will find its way onto something you can pay for!
and just in case you are totally out of the loop you can still preorder the game now on steam and get a 33% off discount if you own the original isaac. PREORDER NOW!
———
but enough about all that… its time to get Harder!
a few of you know that early in rebirth dev i was toying with the idea of difficulty settings, some of you assumed this meant an easy mode and had a shit fit on the internets… well fit that shit back where it shat from, because there is no easy.. only hard!
a large new feature we added to Rebirth is “Hard Mode”. now i actually dont want to go into great detail on what makes it harder.. because i dont want to spoil too much and we are still technically balancing this aspect of the game. but i can say that some of the more glaring aspects are gaining no hearts from bosses and curses being extremely prominent.. you’d be surprised at how much just these aspects can effect difficulty drastically.. but trust me when i say there are a lot more aspects to hard mode that should make even the most seasoned lets player stain their panties.
we added hard mode to challenge all of you monsters that seem to be able to beat the game 100 times over without dying… (you know who you are) and also as just an extra challenge, once you’ve completed the normal difficulty.
a few notes on hard mode:
-Beating different goals in Hard mode will unlock new content not unlockable on Normal.
-Beating said goals in Hard mode will also unlock any unlocks that would be gained by beating Normal mode (so you can start on hard if you'd like)
-There will be achievements for Hard mode.
-Hard mode will have some visual hud/menu changes so you are always aware if you are playing on Hard. (or watching someone play on Hard)
i can already hear you guys screaming “but how the hell do we keep track of what we have beaten with what characters on what difficulty! RUINED IT! 24/7-4:30GLAZEIT4EVAR!”
well you can shut your filthy mouth! because rebirth will feature something the game had needed for ages… a character completion tracker!
TADA! (kind of, i had to censor some spoilers)
As you can see there are now icons that will appear for each character as you cycle through them showing what “end game goals” you have completed, i beat mom’s heart with Isaac, see upper left note.
(!spoilers for the original game!)
each character in the game has a set number of item unlocks when you beat certain points, kill mom, the heart, isaac, satan, chest, etc.
(/!spoilers for the original game!)
these “goals” are now visually tracked on the char. select by showing icons that represent each one. Beating the game on Hard will outline said icon to show you have 100%ed that “goal” for that character.
with 3 new characters and a lot more to see… this makes for a greatly expanded and much more time consuming experience, especially when you add the stuff you guys have no idea even exists yet…
… so much stuff!
next week isaac turns 3… what should he get for his birthday?The operator of a popular BitTorrent search site said Monday he will likely challenge last week's landmark decision by a U.S. judge declaring such sites unlawful and no different from conventional peer-to-peer piracy services.
"We do think from our preliminary review there are a number of issues for appeal," said Ira Rothken, attorney for torrent search engine ISO Hunt, the defendant in the case.
The long-awaited decision, while not unexpected, was the first in the United States in which a federal judge found that BitTorrent search engines are an unlawful avenue (.pdf) to free movies, music, videogames and software. A contrary ruling likely would have sparked a gold rush of BitTorrent prospectors in the United States.
Targeted in the case was Gary Fung, a Canadian who operates ISO Hunt and other torrent search engines. Among other things, he argued that U.S. laws did not attach to him, and if they did, that his websites were protected under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
In a lawsuit brought by the Motion Picture Association of America, U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson in Los Angeles ruled: "Defendants' technology is nothing more than old wine in a new bottle."
Fung's "intent to induce infringement is overwhelming and beyond reasonable dispute."
In terms of infringement, the judge said ISO Hunt was no different than Napster and Grokster. But he said the BitTorrent technology was far superior and "obviously increases the potential for copyright infringement."
The judge wrote that, instead of having to log into a proprietary network to download copyright files from each others' computers, "users access defendants' generally accessible website in order to download those files. And instead of downloading content files directly through defendants' website, defendants' users download dot-torrent files that automatically trigger the downloading of content files. These technological details are, at their core, indistinguishable from the previous technologies."
The MPAA has sued dozens of similar sites in the United States, resulting in settlements or default judgments. The industry group won an $111 million default judgment against TorrentSpy last year after a federal judge concluded the now-shuttered tracker hid evidence.
That case is on appeal, but Judge Wilson's ruling marks the first time that the legal merits of torrenting have been squarely addressed in the United States.
"The court's decision establishes a powerful precedent that makes clear, once again, that website operators must respect the rights of content owners and control infringement on their websites, or face liability for their actions," MPAA vice president Daniel Mandil said in a statement.
Fung, in an e-mail, |
Brompton, the firm is export-focused, selling to over 50 countries, mainly in Asia. Moulton, another brand, also sells well in the Far East.
However hard they pedal, these companies will struggle to make significant inroads into the British market. More Britons cycle than ever, partly encouraged by recent successes at the Olympics and in the Tour de France. Some British firms make components, a business that Mr Williams is getting into and where he expects to do well. But with costs in Asia still considerably lower, the vast majority of Britain’s bikes will continue to be made abroad.Runner, Runner -- Online Poker Movie in the Works; To Star Affleck and Timberlake
April 16, 2012 PokerNews Staff
According to numerous reports (like this one from IndieWire), Ben Affleck and Justin Timberlake are slated to star in a major motion picture that's set in the online poker world.
The thriller, entitled Runner,Runner, will be directed by Brad Furman, who most recently directed The Lincoln Lawyer. No details of the storyline or characters have been released, but we can tell you one exciting piece of information about the movie. The guys who brought you Mike, Teddy KGB, and Worm — David Levien and Brian Koppelman — wrote the script for Runner,Runner. With all the love Rounders gets from the poker community, we're sure we won't have another Gigli on our hands — hopefully.
Variety reports that Stone Village and 20th Century Fox will co-finance and distribute the film respectively. Leonardo DiCaprio will have producer credits on the film.
Follow PokerNews on Twitter for up-to-the-minute news.What’s especially alarming about Ottawa police officers wearing solidarity bracelets isn’t so much that the wristbands exist, it’s that the officers involved clearly didn’t much care about whether or not there’d be blowback and how it would damage policing in this town.
And of course there was a backlash. How could there not be?
Const. Daniel Montsion is charged with manslaughter, aggravated assault and assault with a weapon in the death of Abdirahman Abdi. Officers are buying black and blue bracelets to show support for the constable, and well, sorry, that goes significantly beyond standing by a friend and colleague when he or she is going through a rough patch.
Going through a divorce is a rough patch. This is different: someone died and someone is charged and no one knows yet what the courts will decide. So the question, at this moment, is what’s the threshold among Ottawa cops beyond which they’d lose sympathy for a colleague?
Surely, those standing shoulder to shoulder along the thin blue line don’t feel all that sorry for members of the public they arrest for manslaughter. So this braceletted show of solidarity, implicitly, suggests the police are casting doubt on the legitimacy of laying charges against Montsion, which impugns both the impartiality of police officers and the judicial process.
No amount of denial by officers or union officials can change that perception.
Chief Charles Bordeleau has stepped into the fray, backed up by Police Services Board chair Eli El-Chantiry, to forcefully remind officers that by wearing the pro-Montsion wristbands, they are jeopardizing the trust they’ve been struggling to maintain among Ottawans. The chief is right. Yet for whatever reason, some members of this police force seem hell-bent on damaging their own reputations.
The wounds are almost entirely self-inflicted. From the false traffic ticket scandal to the imperious attitudes displayed by some traffic officers regarding racial profiling allegations, these are poor decisions and attitudes consciously made and held by autonomous men and women throughout the ranks.
The monopoly that law enforcement officers hold on violence is a tremendous responsibility. It is also an exceptionally heavy burden to be the only people in society who, if they hurt or kill someone, can justify it as part of the job.
Ottawa cops, as of this week, cannot expect their presence won’t arouse suspicion. Were I pulled over – white, male, middle-class – I would wonder if the officer outside my car stands in solidarity with Montsion. I would also wonder, therefore, if he or she were comfortable with seeing, or carrying out, an arrest so violent it might lead to criminal charges. I suspect that worry is far, far more acute among other groups in Ottawa.
We’ve now got explicit confirmation – from the highest echelons of the police force and the union world – that Ottawa cops think they could find themselves in Montsion’s shoes (and combat gloves), crouched over a dying man. “We go to work everyday with the mindset of helping people in need with positive outcomes. Any one of us could find ourselves in a similar situation,” said Insp. Pat Flanagan, a senior officer.
So, any officer in the force has the potential to be accused of manslaughter? Technically true, of course. But the casual acknowledgement is unnerving.
If police have the power of legitimate violence, they need to maintain their sense of responsibility too, to constantly justify why the rest of us give them that power. Sometimes, that means reining in liberties and impulses the rest of us freely exercise.
We already expect public servants to maintain a modicum of political impartiality, and we wouldn’t tolerate a judge who was publicly pronouncing on the outcome of criminal trials underway. Teachers, meanwhile, have found out the hard way they should keep unacceptable views to themselves and away from their students.
So tell me: Why should we, in light of police politicking, place any trust in the men and women of the Ottawa Police Service?
Tyler Dawson is deputy editorial pages editor of the Ottawa Citizen.
tdawson@postmedia.com
twitter.com/tylerrdawsonSan Francisco has installed an outdoor urinal in Dolores Park near the Mission District as part of the more than $20 million renovation of the recreation area in an attempt to combat a “rampant” public urination issue.
“The more options we can give them to relieve themselves, the better for the parkgoers,” San Francisco Supervisor Scott Wiener told the Associated Press.
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Last summer, the city’s public works division made headlines by experimenting with coating some walls with a paint that causes fluid to splash back onto public urinators.
The park also now has 27 toilets for people who prefer to have privacy.
Write to Olivia B. Waxman at olivia.waxman@time.com.The family of Pauline Finlay, who disappeared in Co Wexford 22 years ago, has been told her body has possibly been buried unidentified in a grave in Wales for over two decades.
Ms Finlay has been missing, believed drowned, since March 1994.
Police in Wales now believe an unidentified body washed up on the coast near Holyhead in October of that year may be that of Ms Finlay.
The 49-year-old disappeared while walking her dogs on a beach near Kilmuckridge in Co Wexford.
It was believed she drowned in an accident but her body was never found.
In recent months North Wales police investigating 17 unidentified bodies in their district contacted gardaí in the belief some of those bodies could be Irish citizens.
Among the cases is that of a woman whose body was washed up on the Welsh coast at Aberfrow south of Holyhead in October 1994, eight months after Ms Finlay disappeared.
A DNA comparison has now been carried out between Ms Finlay's family and the unidentified woman's body.
Police have told the Finlay family there is a strong indication the body is that of their loved one but an inquest must now be held for a formal identification to be made.
Members of the Finlay family will travel to Wales in the coming weeks to meet police and visit the grave which may contain the remains of Ms Finlay.As we dedicate an increasing fraction of our time interacting with software – from airport check-in terminals and parking meters, to desktop and mobile applications – digital interface design is becoming as important as physical architecture in improving our experience of the world.
Here are Professor Ben Schneiderman’s Eight Golden rules for optimally designing that experience (drawn from his classic text, Designing the User Interface):
1 Strive for consistency.
Consistent sequences of actions should be required in similar situations; identical terminology should be used in prompts, menus, and help screens; and consistent commands should be employed throughout.
2 Enable frequent users to use shortcuts.
As the frequency of use increases, so do the user’s desires to reduce the number of interactions and to increase the pace of interaction. Abbreviations, function keys, hidden commands, and macro facilities are very helpful to an expert user.
3 Offer informative feedback.
For every operator action, there should be some system feedback. For frequent and minor actions, the response can be modest, while for infrequent and major actions, the response should be more substantial.
4 Design dialog to yield closure.
Sequences of actions should be organized into groups with a beginning, middle, and end. The informative feedback at the completion of a group of actions gives the operators the satisfaction of accomplishment, a sense of relief, the signal to drop contingency plans and options from their minds, and an indication that the way is clear to prepare for the next group of actions.
5 Offer simple error handling.
As much as possible, design the system so the user cannot make a serious error. If an error is made, the system should be able to detect the error and offer simple, comprehensible mechanisms for handling the error.
6 Permit easy reversal of actions.
This feature relieves anxiety, since the user knows that errors can be undone; it thus encourages exploration of unfamiliar options. The units of reversibility may be a single action, a data entry, or a complete group of actions.
7 Support internal locus of control.
Experienced operators strongly desire the sense that they are in charge of the system and that the system responds to their actions. Design the system to make users the initiators of actions rather than the responders.
8 Reduce short-term memory load.
The limitation of human information processing in short-term memory requires that displays be kept simple, multiple page displays be consolidated, window-motion frequency be reduced, and sufficient training time be allotted for codes, mnemonics, and sequences of actions.It’s been 22 years since the death of Kurt Cobain. In this archive feature, Mary Anne Hobbs recounts meeting the musician to write Nirvana’s first ever NME cover feature, and the lasting impression he left on her. Here’s that feature in full, first published on November 23, 1991 – back when Krist Novoselic was known as Chris and the band were days away from life-changing stardom…
Nirvana. You probably barely recognise the name. Yet, by the time this page is ink on your fingertips, Nirvana will have sold 1,000,000 copies of their new LP.
The singer is Kurt Cobain. He is sullen, stooping, slit-eyed and Bic-shy. Grub on a string, if you will. He carries a medicine bottle in the pocket of a filthy drape and very few baffles in his throat.
We are in AJ Barratt’s freezing Brixton studio. Cobain is hunched into a tight foetal position, with his back to the NME photographer. The singer’s PR jives at him with a piece of sugar-free gum. This odd and uncomfortable manoeuvre is clearly meant as some sort of silent appeal.
“I’ll do the f—ing pictures, OK?” snaps Cobain. “I just want to be left alone.”
Nirvana’s second LP ‘Nevermind’ is as important and iconoclastic and brilliant as Primal Scream’s ‘Screamadelica’, Teenage Fanclub’s ‘Bandwagonesque’ and Ice-T’s ‘OG: Original Gangster’. Moreover, ‘Nevermind’ scaled the Billboard US Top Ten in six weeks. And Nirvana are not being allowed to forget it. The band have suddenly found themselves diving on the media trapeze between a thousand grinning interviewers, whose common opening gambit is: “Hi! So, why did you decide to call the band Nirvana?”
In less than two months ‘Nirvana: US underground collegiate contender’, have become ‘Nirvana: American rock phenomenon of 1991’. And suddenly the whole world wants to pluck at their jumper. Their PR tells me that Slash and Axl have been asking nicely to play with the band. Also, that the band are now attracting an unhealthy quotient of squirming herpes-couriers offering backstage sexual services. Life is getting scary for Nirvana. And ‘Big Shitty Sticks’ (for beating off The Vermin) will no doubt be the top of their Christmas list.
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Bear in mind that this is not a group who have had their label Geffen Records’ marketing machine blowing gaskets on their behalf. There were no tanks in Piccadilly Circus delivering ‘Nevermind’ to Tower Records. Our only consistent reminder of Nirvana’s existence has, in fact, been Loz of Kingmaker, who has worn their shirts at almost every bogshed venue in the UK. Yet more Americans are now beating gums over ‘Nevermind’ than Michael Jackson’s upcoming ‘Dangerous’ LP. And that’s a properly researched FACT.
Nirvana come from Aberdeen, Washington – Twin Peaks in real life. The type of town where 16-year-old youths have been caught abducting new-born babies for satanic sacrifice. The band signed to Seattle’s Sub Pop label and released their debut ‘Bleach’ LP in 1989. It was a vital, impressive statement of intent, single parented by Sonic Youth.
Sometime Sub Pop-affiliated groups Soundgarden and Mudhoney have been considered Nirvana’s contemporaries. Soundgarden are quite furious, but their singer sounds like the son of Kiri Te Kanawa – as if somebody’s playing voodoodoll with his whelks. Mudhoney, meanwhile, might be dubbed the Senseless Things of the sonic Seattle scene.
Nirvana were Sub Pop’s glittering prize, and they well knew it. Last year, Sub Pop planned to use the band as fat maggot bait in negotiating a corporate finance deal for the label. Nirvana, in turn, decided to cut out the middle man and signed directly to Geffen for $250,000. Toffee money by comparison to the $4 million that The Stone Roses are reported to have extracted from the Geffen coffers.
Then ‘Nevermind’ happened.
“I’m not sure how our original fans will cope,” says bass player Chris Novoselic. “When I was in junior high school, my family moved away from Los Angeles to screwy, bumf— Aberdeen. I had these bands that were dear to me, Led Zeppelin and Devo, when everybody else was into Kenny Rogers. Three years down the road all these people that I considered to be infidels, the unenlightened, were listening to Led Zeppelin. I remember feeling angry that all those people were grabbing hold of my sacred cow. But that’s the way things go. I’ll still listen to those bands.”
1991 was a bleak and piss-poor year for American rock before the release of ‘Nevermind’. And it’s laughable now to think that Geffen Records made an initial pressing of just 40,000 copies of the LP, currently one of the USA’s fastest-selling records.
But how did that happen? How indeed. Here’s my theory: the ‘Nevermind’ LP is a meeting point for all manner of rock enthusiasts; those who like the power ideal of Metallica but can’t stomach their lack of melody; Pixies fans still searching for ‘Doolittle II’ who feel that Black Francis is starting to fudge it; the grown-up Ned’s appreciation society; even neurotic adolescents with shattered illusions of Guns N’ Roses – Most Dangerous Rock ‘n’ Roll Band In The World (ha!).
‘Nevermind’ is utterly compulsive and supremely durable. It’s a record which will traverse all squabbling and snobbish rock factions – the hardcore, the subversive and the shambling clubs. Perhaps (dare I say it, rock lads?) because, with ‘Nevermind’ Nirvana have cut the masturbatory element out of hard, insane guitar music. Instead, the record haemorrhages with an almost female sense of calamity and vulnerability and sweet, sweet abandon.
There has not been such a fluent American rock release since Jane’s Addiction’s ‘Ritual De Lo Habitual’.
Following the photo session, we split into two cars. The band’s Glaswegian road manager, Alex, cuts a shape with a crisp fiver. This will be our driver’s incentive to beat the band vehicle ‘cross town to the Bayswater Embassy Hotel. We lose, damn it.
The hotel is a sterile affair, newly renovated. The bar area resembles a motorway service station powder room. A legion of executive chins drop into complimentary bowls of peanuts as Nirvana settle themselves.
Kurt, Chris and drummer David Grohl are defensive people once a tape recorder has been pushed in their face. There are valid reasons for this. Nirvana are mad as fuck about one journalist they had considered a friend who literally stowed away on their tour bus, then reported them as delinquent, TV-trashing cretins.
“How the fuck are we supposed to comment about that?” asks Kurt drily. “There was one time we had a blow torch and an arc welder and some stolen dynamite. The FBI was trailing us. Lucky we never had a fast Cadillac or we’d have shaken those bastards off,” mocks Chris.
“Sure we break things. We break things all the time, but that’s just us compensating for the frustration of being on the road. That ain’t poetry. And it’s not what the band’s about.”
Onward, to another contentious issue. Nirvana include a song about rape on ‘Nevermind’, titled ‘Polly’. This fact surfaced in recent interviews, wholly devoid of examination, thus suggesting that Nirvana might indeed be a foul, violent and despicable breed.
“Rape is one of the most terrible crimes on earth. And it happens every few minutes,” Kurt hisses. “The problem with groups who deal with rape is that they try to educate women about how to defend themselves. What really needs to be done is teaching men not to rape. Go to the source and start there.
“I was talking to a friend of mine who went to a rape crisis centre where women are taught judo and karate. She looked out the window and saw a football pitch full of boys, and thought those are the people that should really be in this class.”
“That song ‘Polly’, it’s a true story,” says Chris. “It’s about a young girl who was abducted. The guy drove her around in his van. Tortured her. Raped her. The only chance she had of getting away was to come on to him and persuade him to untie her. That’s what she did, and she got away. Can you imagine how much strength that took?”
Nirvana are very in touch with women’s rights. Chris tells me that one of the greatest performances the band has ever given was at a recent Pro-Choice benefit in Los Angeles, in support of campaigners fighting for women’s abortion rights.
“They’re trying to stop abortion in America.” Chris exclaims. “America is a fucking police state. It’s an awful place. Education is so bad. People are so spoiled. They have VCRs, cheap gasoline, and 40 channels and they’re not going to rock the boat. Nobody cares that the USA is completely fucking over the Third World.
“Personally, I’m looking forward to total economic collapse. They’re putting so many band aids in the economy right now. Bush is pumping money into the banks, but it won’t be long before they go down. And when that happens it’s going to make the ’30s look like a fucking holiday.”
Nirvana discuss their loathing of the bigoted, lethargic, transmission-frazzled, materialistic, American condition at length. But it’s an attitude that’s tricky to properly validate when your ass has been bought and paid for by The (Geffen) Man. And his singular objective is to jettison it through MTV channels into the rock hyperbowl, alongside the label’s stuffed centrepiece, Guns N’ Roses, for fat cash returns.
“We’ll do something to fuck it up, I know we will,” shrugs Kurt. “I’m sure that once Guns N’ Roses started becoming really successful, Bush had them checked out, and they weren’t articulate enough to be a threat to anybody.”
“I think I drank a little too much last night,” says Chris cheerfully. “I was so sick this morning. I was throwing up, like… foam. Everywhere. I felt like I was a human extinguisher.”
We are at The Word, Channel 4’s music TV show. Nirvana’s waiting room comes complete with ensuite bidet for nervous guests. Their rider consists of three cans of Top Deck shandy. Nirvana wonder why anyone bothers to manufacture Top Deck. I explain that ‘the kids’ are big on shandy, because it’s well ‘ard to manage a splash of beer in your lemonade at age six.
Oddly Terry Christian is claiming a personal triumph at securing Nirvana for The Word: “I got ’em on the show, dint I? I like a bit of metal. But mainly Manchester stuff. Used to have some credibility in Manchester before I started doing The Wurd, dint I? But yeah, Nirvana. Bangin’ band.”
Nirvana are the blister on the butthole of the programme. Kurt swears on air and the main with the bleeper button screws up. Their current single ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ is delivered in stone cold ugly style. Two minutes 41 seconds through a guaranteed clear four-minute slot, The Word begin to roll their credits. Suddenly the tiny Geffen promotions lady acquires a thirst for blood.
Nirvana themselves couldn’t give a sod about one minute 19 seconds of poxy air time. “It isn’t worth a scrap,” agrees the band’s agent. “Let’s face it, when you’re joy-riding in the US Top Ten, your independent communication skills are evidently pretty efficient.”
And herin lies the crux. Nirvana have made a more profound impact on America with ‘Nevermind’ than Guns N’ Roses did with ‘Appetite For Destruction’. And they’re running all the grotesque ‘smack and fanny’ barons out of town. In 1991, all great commercial rock successes bar one, in the US, have been the product of a corporate engineering feat. The fantastic truth about Nirvana’s new-found fortune is that there was no prior plan, no strategic media message, no radio ass-kissing, no trading fine Colombian… erm, beans, for favours. Nirvana have made it simply on the magnificent quality of their sound-bytes.
Nirvana’s “sun is up and wheels are down“. And one million clued-in kids now rooming with ‘Nevermind’ are (re)discovering just how vital and exciting rock music really should be. Bon Jovi, and the crippled Old Guard twits will never walk again.
Read Mary Anne Hobbs’ personal reflections on the week she persuaded NME’s editor Danny Kelly to put Nirvana on the cover at xfm.co.uk/nevermind.
This Week In Music – Nirvana record the video for ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’
Photo Gallery – 50 Things You Never Knew About NirvanaFirst Listen: JD McPherson, 'Let The Good Times Roll'
Enlarge this image toggle caption Jim Herrington/Courtesy of the artist Jim Herrington/Courtesy of the artist
Let The Good Times Roll Audio for First Listens is no longer available after the album is released.
Two stretched concepts made the rock 'n' roll coming out of Sun Studios in the 1950s unlike other music of its kind: time and space. In a shabby little room near downtown Memphis, Sam Phillips gave the men and kids he recorded all the room in the world. "Spontaneity" was Phillips' mantra, which was particularly potent for the youngest Sun cats. Following it, Elvis and all the other rockabillies shambled their way toward coherence, made mistakes, got wild and kept tweaking country music and the blues until the sound hitting Sun's wooden walls turned new.
It's sad, then, that so many musicians who've tried to revive the Sun spirit reject spontaneity the way they'd turn down a Gap knock-off of an authentic vintage bowler's shirt. That's what makes JD McPherson stand out: Though his music honors mid-century sounds with laser precision, the Tulsa bomber takes so many little chances in his songs that they never sound like mere replicas. McPherson's first album, Signs & Signifiers, burned through the wall of its own references — to Elvis and Eddie Cochran, Little Richard and Big Joe Turner — on the strength of the singer's kerosene tenor and his band's masterful looseness. Working with a new producer, Mark Neill, on Let The Good Times Roll, McPherson goes one step further, finding that genre-defying mix that made early rock 'n' roll the sexiest thing on the radio.
Little, crucial details open up McPherson's sound on Let The Good Times Roll. His bassist and right-hand man, Jimmy Sutton, goes electric in the title track, giving the band a push in rave-up mode. In "It's All Over But The Shouting," McPherson and Neill play around with essential '50s recording techniques like echo, making them weirder than before. "Bridgebuilder," the ballad McPherson wrote with Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys, hearkens back to pre-rock pop and doo-wop. "The All-American" reminds McPherson's fans that he's only one man in a long lineage with its direct nod to the great post-punk rock band The Blasters.
These subtle shifts keep McPherson and his band moving, sparring and playing these songs like games with tight finishes. He's singing more soulfully than ever — at times, his voice mellows to invoke Sam Cooke; at others, he lets a real blues edge into his snarl. Addressing the eternal themes of desire, emotional uncertainty and the need to bust out, Let The Good Times Roll is more than just a reconstruction: The feelings McPherson and band raise press close right now. But the album is also a great history lesson precisely because it reminds us that those musical moments we fetishize were, in their origin, as messy as the ones we live today. The first bursts of rock 'n' roll went all over the place. That's why they're still worth revisiting.CLOSE General Motors said on Monday that it will recall another 3.16 million cars for faulty ignition switches that triggered a recall of 2.19 million U.S. small cars in February and March. VPC
General Motors is recalling 3.16 million U.S. models because they have faulty ignition switches, similar to a problem that forced GM to recall 2.6 million small cars this year. (Photo: GM)
General Motors said on Monday that it will recall 3.16 million midsize and large cars to modify their ignition keys to prevent the problem that triggered a recall of 2.19 million U.S. small cars in February and March.
The defect is linked to 13 deaths and 54 crashes in the previously recalled cars. In the Monday recall, GM says it knows of eight crashes and six injuries, but no deaths.
The switches in the latest action were approved by Ray DeGiorgio, the same now-fired GM engineer who oversaw the switches in the earlier, small-car recall, GM said.
GM forecast that it now will have to take a $700 million charge against second-quarter earnings to pay for the recalls, up from the $400 million it forecast earlier this month.
The recall of the 2000 to 2014 models in the U.S. is because if the key is carrying extra weight and is jarred, the ignition switch might move out of the "run" position, shutting off the engine and disabling the airbags.
That's the same problem involved in the earlier small-car recall.
In this case, though, GM doesn't plan to replace the entire ignition switch. Instead, it will use an insert that fills a slot on the head of the key and leaves only a small hole for a key ring.
GM says that reduces the leverage on the key, making it unlikely to rotate out of "run" if the car hits a pothole or railroad tracks too fast or otherwise has a "jarring road event."
GM urged owners to remove everything from the key until they get the repair.
Porsche, Jaguar, Lexus tops for initial quality
Separately, GM announced five other smaller recalls for various problems in a total of 165,770 U.S. vehicles.
That brings GM recalls to 44 this year for 17.73 million U.S. vehicles. Including those in Mexico, Canada and other countries, the total is 20 million vehicles.
GM said the new recall "follows a review of ignition issues following the recall in February of 2.6 million Chevrolet Cobalts and other small cars" worldwide.
The latest switch defect surfaces at an inopportune time.
GM CEO Mary Barra is scheduled to testify Wednesday at a House subcommittee about the initial switch defect. Until the latest recall, she could have taken the position that the problem has been identified and is being fixed, and that the people at fault don't work at GM now.
"This latest recall raises even more questions about just how pervasive safety problems are at GM. This is not just a Cobalt problem," Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., said in a statement on Monday.
"Has the company identified all potential problems? And has GM taken all necessary actions to fix the issues? We look to get answers directly from GM CEO Mary Barra and internal investigator Anton Valukas on Wednesday when they appear before the committee," Upton said.
The Valukas report catalogs a "pattern of incompetence" within GM. It prompted Barra to terminate 15 GM lawyers and engineers, including DeGiorgio. Barra called the report "brutally tough and deeply troubling."
The total in the Monday recall grows to 3.36 million when Canada, Mexico and export cars are included. Only one model is still in production, the last-generation Chevrolet Impala, which is sold to daily rental fleets as the Impala Limited.
The recalled cars are:
Buick Lacrosse — 2005-2009
Chevrolet Impala — 2006-2014
Cadillac Deville — 2000–2005
Cadillac DTS — 2004–2011
Buick Lucerne — 2006–2011
Buick Regal LS and GS — 2004–2005
Chevy Monte Carlo — 2006–2008
The five smaller recalls also announced Monday are:
68,887 2013-14 Cadillac ATS and 21,863 2014 Cadillac CTS sedans. The gearshift cable might not be properly connected to a bracket, and the driver might not be able to shift into or out of gear.
57,192 2015 Chevrolet Silverado 2500/3500 HD and 2015 GMC Sierra 2500/3500 GMC Sierra HD to inspect for proper attachment of power-steering hose clamps. If the vehicle is driven with the clamp unattached, the truck suddenly could lose power-assist to the steering and brakes, and be harder to control. GM knows of no crashes or injuries from the condition.
16,932 model-year 2011 Cadillac CTS sedans with all-wheel drive. A gasket leak can cause the driveshaft to come loose and hit the car's floor, triggering head-protection airbags because sensors think the car is rolling over. GM says 15 unintended airbag deployments have been reported, "but injury data is unclear."
712 model-year 2014 Chevrolet Corvettes with optional Competition Sport Seats, because seat-mounted side airbags can inflate improperly, injuring unbelted children riding in the seat. Dealers will install a newly designed airbag. GM says it knows of no crashes or injuries, but owners should prohibit small children from riding in the seat.
184 model-year 2014-15 Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra full-size pickups with vinyl floors and accessory all-weather floor mats purchased new with the vehicle. The mats can slip under the driver's feet because the vinyl floors have no attachments to secure them in place. GM dealers will refund the price of the mats. GM is unaware of any crashes or injuries related to the mats.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1i2g9kEI assume this has been reported before but if, like me, you’re coming to the story only recently, it’s big news. Apparently, the military had — and, maybe, has — hard evidence from the man himself that he went AWOL deliberately.
Which would be worse: If Obama didn’t know about the note before making the swap, or if he did know and went ahead with it anyway?
Sometime after midnight on June 30, 2009, Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl left behind a note in his tent saying he had become disillusioned with the Army, did not support the American mission in Afghanistan and was leaving to start a new life. He slipped off the remote military outpost in Paktika Province on the border with Pakistan and took with him a soft backpack, water, knives, a notebook and writing materials, but left behind his body armor and weapons — startling, given the hostile environment around his outpost… Sergeant Bergdahl slipped away from his outpost, the former senior officer said, possibly on foot but more likely hiding in a contractor’s vehicle. “He didn’t walk out the gate through a checkpoint, and there was no evidence he breached the perimeter wire and left that way,” the ex-officer said… Rear Adm. John F. Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, said that there was a larger matter at play: The American military does not leave soldiers behind. “When you’re in the Navy, and you go overboard, it doesn’t matter if you were pushed, fell or jumped,” he said. “We’re going to turn the ship around and pick you up.”
Obama made the same point as Kirby at his presser this morning, not because it’s true but because it’s a superb way of defending a terrible prisoner swap. There are vets in Bergdahl’s squad angrily accusing the guy of desertion and, more damningly, the parents of fallen soldiers blaming Bergdahl for their sons’ deaths. When you’ve got people as sympathetic as that hammering you in the media, the only smart play is “I’ll do anything to recover a missing soldier, period.” Message: I care. But as I say, it’s not true: The White House would have had no problem leaving Bergdahl behind if the Taliban’s ask was Khaled Sheikh Mohammed instead of the five lower-profile savages we handed back to them. It’s also not true that it’s irrelevant whether a soldier “pushed, fell or jumped,” in Kirby’s words. This Washington Times piece (linked by Ed in an earlier post but worth promoting again) describes how Special Ops scaled back efforts to find Bergdahl — even when they had solid intelligence on where he was being held — because they were, understandably, unwilling to sacrifice any more of America’s finest in the name of bringing this guy back. Does anyone on either side of this debate fault them for that? Of course the reason a soldier went missing matters.
The fact that hard evidence exists that Bergdahl walked away also helps explain why O had to ram this deal through quickly. Eli Lake:
[C]urrent U.S. intelligence and defense officials who spoke to The Daily Beast on Monday say the process for exchanging Taliban for Bergdahl this time was rushed and closely held, in some instances leaving little room for any push back against a policy clearly favored by the White House. “This was an example of forcing the consensus,” one U.S. military official said. “The White House knew the answer they wanted and they ended up getting it.” [T]he process for getting there was rushed, according to U.S. intelligence officials. This time around there was no formal intelligence assessment of, for example, the risks posed by releasing the Taliban commanders. While some intelligence analysts looked at the issue, no community-wide intelligence assessment was produced, according to these officials.
Makes sense. The White House knew this was a bad deal and didn’t want to give opponents, whether in Congress or in the IC, any time to rally opposition in the media. But that brings us back to the key question: Knowing that the deal was bad, knowing that Bergdahl had left a de facto confession to desertion in his tent before he went AWOL, why would they go ahead with it? This isn’t going to help O build political momentum to empty out Gitmo, assuming that’s the secret motive behind all of this. On the contrary.
Exit question: Given that some sort of swap involving Bergdahl and the Taliban Five has been kicking around since 2012 at least, is it really true that Congress was never “notified” about this deal? A Twitter buddy sent me the link to this NYT piece from two years ago noting that Bergdahl’s parents had spilled the beans about a potential exchange. Quote: “Until now, the administration has said publicly only that the negotiations included talks about releasing the five prisoners from Guantánamo to the custody of the government in Qatar — which some Democrats and Republicans in Congress have opposed — and not that the five might be exchanged for Sergeant Bergdahl.” Clearly some Dems and GOPers knew that the five Taliban might be released; Mike Rogers also said this morning that the White House had mentioned the possibility of a prisoner swap for Bergdahl to intel committee members in Congress back in 2011, which the members had resisted, but had said nothing since. All of which is to say that members have had some idea that a deal like this was on the table for several years now, and since there’s nothing they can do under the statute to actually block a deal from going forward, arguably that’s good enough to comply with the law. (Obama himself said this morning that he’s been consulting with Congress about Bergdahl and the Taliban “for quite some time.”) Or is it not good enough because, assuming Rogers’s timeline is correct, the current Congress has never been briefed on this? It was the 112th Congress that was in session in 2011; the current one, the 113th, may have been completely in the dark.
Update: According to Fox News, Bergdahl’s note implied more than just desertion. Stay tuned.We've had time to digest the final book in Margaret Atwood's end-of-the-world trilogy, MaddAddam. Now it's time to look at all three |
underway, and you'll hopefully see it soon. Jonathan now has a team of four engine programmers that we didn't have at the start of the year.
Is it true that path of exile just uses 1 core of cpu? If yes, is there a way we could modify it to use multiple cores for better performance?
Path of Exile does use more than one core, but we are working on increasing the ability for the engine to use more CPU cores over time. We have always had a background thread used for sound, but as of 2.3.0 the game has background threads that are used for loading assets to speed up load times. We are currently working on using threads for things that will improve frame rate by moving things like animation and particle effects out into threads. We should start to see the results of this work in 2.4.0.
Are there any plans to improve upon AI pathing (or is it being done currently)? the most obvious example of its current limitations now are probably strongboxes. they're intended to literally be an ambush of a group of monsters, but more often than not (especially in enclosed maps like catacombs) there are stragglers in adjacent rooms who forgot about the whole ambush thing. conversely, sometimes a monster will notice me from several screens away. as i understand it, these issues can occur with minions as well, though not as frequently.
The strongbox case you are talking about isn't really a problem with pathfinding as such. It's more to do with monster placement by the strongbox. The monster probably would successfully find a path to the player, but the monster can't see the player because there is a wall in the way so it never targets it. We could potentially add code so that monsters spawned by strongboxes start by issuing a pathfind to the location of the strongbox that spawned them, but I doubt it was ever really seen as a problem by the gameplay programmers who created that feature. As for monsters from far away noticing you, monsters will usually only target you if you are less than roughly the edge of the screen away, however, monsters move about randomly when they are idle. This means that their random movement will take them into attacking range occasionally even when you are standing still.
With the recent popularity of the Warcraft movie, if GGG was ever approached to make a PoE movie, long run or short run TV series, would you accept?
Only if it was a serious offer from a company that could do the franchise justice. We've talked with people who wanted to make low-budget spin-offs, but if those turned out badly, they'd hurt our image more than help it.
Are you still accepting large donations (in the thousands of $$) with "negotiable rewards".
We still sell the design-a-unique package ($1000) and Divination Cards ($660, if you're a Highgate or Ascendant supporter). These are arranged by contacting support@grindinggear.com. We do occasionally improve parts of the game (often adding 3d art to specific items ahead of their schedule) if supporters sponsor it, but our general policy is that those improvements should come as part of our routine development. Players really enjoy the feeling of having influenced the game, and we can put the funds towards good use, so we're happy to try to work something out like that.
What are your guys' thoughts on the mainstream gaming industry when it comes to stuff like DRM software, Pay2Win micro-transactions, and overpriced DLC content? Does PoE's stringent Free-2-Play model stem from your own experiences as gamers? And what effect have other games had on your philosophies as developers? You all over at GGG are basically my heroes for simply running a good, honest game. I've never seen a game as popular as PoE where players willingly donate their hard-earned money to see the game that they love continue to grow. Thank you!
I feel that developers should do what they feel best for their game. If they do something else because it's a flavour-of-the-month monetisation strategy or because a publisher coerces them into it, then that's not great for their players. I think there's a time and a place for DRM (if you're releasing a single player game for example and want to prevent drive-by piracy), Pay2Win microtransactions (an app store game that isn't at all competitive) and overpriced DLC (if it's a luxury purchase and you've weighed the pros and cons of its release).
Having said that, we don't do the above things because we don't feel they're right for Path of Exile. We don't hate the fact that other games do them, we just see and learn from what happens when they do. Sometimes it works out well for those studios, other times badly.
Will there be more big secrets in PoE like goddess unbound, the star of wraeclast and fishing? Secrets that the community can work together to work out are always loads of fun in MMO. Maybe even harder ones?
Absolutely. We always try to embed some secret content in our releases for people to discover. Sometimes it's apparent like the recipes you mentioned, and other times it's more subtle.
Is there a legal reason for the strict no name & shame policy?
No, but it's the only way that we can practically operate. The trade screen is designed to protect people against most scam attempts - it forces you to check items before you can accept them. In terms of bad behaviour, accusing someone of being a scammer is even easier than actually pulling off a scam. We cannot investigate each reported case in detail to see if accusations are accurate. Initially, this wasn't our policy. We allowed naming and shaming, but the overwhelming feedback was that the false defamation was far worse.
Why is GGG one of the few (gaming) companies that actually has good support?
Our support team is rostered so that there are people available 24/7. Because of timezones, the night shift is the busiest one! The support team represents a considerable portion of our expenditure, but it's critical for people to feel like they're in good hands when making purchases.
I was recently told Albino Rhoas were added in the game since closed beta, is this true? Additionally, did the feathers carry over from closed beta the same way Demigod's did?
Yes, the Albino Rhoa was added to the game very early on. The feathers silently persisted into the Open Beta in the same way Demigod's Triumphs did. Very astute of you to notice :-)
What are some things that you find in other games you play that you find interesting and want to see if they're possible to implement in PoE?
Cloaks.
What are some of the things you've tried to implement in the game after beta during your internal testing that you decided wasn't a good fit, was way too over/under powered, or wasn't as cool as you hoped it would be?
Here are some skill prototypes that we canceled because of some problems they had:
Blade Trap threw spectral copies of your melee weapon in a spiral, causing bleeding. We couldn't get it looking good and it didn't have a good place in the game without doing a fraction of the bleed damage of Puncture, which felt underwhelming. Melee weapon traps are still a possibility for in future!
Static Tether was a skill prototype that fired a small lightning projectile that attached to an enemy if it hit them. If they moved far enough, it would detonate. It was great against fast enemies, but against others (like totems and zombies) it hardly functioned at all, which made it too situational to fill the role it was intended for.
Lightning Tendrils went through a large number of prototypes to find the right fit for a low level lightning skill. One of these created a damaging circle attached to the caster, and another was an arc-like zap that couldn't chain but damaged everything in a nova around the monster it hit. Lightning Tendrils was the prototype that was the most fun and best looking of the versions we created.
Name one thing you really love to add to the game, but can't add (yet) because it would take too much time/resources to do.
This one is really difficult to answer because it'd be either spoiling future content or hyping up something we legitimately can't do.
Is there ever a chance that PvP will receive damage reductions on skills and Ascendancy-related balances at any point in the future, maybe during the downtime between leagues?
The balance team have a desire to perform a pass of PvP skill balance. To do this properly is a large task and they're currently very busy on balancing the upcoming expansion and challenge league. I can't promise that there will be PvP changes in 2.4.0 at this stage, sorry!
Is it possible to get league-specific unique items through divination cards, that grant a generic type of items (e.g. Unique Ring)? Are there some kind of restrictions
Edit: My initial reply here was incorrect. You can receive uniques from previous leagues.
Are you able to share an update on the timeline for the MTX tab redesign?
This is a system that we desperately want to finish and deploy, but is taking a back seat to performance improvements and other critical changes currently. I understand that the current microtransaction tab is very frustrating.
Is there any news on a "permanent skin transfer" option, so I can use some of my standard skins in temporary leagues?
This is part of the race system improvements. It hasn't been prioritised because racing is a small part of the community and the resources we could spare were put towards creating the upcoming race season. I would very much like to sort out the whole permanent skin stuff, but that will probably take place after other systems improvements like performance.
What are your thoughts on bringing set items to the game? Path seems to be one of the few big ARPGs that doesn't have these types of items.
The problem with set items is that they encourage you not to swap out your gear. If we created a specific set then the whole set would either be good (in which case every build with it is identical) or bad (in which case it's simply not used). We don't think that sets promote the type of gameplay that we want.
Have you considered running weekend events, or something similar, with the parent leagues? What are GGG's collective thoughts on such an idea? I personally believe it would bring some added purpose and excitement to Hardcore and Standard.
We have problems with the concept of "weekend" events because we don't want to teach people that any one time is better to play than another time. The goal should be that all times are good to play, so you should play all the time :-)
With regards to Standard events in general, we are internally discussing the concept of having week-long rotations of various league mods on Standard and Hardcore as an experiment. For example, this week is Talisman week and next week is Perandus week.
Do you plan in a near future to add a bug tracking tool directly ingame?
We have our internal bug tracking tools that we can't share with the community because they're full of bugs related to unannounced future content or bugs that may represent potential exploits in the game. We are pretty happy with our current process for bug reporting, but we understand the community would like greater visibility into what bugs we are working on fixing. This is partly what Q&As like this are for, but we'll see if there's a way of exposing that information more clearly.
When will you guys add Shape Shifting to the game?
How would this work? We get this request a lot but whenever we discuss it, we can't really work out a good system. What happens to the player when they're shape-shifted? Can they use their regular skills? Would we need to animate the shape-shifted figure to have all the regular animations of the player classes? What if we just sold it as a microtransaction skin to cover these costs?
Has there been any progress with implementing ctrl+clicking for the guild stash?
There hasn't been any progress on it yet, but it's currently listed in our bug tracker under version 2.4.0.
Would GGG ever dwell into the depths of cinematics?
I think the money would be better spent on improving the game itself and adding more content.
There are some weapon MTXs that don't "fit" well on certain weapon types. For example, Runic Blade on an axe makes the player hold the blade with his hand. Same thing with the new Dragon Spear on staves. It's been this way for a long time, so I wasn't sure if there are plans to fix these?
This is unfortunately quite difficult to fix. It would require making skill animations for each character class for weapon types that normally don't work for that skill. Then once that's done, we would switch the "stance" that these weapon skins infer.
The team are currently looking into a better solution.
Will mercenaries be added at some point? Could they be customisable like most everything else in POE? Could you select their skills; where their points go in their passive skill tree; select their equipment (armor, weapons, links and sockets), etc.?
This is an idea that is discussed occasionally for future expansions, but two problems come up:
a) The developers aren't really excited by it. This may be due to mercenaries being somewhat boring in other Action RPGs. If we do do this in the future, we'd need some systems work to go with it to make it exciting.
b) Back before Forsaken Masters was announced, some of the master names were datamined and posted on the forum. Many people initially assumed that it was a mercenary system, and they expressed disappointment. We were surprised by this (and thankful that it was actually a Master system, which they liked a whole lot more due to its crafting potential). It did give an interesting insight into the fact that mercenaries start off with negative points and need a lot of work to make into a system worth releasing.
Would it be possible to get an extra "Skill Bar" for Aura skills? It doesn't have to have hotkeys, as you could toggle them on/off via clicking, but it would free up space/time on the main Skill Bar for those of us with a lot of auras that don't really enjoy spending a couple minutes cycling through aura's to turn them on every time they play.
There's ongoing discussion in our office about having alternate skill buttons that you can press a key to make available. You'd be able to put skills like auras and other rarely-toggled skills on these buttons. I don't have an implementation timeline for this as it requires expertise that is currently busy on other really important areas.
Will you guys ever add gender options to character classes?
No, the character classes are designed to be specific sexes. Plus, it's very hard to see visual changes like that anyway underneath all that armour!
What happened to the French/German localizations?
We are still planning to release these, once we have all the problems resolved. Sorry for the delay.
Any chance of having some kind of information about "log in status" of friends (friends list) or guild members - something like last active day, etc.? (translated from Brazilian Portuguese)
This is a Quality of Life feature that we really want to implement as well. It'd be new data to store, so requires more work than you'd expect. I'm optimistic we'll be able to do this at some stage though.
Are there any plans to have the 'fated' versions of a unique item have a special glow or distinct look, compared to the base unique item?
Unfortunately this isn't currently viewed as the best way for us to spend our resources. It was discussed, but eventually decided against.
Can we expect some more dragon weapon skins to go with dragon armor? Maybe some dragon wings too?
We like to flesh out these various microtransaction sets to have more stuff over time. I haven't spoken to the art team about this, but I suspect the Dragon set will see more pieces in the future.
Is Shavronne's Mutant Fish from the Vaal Temple supposed to six link any item in your inventory? That seems a little too powerful. I don't want to tell you guys how to balance, but that seems pretty broken.
For any system in the game, we like to have some very rare outcomes that are really powerful. It keeps people hunting for those elusive ones even when they've seen most of the other content we've created.
Is there any new content in mind for the endgame? Like new bosses, new maps or a new system that isn't just maps? (translated from Brazilian Portuguese)
Yes. We're working hard on the endgame right now.
Would you consider having maps display as Ruthless difficulty in the tab menu? It just feels like they're a different section of the game, with scaling far removed from Merciless, plus it would be cool to bring it back in some form.
Technically, they are part of Merciless currently for things like resistance penalties. I worry that changing this to some other phrasing would only confuse people.
I was curious if GGG had any plans to improve the in-game map? Possibly similar to how Diablo 3's uncovers the map as you walk through, I feel like it would help people clear "bad" map layouts if they could see where they had and hadn't been.
When you explore the map in Path of Exile, it does uncover as you go. The block sizes are relatively large, but you'll be able to observe it in game! The explored/unexplored areas could certainly be made a lot clearer as we continue to improve the in-game map overlay.
Why was the decision made to have some prophecies trigger randomly on entering a zone instead of having them always trigger at the next available time when you had one.
There are two types of Prophecies - ones that trigger when an event occurs, and ones that affect an area that you zone into.
The ones that trigger when an event occurs always happen when the event happens, so there's no complexity or confusion there. The small exception to this is that a few of these trigger on killing a lot of enemies (something like a 1 in 500 chance of happening, for example). These are clearly marked and also aren't confusing people.
The confusion is related to the ones that affect specific world areas. We didn't want them to trigger on the very next area that you enter, because that's not very prophetic. The design of Prophecy is that Navali tells you that something is going to happen, and then it does sooner or later (rather than immediately). So given that we need a conditional chance for it to happen when you enter an area, we first tried rolling that on area entry. The problem here is that then you can just force-spawn the area several times to force the Prophecy to happen. This takes away any exploration and also allows you to force specific Prophecies to happen in the best possible area for them. Both of these were large issues for us.
The system we settled on causes the Prophecy to randomly pick a set of areas that it does trigger on (from the available pool of areas that it can affect). It then triggers reliably when you enter one of those areas.
I really enjoy the prophecy item upgrades, as it brings life to some otherwise useless items. Can we keep this upgrade feature (possibly even expand on it)?
We like the feature too. It's a strong point in favour of keeping Prophecy and Navali around in the future. We haven't made a firm decision on that yet though.
3) Do you plan future leagues with the idea they will make it to standard game some day, or do you just go on with leagues and think about keeping them to standard only when you see how the playerbase reacts to them?
We try to make each league as good as we can as a standalone league. The decision of which to bring to Standard and when is very complex, because we're conscious that some leagues require a minimum presence to work properly. Also, the complexity of having so many league mechanics on at the same time can be very overwhelming for new players.
Our intention is to turn on and off content in the future to vary the experience. It also lets us fix aspects of the leagues that players didn't enjoy.
I and others feel as though Talisman mechanics were entirely reasonable for the live game in a less pronounced manner. Why has it come about that the Grinding Gear Games team has decided otherwise?
We definitely plan on bringing Talisman back, but we want to find the right time for it. The game is already crammed with occasional side content that you encounter, so there's no pressing need for it in the core game yet. Having entire systems that can be turned on and off (especially those with exclusive items) is very useful for running events or spicing up Standard for a while, for example.
Do you think the last two challenge leagues have been successful from a mechanical point of view? There's no doubt they had great production value, but most people I play with agree that the mechanics turned out rather shallow and easy to ignore. Low risk/reward improvement, low interaction with player economy (that is, they only deflate prices, without draining currency from the economy), etc.
Yes, I believe they were mostly successful from a mechanical point of view. Let's look at the five topics you mentioned:
Depth: Simplicity at face value is important so that leagues are easy to understand. However, it's really important to hide enough depth there so that advanced players have interesting things to discover. Talisman had tough choices of which Talismans to keep and which to sacrifice to the Rigwald grind. Prophecy has a lot of complex mastery behaviour with cycling Prophecies that players are only just beginning to work out. Perandus was intentionally a relatively straightforward league because it was released alongside an expansion. During development of our next league, we've had to put a lot of work into getting it simple enough to explain clearly, as there's a crazy amount of depth that kept surfacing and confusing the explanation of the league.
Easy to Ignore: This is intentional. Feedback from previous leagues (like Invasion, Beyond and Tempest) was that there was no way to turn them off or ignore them if you weren't particularly interested in that mechanic. People cited Ambush as an example of a league that offered great gameplay if you chose to engage with the mechanic by opening Strongboxes. We wanted to make sure that these players who chose to play in challenge leagues mostly for the fresh economy were not entirely put off by the league mechanic being fatiguing. In Talisman, you didn't have to put Talismans in the Stone Circles for the hard fights if you didn't want to. In Perandus, you could mostly ignore the Perandus chests because the monsters stayed so close to them. In Prophecy, you can just trade the Silver Coins to other people. Because 80% of our players play in challenge leagues, it's important to have a way to engage less fully with new league content.
Risk/Reward: The tradeoff of players engaging in harder content in order to receive better rewards is a very important one in league design. Talisman escalating Talisman power for harder and harder fights, as well as a handful of different power levels of Rigwald with rarer and rarer unique drops. The Perandus chests provided a tough fight in higher difficulties (prompting players to successfully petition us to nerf them), in exchange for the precious coins. Almost all Prophecies are about engaging in additional content in an attempt to cycle to the ones with high payoff. Our next league takes risk/reward even further, in a way that is reminiscent of Ambush.
Economic Interaction: Talismans were highly tradeable. Perandus and Prophecy both had tradeable coins as well as yielding items that were tradeable. Even the Prophecies themselves can be traded. In all cases, recent leagues have enabled players to engage economically in order to accelerate their progress.
Currency Sink: The league acting as a sink for currency was on your list of desired attributes but wasn't on ours. I believe that only Ambush has acted like this in the past? It's certainly something for us to consider in the future, though players have shown to like leagues that give them new items to play with rather than applying pressure to their existing ones.
Well that's the set of questions we've answered this week. We'll try to do more in a followup post later! Thanks for the great questions. YouTube |
Lead Developer. Follow us on: Twitter Facebook | Contact Support if you need help! Last edited by Chris on Jul 6, 2016, 1:54:34 AM Last bumped on Aug 5, 2016, 6:32:59 AM
Posted by Chris
on Grinding Gear Games onHappy Birthday Ms. Nina Simone 0
Eunice Kathleen Waymon, better known by her stage name Nina Simone, was a singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist widely associated with jazz music. Simone aspired to become a classical pianist while working in a broad range of styles including classical, jazz, blues, folk, R&B, gospel, and pop.
Born the sixth child of a preacher’s family in North Carolina, Simone aspired to be a concert pianist. Her musical path changed direction after she was denied a scholarship to the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, despite a well-received audition. Simone was later told by someone working at Curtis that she was rejected because she was black.
When she began playing in a small club in Philadelphia to fund her continuing musical education and become a classical pianist she was required to sing as well. She was approached for a recording by Bethlehem Records, and her rendering of “I Loves You Porgy” was a hit in the United States in 1958. Over the length of her career Simone recorded more than 40 albums, mostly between 1958—when she made her debut with Little Girl Blue—and 1974.
Her musical style arose from a fusion of gospel and pop songs with classical music, in particular with influences from her first inspiration, Johann Sebastian Bach, and accompanied with her expressive jazz-like singing in her characteristic contralto. She injected as much of her classical background into her music as possible to give it more depth and quality, as she felt that pop music was inferior to classical. Her intuitive grasp on the audience–performer relationship was gained from a unique background of playing piano accompaniment for church revivals and sermons regularly from the early age of six years old.
After 20 years of performing, she became involved in the civil rights movement and the direction of her life shifted once again. Simone’s music was highly influential in the fight for equal rights in the US. In later years, she lived abroad, finally settling in France in 1992.
Read about her legacy at: Daily Black History FactsOverview (4)
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Princess Leia Organa in the Star Wars films
Often played smirking, sarcastic characters
Large brown eyes
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Her sharp sarcastic sense of humor
Trivia (86)
In 1998, she checked into a substance-abuse program for addiction to prescription drugs.
The punk rock group Blink 182 wrote a song called "A New Hope", in which her Star Wars (1977) character Princess Leia is the lead singer's dream girl.
She made her stage debut in 1975 in the chorus of the musical Irene, which starred her mother, Debbie Reynolds
Attended the Central School of Speech and Drama in London.
She did her very first European signing in London, England in a hotel library on August 3, 2003. It was an exclusive one-day signing, and tickets limited to 500.
She has confirmed in her autobiography that she disliked the "bagel bun" hairstyle she wore in the original Star Wars (1977). However, prior to filming, the studio had requested that she lose some weight first, which she hadn't. Out of fear of being fired for it, she was eager to comply with everything that director George Lucas suggested, which included the hairstyle.
When asked to choose her favorite moment from the original Star Wars (1977) trilogy, she explained that her favorite moments were the arguing scenes between her and Harrison Ford
She had to stand on a box for many of her scenes with Harrison Ford in the original Star Wars (1977) trilogy because she was roughly a foot shorter than him and did not fit into the frame.
She was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and spoke on this topic to thousands of psychiatrists assembled for the American Psychiatric Association's Annual Meeting in May 2004 in New York City.
She was listed as a potential nominee on the 2006 Razzie Award nominating ballot in the category of the Worst Supporting Actress category for her performance in the film Undiscovered (2005), however, she failed to receive a nomination.
Weighed 7 lbs 2 ozs at birth.
Her mother, Debbie Reynolds, lived next door to her for most of her life.
She was once engaged to Dan Aykroyd
She has one daughter, Billie Lourd, whose father is the film agent, Bryan Lourd. Fisher and Lourd never married. After he left her for a man, she used the experience as the opening premise for her novel, The Best Awful.
She revealed in her memoir Wishful Drinking that she once had a romantic relationship with U.S. Senator Chris Dodd (D-Connecticut). When Dodd was asked for a comment by a reporter from The Kansas City Star in 2007, he explained that "it was a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.".
In her 2008 memoir Wishful Drinking, she noted that, like her mother in Singin' in the Rain (1952), she became famous at age 19 for her role in a classic hit alongside two male co-stars. She also mentioned that the title of Star Wars (1977) could also refer to her celebrity parents' infamous divorce.
Her personal assistant was Kim Painter
She continued to date Paul Simon for 8 years after their divorce, until finally breaking up in 1991.
Her paternal grandparents were Russian Jewish immigrants. Her mother had English, some Scottish, Scots-Irish (Northern Irish), and German, and distant French, ancestry.
She wrote her own scene for her cameo appearance in Scream 3 (2000).
In 1990, she sold the big screen rights to her book, Surrender the Pink, to Warner Bros. for $1 million. Steven Spielberg was producing, with Demi Moore attached to star. Fisher wrote the screenplay, but the project stalled in development.
In 1994, she did a rewrite of the script of Intolerable Cruelty (2003), shortly after the original script sold. The Coen Brothers rewrote the script years later and none of Fisher's work remained in the finished film.
She admitted that she found it difficult to act opposite Peter Cushing in Star Wars (1977) for two reasons: she thought the dialog was awful, and Cushing was so nice and polite to her on set between takes that she found it very difficult to show the disdain her character, Princess Leia, felt towards Cushing's character, Grand Moff Tarkin.
Her French bulldog Gary accompanied her everywhere, even onto TV talk show sets whenever she was a guest.
In her 2016 autobiography The Princess Diarist, Fisher wrote that she and Harrison Ford had a three-month affair during the filming of Star Wars (1977) in 1976.
Her final acting project was the third season of Catastrophe (2015). She was the only cast member allowed to improvise and her own real life dog Gary portrays her dog on the show. She passed away a week after finishing work on the show.
On the day after Carrie died, her grief-stricken mother Debbie Reynolds suffered a stroke, and also passed away.
She was well known for her sense of humor and quick wit. One of her father Eddie Fisher's first hits in the 1950s was a song entitled "Oh! My Pa-Pa". Her father, of course, had a scandalous affair with Elizabeth Taylor and ultimately left her mother, Debbie Reynolds to marry Taylor. When Fisher and Reynolds were making a joint television appearance, Fisher quipped that her mother could sing, too, and should have written and sang a song entitled, "Oh! My Faux Pas".
She suffered an ectopic pregnancy whilst married to Paul Simon in May 1984.
She was considered to star opposite her mother Debbie Reynolds in The Exorcist (1973).
The character her daughter, Billie Lourd, plays in Scream Queens (2015) is always seen wearing a pair of ear muffs, a tribute to Fisher's iconic hairstyle in her role as Princess Leia in Star Wars (1977) and its sequels.
Was best friends with Richard Dreyfuss
(June 16, 2017) Her death was caused by sleep apnea and other undetermined factors, the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office revealed.
In her later years, Fisher had an emotional support animal, a French Bulldog named Gary, whom she brought to numerous appearances and interviews. Following her death, reports indicated that Fisher's daughter Billie Lourd would take care of Gary.
In 2016, Harvard College gave Fisher its Annual Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism, noting that "her forthright activism and outspokenness about addiction, mental illness, and agnosticism have advanced public discourse on these issues with creativity and empathy.".
In an interview with the New York Times, she revealed that she made George Lucas give her a copy of The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978) in exchange for recording DVD commentary for the Star Wars films. She added that she showed it at parties, "mainly at the end of the night when I want people to leave.".
Fisher described herself as an "enthusiastic agnostic who would be happy to be shown that there is a God". She was raised Protestant, but often attended Jewish services (her father's faith) with Orthodox friends.
She was originally contracted to portray Miss Scarlet in Clue (1985), but withdrew to enter treatment for drug and alcohol addiction. Lesley Ann Warren was cast instead.
She hosted the episode of Saturday Night Live (1975) that featured the first appearance of the Blues Brothers and appeared in The Blues Brothers (1980).
She was a spokesperson for Jenny Craig weight loss television ads that aired in January 2011.
In her 2016 autobiography "The Princess Diarist", Fisher wrote that she and Harrison Ford had a three-month affair during the filming of Star Wars (1977) in 1976.
She has the last line in her last movie Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017): "We have everything we need.".
She was considered for the role of Linda in Arthur (1981) which went to Liza Minnelli
She was considered for the role of Annie in Speed (1994) which went to Sandra Bullock
She turned down the role of Sarah Connor in The Terminator (1984) which went to Linda Hamilton
She was considered the role of Rizzo in Grease (1978) which went to Stockard Channing
She was considered the role of Vicki Vale in Batman (1989) which went to Kim Basinger
She was considered for the role of Catherine Tramell in Basic Instinct (1992) which went to Sharon Stone
She was considered for the role of Iris in Taxi Driver (1976) which went to Jodie Foster
She was considered for the role of Maerose Prizzi in Prizzi's Honor (1985) which went to Anjelica Huston
She was considered for the role of Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction (1987) which went to Glenn Close
She was considered for the role of Lois Lane in Superman (1978) which went to Margot Kidder
She was considered for the role of Kate McCallister in Home Alone (1990) which went to Catherine O'Hara
She was considered for the role of Thelma Dickinson in Thelma & Louise (1991) which went to Geena Davis
She was considered for the role of Vivian Ward in Pretty Woman (1990) which went to Julia Roberts
She was considered for the role of Elvira Hancock in Scarface (1983) which went to Michelle Pfeiffer
She was considered for the role of Katharine Parker in Working Girl (1988) which went to Sigourney Weaver
Fittingly, her most famous and popular role, Princess Leia, she played in only her second film and well as her final film.
When her mother Debbie Reynolds was going through her highly publicized divorce from Carrie's father Eddie Fisher, press crews were literally camped out around the clock on Reynolds' front lawn. To ingratiate herself to reporters, Reynolds would bring food and drinks out to them, often with her two toddlers Carrie and Todd in her arms. This childhood experience gave Carrie a level of comfort in dealing with media that few other movie stars have ever had.
As of her death in 2016, she appeared in two films nominated for Best Picture Oscar: Star Wars (1977) and Hannah and Her Sisters (1986).
Personal Quotes (40)
I was street-smart, but unfortunately the street was Rodeo Drive.
I have no ambitions as an actress. I'm going to do a day's work on Scream 3 (2000), but that's all I can handle, a day's work.
[on her father's gossipy 1999 autobiography] I'm going to have my DNA fumigated.
I always wanted to do what my mother did-- get all dressed up, shoot people, fall in the mud. I never considered anything else.
You can't find true affection in Hollywood because everyone does the fake affection so well.
Females get hired along procreative lines. After 40, we're kind of cooked.
[on merchandising for Star Wars (1977)] I signed my likeness away. Every time I look in the mirror, I have to send [ George Lucas ] a couple of bucks.
My father [ Eddie Fisher ] was a short Jewish man. My husband [ Paul Simon ] was a short Jewish man. Go figure.
[on working with Harrison Ford on Star Wars (1977)] [ Mark Hamill ] was 24, I was 19 and he [Harrison] was 33. He was like the big man on campus. You looked at him and you said to yourself, "He's going to be a star".
[on why gaffer's tape was sometimes used under her Princess Leia costume in Star Wars (1977)] As we all know, there is no underwear in space.
Acting engenders and harbors qualities that are best left way behind in adolescence. People-pleasing, going on those interviews and jamming your whole personality into getting the job, ingratiating yourself to people you wouldn't fucking spit on if they were on fire.
I was born into big celebrity. It could only diminish.
Leia is not a real character. She is more of a caricature, and is somewhat one-dimensional. It's not really possible to write out a list of Princess Leia's likes and dislikes |
not take place in Chibok due to the precarious security situation and instead he insisted that the exams should take place there and that he would guarantee the security of the children.
5. That the Christian Association of Nigeria has formally accused the Governor of Borno State of ‘’conspiracy and collusion’’ and they have urged him to tell us exactly where the girls are and what he knows about the whole incident.
6. That the girls that have been kidnapped are being raped up to 15 times a day by their captors and that those amongst them that have refused to convert to Islam are having their throats cut (read the testimony of one of the girls that ‘’escaped’’ on page 8 of the Vanguard Newspaper, 5th April, 2014).
7. That there was not a single adult in the school grounds watching over the 278 girls that entire night apart from one security man and that there was no electricity, no generator, no principal, no matron, no house master and no house mistress in the grounds with them.
8. That the children were all alone in their dormitories that night in the blistering heat and deepest darkness before the Haramites arrived to burn their school and carried them away into captivity.
9. That the soldiers that were guarding the school in Chibok were redeployed a few hours before Boko Haram launched their attack and abducted the children.
10. That up till now pictures of the abducted girls have not been produced or released by the school authorities or the state government.
11. That this was a predominantly christian School and that Chibok is a predominantly Christian community.
In my view, these facts are relevant and instructive. When one considers them, the picture of what really happened at Chibok on that tragic night, what the real intentions of the abductors and their secret sponsors were and what is really going on now is getting clearer by the day.
Ordinarily, whether the children are Christians, Muslims, pagans or atheists really should not matter because, regardless of their faith, we want them all back and we must fight for them all to be returned to their homes and loved ones.
Frightening dimension
However, the fact that 90 per cent of them are Christian adds a sinister and frightening dimension to the whole horrific episode and it is glaring evidence of the fact that Christian girls are now being targetted by the Islamists and that those girls are being ‘’sold in the market’’, being forced to convert to Islam and being turned into sex slaves.
Let me put it on record that I am one of those that believe that the Federal Government has failed woefully in their primary duty to protect the Nigerian people and I have enunciated that position more than anyone else in this nation in numerous essays and contributions over the last three years. However, I honestly believe that, today, the problem has become so serious and pronounced and that the conflict has reached such a critical stage that criticising and lambasting the government alone will not help. The truth is that such an approach has, certainly, not achieved much in the last three years because nothing has changed.
I believe that it is time for us to change tactics in order to achieve better results even though we must not relent in demanding that our President and his security and intelligence agencies do their job properly and provide the necessary security for our people. We also need to understand and appreciate the fact that this matter goes way beyond politics. It goes way beyond whether you are for or against President Jonathan.
It goes way beyond whether you are in the APC, PDP, APGA, Labour or UPN. It goes way beyond whether you are a progressive or a conservative. It goes way beyond whether you are a christian or a muslim or whether you are from the north or the south.
The bitter truth is that regardless of wherever you come from, whatever your faith is and whichever side of the political divide you stand, we all have a duty to get to the bottom of this matter, join forces, close ranks, find out what is really going on and bring this nightmare to an end. We must join hands with all men and women of goodwill and, together, we must fight this insidious evil that seeks to envelop our land and overwhelm our people.
To be sure, there is only one thing worse than failing to protect your people and that is when you organise and mobilise some misguided and mentally unstable miscreants to use religion as a political tool and get them to blow up, kill, abduct, rape and maim innocent men, women and children in an attempt to destabilise the country, spark off a religious war, change the status qou, pull down the government, induce a military coup, dismember our country and cow the Nigerian people into submission.
Secret supporters
That is what those who are the secret supporters and sponsors of Boko Haram are doing and attempting to achieve. They are also interested in furthering the sinister and barbaric agenda of the Taliban, the Al Nusra Front, Al Shabab, Islamic Jihad, Hamas and Al Qaeda whose wish is to destroy the secular state and to establish an Islamic fundamentalist state. They wish to establish a radical new caliphate in the west African sub-region where christianity and moderate Islam is banned, where women are treated like sub-human beings and chattel and which is governed by the strictest form of Islamic Sharia law.
To this end, it is interesting to note that the evil is spreading. A glaring testimony to that sad fact is the fact that an army barracks was attacked by Boko Haram in the Camerouns on 5th April and after killing two army officers they freed all their fellow terrorists and Islamists that had been detained there.
What is going on is dangerous, bloody, vicious, heartless, brutal, deep, dark and sinister and it is a conspiracy of monumental proportions. It is a conspiracy which we have all fallen victim to. It is a conspiracy that is fuelled by secrecy and strengthened by the reluctance of those that know better and that know the truth to speak out and expose it.
It is a conspiracy that also receives massive funding and covert support from various governments and royal families in the Middle East whose support for the salfists is well known and whose wahabbi doctrines and philosophy is exceptionally dangerous. These are the type of people that we are dealing with and these are the times that we are living in.
It is good news that the international community are set to play a greater role in this fight and that they are ready to assist us in resisting terror and waging war against what is esentially a relentless and vicious global jihad.
However this is not enough. The fight is still primarily for our President and the Nigerian people to lead.
It is left for the President and his team to rise up to the occasion, tell the Nigerian people the bitter truth about all that is going on behind the scenes, remove the kid gloves, get real and fight the Haramists and their sponsors with all that he has got.
If he refuses to do it or if he is cowered into not doing so by the moderate and dovish voices that appear to be around him, he can be rest assured that sooner than later this country will break up and he will go down in history as the last President of a united Nigeria. Worse still, if he is not careful there may well be a military coup which will not be welcome by any right-thinking person and which everyone dreads. We must assist him as best as we can to ensure that this does not happen.
I have little doubt that the President knows who those that are behind Boko Haram are: it is now time for him to exercise his full powers, expose them and deal with them in a brutal and savage manner.
It is time for him to show strength and to lead us into this war against terror boldly. It is time for him to be a Commander-in Chief that we can all be proud of. It is time for him to use his full power and to detain and interrogate all those that he suspects may be linked to the terrorists.
It is time for him to rise up to the occasion and to crush the evil and the forces of darkness that have challenged our way of life, everything that is dear to us and indeed our very existence.
It is time for him to use every method known to man to vigorously fight the insurgency, including better intelligence gathering and the usage of ‘’black ops’’, ‘’wet boys’’, covert operations and maximum co-operation with various foreign and international intelligence and security agencies.
It is time for him to ruthlessly bomb the notorious and Boko Haram-infested Sambisi forest …and burn it, together with everything and everyone that is in it, to the ground. It is time for him to exercise the right of ‘’hot pursuit’’ and to pursue the Haramites into the Camerouns, Chad, the Niger Republic or anywhere else if and when it is necessary for him to ever do so.
It is time for him to prove to the world that the Nigerian people are not insensitive cowards and that we know how to fight and to protect our own. It is time for him to rise up and to exercise the full powers and authority of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. It is time for him to do whatever it takes to bring our girls back home and to let us hold our heads up high once again.
*Fani-Kayode is a former Minister of Aviation.CHICAGO -- Mike Maddux, the Texas Rangers' pitching coach and a former managerial candidate of the Chicago Cubs, is "more interested" in the Cubs job this time than he was in 2011, according to a source. Two years ago, Maddux pulled out of the process before the team hired Dale Sveum.
Mike Maddux has spent five seasons as the Rangers pitching coach, including the last two with Yu Darvish. Tim Heitman/USA TODAY Sports
Maddux, 52, wasn't ready to leave Texas then because of family considerations, but the source said that "isn't as big of a concern" now.
According to the source, Maddux has not been called by the Cubs.
New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi remains the leading candidate in Chicago if he doesn't return to the Yankees. A.J Hinch, Sandy Alomar Jr. and Manny Acta are other names reportedly linked to the job.
Unlike when Sveum was hired, the Cubs prefer candidates with managerial experience in the majors. Maddux has never managed at the big league level. He's been the Rangers' pitching coach since 2009, following six seasons in the same position with the Milwaukee Brewers.
Maddux is the older brother of Greg Maddux, a former Cy Young Award winner with the Cubs. After retiring as a player in 2008, Greg Maddux spent time in Chicago's front office as a special assistant to former general manager Jim Hendry. He joined his brother in Texas in 2011 as special assistant to general manager Jon Daniels.Dollar Country Episode 036XL: One Year Anniversary (10/2/17)
New and old favorites from the first year of the show. That's Hank Thompson in the picture.
Mack Fields - Bowling Ball Blues
Hank Locklin - I'm Tired Of Bummin' Around
Orville Couch - Strike A Match
Hank Thompson with the Brazos Valley Boys - Hangover Tavern
Tennessee Ernie Ford - Shot Gun Boogie
Commander Cody And His Lost Planet Airmen - Hot Rod Lincoln
Bob Dylan - Country Pie
Eddie Noack - Dolores
Johnny Cash - Flesh And Blood
Cecil Campbell - Fog Rising On The Mountain
Carl Belew - A-Cryin' And A-Hurtin'
Johnnie And Jack - Slow Poison
Jim Nesbitt - I'm Yeller
Hank Thompson with the Brazos Valley Boys - He's Got A Way With Women
Nat Stuckey - Paralyze My Mind
Hal Willis - The Lumberjack
Cowboy Copas - Bury Me Face Down
Terry Fell - I'm Hot To Trot
Hank Morton & The Versa-tones - Horns On Your Halo
Al Terry - Hate Me Not
Faron Young - I'm Gonna Live Some Before I Die
Wanda Jackson - Funnel Of LoveOh, boy… Chicago deep-dish pizza. Just the ticket for a cold January night.
It’s been an icon on the culinary landscape since 1943, when the story goes that Ike Sewell and Ric Riccardo “invented” deep-dish pizza at their newly opened Chicago restaurant, Pizzeria Uno.
Ike and Ric’s new pizza was fashioned after a traditional Italian tomato pie: a thick crust with 1”-high sides, filled with tomato purée, and sprinkled with Romano cheese. But Pizzeria Uno’s proprietors went a step (or a couple of layers) further, adding mozzarella cheese and sausage to the mix.
I’d always dreamed of sampling deep-dish pizza at its source: in Chicago. And several years ago, courtesy of a trade show, I got the chance.
I wasn’t able to go to Pizzeria Uno: everyone else had had the same idea that night, and the place was mobbed. But I asked the front desk folks at our hotel where I might find some authentic Chicago deep-dish pizza, and they quickly recommended a nearby restaurant.
The initial vibes were good; old wooden booths, dark yet warm lighting, casually friendly waitstaff. I ordered the “classic deep dish,” and eagerly anticipated a landmark pizza experience.
Wrong.
The pizza I got was thick, all right. But the descriptors that spring to mind are “sloppy mess,” referring to its presentation. Followed by “sludge,” which would describe its unknown filling.
Basically, this pizza was a deep crust filled with watery tomato sauce and something chunky (peppers? sausage?), topped with a sprinkle of grated cheese. I barely made a dent in it before admitting to myself that this simply wasn’t the deep-dish pizza of my dreams.
Now, with another trip to Chicago coming up soon, deep-dish pizza is on my mind again. But rather than wait for the authentic experience, I decided to create my own: Vermont deep-dish pizza.
Ahhh…. distinct layers of cheese and sausage and tomatoes and more cheese on top of a light, buttery crust.
Here’s a picture of Pizzeria Uno’s deep-dish pie, grabbed off their online menu. Save for a lack of green peppers, I think I came up with a pretty good match, no?
So who needs to go to Chicago, when you can make your very own classic Chicago-Style Deep-Dish Pizza at home?
A buttery, crunchy/soft crust is key to classic deep-dish pizza. We’ll start with this interesting dough, blending flour and cornmeal with three different fats: olive oil, vegetable oil, and butter.
Combine the following:
4 cups (17 ounces) King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
3 tablespoons yellow cornmeal
1 3/4 teaspoons salt
2 3/4 teaspoons instant yeast
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 tablespoons butter, melted
2 tablespoons vegetable oil or salad oil
1 cup + 2 tablespoons lukewarm water
Mix till cohesive…
…then knead till smooth. This will take about 7 minutes at medium-low speed in a stand mixer. You can also make the dough in a bread machine set on the dough or manual cycle.
The dough will be fairly soft, but not soft enough to coat the inside of the bowl.
Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl or 8-cup measure (which makes it easy to track its rise), cover, and let rise till very puffy, about 60 minutes.
Look at that yeast work!
While the dough is rising, ready your 14” deep-dish pizza pan. Grease it with non-stick vegetable oil spray, then pour in 3 to 4 tablespoons olive oil, tilting it to cover the bottom of the pan, and partway up the sides.
Stretch the dough to make as large a circle as you can. You can do this on a lightly oiled rolling mat, if you choose; or simply stretch the dough in your hands.
Lay the dough in the pan, and stretch it towards the edges till it starts to shrink back. Cover, and let it rest for 15 minutes.
When you come back, you should be able to stretch it to the edges of the pan. If you can’t, give it another rest.
Stretch the dough to cover the bottom of the pan, then gently push it up the sides of the pan. The olive oil may ooze over the edge of the crust; that’s OK.
Let the crust rest for 15 minutes or so, as you preheat your oven to 425°F.
The crust will puff up just a tad as you wait. No need to cover it; it’ll go into the oven before it dries out.
Bake the crust for 10 minutes, until it’s set and barely beginning to brown.
While it’s baking, prepare the filling.
Open a 28-ounce can plum tomatoes, lightly crushed; or a 28-ounce can of diced or chopped tomatoes.
Drain the tomatoes thoroughly.
Combine with 1 to 2 teaspoons Pizza Seasoning or mixed dried Italian herbs (oregano, basil, rosemary), to taste. If you like – and this is strictly optional – add 2 to 4 garlic cloves, peeled and minced; and 1 tablespoon sugar.
Fan 3/4 pound of sliced mozzarella cheese into the bottom of the baked crust.
Top with 1 pound Italian sweet or hot sausage, cooked and sliced; or about 3 cups of the sautéed vegetables of your choice. My choice is definitely sausage, but mushrooms and onions would be a tasty vegetarian alternative.
Spread the drained tomato mixture on top.
Sprinkle with 1 cup freshly grated Parmesan or Asiago cheese.
Finally, drizzle with 2 tablespoons olive oil.
Bake the pizza for about 25 minutes, or until the filling is bubbly and the topping is golden brown.
Remove it from the oven, and carefully lift it out of the pan onto a rack to cool. Leaving it in the pan will give it a soggy bottom. A giant spatula is definitely a help with the maneuvering here.
Yes, the pizza pictured above is still in its pan. I’d carried it from the kitchen to a big window in the hallway, where I often take photos. And I was so enthused by its looks, I forgot to take it out of the pan. Do as I say, not as I do!
Allow the pizza to cool for about 15 minutes (or longer, for less oozing) before cutting and serving.
Thick, buttery crust; mozzarella; sausage; tomatoes, garlic, herbs; Parmesan; olive oil. Now THAT’S deep-dish pizza!
Read, rate, and review (please) our recipe for Chicago-Style Deep-Dish Pizza.
Speaking of Chicago, I’ll be attending the year’s biggest housewares trade show there in March. And I’ll be blogging my daily discoveries (technology permitting).
So, start thinking – what does King Arthur NOT currently carry, in the way of tools, gadgets, or pans (anything non-food), that you’d like me to look for? Speak up, folks – now’s your chance! I’ll make a list of requests and see what I can find. Thanks (in advance) for your help.The closure of legal and illegal slaughterhouses will affect three sectors of Uttar Pradesh’s industries — meat packaging, livestock and leather. (PTI)
A curious combination of judicial and saffron activism is posing a serious threat to employment prospects, thereby undermining the economy when it is dealing with the phenomenon of jobless growth because of automation. According to Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant, at least one million jobs will be lost by the Supreme court’s order banning the sale of liquor near the highways, affecting tourism “which creates jobs”.
As many of the highways pass through the cities where five-star hotels are located, they, too, will have to go “dry”, prompting Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Kirron Kher to ask: “How logical is it that you can’t serve liquor in a five-star hotel?” As the hotel industry is a major employment provider, it is a question of “more than a million jobs”, she said.
But it isn’t only the promotion of abstinence which can be fatal for employment prospects. The crackdown on illegal abattoirs and even meat shops in Uttar Pradesh and in other BJP-ruled states will also kill jobs.
Also watch:
The closure of legal and illegal slaughterhouses will affect three sectors of Uttar Pradesh’s industries — meat packaging, livestock and leather. With the second-highest unemployment rate in the country — after Jharkhand — the state can hardly afford to add more jobless to the statistic of 58 unemployed out of 1,000 against the national average of 37. Besides, the country as a whole will suffer since meat and leather goods are major export earners.
Instead of focusing on the modernisation and mechanisation of the abattoirs so that they produce wholesome, hygienic meat, the governments of Yogi Adityanath in Uttar Pradesh and of other BJP chief ministers have engaged in wholesale closures although the original promise was to shut down only those slaughterhouses as well as meat shops which were functioning without licences.
But the BJP’s spectacular victory in Uttar Pradesh seems to have made all its chief ministers more enthusiastic about imposing their fetishist preference for vegetarianism on the common man. As Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani said after the passage of the law decreeing life imprisonment for cow slaughter, his goal is make the state vegetarian.
Even as the Allahabad High Court has taken up the plea of the meat traders about the forcible closure of their establishments, the Rs 22,000 crore ($3.5 billion) meat trade in Uttar Pradesh and the Rs 50,000 crore leather business is in turmoil with thousands of jobs at stake.
What these crackdowns on the sale of liquor and on meat shops show is that the judicial and political authorities do not always consider the effects of their decisions before taking them. Yet, it should have been obvious that sudden bans on items of consumption can have a hugely unsettling fallout.
Apart from depriving thousands of employees of their daily bread, the strict regulation of the hospitality sector will not show India as a welcoming destination to visitors and investors. As a country which wants to climb up the ladder as a place where it is easy to do business, India cannot afford to be hemmed in by a restrictive environment.
Not surprisingly, the government is trying to wriggle out of the parameters set by the judiciary by denotifying the highways by making them ordinary roads or, as in the case of one five-star hotel, allowing entrances from a gate well outside the 500-metre limit set by the Supreme Court.
In any case, there was something odd about the limit, for it would not stop a habitual drinker from buying a bottle from elsewhere and then driving along the highway.
Outlawing the sale of liquor is not the ideal way to reduce accidents due to drunken driving. A more effective course would have been to introduce intensive police patrolling along with regular and repeated breathalyzer tests. More visible road signs and warnings against driving under the influence of alcohol — “Better be late, Mr Motorist, and not the late Mr Motorist” — can help in checking reckless driving.
Steep fines and the cancelling of licences for prolonged periods can be some of the other deterrents instead of quick-fix solutions which can create more problems than they will solve. Society has become far too complex and intertwined for such hasty, band-aid remedies. A ban in one sector can destabilise several others.
In any event, a ban — whether on drinks or food or books or films — is intrinsically a flawed measure on two counts. First, it is an invasion of private space which is increasingly resented in a time of growing individualism. Secondly, it smacks of an authoritarian, Big Brother knows what’s good for you attitude which militates against democracy.
Considering the huge backlog of cases in the law courts — 27 million at the last count — it is odd that the judiciary should invite the charge of overreach by taking upon itself the task of infusing patriotism via the playing of the national anthem in cinema halls and keeping the roads safe by banning liquor shops near the highways.
Where the BJP’s obsession with diet is concerned, its “sabka saath” (taking everyone along) slogan doesn’t seem to embrace everyone.North Korea is providing military goods and training to the African nation of Angola in apparent violation of United Nations sanctions, according to Asian diplomatic sources.
The assistance includes marine engines and replacement parts for North Korean patrol boats sold to the Angolan military within the past six years. Additionally, North Korean military trainers are providing arms and security support to Angolan presidential guards, according to recently obtained information on the transfers.
Similar military support to Uganda and Tanzania was ruled to violate U.N. sanctions by a U.N. panel on North Korea.
According to the sources with access to details of the Angolan military transfers, a North Korean business, Saengpil Associated Co., is in the process of shipping engines and replacement parts for some of the 18 patrol boats that were built for the Angolans since 2011.
Saengpil is part of North Korea’s Green Pine Associated Corp., which has been sanctioned in the past by the United Nations. Both entities are part of the Reconnaissance General Bureau, the North Korean covert action and intelligence organization.
The Saengpil representative behind the military transfers was identified as Kim Hyok-chan, who has been working in Angola since 2008 and has been the lead official in charge of the arms deals between the two countries. Mr. Kim also is a second secretary at the North Korean Embassy in Luanda, the Angolan capital.
North Korean agreements for the patrol boats date to August 2009, when Angolan technicians were trained on repair and maintenance. Construction of the patrol boats, described as PB 100s, began in March 2011. Renewal of the accord for repair and maintenance was concluded in January 2013.
Saengpil is preparing to ship 4.5 tons of patrol boat repair materials via container to Luanda Bay through a North Korean front company in China identified as Beijing New Technology Trading. The goods were described as stainless steel pipes, bolts and nuts that are regarded as dual-use civilian-military items but are to be used for the patrol boats.
Beijing New Technology has been used by the official North Korean firm Changgwang Trading representatives in China as a key vehicle for circumventing U.N. sanctions. Both the U.S. government and the United Nations have sanctioned Changgwang.
Additionally, eight boat engines believed to be destined for the patrol boats are in the process of being sold to the Angolans by Pyongyang. The motors are being disguised in shipping documents as exhaust-gas-related equipment.
The engines are being sent to an Angolan military company known as “MGA/FAA Company Angola.” MGA is the navy company Marinha de Guerra Angola, and FAA is the acronym for the Angolan Armed Forces.
Angolan Embassy and North Korean U.N. mission officials did not return emails seeking comment.
The Obama administration has taken no action in response to reports of North Korean sanctions evasions and violations.
A State Department spokeswoman declined to comment on the illicit military trade between North Korea and Angola. U.N. spokesmen had no immediate comment and referred questions to Spain’s ambassador to the United Nations, Roman Oyarzun, who heads the U.N. sanctions committee on North Korea. Florentino Sotomayor, press counselor at the Spanish U.N. mission, declined to comment.
Hugh Griffiths, head of the U.N. Panel of Experts, also could not be reached for comment.
Support over two decades
Military training by North Korea in Angola includes the dispatch of military instructors who have been providing various support for the past 20 years.
The military advisers normally return to North Korea in December and return to Angola in March. They are housed in a building across the street from the headquarters of the Presidential Guard Unit, known as UGP.
Ten North Korean military trainers are providing martial arts and firearms training to Angolan guards at the Futungo section of Luanda. Another group of 30 North Korean military instructors are engaged in firearms training at a UGP training camp in the Benfica section of Luanda.
The most recent report from the U.N. Panel of Experts on North Korea published in February said similar North Korean police training for Uganda’s security forces violated a 2009 U.N. Security Council resolution. The U.N. sanctions ban “exporting technical training, advice, services, or assistance related to the provision, manufacture, maintenance or use of all arms or materiel.”
The 2009 sanctions were imposed after North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test.
Similarly, an earlier panel report from March 2014 stated that Tanzania’s air force was allowing 18 North Korean military technicians to refurbish Tanzania’s F-7 jet fighters and other military aircraft, also in violation of the 2009 sanctions.
The sources said both Uganda and Tanzania have agreed to halt the military cooperation with the North Koreans, but U.N. officials could not confirm that.
“Based on these cases, North Korea’s support for military training in Angola can be considered illicit activity as well,” said one diplomat.
Bruce E. Bechtol, a former Defense Intelligence Agency official who specialized in North Korean issues, said a large number of countries in Africa continue to use Soviet-era weapons from the 1960s and 1970s, and limited budgets have prevented new arms purchases.
“Thus, North Korea has found a very profitable market for proliferating the vast array of conventional, Soviet-era weapons that it continues to manufacture indigenously,” said Mr. Bechtol, now a professor at Angelo State University. “North Korea is selling everything from tanks to rifles and ammunition, and is also refurbishing many of these older systems for a number nations in Africa.”
Pyongyang also provided military training for several types of units in Africa, and payment is often made in the form of commodities, although cash is also used.
“As in other regions worldwide, North Korea has compiled a sophisticated set of front companies in a network that continues to generate money for the Kim regime,” Mr. Bechtol said. “While arms sales to Iran and Syria have tended to lead the headlines regarding North Korea’s proliferation, their activities in Africa are also very important in bringing in funds and commodities” for North Korea.
The U.N. panel’s report from February said North Korea continues “to defy Security Council resolutions by persisting with its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.” The panel also said it “sees no evidence that the country intends to cease prohibited activities and found widespread evidence of resilience and adaptation in [North Korea‘s] efforts to circumvent the measures imposed by the relevant resolutions.”
North Korean “diplomats, officials, and trade representatives continue to play key roles in facilitating the trade of prohibited items, including arms and related materiel and ballistic missile-related items,” the report said. “In addition to brokering activities, they often serve as shipping companies’ agents or cash carriers.”
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.The Telangana government has decided to set up Minorities Study Circle in Hyderabad to prepare students from minority communities for competitive exams. It is one of the measures being taken by the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government for education and economic development of minorities. The minorities welfare department on Monday issued orders in this regard.
The study circle will give coaching to students for various competitive exams including Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), staff selection commission, armed forces recruitment, central public sector undertakings, railway recruitment board and Telangana state public service commission. The orders noted that the percentage of minorities in the job market, government/private sector is very low.
"Students from minority community are often handicapped because of their extreme educational backwardness to access better opportunities in the employment sectors of state/central governments and private sector," said the orders issued by state Minorities Welfare Secretary Omer Jaleel.
J. L. B. Haripriya, deputy collector working in the Wakf Board, will hold additional charge of the director of the study circle. The Minorities Study Circle will initially share course material and faculty from AP Study Circle and B.C. Study Circle. The faculty may also be engaged from other institutions.Final Score: World 150, U.S. 141
Most Valuable Player: Jamal Murray
Game Info: Box Score, Video Highlights
Postgame Conference: Jamal Murray
More: NBA All-Star 2017 complete coverage
NEW ORLEANS — The World is back on top, at least when it comes to the BBVA Rising Stars Challenge.
In year three of the USA against the World format, the World came from behind to grab a 150-141 win, thanks to big performances from New Orleans Pelicans guard Buddy Hield and Denver guard Jamal Murray.
Murray, a Canadian native, got hot late and knocked down a total of nine threes, finishing the game with 36 points in 20 minutes and winning game MVP honors. The Bahamas native Hield went for 28 points and 6 boards, but took a back seat to Murray down the stretch as Murray couldn’t seem to miss.
“I was just shooting like I normally shoot,” Murray understated after the game. “I wasn’t trying to think about MVP or how many points I had, I was just playing."
He later admitted, “I wasn’t second-guessing. I was just taking heat checks.”
While Hield admitted he harbored hopes of winning the MVP award in front of his home NBA crowd, even he was impressed by Murray’s offensive exploits. “When a guy is hot, you can’t be selfish and not give the guy the ball,” Hield said of Murray’s performance. “Hats off to him, man.”
“It was easy for [Murray]” down the stretch, said World coach Mike Brown. “Every time he’d get the ball, his teammates were yelling, ‘Don’t pass Jamal! Don’t pass!’”
Since adopting the U.S. against the World format, the teams had previously split the results. After a 121-112 win by the World in 2015, the U.S. bounced back with a 157-154 win in 2016. The lone common thread has been MVP performances by players from the Minnesota Timberwolves—Andrew Wiggins in 2015, and Zach LaVine in 2016.
The World team led 77-66 at the half, but Team USA pulled ahead in the second half behind the play of Charlotte’s Frank Kaminsky and San Antonio’s Jonathon Simmons. Kaminsky finished with 27 points to lead Team USA, and Minnesota’s Karl-Anthony Towns finished with 24 points and 11 boards.The Kremlin has demanded that Fox News apologises for referring to Vladimir Putin as “a killer” during an interview with Donald Trump.
Fox host Bill O’Reilly made the comments while speaking to the President before the Super Bowl, when he asked him about US-Russian relations.
Mr Trump said he “respects” the Russian President and added: “It’s better to get along with Russia than not”.
We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view. From 15p €0.18 $0.18 $0.27 a day, more exclusives, analysis and extras.
Mr O’Reilly responded by saying: “He’s a killer though. Putin’s a killer,” in an apparent reference to opponents of the Russian President who have been found dead and to military tactics deployed in Syria and Ukraine.
“There are a lot of killers. We got a lot of killers. What, do you think our country’s so innocent?” Mr Trump responded.
“Take a look at what we’ve done. We’ve made a lot of mistakes."
Mr Trump repeated his prior claim to have opposed the Iraq War – a statement not borne out by his varying comments in different interviews in the build-up to the invasion of Iraq.
But Mr Trump's defence of Mr Putin was not enough to appease the Russian Government.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “We consider the words of the Fox News host unacceptable and insulting.
“We would prefer to receive an apology to the Russian President from a respected TV station like that.”
It is not the first time Mr Trump has appeared to come to the defence of the Russian leader.
At the end of 2015, the host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe told Mr Trump that Mr Putin “kills journalists,” to which the unfazed then-Republican nomination candidate replied: “I think that our country does plenty of killing, too, Joe.
“I’ve always felt fine about Putin. He’s a strong leader. He’s a powerful leader."
At the end of January, Mr Trump and Mr Putin held their first official phone call, which was “good and constructive”, according to the Kremlin and “a significant start to improving the relationship between the United States and Russia,” according to the White House.
The Kremlin has said the first meeting between the two leaders may “happen in months to come” but not within “a matter of weeks”.
“Over the past years, the lack of mutual respect became the main reason for the deterioration of relations,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov added, saying it was vital that dialogue took place between the White House and Russia.
“This is what President Putin called for rather consistently but where unfortunately he did not see reciprocity over the past years,” Mr Peskov said.
Mr Trump has vehemently denied he is vulnerable to Russian influence because of the alleged existence of a “blackmail sex tape” which was referenced in an unsubstantiated dossier against him.
The Fox News interview on Sunday attracted criticism for drawing a moral equivalence between the actions of the US during conflicts such as the Iraq war and ex-KGB agent, Mr Putin.
Several Republicans took to Twitter to dispute Mr Trump’s view that US military operations and the Russian regime under Mr Putin are comparable.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on CNN: “Well, Putin is a former KGB.
“He's an agent. He's a thug. He was not elected in a way that most people would consider a credible election. The Russians annexed Crimea, invaded Ukraine, and messed around in our elections.
“No, I don't think there is any equivalency between the way the Russians conduct themselves and the way the United States does.”
We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view.
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Subscribe nowINDIANAPOLIS (WTHR) - In the neighborhood around Lynhurst Dr. and Minnesota St., some residents say the face on the mugshot we’re showing them is familiar.
"I recognized him and I've seen him around the neighborhood, but other than that, that's about it," one man told us.
But another man said he recognized the person in the picture.
"Well, it made my hair rise. My hair stood up on the back |
swam across Windermere as part of a Sport Relief fundraising challenge. Her fear before the swim was palpable; her struggle to keep going during her swim, unbearable to watch; and her semi-conscious state as she was removed from the water, shocking. The fact that she struggled to breathe or to lift her arms out of the water are fairly normal responses for an inexperienced swimmer plunged into cold water and almost certainly could have been avoided with more training and preparation. Despite assurances from Davina's team that she was fine and in no real danger, independent observers disagreed (see Dramatic end to Davina McCall’s swim stirs emotions among swimmers). Fortunately Davina recovered quickly and was soon on her bike.
But what will Davina's drama do for her perception of open water swimming, and what will it do for the thousands of people who saw her carried from the lake?
On one hand this is a timely reminder of the risks in open water swimming, especially in extremely cold conditions. Even with a wetsuit, boots, gloves and neoprene hat you can still get very cold and hypothermic. A wetsuit is some protection against the cold but it doesn't prevent all heat loss, nor does it stop cold water shock, which causes breathlessness and (in the unprepared) a sense of panic. With cold water swimming growing in popularity and increasing numbers of people swimming the same distance as Davina in colder water and without a wetsuit there's a danger we become blasé about the risks. Don't be.
On the other hand people could extrapolate from what they saw to conclude that all open water swimming is at best unpleasant, at worst extremely dangerous and requires superhuman abilities and mental resilience.
In our view, making your first open water swimming experience a winter one is a little foolish. Swimming in Windermere should be a wonderful and life-affirming experience. For most people it is. We wonder if Davina had any opportunity to savour the majestic surroundings and the beautiful, clear water. Did she, at any point in that swim, experience, notice and enjoy the electric tingle of fresh, cool water against her skin? Did she delight in the weightless calm that only swimming can give you? From what we saw, her experience was bad from beginning to end. Other people will have seen that and conclude open water swimming is not for them.
If you haven't yet tried open water swimming, please prepare properly and consider when and where you first do it. Make sure it's a positive experience that brings you back for more.
Davina, if you happen to read this, we would love to take you back to Windermere in the summer for a swim you'll remember for the right reasons, not the wrong ones.Label: Unsigned
Genre: Indie-infused Post-Dubstep
Members: Josh Thorn, James Sinclair, Joe Labanowski and David Callaby.
Sounds Like: James Blake, The Weeknd, Radiohead
Links: Facebook, Tumblr
Seasfire first came to our attention last month through BBC Introducing Bristol and have suddenly received a torrent of online press hailing them as a big tip for the coming year. Now it just seems like we’re jumping on the badwagon, but we do so unashamedly and it should stand testament to just how good we think they are. Now the tricky bit – pigeonholing their sound. Built on a haunting soundscape of (James) Blakean minimal beats, their songs are also lent a pop sensibility by Thorn’s gentle vocals and Labanowski’s piano-playing. It means they occupy a space between The Weeknd’s emotive ballads and Radiohead’s piano experimentation, brought up on a healthy diet of Bristolian chill. With their debut single Falling released on 27 February (video below), we expect to be hearing a lot more from these four. Seasfire are set to support Nathaniel Rateliff tonight at a sold out Communion evening at the Notting Hill Art Club, with Annie Eve also featuring. They’ll also be supporting Spector at The Louisiana, Bristol on 24 February – a must see in our opinion.The 55-year old man, who has not been named but who had worked at the restaurant in the coastal city of Gijon for seven years, was charged earlier this month with 14 counts of attempted murder and ordered to prison pending a judicial investigation.
Co-workers reported their colleague to police late last year when they became suspicious after repeatedly falling ill. The only staff at the Asturian restaurant not to share symptoms was the assistant cook and his girlfriend, who also worked there.
Police examined plates used by workers at the restaurant and detected traces of calcium cyanamide, a strong chemical used to treat chronic alcoholism that provokes nausea, dizziness and palpitations if mixed with alcohol and can have fatal results if taken long-term.
Police are re-examining the circumstances surrounding the death of the former cook at El Lavaderu bar and restaurant, a typical Sideria in the Cimadevilla district of Gijon, a coastal city in the northern region of Asturias.
The detained assistant cook is now under suspicion of causing the fatal heart attack of the former head chef who died in May 2011.
Police said they were considering exhuming his body and carrying out tests to see if calcium cyanamide may have caused his death.
The previous owner of the restaurant also suffered a heart attack before selling the premises last year, and his wife suffered repeated and mysterious bouts of ill-heath. Both fully recovered after leaving the establishment.
Another chef has been to hospital three times over the last year and several other kitchen workers have frequently called in sick.
Police in Gijon said they suspected a motive driven by "rancour" after reports that there had been frequent arguments in the kitchen.Those who accept the consensus that the Earth is warming due to human activity (anthropogenic global warming or AGW) point to declining Arctic sea ice as one line of evidence to support this conclusion. Those who do not accept the AGW consensus claim that Arctic sea ice is not declining, or at least we have insufficient data to reach such a conclusion.
What I like about this controversy is that it is about data. It is a fake controversy, driven by political ideology, but none-the-less we can sink our teeth into the data and see which side has the better position.
Arctic sea ice varies throughout the year, growing in the winter and melting in the summer. Therefore any year-to-year comparisons need to take this seasonal variation into account. Scientists use the summer minimum as one measure of the extent of Arctic sea ice for that year. You can also look at the winter maximum.
Sea ice can be measured in square miles, essentially the amount of area covered by ice. It can also be measured in thickness, and the two measures can be combined to calculate the overall volume of ice.
Very much like global temperatures, year-to-year variation is also a very noisy system, bouncing around based upon short term weather patterns. You really cannot make any reliable statements about what is happening to Arctic sea ice from any change over one or a few years. Again like global temperatures, if we want to detect any long term trend we need to look at what is happening over spans of time of about a decade.
So let’s look at the data. Here is a graph of annual arctic sea ice since we started keeping records in 1979:
You can easily see the short term variability, but also the long term downward trend is quite clear. This one line of evidence by itself does not prove AGW. But if we ask the purely factual question – is there a downward trend in Arctic sea ice, the answer in unequivocally yes. Added to other lines of evidence this trend does support the conclusion of AGW.
Here is another graph that is more dramatic, looking at total Arctic ice volume:
You can see the entire animation here, watching Arctic sea ice volume change from 1979 to 2014. Given how absolutely clear the data is, what are those who deny AGW saying? Well, they are focusing on the last few years because 2012 saw an extreme minimum, and so the few years since then have been higher than the 2012 minimum.
Already you should see the fallacy of this line of argument. As I stated – you can’t look at short term trends with such a noisy system. We need to average the data over at least a decade before the long term trend becomes statistically meaningful (before the signal can be pulled from the noise). It is easy to see this graphically. The chart above and the animation both show the noisy year-to-year variation but with a clear long term downward trend.
Deniers are also cherry picking. The year 2012 was a recent minimum, so starting there gives a false impression of a recent increase. This is just regression to the mean, however. It’s meaningless.
Further, it is not even an upward trend. Sea ice rebounded in 2013 compared to 2012 but then decreased in 2014 and this year as well, although is still above the 2012 minimum.
Another way to look at sea ice extent it to compare the current level to long term averages. In 2015 Arctic sea ice is trending more than two standard deviations below the average for 1981-2010.
So what are the deniers saying? From Steven Goddard at Real Science:
Red shows the September 2012 minimum extent. Green shows the current extent, which is likely the minimum for 2015. The Arctic has gained hundreds of miles of ice over the past three years, much of which is thick, multi-year ice. Nobel Prize winning climate experts and journalists tell us that the Arctic is ice-free, because they are propagandists pushing an agenda, not actual scientists or journalists.
The cherry picking is blatant and shameless. The “ice-free” comment is a reference to prior predictions that the Arctic may be ice free by 2015. This was not a consensus, just the most extreme predictions, the kind that tend to grab headlines. Extrapolating trends into the future is always difficult, especially in a noisy system. This, of course, says nothing about the data regarding what has already happened to Arctic sea ice.
Conclusion
Arctic sea ice is undeniably decreasing over the last 36 years. The long term trend is clear. Those who want to deny this trend, however, focus on short term data because you can cherry pick any conclusion you wish.
You don’t have to read far into the comments of any article on AGW to see the motivation. The top comment right now on the Real Science article reads:
The global warming hoax has never been about science, but a power grab instead for the UN. They need an excuse to override any country’s existing laws and constitutions, such as ours, all in the name of some great pending catastrophe. “We can’t be bothered with your freedoms. We need to save the world.” Yeah, right.
AGW deniers don’t really have a legitimate scientific point to make. Their position is based on the politics. I have argued previously that it is a flawed strategy to argue against the science when you disagree with the politics. It is a losing proposition – because you can’t fight with data. You can confuse, obfuscate, misdirect, and distort but eventually you will be buried in actual data, at which time you lose all credibility.
Deniers are also pseudoskeptics. They try to use the language and argument style of skeptics, but they distort the details to their agenda. This comment takes the irony prize:
I agree with what Stevengoddard says: NSIDC starts their graphs in 1979, which was the peak ice from the last half century. Only a complete clown would be fooled by such a fraudulent use of data.
No, 1979 is the starting point for the graph because that is when we started collecting data. It was not a cherry-picked peak. Some commenters also argue about whether 2 or 3 standard deviations is the proper cutoff to consider a trend statistically significant. This is a strategy of doubt and confusion. There is no one objective cutoff – as we get more data over a longer period of time our confidence will increase. Right now we are greater than two standard deviations, which is a reasonable level of confidence. You can always delay conclusions by pushing the threshold higher and higher. It’s never enough for deniers, however.
Those who are concerned with the politics of global warming should stop denying the science – it’s bad science and bad politics. Accept the science and then propose solutions which are more in line with your political values.
No matter what your political values, Arctic sea ice is decreasing (as is global ice).It was an unusual intervention. Masaharu Fukuyama, Japan’s equivalent of Brad Pitt, had just announced his marriage to fellow film star Kazue Fukiishi.
As messages congratulating the couple poured in, Japan’s chief cabinet minister had something rather more blunt to say to them.
“I hope this marriage inspires mothers to want to contribute to their country by feeling like they want to have more children,” said Yoshihide Suga. “Please have lots of children.”
Suga’s shocking remarks this autumn drew accusations that he was encouraging a return to the wartime era, when political leaders urged women to reproduce as a matter of duty.
But while his comments were inappropriate, they showed how deep the concern is about Japan’s low birth rate.
The country’s population has been shrinking since the 1990s. Its birth rate dropped to a record low of just over 1m in 2014, while the number of deaths climbed to just under 1.3m.
The demographic change can even be seen at the checkout. Sales of incontinence products outpaced nappies for the first time in the year to March 2013, according to Japanese healthcare giant Unicharm.
Japan's population is now projected to shrink from around 126m today to 87m in 50 years' time. At this rate, there will be no one left by 2500.
It’s not just the world’s third-largest economy that’s getting old. Germany started shrinking at the turn of the millennium, while in China - the world’s most populous nation - the number of working age people will shrink for the first time this year, according to HSBC.
Based on UN population estimates, the number of people in the developed world aged between 16 and 64 peaked in 2010, while the number of people aged 60 and over will exceed the number of children for the first time in 2047, and more than double from 841m in 2013 to two billion by 2050.
In the UK, the average age is expected to rise from 40 years in 2014 to 42.9 by mid-2039, when one in 12 people is projected to be aged 80 or over, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Looking further out, the 85 and overs will make up 7.4pc of the population by 2065, up from 2.4pc today and 0.7pc in 1965, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), the Government’s fiscal watchdog.
This has a number of serious implications.
First, growth is likely to be slower as labour forces shrink and smaller populations lead to less demand and lower medium term growth.
HSBC believes global potential growth will be 0.6 percentage points lower per year over the next decade compared with the past ten years as a result of demographic change.
“Without children being born to replenish both the workforce and potential consumers, the outlook for growth deteriorates significantly,” says James Pomeroy, an economist at the bank. “Having provided a dividend to global growth for decades, demographics will now pull down growth rates quite significantly”.
As tax bases and revenues shrink and the number of retirees grows, governments face the choice of borrowing more or giving out less to ensure the numbers add up.
"This is a very acute problem because for years Europe has been doing a sort of collective demographic suicide." Vitor Constâncio, ECB vice president
Demographic change also has implications for debt. For countries like Japan, which already has a debt share that is more than double the size of its economy, lower potential growth means the ratios can only get worse.
Policymakers are also worried about who will foot a growing health care and pensions bill as the number of retirees continues to increase.
According to the European Commission, the dependency ratio of people in the EU aged 65 and over to those aged between 15 and 64 is projected to increase from a current rate of 27.8pc to 50.1pc in 2060.
In other words, the bloc will move from having four working-age people to pay for every pensioner to about two within 50 years.
Vitor Constâncio, vice president of the European Central Bank, has described this as “collective demographic suicide”.
Governments face the stark reality of spending more on pensions and healthcare, at the detriment of other departments, or future generations will simply have to make do with less help from the state.
Chancellor George Osborne has linked the state pension age to longevity, meaning it will rise to 68 in the mid-2030s and 69 in the late-2040s.
But governments are already playing catch-up, says Pomeroy.
"At the end of the day I think if people want to have a comfortable retirement then they have to be prepared to pay what it costs." Martin Weale, Bank of England
“The retirement age in most developed markets is 65 years, and has been such for some time. However, taking the UK as an example, life expectancy, which was 69 years back in 1950 shortly after the inception of the basic state pension in 1948, has risen to roughly 81 today and should cross 85 before 2050,” he says.
“This means that instead of living on average for four years on a state pension, we’re now looking at closer to 20. That’s a fivefold increase in the strain on the state.”
Martin Weale, a policymaker at the Bank of England, suggests that the UK’s “pay-as-you-go” arrangements, whereby state benefits are paid out of contributions from current workers, may soon become a thing of the past.
“At the end of the day I think if people want to have a comfortable retirement then they have to be prepared to pay what it costs,” he says.
Gertjan Vlieghe, his colleague on the Monetary Policy Committee, will discuss the demographic challenge in a speech at the London School of Economics later this month.
Raising the retirement age is one thing though, whether people are healthy enough to keep on working is another.
Mark Pearson, deputy director for employment, labour and social affairs at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), says: “It is possible to do better in terms of getting people to work over the age of 65 in countries such as Japan and New Zealand - already they have 40pc of the population aged 65-69 in work. The UK is going to struggle to get there, because frankly our population isn’t healthy enough to work that long.”
Pearson cites a Scottish study that showed half of people had a chronic disease such as diabetes by the time they reached 60. By the age of 70, a third have three diseases.
“The fact is the UK is sicker than other countries, and raising the retirement age to 68 - if that is to mean something - we are going to have to try to keep people healthier for longer.”
According to the EC, a rise in age-related government expenditure is projected to cost the equivalent of 2pc of GDP in 2060, which will only be partially offset by a reduction in unemployment benefits as the labour force shrinks.
“Ageing-associated diseases or ‘diseases of the elderly’ are the primary cause [of chronic conditions] including cardiovascular disease, cancer and Alzheimer’s”, according to Sarbjit Nahal and Beijia Ma at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
“The incidence of all of these diseases increases rapidly with ageing, and sometimes exponentially, in the case of cancer”, where annual cases are expected to grow to 22m by 2030, from 12m in 2012, according to the World Health Organisation.
Another way to defuse the demographic time bomb is to have more children. Birth rates have fallen from five per woman in 1950 to 2.5 today, and are expected to fall to between 1.8 and 2.2 by 2050.
In many Asian countries such as Korea, where the birth rate has long been in decline, a focus on education means many couples believe they can’t afford to have more than one child.
Couples are also delaying having children, which affects fertility rates.
Policymakers in some countries have tried to reverse this decline by supporting families and creating financial incentives to have children.
In Finland, mothers gets a “baby box” full of essential items including clothes and nappies - the box can even be used as a cot.
Photo: Roni Rekomaa / AP
France introduced tax breaks, cash incentives and subsidised childcare to encourage people to have children. Money talks. France has the highest fertility rate in the EU, according to Eurostat.
Chinese policymakers are also finally waking up to its demographic decline. Policymakers claim a decision to let couples have two children will add an additional 30m people to China’s workforce by 2050 and lift growth by 0.5 percentage points, economists highlight that the benefits will not be felt until these children join the workforce - which is a generation away.
A more immediate solution is needed. Constâncio suggested in September that immigration could form part of the solution.
"While migration may be currently politically unpopular, especially in many parts of Europe, the implications in terms of growth cannot be ignored." James Pomeroy, HSBC
“To change the demographic trends, promoting birth is not enough. It also has to be done through immigration. If not, we’re creating a great difficulty to growth and to the welfare of future generations,” he said.
But the reality is that politics often trumps economics, and many countries are focussing on how to keep people out rather than let them in.
Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister, has described immigration as creating “a lot of unhappiness” and “friction” in countries that had accepted more people in. Britain is also trying to prevent too many people from coming in, with curbs on migrant benefits forming one of the cornerstones of prime minister David Cameron’s EU referendum negotiations.
“While migration may be currently politically unpopular, especially in many parts of Europe, the implications in terms of growth cannot be ignored,” says Pomeroy.
“The recent influx of immigrants could raise potential GDP growth in the eurozone by 0.2 percentage points per year. Beyond this, economic migrants - moving for better employment opportunity - can help to smooth population pyramids, increase the potential labour forces and stimulate growth.”
This is because migrants don’t just take jobs, they help to create new ones. Like the rest of the population, migrants eat, shop, and spend money in the economy, creating an extra 1.2 local jobs each, according to a recent academic study.
But policymakers must do more than just open the door. According to a report by the European Commission, integration of migrant workers into communities is essential to ensuring prosperity for all.
A survey by Germany’s Ifo think-tank showed that most companies believed the greatest employment potential for refugees was as unskilled workers, with only 22pc of the 3,000 firms polled believing they could do skilled work and just 3pc that saw “leadership potential”.
The biggest barrier was communication, with 92pc citing a lack of language skills as a barrier to employment, while 71pc cited a lack of qualifications.
“Much care needs to be taken over the integration of migrant workers into communities, labour forces and the education system to avoid ‘ghetto-isation’,” says Pomeroy. “Without such policies and integration, the full benefits may not be realised.”
Of course, these solutions will take time to bear fruit, and perhaps too long for politicians dealing with uneasy electorates over terms of five years at a time.
Demographic decline in advanced economies is one of the biggest challenges facing the world this century, and solutions will take at least a generation.
But without change, countries may find themselves sleepwalking into a new reality of permanently lower growth and higher debt.I have resisted, until now, the urge to write about the computer climate models that that dominate much of the global warming discourse. That is because it is almost impossible to discuss these models, and their flaws, without getting too technical or wonky.
But it is increasingly clear that the models are the linchpin of the theory of catastrophic man-made global warming theory. They are not just a piece of the evidence for future catastrophes, they are the only evidence.
How can this be, you say? There are seemingly thousands of studies coming out every week on various aspects of climate. And that is true. But note that I was careful when I focused my assertion around "the catastrophe."
Plenty of the issues that swirl around the climate debate can be proven without resorting to computer modelling, often from direct observation. We know the climate is changing all the time through history, and we know temperatures rise and fall (and have mostly risen over the last century). We also know that human emitted CO2, all things being equal, can warm the Earth as its atmospheric concentrations rise.
But what we know from direct observation does not get us to the threatened catastrophe. Direct observation in a laboratory of the greenhouse effect of CO2 leads us to believe that, all things being equal, CO2 will further warm the Earth about 1.2 degrees C for each doubling of its atmospheric concentration (the effect is logarithmic so the increase of CO2 from 300 to 600 ppm would have the same effect as the increase from 600 to 1200 ppm). This relationship between Earth's temperature and CO2 concentrations is called climate sensitivity, and based on this sensitivity of 1.2 we might expect only a degree of warming over the next century.
I encourage you to read my previous article on this topic before continuing if these concepts are new to you. Suffice it to say that this lab-measured temperature sensitivity to CO2 of about 1.2 falls well short of the catastrophe we've been threatened with in the press. Climate scientists must assume large numbers of amplifying effects to multiply this sensitivity three to five times or more to get the scary forecasts that we are used to seeing.
The evidence for these amplifying or "feedback" effects is at best equivocal. In part, this is because isolating and measuring these effects in the real, horrendously complex and chaotic climate is very hard.
Take an example from economics. If a Congressman tells you that his legislation will boost GDP by an extra half percent, is that credible? Probably not. The economy is wildly complex, and even after decades of trying, no one has found (and perhaps no one will ever find) a method for attributing output B to solely and directly to input A. That is why estimates of the effect of the Obama stimulus are all over the map. Economics, and climate, seldom offer opportunities for controlled experiments to test the effect of changing a single variable.
As a result, scientists have found no way to directly measure the actual, real-world change in temperature from a change in CO2. Sure, CO2 has increased over the last hundred years, but at the same time solar output, land use, ocean cycles, and a myriad of other drivers of climate and temperature have changed as well.
That is why a lot climate experimentation occurs within computers, rather than via direct observation of natural phenomena. For example, in the last IPCC report, their conclusion that most of the recent warming had probably been man-made was based mainly on computer study of the period between 1978 and 1998. They ran their models for this period both with and without manmade CO2, and determined that they could only replicate the temperature rise in this period with by including manmade CO2 in their models.
Believe it or not, that is the main evidence that global warming catastrophism is based on. Yes, I am sure you can raise all the concerns I have -- what if the computer models don't adequately model the climate? What if they leave out key factors or over-emphasize certain dynamics? Drawing firm conclusions from these models is like assuming you can be a rock star after winning a game of Guitar Hero.
But it is when these models are used to project catastrophic outcomes in the future that they are perhaps the most suspect. Scientists often act as if the projected warming from various CO2 forecasts is just an output of the models -- in other words, "we built in a sophisticated understanding of how the climate works and out pops a lot of warming." And in the details this is true. The timing and regional distribution of the warming tends to be a fairly unpredictable product of the model. But the approximate magnitude of the warming is virtually pre-determined. It turns out that climate sensitivity, the overall amount of warming we can expect from a certain rise in CO2 concentrations, is really an input to most models.
This means that the inputs of the model are set such that a climate sensitivity of, say, 4 degrees per doubling is inevitable. The model might come up with 4.1 or 3.9, but one could have performed a quick calculation on the inputs and found that, even without the model, the answer was already programmed to be close to 4. Rather than real science, the climate models are in some sense an elaborate methodology for disguising our uncertainty. They take guesses at the front-end and spit them out at the back-end with three-decimal precision. In this sense, the models are closer in function to the light and sound show the Wizard of Oz uses to make himself seem more impressive, and that he uses to hide from the audience his shortcomings.
But this raises a question -- if the climate sensitivity to CO2 in the models is essentially an arbitrary input set to the modeler's whims, how do these models replicate history? After all, they are all checked against historic temperature and CO2 data and all the models used by the IPCC do a pretty good job of replicating past temperature history given past CO2 levels.
Nearly a decade ago, when I first started looking into climate science, I began to suspect the modelers were using what I call a "plug" variable. I have decades of experience in market and economic modeling, and so I am all too familiar with the temptation to use one variable to "tune" a model, to make it match history more precisely by plugging in whatever number is necessary to make the model arrive at the expected answer.
When I looked at historic temperature and CO2 levels, it was impossible for me to see how they could be in any way consistent with the high climate sensitivities that were coming out of the IPCC models. Even if all past warming were attributed to CO2 (a heroic acertion in and of itself) the temperature increases we have seen in the past imply a climate sensitivity closer to 1 rather than 3 or 5 or even 10 (I show this analysis in more depth in this video).
My skepticism was increased when several skeptics pointed out a problem that should have been obvious. The ten or twelve IPCC climate models all had very different climate sensitivities -- how, if they have different climate sensitivities, do they all nearly exactly model past temperatures? If each embodies a correct model of the climate, and each has a different climate sensitivity, only one (at most) should replicate observed data. But they all do. It is like someone saying she has ten clocks all showing a different time but asserting that all are correct (or worse, as the IPCC does, claiming that the average must be the right time).
The answer to this paradox came in a 2007 study by climate modeler Jeffrey Kiehl. To understand his findings, we need to understand a bit of background on aerosols. Aerosols are man-made pollutants, mainly combustion products, that are thought to have the effect of cooling the Earth's climate.
What Kiehl demonstrated was that these aerosols are likely the answer to my old question about how models with high sensitivities are able to accurately model historic temperatures. When simulating history, scientists add aerosols to their high-sensitivity models in sufficient quantities to cool them to match historic temperatures. Then, since such aerosols are much easier to eliminate as combustion products than is CO2, they assume these aerosols go away in the future, allowing their models to produce enormous amounts of future warming.
Specifically, when he looked at the climate models used by the IPCC, Kiehl found they all used very different assumptions for aerosol cooling and, most significantly, he found that each of these varying assumptions were exactly what was required to combine with that model's unique sensitivity assumptions to reproduce historical temperatures. In my terminology, aerosol cooling was the plug variable.
The problem, of course, is that matching history is merely a test of the model -- the ultimate goal is to accurately model the future, and arbitrarily plugging variable values to match history is merely gaming the test, not improving accuracy.
This is why, when run forward, these models seldom do a very credible job predicting the future. None, for example, predicted the flattening of temperatures over the last decade. And when we look at the results of these models, or at least their antecedents, from twenty years ago, they are nothing short of awful. NASA's James Hansen famously made a presentation to Congress in 1988 showing his model runs for the future, all of which show 2011 temperatures well above what we actually measure today.
Climate modelers will argue that their models have gotten better over the last 20 years. But I would argue that they, just like our economic models, still fall well short of accurately modelling tremendously complex processes. Worse, they continue to repeat the mistake of assuming their conclusion, choosing their constants in a way that guarantee certain warming answers. In the last 20 years they may have added a lot of lines of code, but have added little accuracy. After all, adding a few more special effects to the Wizard of Oz's light show doesn't make him a better wizard.Going into Monday, leftists and celebrities tried to persuade electors in the Electoral College to vote for anyone but President-elect Donald Trump. It’s all the media has covered, but hiding underneath that remains the disdain and anger Democrats have for their own party.
When electors met to vote, several electors for the Democrats defected or attempted to defect. Seven electors tried to vote against Hillary with four succeeding in Washington. Trump easily won with 304 electoral votes.
Hillary Clinton now has the most faithless electors of any presidential nominee in the 20th and 21st centuries. She made history! pic.twitter.com/0vmHSWXFyh — Thomas Wictor (@ThomasWictor) December 19, 2016
The insurrection was far smaller in the Republican camp.
Chris Suprun, who wrote in The New York Times that he would not vote for Trump, voted for John Kasich instead. Another person voted for Ron Paul, but overall, Texas gave Trump 36 electoral votes, pushing him to 304 votes, well over the 270 needed.
Two. After all the commotion from the media and leftists, Trump lost two.
In Washington, Hillary won 8 electoral votes, but four people defected: 3 voted for former Secretary of State Colin Powell and another voted for Faith Spotted Eagle, an elder in the Yankton Dakota tribe. That vote belonged to Robert Satiacum of Washington’s Puyallup Tribe. He supported Bernie Sanders during the primary.
So who is Faith Spotted Eagle? From The Seattle Times:
Speaking to CNN earlier this year at the Standing Rock Sioux camp near the intended Dakota Access Pipeline path, the elder said the fight over the North Dakota land would be “a battle that’s not going to stop.” “I think it’s a rebirth of a nation, and I think that all of these young people here dream that one day they would live in a camp like this, because they heard the old people telling the stories of living along the river,” she said. “… They’re living the dream.” Running a pipeline through Native Americans’ sacred lands is no different than if one were built through Arlington National Cemetery, she told CNN. “You don’t disturb people that have been put to rest.”
The Seattle Times also reported that this incident is “the first time in four decades that any of the state’s electors has broken from the popular vote for president.”
From Heavy.com:
Maine – Maine and Nebraska are the only states that split their electoral votes. In Maine, Trump earned 1 electoral vote and Clinton earned 3. One of Clinton’s electors, David Bright, announced on Facebook that he was giving his electoral vote to Bernie Sanders. He tried to do just that, but he was ruled out of order and the vote was recast, forcing him to vote for Hillary Clinton instead.
Colorado had a defector as well:
But Micheal Baca, a Democratic Colorado elector who was among the leaders of that effort, cast a vote for Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich, anyway — just moments after he took an oath to vote for Clinton. He was one of six so-called “faithless electors” across the country on Monday. The scene at the Colorado capitol dissolved into a chorus of boos and shouts as the tally was announced and officials moved to replace Baca, as allowed under procedures outlined in a court hearing last week. “You did not do your job,” one woman shouted at the electors who voted for Clinton, as others began to chant Baca’s name.
Minnesota also lost an elector:EDIT 2017-03/09: Update with quote-fix fixing the CTD:s after most battles, UI-image fix fixing CTD:s for Lannisters when they recruit units using these pictures with too large sizes (has been changed) and EDB recruitment done!
EDIT as of 28/08-2017 - New MAC-compatible GoT:TW Enhanced version 4.9 uploaded!
- made Mac-compatible by TomSrx!
- An installer has been made for both the CD and Steam versions of the mod!
- Installer by Gigantus!
- More info down below.
Before starting the mod for the first time:
ALWAYS remove the rvm-file inside of GoT_Enhanced/data/world/maps/base - Otherwise the mod will CTD when trying to enter the campaign no matter what you do.
When done with the above, and if you want to play the campaign, start a new campaign or load a campaign:
Always start a quickbattle/custom battle and exit - then after you have done this (each time when you start the mod) the campaign will start up just fine.
With some factions you don't need to do this always - but there is a bug and the best way to avoid it is by starting and exiting a quickbattle first.
Also, never use "Auto Manage Everything" because that will cause the game to CTD alot for certain factions.
Game of Thrones Submod for Westeros Total War, v. 4.9 (For windows).
Game of Thrones Submod for Westeros Total War, v. 4.9 (For MAC |
illicit economic relationship with the isolated nation — a touchy subject in Washington, given Pyongyang's advancing nuclear weapons program and antagonism toward the United States.
Last week, reports detailing an alleged arms deal worth $100 million between North Korea and a company in the United Arab Emirates resurfaced online. Then on Tuesday, UAE rival Qatar was accused of having a “dangerous” relationship with North Korea in an op-ed published in the Hill newspaper.
[North Korea could cross ICBM threshold next year, U.S. officials warn in new assessment]
There's at least some truth to both allegations. Details of the sale of North Korean weapons to an Emirati company were revealed in a 2015 leak of UAE government emails first reported by the New York Times; the emails showed that Yousef al-Otaiba, the UAE ambassador to the United States, was summoned to a meeting with the State Department because of the deal.
It's true, too, that Qatar is believed to be one of a number of nations that use North Korean migrant workers: There was once estimated to be 3,000 in the country. A spokesman for Qatar's Government Communications Office said that no new visas have been given for North Korean nationals since 2015 and that around 1,000 North Korean nationals in the country will leave when their visas end.
"Qatar is in compliance with all UN sanctions against North Korea," the spokesman said.
But both reports also fit into an ongoing propaganda war in the Persian Gulf. The UAE link to North Korea resurfaced thanks to the Washington-based Gulf Affairs Institute — a think tank ran by Saudi dissident Ali al-Ahmed — and was promoted by a number of Qatar-leaning publications. Meanwhile, the Hill op-ed was written by Salman Al-Ansari of the Saudi American Public Relation Affairs Committee, a Saudi lobbying group.
[Sen. Bob Corker explains decision to possibly strip North Korea from Russia sanctions bill]
With the Trump administration seemingly split on how to deal with the crisis, extensive efforts are being made to influence the opinion of U.S. lawmakers and the general public.
“I think that a key objective of the media campaign, for all parties, is to win over hearts and minds in the Beltway echo chamber, which is why we are seeing the proliferation of stories guaranteed to resonate strongest among decision-makers,” said Kristian Ulrichsen, a Persian Gulf expert at the U.S.-based Baker Institute for Public Policy, pointing to a recent documentary about alleged Qatari links to al-Qaeda.
Right now, North Korea is an especially volatile issue. Earlier this week, The Washington Post reported that U.S. officials expect Pyongyang to be able to build a nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile as early as next year — a possibility that some consider a direct threat to the mainland United States.
[Not so isolated: North Korea’s elite uses Gmail, Facebook and iTunes]
The link between the conflict in the gulf and North Korean weapons isn't completely arbitrary, expert say. “These articles need to be placed within the context of the information war, but at the same time, this point regarding is extremely serious,” said Theodore Karasik, a senior adviser with Washington-based Gulf State Analytics.
The Trump administration has pushed countries to restrict their economic relationship with North Korea in line with sanctions. While particular attention has been paid to China, North Korea's most significant trading partner, lower-profile relationships have also been targeted. In a recent announcement of sanctions on Sudan, the State Department explicitly mentioned North Korea and suggested that the African nation was not fully committed to implementing United Nations sanctions on the country — an apparent reference to defense trade agreements made between Khartoum and Pyongyang.
Andrea Berger, a senior research associate at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, says that it is possible that the UAE or Qatar could face a similar U.S. response if the issue catches steam. “The U.S. could fire warning shots by sanctioning additional individuals or companies in the region acting in breach of U.S. or U.N. sanctions on North Korea,” Berger said. “Behind the scenes, Washington may also threaten more substantial and visible penalties if those warnings are not swiftly heeded.”
If the United States wants to be consistent in doing so, however, it may have to look outside the lens of the Qatar. The strongest economic relationship for North Korea among the Arab states of the Persian Gulf states is most likely Kuwait, a country that has tried to stay out of the dispute and is an important U.S. ally in the region.
While Washington has long looked the other way, two interlocking crises half the world away may force the Trump administration to reconsider.
More on WorldViews
UAE touts film linking rival Qatar to 9/11 attacks
The U.S. extended sanctions on Sudan — but North Korea might be the real targetThis is one of the those places that if people only knew existed, would be an absolute hot spot on the global watch lovers tour. Sitting above Breguet's beautiful boutique on the Place Vendôme in Paris is a Breguet museum, and a remarkably impressive one at that. It's a museum that until I visited it this past week, I, frankly, did not even know existed. And if you're a fan of horology at all, it is nothing short of a "must-see". Here's why:
Breguet as we know it today is a large and somewhat secretive manufacture of high-end timepieces. They regularly tout themselves as some of the finest watches in the world, and they've spent a literal fortune on ensuring that watch lovers en masse know this is indeed the brand founded by Abraham-Louis Breguet, indisputably the most important watchmaker that ever lived. That's all well and good, but it's very easy to gloss over all that without actual SEEING the connection between the Swatch-owned Breguet of today and the watchmaker to the king(s, queens, generals, and all around bad-asses) of yesteryear - you can see it remarkably clearly at the Breguet museum in Paris.Mary Ellen Matthews/NBC
In one of his last appearances on the season finale of “Saturday Night Live,” a rapping Andy Samberg traded a rhyme with Chris Parnell that seemed loaded with underlying meaning: “On these New York streets I hone my fake rap penmanship / That’s how it began, and that’s how I’m-a finish it.”
This lyric from “Lazy Sunday 2″ was not only a bookend to the hit series of digital shorts that Mr. Samberg helped pioneer during his seven-season career on “S.N.L.”; it was also, as many had suspected, his farewell to that NBC late-night sketch series.
On Friday, Mr. Samberg confirmed that he will not be returning as a cast member on the next season of “Saturday Night Live.”
“It’s an incredibly emotional and strange moment in my life,” Mr. Samberg said Friday in a telephone interview. “Obviously it’s not a huge shock, but I did officially decide not to come back.”
Not long after joining “S.N.L.” in the fall of 2005, Mr. Samberg and his frequent collaborators Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer (who as a trio comprise the comedic hip-hop group the Lonely Island) delivered their first hit viral video for the show: “Lazy Sunday,” a rap video in which Mr. Samberg and Mr. Parnell rhyme about their enthusiasm for unthreatening cultural offerings like Red Vines licorice and the children’s adventure movie “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.”
Other successes followed, including “I’m on a Boat,” “I Just Had Sex” and a collaboration with Justin Timberlake about the surprising gifts they put in boxes and offer to their paramours.
Leaving the show was “one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made,” said Mr. Samberg, who added that he had come to this conclusion with some counsel from Kristen Wiig, an “S.N.L.” veteran who exited the show with a bittersweet Rolling Stones sing-along at the end of the season.
“She kept saying it just feels like it’s her time,” Mr. Samberg said. “I connect with that. Something about it just feels like it’s the moment. My contract’s up and I did so much more than I ever thought I would ever even do.”
Mr. Samberg left open the possibility that he and his Lonely Island partners might still contribute occasional shorts or other works to future “S.N.L.” episodes. “That’s the kind of thing that I really do hope happens,” he said.
With a coming schedule of roles in summer movies like “That’s My Boy” and “Celeste and Jesse Forever,” Mr. Samberg said he looked forward to dodging the now-inevitable questions about when he might return to “Saturday Night Live” as a host.
“Well, hopefully things will work out well enough that they’ll want me,” he said.As I write this, activist Shaun King’s name is trending on Twitter…nationwide. If you are unfamiliar, with all the incidents of police brutality plaguing our nation, King has been a voice within the Black Lives Matter movement. And he doesn’t just have swift Twitter fingers, he’s about that work in real life as well.
King was also set to launch a new organization called the Justice Coalition, which seeks to end police brutality in this country by forming policy teams and launching an additional website to tell the true stories of how police brutality effects its victims.
But he’s not trending because of these new initiatives. He’s trending because people want to know if he’s really Black like he claims to be. They want to know if he’s “the next Rachel Dolezal.” And we all know how she dominated the news cycle for a good two weeks.
Breitbart, a right-winged, conservative news aggregation site named after its founder, Andrew Breitbart, alleged that King, who has said he has a White mother and a Black father, lied about being bi-racial. They believe he lied about his ethnicity to get a scholarship to Morehouse from Oprah Winfrey. They also claim he lied about being in a car accident and being attacked by racists during his high school years in rural Kentucky.
Breitbart said he obtained a copy of his birth certificate that seems to list a White man as his father.
The story blew up from there. You know folks love to have the tea. And in their quest to join the hashtag or unearth a scandal, many never even took the time to consider the source.
As a journalism major we were taught to question everything. When I was interning for a copywriter at MSNBC, she told me, “If your mother tells you she loves you, get a second opinion.” That’s the mindset we were trained to adopt when attempting to process new information.
Today, when I heard that it was Breitbart that was trying to call Shaun King a liar, I immediately doubted the notion. Not so much because I question everything I hear and read. Admittedly, I’ve become more and more lax on that front, but because I know the recent history of the publication.
For those who were paying attention to the news during the summer of 2010, you may remember Breitbart was the same publication that infamously cost Shirley Sherrod her job with the Department of Agriculture.
Breitbart obtained excerpts from a speech Sherrod gave at an NAACP event. The site chopped and screwed the video and painted Sherrod as a racist. When in actuality, her speech warned people not to let their personal prejudices stand in the way of helping someone and developing quality friendships.
But everyone trusted Breitbart. Instead of watching the whole video for themselves, the story spread like wildfire. FoxNews led the way and then a New York CBS affiliate picked it up and then the Atlanta Journal Constitution. By that afternoon, Sherrod received numerous emails from government officials asking her to submit her resignation. The NAACP stepped forward saying they condemned her remarks. And her superiors told her The White House requested that she resign immediately.
And it was all a lie, for nothing. A conservative, White publication said something was true, put up a few video clips and a Black woman, who wasn’t even given the opportunity to tell her side of the story, lost her job because of it.
In all honesty, the Shaun King receipts seem plausible, just like the Sherrod receipts did five years ago. A White man on your birth certificate is pretty convincing.
But Breitbart is something like a MediaTakeout for conservative White folks. The story looks good on the surface, but when you do your own investigation, it’s bullshit. And for whatever reason, their rumors don’t just stir up drama and kick up mess, they cause emotional and psychological damage. Sherrod lost her job and was publicly shamed by her people and the government. At the end of the day everybody looked like fools, had to issue apologies, including The White House, and Breitbart, the site and the man, likely reveled in the exposure and visits to their website.
Judging by the way the story about Shaun King took off, their credibility didn’t even suffer.
And that is the very problem King is fighting against. We talk about Black Lives mattering and having value. But when it’s our word against a White man’s we discover we’re still less credible, inferior. It’s devastating when people, particularly Black people, are so ready and willing to believe something just because a White man said it.
I know I’ve referenced this before, but the same thing happened when Barack Obama was running for President. Black folks wanted to vote for him but didn’t think he stood a chance of winning. But when he took Iowa, when they saw that White folks were cosigning him, then all of a sudden we felt comfortable to support our own.
Y’all we don’t need the White man’s cosign anymore.
And we need to question the coverage of Black people on all media platforms, particularly when the only time Black people are mentioned is when someone is attempting to discredit us.
By now you might be wondering did Shaun address his racial makeup. He did, via his Twitter page.
Later, another Twitter user posted this picture as a response.
Boom.
If you can’t tell that that’s a Black man, then I’m going to need you to just click out and have a nice day.
It was a friend of King’s who offered a bit more explanation about his background on Facebook. You can read the whole thing here; and you should, but this part seems to be of particular importance.
And to question his race? Since the third grade, Shaun has had to deal with whispers as to his racial make-up. Whispers that no adult helped him deal with or process. Yes, that includes his mother. Shaun got called “Nigger” just as much, if not more, than myself or any of my black friends and family while growing up in Versailles. Do you think an 8 year old would volunteer for that type of treatment? A funny colored, wavy haired child just trying to navigate life? To have anything from racial slurs to cups full of dip-spit (chewing tobacco) hurled at you from confederate flag covered pick-up trucks? And then 20 years later have some right wing assholes question whether it ever happened and go as far as to call you a fraud and try to de-bunk years of social justice work that you’ve put under your belt? We grew up in a town where white mothers were constantly dis-owned by their families for having relationships and making children with black fathers. Where even into the 2000’s, the racial identities of mix-raced children were a taboo topic. Shaun was a direct victim of that. 20 years later, much progress has been made in my town of Versailles, but we are proving we have much further to go if people from my home town don’t speak the fuck up.
Honestly, at first I was wondering why he didn’t just explain explicitly. But this made it clear for me. He doesn’t owe us his story. He’s not another Rachel Dolezal trying to get shine by identifying with an oppression she willingly adopted. He’s about this life.
And it’s a shame that instead of riding for Shaun like he’s been riding for us, we were quick to start making memes, questioning his work and retweeting a story that was meant to undermine and distract from the very issues that are killing us.
I don’t believe in supporting unscrupulous people simply because they’re Black, but when White folks start going hard against Black revolutionaries, we should question the source, the motives and make sure the receipts check out.
Published on MadameNoire.comThe Orlando Magic had their most proactive offseason in over half a decade this summer, but how much have they improved their roster for the future?
With five straight seasons of finishing bottom of their division and no All-Star level talent emerging from their numerous draft pics, the Orlando Magic had to shake things up this summer.
They did just that, and moved quickly to can previous general manager Rob Hennigan mere days after the regular season ended.
In came respected GM John Hammond, formerly of the Milwaukee Bucks, and new president of basketball operations Jeff Weltman, who spent the previous four years with the Toronto Raptors.
Despite remaining quiet in the lead up to the NBA Draft, once they took Jonathan Isaac with the sixth pick, moves came at a more rapid pace. Here we grade each move for the team.Lawmakers who were early champions of a U.S. strike on Assad regime targets in Syria have stayed mum as video clips emerge appearing to show opposition soldiers both killing unarmed men and indicating they have possession of chemical weapons.
The latest, a video on InfoWars.com, purported to show a rebel militant in Syria claiming to have chemical weapons, and saying he's willing to target women and children. The video, which FoxNews.com has not been able to independently authenticate, only adds to the confusion over which side has the moral high ground and the reasons for U.S. military action in Syria.
President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry made the case for American involvement based on evidence they claim shows Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime using chemical weapons against hundreds of children, and others. Videos were released to the media and seemed to show children disoriented, crying and writhing around in pain on makeshift cots.
Few outside the Assad regime and its closest allies have challenged American claims that the Syrian government was most likely behind the attack. But the powerful images which shaped the early case for a military mission are being countered with videos showing deadly and questionable acts on the other side.
Multiple requests seeking comment on the videos to 21 lawmakers who were initially vocal about supporting a strike were not returned. The list includes: Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
On Thursday, Fox News reported on another video posted on a pro-Syrian regime website showing rebel commanders talking about their own “red line” after the government launched a chemical attack against civilians in August.
Obama had used the phrase “red line” last year to describe any use of chemical weapons in Syria.
The video was analyzed by Fox News Middle East specialist Walid Phares, as well as a separate Pentagon expert. According to both sources, one of the men in the video is identified as a deputy to General Salim Idris, leader of the Free Syrian Army, the same group some members of Congress hailed as a moderate in their push for U.S. action.
Yigal Carmon, the president of the Middle East Media Research Institute, who also reviewed the tape, said, "The message is if the West doesn't act, we (the rebels) too will have no red lines, and will use chemical weapons."
If authentic, the videos could cause problems for the administration as it argues the Assad regime -- and the Assad regime alone -- must be punished for violating "international norms" with the use of chemical weapons.
On Thursday, The New York Times published a front-page story as well as an online video smuggled out of Syria showing rebel fighters executing seven unarmed government soldiers.
The footage shows Syrian rebels holding firearms and standing over seven shirtless, kneeling male prisoners with their hands tied behind their backs and their heads pressed to the ground. The video goes to black as the men are executed one by one.
Idris, speaking to Fox News via Skype from an undisclosed location on Friday, said the footage was a year old and didn’t reflect the majority of rebels.
Still, Obama seemed resolved in his decision to push forward with a strike.
"There are times where we have to make hard choices if we're going to stand up for the things we care about," Obama said at a press conference in St. Petersburg, Russia, during the G-20 global economic summit Friday. "I was under no illusions when I embarked on this path, but I think it's the right thing to do."Christie, R. & Geis, F. (1970) "Studies in Machiavellianism". NY: Academic Press.
This is an interactive version of the MACH-IV test of Machiavellianism.Niccolò Machiavelli was an Italian politician and philosopher in the Renaissance who is famous for his advocacy of political ethics that views effectiveness as more important that morality. He is the source of the phrase "the ends justify the means".In the 1960s, social psychologists Richard Christie and Florence L. Geis collected statements from Machiavelli's writings and asked people how much they agreed with each. From their research they concluded that Machiavellianism exists as a distinct personality trait. They published the MACH-IV to measure this trait in 1970 and it has been a popular instrument ever since and correlates with many things The test consists of twenty items. Each item is a statement that you must indicate how accurate it would be when applied to you. It should take 2 - 5 minutes to complete.This test is offered for educational interest use only. It is not a substitute for psychological help of any kind and should not be used to inform any real life decisions. Anonymous data collected from this test will be stored and possibly used for research or otherwise distributed.Hillary Clinton listens as Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks during a campaign stop at the University Of New Hampshire in Durham, N.H., Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2016. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Presented with only the following two quotes, it's easy to tell which member of the Sanders family is the politician.
Asked by The Post if he thought he could have beaten Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders was temperate in his reply.
"I hesitate to be a Monday morning quarterback," he said. "In my heart of hearts, I think there’s a good chance I could have defeated Trump, but who knows."
When his wife Jane was asked a similar question on CNN last week, her answer was more pointed.
"Do you think your husband would have had a better chance at beating Donald Trump than Hillary Clinton did?" CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked.
"Absolutely," Jane Sanders replied, "but it doesn't matter now."
In the wake of Donald Trump's stunning win on Tuesday, many supporters of Sanders' outside of his immediate family have expressed frustration at what could have been. A key part of Sanders' closing pitch to Democratic superdelegates was that he stood a better chance against Donald Trump (or any other Republican) than did Clinton, an argument that his backers now see as validated.
It's a question worth exploring. Or, really: It's a pair of questions worth exploring.
1. Could Bernie Sanders have beaten Donald Trump?
Certainly. Of course Bernie Sanders could have beaten Donald Trump. How can we be so confident? A few reasons, including that Hillary Clinton came as close as she did.
Save 109,000 votes in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, Clinton would have prevailed in the electoral college vote and therefore be president. (That's according to the most recent estimates compiled by Cook Political Report's Dave Wasserman.) Or, importantly, if she'd swung Florida and Michigan by about 128,000 votes -- meaning that there were a few ways in which Clinton might have emerged victorious save for a relatively small number of ballots. Out of a pool of 128 million votes, 128,000 is a rounding error, one-tenth of one percent. Any number of different decisions made by either campaign could have resulted in those votes going one way or the other. Meaning that one of those changes -- swapping out Sanders for Clinton -- might certainly have been the difference-maker.
One thing that the Trump candidacy and victory should remind us is that all sorts of things can happen over the course of a campaign. There's that great scene in "No Country For Old Men" in which Tommy Lee Jones as the local sheriff tells a story about a rancher slaughtering cattle when one comes to and starts thrashing around. The rancher pulls out a firearm to finish off the animal, but its thrashing causes him to miss and the bullet ricochets back to strike him in his own shoulder. "Point being," Jones says, "even in the contest between man and steer the issue is not certain."
Even in the contest between polished political veteran and angry neophyte, the issue is not certain. In the contest between any two politicians, the contest is not certain.
We've entered the post-campaign period during which an awful lot of consultants and pollsters are going to try to dine out on their perceived success over the last several months -- and a lot of losing staffers will start pointing fingers elsewhere. That so many little things might have shifted those 100,000-odd votes one way or the other means that a lot of arguments can be made about why they were or weren't. Which suggests that there's little question that Sanders could have beaten Trump -- just as Clinton could have beaten Trump, Trump could have beaten Clinton or Trump could have beaten Sanders.
2. Did Sanders stand a better chance of beating Trump?
This is a much harder question to answer.
There was a private poll commissioned by Gravis Marketing released last week showing that Sanders would have easily beaten Trump, which some have used as an argument to prove the point above. But the flip side of any number of things having possibly played a role in determining the outcome of the race is that it's very hard to swap in any other candidate at this point to gauge what might have happened.
If Bernie Sanders had won the Democratic nomination, he would have faced an entirely different terrain than did Hillary Clinton. He would have faced opposition from some Clinton die-hards, just as she faced opposition from some of his. In 2008, 16 percent of Clinton supporters angry at Barack Obama's primary victory bailed on him in the general. The dynamics of the race would be broadly different.
It's sort of taken as an article of faith that Sanders would have easily flipped those Rust Belt states that Clinton lost. It's clear that his vehemence on trade was more in line with what many voters in that region were hoping to hear. Was that enough? How would Sanders have fared in the face of attacks on his political philosophy? Socialism is broadly viewed positively by Democrats according to Gallup, but is widely unpopular among Republicans. It's mostly younger people who view the idea positively, a group that tends to turn out less regularly than others. More would have done so for Sanders, certainly -- but would the group of Democrats that stayed home simply have moved from one demographic to another?
Sanders did better than Clinton in Michigan and Wisconsin, a point that's been made to suggest he'd have done better in those states. But he didn't do that much better, winning 17,000 and 140,000 more votes, respectively. Clinton did far better in Florida and Pennsylvania (532,000 and 204,000 more votes) -- does this mean that Sanders would have underperformed in those states? No: There's no real relation between primary and general election success.
There are many other questions. If the Sanders team's emails had been hacked and trickled out by Wikileaks, what might we have learned? Would Sanders have campaigned with Obama, then becoming part of the establishment that turned off other voters? How would his faith have been considered in an election where anti-Semitism was an obvious undercurrent?
It seems obvious, from the vantage point of Nov. 13, 2016, that Sanders might have won Florida and Michigan or that coterie of Midwestern states and won the presidency. His team and supporters have a motivated reason to make that case. But it's impossible to know if he would have had a better chance than did Clinton, in part because her chance was very good.
Just, as it turned out, not good enough.Editor’s note: Frank Palermo is the senior vice president of the Global Technical Solutions Group at Virtusa.
Some ideas are ahead of their time.
There is no question that the wearables market is taking off with the proliferation of health monitors, pedometers and activity trackers like Fitbit, Jawbone, Nike Fuelband, etc. And next year the Apple Watch will likely make the wearable watch the next big thing. Gartner boldly predicted that companies using Glass and similar wearable gadgets could save up to $1 billion a year within the next three to five years.
However, the consumer electronics space can be a funny thing. Consumers tend to buy in herds. They will buy the next best gadget, only when they actually see others with the gadget. One of the problems with products like Google Glass is that it was released in limited fashion as part of the “Explorers” beta program, (meaning you needed a private invite), which limited distribution. With a price tag of $1,500 very few consumers could afford to try out Google Glass. It takes a much lower price tag to drive consumer interest.
Then you have the whole social acceptance problem. For most people, the use of Glass falls under the creepy umbrella. People get spooked when they don’t know exactly what a device is capturing or monitoring. The potential to do real-time facial recognition video at the blink of an eye can scare even the most tech-savvy users. Everyone has certain boundaries around privacy intrusions.
It’s not hard to conceive how a wearable personal assistant like Google Glass could absolutely disrupt the medical, security, sports and many other industries. For instance, CrowdOptic, which created technology to support the live streaming of information through wearables, has put Glass to work in several industries, such as Healthcare, and now have over 19 hospitals using the platform to improve teaching, collaboration and emergency response. They expect that number to grow to well over a hundred by next year.
Companies like Apx Labs, which created Skylight, an enterprise software platform for Glass, and Augmate, are targeting workforce apps that provide meaningful benefits for the desk-less workers. According to Google, 80 percent of the global workforce does physical or desk-less work every day. The workplace may turn out to be the big opportunity for Glass in the future.
Over 60 highly publicized brands have explored using Glass. Virgin Atlantic ran a six-week trial, where agents at London’s Heathrow Airport, used the technology to welcome customers and check them in for their flights. Sherwin-Williams tried boosting its paint sales, by creating an app called ColorSnap that allows a user to take a photo, while the app analyzes the primary colors and provides matching colors form the Sherwin-Williams lineup.
Real-estate site Trulia created a demo called TruliaForGlass that allows users to review listings that match their criteria directly from the Glass app. And the Sacramento Kings were the first NBA team to offer fans an in-game Glass experience, where players wore Glass during their pre-game warm-ups and would do live streams to video screens inside the arena.
The development community has created over a 100 apps for Glass ranging from highly innovative to somewhat frivolous. For those looking for some amusement, there’s even a Battleship game for Glass called GlassBattle.
For certain professions or industries Glass could be downright disruptive. And at this point, the average consumer really doesn’t have a clue as to how exactly to use the device.
In technology, timing is everything. Most major technology disrupters go through similar cycles of evolution. The first generation of the devices tend to be for hobbyists or toys for the well off, and don’t typically provide much real value; they introduce a new paradigm. The more disruptive it is, the longer it tends to take to get accepted.
Over time however, devices get better and technology matures, which in turn drives more widespread adoption. Remember the first cellular phone — or should I say brick? Most people laughed at the idea of carrying this obtrusive device around with them all the time. It’s hard to imagine how these devices evolved to be the smartphones of today that we can barely spare a second without.
So, wearable technologies like Google Glass are in a similar class as virtual-reality applications like Oculus Rift. They are like the cell phones of the ’80s — waiting to be refined, waiting for technology to be more streamlined, and waiting for more fashionable form factors. They also require more thought around security. It will take some time for these to develop, but when they do, they could become the next big thing.
In the near term, the real opportunity for Glass may be in the workplace. With a little more refinement and some more consideration around privacy concerns, the device may be ready to go.
If Google wants Glass to take off in the consumer market, it might be best served selling it to Apple, which has consistently proven its ability to shape technology for mass consumer adoption.Hello Everyone,
I just wanted to let everyone know how much we have all appreciated the support we have received here on kickstarter. The massive support and publicity we received here is more than we could have ever imagined.
This kickstarter has opened doors for us that we never thought could be opened for such a small up-and-coming studio like ours. We just wanted to let everyone know that our studio has been able to secure private funding that will carry us through the development cycle of Civitas. Our teams talent and experience, combined with the support of you guys here on kickstarter made this funding possible. Even though we are on track to fund 100%, we feel like this will be a better option for our studio at this time. We didn't reach this decision lightly, but after a few days of debate between the members of our team, we finally agreed that this would be our best option. This funding will in no way effect the final outcome of our game, except that it will allow us to focus our efforts completely on developing Civitas, better reach out to the community, and grow our team without having to manage the kickstarter and do everything else at the same time. The best part is we will be able to do this without having to use your money to get there. Don't ever let anyone tell you that managing a highly successful kickstarter is easy, it's a full time job.
Our private funding did not cause us to lose any creative control over Civitas, or our studio in general. Civitas will still be released DRM free on all of the platforms we currently plan to support. We thank you all because we would not have been able to do any of this without you guys.
We will be relaunching our website tomorrow with updated information about Civitas, new improved forums, and ways for a limited number of people to participate in the beta program. We will also still have ways for people to get the same Civitas gear and everything else we had offered on our kickstarter. We don't want to leave anyone out on anything like that. Please check us out, share ideas in the forums, and follow our progress. We look forward to a bright future with all of you involved.
Look around kickstarter, there are some other great projects to shift your funding over to!Arthrospira microalgae
Planting oxygen
When resources are limited, you have to work with what you have – especially in the harsh environment of space. Though the International Space Station is regularly restocked by cargo vessels, like today’s Dragon, self-sufficient spaceflight in the future will require us to recycle and reuse precious resources like oxygen. An experiment on its way to space will look into doing just that. Breath of fresher air Researchers are studying how photosynthesis – the process by which organisms convert light into energy, producing oxygen as a byproduct – takes place in space. They loaded the microalgae Arthrospira, commonly known as spirulina, into a photobioreactor, a kind of cylinder bathed in light. On the Space Station, carbon dioxide will be transformed by photosynthesis into oxygen and edible biomass such as proteins.
Artemiss reactor Though a routine process on Earth, we must understand how it works in space before we can exploit it. The experiment will run for a month as the amount of oxygen from the algae is accurately measured. The microalgae will be analysed after Dragon returns to Earth next April, looking at the genetic information to build a clearer picture of the effects of weightlessness and radiation on the plant cell. Arthrospira is known to be highly resistant to radiation, but we need to check how well it can stand up to space hazards. This Artemiss pilot project is the first of its kind, and its researchers and engineers hope to follow it up with a longer study that continuously feeds in microalgae.
The project is part of the Micro-Ecological Life Support System Alternative, or Melissa, effort that is developing regenerative technologies for life support.
AstroPlant plant lab Melissa covers many research and education activities, such as the AstroPlant citizen science project, which is collecting data on how plants grow under varying degrees of light. It will soon welcome another technology precursor, Uriniss, which will look into recycling urine to provide nitrogen gas, energy, potential plant nutrients and, of course, water. Because when life in space gives you urine, you make water.Loki Eliot is renowned for his scripting and building abilities in Second Life – and rightly so. His ideas, designs and builds stand at the forefront of what can be achieved in-world in terms of games and immersive activities, and he is always quick to embrace new platform capabilities and opportunities.
In The Well: Sollicitius, he brings all of these talents and abilities together to present an immersive and engaging experience, complete with a special guest star.
Given the time of year, The Well is a little bit of a horror story mixed into a mystery you must solve. It actually expands on an experience Loki created last year, which he has now enhanced to include more twists in the story and which makes use of recent SL innovations such as materials processing.
This does mean that the game is best experienced with Advanced Lighting Model active, and preferably with Sun/Moon + Projectors enabled. Loki has placed the entire experience as high up in the sky over his region as he can in order to minimise lag and the performance hit running with shadows enabled can create, so if you have a moderately good graphics cards, it’s worth giving Sun/Moon + Projectors a go if you can. If you still find yourself struggling, try disabling that option, but leaving ALM active. Also, do make sure you have sounds on, they are very much a part of the experience.
The backstory to The Well is that a young boy fell down a well, and he and the rescue team which descended to recover him vanished without a trace. Now, a year later, you have arrived at the scene to join a scientific team sent down to the cavern and caves beneath the well in an attempt to understand what they are and discover what happened |
. This is their party, in their minds. Obama has no right to lead it. Until he waits his turn and the Clintons give their blessing.
To stay in the game, the level and suicidal quality of their attacks on Obama require a similar form of tactic in response. But Obama will not and should not go there. The one profound difference between him and the Clintons is that he will actually not do some things for the sake of power. God knows the Clontons have brought him to the verge of that - but pure cynicism would rebut his core message and destroy his candidacy as surely as the Clintons are trying to do. And to say what needs to be said about the Clintons - the truth about their character and their shared pathologies - would be a horribly divisive and brutal move. It would render the Clintons even more unelectable than they already are, undermine the Obama message and give the White House to the GOP. What's striking to me about this race is that it is the young insurgent who is still acting as the responsible party elder; and the former president who is behaving like a man who will destroy his own party in order to soothe his own sense of entitlement and ego.
After this presidency, after eight years of war and debt and torture and deceit and cynicism, to see the Democratic party self-destruct is really something. They were given a chance to remake the country and regain their soul; and the Clintons could not bear it if they were not the vehicles for such a shift. I don't believe anyone in the Democratic party can or will stop them. This is a kamikaze mission.
(Photo: Ethan Miller/Getty.)
We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.HERE for Android is now available* in beta from the Samsung Galaxy Apps Store installed on compatible** smartphones from the manufacturer, including the Galaxy S5.
You can just dive in and find your own way if you want. But if you want to extend the pleasure, and make sure you’re getting the most out of the app, then follow our guide to getting started.
1. Splash and log-in
Here we are at the opening screens you’ll get when you first start the HERE app. You can sign up for an account, sign-in to an existing HERE account, or just dive in without registering.
There is a very good reason to register and login, though: you can create Collections, categorised sets of map bookmarks. HERE stores these in the cloud, against your account details, so that you can access them from any device. Currently, we support Samsung Galaxy smartphones and Nokia X smartphones. We will soon also bring in access to your HERE account on beta.here.com and other platforms. HERE accounts supercede the old Nokia and Ovi accounts, but you can migrate your collections from your old Nokia accounts to a new HERE account.
In short, go ahead and sign up/sign-in – it’s well worth the tiny amount of effort required. And no, we won’t sell your details to advertisers or anyone else. Nor do we keep a permanent record of where you've been.
2. Finding yourself
So here we are in Map view, the normal view when you get started. It’s centred on you, and once the GPS satellites have found you, the marker should be a green dot with an arrow. This takes a little while to initialise when you first start. And so you may see a wider green circle around you to begin with – especially if you’re indoors.
If you continue to see a big green circle around you, it may be the case that you haven’t got GPS switched on, or your phone can't'see' the satellites, and the app is using your mobile network towers and WiFi to try to find your position. Go ahead and switch GPS on in your phone’s settings, if this is the case.
3. Getting around
So now you know where you are, let’s try going somewhere else.
Use one finger to pan the map around (hint: download your maps to make this – and everything else – super-fast – see below).
Use pinch gestures to zoom in and out of the map.
A two-finger twist gesture will rotate the map (take note of the compass at the top right to keep your bearings).
Two-finger swipes up and down will tilt the map between 90 and 45-degree viewpoints.
The ‘layer’ icon at the bottom right will let you switch between vector and satellite map views, and bring up the traffic and transit overlays.
The green circle icon in the lower left will take you back to your current position – so you can’t ‘get lost’ scrolling around elsewhere.
4. Download and settings
Now it’s time to back-up a little, though. We’re in danger of missing out on one of the major advantages of HERE for Android: offline navigation.
If you download the maps you use most often to your phone, then there are two massive benefits:
The whole app moves faster. Panning from where you are now to somewhere miles away happens in a moment, not minutes.
You don’t need to be online (d’oh!). You can move round the map, find places, plan routes and navigate, all without any mobile data use. There are some advantages to being online, though – you'll get current information about traffic congestion, for example, and can view satellite maps – but the number one priority is getting you wherever you need to be and that’s all possible while you’re entirely offline.
So go to the main menu at the top left and choose ‘Download Maps’. Then navigate to your country and, maybe, others you visit or plan to visit soon. Individual country maps are fairly small because they’re vector-based, though the downloadable map packs also contains a wealth of extra information like street and venue names.
There are more things to download in the Settings menu, notably the voice files you can use for guided navigation. But more on those in our next article about HERE for Android. For now, one last tip that falls into the ‘basics’ category.
5. Search and you will find
Now you’re all set-up and ready for action. In real-life use, the first thing you’re going to want to do is find the place you’re going to.
Happily, there’s a big search box at the top of the screen when you’re in the regular Map view. Type in the address or the name of a place right there.
Alternatively, if you’re looking for suggestions for places around you, you can tap into the category lists underneath - you'll find all the usual suspects, like 'eat & drink', 'accommodation','shopping', etc.
Here I am searching for Westminster Abbey – there’s a predictive search – that even works offline – so I don’t need to type in the whole thing. A tap on the preferred search result and I’m taken to the place on the map.
The second way to use search is to tap the ‘Signpost’ icon to the right of the text-entry box. As you probably guessed, this takes you straight to getting directions.
Typing in your destination here will give you directions, with options for driving, public transit or walking to the place you’ve asked for, with different routes (Our prediction of the fastest is shown first, but you may have your own insider knowledge to favour a different approach).
6. Next instalment
We’ll be following-up shortly with a walkthrough of driving directions, including voice guidance options. And then with more details of all the other things you can do with the app.
*Availability: If you don’t see it yet, then probably the app is propagating its way around the world and you should try again in a few hours or in a couple of days. It's visible on Samsung's web store here.
**Compatibility: The app is designed to run on Samsung Galaxy smartphones running Android 4.1 ('Jelly Bean') and higher, with 1GB of RAM or more, screen size between 4.5" and 6.9", and access to the Samsung Galaxy Apps Store. Though Samsung itself, of course, will have the final say which devices are, or aren't, offered access.
Anyway – those of you who’ve downloaded the app already: tell us your first impressions.The Portland Trail Blazers were eliminated from the NBA playoffs on Wednesday, winning just one game this derby. Given the constant stream of doctor visits the Blazers faced as the season wore on, a first-round exit wasn't a surprise. Without Wesley Matthews, the team wasn't a serious contender for the crown, and injuries to Dorell Wright and others exacerbated the problems on the wing. So, yet another Portland playoff run falls short.
The Blazers have won one series in LaMarcus Aldridge's tenure, an era that's included five 50-win seasons and a few moments when hopes were extraordinarily high. Those hopes were most frequently dashed by horrible injury breaks. The Aldridge-Brandon Roy-Greg Oden trio looked like a dynasty in the making, and we all know how that turned out. Aldridge's second life with Damian Lillard looked promising all the way until Matthews tore his Achilles in March.
That bad break did more than just remove Portland's third best player for the stretch run. It could make Matthews less available or effective next year because of the severity of his injury. He's a free agent, and there's no telling how the market will deal with him.
Added to that, Matthews' sudden absence revealed some very discouraging things about Lillard's defensive deficiencies. Close observers already knew Lillard was no ace defender. Since Matthews disappeared, we now see that Lillard is among the worst defenders in the league. (Nick Calathes beating him backdoor on Wednesday didn't help matters.)
Aldridge will also be an unrestricted free agent on July 1, and the list of reasons to return to Portland is short but strong. The Blazers can, of course, offer a fifth year and bigger raises. There's Lillard, who is genuinely promising and genuinely likable. There's Paul Allen, who Aldridge knows will spend gobs of money chasing success. There's Portland itself, a community with deeply committed, smart and respectful fans. (Portland is an excellent basketball town, and a hoopshead like LMA must appreciate that at some level.)
Finally, there's familiarity. That matters more for some than others -- certain types of people prefer the excitement of new adventures and challenges, while others get excited by comfort and routine. While going home to Texas could have some value for Aldridge, he may also decide the last thing he wants to do is move across the country without improving his basketball lot.
That's the interesting thing about Aldridge's particular free agency. Can any team actually improve his situation?
The Spurs would seem to be No. 1 on this list with a bullet, except that Tim Duncan is preparing for retirement, Manu Ginobili can't possibly be far behind and Tony Parker is aging rather quickly. The way in which Chris Paul has outplayed Parker in that epic series has been sobering. Heck, Patty Mills has been better than Parker.
Last summer I wrote that the Spurs' new trio of stars appeared to be Kawhi Leonard, Parker and Tiago Splitter. The latter two have faced injuries, and I'm not sure Parker has more than two above-average seasons left in his body. You eulogize the Spurs at your own risk, yes, but Parker looks like a ghost. Is that just injury, or a sign of things to come? And if Parker is on his way out along with Duncan and Manu, is San Antonio really so attractive after all?
There are mitigating factors, like the premise that Duncan would return for 1-2 more years to transition the franchise into Aldridge's care. There is Gregg Popovich, there is R.C. Buford, there is Kawhi Leonard, there are five (and counting) championship parade tapes. But is the upgrade large enough to offset the salary concession and the inconvenience of changing everything about your life and career?
Houston would be a large enough upgrade. With Aldridge, James Harden and Dwight Howard, the Rockets would have serious championship chops. (One could argue Houston has those chops without Aldridge.) In a way, joining Houston would give Aldridge what fate once took away: A chance to play with a dominant scoring wing and a defensive genius at center. But at this point in his career, does Aldridge want to be a second fiddle to a ball-dominant player like Harden? Does Aldridge want to follow Chris Bosh and Kevin Love into relative subjugation?
Dallas will get mentioned because that's where LMA grew up and because the Mavericks will insert themselves into every major free agent chase. The problem with Dallas is that there is no core. There is Dirk Nowitzki, who is staggering toward retirement within a couple of seasons, and there is Chandler Parsons, who was a bit of a disappointment, is coming off a serious knee inury and probably isn't better than Nicolas Batum long-term. Everyone else is a candidate to be gone by July 1.
The draw besides being "home" is that perhaps the Mavericks can arrange Aldridge to bring a friend on a max contract. Is there another free agent worth lots of dough who could join Aldridge in Dallas in 2015 and make the situation more attractive? Is DeAndre Jordan that player, or might it be Marc Gasol? Can Donnie Nelson and Mark Cuban convince Aldridge and one other guy to join up on a package deal? It seems like a long shot based on the Mavericks' free agent struggles since 2011.
If Aldridge wants to win playoff games and lock in All-Star berths, the East is calling. In fact, it's a surprise more second-tier West stars don't look East to boost their credentials and opportunities to play meaningful spring games. If the Blazers moved to Portland, Maine, and kept their roster together, they might be the favorites in the East.
The Knicks are obviously interested, but joining that maelstrom seems like more trouble than it's worth. Aldridge doesn't give off the vibe of seeking the Manhattan marquee, but who can really know? The Celtics are flexible and in need of a star, but Aldridge will turn 30 in July and as such might be a couple years too old to fit the Boston rebuild plan. Atlanta, where Paul Millsap is a free agent, is an intriguing option. If Washington could spring some early flexibility and make a run at Aldridge a year before Kevin Durant's free agent, LMA would have to at least listen.
Aldridge will have options, and it appears he'll look at them. It's unclear if any of the options will be obvious improvements on his situation in Portland. The question is whether after nine years and just one playoff series win new scenery will be improvement enough to convince Aldridge to bail.
SB Nation presents: As playoffs intensify, so do the fightsYears after Sam the Record Man’s neon vinyl was dismantled and stored out of view, the sign’s keepers at Ryerson University are now starting the process of restoring it in earnest. This week, the university issued a request for interested qualified companies to bid on installing the sign on top of a city-owned building facing Yonge-Dundas Square.
An artist's rendering of how the resurrected Sam's sign will look in its new perch at Yonge-Dundas Square.
A Ryerson spokesperson said it’s too soon to estimate when the sign will be up, but that the university is “committed” to restoring it. Companies that respond will be asked about a timeline, Michael Forbes said in an email. Ryerson will be paying all the costs. “We look forward to seeing it back up and re-lit.” That first step follows a prolonged and often fraught debate about the sign’s fate and its place in the city, after the famous record shop locked its doors in 2007.
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When Ryerson purchased the prominent Yonge St. location — now home to the university’s new Student Learning Centre — council quickly moved to designate the late Sam Sniderman’s sign as city heritage. That meant Ryerson was responsible for preserving the sign — two large records with spinning lights and black and white “Yes this is Sam the Record Man” text — and finding a new home for its display at the student centre. But after the sign was already stored away in a tractor-trailer at an undisclosed location, Ryerson argued the imposing 15.15-metre-by-10.9-metre sign wouldn’t fit with the new building’s sleek glass design and pushed the city to release the university from the agreement to reinstall it there. In 2013, council asked staff to come back with a new plan. The following year, council backed a proposal to put the sign atop the roof of the Toronto Public Health building at 277 Victoria St. — around the corner from the old record store site and facing Yonge-Dundas Square, a spot city staff called a “culturally appropriate and relevant location for the Sam signage.”
When that plan was debated at council, there was concern the building on Victoria St. could also soon be up for sale. At the request of Councillor Josh Matlow, council voted that any future sale of the site would include an agreement to preserve and maintain the sign there.
Read more about:BEIJING (Reuters) - China is investigating one of its top spy chiefs for corruption, the ruling Communist Party’s anti-graft watchdog said on Friday, signaling that the boldest crackdown on corruption in decades has spilled over into its powerful intelligence apparatus.
Ma Jian, a vice minister at China’s Ministry of State Security, is the most senior security official to be investigated since former domestic security tsar Zhou Yongkang was ensnared in a graft scandal last July.
The investigation into Ma could lead to a shake-up in China’s powerful state security ministry, a KGB-like operation that spies on its citizens and foreigners domestically and internationally.
Several of Ma’s men are also being questioned to assist with the investigation, a source with ties to the leadership told Reuters, without giving further details.
The ministry is one of the most opaque government agencies in China and does not have a public website or spokesperson.
The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) said Ma was under investigation on “suspicion of serious violations of discipline and the law”. In China, “serious violations of discipline and law” usually means graft.
The CCDI did not give further details.
It is unclear what triggered the investigation of Ma, who is said to have headed China’s counter-espionage programs.
President Xi Jinping has vowed to target high-ranking “tigers” as well as lowly “flies” in his anti-corruption drive, and has pledged to deepen the most sweeping campaign against graft in years.
Analysts have said Xi, who heads the National Security Commission, intends to overhaul the sprawling security apparatus, which consumed a budget that exceeded the official figure for military spending.
SPY AGENCY VETERAN
Ma was taken away from his office last week, a second source with ties to the leadership told Reuters.
Ma was director of the ministry’s “No.8 bureau”, which is responsible for counter-espionage activities on foreigners, mainly diplomats, businessmen and reporters, the source said. He has since been replaced by Qiu Jin, a vice minister of state security.
Ma worked at the spy agency for more than 30 years, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post said, and was promoted to a deputy minister of counter-intelligence operations in 2006.
The paper said Ma was closely tied to Ling Jihua, a one-time senior aide to former President Hu Jintao who was put under investigation on graft charges last month.
“He’s a key person between the Zhou Yongkang and Ling Jihua cases,” said Zhang Lifan, a Beijing-based political commentator. “The Ministry of State Security makes up about half of the total domestic security apparatus, so it is really significant.”
The Post also said Ma’s case was tied to a corruption scandal at Founder Group, a technology firm owned by Peking University. Ma is believed to be close to the firm’s chief executive Li You, it said, citing unnamed sources.
An executive at Founder Group told Reuters she had no knowledge of the case.
In a separate announcement on Friday, the CCDI said Wei Junxing, vice secretary of the northeastern province of Liaoning, was also under investigation for seriously violating the law. It did not elaborate.PRESENTATION OF THE BOOK OF PRESIDENT OF TURKMENISTAN AT YSU
Today, in the conference hall of YSU Academic Council, the presentation of the book authored by the President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov “Turkmenistan: The heart of the Great Silk Road” was held.
The event was organized jointly by YSU International Cooperation Office and the Embassy of Turkmenistan in Armenia.
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Turkmenistan to the Republic of Armenia, embassy staff, YSU Rector, professors, students and others were present at the presentation.
The opening speech was made by YSU Rector Aram Simonyan. He welcomed all those present and mentioned that today is also the opening of the scientific conference “Turkmenistan. 25 years of prosperity and development”: “I must say that a good tradition has been set up here, at the university, to organize the presentation of the books authored by Gurganguly Berdimuhamedov. First of all, the Great Silk Road is a civilization path that played a major role not only in the development of trade, but also in the interaction of nations and civilizations.”
Mr. Simonyan also spoke about the importance of the Silk Road for Armenia, underlining that in the Middle Ages it was vital for the development and prosperity of the economy.
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Turkmenistan to the Republic of Armenia Muhametniyaz Mashalov also made a thank-you speech: “A tradition has been formed in Turkmenistan to give every year a name. This year is called “Turkmenistan: The heart of the Great Silk Road”. President Berdimuhamedov’s book reflects the modern concept of our country’s development based on historical experience, friendship, respect for the spiritual heritage of the Turkmen people.”
The ambassador noted that the main idea of the book is to understand the neutral Turkmenistan’s initiating and constructive stance on the international arena through the prism of its historical path.
Alexander Safaryan, Head of the Chair of Turkic Studies at YSU Faculty of Oriental Studies, mentioned in his speech: “It is hard to talk without emotions when you are familiar with Turkmenistan, Turkmen culture and people. The works of Turkmen classical authors and everything related to the culture of that country are very dear to us.”
Alexander Safaryan also appreciated the role of the Silk Road in the development of medieval Armenia and the world civilization.
YSU Rector Aram Simonyan reminded that within the official visit of Turkmen president Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov to Armenia, the rector of Turkmen State University signed a cooperation agreement with YSU. Aram Simonyan expressed hope that the signed agreement will serve as a stimulus not only for cooperation with the Turkmen State University, but also to facilitate regular contacts with other Turkmen universities.Real Madrid vs Barcelona. Republican Spain vs Catalan Nationalism. This rivalry almost transcends the sporting fixture that El Clásico represents. The deep historical divide between these two clubs is long and storied.
The first meeting between the two clubs was in 1902. A football tournament featuring mainly teams from the Basque and Catalan regions—as well as Madrid FC (the original club name)—saw Barcelona win the inaugural fixture 3-1 against the team who would become their eternal enemies. Thus began the rivalry.
The early contests were won by the Catalan club as the primitive Spanish football league began to take shape in the 1920’s. These matches were held and played in a spirit of one-upmanship and victory was often celebrated by fans, especially in Catalonia, as a win for their national pride and political principles.
Given Spain’s sense of regional pride and historical traditions, football and politics have always gone hand in hand. In 1936, during General Franco’s Coup d’état against the democratic Republic, Catalan politician and residing president of FC Barcelona, Josep Sunyol, was arrested and subsequently killed by Francoist soldiers when visiting Republican troops just outside of Madrid.
This political element came to a distinctive head following the Spanish Civil War. When General Franco took control in 1939 he sought to establish a centralist approach and unify the Spanish state. Previously autonomous regions such as the Basque Country and Catalonia resisted this notion and football became their population’s means of cultural expression. General Franco banned the Catalan language from being spoken and even forced Barcelona to change from their historical name, FC Barcelona, to the distinctly Castilian; Barcelona CF. This only reinforced the Catalan feelings of repression and made them more determined to get behind their Club as a vehicle for social expression against their oppressors. They proudly stood behind the club mantra; “Més Que Un Club” (More Than A Club).
The hatred emanating from Barcelona during these years towards Franco became focused against Real Madrid as it was seen as being El Generalísimo’s team.
The transfer saga in 1953 between the two giants over Alfredo De Stefano did nothing to reduce the tensions. When initially scouted by Barcelona legend Josep Samiter, Di Stefano was playing for Colombian side Millonarios. Due to a footballing strike in Argentina preventing him for playing for his original club River Plate, Di Stefano was now plying his trade in Bogota. Real Madrid, also a fan of Di Stefano, pursued his signature.
In Phil Ball’s Book Morbo he states: ‘Barcelona reacted quickest, and through Catalan lawyer Ramon Trias Fargas, they easily reached a transfer agreement with River Plate, who—according to FIFA—was still Di Stefano’s official employer. However, this agreement was conditional on the consent of Millonarios. ‘
The Spanish Franco government quickly passed a law banning the purchase of foreign players, scuppering Barcelona’s plan to sign Di Stefano. In the meantime, Real Madrid reached a deal with Millonarios, thus meaning the player’s registration was held by both clubs. FIFA declared that the player would have to be shared between Barcelona and Real Madrid in alternate seasons. The Franco government agreed, lifting their ban on foreign imports. Barcelona’s club president, Marti Carretó, resigned under pressure from the Club’s board for allowing this situation to occur and for suspicions he was a government puppet thereby complicit in the affair. The interim Barcelona board cancelled Di Stefano’s contract leaving him free to play for Real Madrid. Di Stefano went on to score 216 goals for Los Blanco’s and was a key figure in their success, winning the European Cup a record five successive times.
From the 1950’s until the present day, Real Madrid and Barcelona have traded La Liga Championships and Copa titles. The modern El Clásico has retained its historical and political roots, complete with further controversy. The sale of Luis Figo from Barcelona to Real Madrid in 2000 was one such instance. A hero of the Catalan Club, Luis Figo was the talisman and symbol of the team and his status as a club legend was almost assured.
However, the arrival of Florentino Perez as president of Real Madrid and his subsequent Galactico project caused a major stir. Figo’s world record transfer in the summer of 2000 when Real Madrid paid his buyout clause of $60.1million, turned him from hero to instant villain. His return in the Camp Nou Clásico in November 2002 is infamous for the treatment of the returning Figo. He was pelted with whiskey bottles, cigarette lighters, golf balls and most famously, a pig’s head. The game even needed to be halted to let the fans regain composure.
El Clásico has now become a global event. After the UEFA Champions League final it is the most watched club match in the world with around 400 million viewers. Every game becomes bigger than the last. Recently Barcelona have had the majority of the bragging rights with the famous 6-2 in the Bernabeu under Pep Guardiola, and the 5-0 hammering Real took in Jose Mourinho’s first Clásico.
The two best in the world in Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi lock horns again. The two biggest clubs in the world in Barcelona and Real Madrid prepare to do battle. The world is ready for the latest instalment of El Clásico: the greatest match of all.Distant Worlds: Shadows is the third expansion to Distant Worlds, a real-time (pausable) space 4X strategy game for the PC developed by CodeForce and published by Matrix Games and Slitherine.
Distant Worlds: Legends, the second expansion, is a true 4X masterpiece, one that managed to elevate this game to become the quintessential space 4X gaming experience.
But, this isn’t a review about Distant Worlds, or Distant Worlds: Legends. It’s about Distant Worlds: Shadows, the third and latest expansion to Distant Worlds. So, what does Shadows brings new to the table? What changed? And, are these changes enough to justify your investment, to make you expand an already excellent experience?
It’s about offering a new experience, a Pirate ruler experience
As the title suggests (Shadows), this expansion is about a darker theme. Deceit, paranoia, fear. Things you can’t see. The kind of feelings you would experience if you were being threatened by a dark and chaotic force. If you were being attacked by space pirates, in this case. But, you are the pirates now. You control what CodeForce calls: a “pirate empire”. Before, pirates were minor factions that would annoy you from time to time, but could still be useful for information. Now, they are full-fledged factions, with their own particular play-styles and victory conditions.
So, Shadows offers you the possibility to play as a pirate faction. Instead of collecting taxes from your citizens, you loot and extort those citizens. Instead of owning planets and colonizing new worlds, you control planets, being those independent or imperial owned. You can also board, capture, raid and loot ships and bases. And, you can also raid planets for bounty. Money rewards in most cases, but also goods and even new technologies can be obtained from the plunder. “Normal” empires can also board and capture ships, by the way, but raiding and looting is exclusive to pirates’ gameplay.
When you play with a pirate faction, usually you start small. Very small. Only a handful of military ships at your disposal, a refuelling ship, an explorer, a couple of freighters and a spaceport, which is your base. But let me tell you that playing with a pirate faction is very different from when playing with a normal empire. I was very skeptical about this completely different way to play the game at first. After all, the 4X gaming experience is all about empire-building, where the usual formula is to develop a full-fledged empire, a very advanced civilization, from a very humble beginning. How could that work when you play as a rogue pirate ruler?
Well, it does work. Pirates are indeed, pirates. They plunder, sack, exploit, terrorize and extort. A criminal experience. But, in a way they are not so different from an imperial play-style as one would first assume. At least according to CodeForce’s design, pirates can also explore to discover new resources and to get in contact with other civilizations. They also expand their influence, not by owning but by controlling planets and by building secret bases on them, allowing them to eventually have full control over those planets like normal empires do.
Pirates also exploit resources, and in a way it’s even more fun and challenging to play with them in this aspect, because they start very small and your progression is not as fast as when playing with normal empires. Everything matters more. And, you can also decide to exterminate everyone if you decide so, but only when you’re powerful enough, which tends to be much later than when playing with a normal empire.
So, although I had some reserves about this new pirate gameplay, and still think that the main game mode, playing as a normal empire that is, is still the way, or at least my favorite way to play this game, I think that CodeForce did a brilliant job designing and delivering this new pirating experience. Which is what an expansion should be all about in the first place, about offering new experiences and not as much as offering more of the same.
Playing as a pirate ruler, with the pirate-style that better suits you – Shadows allows you to play as a Raider, a Smuggler, a Mercenary or follow a more balanced pirate approach – is indeed fun, and while there are still some imbalances to be found in this new gameplay, with some areas that still need extra polishing and balancing made just right, I think this expansion pack is entirely justifiable just for this new addition alone.
However, I have to warn you that the pacing, the progression, what you actually do in the game, is quite different. It’s much more overwhelming, and chaotic, to play as a pirate faction. The focus is much more on ships, fleet management and patrol than it is on colonization, diplomacy and technology progression.
At one point in the game you may decide to build pirate facilities, which are secret hidden bases, to expand your wealth and research capabilities, and research will start to progress faster, like when playing with normal empires. Eventually, you can even decide to transform your pirate nation into a pseudo normal empire (a mix between the two play-styles), after building an ultimate pirate facility on a planet. Then, after that point, technology progression will increase even more, your wealth will be much bigger and you’ll finally be able to build colony ships to colonize your own worlds and build more construction ships like regular empires do (you start with only one Construction ship). However, you’re still a pirate faction, only one with some “normal” empire abilities (diplomacy-wise you’re still restricted to pirate gameplay, and you can continue raiding as you once did).
I like this new pirate experience, for a change of pace, and for the new experience. But, personally I still prefer playing with a “normal” empire faction, and that’s probably what I’ll keep returning to. But, you may think otherwise, of course.
But, it’s not only about the new pirate gameplay.
Another big change: PreWarp gameplay
The new Pirate gameplay is no doubt the bulk of this new expansion, but there are other relevant changes and additions as well. Probably the most important one is the ability to play before the hyperdrive technology is discovered. What CodeForce calls: “PreWarp”. Not to confuse with the also new “Age of Shadows”. The Age of Shadows is just a setting you can play, an ancient time, where it makes more sense to play PreWarp, but you can decide to play PreWarp in the Classic Age, as well. The Classic Age is the “normal” Distant Worlds setting, the single one offered before the Shadows expansion.
So, before, you started with the capability to travel to other stars, and start the colonization of new words almost immediately. You already had a few constructor ships at your disposal, a bunch of mining stations and a moderately strong civilian sector, with lots of freighter ships ready to dispatch goods around.
But, now, with Shadows’ new “prewarp” gameplay, you may decide to start with zero spaceships. That’s right. No spaceships of any kind, no bases, no space ports, nothing space-based. You start with your homeworld alone, its population and only the very basic techs in each branch of the tech tree. So, no hyperdrive capability. No travelling to other stars yet. You have regular thrusters only, which will make exploring your homeworld’s star system feel like when you previously explored the galaxy.
Playing since prewarp is much more interesting and fun, and one can’t help not to wonder how on Earth wasn’t this in the game since the beginning? Well, better late than never. A note though: when you play with a pirate faction you can’t play in PreWarp, that’s an imperial feature only, because, with Shadows’ current design, Pirates wouldn’t have any advantage when playing in PreWarp and would be swallowed very quickly by full-fledged empires.
Now, the thing is, this “PreWarp” period is not as big as you probably thought it could be. Well, it will also depend on your expectations, but I thought this period would be bigger, with more tech “breakthroughing” required. More stuff to do. Don’t get me wrong, the key technologies are indeed time-consuming, and the progression is nice, sprinkled with some nice background story checkpoints. But, it felt like the whole thing ended too fast and there I was again, already a full-fledged space faring civilization, again.
So, just a few moments before I could only travel very, very slowly across my entire star system, to transport critical goods around, I can now travel across the entire galaxy with just a few more technology breakthroughs. I understand that you could delay this progression by setting up a harsher start, with a worse homeworld and more expensive tech progression. But, that would feel more about delaying the experience, I guess. My expectation was probably for more content in between. But, it’s good that this option is in the game now, and I really enjoyed playing in prewarp, which I did twice for this review. It will probably be the default option for me from this point forward.
Another big change: Expanded Ground Combat
Another big change, apart from the new pirate gameplay and the prewarp start, is the expanded ground combat experience. Before, up to Distant Worlds: Legends, you could only train basic infantry units. Invasions were light in features. You dropped your troops on a rival’s planet, wait, witness a very basic combat progress and then the invasion outcome would be presented to you. This was basically it for ground combat.
Shadows brings a new tech branch entirely devoted to ground combat and a new ground resolution panel where you can now watch how well the invasion is going. You can’t manage battles I’m afraid, at least not directly, but you’re presented with some useful information still. I took note of at least half a dozen modifiers (e.g. overwhelming forces, space control, planet penalty,…) which give you combat bonuses or penalties. Therefore, although you can’t intervene directly, you can still adjust your invasion strategy, and order more troops to land in case you see that what you have there will not be enough.
By the way, there’s a new feature called “garrison” now that lets you set a predefined number of troops that will not get into troop transports but stay on the planets. Previously it could be painful to manage troop loading, but now it’s much simpler to load troops due to this garrison feature. You can’t selectively unload troops yet however.
There’s also new troop types now: armored units (like tanks or mechs), special forces (which are very useful as a first intervention unit) and planetary defenses ( |
synthesized molecules capable of exciting an electron to a triplet state. The present experiments show that on a faster time scale, peroxynitrite excites an electron in a melanin fragment to a triplet state that has the high energy of a UV photon. The typical triplet-state reaction intermediate, not demonstrated here (hence indicated in italics), is a cycloaddition of –O–O– to create an unstable dioxetane; dioxetanes undergo spontaneous thermolysis to yield two carbonyls, one of which acquires most of the energy and finishes in a high-energy triplet state (*). For the melanin-related triplet, the half-life of the reaction intermediate appeared to be minutes, and a carbonyl consistent with a dioxetane precursor was identified by mass spectrometry. Triplet energy then discharges on a microsecond time scale to generate visible luminescence, or discharges in a radiation-independent manner to DBAS (to be emitted as fluorescence), to sorbate (to be dissipated as isomerization and heat), or evidently to DNA bases (where it makes CPDs). The presence of melanin, activation of iNOS and NOX, and the triplet state were shown to be required for dark CPD formation. A consequence of these events is that melanin may be carcinogenic as well as protective against cancer. This double nature would explain the apparent cancer-facilitating effects of melanin seen in mice and in human epidemiology (2–4, 6). Melanin is an unusual polymer whose properties set the stage for the events we have described (33). Highly reactive o-quinones created by ROS-generating redox transformations of tyrosine polymerize spontaneously into oligomers. The o-quinones readily accept an electron to become semiquinone radicals, giving melanin a high concentration of free radicals in stable redox equilibrium and stabilized by metal ions. This macromolecule is a photon trap that also acts as an electron-proton photoconductor. These characteristics give melanin its broad light absorption, radical scavenging, and metal reservoir properties, but at a price. First, melanin synthesis generates O 2 •– and H 2 O 2. UV exposure additionally excites the rings to an energy that, especially for pheomelanin, ejects an electron that is captured by oxygen to yield more O 2 •– (5, 34). Second, the reactive semiquinones allow melanin to be degraded and these fragments to be adducted to create high-energy unstable moieties such as dioxetanes. Although most of the cell’s melanin synthesis is safely isolated inside melanosomes, the early steps occur in close proximity to the nucleus. It was proposed long ago that chemiexcitation—the creation of chemical reaction products containing excited electrons that underlie bioluminescence in lower organisms—has broad importance in biology (22, 23). Our data suggest that this may be the case in human skin. The consequence is that half or more of the CPDs in a melanocyte arise after UV exposure ends. In vivo the same appears to be true of keratinocytes, which receive melanosomes donated by melanocytes. If the same holds for human skin, this would mean that past measurements of CPDs immediately after UV exposure have underestimated the consequences of UV exposure. One benefit of dark photochemistry’s slow course is that it allows intervention. A blocker of dark CPDs, α-tocopherol (vitamin E), is not only an antioxidant but also inactivates dioxetanes by converting them to a pair of diols (35). The triplet quencher ethyl sorbate is an analog of the widely used food preservative potassium sorbate. Screening for novel triplet quenchers offers the prospect of developing “evening-after” sunscreens that could potentially prevent the carcinogenic processes occurring in the skin hours after sunlight exposure ends.(Yicai Global) Dec. 18 -- The Chinese capital held the first computer-based English listening test for college entrance exams on Dec. 16, using facial recognition to prevent cheating, China Youth Daily reported.
The exam was the first subject tested for the 2018 college entrance exams in Beijing. Starting next year, the city will use a new testing mode for English exams, including a computer-based listening comprehension test which will run separate from the nationwide written test.
China's college entrance exam, also known as the gaokao, is a high-stakes business. Technological developments have allowed students to create new ways to cheat as they look to set themselves up for a strong future. Exam halls have battled back by bringing in metal detectors, facial recognition, signal jammers and even drones to stop exam takers cheating. Some of the dishonest methods students adopt include wireless devices disguised as belts and erasers, and earpieces used to communicate with a partner outside the exam hall.
Artificial intelligence is a hot sector in China. Domestic firms are using the technology across a broad range of applications. Some have even set up unmanned retail stores which use facial recognition to identify customers and others have used biometrics to set up payment systems. A number of Chinese train stations have even adopted the technology to help speed up boarding.After Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) expressed concern about white nationalist Steve Bannon's presence in the White House at a hate crimes hearing, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) mocked those concerns, to laughter from other Republicans at the hearing. In a statement to Shareblue, Franken called out his Republican colleagues.
At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing titled “Responses to the Increase in Religious Hate Crimes,” Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) quizzed Eric Treene, the Department of Justice’s special counsel for religious discrimination, about the racism and xenophobia of Donald Trump’s administration, and particularly about white nationalist and senior strategist Steve Bannon.
Treene deflected the questions multiple times, but Franken still managed to read Bannon’s despicable background into the record, and demonstrate the hypocrisy of Trump’s lip service on hate crimes:
.@alfranken grills DOJ official at hate crime hearing: “What message does it send” for Trump to have Bannon in the WH? pic.twitter.com/Sok5zJzSHK — Tommy Christopher (@tommyxtopher) May 2, 2017
FRANKEN: What message does Mr. Bannon’s presence send? TREENE: The message I feel strongest, as a prosecutor and as a attorney for the Department of Justice, is the consistent message I’ve gotten from the attorney general to pursue hate crimes. FRANKEN: I’m not saying the message you got. You’re not committing any of the religious hate crimes. I’m talking about the people who do. What message does it send to them, not you, that Mr. Bannon is the chief strategist? TREENE: Right, I was encouraged as were you by the president’s remarks before Congress. FRANKEN: That’s not answering my question TREENE: Yeah, I can only really speak for myself and I have been consistently given the message to continue pursue cases on behalf of Muslims. FRANKEN: Certainly, you must have some perspective on this that you can share with us on what it means when the president selects as a special counsel someone who’s trafficked in anti-Muslim propaganda. TREENE: You know, with all due respect, I am here talking about hate crimes and can only stress that I’ve had a consistent message that we should continue to pursue these mosque cases … and these hate crime cases regardless of the religion of the victim.
Treene was referring to remarks Trump made about the rise of anti-Semitic hate crimes, which he only gave after attacking a Jewish journalist for asking him about the uptick and after suggesting the wave of anti-Semitic threats was a false flag. This was the same joint address to Congress in which Trump unveiled the racist “VOICE” office to demonize immigrants.
Franken also pressed Treene on anti-immigrant remarks that then-candidate Trump made during a campaign stop in Minnesota. Trump said that the state had “suffered enough” by accepting Somali refugees. Treene begged off the question again, but Trump’s remarks nevertheless became part of the record.
Later in the same hearing, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) presented a vastly different viewpoint. While paying lip service to the seriousness of hate crimes, Kennedy noted with wonder that “we’re talking about hate crimes,” which he contended we would not have been doing “not too many years ago.” There have been federal hate crimes laws on the books for 50 years. He also spoke with pride about the end of slavery and the election of President Barack Obama, before finally getting around to the election of Trump.
Kennedy asked Treene a series of questions seemingly mocking Franken’s concern over Bannon, which elicited laughter from Kennedy’s fellow Republicans:
Classy. Republican uses hate crimes hearing to mock concerns over Steve Bannon. Other Republicans laugh. pic.twitter.com/8tRnbrlUy0 — Tommy Christopher (@tommyxtopher) May 2, 2017
KENNEDY: Does Mr. Bannon work at the Department of Justice? TREENE: Uh, no sir. KENNEDY: OK. Does the attorney general have any jurisdiction over the White House, and White House staff? TREENE: Uh, no, Senator. KENNEDY: Is there any doubt in your mind, any doubt whatsoever, that in your opinion, the attorney general of the United States intends to pursue hate crimes vigorously? TREENE: He has consistently given us the encouragement to pursue these cases vigorously, yes sir. KENNEDY: Is there any doubt in your mind? TREENE: No. KENNEDY: None. TREENE: No sir. KENNEDY: Zero. TREENE: No, Senator. KENNEDY: Nada. TREENE: (laughter) Yes, sir. KENNEDY: Thank you.
Kennedy’s suggestion that Bannon and the White House staff are not subject to the Justice Department’s jurisdiction might surprise most Americans, given that the FBI is currently investigating them.
Franken’s point, of course, was not that Attorney General Jeff Sessions would hinder prosecution of hate crimes, but that Trump’s bigoted administration will encourage their commission.
In a statement to Shareblue, Franken called on his Republican colleagues to take hate crimes — and the message the White House is sending by employing the unapologetically bigoted Bannon — far more seriously than they appeared to during the hearing:
Hate crimes are a serious matter. I’m concerned that the presence of Steve Bannon in the White House—a man who has trafficked in racism, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia, anti-Muslim propaganda and anti-Semitism—may have the effect of legitimizing and stoking hatred against all kinds of minorities and vulnerable communities. I would strongly urge my Republican colleagues to start sharing this very real concern.
Republicans like Kennedy are more interested in providing cover for Trump and Bannon than in fighting the hatred and bigotry they promote. Thankfully, Democrats like Franken are ready to call them out for it.Hey there all back from PAX 2013, It's been a week since the con and I'm still exhausted -_-; But I had a lot of fun this year! I got told by some of the developers at Gearbox Softwear themselves that I was the best Moxxis that they had seen ;w; I a̶l̶m̶o̶s̶t̶ cried, I STILL FEEL SO HONORED BUH. MY COSTUME WASN'T EVEN FINISHEDI still need to do finishing touches on the cosplay (gun holster, more cell shading, better detail ect.) But that being said, I never had a formal shoot of Moxxi at the con but i hope to do one within the next two weeks for Gearbox's fan appreciation week. So stay tuned!!Until then enjoy my preview ;3Camera phone photo by random bystanderMoxxi by MyselfGun made by the amaaaaaazing Felt-Cosplay <3Oliver Twist; or, the Parish Boy's Progress is Charles Dickens's second novel, and was first published as a serial 1837–39.[1] The story centres on orphan Oliver Twist, born in a workhouse and sold into apprenticeship with an undertaker. After escaping, Oliver travels to London, where he meets "The Artful Dodger", a member of a gang of juvenile pickpockets led by the elderly criminal, Fagin.
Oliver Twist is notable for its unromantic portrayal by Dickens of criminals and their sordid lives, as well as for exposing the cruel treatment of the many orphans in London in the mid-19th century.[2] The alternative title, The Parish Boy's Progress, alludes to Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, as well as the 18th-century caricature series by William Hogarth, A Rake's Progress and A Harlot's Progress.[3]
In this early example of the social novel, Dickens satirises the hypocrisies of his time, including child labour, the recruitment of children as criminals, and the presence of street children. The novel may have been inspired by the story of Robert Blincoe, an orphan whose account of working as a child labourer in a cotton mill was widely read in the 1830s. It is likely that Dickens's own youthful experiences contributed as well.[4]
Oliver Twist has been the subject of numerous adaptations for various media, including a highly successful musical play, Oliver!, and the multiple Academy Award-winning 1968 motion picture. Disney also put its spin on the novel with the animated film called Oliver & Company in 1988.[5]
Publications [ edit ]
The novel was originally published in monthly instalments in the magazine Bentley's Miscellany, from February 1837 to April 1839. It was originally intended to form part of Dickens's serial, The Mudfog Papers.[6][7][8] George Cruikshank provided one steel etching per month to illustrate each instalment.[9] The novel first appeared in book form six months before the initial serialisation was completed, in three volumes published by Richard Bentley, the owner of Bentley's Miscellany, under the author's pseudonym, "Boz". It included 24 steel-engraved plates by Cruikshank.
The first edition was titled: Oliver Twist, or, The Parish Boy's Progress.
Cover, first edition of serial, entitled "The Adventures of Oliver Twist" January 1846
Serial publication dates:[10]
I – February 1837 (chapters 1–2)
II – March 1837 (chapters 3–4)
III – April 1837 (chapters 5–6)
IV – May 1837 (chapters 7–8)
V – July 1837 (chapters 9-11)
VI – August 1837 (chapters 12–13)
VII – September 1837 (chapters 14–15)
VIII – November 1837 (chapters 16–17)
IX – December 1837 (chapters 18–19)
X – January 1838 (chapters 20–22)
XI – February 1838 (chapters 23–25)
XII – March 1838 (chapters 26–27)
XIII – April 1838 (chapters 28–30)
XIV – May 1838 (chapters 31–32)
XV – June 1838 (chapters 33–34)
XVI – July 1838 (chapters 35–37)
XVII – August 1838 (chapters 38-part of 39)
XVIII – October 1838 (conclusion of chapter 39–41)
XIX – November 1838 (chapters 42–43)
XX – December 1838 (chapters 44–46)
XXI – January 1839 (chapters 47–49)
XXII – February 1839 (chapter 50)
XXIII – March 1839 (chapter 51)
XXIV – April 1839 (chapters 52–53)
Plot summary [ edit ]
Workhouse years [ edit ]
Oliver Twist is born and raised into a life of poverty and misfortune in a workhouse in the fictional town of Mudfog, located 70 miles (110 km) north of London.[11][12][8] Orphaned by his mother's death in childbirth and his father's mysterious absence, Oliver is meagerly provided for under the terms of the Poor Law and spends the first nine years of his life living at a baby farm in the 'care' of a woman named Mrs. Mann. Oliver is brought up with little food and few comforts. Around the time of Oliver's ninth birthday, Mr. Bumble, the parish beadle, removes Oliver from the baby farm and puts him to work picking and weaving oakum at the main workhouse. Oliver, who toils with very little food, remains in the workhouse for six months. One day, the desperately hungry boys decide to draw lots; the loser must ask for another portion of gruel. This task falls to Oliver himself, who at the next meal comes forward trembling, bowl in hand, and begs Mr. Bumble for gruel with his famous request: "Please, sir, I want some more".
A great uproar ensues. The board of well-fed gentlemen who administer the workhouse hypocritically offer £5 to any person wishing to take on the boy as an apprentice. Mr. Gamfield, a brutal chimney sweep, almost claims Oliver. However, when he begs despairingly not to be sent away with "that dreadful man", a kindly magistrate refuses to sign the indentures. Later, Mr. Sowerberry, an undertaker employed by the parish, takes Oliver into his service. He treats Oliver better and, because of the boy's sorrowful countenance, uses him as a mourner at children's funerals. Mr. Sowerberry is in an unhappy marriage, and his wife looks down on Oliver and loses few opportunities to underfeed and mistreat him. He also suffers torment at the hands of Noah Claypole, an oafish and bullying fellow apprentice and "charity boy" who is jealous of Oliver's promotion to mute, and Charlotte, the Sowerberrys' maidservant, who is in love with Noah.
Wanting to bait Oliver, Noah insults the memory of Oliver's biological mother, calling her "a regular right-down bad 'un". Enraged, Oliver assaults the much bigger boy. Mrs. Sowerberry takes Noah's side, helps him to subdue, punch, and beat Oliver, and later compels her husband and Mr. Bumble, who has been sent for in the aftermath of the fight, to beat Oliver again. Once Oliver is being sent to his room for the night he breaks down and weeps. The next day Oliver escapes from the Sowerberrys' house and later decides to run away to London to seek a better life.
London, the Artful Dodger and Fagin [ edit ]
Nearing London Oliver encounters Jack Dawkins, a pickpocket more commonly known by the nickname the "Artful Dodger", and his sidekick, a boy of a humorous nature named Charley Bates, but Oliver's innocent and trusting nature fails to see any dishonesty in their actions. The Dodger provides Oliver with a free meal and tells him of a gentleman in London who will "give him lodgings for nothing, and never ask for change". Grateful for the unexpected assistance, Oliver follows the Dodger to the "old gentleman's" residence. In this way Oliver unwittingly falls in with an infamous Jewish criminal known as Fagin, the gentleman of whom the Artful Dodger spoke. Ensnared, Oliver lives with Fagin and his gang of juvenile pickpockets in their lair at Saffron Hill for some time, unaware of their criminal occupations. He believes they make wallets and handkerchiefs.
Soon, Oliver naively goes out to "make handkerchiefs" with the Artful Dodger and Charley Bates, only to learn that their real mission is to pick pockets. The Dodger and Charley steal the handkerchief of an old gentleman named Mr Brownlow and promptly flee. When he finds his handkerchief missing, Mr Brownlow turns round, sees Oliver running away in fright, and pursues him, thinking he was the thief. Others join the chase, capture Oliver, and bring him before the magistrate. Curiously, Mr Brownlow has second thoughts about the boy – he seems reluctant to believe he is a pickpocket. To the judge's evident disappointment, a bookstall holder who saw the Dodger commit the crime clears Oliver, who, by now actually ill, faints in the courtroom. Mr Brownlow takes Oliver home and, along with his housekeeper Mrs Bedwin, cares for him.
Oliver stays with Mr Brownlow, recovers rapidly, and blossoms from the unaccustomed kindness. His bliss is interrupted when Fagin, fearing Oliver might tell the police about his criminal gang, decides that Oliver must be brought back to his hideout. When Mr Brownlow sends Oliver out to pay for some books, one of the gang, a young girl named Nancy, whom Oliver had previously met at Fagin's, accosts him with help from her abusive lover, the robber Bill Sikes, and Oliver is quickly bundled back to Fagin's lair. The thieves take the five-pound note Mr Brownlow had entrusted to him, and strip him of his fine new clothes. Oliver, shocked, flees and attempts to call for police assistance, but is dragged back by the Artful Dodger, Charley, and Fagin. Nancy, alone, is sympathetic towards Oliver and saves him from beatings by Fagin and Sikes.
In a renewed attempt to draw Oliver into a life of crime, Fagin forces him to participate in a burglary. Nancy reluctantly assists in recruiting him, all the while assuring the boy that she will help him if she can. Sikes, after threatening to kill him if he does not cooperate, puts Oliver through a small window and orders him to unlock the front door. The robbery goes wrong and Oliver is shot by people in the house and wounded in his left arm. After being abandoned by Sikes, the wounded Oliver makes it back to the house and ends up under the care of the people he was supposed to rob: Miss Rose and her guardian Mrs Maylie.
Mystery of a man called "Monks" [ edit ]
The mysterious man Monks plots with Fagin to destroy Oliver's reputation. Monks denounces Fagin's failure to turn Oliver into a criminal, and the two of them agree on a plan to make sure he does not find out about his past. Monks is apparently related to Oliver in some way. Back in Oliver's hometown, Mr Bumble has married Mrs Corney, the matron of the workhouse where the story first began, only to find himself in an unhappy marriage, constantly arguing with his domineering wife. After one such argument, Mr Bumble walks to a pub where he meets Monks, who questions him about Oliver. Bumble informs Monks that he knows someone who can give Monks more information for a price, and later Monks meets secretly with the Bumbles. After Mrs Bumble tells Monks all she knows for a price, Monks takes the locket and ring proving Oliver's parents, which had once belonged to Oliver's mother, and drops them into the river flowing under his place. Monks relates these events to Fagin, unaware that Nancy is eavesdropping on their conversations and plans to inform Oliver's benefactors. Mr Brownlow returns to London, where Oliver sees him, and brings him to meet the Maylies.
Now ashamed of her role in Oliver's kidnapping and worried for the boy's safety, Nancy goes to Rose Maylie, staying in London. She knows that Monks and Fagin are plotting to get their hands on the boy again, and offers to meet again any Sunday night on London bridge. Rose tells Mr Brownlow, and the two then make plans with all their party in London. The first Sunday night, Nancy tries to leave for her walk, but Sikes refuses permission when she declines to state exactly where she is going. Fagin realizes that Nancy is up to something, perhaps has a new boyfriend, and resolves to find out what her secret is. Meanwhile, Noah has fallen out with the undertaker Mr Sowerberry, stolen money from him, and fled to London with Charlotte. Using the name "Morris Bolter", he joins Fagin's gang for protection and becomes a practicer of "the kinchin lay" (robbing of children), and Charlotte is put with the girls. Fagin sends Noah to watch the Artful Dodger on trial, after he is caught with a stolen silver snuff box; the Dodger is convicted while showing his style, with a punishment of transportation to Australia. Next, Noah is sent by Fagin to spy on Nancy, and discovers her meeting with Rose and Mr Brownlow on the bridge, hearing their discussion of why she did not appear the prior week and how to save Oliver from Fagin and Monks.
Fagin angrily passes the information on to Sikes, twisting the story to make it sound as if Nancy had informed on him, when she had not. Believing Nancy to be a traitor, Sikes beats her to death in a fit of rage that very night and flees to the countryside to escape from the police and his conscience. There, Sikes is haunted by visions of Nancy and alarmed by news of her murder spreading across the countryside. He returns to London to find a hiding place and intends to steal money from Fagin and flee to France, only to die by accidentally hanging himself while attempting to lower himself from a rooftop to flee from a mob angry at Nancy's murder.
Resolution [ edit ]
While Sikes is fleeing the mob, Mr Brownlow forces Monks to listen to the story connecting him, once called Edward Leeford, and Oliver as half brothers, or to face the police for his crimes. Their father was once friends with Brownlow. Mr Leeford had fallen in love with Oliver's mother, Agnes, after Monks' parents had separated. Mr Leeford had to help a dying friend in Rome, and then died there himself, leaving Agnes, "his guilty love", in England. Mr Brownlow has a picture of Agnes and had begun making inquiries when he noticed a marked resemblance between her and Oliver. Monks had hunted his brother to destroy him, to gain all in their father's will. Meeting with Monks and the Bumbles in Oliver's native town, Brownlow asks Oliver to give half his inheritance to Monks to give him a second chance; Oliver is more than happy to comply. Monks moves to "the new world", where he squanders his money, reverts to crime, and dies in prison. Fagin is arrested, tried and condemned to the gallows. On the eve of Fagin's hanging, Oliver, accompanied by Mr Brownlow in an emotional scene, visits Fagin in Newgate Prison, in hope of retrieving papers from Monks. Fagin is lost in a world of his own fear of impending death.
On a happier note, Rose Maylie is the long-lost sister of Agnes, and thus Oliver's aunt. She marries her sweetheart Harry Maylie, who gives up his political ambitions to become a parson, drawing all their friends to settle near them. Oliver lives happily with Mr Brownlow, who adopts him. Noah becomes a paid, semi-professional police informer. The Bumbles lose their positions and are reduced to poverty, ending up in the workhouse themselves. Charley Bates, horrified by Sikes' murder of Nancy, becomes an honest citizen, moves to the country, and eventually becomes prosperous.
Characters [ edit ]
Oliver Twist – an orphan child whose mother died at his birth; father is dead when Oliver's paternity is revealed.
Mr Bumble – a beadle in the parish workhouse where Oliver was born
Mrs Mann – superintendent where the infant Oliver is placed until age 9 who is not capable of caring for the "culprits" as she is self- centered and greedy.
Mr. Sowerberry – an undertaker who took Oliver as apprentice
Mrs Sowerberry – Mr Sowerberry's wife
Noah Claypole – a cowardly bully, Sowerberry's apprentice
Charlotte – the Sowerberrys' maid, lover of Noah
Mr Gamfield – a chimney sweep in the town where Oliver was born
Mr. Brownlow – a kindly gentleman who takes Oliver in, his first benefactor
Mr Grimwig – a friend of Mr. Brownlow
Mrs Bedwin – Mr Brownlow's housekeeper
Rose Maylie – Oliver's second benefactor, later found to be his aunt
Mrs Lindsay Maylie – Harry Maylie's mother. Rose Maylie's adoptive aunt
Harry Maylie – Mrs Maylie's son
Mr Losberne – Mrs Maylie's family doctor
Mr Giles – Mrs Maylie's butler
Mr Brittles – Mrs Maylie's handyman
Duff and Blathers – two incompetent policemen Fagin – fence and boss of a criminal gang of young boys and girls
Bill Sikes – a professional burglar
Bull's Eye – Bill Sikes's vicious dog
The Artful Dodger – Fagin's most adept pickpocket
Charley Bates – a pickpocket in Fagin's gang
Toby Crackit – an associate of Fagin and Sikes, a house-breaker
Nancy – one of Fagin's gang, now living with Bill Sikes
Bet – a girl in Fagin's gang, sometime friend to Nancy
Barney – a Jewish criminal cohort of Fagin
Agnes Fleming – Oliver's mother
Mr Leeford – father of Oliver and Monks
Old Sally – a nurse who attended Oliver's birth
Mrs Corney – matron for the women's workhouse
Monks – a sickly criminal, an associate of Fagin's, and long-lost half-brother of Oliver
Monks' mother – an heiress who did not love her husband
Mr Fang – a magistrate
Tom Chitling – one of Fagin's gang members, returned from abroad at the time of the murder
Major themes and symbols [ edit ]
In Oliver Twist, Dickens mixes grim realism with merciless satire to describe the effects of industrialism on 19th-century England and to criticise the harsh new Poor Laws. Oliver, an innocent child, is trapped in a world where his only options seem to be the workhouse, a life of crime symbolised by Fagin's gang, a prison, or an early grave. From this unpromising industrial/institutional setting, however, a fairy tale also emerges. In the midst of corruption and degradation, the essentially passive Oliver remains pure-hearted; he steers away from evil when those around him give in to it, and in proper fairy-tale fashion, he eventually receives his reward – leaving for a peaceful life in the country, surrounded by kind friends. On the way to this happy ending, Dickens explores the kind of life an outcast, orphan boy could expect to lead in 1830s London.[13]
Poverty and social class [ edit ]
Poverty is a prominent concern in Oliver Twist. Throughout the novel, Dickens enlarged on this theme, describing slums so decrepit that whole rows of houses are on the point of ruin. In an early chapter, Oliver attends a pauper's funeral with Mr. Sowerberry and sees a whole family crowded together in one miserable room.
This prevalent misery makes Oliver's encounters with charity and love more poignant. Oliver owes his life several times over to kindness both large and small.[14] The apparent plague of poverty that Dickens describes also conveyed to his middle-class readers how much of the London population was stricken with poverty and disease. Nonetheless, in Oliver Twist, he delivers a somewhat mixed message about social caste and social injustice. Oliver's illegitimate workhouse origins place him at the nadir of society; as an orphan without friends, he is routinely despised. His "sturdy spirit" keeps him alive despite the torment he must endure. Most of his associates, however, deserve their place among society's dregs and seem very much at home in the depths. Noah Claypole, a charity boy like Oliver, is idle, stupid, and cowardly; Sikes is a thug; Fagin lives by corrupting children, and the Artful Dodger seems born for a life of crime. Many of the middle-class people Oliver encounters—Mrs. Sowerberry, Mr. Bumble, and the savagely hypocritical "gentlemen" of the workhouse board, for example—are, if anything, worse.
On the other hand, Oliver—who has an air of refinement remarkable for a workhouse boy—proves to be of gentle birth. Although he has been abused and neglected all his life, he recoils, aghast, at the idea of victimising anyone else. This apparently hereditary gentlemanliness makes Oliver Twist something of a changeling tale, not just an indictment of social injustice.[citation needed] Oliver, born for better things, struggles to survive in the savage world of the underclass before finally being rescued by his family and returned to his proper place—a commodious country house.
Director Roman Polanski's 2005 film adaptation of the novel dispenses with the paradox of Oliver's genteel origins by eliminating his origin story completely, making him just another anonymous orphan like the rest of Fagin's gang.
Symbolism [ edit ]
Dickens makes considerable use of symbolism. The many symbols Oliver faces are primarily good versus evil, with evil continually trying to corrupt and exploit good, but good winning out in the end. The town of Oliver's birth was Mudfog in the firsts serialization in Bentley's Miscellany in 1837, but changed to an unnamed town, a 70-mile walk to London, when published in book form. The "merry old gentleman" Fagin, for example, has satanic characteristics: he is a veteran corrupter of young boys who presides over his own corner of the criminal world; he makes his first appearance standing over a fire holding a toasting-fork, and he refuses to pray on the night before his execution.[15] The London slums, too, have a suffocating, infernal aspect; the dark deeds and dark passions are concretely characterised by dim rooms and pitch-black nights, while the governing mood of terror and brutality may be identified with uncommonly cold weather. In contrast, the countryside where the Maylies take Oliver is a bucolic heaven.
The novel is also shot through with a related motif, social class, which calls attention to the stark injustice of Oliver's world. When the half-starved child dares to ask for more, the men who punish him are fat. A remarkable number of the novel's characters are overweight.
Toward the end of the novel, the gaze of knowing eyes becomes a potent symbol. For years, Fagin avoids daylight, crowds, and open spaces, concealing himself most of the time in a dark lair. When his luck runs out at last, he squirms in the "living light" of too many eyes as he stands in the dock, awaiting sentence. Similarly, after Sikes kills Nancy at dawn, he flees the bright sunlight in their room, out to the countryside, but is unable to escape the memory of her dead eyes. In addition, Charley Bates turns his back on crime when he sees the murderous cruelty of the man who has been held up to him as a model.
Characters [ edit ]
In the tradition of Restoration Comedy and Henry Fielding, Dickens fits his characters with appropriate names. Oliver himself, though "badged and ticketed" as a lowly orphan and named according to an alphabetical system, is, in fact, "all of a twist."[16] However, Oliver and his name may have been based on a young workhouse boy named Peter Tolliver whom Dickens knew while growing up.[17] Mr. Grimwig is so called because his seemingly "grim", pessimistic outlook is actually a protective cover for his kind, sentimental soul. Other character names mark their bearers as semi-monstrous caricatures. Mrs. Mann, who has charge of the infant Oliver, is not the most motherly of women; Mr. Bumble, despite his impressive sense of his own dignity, continually mangles the King's English he tries to use; and the Sowerberries are, of course, "sour berries", a reference to Mrs. Sowerberry's perpetual scowl, to Mr. Sowerberry's profession as an undertaker, and to the poor provender Oliver receives from them. Rose Maylie's name echoes her association with flowers and springtime, youth and beauty while Toby Crackit's is a reference to his chosen profession of housebreaking.
Bill Sikes's dog, Bull's-eye, has "faults of temper in common with his owner" and is an emblem of his owner's character. The dog's viciousness represents Sikes's animal-like brutality while Sikes's self-destructiveness is evident in the dog's many scars. The dog, with its willingness to harm anyone on Sikes's whim, shows the mindless brutality of the master. Sikes himself senses that the dog is a reflection of himself and that is why he tries to drown the dog. He is really trying to run away from who he is.[citation needed] This is also illustrated when Sikes dies and the dog immediately dies as well.[18] After Sikes murders Nancy, Bull's-eye also comes to represent Sikes's guilt. The dog leaves bloody footprints on the floor of the room where the murder is committed. Not long after, Sikes becomes desperate to get rid of the dog, convinced that the dog's presence will give him away. Yet, just as Sikes cannot shake off his guilt, he cannot shake off Bull's-eye, who arrives at the house of Sikes's demise before Sikes himself does. Bull's-eye's name also conjures up the image of Nancy's eyes, which haunt Sikes until the bitter end and eventually cause him to hang himself accidentally.
Dickens employs polarised sets of characters to explore various dual themes throughout the novel;[citation needed] Mr. Brownlow and Fagin, for example, personify "good vs. evil". Dickens also juxtaposes honest, law-abiding characters such as Oliver himself with those who, like the Artful Dodger, seem more comfortable on the wrong side of the law. Crime and punishment is another important pair of themes, as is sin and redemption: Dickens describes criminal acts ranging from picking pockets to murder, and the characters are punished severely in the end. Most obviously, he shows Bill Sikes hounded to death by a mob for his brutal acts and sends Fagin to cower in the condemned cell, sentenced |
estimates that between 50 million and 60 million people in low-income countries suffer from acute and chronic wounds, and a large number of them would benefit from negative-pressure wound therapy. He says the device "has the potential to be a great benefit to patients around the world" once a few technical hurdles are cleared.
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Zurovcik notes that an improved version of the device — one that maintains a more constant pressure and is smaller and so easier to conceal when being worn for days — has been developed and is being manufactured now.
Zurovcik and her team designed the devices to be made in a sustainable way. They can be manufactured locally in many developing nations, using equipment that already exists there, she says. She is already in discussions with a plastic molding company in Rwanda, she says.
She plans to go to Rwanda in the fall to test the new version of the device, which is small enough to carry in a pocket. "Their clinics are filled with wounds," she says, noting that the injuries are often severe because patients avoid going to clinics as long as they can. The clinics themselves "don't have power, don't have a lot of supplies. I'd like to be able to bring something simple, that patients would be able to care for on their own."
In The World is a column that explores the ways members of the MIT community are developing technology — from the appropriately simple to the cutting edge — to help meet the needs of communities around the planet, especially those in the developing world. If you have suggestions for future columns, please e-mail newsoffice@mit.edu.American musician and actor Creed Bratton has an estimated net worth of $3 million. A former member of The Grass Roots, he is best recognized today for playing a role on NBC's The Office.
Creed Bratton was born as William Charles Schneider on February 8, 1943 in Los Angeles, California, U.S.A. Since 1976, he has been married to Claudia Anderson. He has a daughter named Annie Bratton.
After his collaboration with The Grass Roots, Bratton pursued a solo career, which led to the release of his first three albums. Two more followed 2008 and 2010. A year later, "Demo" was released, and it featured his greatest hits from his first three albums.
In 1967, he made his acting debut. As an actor, his most recent appearances were on Labor Pains, In Gayle We Trust, Funny or Die Presents, The Forgotten, The Ghastly Love Of Johnny X, I Am Ben, Terri, and Saving Lincoln.Funimation Entertainment announced on Friday that it has acquired North American streaming and home video rights for Free! Eternal Summer, the second season of Kyoto Animation's Free - Iwatobi Swim Club anime. The first episode will premiere on Funimation's streaming service on July 2 at 11:30 a.m. EDT and stream on Wednesdays.
The season will feature the new character Sōsuke Yamazaki, one of Rin's best friends from elementary school who understands him well. Yoshimasa Hosoya plays Sōsuke.
Free! Eternal Summer will also premiere in Japan on July 2. The group Oldcodex returns to perform the opening theme song "Dried Up Youthful Fame" after performing the first season's opening theme. Similarly, the five main leads — Nobunaga Shimazaki as Haruka Nanase, Tatsuhisa Suzuki as Makoto Tachibana, Mamoru Miyano as Rin Matsuoka, Tsubasa Yonaga as Nagisa Hazuki, and Daisuke Hirakawa as Rei Ryugazaki — are singing the ending theme song "Future Fish."
Crunchyroll will also stream the series as it airs in Japan.
Images © Kōji Ōji, Kyoto Animation/Iwasobi High School Swimming ClubVANCOUVER – Officials in British Columbia privately warned the province lacks the ability to manage oil spills from existing and future oil traffic, and even a moderate spill would overwhelm their ability to respond, documents show.
Ottawa’s decision to deal with coastal oil spills from a base in Quebec would make it much harder to contain spills, and Transport Canada and the Coast Guard lack the needed “environmental expertise” to manage them, officials said the documents obtained by The Canadian Press under freedom of information laws.
The notes were written by B.C. environment ministry bureaucrats for the incoming minister’s briefing book in June, and other concerns were detailed by emergency response officials in memos from last year.
B.C. environment ministry bureaucrats voiced a range of misgivings for minister Mary Polak.
“The Ministry of Environment, as the ministry responsible for preparedness, prevention, response and recovery for spills, is not adequately staffed and resourced to meet the existing and emerging expectations to address spills,” they wrote in the briefing book.
“Even a moderately-sized spill would overwhelm the province’s ability to respond and could result in a significant liability for government... The industry requirements, established by Transport Canada, are perceived as being insufficient in both scope and scale. For example, in both Washington State and Alaska industry requirements are far in excess of what is required in B.C.”
The B.C. government has said the Enbridge (TSX:ENB) proposed Northern Gateway pipeline — which would deliver Alberta oilsands products to a tanker port in Kitimat, B.C., for export to Asian markets — and Kinder Morgan’s proposed expansion of its existing TransMountain pipeline into the Port of Metro Vancouver could increase tanker traffic by more than 1,000 trips annually off the Pacific coast.
Enbridge is seeking approval for its project from the National Energy Board’s joint review panel, which finished its hearings in June and is expected to make a recommendation on whether the pipeline can go ahead by the end of the year. For the TransMountain project, Kinder Morgan has yet to formally submit its proposal for its required federal environmental review.
The briefing book notes many risks of a spill from a tanker negotiating B.C.’s coastal waters.
“Weather conditions and the remoteness of the pipeline’s route in B.C. could cause cleanup delays, leading to broader water, land and wildlife contamination. Sensitive habitats, local economies (fisheries and tourism, for example) and First Nations along the route could be affected.”
The briefing book estimates that at a rate of 500,000 barrels of crude oil a day, a pipeline spill lasting an hour could lead to 21,000 barrels spilling into B.C.’s wilderness.
When spills occur, under Canada’s polluter-pay principle, the polluter must start the response and pay for damages and clean-up costs. The lead government agency — the Coast Guard for water spills and the National Energy Board for land spills —doesn’t physically manage the incident itself but guides the polluter’s actions. Environment Canada’s task is to be always on call to provide scientific-based expert advice. The B.C. environment ministry has several mandates such as overseeing provincially regulated species and all B.C. Crown lands, and it has final authority over the final disposal of waste materials from a spill.
Mark Johnson, a spokesman for Environment Canada, said in an interview Ottawa agreed last March to create a tanker safety expert panel, due to report this November, and to fund eight new steps to ensure a “world-class” tanker safety system for shipping oil and chemicals “before major new energy infrastructure becomes operational.” These steps include more tanker inspections and monitoring, research, and the creation of a Canadian Coast Guard incident command system.
But last year, B.C. emergency response officials wrote that money was not the only problem: “Coast Guard and Transport Canada are to receive increased funding to respond,” stated one memo. “However, these agencies do not have the required environmental expertise.”
As well, cuts in the 2012 federal budget prompted Environment Canada to close its regional spill response offices in Vancouver and other cities and consolidated these in Quebec.
In May 2012, documents show officials in the B.C. Environmental Emergency Program in Victoria privately wrote this relocation would hinder efforts to contain an oil spill on the west coast. Those warnings were written about then-existing oil traffic, without factoring in future pipelines and tankers.
Wrote Program manager Graham Knox in an internal memo: “As a result, Environment Canada will have little or no surge capacity in the event of a major spill to bring in responders from across the country... Trying to provide the current level of service from Montreal is not realistic. Current EC staff have found it challenging to respond to spills outside of their base in Vancouver, and a move to Montreal will certainly increase these challenges many-fold.”
The document show local program officers agreed: “Not a good day,” wrote one. “Looks like heavier dependence on the province. Response activities cannot be managed remotely. Preparation and accumulation of local knowledge are vital to a cohesive and coordinated response to emergencies.”
Johnson declined to comment on the concerns outlined by Knox.
Stuart Bertrand, a spokesman for the B.C. environment ministry, confirmed in an interview the province now has “some additional workload” due to the relocation “and the reduced capacity of EC emergencies staff that now work out of Quebec.”
Bertrand added that the B.C. government is now exploring the concept of a new provincially-regulated but industry-led and funded “terrestrial spill response cooperative,” and “while we are pleased with the steps Ottawa is taking, we are also pressing forward with our own review to help define our world-class marine spill system.”
Federally, the shipping industry is responsible for funding the Western Canada Marine Response Corp., which responds to about 20 marine spills a year at a cost of about $5.3 million.
But Polak’s briefing book indicates a concern about the lack of commercial vessels that could be used to help in the event of an oil spill: “The level of (industry) resources, including spill response assets and trained personnel, provided to the Canadian Coast Guard for spill response appears to be inadequate and may be even more challenged with the anticipated increase in large vessel traffic on the B.C. coast.”
Johnson pledged new federal research on marine pollution risks and how to reduce oil-spill effects on marine life and habitats. In February, Transport Canada, working with the Coast Guard and Environment Canada, sought proposals for a Canadian-wide risk assessment study on ship-source oil spills, and awarded the contract to Genivar Inc.
Yet last year, Knox regretted the loss of at least one existing resource, notably Ottawa’s firing of the internationally respected Canadian oil spill expert Kenneth Lee and the elimination of his research centre in Dartmouth, N.S.
“This will limit resource managers’ access to critical scientific expertise when making response decisions in the future,” he wrote. “Oil spill expertise is eroding.”As many of us, including myself struggle to find a reason to drop $180 on Amazon’s Echo, plenty of people have already done so and most seem pretty happy with their purchase. And although I have yet to see one compelling reason to own one, I do grudgingly acknowledge that the world does not in fact rotate around me and not every product has me in its cross-hairs. Of course if you can’t justify spending that much on a glorified Bluetooth speaker that can order you some diapers and detergent, and are of the DIY persuasion, Amazon has been kind enough to post detailed instructions on how you can build your own Amazon Echo for a fraction of the cost using a Raspberry Pi 2 as it’s brain, and a few cables and plug-in parts that Amazon will of course be happy to sell you.
The instructions on Github are thorough and no one should be scared off by the necessary warning that you will need “basic programming experience and familiarity with shell.” The emphasis is on the “basic” part and the steps provided along with links to further explanations are enough to practically anyone through the process.
The only parts you will need are:
Raspberry Pi 2 (Model B) Micro-USB power cable for Raspberry Pi (included with Raspberry Pi) Micro SD Card – To get started with Raspberry Pi you need an operating system. NOOBS (New Out Of the Box Software) is an easy-to-use operating system install manager for the Raspberry Pi. The simplest way to get NOOBS is to buy an SD card with NOOBS preinstalled – Raspberry Pi 8GB Preloaded (NOOBS) Micro SD Card An Ethernet cable USB 2.0 Mini Microphone A USB Keyboard & Mouse, and an External HDMI Monitor (optional)USB keyboard and mouse if for some reason you can’t “SSH” into your Raspberry (optional)WiFi Wireless Adapter
After putting it all together and booting it up, there is simple but lengthy process of registering the device with Amazon services and setting up as an Alexa Voice Service but here again, don’t be intimidated; all the steps with helpful and detailed images are provided.
The only caveat is that due to the TOS in Alexa Voice Services, it will not be in “always listening” mode and you cannot activate it using a trigger word. With the regular Amazon Echo, you simply address it with an “Alexa” vocal command but with the DIY, you have to include a physical button to wake it and launch the voice recognition, making it similar in function to the Amazon Tap. However, unofficial workarounds for this already exist with the use of a sound activated relay (if you want to go that route).
This is not the first time that a DIY instructions for an Amazon Echo have appeared but these are official, much simpler and very detailed, taking you through every needed step.A teenage Pakistani woman Monday told of her terror as her husband chopped off her nose and lips in a furious marital row, and threatened to kill herself unless the police brought him to justice.
The horrifying case underscores the brutal violence suffered by some women in Pakistan, where a domestic violence bill lapsed in 2009 after being held up in the Senate due to objections from religious parties.
Salma Bibi, 17, said her husband, 22-year-old Ghulam Qadir, subjected her to a beating, then bound her hands and feet with rope and hacked into her face with a razor in a remote village in the southwestern province Baluchistan.
“He repeatedly slapped my face and then went into the room and brought with him a locally made, sharp razor,” she told AFP, speaking Baluchi in remarks translated by her uncle from a hospital bed in central Multan city.
“I started shouting in panic. He tied my hands and foot with a rope and chopped off my nose and lips,” she added.
The teenager said police refused to register a case when her family complained about the attack, and threatened to kill herself without justice.
“I want justice and if it is not delivered to me, I will immolate myself in front of the Supreme Court.
“I will not sit in peace until my husband is brought to justice and gets punishment for the crime he committed,” she added.
Ghulam and Salma married last year and live in the village of Karkana, 475 kilometres (300 miles) southwest of Islamabad.
Local officials insisted they were searching for Ghulam and would arrest him when caught.
“They often had quarrels as the girl used to spend more time with her parents,” said Nadir Khan, an administration official in Musa Khel district, part of violence-torn Baluchistan, which borders Afghanistan and Iran.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has demanded action in the case, but many cases of violence against women in Pakistan go unpunished.
Human rights groups say Pakistani women suffer severe discrimination and widespread domestic violence, including so-called “honour” killings when a victim is murdered for allegedly bringing dishonour on her family.
Ali Dayan Hasan, Pakistan director at Human Rights Watch, told AFP that domestic violence is a “serious, endemic problem in Pakistan” and called on the government to revive efforts to outlaw domestic violence.
But he praised the current parliament for a “fairly impressive” record on passing other legislation designed to protect women’s rights.
A recent law against sexual harassment, for example, is “some of the most progressive and cutting edge in the region,” he said.
[Image via Oxfam International on Flickr, Creative Commons licensed]And the Romney camp is refusing to deny the story.
Ted Nugent, after a Secret Service investigation, a canceled Army concert and an outpouring of criticism, said presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s camp “expressed support” for the controversial comments he made about President Obama last month at the annual National Rifle Association meeting. The no-holds-barred Texas rocker told CBS’ “This Morning” that Romney’s campaign told him to “stay on course” and not to tone it down after Nugent said he will “either be dead or in jail by this time next year” if President Obama is re-elected.
The Romney campaign responded by re-issuing the statement it put out two weeks ago, shortly after Nugent’s comments at the NRA went viral.
Except the earlier statement had nothing to do with whether the Romney campaign had privately urged Nugent to continue with his controversial, and somewhat violent, comments.
It’s odd that the Romney camp has such a hard time clearly condemning extremism. Then again, they let a gay spokesman go rather than defend him against anti-gay religious right hate groups. Not exactly a backbone of steel on this guy.SHARE
D1Baseball Top 25 Rankings: March 9
CHAT: Submit a question to Fitt/Rogers
Florida took over the top spot in the D1Baseball Top 25 rankings, as preseason No. 1 Vanderbilt’s run at the top came to an end. The Commodores went 1-2 in the Dodger Stadium College Baseball Classic and fell four spots to No. 5. The Gators went 4-1 on the week, splitting a pair of midweek games against No. 9 UCF and allowing just four runs in a three-game sweep of Maine to improve to 14-2 on the season.
TCU jumped from No. 6 to No. 2 after a 3-1 week that included wins over No. 10 Rice, then-No. 4 UCLA and then-No. 1 Vanderbilt. The Bruins tumbled 10 spots to No. 14 after going 0-3 at the Dodger Stadium tournament. Southern California was the big surprise of that event, going 3-0 with wins against TCU, Vandy and UCLA. The Trojans, who also have single wins against Cal State Fullerton, Kentucky and Fresno State on their resume, improved to 15-1 and debuted in the rankings at No. 13.
The two teams that went undefeated at the Houston College Classic also made moves up the rankings. LSU (15-1) climbed three spots to No. 4 after a 5-0 week that included wins against Houston, Baylor and Nebraska at Minute Maid Park. And the nation’s last remaining unbeaten team, Texas A&M (16-0), jumped eight spots to No. 6 after beating Dallas Baptist, Nebraska, Houston and Baylor in the last week.
Three teams joined the rankings in addition to USC, as Miami, Oklahoma State, Ole Miss and Tulane dropped out. Illinois returned to the Top 25 at No. 19 after winning a road series at Oklahoma State. Florida State (No. 21) also returned to the rankings after a 5-0 week that extended its winning streak to nine games. Cal State Fullerton (No. 23) re-entered the rankings after sweeping then-No. 13 Texas Tech to run its winning streak to seven games—a streak that includes sweeps over two Big 12 teams (Baylor is the other).
D1Baseball editors Aaron Fitt and Kendall Rogers determined the Top 25 rankings. Records are through games of March 8.Bloomberg is reporting New York May Lose 225,000 Jobs, Comptroller Says.
New York may lose as many as 225,000 jobs and $6.5 billion in securities industry-related tax revenue over the two-year period ending in October 2009, state Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli said.
In a report published today, he predicted financial- industry job losses may total 38,000 by October, with 10,000 more jobs lost in banking, insurance and real estate. Those losses could spread throughout the private sector, taking out as many as 225,000 positions statewide, he said.
“Wall Street is the engine that drives the economies of New York state and New York City, but the global credit crunch has slowed that engine down,” DiNapoli said in a news release. “This year is on pace to be one of the worst years ever on Wall Street.”
Wall Street’s importance to the economy is so great that for each financial sector job lost, two positions will vanish in other industries in New York City and 1.3 jobs will disappear elsewhere in the state, DiNapoli’s report stated.
Is This A Problem Or A Blessing?Jadhav's video statement was released after meeting his wife, mother in Islamabad
Convicted Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav thanked Pakistan on Monday for allowing a meeting with his wife and mother.
According to Express News, Jadhav recorded a statement post his meeting with his family.
Kulbhushan Jadhav face of Indian terrorism: FO
In a third time confession, Jadhav said that he was working for India as a Research and Wing Analysis (RAW) agent.
“I entered Pakistan two years ago from Iran and was apprehended by Pakistani security officials in Balochistan. The attitude of Pakistanis has always been respectful and dignified.”
“I am utterly thankful to Pakistan for granting my family the permission to meet me,” Jadhav said.
Wife, mother meet Jadhav in Islamabad
Jadhav’s family was given more time than promised. Indian Deputy High Commissioner J P Singh was also present during the meeting however, he was not able to hear the conversation due to soundproof settings.
In a recent press briefing, Foreign Office Spokesperson Muhammad Faisal also confirmed that Jadhav is perfectly healthy and the government has always ensured that he is treated well on humanitarian grounds.Russell Westbrook has been having a season for the ages. He’s been able to put the Thunder in playoff contention and has been averaging a triple double through the first 48 games of the season. He has already over taken LeBron James and Larry Bird for triple doubles all-time and even looks like he could catch Wilt Chamberlain’s career triple double total…catching Wilt in ANYTHING is an achievement worth mentioning.
If Westbrook is able to maintain this output, he will be the first player in NBA history since Oscar Robertson to average a triple double for an entire season!
It’s easy to use the ‘triple double’ argument but the perceived value of a TD has dramatically increased over the past 3 seasons.
Oscar Robertson averaged a Triple Double for an entire season and never won an MVP. He himself acknowledges that had he have known triple doubles were going to be considered such a big deal in the future he would have done it his whole career.
Is a triple double impressive? It certainly is…but is it overvalued by fans? Definitely. Especially when 10 assists isn’t always that impressive if you’re also committing 10 turnovers, or scoring 50 points on 38% from the field means that those 50 points could have easily been 60 or 70 between the whole team with a pass-first mentality.
Russell Westbrook’s body of work so far is without a doubt historic and it’s difficult to distinguish between that of, say, James Harden in the aggregate so the broader and more important question is:
Who’s likelier to win the hearts of the fans and the minds of the media, and how does one do that?
The trick is to examine who’s made a greater impact when games are on the line— who’s going to have the greater impact on winning.
Westbrook is perplexing as a crunch-time performer. He leads the NBA in total clutch points and in addition, he’s also a league-best plus-63 points in those situations. However, he’s not the efficient late-game scorer some desire, nor is he likely to surrender the ball when the game is on the line.
Despite the flaws, his play is a significant factor in Oklahoma City’s respectable 15-10 record in clutch-situation games. “I just like to win,” Westbrook said earlier this season. “My job is to come out and do whatever it takes to win, and that’s what I try to do every night.”
Westbrook is also dominating the record in usage rate. This stat measures the number of plays that end with a player shooting the ball, turning it over or getting to the free-throw line.
Westbrook’s regular-season usage rate is 41.4 percent, by far the highest in NBA history. That number skyrockets to a historic 60.9 percent in clutch time. A whopping 93.9 percent of his made field goals are unassisted. When games get down to the wire, nothing on this earth can separate Westbrook from the ball.
Fans and media absolutely love this just so long as it’s working and the team is winning games. While ever that criteria isn’t being met you can expect to be crucified in a dozen different ways.
Although the MVP discussion is much more complex and nuanced than who has the best stats late in close games, Harden currently has an advantage as the Rockets rack up wins and climb in the standings. Unfortunately, history shows that triple-doubles alone won’t win Westbrook the award.
Making big plays when games get tight might give him a small advantage at season’s end.
Wins matter, and the Thunder is only just in playoff contention.
A sub-50-win team hasn’t had the MVP since 1982. That’s a fact. More subjectively, the award also trends towards players who make their teams into at least borderline championship contenders by increasing their individual level of play. Two exceptions are Allen Iverson in 2001 and Derrick Rose in 2011, whose teams were carried by their defense more than their offense, but it still remains that the MVP usually goes to the best individual player on a team at or near the top of the league.
In 1962, Wilt Chamberlain averaged 50.4 points and 25.7 rebounds per game. Both led the league. He scored 100 points in one game. In the same year, Oscar Robertson averaged 31-12-11. Neither of them won the league’s MVP award, and it wasn’t really close.
Kobe Bryant had one of the best scoring seasons of all time in 2006. He averaged 35 points, 5 rebounds, and 4.5 assists, and scored 81 against the Raptors. He led an absolutely hopeless roster to the playoffs. He didn’t win MVP. He wasn’t even Top 3 in voting.
LeBron averaged 30-8-7 in 2008, but like 2006 Kobe, he didn’t even place in the Top 3 of MVP voting.
The common theme is that less statistically spectacular players can and often do get the nod over players having historic individual seasons. The voters reward winning and playing at a high individual level, not one or the other, and they always have.
The MVP historically has made their team better than they were, and this can’t be said for Westbrook and the current OKC team.
The Thunder are far worse than they were last year. That’s not directly Westbrook’s fault, obviously, but there has never been an NBA MVP whose team dropped off as drastically as the Thunder have this season. Usually, if anything, players are rewarded for making their team better than the previous season.
This doesn’t mean Russell Westbrook definitely won’t win MVP and it certainly doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve MVP either.
The reality of the situation is that if Russell Westbrook manages to collect an MVP trophy as his hardware for this NBA season it’ll be an anomaly when compared to pretty much every other season the award has existed. The argument can easily be made that the selection process does make the award itself is arbitrary and therefore within reach if the NBA and the media decide the story is good enough. But we’ll just have to wait and see…There is something fascinating about playing the sounds of seemingly unplayable things. We have seen how in Harvest by Olle Cornéer and Martin Lübcke the soil gets played like a record, with a huge needle. In Fabric Machine we can listen to the sound of fabric, being played like a tape.
The machine, created by Kathrin Stumreich in Vienna, plays multiple loops of fabric. Light sensors are used to generate the sounds and the quality and density of the cloth determine the pitch and the rhythm of the sound. So for example, the number of threads interrupting the light per second determine the pitch of the sound.
While Fabric Machine can be exposed like an installation, Kathrin Stumreich also performs with it, like an instrument, playing various ‘fabrictracks’ while one loop is dedicated to more rhythmic patters while the other one is used to create pitched material.BALTIMORE -- Attorneys for the six police officers charged in Freddie Gray's death say prosecutors steered investigators away from allegations about Gray's behavior in past interactions with law enforcement. The attorneys claim detectives were told Gray had a history of participating in "crash-for-cash" schemes in which people hurt themselves to collect settlements - a piece of information attorneys say would be useful for their case.
Gray died on April 19, a week after suffering a critical spinal injury in the back of a police van. Gray's death spurred days of largely peaceful protests followed by rioting and looting last April 27.
Six officers were charged with crimes ranging from misdemeanor assault to "depraved-heart" murder.
In a motion filed Thursday in Baltimore Circuit Court, defense attorneys allege that investigators for the Baltimore Police Department had information that Gray had a history of intentionally injuring himself in order to collect insurance money. The attorneys allege in the filing that police investigators knew that Gray once injured himself so severely while in a Baltimore jail that he required medical attention. The attorneys say in documents that when police investigators tried to follow up on the evidence, prosecutors in the state's attorney's office told them "not to do the defense attorneys' jobs for them."
Freddie Gray autopsy results leaked
Defense attorneys also say in the motion that high-ranking members of the state's attorney's office met with Dr. Carole Allen of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner a week before Gray's autopsy was complete and his death ruled a homicide. In addition, attorneys say the prosecutors didn't provide the medical examiner's office with a copy of the statement of Donta Allen, a man who had been inside the police van where Gray suffered his injury. Investigators initially said Allen told them that Gray had been making banging noises in the back of the van. But Allen later told the media that police had exaggerated his account.
Rochelle Ritchie, spokeswoman for State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby, declined comment on the recent filing.
The officers are scheduled to face trial in October, with a hearing on motions set for one month prior. Defense attorneys have asked a judge to move the trial out of Baltimore, arguing that pre-trial publicity will taint the integrity of the jury pool. Additionally, defense attorneys have asked for State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby and her office to be removed from the case, citing alleged conflicts of interest. The most recent filing is in support of that request.
"The statement to investigators 'not do the defense attorneys' jobs for them' would seem to indicate some level of knowledge that exculpatory evidence exists which could benefit the officers charged in Mr. Gray's death and that the prosecutor did not want this information uncovered by investigators," the attorneys wrote in the motion.
An attorney for the Gray family did not immediately return a call for comment Friday.
Meanwhile, a psychological firm paid to evaluate troubled Baltimore police, including a lieutenant charged in Gray's killing, is under investigation by the city and has been put on probation by the state police for cutting corners in its mental health screenings of officers.Are you ready for one very sweet and complete optics package? For anyone who does astronomy outreach work, is interested in practicing binocular astronomy or is just looking for a great teaching tool, I’ve got something you really need to take a look at… the Celestron 10X50 UpClose Binoculars and Green Laser Pointer Optics Kit.
When I first spied the Celestron 10X50 UpClose Binoculars and Green Laser Pointer Optics Kit I was researching for inexpensive binoculars to supply to our guests at the Observatory. It is not uncommon during a public night or an outreach program to have a hundred or more guests and one or two pairs of binoculars doesn’t go very far. My goal was to find something a non-profit organization could afford, priced so that we could get several pairs, and geared towards performance so our guests weren’t disappointed with the view and our binocular astronomy program. Since the introduction of the green laser pointer a few years ago, I quickly learned that even a novice (right down to my four and five year old grandchildren) can follow the visible beam to where you target it, to its end with binoculars. Then the beam is switched off and the object is in the binoculars! With a mind for safety, it’s a simple and fun way to teach anyone to use binoculars for deep sky observing.
But the green laser wasn’t what I was after… It was the binoculars, wasn’t it?
Another aspect of the binocular astronomy classes we give is providing a monthly star chart to our guests that highlights a few objects for them to locate on their own. It’s just a simple handout – one I print out at home before any program and we stand around in the dark and share a red flashlight as I teach them how to read it and point out the marker stars with the green laser. Yep. We share the red flashlight… A simple tool that should be in the hands of every single person that even remotely takes an interest in reading an astronomy chart outside at night… And one that I just don’t happen to have ten extra to pass around.
But the red flashlights wasn’t what I was after… It was the binoculars, wasn’t it?
So, back to basics. I needed multiple pairs of binoculars that could withstand hard use and perform well. After many years, and many pairs of personal binoculars, I’d love to put Nikon, Oberwerk or Fujinons in every one’s hands, but the reality check is not every one’s hands are ready for these types of binoculars. What I needed was something I knew from experience that could withstand being dropped, was water-proofed and provided an excellent view. In that case, experience tells me Celestron and are great all-purpose astronomy binoculars 10×50.
So, here I am… Staring at the Celestron 10X50 UpClose Binoculars and Green Laser Pointer Optics Kit for $59 and then the reality check really comes home. For this price I can order five… And get five pairs of binoculars, five green laser pointers and five red flashlights… All for about what five pairs of binoculars would cost! Click. Ordered.
After they arrived, it was time to put them to the test, eh? And now we’re not just talking the “Tammy Test” we’re talking about the multi-person, multi-use, how long will these kits hold up type of test. Here’s my first group – the Ohio Military Police. There wasn’t just three of them either – there were over three hundred. Needless to say, not one of them had a problem using the binoculars or with focusing them. Out of all of them that I interviewed, no one had issues with astigmatism on any of the binoculars and the lasers pointers and flashlights all performed equally well. These tests were carried out over two days and those binoculars were used hard, folks… No wimpy care, here.
On we go, eh? How about your average scout troop? Now we’re talking young hands… Hands that can’t be trusted on their own with the green lasers, but the leaders can. In this case, we can easily do a presentation where we can point out constellations with the green lasers and responsible adults can also assist in the program by pointing out particular stars or objects for us to name. By having several flashlights available, small groups of kids can work together with charts and adults at the same time to learn constellations on their own. When it’s time to practice astronomy, we use the same “follow the beam” trick, they learn and have a great time!
Still more? Then try thirty plus groups a year that look like this. Wild teens and sometimes sedate adults who come here to learn about astronomy. Telescopes are great and we share those, too. But nothing takes the cake like having your own pair of binoculars in hand – or having a green laser to point at something when you have a question. So, how did the Celestron 10X50 UpClose Binoculars and Green Laser Pointer Optics Kit perform in all of these situations? The binoculars are still going strong, folks. After all that use, not one single pair of them has shown any signs of a problem. The red flashlights are all still working on the original batteries and so are the green lasers. However, the green lasers are not extremely powerful and not very bright during situations like dusk or full Moon. At the same time, compared to other lasers in my possession, they do a fine job and should not be discounted. After all, the laser and flashlight are almost like getting them for free when you buy the binoculars!
In the long run the Celestron 10X50 UpClose Binoculars and Green Laser Pointer Optics Kit is an exceptional bargain at $59 and one I highly recommend. As a matter of a fact, I recommend it so much that OPT is even going to give one to a lucky Universe Today reader to keep so you can test it out yourself! From now until October 7, 2008 at 12:00 pm PDT you can send an email with the title of this review in the subject line and your name in the body of the email and Universe Today will randomly choose a winner to get your own Celestron Green Laser Pointer Optics Kit for free! No matter where you live…
Put ’em to the test and see if you don’t agree. The Celestron 10X50 UpClose Binoculars and Green Laser Pointer Optics Kit is an exceptionally rugged and good performing astronomy binocular and having a red flashlight and green laser is a huge bonus.
The Celestron 10X50 UpClose Binoculars and Green Laser Pointer Optics Kit were purchased for this review from OPT and a free kit will be provided to a randomly chosen winner by Oceanside Photo and Telescope.Dubai: Two motorists — a man and a woman — lost their appeals on Tuesday after a court found them jointly liable for the death of a man’s daughter, pregnant wife and her five-month-old foetus following a traffic accident.
The 37-year-old Gulf national woman was travelling at 120km/h when |
I was running hard, as fast as I could. When I reached this policeman in the street, he hit me over the head with his club. He hit me twice over the head, and I saw the other three policemen coming, and I fell down. I thought if I fell down the others would not attack me, but they did; they hit me over the legs and on my arm, when I raised it up to protect my head, and they hit me in the back…”
Harry’s story was not exceptional. Historian Marilynn S. Johnson suggests that urban residents began complaining and organizing against police brutality in the mid-19th century. In fact, the first major investigation into police misconduct was launched in 1894 in New York City through the Lexow Committee. This committee documented police abuses including corruption, brutality and perjury. In the late 19th century, the most common complaint from urban residents against the police was about “clubbing” which was “the routine bludgeoning of citizens by patrolmen armed with nightsticks or blackjacks.”
On August 9, 18-year-old Michael Brown was murdered by a police officer in the streets of Ferguson, Missouri in front of several witnesses. A hundred and fourteen years separate Reed’s clubbing and Brown’s killing. Over that time span, the hostile relationship between black people and the police is unchanged. As a result, black people in general and especially young blacks profoundly distrust cops. This week, the Black Youth Project released a report summarizing research on young black people’s perceptions and experiences of policing. The key findings are unsurprising:
Black youth report the highest rate of harassment by the police (54.4%), nearly twice the rates of other young people.
Less than half of black youth (44.2 percent) trust the police, compared with 71.5 percent of white youth, 59.6 percent of Latino youth, and 76.1 percent of Asian American youth.
Substantially fewer black youth believe the police in their neighborhood are there to protect them (66.1 percent) compared to young people from other racial and ethnic groups.
These findings are confirmed by both anecdotal evidence and various studies. In 2000, for example, Dr. Delores D. Jones-Brown surveyed 125 black male high students regarding attitudes toward and contacts with the police. Her study found that a majority of respondents reported experiencing the police as a repressive rather than facilitative agent in their own lives and in the lives of their friends and relatives. The black male youths complained of being stopped because they were unjustly suspected of dealing drugs or because they were out past curfew or because they were in the “wrong” neighborhood.
Of course, young black men are not the only ones to have negative encounters with police. Black girls and young women often complain about being ‘hassled’ and sometimes sexually assaulted by law enforcement. A young black woman shared a particularly harrowing assault by a cop with members of the Young Women’s Empowerment Project (YWEP) as part of their Bad Encounter Line research:
“I was walking to the bus when a police officer called out and said, ‘Hey you come here girl with all of that ass.’ I ignored the comment unaware of where it was coming from until he pulled up on the curb to block my path in his undercover cop car. He jumps out and yells ‘didn’t you hear me calling you girl? I replied by simply saying no, my name isn’t aye girl with all that ass.’ He got really mad and slapped me saying that I was very disrespectful and do I know who he is and what he can do to me?…
The story escalates with the police officer sexually assaulting the young woman. She ends up getting arrested and jailed when she tries to report him. That story is unfortunately not unique. In 2011, I became involved in supporting a young woman named Tiawanda Moore. Moore, who was 20 at the time I met her, reported that she had been sexually assaulted by a police officer in July of 2010, and was then herself charged with eavesdropping on police. According to her attorney, Robert Johnson, when she tried to report the assault, internal affairs “gave her the run-around, trying to intimidate and discourage her from making a report. The internal affairs officers told Moore if it happens again you have our number. Finally, a recording of the officer’s misconduct is made on her cell phone.” She was charged with two counts of eavesdropping — and if she had been found guilty would’ve faced up to fifteen years in prison. She was thankfully acquitted on August 24, 2011 and has filed a civil suit against the city of Chicago and the Chicago Police Department. The fact that Moore was sexually assaulted by a police officer in her own apartment and then found herself on trial and facing prison while he was not even reprimanded was an incredible injustice.
I work with and on behalf of young people of color (particularly black youth) who are targeted by the criminal punishment system. Whenever I ask a young black person to narrate a personal experience of injustice, almost all (with a few exceptions) tell a story of police harassment and violence. For them, a police badge is the main symbol of daily oppression and injustice.
Many young black people tell me that they feel under siege by the police in their neighborhoods. They are consistently harassed and hassled for no reason other than their youth and skin color. As Brunson and Fine point out, “young black men typify ‘the symbolic assailant’ in the eyes of the police.” Frustration and anger with such unfair and unjust targeting has and continues to find expression in hip hop culture and in rap music. One only needs to listen to Tupac, NWA, or Jasiri-X in order to hear the exasperation and the barely contained rage at the treatment of blacks by police. Daily police harassment is experienced by young black men as micro-aggressions that they have little power to resist without suffering potentially lethal consequences. This takes a toll on their physical and mental wellness. Negative and violent law enforcement experiences are extremely harmful.
In his book “Youth in a Suspect Society”, Henry Giroux writes about the ‘punishing state’ and its growing power and impact over the lives of youth of color. The police have always been the gatekeepers and enforcers of the punishing state. The militarization of schools with their security cameras, metal detectors, and police patrols reinforces the idea that young people of color are dangerous threats. Giroux also speaks to a “politics of disposability” that serves to remove young people from the realm of being deserving of support and resources. Over the past 20 years, young people of color have become increasingly the targets of policies and rules suggesting that they are in some ways already assumed to be “criminal” or at the very least “dangerous” by default. In 2014, young people are being managed and controlled through the lens of crime, repression, and punishment.
To be clear though, the persistent denial of black humanity and a callous disregard of black pain have been constants in American history. In a society where black skin is an inherent marker of suspicion and criminality, Michael Brown’s (disposable) body becomes a lethal weapon. This gives anyone a license to kill him. His dangerous, “weaponized” black skin means that he can only be an aggressor and never a victim. The bodies of Michael Brown and other black youth therefore become human magnets for police bullets.
Michael Brown and his peers didn’t create the world in which they are living and miserably dying. They are the generation born into a get-tough on crime, stop and frisk, war on drugs, war on terror, war on everything country. It’s the country that is actually dangerous by default, not Michael Brown.Image copyright PA Image caption Sajid Javid said a public office oath would set an example
Civil servants and other holders of public office should swear an oath to British values, Communities Secretary Sajid Javid has said.
Writing in the Sunday Times, Mr Javid said people could not play a "positive role" in public life unless they accepted basic values.
These included democracy, equality and freedom of speech, he said.
Mr Javid's intervention comes after a report by Dame Louise Casey warned of increasing ethnic segregation.
'Challenge attitudes'
Mr Javid's proposals would mean every new recruit in the public sector, including councillors, school governors and civil servants would be expected to commit to the oath, which may have to be read out loud before starting the role.
This could extend to those working in the NHS and the BBC.
Dame Louise said some sections of society did not accept British values such as tolerance.
Mr Javid said he was "drawn" to Dame Louise's recommendation to bring in an oath of allegiance.
"If we are going to challenge such attitudes, civic and political leaders have to lead by example," he said.
"We can't expect new arrivals to embrace British values if those of us who are already here don't do so ourselves, and such an oath would go a long way to making that happen."
'Building blocks'
Mr Javid said he did not want to see a "government-approved, one-size-fits-all identity" where everyone "drinks tea, watches cricket and bobs up and down at the Last Night of the Proms".
But, he added, people would struggle to play a positive role in British life if they did not accept the "building blocks of our society".
Mr Javid recalled how, aged about eight, he went to see a GP with his mother to act as her interpreter.
He said while today she is completely fluent in English, a minority of immigrants have failed to make such an "effort".
The new oath could include "tolerating the views of others even if you disagree with them", "believing in freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from abuse", "a belief in equality, democracy and the democratic process" and "respect for the law, even if you think the law is an ass," Mr Javid writes.
A government source acknowledged that the oath on its own would be insufficient to weed out extremism or promote integration.
Mr Javid will set out his full response to Dame Louise's report on social cohesion in the spring.After we had eaten far too much steak and far too many tamales on a Friday night at The Tamale Factory in Gregory, attorney Winston Collier invited our group to make the short drive north on Arkansas Highway 33 to Augusta.
He wanted to conduct an evening historic tour of the city.
Given my love of Arkansas history and especially my love of the lower White River region, it was an offer I couldn’t refuse. Fortunately, our companions were also Arkansas history buffs.
My mother grew up in nearby Des Arc, and I would spend a lot of time with my grandparents in Des Arc each summer as a child. That began my love affair with the lower White River and its many traditions — the houseboat people, the commercial fishermen, the mussel gatherers, the towboat pilots and cooks.
It’s a magical — almost haunted — part of the South, as anyone who has spent time there can attest. I’m glad the movie “Mud,” which currently is attracting strong reviews, pays homage to that lifestyle.
Augusta is the oldest town in Woodruff County. In fact, it was part of Jackson County before Woodruff County was created. Augusta was an important steamboat stop, and you can still sense the history there. Boats from Memphis and New Orleans would make regular stops, making Augusta a thriving town in the late 1800s and early 1900s. By 1930, Augusta had a population of 2,243 people. That’s more people than the town had in the 2010 census.
“The site has long been called Chickasaw Crossing,” Paula Harmon Barnett wrote in the online Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. “In 1820, a man known only as Hamilton landed there and took up residence, but about two years later, he sold his holdings to Rolla Gray, who settled there with his family. Other settlers quickly followed.
“In 1847, John R. Elliott of Philadelphia and his partner, William Polite, opened the settlement’s first store at the west end of what’s now Main Street. Elliott soon retired, and Polite built a new store on an adjacent plot. Thomas Hough then moved into the Elliott-Polite building, and the settlement was on its way to becoming a town.
“In 1848, Hough had the town surveyed and laid out, and he named it in honor of his niece, Augusta Cald of Virginia. Incorporation followed on July 9, 1860. At that time, Augusta was in Jackson County. It became part of Woodruff County when the county was formed in the 1860s.
“Most of the families that settled in Augusta came from Eastern states and brought culture with them. Visitors remarked on the beauty of the homes in this wilderness and often stayed to join in the building of the town. By 1861, its population had grown to about 600.
“Hough built present-day Woodruff County’s first church in Augusta in the early 1850s at a cost of $6,000. The Methodists and Presbyterians shared it. Later, he built the Presbyterian church, which now belongs to and has been preserved by the city. The church, visited by Woodrow Wilson as a young boy (his brother-in-law was pastor from 1878-79), is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
“Hough sold his residence in Augusta to the county to be used as a courthouse. The current courthouse is on the original property.”
During the Civil War, Union troops tore down some of the city’s homes and used the lumber to build shelters. A few of the finer homes were spared so they could be used to house officers. Reconstruction Gov. Powell Clayton declared martial law in Woodruff County in 1868 and sent in the state militia to root out the KKK.
By the 1870s, though, steamboat traffic had increased, cotton was being shipped out and Augusta again was one of the most important places in the Arkansas Delta. The city, thinking the White River was all it needed, was bypassed by the main line of the railroad.
Though Augusta — like most other east Arkansas towns — has struggled to stem population loss the past several decades, one extremely positive thing has happened in recent years. ArCare, a nonprofit corporation that operates primary care clinics, dental clinics and wellness centers in 10 east Arkansas counties — is headquartered at Augusta and has renovated several historic downtown buildings for its growing staff.
Let’s be frank: The downtowns of a lot of communities in the Arkansas Delta are dead and aren’t coming back. There’s life, however, in downtown Augusta.
After showing us the buildings being preserved by ARcare, Winston drove us by the Ferguson house. The massive house was completed in 1861 as the Civil War was about to begin. It was the home of James P. and Maria Alcorn Ferguson and was built from local pine and cypress. The house was in the Ferguson family for more than a century. The couple’s oldest son, W.E. Ferguson, was a prominent politician who served in the Arkansas Legislature and a number of county offices.
The Ferguson home is now vacant and in dire need of repair. I mentioned to Winston that we should try to get it listed on the Historic Preservation Alliance of Arkansas’ 2013 list of endangered places in order to draw attention to its plight.
Winston, with the help of House chief of staff Gabe Holmstrom and Little Rock public relations executives Denver Peacock and Jordan Johnson, worked with Vanessa McKuin of the HPAA to get the house on the list.
The HPAA calls its 2013 list the “Seven to Save.”
“The 2013 list of endangered places highlights distinctive sites throughout Arkansas that represent important aspects of Arkansas’ culture and history,” McKuin said. “Though each circumstance is different, each of these places is important to the community where it is located, and each is worth saving. By calling attention to these sites now, we want to encourage local action.”
Speaking of the lower White River, the Frith-Plunkett house at Des Arc is also on the list.
The HPAA wrote: “As Des Arc’s oldest residence, the vernacular Greek Revival-style Frith-Plunkett house reflects the prosperity of the most successful economic era in the rural river town’s history. The Frith-Plunkett house presents a unique representation of the architecture that formed the backdrop for Des Arc’s pre-Civil War development. During the Civil War, many buildings in Des Arc were burned and others were moved to nearby DeValls Bluff. Because of the Frith-Plunkett house’s function as a hospital during the war, it remained intact.
“The house is vacant and in disrepair. In 2002, the current owner purchased the building to save it from demolition, but it has since remained vacant. Though the owner has made small steps through the years, the condition of the building has caused the city to again consider a resolution to demolish the Frith-Plunkett house. The owner and other concerned citizens are working to raise awareness about the importance of saving the house.”
The other five properties on this year’s list are:
— The Hantz house and the adjacent Durst house at Fayetteville: The Hantz house was Fay Jones’ first house to design. He completed the project while he was a student. The Durst house was designed by John Williams, the founder of the University of Arkansas architecture program. As the UA campus continues to expand, the future of these houses is uncertain.
— Park Hill Elementary School at North Little Rock: The building was constructed in 1924. People in the neighborhood fear that the facility will be demolished once it’s closed rather than being used for something else.
— The Round Top filling station at Sherwood: Pierce Oil contracted with the Justin Matthews Co. in 1936 to construct a gas station along U.S. Highway 67. W.D. Happy” Williford operated the round station from then until his retirement in 1981. The building, which was later abandoned, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008. Preservationists in Sherwood hope the station can become a police substation or a small museum.
— The St. Joseph orphanage at North Little Rock. Famed Arkansas architect Charles Thompson designed the 56,000-square-foot facility in 1908. The orphanage operated until 1978. The building later housed a day care center and a retreat center. The final two nuns at St. Joseph moved to St. Scholastica at Fort Smith in 2007. The Diocese of Little Rock considered selling the property. A nonprofit group known as St. Josph Center of Arkansas Inc. was formed to save the building and protect the adjoining 63 acres from development.
— The Wynne Opera House: The building was constructed in 1900 with a grocery store on the first floor and an opera house on the second floor. The building later served as a temporary courthouse and as a hardware store. The property is privately owned and in bad shape. The Wynne Downtown Revitalization Committee and the Cross County Historical Society are working to save it.The Trotters confirmed on Wednesday that they will now fulfil fixtures in the Premier League and have revealed that they will replay the game at White Hart Lane next week
Bolton have confirmed that their FA Cup quarter-final against Tottenham Hotspur has been rescheduled for March 27.
After revealing that they will play their Premier League fixture against Blackburn Rovers on Saturday they have also stated that they will replay the Cup tie next Tuesday.
The original game was abandoned when Bolton midfielder Fabrice Muamba collapsed on the pitch after suffering a cardiac arrest in the 42nd minute of the game.
Muamba has since gone on to regain consciousness and speech as he continues his recovery.
The match will take place at White Hart Lane with kick-off at 7.30pm.Stephen Harper suddenly seems to really care about women's rights.
On February 12, Harper vowed to appeal a federal court ruling that would allow Muslim women to wear a niqab during citizenship ceremonies. Speaking to the press about the matter, Harper said, "That is not the way we do things." He added that, "This is a society that is transparent, open and where people are equal, and I think we find that offensive."
Then, a few days later, the Conservative Party put out an online pledge calling for people to support Harper's appeal. The pledge said, "In Canada, women are full and equal members of society -- including when they take an oath of Canadian citizenship."
On March 10, Harper took it a step further. Harper, in the House of Commons, responded to Justin Trudeau's claims that he's pandering to Islamophobia by saying that in reality, he's just a feminist. Harper said, "We do not allow people to cover their faces during citizenship ceremonies. Why would Canadians, contrary to our own values, embrace a practice at that time that is not transparent, that is not open and frankly is rooted in a culture that is anti-women. That is unacceptable to Canadians, unacceptable to Canadian women."
This is a classic example of opportunistic feminism, which so many white men like to make use of from time to time. The premise of opportunistic feminism is simple. Step one: find a perceived practice or tendency among a group of people that you don't like. Step two: claim the practice is misogynist, and then position yourself as the kind-hearted saviour of women in said group. Step three: do all you can to demonize said group, and make it seem as though they all hate women. Step four: revert back to your typical anti-feminist ways, and actively dismantle women's rights at will.
As you can see, Harper has closely followed steps one to three over the last month or so by demonizing Muslims and pretending to care about the liberation of women at the same damn time. But what about step four? Well, let's look at the history.
In December, Peter Mansbridge asked Harper if he had any interest in forming an investigation into missing and murdered indigenous women. Harper replied, "Um it, it isn't really high on our radar, to be honest, Peter." A 2014 RCMP report notes that 1180 indigenous women were murdered or went missing between 1980 and 2012, and the UN has singled Canada out for its failure to protect indigenous women.
In May, Harper announced that he won't be including safe abortions as part of his global child and maternal health funding initiative because the issue is "too divisive" and he's "trying to rally a broad public consensus." NDP MP Hélène Laverdière responded by noting that unsafe abortion procedures are responsible for the deaths of 47,000 women internationally each year.
Harper has also scrapped universal day care, cut funding for the Status of Women Canada group and forbid the Canadian Human Rights Commission from hearing pay equity complaints. Unfortunately, the list goes on. Women's rights are useful to Harper when he can invoke them to drum up hate and fear. Until then, and immediately after, women's rights are largely irrelevant.
In this regard, Harper isn't unique. Instead, he joins a long line of white men who engage in the exact same practice. Some of the most common examples you'll see are men like Bill O'Reilly, typically vehemently opposed to women's rights in any meaningful sense, suddenly becoming very concerned with the way women are portrayed in the lyrics of black hip-hop artists. This is a trope that has played out over and over again.
Another example, which has been around for hundreds of years, sees Western colonizers invoking women's rights as a rationale for military invasions which actually drastically undercut the status of women in the lucky country.
One of the most prominent recent cases of this trick in action was when George W. Bush invoked the image of the oppressed burqa-clad woman in Afghanistan who needed saving in order to drum up support for an invasion that radically increased the level of malnutrition, poverty and murder of Afghani women. Unfortunately, this toxic colonial feminism is so common, and destructive, that scholar Lila Abu-Lughood has written an entire book on the matter.
These men aren't feminists. They don't care about women. They use women for their own problematic purposes, whether it is generating Islamophobia, engaging in racist attacks on black men, or creating support for imperial conquests. It's time to stop pretending that they are doing anything else, and start calling them out on their hypocrisy.
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The Wizards are chasing the Raptors for the third spot in the Eastern Conference, and although it’ll take a lot more work to get there, they definitely displayed the heart and resiliency to win last night in Toronto.
Even though they were missing Nene, they still came into Toronto with their heads held high, showing the confidence necessary in order to pull off an upset against one of the hottest teams in the NBA. The Raptors have been on an absolute tear since trading Rudy Gay to the Sacramento Kings, and their backcourt comprised of Kyle Lowry and All-Star DeMar DeRozan have both been outstanding.
John Wall didn’t get much help from his backcourt mate, Bradley Beal, but he certainly picked up the slack when it mattered most. Wall and Marcin Gortat were clicking early on, as they continued to run the pick-and-roll the two have become so comfortable running since Gortat arrived in the nation’s capital. Gortat struggled early on, missing all of his first five attempts, but he eventually started to get it going, and it all began on the defensive side of the floor. Gortat hasn’t gotten nearly the amount of credit he deserves for his improvement defensively, and he helped carry the Wizards in terms of rim protection last night. He picked up 4 blocks, but more importantly, he helped alter plenty of shots at the basket coming from Toronto’s backcourt. Gortat finished the game with 31 points and 12 rebounds, including multiple and-1 baskets that helped extend the game for the Wizards.
As for John Wall, well, he was terrific.
He’s struggled in clutch situations this season, but that wasn’t the case against the Raptors last night. He started hot right out of the gate, knocking down 3 of his first 4 shots, all of which came from the perimeter. With Nene out, Wall has gotten some more room for penetration and he’s mixed it up well offensively. He’s did a good job of not settling for jump shots like he’s had a tendency to do so this season. Wall finished his stellar game with 31 points on 12-20 shooting to go along with 9 assists. Wall made multiple defensive stops in overtime and finished a few layups that helped lead Washington to victory in one of the most entertaining games this season.
The Wizards have now won five straight games and will have a very realistic chance of getting their sixth straight win on Saturday night against the Philadelphia 76ers. Everyone who has played has contributed, which is terrific to see, especially with Nene sidelined. The collective effort has been great and it was definitely displayed last night at the Air Canada Centre.The state utilities commission will take another look at solar energy rules that are blamed for hampering the expansion of sun-power in South Carolina.
In an unusual decision Thursday, the Public Service Commission agreed to hold an interactive public workshop Sept. 12 to discuss key policies that govern solar energy.
The PSC will review the state’s five-year-old rules on net metering, a program intended to help people, businesses and nonprofit groups more easily use solar power in South Carolina.
Renewable energy advocates say the program needs updating because of increasing interest in solar energy in a state with some of the nation’s most restrictive controls on sun power.
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The net-metering program includes a cap on the amount of solar energy allowed for those who use a combination of sun power and energy from utilities – and that is beginning to limit businesses and schools.
The 100-kilowatt cap has hampered Furman University’s ability to add more solar power at the campus north of Greenville, The State newspaper reported Thursday. Furman, a regional leader in green campus initiatives, has reached the 100-kilowatt limit, university officials told the newspaper.
It might be possible for Furman to strike a deal with Duke Energy to exceed the cap, but energy observers say increasing the cap above 100 kilowatts would better protect the school and others. Any deal negotiated to exceed the cap likely would be weighted toward the power company – and reaching such an accord is more complex, utilities observers say.
Nationally, about two dozen states have less restrictive caps for non-residential customers than South Carolina, according to a 2013 report by the Interstate Renewable Energy Council.
People who generate electricity from solar panels need less power from utilities, which saves them money on power bills. Solar energy also reduces reliance on energy produced from nuclear and coal-fired power plants. Coal plants are a major contributor of gases that cause global warming.
The commission, by a 2009 state agreement, is required to review the solar net-metering rules sometime this year. The agency recently indicated that renewable energy is of substantial interest to the public. The solar net-metering policy is one of several “important mechanisms in the national energy policy of encouraging renewable energy resources,” an April 10 commission filing said.
Representatives from utilities did not speak at Thursday’s meeting, but they have been hesitant to embrace widespread solar use because of the potential loss of revenue.
Dukes Scott, director of the state Office of Regulatory Staff, said the workshop forum is not a typical way for the PSC to address issues. But it is a welcome change for some. Officials with the S.C. Coastal Conservation League said it would provide for greater public participation than a formal hearing or presentation.
“We think that is a much more constructive way to do it,” said Kenneth Sercy, an energy analyst with Coastal Conservation League. “There will be more of an exchange between different parties.”
Meanwhile Thursday, the PSC reversed course and voted to let the Coastal Conservation League become an official party in the debate, meaning it could legally challenge any decision not to increase the cap. The commission had previously denied the league’s formal participation.George J. Marlin, a former executive director of the porta uthority of N.Y. and N.J., is the author of "The American Catholic Voter: Two Hundred Years of Political Impact." He also is a columnist for TheCatholicThing.org and the Long Island Business News. Read more reports from George J. Marlin — Click Here Now.
The distinguished French critic Jean Francois Revel, in his 1977 work "The Totalitarian Temptation," argued that many intellectuals put on ideological blinders when dealing with Marxist regimes. Because reality had to reflect their idyllic abstract model, philosophers, historians and biographers — people Lenin called useful idiots — denied the criminal policies and the violation of human rights of Stalin and Mao.When Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s "The Gulag Archipelago," which revealed the horrors of Stalin’s labor camps, was published in 1973, the European left, in unison, accused him of being a “rightist, a believer in the religious values of the worst kind of Slavic obscurantism.” His testimony, Revel wrote, “was treated as the hallucinary projection of the author’s own feeling.”Nevertheless, thanks to Solzhenitsyn and Anne Applebaum, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book "Gulag: A History and the efforts of the French intellectuals who compiled The Black Book of Communism: Crimes Terror, Repression," the horrendous crimes of Stalin have been documented and exposed the wishful thinking of Western dupes.However, the extent of the brutal crimes of Mao, who died in 1975, were kept under wraps for years. As recently as 2000, a critically acclaimed biography of Mao by long time correspondent for The Economist, Philip Short, had this to say about Mao’s legacy:"The overwhelmingly majority of those whom Mao’s policies killed were unintended casualties of famine. The others — three or four million of them — were the human detritus, of his epic struggle to transform China..."China’s landlords were eliminated as a class (and many of them were killed in the process); but they were not exterminated as a people, as the Jews were in Germany. Even as his policies caused the deaths of millions, Mao never entirely lost his belief in the efficacy of thought reform and the possibility of redemption. ‘Heads are not live chives’, he said. ‘They do not grow back again...’"What was achieved at the cost of such bloodshed and pain? He freed China from the straitjacket of its Confucian past..."Revolution has more to do with tearing down the old then with painstakingly constructing the new. Mao’s legacy was to clear the way for less visionary, more practical men to build the shining future that he could never achieve."Talk about ideological blindness! Mr. Short is delusional!Fortunately, since 2005, scholarship based on previously classified documents refutes him. The first, "Mao: The Unknown Story" (2005) by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday proved Mao was a ruthless terrorist who was responsible for the deaths of 70 million Chinese.Since then the two volumes published of Frank Dikotter’s planned trilogy on Mao’s regime have built on Chang’s work.Released in October, "Dikotter’s The Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution 1945-1957," traces the post-World War II Civil War (1946-1949) and the first years of “liberation” under Mao.To advance his cause to defeat nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, “Mao,” writes Dikotter, “promised anything.” He even conned Army Gen. George Marshall, President Truman’s special envoy to China in 1946, into believing he and his followers were “agrarian reformers keen to learn from democracy.” He solemnly swore that “Chinese democracy must follow the American path.”His actions proved otherwise. To expedite victory, Mao ordered a siege on the City of Changchun in Manchuria to take no quarters and to turn it into a “city of death.” Out of a population of 500,000 at least 160,000 died of starvation and disease. Fearing similar fates, other major cities, including Beijing surrendered without much of a fight and Chiang and his remaining forces fled to Taiwan in December 1949.Immediately after declaring the “People’s Republic of China,” Mao abandoned all his promises to Western powers and ordered “quotas of people who had to be denounced, humiliated, beaten, dispossessed and killed” in villages across the mainland. At least 2 million were liquidated.One year later the great terror “designed to eliminate all the enemies of the party” commenced with death quotas that resulted in the murdering of over 2 million.Between 1952 and 1956, business owners were denounced and their private enterprises confiscated. Farmers were stripped of their land, live stock and tools and placed on a starvation diet. In 1957, Mao turned against the intellectuals and sent a half million to his gulags.The first “decade of Maoism,” Dikotter concluded, “was one of the worst tyrannies in the history of the twentieth century, sending to an early grave 5 million civilians and bringing misery to countless more.”Dikotter’s "Mao’s Great Famine: The History of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe 1958-1962," published in 2012, documents that “coercion, terror and systematic violence were the foundations of the Great Leap Forward” that led to 45 million people dying unnecessarily between 1958 and 1962.Approximately 8 percent of deaths were due to torture and tens of millions starved to death due to the failure of radical collectivization of China’s farms. Contrary to Mr. Short’s claim, the casualties were intended.During the period China “descended into hell,” Mao revealed himself to be “obsessed with his own roll in history, often dwelling on past slights... and, above all, insensitive to human loss.”Historians like Philip Short, who have referred to the early years of Mao’s regime as “golden age” or “honeymoon period,” Dikotter concludes, “have sometimes confused the abstract world presented by propaganda with the complicated individual tragedies of revolutions, burying all too readily into the gleaming image that the regime so carefully projected to the rest of the world.”Hopefully, the revelations of horrendous crimes committed in the name of ideology convinces today’s high-minded modernists to remove their blinders and to accept Catholic historian Christopher Dawson’s notion that “a completely secularized civilization is inhuman in the absolute sense — hostile to human life and irreconcilable with human nature itself.”SEWARD, Alaska, Aug. 19 (UPI) -- A hometown angler caught a $50,000-tagged salmon in the Seward, Alaska, Silver Salmon Derby.
Michael Rogers, 64, landed one of a handful of tagged fish Saturday, the Anchorage Daily News reported.
"I've been fishing this derby since it started pretty much, since I was a little kid. I've won quite a few prizes, but this is the first major one," Rogers told the Daily News in a telephone interview.
Rogers said things weren't going his way at first, but then he changed things up and started catching salmon.
When he returned to derby headquarters, Rogers said he was told one fish could be worth anywhere from $100 to $50,000.
"I had to sit in the derby office for a while and fill out paperwork, and finally they handed me an envelope," Rogers said. "All the women in there sat around me with and had pictures taken with me and then they said, 'OK, you can open it now.' And there was another envelope inside that one. So then I opened that one up and it says $50,000. It was quite a shock."
The Daily News said it was the second time in the derby's 57-year history that a $50,000 tagged fish was caught. The first one was caused in 2003.A prominent Pakistani journalist and anti-drone activist has gone missing after nearly two dozen men stormed his home and abducted him, his lawyer announced on Monday – just days before he was due to testify before European parliamentarians.
Kareem Khan was taken from his home in Rawalpindi – a city located just nine miles away from Islamabad in Punjab province – by approximately 20 men. Shahzad Akbar, Khan’s lawyer, told AFP that many of the men were wearing police uniforms, though the affiliation of the kidnappers remains unknown.
Khan was scheduled to depart Pakistan on Saturday to speak with German, Dutch, and British parliamentarians about his experience with drone strikes.
Khan originally hails from the tribal region of North Waziristan and became the first Pakistani man to sue the US government in connection with drone attacks that killed members of his family. Khan’s brother and son were killed in a strike |
her city to receive aid.
“If you move that forward, the money would start flowing to you,’” Zimmer wrote that Constable said.
MSNBC released photographs of the diary entries, written in scrawling pen in the pages of a spiral-bound notebook. Some passages of the entry in question were redacted.
Zimmer said she has kept a journal since she was a child, periodically writing about important events in her life. She said she wrote about her encounters with the Christie officials in one entry on May 17, the day after her encounter with Constable, when she found time while attending a U.N. event in Geneva.
The two officials both denied those accounts to MSNBC through spokesmen, and a Christie spokesman called it “outlandishly false,” noting that Zimmer has previously voiced support for Christie’s efforts to secure Sandy aid.
Christie spokesman Colin Reed said the governor has been active in getting Hoboken the help it needs.
“The Governor and Mayor Zimmer have had a productive relationship, with Mayor Zimmer even recently saying she’s ‘very glad’ he’s been our Governor. It’s very clear partisan politics are at play here as Democratic mayors with a political axe to grind come out of the woodwork and try to get their faces on television,” he said, noting that the revelations were first made on MSNBC, where much of the programming is liberal-leaning.
Zimmer said she is not surprised by the denials — after all, she said, Guadagno had specifically said she would deny the allegation if Zimmer put it forward.
“I’m more than happy to testify under oath,” she said. “I’m more than happy to take a lie detector test. I’m more than happy to provide any documents that are asked of me.”
Since the Fort Lee situation has captured national attention, Zimmer has been outspoken in suggesting that the denial of the bulk of her city’s request for recovery money may have been politically motivated. She has said Christie personally asked for her endorsement in February, which she declined to provide.
Hoboken requested $127 million in aid to initiate projects to prevent flooding from the Hudson River during future storms.
State officials, who administered the dispersal of federal funds, approved a tiny fraction, $142,000 — less than the cost of one new generator. The city also received $200,000 from a separate pot of $1.8 billion to rebuild in the wake of Sandy, again a small fraction of its request.
But Hoboken’s request also represented more than a third of the total $300 million made available to the entire state, and Zimmer has in the past tweeted about her support for Christie’s relief efforts.
Zimmer said she kept quiet for months, in part because another round of federal Sandy aid has yet to be disbursed.
“I probably should have come forward then,” she said. “This was a really hard thing to do, and the events over the last few weeks have provided more insight into how the governor’s office works. I felt like I had to come forward.”
E-mails and other documents from Hoboken show that in the same months that Sandy aid was under consideration, Hoboken officials were under considerable pressure to approve the proposal from the New York-based Rockefeller Group to develop a stretch of the city.
To lobby on its behalf, the Rockefeller Group had hired the politically influential law firm Wolff and Samson, which is run by Port Authority Chairman David Samson, a Christie ally.
A Wolff and Samson lobbyist working on behalf of the project was Lori Grifa, a former Christie aide who had also worked with the city on the project in the governor’s office.
In one April e-mail, Grifa wrote to an attorney working for Hoboken to say that she wanted to set up a conference call between the two of them and Samson to discuss the project. The attorney then wrote to a city official seeking more information about he project, indicating that he was getting a “full court press” on the issue.
In a statement, Grifa and Wolff & Samson said the firm’s representation of the development was “appropriate in all respects” and that they “categorically deny” allegations from Zimmer that suggested otherwise.
A spokesman for the Rockefeller Group said in a statement that project leaders had no knowledge of the allegation and stressed that the Hoboken project is still in its planning stages.
“If it turns out to be true, it would be deplorable,” the spokesman said in the statement.
Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D), who is chairing the New Jersey committee investigating the bridge matter, said in a statement that Zimmer’s allegations have “attracted our attention.”
“We need to obtain all relevant facts, confer with our special counsel and determine the committee’s best course of action,” he said.
State Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D) called them “explosive.”
“Using Sandy Hurricane relief money to advance a private project which members of the administration are representing as its attorney?” he said. “That’s as serious an allegation as one could possibly make.”MIAMI, FL—Saying the plan was the best option for mitigating the potential damage from the storm, the Coast Guard reportedly towed a decoy of Boca Raton into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on Tuesday in an attempt to lure Hurricane Irma away from land. “After evaluating all available options, we’ve determined that the most effective course of action is to tempt the hurricane away from real coastal areas with a convincing replica of the city of Boca Raton approximately 100 miles offshore,” said Coast Guard Rear Admiral Peter J. Brown, adding that the full-scale reproduction includes poorly constructed buildings for the storm to knock down, fake bridges it can sweep away in floodwaters, and power lines it can topple to plunge the manufactured city into darkness. “The fake Boca also has 96,000 mannequin residents Irma can torment as much as it likes, including several who appear to be antagonizing the storm with profane messages on plywood-covered windows.” At press time, local officials celebrated as Hurricane Irma had changed course, devastated the fake Boca Raton, and proceeded north to the Carolinas.
AdvertisementZootopia is a strikingly blunt and unrelentingly committed race relations parable hidden inside a big-hearted comedy set in a world of anthropomorphized animals. Walt Disney could have merely made a relatively lighthearted comedy involving animal stereotypes and pop culture references and watched the money roll in, but they have something more interesting and more important up their sleeves.
The picture is co-directed by Byron Howard, Rich Moore, and Jared Bush, and it is co-written by (deep breath) Byron Howard, Rich Moore, Jared Bush, Josie Trinidad, Jim Reardon, Phil Johnston, and Jennifer Lee. Despite oh-so-many cooks in the kitchen, it is a singular picture that serves as a surprisingly potent companion piece to Who Framed Roger Rabbit?.
Like that Robert Zemeckis masterpiece, Zootopia is something of an old-school detective story. What begins as a "plucky young bunny ventures into the big city to prove her worth as a cop" story quickly becomes something a bit more complicated and a bit less cut-and-dry. What is most surprising about Zootopia, beyond its beauty (the film will have you scanning the frame looking for jokes and visual wonders) and hearty laughs, is its commitment to the genre and its piercing topicality and text.
Once its primary case gets cooking, it really does become a (comparatively) gritty film noir detective story; one that brings the subtexts of the era straight to the foreground. A reluctant partnership between Ginnifer Goodwin's optimistic rookie cop bunny and Jason Bateman's deeply cynical con-artist fox sends the film head-long into Shane Black territory with surprisingly few concessions for that whole "animated film for children" thing. There's even some gratuitous nudity!
And what turns into a simple missing persons case becomes a genuinely engrossing and disturbing mystery. There has been a lot of talk over the last few years about how Marvel has used specific genres to ground their superhero movies in worlds and conventions outside of the so-called stereotypical superhero movie, and that absolutely applies here. Zootopia has a lot to say and says it within the realm of an uncommonly engrossing crime story.
From a plot beat that is cribbed (unintentionally?) from Training Day to sequences that would feel at home in mid-90's X-Files episodes, this is a full-on hard-boiled detective movie. But not just content to be an approximation of genre, Zootopia uses its fantastical world to take the bubbling racial subtexts of the 1940's noir and make it righteously angry text. You're going to read a lot of think pieces about how the film uses tension between animals that were once "prey" and domesticated predators as a parable for racial tensions and the way that fear can make seemingly upstanding and optimistic people do, say, or think hurtful things. And, to quote that other Disney movie, it's true, all of it, it's all true.
And yeah, this is exactly the movie we need right now, whether it "makes a difference" or not. Yes, the film eventually becomes a commentary on how those in power, or those who want power, use fear of the "other" to achieve their goals at the expense of the innocent. The film is brutally frank about how people who assume themselves to be progressive can be driven to mania by fear-based hatemongering, and how you don't have to wear a white hood to be racist or engage in what is implicitly racist behavior.
If Who Framed Roger Rabbit? was In the Heat of the Night, then Zooptopia is Guess Who's Coming To Dinner. This is a tale about allegedly open-minded animals who are confronted by their own prejudices and forced to put their money where their mouth is even in a time of fear and panic. This is potent stuff, delivered in a kid-friendly format that will preach to far more than the would-be converted.
If I have made the film feel like a social studies lecture, fear not, it is still a bouncy and fiercely alive comic adventure. There are jokes and sight gags galore, and the overall tone is a mix of froth and hard-edged procedural. You've seen the DMV joke in the trailers, but the version that plays out in the movie is even funnier. And there are any number of clever jokes and inside gags that are more than just "Hey, it's an animal-based pun because this world has no humans in it!" Free tip: Pay close attention to the table filled with pirates DVDs.
Goodwin and Bateman make a splendid team, with Bateman doing what he does best and bringing empathetic humanity to someone who could have just been played as a sarcastic jerk. The rest of the cast, including Jenny Slate as a sympathetic Deputy Mayor, Idris Elba as a domineering commanding officer, and Nate Torrence as a friendly dispatcher, are all quite wonderful, and the much-advertised Shakira song "Try Everything" (which is used as a transitional tune in the first act) is a real ear worm.
If I'm dancing around the edges, it's because I have no desire to give away the best jokes or the most surprising plot turns. The film works not just as adult-friendly kids entertainment, but as a truly engrossing story and a powerful piece of relevant social commentary. And it's surprisingly subtle in how it balances its criticisms of the patriarchy with the more overt racial/ethnic issues at play. There's so much to chew on and so much entertainment value in this one.
Zootopia sets the bar rather high for animated releases even in a year with nearly twenty of them dropping between January and December. That it's this good while being merely one of three Walt Disney animated features (along with Pixar's Finding Dory and Disney's Moana) puts everyone on notice. It really is the whole package. It's funny, it's clever, it's exciting and suspenseful, and it operates as one of the more potent "social issues" pictures that we've seen from a major studio (even during the Oscar season) in quite some time.
I'm not inclined to get into a "better than Frozen?" or "better than (insert Pixar movie HERE)?" conversation, because Zootopia stands proud as its own thing and its triumphs are exclusive to itself. But the fact that this even occurred to me should let you know how terrific it turned out to be. How's this for a pull quote? I liked Zootopia almost as much as Meet the Robinsons! Longtime readers will understand.
Also on ForbesWe may have just dropped the Mother of all Bombs in Afghanistan, but in Caracas, Venezuela the residents are promising the Mother of all Protests this week. The unrest has been going on for months now, but it’s been significantly ramped up in the past few weeks as starving citizens raid the few remaining shops with any food and take to hunting dogs, cats and rats (or even flamingos and anteaters) just to survive. The response from the government of President Nicolas Maduro has been swift and consistently brutal, leading to injuries and even deaths among the protesters. In the past few weeks as many as a half dozen have died. (NPR)
Protests are mounting against embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, and the death toll is mounting too. As demonstrators braved a tropical storm on the streets of Caracas on Thursday, a 36-year-old died elsewhere of wounds he had sustained in other protests days earlier. Opposition lawmaker Alfonso Marquina announced Gruseny Antonio Calderon’s death on Twitter, calling him “another victim of the dictatorship.” Calderon is the fifth protester to die of injuries sustained in clashes with police since the latest round of protests kicked off roughly two weeks ago. According to authorities, others include a 13-year-old boy and two college-age students.
Who knows if the starving citizens will eventually be successful? They’ve certainly been showing a bit more spine of late. As John noted earlier this week, Maduro was actually pelted with rocks and garbage at one public speaking event as he seeks to calm people down. The residents seem to finally be catching on to what’s really happening in their country. NPR quotes one 64 year old protester as saying, “There’s no bread or medicine. In every corner of Venezuela, this socialist project has failed.”
It’s good to see at least some Venezuelans learning the hard lessons of history, and hopefully it’s not too late. This is how socialism always ends. It begins with flowery promises of everyone being in it together as brothers in arms, with a government which will give to each according to their needs. But almost immediately those promises are broken and things begin to change. Those who are well connected with the ruling party continue to live well, with plenty of food, medical care and even such luxuries as may still be available. And they are quick to rat out any of their less well connected neighbors who may begin grumbling. The gap between the powerful and the powerless continues to grow until you see the starvation and mayhem in the streets which describe Caracas today.
Imagine how things might have turned out differently for Venezuela under a free, market driven system. The country still has some of the richest proven reserves of accessible, sweet crude oil in the world (though the Unites States is ahead of them if you count shale oil) but they can’t get it out of the ground. Why? Because the government (any government, really) isn’t very good at running a massive energy operation and it wouldn’t help the common people anyway if they’re stealing all the money. They once commanded not only rich agricultural production, but mining operations producing and exporting diamonds, bauxite, gold, iron ore and other riches. There was plenty of money to be made and the opportunity to generate employment for all who were ready to work.
But look at them now. The government has stolen the nation’s riches and the citizens are fighting over scraps of food. Their doctors have no medicine to heal the sick. Their children are dying in the streets as they attempt to protest the abuses of a tyrant. Socialism has once again taken a nation rich with promise and resources and turned it into a hell hole.Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon discuss if Alabama is unbeatable and try to identify the teams that could potentially give the Crimson Tide problems. (1:42)
How much better is Alabama than everyone else? (1:42)
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- It’s the bye week, so forgive us for looking ahead a bit.
With Alabama trying to complete on a wire-to-wire run as the No. 1 team in college football and a trip to LSU still more than a week away, there’s time to step back and analyze where things stand. And, no, we’re not talking about the seemingly forgone conclusion also known as the SEC race.
We’re not even talking about whether Nick Saban’s team is well-positioned for the College Football Playoff, either.
Well, not this year’s playoff at least.
Yes, we’re about to go there. So someone warn Saban not to read any further. His head might explode over the forecasting that’s about to come next.
For as good as Alabama is right now, just wait until 2017, when the Crimson Tide could be even better.
With apologies to the rest of college football and their hopes of a brighter, more competitive future, it’s true. Alabama's reign isn’t ending anytime soon.
Just look at the roster. Look at where the production is coming from. Look at all the youth and inexperience.
Alabama’s top five rushers this season are all underclassmen. Damien Harris, the leader of the pack, is a sophomore. B.J. Emmons and Joshua Jacobs are both making significant contributions as freshmen.
Roughly 70 percent of the Tide’s total yards have come from freshmen and sophomores this season.
Because he’s so good and because he’s contributed practically from the moment he step foot on campus, it’s easy to forget that Calvin Ridley is a sophomore as well. He’s arguably the most talented receiver in the SEC and he’s got another year before he can even think about the NFL.
Then there’s the guy throwing him the football: Jalen Hurts. The freshman quarterback is just beginning to scratch the surface of what he can do at the position. There are those who would have you believe he’s a Heisman Trophy candidate right now, and he’s barely playing with half the deck. Granted, he’s running the ball lights-out and scoring plenty of touchdowns, but his passing game still leaves a lot to be desired.
That’s no knock on Hurts, who is learning on the job. Rather, it’s a testament to the brilliance of offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin, who has simplified the playbook and accentuated what Hurts does best, using his speed and quick decision-making to his benefit. At the same time, he’s masked Hurts’ lackluster downfield passing; Hurts has completed just 13 of 35 passes that have traveled 20 yards or more through in the air.
Again, with more reps and a growing understanding of the offense, Hurts should improve.
Damien Harris, like so many other Alabama stars, are underclassmen who will be back next season. John David Mercer/USA TODAY Sports
The same could be said for the offensive line as well. All offseason we gushed over the NFL draft prospects of left tackle Cam Robinson, but freshman right tackle Jonah Williams has played better than anyone over the first half of the season. If he slides over to left tackle next year, he and sophomore left guard Lester Cotton could form a formidable duo.
There will be some holes to plug, but overall the offense is set.
The defense is the real concern, and even then there’s a lot to like.
While many of the stars of Alabama’s vaunted pass-rush will likely move on the NFL, the cornerstone of the front seven — big sophomore nose tackle Da’Ron Payne — will remain. He might not rack up the sacks of Jonathan Allen, Ryan Anderson or Tim Williams, but he makes everyone’s jobs so much easier, stuffing the run and taking on extra blocks.
The secondary will have a solid foundation, too. Alabama is already getting a head start on planning for life without Eddie Jackson after his season-ending injury last week, and moving talented sophomore Minkah Fitzpatrick from corner to safety might be the answer there. It will take some adjustment, of course, but putting Fitzpatrick alongside sophomore Ronnie Harrison would give Saban arguably the best tandem of safeties in the country next season.
That’s assuming a lot, to be sure. But, hey, that’s part of this whole exercise.
We haven’t even dug deep into the draft-eligible players you’d expect to return to school, such as inside linebackers Shaun Dion Hamilton and Rashaan Evans, and offensive linemen Ross Pierschbacher and Bradley Bozeman. For all we know, cornerback Marlon Humphrey, who many are touting as a potential high-round draft pick, could surprise everyone and come back for his fourth year on campus rather than turn pro, following in the footsteps of Allen, who waited a year and has gone from a borderline first-round pick to a potential No. 1 overall selection.
Whether that comes to fruition remains to be seen. But the fact we can talk about some of this with a straight face is part of a larger point.
With so many freshmen and sophomores already contributing and guaranteed to return next season, any other returning talent next season is icing on the cake for Saban.
There’s still a long way to go this season. Alabama is already scary good.
But what comes in 2017 could be downright terrifying.Image caption There are a number of wave and tidal devices in Scottish waters
First Minister Alex Salmond has claimed that green energy will transform Scotland in the way technology firms in Silicon Valley transformed California.
He made the statement in an address to members of the Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco.
Mr Salmond is on the west coast of America on a four-day trade mission.
Scotland has 10% of Europe's wave power resources and a quarter of its offshore, wind and tidal resources.
The first minister highlighted Scotland's developing marine energy sector and said the country would be a centre of excellence, bringing potentially huge economic and environmental gains.
The politician's trip has already included attending the world premiere of the new Pixar movie Brave, an animated film set in a mythical Scotland.
Previous speakers to the Commonwealth Club of California have included civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King and former US presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.
Mr Salmond told the gathering: "Scotland is a nation which has made a big contribution to the world in the past and has a huge amount to offer the world in the future. We are ambitious for the future, both for ourselves and what we can contribute to the rest of the world.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Alex Salmond: "If you take wave and tidal power, we are already in a position where more than half of the devices in the world are in Scottish waters."
"I believe that developing the concentration of expertise, commitment and investment in marine energy that Scotland already possesses will make us the Silicon Valley of marine energy.
"That patch of Northern California that became known as Silicon Valley began by creating a community of technical scholars. Big business followed the skills and big rewards soon followed - and the same is happening in Scotland in our marine energy sector."
Mr Salmond went on to explain that 12 major universities in Scotland have joined together to form the energy technology partnership, which earlier this year agreed a "unique collaboration" with Abu Dhabi's Masdar Energy Institute.
Commercial scale
He said: "Glasgow is the premier centre in Europe for offshore wind research, with Strathclyde University's £90m technology and innovation centre a hub for researchers and industry to work together on pioneering technology.
"There are more different types of wave and tidal devices in the waters around Scotland than in the rest of the world combined and the Pentland Firth and Orkney waters leasing area is the world's largest commercial scale marine energy site.
"Scotland is becoming the Silicon Valley of marine energy worldwide.
"Having been at the heart of the marine engineering revolution of the 19th century, we are now placing ourselves at the heart of the marine engineering revolution of the 21st century.
"As hi-tech industries concentrated in Silicon Valley and transformed the economic landscape of Northern California, so marine energy will do for Scotland."Why We Need to Set the Bar Higher When Giving Advice
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Earlier this week, Ragan.com posted a blog titled, “8 Foods PR Pros Should Avoid.” When I first saw it tweeted, I thought that it may have a few foods that aren’t good as we are working. Maybe I shouldn’t have that chicken finger sub for lunch; should I bypass the Starbucks breakfast sandwich. Heck, maybe I should be skipping Starbucks altogether (ok, that’s not happening).
As I clicked the link and actually read the blog, it was neither about foods we shouldn’t eat nor healthier options. The blog discussed how on the next visit to the store, we “consider which items not to buy. These products can rattle PR pros by planting negative subliminal messages in their psyches.”
Here are the first three:
1. Swiss cheese represents holes in our pitches.
2. Waffles remind us of a weak position on an angle and story credibility.
3. Fish triggers a sense of a foul smell. Translation: something stinks.
Upon finishing reading the post, I was flabbergasted. First, why would Ragan.com, a respected industry site, re-post this blog? Second, how did it pass the “smell” test (sorry for the pun)?
The blog was panned by the select few who anonymously commented. I’m not going to be anonymous. This blog is embarrassing and frankly, something I don’t expect from a seasoned pro. Imelda Dulcich, a fine PR pro near Seattle, Wash. told me on Twitter:
“It read like a required high school essay – trying to get the required number of words w/ no depth, matter.”
“No depth or matter” should never be words that are uttered when discussing advice from a PR/social media/marketing pro. We are expected to be knowledgeable with our guidance. We need to be better. We need to be smarter and think about what we say, write, and post everywhere.
Clients are looking to us and pay us a lot of money to give sound, smart advice. When I see blogs like this, I cringe because it is an example of taking the easy way out. It’s not something I’d want a potential or current client to read.
Set the bar high. It’s more than possible.
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Share on TumblrMINNEAPOLIS—Injury-plagued fireball reliever Joel Zumaya informed reporters Monday that his new $800,000 contract with the Twins obligates him to throw one last beautifully self-destructive pitch that will finally annihilate his arm forever. "I've undergone dozens of surgeries and months of painstaking rehab to get my arm in good enough shape to pitch again, so that pitch is going to be absolutely incredible," said Zumaya, whose single-pitch contract is laden with incentives for velocity, accuracy, and the horrifying sound his elbow makes when it implodes from the torque. "Bones will splinter, arteries will be spouting in all directions, ligaments will twang through the air like snapped guitar strings, and when the shock and disgust finally subside, they'll look at the radar gun and see '235 mph.'" Zumaya then broke his wrist clicking a pen.
AdvertisementIn 2006, the Montreal Canadiens traded center Mike Ribeiro to the Dallas Stars. On Tuesday night, he returned to Bell Centre for the first time in the regular season to face his boyhood idols.
At the time of the trade, he was a media whipping boy and had fans characterizing him as having a "poor performance and even worse attitude and work ethic." Five and a half years did little to take the edge off for Ribeiro, who was blunt with the media before the Stars/Canadiens game on Tuesday. Via Dallas Stars Blog:
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Asked if he wanted to prove to the Candiens that they made a mistake when they traded him for defenseman Janne Niinimaa and a fifth round draft pick, Ribeiro replied somewhat matter-of-factly, "I'm sure they know they made a mistake."
Ribeiro took the opportunity to remind them. He scored a goal to give the Stars a two-goal lead in the third period, en route to a 3-0 Dallas victory. And he celebrated like this:Welcome to the latest edition of the Haxe Roundup. Haxe is a high level, strictly typed programming language and cross-compiler.
Haxe Summit 2017
The videos from this years Haxe Summit are being uploaded to the YouTube channel which you should subscribe to!
News and Articles
The Haxe mailing list has been retired in favor of the brand new discourse powered Haxe Community!
HaxeDevelop 5.3 has been released!
has been released! Golgi, a replacement for Haxe’s Dispatch.hx.
Upcoming Events & Talks
Add an upcoming event about Haxe.
Job Offers & Bounties
TetraSoft LLC. (Saint-Petersburg, Russia) are looking for a ActionScript/Flex developer who is willing to learn Haxe/TypeScript languages.
InnoGames are looking Haxe/OpenFL Game Developer needed to work on Forge of Empires or Elvenar.
Add an available job involving Haxe.
Videos
Haxe London Meetup - Modular Haxe JS with Webpack & Lix Haxe Package Manager.
Code Examples
Have an example you want to add? Consider contributing to the code.haxe.org cookbook.
Previews & Demos
Open Source
Showing off HaxeUI’s brand new indevelopment responsive CSS engine.
Showing off HaxeUI’s responsive CSS engine compiled to HTML5 and HxWidgets.
kScenes now supports gradient masks.
See your HaxeLib info with this zsh theme.
Closed Source
Screenshot of Antheia, a planet from Star Crucible made with HaxeFlixel.
New animation of the golem boss in Albert+Zoe.
App & Game Releases
Golden Hours #procgen 2017 entry made with HaxeFlixel.
entry made with HaxeFlixel. My Toy Town #procgen 2017 entry made with OpenFL and Away3D.
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None this week.
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12 commits have been made to Haxe compiler in the last week.
Add haxe.Log.formatOutput - merged.
You can get started using the latest features by downloading a nightly build of Haxe.
Take it easy everyone and have a good week!Only A few short weeks after screenwriter Joe Carnahan (The Grey) announced he was finished with the script for the long awaited Uncharted movie and we now have an early look at the films plot thanks to casting site myentertainmentworld.com
“A descendant of explorer Sir Francis Drake, a treasure hunter named Nathan Drake believes he has learned the whereabouts of El Dorado, the fabled South American golden city, a cursed golden statue. the search becomes competitive when a rival hunter joins the fray.”
The brief story summary listed should be familiar to fans of the series, as the first game is also centered on Nathan Drake’s search for the fabled ancient city of El Dorado. We expect a more detailed synopsis to release as the film heads into production later this Spring. Filming is set to take place in Colombia. This best dash cams by Thedashcams will definitely help you while selecting the best dash cams for your car.
Uncharted appears to be closer than ever after years of setbacks sent the film into “development hell.” The film has gone through multiple iterations, including an adaptation by David O. Russell (American Hustle) which would have starred Mark Wahlberg and Robert De Niro as well as a version by Neil Burger (Limitless). Get more details about dash cams on https://thedashcams.com our site.
Stranger Things and Night at the Museum director Shawn Levy is currently attached to direct the film based on Joe Carnahan’s script. No casting has been revealed at this time.
Rest assured, we will keep you updated on all future developments.Carlos Barria/Reuters Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell could let the Supreme Court wither away while he waits for a Republican president.
Maybe Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) had the right idea after all. Maybe Republicans are willing to trigger a constitutional crisis over the Supreme Court.
Some conservatives certainly seem to be warming up to McCain’s controversial suggestion last week that Senate Republicans should dig in their heels and block any and all Supreme Court nominees put forth by a future President Hillary Clinton.
Who needs a fully functioning Supreme Court after all?
The Senate is fully within its powers to let the Supreme Court die out, literally. Ilya Shapiro of the Cato Institute
“As a matter of constitutional law, the Senate is fully within its powers to let the Supreme Court die out, literally,” wrote the Cato Institute’s Ilya Shapiro in a column Wednesday on The Federalist.
Shapiro is well-versed in constitutional issues, and his argument has a legal, if contorted, basis. Nothing in the Constitution explicitly stands in the way of senators who would be willing to destroy the nation’s highest court ― if not an entire branch of the federal government ― to stop Clinton from selecting judges who share her views.
But McCain’s comments suggesting a total blockade initially faced opposition, even from some members of his own party. “We can’t just simply stonewall” those hypothetical Clinton nominees, said Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).
Of course, as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Grassley is doing exactly that to Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama’s choice to fill the vacancy created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.
To Shapiro, there’s nothing wrong with even more Senate obstructionism because “the Constitution is completely silent” on how the upper chamber provides its “advice and consent” on the president’s nominees.
Legal scholars across the ideological spectrum have agreed that’s true. But they’ve also concluded that the Republicans’ no-hearings-no-votes posture on Garland is unprecedented in American history. And many deplore the partisanship that has overwhelmed the judicial confirmation process over the last few decades.
Not Shapiro. “I simply can’t blame politicians who follow their convictions,” he wrote. “If you truly believe that a particular nominee would wreak havoc on America, why not do everything you can to stop him?”
Shapiro noted that senators may pay a political price for refusing to work with a president from the other party. More importantly, the justice system pays a price.
Even those now on the Supreme Court have lamented that a shorthanded court can’t operate as it should.
“It’s much more difficult for us to do our job if we are not what we’re intended to be ― a court of nine,” said Justice Sonia Sotomayor during a recent appearance in Minnesota. She added that 4-to-4 rulings can leave the law unsettled and justice across the country “administered in an unequal way.”
In other words, when lower courts disagree on how to interpret a particular law or how to apply the Constitution to new problems ― and they do regularly ― the justices are supposed to step in and resolve that disagreement. When an equally divided Supreme Court can’t do that, the meaning of congressional statutes and the Constitution may vary from state to state ― which isn’t just or fair.
This didn’t seem to be a concern to Shapiro.
“So when you get past the gotcha headlines, breathless reportage, and Inauguration Day, if Hillary Clinton is president it would be completely decent, honorable, and in keeping with the Senate’s constitutional duty to vote against essentially every judicial nominee she names,” he concluded.
If Clinton wins and the Republicans retain control of the Senate, this argument could serve as the groundwork for their next play in Congress — even though they’ve spent most of 2016 insisting that the people’s choice for the next president should get to pick Scalia’s replacement.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) signaled on Wednesday that he may be a convert to this vision of a new normal — a Supreme Court not at full steam for a very long time:
I asked Cruz if there should be votes on Clinton court nominees if GOP holds Senate. He said there's plenty of precedent for <9 justices. — Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) October 26, 2016
Of course, none of this likely matters if Democrats regain the Senate, which HuffPost Pollster projections say is not beyond the realm of the possible.(UPDATED) 'The answer is off-tangent,' says Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon after neophyte Senator Manny Pacquiao responds to one of his questions
Published 8:55 PM, March 15, 2017
MANILA, Philippines (UPDATED) – Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon lectured neophyte Senator Manny Pacquiao on "basic" principles in the Senate.
This came after Pacquiao insisted on the 2nd day of their debate the need for a Philippine Boxing Commission (PBC) – an idea Drilon opposes as the existing Games and Amusements Board (GAB) can instead be strengthened.
Drilon asked Pacquiao why he wants the proposed PBC placed under the supervision of the Office of the President (OP).
Pacquiao, in response, said that since the PBC head would be appointed by the President, it should be placed under the OP – a point Drilon dismissed.
"For the best interest of the commission," the boxer-turned-senator said.
A confused Drilon replied: "You know I hope I can convince the gentleman from General Santos that the mere fact that a government official is appointed by the President is not a justification for the Office of the President's direct supervision over a commission or agency. That's very basic."
"The President is the appointing authority, he appoints everybody in this bureaucracy," he added.
Citing his experience as executive secretary under the administration of Corazon Aquino, Drilon said the OP is already spreading itself too thin.
"I had the fortune of being an executive secretary in the Office of the President and you can imagine the number of agencies under the OP. So that what happens, because of the sheer number of agencies under the Office of the President, they are like flying saucers just revolving around, nobody supervising them because the executive secretary simply cannot supervise them," Drilon said.
With Drilon's questions, a seemingly irked Pacquiao told the veteran senator: "If the senator cannot be convinced to create a Philippine Boxing Commission, I am ready to close this. We can do the voting."
But Drilon immediately retorted: "Mr. President, in the tradition |
was overwhelming. It's too hard to describe," she told HuffPost.
The couple have been married for eight years, and Pazz said it was difficult to keep such a huge secret from his wife. "She knows me inside and out," he said to HuffPost. "She knows when I'm not being completely honest."
"It was pretty interesting," said Miriam Pazz, smiling. "He's usually not very good with secrets."
For the rest of the week, the family is going to spend time around Southern California visiting Hollywood and Disneyland. But Pazz already knows that the hardest thing about his amazing surprise is right around the corner.
"When we got up on the float, the first thing my son said to me was, 'is it March already? Is that why you're here?'" he said.
"Now I gotta explain to him, when I go back, that I have to go away again for a while -- that I'm not going to see him again for a couple of months," he continued. "So in that aspect, it's even more difficult. You're forced to go through that moment of separation again."
Pazz served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and has received the Purple Heart and Bronze Star. At the end of this week, he will return to Afghanistan until his discharge date in March.
The "Canines with Courage" display, which raises awareness about the effort to erect the first-ever memorial for military working dogs, was sponsored by pet food company Natural Balance.
The Pentagon sponsored another military-themed float, which replicated the Korean War Veterans memorial in Washington. The Pentagon's Rose Parade debut comes a few months before the 60th anniversary of the armistice that ended the fighting in Korea.
To see more heartwarming military reunions, check out the slideshow below.The 29-year-old former Arsenal, Liverpool, Real Zaragoza and Birmingham star has signed on a temporary basis as Wolves reel from injuries to three wingers Slawomir Peszko, Razak Boukari and Stephen Hunt.
Pennant is expected to go straight into Championship action when Wolves return from the international break away to Huddersfield on Saturday, October 20.
Wolves chief executive Jez Moxey said: "Stale Solbakken wanted a high quality replacement and we're very pleased Stoke have agreed for Jermaine to join us for an initial three-month period.
"He's a high quality player and Stale is delighted to have secured his services until at least the new year."
The Stoke wideman is one of several wingers Wolves were looking at in the Premier League along with Manchester United youngster Robbie Brady.
Ironically, Pennant is only available as Stoke signed Michael Kightly from Wolves for £3m this summer, restricting the former England Under-21 international to two appearances this season, against Arsenal in the Premier League and Swindon in the Capital One Cup.
The Nottingham-born wide midfielder has had a chequered career on and off the pitch since Arsenal paid £2m to Notts County to sign him as a 15-year-old in 1999.
He failed to establish himself at the Gunners, and after loan spells with Watford, Leeds and Birmingham, joined Blues on a permanent basis in July 2005.
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It was at St Andrew's that year however where he had to play in an electronic tag after a drink-driving conviction.
But also at Blues he proved himself as a quality player and was rated as the best crosser of a ball in the Premier League.
His form at St Andrew's won him a £6.7m move to Liverpool, where he spent three years and was the Reds' best player in their 2007 Champions' League final defeat to AC Milan in Athens.
From there he had a short, unsuccessful spell in Spain with Real Zaragoza before joining Stoke, firstly on loan in August 2010 before making a £1.725m permanent switch in January 2011, going on to play 57 League games.
Pennant, who has scored 15 goals in 246 career League games, tweeted this afternoon: "The gaffa said I can go out on Loan to get some games! I was as shocked as much as some of you's will and I can promise we have not fell out."To subscribe to Capitol Fax, click here. Fahner: “I misspoke” Tuesday, Aug 6, 2013 * From an e-mail I received yesterday from Civic Committee President Ty Fahner… Regarding my comments at the Union League Club in March, I misspoke. First, while I may have said so, I didn’t call the ratings agencies, nor did any of our Civic Committee staff. My response to the questions was very confusing and inarticulate. If you notice, at the end of my answer, I close by saying it wouldn’t be the responsible thing for me to have done so with our members being the state’s largest employers. But I did say it. He misspoke? That’s a pretty long story for a simple misspeak. Here’s the complete Fahner quote… “The Civic Committee, not me, but me and some of the people that make up the Civic Committee, some of the same names I mentioned before, did meet with and call, in one case it was in person, a couple of calls to Moody’s, Fitch and Standard & Poor’s, and say, ‘How in the hell can you guys do this? You’re an enabler to let the state continue. You keep threatening more and more and more.’ “And I think now we’ve backed off, because we don’t want to be the straw that breaks the back, But if you watch what happened over the last few years, it’s been steadily down. Before that, it’s been the blind eye, and that’s a whole different topic, as you know, about how the rating agencies act and don’t act. That’s more in your field and stuff. It has been irresponsible. We have told them that we thought they were being irresponsible, but we stopped that a couple months ago. I do know that we suggested that they talk to the governor, the governor’s staff to see if he could give them comfort on where the state was going, and I think that’s one of the reasons why we’re really close now. I hope we’re close.” “Inarticulate,” maybe, but not really confusing. He said what he said, and it was pretty darned detailed. * Anyway, Fahner told me nobody from staff spoke with the ratings agencies, so I followed up with a question about whether any Civic Committee members had meetings and here’s his e-mailed response… Rich, to be clear, I am not aware of anyone connected with the civic committee that contacted the rating agencies to urge Illinois be downgraded or for any other reason. So, he made the story up out of whole cloth? And this guy is running the most powerful business group in Illinois? * Back to Fahner’s original e-mail… Finally, if there’s any good news in this, it’s that even a cynical political columnist like you now cares about pension reform, something we’ve been screaming about for a while now. We appreciate that. Stay on it. Illinois is in critical condition and we need everybody’s hands on deck. Whatever. - Posted by Rich Miller
105 Comments Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.Dear Reader, As you can imagine, more people are reading The Jerusalem Post than ever before. Nevertheless, traditional business models are no longer sustainable and high-quality publications, like ours, are being forced to look for new ways to keep going. Unlike many other news organizations, we have not put up a paywall. We want to keep our journalism open and accessible and be able to keep providing you with news and analysis from the frontlines of Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World.
A car bomb that shook a quiet Givatayim neighborhood on Sunday morning left a well-known local criminal badly wounded, in what police are probing as a possible botched underworld hit.
The bomb was detonated around 11:30 a.m. on Hapalmah Street in Givatayim just as four men were about to enter the vehicle. Paramedics at the scene said they found three men in their 40s lying on the pavement suffering from shrapnel and shock wave wounds and evacuated them to area hospitals.
Tel Aviv police said, however, a fourth man was wounded by the blast – a reputed neighborhood criminal that police believe may have been the target of the blast. Police said Sunday afternoon that their initial investigation had not ruled out the possibility that the blast was a so-called “work accident,” and that the victims – who were outside the vehicle at the time – had been carrying the bomb when it exploded prematurely.Whatever the background of the blast, neighbors on Hapalmah Street spoke of the wounded gangster as a beloved local boy who never caused any of them any problems, and even gave a helping hand when needed.Local neighborhood gangster injured by car bomb in Tel Aviv suburb“He’s a great guy; I lived in his building for three years. He was my landlord and never made any problems, I could always trust his word and he always helped out people who needed,” said one middle-age man waiting for the bomb squad to finish working on the crime scene and open the road back up to pedestrians.The blast left the car a mangled shell of blackened metal on the side of a one-lane road meters away from family homes, a local park and day care centers. On the street and surrounding alleyways dozens of meters away, chunks of the car’s paneling and jagged pieces of glass could be seen in the yards of houses. One bystander said he was in his apartment a block away and the blast knocked him to the floor.The car was parked outside a six-story building under construction that is owned by the probably target of the blast, and only a few doors down from a house he lives in with his wife and kids, as well as other properties he owns on the street.Dorit, a long-time neighbor, said that her sons studied with him in school and that everyone has known him since he was a kid. She said there were rumors that he made his money from drugs, and everyone knew he was a criminal, but he never caused any problems. She did add that she was used to seeing his security guards patrolling the neighborhood as well as police detectives who kept a close eye on him.“That’s no way to live, but that was his life,” she added.The man is also well-known for a feud with one of the more dangerous and feared organized crime figures in central Israel. Rumor has it when the veteran gangster was in prison years earlier in the United States, the target of Sunday’s blast had an affair with his wife, though police said they haven’t ruled out other possible enemies who may have targeted him.By mid-day bomb squad officers and their dogs were searching a three-story house ringed with security cameras, about 50 meters from the site of the blast. As the officers picked through the trunk of the man’s SUV and in the garbage cans and yard, his wife stood on an outside staircase with a look of distress on her face. Minutes later she left to open the gate to let in the couple’s young children, who cut through the swarm of photographers and into the family home.Miri, the couple’s neighbor, said she was home when the blast happened, and she came outside to see the man’s wife running down the street towards the car, which was engulfed in flames, the street filled with black smoke. Minutes earlier he had left the house with his associates, Miri said, adding that bystanders managed to pull the four men out of the burning car after the blast.Like the rest of the neighbors, she knew the target well, and described him as a neighborhood boy everyone had known for years. That said, she didn’t seem too dismissive of the risk.“Of course it’s scary to live next to him, of course.”
Join Jerusalem Post Premium Plus now for just $5 and upgrade your experience with an ads-free website and exclusive content. Click here>>Samsung has commenced selling the Galaxy A5 in China. Consumers in the region will be able to pick up the new smartphone from Samsung's official store for 2,599 CNY (around $420). The manufacturer announced the new Galaxy A5 alongside the A3 back in October, offering new metal unibody experiences aimed at a younger audience.
China was highlighted as a launch market, but we can expect to see the A5 and A3 hitting other regions in due course. For 2,599 CNY, consumers can pick up a new KitKat-powered smartphone with a 5-inch 1280x720 Super AMOLED display, 1.2GHz quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM and a 2300mAh battery.
It's worth noting that the Samsung store in China appears to only have the white variant available.
Source: Samsung (China), via: PhoneArena
This post may contain affiliate links. See our disclosure policy for more details.Number One Plus, a water-based lubricant produced by health organisation Population Services International (PSI), is an excellent cure for acne, 29-year-old vendor Tep Kemyoeurn told news agencies.
"After I used it for three days, all of my acne dried up and went away," she said. "Many people believe in it," she added.
Khen Vanny, 29, from Phnom Penh, said women of all ages have taken to using the lubricant to get rid of spots.
"It is very effective. Some people don't believe in it but people who do really get a good result," she said, adding: "My youngest sister and my aunt use it too."
Another woman told Khmer-language Kampuchea Thmey newspaper that she had used many kinds of medicine to treat acne but none had worked.
"After that my friends, who work at garment factories in Phnom Penh, advised me to apply the lubricant from Number One Plus condoms on my face every night," she told the paper.
"And just within three to four nights, the acne on my face gradually and then totally disappeared," she added.
A vendor near a factory in the coastal city of Sihanoukville told the newspaper that she sold packets of Number One Plus lubricant for 500 riels (12 cents) to many women every day.
The paper urged experts to conduct research about the phenomenon.
PSI were not immediately available for comment on the apparent cosmetic benefits of their product.What if you’ve been on a low-carb diet for years and you exercise regularly. Yet you still do not quite get rid of your belly fat? What should you do then?
Well, you could ask me. One reader did, and here’s the answer.
The question
Hi Dr. Andreas,
I have been on an LCHF diet since 2014. Sometimes very strict, sometimes more liberal. I exercise three to four times a week for about 45 minutes and do a combination of high-intensity interval training and strength training (resting heart rate below 60, many times at 52). I am 33 years old. I do not take alcohol regularly (about once every second month a glass of wine). I don’t smoke. I don’t eat sugar, of course, but I use artifical sweetners (sucralose (only for my tea and coffee) and xylitol otherwise. Dairy is limited, mostly 100 g with breakfast (if I don’t have an egg). And then the cheese in your recipies.
Yet, I struggle with visceral fat. I have this belly fat and cannot get rid of it. Last week Tuesday I did a Dexa scan [shown at the top of the post], and you can see that I actually have quite a high percentage of body fat. I know it is still in the normal range, but I have been working for 4 years (prior to LCHF I actually trained for a marathon in Stockholm) to get to a place where I can actually see a “six-pack”, yet no luck.
I thought that I had perhaps very bad insulin resistance, but a blood test revealed I am not (we tested the amount of insulin in my blood). I also had a test for cortisol levels, and those were also in order. Similarly, my testosterone levels are in check. I checked my thyroid, and my metabolism in general seems healthy (I had my resting metabolic rate tested). I discovered a Vitamin D deficiency, and that I treat at the moment (through supplements, sun, and food).
Don’t get me wrong, I am happy with who I am. I am, however, also a scientist (working in the field of machine learning), and I cannot rest until I understand what is going on. Why is it not possible to get rid of the visceral fat? Why do I build muscles slowly (even though I take the recommended 1.5 g/kg protein a day)? Or am I just not eating strict enough? I read about normal weight metabolically obese syndrome, and some of the information seem relevant.
Can you help perhaps?
Many thanks.
The answer
Hi,
Everyone is different genetically etc. and perhaps you tend to reside on the upper side of normal, when it comes to visceral fat. So this could be normal for you. And clearly a lot of people would love to be in your situation.
That said, maybe it’s something in the environment, that can be influenced to lose more visceral fat.
With all you’re already doing I’d recommend cutting out artificial sweeteners completely. It’s really something of a habit and if you avoid it for a few weeks or months you’re probably not going to miss it any more. It is possible that it messes with your system, resulting in increased food cravings, possibly via an effect on insulin. Controversial but possible.
Possibly lifting HEAVIER things when strength training could help – not that I know anything about your current routine.
Also doing a stricter LCHF diet and/or adding intermittent fasting can be very helpful to lose more fat.
Best,
Andreas
Follow up
The reader of course allowed for his email to be published, and is planning to reply with the results in 3-6 months.
More Questions and Answers
Many more questions and answers:
Low-Carb Q&A
Read all earlier questions and answers – and ask your own! – here:
Ask Dr. Andreas Eenfeldt about LCHF, Diabetes and Weight Loss – for members (free trial available)Several people have been shot while celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. Day at a Miami park on Monday.
The shooting happened at around 4 p.m. at Martin Luther King Jr. Park located at 6000 NW 32nd Court.
Miami-Dade police said eight people were shot. Two of the eight were grazed and are already back with family on the scene.
The victims are between the ages of 14 and 30.
One food truck vendor said, “I saw a lot of people running. I think like five people got hit, probably all teenagers, three girls and two male.”
Miami-Dade Fire Rescue said they transported three people suffering from gunshot wounds to the hospital.
Some of the people injured in the shooting fled the scene and took themselves to the hospital.
The law enforcement source said at least two people are in critical condition.
Miami-Dade police have detained two people and have recovered two weapons.
Posted By GhostMany Planned Tropical Roads Shouldn’t Be Built, Concludes Major Study
Cracked and slumping road surface in Papua, Indonesia. Image: William Laurance
We are living in the most dramatic era of road expansion in human history, but many planned roads should not be built, concludes a major study by James Cook University researchers.
The researchers say many new roads being built or planned today are in high-rainfall tropical and subtropical areas, usually in developing nations.
“In these high-rainfall regions, even expensive roads can be rapidly rendered useless by numerous pot-holes, road slumping, and landslides,” said lead author Dr Mohammed Alamgir.
“Unless there’s expensive ongoing maintenance, big road projects can easily become giant money-losers for developing nations,” said Dr Alamgir.
“Corruption plays a key role too,” said co-author Professor William Laurance. “Many high-risk roads get approved only because government officials are being secretly paid off by road proponents.”
“And often contractors build substandard roads—for example, using too little cement or road base—and then pocket the stolen proceeds, leaving the roads even more vulnerable to rapid collapse,” said Laurance.
The study, published in Current Biology, examined the costs and benefits of tropical roads from economic, social and environmental perspectives.
“We knew roads were very dangerous for the environment—leading to sharp increases in illegal logging, fires, land speculation and poaching,”said co-author Dr Mason Campbell. “But to us the big surprise was just how risky they were from economic and social perspectives.”
Most developing nations have ambitious plans for road expansion, often designed to promote economic growth. For example, in just three years, the total length of paved roads will double in Asia’s developing nations, according to the Asian Development Bank.
“It’s a very dangerous time,” said Prof. Laurance. “Our exhaustive study suggests that the economic, social and environmental risks of poorly planned roads are much greater than is generally understood.”
“One can’t avoid the conclusion that many ambitious schemes for road expansion are veering dangerously off-track,” said Dr Alamgir.
Article (PDF available)
Mohammed Alamgir, Mason Campbell, Sean Sloan, Miriam Goosem, Gopalasamy Reuben Clements, Mahmoud Mahmoud, and William F. Laurance. 2017. Economic, socio-political and environmental risks of road development in the tropics. Current Biology, DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2017.08.067.
Images available here.
Road1: Forest destruction for road-building in the Republic of Congo, Africa (photo: William Laurance, no copyright)
Road2: Road-killed Malayan tapir in northern Peninsular Malaysia (photo © WWF-Malaysia).
Road3: Cracked and slumping road surface in Papua, Indonesia (photo: William Laurance, no copyright)Authored by Ted Galen Carpenter via The National Interest,
The United States and its allies continue to cajole and threaten North Korea to negotiate an agreement that would relinquish its growing nuclear and ballistic-missile programs.
The latest verbal prodding came from President Trump during his joint press conference with South Korean president Moon Jae-in. Trump urged Pyongyang to “come to the negotiating table,” and asserted that it “makes sense for North Korea to do the right thing.” The “right thing” Trump and his predecessors have always maintained, is for North Korea to become nonnuclear.
It is unlikely that the DPRK will ever return to nuclear virginity. Pyongyang has multiple reasons for retaining its nukes. For a country with an economy roughly the size of Paraguay’s, a bizarre political system that has no external appeal, and an increasingly antiquated conventional military force, a nuclear-weapons capability is the sole factor that provides prestige and a seat at the table of international affairs. There is one other crucial reason for the DPRK’s truculence, though. North Korean leaders simply do not trust the United States to honor any agreement that might be reached.
Unfortunately, there are ample reasons for such distrust.
North Korean leaders have witnessed how the United States treats nonnuclear adversaries such as Serbia and Iraq. But it was the U.S.-led intervention in Libya in 2011 that underscored to Pyongyang why achieving and retaining a nuclear-weapons capability might be the only reliable way to prevent a regime-change war directed against the DPRK.
Partially in response to Washington’s war that ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in the spring of 2003, ostensibly because of a threat posed by Baghdad’s “weapons of mass destruction,” Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi seemed to capitulate regarding such matters. He signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in December of that year and agreed to abandon his country’s embryonic nuclear program. In exchange, the United States and its allies lifted economic sanctions and pledged that they no longer sought to isolate Libya.
Qaddafi was welcomed back into the international community once he relinquished his nuclear ambitions.
That reconciliation lasted less than a decade. When one of the periodic domestic revolts against Qaddafi’s rule erupted again in 2011, Washington and its NATO partners argued that a humanitarian catastrophe was imminent (despite meager evidence of that scenario), and initiated a military intervention. It soon became apparent that the official justification to protect innocent civilians was a cynical pretext, and that another regime-change war was underway. The Western powers launched devastating air strikes and cruise-missile attacks against Libyan government forces. NATO also armed rebel units and assisted the insurgency in other ways.
Although all previous revolts had fizzled, extensive Western military involvement produced a very different result this time. The insurgents not only overthrew Qaddafi, they captured, tortured and executed him in an especially grisly fashion. Washington’s response was astonishingly flippant. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton quipped: “We came, we saw, he died.”
The behavior of Washington and its allies in Libya certainly did not give any incentive to North Korea or other would-be nuclear powers to abandon such ambitions in exchange for U.S. paper promises for normal relations. Indeed, North Korea promptly cited the Libya episode as a reason why it needed a deterrent capability—a point that Pyongyang has reiterated several times in the years since Muammar el-Qaddafi ouster. There is little doubt that the West’s betrayal of Qaddafi has made an agreement with the DPRK to denuclearize even less attainable than it might have been otherwise. Even some U.S. officials concede that the Libya episode convinced North Korean leaders that nuclear weapons were necessary for regime survival.
The foundation for successful diplomacy is a country’s reputation for credibility and reliability. U.S. leaders fret that autocratic regimes—such as those in Iran and North Korea—might well violate agreements they sign. There are legitimate reasons for wariness, although in Iran’s case, the government appears to be complying with its obligations under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that Tehran signed with the United States and other major powers in 2015—despite allegations from U.S. hawks about violations.
When it comes to problems with credibility, though, U.S. leaders also need to look in the mirror. Washington’s conduct in Libya was a case of brazen duplicity. It is hardly a surprise if North Korea (or other countries) now regard the United States as an untrustworthy negotiating partner. Because of Pyongyang’s other reasons for wanting a nuclear capability, a denuclearization accord was always a long shot. But U.S. actions in Libya reduced prospects to the vanishing point. American leaders have only themselves to blame for that situation.I'm not going to lie, I like to argue. And you know what? I'm good at it. I take on Donald Trump and his terrible policies for a living, and I'm not afraid to go head-to-head with any of his minions. And do you know why I'm not scared? I worked in the Obama White House. I spent years of my life crafting policies that protected the most vulnerable Americans. Every man, woman, and child in this country should have a shot at the American dream, and I'll be damned if I let anyone convince me otherwise.
Over the past few months, I've had the best time working as a Contributing Editor for Bustle. No, really. I wrote pieces on what it was like to wake up the morning after the Charlottesville attack; why student debt isn't just any issue, but a women's issue; and what Trump's decision to deport tens of thousands of Haitians means to me, as a Haitian American. It's been a great run.
But this might be the last time you hear from me.
Why? It's certainly not because I want to stop raising my voice against this joke of an administration — far from it. It's because soon Trump and his cronies in the FCC might finally, finally, push their lopsided version of democracy onto the internet and drown out voices like mine by ending net neutrality. We need to raise our voices against the Trump administration's latest move to undermine free speech while we still can. But some people don't see it that way — so you have to get the word out before it's too late.
Argument 1: Net neutrality has nothing to do with free speech.
Companies like Comcast and Verizon keep saying getting rid of net neutrality will boost competition. But they've rallied against competition at every turn (like the attempted Time Warner-Comcast merger), so why do they suddenly care about competition? Answer: they don't. But saying ending net neutrality increases competition sounds a heck of a lot better than admitting the truth, which is that making the internet less equal for people means a lot more money for them.
Mark Wilson/Getty Images News/Getty Images
But no one knows better than me what net neutrality will do to the freedom of speech. After all, I work at MoveOn, an organization dedicated to online organizing and engagement — we couldn't do what we do without a free and open internet. So, let me explain just what ending net neutrality would mean for free speech.
Back in 2015, the Obama administration put net neutrality rules into place. That basically means internet service providers like Verizon and Comcast can't favor certain websites over others. Without net neutrality, companies like Verizon could charge you more to access certain websites, intentionally slow down other websites, like competitors, and even block whatever websites they wanted. Basically, Verizon and Comcast would get to choose which voices were heard, and which weren't.
Of course, they've promised they'd never favor viewpoints over others, but can you imagine Comcast letting you read a news article that casts Comcast in a negative light if it had the power to block it? There'd be no limit to the kinds of things internet service providers could do to regulate and suppress speech.
The rules stopping this kind of nonsense have been in place since 2015, but last month, the Republican, Trump-appointed chairman of the FCC announced he'd be rolling back the rules Obama put into place. I'm not surprised, and you shouldn't be either.
Internet service providers are using competition as a smoke screen. But net neutrality has never been about competition, and never will be. This is about free speech, plain and simple.
Argument 2: Net neutrality will affect everyone equally.
Wrong. First off, this is America, so nothing affects everyone equally. That's just not how this country works. But more importantly, we need to understand the role the internet has played in opening up democracy. The internet is basically a vessel to accessing almost all of the information humans have ever created or discovered. Before the internet, information was much harder to come by — in the 1700s, the rich had their own libraries, and the poor might hope to own a book or two, if any. That let the children of the wealthy become more educated than the children of the impoverished, allowing the wealthy to have a stranglehold on more highly-paying jobs like the law or medicine while the poor were confined to lower-paying jobs.
Stephanie Keith/Getty Images News/Getty Images
It's impossible to overstate just what an equalizing force the internet has been for democracy. The Arab Spring happened in no small part because of the internet — and because everyone could access it. Similar revolutions, like #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo, have also been magnified because of the internet.
Whose voices will be drowned out if net neutrality is overturned? It's the voices of those without power — those who, whether because of their skin color, or their sexual orientation, or their (lack of) familial wealth, lack the privilege to be heard.
The internet is a force for meritocracy. Reverting to an internet without net neutrality is basically saying "Let's give the microphones back to the same old, white men who have made all the decisions for most of history."
An end to net neutrality is an end to free speech. Period.
Argument 3: There's nothing I can do about it.
On Dec. 14, the FCC is scheduled to to vote on whether to rollback net neutrality. And based off the makeup of the board, it's likely pass.
But Congress can override the FCC, and create its own laws ensuring net neutrality. That's where we have the biggest opportunity to stop this blatant attack on free speech. It's time to start calling Congress in droves, to write op-eds in your local papers, to visit your representatives' district offices.
And of course, what better way to show how important the internet is for free speech than to use it as an organizing tool? Tweet at your members of Congress, post on Facebook, send emails. Do whatever it takes.
Because this latest attack? It's not just an attack on net neutrality — it's an attack on free speech, and worse, the speech of the oppressed and marginalized.
Do you want to have to pay $10 to hear voices like mine — the voice of a black, LGBTQ, Haitian-American immigrant? I didn't think so. That is why we need net neutrality.
Editor's Note: This op-ed does not reflect the views of BDG Media and is part of a larger, feminist discourse on today's political climate.A year ago, Joe Biden launched his “cancer moonshot,” a major national push to improve the prevention, detection, and treatment of cancer, a plan that was widely recognized to be incremental. “I believe that we need an absolute national commitment to end cancer as we know it,” Biden said while he was on his tour to cancer centers at Penn and Duke University. “I’m not naïve. I didn’t think we could ‘end cancer.’ I’m not looking for a silver bullet. There is none.” Many thought the “moonshot” risked casting the solution to cancer as an engineering problem.
In his op-ed in the New York Times last year, “We Won’t Cure Cancer,” Jarle Breivik, professor of medicine at the University of Oslo, emphasized the government plan was typical of “huge programs, stocked with technology and experts, to solve presumably intractable problems”—but cancer is as much an organic and ecological issue as an engineering problem with bugs or glitches to be worked out. “Cancer isn’t space travel,” Breivik wrote. “The growing cancer epidemic is not a problem that medical science is about to solve.”
Microsoft flatly stated that it would “solve” cancer by 2026.
Part of the emphasis of cancer as a technology- or startup-challenge owes something to Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who grew up in a world under the promise that big data and software engineering could solve any problem. Facebook cofounder Sean Parker, through his 501c3 non-profit Sean Parker Foundation, promised $250 million to fight cancer, while retaining the patent rights to research projects he funds, part of a new model of free market philanthropy. At a panel at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit titled “Hacking Cancer,” Parker spoke of himself as a “technologist” who wanted to make “big bold bets,” while addressing “systemic inefficiencies” in science, such as standardizing protocols and consolidating clinical trials among multiple hospitals, to harness big data. At the same time, as medical research proceeds in small incremental steps, large-scale government funding—in combination with an increasing competitive landscape to patent and market new technologies and drugs—suggests it is the public who is being asked to make the “big bold bets” to subsidize the drug industry.
Photograph by Stuart Isett / Fortune Brainstorm Health / Flickr
The theory of cancer as a logic problem, whereby cellular circuits go haywire and enable a cell to turn cancerous, has been the standard paradigm in cancer genetics. In the past decade, scientists have been looking not only to deduce the logic of molecular changes that can enable a cell to become a cancer, but have begun using targeted screens, employing such weaponry as the gene modification tool Crispr-Cas9, to disable each gene in a cancer cell one at a time and decipher a logic that can stop a cancer cell. But the impulse that disruptive technologies employed by software engineers can be applied to biology, as an analog to a machine or computer with bugs which can be hacked or solved—suggested in “hacking cancer”—is deeply engrained. The problem goes back centuries.
In 1747, French enlightenment thinker Julien Offray de La Mettrie published “L’homme Machine,” or “Man, a Machine.” The philosopher of science Karl Popper noted later that the “theory of evolution gave the problem an even sharper edge.” Meanwhile, adherents to the view of biology as mere clockwork grew. The “doctrine that man is a machine has perhaps more defenders than before among physicists, biologists and philosophers,” Popper observed, “especially in the form of the thesis that man is a computer.” The reason this view is popular with Silicon Valley and computer companies is that technologists sell “solutions,” which can become attractive if they eliminate a problem in a market space. But if all life, including cancer cells, continues to exploit niches, no solutions from technologists will be final.
Cancer cells are not simply a disorder or breakdown in a mechanism, but an organism going on a full-tilt offensive, using multiple, often shifting strategies to produce and use molecular fuel, win resources, and evade the immune system. If so, then the rules of the game may change—these insights suggest that the war on cancer may be endless. Still, we can get better at treating it as an evolving entity within the context on its ecology, through the idea of “living drugs,” such as engineering the body’s own immune cells to sense and mobilize an attack on cancer.
Related Articles The Race Problem in Breast Cancer Screening Genetic cancer screening is a microcosm of racial disparities in breast cancer care. Alexandra Ossola
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Why I Kept My Real Job Hidden from My Children I didn’t know how to explain that I treat kids with cancer. Melissa Mark
Parker backed Penn scientists in a bid to use the gene modification system Crispr-Cas9 to modify immune system T-cells, rugged soldiers of the immune system which otherwise depend on the precision guidance of antibodies to hone in on their targets, to attach to blood cell cancers. Immunotherapies such as this can involve adding bits of code that build new receptors on the surface of T-cells, which enable them to latch onto markers on the surface of cancer cells, such as CD19 or NY-ESO-1. A number of companies, such as Juno, Kite, and Novartis, are all working on engineering T-cells to fight solid state tumors in organs, stationary masses of cancer that are trickier to fight since they remain burrowed in our bodies and wrap themselves in sheaths of connective tissue called stroma. They represent a target widely perceived as a goldmine among drug makers. Immune-based strategies can also make use of antibodies to inhibit checkpoint blockade mechanisms, receptors on the surface of cells that cancer cells use to temper or turn off an immune system response, or novel strategies that use viruses to tip off the whereabouts of cancer. However, if cancer cells evolve, the |
is the epitome of evil. The South (!!) Korean government required that each web site track the national identification number of each registered user in order to control and suppress dissidents. Koreans used to accept this injustice in silence until identity theft using stolen national identification numbers became a huge problem due to the terrible ActiveX/Windows-based security used by Korean web sites. The Korean government addressed this by requiring people to use an iPIN, which is not as useful to identity thieves because it can be changed once it is leaked, but still allows the government to track Internet users.Foreigners who have an alien registration card and reside in Korea can get an iPIN, but not the rest of us. I suppose you could try contacting the Sonic TV PD, but what would be the best way to reach him? Afreeca? Facebook?
Tufas Profile Blog Joined April 2010 Austria 2215 Posts #17 On January 31 2015 01:19 Hesmyrr wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 31 2015 00:57 2Pacalypse- wrote:
I'm not sure if IU performing is actually a good idea. How much people show up at her concert normally?
It would suck if her fans buy all the tickets just to come see her perform, while caring very little about BW itself, and in process deny the tickets for actual BW fans.
I knew KPOP was secretly our enemy since the days of MBC! KPOP was secretly our enemy since the days of MBC!
KPOP has always been my enemy KPOP has always been my enemy Where is my ACE flair
ChriS-X Profile Joined June 2011 Malaysia 1130 Posts #18 man i remember when IU performed at a sc2 event a few years back <3
GTR Profile Blog Joined September 2004 47912 Posts Last Edited: 2015-01-31 01:11:59 #19
https://twitter.com/ognglobal
https://www.facebook.com/OngamenetGlobal If you foreigners can't register for OKTicket try contacting OGN Global on Twitter or Facebook since they seem to handle the foreigner distribution of Champions tickets. They might be able to come up with a solution for foreigners without a Alien ID. Commentator Twitter: @GTR1H
Stream: http://www.twitch.tv/GTR1H
Probemicro Profile Joined February 2014 3708 Posts #20 On January 31 2015 10:11 GTR wrote:
If you foreigners can't register for OKTicket try contacting OGN Global on Twitter or Facebook since they seem to handle the foreigner distribution of Champions tickets. They might be able to come up with a solution for foreigners without a Alien ID.
https://twitter.com/ognglobal
https://www.facebook.com/OngamenetGlobal If you foreigners can't register for OKTicket try contacting OGN Global on Twitter or Facebook since they seem to handle the foreigner distribution of Champions tickets. They might be able to come up with a solution for foreigners without a Alien ID.
Those feel more like LoL exclusive social media outlets. They haven't even mention a single thing on BW yet. Those feel more like LoL exclusive social media outlets. They haven't even mention a single thing on BW yet.
1 2 Next AllEve Loiseau sings the songs of Edith Piaf with Fiona Barrow (violin) Murray Grainger (accordion)
In the hands of Loiseau, her memory lives on among adoring fans and new borns. I’ll drink to that! A votre santé!
Phil Hopkins, The Yorkshire Times
A celebration of Edith Piaf
Edith Piaf has become synonymous with French Cabaret of the 1940s & 50s and remains France’s most popular singer. Piaf’s life was the stuff of legend, from her dramatic rise from Paris street urchin to star of international renown. This powerful celebration comes from a company whose credentials include Kneehigh Theatre and Canteve Vocale. The show features La vie en rose, Sous le ciel de Paris, Bal dans ma rue, Autumn Leaves, Padam Padam, C’est merveilleux, L’accordéoniste, Non je ne regrette rien and more.
Since her debut at the Royal Festival Hall in Feb 2002, Eve Loiseau has given recitals in England, New York & France and has featured on BBC R3, WNYC Radio, PMW Music and the BBC production, The Roman Mysteries. Eve performs with Canteve Vocale and the baroque ensemble, Duo Dolcetini.
The concert hall will be transformed and the tiered seating will be removed so audience members can enjoy the relaxed atmosphere and a glass of wine to accompany this cabaret performance.
Tickets: £15 (including a glass of wine)
£13 (advance saver – available until 29 January 2016)
FREE – Students and Under 16s
Clothworkers Centenary Concert Hall, School of Music, University of LeedsUnder-sized Adventures Under-sized Bundle 1 [BUNDLE]
This special bundle product contains the following titles. Under-sized Adventures #1: The Kobold Nest Regular price: $0.50 Bundle price: $0.40 Format: Watermarked PDF Deep in the caverns of Ronden Marr, kobolds plot against their goblin neighbors. Their home is narrow, claustrophobic, and brimming with traps. Only the most foolhardy adventurers would attempt to... [ click here for more ] Morgajel $2.50 $2.00
Under-sized Adventures #1: The Kobold Nest
Deep in the caverns of Ronden Marr, kobolds plot against their goblin neighbors. Their home is narrow, claustrophobic, and brimming with traps. Only the most foolhardy adventurers would attempt to invade their sanctuary... This is an adventure stub. It contains a map (labeled and unlabeled), a key to locations, and vague descriptions of what can be found. It's system-agnostic and includes... [ click here for more ] Morgajel $0.50
Under-sized Adventures #2: The Hag Hut
Trouble is brewing in a a dark corner of the forest. Three hags are summoning and releasing monstrosities to sow chaos throught the lands. If only there was a band of intrepid adventurers to stop them... This is an adventure stub. It contains a map (labeled and unlabeled), a key to locations, and vague descriptions of what can be found. It's system-agnostic and includes no stats, creatures... [ click here for more ] Morgajel $0.50
Under-sized Adventures #3: The Last Stand of Kensis
A dangerous outlaw has sought refuge in a box canyon after making an uneasy alliance. Someone must bring Kensis to justice without incurring the wrath of the canyon's fey protector. This is an adventure stub. It contains a map (labeled and unlabeled), a key to locations, and vague descriptions of what can be found. It's system-agnostic and includes no stats, creatures or items.... [ click here for more ] Morgajel $0.50
Under-sized Adventures #4: The Hamlet of Horm
Something strange is going on in the idyllic hamlet of Horm. Rumors of guardian trolls, recluse wizards, imprisoned undead, and ritual sacrifice abound in the neighboring cities. The citizens are friendly but guarded, and will go to great lengths to ensure their secrets are not discovered. This is an adventure stub. It contains a map (labeled and unlabeled), a key to locations, and vague... [ click here for more ] Morgajel $0.50
Under-sized Adventures #5: The Lair of Ssakkanth
Rumors hint that a terrible creature named Ssakkanth lives in a nearby cave- some say it's made its home in the tomb of an ancient warlord. One thing is for sure: none of the villagers in the nearby towns will go within a mile of the location... This is an adventure stub. It contains a map (labeled and unlabeled), a key to locations, and vague descriptions of what can be found. It's system-agnostic... [ click here for more ] Morgajel $0.50
Under-sized Adventures #6: The Goblin Guild
Not all goblins are bloodthirsty monsters. In fact, there are tales of bizarre cults of goblins dedicated to crafting, following a long-forgotten goblin god. That's not to say they're friendly, but they might have goods worth investigating... This is an adventure stub. It contains a map (labeled and unlabeled), a key to locations, and vague descriptions of what can be found. It's system-agnostic... [ click here for more ] Morgajel $0.50
Under-sized Adventures #7: Kapple's Commune
Rumors are circling that Kapple's Commune has recently acquired a clutch of dragon eggs. Now there are reports of an outraged dragon in the vicinity, searching for its children. Only the foolhardy would consider assaulting the commune to steal the eggs from the cultists who live there, but it may be preferable to facing the dragon's ever-growing rage... This is an adventure stub. It contains... [ click here for more ] Morgajel $0.50
Under-sized Adventures #8: The Temple of Olytine
A curse has befallen the Temple of Olytine- the dead who once dedicated their lives to finding inner peace have risen from the grave. If only some daring adventurers would find the cause and bring them the peace they deserve... This is an adventure stub. It contains a map (labeled and unlabeled), a key to locations, and vague descriptions of what can be found. It's system-agnostic and includes... [ click here for more ] Morgajel $0.50Description: Hitler's autism flares up again
Hausemaster has put in a priority queue.
All veterans can now skip the queue
and join almost instantly.
However, many big youtubers are in this queue
such as TheCampingRusher and Napkin.
Youtubers aren't a problem
As long as newfags have to wait, there's no problem.
My Fuhrer...
Hause...
Hausemaster is now selling access to priority queue.
It's $20 a month.
Rushers, Peacekeepers, Newfags, "vets", leave now.
Hause is a jew!
Hause is a fucking jew!
Our server is being overrun by children!
I want hause to deepthroat my thick cock.
Let him choke on my cum!
This whole server is fucked to shit!
Hause is a fucking nigger, he wants the server to die!
Hause is a greedy faggot!
My Fuhrer, Hause is the only reason 2b2t exists.
He's a jew! He's as greedy as Fit!
My Fuhrer, Fit fights for the us veterans!
This isn't a factions server, you dumb fuck
It's anarchy!
Fit and Hause are the same
They both want to drain the wallets of dumb children
to use as toilet paper while they shit on the server!
This server died the moment Rusher uploaded his first episode here
We should go to his house and shoot him in the fucking head!
After we rape his mother in front of him.
I'd do the same to Hausemaster, but he'd like it!
2b2t is dead.
This server was my home. I lived in 2b2t
now it's gone forever.
Fucking jewtubers
Why did they have to ruin everything?!
I have no life outside of 2b2t.
I might as well just shoot myself.
For fuck's sake, there's no reason to live anymore!
We should all commit group suicide!
It's fine, just wait until summer ends.
It's over.
We've had a good run...
5 years.
Goodnight, sweet prince.
You were my only friend.
The jews won.
Game over.(CNN) Mark Cuban, who became President Donald Trump's top critic from the reality TV and business world in 2016, said that although Trump might have poisoned the well for business leaders to run for office, it won't stop him from "considering" a 2020 run.
"Anybody who knows me, anyone who listens to me, anybody who talks to me isn't going to think I'm anything like Donald Trump," Cuban told Bakari Sellers on Tuesday on the CNN contributor's new podcast, "ViewPoint."
Cuban has hinted at a run in the past but appeared to be seriously considering how he would handle his business holdings if he became a candidate or even president.
"If I can come up with solutions that I think people can get behind and truly solve problems, then it makes perfect sense for me to run," Cuban said, specifically mentioning his interest in working on health care and tax reform.
Asked whether his own business ties would raise questions about conflicts of interest as they have for Trump, Cuban said that although he wouldn't divest from all his holdings, he would handle the situation more transparently.
"The problem isn't that (Trump) still owns them," said the star of the reality TV show "Shark Tank." "The problem is that he isn't transparent about them."
"I would have no problem making it available for anybody in government, any inspector general, to see all the data real time, every minute of every day," Cuban added.
Cuban hit Trump for not releasing his tax returns and said he plans to release his own if he runs for office.
"I would have no problem with that," Cuban said.
Cuban, who is the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, also weighed in on the controversy over NFL players taking a knee during the National Anthem to protest racism -- a move that Trump argued should get them fired.
"I'll always support people who have a well-thought-out message they want to send, and I'll do that with my guys," Cuban said, "but I want to make sure that the eyes are on the goal and not just trying to raise a media firestorm, because that accomplishes nothing."
In the NBA, there's a rule that requires players to stand during the anthem, and those who don't will be fined by the association.
Cuban said he urged his players to take control of the narrative and even suggested that they record their messages on the issue and he will ensure that they are publicized.
"If the goal is to send a message, let's send a message the best way possible," he said.
Cuban backed Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and appeared to be successful at getting under Trump's skin, prompting the Clinton campaign to invite him to sit in the front row during the first presidential debate last September.
If dopey Mark Cuban of failed Benefactor fame wants to sit in the front row, perhaps I will put Gennifer Flowers right alongside of him! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 24, 2016
"If dopey Mark Cuban of failed Benefactor fame wants to sit in the front row, perhaps I will put Gennifer Flowers right alongside of him!" Trump tweeted at the time, referencing a woman with whom Bill Clinton admitted to having a sexual relationship decades ago.
But later, Trump's campaign manager Kellyanne Conway told CNN that Flowers was never invited.You've waited a long time for Firefly action figures... and now you're probably going to wait a little bit longer. Entertainment Earth has revealed the first pics of Funko's retro-style, Re:Action Firefly figures, and something less than good. But don't despair, because there's still hope!
While I like the Re:Action line in theory, especially for older series that have already had oodles of toys made of them, the classic Kenner Star Wars 3 3/4-inch style does not seem to be doing Mal, Wash, Jayne, Zoe and Kaylee any favors here. Check 'em out:
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Is Wash blond? Yeesh. Zoe's pretty great, though.
But that's the bad news. The good news is that Funko is still making a realistic 6-inch Firefly action figure line, which will probably be similar to its Game of Thrones figures. So there's no need to freak out, unless you're one of those people that need to buy everything with the Firefly logo on regardless of its quality. In which case these figures are $10 each, come out in April and you can pre-order them here.A Tamarac man accused of twice running over a mother of three "like she was a speed bump" and taking off while she lay dying in a pool of blood has a disturbing history of violent acts dating back nearly 30 years, records show.
A Broward judge denied bond Monday for Lawton Cohen, 53, who stands accused of running over Barbara "Bobbie" Sapp, 55, after they argued outside a Pompano Beach grocery store Saturday evening.
Public records sketch a view of a violent man known to sexually victimize women. His felony arrests date back to a 1985 false-imprisonment charge that resulted in 18 months in prison.
Cohen's lengthiest stint behind bars was 11 years, served for rape. He met the 22-year-old victim in a bar in October 1991, followed her to the parking lot and asked for a ride home. While en route, Cohen told her to pull over, hit her, forced her to perform sex acts inside the car and on the grass, then took her car, $116 from her wallet and left her naked on the swale.
Cohen was released from prison in May 2003.
Since then, Cohen has been arrested nine times on charges ranging from aggravated assault to marijuana possession. Two of the cases are pending, four were dropped or dismissed, two resulted in jail terms of 60 days and nine months and a jury acquitted him on another.
Broward Sheriff's Office, courtesy Lawton Cohen, 53, of Tamarac, is accused of driving his truck over Barbara “Bobbie” Sapp twice and killing her during an argument outside a Pompano Beach food store Lawton Cohen, 53, of Tamarac, is accused of driving his truck over Barbara “Bobbie” Sapp twice and killing her during an argument outside a Pompano Beach food store (Broward Sheriff's Office, courtesy)
Cohen has been named in seven domestic violence cases since 2007. A Tamarac woman, who declined to be named, filed three of them.
Cohen was "a sweet talker" when they first met in a bar but the relationship plunged into violence within about six months, the 44-year-old woman said.
Cohen threatened to kill her cats, stalked her friends and showed up at her workplace acting "like a lunatic" so many times that she eventually got fired, she said.
It got so bad that her parents changed her locks, installed security cameras and hired a security guard to spend the night at her residence, the woman said.
"He has a terrible temper and can't control himself," the woman's mother said. "We didn't trust him. It was ugly."
When Cohen was arrested in February after allegedly ramming through a checkpoint at Port Everglades and hitting a deputy's patrol car with his Ram 1500 truck, he was free on bond for a December 2012 false imprisonment case.
Cohen allegedly led three deputies on a pursuit and drove into oncoming traffic. He had marijuana, crack cocaine and a crack pipe in his truck, according to an arrest report. That case is still pending.
Meanwhile, Cohen took the false imprisonment case to trial and was acquitted by a jury in August.
The accuser had partied with Cohen at his house and stolen money from him. She claimed that on the way home, Cohen would not let her out of his vehicle, said Regina Tsombanakis, Cohen's defense attorney in that case.
"There was no false imprisonment, there were no witnesses and the victim was in the throes of a drug addiction and was really very unbelievable," Tsombanakis said.
On the same day Cohen was acquitted, Aug. 6, he posted bond in the Port Everglades case and went home.
Until last weekend, Cohen's only run-in with law enforcement had been a Sept. 15 citation by deputies for failing to obey a traffic signal.
In the parking lot of Rocky's Food Store on Saturday, Cohen argued with Sapp as she leaned into the driver's- side window of his Dodge truck, witnesses told police.
Sapp fell to the ground when Cohen drove forward. He backed up over her, put the truck in drive and drove over her again, then sped away, deputies say.
Sapp was pronounced dead about 15 minutes later. Cohen told police he did not realize he had run her over. Portions of the altercation were recorded on surveillance video from the market.
"I don't want to jump to any conclusions without speaking to him first, and I haven't seen the video yet, either," said Assistant Public Defender Erin Veit, who was assigned Cohen's murder case Monday afternoon.
Veit said she intended to visit Cohen at the jail Monday night.
Staff Researcher Barbara Hijek and Staff Writer Wayne K. Roustan contributed to this report.
tealanez@tribune.com, 954-356-4542 or Twitter @talanezDisinformation: Former Spy Chief Reveals Secret Strategies for Undermining Freedom, Attacking Religion, and Promoting Terrorism
Jump to the excerpts.
Description from Amazon.com, excerpts from the Kindle edition.
The highest-ranking Soviet bloc intelligence official ever to defect to the West, Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa is credited by the CIA as the only person in the Western world who single-handedly demolished an entire enemy espionage service. Still living undercover in the United States, the man takes aim at an even bigger target: the exotic, widely misunderstood but astonishingly influential realm of the Russian-born "science" of disinformation. Pacepa, along with his co-author, historian and law professor Ronald Rychlak, expose some of the most consequential yet largely unknown disinformation campaigns of our lifetime. Like the solution to a giant jigsaw puzzle lacking one crucial piece, Disinformation authoritatively provides the missing dimension that makes the chaos of the modern world finally understandable. By its very nature, a disinformation campaign can work only if the seemingly independent Western press accepts intentionally fabricated lies and presents them to the public as truth. Thus, Pacepa and Rychlak also document how the U.S. "mainstream media's" enduring sympathy for all things liberal-left has made it vulnerable to--indeed, the prime carrier of--civilization-transforming campaigns of lying, defamation and historical revisionism that turn reality on its head. Discover answers to many crucial questions of the modern era: Why, during the last two generations, has so much of the Western world turned against its founding faith, Christianity?
Why have radical Islam, jihad and terrorism burst aflame after a long period of apparent quiescence?
Why is naked Marxism increasingly manifesting in America and its NATO allies?
What really happened to Russia after the Berlin Wall came down?
How destroying the reputation of good leaders has been developed into a high art and science.
How Pope Pius XII --a generation ago the world's most high-profile Christian leader, who personally saved countless Jews from Hitler's Holocaust--was transformed, through the magic of disinformation, into a Nazi sympathizer.
How Christianity and Judaism have been targeted for constant denigration and defamation through an ongoing campaign of disinformation.
How the Soviet bloc planted 4,000 agents of influence in the Islamic world, armed with hundreds of thousands of copies of the most infamous anti-Semitic book in history, to fan the flames of ancient Arab resentments against the U.S. and Israel and sow the seeds of anti-Semitism that would later bloom in the form of violence and terror toward Jews and Christians.
How the defamatory attacks on American soldiers John Kerry made before Congress upon his return from Vietnam--charges later discredited and repudiated--were identical to a contemporaneous KGB disinformation campaign concocted to turn Americans against their own leaders.
How supposedly respectable institutions like the World Council of Churches have long been infiltrated and controlled by Russian intelligence.
How much of the world came to believe that the U.S. government itself masterminded the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
How the Soviet Union has been transformed into the first intelligence dictatorship in history.
How disinformation is still very much alive in the age of Obama, remaining a powerful engine in the ongoing socialist transformation of America.
"Using press leaks to destroy the reputation of a national or religious leader, engendering the spread of anti-Semitism, building up resentment against the United States or Israel in the Arab world." Location 105
"Dezinformatsiya is like cocaine. If you sniff once or twice, it may not change your life. If you use it every day though, it will make you an addict—a different man." Location 108
"The clue to understanding the significance of the black church arson hoax lies in the documented fact that the World Council of Churches, which ignited and promoted that story, has been infiltrated and ultimately controlled by Russian intelligence since 1961." Location 248
"Specifically, the idea is to fabricate a new past for enemy targets in order to change how the world perceives them." Location 285
"Stalin’s successor, Nikita Khrushchev, began his reign by executing the whole leadership of Stalin’s political police as traitors, so as to give the appearance that he condemned his predecessor’s crimes. That had become a rite of succession in the Soviet Union." Location 367
"Ceauşescu had spent his entire Moscow trip talking about public relations strategies with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and his KGB chief Yuri Andropov. The two Soviets believed the West had reached the historic point where it was eager to encourage the least sign of thaw in a communist leader. To test this conclusion, they wanted to build Ceauşescu up and make him a big box-office success in the West, as a trial run preparatory to launching the same trick with the man in the Kremlin." Location 388
"Glasnost is an old Russian term for polishing the ruler’s image. Originally it meant, literally, publicizing, i.e., self-promotion." Location 400
The "official Soviet encyclopedia defined glasnost as a spin on news released to the public: “Dostupnost obshchestvennomy obsuzhdeniyu, kontrolyu; publichnost,” meaning, “the quality of being made available for public discussion or manipulation.”" Location 403
"We learned that the local Soviet-German House of Friendship—headed by Putin for six years—had been in fact a KGB front, and that the undercover KGB officers running it had simply worked out of operational offices at the Leipzig and Dresden Stasi headquarters." Location 415
"Andropov greeted me by getting right to the point: “The only thing the West cares about is our leader.” He was famous for not wasting his breath on introductory chitchat. “The more they come to love him, the better they will like us,”" Location 437
"Let the gullible fools believe you want to perfume your communism with a dab of Western democracy, and they will clothe you in gold." Location 445
"Contemporary political memory seems to be increasingly afflicted with a kind of a convenient Alzheimer’s disease." Location 468
"The truth is, the Western media are quite easily manipulated, for they often craft their stories from press releases and tend, on the whole, to be indiscriminate about the nature and reliability of their sources." Location 480
"Gorbachev introduced himself to the West exactly as Andropov had: a cultured sophisticate and aficionado of Western opera and jazz. The Kremlin has always known that this picture holds particular charm for the gullible West." Location 492
"Gorbachev is thought to have been recruited by the KGB in the early 1950s while studying law at Moscow State University, where he spied on his foreign classmates."Location 493
"Gorbachev’s rhetoric about combining “communist values” with “Western democracy introduced from the top” and a “centralized free-market economy” enthralled the world." Location 514
"Gorbachev’s arrival was preceded by an NBC interview, just as Ceauşescu’s had been by one with the Hearst newspapers. Both publicly used Washington to reaffirm their deep devotion to Marxism, although both had to acknowledge that their communist systems at home were in deep trouble. (Translation: send money.)" Location 527
"I noted only one fundamental difference between Gorbachev’s and Ceauşescu’s strategies to butter up the West. Three months after Ceauşescu left Washington, the acting chief of his foreign intelligence service—this writer—was granted political asylum by the United States. That event shattered the smiling mask Ceauşescu had worn in Washington and allowed the inner workings of his glasnost machine to lie spread out on the table for all to see." Location 554
"General Nicolae Doicaru, the longtime chief of Romania’s foreign intelligence service, the DIE, had been in charge of 'wet operations'" Location 579
"Brezhnev had asked Ceauşescu for help in stealing the technology and blueprints for a VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) military airplane that had been developed by Fokker A.G., West Germany’s main airplane producer." Location 597
"At the top of the KGB community it was known that Jean-Paul Sartre was used as an influence agent." Location 876
"Attestation to Sartre’s connection with the KGB: On June 15, 1972, the West German police captured one of Sartre’s favorite pupils, German terrorist Ulrike Meinhof, who was financed by the KGB. Soon after that, she sent a letter to her ideological master, Sartre, asking him for moral support. Sartre complied. When he went to the Stammheim prison in West Germany to encourage her, Sartre was chauffeured by German terrorist Hans-Joachim Klein, a KGB agent and Carlos the Jackal’s deputy for the 1975 OPEC terrorist attack in Vienna." Location 886
"There is a widespread belief that the worst damage from Soviet/Russian intelligence operations against the West has been the theft of highly classified secrets, such as the technology for the atom bomb. Not so. The absolutely worst—and often irreparable—damage done to the Free World has been caused by the Kremlin’s disinformation operations designed to change the past." Location 934
"In KGB jargon, changing people’s pasts was called “framing,” and it was a highly classified disinformation speciality." Location 939
"Contrary to popular belief, the countries of Eastern Europe did not become proletarian dictatorships because of revolutions carried out by the indigenous communist parties—in 1945, Romania’s Communist Party had fewer than fifteen hundred members. The Sovietization of Eastern Europe was accomplished by the Kremlin through subversive framing operations that were later stamped with an outwardly political cachet." Location 948
"The leaders of East European democratic parties were not politically purged; they were systematically shot or imprisoned after being framed as Nazi war criminals." Location 951
"Urho Kaleva Kekkonen, Finland’s long-time president and a Soviet agent, was marked for promotion. Kekkonen was built up as a successful political leader by the KGB and its predecessors (which had ghost-written his public speeches for almost twenty years). Kekkonen was manipulated by the Soviets until 1981, when he ended his twenty-five-year term as president of the then Soviet-friendly Finland." Location 988
"Olof Palme, also marked for promotion, was molded into a Swedish prime minister and helped by the KGB to export the Soviet welfare state to Western Europe." Location 991
"Herbert Wehner, who became a member of the West German cabinet in charge of “all-German affairs” (meaning relations with East Germany), was an apprentice clerk before joining the German Communist Party in 1927 and defecting to the Soviet Union. There he was molded into a Social Democratic political leader by the Soviet political police, which later fabricated a background for him showing that he had spent World War II in Sweden— not in the Soviet Union, as was the truth. In 1946, Stalin dispatched Wehner to West Germany via Sweden. Wehner’s invented biography as an anti-Nazi and anticommunist militant—a Soviet fabrication—helped him become deputy chairman of the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD) in 1958, to chair the SPD group in the Bundestag (1969–1983), and to become a member of the West German government (1969–1983). Wehner remained a top West German politician until his death in 1990." Location 992
"The secret protocol of the Hitler-Stalin Pact partitioned Poland between the two signatories and gave the Soviets a free hand over Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Bessarabia, and Northern Bukovina." Location 1022
"In 1945, Stalin created an intelligence unit that specialized in framing people as Nazi collaborators—SMERSH. Stalin himself had a hand in coining its name. It was from the Russian words meaning “death to spies” (smert shpionam). Stalin subordinated the unit directly to himself. Its thugs soon became adept at the mass framing of people as Nazis, forcing them to confess and removing them from the scene by arrest, trial, imprisonment, or death." Location 1096
"Stepinac’s show trial had been staged by Andrey Vyshinsky, the old intelligence hand who had worked undercover as the public prosecutor during Stalin’s purges. Three years after that trial, Vyshinsky became the foreign minister of the Soviet Union." Location 1350
"Falconi explained that the “central core of the Croatian documents” that had been provided to him by the Croatian (communist) government “brought to light an entirely new and unsuspected harvest of revelations on the men and the mysterious world” of high Vatican officials. Falconi’s book impressed researchers because it was highly footnoted and relied on documents that had been used in litigation. The Silence of Pius XII shaped much of the early scholarship “documenting” that Pius XII was “Hitler’s Pope.” We now know that Falconi was not looking at legitimate documents, but at communist fabrications. In 1985, Jakov Blažević, who prosecuted Stepinac, confessed that the documents on which the archbishop was tried were false." Location 1504
"If you are good at disinformation, you can get away with anything." Location 1528
"Stalin undoubtedly wanted Mindszenty arrested, framed, and “neutralized”—not necessarily killed, because that would make international waves, but removed from the scene for life, perhaps so physically mistreated and mentally addled that he would never again be able to challenge the communist rulers. Since the war, the Soviets’ tried-and-true method had been wherever possible to slander their enemies as having been pro-Nazi." Location 1591
"Counting the communist revolution in China that had been initiated and organized by Soviet advisers and was now about to succeed, the ruler in the Kremlin would oversee more than a third of the world’s population. Stalin believed the time was ripe to gather all of Germany under the communist umbrella. Germany was the cradle of Marxism—Karl Marx’s birthplace—and it was a matter of personal pride for Stalin to see it." Location 1755
"Stalin decided to portray the United States as a Zionist realm owned by Jewish money and run by a greedy “Council of the Elders of Zion” (Stalin’s derisive epithet for the US Congress)" Location 1774
"Demonstrating for peace to promote war was nothing new. Before World War II there had been scores of peace demonstrations in the United States that were fueled by Nazi sympathizers— they did not want to stop Hitler from conquering Europe, they wanted to stop Washington from going to war against Hitler." Location 1793
"The Cold War was born. Stalin called it World War III." Location 1795
"World War III was conceived to be a war without weapons—a war the Soviet bloc would win without firing a single bullet. It was a war of ideas. It was an intelligence war, waged with a powerful new weapon called dezinformatsiya. Its task was to spread credible derogatory information in such a way that the slander would convince others that the targets were truly evil. To ensure the credibility of the lies, two things were required. First, the fabrications had to appear to come from respected and reputable Western sources; and second, there had to be what Sakharovsky called “a kernel of truth” behind the allegations, so that at least some part of the story could be definitively verified—and to ensure that the calumny would never be put to rest. In addition, the originator had to do his best to ensure that the story got plenty of publicity, if necessary, by having agents or leftist sympathizers in the West publish articles putting the desired spin on the alleged information." Location 1806
"'Operation “Zarathustra' was designed to portray Germany as the breeding ground for a new wave of anti-Semitism that was spreading throughout Western Europe. One of the main players in the “Zarathustra” operation was the foreign component of the East German Stasi." Location 1830
"Totalitarianism always requires a tangible enemy. The Jews, who for centuries had not been protected by the power of a state, proved a convenient enemy for both Nazism and communism." Location 1849
"Soviet leaders instructed M. M. Scheinmann, a researcher at the Historical Institute of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Moscow, to produce a report alleging a Vatican-Nazi conspiracy against the Soviet Union. Scheinmann’s report contained invented details about an alleged “Secret Pact” the Vatican had signed with Hitler." Location 1948
"In 1968, the KGB was able to maneuver a group of leftist South American bishops into holding a conference in Medellín, Colombia. At the KGB’s request, my DIE provided logistical assistance to the organizers. The official task of the conference was to help eliminate poverty in Latin America. Its undeclared goal was to legitimize a KGB-created religious movement dubbed “liberation theology,” the secret task of which was to incite Latin America’s poor to rebel against the “institutionalized violence of poverty” generated by the United States." Location 1980
"The KGB had a penchant for “liberation” movements. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the National Liberation Army of Columbia (FARC), and the National Liberation Army of Bolivia were just a few of |
inside columns, supporting the temple. Portable chairs are not wanting, many and well adorned. Nothing is seen over the altar but a large globe, upon which the heavenly bodies are painted, and another globe upon which there is a representation of the earth. Furthermore, in the vault of the dome there can be discerned representations of all the stars of heaven from the first to the sixth magnitude, with their proper names and power to influence terrestrial things marked in three little verses for each. There are the poles and greater and lesser circles according to the right latitude of the place, but these are not perfect because there is no wall below. They seem, too, to be made in their relation to the globes on the altar. The pavement of the temple is bright with precious stones. Its seven golden lamps hang always burning, and these bear the names of the seven planets.
At the top of the building several small and beautiful cells surround the small dome, and behind the level space above the bands or arches of the exterior and interior columns there are many cells, both small and large, where the priests and religious officers dwell to the number of forty-nine.
A revolving flag projects from the smaller dome, and this shows in what quarter the wind is. The flag is marked with figures up to thirty-six, and the priests know what sort of year the different kinds of winds bring and what will be the changes of weather on land and sea. Furthermore, under the flag a book is always kept written with letters of gold.A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet, but a rose after climate change may not smell much at all. That’s going to be a problem for the bees that pollinate a third of the world’s food supply, according to new research.
Flowers and other plants rely on microscopic scent molecules to attract the bees and other pollinators that feed on them. Climate change is going to disrupt that process, mostly because of ground-level ozone, which is projected to increase over the coming decades. The research, published in the journal New Phytologist, found that flowers’ fragile scent molecules break down more quickly as they are exposed to greater levels of ozone.
“Ozone is a highly reactive pollutant that enhances the degradation of all plant volatiles in general, reducing their lifetimes,” said the study’s lead author, Gerard Farré-Armengol of the Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry in Barcelona, Spain.
Increasing ozone levels will make flowers less attractive to pollinators because the plants won’t maintain their scent for as long or over as great a distance, a change that will hurt both flora and fauna, Farré-Armengol said. Pollinators will become less efficient at finding food, while the plants “will experience a decrease in pollinator visitation rates that can limit their reproductive success.”
Previous research has come to similar conclusions. A 2013 study examined ozone’s effect on the striped cucumber beetle, a pest predator that eats crops such as cucumbers and pumpkins. As ozone levels rise, these predators also demonstrated lowered attraction to scent molecules. The research, conducted in a laboratory, projected that beetles would have a harder time finding food and that pollinators would have similar problems.
This new study takes things further by examining specific floral scents and a generalist pollinator, one of Europe’s most common bumblebees. Farré-Armengol said the study showed not only the degradation of volatile plant scent molecules but also the related negative consequences on the pollinators. The researchers found that bumblebees, which would normally travel the longest distance to flowers, lost the important scent cues necessary to locate the plants.
RELATED: Bees Are Dying Year-Round Now
Although the researchers used scents from just one flower—a common European mustard plant—Farré-Armengol said other scents would have the same reaction to ozone and that the research could be extrapolated to other plants.
It would also be relevant to other pollinators, especially other kinds of bees. “Bees use floral scents to locate and identify attractive and rewarding food sources,” said Rich Hatfield, a conservation biologist with the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation.
“Anything that reduces their ability to do so would decrease foraging efficiency and thus make each foraging trip more energetically expensive,” said Hatfield, who was not affiliated with the study. That, he added, would have the potential to lower the bees’ reproduction because they would expend too much energy looking for food.
Bees won’t be the only species affected. Ground-level ozone also contributes to smog, which can cause health problems in humans and is expected to reduce global crop production by 15 percent over the next 35 years. That doesn’t sound very sweet at all.China Real Estate Burgeoning Bubble Special Report
Today I offer you an insightful look at China's real estate market - a "burgeoning bubble" that deserves a close eye as the possibility for breaking increases. Remember the chaos in Japan after their own housing dreamscape got violently yanked back to earth? As investors, we have to recognize opportunities - and know what to avoid. With a global economic crisis - and now surging housing prices in China - investors in any global market need to keep watch on political and economic developments around the world.
Today's analysis comes courtesy my friends at STRATFOR, a global intelligence company. They provide unique and on-the-money analysis and forecasts on all things global, essential for any alternative investment strategy. They've got a free newsletter as well, for which I encourage you to sign up by clicking here - so you're not limited to my caprice.
John Mauldin
Editor, Outside the Box
The China Files (Special Project): Real Estate
Summary
The real estate market in China, particularly the residential side, is a burgeoning bubble that is growing bigger and more breakable by the day. Land and housing prices were already rising steadily when Beijing's stimulus package hit the sector in early 2009. Now prices are surging, with developers, bureaucrats and investors cashing in while urban Chinese - once encouraged to invest in home ownership by the central government - become less and less able to buy.
Editor's Note: This analysis is part of a series that explores China's industry, finance and statistics.
Analysis
The China Files (Special Project)
PDF Version: Click here to download a PDF of this report
On Sept. 10, China Overseas Land and Investment, a Hong Kong-listed company and a subsidiary of state-owned China State Construction Engineering Corp., purchased a prime piece of real estate in the Putuo district in downtown Shanghai. The company paid 7.006 billion yuan ($1.026 billion) for the undeveloped property, which will amount to an average of 22,409.3 yuan ($3,283.9) per square meter of floor space (just in land costs) once the designed residential building is constructed.
The purchase created China's newest "land king," a term for the real estate developer who pays the highest price for a piece of real estate during a land auction. And 7.006 billion yuan was the highest price ever paid for a piece of Chinese real estate for any purpose - residential or commercial. The milestone is a result of an increasingly intense competition for land in major cities that began early in the year, when Beijing began distributing stimulus money to various industries - including the real estate sector - to sustain the economy. As a result, land prices have soared throughout China. And with increasing speculative investment in residential real estate, the market faces a surging bubble that jeopardizes the country's long-term economic development.
Since 1998, real estate investment in China has accounted for more than 10 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP), compared to only 3 percent to 5 percent in the United States. Such investment is also closely associated with many other industries, such as construction and finance, and it provides an abundance of jobs. Therefore, it is seen as a critical pillar of China's economy and enjoys favorable policies from the government and state-owned banks (more than 70 percent of real estate investment in China comes from bank loans). At the same time, real estate developers, local government officials and investors have escalated housing prices across the country by acquiring massive land holdings, limiting the supply and inflating prices, creating a real estate bubble that is not sustainable in the long run.
The bubble has grown mainly on the residential side of the market, where there is more demand and higher profits to be made. However, while fewer developers and investors have been chasing nonresidential projects, Beijing's 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) stimulus package in early 2009 has generated more interest and activity in the commercial side. Indeed, there are signs that commercial real estate may also be headed for a bubble, and STRATFOR will be watching the situation closely.
Origins of the Bubble
Since 1978, China's pace of urbanization has increased dramatically, with the number of middle-size and large cities (those having nonagricultural populations of more than 200,000) growing rapidly. Beginning in 1985, economic reforms implemented in urban areas to make China's planned economy more market-oriented added even more momentum to the real estate boom, with real estate investment increasing by 71 percent by 1987. The government's macroeconomic policy of monetary belt-tightening helped cool this overheated market, which was further tempered by the government's continuing to provide housing for state employees (fu li fen fang, or "welfare housing").
However, when the state significantly cut back on its welfare housing program in 1998, the Chinese perception of personal property changed, and this would have an important impact on the real estate sector. The government began this privatization process by making a private dwelling a "commodity" and granting the purchaser the right to own a newly built house for 70 years. (Likewise, the developer who buys the property on which residential or commercial buildings are to be constructed may own that property for 70 years.) Home ownership in China could now be a sound financial investment.
Thus, the residential real estate market would boom in almost every urban area in China - and particularly in the "first-tier" and "second-tier" cities (only Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Shanghai are in the first tier, with more than 20 cities, and mostly provincial capitals or coastal ports are in the second tier). But rising land prices would eventually put housing prices out of reach for the general public. In Dongguan, a coastal second-tier city in Guangdong province, land prices averaged 4,957 yuan ($726.42) per square meter in 2007, a more than 500 percent increase from 2003, while personal disposable income increased 24 percent during the same period (from 20,526 yuan [$3,008] to 27,025 yuan [$3,960] per year).
A 2006 survey conducted by the National Development and Reform Commission showed that the average ratio between housing prices and income was approaching 12:1 in many large and middle-size cities in China (in Beijing it had reached 27:1). Twelve to one is significantly higher than the World Bank's suggested affordability ratio of 5:1 and the United Nations' 3:1. The problem was compounded by the fact that, of the more than 80 percent of Chinese who owned their own homes in urban areas (generally considered cities with populations of more than 20,000), 54.1 percent were making monthly mortgage payments that constituted 20 percent to 50 percent of their monthly incomes.
The Recovery Bubble
Following a temporary drop toward the end of 2007, land prices rose steadily, then began surging again with Beijing's stimulus package and a flood of easy credit in 2009. With much of this money flowing into the real estate sector, major beneficiaries included large state-owned enterprises (SOEs) involved in speculative real estate and housing investment, contributing to the inflating bubble. Among the 10 highest-priced land purchases in major cities in the first half of 2009, 60 percent went to SOEs.
Paradoxically, as the global financial crisis continues, China sees little choice but to loosen its monetary policy even further, fearing the opposite would curtail economic growth and result in massive unemployment, which could lead to social instability. Beijing knows that one of the country's underlying economic problems continues to be an overheated real estate market, but it also knows that the real long-term solution - limiting the flow of cash and credit - could have dire socio-economic ramifications. Meanwhile, real estate developers, government officials and investors continue to speculate on real estate, raising land and housing prices.
As housing prices continue to rise, a parallel trend is manifesting itself - rising vacancy rates in urban areas. A 2009 report by the Shanghai Yiju Real Estate Research Institute revealed that, by the end of 2008, the average vacancy rate for "commodity housing" (as opposed to welfare housing) in Beijing was 16.64 percent, and vacancies reached as high as 30 percent in some districts. Most of these vacant houses, however, are not unsold ones. They have been purchased by investors as speculative investments. While there are fewer and fewer ordinary people who can afford to buy houses, there is still excessive demand for investment housing - pressure that continues to drive up the prices.
This closed loop in the Chinese real estate market is facilitated by the country's political and bureaucratic system. In China, all land is initially owned by the state, and local governments have the sole authority to sell it. And income from property taxes and land sales are a primary source of revenue for local jurisdictions. According to estimates by the State Council's Development and Research Center, tax revenue from the land in some jurisdictions accounts for 40 percent of the local budget. Moreover, net income from land sales accounts for more than 60 percent of the local governments' extra-budgetary revenue. The soft budget and lack of accountability to the people reinforces the local governments' incentive to expand their real estate investments without much concern for cost or impact on public services.
Economic performance also is the prime prerequisite for bureaucratic advancement, which gives local officials the incentive to generate as much revenue as possible through land auctions. And this generally involves a level of collusion - and corruption - among government officials, real estate developers and investors.
One typical strategy is for a developer to buy a big chunk of urban land from the local government but leave the land undeveloped, or build on only a small portion of it, thereby keeping the housing supply limited. Despite various state policies to lower land prices in order to make homes more affordable, local government officials and real estate developers control the land auctions. When a lower sale price is dictated from above, it is easy enough for the local sponsors to officially deem the auction a failure. Even when the developer does build houses on the property, a speculative investor, working hand in hand with the developer and government officials, can bribe both parties to ensure that he can buy all the houses at a low volume price and keep them off the market, thereby maintaining a limited supply and high prices.
Another factor that enters the equation is a cultural one. The Chinese people generally prefer to buy new houses, as opposed to renting homes or buying secondary houses in which people have already lived. Indeed, in urban areas, marriage proposals often include a promise to buy a new commodity house. As a result, the secondary housing market remains very small in comparison (due also to fewer available bank loans for lived-in houses and the complicated process involved in transferring ownership).
All of these factors contribute to the burgeoning real estate bubble - and make it difficult to predict when that bubble will burst. With 70 percent of real estate investment in China coming from bank loans, a dramatic drop in land values could send shock waves throughout the economy. There are already signs of decline. In Shenzhen, one of China's first-tier cities, real estate prices have been dropping for the past two years (30 percent for housing), and many developers and speculators have suffered great losses. The threat looms in other large cities such as Beijing and Shanghai and may be emerging in many second-tier cities as well.
Given the current global economy and the economic balancing act it must maintain domestically, Beijing has few good choices. It must keep enough cash flowing to maintain economic growth and social stability in the short term while tightening credit to avoid a tsunami of bad loans and a market collapse over the long term. Certainly, Beijing does not want to face the kind of collapse in the housing market that Japan experienced in the 1990s, which triggered a financial crisis and more than a decade of economic malaise.
But in China's real estate, as in most sectors of this vast and complex land, implementing and enforcing prudent regulation has never been an easy task
By John Mauldin
John Mauldin, Best-Selling author and recognized financial expert, is also editor of the free Thoughts From the Frontline that goes to over 1 million readers each week. For more information on John or his FREE weekly economic letter go to: http://www.frontlinethoughts.com/learnmore
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John Mauldin is president of Millennium Wave Advisors, LLC, a registered investment advisor. All material presented herein is believed to be reliable but we cannot attest to its accuracy. Investment recommendations may change and readers are urged to check with their investment counselors before making any investment decisions. Opinions expressed in these reports may change without prior notice. John Mauldin and/or the staff at Millennium Wave Advisors, LLC may or may not have investments in any funds cited above. Mauldin can be reached at 800-829-7273.
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Comments
StaElena
15 Oct 09, 22:22 real estate philippines
nice article such a nice info.If you have a creative idea to make your community’s streets safer, it could be eligible for $750 in funding.
Community associations, cultural communities, business improvement areas and other grass-roots organizations keen to make their streets more walkable can soon apply for a micro-grant, after council approved an application to the city’s innovation fund on Monday.
The pitch to spend $172,000 on a program that will dole out $112,500 in grants to 150 community projects across the city passed in a 9-5 vote.
Councillors Andre Chabot, Sean Chu, Peter Demong, Joe Magliocca and Ward Sutherland voted against the ‘Walk21 Community Microgrants’ program. Coun. Jim Stevenson was absent.
The funds are meant to celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday and coincide with Walk21, an international conference on walking the University of Calgary is hosting this September.
Ward 7 Coun. Druh Farrell said the conference will bring experts, focussed on pedestrian safety, from around the world to Calgary.
“The ability to connect those experts with communities to talk about these micro interventions to improve safety and walkability in neighbourhoods will have a lasting impact,” Farrell said.
“It’s cheap and cheerful.”
Related
Traffic issues are a common complaint from community associations and it’s hoped the funds will allow at least eight walking improvement projects per ward to be completed over a two-year period.
“This will allow us to do a bunch of stuff in neighbourhoods to address pain points, in particular communities, at a very low cost while utilizing experts that are in town for the very, very big international conference,” Mayor Naheed Nenshi said.
The $172,000 in funding will come from the City of Calgary’s innovation fund and $112,500 will be spent on the micro grants.
The remaining money will go towards communications and promotion ($5,000), program administration ($40,000) and a program process review ($15,000).
Details on how citizens and community groups can apply for funding are expected in the coming months, with successful applicants scheduled to be announced during the Walk21 conference that runs September 20 to 22, 2017.
aklingbeil@postmedia.comEpisodes 17 & 18
In May of 1990, ABC aired the “Twin Peaks” Season 1 finale, and frustrated viewers who’d expected the show’s creators David Lynch and Mark Frost to resolve the “Who killed Laura Palmer?” mystery. In June of 1991, “Twin Peaks” Season 2 also ended with more questions than answers, and stuck fans with a cruel twist, revealing that heroic FBI Agent Dale Cooper had been replaced by an evil twin. So if you were confounded by the way the third (and perhaps last-ever) “Twin Peaks” season wrapped up last night... well, call it tradition. Whether by circumstance or intent, this has always been a TV drama that eschews tidy resolutions.
What makes Season 3’s sucker-punch especially powerful though is that it comes as something of a surprise. For the better part of an hour, the first half of the two-part finale seems poised to put a festive bow on nearly everything that’s come before, pleasing everyone who cheered last week when the ready-to-rock Agent Cooper emerged from a summer-long fog. But everything sours quickly at the end of the episode, and in the following one.
All in all, these were two mesmerizing hours of television, but because they follow Lynch’s usual dream-logic, they’re not always plain about their meaning. Here’s a nutshell interpretation of what they literally depict:
In the first hour, Cooper’s dark doppelgänger Mr. C is finally forced back to the Lodge that spawned him, thanks a combination of Lucy’s deadly marksmanship and Freddie Sykes’s supercharged punching power. Cooper then uses knowledge he’s apparently acquired during decades in limbo to seek a more lasting justice, by jumping back in time to prevent Laura Palmer from being killed. But while he does steer her away from the scene of her murder, the effort ends with Laura disappearing into the darkness, screaming in terror.This week London’s half a million Indians celebrate Diwali, the Festival of Lights, in a pensive mood. For sure, there is a lot for them to be positive about. The data from the Government’s race disparity audit last week showed how British Indians, far from being a disadvantaged minority, rank top for earnings and educational attainment. Yet there is an air of anxiety hanging over the community too. British Indians are not immune from the existential angst pervading the country at large, as reflected in a recent Ipsos poll showing that 72 per cent of Britons feel the country is off on the wrong track.
In many respects, the Indian diaspora has lived the ultimate British Dream. In common with many immigrant communities, Britain has provided them with somewhere to build a new life and secure better prospects for their families. Indian parents have worked long hours and made sacrifices so that their children can enjoy a better future.
The majority came to these shores as refugees or economic migrants and have, almost universally, prospered in a single generation. Migrants, as a group, are people who are prepared to uproot themselves, who want to improve their lives. In Britain they found a generous-spirited nation that welcomed new talent, applauded personal responsibility and rewarded wealth creation. These were opportunities not always found in their home countries, and successive Prime Ministers from Thatcher to Blair and Cameron spoke to their aspiration.
One of the most eye-catching data points from the new Cabinet Office website of Ethnicity Facts and Figures is a breakdown of household income, revealing that 35 per cent of British Indians earn £1,000 or more a week compared to a national average of 24 per cent in the same top income bracket. The Indian diaspora has also invested heavily in education and the results are evident here too. Department of Education rankings show that Indian pupils, alongside Chinese, have the highest attainment throughout school, make the most progress and are the most likely to stay in education and go to university.
But the Indian influence goes well beyond monetary measurement or educational league tables. Large swathes of London, from Southall to Wembley and Upton Park, and now even Mayfair, have benefited from the entrepreneurial drive of the Indian community. The strong family business ethos has spurred urban regeneration, reviving countless high streets and business parks across the capital — not forgetting the massive cultural contribution to food, music, cinema, dance and fashion, all of which is being marked throughout 2017 by the UK-India Year of Culture, launched by the Queen at Buckingham Palace earlier this year.
So with all these achievements, what’s the gripe? The restiveness comes from doubts about Britain’s commitment to remaining an open, tolerant and welcoming nation after Brexit and the prospect of a return to the politics of envy, where aspiration and wealth creation are punished, not rewarded.
Many Indians came to Britain via sub-Saharan Africa, where they often experienced the trauma and humiliation of being forced out of their adopted countries because of their ethnicity and local envy about their economic success. For some in the older generation there is a fear, however irrational, of history repeating itself. For others, the changes to the non-domicile tax regime has forced their hand, prompting some ultra-high-net-worth Indian families to move offshore to the likes of Monaco, Dubai or Singapore. For most, though, the concern is more basic. Having laid down their roots and been exemplary in their efforts to integrate into society, British Indians are questioning whether the dream of progress between the generations can still be delivered.
British Indians are questioning whether the dream of progress between the generations can still be delivered
Behind this sentiment is a very large exposure to the fortunes of the City — with 32 per cent of Indians working in professional industries, compared with an average of 20 per cent across the population. Financial and professional services, which are driven by meritocracy, have provided a massive engine for social mobility. If, however, the Brexit negotiations fail to secure the right deal for continued trade in services, it would be a major setback for British Indians.
Equally important, British Indians see themselves as a “Living Bridge”, to use the words of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, between the world’s largest democracy and the world’s oldest. India is the second-largest investor in the UK after the United States and has invested more in Britain than in the rest of Europe combined. London is the natural gateway for Indian companies to access the EU single market and without providing that crucial entry-point the risk is that future investment flows will become more dispersed. This is a time to harness, not alienate, a globally connected community which can be of ever greater value as we forge new relationships with the rest of the world.
There are not just economic anxieties at play here but social ones too. As the first generation grows older and requires greater provision of health and social care, there is a wariness about relying on the state, which often provides services insensitive to the community’s cultural needs. Indians have a proud history of self-reliance that has minimised their call on public services, but hard-working professionals also need help looking after their elderly parents. Other communities who manifestly pay as much in taxes would have demanded more back from the state but Indians are not inclined to beg for help. Having made a disproportionate contribution to the Exchequer, they deserve proper support and dignity in their old age.
At its heart, the unsettled feeling among the Indian diaspora is a concern about who now speaks for them. Diwali is a festive reminder that good ultimately triumphs over evil, knowledge wins over ignorance and hope prevails over despair. This year many will be hoping that the “Light” they celebrate will illuminate the path to renewed confidence in the British Dream.
Jitesh Gadhia is a Conservative peerOnline fantasy games are booming - with up to four million players worldwide regularly visiting make-believe lands to fight, hunt for treasure, or just sit their characters down for a chat. But as the games' popularity has grown, a new and very strange economy has emerged - in which a good player in South Korea can sell his 'avatar' for hundreds of pounds to a less skilful one in Britain. James Meek picks up his fantasy sword and steps into the virtual worlds
It is getting dark in Aden, and Theguardian, trailing a long sword through the dirt on the edge of a mean village of barns and lean-tos, is fed up and a little bored. The rough tracks through the trees are littered with the corpses of goblins which Theguardian has slain for want of anything else to do. In truth, they are easy kills, and slaying anyone does not correspond to good journalistic practice. But Theguardian, my avatar, has spent a real hour in a nonexistent world with more than four million paying residents, and nobody has been willing to talk to him so far.
Broad-shouldered men with jackboots and flowing capes dash across the mud. Barbie-doll elven women in pink miniskirts and bra tops loiter by the woodsheds. Each of these electronic incarnations on the screen represents an actual person somewhere in the world. The real individual could be anywhere on the globe. Here, they are all Adenites.
For no clear reason, an elf woman starts beating Theguardian with a sword. Tapping away at the keyboard, I try to explain that I am not, as I appear to be, a novice knight with the build of an American footballer in silver plate armour, dragging a sword the size of a broom handle, but a reporter in London. The elf woman stops attacking me and, without a word, teleports away into nothingness. This keeps happening. But I must persist. This is not an abstract electronic quest. This is not about points on a scoreboard or racing for a finish line. This is about money.
Most of us are familiar with the idea of conventional computer games: you buy, borrow or steal a piece of software for a desktop computer or a PlayStation-like console, load it up, and use a keyboard or mouse or joystick to steer a character through a challenge. You race a car round a course, or run a football team, or kill monsters, or slay gunmen. The game ends: you start again, or buy another. You can play with a friend, or with a few friends over the internet - but it's still a game that ends and, for those dissatisfied with reality as it is, that's not good enough.
Now, most notably in east Asia but increasingly in the US and Europe, another kind of computer game is gaining ground which, financially and emotionally, blurs the boundary between the real and the computer-generated. In the software business, the games go by the indigestible acronym MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing games), but they are more easily understood as virtual worlds. Aden is a virtual world in an online game called Lineage, created and run by a Korean company, NCsoft. Lineage's four million mainly east Asian subscribers make it the biggest, although the more recent Japanese virtual world of Vana'diel, in the game Final Fantasy XI, which has a large following in the US and is about to launch in Britain, recently passed the 500,000-inhabitant mark.
The most curious element of the virtual worlds is not the fortunes they are making for their creators, though these are real and remarkable enough; NCSoft's profits run at £5m a month: unlike conventional computer games, which players pay for only once, virtual world residents pay a monthly fee, typically about £10, for the right to stay alive in these privately run existences.
No, what is most bizarre about the virtual worlds, in which all players were supposed to start out equal and acquire wealth and status by their own efforts, is that the inequality of the real world is sluicing into them. Players who are wealthy in the real world are using real money to buy virtual goods and virtual characters from players who are real-world poor. Players who, in the real world, are time-rich and cash-poor are putting in hours of graft in the virtual world, killing virtual monsters, seeking out virtual treasure and giving themselves IT worker's lumbago to produce nonexistent magical weapons and characters, which can then be sold for thousands of dollars on the internet.
At first encounter, the virtual-world concept seems simple - an ingenious merger between two familiar PC-age institutions: the fantasy role-playing game and the internet chatroom. At any one time, thousands of people are online in the same virtual world as you, dressed up as magicians or dwarves. Sometimes you chat to each other, sometimes you try to kill each other, sometimes you gang up to fight another gang for control of a castle. Sometimes you sit on someone's lap and talk.
But just as you are more likely to be killed if you are poorly equipped and inexperienced, so you are less likely to be chatted to and invited to join a gang if you are poorly equipped and inexperienced. In order to get equipment and experience, it is necessary to carry out dull, repetitive tasks, like slaying goblins, or testing your sword against a training post.
With my ridiculous armoury in the twilight squalor of small-town Aden, as the novice knight Theguardian, I begin to have a strange, familiar feeling. As I hack away, clicking the cursor over and over again and watching Theguardian's claymore wearily whacking a virtual straw dummy, I start to think: "This is not a game. This is not fun. This is hard, dull work." The virtual Protestant in me thinks: "If I don't do this, I won't get anywhere in this world." At which point I think: "Couldn't I pay someone else to do it for me while I go and do something more worthwhile?"
This is exactly the point at which the virtual and real worlds collide. A US economist, Edward Castronova, who spent months roaming the virtual world of Norrath in Sony's game EverQuest, used exchange rates based on black market internet prices for virtual goods, virtual money and pre-developed characters to calculate that Norrath's real-world GNP per capita makes it wealthier, citizen for citizen, than China or India.
He found that almost a third of adult subscribers spend more time in Norrath in a typical week than they do working for pay in the real world. He writes: "One can almost believe that many people do live there, wherever it is, and not on earth."
Officially, the companies that run the virtual worlds don't approve of the selling for real money of virtual items: according to their rules, players who are caught doing it will be kicked out. Lance Stites, of NCsoft's US subsidiary in Texas, points out that if the firm acknowledged a real value for unreal things, it could face legal action from players. "If something's got real-world value at some point, we've got an obligation," he says.
Yet the buying and selling of online goods and avatars is being carried out so brazenly that it is hard to believe the corporations are as worried as they claim. A Hong Kong-based company, IGE Ltd, employs 50 people exclusively in buying and selling nonexistent wands, weapons, cloaks and virtual currency from virtual worlds such as EverQuest. Another firm, Team VIP, will sell you 10m adena - the virtual currency in use in Lineage - for 250 real US dollars. A third site, mysupersales.com, offers EverQuest "spider venom" for $699.30. The venom isn't real, nor are its effects, and, more intriguingly, any "advantage" that the buyer might gain from using it would seem to be confined entirely to the microcircuits of a humming server in San Diego, California.
Mysupersales.com specialises in selling avatars - virtual characters which a subscriber has brought to in-game wealth and power at the expense of real-world advantages, such as a social life. One recent avatar being sold was a level 74 magician for Final Fantasy XI. The asking price, for a collection of numbers in a computer that will never exist outside a fantasy world, was $1,299.99.
If it seems extraordinary that anyone would consider paying the best part of £700 for a virtual magician, you are unfamiliar with the lurid tales of the addictiveness of virtuality. EverQuest is popularly known as "Evercrack" among hardcore Norrathians. "The sad truth is that, in many ways, EverQuest is better than real life," an anonymous 36-year-old woman player told a US psychological researcher, Nicholas Yee. "It is easier to succeed in EQ, I can be beautiful, fit and healthy in EQ - in real life I am chronically ill and there isn't much fun or achievement to be had."
Some date the origin of virtual worlds to the dawn of the internet itself, pointing to the work of a group of Dungeons & Dragons-obsessed students at Essex University in 1979, led by Roy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle. They were the first to work out how their simple text-based computer fantasy games could be played simultaneously by multiple players around the world, linked by early international computer networks.
For the next two decades, however, the increase in the power of home computers outpaced the increase in the speed of the internet that connected them. Only recently, with the widespread availability of cheap, fast internet connections - broadband - has it become possible for thousands of players, thousands of miles apart, to talk, band together and overcome the same virtual challenges, in the same vividly created virtual world, at the same time.
South Korea has led the world in broadband access, and most of the four million players of Lineage are Korean. It was in Korea last year that a 22-year-old man, identified by JoonAng Daily as Mr Jin, was arrested for playing the new version of Lineage, Lineage 2, in an internet cafe without paying. He started playing the game on November 29 and was finally dragged from the computer on December 17, 438 hours and 38 minutes later. Police reported that he had not washed during that time.
According to the Korean national police agency's Cyber Terror Response Centre, 70% of crimes committed by young people are related to virtual worlds, mostly attempts to steal virtual money and virtual items. In October 2002 a 24-year-old man, Kim |
we should have been a couple in front.”The wars over Faith and Practice
Many of the battles among Quakers in the last 20 years have centered around Faith and Practice – what it means, how it’s interpreted, and who controls it. Bitter arguments, guerilla wars and last-ditch holding actions have been fought over who will win and who will lose if changes are approved.
First, a little background: many yearly meetings still use the “uniform” Faith and Practice which was created by Five Years Meeting (now Friends United Meeting) early in the 20th century as a way to build unity among Friends. Iowa, Western, Indiana, Wilmington and North Carolina Yearly Meetings all use very similar material, with very little difference in wording.
Baltimore and New England Yearly Meetings created their own books of Faith and Practice. New York Yearly Meeting uses some language from the “uniform” version for the business side, but adds some of their own material on the history and spiritual experience of Friends.
Contention often centers around the Richmond Declaration of Faith, written in 1887, and George Fox’s letter to the governor of Barbadoes, written in 1671, both of which were included in the “uniform” version. These are filled with Bible citations covering God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Bible, the creation and fall, justification and sanctification, the resurrection and the last judgment, baptism, communion, worship, religious liberty, marriage, peace, oaths and the Sabbath. For evangelical Friends, these two documents are an essential part of Faith and Practice. In particular, the section on the Bible in the Richmond Declaration is key:
“It has ever been, and still is, the belief of the Society of Friends that the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament were given by inspiration of God; that, therefore, there can be no appeal from them to any other (outward) authority whatsoever; that they are able to make wise unto salvation, through faith which is in Jesus Christ. ‘These are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through His name’ (John 20:31). The Scriptures are the only divinely authorized records which we are bound, as Christians, to accept, and of the moral principles which are to regulate our actions. No one can be required to believe, as an article of faith, any doctrine which is not contained in them; and whatsoever anyone says or does, contrary to the Scriptures, though under professions of the immediate guidance of the Holy Spirit, must be reckoned and counted a mere delusion.”
For these Friends, this is simply the last word on the subject. However, they often ignore the fact that Christians interpret the Bible in different ways. For example, Quakers are quick to recognize that we differed from other Christians on whether slavery was acceptable (because it’s accepted in many parts of the Bible) or whether slavery was an evil which must be resisted and fought against.
Are all sections of the Bible equally binding and valid today? If something was forbidden thousands of years ago, is it still forbidden now? It’s easy to come up with examples and exceptions. People tend to choose the texts which support their position, and often use those texts to browbeat and try to get rid of people who interpret the Bible differently – even if both sides claim to love the Bible.
When Friends in Indiana split several years ago, Friends fought over the section on “subordination”, which evangelical Friends argued gave them the authority to eject the more liberal monthly meetings. The actual language from Faith and Practice is worth reading:
“Subordination as used in this Faith & Practice does not describe a hierarchy but rather a means, under divine leadership, of common protection between Indiana Yearly Meeting and its Quarterly Meetings and Monthly Meetings. It is a relationship among Friends “submitting themselves to one another in the fear of God.” (Ephesians 5:21) In the spirit of Christ who “humbled himself and became obedient unto death” each member, each Monthly Meeting, each Quarterly Meeting and the Yearly Meeting submits to each other in the love of Christ.
Subordination is the assurance that no Monthly Meeting is alone, autonomous or independent. Thus Monthly Meetings recognize the legitimate role of the Yearly Meeting in speaking and acting for the combined membership.”
As far as evangelical Friends were concerned, the liberal meetings were in rebellion and refusing to submit to their authority, and therefore they were justified in tossing the liberals out. Very few Friends, however, seem to have read the sentences immediately following:
“Likewise the Yearly Meeting recognizes the freedom of Monthly Meetings and the validity of their prophetic voices. Each needs the other in order to be strong and vital, and both need the mediation of Christ and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. (Indiana Yearly Meeting Faith and Practice, 2015 edition, p. 96)
Those two paragraphs are intended to balance each other – the authority of the larger group balanced against the prophetic witness of monthly meetings.
During the division currently taking place in North Carolina Yearly Meeting, both sides say they want to keep using the 2012 edition of North Carolina Yearly Meeting Faith and Practice. I re-read it last week, and I wonder if Friends on either side have read the opening words of the book:
“Human understanding is always subject to growth. This basic principle also underlies the development of the organizations and institutions through which the spirit of Christianity is made operative in life. While fundamental principles are eternal, expressions of truth and methods of Christian activity should develop in harmony with the needs of the times. God, who spoke through the prophets, and supremely in Jesus Christ, still speaks through men and women who have become new creatures in Christ, being transformed by the renewing of their minds and, therefore, able and willing to receive fresh revelations of truth.
Frequently, however, we see ‘through a glass, darkly’ and may misinterpret or make incorrect applications. Therefore, as the stream of life flows on, bringing new conceptions, insights, and situations, it is necessary to strive constantly for a clearer comprehension of divine truth that will enter vitally into personal experience and become a creative factor for the redemption of human character and the remolding of society on the Christian pattern. “A religion based on truth must be progressive. Truth being so much greater than our conception of it, we should ever be making fresh discoveries.” [North Carolina Yearly Meeting Faith and Practice, 2012 edition, p. 9 – quote at the end is noted as being from London Yearly Meeting Faith and Practice (1960)]
Note that these two opening paragraphs are only found in the North Carolina and Wilmington versions of Faith and Practice, and are not included in the version used by most other yearly meetings.
At different times and in different yearly meetings, Quakers have fought to keep Faith and Practice “just the way it is”. Soon after Indiana split, though, a new section was added:
SECTION 90. PROHIBITION OF SAME-SEX MARRIAGE
Friends have traditionally held marriage to be a matter for which the whole meeting shares in oversight and responsibility. It is recognized that pastors are authorized by the state to solemnize marriages and are often authorized by the Monthly Meeting to officiate.
Given Indiana Yearly Meeting’s understanding of marriage as a union between one man and one woman, and given Indiana Yearly Meeting’s position describing the practice of homosexuality to be contrary to the will of God as revealed in Scripture, no Indiana Yearly Meeting Monthly is authorized to give oversight to same-sex ceremonies under its care, and no Indiana Yearly Meeting minister is authorized to officiate any same-sex ceremony. Ministers in Indiana Yearly Meeting are responsible to adhere to the agreed standards for marriage. Failure to do so, by officiating a same-sex union, will be understood as grounds for dismissal from a ministry position and/or rescission of status as a recorded minister. Monthly Meetings providing for same-sex ceremonies under the care of their meeting will be subject to discipline from Indiana Yearly Meeting.
Now that Friends in North Carolina are in the process of dividing, the more evangelical group are also calling for an immediate revision to Faith and Practice. This new section has been proposed:
“The Yearly Meeting has power to decide all questions of administration, to counsel, admonish, or discipline its subordinate Meetings, to institute measures and provide means for the promotion of truth and righteousness, and to inaugurate and carry on departments of religious and philanthropic work.”
For liberal and progressive Friends, or for those who simply cherish spiritual freedom, the issue isn’t whether they’re Christian or not. Overwhelmingly, they identify themselves as Christian. They love and follow Jesus. They value the Bible and seek guidance from it. The Bible speaks loudly and clearly to them on a wide variety of issues.
But they disagree with evangelical Friends on some other issues, and they’re not willing to let evangelical Friends dictate to them. I saw the entire conflict in a nutshell last week at Representative Body, when a frustrated evangelical leader asked, “Why do you want to belong if you don’t accept our discipline?”
In nearly every yearly meeting, Faith and Practice isn’t set up to handle the situation when Quakers disagree strongly with one another. Time after time, in yearly meetings around the U.S., conflict and frustration have arisen because:
a yearly meeting is unable to make a decision or move ahead when Friends are not in unity. We suffer from an inability to “agree to disagree,” especially in changing times. a yearly is unwilling to take back (rescind) the recording of ministers for teaching or writing ideas which other Friends dislike. There is a mechanism for rescinding, but most yearly meetings have not been able to unite on doing so. In other cases, a yearly meeting has been unwilling to discipline leaders or meetings for celebrating physical sacraments. there is no mechanism or acceptable precedent for laying down or expelling an entire monthly meeting because of perceived disagreement over issue of faith or practice; trying to force an expulsion has repeatedly led to division
Quakers treasure unity, and the strength which comes from making united decisions. The wisdom of the group is often greater than the wisdom of any individual. However, we also treasure the spiritual integrity of individuals and the right of people to disagree, and Quaker history is filled with examples of times when an individual or a minority has been right.
How will we survive the conflicts of this generation? Will our young people or will seekers who come to us value our conflicts, or will they turn away and look somewhere else for communities of truth and love?
AdvertisementsTo anyone paying attention, the fact that our national media has for months known about the Obama administration's use of America's intelligence infrastructure as a means to politically spy on President Trump and his team, is painfully obvious. Moreover, the fact that the media then lied about being aware of this spying after Trump called attention to it on March 4, is even more obvious. And when our media is not lying about what they know, they dishonestly hide behind semantics, even though the most recent definition of "wiretapping" (from no less than MIT) perfectly describes what the Obama administration is guilty of.
Now comes the news we all knew the MSM was sitting on and covering up; news that guerilla journalist and Trump supporter Mike Cernovich was the first to break. News that one of the few remaining honest members of our rotting MSM, Bloomberg's Eli Lake, broke wide open. News that the bête noire of the elite media, Fox News, contributed substantially to.
Of course I am talking about the bombshell that President Obama's national security advisor and right-hand woman, Susan Rice, went on an "unmasking" frenzy as a means to unethically spy on Trump and his team.
Forget about the media leaks of this intelligence, which no one disputes are criminal, and which almost certainly came from the Obama White House. According to Bloomberg (and Fox News), most of Rice's unmasking had absolutely nothing to do with Russia. Using intercepted (if you believe that -- and I do not) recordings/transcripts of telephone conversations, we now know the Obama White House had access to and abused…
…intelligence reports [that] were summaries of monitored conversations – primarily between foreign officials [not just Russia] discussing the Trump transition, but also in some cases direct contact between members of the Trump team and monitored foreign officials. One U.S. official familiar with the reports said they contained valuable political information on the Trump transition such as whom the Trump team was meeting, the views of Trump associates on foreign policy matters and plans for the incoming administration.
You would have to split a hair into tenths to not describe that as wiretapping.
In other words, this was political spying, a means to get an illegal look at the other side's playbook, which could then -- thanks to a willing, eager and dishonest media -- be used to damage a duly elected president's agenda through felonious leaks.
This is the stuff of Banana Republics, and perfectly in keeping with an administration that weaponized its IRS against the Tea Party and its Department of Justice against Obama's own bootlickers in the media.
And to no one's surprise, the national media is STILL covering up to protect their Precious Barry…
CNN's home page - no Susan Rice headline.
CNN's politics home page - no Susan Rice headline.
CNN's 'The Lead with Jake Tapper' home page - no Susan Rice headline.
NBC's First Read home page - no Susan Rice headline.
NBC's 'Meet the Press Daily' home page - no Susan Rice headline.
NBC home page - no Susan Rice headline.
Washington Post home page - no mention of Susan Rice.
Politico home page - no Susan Rice headline.
ABC News home page - no Susan Rice headline.
New York Times home page - no Susan Rice headline.
Los Angeles Times home page - no Susan Rice headline.
Right now, in a hollowed-out volcano, the entire national media is coordinating a scheme to dismiss the Rice story, to make it go away, to destroy its credibility… Although these outlets are supposed to compete with one another, that has never been the case. Instead, they all plot as a means to push a unified left-wing Narrative.
And until they can figure out the best way to neutralize this bombshell, for right now at least, the media believes the safest thing is to keep this truth as far away from the public as possible.
Buried under this headline, "Trump Tries to Deflect Russia Scrutiny, Citing ‘Crooked Scheme’ by Obama," this morning, The New York Times floated a trial balloon.
The Times claims Rice did nothing wrong, that her unmasking was "normal and justified."
Not only is this laughable on its face, The Times also fails to address the inconvenient fact that just a few days ago, Rice lied about her role in the unmasking.
If Rice did nothing wrong, why did she lie?
And what did Barry know, and when did he know it?
The Obama administration monitored Trump for a full year. The Obama administration illegally leaked this material to the MSM. For 7 months now the MSM has engaged in a feeding frenzy utilizing thousands of partisan journalists… And still there is not a single speck of proof the Trump administration did anything wrong with respect to Russia.
Thank God for New Media, for without it, we would not know the Truth about anything in this country.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.Update: Because this post has gotten a bunch of views already, and I definitely don't want to spread any misinformation here, I've updated my conclusion (jump to the bottom if you've already read the protip).
The this keyword in JavaScript can be really confusing. That I won't dispute. And so a lot of developers I really respect actually advocate for avoiding it altogether, which is definitely possible. You can sort of ignore the existence of JavaScript's prototype system and follow your own object-building approach:
function createValueObject(value) { return { get: function() { return value; } }; }
Or you can embrace the prototype system:
function ValueObject(value) { this.value = value; } ValueObject.prototype.get = function() { return this.value; };
Obviously this a contrived example; it's just meant to concisely illustrate the two approaches I'm talking about.
The readability of these two examples is a debatable issue. There are certainly many valid reasons for preferring the former, including its avoidance of this. However, if performance is a serious concern, you should consider going with the second approach. Using a prototype to define the methods of an object is faster pretty much across the board, though how much faster depends on the browser.
What is the big difference here?
A Reddit user pointed out that my closing paragraph (below) implies the big difference between these two approaches has to do with the efficiency of method invocation. Re-reading the paragraph, I have to agree that it does seem like that's what I'm saying. But that is wrong. If you compare just the method invocations in both examples--calling both the factory method and the constructor beforehand--you'll see that they show basically the same performance.
The real difference between the factory approach and the prototype approach is that using a prototype speeds up object creation a lot. Which, when you think about it, is really not so surprising: it's simply the difference between defining methods one time and re-defining them over and over.
The connection I was trying to make with the link to Eric Lippert's post is really based on the second installment in the series, in which he implements virtual methods by creating a delegate field for every method of a class. In the final installment he makes this much more efficient by using a vtable instead.
To be fair, the connection--even now that I've clarified it--isn't perfect. In particular, what makes a vtable so preferable to delegate fields is that it is much more memory efficient, and memory efficiency is obviously a different animal from execution speed (which is what jsPerf directly measures). But the comparison was apples to oranges to begin with, since C# as a statically compiled language does not give you the ability to dynamically define methods in quite the same way JavaScript does (lambdas seem like that, but in reality they get compiled to generated classes that lift local variables into instance fields... but that's a whole other discussion!).
My original conclusion
The why is a question for another post. I can't speak with authority on that, but I have a strong suspicion it relates to JS engines' use of hidden classes internally and the efficiency of vtables. (To get an idea of what I'm talking about, I recommend reading Eric Lippert's series on implementing the virtual method pattern in C#, which goes over the efficiency considerations in designing a method lookup system. Clearly C# is not JavaScript, but I think similar principles may be at play here.)Published: Monday, August 31, 2015 @ 10:07 AM
Updated: Wednesday, September 02, 2015 @ 3:48 PM
— Following the response to the Troy Junior High School transgender student using the boys bathroom, we reached out to area school districts with three questions regarding their policies. Their answers will be updated as we receive them. View school responses »
UPDATE @ 8:55 p.m. (Sept. 1): More than 100 people attended a community meeting at Koinos Christian Church also attended by Troy school board President Doug Trostle and two city council members.
All of council and the mayor, as well as the district superintendent and the school board, had been invited.
Superintendent Eric Herman, hours before the meeting, said he didn’t think he would attend. “I’m not sure it would help,” he said.
Bryan Kemper, a Troy resident and president of Stand True Pro-Life Outreach who organized the meeting, said, “we want to discuss our concerns with each other and with them and give them a chance to respond to us.”
The community meeting was told there would be no public debate, no public forum, only discussion about the school board’s policy regarding the use of restrooms and transgender students.
Nine concerns that meeting organizers said they had heard about the policy were listed. The audience was told that a letter listing concerns and challenging the policy was delivered to school officials earlier in the day by the Alliance Defending Freedom organization.
UPDATE @ 8 a.m. (Sept. 1)
About a dozen people have gathered outside the Troy Board of Education office Tuesday morning in peaceful demonstration both for and against a decision to allow a student who identifies as a male to use the men’s restroom.
UPDATE @ 6:50 p.m. (Aug. 31)
The controversy with Troy City Schools about the use of restrooms prompted the following response from the Ohio School Boards Association:
Sara Clark, director of legal services for the Ohio School Boards Association, said her office has gotten a lot more gender identity questions from school districts recently, citing media attention about the topic.
“I think a lot of (students) who maybe haven’t been comfortable coming out at school or having the conversation with their school district are now having those conversations,” Clark said.
Clark wrote a November article on transgender students that was sent to Ohio school districts by OSBA.
On one side, the article reports, there are no explicit federal legal protections for transgender students, and while more than a dozen states have their own laws offering some protections on the basis of gender identity, Ohio is not one of them.
On the other side, Clark said, the federal departments of education and justice argue that discrimination on the basis of gender identity or transgender status is “based on sex” and therefore in violation of Title IX (as Troy said).
The conflict creates a type of legal limbo that could eventually be decided by a Supreme Court ruling.
FIRST REPORT
The Troy City Schools superintendent said Monday that the district is complying with law in allowing a student who has declared they are of the male gender use the men’s restroom.
The district on Friday afternoon notified parents via a telephone message that denying a student’s request to use a restroom that matches the student’s gender identity is prohibited under federal Title IX.
As a result, the message said, students are allowed to use restrooms that match their gender identity. In addition, parents were notified that restrooms are available in each district building for students or visitors who do not want use the shared restrooms. Questions were referred to the office of Superintendent Eric Herman or any building principal.
Herman said school officials were approached by a student who has declared they are of the male gender and has asked to use the bathroom of that gender.
He said the automated phone message was distributed late on a Friday because that is when information was available to distribute to parents after discussions with legal counsel.
“We are trying to work our way through it the best we can,” Herman said. “My role in this is to comply with the law as superintendent.”
Bryan Kemper of Troy, who said he has six children in district schools, said he was “outraged” by the district’s message. He stood along Market Street near the board of education offices Monday morning with signs, one saying, and “My students deserve privacy/No co-ed bathrooms.”
He said a community meeting for concerned parents would be held Tuesday, Sept. 1, at 7 p.m. at the Koinos Christian Church at 722 Grant St. in Troy. “This will not be a debate or a bash session, we want an honest conversation about something many parents and students are deeply concerned about,” an email about the meeting said.
A parent of one high school student stopped to talk to Kemper as she headed for the board of education and the nearby high school. She said she planned to remove her daughter from the school.Next year's local and European elections are set to be brought forward by two weeks.
Next year's local and European elections are set to be brought forward by two weeks.
AN INFLUENTIAL COMMITTEE of MEPs has called for next year’s European elections to be brought forward – a decision which will also require Ireland’s local authorities to hold their elections earlier than expected.
The European Parliament’s committee on constitutional affairs has backed a report which would move the elections forward by two weeks, from early June to late May.
The current rules require the elections to be held in each EU member state between June 5 and 8 next year. MEPs now want to bring them forward by two weeks, requiring polling to be held between May 22 and 25.
The report – which was approved by a significant majority of MEPs at the committee yesterday – now goes before a plenary session of the European Parliament for its approval, and then sent to the European Council for final ratification.
Under existing EU rules from 1976, any change to the dates for European elections must be confirmed a year before their due date – giving leaders only a few weeks to confirm the changes.
The change will have unintended consequence for Ireland, however, where current law requires local councils to be elected on the same date as the parliament.
While this is not a legal challenge, as the date for the elections can be changed unilaterally by the Minister for the Environment, it adds more pressure to local authorities who are tasked with absorbing the roles of town councils before next summer’s polls.
This is further exacerbated in the case of the county councils in North and South Tipperary – which are to merge at the next election – and for the city and county councils in Waterford and Limerick which are to be amalgamated at the same time.
The changes also cut the time available for a new Constituency Commission, which will have to consider the reconstruction of Ireland’s European constituencies now that Ireland’s representation in the parliament is being cut from 12 seats to 11.
New ‘US-style’ elections planned for 2014
The idea for the change is to give MEPs extra time to elect a new European Commission – relieving the current rush where members are required to approve the appointment of a new Commission within weeks of their own election.
Most of the major European political parties are planning a new style of campaigning for next year’s European elections, where parties will seek votes based not only on their MEP candidates but also on their prospective candidate to be President of the European Commission.
For example, if the system had been in place in 2009, Fine Gael would have canvassed for votes not only on the basis of its candidates for the Parliament, but also for their support for the European People’s Party (EPP)’s nominee for the European Commission: Jose Manuel Barroso.
Barroso is tipped to be a candidate for the EPP nomination again next year, seeking a third term, though other possible candidates include Polish prime minister Donald Tusk or the veteran Luxembourger commissioner Viviane Reding.
Labour’s European party, the Party of European Socialists, is likely to put forward Martin Schulz, the German who is currently the president of the European Parliament, but former Swedish commissioner Margot Wallstrom and former Spanish premier José Luis Zapatero have also been suggested.
Fianna Fáil’s grouping, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in Europe, had planned to nominate former Belgian premier Guy Herhofstadt.
It is not clear whether the liberals will put forward a candidate, however, as it expects another of its members – NATO secretary-general Anders Fogh-Rasmussen – to replace Herman van Rompuy at the European Council, and the party’s European strength is not enough to guarantee it two of the union’s top jobs.
Because it is unlikely that any ‘Europarty’ will get a majority of the parliament’s 750 seats, however, it is likely that the two biggest groups – Fine Gael’s EPP and Labour’s PES – will need some extra time to reach a power-sharing arrangement.
Mario Monti, who remains the caretaker prime minister in Italy as parties struggle to create a coalition following last month’s election,WASHINGTON — Defying longstanding American policy, US President Donald Trump will give a speech Wednesday recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, according to an Axios report on Friday.
A White House spokesman, contacted by The Times of Israel on Friday afternoon, would not confirm the story. “The president has always said it is a matter of when, not if,” the official said. “The president is still considering options and we have nothing to announce.”
The Axios report cited two sources with direct knowledge of Trump’s intentions.
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Multiple reports surfaced this week that the president would for the second time waive a congressional mandate requiring the US embassy be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, but that he would take the dramatic step of formally recognizing the holy city as Israel’s capital.
An Israeli television report on Wednesday, for instance, said that the Israeli government considered it extremely likely that Trump would declare in the next few days that he recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and that he is instructing his officials to prepare to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. The White House rejected that report as “premature.”
On Tuesday, US Vice President Mike Pence said Trump “is actively considering when and how to move the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.” Pence spoke at a gathering of UN ambassadors, diplomats and Jewish leaders at an event in New York commemorating the 70th anniversary of the UN vote for partition of Palestine, which led to the creation of the State of Israel.
Declaring Jerusalem as Israel’s capital would be a highly controversial move, with the potential to spark unrest in the Middle East. The Wall Street Journal reported that US officials were contacting embassies in the region warning them to prepare for the possibility of violent protests.
A presidential declaration could risk producing an angry response from the Palestinians and other Arab allies, like Jordan and Saudi Arabia, just as the Trump White House is preparing to move forward with its attempts to broker a Mideast peace accord.
Israel says Jerusalem is the eternal and undivided capital of the Jewish state, while the Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state.
Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner has been tasked with leading the administration’s peace efforts. He will participate in a highly anticipated keynote conversation this Sunday at the Brookings Institution’s Saban Forum in Washington, DC, marking a rare occasion when he will give public remarks and discuss the administration’s peace push.
At that event, he will likely face questions about the Trump team’s position vis-a-vis Jerusalem and how that might impact their quest to forge an agreement between the sides.
A 1995 law requires the relocation of the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, but provides the president with the prerogative to postpone the move every six months on national security grounds.
Each of Trump’s three immediate predecessors — Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama — repeatedly exercised that right. Trump, for his part, signed the waiver when faced with his first deadline in June. He will have to decide whether to sign it for the second time in his presidency on Monday. (While the official deadline is December 1, since that date falls on a Friday this year, the deadline is extended until after the weekend.)
Israel’s Channel 10 TV news, citing sources in Israel, said there were three camps in the White House with differing opinions on how to deal with the issue.
The first was pushing the president not to sign the waiver and start the process of moving the embassy, and also recognize Jerusalem at Israel’s capital. “It could happen” that the president “simply doesn’t sign” the waiver, Channel 10 reported Friday.
A second camp says don’t do anything, sign the waiver and don’t recognize Jerusalem as it would harm prospects for a peace process and hurt ties with Arab states. The third group is urging the president to sign the waiver, but make a symbolic gesture by recognizing Jerusalem as the capital, the report said.Scheme was ‘unionism by stealth’, claims government, as Labor condemns the Coalition for behaving like a 'Christmas grinch'
The federal government has dismantled a $1.2bn Labor scheme to increase the pay of aged-care workers, arguing the package was designed to impose “unionism by stealth”.
The move comes two days after the government announced a $300m fund earmarked for childcare worker wage increases would largely be redirected into professional development. Labor condemned the government for behaving like a “Christmas grinch” in its attitude to low-paid care workers.
The government used its majority in the lower house to strike down measures related to the workforce supplement that were part of the Living Longer Living Better aged care reform package. MPs voted to disallow determinations made by the former aged care ministers Mark Butler and Jacinta Collins. This does not involve repealing legislation, so the government does not need to get the changes through the Senate, where the Greens and Labor maintain a majority until July.
The assistant minister for employment, Luke Hartsuyker, said the government would now consider how to deliver the funds “in a more flexible and more targeted way”.
Hartsuyker said the former government had tied to the payments enterprise bargaining agreements. He said the Coalition had made clear it would “oppose this unionism by stealth” and had already suspended applications for the scheme on 26 September.
“It was never going to reach the majority of aged care workers,” he said of the Labor package. The Coalition had pledged to redirect the funds to the general pool of aged care funding.
Labor’s aged care spokesman, Shayne Neumann, said the decision was a blow to 350,000 workers who deserved and needed higher pay, noting a 40% workforce turnover rate and the challenge of an ageing population. He said childcare workers and Holden staff would similarly “have a very bad Christmas”.
“What this government is doing is attacking workers once again,” Neumann said. The aged care sector had already accessed about $100m of the $1.2bn set aside for the supplements, he said. “It’s heartless; it’s cruel; it’s wrong; it’s not the way to go.”
One of the measures disallowed – the Residential Care Subsidy Amendment (Workforce Supplement) Principle 2013 – ensured a provider with 50 or more residential care places could apply for the supplement only if it undertook to negotiate an enterprise agreement with staff. It said a provider with fewer than 50 places would not require such an agreement, but would have to pledge to meet the minimum wage requirements. In both cases, the provider would also spell out its plans for staff training, education and career development.
Another determination struck down by the lower house set the workforce supplement at 1% of the basic subsidy available for each care recipient.
Labor and the Greens had flagged separate efforts in the Senate to stymie the Coalition’s freeze on applications. The latest action would appear to end their hopes of keeping the scheme alive.
The Coalition’s aged care policy, released in September, took issue with Labor’s Workforce Compact, saying it appeared to be union-focused.
“As a first priority, if elected the Coalition will take the necessary steps to put back into the general pool of aged care funding the $1.2bn allocated to the Workforce Compact. We will work with providers to ensure available funding from the $1.2bn is distributed in a way that is more flexible and better targeted, without jeopardising the viability of aged care facilities.”Apr 10, 2015; Orlando, FL, USA; Toronto Raptors guard Kyle Lowry (7) drives to the basket against the Orlando Magic during the first quarter at Amway Center. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
Kyle Lowry thought he was a going to be a member of the Knicks back in December of 2013 and was ready to move!
According to Jeff Zillgit of the USA TODAY Sports, Kyle Lowry was prepared to become a member of the New York Knicks back in 2013.
The Toronto Raptors at that time was setting the stage to rebuild their team. Toronto was severely under performing, starting the 2013–2014 season with a 6-12 record, prompting management to decide to trade away the Raptors’ leading scorer Rudy Gay, blowing the team up. Gay was sent to the Sacramento Kings in a seven player trade.
The traded prompted DeMar DeRozan and Lowry to take a leadership role. Knowing full well that if they did not step up, they too would be shipped out soon.
That almost came true for Lowry in December of 2013, when there were many speculations of the point guard being traded to New York for Raymond Felton, Metta World Peace plus Iman Shumpert or Tim Hardaway Jr. or a 2018 first-round pick. Lowry himself believed the rumors to be true.
“That deal was done,” Lowry told USA TODAY Sports Toronto Raptors All-Star guard Kyle Lowry was ready to pack his bags and contact a real estate agent in December of 2013. He thought Toronto was trading him to the New York Knicks.
Lowry was ready to move to New York, but then Knicks’ owner James Dolan stepped in and vetoed the trade. Dolan did not want to look like a fool again (too late…), being ridiculed for giving up way too many assets in the Carmelo Anthony blockbuster trade with Masai Ujiri and the Denver Nuggets, as per Frank Isola of the Daily News.
“Dolan didn’t want to get fleeced again by Masai,” was how one Knicks source put it. “They had a deal ready.”
Fortunately for Lowry the trade was not completed and went on to a phenomenal season, averaging 17.9 points, 4.7 rebounds, and 7.4 assists per game. Lowry led the Raptors to 48 despite the poor-start to the season, making the playoffs for the first time since 2008.
In 2014-2015, Lowry continued his strong play and it garnered him his first All-Star appearance. This season Lowry is an All-Star again, behind a career year, averaging 21 points, 4.9 rebounds, and 6.3 per game. More importantly, Lowry has led the Raptors to a 35-17 record at the All-Star break, which is good for the second-seed in the Eastern Conference.
Things could not have worked out any better for Lowry, and he believes it worked out for New York as well per Jeff Zillgit.
“At the end of the day, the decision was made for me to be here and it worked out equally, perfectly for both parties,”
In a way, it has worked out… If the Knicks had acquired Lowry, there would have been no way New York would have only won 17 games last season… Which led the way for the Knicks to have the fourth overall pick in the 2015 NBA draft, thus selecting the unicorn that is Kristaps Porzingis.
Although, it would have definitely been interesting to see what a Lowry and Anthony pairing would have looked like. BUT it is definitely MORE interesting to watch Porzingis!The Last of Us Season Pass Pops up in GameStop’s System, has June 14th Release Date (Update: Possible Details)
Update: We received another tip from PSLS reader, Shane, who works at GameStop. He lists the contents as including 3 story expansions, recovery speed-ups, faster reload speeds, costumes, and more, with a cost of $19.99. We’ll let you know of any more details as they arrive, but if you happen to have any further information, please send us an email at [email protected].
Original Story: The rumor about The Last of Us getting a Season Pass originally appeared last week |
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